MONEY WOES FOR THE GOP-- AND THE POLLS PREDICT A WIPEOUT

The same people who brought us the greatest heist in the history of America-- at least $23 billion missing and unaccounted for in Iraq-- have also been stealing from each other. Yes, the Republican Party. Sure, the GOP deserves to be robbed by one of their own golden boys (Christopher Ward) but it barely makes a dent in the deficit their congressional re-election efforts are running up. They're at least $30 million dollars behind their own goal ($58 million). Panic-stricken by the unexpected losses in three solidly Republican districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi-- as well as by local legislative races in districts all over the country including a New York state senate seat that has been in GOP hands since Abraham Lincoln's days and a Florida house seat that was designed specifically to elect Republicans-- the Republican leadership has been berating caucus members about raising money. But with the GOP having given up trying to win back the majority and just playing a defensive game of trying to hold losses below two dozen, few members are doing anything but looking out for their own races. Even potential donors sympathetic to their corporatist ideas, see them as losers and don't want to give them any money.

The only Repugs who have ponied up big bucks are NRCC chairman Tom Cole, Minority Leader John Boehner, and GOP closet queen David Dreier of California. Each member of the caucus was given a goal. How have they been doing? Well, Michigan wingnut Thaddeus McCotter was assessed $950,000 and donated only $8,500 while Tom Davis of Virginia was supposed to contribute $605,000 and handed over $50,000. Currently the DCCC is holding over $45 million, while the GOP counterpart has a debt of $10 million.

Several opinion polls make the picture even gloomier... if you're a right winger. CNN reported today that "63% of Democrats questioned say they are either extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this year. Only 37% of Republicans feel the same way, and 36% of Republicans say they are not enthusiastic about voting." Only part of this can be blamed on the worst Republican presidential nominee since in our lifetimes and on the demoralization Republicans feel after assessing 2 George Bush terms that have left the country less secure both domestically and internationally, largely due to his inability to cope with any serious problems effectively. This is compounded by the widespread perception that congressional Republicans have abdicated all responsibility for governing and have been mere rubber stamps for the catastrophic Bush agenda.

"Republicans are far less enthusiastic about voting than Democrats are, and enthusiasm has plummeted among GOPers since the start of the year," said Keating Holland, CNN polling director. "There was already an 'enthusiasm gap' in January, when Democrats were 11 points higher than GOPers on this measure. Now, that gap has grown to 26 points."

...Fifty-three percent of registered voters questioned in the poll say they think that Obama, D-Illinois, will win the election, with 43 percent saying that McCain, R-Arizona, will win.

"In recent elections, the public has a good track record at predicting the outcome of presidential elections. Most polls which asked this same question in 2000 and 2004 showed more Americans predicting a victory by George W. Bush over John Kerry or Al Gore. The public also correctly forecast that Bill Clinton would beat Bob Dole in 1996," Holland said.

In the battle for Congress, 54 percent of those questioned say they would vote for the Democrat in their congressional district, with 44 percent saying they'd vote for the Republican candidate.

"Democrats lead Republicans by 10 points in the congressional vote. At this point in 2006, the Democratic lead was seven points. Democrats went on to win a landslide in 2006," [Bill] Schneider said.

Don't click if you're a wingnut

At the same time, Diageo's first June poll shows that 76% of respondents feel that the country is on the wrong track (including most Republicans!) The same survey shows that Americans are most concerned about issues where Democrats have an advantage (the economy, high energy prices, and opposition to the war in Iraq) while issues seen as advantageous to the right are way down the list in people's priorities (moral values, support for the Iraq war, terrorism, immigration, taxes, gay marriage, fear, crime, bestiality, frivolous lawsuits, gun control, avian flu and the rest of the panoply of Republicans use to seduce voters).

Diageo also reported favorability ratings for prominent politicians:

Bush- 31% favorable/66% unfavorable
Hillary Clinton- 48% favorable/48% unfavorable
McCain- 52% favorable/37% unfavorable (52% of Republican voters are satisfied with McCain as their nominee and 45% prefer someone else)
Barack Obama- 57% favorable/33% unfavorable (68% of Democratic voters are satisfied with Obama as their nominee and 30% prefer someone else)
Bill Cinton - 46% favorable/50% unfavorable

The poll also showed that most people, regardless of party, feel that Democrats would do a better job handling health care (54-24%), the economy (54-28%), and the war in Iraq (46-34%). Republicans coule lose 10 Senate seats and 40 House seats, the second of the 3 steps to bring us to a productive 1936 Congress which only had 16 GOP senators and 88 GOP House members.

REPUBLICANS DON'T JUST STEAL FROM US-- THEY STEAL FROM EACH OTHER TOO; IT'S IN THEIR POLITICAL DNA

GOP learns greed not so great as once thought

What most Republican politicians have in common is a sense of entitlement mixed with a sense of righteousness that is overlain with an ideology that extols unlimited, unregulated greed and selfishness. For Republicans it was a moment on the road to Damascus when Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas' Oscar winning character in the 1987 movie Wall Street) intoned his famous lines: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind."

Tomorrow's Washington Post reports on the ongoing investigation into massive fraud inside the Republican Party. Earlier today I read about how Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who John McBush plans to make Secretary of Defense, was systematically robbed by one of his assistants over a 5 year period. She got away with over $200,000 from Graham, who made national headlines when he boasted about finding $5 bargains while shopping for carpets in war-torn Baghdad.

But that's small potatoes compared to what Christopher J. Ward, the "gold standard" among GOP accountants has been up to in the same time period. He was the treasurer for 83 Republican fundraising committees over the last 8 years. "In the past five years alone, he oversaw the accounting for committees that raised more than $400 million, $368 million of it at the National Republican Congressional Committee." About a month ago he was fired and the NRCC called in the FBI who say it appears that "a significant amount of money" is missing. Money also appears to be missing from the accounts of dozens of GOP lawmakers. You wonder why these clowns have "lost" untold billions to greedy Republican contractors in Iraq?

In an election year that holds dismal prospects for congressional Republicans, possible financial problems at the cash-strapped NRCC are the last thing the GOP needs.

"The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they'd take it off the shelf," said retiring Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who chaired the NRCC for four years earlier this decade.

The recently indicted Rep. Rick Renzi (Ariz.) and now imprisoned former congressman Robert W. Ney (Ohio), as well as less controversial lawmakers with minor accounting problems, are among the many members of the GOP delegation who turned to Ward to keep them out of trouble with FEC regulators.

Yeah, greed is good... real good.


UPDATE: AND THE GOP HEDGE FUND IS COLLAPSING TO BOOT-- ASSETS SEIZED

The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity investment firm managing with between $70 and 80 billion dollars. Many believe it to be a slush fund and safe house for Establishment Republicans and their allies and deals primarily in the defense and aerospace industry, energy and power, health care, real estate, telecommunications, media and other areas where the obvious conflicts of interest can be put to the best use. The first Bush and his Secretary of State, James Baker (the one who, more than any other individual gamed the 2000 election that stuck us with the second Bush) are only two of the many crooked politicians who run the firm. Even Bush's mildly retarded son was given a sinecure there (CaterAir)-- before they made him President of the U.S.-- which he managed to turn into a financial disaster, like every single other thing he has ever touched. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair allegedly was bribed by the Carlyle Group to make sure the sale of a chuck of the British Defense Research Industry was sold to Carlyle. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's brother Oliver helps run the show, as do right-wing former British Prime Minister John Majors, Richard Darman, ex-FCC Chairman William Kennard and Insider crooks and manipulators from all over the globe.

Today it was widely reported that one of their primary divisions, the Carlyle Capital Corporation, a dubious offshore entity designed with malevolence and fraud in mind, went belly-up.

The high-profile downfall, part of the broad turmoil in credit markets worldwide, followed a week of frantic negotiations between the Carlyle Group and a number of lenders. Carlyle Group's three founders as recently as Monday were considering injecting cash into the fund as a way to usher it through the credit crisis.

By yesterday the fund had defaulted on $16.6 billion of debt and said it expected to default soon on its remaining debt. The fund's $21.7 billion in assets were exclusively in AAA mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, traditionally considered secure and conservative investments, which it was using as collateral against its loans.

In a statement, Carlyle Capital said that it had been unable to meet margin calls in excess of $400 million over the past week and that it expected its lenders to take control of its remaining assets. The lenders, headed by Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase, began selling the securities last night, according to a report on the Wall Street Journal's Web site.

Short version: a bunch of corrupt Republicans borrowed over $16 billion from the biggest banks in the world and just defaulted on the loans, but because of legalistic manipulations that defy logic (or fairness), not a single one of them will ever be held responsible in any way. Guess who pays for their incompetence and larceny? Yes, we do.


UPDATE: WOW, THEY STOLE A LOT MORE THAN WAS FIRST THOUGHT

I have no doubt it will get worse as the investigation proceeds but the Post now reprts that the latest celebrity Republicrook transferred as much as a million dollars into his personal account from the NRCC. Can these people be trusted with our money?