30 November 2006

At Rockpalast

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Reportedly says we need to tell Maliki to get his act together, and calls for a steady withdrawal of 15 brigades (roughly half the current force)...

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Bush says Maliki is the "right guy for Iraq".. and that we'll stay as long as it takes to complete the mission (whatever that is), which I assume will be just over 4 more Friedman Units until the next President takes office...

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The latest assault includes a comparison to Nazis and warns of the undermining of American civilization. Oh yeah, it's also based on a lie... imagine that...

Think Progress brings the goods...

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Will this fiasco trigger massive changes before the '08 election?

A Sentinel review of undervotes last week found that the group of voters who registered no choice in the congressional election overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates in the five statewide races.

And Tuesday, Stanford University professor David Dill said his examination of ballot data supported that conclusion.

Dill, an electronic-voting expert, found that 5,304 people whose ballots showed no selection in the congressional race voted a straight Democratic ticket on the five statewide races. He found that 3,290 voted straight Republican.

"Something's going on there," Dill said. "But I'm not sure what yet."

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Overflowing morgues, bullet-riddled bodies, etc...

Baghdad's overflowing morgues have welcomed another grim daily harvest of bullet-riddled corpses as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met US President George W. Bush and vowed to halt the violence.

Iraqi security officials said they had recovered the bodies of 58 murder victims in Baghdad over the previous 24 hours -- a US spokeswoman confirmed 49 -- and that a mass grave holding 28 corpses was found north of the city.

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Shorter version -- Pelosi's vineyard doesn't employ union workers (only 4 of 300 vineyards are unionized, she pays $1.45 per hour more than union wages, and it's against the law for her to unionize her own workers)

Think Progress has the video and transcript..

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The deep thinkers at Faux News are at it again...

FOX: Sometimes you have to feel like when you're in Jordan—that it's kinda like living in Connecticut—where there's a war going on in NY and in Massachusetts and in Rhode Island and you're kinda in the middle of all this fighting….What's it like to leave in the Middle East in that area?

Crooks and Liars has the video and transcript...

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What better way to play to the Republican base than by hiring the former spokeperson for a crook, an incompetent, a liar, and a wife-beater?

Kevin Madden, a New York state native who most recently served as press secretary for House Majority Leader John Boehner, will serve as primary spokesman for the presidential committee that Romney is expected to create within the next three weeks, the adviser said.
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Madden was chief spokesman for DeLay before the Texas congressman resigned last year after being indicted on charges of conspiracy in fundraising. He then shifted over to Boehner's office in February.
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Madden served as a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney 04 campaign from September 2003 to November 2004. From 2001 to 2003, he served as communications director and a senior adviser to Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y.

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The Bush administration's idea of pressuring Kim Jong Il -- starve him of Ipods, plasma TVs, and Segways...

The Bush administration wants North Korea's attention, so like a scolding parent, it's trying to make it tougher for that country's eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters. The U.S. government's first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.

Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons program, has other options for obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants.

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29 November 2006

Vintage Trower.. black and white footage of Bill Graham Presents

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Priceless...

Could it be because of the withdrawal from government of 35 al Sadr loyalists in protest over the meeting?

Or maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with this memo, which shows the Bush administration expressing doubts as to Maliki's competency...

Update: Think Progress has the transcript of Bush mouthpiece Dan Bartlett claiming ‘It Was Going To Be More Of A Social Meeting Anyway’...

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Looks like the Marines have concluded Anbar Province has been lost...

The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province.

The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that stood by its conclusions and stated that as of mid-November, the problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. "The fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" remain the same, the official said.

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What is it with Republicans and their continued assaults on our freedoms?

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: My view is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that we use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us, to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: If you’re going to destroy freedom of speech, bub, you’ve already lost all the cities.

To paraphrase Pastor Martin Noemuller’s poem about Germany in the ‘30s and ‘40s: First they came for the Fourth Amendment, then they came for habeas corpus, then came for free speech, and there was no one allowed to speak up.

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Will concentrate on remote diagnosis of non-responsive patients..

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Gonna be an interesting two years...

At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia's newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn't long before Bush found him.

"How's your boy?" Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

"That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

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Urges Bush to accept reality that Iraq is in a civil war...

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It's true...

In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning

By BEN STEIN
Published: November 26, 2006

NOT long ago, I had the pleasure of a lengthy meeting with one of the smartest men on the planet, Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, in his unpretentious offices in Omaha. We talked of many things that, I hope, will inspire me for years to come. But one of the main subjects was taxes. Mr. Buffett, who probably does not feel sick when he sees his MasterCard bill in his mailbox the way I do, is at least as exercised about the tax system as I am.

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

Read more! »

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Liberty's on the march...

Senior Pakistani officials are urging Nato countries to accept the Taliban and work towards a new coalition government in Kabul that might exclude the Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan's foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, has said in private briefings to foreign ministers of some Nato member states that the Taliban are winning the war in Afghanistan and Nato is bound to fail. He has advised against sending more troops.

Western ministers have been stunned. "Kasuri is basically asking Nato to surrender and to negotiate with the Taliban," said one Western official who met the minister recently.

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After making a fool of himself by describing Miami as a "Third World Country, the spokesperson for radical righty Tom Tancredo, Carlos Espinosa, ratcheted-up the rhetoric...

Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinosa said the congressman stood behind his comments, saying they echoed what he has said for years about isolated immigrant communities that resist assimilation and cling to their native languages and customs.

Espinosa said that contributes to poverty and crime, and he cited a recent documentary that claimed Miami was more dangerous than Baghdad, Iraq.

"It's as bad as any ghetto in any Third World country," Espinosa said.

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28 November 2006

Flashback to '94

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Melanie Sloan and CREW are on the trail of Denny, who bought basically unwanted land (not accessible to roads) for $5200 per acre, merged it with more valuable land owned by his partners ($15000 per acre), inserted an earmark of $207 million for highway access near the land, and then split the multi-million profit equally with his partners. His spokesperson described it as a well-timed investment (500% return, compared to 144% for his partners)...

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Hilarious...

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Iraqn, Here We Come...

Anonymous intel source claims Iran-backed Hezbollah are training Sadr's Mahdi Army...

A senior American intelligence official said Monday that the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr.
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Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq, the official said.

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Outgoing majority Republicans would just as soon "let the Democrats struggle here next year" with overdue appropriations bills..

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Ethics, Stem Cell Research and Minimum Wage are first to be dealt with after cleaning up the unaddressed '07 budget bills the current GOP Congress is leaving behind...

Ethics reform, a higher minimum wage and more money for stem cell research are the top items on the Senate agenda next year, incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Reid said he will tackle those priorities after cleaning up the "financial mess" that the outgoing Republican leadership has left. He was referring to nine long overdue appropriations bills covering 13 Cabinet departments for the budget year that began Oct. 1.
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We're going to put in some hours here that haven't been put in in a long time," Reid said. That means "being here more days in the week and we start off this year with seven weeks without a break. That hasn't been done in many, many years here."

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Roll Call reports Alcee Hastings will remove himself for consideration for the lead position of the House Intel Committee...

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Amazing...

A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as "currency," without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday.

The 5-3 decision outraged watchdog groups and some officials who unabashedly accused the commission of failing to enforce state campaign finance laws.

"What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas. We call on the commission to resign en masse," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, who heads Texas Citizen, an Austin-based group that advocates for campaign finance reform.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said the "currency" interpretation would render it "perfectly legal to report the gift of 'a wheelbarrow' without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash."

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The man's on fire...

"Countdown's" audience has grown by 21% this year compared with the same point last year, while its cable news competitors have lost viewers at that hour, according to Nielsen Media Research.
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Olbermann is negotiating a new contract with MSNBC; his current one expires in March.

"It is, to some degree, a perfect setup," he said of his relationship with the network. "They leave me alone, I leave them alone, and I deliver what they need, both in terms of journalism and the money end of it, the ratings."

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The Washington Post refuses to call it a Civil War until the White House does -- but also acknowledges the White House is reluctant to ever call it a Civil War, since it would make their policy appear as a failure..

Crooks and Liars has the video..

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Not enough troops to keep things relatively peaceful -- sound familiar?

Tony Blair and other Nato leaders gathering in the Latvian capital, Riga, this week will almost certainly fail to secure the additional troops being sought to keep the Taliban at bay in Afghanistan, according to sources here.

Although it took over responsibility for the whole country just a few weeks ago, Nato's mission remains at least 15 per cent undermanned, with a significant shortage of combat troops and a desperate lack of helicopters.
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Commanders have repeatedly sought at least 1,000 fighting troops to form a quick reaction force which could deal with upsurges of violence, but many in the 37-nation mission have insisted on constraints which effectively keep them away from the front line

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Think Progress has info on the latest bit of contradictory spin coming from the Bush administration -- this time Bush's claim that this "phase" of Iraqi violence has been around for a while, even though the White House acknowleded Iraqi violence has entered a "new phase"...

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27 November 2006

Flashback to '93...

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As mentioned earlier, the DOJ killed a DOJ investigation into the DOJ's Illegal Domestic Wiretapping program after refusing to grant the appropriate security clearance to the investigators. Apparently, the White House has now deemed them worthy of the required clearance..

The White House agreed to give investigators special clearances to probe the program, Fine noted in his letter to Conyers and the panel’s current chair, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. The request for clearances came Oct. 20, and was approved last week — following the Nov. 7 elections, which gave Democrats control of Congress.

Earlier this year, Fine’s office said it did not have jurisdiction to open an investigation into the legality of the administration’s domestic eavesdropping program. At the time, Fine’s office referred calls for an inquiry to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which reviews allegations of misconduct involving employees’ actions when providing legal advice.

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Duncan at Atrios does the heavy lifting...

At some point I started keeping track of various Friedmanesque predictions/deadlines. For those who wish to follow at home here's what we have coming ahead. The dates posted are the dates the predictions/deadlines are due.

11/30/06 Zalmay Khalilzad sez Maliki has a window of a couple of months.
11/18/06 Joe Klein says we should give Iraq "One last shot." Time ambiguous, so I gave him a Friedman.
11/19/06 Lee Hamilton says next 3 months are critical.
12/31/06 Joe Lieberman says significant troop withdrawals begin.
1/06/07 Senator Warner sez "In two or three months if this thing hasn’t come to fruition and this level of violence is not under control," Warner said, "I think it’s a responsibility of our government to determine: Is there a change of course we should take?"
03/05/07 General George Casey says "This is a decisive period for everyone and everyone knows it. The next six months will determine the future of Iraq>"
05/20/07 Obama says reduction should start in 4 to 6 months.
05/26/07 Cornyn says we need another 4 to 6 months to get this right.
05/26/07 McCaffrey says the next 4 to 6 months are crucial.
06/12/07 McCain sez we're going to win or lose this thing within the next several months.
12/31/07 Joe Lieberman says half the troops will likely be home, with full withdrawal possible.

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Spinning out of control...

Followers of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took over state-run television Saturday to denounce the Iraqi government, label Sunnis "terrorists" and issue what appeared to many viewers as a call to arms.
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Sectarian violence has spun so rapidly out of control since the Sadr City blasts, however, that it's not clear whether even al-Sadr has the authority - or the will - to stop the cycle of bloodshed.

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Deadeye Dick was right, a long, long time ago...

"I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq," Cheney said on "This Week with David Brinkley" on April 7, 1991. "I think it makes no sense at all." That's a nice "gotcha" moment for Alfonsi. But later in the show, the defense secretary added: "If you don't have a clear-cut military objective, if you're not prepared to use overwhelming force to achieve it, then we don't have any business committing U.S. military forces into that civil war."

The "free the oppressed Iraqi people" excuse the administration rolled out after no WMDs were found was never taken seriously. His second comment about using overwhelming force was also proven true, when the short window of opportunity for a smooth transition was slammed shut while our undermanned invasion force was not sufficient to stop the looting after the fall of Baghdad. Shoulda, woulda, coulda -- it's too late now...

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Giving $1.6 billion of our tax dollars to charities who are delinquent in paying their own taxes...

When the U.S. government's version of the United Way handed out hundreds of millions of dollars to charities last year, its largesse extended to more than 1,280 nonprofit organizations that collectively owe $36 million in taxes dating back as far as 1988.

At the same time, other federal agencies gave $1.6 billion in grants to at least 170 of the delinquent charities, which account for nearly 6 percent of the approximately 22,700 charities funded by the Combined Federal Campaign.
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Gregory Kutz, the GAO's Managing Director for Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, said that that the number of CFC-participating charities that are delinquent on their taxes is almost certainly higher than the 1,280 identified by his agency because it didn't count charities that underreport their income or fail to file returns.

A short-term solution to the problem would be to identify charities that have a history of tax delinquency or fraud. But OPM is prohibited from doing that. It cannot even check to see if charities that receive money from the federal employees’ fund have filed routine tax returns required of every tax-exempt organization.

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This has the makings of an "untidy" situation...

Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison's former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.
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Rumsfeld also authorized the army to break the Geneva Conventions by not registering all prisoners, Karpinski said, explaining how she raised the case of one unregistered inmate with an aide to former U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.

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Also, the sun rose again in the East...

Think Progress details the latest example of raging knee-jerkiness by the imbeciles at the Drudge Report...

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24 November 2006

RIP Shannon Hoon

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Things are going "remarkably well" in Baghdad, after several Sunnis are burned alive in revenge for the slaughter of 215 Shiites in Sadr City...

Militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by, and seven Sunni mosques came under attack as Shiites took revenge for the slaughter of at least 215 people in the Sadr City slum.
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The gunmen attacked the four mosques with rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and automatic rifles. Residents said the militiamen prevented them from entering the burned buildings to remove the dead, and they and Hussein said Shiite-dominated police and Iraqi military stood idly by.

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Senate finally passes a resolution honoring the late Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone...

While introducing the resolution on the Senate floor, Durbin recalled one particular moment that stood out in his mind that exemplified Wellstone’s vision and courage:

I can recall the last time I saw him. He was a few feet away from me here. It was the night we cast our vote on the Iraqi war. It was a vote that was a hard one. …

Twenty-three of us voted against the war that night. I was one, Paul Wellstone was another. It was even later than now that night, and I came to the well on the floor to say goodbye to Paul because we were both off for the reelection campaigns of 4 years ago. I came over to wish him well, and I said, “Paul, I hope that vote doesn’t cost you the election.” He said, “You know, it is OK if it does because that is what I believe and that is who I am. The people of Minnesota would expect nothing less from me.” It was the last time I ever saw him. He went home, and within 2 weeks he was killed in a plane crash with his wife and staff members.

nod Think Progress

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GlaxoSmithKline intermal memo shows fear of competition and price-bargaining...

A post-election e-mail to executives at the drug company GlaxoSmithKline details just how tough. “We now have fewer allies in the Senate,” says the internal memo, obtained by The Washington Post. “Thus, there is greater risk over the next two years that bad amendments will be offered to pending legislation.” The company’s primary concerns are bills that would allow more imported drugs and would force price competition for drugs bought under Medicare. The defeat of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) “creates a big hole we will need to fill,” the e-mail says. Sen.-elect Jon Tester (D-Mont.) “is expected to be a problem,” it says, and the elevation to the Senate of Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) “will strengthen his ability to challenge us.”

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Glenn Greenwald on the Bush administration's claims that increased sectarian violence was due to the "terrorists" desire to reverse Republican control of Congress...

Ponder how corrupt and misleading their coordinated pre-election claim was: All the increased violence in Iraq was just about the midterm election, not a sign of a spiraling civil war. It was just The Terrorists who hate Bush, because he is so tough with them, trying to help the Democrats. Nothing was really that bad in Iraq. Once the elections are over, it will all subside, because it's only about that.

The only thing worse than government leaders lying to their citizens so blatantly about a war is lying in order to benefit themselves politically for cheap electoral gain, so that's exactly what Bush officials and Bush followers do.

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What a concept -- getting your questions answered...

Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies.

“I expect real answers, or we’ll have testimony under oath until we get them,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who will head the committee beginning in January, said in an interview this week. “We’re entitled to know these answers, and in many instances we don’t get them because people are hiding their mistakes. And that’s no excuse.”

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Progressives rejoice!

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22 November 2006

Live on Austin City Limits -- vintage 1983

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Record number of Iraqis killed in October...

The United Nations said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

The violence has been a combination of bombings and shootings by Sunni insurgents, and slayings by Shiite and Sunni death squads.

U.N. officials blamed the increase on the growing influence of armed militias and rampant torture “despite the government’s commitment to address human rights abuses.”
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The U.N. said the report “paints a grim picture virtually across the board, from attacks on journalists, judges and lawyers and the worsening situation of women to displacement, violence against religious minorities and the targeting of schools.”

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As mentioned earlier, the seat vacated by Krazy Katherine Harris is still the subject of controversy...

The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows.

Among these voters, even the weakest Democrat -- agriculture-commissioner candidate Eric Copeland -- outpaced a much-better-known Republican incumbent by 551 votes....

Republican Vern Buchanan's 369-vote victory was certified by state officials Monday. His camp says that, although people may have skipped the race -- intentionally or not -- there is no evidence that votes went missing.
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The results showed that the undervoted ballots skewed Democratic in all of those races, even in the three races in which the county as a whole went Republican.

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The do-nothing GOP Congress bails... leaving a half trillion worth of spending bills hanging..

Republicans vacating the Capitol are dumping a big spring cleaning job on Democrats moving in. GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills,

There's also no guarantee that Republicans will pass a multibillion-dollar measure to prevent a cut in fees to doctors treating Medicare patients.

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The pot (Mitt Romney) calling the kettle (Saint McCain) black by accusing him of being disingenuous on conservative values...

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Kos runs down the results of the Democratic rout. An excerpt...

In Minnesota, Democrats walloped their hapless opponents. Dems picked up 18 seats in the state House, turning a one-seat GOP majority into a solid 85-49 Democratic-led chamber. In the state Senate, Democrats picked up six seats, turning a 38-29 lead to a 44-23 one. Having their wonderboy Mark Kennedy crushed in the U.S. Senate race, the only bright spot for the GOP was the razor thin victory of their governor Tim Pawlenty. Thus, the GOP will hold their nominating conference in 2008 in seriously hostile territory.

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With Democratic Reps gerrymandered out of office, Texas has no presence in House Leadership...

Not a single Lone Star lawmaker will hold a top-ranked job, a far cry from the days when Fort Worth's Jim Wright was speaker, or the more recent years when Republicans Dick Armey and Tom DeLay served back-to-back terms setting the agenda as majority leader.
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Without exception, Democrats blame the redistricting Mr. DeLay engineered. Three veterans who lost their seats would have chaired major committees in the Pelosi House...

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The Huffington Post chronicles a day in the life of the Bushes...

Bush Sr. Almost Breaks Down During Speech To Arab Audience: “This Son Is Not Going To Back Away”...Barbara Bush Robbed In Argentina…Secret Service Agent Badly Beaten During Separate Attempted Mugging…Bush’s Motorcade Crashes In Hawaii...Motorcycle Driver In Serious Condition...

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TPM Muckraker is all over the story, bringing us the revelation that FBI agents working the case were corrupt..

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The price you pay for the lack of planning...

The Iraqi officers interviewed by an Army team also had complaints; the top one was that they were being advised by officers far junior to them who had never seen combat.

Some of the American officers even faulted their own lack of understanding of the task. "If I had to do it again, I know I'd do it completely different," reported Maj. Mike Sullivan, who advised an Iraqi army battalion in 2004. "I went there with the wrong attitude and I thought I understood Iraq and the history because I had seen PowerPoint slides, but I really didn't."
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One of the most common complaints of the Army officers interviewed was that the military did a poor job of preparing them. "You're supposed to be able to shoot, move and communicate," said Lt. Col. Paul Ciesinski, who was an adviser in northern Iraq last year and this year. "Well, when we got to Iraq we could hardly shoot, we could hardly move and we could hardly communicate, because we hadn't been trained on how to do these things." The training was outdated and lackadaisical, he said, adding sarcastically: "They packed 30 days' training into 84 days."

Sullivan, who advised three infantry companies in the Iraqi army, called the U.S. Army's instruction for the mission "very disappointing."

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21 November 2006

Bill "That idiot is just an absolute idiot" Sali, recently named class president of incoming Republican congressional freshmen, proves that he is, indeed, an idiot...

Earlier that day, freshman Rep.-elect Bill Sali, R-Idaho, showed up a day early and in the wrong place -- the Democratic Caucus meeting. Sali, a goateed, conservative state legislator whose reputation for political combat preceded him to Washington, said he was following the schedule provided to him by the House Administration Committee, and so headed to room 345 in the Cannon House Office Building after attending a prayer breakfast. "They'd been very good until then," Sali said of the committee. The committee couldn't confirm the mix-up. A spokesman for the Democratic Caucus said Sali didn't gain access to the room but was treated cordially. "What's the word ... he was pleasantly redirected,"said a Caucus spokesperson. It must have been in a general direction. "I asked the Democrats where the Republicans were meeting, and they didn't know," Sali said.

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Hey.. if the headline is good enough to use on Democratic positions.. why not use it to describe the infighting between prominent Republicans?

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a prominent conservative member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said today on MSNBC that Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) plan to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq is “not realistic.”

“The time for more troops is past,” he said. “We don’t want to put more troops in now. Even if we had them, that’s the wrong approach.

Think Progress has the video and transcript...

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Robert Reich lets a little more air out of McCain's balloon...

I talked with John McCain Sunday morning in the green room just before “This Week.” I asked him why he continued to call for more troops for Iraq when he must know it's a political non-starter. He said he thought it important for the morale of the troops.
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In the end, McCain alone will be able to escape blame. At least, that’s what I think he’s thinking.

nod to Atrios

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Think Progress brings the goods from the latest poll of Iraqi's regarding our presence in their country...

“Seven out of ten Iraqis overall–including both the Shia majority (74%) and the Sunni minority (91%)–say they want the United States to leave within a year.” Note: less than 10% of Iraqis nationwide support a U.S. withdrawal only as “the security situation improves,” the current policy of the Bush administration.

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Goodbye Hair Metal, hello Grunge...

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Won't get fooled again...

The White House dismissed a classified CIA draft assessment that found no conclusive evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program, The New Yorker magazine reported.

The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said the CIA's analysis was based on technical intelligence collected by satellites and on other evidence like measurements of the radioactivity of water samples.

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," according to the article.

"A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the CIA analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it," it said.

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Those damn hippies!!

nod to Crooks and Liars...

Hippies still trying to ruin the country
By Jenean Mcbrearty
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST
America won't win another war until the 1960s flower children are pushing up petunias.

Radicalized, the flower children morphed into lefty loonies who now masquerade as social progressives. No matter what they rename themselves, however, their agenda hasn't changed.

They still want utopia, and it wouldn't be worth mentioning except that their naivetž has aged into a persistent denial of reality that may have devastating consequences.

For example, consider their continued belief that America's armed forces are neo-Nazi stormtroopers who delight in burning babies to further the aims of imperialistic corporations.

Read more! »

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Today's lesson -- What Bush Didn't Learn From Vietnam...

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Problem solved...

The federal government has decided to drop the word "hunger" from its vocabulary, according to a new report released by the USDA. The reason? USDA sociologist Mark Nord, the author of the report, claims that the term "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey. We don't have a measure of that condition."

The USDA will now use the term "very low food security" to describe people who used to be considered "food insecure with hunger." Statistically speaking, hunger will no longer exist in America.

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As mentioned earlier, Harman's aide, Larry Hanauer, has security clearance quietly reinstated...

TPM Muckraker has the story...

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As mentioned earlier, the Erlich/Steele campaigns' false fliers are just fine, according to the DOJ..

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Claims we can't win, but we must not quit...

“If you mean, by ‘military victory,’ an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don’t believe that is possible,” Mr. Kissinger told BBC News.
...
But Mr. Kissinger also said that a hasty withdrawal from Iraq would have “disastrous consequences,” leaving not only Iraq but neighboring countries with large Shiite populations destabilized for years.

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Couldn't happen to a more deserving neocon. An excerpt...

Adelman's hypocrisy is stunning. In 2002 it was he who famously predicted that American forces would enjoy “a cakewalk” in Iraq, and during the run-up to the invasion he derided war critics for their stupidity and naiveté. “There's always the chicken littles, running around and saying 'oh my God, it's terrible,'” he said on Hardball, six days before the war began, when asked about the possibility that things might not go as smoothly as he and his fellow-hawks had predicted.

The following month, he was gloating to the New York Times that his “cakewalk” prediction had been remarkably prescient. Adelman, according to the story, “scorned recent complaints by retired generals and military analysts that the Pentagon had deployed too few troops” to Iraq. “I always thought that was ridiculous,” Adelman told the newspaper. “It turned out they were factually wrong. I never understood what having three times as many troops would have done.”

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Sy Hirsch brings us the lesson not learned...

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As mentioned earlier, Republican fundraiser Tom Noe tacks on another 18 years for embezzlement..

A former GOP fundraiser at the center of a scandal-plagued state investment in rare coins that helped Democrats seize power in the midterm elections was sentenced Monday to 18 years in prison.

Tom Noe, a prominent coin dealer accused of taking at least $2 million, was convicted last week of theft, corrupt activity, money laundering, forgery and tampering with records.

Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Osowik, who described the crime as an “elaborate scheme of theft on a large scale,” also fined Noe $139,000.
...
Separately, Noe already has been sentenced to two years and three months in federal prison after pleading guilty earlier this year to funneling $45,000 to President Bush’s re-election campaign.

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20 November 2006

Dweezil Zappa, Steve Vai and Mike Keneally play one of Frank's best...

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Just like Manhattan...

• Gunmen seize deputy health minister from home Sunday evening
• Three car bombs at Baghdad bus station kill 10, wound 45
• Three arrested in attack on day laborers that killed 19, wounded 49

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Flip-flops on a woman's right to choose, and criticizes his own Iraq Strategy...

Think Progress has the video...

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Unleashes a profanity-filled tirade on a group of hecklers... uses the "n" word...

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The incoming Democratic majority begins working to shift the focus on issues important to the middle class...

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The "secret" Pentagon study comes up with 3 options, two of which have reportedly been rejected...

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17 November 2006

Vintage 1974

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- Faux's Token "Lefty", Mort Kondracke, labels Pelosi "The wicked witch of the west", based upon unrebutted reports...

- Rove on the way out? I doubt it, since the source claims Rove's resignation would serve as a signal of Dubya's intention to work with the Democratic majority...

- Leahy Quizzes Justice Dept over wingnut radio host Laura Ingraham's phone-jamming campaign on election day...

- Outgoing Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Environment, Republican James Inhofe, tells us not to worry about global warming, cuz "God's still up there"...

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...how arrogant Bush is. His choice (not requiring confirmation)to fill the position of chief of family-planning programs for the DHS believes contraception is "demeaning to women"...

The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women."
...
The appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation, was the latest provocative personnel move by the White House since Democrats won control of Congress in this month's midterm elections. President Bush last week pushed the Senate to confirm John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations and this week renominated six candidates for appellate court judgeships who have previously been blocked by lawmakers. Democrats said the moves belie Bush's post-election promises of bipartisanship.

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Today's persona -- Bush is violating the law...

"They're simply not complying with the law. It's incredible."

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) raised eyebrows yesterday with that comment regarding the Bush administration, made before a crowd of several hundred at a Washington, D.C. event.

At issue is a report on climate change that Congress requires every ten years. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is responsible for producing the document, last filed a report in 2000. A new report -- the first to be filed by the Bush administration -- was due in November 2004, but to date the agency has not done so.

TPM Muckraker has the story...

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An oldie (3/17/03), but a goodie...

nod Altercation

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Bye bye bipartisanship...

President Bush made nice with the Democrats for the television cameras after they won control of Congress, complete with pictures filled with handshakes, smiles and vows of working together.
...
But the agenda he has sent to Congress since then is full of Republican proposals that have no chance of winning bipartisan approval. More likely such items will enrage Democrats, rally his conservative base and appear to be intended to portray Democrats as obstructionist.

Bush has resubmitted several judicial nominations that had been blocked before the midterm elections. He has asked the Senate again to confirm John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. And he has urged approval of warrantless eavesdropping on suspected terrorists without any accommodation to Democrats' demands that a court sign off on the spying.
...
Bush's proposals could be simply his opening bid in what would be a tough round of negotiations with the Democrats. Or they could be a political gambit designed to frame the Democrats early on as obstructionists while rallying a conservative base dispirited by the election losses.

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After leading Congressional Republicans to widespread losses, House Republicans reward John Boehner by promoting him to Minority Leader, or as Faux News says, Minority Speaker...

Boehner was elevated despite the GOP's Election Day drubbing in the wake of the Mark Foley congressional page scandal. Boehner was among the few lawmakers to learn of inappropriate e-mails sent by Foley, R-Fla., to a former page from Louisiana.

Boehner testified last month before an ethics panel, telling investigators that he had apprised Hastert last spring of the Foley situation -- a conversation that the speaker says he does not recall

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It looks like mass kidnappings are the latest rage...

British ground forces and U.S. military helicopters fought with gunmen Friday in southern Iraq where four American security contractors and their Austrian co-worker were abducted in a convoy hijacking.

The Austrian was found dead and one of the Americans was found gravely wounded, an Iraqi police officer said. The three Americans who were among the five Crescent Security Group employees taken hostage remained missing in the largely Sunni area.

Nine employees from Asian countries such as India, Pakistan and the Philippines were released by the captors, the company said.

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16 November 2006

Vintage Beat-Club

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Think Progress does a Fact Check on how (un)successful the last "Last Big Push" was...

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Bush is geared up to take one final swing at winning in Iraq, and his "strategery" is to send in 20,000 more troops to help secure Baghdad and Anbar Province. McCain must be shitting his pants, since he has been tirelessly working to insulate himself from what is sure to be the catastrophic failure of the Iraq war. McCain's plan has been to propose a solution that, until now, was highly unlikely to happen -- increase the troop level by 20,000 troops. By forwarding that proposal, he put himself in a position to wash his hands of the failure, claiming that "if only we had sent in more troops" like he had suggested, peace could have been won. I'm not sure how McCain could spin his way out of another failed and unpopular position when it comes to the Iraq fiasco.

I see Atrios had the same reaction that I did...

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The gift that keeps on giving...

Bachmann said it was an amazing experience attending the White House reception Monday night.

"My husband and I felt like we were from 'Green Acres,' walking into the big city," Bachmann said.

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Minnesota's newest member of Congress, Keith Ellison, blew off a reception with Bush to attend a gathering of the AFL/CIO...

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Think Progress has the video of Faux News' Shephard Smith going off script and giving an honest opinion...

Reacting to the Pentagon announcement, Shephard Smith said “no one should be surprised by any of this” because it “was clear before the election that changes were essential.” But Smith pointed out, “They had to wait until after the election to make changes for political reasons, which I find disgusting.”

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Hoyer KO's Murtha, with a margin of over 60 votes...

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Colbert on Limbaugh's "liberation".. followed by Franken doing his "End Zone Dance"

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15 November 2006

Live on David Letterman

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The "liberal" media myth takes another hit when CNN's Glenn Beck asks the first Muslim elected to Congress (and Minnesota's own) Keith Ellison to prove that he's "not working with our enemies"...

Media Matters has the video..

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Racists rejoice!!

Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, ousted from the top Senate Republican leadership job four years ago because of remarks considered racially insensitive, won election to the No. 2 post Wednesday for the minority GOP in the next Congress.

Lott returned to the center of power by getting the position of vote-counting GOP whip, nosing out Sen. Lamar Alexander. Sen. Rick Santorum told reporters that Lott beat Alexander by a 25-24 vote.

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Begins his 70-month sentence...

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It was clearly obvious that unethical behavior and corruption were high on the list of issues voters concentrated on when they overwhelmingly ejected Republicans from office in last week's election. Not that it learned Bush...

President Bush on Tuesday renominated the chairman of the agency that directs U.S. overseas broadcasts even though the nomination has been stalled in the Senate amid allegations of misconduct.

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson was nominated again as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and for a term on the board expiring Aug. 13, 2007.
...
In September, a spokeswoman for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said senators did not plan to act on Bush's nomination of Tomlinson in January 2005 while a government investigation of his activities was under way. The law that created the board in 1994 allowed Tomlinson to remain as chairman until a successor was confirmed.

A report by the State Department's inspector general, released Aug. 29, said Tomlinson misused government funds for two years as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Tomlinson disputed the allegations in the report.

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The Huffington Post has a copy of an internal memo urging Faux newsies to keep an eye out for any terrorists cheering the Democrats' takeover of Congress..

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14 November 2006

[youtube]2AVlFszf8_I[/youtube]

A blast from the past..

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Gunmen kidnap 150 from the Higher Education Ministry...

Gunmen dressed as police commandos kidnapped up to 150 staff and visitors in a lightning raid on an education ministry office Tuesday, the largest mass abduction since the start of the U.S. occupation. Three of those taken were later released.

Iraq’s higher education minister immediately ordered all universities closed until security improvements are made, saying he was “not ready to see more professors get killed.

“I have only one choice which is to suspend classes at universities. We have no other choice,” Abed Theyab told parliament. Theyab said he had repeatedly petitioned for more university security from the ministries of Defense and Interior, who command the police, but had received none.

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He has as much of a chance to win the Republican nomination as Michael Moore has...

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With the election over, it's time to move on to the serious matters at hand...

Last night, Bill O’Reilly revived his baseless claim that Christmas is “under seige” in America from “secular progressives,” highlighting Wal-Mart’s recent announcement that it will use the phrase “Merry Christmas” in its promotional materials this year.

Think Progress has the video...

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Among the winners are Harry Reid as Majority Leader, Dick Durbin as Majority Whip, Chuck Schumer as campaign committee chairman, Patty Murray as conference secretary, and Debbie Stabenow will lead the party steering committee...

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As mentioned earlier, John Murtha is challenging Steny Hoyer for the position of House Majority Leader. TPM Muckraker points out Murtha's efforts to block reform...

And David Sirota points out Hoyer's marriage to special interests...

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I guess this is a blessing, considering her extremist record in the state legislature...

And Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann arrived early and got to do a little sightseeing, getting a glimpse of the Constitution on Sunday.
...
"My No. 1 goal is to not go to jail," Bachmann said, chuckling.

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Libby's NY Times stenographer Judy Miller finally realizes the Bush administration has made us less free, less safe...

Judith Miller, a former New York Times investigative reporter who went to jail to protect a confidential source, said the balance between national security and civil liberties has been tipped, allowing the Bush administration to become secretive about its decisions, intrusive into public lives and reluctant to share information the public has a right to know.

Miller said many Americans don't understand how their access to information and the freedom of the press have been affected in the past few years.

"We are less free and less safe," she said, explaining that there is a "growing secrecy in the name of national security."

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Think Progress has the video of Bush Sr acknowledging his use of "the email", and his admission that Dubya can't use it, because it could get subpoenaed and he would have to prove he was “telling the truth and all this stuff.”

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Out of the 56 countries that contribute at least 1% of the world's greenhouse gases, the U.S. ranks 53rd for most effective climate policies. At least we rank ahead of China, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia ...

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As mentioned earlier, Republican mover and shaker Tom Noe was convicted on campaign financing violations. Monday, he was convicted again on 29 felony counts..

Tom Noe, the once high-flying Republican financier who went from college dropout to millionaire coin dealer, was found guilty today of stealing money from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation and using the cash to erase debts and buy and furnish million-dollar homes.

Noe was found guilty of 29 of 40 charges, including theft, corrupt activity, money laundering, forging records and tampering with documents. He was convicted on the chief charge that he engaged in a pattern of corruption in his management of Ohio's $50 million rare-coin fund investment with the bureau.
...
The verdict marks the second time in less than two months that Noe was judged guilty.

U.S. District Judge David Katz sentenced Noe to 27 months in federal prison on Sept. 12 for violating federal campaign finance law. Noe illegally poured more than $45,000 into the re-election campaign of President Bush in 2003.

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I thought the naming of Elizabeth Dole as the head of the NRSC was a bad choice, but picking Mel "Let's Politicize Terri Schiavo" Martinez to succeed Ken Mehlman is a dream come true for Democrats...

Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, a prominent Hispanic who previously served in President Bush's Cabinet, will assume the high-profile post of Republican National Committee general chairman, GOP officials said Monday.

Martinez, 60, will remain in the Senate when he takes the reins of the RNC in January, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting a formal announcement. The first-term senator will be the face of the party, focusing on fundraising, outreach and travel to promote the GOP agenda
...
In a race marked by hard-hitting television ads and squabbling over Iraq, Martinez was elected with 49 percent of the vote — a slim margin that was credited to Bush's win in that state.

Early in his Senate tenure, Martinez faced a politically unflattering situation.

A Martinez aide wrote a one-page unsigned memo that laid out the political benefits of getting involved in the fate of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman whose end-of-life battle became a rallying cry for conservatives. Senate Republicans disavowed the memo. Its author resigned.

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This is stunning...

Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees.

In court documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the Justice Department said a new anti-terrorism law being used to hold detainees in Guantanamo Bay also applies to foreigners captured and held in the United States.
...
"It's pretty stunning that any alien living in the United States can be denied this right," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney for Al-Marri. "It means any non-citizen, and there are millions of them, can be whisked off at night and be put in detention."

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Looks like Joe Barton has made it a three-way race for the House Minority Leader position...

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13 November 2006

MSNBC descibes the jockeying for the majority leader position as "squabbling".. but fail to mention the competition for minority leader...

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A belated tribute to Vietnam Vets everywhere...

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Says his position is to either send in more troops and win, or withdraw immediately. He also says the war will be won or lost in the next several months (one Friedman Unit). Knowing full well we don't have the capacity to send a substantial number of troops in the next Friedman Unit, McCain is, in effect, endorsing immediate withdrawal...

MR. RUSSERT: Bottom line for John McCain is if there’s no consensus to send more troops to Iraq and, “win”...

SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: ...then, rather than delay withdrawal for a year and let others die, bring the troops home.

SEN. McCAIN: I, I think you—it’s—I can’t say that specifically, but I certainly wouldn’t support a proposal that leads to eventual defeat—that I am convinced that would lead to eventual defeat. And, look, if you talk to most military experts, we’re in a critical and crucial time. We’re either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months.
...
Americans are frustrated, we understand that. And again, I want to tell you, I’m not interested in telling some young person’s loved ones that we’re sending them over there in order to delay what may be an inevitable defeat.

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The latest USA Today poll shows Bush's approval dropped 5 points in a week..

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As mentioned earlier, Republican presidential hopeful Duncan Hunter snuck in a provision to abolish the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. Now... Dems are pushing legislation to restore the agency...

Congressional Democrats say they will press new legislation next week to restore the power of a federal agency in charge of ferreting out waste and corruption in Iraq and greatly increase its investigative reach.

The bills, the first of what are likely to be dozens of Democratic efforts to resurrect investigations of war profiteering and financial fraud in government contracting, could be introduced as early as Monday morning.

The move would nullify a Republican-backed provision, slipped into a huge military authorization bill, that set a termination date for the agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The agency’s findings have consistently undermined Bush administration claims of widespread success in the reconstruction of Iraq.

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Newsweek's Jonathan Alter on how the strategy of playing to the base has divided the party...

Pat Buchanan and I rarely agree, but he rightly points out that the election marked the exhaustion of the movement that Barry Goldwater launched with his 1964 campaign. The intellectual vitality and coherence that once characterized modern conservatism have been shattered. Karl Rove is still arguing that the hot issues of this election—Iraq, corruption, sexual hypocrisy—are only "transitory." He's ignoring deep fissures in his party. Neocons have been discredited and theocons dispirited. Libertarians feel betrayed by big spenders, incompetent interventionists and moralizing busybodies. In the Schiavo case, in which 70 percent of voters thought Washington should have butted out, Republicans drove a wedge through their own ranks. Same with immigration, which pits the free-trade business wing against nativist Lou Dobbsians. Most important, the stitching that was meant to hold the GOP's big tent together contained none of the hope and optimism essential to success in American politics. Fear failed.

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The official MSNBC transcript quotes Scarborough as saying "That's pretty awesome." Some creative editing by MSNBC.com...

CARLSON: ...Joining me now, a man who predicted the Republican rout in “The Hill” newspaper on Election Day and was praised afterward correctly as a man who saw the Democratic tsunami coming. A Washington insider if there ever was one, a folk hero, our friend MSNBC‘s own Joe Scarborough.

How is that for an intro, Joe?

JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST, “SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY”: Hey, Tucker. That‘s pretty awesome.

You tell me...

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More proof invading Iraq was a huge mistake...

Insurgent activity in Afghanistan has risen fourfold this year, and militants now launch more than 600 attacks a month, a rising wave of violence that has resulted in 3,700 deaths in 2006, a bleak new report released Sunday found.

In the volatile border area near Pakistan, more than 20 Taliban militants — and possibly as many as 60 — were killed during several days of clashes, officials said Sunday.

The new report said insurgents were launching more than 600 attacks a month as of the end of September, up from 300 a month at the end of March this year. The violence has killed more than 3,700 people this year, it said.

Afghanistan saw about 130 insurgent attacks a month last year, said the report by the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board, a body of Afghan and international officials charged with overseeing the implementation of the Afghanistan Compact, a five-year reconstruction and development blueprint signed in February.

The violence “threatens to reverse some of the gains made in the recent past, with development activities being especially hard hit in several areas, resulting in partial or total withdrawal of international agencies in a number of the worst-affected provinces.”

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I know I don't want Hoyer holding that much power.. just not sure if Murtha is the best alternative...

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The Washington Post on just how incomplete the reconstruction of Iraq is...

Yet those inside the reconstruction effort say security concerns were hardly the only problem. Poor planning and coordination by U.S. officials meant that even successful individual projects failed to do the job; for example, health-care centers were built at great cost but had no water and sewer service. Poor work-site management by contractors meant that some projects went awry. And now that the United States is handing over reconstruction efforts to Iraq, many involved with the process worry that the Iraqis don't have the training or the money to keep U.S.-built facilities running.
...
"What reconstruction?" Othman said in an interview last week. "Today we are drinking untreated water from a plant built decades ago that was never maintained. The electricity only visits us two hours a day. And now we are going backwards. We cook on the firewood we gather from the forests because of the gas shortage."
...
Millions of children have received vaccinations and thousands of health-care workers have been trained. But more than 100 health-care facilities that were scheduled to be finished by now instead are empty because the contractors assigned to build them did not get their jobs done.

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Raw Story has the details of how a suspected Free Republic regular mailed suspicious envelopes to anti-Iraq war politicians, celebrities and journalists...

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The tinfoil hatters who warned of the suspension of elections don't sound so goofy anymore...

One freedom that defines our way of life is the freedom to choose our leaders at the ballot box. We saw that freedom earlier this week, when millions of Americans went to the polls to cast their votes for a new Congress. Whatever your opinion of the outcome, all Americans can take pride in the example our democracy sets for the world by holding elections even in a time of war.

-- Bush's Radio Address

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11 November 2006

Bad news for Bush -- mixed messages for Dems...

Bush approval -- 31%
Cheney approval -- 31%
Dems fielded better candidates -- 27%
Negotiate drug prices a top priority -- 75%
Increase minimum wage a top priority -- 68%
Investigate Iraq contracts a top priority -- 60%
Who should be the next president -- 48% Democrat, 28% Republican

Who would you vote for (good chance)...

Hillary Clinton -- 33%
Condoleeza Rice -- 24%
Rudy Giuliani -- 24%
John McCain -- 21%
Barack Obama -- 20%

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Another positive outcome from the election...

Voters in a Colorado university town nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains have passed the country’s first municipal carbon tax to fight global warming.

Boulder, Colo., will charge residents and businesses the carbon tax based on how much electricity they use. Most electricity in Boulder is generated at plants that use coal, which produces more of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, than natural gas or oil.

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10 November 2006

King's X -- dUg Pinnick, Ty Tabor and Jerry Gaskill

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[youtube]l6ES4P2QgkQ[/youtube]

First, he had an on-air blowup with Chris Matthews on election night, and now he drops the f-bomb on Tucker...

MPEG -- Real Video

Carlson: How's that for an intro, Joe?

Scarborough: That's pretty fuckin' awesome.

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-- Chafee will possibly leave GOP

-- Bolton nomination chances are zero

-- Mehlman to end reign as RNC Chairman in January

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Glenn Greenwald discovers how the WaPo turned what initially was an accurate story about how Bush lied about Rummy's removal into an inaccurate one...

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09 November 2006

Neil Young w/ Pearl Jam

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The future is looking bright...

The 2006 Senate map was terrible for us. It's a testament to how bad things have gotten for the GOP that we were able to squeeze out six seats. We had open seats in MN and MD to defend, as well as the NJ seat with a recently appointed incumbent. We had 18 Democratic seats to defend, including in red and purple places like Florida, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Nebraska, North Dakota, and West Virginia. Republicans had only 15 seats to defend, and were only defending Blue states in Rhode Island, Maine, and Pennsylvania.
...
Bottom Line:

Top Democratic Pickup Opportunities: Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Potential Democratic pickup opportunities: Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma.

Top GOP Pickup Opportunities: Louisiana, New Jersey, South Dakota

Potential GOP pickup opportunities: West Virginia

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Media Matters has the video and transcript of Tweety expressing his sorrow over the "cool" George "Macaca" Allen, and the "innocent" Lincoln Chafee and Anne Northrup, among others..

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Republicans have begun licking their wounds and trying to reassemble their shattered party...

"We misread the election of 2004 as a conservative mandate when 45 percent of the American people describe themselves as moderates," Snowe said. "If we move even further towards hard-core ideology, we'll be in the minority for a long time."

The only problem for Snowe and the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership is that nearly half of its members were defeated on Tuesday.

"Oh, my God, it was a bloodbath for us," Chamberlain said. "We paid the price for the president's agenda."

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Looks like the race to fill the seat vacated by Katherine Harris has been stolen...

A review of Sarasota County voting results shows that in almost every precinct a high percentage of voters didn't cast ballots in the hotly contested 13th Congressional District, a trend that likely affected the outcome of the race.

Democrat Christine Jennings lost to Republican Vern Buchanan by 368 votes, making it the second closest congressional race in the country.

More than 18,000 voters who showed up at the polls voted in other races but not the Buchanan-Jennings race.

That means nearly 13 percent of voters did not vote for either candidate -- a massive undercount compared with other counties, including Manatee, which reported a 2 percent undervote.

If the missing votes had broken for Jennings by the same percentage as the counted votes in Sarasota County, the Democrat would have won the race by about 600 votes instead of losing by 368, according to a Herald-Tribune review. Even if the undervote had been 8 percent -- more than three times what it was in Manatee -- Jennings would have won by one vote.
...
In addition, absentee voters, who didn't have to use the voting machines, had only an estimated 1.8 percent undervote.

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Crooks and Liars has the hysterical video of "The Word" the day after the election...

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The sad story of one of the over 3,000 dead soldiers since 9/11...

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A fairly accurate look by the traditional media at the damage inflicted on the GOP by the Abramoff scandal...

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Media Matters have the story of Limbaugh and how he greeted Democrats as liberators...

"But the way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I'm just going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried."

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Winner of 4 Peabodys, 19 Emmys, and the freedom of an innocent man...

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Acting as obstructionists would be a mistake, especially with Bush holding the veto pen...

Some Republicans cautioned against an obstructionist approach.

"If we do that, shame on us," said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio. "If the Democrats do what I would do if I were them and reach out with a list of things to do, and if we're depicted as standing on the outside trying to prevent that from happening, it would be terrible for the country. And it's stupid politics."

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AP says Conran Burns conceded to Tester, and NBC says George Allen is planning to concede this afternoon...

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Think Progress has the screen capture showing Faux News' report that Hastert will not run for a position that doesn't exist...

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08 November 2006

NBC calls Virginia for Webb

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The list of losers is a long one...

The "character-challenged" includes Don Sherwood, John Sweeney, Richard Pombo, Jim Ryun and Charles Taylor. The "crazies" were well-represented by Krazy Katherine Harris and Crazy Curt Weldon. The mean and spiteful are lead admirably by Rick "man-on-dog" Santorum, with his wingman being the bully J.D. Hayworth. And the clueless contingent is headed up by Conrad Burns and his able understudy Chris Chocola.

However, the biggest loser, no doubt, is the "architect" of this debacle...

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In the House...

Democrats who have defeated incumbent Republicans:

Arizona’s 5th: Harry Mitchell (D) 51 percent, J.D. Hayworth (R) 46 percent

GOP open seats lost:

Arizona’s 8th: Gabrielle Giffords (D) 54 percent, Randy Graf (R) 42 percent

Key races still not called (incumbents are marked with *):

Connecticut’s 2nd: Joe Courtney (D) 117,434, Rob Simmons (R)* 117,211; 97 percent reporting

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"Is there a pony anywhere in this manure pile for the GOP?" -- Chris "Tweety" Matthews

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Despite the morning-after spin by Republican mouthpieces, Bush and the GOP got their asses handed to them. Of the last two-term presidents, Eisenhower lost 48 in '58, Reagan lost 5 in '86, while Clinton gained 5 in '98.

Update: AP and NBC just called Montana for Tester

Update 2: Rummy to resign!!!

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Looks like a Category 4 -- McCaskill has won, Tester's lead is increasing, with a call said to be just around the corner, and Webb's lead has grown to 12k+, with almost 100% reporting. The House races look like gains of 30+, with some big GOP names getting knocked off. And Dems have so far picked up 6 governorships, with 2 still up in the air (although incumbent Republicans lead in both).

Locally, Minnesota has shifted from purple to blue, with 5 of 8 congressional seats won by Dems, the lone Senate seat was a massacre for Amy Klobuchar, and both chambers of the state legislature is overwhelmingly Democratic. The only race still unresolved is the race for governor, which is raging. It appears to be tight enough to earn a recount. If Pawlenty does manage to squeak out a victory, that will make the second time he's won the governorship with far less than a majority of the vote. We really need a run-off ballot initiative in '08.

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The sweet -- J.D. Hayworth takes it on the chin, Delay's seat goes to Lampson
The sour -- Looney Michelle Bachman wins the MN 06, NBC has called Tennessee for Corker

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07 November 2006

- Crazy Curt Weldon goes down in flames...

- Sounds like the Allen/Webb race is close enough to trigger an automatic recount

- Foley's seat turns blue

- Delay's seat is all but blue

- Don "Mistress Beater" Sherwood gets pounded

Update: John "Frat Boy" Sweeney takes a fall, while AZs Jon Kyle (my darkhorse race) hangs on, the South Dakota abortion ban has failed..

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- Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar knocks out the former GOP golden boy Mark Kennedy

- Spitzer wins in NY, Granholm wins in Michigan

- NBC called Connecticut for Sleepy Joe

- NBC just called Cardin

Update: Chafee loses, Erlich loses

Looks like a rout!!

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That didn't take long...

- Nelson with an early KO of Krazy Kathy

- Strickland overwhelms Blackwell

- Hostettler goes down early

- NBC called the Santorum defeat with 0% of the vote in, and a Menendez win with 1% of the vote in

Update: DeWine is the second Republican Senate incumbent casualty...

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They're crooks... plain and simple...

- Apparently forgetting that a well-connected Republican just got out of prison for the same thing.. conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham loves phone jamming...

Think Progress has the audio...

- Virgina voter intimidation investigation escalates.. the FBI is now collecting affadavits..

- Maryland Governor Robert Erlich recruits a busload of men from a homeless shelter in Philly to hand out deceptive flyers in Democratic strongholds...

Erik Markle, one of the people handing out literature for Ehrlich, who is seeking reelection, and Steele, the current lieutenant governor who is campaigning to replace retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D), said he was recruited at a homeless shelter in Philadelphia.
After a two-hour bus ride to Maryland, Markle said the workers were greeted early this morning by first lady Kendel Ehrlich, who thanked them as they were outfitted in T-shirts and hats with the logo for Ehrlich's reelection campaign. Nearly all of those recruited, Markle said, are poor and black. Workers traveled to Maryland in at least seven large buses.

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Just about a year ago, the Democratic party issued a statement saying that 2006 would be a year of transition. At the time, they were referring to the deteriorating situation in Iraq. But they could easily have been talking about the election of 2006. By all accounts, Democrats will take control of the House, and opinions vary on their chances of taking control of the Senate. Despite the media's premature declaration that recent polls indicated a dramatic tightening of the races, this still has the makings of a significant blowout. The reasons are many...

- The issues. Unlike the 2002 or 2004 elections, the Republican advantage on the issue of "keeping us safe" has either been erased, or reversed. This campaign will turn 70% on Iraq, with the remainder being split between scandal, corruption, incompetence (Katrina), and ballot initiatives. Unlike earlier elections, where gay marriage and abortion initiatives fired up the Republican base, the major ballot initiatives this year are aimed at Democratic strengths (minimum wage and stem cell research). With the economic situation in the battleground states (especially Ohio), Democrats should score big on the minimum wage initiatives. And with the impact of the Michael J.Fox ads, and the fact that Republicans have positioned themselves on the wrong side of hope, chalk that one up on the side of the Democrats, as well.

- Uncompetitive Gubernatorial and Senatorial races in the battleground states of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio could dampen enthusiasm among Republicans. Those states alone could account for close to half of the seats the Dems need to take control of the House.

- History shows that if the House falls, so does the Senate. I believe a Democratic gain of less than 20 in the House (highly unlikely) won't be enough for the Dems to take control of the Senate. But a gain in the upper 20s or higher should signal a wave large enough and strong enough for the Senate to turn.

- The recent polls that had the talking heads on cable ranting about this becoming a toss-up election aren't as convincing when taken into context. Basically all of the excitement was generated from the generic ballot numbers, which showed a Dem lead of a handful of points, compared to the 12-20 point lead they held over the past few months. Two flaws with that logic -- first is that all elections tighten in the days leading to an election, and second is that if you take the average of the 6 most recent polls, the generic ballot gives Dems a 12 point lead. It's important to remember that when Republicans gained 50-plus seats in 94, they won the election by 6 points.

- If an incumbent in a two party race hasn't been able to crack the 50% barrier, it is highly unlikely that incumbent will crack 50% on election day. If Allen, Burns, Talent and Chafee weren't able to get out of the mid 40s to this point, things don't bode well for their re-election chances. If voters are undecided this late in the race, it's doubtful they'll vote for the status quo in the environment we currently find ourselves in.

- Early voting could blunt the expected tightening, especially in the Corker/Ford race, where a whopping 40% of registered voters in Tennessee had voted early.

Things to watch for...

- If there is an early rout in the Northeast races, indicating huge Democratic gains, Republican turnout in the western states could be dampened. Low voter turnout could affect not only the Burns/Tester race in Montana (I still think Tester would win), but more importantly the Kyle/Pederson race in Arizona (my darkhorse race).

- Expect to see a false balance being practiced by the cable news shows. For example... "Democrats have documented incidents and filed complaints of voter suppression, but Republicans respond that they too have been victims" without providing supporting documentation. Also, if the Democrats gain 20 seats or less, watch for the media to describe it as a victory for Republicans.

The final result...

After all is said and done, I see Democratic gains in the House in the high twenties, a gain of eight governorships, and a twist in the Senate, where I see the Dems gaining 6 seats. But the twist is that Lieberman will win in Connecticut, placing him in the scary position of deciding which party controls the Senate. With a gain of six seats, that would leave 49 Democrats and 49 Republicans, with the Indepenent Sanders caucusing with the Democrats. Sleepy Joe will then have a decision to make -- Does he once again break his word, this time his pledge to caucus with the Dems, choosing instead to make it a 50-50 Senate, giving the tie-breaker to Cheney? Or does he try to restore his credibilty and live up to his pledge to caucus with the Democrats, leaving them with a 51-49 advantage?

Either way, this should be an exciting election. And if the Dems do manage to pull-off a major turnover of congressional seats, the credit has to go in large part to Howard Dean, who fought tooth and nail to make this a 50-state campaign. Without his foresight, the 60 seats in play would be at best 30, based on a lack of viable candidates.

The old philosophy of concentrating on races and regions of the country that are "winnable" normally left many of the incumbents who are now being strongly challenged, unopposed. And even if those rarely-contested seats don't turn blue, the money and resources Republicans had to expend to hold on to those seats deprived other races of much-needed funds. This has been as much a masterful campaign by Democrats as it has been a horrendous campaign by Republicans.

But most interesting will be the opportunity to watch the imperial president have to work with at least a Democratic House, if not a Democratic Congress.

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06 November 2006

Claims that a Democratic-controlled Congress would send our economy in a tailspin seem a little foolish...

Wall Street roared back Monday, erasing its losses of last week after private-equity buyout deals involving companies such as Four Seasons Hotels Inc. and OSI Restaurant Partners Inc. revived investors’ belief that stocks still have room to run. The Dow Jones industrials shot up 119 points.

The gains came a day ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, though the prospect of a power shift in Congress didn’t seem to unnerve investors.
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He also said investors are growing more confident that the elections will bring gridlock in Washington, a prospect Wall Street finds pleasing because it is seen as reducing risks to business interests.

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Rick "man-on-dog" Santorum, behind by double digits for over a year, has a new poll showing he's within 4 points. The kicker is that the poll was conducted by a Republican activist who is under indictment for voter fraud and forgery...

Talking Points Memo has the details..

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Been watching MSNBC this afternoon... it's been pretty telling. I think the Tucker Carlson show came back from just about every commercial break by highlighting a Republican campaign ad. Nothing like giving free advertisement on a national cable news network.

And for his part Chris "Tweety" Matthews sounds like he's anchoring a wake. Instead of exhibiting the excitement he previously claimed he felt as an election nears, he looked more like his dog just died. I think the only time Tweety showed a pulse was when Craig Crawford made the point that independents didn't like either party.

Media Matters notes the glaring absence of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC's all-day, all-politics coverage that has been running since the end of October. Especially notable, since Olbermann is MSNBCs rising star. Although they have been advertising that Olbermann and Tweety will co-anchor their election night coverage.

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Jon Butcher performs Holy War unplugged. Ironically this was written some 2 decades ago, yet it's eerily apt today...

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The Sunday talk shows were falling all over themselves discussing the latest Pew poll, which showed the predictable tightening of races in the eve of an election. The 24x7 cable networks no doubt saw that as a way to paint the picture as a toss-up, knowing election night drama would lead to more people tuning in for updates instead of catching up on their Tivo.

However, some Democratic candidates were quick to respond, warning us not to get too carried away with the "dramatic" tightening of the races (remember that even with the alleged tightening, historically the margin still pointed to a 30 seat gain by Democrats). The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll counters the Pew poll on several of the key races the cable news talking heads were conceding to the Republican candidates. For example, the Pew poll had the Montana race as a dead heat (47-47), yet the USA Today poll shows a rout for Tester (50-40).

Also, the "breathtaking" comeback for Rhode Island encumbent Lincoln Chafee (down big, but Pew had him with a 1 point lead) shows Chafee down by 3. And finally, most everyone had handed the Tennessee race to Corker, after the Pew poll showed him with a 12 point lead. However, the Gallup shows Corker up by only 3, well within the margin of error.

Even the latest Fox News poll has Democrats holding a 13 point lead (49-36) over Republicans when it comes to House races...

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[youtube]g6skfbT42lU[/youtube]More timely commentary by a cartoon...

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Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

The full verdict, a document of several hundred pages, explaining how and why today’s judgment was reached was not released. U.S. officials said it should be ready by Thursday. So why issue the verdict today? U.S. court advisors told reporters today it was delayed mainly for technical reasons.

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Leading neocon Richard Perle criticized Bush over the war.. just didn't want anyone to know until it was too late...

In a new article in Vanity Fair, prominent neoconservative Richard Perle — one of the principle advocates of invading Iraq — blasts the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq.
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Now, Perle is calling foul, saying he only agreed to tell the truth if it was published after the election.

Think Progress has the story...

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David Sirota documents just a few of the exceptions to Lieberman's assertion that he's a man of his word...

NOW:

I pride myself on keeping my word.” - Sen. Joe Lieberman, 11/6/06

THEN:

“I promise not to miss more than 300 votes.” - Joe Lieberman, 10/18/88 (Joe has missed more than 400 votes)

“I promise not to have one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate.” - Joe Lieberman, 10/18/88 (Joe has the second worst attendance record of any current senator in the last 6 years)

“I will not serve as a United States senator for more than 18 years.” - Joe Lieberman, 10/12/88 (Joe is running for a fourth term, though let’s hope this promise still comes true)

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Minnesota's own Prince rips it up on the last half of the song...

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The Bush adminsitration claims our national security would be endangered if prisoners informed their attorneys of how they've been tortured...

The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk.

The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage."
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The government, in trying to block lawyers' access to the 14 detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees' experiences are a secret that should never be shared with the public.
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Gitanjali Gutierrez, an attorney for Khan's family, responded in a court document yesterday that there is no evidence that Khan had top-secret information. "Rather," she said, "the executive is attempting to misuse its classification authority . . . to conceal illegal or embarrassing executive conduct."

Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor who has represented several detainees at Guantanamo, said the prisoners "can't even say what our government did to these guys to elicit the statements that are the basis for them being held. Kafka-esque doesn't do it justice. This is 'Alice in Wonderland.' "

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ABC's Cokie Roberts excuses the lack of accomplishments by the Republican-controlled Congress on a 50-50 country, overlooking the fact that Republicans control how bills are written, what bills get voted on, and Bush has only vetoed one bill -- on stem cell research...

"It's been difficult to govern, really, since 2000," says ABC News' Cokie Roberts, a long-time observer of Congress. "The country has been split down the middle and the Congress has been split down the middle.

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05 November 2006

Republicans are literally begging people to vote for them...

“An Ohio Republican senator begged voters Thursday to re-elect his colleague, as Republicans across the country battled to retain control of Congress in next week’s elections…’I'm begging the people here in northeastern Ohio, the people of the state of Ohio — please, please return my partner to the United States Senate,’ Senator George Voinovich said, his voice rising.”

nod David Sirota

Update: Just watched the video on CSpan... it was more pathetic than you could imagine. DeWine looked like he was on the verge of falling asleep, and Norm "flip-flop" Coleman looked like he regretted changing parties.

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Republican National Congressional Committee automated phone calls swamping people on the "do not call" registry, in violation of New Hampshire laws. It wasn't that long ago that James Tobin, a GOP operative, was sent to prison over phone-jamming crimes in New Hampshire in 2002...

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Brother Jeb's potential successor decides he stands a better chance at winning if he's not seen with Dubya...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist decided Sunday to skip an appearance with President Bush in favor of crisscrossing the state in the final hours before Election Day.

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The DCCC takes aim at Hayworth's recent attempt at deceiving his constituents on his actions regarding stem cell research...

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Clinton was a very, very bad man for ignoring a subpoena from Ken Starr, but Deadeye Dick probably can't be bothered to appear if subpoenaed...

Crooks and Liars has the video...

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Tweety began showing his true colors during the 2004 presidential debates, and has been on a downward slide ever since. Even with his recent attempts at whitewashing his Bush cheerleading after the fall of Baghdad by claiming he always spoke out about the wisdom of invading Iraq, he still can't manage to contain his conservative bent. During a special Sunday edition of the increasingly lame Hardball, he not-so-subtly let it slip that he'll be voting for Michael Steele, despite his acknowledgement that Steele has been vapid when it comes to stating his position on the issues.

As a topper, later in the show, Noron O'Donnell, while not endorsing any of the "Juniors" currently running for office, proclaimed that electing the offspring of famous politicians "works", and used George W as her example...

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03 November 2006

- On the eve of the election, a group of military publications are reported to call for Rummy's dismissal. Unfortunately, it comes four years too late.

- Former Bush Weapons Inspector David Kay was on Hardball earlier today (transcript not available yet) and was visibly outraged over the posting of nuke secrets on a government web site by leading Republicans. He also went out of his way to once again slam Hoekstra and Santorum over their irrational exuberance when proudly proclaiming the discovery of WMD in Iraq (the 1980s era mustard gas shells that were less toxic than your typical household cleaner).

- Republican Bob Ney finally succumbed to reality and resigned from office. I'm sure the timing wasn't welcomed by desperate Republicans, considering his resignation serves as a reminder to voters of how corrupt this gang of Republicans currently running Congress are.

- The Haggard thing is also bad news for Republicans, especially this close to the election. I doubt it will shift votes from Republican candidates to Democratic candidates, but coming so close to Foleygate, it has to have a dampening effect when it comes to turnout for the socially conservative wing of the Republican party.

There's also something fishy with the story, aside from Haggard's claim that he bought meth, but didn't use it, and his claim that he got a massage from a gay hooker (Mike Jones) who only advertises in gay publications, but didn't have sex with him. The question I have is.. why would Jones come forward and make his voicemails available, which indicate that Jones was Haggard's meth supplier? Was Jones busted on an unrelated charge, and offered up Haggard in a plea deal? Is Jones really, really stupid? Is Jones that upset over Haggard's hypocrisy that he would put himself in legal jeopardy just to shine a light on Haggard's sinning? I have a hunch this story is far from being over.

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Not only refers to Ned Lamont as "Nick Lamont" two separate times, but also argues that the posting of nuclear secrets on a government web site bolsters the Bush Administration argument that Saddam was pursuing WMD program, even while acknowledging the documents pre-dated the 1991 Gulf War.

Idiot.

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ZZ Top music video from the movie From Dusk Til Dawn

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No, not the cut-n-run Democrats. It turns out our very own White House was running a web site that provided detailed information how to make an atomic bomb...

The nation’s top intelligence official took down a government Web site with captured Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi documents, after questions were raised whether it provided too much information about making atomic bombs.
...
The action came after The New York Times raised questions about the contents of the government site, called the “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal.” The Times reported Thursday night on its Web site that weapons experts say documents posted on the government site in recent weeks provided dangerous detail about Iraq’s covert nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC News that outside experts, including the director of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, informed the Bush administration that it might have inadvertently publicized how-to-manuals for making nuclear bombs.
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Pressed by Republican members of Congress, Negroponte’s office last March ordered the unprecedented release of millions of pages of Iraqi documents, most of them in Arabic, collected by the U.S. government over more than a decade.

Intelligence officials had objected at the time — but were overruled by President Bush.

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Despicable...

Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.

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TPM Muckraker has the hilarious story and video of Republican Tim Murphy, when confronted with evidence showing he used congressional resources for his campaign, snatches the evidence from the reporter, and proceeds to blame his staff...

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Embattled Republican encumbent Deborah Pryce cuts-short an interview when asked about Iraq...

As she fights for her political life, Ohio Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce distanced herself Thursday from the Iraq war, telling CNN Radio, "What's happening in Iraq is not a direct reflection on me."
...
When pressed by CNN on whether her position as a House leader connected her to the volatile situation in Iraq, Pryce objected to the interruption of her remarks and said the interview was over.

"Thanks, I'm done," Pryce said. She expressed frustration and walked away saying, "Maybe we'll call you later when I'm feeling better."

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American babies born to illegal immigrants are no longer automatically entitled to Medicaid...

Under a new policy, children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants with low incomes will no longer be automatically entitled to health insurance through Medicaid, federal officials said today.

Doctors and hospitals said the policy change would make it more difficult for such infants, who are United States citizens, to obtain health care needed in the first year of life.
...
Administration officials said the change was necessary under their reading of a new law, the Deficit Reduction Act, signed by President Bush in February.
...
Doctors and hospitals denounced the policy change and denied that it was required by the new law.

Dr. Jay E. Berkelhamer, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the new policy “punishes babies who, according to the Constitution, are citizens because they were born here.”

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High-ranking evangelist and Bush advisor admits to "some allegations" made against him by a gay prostitute. The question is.. did he pay for sex, snort meth, or a combination of both?

The Rev. Ted Haggard, who stepped down as head of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals on Thursday after allegations that include having gay sex, has confessed to some of the allegations, a fellow pastor said in an e-mail to church members.

"It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true,” Ross Parsley, the acting senior pastor at New Life Church stated.

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Distributing signs blaming Democrats for encouraging illegal immigration and terrorism...

Early voters in the heart of the heated race to succeed former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay were greeted Wednesday with red and white signs that read: "Want more illegals? Vote Democrat" and "Encourage Terrorists. Vote Democrat."
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"This is an appeal to fear, racism and prejudice, and that is wrong."

The "Encourage Terrorists" sign was placed near the early-voting location at Macario Garcia Middle School, named after a World War II Medal of Honor winner. Principal Viretta West summarily removed it.

Precinct 3 Fort Bend County Commissioner Andy Meyers acknowledged paying $2,800 to the Republican Victory Committee PAC for 75 signs that tied Democrats to terrorists, higher taxes and illegal immigration.

"All I am doing is repeating what the leadership of the Democratic Party's position is. So I am not sure why they would be upset about that," Meyers said.

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In a recent poll, Britons believe Bush is a greater danger to peace than Kim Jong Il. Also, the invasion of Iraq was deemed unjustified by 89% of Mexicans, 73% od Canadians, and 71% or Britons..

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Don't NY police occassionally find 56 people tortured to death in a single day?

Officials have found 56 bodies bearing signs of torture scattered around the Iraqi capital in the past 24 hours, all apparent victims of sectarian death squads, police said Friday.

The news came as U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte met Friday with the Iraqi prime minister, in the second visit this week by a top U.S. official.

The bodies found scattered around Baghdad were of men between 20 and 45 years old, and all were apparent victims of sectarian death squads, police said Friday.

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Vacations at oceanfront resorts, a cushy job for your daughter, and other forms of bribery...

Early last year, two little-known nonprofit groups paid for Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and his 12-year-old daughter to travel to South Korea and Malaysia. Their last stop was the Berjaya Beach & Spa Resort on the Malaysian island of Langkawi, where they bunked at an oceanfront chalet staffed with a personal butler, got massages and rode water scooters on Burau Bay.

Doolittle's junket, which cost $29,400, was among the most expensive privately sponsored trips by members of Congress in recent years. The two groups that split the bills were not ordinary nonprofits. They were fronts for vigorous lobbying campaigns bankrolled by foreign entities and were operated by a Washington lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group, according to public records and people who worked with the firm.
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Federal law prohibits members of Congress from knowingly accepting overseas travel from foreign governments except as part of a cultural interchange program approved by the State Department. The travel in this case was not part of such a program, government officials said. House rules ban members from taking trips paid for by lobbyists or foreign agents. Nonprofits and their officers are prohibited under federal tax law from using a charitable organization for private commercial gain.

Once a major lobbying firm, Alexander Strategy Group closed down early this year. Its owner, Edwin A. Buckham, former chief of staff to now-departed House majority leader Tom DeLay, is under investigation in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, according to lawyers and witnesses with knowledge of the probe. Authorities are also reviewing Buckham's use in the 1990s of another nonprofit, the U.S. Family Network, the sources said.

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Looks like voting results in Tennessee will be in question, too..

Several electronic voting cards, used to cast ballots, are missing from a polling place in Memphis, according to the Tennessee Republican Party.

In a letter to the Shelby County Election Commission, state GOP chairman Bob Davis Jr. charges the "lack of oversight and control" over the so-called Smartcards "has created a situation which could allow for voter fraud."

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Why does Arnie hate America?

In an interview yesterday with a CBS affiliate in San Francisco, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) said, “I think that we should get out of [Iraq] as quickly as we can.” The governor also called for “a deadline of when we pull the troops out.”

When asked what he thought of Bush’s opposition to a deadline, Schwarzenegger said, “I think that eventually he will have to put a deadline on there. I think the American people will demand it.”

Think Progress has the video

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02 November 2006

U2 - Live in Sao Paulo (sorry for the subtitles)

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After placing the blame for the failures in Iraq on the generals on the ground, Republican House Majority Leader John Boehner rejects requests to apologize...

In the wake of Sen. John Kerry’s belated apology for offending troops deployed in Iraq, House Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner of Ohio is being asked by Democrats to apologize for seemingly blaming senior military officers for any problems with the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy.

Boehner, however, does not appear to be budging.

“Good try,” he said when asked about demands for an apology.

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"It's not an election anymore, it's an intervention" -- Conservative Andrew Sullivan, questioning Bush's mental health after announcing that Rummy has done a "fantastic" job in Iraq...

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This NY Times editorial details the obvious...

In Mr. Bush’s world, there are only two kinds of Americans: those who are against terrorism, and those who somehow are all right with it. Some Americans want to win in Iraq and some don’t. There are Americans who support the troops and Americans who don’t support the troops. And at the root of it all is the hideously damaging fantasy that there is a gulf between Americans who love their country and those who question his leadership.

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TPM Cafe has the story of how Republicans raised a shit storm over a Democratic ad showing a flag-draped coffin just a few months ago, but now have produced two ads of their own showing flag-draped coffins..

Question: When is it okay to run a political ad with images of the flag-draped coffins of soldiers? Answer: When you're a Republican

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Ratings are up 67% in October compared to October 2005...

"Keith Olbermann is the right person at the right time, and doing it in the right way," Dan Abrams says. He adds: "This is a really good sign for MSNBC on the whole. I think that we've found a voice to some degree."

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Provides potential headlines for the WSJ reporting on it's most recent poll... three new highs that make Republicans look bad, and one relatively meaningless result that looks less bad for Bush... guess which they chose?

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The USDA report on hunger, normally released in October, has been mysteriously delayed until mid-November...

Democrats are blaming politics for the Bush administration's decision to wait until after the election to issue a report on hunger in the United States.

The Agriculture Department report has generally been released in October, a month after annual poverty figures are released by the Census Bureau. The report has shown steady increases in the number of people struggling with hunger, from 31 million in 1999 to 38 million in 2004.

Democrats on Wednesday accused the White House of a politically motivated delay.
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"It seems like a pattern is emerging where the administration simply tries to bury bad information the closer they get to the election," Weiner said. "The professionals in these agencies who want to do their work in this administration are being thwarted, because it's all politics, all the time."

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Looks like the missing $387k doesn't have such an innocent explanation after all...

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Press the little yellow button, and vote as many times as you wish...

Anyone who can get at the yellow button can ruin the election. It takes no password, no computer knowledge, no equipment.

The formula is printed in materials that have been distributed to thousands of people. The machines will count millions of votes.

nod to Bradblog

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Two more former staffers of Katherine Harris' senatorial campaign have been questioned by the FBI...

Federal investigators have interviewed at least two more former chiefs of staff to U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris as part of a federal inquiry into her relationship with a convicted defense contractor.

Dan Berger and Ben McKay, who both worked for Harris in her first term and are now lobbyists in Washington, confirmed the interviews this week and said it was their understanding all congressional staff would likely be questioned. The two spoke separately to three investigators from the FBI and the Defense Department in Washington several weeks ago.

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Nine former Republicans are now running as Democrats in the normally red state of Kansas...

A mini-rebellion is under way in an American Heartland state so historically unswingable that neither national party typically spends much time or energy stumping for candidates.

But this year President George W. Bush, the country's leading Republican, is making a last-minute campaign stop in Kansas, where at least nine candidates running on the November 7 ballot are Republicans-turned-Democrats. They include a veteran county prosecutor seeking to unseat the Republican attorney general and a former state Republican Party chairman running as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.

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Some highlights...

Bush approval = 34%
Bush's handling of Iraq war = 29% approval
Plan to end the war = 70% believe Bush has no plan
Bush's new "benchmarks" plan = 80% believe it's a change in semantics, not in policy
Winning the Iraq war = 20% agree
Democrats hold 27% lead with independent voters
Democrats hold 19% lead with registered voters

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Vote Democratic and you'll burn in hell -- Former Republican Rep Bob Dornan warning voters not to "jump into the hell fire of a Nancy Pelosi Catholic"

"However they put it, the Democrat approach comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses." -- Dubya

Five days left... time enough for a Bin Laden video to emerge, Saddam's sentencing to take place, and a vague and unspecific, yet "credible" threat to bump us from yellow to orange...

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Waterboarding is a piece of cake, having your eyes poked out is another thing...

“I don’t think water boarding is torture. My definition of torture is you physically harm someone by cutting them, by cutting their fingers, sticking things in their eyes, sticking their fingers in electric sockets. Water boarding is a frightening experience. But the person does not have physical damage.”

nod to Think Progress

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So says NATO's top commander..

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Two states and counting...

Electonic voting machines in Texas mysteriously tally Democratic votes as Republican votes...

Early voting runs through Friday, November 3rd.
KFDM continues to get complaints from Jefferson County voters who say the electronic voting machines are not registering their votes correctly.

Friday night, KFDM reported about people who had cast straight Democratic ticket ballots, but the touch-screen machines indicated they had voted a straight Republican ticket.
Some of those voters including Lamar University professor, Dr. Bruce Drury, believe the problem is a programming error.

Saturday, KFDM spoke to another voter who says it's not just happening with straight ticket voting, he says it's happening on individual races as well, Jerry Stopher told us when he voted for a Democrat, the Republican's name was highlighted.

Stopher said, "There's something in these machines, in this equipment, that's showing Republican votes when you vote for Democrats, and I know Ms. Guidry's a nice lady, and she's working hard, but her theory that my fingernail was somehow over the Republican button is just unrealistic, my fingernail was not. The equipment is not working properly as far as I can tell."

Read more! »

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As mentioned here previously, George "Macaca" Allen's staffers roughed up a constituent in a hotel lobby. Unfortunately for Allen, there were numerous media sources present, and an abundant amount of video available. Now there are reports that the Charlottesville police want to question Allen himself about the incident...

Charlottesville investigators are looking into possible charges as a result of Tuesday's physical confrontation at an Allen campaign stop.
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On Wednesday police served search warrants on the tv stations here in charlottesville that shot this video of the disturbance at senator allen's rally--they're now using the video to determine whether the incident warrants criminal charges.

While the images show what appears to be an assault, police are quick to point out they don't show all of what led up to the physical confrontation.
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Among those people who will be interviewed, as a witness to the scuffle, will be Senator Allen himself. Investigators say there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

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Radical righty Ann Coulter is about to be slapped with a felony charge for intentionally voting in the wrong precinct. Ironically, the alleged crime occured in the very same county (Palm Beach) who's voters she described as "stupid" and feeble-minded" after the controversial 2000 presidential election...

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter has refused to cooperate in an investigation into whether she voted in the wrong precinct, so the case will probably be turned over to prosecutors, Palm Beach County's elections chief said Wednesday.
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Knowingly voting in the wrong precinct is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

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The Commerce Department and NASA are both conducting comprehensive investigations into allegations that the Bush administration has been suppressing/censoring global warming research...

Two federal agencies are investigating whether the Bush administration tried to block government scientists from speaking freely about global warming and censor their research, a senator said Wednesday.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said he was informed that the inspectors general for the Commerce Department and NASA had begun “coordinated, sweeping investigations of the Bush administration’s censorship and suppression” of federal research into global warming.
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The officer, George Deutsch, a political appointee, had resigned after being accused of trying to limit reporters’ access to James Hansen, a prominent NASA climate scientist, and insisting that a Web designer insert the word “theory” with any mention of the Big Bang.

A report last month in the scientific journal Nature claimed administrators at the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration blocked the release of a report that linked hurricane strength and frequency to global warming. Hansen had said in February that NOAA has tried to prevent researchers working on global climate change from speaking freely about their work.

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01 November 2006

I wonder if the media will give as much attention to this direct attack against our soldiers as they did to Kerry's botched joke?

BOEHNER: Let's not blame what's happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld.

WOLF BLITZER: But he's in charge of the military.

BOEHNER: But the fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge, and he works closely with them and the president

Talking Points Memo has the video..

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Lamont puts out an excellent ad against Sleepy Joe...

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Rage Against The Machine -- performed live on The Late Show w/David Letterman

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The Decider mocked anyone who considered acting in cooperation with a U.N. force in Iraq, yet doesn't seem to have a problem with the Iraqi PM ordering our soldiers around...

American soldiers rolled up their barbed-wire barricades and lifted a near siege of the largest Shiite Muslim enclave in Baghdad on Tuesday, heeding the orders of a Shiite-led Iraqi government whose assertion of sovereignty had Shiites celebrating in the streets.

The order by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to lift the week-old blockade of Sadr City was one of the most overt expressions of self-determination by Iraqi leaders in the 3 1/2 -year-old U.S. occupation. It followed two weeks of increasingly pointed exchanges between Iraqi and U.S. officials, as well as a video conference between Maliki and President Bush on Saturday.

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So says this graphic prepared by the U.S. Central Command...

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[youtube]4-Cqnekv8jU[/youtube]

From a quagmire, to a fiasco, to a miserable failure...

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Last throes, indeed...

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Richard "sweets and flowers" Perle says if the Bush administration doesn't get their act together, it should be replaced with one that can...

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Another Republican unable to suppress his racism..

A state lawmaker under fire for leaving a message filled with obscenities and a racial slur on a colleague's voice mail resigned Wednesday from the Florida Legislature.
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Arza had acknowledged leaving the message on fellow Republican Rep. Gus Barreiro's voice mail last month but said he was drunk.

He said he had learned that Barreiro had filed a complaint alleging he had earlier used a racial epithet when referring to Miami-Dade County school superintendent Rudy Crew, who is black. He used the same epithet in his phone message to Barreiro, who is Hispanic.

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You have Don Sherwood, who denies beating his mistress, Jim Gibbons, who got tangled up with a cocktail waitress, and now John Sweeney, the 51 year old Congressman who parties with frat boys, who's wife called 9/11, claiming she was being 'knocked around the house' by her husband...

``Female caller stating her husband is knocking her around the house,'' a dispatcher wrote. ``Then she stated `Here it comes, are you ready?' and disconnected the call. Upon call-back, the husband stated no problem ... asked the wife if she wanted to talk. Wife (caller) then got on the phone and stated that she's fine and that she's drunk. Caller sounded intoxicated. She advised that she was endangered for a moment, but everything is fine.''

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The "liberal" CNN forwards as a defense of the attack of a constituent by George "Macaca" Allen's staffers that the "protestor" was wearing a backpack, and apparently could have been a terrorist with a bomb..

Crooks and Liars has the ludicrous video...

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House chief deputy whip Eric Cantor is pushing to postpone the post-election leadership elections until after the results of the Foleygate investigation are complete...

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Kind of old, but it's worth repeating..

"I have to admit that, gosh, I learned an important lesson - never to offer a helping hand to anybody ever again" -- scandal-plagued Republican Rep and Gubernatorial candidate Jim Gibbons, after being questioned by police about charges that he assaulted a cocktail waitress

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