What would you say to a grass-roots movement for Wes Clark as VP? Well, it's underway

by Ken

I was going to write a whole long piece about the situation with regard to the Democratic VP nomination. In fact, I wrote a whole long piece, but I lost it to that devil incarnate Steve Jobs's operating system from hell OS X. (Dammit, I saved the friggin' thing, so why wasn't it there when I rebooted in order to regain a modicum of computer functionality?)

I don't feel like writing that piece again, so let me cut to the chase. When you hear the latest sludge supposedly perched on the Obama VP short list, do you feel like retching? In the end, of course, we Bolshies over here on the senator's left don't have a damned thing to say about it. But a couple of those Bolshies, Matt Stoller and Aaron Ament, have decided to launch a crusade for retired Gen. Wesley Clark.

Matt will tell you all about it over at OpenLeft, and direct you to the website (www.obamaclark) that he and Aaron have put up. But here in a nutshell is the idea:

The basic idea behind Clark for VP is that we want to make a little noise about the position of Vice President and ask that Obama consider a real progressive in that slot who can help fix some of the most damaging aspects of the Bush Presidency.

The political argument for Clark is simple. He is a great surrogate for Democrats, with experience in 2004 and 2006 on the campaign trail, and a genuine national base of supporters. In terms of governance, which is what Obama says is the most important criteria for his VP pick, Clark can help Obama deal with the mess that the Bush administration left behind. As commander of NATO in the late 1990s, Clark won a war, so he is more likely than any progressive out there to be able to wrangle solutions from a military establishment that has been decimated by Bush's cronyism and incompetence. That is really important moving forward, since rebuilding our national security posture is a critical challenge over the next eight years

Clark also emphasizes Obama's strengths. He is popular among grassroots progressives, he was against the war in Iraq from the get-go, and he is an outsider to politics. He also demonstrated terrific political judgment in being willing to work against Lieberman in 2006, unlike, say, Tim Kaine, who endorsed Lieberman for President in 2004. This kind of savvy political judgment can help Obama avoid landmines down the road, and the Bush administration has left very little but landmines for the next President.

General Clark was one of the two people I originally thought about as a plausible VP nominee (the other being Virginia freshman Sen. Jim Webb), and he sure sounds better to me than even the best -- or least worst -- of the names we've heard of as actual possible Obama VP picks. I don't think this is going to change what happens. At the same time, I say, what the heck?

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Science marches on: Can we interest you in some choice lakeside property on Saturn's most desirable moon?

It's now confirmed that those lake-like thingies we see in this 2007 radar image of the surface of Saturn's moon Titan are filled with liquid. If you're planning to use your in-laws' lakeside timeshare there, though, don't forget to wait at least an hour after eating before going in the, er, liquid.

"This is the first observation that really pins down that Titan has a surface lake filled with liquid."

-- Bob Brown, team leader of the international spacecraft Cassini's visual and mapping instrument, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena

by Ken

Gosh, this is embarrassing. I didn't know there was such a thing as an international Cassini spacecraft, and here it's been exploring Saturn's rings and moons since it got out there in mid-2004. In that time it has apparently flown by Titan 40 times, which is surely a bigger deal than anything I've accomplished in the same period. Why, in January 2005 -- so the story goes -- Cassini launched a probe that parachuted to Titan's surface!

Cassini turns out to be a project of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. I tried to find out whether it was named for the late fashion designer Oleg Cassini, the only Cassini I know of, but the AP article didn't say. Did you know, by the way, that Oleg Cassini was nearing his 93rd birthday when he died in 2006? I found that out in Wikipedia. The probe launched to the surface of Titan, by the way, was called Huygens. I don't know anyone named Huygens.

Hey, I'm trying to get into the spirit of the thing. It just may be, though, that you have to be a scientist to get properly excited about this business of lakes on Titan. In our entire solar system, it appears it's now down to just us and Titan as the only entities in the solar system with liquid on their surface. (Apparently when you spill coffee on your desk, that doesn't count. But if the coffee attacks your computer keyboard, don't expect any help from NASA -- or the European spaceniks either, I'll bet.)

Probably you're thinking, if the beaches nearest you are anywhere near as crowded as the ones nearest me, that this might be a cool way of catching some rays without boom boxes blaring and kids kicking sand in your face as they run past. However, I'm guessing the trip is apt to be even worse than the one to that packed beach near you -- double that for a round trip, and it's probably not practical just for weekends. (And at today's gas prices!) Plus I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that temperatures on Titan are on the cool side, even in summer. (I figure on a planet-size moon like Titan it must be summer somewhere.)

And, oh yes, the liquid in the lakes of Titan isn't water, it's liquid ethane, which according to the article is a component of crude oil. It sounds like trying to swim on our beaches once the Republicans start doing all that offshore drilling.

Still, if you're looking for bargains among the moons of Saturn, you'll probably want to stick with Titan. Enceladus (below), for example, has huge frozen geysers shooting from it -- and you know what an inopportune frozen geyser can do to a picnic.

It turns out Obama would have been pilloried if he HAD visited those wounded troops in Germany. In 2008 do you HAVE to lie to be a Republican?

"Steve Schmidt . . . is playing the Rovian playbook that says that it doesn’t matter if it’s true as long as your target audience (non-college educated white working class voters) won’t bother to find out the actual truth, and believe that it 'sounds like it might be a true.'”

-- Business Week Senior Correspondent David Kiley,
on the magazine's website Monday

by Ken

We've all heard and seen more than enough, I think, of the McCranky "campaign" (still have to use those quotes around "campaign") ad that smeared Barack Obama for not visiting wounded U.S. troops in Germany -- all concocted from utter lies fabricated by the "campaign"'s team of liars. The team appears to include a cohort of morons as well, since the ad, which made the idiotic claim that Senator Obama was too busy to visit the troops but wasn't too busy to go to the gym, used for the "gym" video of the senator, not in Germany but in Kuwait, shooting hoops with U.S. troops.

Really, at that level of dishonesty and stupidity, you need to exercise your Second Amendment right and take a gun to your head and just keep shooting till you start feeling less dishonest.

But wait, it turns out that that wasn't the full level of dishonesty at play here.

On Monday, on Brand New Day, Business Week's "advertising, marketing and media" blog, Senior Correspondent David Kiley tore the anti-Obama ad -- produced by "McCain’s new ad/communications honcho Steve Schmidt" -- to smithereens. Citing the "blatant lie" about Obama's scheduling, he opined:

Steve Schmidt, a disciple of Karl Rove’s who worked on George W. Bush’s 2004 ad/communications effort, though, is playing the Rovian playbook that says that it doesn’t matter if it’s true as long as your target audience (non-college educated white working class voters) won’t bother to find out the actual truth, and believe that it “sounds like it might be a true.”

However, correspondent Kiley had a bit of news -- or perhaps a bombshell (I incline to bombshell) -- to add:

What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was...wait for it...using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents -- a lie.

This is interesting, no? But let's not stop here. Kiley has some interesting things to say on the subject:

This is what some people are calling the Hannity strategy. Right wing nut-muffin Sean Hannity employs a slick strategy of repeating canards very quickly over and over, day in and day out, which aren’t challenged by his TV co-host Alan Colmes or by any of his radio listeners. By relentlessly repeating falsehoods day after day, the theory goes, it becomes embedded in the media. There is truth in this. In 2004, the Bush campaign ran an ad and daily repeated that John Kerry was a flip flopper, running a Kerry clip with the Democratic candidate saying he voted for an $87 billion military appropriation before he voted against it. It sounded bad when ripped out of context. Kerry voted for it in committee, and then voted against in on a floor vote when the bill included giveaways to Halliburton he didn’t support.

The distortion took on a life of its own, parroted by mainstream media including Chris Matthews, and even the Tom Brokaw and the late Tim Russert. It is a case study in how effective advertising can work when it is done relentlessly and consistently…even if its untrue. Hannity enployed the same strategy conflating a passing acquaintance between Obama and former unconvicted Weather Underground activist William Ayers with "an association" with Obama...for months. He talked it up every day. He finally goaded ABC's George Stephanopoulus to ask Obama about it in a televised debate. It didn't matter that Obama has nothing that could be construed by a thinking person like "an association" with Ayers. He raised the question just by repeating it daily.

Welcome to the new McCain cum Schmidt cum Rove campaign.

I've written good things about McCain's ads in the past, and I expect I will again if they ever return to a level of at least being for grown-ups.

Oh, and one more thing -- this parting shot Kiley takes at the insufferable Sean Hannity:

By the way, lest Hannity try and pretend that he isn’t a tool of virtually any GOP campaign, it’s worth noting that he echoed almost point for point the actual daily McCain campaign talking points on Obama's trip last Friday night, including his “takeaway from the Obama trip” that he had time to work out in a gym but not visit the troops in the hospital. Hannity went into the tank again the same night that former White House press secretary Scott McClellan told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that the White House does, in fact, provide Hannity and other Fox News and on-air talent their daily and weekly policy “talking points.” We knew that, but it’s nice to hear someone admit it who was in on the transaction.

Just a while ago I found myself responding to a commenter who wanted us to believe that the subpoena and congressional contempt action against Karl Rove is merely a partisan "fishing expedition." Of course that's the talking point the Judiciary Committee Republicans were spewing after the committee vote on contempt, and it's so self-evidently drivel that I meant to mention it myself in my post on the subject: Those GOP-ers may not be Einsteins, but they're not that stupid. You have to assume they're just lying, right?

And in replying to that comment, I found myself wondering whether we've really reached the point here at the dawn of the 21st century where to be a Republican you have to be either a moron or a pathological liar. As anyone who reads DWT at all knows, we have our problems with an awful lot of Democrats, but in the year 2008 Republicans are something else again.


FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH (AND I'M NOT SURE IT'S MUCH) --

In a weird and largely incoherent MSNBC interview today with Andrea Mitchell, McCranky "campaign" manager Rick Davis denied the report that the "campaign" had an alternate ad ready for the troops visit. It's not entirely clear to me, though, that Davis would have known, or that he would tell us the truth if he did.

Here's the exchange in the transcript that reached me:

MITCHELL: Were you ready with an advertisement as some has suggested, in case he had visited the troops, to criticize him for doing it while on a political trip?

DAVIS: No. I mean, frankly, we learned about the trip from the media. We, like many people in the media, weren't very well informed in what details of Barack Obama's trip was going to be. But, when we learned about it, you know, it was disappointing to us. Because I am very confident that the soldiers at Landstuhl would have enjoyed a trip and a visit by Barack Obama. So, from our perspective, you know, look, we think he made a mistake in judgment. We think those are the kinds of things that people are evaluating.

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Don Siegelman: "If Congress lets this politicization of the DoJ go unchecked and unpunished, it could become part of America's political culture"

"By ignoring a Congressional subpoena, Karl Rove has spit in the face of Congress and the American people. . .

"If Congress lets this politicization of the Department of Justice go unchecked and unpunished, then it could well become part of America's political culture and happen again in the future. Congress needs to keep digging until they get to the truth."

-- former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, today on HuffPost

by Ken

Rove-railroaded Governor Siegelman announced today on HuffPost that he has launched a new "advocacy campaign" to help force our Karl to drag his miserable carcass to Capitol Hill and spill his rotten guts. Here's his post:

DON SIEGELMAN

Contempt for Rove

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress, moving us one step closer to the truth, one step closer to restoring justice, and one step closer to preserving our democracy. It's a huge step forward, and I'm so thankful that the committee voted for contempt.

But now is not the time to celebrate -- now is the time to take action. The House Judiciary Committee is on the record, but now we need the full House of Representatives to vote to hold Karl Rove in contempt as well.

So I've launched an online advocacy campaign at www.ContemptForRove.com where people can forward an email to their Members of Congress, urging them to take action -- and I'm asking you to join me. I need your help to speak out and urge the full House to do the right thing. Your action is critical. Timing is everything.

Please visit www.ContemptForRove.com right now to forward an email to your Member of Congress today.

While I served as Governor of Alabama from 1999-2003 and thereafter, Karl Rove and his right-wing political cronies targeted me through a malicious, unfounded, politically-motivated prosecution. I served 9 months in federal prison before the appeals court released me. And now, Karl Rove refuses to testify before Congress about his role in this whole nefarious scheme.

That's outrageous. By ignoring a Congressional subpoena, Karl Rove has spit in the face of Congress and the American people. As Americans, we deserve to know the truth about how our Department of Justice was used by Karl Rove and his rogue band of political operatives as a political tool to win elections. Only Congress has the power to find the truth.

If Congress lets this politicization of the Department of Justice go unchecked and unpunished, then it could well become part of America's political culture and happen again in the future. Congress needs to keep digging until they get to the truth. Our democracy and system of justice have to be restored. The American people need to have confidence that this kind of outrageous abuse of power is at least less likely to happen in the future.

That truth-finding starts by having Karl Rove under oath before the Judiciary Committee. We the People must insist that Congress do its job and hold Karl Rove in contempt for failing to obey a subpoena. The house of cards will start to fall soon thereafter.

What would happen to the unemployed steel worker, the housewife, or the taxi cab driver who ignored a subpoena? I give you one guess: They would be behind bars. Karl Rove is not above the law, and Congress needs to make that plain and clear to Karl Rove and to everybody else.

Please visit www.ContemptForRove.com right now to forward an email to your Member of Congress today.

Our democracy will cease to exist as we know it if the government is allowed to use its power to prosecute their political opponents. This fight is not about me but about saving our democracy and restoring justice in America.

That's why I'm asking you to write Congress today and urge them to act. When Congress holds Rove in contempt, the truth will begin to become exposed. This ball of string will come unraveled. The truth will be known.

I am in this fight not only for my own freedom but also to ensure that Karl Rove is held accountable for his sins.

Together, we can fight to get the full truth from Karl Rove and restore integrity to our system of justice. America deserves nothing less.

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Kicking A Crooked Senator-- And Cash Cow-- When He's Down

Susan Collins giving up her share of the VECO loot

As we saw a couple days ago, most Republicans senators participated in a massive money laundering scheme with Ted Stevens in which he would get bribes from VECO and other special interest corporations and then spread that around in $5,000 and $10,000 chunks through his PAC. Then many of those senators would kick back a portion, as "donations," to Stevens. You won't hear about that on CNN or ABC or Fox, but it shows up in the boring, duty old FEC reports. What you did get from Fox.com today though was news that another recipient of tainted money from Stevens was getting rid of it. Joining the panicked rush to divest themselves of Steven's bribes, John McCain donated the most recent $5,000 he got from Stevens to charity.

In the last couple days, other Republican crooks shamed into giving up the dough have included Susan Collins (R-ME), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Liddy Dole (R-NC), an especially corrupt Gordon Smith (R-OR), Nebraska Senate candidate (and ex-cabinet secretary under Bush) Mike Johanns, Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA). The really gargantuan laundered money that Stevens pumped into the NRSC (the GOP Senate caucus' criminal operation) isn't being returned and donated to charity, unless you consider shady Inside the Beltway operatives "charity." And John Barrasso (R-WY) says he won't give back the bribe money Stevens gave him. Although the corruption-prone and always disingenuous McCain was always happy to begin his stump speech with an attack on Steven's "Bridge to Nowhere" (and implying Stevens wasn't a Republican), McCain greedily and unquestioningly gobbled up his share of the VECO bribes and voted for VECO's special interests in return. Today he was quick to throw Stevens under the bus, reminding voters that he never liked the crusty old senator-- Stevens, like electricity, is even older than McCain-- and that they often clashed over Stevens' insatiable avarice.

I would exactly liken them to a bunch of Judases, after all the implication about Stevens would be 180 degrees at odds with the reality, but his Republican pals, in quickly divesting themselves of the tainted money he's been giving them, are indicating that... well, that they believe the money is tainted. In this morning's Washington Post Dana Milbank paints a portrait of senatorial sympathy. The participants in the Culture of Corruption-- and you could probably count the senators who aren't on your two hands and a foot-- feel terribly for their crooked old colleague brought low. It could have been almost any of them. The campaign finance system itself is so jiggered to favor rich special interests that it is almost impossible for a Senator not to become a criminal. Speaking of which, Stevens trial begins September 24-- and he wants it over before the election (and before he's charged with other criminal activities).

My friend Roland has been in Maine for the last 2 weeks and he called yesterday and told me that every time he turns on the TV or radio he hears Susan Collins ads bragging how "independent" and "moderate" she is. She's neither. Perhaps the $20,000 in bribe money she got from Stevens, which Tom Allen shamed her into getting rid of, will mean a few less ads. But Tom needs the help to compete with the hundreds of thousands of dollars Susan Collins accepted from other special interests whose agendas she was been pushing forward. Interested in honest government that represents ordinary American families, not rich corporate interests? We need to get rid of crooks like Ted Stevens and Susan Collins-- even if it was just the system that made 'em do it-- and replace them with men and women of high moral character who won't give in to these temptations. Please consider a contribution to the election campaign of Maine's honest congressman, Tom Allen on the Blue America ActBlue page.


UPDATE: SCOTT GARRETT WON'T GIVE UP THE DIRTY MONEY

Stevens mostly gave to fellow senators-- but every now and then he would run into a House remember with a big enough FOR SALE sign on his ass that he figured it would be worth the investment of some of VECO's dirty dollars. Stevens was a major supporter of the DRILL Act which would force oil companies to drill on leased federal lands or lose the leases. Stevens only paid off 14 members of the House-- and Garrett was one of them. Now Garrett, already considered one of the 6 least ethical members of the Congress not yet indicted, refuses to divest himself of the tainted money.

Breaking news: District Court judge says Harriet Miers does too have to answer that subpoena. KenInNY says: Don't hold your breath.

"Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena."

-- U.S. District Court Judge John Bates, in a ruling issued this morning

"We look forward to the White House complying with this ruling and to scheduling future hearings with Ms. Miers and other witnesses who have relied on such claims. We hope that the defendants will accept this decision and expect that we will receive relevant documents and call Ms. Miers to testify in September."

-- House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers,
responding to Judge Bates's ruling

by Ken

Did I speak too soon? Only yesterday I was making fun of the House Judiciary Committee for imagining that Karl Rove could give a damn whether they recommend that the full House cite him for contempt of Congress. (And Howie too was wondering whether this would mean anything.) Why should he care, I reasoned, when White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House Sourpuss Harriet Miers, who've already been cited, clearly don't?

Well, now a District Court judge says their claim that they have absolute immunity, as presidential aides, from being compelled to testify before Congress is legal hooey:

Judge Rules White House Aides Can Be Subpoenaed
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 10:46 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's top advisers are not immune from congressional subpoenas, a federal judge ruled Thursday in an unprecedented dispute between the two political branches.

The House Judiciary Committee wants to question the president's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and former legal counsel Harriet Miers, about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. But President Bush says they are immune from such subpoenas. They say Congress can't force them to testify or turn over documents.

U.S. District Judge John Bates disagreed. He said there's no legal basis for that argument. He said that Miers must appear before Congress and, if she wants to refuse to testify, she must do so in person.

"Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena," Bates wrote.

He said that both Bolten and Miers must give Congress all non-privileged documents related to the firings.

The Bush administration can appeal the ruling. The Justice Department did not immediately respond for a request for comment.

So now Harriet and Josh (and Karl too) really are shivering in their shoes, right?

Well, I don't think so. It means more lawyer's fees for those appeals, but those right-wingers always seem to find a way to pay the legal bills. And by the time the appeals process plays out, will anybody remember what the whole to-do was about?


UPDATE: CHAIRMAN CONYERS APPLAUDS THE RULING

In response to Judge Bates's ruling, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers issued the following statement:

Today’s landmark ruling is a ringing reaffirmation of the fundamental principle of checks and balances and the basic American idea that no person is above the law. Judge Bates’ decision makes clear that the Congress had the right to subpoena Harriet Miers to learn of her role in the US Attorney firings, that her claim to be immune from subpoena was invalid and that the Committee was entitled to challenge that claim in Court. The Judge also ruled that the White House may not claim Executive Privilege over documents without describing them in reasonable detail so that these claims of privilege can be evaluated by Congress. We look forward to the White House complying with this ruling and to scheduling future hearings with Ms. Miers and other witnesses who have relied on such claims. We hope that the defendants will accept this decision and expect that we will receive relevant documents and call Ms. Miers to testify in September.

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As many Alaskans mourn their senatorial cash cow, let's not forget that Ted Stevens became a master crook sitting atop a cesspool of Republicrookery

"In the money-driven context of American politics, the perks of incumbency can transform into a sense of personal entitlement as V.I.P. back-slappers relentlessly donate and entreat their way into a grateful politician's inner circle."

-- from this morning's NYT editorial "A Senate Lion Brought Down"

by Ken

Okay, so he's a crook, but he's our crook. Besides, he didn't steal from us. If anything, he stole for us. So why shouldn't he get a little for himself on the side?

This seems to be the attitude of many Alaskans faced with the loss of their cash-generating senior senator's Senate seniority, as reported in this morning's Washington Post:

Alaskans Fret About a Future Without Help From 'Uncle Ted'

By Karl Vick

ANCHORAGE, July 30 -- Alaska's vast landscape is littered with federally funded tributes to Sen. Ted Stevens's single-minded promotion of the state, from the brushed steel of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to the $187 million that subsidizes air mail for the one-third of residents who live beyond the reach of roads.

In his almost 40 years in the Senate, the octogenarian Republican in many ways defined the shape of the Last Frontier, not least by using his perch on the Appropriations Committee to ensure that his state's tiny population remained the nation's richest in federal spending per capita. More than $9 billion arrived in Alaska from Washington in 2006, twice as much as a decade earlier.

So it was perhaps to be expected that many here greeted the news of Stevens's indictment on corruption charges as if they were condemned to a pauper's death, fearful that they will no longer be able to depend on the largess of "Uncle Ted." . . .


A third of Alaska's jobs can be traced to federal spending, according to the latest study by the University of Alaska's Institute of Social and Economic Research. Many spring from military expenditures that Stevens encouraged during decades of service on the appropriations subcommittee that oversees defense spending. . . .


The watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense said Wednesday that Stevens secured or played a significant role in 891 earmarks worth $3.2 billion to Alaska between 2004 and 2008. Divided among the state's 670,000 residents, the per capita figure of $4,872 is 18 times the national average of $263 over the same four years, the group said. . . .

It's understandable, then, that many of Uncle Ted's fellow Alaskans are standing by him, considering how much they stand to lose with his (now surely inescapable) fall.

For the rest of us, though, it's appropriate to view Uncle Ted's long-overdue fall-in-progress as an all-too-familiar cautionary tale. If you delve into any Alaskan history going back to and even before the campaign for statehood, you get an image of a very different Ted Stevens, one who might even be described as a crusading idealist, a far cry from the sinkhole of corruption he developed into.

This morning's New York Times editorial takes the most charitable imaginable approach, yet still gets this angle right:

A Senate Lion Brought Down

Any member of Congress should be able to see the larger lesson in the indictment of Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaskan patriarch accused of concealing more than $250,000 in home improvements and furnishings allegedly bestowed by the state's chief power broker.

Unfortunately, that lesson -- beware of favor-seekers bearing gifts -- strikes so directly to the heart of the back-scratching political culture of Washington that time and again lawmakers become inured to the risks and put their careers in jeopardy.

Mr. Stevens denies any corrupt behavior and insists that he paid for everything he received from William Allen, one of his state's dominant oil magnates until last year, when he admitted to bribing a half-dozen state politicians to get government favors. That will be up to a jury to decide. But Mr. Stevens's constituents have a right to wonder why their revered senator, a Republican who has served them fiercely for four decades, ever agreed to have his home richly upgraded by someone so obviously hunting for the inside track to politicians.

No bribery charge or quid pro quo is specified, which is always a difficult case for prosecutors to prove. Rather, Senate ethics violations are the core of the case, and this is as it should be. The senator is accused of concealing the alleged gifts from required disclosure to the public. At the same time, prosecutors say that Mr. Stevens "did use his official position and his office" to help Mr. Allen with oil deals ranging from Russia and Pakistan to special grants and contracts in Alaska.

In the money-driven context of American politics, the perks of incumbency can transform into a sense of personal entitlement as V.I.P. back-slappers relentlessly donate and entreat their way into a grateful politician's inner circle.

Voters are on to this downward spiral, even if too many lawmakers are in denial. Congress's esteem is at an all-time low, despite the spate of ethics reforms that helped bring the Democrats back to power in 2006. To its credit, the House is finally starting up a panel of outsiders to oversee its ethics; senators proudly rejected their august chamber's need for such an attempt to regain public trust.

In the case of the continuing Alaska investigation, it's revealing that an outside force -- an op-ed newspaper essay by a suspicious observer -- eventually triggered the federal raids that convicted state officials and indicted Mr. Stevens. Taxpayers should question whether government watchdogs would otherwise still be snoozing. In fact, statehouse lawmakers cited in the article first reacted by mockingly donning C.B.C. (Corrupt Bastards Club) baseball caps.

HUBRIS would have been the more appropriate logo. The tragedy in the indictment of Mr. Stevens is that overweening pride too easily befalls politicians.

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Will Rove's Contempt Citation Today Mean Anything?

What do you think would happen if you were served with a subpoena and not only didn't bother to show up, but actually hopped a plane and went abroad? My guess is that it wouldn't be pleasant; incarceration isn't unlikely. Unless you're Karl Rove, George Bush's, John McCain's and the Republican Party's very own Rasputin-like dark presence.

A couple weeks ago I was at a lunch meeting where Rep. Linda Sanchez spoke. Actually, a lot of people spoke but only one had everyone yelling and applauding, Congresswoman Sanchez. And what woke the audience up and caused the excitement and tumult? The chair of the House Judiciary Committee's Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee, which has been dealing with the miscarriage of justice in the Don Siegelman case and the politicization of the Justice Department, announced that she intended to hold Rove in contempt and move towards putting him in prison. The audience went berserk with enthusiasm.

I talked with Rep. Sanchez before and after. She seemed quite sincere. I wish I could say the same for her colleagues, and I'm not even talking about Republican colleagues. This morning the full Judiciary Committee voted-- 20-14, strictly along party lines in the most partisan of all House committees-- to send a contempt recommendation to the full House. That means it's in Nancy Pelosi's hands, which equates to the Democrats' Orthus monster, Steny-and-Rahm making the decision. That makes me fear that an exercise in equal Justice is destined to quickly descend to the level of the kind of meaningless going-through-the-motions that the Hoyer, Emanuel and Pelosi triumvirate have come to represent. Disapproval half as bad as this Congress' would force Hoyer, Emanuel, Pelosi, Boehner, Blunt and Putnam to resign in most European countries. In Japan we'd have to deal with 6 hara karis.

Here's part of Governor Siegelman's statement after the Judiciary Committee acted:

"Today, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress, moving us one step closer to the truth, one step closer to restoring justice, and one step closer to preserving our democracy. It's a huge step forward, and I'm so thankful that the
committee voted for contempt.

"Karl Rove and his right-wing political cronies targeted me through a malicious, unfounded, politically-motivated prosecution. I served 9 months in federal prison before the appeals court released me. And now, Karl Rove refuses to testify before Congress about his role in this whole nefarious scheme.

"It's time for Congress to act. The House Judiciary Committee is on the record, but now we need the full House of Representatives to vote to hold Karl Rove in contempt as well."

And the full House did vote last February to hold Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers in contempt. Nothing happened, although theoretically each could go to prison for a year; fat chance. That kind of punishment is for regular folks, not for the ruling class. Through his assistant, Steve Schmidt, Rove is running the McCain campaign from behind the curtain and he is behind McCain's backfiring negative ads against Obama. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is the most senior Republican senator. Indictments and contempt citations just reinforce that Republicans, McCain included, can't be trusted to be involved with government.

The intensity of the recent drive-- which has included some assertions from the McCain campaign that have been widely dismissed as misleading-- has surprised even some allies of Mr. McCain, who has frequently spoken about the need for civility in politics. The sentiment seeped onto television on Wednesday with Andrea Tantaros, a Republican strategist, saying on MSNBC that the use of Ms. Hilton in Mr. McCain’s commercial was “absurd and juvenile,” and that he should spend more time promoting his own agenda.

McCain, Rove, Stevens, Monica Goodling, the hate-spewing media surrogates... Americans are sick of it and McCain will continue to lose support as we get closer to November. All these Rovian tactics and the resultant 7 years of Republican misrule are too recent even for notoriously short-attention span voters to forget so fast.

Sure, the McCranky "campaign" continues to sink to unimaginable depths, and House Dems shook an angry fist at Karl Rove, but what is there to say?

"I think this is the car crash between the McCain of 2000 and the McCain of 2008."

-- Rachel Maddow, talking to Keith Olbermann about the apparent free fall of the McCranky presidential "campaign" on tonight's Countdown

"Madness! Madness! Everywhere madness!"

-- the shoemaker-poet Hans Sachs, alone in his workroom in the wee hours of the morning, in Act III of Wagner's Mastersingers of Nuremberg

by Ken

Talk about a crazy day! It's not that there's been no news, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how to write about any of it.

Of course there's the presidential contest, but what is there to say about that? The McCranky "campaign" (I really see no alternative to using quotation marks around "campaign") now has no real issues, and so is reduced tp mindless invective and wholesale lying.

And yet 40-some percent of the electorate is thinking seriously about voting for the worthless shell of a human being that is Young Johnny McCranky.

Oh, you think he has issues? Like oil drilling. Are you a total moron? Do you really not know that there is not the slightest possibility on this earth that the oil companies will ever under any circumstances do anything to increase supply in order to lower prices. Their only interest in offshore drilling is as a hedge for the future, to maintain a supply of the stuff that they can continue to sell at ever-mounting prices, to feed their ever-mounting, unimagined-in-human-history corporate profits. Any Republican who has the chutzpah to say anything else is either lying his/her putrid guts out or is too stupid to know better -- or both.

Oh, and national security? We need Young Johnny to "win" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the War on Terror?

It's sad to think that there are Americans who have been ruthlessly hornswoggled into believing any of this rot, by people whose ignorance of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the War on Terror is total. The warmongers are treating those poor folks like fecal matter, patsies for their ceaseless lies and stupidifications. The Britney Spears TV commercial??? America, they're telling you you're dumber than shit.

Now even the phony-baloney War on Terror is kaput. Today the Rand Corporation, an extremely conservative think tank, reported what has been obvious to most everyone who has had any awareness of the real reality of international events since 9/11: that the law-enforcement approach to fighting terrorism -- reflexively derided by lying or cretinous demagogues who think the American people are as stupid and dishonest as they are -- has been genuinely productive and is the obvious and only way to go. Military solutions, says the Rand report, are total bullshit. (Okay, they may not use the actual word bullshit, settling for the Rand-speak equivalent.)

Reference to "the law-enforcement approach" is used as an automatic sneer-slash-laugh line by the likes of Rudy "I'm Too Smart for My Brain" Giuliani and "The World's Tiniest George" Bush. There is irony here. Not with regard to Tiny George, of course -- it's hard to imagine much of anything even potentially ironic about his useless carcass. But Rudy built his whole career on hi record in law enforcement.

Of course that always depended on ignoring the staggering rate of reversal his prosecutorial convictions as U.S. attorney suffered on appeal, and ignoring the fundamentally pogrom-like culture of violence he bred in the New York Police Department during his time as mayor of New York. Now he's made it clear how little he understands and respects real law enforcement.

Meanwhile, as talk arises of Barack Obama's "presumptuousness" in behaving more like a president on his trip to the Middle East and Europe, the only commentators who remember that in the early stages of the senator's trip, commentators generally assumed it was just a matter of time before he committed a campaign-ending gaffe are commentators who now ridicule that kind of talk as overblown. I can't help thinking that closer examination would reveal that it's the very same commentators who (a) were lying in wait for the sure-to-happen gaffe and (b) later turned to deriding the gaffe watch.

In the interim, of course, an awful lot of people, Americans and otherwise, noticed that Senator Obama really did behave presidentially, if by "behaving presidentially" we understand behavior that doesn't leave us cringing every time he opens his mouth, or indeed moves a muscle. After all, by that modest definition, it's been almost eight years since we had a president capable of behaving presidentially.

Okay, so you see why I'm stumped for anything to write about the presidential campaign. So how about the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives displaying historic courage in voting to cite Karl Rove for contempt of Congress?

Oh yeah, great. I'll bet our Karl is shivering in his shoes.

Meanwhile the scandals pile up. And I don't mean charges or accusations. I mean the steadily growing pile of Inspector General reports, like the one from the Bush regime's notoriously gutless Justice Department IG, which nevertheless rips the Bush DoJ to shreds, making clear -- and adding some pungent detail to -- what most of us knew for years now: that the Bush DoJ was fundamentally a criminal enterprise, a betrayal of historic proportions of the department's basic criminal-justice function. Every second of every day of the Bush regime, its Justice Department (and the people who illegally and unethically manipulated it from the White House for partisan enforcement) was first and foremost devoted to transforming the U.S. into a dictatorship of the Far Right.

And Karl Rove was at the center of that wildly illegal as well as unethical and unprincipled deformation. As he was in transforming to primarily political function every agency of the federal government he could get his slimy mitts on. Worse still, if it's possible to imagine anything worse, we have substantial indications -- still awaiting proper investigation for actual evidence -- that our Karl engineered the overthrow of the legitimate government of the state of Alabama and successfully railroaded its governor into a prison sentence.

So the Dems on House Judiciary screwed up their courage and rose in righteous wrath, declaring, "Bad Karl!" Let's say the House goes ahead and actually votes for their contempt citation. Woo! Just ask Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers how scary that is.

The whole fucking Bush Justice Department should be under indictment, not to mention Rove and the whole of "Big Dick" Cheney's senior staff. Not to mention several hundred senior stooges who have infested the executive branch in this regime. Now it's more or less official: We can't lay a glove on any of youse bums.

So you see what I mean? It wasn't exactly a no-news day. But what is there to say about it all?

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What better occasion could there be to celebrate the straight talking of Young Johnny McCranky than Professor Irwin Corey's birthday (give or take)?

Yesterday was Professor Irwin Corey's 94th birthday. Here, in a regrettably poor-quality clip, is the world's foremost authority appearing with the Smothers Brothers in 1966. Just don't forget: Wherever you go, there you are.

by Ken

Poor Keith Olbermann couldn't get over it last night. It has finally come to this: Confronted with yet another contradiction between something Senator McCranky has just said andf what are supposed to be official McCranky positions, the McCranky campaign announced more or less officially -- it's hard to know what constitutes officialness in this wackjob of a campaign -- that the candidate doesn't speak for the campaign.

The candidate doesn't speak for the campaign.

Okay, it might seem more accurate to say that the campaign doesn't speak for the candidate, but in this case the distinction seems statistically insignificant. There's a whole lot of yammering coming out of McCranky Enterprises (meaning the entire entity comprising the candidate and the campaign), but it doesn't really seem to speak for anyone or anything. It's just talk.

It doesn't tell us anything about either (a) what Senator McCranky believes or (b) what he might do as president, but surely it isn't meant to. It's just meant to make listeners feel good, or feel mad, or feel something that would make them in some way feel like voting for the Crankyman. I would submit that at this late date in the senator's public career, about the only thing we know for sure about his beliefs is that he wants to be president. Oh yes, he wants very badly to be president.

By now we have learned that this is not, in general, a good or healthy thing, this business of wanting to be president. It may be the single most discouraging feature of our political system: that the sort of person who wants to be president badly enough to be willing to do what you have to do to have a realistic shot at becoming president is almost by definition someone no sensible person would want to be president.

Just why Young Johnny wants so badly to be president is an interesting question, and maybe we'll poke at it some other time, but for now it's not, except to note that it doesn't seem to have anything to do with all that stuff that's been coming out of his mouth -- or, for that matter, out of the campaign's mouth. That's just stuff he/they say.

Clearly it's becoming a growing annoyance to Senator McCranky when B-list (or lower!) reporters (you'll notice it's hardly ever the better-mannered high-profile reporters) actually press him on the flagrant contradiction between a position he's just enunciated and the one(s) he's staked out in the past. This makes him really, you know, cranky, and by now he's tried about every trick in the book -- heck, he's writing the book -- to avoid explaining the contradiction.

Starting with denying that there is any contradiction. Somehow Rachel Maddow always seems to be involved in Countdown discussions of the latest McCranky flipflops, and I love that look of bemused incredulity that comes over her face as she suggests the senator doesn't realize that the world has changed, and all that old stuff he said is still there on videotape, and computer users of even average skills can pull it up in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

Now that those reporters -- again, the B-list ones -- are getting more uppity about challenging the Crankyman about Stuff He Says, his responses are becoming almost comical. More and more frequently, for example, he employs the cunning strategy of not having a fucking clue what the reporter is talking about. He has no memory of supporting/opposing that proposition or voting for/against that bill. This could be just a memory problem, of course, but it could also be an inattention problem. Maybe that's how much attention he paid when he took his previous position on the proposition or bill in question.

Mind you, when he just lies about his record, I don't find it so funny, like when he was (finally!) challenged on his appalling record on veterans' issues and he went straight into one of his Liar Boy McCranky Hissy Fits of Indignation, called the questioner a liar, and shrieked how proud he is of his record on veterans' issues. That's not funny because in fact his record sucks. For a man whose one credible belief seems to be that we can never send enough American military people off to points abroad to kill and be killed, his record of lack of support for veterans should have him hooted off the platform every time he shows his smarmy mug in front of self-styled true patriots. But then, maybe he really doesn't know! All that tedious law-making and voting stuff really seems to exceed his interest level.

But it's kind of funny when he's exhausted his diversionary tactics on a particular subject and just declares, as he did the other day over the issue of gay adoptions, that that's not why he's running for president. Huh??? In fairness, it was at least a better answer than his by-then-rote-repeated belief in "two-parent families." Um, uh, Senator McCranky, you do realize that these same-sex couples adopting children are, er, couples? And that every couple on God's green earth consists of two of whatever has been coupled?

(Parenthetical question: Is it absolutely essential that every serious presidential contender be able to count all the way up to two? Isn't there a secretary of arithmetic to deal with that higher math stuff like trigonometry and such?)

I guess what I'm trying to say here is, it's an exercise in futility giving serious attention to what we might call, with a wry smile, Senator McCranky's "positions." That's not what his presidential campaign is about. It's about . . . well, don't ask me. It's not as if it was my idea that he run for president.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," the Wizard of Oz exhorted when the jig was pretty well up. In the same spirit, Senator McCranky might advise us to pay no attention to the stuff coming out of his gaping piehole. Actually, isn't that what his campaign just told us?


ABOUT PROFESSOR IRWIN COREY

And here's the good professor explaining it all in his inimitable fashion this year (at age 93!) at the Cutting Room in New York City.

From Wikipedia:

Dressed in seedy formal wear and sneakers, with his bushy hair sprouting in all directions, Corey would amble on stage in a preoccupied manner, then begin his monologue with "However..." He created a new style of doublespeak comedy; instead of making up nonsense words like "krelman" and "trilloweg," like other comics, the professor would season his speech with many long and florid, but authentic, words. The professor would then launch into nonsensical observations about anything under the sun, but seldom actually making sense. Changing topics suddenly, he would wander around the stage, pontificating all the while. His very quick wit allowed him to hold his own against the most stubborn straight man, heckler or interviewer.

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A usual Bush stooge striking a blow against Big Bizniz greed and selfishness? For a change, we salute FCC Chairman Kevin Martin

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin (center) -- for once on the same side as his usual antagonists, Democratic commissioners Michael Copps (left) and Jonathan Adelstein (right) -- is under siege from the Bizniz Right.

by Ken

If you had asked me anytime before the past week, I would have said that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is a low-down weasel, exactly the sort of scum-sucking weasel you'd expect to be put at the helm of a regulatory commission under the Bush regime, in the tradition of Michael Powell. But now on one crucial issue he has actually separated himself from right-wingers' normal "whatever big bizniz wants is good for the rest of youse" philosophy and appears to be joining the two Democrats on the commission, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, in blowing the whistle on some corporate bad guys and striking a crucial blow for the ever-endangered concept of net neutrality.

And, naturally, the full wrath of the Bizniz Right is falling on poor Kevin, notably in the form of a blistering editorial in -- you guessed it -- the Wall Street Journal.

Our friend Matt Stoller of OpenLeft, an indefatigable crusader for net neutrality and the relatively open Internet it makes possible, writes in a post today, "When Republicans Get It Right: FCC Chair Kevin Martin": "I keep rereading the WSJ in disbelief. Literally everything in it is untrue or highly misleading."

Matt sets out the background:

Here's what's going. Some time ago, the cable giant Comcast began illegal blocking access its subscribers had to file sharing software in its first documented instance of violating net neutrality, or the principle that similar types of data on the internet be treated equally. We know that Comcast likes to censor -- it blocked ads critical of corrupt Democrat Chris Carney because they included criticism of Comcast contributions to Carney -- and we know that if it is not stopped, it will eventually shape the internet the way that China shapes the internet, for its own political and financial purposes. That's not an indictment of the company, incidentally, more of a recognition that powerful organizations that control communications networks and have content to sell have a business and political incentive to block alternate viewpoints and content.

To the surprise of, well, pretty much everybody, Chairman Martin has agreed with Democratic Commissioners Copps and Adelstein that Comcast had been caught red-handed doing something that is clearly forbidden and that the FCC has to step in. The fear now, though, is that, with a final vote on the question about to come up, our Kevin may need all the support he can get to withstand the unbridled fury of the Greed and Selfishness Establishment.

Matt is only too happy to take you through the astonishing tissue of fabrications and misrepresentations the WSJ has strung together; by all means check out his account. The key thng right now is to make sure that Chairman Martin and all concerned hear some loud outcry in support of the common-sense blow this unusual FCC majority seems poised to strike for fair access to the Internet.

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Don't Count The Chickens...

by Noah


Georgia 2002. Ohio 2004. Numerous Congressional "elections" in 2006. Suspicious elections all. VERY suspicious. But, what of 2008? Have the books already been cooked? Before I proceed, I offer a disclaimer of sorts. I am not an Obama partisan. When it comes to making up my mind as to who I will vote for in November, I am a member of our country's largest party, the Disgruntled American Party. Obama has not won my vote yet. Rest assured, I don't have the bigotries of any kind that would qualify me for membership in the Republican or Libertarian parties, so that rules out McCranky or Barr. Nader? He was right about the Corvair Deathtub, "Unsafe At Any Speed" and all that, but, that was over 40 years ago. What has he done for me (and you) lately? Cynthia McKinney? Well, at least she has called for impeachment. The usurper in the people's White House has assaulted our Constitution, gravely. Everything we have is supposed to come from and start with The Constitution. That goes for the war. Bush musta been AWOL from school the day they taught that. So, with me, it's down to Obama or McKinney. Both have served in Congress, Obama in the Senate, McKinney in the House. Both took an oath to defend the Constitution. You can see my dilemma. Too bad Thom Hartmann isn't running. Obama's gonna have to sell me, not sell me out.

My agenda here is not about Obama first, it is about fair elections first, something we are having less and less of as the years go on and tactics get refined. You will notice that I didn't even bring up Florida, yet. I didn't have to. With one eye on the past, let's take a look with the other eye at what is going on right now and what may be happening in November. When I voted for John Kerry in 2004, he claimed that he would make sure all of the votes were counted. He didn't. I had held my nose and voted for what I feared I was voting for, an insincere charlatan. When the votes weren't counted in New Mexico and Ohio, all of our votes, regardless of who we voted for, were dishonored.

Things are allowed to happen in our voting system that corrupt our voting system. In fact, they are encouraged and enabled. Here's a small list of some of what's going on right now. It's a list of what the Repugs have been up to in order to give themselves four more years in the White House so the top 1% of the economic ladder can tell the bottom 99% to go to hell or eat cake or something like that. That would even include millions of non-one percenters who would vote Repug in defiance of their own interests and those of their own families. The current machinations represent the best of the known Repug efforts at rigging the 2008 election and stepping up their war, not the one in Iraq, but the one here at home on the middle class, the lower class, and The Constitution.

Do you think Karl Rove has been on vacation since leaving the White House? While we're focusing on the Big Oil's war to steal oil in Iraq, our democracy and our freedoms are being stolen at home. One way to do it is to concentrate on rigging the vote in the swing states that Obama will probably need to win in November. How? 1) How about housing foreclosures that are the result of Repug economic policies? You just might need a legal residence to vote. In Nevada and Ohio, a law is sweeping tens of thousands of foreclosure victims off of the voter rolls. Who is most likely to have their home foreclosed? Repug policies do more than just hurt your bank account and raise the price of gas. They also take away your freedoms and your way of life more efficiently than any middle eastern extremist group. 2) Remember how in 2000 in Florida, a sleazeball Bush groupie named Katherine Harris hired contractors to bump people off the rolls just for having a certain kind of "funny name", a name that wasn't likely to belong to a fellow Repug? You know, a name that might begin or end with a vowel, or a name that was similar to someone not named Bush who had once committed a felony. In New Mexico, according to investigative and BBC reporter Greg Palast, half of a dirt poor Hispanic community named Mora have found their legal registrations disappeared into thin air by Repug contractors. It's Florida all over again, but now it's being done to such an extent that hanging chads won't even enter into it. 3) Also according to Palast, in Colorado, the Repug Secretary of State has conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, one fifth of all registrations. They just happen to be in black neighborhoods. The party of Lincoln may have freed black people but they still don't want them to vote. In 2004 in Ohio, the Repug Secretary of State just made sure there weren't enough voting machines in black areas. Now, the Repugs take it a little further. They take away your right to vote and don't provide a voting machine! Sound fair to you? 4) And how about Florida? The Cesspool State! 85,000 new legal registrations, overwhelmingly black, gone into one of the state's famous sinkholes. It's no coincidence that Florida more closely resembles a Latin American dictatorship than the American ideal.

I haven't even discussed voting machine tampering. We live in a country where people are told by a jiveass media that a paper trail for their precinct voting machine is not possible, and, we buy it! Then, they go to the nearest ATM and get a receipt for their transaction. We all know the stories about DieBold and their ilk. That will be a factor, too. 2008 will also be about more than the RNC hiring Sproul & Associates to shred Democrat registrations in six battleground states. It will be about more than the party that claims to support the troops not sending them a ballot, or, having the Pentagon shut down their registration web site. As a Repug idol, Joseph Stalin once said, "It's not who votes but who COUNTS the votes". In 2008, in the USA, one party is having it both ways. Give the Repugs credit for being more efficient than the Commies. This is what happens when you don't have legislative oversight. This is what we get when Bush buddies like Nancy Pelosi take impeachment off the table.

Where are the Democrats on these matters? I'll tell you where. They are either accomplices in their own demise or willing partners in show elections. You end up with elections that are almost as much as a farce as those old elections in the USSR where millions all voted for Khrushchev and no one voted for the other guy. The Commies did it with a complicit state media, Pravda and TASS. Have you heard anything about all of this from our so called mainstream media (MSM)? Have you ever heard that two election officials in Ohio, smaller fish than the main culprits but slippery slimey ones just the same, one an Elections Coordinator, and one a Ballot Manager (gotta love the titles!) are serving time for their roles in the corruption of 2004? Of course not. We may have more media outlets, but the story is the same. Even calling it "mainstream media" is a misnomer intended to deceive. It's Repug media, folks, whether it's openly anti-Obama assclowns like Lush Slimebaugh, Sean Insanity, George Stepinpoopalot, Corporate News Network, Faux News, USA Toadie, the New York Times lying about there being "no evidence of vote theft," the Washington Post declaring that allegations of fraud are "conspiracy theories," or whomever, you'd get more factual news if you just sent your newspaper to thirdworlders to use for toilet paper and disconnected the cable and watched the snow on your screen.

What to do? First triple check and verify that you are indeed registered to vote. You may think you are, but, you don't want to be surprised when it's too late. There's only one possible way for Obama to win. I said to friends, in 2004, that for Senator Kerry to win, Americans would have to vote for him in overwhelming landslide proportions just to offset the DieBold style tampering and voter roll ethnic cleansing so Kerry could come out with a narrow victory. The same is even more true this time around. At least, the Dems have a better candidate this time, but the Repugs have gotten more thorough and more sophisticated. Pay no attention to the polls, Rove's dream of totalitarian one fascist party rule in the United States is still very much alive. Obama may have a lead in the national polls, but, it's state by state that's where the action is, and, if you examine the polls individually by state, we're currently in for a close election even without the rigging. It's all about the Electoral College again. We've come a long way from the dead rising up and voting for JFK in Chicago in 1960. That was child's play, and, in fact, didn't actually alter the end result. Only a pro-Obama turnout the likes of which has never been seen before will win the day for a democratic presidency. My state, New York, will probably go for Obama no matter what. Are you sure about yours?

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New York Republicrat Jack Davis Accused Of Bribing Independence Party Officials To Get Their Election Line In November

It took Ted Stevens decades to get into the swing of accepting bribes from big companies in return for special legislative favors. Jack Davis isn't even waiting to get elected to get into the swing of things. In New York, Republican Jack Davis, may have switched parties in a fit of spoiled rage when Dick Cheney refused to meet with him, but his heart and soul-- or whatever right-wingers have instead of them-- are as Republican as Karl Rove's. Immediately after being thrown out of a Republican fundraiser-- he had donated $2,000-- Davis declared that he was a Democrat and, in revenge, ran for Congress against Tom Reynolds in 2004. Fined by the FEC for campaign irregularities, he poured $1.2 million of his own wealth into the race. He managed to get 44% of the vote and ran again in 2006 campaigning on a platform of hateful xenophobia. In that race he also managed to buy himself the nomination of the Independence Party (for a cool million dollars). And that brings us to why you're reading about Jack Davis today.

Apparently he decided to get himself the Independence Party nomination on the cheap this year. He's challenging Jon Powers for the Democratic nomination and Powers is expected to win handily against the very disliked Davis, regardless of all the money he's pumping into the race. His threat to run on the Independent line would give him the opportunity to wreak havoc on the electoral process in November. So, it appears, he set out to buy it again, although in a more direct way than last time. He's been surreptitiously paying off the wives of the Independence Party county chairmen. Like I said, the man changed his party registration but he's still a Republican at heart.

According to today's Buffalo News Davis has been bribing Independence Party officials through their wives.

Democratic congressional hopeful Jack Davis paid $5,000 each to the wives of the Monroe and Erie county party chairmen. Davis paid $5,000 to the wife of Monroe County Independence Chairman Rafael Colon (using her maiden name of Blanca Semidey) and $5,000 to a new corporation based in Florida and headed by Judith Orsini, wife of Erie County Independence Chairman Tony Orsini.

Davis and Orsini said the payments were for legitimate "consulting services."

After the story ran, Monroe's Independence leaders tried for eight days to track down Colon. According to interim Chairman Walter Schiemann, when Colon finally did acknowledge their calls, the leaders demanded his resignation for taking a "bribe."

"It's definitely a bribe-- absolutely," he told The News in a story published Tuesday.

Jon Powers is going to need all the help he can get to fight off this free-spending Republican disguised as a Democrat. He has been busy putting up fake Rovian web sites to slander Powers. Please consider donating to his campaign-- right here on our Blue America ActBlue page.

UPDATE:

Rumblings In Pakistan Don't Sound Sweet

Will Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani be flying one of the upgraded F-16's?

1969: I had just spent a long time in Afghanistan and I was on my way to India. There's really only one way to go-- thru the Khyber Pass. It may sound romantic and hearken back to childhood stories of Gunga Din but, let me tell you, once you leave Jalalabad, it's pretty hairy right up until you get to Peshawar. And, I promise you, those are two of the scariest cities you are unlikely to ever visit. But between them is basically Pashtunistan, a tribal no man's land that recognizes no international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Earlier this week, Bush joined right in in not recognizing the international border either and, with or without the tacit support of the Pakistani government, the U.S. conducted a missile strike into South Waziristan, a bit south of the parts of Pakistan I had to drive through to get to India (almost 40 years before Bush launched his missiles).

Did you know we attacked another country with missiles and killed at least a dozen people? I didn't until a few days ago when I heard on the radio that Bush was urging Congress to allow him to use funds Congress had granted Pakistan to fight terrorists for upgrading advanced fighter jets. It made me suspicious. I knew the Indians would freak out and the Afghans would get up tight. So I figured Bush must have been trading the jet upgrades for the right to attack al Qaeda targets in western Pakistan, in what's called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, districts along the Afghan border with around 3 million people only nominally under the control of the Pakistani government and, more realistically, under the control of the Taliban.

Apparently they were aiming for a senior al Qaeda official, Abu Khabab Masri, and supposedly killed him.

The Pakistani military, as is its custom, denied knowledge of the missile strike and whether it had been carried out by the United States. American attacks inside Pakistan are highly sensitive politically.

One U.S. official familiar with the incident said the Pentagon was not involved and that "it was an agency-run op all the way," a reference to the CIA. The agency had no comment.

A U.S. counter-terrorism official in Washington said that Masri, whose given name is Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, was believed dead. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

"There is indeed a sense that he's gone," said the counter-terrorism official. "This guy not only had knowledge that was dangerous but did dangerous things with it," added the official, who described Masri as a longtime Al Qaeda specialist in poisons and explosives.

The attack came on the day that Pakistani Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani was meeting President Bush [and Barack Obama] in Washington. In the past, Pakistani authorities have sometimes aided in or carried out the reported capture or killing of a senior Islamic militant at around the time of such meetings.

But another, senior American official said that, in this case, the strike was a "strictly unilateral" one by the U.S. without any assistance from Pakistan. It was merely coincidental that it overlapped with Gillani's visit, the official said.

Many members of Congress are as pissed off as the Indians are about the U.S. shifting nearly a quarter billion dollars in counterterrorism funds to upgrading F-16 attack jets that have nothing to do with fighting terrorists and everything to do with India-Pakistan hostilities. Some members of Congress, unaware that Bush was planning an attack on militants inside Pakistan, assumed the money was to ease tensions over the 11 members of the Pakistani paramilitary forces killed in an American airstrike in the area last month. Cheekily, Bush is claiming that the F-16's will be used to fight terrorists. They never have been before. It's just another on the long list of actions Nancy Pelosi will make sure he isn't impeached for. Patrick Leahy and Congresswoman Nita Lowey are going through the motions of demanding an explanation.

This morning's NY Times is reporting that the CIA is wigging out over continued ties between Pashtun militants (that's the Taliban) and the ISI (which is the Pakistani CIA). The deputy director of the CIA went to Islamabad to confront the new government with proof that the ISI is actively supporting the militants.

The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.

The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.

The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The C.I.A. has depended heavily on the ISI for information about militants in Pakistan, despite longstanding concerns about divided loyalties within the Pakistani spy service, which had close relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Interviewed by Jim Lehrer on PBS, Prime Minister Gilani said there are no links between the ISI and the Pashtun militants. He said "We would not allow that.” Congress hasn't agreed to those planes yet; I wonder if Bush is just going ahead with it anyway. No one can access how much power Gilani has over the ISI, although it isn't likely to be very much.

Over the weekend, the government announced a major change in the chain of command for Pakistan's most powerful spy agency-- but then reversed the directive 24 hours later.

The government issued a statement late Saturday, as Gillani was en route to Washington, saying that Inter-Services Intelligence, which is commanded by a senior military officer, would begin reporting directly to the civilian Interior Ministry.

But after what Pakistani press reports described as furious protests the following day from senior military and intelligence officials, the order was canceled.

The ISI, sometimes described as a state within a state, helped arm and organize the Taliban in the 1990s.

Ted Stevens Was Sharing His Bribes With Most Of The Republicans In The Senate And Most Of Them Are Refusing To Give The Tainted Money Back

If they weren't so venal-- and so adapt at taking very good care of themselves-- you might feel sorry for Republican members of Congress. Here they have been spending all month worrying if voters are going to connect the dots between massive campaign "contributions" from Big Oil (almost a quarter billion dollars since 1990-- 75% of it to Republicans, most of the rest to the Republican wing of the Democratic Party) and the policies that brought on, at least in part, the high gasoline prices. But with the threat still looming that the Democrats might actually expose them by helping voters connect those dots, suddenly there's a new challenge facing them: massive donations of VECO bribes that Stevens spread around the Republican caucus. So far none only a few of the GOP senators who took the tainted money have agreed to give it back.

And Stevens has been quite the little money launderer. He's donated a cool $725,000 directly to the NRSC so they'd be able to pay for their little operations, like stealing the 2002 New Hampshire Senate race for John Sununu. But he's also been handing out VECO and other tainted funds all across the corrupt party. This year alone some of the beneficiaries of Stevens' shady Northern Lights PAC have included:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN- $10,000)
John Barrasso (R-WY- $10,000)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA- $10,000)
Norm Coleman (R-MN- $10,000)
Susan Collins (R-ME- $10,000)
John Cornyn (R-TX- $5,000)
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC- $10,000)
James Inhofe (R-OK- $9,000)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $20,000)
Pat Roberts (R-KS- $10,000) + $5,000 more to Roberts' Preserving America's Tradition's PAC
Gordon Smith (R-OR- $10,000)
John Sununu (R-NH- $10,000)
Roger Wicker (R-MS- $5,000)
Don Young (R-AK- $10,000)

Over the years, Stevens has redistributed immense sums of money-- bribes-- to Republicans. Now they don't want to give the money back, of course. Yeseterday, Tom Allen's campaign let Maine newspapers know that $20,000 has gone into Susan Collins' coffers, although she kicked back $5,000 to Stevens. That seems to be a pattern with him. He gives some of his ill-gotten gains to other Republicans and then they give part of it back to him. In guess this is perfectly acceptable in Washington, where these crooks make their own incredibly lax rules.

Yesterday afternoon Jeff Merkley pointed out that over the years Stevens has doled out $39,000 to Gordon Smith. Merkley isn't asking Smith to return the tainted money to Stevens (who needs it for his legal defense team); he's asking him "to donate the money to charities to help provide health insurance to Oregon children." Smith refused at first but when Merkley pounding him he finally agreed to turn over a small portion of the tainted dough. Meanwhile Smith has taken more than $300,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests, while delivering $18 billion in tax giveaways for oil companies and opposing measures to end excessive speculation on oil prices. I doubt he'll give any of that back.

And what about Collins, Sununu, Cornyn, Coleman and the rest of the crooks? Yesterday Jim Slattery pointed out that Stevens and his crooked PAC "donated $19,785 to Kansas Senator Pat Roberts. In 2005, Roberts voted in favor of Steven's wasteful $230 million 'Bridge to Nowhere' in Alaska.

"This is precisely the reason why so many people are sick and tired of old Washington politics," Slattery said. "After 40 years in Washington, Roberts is willing to take money from a friend and then vote in favor of that friend's pet project.

"Kansans deserve better," Slattery said. "Kansans deserve a senator who will put their needs ahead of those in Alaska."

Slattery called for Roberts to donate the money to charity.

"As chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, Roberts should immediately donate an amount equal to the contributions he received from Stevens to a local charity."

Roberts has refused to give up a dime. Ditto for James Inhofe, who has also been part of this money laundering scheme and won't divest himself of any of it.



UPDATE: VECO DIDN'T ONLY BRIBE STEVENS-- THEY SPREAD THE MONEY AROUND

In fact, Stevens wasn't even the biggest VECO bribe taker; Alaska's one House member, Don Young, was. He's also under investigation. And #3 was Senator Lisa Murkowski, also of Alaska, who is from a notoriously corrupt political family. #4 was Bush and #5 is Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the only Democrat aggressively defending Stevens and shrilly and hysterically insisting that Stevens is innocent. Here's the whole list of who took what (of donations of at least $1,000):

Don Young (R-AK- $190,530)
Ted Stevens (R-AK- $102,500)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK- $42,250)
George W. Bush (R- $20,050)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI- $13,000)
Norm Coleman (D-MN- $7,000)
Richard Burr (R-NC- $6,000)
Tom Coburn (R-OK- $6,000)
Jim DeMint (R-SC- $6,000)
John Sununu (R-NH- $6,000)
John Thune (R-SD- $6,000)
David Diapers Vitter (R-LA- $6,000)
Kit Bond (R-MO- $4,516)
Arlen Specter (R-PA- $4,000)
George Voinovich (R-OH- $3,750)
John Ensign (R-NV- $2,000)
Steve Pearce (R-NM- $1,000)
Jon Porter (R-NV- $1,000)
Dennis Rehberg (R-MT- $1,000)

Americans Lost 2.3 Million Jobs To China During The Bush Years-- But Not All The Fault Lies With The GOP

A couple days ago I was thinking about screwed up "free" trade agreements and writing about screwed up "free" trade agreements and how the big political contributors were able to buy off the entire Republican Party-- and the not insubstantial Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- and get them to just trample on American workers. It took a Republican like Nixon to open up China and it took a Democrat like Clinton to pass NAFTA and head us down the road to ruin.

This evening's NY Times is reporting that between 2001 and 2007 approximately 2.3 million Americans lost their jobs because of Republican trade policies towards China. That whole period was Bush's term but I don't blame Bush alone. Bush deserves plenty of blame, of course, but so does his party and so do the Democrats who adhere to his party's tenets.

Even when they found new jobs, workers displaced by job loss to China saw their earnings decrease by an average of $8,146 each year because the new jobs paid less, according to the report, funded in part by labor unions.

"This report is groundbreaking because it shows the extent of damage caused by Chinese cheating," said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which helped fund research for the report by EPI, a left-leaning Washington think tank.

"(We hope) it will help to focus the debate on trade to where it needs to be right now with respect to China," Paul said, noting that free trade is shaping up as a major issue in the November presidential election, especially in closely fought battleground states like Ohio.

U.S. manufacturers, labor unions and many lawmakers have long accused China of manipulating its currency to give Chinese companies an unfair advantage in international trade, and are pressing China to continue to allow the yuan to rise against the U.S. dollar to help level the playing field.

...The EPI report showed more than two-thirds of the jobs displaced by China trade deficits were in manufacturing and more than half came from the top half of the U.S. wage distribution. U.S. factory jobs typically pay well and include health insurance coverage and retirement benefits.

The manufacturing sectors hit hardest by the trade deficit with China included computers and electronics, apparel and fabricated metal products. Service sectors like administrative support services and professional, scientific and technical services also saw large job displacement because of the China trade deficit, EPI said.

Contrary to popular belief, jobs lost to China were not necessarily low-skilled, the report showed. Thirty-one percent of the jobs lost were among workers with college degrees.

So what are we going to do about it? Continue to bend over and hold our ankles and moan and complain? Well, if you're not a die-hard Republican, there is an alternative. First keep in mind that Obama is campaigning on some rationale trade restrictions-- "fair trade not free trade"-- while McBush has stubbornly clung to "free" trade as a way for America to win new markets and "stay" competitive. But beyond that, it is crucial to know who the sell-outs are in both parties. Basically, you can count on almost every single Republican as being ready and willing to sell out American working families-- always. And Democrats? Rahm Emanuel led the bloody and vicious battle to deliver enough Democrats so that Clinton would get his accursed NAFTA agreements. He's at the top of the Democratic Party congressional caucus for his efforts and he aims at being Speaker. He must be stopped.

And then there are the Blue Dogs and other reactionary, bribe-taking Democrats who vote with the Republicans on trade issues. Who? Here are some of the worst of the worst:

Brian Baird (D-WA)
John Barrow (D-GA)
Melissa Bean (D-IL)
Howard Berman (D-CA)
Marion Berry (D-AR)
Allen Boyd (D-FL)
Jim Clyburn (D-SC)
Jim Cooper (D-TN)
Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
Artur Davis (D-AL)
Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
Norm Dicks (D-WA)
Chet Edwards (D-TX)
Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
Eliot Engel (D-NY)
Bob Etheridge (D-NC)
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
Bart Gordon (D-TN)
Jane Harman (D-CA)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
Baron Hill (D-IN)
Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
Steven Israel (D-NY)
William Jefferson (D-LA)
Ron Kind (D-WI)
Nick Lampson (D-TX)
Tim Mahoney (D-FL)
Jim Matheson (D-UT)
Gregory Meeks (D-NY)
Charlie Melancon (D-LA)
Harry Mitchell (D-AZ)
Dennis Moore (D-KS)
Jim Moran (D-VA)
Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
Silvestre Reyes (D-TX)
Mike Ross (D-AR)
John Salazar (D-CO)
Adam Schiff (D-CA)
Ike Skelton (D-MO)
Adam Smith (D-WA)
Vic Snyder (D-AR)
John Tanner (D-TN)
Ellen Tauscher (D-CA)
Edophous Towns (D-NY)
Mark Udall (D-CO)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)

And now you know-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. They helped the Republicans lose 2.3 million jobs on the alter of mindless, ideological corporate avarice. I'd never vote for a Republican and I'd never vote for any of these treacherous Democrats either.

Like Ted Stevens, McCain Is Offering Only A Bridge To Nowhere-- And A Collapsing One At That

I had finally pulled myself from the fast-paced Ted Stevens corruption indictments and started on a story about bridges-- not Bridges to Nowhere, real bridges that real people need everyday. And then there was a huge shaking at my house-- and, as it turns out, throughout Southern California. So now the Ted Stevens corruption story is completely off the air and instead we have All-Earthquake-No-News-Whatsoever-All-Day on CNN. How many ways can you say "There was no damage but it was scary?" Wolf Blintzer has brought his expertise to the question now. So back to bridges...

You probably heard McCain and his slimy surrogates whining about Obama politicizing the Iraq War and how wants to lose the war so he can win the election or some kind of scurrilous Rovian claptrap. His paid advertising goes beyond negative and into sheer vicious desperation. The Washington Independent points out that McCain running ads that are unrelated to objective reality and that FactCheck.org slaps them down as fast as the oil companies give him the money to put up new ones.

Anyone who has been following the story of Sen. Barack Obama's "snub" of wounded American troops during his visit to Germany last week could tell right away that Sen. John McCain's latest attack ad did not tell the whole tale. In its latest analysis, FactCheck.org, the nonpartisan fact-checking website at University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Public Policy, confirms that the ad-- like many of McCain's recent ads-- plays fast and loose with the truth.

McCain is coming off as a vicious, cranky, nasty old man and, as Charlie Cook pointed out today, the more the public sees of him, the less they like him.

And while his politicization charges against Obama aren't sticking, they are coming back around and biting McCain in the ass. What does all this have to do with bridges and earthquakes? Glad you asked. Early in the campaign McCain came up with a highly politicized pseudo-proposal for an irresponsible-- and impossible-- gas tax holiday. In just another of many examples of McCain not having any idea what he's talking about, his gas tax would devastate infrastructure maintenance (like in roads and... yes, bridges). No wonder he likes Minnesota Governor Pawlenty so much; he actually promulgated policies that did contribute to the collapse of a major bridge.

So while evangelicals are warning McCain that he will lose millions the bigoted voters he's counting on if he picks Romney as his running mate, and while Huckabee is getting laughs on Fox by comparing him to Dole and calling him angry, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials are not enthusiastic about his gas holiday demagoguery. In fact they say they need $140 billion "to make major repairs or upgrades to one of every four bridges in the United States."

While Bush was wasting billions, maybe trillions, on enriching his friends, relatives and campaign contributors with unaccountable "spending" in Iraq, the nation's vital infrastructure has been deteriorating through lack of attention for years. In May, we talked about some serious proposals from Andy Stern and Kathleen Sebelius that an Obama Administration is going to have to take very seriously. The latest buzz about Sebelius as his VP choice means it would be. (Personally, I'd prefer Andy Stern, but Sebelius is a far better choice than Evan Bayh, Tim Kaine or Joe Biden.) Back to bridges and the report from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials:

152,000 of 600,000 bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

..."States are doing their best to improve them, but construction costs are skyrocketing... forcing states to delay needed repairs," said Pete Rahn, head of the Missouri Department of Transportation and the group's president. "Without a national commitment to increasing bridge investment, we will see a continuing spiral towards deterioration and, ultimately, bridge closures in order to protect the traveling public."

This isn't the kind of grist for McCain's mill. It bores him. He only likes talking about war. This is the kind of stuff he can hire people to take care of.

Who'd Be Better, McCain Or Obama?-- The Commander-In-Chief Test

McCain keeps going on TV and talking about how inexperienced and ignorant Obama is. But the record doesn't show the same thing as McCain's shaky memory. In fact, what the record does show is that whatever McCain says about Obama, seems to be mostly self-description. Watch:

Angry, Cranky McCain Could Turn The Presidential Race Into a Blowout

You probably noticed that McCain's strategy for dealing with Obama's trip abroad was to attack the media for covering it and to throw a lot of crap against the wall and see if anything stuck. Nothing did-- except to make McCain seem more and more like an angry and out-of-touch old man. Media Matters points out this morning, in the video below, how hypocritical it was for McCain to be whining about the press when his entire political career has been based on wooing and romancing them.

In a column this morning, pollster Charlie Cook, takes note that McCain has been doing himself a great deal of damage with these tactics and has been turning off voters in a big way. He points out that Obama's polling numbers grew strongly as a result of his overseas trip, something that has never happened when McCain, Lieberman and Lindsey Graham went for their Photo Ops and shopping sprees abroad.

Cook thinks that the bounce in Obama's poll numbers was more than just him being seen "standing as an equal with world leaders, being treated as an equal, and being idolized by huge foreign crowds." That's important since McCain does everything he can to disparage him as someone with no experience. But Cook thinks that tactic is backfiring on McCain and making people like him less and less. And Cook is only one of many people noticing that McCain is losing it. Even Ed Rollins, once Ronald Reagan's campaign director, is appalled with how McCain is coming off these days. "When he ran before he was the maverick running away from the establishment, and now he's running towards it. He was jovial and fun and now he comes across as a grumpy old man." Cook:

Notwithstanding the reputation around Capitol Hill, where McCain was known for having a short fuse, he is widely seen as a wisecracking maverick, a real character.

But over the last two weeks, McCain and his campaign have taken on an edgier, angrier and even mean-spirited tone. As one observer put it, it gives the impression of McCain as a cranky old man standing on his front porch in a bathrobe and slippers barking at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.

Should this race get to the point where Obama is seen as more presidential and McCain is perceived as angry and bitter, a campaign that is legitimately competitive won't be for long.

The environment seems set for a Democrat to win. In a July 18-21 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,003 registered voters, only 13 percent of those surveyed said the country was headed in the right direction, and 74 percent said it was on the wrong track, the most pessimistic in the history of the poll.

The survey, which had a 3-point error margin and was conducted by Democrat Peter Hart and Republican Neil Newhouse, showed President Bush's approval rating at 30 percent, with a 64 percent disapproval rating. This is not the kind of environment that enables a party to win the White House for a third consecutive time.

Not surprisingly, the survey showed voters generically preferred a Democrat to win the White House this fall over a Republican by 12 percentage points, 48 to 36 percent, and Democrats to control Congress by 13 points, 49 to 36 percent.

While the positive ratings for the Democratic Party were an anemic 43 percent, with 37 percent negative, the Republican Party had just 31 percent positive and 48 percent negative.

Just as ominous for Republicans is the shift in public opinion, moving away from the laissez faire message that the party has long embraced and toward a somewhat more activist view of government.

When the poll asked which statement came closer to respondents' views, 53 percent chose "government should do more to solve problems and help meet the needs of people," compared with 42 percent that preferred "government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals."

And for this particular matchup, when 55 percent chose "this is a time when it is important to look for a person who will bring greater changes to the current policies even if he is less experienced and tested," compared to 40 percent who chose "this is a time when it is important to look for a more experienced and tested person even if he brings fewer changes to the current policies," it does not bode well for McCain.

If Obama begins to look more presidential and is seen as having greater stature while McCain is seen as angry and unpleasant, it is an opportunity for this race to transition from a very competitive period to one that is a blowout.

Now, the 30 second Media Matters video I suggested you take a look at:

Club For Growth Clubs McCain And Frightened Liddy Dole Decides To Skip GOP Hate Fest This Year

Wouldn't be caught dead at the GOP Convention this year

Last week we listed a number of Republican officials hoping to run away from their own rubber stamp records by avoiding the Republican Hate Fest in the Twin Cities. It's just too risky for reflexive rubber stamps like Gordon Smith, Ted Stevens and Susan Collins to be caught on film with Bush or McCain or even old Twin Cities hand Larry Craig. Today another endangered Republican, North Carolina wingnut Liddy Dole, announced she already had a "busy week scheduled" and she won't be able to make it.

Dole, widely considered a carpetbagger with no current connection to the state she represents, claims she just can't pull herself away from North Carolina to attend the nomination ceremonies for the man she hopes to rubber stamp for the next 6 years.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole will be a no-show at her party's big bash in St. Paul, Minn.
Dole spokeswoman Katie Hallaway confirmed Monday that Dole won't be at the Republican National Convention in September.

"She's got a busy week scheduled in North Carolina," Hallaway said. "When there are breaks in the Senate schedule, she spends as much time as possible in North Carolina."

Hallaway said nothing should be inferred about Dole's missing the convention-- either about her support for Sen. John McCain or about the security of her re-election in November.

Kay Hagan, the Republican-lite, me-too opportunist that Chuck Schumer saddled North Carolina Democrats with, seems so bent on proving that she is exactly-like-Dole-but-a-tad-better, that she is also toying with the idea of not going to the Democratic Convention. I hope she doesn't go and that the enthusiastic Obama voters in North Carolina remember in November and ignore her.

Meanwhile, Club for Growth isn't waiting for the Republican Convention to start attacking McCain. We weren't the only ones appalled by McCain's performance/trainwreck on Stephanopoulos' show Sunday.

"We listened with concern yesterday to your interview with George Stephanopoulos on Social Security," the club's president Pat Toomey writes in a letter to McCain. "When asked if you would be open to raising the payroll tax, you refused to rule out a tax increase, saying 'There is nothing that’s off the table.' This statement was particularly shocking because you have been adamant in your opposition to raising taxes under any circumstances."

Then, the club pulls out one of McCain's own quotes from February of this year: “No new taxes... In fact, I could see an argument, if our economy continues to deteriorate, for lower interest rates, lower tax rates, and certainly decreasing corporate tax rates, which are the second highest in the world, giving people the ability to write off depreciation in a year, elimination of the AMT.”

"We strongly applaud the above statement and believe further tax cuts would play an important role in stimulating the country’s economy," Toomey continues. "But your comments yesterday send American taxpayers and businesses a mixed message about where you stand on this issue."

The close: "We hope you will clarify where you stand on this important issue and reaffirm your commitment to eschew all tax increases."

Toomey-- and the rest of the country-- needs to come to grips with the fact that McCain has no policies and that his "agenda" is just getting elected. He will say whatever he has to say to whatever audience he's speaking to, even if it's the exact opposite of what he said to another audience 5 minutes ago. And because he has pre-TV instincts, he never seems to remember that whatever he says is on tape. That's why people are starting to go light on the flip-flopper appellation and get right to the "bodacious liar" description.

BREAKING NEWS: Republicrook Ted Stevens Finally Indicted

Happy anniversary, Ted! It was just one year ago that the FBI raided his house in Girdwood, a house that had a lot of work done on it by some companies the corrupt Alaska senator has been doing quite a few favors for-- at taxpayer expense. It has long been speculated that Stevens was at the pinnacle of the criminal organization that the Alaska GOP has become. Still, no one expected him to be indicted before his son Ben. But this morning an Alaska grand jury handed down 7 counts against Ted Stevens. Stevens' shenanigans with VECO, the oil services company, are likely to bring down much of the Alaska Republican Party and it is expected that Congressman Don Young will also be indicted. Stevens is the 8th Republican elected official indicted on corruption charges in Alaska this year.

Even before this indictment, the latest polling shows Anchorage's Democratic Mayor, Mark Begich, beating him by a significant 9 point margin. Alaskans have been grumbling that since the myriad investigations of their senior senator have begun, he's lost a tremendous amount of clout in Washington and can no longer be counted on to deliver pork for the state. He had already announced that he will not be attending the Republican Convention in St. Paul in September, although it is unlikely that he will be in prison that soon. McCain's standard stump speech attacks Stevens' (and Young's) Bridge To Nowhere in an attempt to mislead his audiences into thinking these two crooked Republicans could be Democrats. The Alaska website RetireTed.com has all the facts anyone needs to know who wants to bet on how many years he'll be spending in the federal penitentiary.

This morning Dan Froomkin penned a searing report for the Washington Post on the Culture of Corruption and how "the big fish keep swimming away." He was referring to the Justice Department investigation which may snare Monica Goodling but probably not Alberto Gonzalez, let alone the real perps, Karl Rove and George Bush. Froomkin is correct, of course, although Ted Stevens' indictment, conviction and incarceration will go a few steps towards making the point that the Culture of Corruption is not, and has never been, about a few bad apples.


UPDATE: THE COUNTS

Here's the .pdf file of the actual indictment. MSNBC has some of the specifics.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator and a figure in Alaska politics since before statehood, has been indicted on seven counts of falsely reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in services he received from a company that helped renovate his home.

Stevens, 84, has been dogged by a federal investigation into whether he pushed for fishing legislation that also benefited his son, an Alaska lobbyist.

From May 1999 to August 2007, prosecutors said Stevens concealed "his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things of value from a private corporation."

The indictment released Tuesday said the items included: home improvements to his vacation home in Alaska, including a new first floor, garage, wraparound deck, plumbing, electrical wiring; as well as car exchanges, a Viking gas grill, furniture and tools.

...Prosecutors said Stevens "took multiple steps to continue" receiving things from oil services company VECO Corp., and its founder, Bill Allen.

At the time, the indictment says, Allen and other VECO employees were soliciting Stevens for "multiple official actions...knowing that Stevens could and did use his official position and his office on behalf of VECO during that same time period."

VECO's requests included funding and other aid for the oil services company's projects and partnerships in Pakistan and Russia.

Stevens is the ranking member on the bribery-prone Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. GOP rules dictate that now that he's been indicted he has to step down. The second ranking member-- one who never goes to any committee meetings-- is another Republican who has a history of taking a great deal of money from companies that have special interest concerns in front of his committees, John W. McCain.


UPDATE: STEVENS RESIGNS FROM BOTH HIS COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER POSITIONS BUT REFUSES TO LEAVE SENATE

According to this afternoon's Hill Stevens has stepped down from the ranking member positions on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. He's also on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee but he's not leaving any of the committees so that one-- which, under the chairmanship of Joe Lieberman, does nothing anyway-- he'll still be serving on. Thankfully, he's no loner on the Senate Ethics Committee. [WEDNESDAY UPDATE From CongressDaily: Republican Senate aides involved in committee discussions said Senate Appropriations ranking member Thad Cochran would fill Stevens' slot as ranking member on the Defense Appropriations panel and Hutchison is expected to become ranking member of the Commerce Committee. Hutchison will be appointed in a caretaker role she would relinquish if Stevens returns, but one of the aides said, "He's not coming back. He's toast."]

David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch, is aware that this is far from another bad apple, but a part of the political Culture of Corruption that pervades Washington.

"Washington breeds scandal like a swamp breeds mosquitoes. That's why today's long-awaited indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens is also an indictment of Washington's pay-to-play politics. It's time to drain the swamp by getting our elected officials and candidates off the fundraising treadmill – and with all the scandals surrounding Alaskan politicians, whoever the state's voters elect this November ought to lead the charge for real reform.

"With that said, there is a primary election around the corner in Alaska. Sen. Stevens owes it to the people of Alaska, who he's represented for 40 years, to either resign before the primary, or commit to running in November if he wins his party's nomination. He should not play politics with the voter's decision in late August by resigning shortly after a primary victory, like Tom DeLay did in Texas."

Yesterday Was A Sad, Sad Day: Cheney Demands He Be Served Only Blood Red M&M'S

... but not so good for America

There were two things that happened yesterday that were so overwhelmingly sad that I couldn't write about either. No, I'm not talking about McCain's latest bout with cancer or Novak's brain problem, as moving as both those stories are, especially the part about Novak not writing any more columns. But neither of those stories rises, at least not for me, to the stature of the mass shooting in Knoxville by a crazed right-wing terrorist. I'm still so mortified by that one-- and still trying to process the enormity and sheer evil of the deed-- that I just can't come up with anything worthwhile to say other than this is what happens when Republican hate "literature" is made widely available to the mentally deficient. And yes, the murderer admits to being a reader and admirer of GOP hate-mongers Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. (I hope that that qualifies as kicking in the "with prejudice" clause in sentencing and Jim David Adkisson gets the chair or the rope or whatever they give to those guilty of mass murder in Tennessee.)

The deranged right-wing psychopath went on his murder spree at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church-- killing two and wounding six-- "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets." He told an officer that since "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement, he would then target those that had voted them in to office." Now where would he get ideas like that?

While we wait to find out about which hate talk radio hosts he is most devoted to, we can just judge by some of the books the police found in his home: Liberalism Is A Mental Health Disorder by Michael Savage (recently kicked off the air in several markets for his vicious assault on autistic children, but still on in most markets because the unmitigated greed of irresponsible corporations that own the radio stations could care less about what kind of hatred and divisiveness their "entertainers" stir up in the communities they're supposed to be serving), Let Freedom Ring "by" Sean Hannity, and The O'Reilly Factor by... yes, that one.

But it's the other sickening story of yesterday, that I want to make sure everyone knows about. You may recall the faux controversy of another decade in which Van Halen's concert production rider included a demand that no brown m&m's be included in the backstage goodies they were served. Now, if you think they were cheeky divas, Vice President Cheney's rider is far worse. And he had it thrown in his draft dodging face today by Disabled American Veterans, whose annual conclave he was scheduled to address next month. His invitation was yanked because his demands are far more "Draconian and unreasonable" than Van Halen's.

His staff insisted the sick vets be sequestered for two hours before Cheney's arrival and couldn't leave until he'd finished talking, officials confirmed.

"Word got back to us... that this would be a prerequisite," said the veterans executive director, David Gorman, who noted the meeting hall doesn't have any rest rooms. "We told them it just wasn't acceptable."

When Cheney spoke to the group in 2004, his handlers imposed the same stringent security lockdown, upsetting members, officials said.

Many of the vets are elderly and left pieces of themselves on foreign battlefields since World War II, and others were crippled by recent service in Iraq and Afghanistan. For health reasons, many can't be stuck in a room for hours.

"It was a huge imposition on our delegates," added David Autry, another Disabled American Veterans official.
Autry said vets would've had to get up "at Oh-dark-30 and try to get breakfast and showered and get their prosthetics on."

Once inside, they "could not leave the meeting room, and the bathrooms are outside," he said.

Neither Bush, McCain nor Obama have the kinds of "security precautions" Cheney, arguably the most hated man in America, has. Today, Cheney's staff is denying the demands were anything more than suggestions and that he would never impose on the disabled vets. Disabled American Veterans responded:

"I appreciate that they're trying to put their spin on it but when [Cheney] spoke to our convention in 2004, that's the the way it went down and we were concerned that was going to happen again... Somebody’s got to face up to fact regardless of what Cheney’s office says, that’s what happened last time and this is what we understood was going to happen this time."

So, as of now, the venal Darth Cheney is still out on his ass.

Senate Republicans Like Susan Collins And Lamar Alexander Decide To Show Their True Faces And Forget The "Moderate" Charade

Collins even abandons Lieberman to prove she's still got what it takes to be a brainless rubber stamp

Although some of the most endangered Republican senators, like Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Gordon Smith (R-OR), crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats, while others likely to have hard times in November, like John Sununu (R-NH) and Liddy Dole (R-NC), hid under their desks and refused to go on the record one way or the other yesterday, most Republicans-- endangered or not-- stood up for what they believe in as a party: unfunded cancer research and child predators. Showing solidarity with deranged Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn and with creepy Republican perverts and sex addicts like Larry Craig, Mitch McConnell and David Diapers Vitter, the vast majority of Senate Republicans-- 43 of them-- voted against yesterday's Advancing America's Priorities Act or "Tomnibus package" of 35 non-controversial, bipartisan bills. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put it, this was purely obstruction for obstruction's sake. This is the absolute perfect example of why every Republican senator just be defeated in November. Among the smirking chimps voting no yesterday-- often again bills they themselves had authored or sponsored!-- were electorally vulnerable Republicans like Mitch McConnell (KY), Susan Collins (ME) Roger Wicker (MS), Lamar Alexander (TN), Saxby Chambliss (GA), James Inhofe (OK), John Cornyn (TX), John Barrasso (WY), Ted Stevens (AK) and Pat Roberts (KS).

The bill to help combat Lou Gehrig's Disease, for example, passed the House 411-3. But Coburn, a crank and a clown, put a hold on it, regardless of how it affects ALS sufferers. Maybe no one in Oklahoma has Lou Gehrig's Disease or knows anyone who does. Actually, no one is against the bill-- not even Coburn; he's just a dick. Last week we talked about why Coburn is considered the biggest clown on Capitol Hill and the scope of the bills he has been holding up. No one who knows anything about Coburn expects anything different of him.

They do, however-- although often without reason-- expect better of Susan Collins of Maine who never tires of billing herself as an "independent voice" and a "moderate." She wasn't very independent or moderate yesterday when it was time to vote. As she usually is, she was in lockstep with the GOP extremist leadership-- for them and against fighting diseases and child predators. A DSCC spokesperson, Matthew Miller, pointed out that "Anyone who thinks it doesn't matter who represents them in Washington should pay attention to what Susan Collins did in the Senate today. Susan Collins chose to follow her party's marching orders over protecting our children and helping victims of stroke and paralysis. Maine deserves better than a politician who plays partisan games with vital legislation."

All the bills passed the House and all passed a Senate committee with Republican co-sponsors and by unanimous voice vote. A third of them were actually written by Republicans! They voted against their own bills! These are the bills independent, moderate Susan Collins voted against today because Mitch McConnell told her to:

HELP Committee bills

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Registry Act (S. 1382/HR 2295)
Christoper and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act (S. 1183/HR 1727)
Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Prevention Act (S. 999/HR 477)
Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act (S. 1375)
Vision Care for Kids Act (HR 507/S. 1117) 
Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act (S. 1810/HR 3112) 

Judiciary Committee bills

Emmitt Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act (S. 535/HR 923)
Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Reauthorization and Improvement Act (S. 2304/HR 3992)
Drug Endangered Kids (HR 1199/S. 1210)
Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act (S. 2982/HR 5524)
Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act (HR 4120)
Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography (S. 2869/HR 4136)
PROTECT Our Children Act (HR 3845/S 1738)
Star-Spangled Banner and War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission (S. 1079/HR 1389)

Foreign Relations Committee bills

Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act (HR 1469/S 991)
Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act (HR 1084/S 613)
OPIC Reauthorization (HR 2798/S 2349)
Tropical Forest and Coral Conservation Reauthorization Act (S. 2020/HR 2185)
Torture Victims Relief Reauthorization Act (HR 1678/S 840)
Support for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews Act (HR 3320)

Homeland Security Government Affairs Committee bills

National Capital Transportation Amendments Act(S. 1446/HR 401)
Preservation of Records of Servitude, Emancipation, and Post-Civil War Reconstruction Act (HR 390)
Predisaster Hazard Mitigation Act (HR 6109/S. 3175)

Commerce Committee bills 

Broadband Data Improvement Act (S. 1492/HR 3919)
Hydrographic Services Improvement Act Amendments (S. 1582/HR 3352)
Ocean Exploration, Mapping & Research (HR 1834/HR 2400/S. 39)
National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act (S 3160/HR 5618)
Integrated Coastal and Ocean Observation System Act (S. 950/HR 2342)
Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act (S. 1581/HR 4174) 
Training for Realtime Writers Act (S. 675/HR 1687)

Environment and Public Works Committee bills

Captive Primate Safety Act (S. 1498/HR 4933)
The Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network Continuing Authorization Act (S. 2707/HR 5540)
Beach Protection Act (S 2844/HR 2537)
Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2008 (S. 496/HR 799)

Rules bill

Smithsonian greenhouse bill (HR 5492)

The Worst Thing To Have Happened To My Country Since The Civil War

But he's still got just over 4 months almost 6 months in office...

"What are you cut out for? Partying? Chasing tail? Driving drunk?"
-George H.W. Bush

About That Mess Bush Is Leaving Obama... Closin' In On Half A Trillion Dollar Deficit

"It's good to be the boss," my old boss you to say to me when he was in a lighthearted mood. He was the chairman; I was the president. We had a few hundred people working with us. And it was good to be boss, responsibilities not withstanding. I have a feeling being president of the United States is immeasurably more amazing and awesome. And I sure hope it will be for Obama. But I don't see how it can be. It's like Bush and the GOP have systematically gone about wrecking the government they loathe and despise. They are the living, breathing, walking, talking evidence of the old Republican adage: "Government doesn't work; elect me and I'll prove it." They sure did!

This afternoon, the NY Times mentions the record deficit the Bush Regime is bequeathing the next president: $482 billion, a hell of a different figure than the flourishing, hard-won surpluses Clinton left Bush. And the story gets worse.

The deficit announced by Jim Nussle, the White House budget director, does not reflect the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential $50 billion cost of another economic stimulus package or the prospect of steeper losses in tax revenue or further declines in the housing market.

Mr. Nussle also predicted Monday that the deficit would more than double in the current 2008 fiscal year-- to $389 billion, from $162 billion in 2007.

The deficit projected for 2009 would be the largest in absolute terms. The White House and many economists prefer to measure the deficit as a share of the economy.

...“I think that the fiscal year 2009 deficit could get a lot worse, if you add in war costs, there could well be a real drop-off in revenues from this year’s slowing economy and of course if there are further problems in the housing market, if the federal government does have to inject some money into Freddie and Fannie, that could get worse too," [according to Robert Bixby, executive director of the center-right Concord Coalition

At 3.3% of the economy, at least it isn't as bad as it was in the Reagan years. The problem for Obama, of course is that it "will crimp the ability of the next president to carry out ambitious spending plans of any kind," which is precisely what Bush's brain (Rove), Cheney, Norquist and other GOP long-range thinkers had in mind. They don't want government to be able to work for the common good. To them that's godless communism.

In a statement that only someone who listens to tapes of Rush Limbaugh when the heroic figure isn't on the air could give any credence, Nussle blames the Democrats for letting spending get out of hand, although, still lying without blinking, he told reporters that Bush's budget blueprint remains on track to achieve balance with surpluses of $58 billion in 2012 and $29 billion in 2013." [Can we incarcerate or incinerate all of them if they're wrong?] Expect to hear lots more of Nussel-like crap from McCain and his lobbyist brigade.

Representative John Spratt, Democrat of South Carolina and chairman of the House Budget Committee, said the deficit figures confirmed “the dismal legacy of the Bush administration.”

“Under its policies,” he said, “the largest surpluses in history have been converted into the largest deficits in history.”

Becky Greenwald, whose feisty come-from-behind campaign has suddenly moved into position to challenge rubber stamp, 7-term incumbent Tom Latham (R-IA) in a district trending distinctly Democratic, pointed out that since Latham is a member of the Appropriations Committee he was in a position to rein in Bush's irresponsible spending. Instead, he rubber stamped everything, while Latham helped wave the fiscal magic wand to turn record surpluses into record deficits, opposing earmark reform and voting again and again to raise the debt ceiling so Bush could continue the occupation of Iraq.

Cranky, Angry Old John McCain Wants Obama Off His Damn Lawn

The McCain campaign puts clips up on YouTube because they want people to watch them and come away thinking what a great candidate their man is. This morning I saw McCain on CNN, angry, hateful and desperate, lying his ass off about Senator Obama. I was fascinated... waiting, even after I had finished getting dressed and wanting to go downstairs, to see if he would start screeching that Obama is a damn nigger who didn't deserve the White House. McCain feels it's his due for being tortured in Iraq and being tortured again when he was caught taking bribes from family friend and crooked banker Charles Keating and for being tortured again when he had the presumption for running against George W. Bush. McCain is a tortured and angry man, filled with hatred, pent up violence and a sense of entitlement. I haven't been able to find the CNN clip today. It's filled with the mean old codger using the psychological technique of projection-- blaming Obama for all his own many failings. McCain who has always used war and the military as his political raison d'etre and used his captivity as a club against all opponents at all times, keeps accusing Obama of politicizing the Iraq War. Obama is a liar; Obama doesn't understand the war in Iraq; Obama is a flip-flopper; Obama's son learned from daddy how to profit from getting mixed up with shady banks...

Anyway, this is a clip I found on McCain's own website. It's just a straight forward stump speech-- McCain lying his ass off about Obama, what he does all day every day. It's all the campaign is about. It's why longtime GOP operative Mark McKinnon quit McCain's dishonorable and disgusting campaign and watched Rove take over and make it more dishonorable and more disgusting.

Bush Justice Department Finds That Bush Justice Department Was Enagaged In Illegal Activities

Bush Regime's Monica + mentor

A few weeks ago 11 Southern California congresswomen put on a luncheon fundraiser for some of the Democratic women running for Congress from around the country. The wide ideological diversity in members and candidates couldn't have been better encapsulated by the Sánchez sisters, Loretta, the Blue Dog, and Linda, the brilliant progressive. Both are outgoing, well-spoken, inspiring and charismatic. Loretta the Blue Dog seemed to be in charge and running the show but it was Linda who got the loudest and longest applause and most of the best laugh lines. Loretta the Blue Dog wanted to make it clear how important it was to elect more people with the same anatomical plumbing as hers; Linda wanted to have Karl Rove arrested. Loretta the Blue Dog explained why more women members meant something significant-- although the candidates ranged from kick ass liberals like Darcy Burner (D-WA) and Annette Taddeo (D-FL) to Republican-lite insiders with nothing to offer but embarrassment like Christine Jennings (FL) and Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ). Linda, who was cruelly tasked with introducing Kirkpatrick by her Blue Dog sister, did the best she could with what she had to work with but harkened back to the already introduced far more impressive Ohio candidate, Vic Wulsin, actually referring to Vic's hated opponent as "Mean Jean Schmidt," somewhat belying Loretta the Blue Dog's entire plumbing argument.

Anyway, this morning Linda Sánchez, chair of the Judiciary Committee's Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee was joined by Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers responded to the release of the Justice Department's report, "An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General." In short, the investigation proves that the word "allegations" need no longer be used in discussing the case.

"Today's report describes 'systematic' violations of federal law by several former leaders of the Department of Justice," said Conyers. "Apparently, the political screening was so pervasive that even qualified Republican applicants were rejected from Department positions because they were 'not Republican enough' for Monica Goodling and others. The report also makes clear that the cost to our nation of these apparent crimes was severe, as qualified individuals were rejected for key positions in the fight against terrorism and other critical Department jobs for no reason other than political whim. The Report also indicates that Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, and Alberto Gonzales may have lied to the Congress about these matters. I have directed my staff to closely review this matter and to consider whether a criminal referral for perjury is needed."

"The House Judiciary Committee's investigation into the politicization of the Department of Justice has been criticized by the Minority as a fishing expedition that has caught no fish," said Sánchez. "This report, which found that Monica Goodling and many other Justice Department officials committed misconduct by violating both federal law and Department policy, adds to a growing public record that this Administration has tainted our system of justice."

The report, released today by the Office of Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility found:

• Senior Bush Administration Department of Justice officials, including Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, Jan Williams, and others violated federal law and committed misconduct in basing hiring decisions for career prosecutor positions, details to senior Department offices and immigration judgeships on the applicant's political affiliations and views.

• The report highlighted political cronyism that was "particularly damaging" in a vital counterterrorism post when a qualified expert was rejected because his wife had the wrong political affiliation. Instead a candidate was chosen that "lacked any experience in counterterrorism issues" and who other DoJ officials believed "was not qualified for the position."

• Immigration judgeships were needlessly held vacant for long periods while Department leaders sought to identify politically suitable candidates, leading to a severe backlog of immigration matters.

• Monica Goodling also made false statements to the Department's own lawyers who were defending a lawsuit regarding Immigration Judge hiring.

• A current Department official, John Nowacki, prepared and circulated a press release responding to public concern about these issues that he knew was false at the time; the report recommends that Mr. Nowacki be disciplined.

• Monica Goodling refused to approve several DOJ appointments for an AUSA who Ms. Goodling believed was gay.

The conclusion of the report itself makes it clear why Linda Sánchez is considering perjury charges against Goodling and Nowacki (for starters). No one could possibly look at the report and come away thinking several Bush Regime appointees hadn't broken several laws. In fact, this morning's Washington Post opens their story with the conclusion: "Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general's report released today. Goodling passed over hundreds of qualified applicants and squashed the promotions of others after deeming candidates insufficiently loyal to the Republican party."

In sum, the evidence showed that Sampson, Williams, and Goodling violated federal law and Department policy, and Sampson and Goodling committed misconduct, by considering political and ideological affiliations in soliciting and selecting IJs, which are career positions protected by the civil service laws.

Not only did this process violate the law and Department policy, it also caused significant delays in appointing IJs. These delays increased the burden on the immigration courts, which already were experiencing an increased workload and a high vacancy rate. EOIR Deputy Director Ohlson repeatedly requested candidate names to address the growing number of vacancies, with little success. As a result of the delay in providing candidates, the Department was unable to timely fill the large numbers of vacant IJ positions.
We also concluded that Goodling committed misconduct when she provided inaccurate information to a Civil Division attorney who was defending a lawsuit brought by an unsuccessful IJ candidate. Goodling told the attorney that she did not take political factors into consideration in connection with IJ hiring, which was not accurate.

In addition, we concluded that Williams provided inaccurate information to us concerning her Internet research activities.

Because Goodling, Sampson, and Williams have resigned from the Department, they are no longer subject to discipline by the Department for their actions described in this report. Nevertheless, we recommend that the Department consider the findings in this report should they apply in the future for another position with the Department.

In addition, we concluded that EOUSA Deputy Director John Nowacki committed misconduct by drafting a proposed Department response to a media inquiry which he knew was inaccurate. Although Nowacki knew that Goodling had used political and ideological affiliations to assess career attorney candidates for EOUSA detail positions, he drafted a media statement in which the Department would have denied the allegations. Nowacki is still employed by the Department. Therefore, we recommend that the Department consider appropriate discipline for him based upon the evidence in this report.

More pardon prospects for George W. Bush in January. He's sure going to be busy making sure there is no accountability for 8 years of systematic and systemic gross, blatant criminality. And Gonzalez? Anyone remember him? [UPDATE: Conyers does. Are perjury charges imminent? Or just more blather and hot air?]

No Accountability... Ever-- Who Will Pay For Bush's Economic Miracle?

When I was in 8th grade I won a UN scholarship, a small one, for an essay I wrote about the death penalty. Thanks to my socialist grandfather, I grew up far to the left of the Brooklyn Democratic Party and the death penalty always made sense to me. It still does-- though only theoretically since the Justice system is so imperfect that racial and other biases can't be overcome and innocent people are regularly put to death-- so now I'm just pro-death penalty in my mind and oppose it in the real word. Nonetheless I'm all for accountability. On one level I even agree with Nancy "Off the Table" Pelosi that there's a more appropriate fate-- and not a theoretical one-- that Bush and Cheney should meet than mere impeachment. If only...

This morning, as I always do on Mondays, I turned immediately to Paul Krugman in the NY Times and a typically lucid column on the temporary fixes around the edges of our collapsing economy and the political ideology that brought it low. There's a lot of work to be done and my heart goes out to Obama at the mere thought of coping with what Bush and the rubber stamp Republicans (and the Republican wing of the Democratic Party) are leaving behind when Bush absconds to his estate in Paraguay.

But that isn't what got me going this morning. Instead, what boiled my blood was something Krugman never mentioned or even implied: accountability. Who's going to pay for Bush's mess?

The back story to the current crisis is the way traditional banks-- banks with federally insured deposits, which are limited in the risks they’re allowed to take and the amount of leverage they can take on-- have been pushed aside by unregulated financial players. We were assured by the likes of Alan Greenspan that this was no problem: the market would enforce disciplined risk-taking, and anyway, taxpayer funds weren’t on the line.

And then reality struck.

Far from being disciplined in their risk-taking, lenders went wild. Concerns about the ability of borrowers to repay were waved aside; so were questions about whether soaring house prices made sense.

Lenders ignored the warning signs because they were part of a system built around the principle of heads I win, tails someone else loses. Mortgage originators didn’t worry about the solvency of borrowers, because they quickly sold off the loans they made, generally to investors who had no idea what they were buying. Throughout the financial industry, executives received huge bonuses when they seemed to be earning big profits, but didn’t have to give the money back when those profits turned into even bigger losses.

And as for that business about taxpayers’ money not being at risk? Never mind. Over the past year the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury have put hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on the line, propping up financial institutions deemed too big or too strategic to fail. (I’m not blaming them-- I don’t think they had any alternative.)

While Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, making perfectly good sense in talking about extending financial regulation to cover a wider range of institutions-- and I'm as for it as Grover Norquist is against it-- I had another thought in mind.

When Krugman talks about lenders who "went wild," he's talking about crooked businessmen and the politicians they bribed to make their schemes legalistic. They have wrecked the lives of millions of Americans and left our economy of the brink of collapse. Many live in mansions. Some have Bentleys and Rolls Royces; some of them own airplanes. Is it unreasonable to see them with nothing but the clothes on their backs while their ill-gotten gains go to cleaning up the colossal messes they made? I heard whichever rubber stamp was interrupting the impeachment hearings the other day-- Lamar Smith (R-TX) I think-- whining about the criminalization of politics. He's lucky a moderate to conservative Democrat like Obama is going to be president.

If it were me, I'd appoint a slew of prosecutors and judges who would take one look at the massive bribes congressional rubber stamps like... oh, say Lamar Smith took from financial institutions (commercial banks- $142,068 + miscellaneous finance- $355,900 + insurance- $173,523 + securities and investments- $74,545) and then let them-- how did Krugman put it?-- "run wild," and I would make sure they were help accountable, very accountable.

Krugman and Frank think that "basically, the financial framework created in the 1930s, which brought generations of relative stability, needs to be updated to 21st-century conditions." That's very sweet and I completely agree. But a few confiscated fortunes, like 10-15,000, and some stiff prison terms of them might go a longer way towards keeping certain types of greedy Republicans from ripping off society again.

The desperate rescue efforts of the past year make expanded regulation even more urgent. If the government is going to stand behind financial institutions, those institutions had better be carefully regulated-- because otherwise the game of heads I win, tails you lose will be played more furiously than ever, at taxpayers’ expense.

Of course, proponents of expanded regulation, no matter how compelling their arguments, will have to contend with very well-financed opposition from the financial industry. And as Upton Sinclair pointed out, it’s hard to get a man to understand something when his salary-- or, we might add, his campaign war chest-- depends on his not understanding it.

But let’s hope that the sheer scale of this financial crisis has concentrated enough minds to make reform possible. Otherwise, the next crisis will be even bigger.

This kind of crisis doesn't just happen. The avaricious and criminally minded among us make it happen. They know there is no accountability on any level so why not just "run wild?" As a society we should have the balls and the brains to show them why not.

Rep Mike McCaul Is A Dangerous And Bigoted Maniac Who Should Not Be In Congress

Larry Joe Doherty, the guy in the white hat

Last night I came back from a great dinner with my friend Rob, who I haven't seen since I the mid-70s when I lived in Amsterdam. Rob owns an art gallery there and he is in L.A. discovering new talent. It was great seeing him and reliving a time when we were still just boys coming to grips with our beings. (I was an astrologer at the time.) Rob's ancestors came from Indonesia. He may be a Muslim. I never asked. I never thought to ask. He was raving about the incredible hash cakes I used to make and reminiscing about records by Steve Miller, Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones.

I got home to find a video a friend in Austin had sent me. He knew that Blue America has endorsed Larry Joe Doherty, a progressive Democrat running against a worthless rubber stamp boob, Michael McCain, who represents Clear Channel in Congress. Take a look at the pitiful way a bigoted, narrow-minded little turd wastes taxpayer dollars chasing his nightmares:



You want people like that in Congress? If you don't, let me suggest you consider a donation to Larry Joe's campaign at our Blue America ActBlue page. McCaul gets an awful lot of bribes-- called "donations"-- from the Big Business interests he serves so assiduously. You want to follow the money back to why it costs so much to fill your car with gas; at least part of that can be traced to these "donations" to ethicless congressmen like McCaul ($107,934). You wonder why he voted to allow warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity? The telecom industry "donated" $44,000. You feeling a little worried about the financial shakiness of a deregulated market? McCaul has been more than cozy with various financial institutions-- to the tune of around $300,000. And, of course, his biggest single contributor is his father-in-law's company, Clear Channel ($126,650). Before you decide if you want to donate to Larry Joe or not, take a look at the comparison between what the two candidates have gotten from PACs. We know who and we know why Big Business wants in office and we know what they're willing to spend. Who will help people who represent our interests and our values get into office?

The Long Overdue End Of Chris Shays' Political Career?

A few days ago we talked with Jeff Merkley, the progressive Democrat challenging rubber stamp Republican Senator Gordon Smith in Oregon. Jeff makes it clear that Smith follows a pattern of rubber stamping the most extremist and narrow-minded Republican policies for 5 years and then in the year before he has to face the voters, he tries running as a "moderate" and an "independent," hoping no one has the time to examine his lockstep voting record. In the state where Bush has one of his lowest approval ratings Smith has a breathtaking record of unquestioning support for the entire Bush agenda. Interestingly his lifetime ProgressivePunch score is 19.09. This year, as he comes to grips with a disapproval number higher than an approval number, he has crossed the aisle more and more frequently to try to make himself look like a Democrat or even a moderate Republican; his ProgressivePunch score for 2007-'08 is a more respectable 42.66-- and shows a great deal of effort having been put in to deceive Oregon voters. The new Rasmussen polling data shows the ploy isn't working and that Merkley is beating him.

And this is a pattern around the country, with rubber stamp Republicans desperately trying to inoculate themselves from Bush, Cheney and McCain and the radical right agenda they have been rubber stamping. On the Senate side we have down-the-line Bush-Cheney supporters like Susan Collins (R-ME), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Smith of course, John Sununu (R-NH) and even lunatic fringe incumbents like Ted Stevens (R-AK), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Liddy Dole (R-NC) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) trying, absurdly, to pass themselves off as moderates and independent voices who have stood up to Bush. They're not and they haven't.

Less examined are identical claims being made by Republican members of the House. One of the most successful rubber stamp Republicans to pass himself off as a "moderate" has been Connecticut's deceptive Congressman Chris Shays. Tell me how moderate Shays' record on Iraq looks to you. Since voting in total lockstep with Bush-and Cheney on the 4 bills to authorize the use of force against Iraq on October 10, 2002, Shays has voted on 63 roll calls regarding Iraq. Of the 63 opportunities he's had to break with Bush and Cheney's catastrophic policies he refused to go along with them exactly 2 times. How "moderate" is that! One was to join bipartisan coalition demanding an end to no bid contracts; and the other was to join an even wider bipartisan coalition to change the status to Iraq rebuilding funds from grants to loans. He never once voted to end the war or occupation or to slow down Bush's aggression. At the same time Shays was rubber stamping Bush's entire policy of Middle east war he was voting against our active duty military personnel (he voted against them 21 times out of 23 roll calls-- and both were procedural votes whereas the votes like supplying body armor and up-armored vehicles for our fighting men... well Shays decided to support Bush and Cheney instead.) Military veterans have gotten the same treatment from Shays: of 24 rolls calls, Shays has stood behind American vets exactly one time and that was voting to approve the overall budget to fund the federal government, a budget that included relief for veterans that Shays had opposed!

OK, so he's bad on foreign affairs, war and the military, so how does he get his "moderate" cred, you ask? Don't think it's on domestic issues. When it comes to fair taxation, Shays is as anti-working family as Bush could want. There have been 134 rolls calls regarding fair taxation since 2002. How many time was Shays on the side of working and middle class families in Bush's battle to redistribute the wealth of the nation upwards? Six times, mostly on procedural votes of no real consequence on the Republican war against the middle class.

And on all of the most contentious recent votes, Shays has stuck with Bush. On June 20 Shays was with Bush and Cheney again as he voted to permit warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity for those who already used them illegally. Of course, in this instance Shays had a special little extra incentive-- $5,500 in campaign contributions from the very people who were so desperate for the retroactive immunity. Would you call that bribery? I would. Oh, and on the latest Bush request for money to keep the occupation in Iraq going, Congressman "Moderate" voted a resounding and consistent YES, yes for Bush, no for peace.

Blue America endorsed Jim Himes one year ago this week and he's proven himself very much worthy of our endorsement, fighting against the war and against Bush's and Shays' FISA bill. Jim has been running neck and neck with the corporately funded Shays when it comes to fundraising. Shays has scooped up $2,330,014 and Jim has taken in $2,087,832. But where Jim is absolutely kicking Shays' ass is in voter registration-- and it's what looks like the decisive factor in ending the shameful career of the last of the Connecticut fake moderates.

Democratic voter registration is up sharply in southwestern Connecticut's 4th Congressional District, and political analysts said Friday that Republican U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays may face the toughest challenge of his career.

In fact, if city Democrats in Bridgeport, Norwalk and Stamford show up on Election Day in a tide of anticipated statewide urban support for Sen. Barack Obama, Shays' narrow 5,747-vote margin of 2006 could evaporate into a forced political retirement.

...Since Jan. 1, 11,329 new Democrats have registered in the 17-town district. Only 3,462 Republicans have signed up so far this year and only 8,299 unaffiliated voters.

Traditionally, unaffiliated voters outnumber Democrats and current statewide totals still hold true, with 801,002 unaffiliated; 707,885 Democrats; and 408,376 Republicans, with registration open until Oct. 28. But statewide this year, more than 47,000 new voters have declared themselves Democrats, compared to 38,000 unaffiliated and 14,000 new Republicans, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz announced on Friday.

That immediately prompted the Congressional Quarterly to change the race's rating from Leans Republican to Toss Up. The fact that the African-American population of Bridgeport wasn't enthusiastic enough of John Kerry's lackluster campaign to turn out in big numbers, worked in Shays' favor in 2004. With Barack Obama at the top of the ticket in November, it is clear that Shays' luck has hit a brick wall.

Republican Economic Agenda Devastating Southwestern Ohio

Jane Mitakides combating GOP trickle down economic disaster

Wilmington, Ohio isn't a place many Americans know of. It's a peaceful town that rarely gets any national media attention-- well, not counting the mostly unwelcome media attention involving right-wing terrorist Michael Bray who was convicted in 1985 of bombing 10 women's health clinics in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. Bray, who claims murdering doctors is an appropriate response to losing the political and ethical battle over Choice and who believes gays and adulterers should be subjected to the death penalty, lives in Wilmington where he is a member of an extremist GOP front group called the Army of God. Lately, though, Wilmington has been in the news for a much different reason: the devastation of Ohio's economy brought about by policies wedded to Republican ideology.

Ohio's third congressional district, centered in Dayton but including Wilmington and Clinton County is represented by a far right Republican ideologue, rubber stamp Congressman Mike Turner. Even after the tsunami of job losses due to NAFTA hobbled Ohio's economic development and devastated hundreds of thousands of Ohio families, Turner was still, zombie-like, rubber stamping the Republican Party party-line and voting for every awful "free" trade treaty Bush vomited up, from CAFTA to Peru to Colombia and everything in between. Mike Turner is not just an extremist and a rubber stamp, he is someone well known for taking "contributions" from big corporations and then voting for their special interests no matter how badly that hurts his own constituents. And that brings us back to Wilmington, a reliably Republican area. (The 3rd Congressional district gave Bush 54% of its vote in 2004 and re-elected Mike Turner with 59% in 2006.)

The biggest employer in Wilmington and in Clinton County, and a major employer for 5 adjacent counties, is German-owned DHL. Following the closure of the Clinton County Air Force Base in 1971 Wilmington was an economically depressed city until 1979 when Airborne Express bought the former base (which had cost approximately $100 million in taxpayer funds to construct) for a sweet $850,000. Airborne (ABX, Inc) has invested almost a quarter billion dollars in putting together a first-rate hub for its national delivery service. It's primary customer is DHL. Two months ago DHL announced it is in the process of coming to agreement with UPS, an agreement which will immediately cost Wilmington at least 6,000 jobs, probably 8,000, as DHL's business goes to Louisville. For Clinton County this is nothing short of what Democratic congressional candidate Jane Mitakides refers to as "a corporate Hurricane Katrina."

Authorities in Wilmington say that could be the most jobs ever lost in a small Ohio city, certainly in recent times.

...Wilmington, population 12,000, wants help from anybody who can give it. That includes the two men vying to be the nation's next president.

But there is risk for Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama if they are perceived as indifferent or merely offer sound bites. So far, they've offered help in their capacity as U.S. senators, although Ohioans Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich have that covered. The McCain campaign, saying it will do what it can but warning that the jobs might not be able to be saved, says its proposals can at least cushion the blow by keeping taxes low, reducing government regulations and reforming job-training programs.

Obama aides meantime cite a vow to get better trade agreements and end tax breaks that give companies an incentive to take jobs overseas.

Wilmington, the seat of Clinton County, is in the heart of farm country where most people vote for Republicans. Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland was an exception with his win in 2006, but residents knew him from when his congressional district included the region.

Some authorities say that economic uncertainty now could chip away at the GOP base, although total erosion is almost out of the question.

Many are wondering if there will be enough erosion to win the district for Obama and rid the area of "free" trade fanatic Mike Turner. Ironically, UPS has been one of his biggest campaign contributors-- among the top 10 in his entire shameful career. Turner has been AWOL from all the battles to save the jobs, especially when the Republicans passed a law-- supported by Turner-- to limit DHL's access to government business.

Republicans like to talk about trickle down economics. This is a case where trickle down devastation really is in the cards. The GOP model basically boils down to if the rich get richer they will hire more servants and the servants will be able to buy things at WalMart, increasing the living standard of Chinese laborers who can then support the Chinese government's purchase of weapons which will in turn make war profiteers like the Bush family even wealthier. Meanwhile in Clinton County, economic despair is spreading rapidly and impacting-- adversely-- the standards of living of thousands of American families. Businesses that sell cars and trucks and tractors report that business is already off because people are afraid to buy big ticket items. But even restaurants are estimating that their incomes will fall by as much as 50%.

John McCain, like Mike Turner, never saw a "free trade" treaty he didn't like or didn't vote for. Neither has ever shown any concern for American workers beyond crocodile tears. When cornered, McCain called the news of "a terrible blow... I gotta look you in the eye and give you straight talk. I don't know if I can stop it or not, or if it will be stopped... In fact, some more straight talk: I doubt it. OK?" He talks about retraining, although to the 300,000 Ohio workers already displaced because of NAFTA and CAFTA and all the bullshit "free" trade agreements pushed by McCain and Turner, "retraining" has meant low-wage jobs in fast food restaurants and retail outlets. McCain told civic leaders in Dayton "we've got a lot of work to do," but judging by the work he and Mike Turner have already done, they will soon turn southwest Ohio into an economic basketcase.

Democrats like Sherrod Brown, Gov. Ted Strickland and Jane Mitakides are a bit more aggressive in their approach and their priorities are on saving the jobs and the communities. "Deutsche Post [DHL's German owner] is going to want a lot of things from the U.S. government in the years ahead," Brown says. "And I think that President Obama at my urging is going to want to do a little less for them if they do this to 8,000 American workers."

While Turner has happily scarfed up huge campaign contributions from UPS, right when they were plotting to devastate the lives of so many of his constituents, Brown and Mitakides have been working with DHL to come to a less drastic position. Today Jane told DWT that this situation isn't atypical of how the GOP has adversely affected the American economy.

“I have been working with the Mayor of Wilmington, who is an old friend, and the task force, quietly, behind the scenes. The jobs are far more important than scoring political points. While I hope we can change this terrible decision, we must remember that this is a business decision made being by a foreign company. The German businessmen making this decision will never know personally or care about the tens of thousands of people whose lives are being devastated. This is the direct result of the failed policies of the Turner/Bush years that allow our jobs to be shipped overseas, and foreign entities to buy our precious assets."

How Big Oil Fell In Love With John W. McCain

Last night we noted more lobbyists flocking to the banner of John W. McCain. The Washington Post reports that despite his public admonition of the lobbyist profession, lobbyists know he doesn't mean a word of it and he's their best hope for continuing the rein of sleaze that has gripped Washington, DC. “We are 100 percent behind McCain,” said Kathryn Braden Huffard, a lobbyist at Fierce, Isakowitz, whose clients include Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant. “In the wake of the Abramoff affair, it seems, there has to be a villain. But Senator McCain understands that many lobbyists are smart people who have experience on the issues.”

Matthew Mosk's report in this morning's Post, Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling is even more chilling. DWT has been reporting for months how Big Oil has been a major factor in bankrolling McCain's campaign. Big Oil & Gas is doing everything it can to defeat Obama because it wants a continuation of the Bush Regime policies that have led to the greatest redistribution of wealth-- from the bottom up-- in the history of mankind, policies opposed by Obama and supported by McCain. The number $1,010,868 should look familiar to all regular readers of this blog. It's the amount Big Oil has openly and directly dumped into McCain's campaign as of the end of last month. Mosk's research shows that the amount "rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling."

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month-- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban-- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.

The timing of the latest in a long string of McCain flip-flops was fortuitous for his struggling campaign. According to David Donnelly of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group, "This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money." In the past McCain hasn't been a major recipient of money from Big Oil. Now he's their #1 boy, even more than the industry's three fully owned shills, John Cornyn (R-TX-$480,100), James Inhofe (R-OK-$220,350) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY-$197,150)... combined! In the past McCain has given lip service support to responsible environmental proposals, which hasn't endeared him to Big Oil. Once he indicated that he would continue all the pro-Oil Bush policies that have been so good for their bottom lines and so bad for ordinary Americans-- and for our economy-- the spigots opened and the cash started gushing into McCain's campaign.

McCain has historically sided against a number of the industry's interests, opposing efforts to open certain public lands to drilling and embracing proposals aimed at tackling global warming well before oil executives were ready to do so.

Patrick C. Oxford, chairman of the Texas-based law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, said there has been a contrast between the way the industry embraced George W. Bush, a favorite son, and McCain. Oxford said that until recently oil industry officials were motivated to back McCain because of talk by Sen. Barack Obama "about needing to tax the hell out of the oil companies."

That started changing in mid-June, he said. McCain's speech and subsequent visit to Texas served the purpose of reintroducing him to the oil industry. Oxford, whose law firm represents several large oil companies, wrote his first check to McCain on June 27.

Charting the political donations of oil executives may be the best way to evaluate the industry's level of interest in a presidential candidate, said Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy, an industry adviser. Unlike other businesses, oil and gas companies do not have a large labor force that can provide a candidate an army of volunteers. And oil and gas concerns are geographically confined, largely in states that are not viewed as central to a presidential election strategy.

"It's for those reasons that the oil industry has always tried to be a substantial contributor," West said.

And West said he thinks McCain gave energy executives what they needed to get more solidly in his corner-- a pledge to reverse a federal policy that has frustrated the industry for years.

"I think people thought it was a sensible thing that was long due," West said. "I think the industry was very appreciative."

McCain has been on TV all morning trying to persuade skeptical voters that he's a viable presidential candidate. When gently questioned by George Stephanophoulous about his phony gas tax holiday, which has been denounced as a cheap carnival trick by every economist in the country, McCain whined that if Big Oil tried keeping all the benefits for themselves-- something that there is every reason to believe is exactly what will happen-- "we won't let them. We'll shame them." Anyone who is seriously considering voting for this sham candidate of Big Business should be ashamed and deserves the fate awaiting Americans if there is another Republican administration in Washington.


UPDATE: McCAIN TRAINWRECK ON ABC-TV

By only mentioning one bizarre interaction with George Stephanopoulos, I didn't mean to imply that the rest of McCain's appearance on This Week went smoothly. In fact, I bet there are plenty of Republicans around the country who saw McCain's abysmal performance busily trying to figure out if there's any way to get a more plausible candidate-- like Dick Cheney or either of the Bush twins-- to take their party's nomination. Sam Stein runs down the whole pathetic mess, from eye-popping flip-flops on affirmative action, taxes, gay adoption, and timetables-- he now claims he never said the word although millions of Americans watched him do just that on TV this week. And more! He even claimed he would have objected if the Pentagon had been blocked him from holding an event with US troops, though that is exactly what his campaign has done in the past. This trainwreck is off the rails!

If Republicans Have Their Way, It May Be A Cold, Cold Winter

"Lower that thing and put on another sweater"

Yesterday over at FDL we spoke with Oregon Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Merkley, a proven champion for working families who will increase the quality of the Senate when he replaces mindless, doctrinaire GOP rubber stamp Gordon Smith. Until he and candidates like Andrew Rice (D-OK), Rick Noriega (D-TX), Mark Begich (D-AK), Tom Udall (NM), and Tom Allen (D-ME) get there, the Selfless Champions of Regular Americans Caucus in the Senate are pretty empty. (And don't expect corporate-friendly Democrats like Mark Warner, Mark Udall, Jeanne Shaheen, Bruce Lunsford, Kay Hagen, or Jim Slattery to sign up any more than the Republican corporatists they aim to replace.) But if there were really a caucus of senators looking out for regular Americans, Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders would be the chairman. Bernie in the Senate yesterday:

"Do we vote to keep the old, the sick and kids alive when the weather gets cold or very, very hot, or do we spend money on people who make huge campaign contributions? That is part of what this debate is about."

Bernie was battling the Republicans who were keeping the Senate from voting on increasing aid to impoverished Americans-- mostly seniors-- who will be in jeopardy this winter because of high fuel prices. You know how bad Republican policies have been for gasoline; it will be far worse for heating oil. But McConnell mustered enough votes from die-hard reactionaries in his greed and selfishness caucus to block consideration of a bipartisan bill to rescue potential victims. "The government is devoting $2.6 billion in subsidies for helping people with low incomes pay heating and air-conditioning bills this year. Sanders' bill would nearly double that to $5.1 billion."

Although Olympia Snowe (R-ME) tried rallying Republicans to join her in crossing the aisle, she only managed to bring a few Republicans fearful of having to face the voters in November with her. Although some of the frightened rubber stamp Republicans-- like Liddy Dole (R-NC), James Inhofe (R-OK), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC)-- joined McCain in not voting one way or the other, among the reactionary slobs who voted to freeze grandma and grandpa were many of the usual suspects:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
John Barrasso (R-WY)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Miss McConnell (R-KY)
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Who Do You Think The Lobbyists Are Likin' This Year?

Earlier today, we talked about how Rahm Emanuel's complete lack of ethics endangers our democracy. Scummy, bloodsucking lobbyists, underminers of democracy, are financing the McCain campaign. Theoretically the information in the campaign reports should be enough to pin the corruption tag on him and move on towards plans for Obama's inaugural balls. Instead, Democrats are hampered because of Emanuel and his ilk. He and his corrupt congressional cronies take nearly as much in bribery from lobbyists as McCain does.

Corporate lobbyists from Big Oil, telecoms and commercial banks-- just three examples-- are donating to McCain like their lives depended on it. McCain points out that Obama has special interests too: human rights organizations, environmentalists, consumer-health care organizations... There's a difference. But when it comes to slime like Emanuel and Hoyer, there is no difference. Emanuel, Hoyer and McCain all feed at the same troughs, troughs that poison our political system.

Some lobbyists chafe at being asked for money by the McCain campaign while he disparages lobbyists as agents of “big-moneyed special interests.” But they know that such criticism is a staple of politics.

“We are 100 percent behind McCain,” said Kathryn Braden Huffard, a lobbyist at Fierce, Isakowitz, whose clients include Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant. “In the wake of the Abramoff affair, it seems, there has to be a villain. But Senator McCain understands that many lobbyists are smart people who have experience on the issues.”

So far this year lobbyists have given out $21,152,316. Hillary Clinton's lobbyist driven campaign took in even more than McCain's $750,656. Hoyer took $97,250 and Emanuel took $53,590, not the kind of money-- $253,213-- Mitch McConnell (the lobbyists' most beloved congressional friend among non-presidential candidates) scarfed up this year. But enough to make it impossible for Democrats to attack Republicans for their corruption. (And guess who the lobbyists found as the easiest mark among freshmen (or either party)? Chris Carney (D-PA-$68,649), the first termer most likely to sell out his constituents' interests for a few bucks, worse than any Republican freshman! He was fined $4,467 earlier this year by the FEC for reporting irregularities. So when does he start choking mistresses?

Reminds me of an oldie but goodie we probably need to resuscitate:

How Dangerous To American Democracy Is Rahm Emanuel?

Rahm Emanuel was out trolling the Internet today, trying to get unsuspecting Democrats to send him their money so he can guarantee that George Bush's reactionary policies live on after he is tossed onto the garbage heap of history. Emanuel's disingenuous spam came from the DCCC and starts like this:

100 days from today, we can end the Congressional careers of every single Republican who stands ready to help John McCain continue the Bush-Cheney policies for another four years.

And what about the congressional careers of Democrats who stand ready to help continue the Bush-Cheney policies for another four years, Democrats like Rahm Emanuel? Emanuel is the #3 or 4 ranked Democrat in the House leadership, depending how you count. He controls caucus messaging and a great deal-- with his crony Steny Hoyer-- of institutional money that flows in to the House Democrats. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal, without even mentioning Emanuel's name, explains the depth of corruption that allows politicians like Emanuel to control political parties.

DWT has mentioned Rahm Emanuel once or twice before. Although he was the chief fundraiser for the mayoral campaign of Chicago Democratic boss Richard Daley in 1989 and worked as a fundraiser for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, he first came to national prominence as the Clinton Regime operative-- a sort of lower key version of Karl Rove-- tasked with delivering enough Democratic votes to make sure the anti-union NAFTA bill passed the House in 1993. Although he had been unsuccessful in his first big job-- pushing through national health care-- he was able to buy off enough Democrats, and threaten enough others, so that the hated and disastrous NAFTA legislation passed. Before claiming his spoils-- a rotten borough congressional seat in Chicago-- Emanuel pivoted, briefly into the "private sector" for a cush investment banking job at Dresdener Kleinwort Wasserstein-- a 3 year stint that "earned" him $20 million and provided all the financing he would need for a political career.

When another corrupt political hack from the Daley Machine, Congressman Rod Blagojevich (currently on the verge of impeachment as Illinois governor), gave up a depopulated House seated slated for extinction, Daley saved the seat, by claiming, ironically, that all the undocumented residents, needed a representative too. (Emanuel has gone on to be a nightmare for undocumented immigrants.) Emanuel stole the 2002 primary, with the help of the Daley Machine (and criminal elements like his pal Don Tomczak), from progressive Democrat Nancy Kaszak. He supported Bush's attack on Iraq and still supports the Iraq occupation today. Last month he and Hoyer led enough Democrats across the aisle to vote with the Republicans and keep the Iraq War going. A few days later-- as the single biggest recipient of Telecom "donations"-- Emanuel led another minority of Democrats across the aisle to give Bush warrantless wiretapping powers and retroactive immunity for his (and Emanuel's) campaign contributors.

If those two votes aren't an indication that Rahm Emanuel would-- from a high perch within the Democratic leadership-- continue the Bush-Cheney policies for another four years, I don't know what is. As chair of the DCCC-- and now in de facto control of its recruitment efforts-- Emanuel has worked diligently to defeat grassroots and progressive Democrats and elect reactionary corporatist rubber stamps. His real caucus is the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- Democrats like Heath Shuler (NC-one of Emanuel's only real "successes" in 2006), Tim Mahoney (FL-another one Rahm deserves the "credit" for), Jason Altmire (PA), Nick Lampson (TX), Joe Donnelly (IN), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Baron Hill (IN), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Chris Carney (PA), Gabby Giffords (AZ), all Democratic freshmen who have voted more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats on contentious, substantive matters in the 2007-2008 session.

Donating grassroots money to corrupt, corporatist Insiders like Emanuel is a surefire way to guarantee a continuation of the worst of the Bush Regime policies long after he's just a very bad memory. Emanuel lusts for the speakership and if the grassroots doesn't stop him, no one will. Emanuel had no primary opponent and in November he will face an unfunded, self-described "liberal Republican," Tom Hanson and a Green Party opponent, Alan Augustson. A better choice might be to just write in "No Rahm."

And instead of giving any money to the DCCC, please consider donating to individual progressive canddiates who will be independent of bosses like Rahm Emanuel. You can find a list of some of those candidates at the Blue America ActBlue page.

Blue America Welcomes Back Jeff Merkley

A couple months ago I was flying to DC and the guy next to me was reading Billboard, a music industry trade magazine. Having been in that business for many years, I asked him what he does. And wasn't I shocked to find out he is the lobbyist for a music group and head of their political action committee. We got right down to brass tacks. He thought it would be great if I did an anti-McCain/anti-Bush YouTube of Dylan's "Masters of War"... and urged me to support his good friend, Gordon Smith (R-OR). I pointed out that from his first votes authorizing the use of force against Iraq on October 10, 2002 until Match, 2007 when he supported a tepid, toothless resolution urging Bush to change his policies, Smith had been a lockstep, garden variety rubber stamp for the Bush-Cheney agenda in Iraq. "Oh, he's the nicest neighbor you'd ever want to have, a real family man," the nice music lobbyist replied.

Well, maybe Gordon Smith would make a nice neighbor in terms of not turning up the music too loud, or lending someone a cup of refined white sugar but when it comes to preventing bankruptcy from causing homeowners to lose their houses, Gordon Smith has been a lousy neighbor. And when it came to killing a bill designed to provide low-interest mortgage assistance to working families who suffer the adverse affects of NAFTA and the other horrible, job-killing trade agreements Smith has always pushed, he's also been behind a distinctly bad neighbor policy. Of course in the multimillionaire neighborhoods he frequents, I guess they just love ole Gordon since his policies have been really good for the very rich-- helping facilitate over and over the biggest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the very rich in the history of America. And he was at it again yesterday-- making sure those nice high gasoline prices drained middle class families on whatever they've managed to save during the Bush years.

Today Blue America is really excited to make it official and endorse the progressive Democratic Speaker of Oregon's House, Jeff Merkley, for the Senate seat currently occupied by Smith. He's visited with us at FDL before, right after he won a tough primary. Today we want to catch up with the campaign and I encourage you to come over to the FDL comment section and ask Jeff whatever you'd like. If Gordon Smith is a 90% Bush-Cheney Republican serving the interests of the wealthy and of the corporate special interests that have financed his career, Jeff is best known in Oregon as a man who is always on the front line in the battle for middle class and working families.

Smith took over a quarter million dollars in "donations" from the oil companies-- in return for voting for $18 Billion in tax giveaways to them [what a deal!]. According to Jeff "that's really been his only energy policy. A few years ago the Daily Astorian called him a member of the Flat Earth Society because he voted against resolutions acknowledging the existence of global warming and the need to transform our energy policy. Now that he's in an election year he's singing a different tune. That's The Smith: 5 years ultraconservative, one year pretending to be an environmental moderate."

I asked Jeff to draw a clear distinction between the kind of senator Gordon Smith has been and the kind of senator Jeff Merkley will be.

His approach is to ask 'What can I do to make the most powerful companies a little richer.' Essentially you can figure out his votes every single time by looking through that lens. You can figure out where I come from by saying, 'What can I do to help ordinary families thrive: quality education, affordable health care, living wage jobs, affordable housing.' We come from very different places and we fight for very different things.

When you get a chance, watch this video of Jeff giving a stump speech. It'll give you a good idea of who he is, what he's accomplished, and what kind of a senator he will be. If, like me, you think he'll be among the best 3 or 4 members of the U.S. Senate, please join me in contributing to his campaign through our Blue America ActBlue page.

Even Bush & McCain Allow Obama To Set The Foreign Policy Agenda

In two separate stories, the NY Times seems to indicate that Barack Obama, more than 3 months before the election, is already setting the foreign policy agenda for outgoing President George Bush and for senior Arizona Senator John McCain. Elisabeth Bumiller points out that McCain has been wigging out because Bush seems to be taking foreign policy direction from the man most of the world expects to become the next president. Bush still pays lip service to what has now become McCain's Axis of Evil dogma, "[b]ut now the administration’s agreement to consider a “time horizon” for troop withdrawals from Iraq has moved it, at least in the public perception, in the direction of the policies of Senator Barack Obama. That has thrown Mr. McCain on the political defensive in his opposition to a timed withdrawal, Republicans in the party’s foreign party establishment say."

And yesterday, even poor old McCain was forced to acknowledge what everyone in the world seems to agree: Obama's plan to end the war is the way the war is going to end. "First the Iraqi government gave Senator Barack Obama a boost by seeming to embrace his proposal for a 16-month timetable for withdrawing American troops from Iraq. Now could Senator John McCain, who built his candidacy in large part on his opposition to such a schedule, possibly be following suit?"

“I think it’s a pretty good timetable,” Mr. McCain said Friday in an interview on “The Situation Room” on CNN, all grouchy and grumpy and pissed off. After all, he had just spent the week-- as well as the last two years-- claiming timetables were treason. A few days ago he was trying to convince someone watching him on CBS that his Iraq policy has succeeded. Delusionally and desperately he was insisting "We are winning. They’ll come home with honor. And it won’t be just at a set timetable." He was screeching about Obama being naive and unable to understand "the facts on the ground," insisting a timetable would "turn success into defeat."

Republicans also say the administration’s decision to authorize high-level talks with Iran and North Korea has undercut Mr. McCain’s skepticism about engagement with those countries, leaving the perception that he is more conservative than Mr. Bush on the issue.

Essentially, as the administration has taken a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy, the decision of Mr. McCain to adhere to his more hawkish positions illustrates the continuing influence of neoconservatives on his thinking even as they are losing clout within the administration.

The worst of the unindicted war criminals and Bush Regime extremists, like John Bolton, are trying to spin all this as a good thing for McCain. "[I]f you believe as I do that this administration is in the midst of an intellectual collapse," said a man who should be spending the rest of his life in prison, "it doesn’t hurt McCain. Occasionally in politics it helps to be right.” But wiser men that Bolton think he and the people around him-- people who are also around John McCain actually want to start World War IV. Zbigniew Brzezinski:

"Well, if McCain is president and if his Secretary of State is Joe Lieberman and his Secretary of Defense is [Rudolph] Giuliani, we will be moving towards the World War IV that they have been both favoring and predicting," he said, calling that an "appalling concept" (and adding that by their lights, the Cold War counted as World War III). "So it depends on who are the principal officers. If it's [Richard] Armitage, or if it were to be Brent Scowcroft, I think it would be very different."

Minnesota GOP In Turmoil As The Date Of National Hate Fest Approaches

Coleman & Hong: the faces of the Minnesota GOP

The last time former Republican Senator Rod Grams ran for office was in 2006 when he tried for a comeback against Jim Oberstar in Duluth and the huge northeast Minnesota 8th CD (and had his head handed to him). This week he wasn't complaining about Oberstar or Democrats but at the startlingly low quality of Republican politicians in Minnesota.

Former U.S. Sen. Rod Grams is focused these days on his central Minnesota radio venture, but the Republican also is fed up with his own political party.

"I'm so damn unhappy with the Republicans right now," Grams said in an interview. "I'm so unhappy with the candidates that we have I could puke. I wanted to get out there and mix it up."

Grams said he considered challenging Sen. Norm Coleman for the GOP nomination but was too busy in his private life to make a run this year. But Grams said he will ponder a run for governor in 2010, saying he'll make that decision within a year.

And Grams is correct, Minnesota, a moderate and sensible state seems to have wound up with two of the very worst members of Congress, extremist maniacs John Kline and Michele Bachmann, not to mention Senator Norm Coleman, who is so atrocious that Grams said he's been considering running against him himself!

Wednesday one of the local GOP's leading lights, Republican operative Peter Hong, was arrested and charged with soliciting a prostitute in St. Paul in the middle of the day.

Police spokesman Peter Panos said that the arrest came during the first day of a two-day sting operation during which "johns" and prostitutes responded to ads placed on the Internet and in print. Thirty-five people were arrested Wednesday and Thursday, Panos said today.

He declined to say where the undercover operation was based.

According to city and county records, Hong, 41, of Minneapolis, was arrested at about 3:40 p.m. on Wednesday and arrived at the Ramsey County jail just after 5 p.m. He was one of at least 19 men swept up during the first day of the sting, police records show.

Hong, reached by phone Thursday, said: "I don't have any comment."

Hong won't even confirm if he was trying to hire a female or a male prostitute-- or one of each. He's usually far more vocal and had served as the spokesperson for Tim Pawlenty's campaign in 2002, for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Minnesota in 2004, as special assistant for public affairs in the Bush Regime's Department of Labor and Industry, and, most recently, for the moral crusade of Mike Huckabee. A former lobbyist for American Community Bankers he is now director of communications / public relations for the Minnesota Bankers Association.

Hong's arrest, with the sexual solicitation arrest in a St. Paul Airport men's room of Republican Senator Larry Craig still fresh in everyone's mind, weighs on the growing list of vulnerable Republican members of Congress who have decided to avoid the Hate Fest altogether. Today's CongressDaily is reporting that "9 of 12 targeted Republicans running in the most competitive Senate races this fall are either skipping the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., or have not decided whether to attend." It would be 10 of 12 but Norm Coleman can't figure out a way to get out of what is sure to be a nadir for a Republican Party drowning it its own failed ideology, bigotry, arrogance and incompetence.

Among those who will not attend are Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who is not close to presumptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who is a McCain loyalist. Stevens and Collins will use the convention week to focus on their campaigns.

Also sending regrets is former Rep. Bob Schaffer of Colorado, running for the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Wayne Allard.

Six others-- Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Gordon Smith of Oregon and challengers John Kennedy of Louisiana and Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico are still on the fence. [Each of these is running behind their Democratic opponents and none are expected to be elected in November.] Their spokesman offered responses ranging from "there are no plans yet" to "no decisions have been made."

By contrast, most Democrats in those races are either planning to attend the party's late August convention in Denver or are leaning toward attending the event that will formally make Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois the party's nominee for president.

The Republican convention will be bookended by speeches from President Bush, whose low approval ratings have caused many candidates to keep him at arm's length, and McCain, who is still trying to mend fences with conservatives. But none of the absentees or potential no-shows is publicly citing Bush or McCain as the reason for their decisions.

Although some are frightened about aggressive police crackdowns on prostitution-- always a highlight of GOP conclaves-- or being seen in the same state as George Bush or John McCain, most just happen to have dental appointments that week.

Beastie Girl Mean Jean Schmidt Meets The Beastie Boys

Yesterday you may have read at TMP that a prominent Republican state Rep in Ohio, Tom Brinkman, has declared a real jihad against Mean Jean Schmidt. It goes beyond him calling her a "lying bitch." He insists she's a "despicable person," which most people who have had any contact with her would affirm, and that she would "sell her mother to promote herself." Pretty strong stuff, considering Reagan's 11th Commandment. But Brinkman founded a wing-nut anti-tax government watchdog group and he claims that Mean Jean may pass herself off as a fiscal conservative in Ohio but when she's in DC she's been spending tax dollars like a drunken sailor.

She's also pretty confused about the issues that face Congress. Take look at these two pages from an affidavit she signed to the Anderson Township Republican Club. This is why people call her confused and out of her depth:




Of course when it comes to the one issue she is always consistent on-- her anti-choice mania, she adamantly denies the right of abortions to women who have been raped, even raped by a family member and she even is one of the few ultra-extremists who says a woman has to die in childbirth rather than have an abortion. Mean Jean is one sick cookie. So we made a little video-- music by the Beastie Boys-- dedicated to her dementia:

Senate Republicans Block Gas Price Reduction And Housing Crisis Measures-- Right-wing Ideology Trumps Common Sense (Again)

Lunsford & McConnell: different eating habits/similar energy policies

Only 13 Republican senators voted against the bill that would allow the federal government to keep hundreds of thousands of American families from being kicked out of their homes by foreclosures. The voted succeeded, 80-13. So who were these radical right extremists who would rather see millions of Americans made homeless than compromise on their discredited and dangerous ideology? Well, most of the Republican rubber stamps who are up for re-election in November were the first to jump ship and scurry across the aisle and vote with the Democrats. But not all did. Among the 13 are 4 die-hard nut cases who do have to face the voters in November but just do not care what their constituents think. As far as these guys are concerned Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter will tell their constituents what to think and that's that. The four are:

John Barrasso (R-WY)
Mike Enzi (R-WY)
James Inhofe (R-OK)
John Sununu (R-NH)

The other extremists who voted with them are Kit Bond (R-MO), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC), Bob Corker (R-TN), Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John Thune (R-SD) and David Diapers Vitter (R-LA).

Earlier in the day, the Republican radicals were able to stop a bipartisan plan to keep excessive oil speculation from driving up gasoline prices by manipulating the futures markets. Every Democrat plus Lieberman and the one actual moderate Republican in the Senate, Olympia Snowe, voted to stop manipulative speculation while 43 Republicans voted, in effect, for higher gas prices at the pump, including fake moderates like Maine's other senator, Susan Collins, as well as Norm Coleman, and John Sununu. The DSCC targeted Republican closet queen/Bush chief Senate obstructionist Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has taken $230,900 in "donations" from Big Oil and Gas this year alone.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted against a bill today to lower gas prices by curbing excessive speculation in energy markets. Experts have noted that speculation is driving up the price of a barrel of oil, and a recent House committee report revealed that speculators-- institutional investors buying contracts with no intention of taking delivery of oil-- now account for 73% of all trading of crude oil contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up from 37% in 2000.

"Mitch McConnell had an opportunity to lower the price of gas today, but instead he voted with the speculators who are profiting from Kentuckians' pain at the pump," DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller said. "Mitch McConnell's constituents deserve better than a politician who sides with Wall Street speculators over Kentucky families."

McConnell voted against legislation to guard against price manipulation just one day after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced its first case against a trading fund in the agency's probe of crude oil market manipulation. The bill will eliminate so-called "dark markets" to increase transparency and accountability in commodities trading, strengthen the CFTC's enforcement capacity, and close the "London Loophole" so all U.S.-based trading of American commodities is subject to American regulation.

Speculation is driving rising oil prices past where they should be, even with flat supply and rising demand. Economists and energy experts believe that speculation is helping drive the sudden spike in oil prices, which rose more than 50% between February and June.

Unfortunately for Kentucky Democrats, McConnell's opponent, conservative multimillionaire Bruce Lunsford is from the far right end of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and advocates many of the same tired and discredited policies advocated by McConnell and the GOP. He was the lizard-brained choice of Chuck Schumer and that choice was based on his millions, not on his policy positions. Today's Lexington Herald-Leader:

To lure voters weary of high gas prices, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford is embracing a GOP-led push for oil shale drilling, one policy goal Congress already achieved and one proposal that received mixed reviews from both parties.

...McConnell is running television ads highlighting the fact that Lunsford pushed for automatic state gas tax increases as an aide to Democratic Gov. John Y. Brown Jr. in the early 1980s.

One of Lunsford's key proposals is to create a federal gas tax holiday, which would remove the 18.5-cent levy from the cost of each gallon. Republican presidential candidate John McCain and former Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton support the idea.

But presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama and others have dismissed it as a political ploy, saying it would do little to ease prices while taking away needed federal money to repair and build roads.

”I see this as an immediate relief for people who have this noose around their necks,“ Lunsford said. ”If people were out there and could see this, they'd understand how tight it is for people right now.“

Lunsford also reiterated his support for lifting a moratorium on drilling for oil shale in Western states, something that McConnell and Republicans are pushing.

Schumer has successfully saddled the Kentucky Democratic Party with a candidate who is re-inforcing Mitch McConnell's and John McCain's reactionary perspective on energy. But what could you expect from the reptilian Schumer? He also saddled America with the current Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, although he claims to be "disappointed" now.

Alan Grayson TV Ad Looks Like A Game Changer

Alan Grayson is the Blue America-endorsed candidate running against garden variety rubber stamp Republican Ric Keller in an Orlando district that has been turning blue. Early balloting started this week for Florida's primary election and Alan has been the only candidate with a TV ad up-- and what a TV ad! If every Democratic candidate had an ad this powerful to run, we wouldn't be talking about 12-20 House seats; we'd be talking about 30-50. Of course, not every candidate has a story as compelling as Alan's. Take a look at the ad:



If you'd like to see Alan keep this running, please consider donating to his campaign at the Blue America ActBlue page. As you just saw, he knows how to make effective use of the donations that come in.

Stoller has more-- much more.

Arizona Republican Candidate Advocates Murder-- Literally

With the arrest and indictment of crooked GOP Congressman Rick Renzi and his forced retirement, Arizona's first congressional district is unlikely to fall into Republican hands again. If we're lucky, progressive environmental lawyer Howard Shanker will win the primary against a well-funded but empty-headed, Republican-lite insider-- being pushed by Rahm Emanuel and other corrupt forces within the Democratic establishment. Regardless of which Dem wins the primary one is likely to be the next member of Congress representing the district. But the Republicans are still trying, and their extremist lunatic fringe candidates are bashing each other up good.

The GOP Establishment favors a mine owner, lobbyist and friend of McCain named Sydney Hay, who is extremely right-wing but the alternative, Sandra Livingstone, is trying to prove that she's equally radical, if not certifiably insane. She's given her campaign $200,000 and managed to collect another $4,275 from hapless Republicans in the area.

Around 20 people, mainly senior citizens, showed up for the Livingstone town hall, where they heard her discuss Second Amendment rights, energy policy and her recommendations for bringing the nation's finances under control.

"I believe in the Second Amendment as written-- the right to bear arms, the right to form militias," she said, and advocated for a national law protecting people with concealed weapon permits when the cross state lines.

..."I'm not Rick Renzi, I've never met Rick Renzi." Livingstone said she will be able to stay above the fray because she is "not enamored of Washington."

"Personally I think Washington needs a drive-by in a major way."

That was an unfortunate analogy to make today just as Arizona is coming to grips with the latest tragic shooting at a college. South Mountain Community College saw a "long-standing feud" between two young men erupt into violence that resulted in 3 students being shot. "At the end of Thursday's confrontation, 20-year-old Charee Williams, 17-year-old Christopher Lee Taylor, and 19-year-old Isaac Deshay Smith, lay on the floor of the lab at South Mountain Community College, pleading for help."

Rudy Giuliani Shows He's a Master Of Cluelessness In Address To Dispirited And Panic-Striken GOP House Members

Giuliani accesses Republican prospects for November

Noted Republican congressional strategist Rudy Giuliani gave a pep talk to "younger" (like in younger than McCain?) GOP lawmakers and challengers. The group calls itself the "Young Guns"-- after the song that inspired Eric Cantor (R-VA) to get into politics and which he reportedly plays every morning when he wakes up-- and was trying to raise money for multimillionaire Chris Hackett, a Republican extremist who has done something few thought possible: made his right-wing Democratic opponent, Chris Carney, almost look like a moderate. (What a horrible choice voters in northeast Pennsylvania have!) Anyway, the wise words from Rudy showed the depth of original and innovative thinking that have thrust him into the top ranks of GOP leaders.

"It's a tough national environment, but we can win if we individualize races," Giuliani told the Republicans, according to participants at the meeting. The former mayor stressed the importance of staying "positive" and unified, while also urging the younger House Republicans to get on the campaign trail as surrogates for McCain's presidential campaign.

Actually even GOP Old Gun Tom Cole had been telling Republicans to abandon the hated and discredited Republican Party policies and try to win re-election by confusing voters into thinking they are moderates and Democrats. According to CQPolitics latest edition, the strategy hasn't been working. This morning they re-rated electoral prospects in 14 districts, almost all in favor of Democrats. These Republicans don't have to be Young Guns to know they're becoming Dead Ducks:

Chris Shays (CT-04), where Blue America endorsed Jim Himes has caught up with someone whose idea of running away from his 100% record of rubber stamping Bush has been to cling to the hem of the increasingly disliked Joe Lieberman.

Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21), a right-wing loon who fancies himself the future president of Cuba is in the most heavily Republican district in south Florida and running against an indicted political crook but is still losing ground!

Judy Biggert (IL-13), another fake moderate just showed up on political radar as someone losing her political grip in a changing district ready to reject her in favor of political newcomer Scott Harper.

John Kline (MN-02), Minnesota's most radical right extremist-- and in a state whose congressional delegation includes borderline insane Michele Bachmann that is saying a lot-- looks like he could be taken out by Iraq War vet Steve Sarvi.

John Culberson (TX-07) is loaded with corporate "donations" to one of their most dependable shills, but is up against a Democrat, Mike Skelly, who has the funds to compete on an even playing field. A battle between a 100% rubber stamp and an independent minded progressive.

Michael McCaul (TX-10), the most vulnerable of the Republican rubber stamps, is the disliked and ineffectual son-in-law of Clear Channel and faces Blue America-endorsed Larry Joe Doherty, whose is cleaning his clock on a daily basis as McCaul just keeps voting with Bush and against his constituents' interests.

Frank Wolf (VA-10), is about to be swept away in a blue tsunami led by Barack Obama, Mark Warner, and, locally, Blue America-endorsed Judy Feder. This was once considered a "safe Republican" district and nearly 3 decades of abysmal "leadership" from Frank Wolf has undercut that so severely that Judy is looking like she will turn the tables on him in her second shot at the seat.

Shelley Moore Capito (WV-02) has been running around like a chicken without a head, mimicking McCain as she tries shoring up her credentials for her right-wing base while simultaneously twisting herself into knots by running against her own rubber stamp record. Anne Barth looks like she can end Capito's miserable and undistinguished political career.

Any good news for Republicans here? Well, kind of... Nick Lampson one of the furthest right of all Democrats, someone from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, has had his race downgraded from "leans Democrat" to "No Clear Favorite." He deserves to lose his seat in one of the craziest districts in the country (crazy in a bad way).

With McCain Never Around Anymore, The Least Liked Senator Is Tom Coburn (R-OK)

Courtesy of Photo Tune

Last night a supposed Republican staffer left a comment on a post from a couple days ago about Tom Coburn's reputation as a clown and a gadfly.

I work on the Hill and I know plenty of Republican senators and everyone has the utmost respect and admiration for Senator Tom Coburn. He's considered a hero in Republican circles. Where do you get these crazy notions? When he stops a bill its for good reason and the whole caucus rallies around him.

It may have come from one of Tom Coburn's relatives. It sure didn't come from any staffer, at least not from one with any knowledge of the U.S. Senate. For example, among the bills that Coburn is holding up now, are a wide array of universally supported pieces of legislation by his Republican colleagues. Here, courtesy of Josh Orton at MyDD:

Senator Thad Cochran - introduced - Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Prevention Act (S. 999/HR 477)

Sen. Christopher S. Bond - introduced - Vision Care for Kids Act (HR 507/S. 1117)

Sen. Sam Brownback- introduced- Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act (S. 1810/HR 3112)

Sen Domenici, Pete V - introduced - Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Reauthorization and Improvement Act (S. 2304/HR 3992)

Sen Vitter, David - introduced - Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography (S. 2869/HR 4136)

Sen Lugar, Richard G. - introduced - Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act (HR 1084/S. 613)

Sen Coleman, Norm - introduced - Torture Victims Relief Reauthorization Act (HR 1678/S. 840)

Sen Stevens, Ted - introduced - Ocean Exploration, Mapping & Research (HR 1834/HR 2400/S. 39)

Sen Snowe, Olympia J. - introduced - Integrated Coastal and Ocean Observation System Act (S. 950/HR 2342)

Sen Voinovich, George V. - introduced - Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2008 (S. 496)

Several of these Republicans are in dire shape electorally and are desperate to show their constituents back home that they are getting something done instead of just obstructing the work of the Senate. Coleman, Cochran and Stevens have lost patience with Coburn's antics. And David Diapers Vitter knows that if he doesn't get some anti-porn legislation passed his affairs with a string of call girls is never going to be excised from the minds of Louisiana voters. But Coburn-- for no logical reason, is blocking every one of those bills. And harry Reid is bringing them all to the floor-- there are 35 of them-- as the Coburn Omnibus.

One has to wonder how some of the Republican incumbents staring at polls that show them losing in November, especially inveterate rubber stamps like Gordon Smith (OR), Ted Stevens (AK), John Sununu (NH), and Norm Coleman (MN), are going to respond to legislation protecting children from porn and blindness. And next week, we'll find out. Meanwhile, pray.

Bush and GOP Rubber Stamps Defeat Plan To Lower The Price Of Gas

Florida Rep. Adam Putnam willing to fight to keep gas prices high

Unless you're brand new to DWT-- in which case, welcome!-- you already know about the powerful and pernicious relationship between Big Oil bribery and the Republican Party (and the Republican wing of the Democratic Party). Short catch-up: Since 1990 Big Oil has spent over $220,000,000 on so-called political "contributions" (75% to Republicans and the rest to Democrats like Dan Boren and Nick Lampson who vote like Republicans) in order to get politicians to ignore the needs of the nation and of their own constituents and just focus on the oil industry's bottom line. They have-- and if you've filled up your gas tank lately-- or even gone to the grocery store-- you are feeling the brunt of the sweet little deal the politicians have with Big Oil.

Today when a bipartisan majority of congressmen (268 of them) tried easing prices at the pump by releasing some of the strategic petroleum reserve, Bush threatened to veto and 157 Republicans (and not a single Democrats, not even Boren or Lampson) voted no, in effect blocking the bill. The bill mandates that 70 million barrels of the reserve's oil be put into retail circulation within six months. Backers say this will help lower oil and gas prices. Speaker Pelosi pointed out that a reduction in gasoline prices that occurred the three previous times oil from the reserve was sold, including once by President Bush in 2005. Boehner called it "a joke," although 37 Republicans crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats.

Among the radical right extremists who have worked so hard-- and been paid so well-- to drive gasoline prices up and who voted no were (the figures represent the Big Oil donations/bribes offered and taken this year only):

Michele Bachmann (R-MN-$13,500)
Joe Barton (R-TX-$127,541)
Roy Blunt (R-MO-$98,900)
Mary Bono Mack (R-CA-$15,750)
John Culberson (R-TX-$67,750)
Charlie Dent (R-PA-$10,600)
Dave Dreier (R-CA-$20,000)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ-$12,000)
Steve Kirk (R-IL-$4,000)
John Kline (R-MN-$15,300)
Randy Kuhl (R-NY-$9,500)
Michael McCaul (R-TX-$37,284)
Patrick McHenry (R-NC-$5,750)
Steve Pearce (R-NM-$204,234)
Mike Pence (R-IN-$12,000)
Adam Putnam (R-FL-$20,000)
Dave Reichert (R-WA-$3,000)
Mean "Cheap Date" Jean Schmidt (R-OH-$1,000)
John Shadegg (R-AZ-$22,000)
Tim Walberg (R-MI-$13,050)
Frank Wolf (R-VA-$9,899)
Don Young (R-AK-$19,000)

Doug Tudor is putting up an incredible uphill battle against the #3 goon in the Republican House hierarchy, Adam Putnam (R-FL). I called him today to see if he could make any sense of Putnam's vote against lowering gas prices. I mean FL-12 is mostly exurban Polk County and there is very little mass transit; everybody drives-- and everybody is hurting (although Putnam's wealthy supporters are hurting a lot less than the rest of us). Doug, a 20 year Navy vet, has been dismayed over the systematic dismantlement of the middle class by the Republican Party's ideologically-driven agenda. He reminded me that there is nothing surprising about Putnam's vote and that the surprise would be if he voted otherwise. "Once again he's chosen Big Oil cronies over working-class constituents. The Police Departments of our district are patrolling less due to gas prices over $4.00 a gallon, yet he’s taken over $70,000.00 from Big Oil. It’s obvious to all of us whose side he’s on. His vote on this bill is absolutely despicable. You wouldn’t think a multimillionaire could be bought off for some campaign contributions.”

Yes, imagine that! According to a new poll out today, "the American public is not buying the arguments of President Bush and the oil industry that new drilling will lower gas prices... [and] a significant majority of Americans (63%) said that the President's proposal to open up public lands to oil and gas drilling is more likely to enrich oil companies than to lower gas prices for American consumers."

America will never be free from the grip of Big Oil until we replace their bought-off shills and puppets, like Adam Putnam, with legislators willing to put the welfare of American families first. That's why helping a stand-up guy like Doug beat a miserable lowlife like Putnam is in all of our best interests.


UPDATE: AND IN TEXAS...

Yes, even in Texas, people are hurtin' from the gargantuan transfer of wealth from American working families to the well-protected Republican campaign contributors. As I mentioned above, Mike McCaul has been a recipient of a great deal of money from Big Oil-- and he has never voted against them on anything they ever wanted. His opponent this year, Larry Joe Doherty, is adamant that "The people living in Texas' 10th Congressional District deserve independent leadership that listens, not a Washington politician who is out of touch with our daily lives."

"This is just one more example of McCaul's failure of leadership. My opponent says one thing, but then turns around and votes against his constituents. Twenty-four hours ago he claimed the was going to fix our nation's energy crisis, yet today he votes against immediate relief at the pump for hard hit families while refusing to stand up to the speculators."

This kind of attitude from McCaul that Texas voters are finally seeing-- and the inspiring alternative that Larry Joe is offering, have caused CQPolitics to change its rating of the district, which it no longer considers "Safe Republican." This is a race that can be won.

Another Reason To NOT Vote For John McCain-- Technologically Advanced Little Green Men

For whatever reason, McCain has a lot of unresolved aggression. Last night I asked an accomplished and renowned New York psychologist who was diagnosing some of his more severe mental problems to do a post here at DWT. He said he preferred to give out his natural life. McCain's instincts are always the same: bomb, kill, hate... and bomb again.

Like Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochran I feel an unpleasant chill go down my spine at the thought of a vicious and confused hothead like McCain with his shaky finger on the nuclear button. A report from an Australian newspaper got me even more worried. Dr Edgar Mitchell experienced something that few other humans ever have; the American astronaut walked on the moon. He claims there are aliens-- not Mexicans and Guatemalans-- living on other planets and that they have visited earth.

In 1971 Dr. Mitchell and Alan Shepard spent over 9 hours on the surface of the moon. Yesterday the doctor of aeronautics and astronautics not only validated reports that our government is aware of visits from aliens but that "chillingly... our technology is 'not nearly as sophisticated' as theirs and 'had they been hostile,' he warned 'we would be been gone by now.'"

I'd rather they confront a cool, clear-eyed and intelligent guy, one who "gets" technology, than a hot head like McCain... just in case they decide to come back soon.

"It's been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it's leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.

"I've been in military and intelligence circles, who know that beneath the surface of what has been public knowledge, yes - we have been visited. Reading the papers recently, it's been happening quite a bit."

..."This is really starting to open up. I think we're headed for real disclosure and some serious organizations are moving in that direction."

Neither Dr. Mitchell, nor NASA commented on McCain's ability to copy with a visit by extraterrestrials but NASA did respond: "Dr. Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue."

Germans in Berlin and Hispanics in America Seem To Like Obama... A Lot

With McCain wondering when his rotten luck will change-- I mean an oil spill stinking up the air of New Orleans on the day you're scheduled to visit that city to tout the technology that makes oil spills "impossible" could only happen to someone who God just absolutely hates-- Obama is over in Germany experiencing the kind of adulation not a single solitary American president has felt... since Bill Clinton. Hundreds of thousands of Germans turned out to celebrate what many hope will be an end of America's drift towards the kind of fascism that gripped, and ruined, their own country in the 1930s and '40s. GOP propagandists and McCain shills are doing their best to cast aspersions-- but Obama's speech exposes them for the sad, pathetic creatures they are. No one is listening... except themselves as they sit and stew in their own hatred, greed and bigotry.

McCain is having his own semi-German experience today, eating bratwurst, but we don't have to go all the way to Germany to see people embracing Obama's forward-looking message of hope-- and rejecting McCain's old school dark, negative politics, orchestrated, as it is, by Karl Rove. Before he was horsewhipped by the far right xenophobes and racists in his own party, McCain had hoped to woo Hispanic voters to the GOP with the sensible bipartisan plan written by Ted Kennedy that he signed on to. After he was taken to tasks by the anti-Hispanic end of the Republican Party McCain changed his tune and refused to back the Kennedy-McCain immigration bill. And, according to a new Pew Research survey, Hispanic voters have noticed. Although it is clear that Florida right-wing extremists, Congressmembers Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart will continue towing the McCain line even if it tows them down to electoral defeat in November, they are just part of a small and shrinking minority of Hispanic-Americans who support McCain.

Hispanic registered voters support Democrat Barack Obama for president over Republican John McCain by 66% to 23%, according to a nationwide survey of 2,015 Latinos conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, from June 9 through July 13, 2008.

The presumptive Democratic nominee's strong showing in this survey represents a sharp reversal in his fortunes from the primaries, when Obama lost the Latino vote to Hillary Rodham Clinton by a nearly two-to-one ratio, giving rise to speculation in some quarters that Hispanics were disinclined to vote for a black candidate.

But in this new survey, three times as many respondents said being black would help Obama (32%) with Latino voters than said it would hurt him (11%); the majority (53%) said his race would make no difference to Latino voters.

Obama is rated favorably by 76% of Latino registered voters, making him much more popular among that voting group than McCain (44% favorable) and President Bush (27% favorable). Hillary Clinton's ratings among Latino registered voters are 73% favorable and 24% unfavorable; Obama's are 76% favorable and 17% unfavorable.

... In addition to their strong support for Obama, Latino voters have moved sharply into the Democratic camp in the past two years, reversing a pro-GOP tide that had been evident among Latinos earlier in the decade. Some 65% of Latino registered voters now say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 26% who identify with or lean toward the GOP. This 39 percentage point Democratic Party identification edge is larger than it has been at any time this decade; as recently as 2006, the partisan gap was just 21 percentage points.

Keep in mind that even after 4 years of his miserable policies Bush still got nearly 40% of the Hispanic vote (2004) and two year later, despite having already started down an anti-Latino path, GOP congressional candidates got about 30% of the Hispanic vote. McCain, who once hoped to ride a wave of Hispanic crossover votes to the White House, looks like he could get just half of what Bush got!

This morning's Politico says the new survey has sent shockwaves through the McCain camp. As David Paul Kuhn points out, "Republicans had hoped that McCain’s politically risky support for immigration reform, which infuriated many conservatives, would offer a unique opportunity to bring Hispanic voters back to the party fold." Well... you can fool some of the people, some of the time but...

“That number should be very, very sobering for the McCain campaign,” said Tony Fabrizio, the pollster for 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole. “The bottom line: Despite all of this positioning he’s taken on immigration, it’s shielded him nothing with Hispanics and it’s another point of distrust with Republicans.”

For months, other surveys have also revealed McCain’s weakness among Hispanics, with his support generally bracketed in the 20 percent to 30 percent range. The Gallup poll’s most recent report pegged McCain with 29 percent support.

But the precision of the Pew poll makes its findings especially troubling for the McCain campaign. Utilizing Spanish-speaking interviewers, who offered respondents the chance to speak in Spanish or English, Pew sampled 2,015 Latinos from June 9 to July 13. Its electoral breakdown was based on 892 registered Hispanic voters, with a margin of error of 4.4 percent.

The Pew data comes on the heels of months of McCain advertising on Hispanic television and radio in Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. On Wednesday, the Obama campaign announced its first media buy of the general election on Hispanic radio in the same states. Obama has not yet purchased advertising on Hispanic television.

“You have to understand in a way that the Republican Party is damaged among Hispanics,” said Hessy Fernandez, McCain’s spokeswoman for Hispanic media. “But at the end of day it’s the contrast between Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama.”

How To Respond To The Republican and Big Oil Lies About Gas Prices

The Republicans and their shady front groups are trying to shirk responsibility for high gas prices and trying to blame Democrats. The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming has a point by point rebuttal to the GOP lies and obfuscations. The Republican "plan" is more of the same-- more of exactly what has gotten us into the current mess-- and based on the same exact "reasoning:" kowtowing to the GOP paymasters at Big Oil. Do you think I'm exaggerating? Big Oil has "donated" $220,438,183 to federal politicians (75% to Republicans and most of the rest to hacks and shills from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party). Believe me, Big Oil isn't shelling out that kind of money because they feel "patriotic." Those are, by any definition except a Congress' that is permitted to make their own definitions, bribes. And Republicans have responded-- and it costs us every time we fill up our cars. This year, Big Oil's biggest recipient is, surprise: John McCain, a slimy political hack who first came on the national scene as part of the Keating Five, taking massive bribes from a wealthy banker friend, bribes that wound up costing taxpayers several billion dollars when the bank McCain was covering up for went belly up.

But McCain isn't the only politician Big Oil is bankrolling. They are spending tens of millions of dollars trying to get subservient Republicans elected across the country. One right-wing hack who dances to their tune is Ohio's Kirk Schuring. Big Oil is his 4th biggest source of campaign contributions. And, predictably, he has come up with an energy "plan" which looks suspiciously like it was written by the same Big Oil lobbyists who are writing his campaign checks.

The 6-page pdf from the Select Committee on Energy Independence, linked above, has all the thorough answers to Big Oil and their GOP puppets like Schuring. But Schuring's Democratic opponent, state Rep. John Boccieri, knows that few people are going to wade through this document. His response to Schuring and ExxonMobil's lobbyists is my favorite campaign ad so far this week. Take a look:



And John Boccieri isn't the only honest man explaining that there is no chance America can drill its way to lower gas prices. An OpEd in today's NY Times gives it to you from T. Boone Pickens point of view. He implies that fellow Texan George Bush is a "fraud" or at least offering fraudulent energy policies.

This is a political parable for the ages: the guy who was behind one of the knockout punches to John Kerry four years ago is now doing Democrats the biggest favor of the election by calling Republicans on their phony energy campaign.

“Totally misleading” is the way Pickens describes Republican attempts to convince the public that if we just opened up all these forbidden areas to oil drilling then gas prices would fall. He’s not against new drilling, but he is honest enough to say it wouldn’t do anything.

Republicans are furious at their longtime benefactor. Senator John McCain is currently running an ad in which he directly blames Barack Obama for $4-a-gallon gas at the pump-- as bogus a claim as anything yet made in 2008.

Then along comes Pickens, Texas oilman and billionaire corporate raider, overwhelming the McCain attack with a saturation message that has the added value of being true, as Henry Kissinger once said about another matter.

Pickens was a geologist before he found a deep pool of money, so when he says “the geology just isn’t there” to reduce oil imports through new drilling in offshore areas, he has some cred.

But, more importantly, Pickens is betting $10 billion in constructing what he says will be the world’s largest wind farm in the gusts of West Texas. If the mighty winds of the American midsection were harnessed, it could free up plentiful natural gas for vehicles-- a relatively quick step away from foreign oil.

Sally Kern (R-OK) Stopped By Police Officer Attempting To Smuggle A Semiautomatic Into Oklahoma Capitol

Dan White & Sally Kern, two dangerous homophobic psychopaths

You may remember the tawdry story of Oklahoma's homophobic maniac Sally Kern. The demented state legislator is back in the news today, having been caught trying to smuggle a gun into the state capitol again. She wasn't arrested yesterday when she was found to be carrying a .380 caliber semiautomatic handgun into the capitol. When my pal Mike Rogers told me about the incident I panicked. I immediately thought of a friend of mine, Andrew Rice, a state senator working in the same building. It was a visceral reaction to the hate-obsessed sociopath Kern has publicly shown herself to be.

My panic was based on another local legislator, Dan White, sneaking a gun into City Hall in November, 1978 and murdering a friend of mine, San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, and Mayor George Moscone, the father of another friend. It was a traumatic day for the entire city of San Francisco but especially for the gay community, Harvey having been the first openly gay man elected to any high profile office in America. He was beloved by the entire city but especially by the thousands of gay men and women who he inspired and made feel like they were an accepted part of society. Harvey used to read me letters in the back of his camera shop, letters from young men and women around the country-- from places like Kansas and Alabama and... Oklahoma, letters talking about despair and rejection but about how the national attention Harvey got was bringing them hope and a will to actually go on living. I still can't help but cry when I think about it.

Dan White, like Kern, is a hate-filled and bigoted right-winger. And like Kern he snuck a gun into City Hall. Unlike Kern, he wasn't stopped. He got in with his gun, went to Harvey's office and shot him dead and then went to mayor Moscone's office and shot him too. He later got off on the "Twinkie defense," claiming he had eaten too much sugar and wasn't in control of himself when he murdered the two. After a short time in prison he was released... and quickly found dead, an apparent "suicide."

Patrol spokeswoman Chris West said Republican Rep. Sally Kern was not charged because there did not appear to be any "malicious intent" behind her actions.

West said officers are allowed to "use their brains" when determining if an arrest should be made in such instances.

Let's hope they have brains to use.

Housing Crisis: Republican Extremists Were The Odd Man Out Last Night

The House passed by a hefty 272-152 margin a bill to assist homeowners facing foreclosure and to prevent the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (at the cost of $25 billion). Bush had vowed to veto the bill but after he was caught on camera in a mini-Macaca moment, saying the housing crisis was just a matter of Wall Street getting drunk, he hauled up the white flag and promised to not veto. That still didn't stop the most radical right extremists of the Republican House caucus from voting against the carefully crafted legislation. Among the Republicans who were perfectly willing to see foreclosures-- based predominantly on GOP ideologically driven anti-regulatory legislation-- make millions of Americans homeless, were all the usual suspects:

Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
Brian Bilbray (R-CA)
John Culberson (R-TX)
Charlie Dent (R-PA)
Thelma Drake (R-VA)
Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Randy Forbes (R-VA)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Virgil Goode (R-VA)
John Kline (R-MN)
Randy Kuhl (R-NY)
Michael McCaul (R-TX)
Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
Steve Pearce (R-NM)
Dave Reichert (R-WA)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)
Tim Walberg (R-MI)
Frank Wolf (R-VA)
Don Young (R-AK)

Republicans were still slandering homeowners as "irresponsible" and refusing to face up to their own faults as lawmakers for creating this predatory lending environment that has devastated the economy. I asked Sam Bennett, the Blue America-endorsed candidate in the Lehigh Valley against garden variety rubber stamp Charlie Dent, why Dent voted in such a blatant way against the interests of his constituents. She warned me not to fall for the media hype about him being a "moderate" or an "independent" and to look at his actual voting record. I did and I was confronted with the record of someone who almost never veers away from the party line, especially not when it concerns GOP donors. So far this year the real estate industry and commercial banks have donated over $50,000 to Dent's re-election campaign. "Today's bill," said Sam, "was a positive, bipartisan effort to keep working families in their homes. Even President Bush said he would support it. Charlie Dent should be think about what's in the best interests of the Pennsylvania families who are going through a critical period. More than 270 members of Congress, from both parties, voted for this solution... I know from personal experience when I was once a single mom how hard it is to make the mortgage payment, pay the heating bill and put food on the table. We’re in a serious economic downturn and have to do whatever we can to change the direction of this country and keep working families in their homes. I’m disappointed in Charlie Dent’s vote against necessary tax relief and refinance assistance for the people of the Lehigh Valley."

Aside from giving the Treasury Department the authority to protect Fannie and Freddie, the bill will help hundreds of thousands of families avoid foreclosure with affordable government-insured loans. The Bush Regime hates the grants to local governments giving them the resources to buy and refurbish foreclosed properties-- this heading off urban blight-- but he agreed to sign it anyway. A couple of dozen Republicans frightened of losing their seats in November gave up their usual reflexive anti-family/anti-worker/anti-consumer postures and voted with the Democrats. The aisle-crossing routine is unlikely to save the flagging careers of Republicans like Mary Bono Mack (CA), the Diaz-Balart Brothers (FL), David Dreier (CA), Robin Hayes (NC), Ric Keller (FL), Joe Knollenberg (MI), Ilean Ros-Lehtinen, even Adam Putnam (FL). Alan Grayson, who lives in Orlando and is running against notorious Bush rubber stamp Ric Keller who did what he almost never did-- voted against the extreme right GOP position. I asked Alan what he thought about Keller crossing the aisle and voting with the Democrats. He laughed and said "You know you can't vote for corporate interests year after year and then vote on the side of families once just before election and expect anyone to send you a thank you card."


UPDATE: THE SCOTT GARRETT CONNECTION

Garrett, the last of the far right extremists still representing a northeastern congressional district, was one of the Republicans to oppose the bipartisan housing bill. But Garrett has a special connection with the real estate bubble that few other members of Congress can boast. Like many Republican legislators, Garrett, who worked diligently to wreck the federal regulatory apparatus that has been protecting consumers and workers since John McCain was just a small child, took large "contributions" from the subprime mortgage villains, particularly a $5,000 "donation" from Countrywide. Garrett has financed his political career with massive infusions of cash from the insurance industry ($251,819), the investment industry ($202,657), commercial banks and other financial businesses ($171,450), and the real estate industry ($158,450)... all while serving as a member of the House Financial Services Committee. But even large sums like that-- in just 3 terms-- isn't so out of whack with what other corrupt politicians take from Big Business. But Garrett went one step further. He actually hired, as his chief of staff, a lobbyist for Countrywide Financial and Washington Mutual, two of the firms that most "benefitted" from Garrett's anti-regulatory jihad... and two of the firms that have been most responsible for the economic chaos and collapse in the banking and real estate sectors.

One of Blue America's finest endorsee's, Dennis Shulman, has taken note of the special relationship between his opponent and the authors of so many financial problems for so many citizens in North New Jersey. "Reckless unregulated activity by banks like Washington Mutual and Countrywide Financial has thrown America's financial system into crisis.

"Voters need to ask themselves-- who let this happen, and why? Scott Garrett sits on the House Financial Services Committee, and specifically its Housing subcommittee, and yet he was so out of touch as to term the economy 'good' in 2008. And it was 'good' for him-- Scott Garrett bankrolls his campaigns with hundreds of thousands of dollars from disgraced financial services companies like Countrywide Financial.

"We cannot let foxes guard the henhouse, and yet Scott Garrett is using our taxpayer's money to hire a former lobbyist for Washington Mutual and Countrywide Financial to serve as his chief of staff.  The corrupt revolving door culture of Washington, where corporate special interests get what they want and hard working families are left behind, needs to end. That is why I vow, when elected, to forego all corporate special interest funds from companies with business before my committees."

Skin Deep Is Buddy Guy's New Album

Yesterday Buddy Guy released his new album Skin Deep and I put together a little YouTube of the title track and, courageously, the first single. The album was produced by Tom Hambridge and includes guest appearances by Eric Clapton, Susan Tedeschi, Robert Randolph and Derek Trucks (featured on this song). Buddy could sit back on his laurels, and enjoy his Grammy Awards and Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame status and being constantly referred to as an influence, an innovator and a pioneer. Instead, he’s rockin’ the house all over again, not because he needs the money but because he has something to share. Thank God! Although he’s always associated with the West Side Chicago blues sound, he was raised in the South. “Skin Deep” deals with racism like few others songs have:

“I used to play with this boy, ride horses, down close to where I was born,” he says. “Then when we were 13, his parents made us stop. They used to say you had black blood or white blood, but we’d get a flashlight and hold it up to our skin and we’d just see red blood. That’s what I mean by ‘skin deep.’” (He and that childhood friend recently reunited, backstage at one of Buddy’s shows in Louisiana.)

McCain's Trip To Louisiana Cancelled Due To Oil Spill, Hurricane and Bobby Jindal Telling Him To Go Play With Mitt

oops

If you've gotten any of the approximately 1.8 million robocalls from Republican front organization Freedom's Watch, you have heard how Democrats are the cause of high gas prices because they didn't authorize more off shore drilling. (Unmentioned are the millions of acres of leased lands that the oil companies will neither drill on nor give up for companies that want to drill on them.) In any case, McCain, who has gotten the biggest pay-offs this year from Big Oil ($1,003,618 so far), has been one of the loudest proponents of unregulated off shore drilling, even where oil spills would destroy fishing industries and tourism. McCain claims the technology is so advanced that there in no longer a danger of oil spills, something that leaves industrial scientists with their jaws agape.

To show what he means, the ole coot decided to steal some thunder from what is expected to be a tumultuous reception for Barack Obama in Berlin and show up, dramatically, at an off shore drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico near Louisiana. (This was also being teased as a running mate selection trip-- with Bobby Jindal in tow, until Jindal who, like everyone else knows that Bush and Rove have forced McCain to accept Romney-- until Jindal said he wanted nothing to do with McCain's transparent games and politely and quite publicly said "Thanks but no thank, pops.")

So wasn't he embarrassed when Louisiana reported a serious oil spill. McCain had also claimed, falsely, that oil platforms are so safe that even the worst hurricanes couldn't hurt them. Between Jindal dissing him, the oil spill in Louisiana and a moderate hurricane, McCain decided to "postpone" his trip and sit around and pout about Obamamania.

Republican Wing Of The Democratic Party

More Democrats? No, BETTER Democrats

In politics, no one is perfect (except Donna Edwards... though Tammy Baldwin and Linda Sánchez come close enough). Still, there are patterns that develop over time, patterns that show the frightening consistency of Democrats who always vote with the Republicans on substantive matters. We've been referring to them as "the Republican wing of the Democratic Party." Who joins? Well... no one running as a Democrat-- not even Jim Marshall or John Barrow would ever admit they're part of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party (RwotDP). Even while Barrow was accepting money from a vicious anti-union political action committee and Republican front group 2 weeks ago-- which he said he was honored to be endorsed by-- BIPAC, he was still trying to persuade Georgia Democratic primary voters that he is Barack Obama's long-lost fraternal twin. Watch him move to a more... nuanced position as the general election approaches: "Barack who????"

Let's forget about Republicans for a while, since every single one of them is even worse than the worst Blue Dog or DLC Democrat, and see if we can find any patterns by examining some of the most crucial votes that have shaped today's political landscape. I want to start with the NAFTA vote on November 17, 1993, during which Bill Clinton dispatched a thuggish White House operative to cajole, beg, bribe and... when necessary, break arms and legs to get enough Democrats to cross the aisle and vote with the Republicans on one of the most damaging trade bills ever conceived.

The majority of Democrats, 156, voted against it (as did 43 Republicans). But joining the 132 pro-NAFTA Republicans were 102 Democrats. Clinton's most grotesque operative, a then barely known Rahm Emanuel,  had just earned himself a rotten borough for his efforts and was soon after given a congressional seat in a Chicago district previously slated for extinction.

I know that some of these Democrats now realize they made a grievous error-- and have atoned by voting against similar bills and by fighting long and hard for Democratic principles since then. One of my neighbors, Xavier Becerra, fits into that category. So do Congressman Ed Markey and then congressmen/now senators Dick Durbin, Ben Cardin, Maria Cantwell, and Ron Wyden. However,  there are some Democrats who voted for NAFTA who have continued-- even after the disastrous effects of NAFTA became apparent-- to vote with the GOP on trade policy and on other key issues adversely effecting their constituents' well-being. That's what we mean by the RwotDP. These are Democratic members who voted for NAFTA who are still in Congress and still voting with the Republicans way more frequently than they should:

Jim Cooper (D-TN)*
Norm Dicks (D-WA)
Chet Edwards (D-TX)
Bart Gordon (D-TN)*
Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
John Tanner (D-TN)*

Fast forward a dozen years to July 28, 2005. Congress had already seen all the evidence of NAFTA's horrible impact on American working families. And the Bush Regime was pushing CAFTA. This time only 27 Republicans abandoned their party's right wing orthodoxy and opposed this bill. And instead of 102 Democrats, only 15 voted for CAFTA. Still, it passed-- by two votes, 217-215. These are the 15 Democrats, even with all the evidence in on NAFTA, who voted for CAFTA:

Melissa Bean (D-IL)*
Jim Cooper (D-TN)*
Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
Norm Dicks (D-WA)
Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
William Jefferson (D-LA)
Jim Matheson (D-UT)*
Gregory Meeks (D-NY)
Dennis Moore (D-KS)*
Jim Moran (D-VA)
Solomon Ortiz (D-TX)
Ike Skelton (D-MO)
Vic Snyder (D-AR)
John Tanner (D-TN)*
Edophous Towns (D-NY)

Even some of the Democrats' worst corporate hacks, like Hoyer and Emanuel, had migrated back to the Democratic position on trade. Even before they brought up CAFTA, the Bush Regime was pushing it's attack on Iraq. On October 10, 2002 the House voted on the Authorization For the Use of Force Against Iraq, a bill that cost then-Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, who conspired with Bush against the American people and against his own caucus, his job. Only 6 of 223 Republicans voted against Bush while 126 (61%) of 208 Democrats voted against the disastrous resolution.

Many Democrats crossed the aisle that day, to their eternal shame. Many, though by no means all, of the Jewish congressmen abandoned their progressive allies to vote the Likud-AIPAC line. But many of the Democrats who voted Republican that day are the same old regular suspects who are mainstays of the RwotDP and who keep abandoning Democratic values and principles whenever push comes to shove:

Shelley Berkley (NV)
Howard Berman (CA)
Marion Berry (AR)*
Sanford Bishop (GA)*
Leonard Boswell (IA)*
Rick Boucher (VA)
Allen Boyd (FL)*
Norm Dicks (WA)
Chet Edwards (TX)
Eliot Engel (NY)
Bob Etheridge (NC)
Bart Gordon (TN)*
Gene Green (TX)
Jane Harman (CA)*
Baron Hill (IN)*
Tim Holden (PA)*
Steny Hoyer (MD)
William Jefferson (LA)
Ron Kind (WI)
Nick Lampson (TX)*
Jim Matheson (UT)*
Mike McIntyre (NC)*
Dennis Moore (KS)*
Collin Peterson (MN)*
Mike Ross (AR)*
Adam Schiff (CA)*
Ike Skelton (MO)
Adam Smith (WA)
John Tanner (TN)*
Ellen Tauscher (CA)
Gene Taylor (MS)*

Let's compare that list of traitors to the 80 Democrats who crossed the aisle June 19 to make sure Bush could keep the Iraq War going. If these treacherous "Democrats," led by Hoyer and Emanuel, would have stuck with the majority of Democrats, led by the hapless Pelosi, Bush would be outlining his plan for bringing the troops home safely now. Many of these members are new in Congress, but see how many names were on the previous list of war authorizers (hint, their names are bolded) :

Jason Altmire (PA)
Brian Baird (WA)
John Barrow (GA)*
Melissa Bean (IL)*
Shelly Berkley (NV)
Howard Berman (CA)
Marion Berry (CA)*
Sanford Bishop (GA)*
Dan Boren (OK)*
Rick Boucher (VA)
Allen Boyd (FL)*
Nancy Boyda (KS)
Chris Carney (PA)*
Don Cazayoux (LA)
Travis Childers (MS)
Jim Cooper (TN)*
Jim Costa (CA)*
Henry Cuellar (TX)
Norm Dicks (WA)
Joe Donnelly (IN)*
Chet Edwards (TX)
Brad Ellsworth (IN)*
Rahm Emanuel (IL)
Bob Etheridge (NC)
Bill Foster (IL)
Gabby Giffords (AZ)*
Kirsten Gillbrand (NY)*
Charlie Gonzalez (TX)
Bart Gordon (TN)*
Gene Green (TX)
Baron Hill (IN)*
Ruben Hinojosa (TX)
Tim Holden (PA)*
Steny Hoyer (MD)
Ron Kind (WI)
Nick Lampson (TX)*
Dan Lipinski (IL)
Tim Mahoney (FL)*
Jim Marshall (GA)*
Jim Matheson (UT)*
Mike McIntyre (NC)*
Charlie Melancon (LA)*
Harry Mitchell (AZ)
Dennis Moore (KS)*
Collin Peterson (MN)*
Mike Ross (AR)*
Dutch Ruppersberger (MD)
John Salazar (CO)*
David Scott (GA)*
Heath Shuler (NC)*
Ike Skelton (MO)
Zach Space (OH)*
John Tanner (TN)*
Gene Taylor (MS)*

The FISA vote, allowing for warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity also saw Hoyer and Emanuel lead a minority-- a very large minority-- of Democrats across the aisle to pass unconscionable legislation demanded by the Bush Regime and huge corporate donors. It passed 293-129 but would have failed if not for the Hoyer-Emanuel coalition of bought off Democrats. This list is a little different because it only includes Democrats who voted for this FISA bill plus the war funding bill:

Jason Altmire (PA)
Brian Baird (WA)
John Barrow (GA)*
Melissa Bean (IL)*
Shelley Berkley (NV)
Howard Berman (CA)
Marion Berry (AR)*
Sanford Bishop (GA)*
Dan Boren (OK)*
Leonard Boswell (IA)*
Rick Boucher (VA)
Allen Boyd (FL)*
Nancy Boyda (KS)
Corrine Brown (FL)
Chris Carney (PA)*
Don Cazayoux (LA)
Ben Chandler (KY)
Travis Childers (MS)
Jim Clyburn (SC)
Jim Cooper (TN)*
Jim Costa (CA)*
Bud Cramer (AL)*
Henry Cuellar (TX)
Artur Davis (AL)
Norman Dicks (WA)
Joe Donnelly (IN)*
Chet Edwards (TX)
Brad Ellsworth (IN)*
Rahm Emanuel (IL)
Eliot Engel (NY)
Bob Etheridge (NC)
Gabby Giffords (AZ)*
Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)*
Bart Gordon (TN)*
Gene Green (TX)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD)*
Ruben Hinojosa (TX)
Tim Holden (PA)*
Steny Hoyer (MD)
Paul Kanjorski (PA)
Dale Kildee (MI)
Ron Kind (WI)
Nick Lampson (TX)*
Dan Lipinski (IL)
Tim Mahoney (FL)*
Jim Marshall (GA)*
Jim Matheson (UT)*
Charlie Melancon (LA)*
Harry Mitchell (AZ)
Jack Murtha (PA)
Solomon Ortiz (TX)
Collin Peterson (MN)*
Earl Pomeroy (ND)*
Silvestre Reyes (TX)
Ruben Rodriguez (TX)
Mike Ross (AR)*
Dutch Ruppersberger (MD)
John Salazar (CO)*
David Scott (GA)*
Joe Sestak (PA)
Heath Shuler (NC)*
Ike Skelton (MO)
Vic Snyder (AR)
Zach Space (OH)*
John Spratt (SC)
John Tanner (TN)*
Gene Taylor (MS)*
Mark Udall (CO)
Charlie Wilson (OH)*

And those little asterisks (*) some people have and others don't? The asterisks are members who have publicly admitted to being Blue Dogs. It is suspected that there are some members who have asked their membership to stay hush-hush.

When you talk to professional Inside the Beltway Democrats they will try to persuade you that all that's bad in the world flows from the fact that there are Republicans. Just elect more Democrats, they say, and everything will be hunky dory. The record shows otherwise. Without these Democrats above there would be no war in Iraq, no FISA bill, no job-killing trade legislation. That's why Blue America is all about BETTER Democrats, not "more Democrats."

Reid Goes After Poor Pathetic Tom Coburn-- What About McConnell, Harry?

Courtesy of PhotoTune

Most serious members of the Senate, regardless of political party, consider Tom Coburn (R-OK) a clown and a gadfly. He has been annoying in holding up routine and non-controversial bills with overwhelming bipartisan support with silly, wasteful delaying tactics that accomplish nothing except keeping the Senate from moving forward. The last time he pulled this stunt, he was defeated 91-4. Even the most partisan members of his own party wish he would just pipe down and stop the bullshit. Right now he's holding up a batch of bills meant to assist paralysis research, victims of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease), children's eye screening and treatment, work on unsolved civil rights crimes (a bill that passed in the House today 422-2, with only two KKK members, Lynn Westmoreland and Paul Broun, both of Georgia, voting no) and children exposed to drug abuse.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is on the verge of exploding over Coburn's pointless game-playing and posturing.

"For those of you who may not know this, you cannot negotiate with Coburn. It's something that you learn over the years, that it's a waste of time... [I]nstead of allowing the will of the Congress and the American people to be heard, Republicans have obstructed one bill after another. Senate Democrats are not willing to allow this obstruction... any longer. Republicans will have a choice: Will they join the side of the American people, or continue to stand beside one or two colleagues intent on blocking progress?"

Good question, but Reid should have been asking it all year-- and not about a twerp who even Republicans hate-- but about the premeditated obstructionism that Mitch McConnell has led since Reid became Majority Leader.

A few days ago Sam Stein met with Blue America's most recently endorsed candidate-- and our first ever in Oregon-- Jeff Merkley. Jeff will be a guest at FDL this Saturday at 11am, PT. Sam's write-up is at Huffington Post today. He points out that Jeff has a tough race against faux moderate Gordon Smith but that Jeff "isn't venturing toward the political center in an effort to pick up votes or protect himself against potential criticism. Rather, he's sticking to definitively progressive positions, whether on FISA, Iraq, trade, or environmental policy. And on occasion he's digging his party's presumptive presidential nominee for venturing away from those battles."

In fact, Jeff is already showing why Blue America endorsed him: he's an independent-minded progressive who isn't going to stop doing what he's been doing for his entire career-- fighting for the interests of American working families. That's probably why he's pulled ahead of Bush's Oregonian rubber stamp in recent polling. And if it ruffles some Democratic feathers, that's not a problem for Jeff. He's sticking to his guns about warrantless wiretaps, retroactive immunity and NAFTA and he even called "to task the Democratic-controlled Senate for not showing the requisite backbone."

"A major mistake has been not to force the Republicans to filibuster day and night on these issues," he said. "The public does not see that obstruction because they don't see on their televisions a senator on the floor of the senate going through the night reading out of a thick tomb of law, if you will, in order to block bills from being considered. We have to put that on show to the American public and show that it's unacceptable... And I am [prepared to start standing up]. FISA is a good example right there. I was proud of Senator Dodd and others for what they did. They lost the vote, but I'm proud of them."

Jeff is Oregon's House Speaker. I bet he could do a great job as Senate Majority leader-- and take on McConnell, not just a pathetic pip-squeak like Coburn. But first we need to elect him. He's up on our Blue America ActBlue page now.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Watch

The three right-wing Bush rubber stamps from Miami-Dade, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Mario's psycho brother who fancies himself the post-Castro president of Cuba, staged a little event yesterday to try to save their political asses. More and more voters in South Florida have wised up to Ros-Lehtinen's and the Diaz-Balarts' attempts to paint themselves as moderates in Florida while voting like radical extremists back in Washington. So Ileana and her pals got together with Miami Beach officials and Florida Department of Transportation representatives and made believe they were working on problems they've ignored for years and years.

"We might be debating Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, but when you're talking about traffic in South Florida, that really impacts people,'' said Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican whose district includes part of the Beach.  "As important as all those issues are, traffic congestion in South Florida . . . is very important.''

And what makes it worse is that the 3 Republican extremists only chose their very own in-the-pocket Democrat to work with. South Florida Democrats Kendrick Meek, Robert Wexler, Alcee Hastings and Ron Klein were nowhere to be seen, only GOP stooge, Debbie Wasserman Shultz joined the three Republicans for the bogus campaign event. DWS, shamefully still co-chair of the DCCC's Red to Blue program has refused to help Florida's extraordinary grassroots candidates against Republican rubber stamps this year.

Wasserman Schultz' shady PAC has donated only to Florida challengers from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, ex-Republican banker Christine Jennings and pro-war, Republican-lite multimillionaire Suzanne Kosmas. Frantic to save the vulnerable red seat of her close friend Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, no one expects Wasserman Schultz to stop undermining the campaign of Democrat Annette Taddeo, but what about strong progressive Florida challengers like Alan Grayson, Joe Garcia, and Doug Tudor? Isn't a Red to Blue co-chair supposed to... well, you know, help turn red districts blue? Wasserman Schultz would have been fired from the program months ago except for the fact that she is, in effect, laundering large "donations" from right-wing Cuban groups to Democrats. Really disgusting! I hope this power-mad little monstrosity doesn't spoil the Democratic tsunami building in Florida, just as Obama has finally overtaken McCain in the polls. This could be a great year for Democrats in Florida. If DWS won't help, she should at least get out of the way and stop sabotaging progressive Democrats.

McCain's Weekly Make-Overs Won't Do The Trick

It wasn't damaging enough for McCain that Obama went overseas and has been greeted incredibly well by American troops and foreign leaders and that his ideas have been overwhelmingly embraced everywhere he goes-- as well as back home. McCain should have probably just let him have his week. Instead his campaign started carping and whining even before Obama had left about unfair press coverage. When Obama was being mobbed in Baghdad by American troops and being virtually endorsed by the entire Iraqi government, McCain was met by a part time reporter with a cell phone camera at a small airport in New Hampshire. McCain, as Joe Klein explained, then had a serious breakdown, lashing out like a vicious psychopath. Luckily poor Cindy (or even Rick Renzi) weren't around to bear the brunt of his towering rage. I heard Klein saying this, almost word for word on CNN this morning:

This is the ninth presidential campaign I've covered. I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.

He's referring to the statement about Obama wishing we lost the war. McCain has lost it entirely. He's an embarrassment and the Republicans should just put him out of his misery and nominate Ron Paul.

The media is starting to wonder if McCain is too old, which isn't really fair because there are plenty of people who are even older who have, unlike McCain, adapted to the 21st Century in fine fashion. The media is also starting to look at his gaffes, gaffes that are often not gaffes but, as Ilan Goldenberg puts it, serious examples of fundamental misunderstanding.

John McCain made a mistake this evening, which as far as I'm concerned disqualifies him from being President.  It is so appalling and so factually wrong that I'm actually sitting here wondering who McCain's advisers are.  This isn't some gaffe where he talks about the Iraq-Pakistan border.  It's a real misunderstanding of what has happened in Iraq over the past year.  It is even more disturbing because according to John McCain, Iraq is the central front in the "war on terror."  If we are going to have an Iraq-centric policy, he should at least understand what he is talking about... This is not controversial history.  It is history that anyone trying out for Commander in Chief must understand when there are 150,000 American troops stationed in Iraq.  It is an absolutely essential element to the story of the past two years. YOU CANNOT GET THIS WRONG.  Moreover, what is most disturbing is that according to McCain's inaccurate version of history, military force came first and solved all of our problems.  If that is the lesson he takes from the Anbar Awakening, I am afraid it is the lesson he will apply to every other crisis he faces including, for example, Iran.

This is just incredibly disturbing. I have no choice but to conclude that John McCain has simply no idea what is actually happened and happening in Iraq. 

McCain is fighting back by having some of the most pathetic Bush rubber stamps on his sinking ship sniping at Obama by calling him fighteningly inexperienced. Republicans in Washington are so worried that an Obama landslide-- coupled with McCain's well-proven negative coattails (every single candidate he's campaigned for has lost)-- will spell complete disaster for the GOP in November. The Rove operative who was brought in to take internal power away from some of the self-serving lobbyists and now runs the campaign, is pushing-- at Rove's suggestion-- for a complete message make-over, one totally dominated by the kind of Rovian negative messaging that McCain himself has been a victim of in the past.

Mukasey Is No More And No Less What Bush, Schumer And Feinstein Saddled Us With

Accountability? A little? Someday?

Michael Mukasey is Attorney General today because of the effusive support he received from Chuck Schumer. Should Schumer be held responsible? Absolutely. During the confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mukasey weaseled his way through his testimony, refusing to say, for example whether or not waterboarding was legal. That should have ended the hearings on the spot and the man should have been escorted to the door and thrown out on his ass. Instead, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senator with all the re-election money (from corporate sources), announced, along with Madam Dianne Vichyssoise (D-CA) that he would be voting for him, ensuring the futility of a battle.

The actual Senate confirmation vote itself (Nov. 8, 2007) was just political posturing. Every single Republican was in their regular rubber stamp mode-- not one voted no-- and they were joined by Lieberman and by 4 of the most consistently right-wing Democrats in the Senate-- Carper (DE), Bayh (IN), Landrieu (LA) and Nelson (NE)-- plus Schumer and Feinstein. Obama, Dodd, Biden and Clinton were all off campaigning and didn't vote.

No one can honestly claim they were buying a pig in a poke (or a cat in a sack). If someone expected an honest man or a righteous man or a man committed to Truth and Justice or who would serve the American people and the Constitution, they need to be removed from office just based on naiveté alone-- or for spending too much time listening to the rivers of bullshit that flow out of Chuck Schumer's mouth every time he opens it. Mukasey turned out to be exactly the kind of stooge Bush hired him to be and that the Senate was amply warned he would be and that, in fact, he has been.

This morning's NY Times claims there are some senators, particularly this most disingenuous of all senators, who are having buyer's remorse nine month's on.

Mukasey has dragged his ass and completely derailed the investigation into the Bush Regime's politicization of the Justice Department. There was never any question that he was hired to do exactly that. Schumer's crocodile tears are repulsive.

[A]t a hearing this month, face to face with his pick for attorney general, Mr. Schumer, a Democrat [thanks for the clarification, Eric; it does get hard to keep track in some cases], did not hide his disappointment in what he saw as Mr. Mukasey’s reluctance to move more aggressively in investigating accusations that the Justice Department had brought politically inspired prosecutions against Democratic politicians.

Mr. Schumer was still fuming a short time later as he went to the Senate floor for a vote. “That was terrible,” Mr. Schumer told a colleague privately in assessing Mr. Mukasey’s performance, an official privy to the conversation said.

...“I don’t want to use the word ‘disappointed,’ but he hasn’t provided the balance that I had hoped for,” said Mr. Specter, who supported Mr. Mukasey’s nomination.

Halfway through his term, Mr. Mukasey has defended or let stand some of the most controversial policies that he inherited from Mr. Gonzales, including the treatment of detainees, the broad surveillance powers claimed by Mr. Bush and the White House’s use of executive privilege in warding off demands from Congress for information.

Last week, Democrats charged that Mr. Mukasey was using the shield of executive privilege to “cover up” possible wrongdoing by the White House. The result, critics say, is that investigations have languished on some critical issues.

Patrick Leahy acknowledges that Mukasey is "head and shoulders above his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, but Bush would have had to look for an inmate of a federal penitentiary to find someone who wasn't. Still, Leahy, who knew what was coming and voted against Mukasey, said he is “letting the worst excesses of the Gonzales era stand... He doesn't want to rock the boat."

Neither Mukasey nor his pal Schumer-- well known as the biggest publicity whore in the Senate outside of McCain-- would agree to an interview for today's Times piece.

For Some Gays McCain Is The Right Choice (For President... Of The United States... Of America)

A few days ago I was shocked to see that a CNN poll was showing that 11% of Germans thought McCain would make a better president than Obama. Although the poll has been updated to show that it is actually only 6% of Germans, it still boggles the mind that after the thorough denazification Germany went through, there are even 6% thinking McCain would be suitable as leader of something beyond a highway trash pick-up crew. (And in Italy fully 15% think McCain's the one!)

Even more shocking than what Germans and Italians think, is what a new Harris Poll shows about gay and lesbian Americans. 14% of LGBT voters claim they plan to vote for McCain! Are there that many sad, pathetic self-loathing gays out there? Or is this just the racism talkin'? Now the Greed and Selfishness Republicans-- led by sick, dangerous and hypocritical closet queens like Mitch McConnell, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Patrick McHenry, Troy King, David Dreier and, most of all, Lindsey Graham-- are understandable. It's all about the money. But that's not 14% of Americans. That's not 4% of Americans.

The Mad Professah summed it up elegantly this afternoon:

This is a man who doesn't even know what the acronym LGBT stands for.

He also doesn't really believe in gay adoption, supports a ban on gays in the military, is worried if his clothing looks too gay, isn't sure if condoms stop the spread of HIV, thinks same-sex marriage ceremonies are okay as long as they're just pretend, and has promised right-wing religious groups that he'll start speaking out more vocally against LGBT causes.

Any gay person who votes for McCain should have his or her membership card revoked.

McCain Has Abandoned Every Other Principle-- Is He Now Flip Flopping On Iraq Too?

McCain always said he detests Mitt Romney because he sensed-- correctly-- that Romney has no inner core and stands for nothing, no principles whatsoever, just opportunism and blind ambition. To most people who have watched him closely over the years, this sounds exactly like a self description of McCain himself. And now McCain is ready to move on from his denunciations of Romney and select him, albeit at Bush's and Cheney's insistence, as his running mate. But a little flippin' and floppin' from McCain, given his record, is hardly newsworthy anymore-- at least when it comes to selecting someone to share his doomed ticket. However, flip flopping on Iraq? That might be harder, even for a practiced liar like McCain, to explain away.

New Mexico Congresswoman and close McCain ally and surrogate, Heather Wilson, sensing the groundswell of enthusiasm for Obama's proposals to end the war in Iraq sent out a message today paving the way for McCain to back away from his one and only issue-- endless war.

The McCain campaign has come up with an intriguing new way to sell his opposition to a timetable for withdrawal: McCain just might withdraw from Iraq sooner than Obama's 16 month deadline!

"He'd like troops to come home earlier than 16 months if the conditions allow it," said Congresswoman Heather Wilson of New Mexico, on a conference call with reporters just now. "Senator Obama has said it's a 16-month timeline no matter what."

How confused and disoriented is the McCain campaign? They are reeling from Obama's successful trip to Afghanistan and Iraq. And Spencer Ackerman has an analysis up that is positively mindboggling in the scope of McCain's nonchalant dishonesty. McCain is trying to claim, in an interview on CBS News, that the "Anbar Awakening" is the product of his surge. The assertion is as false and deceptive as all of his other self aggrandizing claims about Iraq. And like most of these claims, it is the product of a fuzzy mind rapidly losing a grip on reality. This video is worth watching to see McCain desperately weaving and bobbing with Truth. Truth wins.

Republicans Too Frightened To Vote Against Democratic Oil Speculation Bill

Mitch McConnell is well practiced at operating in the shadows

Not a single Republican-- not even Cornyn (R-TX-$480,100), McConnell (R-KY-$197,150), Landrieu (D-LA-$184,850), or Inhofe (R-OK-$220,350), the worst of the Big Oil's paid-off shills-- dared to vote against a bill meant to rein in the oil speculators who have added as much as $2/gallon to the price of gasoline. McConnell still plans to ambush the bill and kill it off with parliamentary procedures before it becomes law. A sneaky closet queen, McConnell has become adept at working in the shadows and accomplishing his goals when no one else can see. "Republicans may still block a vote on approving the bill unless amendments are added to increase U.S. oil production, such as expanding offshore drilling and developing oil shale fields in the West."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said the legislation was a good first step toward bringing down fuel costs.

"If we did nothing else but pass this speculation bill, the American people would be very, very happy and the markets would be struck quickly and the price of oil would go down," he said.

But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said the speculation-only bill was "a very little piece" of the solution to the country's energy problems.

Not unrelated was a story in the Politico this morning, GOP Senators Scramble For Lifeboats. Even the most zombie-like of the rubber stamps-- Republicans like Saxby Chambliss and John Cornyn-- have suddenly figured out that they could lose their cushy jobs if they don't start voting in the interests of their homestate voters instead of their corporate campaign contributors. Chambliss went so far as to brag that he had stood up to Cheney when he abandoned the cherished Republican dream of weakening and destroying Medicare.

Republican Senate leaders-- terrified by the prospect of losing five or more seats in November-- have freed their members to vote however they need to vote to get reelected, even if that means bucking the president or the party’s leadership.

On at least four votes over the past month-- Medicare, housing, the GI Bill and the Farm Bill-- Republican leaders haven’t even bothered whipping members to toe the party line or back President Bush’s veto threats. Instead, a GOP leadership aide says leaders have told vulnerable senators that it’s all right to “get well” with voters by siding with Democrats on anything but energy and national security.

It’s unusual for rank-and-file members to get a green light to blow off their party leaders. But these are unusual times for Republicans. They are genuinely worried they could get their clocks cleaned in November. The prevailing attitude: It is better to lose some big votes now than big races in November.

This helps explain why so many Senate Republicans are taking flight from President Bush and their own leaders-- and doing it loudly and proudly.

Shortly after the Medicare vote, the website for Sen. John Cornyn featured news that the Texas Republican-- best known as a Bush loyalist-- had voted to override the president’s veto.

The Texas Medical Association had already run anti-Cornyn TV and radio spots and had withdrawn it's endorsement of the rubber stamp senator. Many in Texas consider his vote to override Bush's veto, to be Rick Noriega's first Senate vote. Republican strategists think that by allowing habitual rubber stamps like Norm Coleman of Minnesota, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Pat Roberts of Kansas, Ted Stevens of Alaska, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Susan Collins of Maine, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Gordon Smith of Oregon suddenly switch up and start voting with Democrats, the issues they are most terrified of-- unemployment, high gas prices, inflation, the housing crisis (all problems brought on by GOP ideological fanaticism supported by each of these senators for years and years)-- will suddenly be "neutralized." They're in a dream world.

Obama On The Road-- Making Friends For America Again

Barack Obama with King Abdullah of Jordan

If Senator Obama's trip abroad is doing one thing, it is showing American voters back home how completely isolated and stuck in pre-9/11-- even Vietnam era-- thought McCain is. Today's NY Daily News reports another Obama political victory in Iraq. Despite massive pressure from the McBush Regime, the Iraqi leadership finally seems to have found something to unite around: Obama's plan to end the occupation of their country.

After meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, the Iraqis declared they like Obama's plan to pull U.S. forces from the country by 2010.

"We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told reporters after the meeting in the heavily fortified Green Zone.

The announcement, aligning Iraqi leaders with his 16-month withdrawal plan, is a political coup for Obama, who went overseas after being mocked relentlessly by the GOP for never visiting Afghanistan and last going to Iraq more than 900 days ago.

Obama acknowledged U.S. military leaders have "deep concerns" about a timetable that doesn't account for changing conditions. But he reserved some wiggle room for himself.

"I retain the flexibility of anyone who, in the job of commander in chief, is constantly reassessing facts, risks and so forth," Obama told ABC News.

President Bush shifted a bit toward Obama's position last week, embracing a "general time horizon" to pull out.

But Republican nominee John McCain has not moved that far.

Yes, and he is pretty much all alone... well, all alone with the crazed extremists, the lobbyists, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman (who reports today show is less popular among American Jews than... the same Barack Obama he has been traveling to Jewish communities around the country to slam and malign. As the confused and gaffe-prone McCain stumbles from one inconsistency after another and from one complete misstatement of reality after another, it is becoming clearer and clearer that virtually no one not on the Double Talk Express thinks McCain's Iraq strategy of escalation is the way to end the war. And it isn't just the vast majority of Europeans, Chris Matthews, the Iraqi leadership, American musicians, and American Jews who like Obama. State Department employees and military personnel mobbed him in Baghdad as though he were their savior. Watch the ABC-TV report on Obama at the American Embassy:

Stop the presses! It's official: Young Johnny McCranky has his head wedged so far up his butt, we can barely see his lying lips flapping

A friend reports that Young Johnny, speaking live on MSNBC, just said, "The oil executives say that we could see the benefit of offshore drilling in just a couple years."

The friend asks: "Are those his environmental experts???"

Well, probably. But of course the Crankyman's probably still got it wrong.

It's unlikely that even the most cynical or corrupt oil executive would dare say such absolute, unmitigated nonsense, even if he/she isn't under oath. Yet this pile of puke McCranky continues to spew this beyond-cretinous lying bullshit, and somehow he isn't laughed off the set -- and doesn't seem to be laughed at, booed, or hissed whenever and wherever he opens his putrid piehole.

Before our eyes McCranky has turned into perhaps the most grotesquely incompetent, buffoonish figure to be nominated as a major-party candidate for president of the U.S. And as long as there are lies left to be told (and retold and retold), smears to be Rove-ulated, and money to do it all with, it's utterly conceivable that he could be elected -- with the whole of the Village Press Corps smiling on.

You could laugh or you could cry, or both.


UPDATE: COULD McCRANKY'S FRIENDLY OIL EXECUTIVES
BE TELLING THE TRUTH AFTER ALL?

Another friend points out:

Now wait. In fairness, when the oil executives said "we could see the benefit of offshore drilling in just a couple years," they were telling the truth. It was just the "we" wasn't the American people -- it was the oil executives.


AND HOWIE ADDS --

. . . and the politicians they pay off so handsomely.

#

Young People Fleeing The Republican Party In Droves

Dawn Gibbons hosts a fashion show for Nevada Young Republicans

Yesterday we ran a post about how quite a few males over 50 who still like the same songs they were listening to 30 or more years ago would vote for McCain. Of course the ones who die between now and November won't be voting for McCain. And I bet a lot of the Bill O'Reilly Depends crowd will go vote for McCain too... if they remember. Today's Washington Post, on the other hand, has a story on the woes of Republicans in their 20s. They are the "few and the frustrated."

All the Reagan-worship goes over their head and makes them think their candidates are out-of-it "old fogies." The president of the Young Republicans moaned to the Post that "The Republicans are sort of talking down to Gen-Nexters, not bringing them in... You don't hear Barack Obama going around saying, 'I'm John F. Kennedy.' He's saying, 'I'm Barack Obama.' There's a reason for that. He's inspiring an entire generation, and it's a generation that's trying to change the world in 160 characters or less through text messages."

My friend's aunt is in her 90s and lives in a retirement hope. Like plenty of senior citizens, she's an Internet whiz. She's also an iTunes fanatic and gets great pleasure in turning the other residents on to new music and leading discussion groups. She literally goes on line to find good deals on walkers for her friends. John McCain, on the other hand, seems to think that a computer is some kind of new fangled typewriter he plans to learn sometime after he learns economics. His Internet policies simply don't exist. It's not part of his life, although he's heard about it. He also heard that people are paying a lot for gas nowadays.

The Republican brand, as Rep. Tom