The Happy Leftie

Internet fundraising giving Dems big boost

2006-06-11T00:37:00.000-07:00

Joe in DC, AmericaBlog

According to the Washington Post -- and Ken Mehlman -- Democrats are competitive with the Republicans in fundraising this year because of the internet:

RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, whose committee has seen a 10 percent fundraising drop, compared with 2004, said Internet fundraising has allowed Democrats to reach a new group of liberal donors and narrow the GOP's edge with individuals. But he said his party still holds a solid financial lead because of money raised by state parties.

Still, the trends at the national level are diminishing what in past years has been a powerful GOP asset: the ability to overpower opponents with expensive television advertising and voter-mobilization campaigns in House and Senate races.

It's a whole new world.

Blackwell Gets Brunt of Registrants' Anger

2006-06-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

Ted Wendling, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

He denies trying to disenfranchise voters.

Democrats and representatives of voter-registration groups accused Secretary of State Ken Blackwell on Monday of trying to rig this November's election by publishing draconian new rules governing the activities of people who register voters.

Testifying at a hearing chaired by Judy Grady, Blackwell's director of elections, lawyers for ACORN, Common Cause, the Ohio Democratic Party and other groups said training documents drafted by Blackwell's office are so vague that they subject registrars to felony penalties for even inadvertent violations.

As a result, ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has drastically cut back its voter-registration efforts while its lawyers review the new rules, Katy Gall, Ohio ACORN's head organizer, said in an interview.

Gall said ACORN has registered 35,000 voters in six Ohio cities since February. Its goal is 130,000.

Samuel Gresham, an attorney for Common Cause, charged that the rules are "part of a consistent pattern, intentionally so," by Blackwell to disenfranchise black, low-income and Democratic voters.

Blackwell's actions, Gresham and others said, are intended to suppress Democratic voter turnout in what is shaping up as a closely contested governor's race between Blackwell, a Republican, and Democratic US Rep. Ted Strickland.

"It appears that Ken Blackwell finally figured out how to deal with long lines on Election Day," said state Democratic Party spokesman Brian Rothenberg. "He's just trying to outright deny people the right to vote now."

Those criticisms brought a scathing response from Blackwell's campaign spokesman, Carlo LoParo.

"That's outrageous," LoParo said. "The Blackwell campaign is making a very focused effort to gain the votes of Ohio's urban voters, but particularly Ohio's African-American voters, and that's because Ken Blackwell is the only candidate in this race that can articulate their concerns."

In contrast, Strickland is so out of touch with black voters, LoParo said, that "before this campaign, his idea of diversity was opting for Neapolitan ice cream at the congressional buffet."

The rules were drafted to comply with a new state election-reform law. The focus of most of the voter-registration activists' ire is a provision that says registrars must return applicants' forms "directly" to the secretary of state's office or a county board of elections.

Peg Rosenfield, elections specialist for the League of Women Voters of Ohio, said a strict interpretation of that rule means that the person who registers a voter can't even turn the form over to his supervisor for review.

Angered by the passage of a similar law in Florida, the League ceased all voter-registration efforts and sued Florida elections officials last month with the assistance of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. A lawyer for the Brennan Center also testified at Monday's hearing in Columbus.

State Rep. Kevin DeWine, the legislator who sponsored the election-reform law, said he believes Blackwell's office faithfully drafted the rules to comply with the bill.

However, he said the law "might need a fix" because lawmakers didn't intend to subject registrars to criminal penalties if they turn their forms over to a supervisor for review instead of directly submitting them to the secretary of state.

GOP Base Not Swayed by Bush's Stance on Gay Marriage

2006-06-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

Maura Reynolds and Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times

The campaign against gay marriage is scheduled to get the administration's special treatment on Monday — words from President Bush at the White House, an array of VIPs assembled to hear him, a bank of television cameras on hand to broadcast the proceedings.

Such marquee billing aims to confer the grandeur of the office on the push for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. But even before administration officials announced the event, some of the invitees, far from swooning at the honor, denounced it as a sham.

"I'm going to go and hear what he says, but we already know it is a ruse," said Joe Glover, president of the Family Policy Network, which opposes gay marriage. "We're not buying it. We're going to go and watch the dog-and-pony show, (but) it's too little, too late."

Such comments have raised the prospect that the debate on gay marriage — designed to galvanize one of Bush's most important constituencies, social conservatives —could instead exacerbate the president's political headaches.

The White House gathering will serve as a prelude to the Senate debate next week on the proposed constitutional amendment.

Supporters acknowledge they have little hope of reaching the two-thirds threshold -- 67 votes -- the measure would need to pass in the 100-member Senate. Indeed, they likely will fail to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to shut off debate and force an up-or-down roll call tally on the proposal.

Two years ago, when Republicans brought the amendment to the floor less than four months before the 2004 presidential election, only 48 senators voted to end debate. The GOP gained Senate seats in the '04 election, but not enough to appreciably improve the chances of reaching the 60-vote mark.

Even if the measure were to pass the Senate — and then win a two-thirds majority in 435-member House, the arduous process for amending the Constitution could derail it. After clearing Congress, the proposal would require ratification by three-fourths of the 50 states to take effect.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., adhering to a pledge he made months ago, is bringing up the amendment for debate anyway. Many Republicans on Capitol Hill argue that even if its short-term prospects appear bleak, spotlighting its merits could lay the groundwork for eventual passage.

Democrats complain the real reason behind the push is to rally conservative activists in advance of this year's congressional elections.

"Our country faces great challenges: record high gas prices, skyrocketing health-care costs and an intractable war in Iraq," Democratic leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada said. "Yet instead of addressing these issues, Sen. Frist has chosen to put the politics of division ahead of real progress by pushing for a debate on a divisive amendment that will write discrimination into the Constitution."

But if pleasing a key element of the Republican Party was the aim, the effort doesn't appear to be working.

"Social conservatives are disappointed that there hasn't been more action on the issues that were highlighted in the 2004 election," said Gary Glenn, head of the American Family Association of Michigan.He added: "Increasingly, social conservatives expect real action, not just politically timed attempts to motivate and organize the base."

Others complain that Bush, despite Monday's event, has not put the full heft of the presidency behind the bid to outlaw gay marriage.

"President Bush's position is actually quite good on many . . . life and family issues, but he needs to get out front on them," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, wrote in a message to supporters last week. There is also dismay among some activists over the wording of the amendment.

At least two prominent social conservative groups -- Concerned Women for America and the Traditional Values Coalition -- believe that the language contains a loophole that would create a right for gays to seek civil unions.

The amendment reads: "Marriage in the United States shall consist solely of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, and others argue that the second sentence leaves open the option that gays and lesbians could enter unions other than marriage, and that's a deal breaker for them.

On its Web site, the Concerned Women of America says the group "does not support the Marriage Protection Amendment as currently worded because the second sentence is open to differing interpretations."

Other social conservative groups, notably the powerful Focus on the Family headed by Dr. James Dobson, support the amendment, despite what they consider flaws in it.

"We would prefer stronger language, but we're content with this language. It leaves the issue of civil unions to the states. We recognize that this is the best we're going to get at the federal level," said Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family's director of public policy.

White House officials sidestepped questions about the issue for most of this week. On Friday, White House spokesman Tony Snow insisted that the president has been an active opponent of gay marriage since he announced his support for the constitutional amendment in 2004. And Snow dismissed criticism that the president had done little in the interim to make it a priority.

"I don't know how you define what a priority is," Snow said. "The president has made it clear what he wants. He would like to see the Senate pass" the amendment.

Republican strategists are unsure how much the gay marriage debate will help the beleaguered GOP in November's elections.

"There is a significant amount of disenchantment, but most of the disenchantment is on the economic side" of the administration's performance, said veteran Republican strategist Eddie Mahe.

Who's responsible for this mess? Everyone who voted for W in '04, that's who

2006-06-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

Stephen Goldstein, Sun-Sentinel

Florida isn't Podunk. How we vote really affects all of America. So, it's atonement time for some of us.

If you voted for George W. Bush only in 2000, you may be partly forgiven. Six years ago, Der George claimed to be a "compassionate conservative," appeared no more dangerous than the loser first-born of a CEO who takes over the family business when daddy retires. Back then, no one really expected him to wind up in the White House or figured he'd be in charge if he did; Der Dick would pull the strings. Falling for W's carefully crafted facade, naïve voters couldn't imagine he'd ruin the country.

But if you're a Floridian who could see the damage Der W did during his first term and still voted for him and other R's in 2004, you knew what you were doing.

So, you are personally responsible for all the president's misdeeds: massaging intelligence to invade Iraq, the chaos post-Saddam, the death and maiming of our soldiers and Iraqi civilians, our crushing national debt, unauthorized wiretaps and domestic spying, trampling on our constitutional rights, flouting Congress and the courts, claiming "it's legal because we say it is," failing to respond to Hurricane Katrina, gutting our social infrastructure, pandering to the Radical Right, concocting an energy plan with Big Oil, failing our schools.

Floridians who voted Republican also fostered the culture of corruption in Congress that emboldened Tom DeLay, "Duke" Cunningham, Jack Abramoff and a long list of others who'll soon be indicted.

And, in one of the biggest boomerangs of all, Floridians whose native language is not English and who voted Republican are responsible for electing a president and Congress whose recent English-only initiative is designed to energize their radical right-wing base, while it shafts legal immigrants and citizens. (Cubans who haven't voted Democrat since the Bay of Pigs might wonder who their friends really are.)

In short, to have voted for the Gang of W in 2004 was to have been a knowing accomplice in implementing everything from misplaced, mean-spirited priorities to "high crimes and misdemeanors" -- what some people have already dubbed the worst American presidency ever. All of you are Karl Rove, and Karl Rove is you.

If it were possible to impeach the public, Floridians who voted Republican would already have been convicted, along with a president who probably should be and could be.

Typically, Americans think that all we have to do to fulfill our civic duty is show up at the polls. Not enough of us understand that voting in a representative government may be dangerous. With your ballot, you are sanctioning what elected officials do in your name, once in office. (The prez has tanked in the polls. But public disgust with him is also an indictment of everyone who elected him.)

Predictably, these days, it's harder and harder to find anyone who confesses to having voted for W. But, if you're honest enough to admit to it and did so only in 2000, you may be forgiven -- if you promise to look yourself in the mirror every day until Election Day 2008 and repeat, "I have sinned and promise never to do it again."

But if you voted for W in 2004, you've got to repent big-time, with no guarantee of absolution. For starters, put your life on the line in Iraq, or get your son or daughter to do so. Start a chapter of Republicans Anonymous to deal with your addiction to electing bad people who make bad policies. Publicly repudiate wedge-strategies that divide the nation over bogus social issues. And pledge to vote for Democrats -- to curb a renegade White House and rubber-stamp Congress.

Elections are games that focus on the players. But even if we aren't running for office, we're never just idle spectators. As voters, we are responsible for who's on our team and how they play the game -- for their perfect shots and their foul plays. When we're right, we're right. But when we're wrong, we know the only honorable thing to do -- or else.

Republicans Filibuster the 'Bible bill,' Alienate Evangelical Voters

2006-05-31T19:13:00.000-07:00

Evangelicals leaving the GOP

Amy Sullivan, Washington Monthly

The Republicans were filibustering the Bible bill. On a Tuesday afternoon in early February, Republican legislators in Alabama took to the crimson-carpeted floor of the state house to oppose legislation that would authorize an elective course on the Bible in public high schools. The recommended curriculum for the course had been vouched for by Christian Right all-stars like Chuck Colson and Ted Haggard, but so far as Republicans were concerned, there was only one pertinent piece of information about the bill: It was sponsored by two Democrats. And now Republicans were prepared to do everything in their procedural power to stop it, even if that meant lining up to explain why they could not—could not!—stand for this attempt to bring a class about the Bible into public schools.

When I came to Montgomery to watch the debate over the Bible literacy bill, I had expected something pro forma, a Bible love-fest. Alabama is, after all, God's country. On the drive from Atlanta, I sampled some of the area's many Christian radio stations to catch up on the Christian rock that doesn't get played as often in Washington—some classic Amy Grant, a little Third Day, and a new group, Jonah 33 (think 3 Doors Down, but with more Jesus lyrics). Outside, it looked like the good Lord could have reached down and molded Adam out of the red clay. This is the state that produced Judge Roy Moore and the Ten Commandments statue. Martin Luther King Jr., pastored his first church here, Dexter Avenue Baptist. In Snead, a convenience-store owner offers free coffee or soda to anyone who recites the Bible verse of the month, and people do it because it's a two-fer: Learn the Bible and get a free Dr. Pepper.

As far as people around here are concerned, you can always use a little more Bible. It's not taught in the schools very often because the Supreme Court ruled in 1963 that public schools couldn't hold devotional classes, and many school boards—unsure of how else to teach about the Bible—don't want to get sued. But when some local leaders learned last summer about a curriculum package produced by the Bible Literacy Project out of Fairfax, Va., the problem seemed to be solved. The course presents the Bible in a historical and cultural context—giving students a better understanding of biblical allusions in art, literature, and music. More importantly, it has been vetted by conservative and liberal legal experts to withstand constitutional challenge.

One of the leading advocates of the Bible course, Dr. Randy Brinson, met me at entrance to the state house. Brinson, a tall sandy-haired physician from Montgomery who speaks with a twang and the earnest enthusiasm of a youth-group leader, is a lifelong Republican and founder of Redeem the Vote, a national voter registration organization that targets evangelicals. Since discovering the Bible literacy course, he has successfully lobbied politicians in Florida, Georgia, and Missouri to introduce bills that would set up similar classes. But it is here at home that he's encountered the most resistance. “You should see who's against this thing,” he told me, shaking his head.

Indeed, when Brinson and the other supporters—including several Pentecostal ministers, some Methodists, and a member of the state board of education—entered the state house chamber to make their case, they faced off against representatives from the Christian Coalition, Concerned Women of America, and the Eagle Forum. These denizens of the Christian Right denounced the effort, calling it “extreme” and “frivolous” and charging that it would encourage that most dangerous of activities, “critical thinking.” The real stakes of the fight, though, were made clear by Republican Rep. Scott Beason when he took his turn at the lectern. “This is more than about God,” he reminded his colleagues. “This is about politics.”

Actually, it's about both—a fight over which party gets to claim the religious mantle. Nationally, and in states like Alabama, the GOP cannot afford to allow Democrats a victory on anything that might be perceived as benefiting people of faith. Republican political dominance depends on being able to manipulate religious supporters with fear, painting the Democratic Party as hostile to religion and in the thrall of secular humanists. That image would take quite a blow if the party of Nancy Pelosi was responsible for bringing back Bible classes—even constitutional ones—to public schools.

The holy skirmish down in Alabama, with its “GOP blocks votes on Bible class bill” headlines, may seem like just a one-time, up-is-down, oddity. But it's really the frontline of a larger war to keep Democrats from appealing to more moderate evangelical voters. American politics is so closely divided that if a political party peels off a few percentage points of a single big constituency, it can change the entire electoral map. To take the most recent example, African Americans, who represent 11 percent of the electorate, cast 88 percent of their ballots for Democrats nationally. But Bush was able to get those numbers down to 84 percent in key states like Ohio and Pennsylvania in 2004—and kept the White House as a result. Republican strategists recognized that a significant number of black voters are very conservative on social issues but have stayed with the Democratic Party because of its reputation for being friendlier to racial minorities. The GOP didn't need a strategy to sway the entire black community; it just needed to pick off enough votes to put the party over the top.

Democrats could similarly poach a decisive percentage of the GOP's evangelical base. In the last election, evangelicals made up 26 percent of the electorate, and 78 percent of them voted for Bush. That sounds like a fairly inviolate bloc. And, indeed, the conservative evangelicals for whom abortion and gay marriage are the deciding issues are unlikely to ever leave the Republican Party. But a substantial minority of evangelical voters—41 percent, according to a 2004 survey by political scientist John Green at the University of Akron—are more moderate on a host of issues ranging from the environment to public education to support for government spending on anti-poverty programs. Broadly speaking, these are the suburban, two-working-parents, kids-in-public-school, recycle-the-newspapers evangelicals. They may be pro-life, but it's in a Catholic, “seamless garment of life” kind of way. These moderates have largely remained in the Republican coalition because of its faith-friendly image. A targeted effort by the Democratic Party to appeal to them could produce victories in the short term: To win the 2004 presidential election, John Kerry needed just 59,300 additional votes in Ohio—that's four percent of the total evangelical vote in the state, or approximately 10 percent of Ohio's moderate evangelical voters. And if the Democratic Party changed its reputation on religion, the result could alter the electoral map in a more significant and permanent way.

That's why, insiders say, the word has gone forth from the Republican National Committee to defeat Democratic efforts to reclaim religion. Republicans who disregard the instructions and express support for Democratic efforts are swiftly disciplined. At the University of Alabama, the president of the College Republicans was forced to resign after she endorsed the Bible legislation. A few states away, a Missouri Republican who sponsored a Bible literacy bill came under criticism from conservatives for consulting with Brinson and subsequently denied to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter that he had ever even heard of Brinson. But as for Brinson himself, he's already gone. “Oh, they're ticked at me,” he says. “But it's because they're scared. This has the potential to break the Republican coalition.”

Willing to play ball

Three years ago, Randy Brinson would have been the first to tell you that he was an unlikely political player and an even less likely Democratic collaborator. While his father had been a classic southern Democrat who shifted with George Wallace and made the leap to the Republican Party with Reagan, Brinson, who grew up in Jacksonville, Fla., had come of age in the new Republican South. He had worked on the campaign of the first Republican to be elected governor in South Carolina when he was in boarding school there and was an early Reagan supporter at college in Georgia in the mid-1970s. When Brinson moved his family to Montgomery after medical school, he naturally got involved in local politics, and in the late 1990s, he was a health-care advisor to the Republican governor Fob James.

But he was essentially an unknown figure until, in 2003, he figured out a way to combine his three passions—religion, politics, and music. He had already been part of a group that started WAY-FM (as in, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”), a Christian radio station based in Montgomery and carried in 44 markets. With an upcoming presidential election, Brinson realized that a religious version of MTV's Rock the Vote would have the best chance of reaching young evangelicals and getting them involved in politics. Using his own money at first, he created a non-profit called Redeem the Vote and hired the media firm that marketed Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, giving him instant access to their contacts throughout the evangelical world. Through partnerships with more than 30 Christian music acts and summer concerts like Creation East and Spirit Coast West (the Christian equivalents of Lilith Fair or Lollapalooza), Redeem the Vote registered more voters than all of the efforts of the Christian Right heavyweights—Focus on the Family, the Southern Baptist Convention, American Family Association, and the Family Research Council—combined.

Suddenly, Brinson was on the radar of national media like The Washington Post and “Nightline,” and catching the eye of fellow conservatives. With such an impressive showing his first time out and direct access to young evangelicals, the most coveted of resources, Brinson could have been on track to become a major player in the Christian Right. The old guard—figures like James Dobson, Chuck Colson, Don Wildmon, James Kennedy, Phyllis Schlafly—are all in their 70s; the future of the movement lies with people like Brinson, who are 20 or 30 years younger and have credibility with the grassroots.

So when religious conservatives convened a meeting at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington a few weeks after the election, Brinson was invited. The room was full of men who had played some role in keeping the White House in Bush's hands. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention sat at Brinson's table. Rick Warren, author of the bestseller The Purpose-Driven Life, wasn't far away. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) came over from the Hill to talk with the group. The mood was celebratory, but with an aggressive, hostile edge. They had won, and now they wanted to collect.

The main item of business that day was what to do with Santorum's colleague, the pesky pro-choice Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.). Specter held a crucial position as chair of the Judiciary Committee and had recently outraged this group by telling the press that he would apply “no litmus test” to judicial nominees. Now they wanted him gone, ousted, stripped of power. When, in the midst of escalating rhetoric, Brinson spoke up to suggest that perhaps punishing Specter wasn't the wisest decision, the idea wasn't well received. “That,” he says, “was my first inkling that I wasn't one of them.” If being a player in this world meant calling for the heads of moderate Republicans and ginning up fake controversies like a supposed “war on Christmas,” Brinson wasn't terribly interested.

Not long after, while Brinson was still turning the taste of disillusionment around in his mouth, a Democrat called from Washington. The immediate post-election conventional wisdom was that Democrats lost because they couldn't appeal to so-called “moral values” voters. Democrats immediately embarked on a crash course in religious outreach and sought out people who could teach them about evangelicals. Brinson, who had caught the attention of the Democratic youth-vote industry, seemed like an obvious choice.

As for Brinson, when the Democratic chief of staff on the other end of the line asked whether the doctor would be willing to meet with some Democrats, he thought about his recent experiences with the other side and decided “maybe it wouldn't be so bad to talk to these Democratic people.” In quick succession, the lifelong Republican found himself meeting with advisors to the incoming Democratic leaders—Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)—field directors at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and aides to Howard Dean at the Democratic National Committee. What they found is that their interests overlapped: The Democrats wanted to reach out to evangelicals, and Brinson wanted to connect with politicians who could deliver on a broader array of evangelical concerns, like protecting programs to help the poor, supporting public education, and expanding health care. It had seemed natural for him to start by pressing his own party to take up those concerns, but Democrats appeared to be more willing partners. They even found common ground on abortion when Brinson, who is very pro-life, explained that he was more interested in lowering abortion rates by preventing unwanted pregnancies than in using the issue to score political points.

Those Democrats who had initially been wary about working with a conservative evangelical Republican from Alabama found Brinson convincing. They also realized that conservatives had done them an enormous favor. “Listening to him talk,” one of them told me, “I thought, these guys bitch-slapped him, and he's willing to play ball.”

At about this time, with Bush just entering his second term, his support among evangelicals began to slip. They had turned out in record numbers to give him nearly 80 percent of their votes. And for what? Conservative evangelicals didn't like the fact that their demand to oust Specter was ultimately denied. Nor were they pleased that the Harriet Miers nomination had been bungled after it was peddled to them as a way to put one of their own on the high court. The Abramoff scandal didn't help either, with its manipulation of Christian Right leaders to support gambling interests and email messages referring to evangelicals as “wackos.”

For their part, more moderate evangelicals soured on Bush for many of the reasons that lowered his approval ratings across the board: an unpopular Social Security plan, a lack of progress in Iraq, and the failed response to Hurricane Katrina. The right-of-center magazine Christianity Today ran an editorial declaring that “single-issue politics is neither necessary nor wise.” One-third of the students and faculty at Calvin College in the heart of conservative western Michigan signed a full-page ad protesting Bush's Iraq policy when he gave a commencement address there. Many moderates were dismayed when the old guard refused to join protests against federal budget cuts that fall disproportionately on the poor in favor of what James Dobson called “pro-family tax cuts.” These moderates had supported Bush despite often disagreeing with his specific positions. But in 2005, according to an Associated Press poll, the percentage of them who believed the country was headed in the right direction dropped by 30 points.

Big business v. believers

The newly converted are the most zealous, sharing the good news with gusto to any and all comers. Every few days, Randy Brinson calls me with another revelation. Republicans? “The power structure in the Republican Party is too entrenched with big business. It's not with evangelicals—they're a means to an end.” The Christian Right? “They just want to keep the culture war going because it raises a lot of money for them.” Abramoff? “Evangelicals were being used as pawns to promote a big money agenda.” His fellow evangelicals? “Can't they see that Republicans are just pandering to them??” He once was blind, but now he sees.

What sets Brinson apart from other disgruntled evangelicals is that he has an infrastructure at his disposal. Although Redeem the Vote is still engaged in voter registration activities, Brinson has expanded its mission, branching out into issue advocacy and using the organizational capability developed during the campaign to mobilize evangelicals at a moment's notice. Last year, when a Republican state senator led an effort to shift money from Alabama's education trust fund to more conservative causes, Brinson generated nearly 60,000 email messages—nearly half of the state senate district. It didn't take long for the legislator to cry “uncle” and leave the funds for public education.

It's for this reason that Brinson has not been completely shut out of conversations in the Christian Right, and officials at the White House continue to take his calls. He has numbers behind him, and they all know it. In an uncharacteristically boastful moment, Brinson crows that Republicans “are sweating bullets because they know what we can do.”

While Brinson has been working with Democrats in Alabama on the Bible literacy bill, other evangelicals are having their own road to Damascus moments. One of them is Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), and a frequent subject of profiles on “kinder, gentler” evangelicals in outlets like Newsweek and USA Today. Cizik has spent years trying to get evangelicals invested in what he calls “creation care,” the idea that God gave them responsibility for tending to the earth. His hope has been that a Republican administration would be more likely to pay attention to lobbying from its own base on issues like carbon dioxide emissions than from liberal environmentalists.

In early January, I talked to Cizik about his efforts to get evangelicals to take a stand on climate change, a move that would place considerable political pressure on the administration to take the problem seriously. The NAE represents 52 denominations with 45,000 churches and 30 million members across the country—getting them all to agree on something is no easy task, but Cizik had made impressive strides and was optimistic. Convinced that his only course of action was to work with Republicans, he spent an hour patiently explaining why evangelicals were better off trying to change Republican attitudes about the environment rather than working with Democrats who already embraced his position. Not able to help myself, I argued back. It's not as if the Bush administration doesn't support environmental policies because they hate trees. It's because they have powerful business supporters who don't like regulation. Still, Cizik held firm, insisting that evangelicals had to change “our own party.”

A month later, I ran into Cizik at the National Prayer Breakfast. That morning, he had opened up his Washington Post to find an article based on a letter to his boss from the old guard—Dobson, Colson, Wildmon, and the rest—suggesting, in the way that Tony Soprano makes suggestions, that the NAE back off its plan to take a public position on global warming. “Bible-believing evangelicals,” the letter-writers argued, “disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global warming issue.” The leaked letter was a blatant attempt to torpedo Cizik's efforts, and it had worked. The NAE would take no stand on climate change.

There was no doubt that the administration had prevailed on the more pliable figures of the Christian Right to whack one of their own. Cizik was beside himself. It was hard to resist the “I told you so” moment, and I didn't. But when I suggested to him that this was an example of the way that business seemed to win out most of the time when religious and business interests came into conflict in GOP politics, he stopped me. “Not most of the time,” he corrected. “Every time. Every single time.” And he's no longer sure that can change. “Maybe not with this administration.... We need to stop putting all of our eggs in one basket—that's just not good politics.”

Cizik wasn't the only example of this shift at the Prayer Breakfast. At the main event earlier in the day, keynote speaker Bono (of U2 and antipoverty crusading fame) enjoyed a far more enthusiastic reception than President Bush, whose applause was, several conservative religious leaders told me, surprisingly weak. (“He got a standing ovation when he entered, but that's because you have to stand,” observed one evangelical.) It could have had something to do with the fact that Bono highlighted this tension between what's good for corporate interests and what serves the cause of justice. He went through a litany of examples—trade agreements that make it harder for Third-World countries to sell their products, tax policies that shift debt to the next generation, patent laws that raise the price of life-saving drugs—and then put the challenge to his audience: “God will not accept that. Mine won't, at least. Will yours?”

Evangelicals—particularly centrists—are increasingly answering, “No!” Rick Warren has recently started a campaign to end global poverty, reminding his followers that “Life is not about having more and getting more—it's about serving God and serving others.” Groups like the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) are taking up Cizik's cause; 63 percent of evangelicals in a recent survey released by EEN said that global warming was an immediate concern. Half went even further, agreeing that steps needed to be taken to reduce global warming, even if it meant a high economic cost for the United States. Former National Review writer Rod Dreher has a just-published book that urges religious conservatives to question negative consequences of the free market.

The list of issues these evangelicals care about extends beyond the social hot-buttons that win elections. And yet, as Cizik notes, when they try to promote concerns that threaten the interests of big business, evangelicals are stymied every time. Observers date the latest round of religious/business tensions to the mid-1990s disagreement over whether to continue China's Most-Favored-Nation trading status. Although the issue split Democrats, the most serious dispute was within the Republican Party. Religious conservatives, led by evangelicals, argued that the United States should not trade with a country that had serious human rights abuses, including persecution of Christians. But their concerns were overridden by corporations who lusted after China's vast, largely untapped market.

More recently, evangelicals and other religious leaders have met with officials at the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to request government action to protect children from receiving pornography over wireless devices. This was a cause the Bush-Cheney campaigned trumpeted during 2004 as proof of its commitment to help parents protect their children from harmful cultural influences. That was before wireless companies weighed in to oppose the regulation, however. In their latest meeting with federal agencies, the religious leaders were politely but firmly rebuffed.

Even a simple measure to protect the rights of workers to wear religious garb such as the hijab in the workplace or to swap work schedules with a colleague on religious holidays like Good Friday hit a brick wall when business interests got involved. For 10 years, Republican congressional leaders—and, since 2001, the Bush White House—have refused to support the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (cosponsored by John Kerry and Rick Santorum) because the business lobby, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, opposes the idea that employers should have to make accommodations for religious workers. In a November 2005 hearing on the legislation, Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.), angrily dressed down the Chamber's witness, declaring himself “incredibly disgusted, as well as disappointed” by her testimony. This earned him a rebuke from the committee chair, who reminded Souder that “private business... has the right to set the rules.”

This is hardly a new tension in the Republican coalition. In 1984, Sidney Blumenthal wrote a fascinating article in The New Republic, detailing how Reagan's political advisors struggled to sideline the religious conservatives who had put them into power. A “strategy of repressive tolerance,” he wrote, was the work of economic conservatives who found the agenda of the Christian Right inconvenient and often embarrassing. The battle plan sounds very familiar today: The Christian Right rallied its followers around issues like abortion and school prayer; the White House offered “insincere gestures of support” while instructing congressional leaders to place relevant legislation in permanent limbo; and White House aides made sure the Christian Right constituency was “maintained in a state of perpetual mobilization.”

The flaw in this strategy, Blumenthal noted, was that “The White House served as an incubator for the movement it was trying to contain.” After eight years of this, religious conservatives wised up. And when televangelist Pat Robertson entered the 1988 presidential primaries, his strong early showing stemmed in large part from the support of frustrated evangelicals. Back then, of course, the issues that the White House was working to avoid were conservative favorites like abortion and school prayer. That's still a problem for the Bush administration, but now they face dissent from the other side as well. The first time around, of course, Robertson failed to get the nomination, and most evangelicals—faced with the choice between the Episcopalian George H.W. Bush or the avowedly secular Michael Dukakis—drifted back to the GOP. What will happen in 2008 is now an open question.

Giving Karl Rove heartburn

Like an abusive boyfriend, Republicans keep moderate evangelicals in the coalition by alternating between painting their options as bleak and wooing them with sweet talk. You can't leave me—where are you going to go? To them? They think you're stupid, they hate religion. Besides, you know I love you—I'm a compassionate conservative. The tactic works as long as evangelicals don't call the GOP's bluff and as long as Democrats are viewed as hostile to religion.

Randy Brinson is proof that some evangelicals are willing to take their chances and cross over to see what Democrats have to offer. There is a growing recognition among mainstream Democrats and the once-quiescent Religious Left that they can reframe issues they care about in terms that appeal to religious voters. But winning over moderate evangelicals—or moderate religious voters generally—will take more than just repackaging old positions. It will require aggressively staking out new positions that can be used to demonstrate the tension within the GOP's religious/business coalition—embracing, for instance, the Workplace Religious Freedom Act. And it means forwarding new ideas that can counter the conservative-promoted image of progressives as anti-religious—ideas like Bible-as-literature courses in public high schools, which might anger some secularists on the left but are perfectly consonant with liberal values.

A sign that Democratic leaders are beginning to get it is the plan—promoted by leaders such as Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton—to lower abortion rates by preventing unwanted pregnancies. Full-throated support of this effort, and a recognition that abstinence education plays a role in lowering teen pregnancy rates (along with birth control), puts Democrats alongside the majority of voters on this difficult issue, and it is especially appealing to moderate evangelicals. They're not looking to punish everything outside of procreative marital sex; they just want to see fewer abortions take place. And because evangelicals generally don't have the same opposition to contraception that Catholics do, Democrats can promote the kind of plan that would truly reduce abortions, something Republicans—with their reliance on right-wing Catholics—can't afford to do.

Despite all of the punditry about a “God gap” at the voting booth, this is a better moment for Democrats to pick up support from religious moderates than any other time in the past few decades. That's because evangelicals themselves are the ones who are broadening the faith agenda, insisting that there are issues they care about beyond abortion and gay marriage, connecting Gospel messages about the golden rule and the Good Samaritan to the policies they want their government to support.

For 30 years, the Republican advantage among religious voters has come from being able to successfully control the definition of “religious,” conflating it with “conservative” and encouraging the media to do the same. Measured against that yardstick, most Democrats come up short. But when the standard is more complex, when being religious also means caring about the environment and poverty and human rights and education, the plane levels. Soon enough, Republicans start to miss the mark, and Democrats get a little closer.

This is what gives Karl Rove and the other GOP headcounters heartburn. A third-party candidacy by Roy Moore would be troublesome, but conservative evangelicals are ultimately loyal to the Republican Party. And while it might irritate business supporters, the administration could probably toss moderate evangelicals a few crumbs on the environment or global poverty. But once that door is opened, it can't be shut again. Whether or not large numbers of moderates migrate to the Democratic Party, if they succeed in expanding the scope of “religious issues,” the GOP will lose its lock on faith.

And so Republicans revert to the only tactic they have left: fear. The fight down in Alabama has shown that they will do whatever they have to in order to prevent Democrats from claiming a piece of the religious mantle, even if it means taking what could be portrayed as the “anti-religion” stance themselves. On the same day that Alabama Republicans launched their filibuster of the Bible literacy bill, state GOP chairwoman Twinkle Cavanaugh published an op-ed that charged the Bible curriculum was written by “ultra-liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Council for Islamic Education, and the People for the American Way.” (It was not.) Randy Brinson chuckled as he reported this to me, saying, “This is smokin' them out. Now we see what they really care about. It's not religion; they care about power.” He may have the last laugh. According to convoluted state law, Democrats can revive the Bible literacy bill after the Alabama legis

Wesley Clark Creams O'Reilly

2006-05-31T18:32:00.001-07:00

Gen. Clark joined Bill to discuss Haditha and John Murtha. It's nice to see O'Reilly come around on Iraq in his TPM, but he misses the point completely on Murtha and the marines.

Video-WMP Video-QT (low res)

Murtha has said over and over again that these actions happened because of the stress they are under. When Bill tried to say that this type of behavior occurred in conflicts the US was previously involved in; Wesley Clark got a little hot under the collar.

The Real Decider

2006-05-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

Uncle Dick — America's Shadow President

Allen L Roland, OpEdNews.com

Make no mistake about it ~ everyone in the Bush administration reports to Dick Cheney including Bush himself.

Uncle Dick is truly the shadow president and his fingerprints are all over every lie and deception of this corrupt administration.

The Center for American Progress explains how Uncle Dick effects the implementation of Congressional legislation ~ and that Cheney, not Bush, is the ultimate decider in this near fascist administration.

CHENEY'S OFFICE REGULARLY SCREENS LEGISLATION TO DETERMINE WHETHER BUSH WILL IGNORE LAW

Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Amanda Terkel and Payson Schwin, American Progress Report

A report this weekend by Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe details the heavy influence Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff David Addington have had in carrying out the administration's controversial "unitary executive" theory.

(Savage previously reported on how President Bush had "quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office.")

The Vice President's office "routinely reviews pieces of legislation before they reach the president's desk, searching for provisions that Cheney believes would infringe on presidential power," Savage reports.

When such flags are raised, Addington is the "leading architect of the 'signing statements' the president has appended to more than 750 laws," asserting Bush's right "to ignore the laws because they conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution." (Read U.S. News's recent comprehensive profile of Addington.)

The Bush administration has "used such statements to claim for itself the option of bypassing a ban on torture, oversight provisions in the USA Patriot Act, and numerous requirements that they provide certain information to Congress, among other laws."

Gagged librarians break silence on Patriot Act

2006-05-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story

Connecticut librarians spoke about their fight to stop the FBI from gaining access to patrons' library records at a news conference yesterday organized by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and in a subsequent interview with RAW STORY.

The Librarians, members of Library Connection, a not-for profit cooperative organization for resource sharing across 26 Connecticut library branches sharing a centralized computer, were served with a National Security Letter (NSL) in August of last year as part of the FBI's attempt to attain access to patron's records.

The NSL is a little known statute in the Patriot Act that permits law enforcement to obtain records of people not suspected of any wrongdoing and without a court order. As part of the NSL, those served with the document are gagged and prohibited from disclosing that they have even been served.

The foursome of Barbara Bailey, Peter Chase, George Christian, and Jan Nocek were automatically gagged from disclosing that they had received the letter, the contents of the letter, and even from discussions surrounding the Patriot Act.

The librarians, via the national and Connecticut branches of the ACLU, filed suit challenging the Patriot Act on first amendment grounds.

"People ask about private and confidential things in the library settinglike about their health, their family issues and related books they take out these are confidential and we did this to protect our patrons from authorized snooping," said Peter Chase, Vice President of Library Connection."

On September 9 of last year, a federal judge lifted the gag order and rejected the government's argument that identifying the plaintiff would pose a threat to national security.

Yet the government continued to appeal the case throughout the reauthorization debate, passionately arguing that not a single incident of civil liberties violations by the Patriot Act had occurred. By continuing the appeal, the government effectively silenced any evidence to counter their claims.

"This all happened during the reauthorization debate and the government was saying no one's rights were being violated," said George Christian, staff liaison for Library Connection and one of the plaintiffs in the case.

As the debate over the reauthorization of the Patriot Act heated up, the librarians and others gagged by the NSL had to watch in silence, intimately aware of dangers they believed were not being exposed.

"We could not speak to Congress until after the renewal of the Patriot Act," Said Barbara Bailey, President of Library Connection and one of four plaintiffs in the case.

Although the ACLU, representing the librarians, filed the case on August 9 of last year, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales decried any civil liberties violations in a Washington Post op-ed in December, stating that "There have been no verified civil liberties abuses in the four years of the [Patriot] act's existence."

The suit names Alberto Gonzales, Robert Mueller, and an un-named FBI official as the defendants in the case. The plaintiffs are collectively referred to in all court filings as simply John Doe.

"My testimony was informed not only by the successes of the act but also by my personal meetings with representatives from groups such as the ACLU and the American Library Association," wrote Gonzales in his Washington Post piece. During the reauthorization discussion, I asked that certain provisions be clarified to ensure the protection of civil liberties, and Congress responded."

After the Patriot Act was reauthorized in March of this year, the government stopped its appeals. Last Wednesday, the Connecticut librarians were finally allowed to say that they were the John Doe in the case, but they are still prohibited from discussing the case or the NSL.

"There are other people who have been served with these letters. We hope by our testimony that more people are aware of this and people are able to speak out," said Jan Nocek, Secretary for Library Connection and one of the four plaintiffs in the case.

"Our clients were gagged by the government at a time when Congress needed to hear their voices the most," said Ann Beeson, ACLU's lead attorney in the case. "This administration has repeatedly shown that it will hide behind the cloak of national security to silence its critics and cover up embarrassing facts. Every time the government invokes national security in defense of secrecy -- as they've done most recently with NSA wiretapping -- the American public should remember these four librarians."

It is unknown how many NSLs have been served and to whom. A University of Illinois survey conducted in 2002 found that out of roughly one thousand libraries asked, eighty five libraries said they were asked by law enforcement for patrons' records.

According to an ABC News report, Assistant Attorney General William Moschella told members of Congress "that 9,254 National Security Letters were issued in 2005 involving 3,501 people."

But much like his successor, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed that the Patriot Act did not violate civil liberties and said that it has never been used to obtain library records.

Earlier this year, the Justice Department's inspector general issued no less than six reports to the relevant Congressional oversight committees indicating that there were no allegations of abuse and no violations of civil liberties since the original enactment of the Patriot Act days after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

BRADBLOG.COM: Bobby Kennedy, Jr. to Question 2004 Election in Rolling Stone

2006-05-31T17:13:00.000-07:00

The stolen election is not NEW news. But it is largely new to mainstream media. Good for Bobby Jr. It's been many months, but okay, better late than never. May this be the first of many exposés of what really went down in Ohio and possibly other states under the political thumb of Karl Rove and his Ohio goon, Ken Blackwell. The main question I have is: What in the hell is up with John Kerry, and does he really believe that by pulling his punches to accept and bless the fraudulent 2004 election count, he will be better off when he runs for prez again? What about all the people who tried to vote for him but were thwarted? What about those who'll try to do that next time? Earth to Kerry! Come in, dude! Or don't even think about '08! -hl

BradBlog.com

A damning and detailed feature article, written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for Rolling Stone and documenting evidence of the theft of the 2004 Presidential Election is set to hit newstands this Friday, The BRAD BLOG can now confirm. The online version of the article will be posted tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

The article — headlined on the cover as "Did Bush Steal the 2004 Election?: How 350,000 Votes Disappeared in Ohio" — has been several months in development and will contend that a concerted effort was undertaken by high-level Republican officials to steal the Election in Ohio -- and thus the country -- in 2004!

Kennedy told The BRAD BLOG this morning that "the best evidence says the Republicans succeeded" in their plan.

He writes in the 10-page long article, and confirmed to us today, that evidence shows Ohio Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell was "certainly in on" the scheme, and there are indications that the effort went all the way up to the White House.

Kennedy, who is co-host of Ring of Fire, a weekend show on Air America Radio, is an environmental attorney and the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy. This is his first public foray into the realm of Election Fraud, Election Integrity, Electronic Voting and, in particular, the questionable results of Election 2004.
A major publicity push is currently in the works to accompany the feature story which is sure to get the attention of more than a few D.C. and Buckeye State pols in addition to the mainstream media who have, of late, begun reporting more frequently on the litany of concerns and now-documented evidence that new electronic voting machines are hackable through a number of means.
Several public appearances are currently being scheduled for Kennedy in the coming weeks, including an appearance on The Colbert Report currently scheduled for Monday, June 12.

Sources have told The BRAD BLOG that Kennedy "does not hold back in this article."

One of the election integrity advocates involved in research and development with Kennedy on the story told us a number of weeks ago that "[Kennedy] essentially says everything that those of us who have been contending there was massive chicanery in the '04 election were right, and the media and politicians who ignored it at the time were wrong."

We'll have more details and information shortly from the story which includes quotes from Democrats such as Howard Dean and John Kerry, as well as pollster Lou Harris who also questions the validity of the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio according to the article...

A sidebar included with the article calls for an investigation into Electronic Voting machines prior to upcoming elections...More soon...

Keeping in mind that a mere 6 votes registered for Kerry instead of Bush at each precint in Ohio in 2004 would have given the state, and the Presidency, to Kerry, here's a few quotes from the article...

Howard Dean: "I'm not confident that the election in Ohio was fairly decided."

U.S. Congressman from Ohio, Rep. Dennis Kucinich: "The secretary of state is supposed to administer elections – not throw them."

Pollster Lou Harris of the Harris Poll -- described in the piece as "the father of modern day political polling" -- says: "Ohio was as dirty an election as America has ever seen."

Despite Harris' comments, which may be amongst the most explosive in the article, Kerry himself brings up the rear...

John Kerry: "Can I draw a conclusion that they played tough games and clearly had intent to reduce the level of our vote? Yes, absolutely. Can I tell you to a certainty that it made the difference in the election? I can't. There's no way for me to do that. If I could have done that, then obviously I would have found some legal recourse."

...DEVELOPING HARD...

Kansas GOP Ex-Chair Switches Parties

2006-05-30T21:08:00.000-07:00

Republicans have a feeling they're not in Kansas anymore. Well, they are now, but they're one foot soldier out the door. -hl

John MIlburn, AP News

The former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party jumped ship in a big way Tuesday, switching his affiliation to Democrat amid speculation that he would become Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' running mate.

Johnson County Elections Commissioner Brian Newby confirmed that Mark Parkinson, the state GOP chairman from 1999 to 2003, came to the office and switched his party affiliation shortly before noon.

Parkinson's name has been widely circulated as Sebelius' choice for a running mate as the Democratic governor seeks a second term. Current Lt. Gov. John Moore - another former Republican - is retiring when his term expires in early 2007.

Sebelius spokeswoman, Nicole Corcoran, would not comment about Parkinson, but said an announcement of the governor's choice of running mates was scheduled Wednesday not far from Parkinson's home in Olathe, a Kansas City suburb.

"Traditionally, you do see that the first stop would be in or around that person's home base. It would be safe to assume that she would be choosing someone from the Johnson County area," Corcoran said.

Parkinson didn't immediately return calls seeking comment.

Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison also switched parties from Republican to Democrat to challenge Attorney General Phill Kline, a Republican, in the November election.

Republican House Speaker Doug Mays said he was disgusted by Parkinson's lack of loyalty to the party that made him chairman, but he isn't surprised by the rift.
The Republican Party, which has dominated Kansas politics since statehood, has shifted to the right in recent years and it inevitably will shift back to the left, he said. Instead of defecting to challenge one another, though, Republicans need to find common ground, he said.

'Divine Strake' Nuclear Test Postponed

2006-05-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

KLAS-TV

A huge test explosion was set to take place next month, 90 miles north of Las Vegas. But the project was pushed back and finally indefinitely postponed. Sunday, opponents celebrated.

Opponents said the 700-ton blast would send a mushroom cloud into the sky and possibly spread radioactive dust from previous nuclear experiments. Today was supposed to be a protest against the test. But instead it was a low key celebration.

Nearly 100 people camped in the desert at the gates of the Nevada Test Site. They came from Wyoming, Colorado, California and Utah. Pete Litster was one of the plaintiffs in a suit against the National Nuclear Security Administration to stop the blast.

"Living in Utah and coming from a culture of folks that distrusts the U.S. Government about weapons testing and coming from a culture of people that have been affected by radioactive fallout we wanted to make sure that the U.S. Government was following all the proper procedures," said Litster.

Today's group is a tiny slice of the opposition to the proposed test explosion. It included 42 national and international organizations, university professors and attorneys.

Last week the National Nuclear Safety Administration decided to indefinitely postpone the blast because of questions about possible fallout from the experiment. According to the Nye County Sheriffs Office its been years since this many protesters showed up at the test site. This afternoon, about 75 of those protesters crossed over the fence onto the Nevada Test Site and were arrested.

Gore: Bush is 'renegade rightwing extremist'

2006-05-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Oliver Burkeman and Jonathan Freedland, Guardian Unlimited

Al Gore has made his sharpest attack yet on the George Bush presidency, describing the current US administration as "a renegade band of rightwing extremists."

In an interview with the Guardian today, the former vice-president calls himself a "recovering politician", but launches into the political fray more explicitly than he has previously done during his high-profile campaigning on the threat of global warming.

Denying that his politics have shifted to the left since he lost the court battle for the 2000 election, Mr Gore says: "If you have a renegade band of rightwing extremists who get hold of power, the whole thing goes to the right."

But he claims he does not "expect to be a candidate" for president again, while refusing explicitly to rule out another run. Asked if any event could change his mind, he says: "Not that I can see."

Mr Gore, who appeared at the Guardian Hay literary festival over the bank holiday weekend, is promoting An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary and book detailing the climate change crisis that he warns "could literally end civilisation".

The new levels of attention he is receiving have led some Democrats to call on him to run again for president, while others have responded with anger that Mr Gore did not show the same level of passion in the 2000 campaign.

He has since acknowledged that he followed too closely the advice of his consultants during that campaign, and - before he started to scoff at the idea of running again - swore that if he ever did so, he would speak his mind.

In the years since, he has been a steady critic of specific Bush administration policies. He opposed the war on Iraq at a time when most prominent Democrats were supporting it, and more recently spoke out against what he called "a gross and excessive power grab" by the administration over phone tapping.

In the interview Mr Gore also distances himself from Tony Blair on the subject of nuclear power, which the prime minister has insisted is "back on the agenda with a vengeance". Mr Gore says he is "sceptical about it playing a much larger role," and that although it might have a part to play in Britain or China, it will not be "a silver bullet" in the fight against global warming.

In the US, Mr Gore's environmental campaign has sparked a backlash from some on the right who accuse him of scaremongering. A series of television advertisements, launched by a thinktank called the Competitive Enterprise Institute, argue that carbon dioxide emissions are a sign of American productivity and progress.

Mr Gore's true attitude towards a potential return to the White House - or, at least, a potential battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination - remains unknown.

At the weekend, Time magazine reported that he was telling key fundraisers they should feel free to sign on with other potential candidates. The magazine quoted unnamed Democratic sources as saying that the former vice-president had also been asking the fundraisers to "tell everybody I'm not running".

Mr Gore would not find it difficult to raise millions of dollars, if he did decide to run. But while public denials might prove a wise campaign strategy - not least by prolonging the period of positive attention Mr Gore is now receiving - actively turning away fundraisers does suggest a firmer resolve not to re-enter electoral politics.

It is significant, however, that Mr Gore refuses to go beyond saying that he has no "plans" for such a campaign. "I haven't made a Shermanesque statement because it just seems odd to do so," he has said - a reference to the famous announcement by the civil war general William Sherman, who unequivocally refused to stand in the election of 1884. "If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve," General Sherman said.

Religious Liberals Gain New Visibility

2006-05-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

Caryle Murphy and Alan Cooperman, Washington Post

The religious left is back.

Long overshadowed by the Christian right, religious liberals across a wide swath of denominations are engaged today in their most intensive bout of political organizing and alliance-building since the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1960s, according to scholars, politicians and clergy members.

In large part, the revival of the religious left is a reaction against conservatives' success in the 2004 elections in equating moral values with opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Religious liberals say their faith compels them to emphasize such issues as poverty, affordable health care and global warming. Disillusionment with the war in Iraq and opposition to Bush administration policies on secret prisons and torture have also fueled the movement.

"The wind is changing. Folks -- not just leaders -- are fed up with what is being portrayed as Christian values," said the Rev. Tim Ahrens, senior minister of First Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio, and a founder of We Believe Ohio, a statewide clergy group established to ensure that the religious right is "not the only one holding a megaphone" in the public square.

"As religious people we're offended by the idea that if you're not with the religious right, you're not moral, you're not religious," said Linda Gustitus, who attends Bethesda's River Road Unitarian Church and is a founder of the new Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture. "I mean there's a whole universe out there [with views] different from the religious right. . . . People closer to the middle of the political spectrum who are religious want their voices heard."

Recently, there has been an increase in books and Web sites by religious liberals, national and regional conferences, church-based discussion groups, and new faith-oriented political organizations. "Organizationally speaking, strategically speaking, the religious left is now in the strongest position it's been in since the Vietnam era," said Clemson University political scientist Laura R. Olson.

What is not clear, according to sociologists and pollsters, is whether the religious left is growing in size as well as activism. Its political impact, including its ability to influence voters and move a legislative agenda, has also yet to be determined.

"I do think the religious left has become more visible and assertive and is attempting to get more organized," said Allen D. Hertzke, a University of Oklahoma political science professor who follows religious movements. "But how big is it? The jury is still out on that."

"My gut tells me that all this foment [on the religious left] is bound to create more involvement in politics," he said. "I don't know whether there's going to be more of them numerically, but you don't need greater numbers to have a political impact; all you need is to be more active. You already see that in Ohio and some other states, where Christian conservatives no longer have a monopoly on faith in politics."

Conservative Christian activist Gary L. Bauer said the religious left "is getting more media attention" but "it's not clear" that it is getting more organized.

"My reaction is 'Come on in, the water's fine' . . . but I think that when you look at frequent church attenders in America, they tend to be pro-life and support marriage as one man and one woman, and so I think the religious left is going to have a hard time making any significant progress" with those voters, he said.

The quickening pulse of the religious left is evident in myriad ways:

· More than a dozen books have been published in the past year decrying the religious right's influence in politics. Three have been particularly influential in galvanizing activists: Michael Lerner's "The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country From the Religious Right," Jim Wallis's "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It," and Jimmy Carter's "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis."

· The recently formed Network of Spiritual Progressives is holding a four-day conference that began Wednesday at All Souls Church in Northwest Washington. A thousand participants from 39 states are discussing a new "Spiritual Covenant for America" and spent Thursday visiting their members of Congress. Lerner, the California-based rabbi who founded the network, said the conference is partly aimed at countering an aversion to religion among secular liberals and "the liberal culture" of the Democratic Party. "I can guarantee you that every Democrat running for office in 2006 and 2008 will be quoting the Bible and talking about their most recent experience in church," he said.

· The Democratic Faith Working Group, made up of 30 members of the House and scores of aides, has begun meeting monthly on Capitol Hill to discuss faith and politics, opening each session with a prayer. Its purpose is to "work with our fellow Democrats and get them comfortable with faith issues," said its chairman, Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), a preacher's son who was raised in the fundamentalist Church of God.

· Organizations and Web sites that meld religion and liberal politics have mushroomed since the 2004 elections, said Clinton White House chief of staff John D. Podesta. The think tank he heads, the Center for American Progress, has helped form alliances between some of these new groups -- such as Faith in Public Life, the Catholic Alliance for the Common Good and FaithfulAmerica.org -- and long-standing organizations, such as the National Council of Churches.

For most of the 20th century -- from the Progressive era through the civil rights movement -- religious involvement in American politics was dominated by the left. That changed in the 1970s, after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights, the formation of the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, and, on the left, "the rise of a secular, liberal, urban elite that was not particularly comfortable with religion," said Will Marshall III, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.

According to John C. Green, an expert on religion and politics at the University of Akron, and others, the religious left cuts across almost all denominations, drawing in black churches, liberal Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants as well as Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and people who say they are "spiritual" but not affiliated with an organized faith.

It also includes some theologically traditionalist Christians.

Janel Bakker, 28, a graduate student at Catholic University who attends Washington Community Fellowship on Capitol Hill, an evangelical church affiliated with the Mennonite denomination, said she grew up in a "relatively conservative religious home" where "the big issue was considered to be abortion."

But Bakker, who has attended several rallies against the Iraq war, said she now regards poverty, peace and the environment as important spiritual issues ignored by the religious right. "The religious right has assumed that capitalism is the way to go and is the most moral way to organize society," Bakker added. "Young people are questioning that."

Liberal evangelicals are " leaping out of the closet and they are saying 'Enough is enough,' " said Jack Pannell, spokesman for Sojourners, a Washington-based evangelical social justice ministry. "Evangelical Christians are not all white people living in the suburbs and only concerned with abortion and same-sex marriage."

Some groups on the religious left are clearly seeking to help the Democratic Party. But the relationship is delicate on both sides.

"If I were the Democrats, the last thing I would do is really try to mobilize these folks as a political force . . . because I think some of this is a real unhappiness with the whole business of politicizing religion," said Mark Silk, director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

The Rev. Joseph W. Daniels Jr., senior pastor of Emory United Methodist Church in Northwest Washington, said a key question for him is whether the religious left will become "the polar opposite to . . . the religious right" or be "a voice in the middle."

"What this country needs is strong spiritual leadership that is willing to build bridges. We don't need leaders who are lightning bolts for division and dissension," he said.

Nonetheless, some observers doubt that the revitalization of the religious left will lessen the divisions over religion in politics. "I do think," said Hertzke, "that, if in fact this progressive initiative takes off, we will see an even more polarized electoral environment than we did in 2004."

McCain Booed, Heckled, Protested at New School: Honeymoon is Over

2006-05-19T23:51:00.000-07:00

THIS is what happens when you don't pre-screen your audience. The graduating class of the New School gave the presumptive front-runner for '08 an unvarnished glimpse of what lies in wait for every single Republican carrying Bush's water — and that includes Joe Lieberman. You made your bed — and put Jerry Falwell in it, McCain. You should've quit while you were ahead and still had that maverick persona. -hl

Ari Berman and Sam Graham-Felsen, The Nation Blog

"I haven't heard anyone aroused about me speaking at the New School," John McCain said in April, defending his decision to address Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

Nobody at all, except for virtually the entire crowd at the New School's Madison Square Garden graduation ceremony in New York City. At the beginning of the event, New School President, and former Senator, Bob Kerrey predicted a raucous affair. "Our founding purpose is proudly liberal," he said. "We began as an act of protest."

The school's tradition of dissent carried on today. Scores of New School students held orange signs, and a few banners, reading "McCain Does Not Speak For Me," and "Our Commencement Is Not Your Platform." What began as mild rumblings of disapproval before McCain's speech soon exploded into boos, catcalls and turned backs.

The spark was provided by undergraduate keynote speaker Jean Sara Rohe, a composed, seemingly innocuous jazz musician and singer. After beginning with a short folk song (true to classic graduation speech form) Rohe quickly tossed aside her prepared remarks to directly address McCain.

"This ceremony has become something other than the celebratory gathering it should be," Rohe said. "The Senator does not reflect the ideals on which this school was founded. This was a top-down decision in which the students played no part." The crowd erupted.

"I consider this a time of crisis and I feel compelled to speak," Rohe continued, referencing McCain's speech at Falwell's Liberty University last Saturday.

She paraphrased McCain's words on the folly of youthful stubbornness and ignorance.

"I am young, but I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous and wrong," she said. "Osama bin Laden has not been found, nor those weapons of mass destruction." The vast majority of the crowd gave her a standing ovation.

"Well, we're having fun now, aren't we?" Kerrey cracked before introducing McCain.

The Senator spoke in a dull monotone, without his usual charisma or charm. He was noticeably deflated by the crowd's harsh reception towards him. Remarks such as "I supported the decision to go to war in Iraq," were met with loud boos.

"I stand that ground because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country's interests and values required it."

"Wrongly!" one student boomed from the back. Sitting directly behind us, Maureen Dowd and Adam Nagourney of the New York Times, chuckled.

As McCain droned on, students became increasingly restless. One cried, "This speech sucks!" Several students walked out early.

Summing up the mood of the day, another shouted, "We're graduating, not voting."

Lamont Forces Lieberman to Face-off in Primary

2006-05-19T23:48:00.000-07:00

Associated Press

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman was nominated for a fourth term by state Democrats Friday night, but his anti-war challenger garnered enough delegates to force a primary in August.

Backers of Ned Lamont, a Greenwich businessman who has sharply criticized the moderate senator for his support of the war in Iraq, shouted with delight after learning their candidate will be the first to challenge Lieberman to a primary.

Lieberman won 1,004 of the 1,509 votes cast at the state convention, while Lamont won 505. Lamont captured 33 percent of the delegates, well more than the 15 percent he needed to force the primary.

Sean Smith, Lieberman's campaign manager, downplayed Lamont's delegate support. He said Friday's vote showed that Democrats in Connecticut still back the veteran senator, despite his support of the war.

"I think we're moving into friendlier territory," Smith said of the Aug. 8 primary. "There are 600,000 Democrats who are going to be heard from before this is over."

Lieberman worked Friday night to fend off Lamont's challenge, reminding convention delegates that he stands for more than his support for the war. He held a barbecue for delegates in the parking lot of the Connecticut Expo Center to smooth things over.

Lieberman said he has called hundreds of delegates in recent weeks, talking about the environment, his support of the U.S. Submarine Base in Groton, education and other issues.

"I'm a proud Democrat and I'm going to carry the battle forward," said Lieberman, who had to leave the convention early to observe the Jewish sabbath.

Lamont said he believes the level of support he received at the convention will send a message to Washington that people are fed up with the war.

"They are saying this war was a mistake and bring the troops home," he said. "I think 33 percent of the people in the convention are telling people in Connecticut and Washington they want a change."

Lamont is from an old-money Connecticut family with strong Wall Street ties. He founded his own telecommunications firm, Lamont Digital Systems, in 1984.

Earlier this week, Lamont's campaign manager, Tom Swan, said Lamont's family fortune stands somewhere between $90 million and $300 million, according to a new financial disclosure report.

Lieberman captured the bulk of the delegates in larger cities, such as Hartford and his hometown of New Haven. He lost to Lamont in small towns such as East Granby and Eastford. Lamont had particular success in eastern Connecticut.

The state Democratic convention was to continue Saturday, when delegates will be asked to endorse candidates for governor, attorney general, secretary of the state, treasurer and comptroller.

There is a close battle between New Haven Mayor John DeStefano and Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy for the gubernatorial nod.

Malloy campaign officials appeared more optimistic after learning their delegates in Hartford would not be challenged. There has been a local battle over whether the delegates - the bulk of whom support Malloy - were properly selected.

The bitterness toward Lieberman and his support of the war was evident Friday night. About 60 peace activists protested outside the Expo Center. And some Lamont supporters loudly chanted "Go Home Joe" when U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., nominated Lieberman. Dodd acknowledged the discontent, saying he appreciates people who speak up about issues.

"Unlike the other party, we don't try to stifle those differences. We honor and respect them," Dodd said.

Dodd, his voice hoarse, reminded Democrats of Lieberman's longtime dedication to Connecticut and his support of key issues such as the environment and working to protect the U.S. Submarine Base in Groton from the military's closure plans.

But Lamont supporters said they believe Lieberman has forgotten his roots.

"Lieberman has just deserted the causes that I think make the party strong," said delegate Rona Cohen of New Britain.

Max Medina, a Bridgeport attorney who helped persuade Lamont to run for the Senate, said voting against Lieberman would send a message to the country.

"Our fight for a more just and humane America begins tonight, with you and me. In this place, at this time, you and I have the power to send a message to America, including George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld," he said.

Before the convention, Lieberman said he believes Lamont will hurt other party hopefuls if he continues his battle for the Senate seat.

"I think it's going to be harmful of our party and the chances of our congressional candidates, our Democratic challengers and our gubernatorial candidates," he said. "But it's his decision."

Lamont said there was no reason to pull out of the race.

"Everywhere I go, no one is saying, 'Oh my God, you're hurting the party,"' he said.

State Rep. Tim O'Brien, D-New Britain, a Lamont supporter, said he believes the Democratic primary is fueling interest in all Democratic candidates this election season.

"This is a race about the heart and soul of the party," he said.

The Wreckage Administration

2006-05-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate

Looking at the wreckage of the Bush administration leaves one with the depressed query, "Now what?" The only help to the country that can come from this ugly and spectacular crack-up is, in theory, things can't get worse. This administration is so discredited it cannot talk the country into an unnecessary war with Iran as it did with Iraq. In theory, spending is so out of control it cannot cut taxes for the rich again; the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bushies is already among its lasting legacies.

As we all know, things can always get worse, and often do. I rather think it's going to be up to the Democrats to hold the metaphoric hands of this crippled administration until it limps off stage. The Republican National Committee has a new scare tactic for the faithful: You must give to the party, or else the Democrats will spend the next two years investigating the administration (horror of horrors). Those who recall the insanely trivial investigations of the Clinton years may indeed regard this as the ultimate waste of time and money (as even Ken Starr concluded, there never was anything to Whitewater), but in fact it could be a therapeutic use of the next biennium. In fact, the offenses are not comparable.

Suppose we really did stop to investigate why and how and who is responsible for the lies, the deformed policies and the inability to govern of this administration. There is a wealth of lessons to be learned about the dangers of ideological delusion and of contempt for governance.

Trouble is, the world is not apt to hold still for two years. It seems to me pointless to impeach Bush. In the first place, the Republicans so trivialized impeachment into partisan piffle, it would look like little more than payback. In the second place, I believe Dick Cheney is seriously off the rails, apparently deeply paranoid -- let's not put him in charge. The minimum we should expect of Bush in return for dropping impeachment (or not) is that he cease breaking the law. Despite the opinions of Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, etc., the president of the United States does not have the authority to set aside the law.

(If Bush were impeached, I would use as evidence his astounding statement in March that the matter of getting American troops out of Iraq "will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq." What a contemptible statement)

It would be easier to contemplate a two-year holding period if Bush hadn't already wasted so much time. Of particular note in this department is "the inconvenient truth" -- global warming. Wasting eight years in the face of what we already knew when Bush came in is not only insane, but also unforgivable. A recent poll showed the majority of Americans feel the war in Iraq will be the overriding issue of Bush's presidency. I suspect future historians will fixate on his global warming record -- not only doing nothing to stop it, but letting the hole get dug deeper, as well.

Barring emergency, I suspect the wisest thing Democrats can do in the next two years is to begin steadily undoing what Bush hath wrought -- on tax and spending, on global warming, and on surveillance and other illegal lunges for power. George W. Bush ran in 2000 as a moderate. He did not bother to inform us at the time that he felt the government of this country needed a much stronger executive above the law. Congress has sat by passively while this administration accrued more and more power. If members of Congress think the legislative branch should be equal, it's time for them to stir their stumps.

Am I jumping to conclusions? Can Karl Rove yet steer his party away from electoral disaster in the fall? I learned long ago never to call elections closer than six weeks out, and normally I stick to that rule. But I do not think George W. can be put together again, so Rove's only option is go negative against the Democrats -- no surprise there. At this point, they could attack Democrats on almost anything, but that would leave the large question, "Compared to what?" And, we must watch out for those voting machines.

It would be interesting to see an election in which Bush is not a factor and the whole fight is over what Tom DeLay and the K Street Project have made of the Congress. If ever a gang of corrupt jerks deserved to be held accountable, this one does.

The Lamest Lame Duck Ever

2006-05-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

Dick Meyer , CBS News

Forget November, forget '08; president is done.

The great impulse of the punditocracy right now is to look at President Bush's swelling problems with the public and his party in the context of the elections coming up in November and then in 2008. Big mistake.

Short of another disaster on the scale of 9/11, George Bush no longer has the power, credibility or ability to effectively govern for the rest of his term in office. Contrary to what you hear on television, governing remains more important than campaigning. Government is more important than elections - to the extent the two can be differentiated anymore.

Bush's realm of efficacy will be limited to areas where he can make unilateral decisions, mostly in war and foreign policy. The tax cuts that oozed through Congress last week may well be his last "significant" piece of domestic legislation; I put quotations around significant because they are, in fact temporary. The entire menu of Bush tax tinkering is set to expire in 2010 on someone else's watch, an apt metaphor for this administration.

The Bush administration is now locked in a triple-hammer hold that would defeat Houdini.

Public support for this president has evaporated to historic lows. Last week's CBS News/New York Times poll put Bush's approval rating at an embarrassing 31 percent. In this week's ABC News/Washington Post poll, voters trusted Democrats over Republicans to handle all 10 of the major issues the pollsters asked about. That's a new one. The new polling is consistent with a long, relentless erosion of public support.

Faced with his unpopularity, the Republican Party, quite naturally, is fighting. Senate and House Republicans are in almost open warfare. The House is hawkish and loud on immigration policy, the Senate dovish and conciliatory. House Leader John Boehner called Leader Frist's call for a $100 gas rebate "insulting," a week after Speaker Hastert dissed General Hayden, the president's choice for the CIA. In February, the House shafted both the Senate and the House by killing the Dubai ports deal.

On the more distant right flank, the party's Christian soldiers have stopped being such good soldiers. They are furious that Bush and the Republican Congress have delivered lip service but no action on issues like gay marriage, immigration, prayer in school, obscenity standards and abortion.

"I can't tell you how much anger there is at the Republican leadership," Richard Viguerie, a veteran conservative consultant and activist told The New York Times. "I have never seen anything like it."

An influential pocket of conservatives that doesn't have social issues at the front of its agenda is equally irritated and equally vocal. A fine example is Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist long influential in the party, who has just written a book called "Impostor" that skewers this administration for its deficits and unwillingness to deal with the great looming crises in entitlement programs.

The vaunted brilliance and corporate organization of Rove/Bush Inc. has been pretty much blown away in the second term. Rove is fighting off an indictment. From the Dubai deal to the Harriet Miers death march, the White House's political ear seems to be getting tinnier. Porter Goss' appointment to the CIA was a disaster not just politically but substantively. In his second term, the president has never reached outside his core circle for advisers, staff or ideas.

Will all this lead to a Democratic field day in November? Who knows; and not to be flip, but who cares? Polls show Congress is held in low esteem similar to the president's. Democratic gains would simply lead to continued do-nothingism. And the ramifications for 2008, I believe, are nil. 2008 will be about two people, not the performance of congressional Democrats in 2007 and 2008.

But what is apparent, is that George Bush has at his disposal none - none - of the tools presidents have used to turn bad situations around: public support, party support or skilled statecraft. He's a lame duck less than two years in to his second term. You are not being governed.

Bush campaign aide sentenced in vote-suppression case

2006-05-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

Actually, three — count 'em — three Republican goons here have been convicted of Rovian dirty tricks. And anyone wonders if the 2004 General Election was on the up and up. Hint: It wasn't! These are traitors, as damaging to our democracy as any terrorist. No mercy! -hl

Jason Szep, Capitol Hill Blue

A senior official in U.S. President George W. Bush's re-election campaign was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Wednesday for his role in suppressing votes in a key U.S. Senate race, a scandal that Democrats charge may involve the White House.

James Tobin, 45, one of three Republican campaign operatives convicted in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in a 2002 election, was convicted in December of two telephone harassment charges.

Prosecutors had asked for a two-year sentence.

U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe described the crime as "extremely serious" and a threat to the U.S. political tradition of free and fair elections.

"People in your position need to know they cannot do these things and if they do the consequences are very, very serious," he said in handing down a sentence harsher than the six months home detention and community service sought by Tobin's lawyer.

Democrats want an investigation into 22 telephone calls made by Tobin and New Hampshire Republican Party officials to the White House on November 5 and 6, 2002, and say they believe national Republican officials may be involved in the scheme.

"I don't consider this sentencing to be the end of the matter. I consider this to be one more step in the process of uncovering exactly who knew about this," said Kathleen Sullivan, the New Hampshire Democratic Party chair.

"There are still unanswered questions," she said.

The national Republican Party, which has paid more than $2.5 million in legal fees to defend Tobin, has said the calls to the White House were routine during a tight state Senate race and had nothing to do with the phone-jamming.

800 HANG-UP CALLS

Get-out-the-vote hot lines set up by state Democrats and a firefighter's association to urge residents to vote were jammed by more than 800 hang-up calls. State Republican officials say they tried to stop it once they learned of the scheme.

Republican John Sununu beat then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen in the election and state Republicans swept a number of close polls.

"This is going to continue to be an issue for a while," said Dean Spiliotes, director of research at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

He said it remained unclear why the national Republican Party spent millions of dollars defending Tobin.

"At first it seemed like he was a free agent working on his own with maybe one or two people. But then pretty quickly we saw that the Republican National Committee was spending millions to help with his legal defense. That shot us some pretty large red flags among people in the state," he said.

"Ever since then it's kind of grown slowly but surely. It hasn't gone away and I don't think it has peaked yet either."

Republican Party officials say they financed Tobin's defense because he had occupied a senior position in the national Republican Party when he was charged and because he had maintained his innocence.

Tobin, the former New England regional director of the Republican National Committee, stepped down as New England chairman of Bush's 2004 re-election campaign when he became subject of a federal criminal investigation.

The former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, Chuck McGee, was also convicted after testifying that he had come up with the idea for the scheme.

Allen Raymond, former president of a Republican consulting firm in Virginia, was jailed after admitting to arranging for telemarketing company to make the calls.

"We need to find out how high this goes in the Republican Party," said Paul Twomey, an attorney for the Democratic Party who is leading a separate civil lawsuit that alleges Republican voter fraud and seeks monetary damages.

Tobin was denied bail and also fined $10,000 and given two years of probation. He plans to appeal, his lawyers said.

Bring back Bill Clinton

2006-05-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

Paul Campos, Capitol Hill Blue

Most people now agree that the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which limits presidents to two elected terms, was a mistake. Never has that been more obvious than at present, when most Americans are legally barred from voting for a man they would like to see back in the White House.

Recent opinion polls confirm that Bill Clinton, who after eight years in office garnered the highest approval ratings ever recorded for a president at the end of his term, remains immensely popular. This is hardly surprising: under Clinton's stewardship America enjoyed a booming economy, gargantuan budget surpluses, almost no military conflict, and the respect of the international community.

By contrast, less than six years after the end of the comparative golden era that was the Clinton presidency, America is drowning in record levels of debt, mired in a catastrophic war, and hated by almost all of our former allies. It's no wonder that George W. Bush appears to be well on the way to becoming the most unpopular president in American history. Indeed, if not for the 22nd Amendment, it seems likely that Bill Clinton would still be president, and we would have avoided most of the calamities of the past five years.

It follows that anyone who could devise some legal way to return Clinton to the presidency would be performing a service of such magnitude that he would deserve to have his statue adorn every public square of this great nation.

I therefore submit the following proposal: When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., makes her long-expected announcement that she is running for president, she should also announce that her husband will be her running mate, and that, if elected, she will resign from office, effective Jan. 21, 2009.

The meaning of the text of the 22nd Amendment could not be plainer. It reads, in relevant part, "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice." And, as legal scholars such as Justice Antonin Scalia have pointed out many times in recent years, when the meaning of a legal text is plain, it is both unnecessary and illegitimate to enforce anything other than that meaning.

Thus, while Bill Clinton cannot be re-elected, nothing bars him from becoming president again. Indeed, one suspects that much of Hillary Clinton's status as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination is a product of the hope that, by electing her, the people would be re-electing her husband in all but name.

Yet such is the perversity of the human _ or, more precisely, the legalistic _ spirit, that some wretched shyster is sure to object that the 12th Amendment prohibits the carrying out of this beneficent plan. The 12th Amendment provides that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

Bill Clinton is not "constitutionally ineligible to the office of President." He is merely constitutionally ineligible to be elected president. Furthermore, how would the claim that the 12th Amendment bars Clinton from serving as president ever come to be enforced as a matter of law? Such a thing could happen only if the Supreme Court were to choose to entangle itself in the purely political question of who ought to be our next president _ something that the current Supreme Court, dominated by conservative jurists opposed to judicial activism, would surely refuse to do.

Only the 18th Amendment, which enacted Prohibition, can compete with the 22nd for the title of worst change to the text of the Constitution. We can always hope that, just as Prohibition was formally repealed, the 22nd Amendment will meet a similar fate. Until then, the legal path to another era of peace and prosperity is clear.

The Revolting Christian Right

2006-05-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

Someone left the door to the hen house open

John in DC, AMERICAblog

And look what got out.

Some of President Bush's most influential conservative Christian allies are becoming openly critical of the White House and Republicans in Congress, warning that they will withhold their support in the midterm elections unless Congress does more to oppose same-sex marriage, obscenity and abortion.

Oh yes, because what the majority of Americans are most concerned about right about now is gays getting married, bad words, and abortion. Yes, that's why Bush is sinking in the polls. Not enough gay-bashing.

Please do focus on these issues, Mr. President and Senator Frist. PLEASE. It will be a pleasure to watch the Republican party become a permanent minority party of out-of-touch un-American wingnuts and extremists for an entire generation.

Poll: 51% oppose NSA database

2006-05-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Susan Page, USA TODAY

A majority of Americans disapprove of a massive Pentagon database containing the records of billions of phone calls made by ordinary citizens, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. About two-thirds are concerned that the program may signal other, not-yet-disclosed efforts to gather information on the general public.

POLL RESULTS: NSA database reaction

The survey of 809 adults Friday and Saturday shows a nation wrestling with the balance between fighting terrorism and protecting civil liberties.

By 51%-43%, those polled disapprove of the program, disclosed Thursday in USA TODAY. The National Security Agency has been collecting phone records from three of the nation's largest telecommunication companies since soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Most of those who approve of the program say it violates some civil liberties but is acceptable because "investigating terrorism is the more important goal."

"The combating-terrorism issue still has resonance with the American public," says political scientist Richard Eichenberg of Tufts University in Massachusetts. "But the public's tolerance for this sort of invasion of privacy may be topping out. It may be people are starting to say: 'When is the other shoe going to drop? What else are they doing?' "

About two-thirds say they're concerned that the federal government might be gathering other information about the public, such as bank records and data on Internet use, or listening in on domestic phone conversations without obtaining a warrant.

Two-thirds are concerned that the database will identify innocent Americans as possible terrorism suspects.

The findings differ from an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken Thursday night of 502 adults. In that survey, 63% called the program an acceptable way to investigate terrorism. The findings may differ because questions in the two polls were worded differently.

Also, the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll includes more respondents — the margin of error is +/—4 percentage points, compared with +/—5 points in the ABC poll — and was taken after Americans had a day or two to hear and think about the program.

Views divide sharply along partisan lines. Among Republicans and those who generally vote Republican, 71% approve of the program. Among Democrats and Democratic "leaners," 73% disapprove.

Americans are split on whether the news media should report information about the government's secret methods to fight terrorism: 47% say yes; 49% say no.

They want to learn more about this program, though. By nearly 2-to-1, 62%-34%, they support immediate congressional hearings to investigate it.

Times' Frank Rich: Any 'witch hunt' for traitors should begin in the White House

2006-05-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

Raw Story

Defending journalists who have been castigated as traitors for exposing government blunders, New York Times columnist Frank Rich writes that any "witch hunt" for traitors should begin in the White House, RAW STORY has found.

"What really angers the White House and its defenders about both the Post and Times scoops are not the legal questions the stories raise about unregulated gulags and unconstitutional domestic snooping, but the unmasking of yet more administration failures in a war effort riddled with ineptitude," Rich writes.

"It's the recklessness at the top of our government, not the press' exposure of it, that has truly aided the enemy, put American lives at risk and potentially sabotaged national security," Rich continues. "That's where the buck stops, and if there's to be a witch hunt for traitors, that's where it should begin."

Ex-CIA Director Porter Goss should not be allowed to "escape into retirement unexamined," Rich argues, calling him "so inept that an overzealous witch hunter might mistake him for a Qaida double agent."

"His mission was not to protect our country but to prevent the airing of administration dirty laundry, including leaks detailing how the White House ignored accurate CIA intelligence on Iraq before the war," Rich writes.

Rich ends his column by suggesting that if Air Force General Michael Hayden is confirmed by the Senate to replace Goss then "someone should charge those senators with treason, too."

Excerpts from Rich's "Will The Real Traitors Please Stand Up?" set for Sunday's edition of the New York Times:

When America panics, it goes hunting for scapegoats. But from Salem onward, we've more often than not ended up pillorying the innocent. Abe Rosenthal, the legendary New York Times editor who died last week, and his publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, were denounced as treasonous in 1971 when they defied the Nixon administration to publish the Pentagon Papers, the secret government history of the Vietnam War. Today we know who the real traitors were: the officials who squandered American blood and treasure on an ill-considered war and then tried to cover up their lies and mistakes. It was precisely those lies and mistakes, of course, that were laid bare by the thousands of pages of classified Pentagon documents leaked to both The Times and The Washington Post.

This history is predictably repeating itself now that the public has turned on the war in Iraq. The administration's die-hard defenders are desperate to deflect blame for the fiasco, and, guess what, the traitors once again are The Times and The Post. This time the newspapers committed the crime of exposing warrantless spying on Americans by the National Security Agency (The Times) and the CIA's secret "black site" Eastern European prisons (The Post). Aping the Nixon template, the current White House tried to stop both papers from publishing and when that failed impugned their patriotism.

Rove Informs White House He Will Be Indicted

2006-05-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors."

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, did not return a call for comment Friday.

Rove's announcement to President Bush and Bolten comes more than a month after he alerted the new chief of staff to a meeting his attorney had with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in which Fitzgerald told Luskin that his case against Rove would soon be coming to a close and that he was leaning toward charging Rove with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators, according to sources close to the investigation.

A few weeks after he spoke with Fitzgerald, Luskin arranged for Rove to return to the grand jury for a fifth time to testify in hopes of fending off an indictment related to Rove's role in the CIA leak, sources said.

That meeting was followed almost immediately by an announcement by newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten of changes in the responsibilities of some White House officials, including Rove, who was stripped of his policy duties and would no longer hold the title of deputy White House chief of staff.

The White House said Rove would focus on the November elections and his change in status in no way reflected his fifth appearance before the grand jury or the possibility of an indictment.

But since Rove testified two weeks ago, the White House has been coordinating a response to what is sure to be the biggest political scandal it has faced thus far: the loss of a key political operative who has been instrumental in shaping White House policy on a wide range of domestic issues.

Late Thursday afternoon and early Friday morning, several White House officials were bracing for the possibility that Fitzgerald would call a news conference and announce a Rove indictment today following the prosecutor's meeting with the grand jury this morning. However, sources close to the probe said that is unlikely to happen, despite the fact that Fitzgerald has already presented the grand jury with a list of charges against Rove. If an indictment is returned by the grand jury, it will be filed under seal.

Rove is said to have told Bolten that he will be charged with perjury regarding when he was asked how and when he discovered that covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the agency, and whether he discussed her job with reporters.

Rove testified that he first found out about Plame Wilson from reading a newspaper report in July 2003 and only after the story was published did he share damaging information about her CIA status with other reporters.

However, evidence has surfaced during the course of the two-year-old investigation that shows Rove spoke with at least two reporters about Plame Wilson prior to the publication of the column.

The explanation Rove provided to the grand jury - that he was dealing with more urgent White House matters and therefore forgot - has not convinced Fitzgerald that Rove has been entirely truthful in his testimony.

Sources close to the case said there is a strong chance Rove will also face an additional charge of obstruction of justice, adding that Fitzgerald has been working meticulously over the past few months to build an obstruction case against Rove because it "carries more weight" in a jury trial and is considered a more serious crime.

Some White House staffers said it's the uncertainty of Rove's status in the leak case that has made it difficult for the administration's domestic policy agenda and the announcement of an indictment and Rove's subsequent resignation, while serious, would allow the administration to move forward on a wide range of issues.

"We need to start fresh and we can't do that with the uncertainty of Karl's case hanging over our heads," said one White House aide. "There's no doubt that it will be front page news if and when (an indictment) happens. But eventually it will become old news quickly. The key issue here is that the president or Mr. Bolten respond to the charges immediately, make a statement and then move on to other important policy issues and keep that as the main focus going forward."

Clinton outperforms Bush in every category

2006-05-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

CrooksandLiars.com

Digby: They really didn't need to do this poll on whether Clinton outperformed Bush. It's obvious to anyone who lived through the era. What the story fails to mention is that Clinton outperformed Bush while fighting off the rabid, slavering GOP congress of Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott that was determined not only to thwart his program but used every institutional lever of power they had to destroy him personally...read on.

Video-WMP Video-QT

The poll of 1,021 adult Americans was conducted May 5-7 by Opinion Research Corp. for CNN. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points...read on. This isn't a flash poll that was done before anyone had a chance to understand the issues.

If you ever wanted to end a war...

2006-05-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

Say "Sir! No Sir!"

You need to know this story.

A must watch short flash video - Click here to view.

DeLay will resign June 9

2006-05-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

It's official: Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) has announced he will resign from Congress June 9. A copy of his resignation letter was acquired by RAW STORY.

Pinch me! Hey, Dubya! Take a hint. -hl

Raw Story

Congressman Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land) today delivered the following letter to the Speaker of the House announcing his intention to resign his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives effective June 9, 2006. The text of the letter follows.

The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert
Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
The Capitol Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Mr. Speaker:

It has been a great privilege, a high honor, and one of my most treasured personal pleasures to have served with you and our colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than twenty-one years. You have been a stellar example for our nation of personal courage and steadfast conviction, and I thank you for your leadership of this great institution as well as for your personal friendship.

As you are aware, I have recently made the decision to pursue new opportunities to engage in the important cultural and political battles of our day from an arena outside of the U.S. House of Representatives. As a result, I am informing you of my intention to formally resign as the representative of the 22nd Congressional District of Texas to be effective at the close of business on June 9, 2006.

May God continue to bless you, the President, this great institution and its Members, and our nation.

Sincerely,

Tom DeLay
Member of Congress

Conservatives bail on Bush

2006-05-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

John Whitesides, Capitol Hill Blue

Even conservatives are losing faith in President George W. Bush now, putting Republican control of Congress at risk in November's midterm elections.

Six months before voters decide the balance of power in Congress, an increasingly gloomy and anxious electorate has become disenchanted with Bush and grown more pessimistic about the Iraq war, gas prices and the country's future, according to a flurry of recent polls.

More than two-thirds of the American public thinks the country is on the wrong track and voters prefer Democrats to Republicans by double-digits margins. Bush's job approval rating has reached a low for his presidency of 31 percent.

Throughout Bush's five-year presidency, conservatives have remained remarkably faithful. But the latest polls suggest that is no longer true.

A Gallup poll this week found just 52 percent of conservatives and 68 percent of Republicans approved of Bush's performance, record lows for both.

Polls also show Democratic voters are more motivated and enthusiastic about November's election, a reversal of the political mood in 1994 when Republicans swept to victory and took control of both houses of Congress

"Unless they can find a way to inspire some enthusiasm among voters, Republicans are toast. This is a very serious erosion of support," said Karlyn Bowman, a poll analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

"If things keep going as they are, the Republicans are in enormous trouble in November," she said.

DOUBTS ABOUT COMPETENCE

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, said conservative unhappiness at Bush's handling of the now-dead Dubai ports deal and the growth of federal spending has grown to encompass doubts about his leadership and competence.

"Many conservatives think Bush hasn't stuck to his core principles, but that is just part of it," Kohut said. "This is not strictly about ideology, this is about performance."

Republicans have appeared in disarray as they squabbled over spending, immigration, what to do about record-high gas prices and the port deal.

"The dynamic over the last 12 or 15 years has been Democrats split, Republicans united," said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senate campaign committee.

This year, he said, "on issue after issue, immigration the most, it's Republicans split, Democrats united."

Democrats must gain six seats in the Senate and 15 in the House of Representatives to reclaim control, a task strategists in both parties say is tough but possible.

"If we do hold our majority in the House, it will be a testament to gerrymandering," said Republican consultant Dan Schnur, referring to the politically motivated redrawing of district boundaries after the 2000 Census that helped protect many incumbents in both parties.

In the Senate, Democrats must beat at least five incumbent Republicans to regain control, a difficult challenge even in a favorable Democratic political climate.

Republicans hope to rally conservative support with a $70 billion tax cut package approved by the House, a series of votes on hot-button social issues like gay marriage and warnings about the consequences of Democratic control.

Brian Nick, spokesman for the Republican Senate campaign committee, said there was time to recover.

"It is a tough environment for Republicans and we've had the wind in our face for months now, but we have six months to get our message out and show the Democrats are not a good alternative," he said.

Senators steam over new report of NSA phone calling scrutiny

2006-05-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

KGBT 4

A Republican senator says it's time to "find out exactly what is going on." A Democrat senator is asking, "Where does it stop?"

The furor on Capitol Hill is over a USA Today report that three big phone companies have turned over the records of tens of (m) millions of calls to the National Security Agency, as part of a government effort to compile a complete database of phone calls.

Chairman Arlen Specter says he wants AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth to appear before his Senate Judiciary panel to explain.

The ranking Democrat on the committee, Patrick Leahy, says he's angry that Congress will, in his words, "rubber stamp" anything done by the Bush administration.

The newspaper says the program doesn't involve listening to the calls. But it reportedly does seek to track every phone call in order to identify calling patterns.

Stephen Colbert: New American Hero

2006-05-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

Don Hazen, AlterNet

Virtually overnight, Stephen Colbert became a hero to countless Americans, following his April 30 performance at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Since then, millions of people have either watched the video or read the transcript of his skewering of both the president and the press corps, and have discussed it avidly. Tens of thousands of people have gone to the website ThankYouStephenColbert.com and written letters of appreciation. Talk about water-cooler chatter; the event crashed internet servers across the land. It truly was one of those moments of media shock and delight.

And then, an odd but revealing thing happened. Some of the chattering class commentators, mainstream media writers and columnists, and Democratic officials didn't get it: Not very funny, rude, not respectful of the president, and so on. Are they kidding? How could they not understand they were witnessing one of the bravest, most subversive performances in memory, which thrilled and gave hope to untold viewers and readers, and will be a huge marker when people look back on the Bush era?

Colbert's speech had a huge impact for two reasons: First, he spoke truth to power right to the face of the president, in front of the entire news media. No one could miss, sidestep or deny it. It wasn't a scene from a movie, book or talk show -- it was live. It reminded me of Edward R. Murrow's famous address to the Radio and Television News Directors Association (recently depicted in the film "Good Night and Good Luck"). It gave me goose bumps. Colbert's performance shamed every Democrat or columnist who has been too afraid, too timid, or just too worried about losing his or her own power and access to go out on a limb and tell the truth that this administration is a disaster beyond our wildest nightmares. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove have gotten away with murder … and worse. And many of the people in that room that night who squirmed in their seats -- it was in part because of the internal indictment they were feeling for not doing what they should have done, countless times, long before. Maybe now they will do the right thing, but I won't be holding my breath.

The second reason Colbert made such a huge splash is the rapid advance of video on the web. Almost overnight, the media world has irrevocably changed as video is increasingly becoming as important as print and still images on the web. When, in a matter of hours, dozens of websites can post or link to a video and get the word out about a spectacular event, the role of the gatekeepers and the corporate media shrinks big-time. And it doesn't matter if the networks or CNN or Fox decides that they don't want you to see it -- they can't stop it. The people's network is now in working order. Progressives now have a television capacity; still rudimentary, perhaps, but powerfully effective.

The press leaks

The press coverage of the Colbert performance was illuminating, as reported by the popular blog, Democratic Underground:

"Expect nothing less from the cowardly American media. This demonstrates powerfully the ability of the media to choose the news, and to decide when and how to shield Bush from negative publicity. Sins of omission can be just as bad as sins of commission.

"The AP's first stab at it, as well as Reuters and the Chicago Tribune, tell us everything we need to know: In these reports, Colbert's performance is sidestepped and marginalized, while President Bush is depicted as lighthearted, humble and witty."

Salon's Joan Walsh points out, "Colbert's deadly performance did more than reveal, with devastating clarity, how Bush's well-oiled myth machine works. It exposed the mainstream press' pathetic collusion with an administration that has treated it — and the truth -- with contempt from the moment it took office. Intimidated, coddled, fearful of violating propriety, the press corps that for years dutifully repeated Bush talking points was stunned and horrified when someone dared to reveal that the media emperor had no clothes. Colbert refused to play his dutiful, toothless part in the White House correspondents' dinner — an incestuous, backslapping ritual that should be retired. For that, he had to be marginalized. Voilà: 'He wasn't funny.'"

On the Democratic political front, as John Aravosis wrote on AmericaBlog, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., actually stepped up to defend President Bush, saying, according to The Hill:

"I thought some of it was funny, but I think it got a little rough … He is the president of the United States, and he deserves some respect."

"I'm certainly not a defender of the administration," Hoyer reassured stunned observers, but Colbert "crossed the line" with many jokes that were "in bad taste."

Criticizing Colbert for being rude would be pretty funny if it weren't so depressing. Rude? Since when has politics in this administration used the Marquis of Queensbury rules? Is Dick Cheney sweet and accommodating? When, in their march to power, has the right wing had good manners — about abortion or gay marriage, or in the push for invading Iraq? Sure, mention decorum and one thinks immediately of Karl Rove, of Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, of Jerry Falwell blaming America's bad morals for 9/11.

The fact is, Stephen Colbert is at the acme of rising independent voices — in the blogosphere, on the internet, in publishing and independent filmmaking — who are being aggressive and playing hardball the way the right does. And guess what? The establishment is getting nervous. The powers-that-be know that people respond to passion, anger and resistance, emotions that convey meaning and seriousness, and the will to fight hard for important issues.

In a smaller way, but showing similar guts, Cindy Sheehan spoke truth by traveling to Texas and demanding that the president explain, please, just what "noble cause" her son died for. Ray McGovern did it recently when he publicly challenged Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Atlanta, and so did Harry Taylor, the man who confronted George W. Bush at a town meeting in North Carolina.

Perhaps the most important lesson we have learned from the divisions laid bare by Stephen Colbert is that the big split isn't so much between Democrats and Republicans or between the media and the people and events they cover, but rather between the powerful and the angry, between those basking in power and those fighting for change. The kiss-ass media, the revolving-door congressmen, the sycophant lobbyists and congressional staffers, the greedy media consultants — all are dependent on and addicted to the trappings of power, whether it's their next book, TV appearance, consulting contract, ride on Air Force One or junket to play golf at St. Andrews. Stephen Colbert turned the heat up on them all:

… let's review the rules. Here's how it works: The president makes the decisions; he's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people, the press, type those decisions down. Make, announce, check. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kickin' around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know: fiction!

It's getting hotter in the kitchen, and some of those who have the most to hide are getting closer to a meltdown.

Florida Republican Will Not Challenge Harris for Senate Nomination

2006-05-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

The Thing that Wouldn't Leave, aka Katherine Harris, ain't budging and neither is the GOP's preferred choice to run in her place. So they're stuck with that albatross who forced Dubya on us in 2000 by, among other things, listing innocent black Democratic voters as felons and purging them from the poll rosters. Shame on her. These days, even her own party can't stand her, but there's nothing they can do about her. She's not going away. Now they know how we've felt for 6 years. Karma is a good thing. -hl

Jim Rutenberg, The New York Times

Any Republicans who were hoping that the speaker of the Florida House, Allan G. Bense, would challenge Representative Katherine Harris for the Senate nomination will have to look somewhere else.

Mr. Bense told his colleagues in the Legislature on Wednesday that he would not run.

The news was a setback to members of the Republican establishment here and nationally, including President Bush and Gov. Jeb Bush, his brother.

Governor Bush has publicly praised Mr. Bense. This week, the governor publicly questioned Ms. Harris's prospects against the Democratic incumbent, Senator Bill Nelson.

The White House political director, Sara Taylor, also praised Mr. Bense this week in an interview with The St. Petersburg Times. The interview was widely interpreted as a subtle but public sign that the White House would do all it could to support a campaign by Mr. Bense.

Ms. Harris's opponents have until Friday to come up with another candidate.

Governor Bush, whose term ends next year, found himself fending off speculation that he would step in to run for the seat, as well as speculation, raised by his brother in the morning, that he would run for president.

"I'm not running for president, I'm not running for United States Senate," he told reporters on Wednesday afternoon in Fort Lauderdale. "I'm trying to be a good governor."

Earlier, President Bush told reporters in Orlando that his brother would "make a great president" and that he hoped his brother would run for a higher office, according to the Web site of The St. Petersburg Times.

"I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not," the paper quoted the president as saying.

Al Gore Might Yet Run in '08

2006-05-09T11:12:00.000-07:00

Former Vice President Keeps Mum As His Movie Sparks Talk of a White House Run

Jackie Calmes, The Wall Street Journal

First there was Clinton-Gore. Could Clinton vs. Gore be next?

For former Vice President Al Gore, a rash of favorable publicity surrounding this month's opening of his movie "An Inconvenient Truth," and the growing political resonance of its subject -- global warming -- are stoking the most serious speculation about a Gore political comeback since his loss in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

In 2008, that could mean a once-unimaginable battle for Democrats' nomination between Bill Clinton's former vice president and his wife, Hillary Clinton. To some pro-Gore Democrats, worried about Mrs. Clinton's electability, that is part of the appeal.

"I appreciate that buzz, but he's not running for president," insists Michael Feldman, a former vice presidential adviser who is helping promote the film and Mr. Gore's new book on which it is based. "He has been spending a considerable amount of time trying to educate people about the issue of global warming," and won't talk about politics "right now," Mr. Feldman says.

The demurrals aren't persuasive to some Democrats, including former Clinton-Gore White House insiders. "I do know that he's thinking about it. I know for a fact," a former adviser says. "He's talked to people about the pros and cons."

Among those said to be pushing Mr. Gore are billionaire venture capitalist and high-tech entrepreneur John Doerr and Laurie David, a global-warming activist and producer of the film, and wife of "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" creator Larry David. "When people see this movie, I know they're going to see the real Al Gore, and they're going to demand that he run," Ms. David says. But, she adds, he changes the subject whenever it comes up, and had to be talked into making the movie when she pitched it.

Mr. Gore has begun assembling a Nashville, Tenn.-based operation to help with the demands on his time. He has hired longtime friend and top aide Roy Neel to head the office, and environmental activist Kalee Kreider, from a Washington public-relations firm, to handle communications. Mr. Feldman says their work will focus on global warming, not on maneuvering for 2008.

Yet the talk of a political second act for the man who won the 2000 popular vote, but lost in the Electoral College after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, exceeds anything before 2004, when Mr. Gore could have sought a grudge match against President Bush.

In recent weeks, he has been on the covers of Vanity Fair, Wired (its headline: "The Resurrection of Al Gore") and American Prospect, a liberal Democratic magazine. Defeated politically, he nonetheless makes Time's list of the world's 100 most influential people; Mr. Gore is featured under the headings "Heroes and Pioneers" and "America Takes a Fresh Look at 'Ozone Man'" -- the derisive nickname coined by the first President Bush in 1992 after Mr. Gore's previous environmental book, "Earth in the Balance," came out.

"His star will never be higher than it is right now with his movie coming out," says Democratic consultant Karen Skelton, Mr. Gore's former political director.

The Gore buzz reflects a sense among even some pro-Clinton Democrats that Mrs. Clinton, considered the prohibitive favorite for the nomination given her support in the party's base of activists and donors, can't win the general election because she is a polarizing figure to many voters. These skeptics believe only someone such as Mr. Gore with the celebrity and fund-raising potential to match Mrs. Clinton could stop her.

Like Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Gore remains a negative figure to many voters, says a Democrat who has seen private polls. For both, that might only increase with the spectacle of a Clinton-Gore brawl. Even insiders can't fully account for the bad blood that has built up since. At bottom, they say, it reflects contrasting views of what cost Mr. Gore the 2000 election: Mr. Clinton's scandals, or Mr. Gore's decision to so fully separate himself from a president who remained popular amid peace and prosperity. Several insiders say Mr. Gore is more likely to run if Mrs. Clinton does than if she doesn't.

Also controversial among Democrats was Mr. Gore's 2004 endorsement of Howard Dean, now the Democratic Party chief, just as Mr. Dean was stumbling in his presidential primary race against the ultimate nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. Mr. Kerry also is considering another run in 2008, though he, like Mr. Gore, would have the taint of a loser for partisans craving a fresh face.

According to Mr. Feldman and others, Mr. Gore is enjoying his freer and more lucrative life as a private citizen. "My expectation is he's not going to run in 2008," says Tad Devine, a top Gore strategist in 2000 who hasn't spoken with him lately. "He's in a really good place, and he's succeeding fabulously. Why would he want to walk away from it all?"

Mr. Gore and his wife, Tipper, have a new home in an affluent Nashville area, and they recently bought a condominium in San Francisco, nearer to two daughters in California. Since conceding to Mr. Bush, he has taught at several universities and written two books with his wife. He is on Apple Computer Inc.'s board and is senior adviser to Google Inc. He has founded Current, a youth-oriented, interactive cable network, and Generation Investment Management, which invests in companies deemed environmentally and socially responsible.

Periodically he has spoken out against Mr. Bush on the environment, Iraq and alleged abuses of executive power, in speeches promoted by the liberal group MoveOn.org. And he has widely given the 90-minute lectures and computer slide shows on global warming that, for all his reputed stiffness, gave rise to a film that drew standing ovations at the Sundance Film Festival.

On stage and in the film, a deadpan Mr. Gore opens, to laughs and applause: "I am Al Gore. I used to be the next president of the United States of America."

Mr. Gore, who turns 60 in 2008, could remain noncommittal and enter the presidential fray late, given his fame and fund-raising potential -- unlike lesser-known Democrats already stumping in the early-nominating states to be the Clinton alternative, such as former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh. If Mr. Gore ran -- or were drafted, as Ms. David suggests -- the longtime Washingtonian would run as an outsider, Democrats expect, helped along by his relationship with Internet-savvy MoveOn.org activists.

There would be no small irony in Mr. Gore re-emerging with a crusade against global warming. In 2000, he played down the issue he had so long been identified with in Congress, on his consultants' advice. They feared the younger Bush, like his father, would use the issue to reinforce an image of Mr. Gore as a bloodless wonk, and make it a jobs question for voters in swing industrial and coal-mining states. "The campaign took this issue off the table and robbed him of seeming 'big' and visionary," says former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta. "I think he regrets that."

Senate Dems Block Medical Malpractice Caps

2006-05-09T00:26:00.000-07:00

$250,000 for taking out the wrong kidney? I don't think so, and neither do the Democrats in the Senate. Republicans, on the other hand... -hl

James Rowley, Bloomberg

U.S. Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-sponsored measure supported by President George W. Bush to limit what doctors would have to pay injured patients for pain and suffering in malpractice lawsuits.

Senate Republican leader Bill Frist, a cardiac surgeon before going into politics, fell 12 votes short of rounding up the 60 needed to proceed with consideration of the measure. Republicans control the Senate 55-45.

The vote marked the fourth time since 2003 that Senate Democrats had blocked Republican attempts to set caps on malpractice awards.

``Year after year after year we have tried to reform medical malpractice in this country, and the Senate has been the stumbling block,'' said Texas Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison.

The House of Representatives, also controlled by Republicans, has passed legislation to limit pain-and-suffering judgments to $250,000. The Senate measure, sponsored by Nevada Republican John Ensign, would cap the amount patients could collect at $250,000 per defendant and up to $750,000 overall. The amount would be over and above any payments for actual expenses.

Democrats, who said the limits would help insurers and hurt patients, predicted they would block action on a companion measure, sponsored by Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum. That legislation would set a $250,000 cap on damages women could collect from obstetricians for malpractice.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada called the attempt by Republicans to bring up the measures an election-year ``political stunt'' to curry favor with insurance companies.

``There is a health-care crisis, but it has nothing to do with tort laws,'' Reid said. ``The real problem is too much malpractice, not too much litigation.''

Spiraling Premiums

Republicans said spiraling malpractice-insurance premiums due to frivolous lawsuits were driving doctors in high-risk specialties such as obstetrics and neurosurgery out of medicine.

``In Tennessee, 81 of 96 counties don't have a neurosurgeon,'' Frist said of his home state. ``Half don't have an emergency physician'' or an obstetrician, he said. ``Nobody is going to move into those counties where premiums are sky high.''

Frist said ``greedy predatory lawyers'' had turned doctors' offices into ``minefields'' for physicians rather than ``places of healing.''

Malpractice payments have jumped from $2 billion in 1991 to $4.5 billion in 2004, according to U.S. government statistics cited in a Pennsylvania Medical Society report in 2005. The average payout per doctor increased from $150,000 in 1991 to $300,000 in 2004, the study said.

Democrats said attempts to cap damages in some 20 states haven't resulted in lower premiums. Caps on damages ``are not only unfair to the victims of malpractice, they do not result in the reduction of malpractice premiums,'' said Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy.

``The Bush administration and congressional Republicans are again advocating a policy which will benefit neither doctors nor patients,'' he said.

Fewer voters call themselves Republicans!

2006-05-08T23:33:00.001-07:00

Rob Fournier, Associated Press

Fewer voters today than in 2004 call themselves Republicans or Republican-leaning. In addition, 27 percent of registered voters were strong Republicans just before the 2004 election, while only 15 percent fit that description today.

Democratic numbers are the same or better since 2004.

Jeb says Harris can't win

2006-05-08T22:05:00.000-07:00

DON'T DROP OUT, KATHERINE, PLEASE! We told you we wouldn't forget 2000, and it looks like we meant it. But, in all honesty, we want you to stay in the race. Tough it out, by all means! Having your name on the ballot does more for our side than trumped-up felons lists ever did for the GOP. I don't want to contribute to your campaign, but heaven knows I'm tempted. (If you wanna know how we REALLY feel, check this out.) -hl

Bill Kaczor, Associated Press

Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday that U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris has dropped so low in public opinion polls she cannot beat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in November.

"I just don't think she can win," Bush said at the Capitol in his strongest statement yet about his fellow Republican's struggling campaign.

The governor has made no secret that he hopes House Speaker Allan Bense will challenge Harris for the Republican nomination. Bense has not made up his mind, his wife, Tonie, said Monday from their Panama City home. The deadline for entering September's primary is Friday.

"With all due respect to the governor ... we know we can win," Harris told reporters Monday after filing her qualifying papers.

Harris has been dogged by staff turnover and her acceptance of $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions from defense contractor Mitchell Wade, who pleaded guilty to bribing former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif.

Bush also noted that polls show Harris running about 30 points behind Nelson.

"There's not a complicated reason," Bush said of his assessment that she can't beat Nelson. "It's just that's she's not gained any traction, and it seems that, unfortunately through no fault of her own perhaps, the press coverage is all about the problems in her campaign."

The governor said he was unaware of any other Republicans considering the race for Senate.

Harris rose to national prominence as Florida's secretary of state during the contentious presidential election recount in 2000, the election that resulted in the governor's brother winning Florida by only 537 votes and the presidency. She has been unable to shake that divisive image dispute during two terms in Congress.

Bush said he wasn't worried about Harris dragging down the Republican ticket, including candidates for governor and state Cabinet positions, if she is the party's nominee in the November general election.

"Florida voters are pretty sophisticated," Bush said. "They discern the issues well. We're a purple state. Democrats can win. Republicans can win. I don't think anybody can take anything for granted."

Stephen Colbert: the mouth that roared

2006-05-07T15:26:00.001-07:00

What the mainstream media didn't 'get' was that Colbert wasn't talking to them. He was talking to US, the normal people, who don't drink the Kool-aid. That's why they failed to get his jokes and turned all whiny and indignant. THEY were left out of the in-crowd for once in the last six years, and they had nowhere to run and nothing to do but squirm in their cushy banquet seats, and watch their mortified boy-king get punched again and again in the 'nads. Of course the Kool-aid drinkers didn't get Colbert's humor! It was never intended for their amusement. It was intended for OUR amusement at their expense, with no equivocation, no back-pedaling, and no apology whatsoever. Like a litmus test for normalcy, the humor registered with only the enlightened and those who have not sold their souls to the Bushies. So the MSM got their panties in a bunch. Oh well. -hl

Ed Naha, Mkanejeeves.com

"Satire is moral outrage transformed into comic art" Philip Roth once declared. He should have added: it's on the wane.

It's been almost a week since Stephen Colbert headlined at The Washington Steno Pool's annual dinner, zeroing in on both Bush and the Steno Pool itself. And, the results are finally dribbling in. Depending on the amount of Kool-Aid in your system, Colbert was "ballsy," or "crude," or "strident," or "dull" or "brave" or "embarrassing" or "heroic" or "cringe-inducing" or "sarcastic" or someone who "needed editing."

Okay. Let me be the first to say it.

He was fucking funny as Hell. When I first saw Colbert's routine, taping it for my wife, I literally fell over laughing. When I showed it to my wife, later, she gasped over some of the jokes and, then, laughed out loud, raucously.

This was fearless, funny political satire. Bush, in Joe McCarthy terms, was hilariously called out by Shecky R. Murrow; not only in front of the alleged media but in front of the world.

But a comedian is only as good as his straight-man. And, watching Bush react, (lips pursed in "sucking lemon" mode, face eventually getting so mottled as to resemble the Doppler radar map announcing the arrival of Hurricane Katrina) made Colbert's routine a true case of "Mission Accomplished."

Colbert stunned both the President and his lackeys (some actually fled) as well as the MSM toadies in attendance. That is what political satirists are supposed to do. And political satire is a lost art, these days, in America. There are maybe three practitioners left. But Colbert is special because he launches his barbs in character, the character being a Right Wingnut. He's the President's biggest fan and, in defending him, unintentionally disses him. This is nothing short of genius.

I can't remember any satirist, but for Will Rogers, who offered political commentary couched in character. And, hey, for all I know, Will really did offer zingers, off-stage, while dressed in a cowboy suit and twirling a lariat. But the fine art of socio-political humor has been whittled down, of late. There are no Twains, Bierces, Menckens, Parkers, Bruces, Sahls or Belzers, anymore. Most mainstream folks, these days, find Jay Leno cutting edge.

In other words, if you hire a comedian for one of these gatherings, you expect the set-up and the limp punchline. Another set-up. Another limp punchline. That passes for humor. On TV, Leno zeroes in on Bush's stupidity before dredging up more old Clinton jokes. Letterman goes for the throat before, alas, also dredging up more old Clinton jokes.

But for Jon Stewart and, sometimes, Bill Maher, Colbert is the only one out there willing to dance on the razor's edge.

Today? Truthiness is considered awkward. (Note: the dwindling amount of editorial cartoons in American newspapers. We don't want to think before we laugh. We just want to laugh. Re-write? Get me Marmaduke!)

The Colbert routine was important for two reasons. First, he managed to look the President in his eye as he belittled just about every cause the President has foisted upon a post 9/11 dazed populace. Two, he brought up every failure, in twenty minutes, the President and his toady press corpse has allowed to happen since 9/11.

And, oh yeah, it was funny as Hell.

Here's Colbert on the illegal Bush wire-tapping: "By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly on into your table numbers and somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail."

Here's Colbert on being a Bush American: "I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be it Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe in our infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior."

Here's Colbert on the press: "What are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in Eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason, they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished.

"Over the last five years you people were so good over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew."

I won't go on quoting, because we've all seen the more outrageous ones.

He, then, concluded with a video presentation that, not only used the press corpse's words against them, but lambasted both Bush giving reporters nicknames like "Stretch" (or Sneezy or Dopey or Doc) and the reporters accepting them, and also lionized Helen Thomas, who was the first reporter knee-capped and tossed aside by BushCo. because she actually asked questions and doesn't give a flying "F" about being crowned "Miss Popularity."

The interesting result of Colbert blasting both Bush and the media is that the media blinked. It covered the Steno Pool's dinner but ignored Colbert for a day or so. Instead, the MSM focused on Bush's routine with a double, the double allegedly saying what Bush was thinking before Bush spoke. It was pure Leno. Set-up. Soft punchlines. The media swooned over it, saying that it showed Bush to be a self-deprecating, regular, goshdarn guy. Again, they drank the Kool-Aid. They bought into Bush's bilge to save their own asses, kicked by Colbert.

Then, the bloggers dove in on the internetz. WTF? The liberal bloggers couldn't fathom why the MSM was ignoring Colbert and concentrating on "funny" Double-Ya's.

Wrote Salon's Peter Daou: "The AP's first stab at it and pieces from Reuters and the Chicago Tribune tell us everything we need to know: Colbert's performance is sidestepped and marginalized while Bush is treated as light-hearted, humble, and funny. Expect nothing less from the cowardly American media. The story could just as well have been Bush and Laura's discomfort and the crowd's semi-hostile reaction to Colbert's razor-sharp barbs. In fact, I would guess that from the perspective of newsworthiness and public interest, Bush-the-playful-president is far less compelling than a comedy sketch gone awry."

Huffington Post's Christopher Durang wrote: "Colbert's was a brave and shocking performance. And for the media to pretend it isn't newsworthy is a total bafflement. And a symbol of how shoddy and suspect the media is."

Soon, the MSM had to face the story. Think of a reply. So, at first, they said that they ignored Colbert because he was "unfunny."

At "The National Review," it was declared that: "The jokes bombed because the truth in comedy is what makes it funny." Note the word: "Bombed." That sums up our recent history, literally.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who dressed in a red Elmer Fudd hunting outfit to report on Cheney blasting a lawyer's face in on "Countdown," declared to Keith Olberman: "He wasn't terribly funny and he had the misfortune of following Bush, who actually did put on one of the better performances of his presidency." (Aside from the performance where he mislead us into a never-ending war?)

On "Hardball," Chris Slatherer asked Time com. political editor Mike Allen: "Why do you think he was so bad?"

Allen replied: "You have to have a sense of the room, and, as you know, the standard at these dinners is singe, not burn. He didn't achieve that."

Tucker Carlson (oh, where's that spinning bow-tie when you so need it) stated Colbert's routine was an "embarrassing public flop."

So, the hoi polloi reached it's verdict. Colbert wasn't funny. But, then, the story shifted. Why didn't the hoi polloi mention Colbert in the first place?

The theory floated by the hoi polloi? Liberals were trying to protect one of their own.

CNN's Lou Dobbs asked conservative columnist Martha Zoller, after showing a clip wherein Colbert declared: "The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man's beliefs never will." : "Do you think it's a reflection that the liberal still has -- the media has a liberal bias, Martha, that Colbert was not more heavily criticized, say, than Imus years ago with Bill Clinton?"

Zoller: "Well, certainly there is a liberal bias, and he is picking on George Bush, who the media doesn't like, versus Imus, who was picking on Clinton, who the media loved, OK? And so, you really see a little bit of a bias. What came to mind after seeing flight -- United 93 this weekend is 9-11 was a Tuesday, so that was -- and he probably didn't even think about that, but for me, having lost friends in the World Trade Towers, that was the first thing I thought of."

(NOTE: The above response is the Webster's Dictionary definition of "totally batshit.")

The New York Times waited four days before (not) weighing in but, at least, mentioned the name "Colbert," before reporting on the internet debate and not quoting any of Colbert's fans, just a blog dissing him.

The Washington Post's Richard Cohen, who never objected to Bush's really funny "whar's those WMD's?" slide-show at the Steno Pool's dinner two years ago, or last year's Pickles Bush "my man masturbates an animal" riff, declared, in his column: "I am a funny guy. This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to 'say something funny' -- as if the deed could be done on demand. This, anyway, is my standing for stating that Stephen Colbert was not funny at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner...

"The commentary, though, is also what I do, and it will make the point that Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude."

Richard? I know funny guys. I am a funny guy. Funny? You ain't. (Unless you're one of those Uncle Vinny, who eats too much pasta and drinks too much at a family dinner and, then, cracks himself up farting and burping "God Bless, America" before bursting into tears and reciting "The Pledge of Allegiance" types who are thought funny.) And, by the by, in elementary school? "The Yellow River" by I.P. Daily is considered funny. Get a life.

Meanwhile, after the speech, on "The Daily Show," on Monday, Jon Stewart declared. "It was balls-alicious. Apparently he (Colbert) was under the impression that they'd hired him to do what he does every night on television"-that is, make fun of conservatives, public officials and the press in the guise of an O'Reillyesque talk show host.

"We've never been prouder of him, but HOLY SHIT," Stewart added.

He also described the annual dinner as "where the President and the press corps consummate their loveless marriage."

Later, on his own show, Colbert raved about "the honor of appearing" at the Steno-Pool fest, filled with "power players" wherein he "fit right in."

Colbert enthused: "Best of all, I got to meet my main man, President Bush."

Colbert then played the stunned reaction of the audience, with the sound of crickets chirping above their flaccid faces, describing it all as "very respectful silence."

Stating that the crowd loved him, he enthused: "They practically carried me out on their shoulders...even though I wasn't ready to go."

On the following night, Colbert showed an edited version of his audition tape as Press Secretary riff, with Helen Thomas pursuing him. He grinned at his audience, as if proud.

Again, Colbert never breaks character. He never winks at the audience. He assumes his audience is smart.

Which is why he, really, wasn't speaking to the Steno-Pool, last week. He was speaking beyond them. To the smart ones. To all of us who realize that humor CAN make a change. Laugh at the Emperor who wears no clothes and, soon, all will see that he's in the buff. Swat down the angry, saber-rattling speech with a guffaw, and the saber is whittled down to a tooth-pick.

It's just one tact in fighting an arrogant would-be warrior. It's one that works. How many school bullies have been side-lined by snarkiness? Countless.

A few quotes, here, to sum things up.

"A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar." H. L. Mencken.

"Journalism is the ability to meet the challenge of filling space." Rebecca West.

Most importantly:

"The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he." Karl Kraus.

It's all about truthiness.

Or as Stephen Colbert said, recently: "It's my privilege tonight to celebrate our president. He's not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not Brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the fact police. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say I did look it up, and that's not true. That's but you looked it up in a book.

"Next time look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert report, I speak straight from the gut, ok? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the no fact zone."

And, facts are dangerous in a world where satire is considered sacrilege.

Ya gotta laugh about it. In fact, you have to laugh about it.

Yelling doesn't throw Bush off. Derision does.

Rummy called out in Atlanta!

2006-05-07T14:31:00.001-07:00

He lies about WMD's...

Ray McGovern, who was in the CIA for twenty seven years asked him why he lied about the run-up to the Iraq war. Rumsfeld then proceeded to lie to McGovern to cover up his earlier statements about WMD's being in Iraq. He also tries to use the troops in his defense, a terrible strategy, but not uncommon unfortunately. Notice, at the end of the clip, Ray gets vilified for asking Rumsfeld some pointed questions. We can't have that, no-no-no.

Video-WMP Video-QT

Rumsfeld: ...it appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

McGovern: You said you knew where they were.

Rumsfeld: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were and...

McGovern: You said you knew where they were. Tikrit, Baghdad, northeast, south, west of there. Those are your words.

Rumsfeld: My words-my words were that-no-no, wait a minute--wait a minute. Let him stay one second. Just a second....

reader DoverB comes through:

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet. There was a raid on the Answar Al-Islam Camp up in the north last night. A lot of people expected to find ricin there. None was found. How big of a problem is that? And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

THIS Week transcript...

THIS Week transcript...

Here's the transcript of the clip... (h/t Marcus)

In blogger call, Pelosi outlines Democratic strategy for 2006

2006-05-07T14:08:00.000-07:00

Raw Story

In a call to bloggers this afternoon monitored by RAW STORY, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) outlined the Democratic strategy for winning the 2006 elections.

Pelosi and her fellow Democrats went into the current congress with an exceedingly weak hand. Republicans held both houses of the legislature, and Senator John Kerry's (D-MA) loss to President Bush in the general election left many within the party disillusioned. The Democrats had no way to govern, and very limited ways of getting their message out.

According to the Congresswoman, even liberal papers often refused space for Democrats out of fear of losing access to Republicans, who controlled both houses of congress and the presidency. "It was across the board," the Congresswoman said. "We couldn't get the established media to really tell the tale,."

Grassroots, Netroots become battlegrounds

"That's why we had to have over a thousand town meetings—we couldn't get anything in," she intimated. "We don't have the votes, people think we can't win, so why bother talking to us. That's the attitude around here."

Part of this plan to bypass mainstream media included using blogs. Pelosi implied that giving a story to Internet outlets, who then trump the mainstream media, is not only a means of getting a story out, but also a way to spur mainstream news sites into action, via competition.

"We had to leave Washington," she concluded, "to innoculate the public to what George Bush was doing and expose them to the horrors he was proposing."

Taking the hits

A more controversial aspect of the strategy was staying silent on alternative policies while the public reacted to Republican legislation.

Movement toward any agenda, Pelosi told callers, required first, "Laying a foundation, tak[ing] the Bush numbers down before we could do anything. For us, it was about unifying the Democrats, about taking their numbers down, about getting our numbers up in the polls."

According to public opinion polsters, this strategy seems to have been met with success. "We're up fifteen, sixteen, seventeen points in the polls without people even knowing what the plan is. We've taken the mockery--'Oh, they don't have a plan'—in order to lay the groundwork.

"Our very constitution, our budget, our future, everything is at risk. If we have to take the heat on certain issues, we're willing to do that."

Moving forward

"We got the results we wanted," Pelosi feels. "Now, we're ready to go positive. [We have] a full media plan so that the American people will know who we are, what we stand for."

Pelosi says that the Democrats' vision for America started to go public in January, with a focus on, "honest leadership and real government. We next went to real security... In June, we go to our plan for family security--jobs, [and] the environment."

In the coming days, Democrats plan to spolight the fight against a penalty seniors late to sign up for a prescription drug plan will have to pay. The penalty, Pelosi explained, is a 1% increase for each month late—and continues for the rest of the recipients' lives. The Congresswoman cited a GAO report that stated 60% of confused seniors who called in to inquire about which plan best suited them received the wrong information from Medicare operators. "Handmaidens of the pharmaceutical industry put together a corrupt plan," she blasted. "And [seniors] are expected to pay for it the rest of their lives."

The party, according to Pelosi, plans to push the case that increased costs on seniors also affect the generation in the middle: adults with children and elderly parents that both require financial support.

The Democrats' Rural caucus also intends to announce next week more detailed information about the party's energy independence plan, which aims for energy independence in 10 years' time. "We're going to send our energy dollars to the midwest instead of the middle east," she hinted.

A reason to win

But the most important issue of the coming election, according to Pelosi, is also one of the least discussed: oversight.

"The Republicans during the Clinton years had done nothing but oversight of the intelligence," Pelosi explained. "Now that Bush is president, they've done no oversight."

When a caller interjected a note of concern, Pelosi fumed back in agreement, "It is dangerous!"

"I voted against the war, and sixty percent of the Democrats did, too. The intelligence was not there." The Democratic leader reiterated, "For people who say, 'If you saw what I saw'—it wasn't there."

"There have been no oversight hearings on Iraq, no oversight on Abu Ghraib," she marveled. "If there was one issue to win the election [for], it would be the power of subpoena—the American people should know."

Pelosi offers the Cunningham bribery scandal as another example of Congressional failure to oversee the war effort. "One of these contractors [linked to the bribery scandal] was supposed to be supplying the prevention for the improvised explosive devices. If this is a contractor that didn't do what it was supposed to, it cost American lives and the American people should know about that."

"I've been trying for a while," she explained, "but can't get the information because they do no oversight."

CIA boss Goss is cooked

2006-05-06T14:10:00.001-07:00

Richard Sisk and James Gordon Meek, New York Daily News

Tied to contractor's poker parties - hints of bribes & women

CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.

Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, the No. 3 official at the CIA, could soon be indicted in a widening FBI investigation of the parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery conviction of former Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham, law enforcement sources said.

A CIA spokeswoman said Foggo went to the lavish weekly hospitality-suite parties at the Watergate and Westin Grand hotels but "just for poker."

Intelligence and law enforcement sources said solid evidence had yet to emerge that Goss also went to the parties, but Goss and Foggo share a fondness for poker and expensive cigars, and the FBI investigation was continuing.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA operative and a Bush administration critic, said Goss "had a relationship with Dusty and with Brent Wilkes that's now coming under greater scrutiny."

Johnson vouched for the integrity of Foggo and Goss but said, "Dusty was a big poker player, and it's my understanding that Porter Goss was also there \[at Wilkes' parties\] for poker. It's going to be guilt by association."

"It's all about the Duke Cunningham scandal," a senior law enforcement official told the Daily News in reference to Goss' resignation. Duke, a California Republican, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison after pleading guilty in November to taking $2.4 million in homes, yachts and other bribes in exchange for steering government contracts.

Goss' inability to handle the allegations swirling around Foggo prompted John Negroponte, the director of National Intelligence, who oversees all of the nation's spy agencies, to press for the CIA chief's ouster, the senior official said. The official said Goss is not an FBI target but "there is an impending indictment" of Foggo for steering defense contracts to his poker buddies.

One subject of the FBI investigation is a $3 million CIA contract that went to Wilkes to supply bottled water and other goods to CIA operatives in Iraq and Afghanistan, sources said.

In a hastily arranged Oval Office announcement that stunned official Washington, neither President Bush nor Goss offered a substantive reason for why the head of the spy agency was leaving after only a year on the job.

"He has led ably" in an era of CIA transition, Bush said with Goss seated at his side. "He has a five-year plan to increase the analysts and operatives."

Goss said the trust Bush placed in him "is something I could never have imagined." "I believe the agency is on a very even keel, sailing well," he said.

The official Bush administration spin that emerged later was that Goss lost out in a turf battle with Negroponte, but Goss' tenure was marked by the resignations of several veteran operatives who viewed him as an amateur out of his depth.

White House officials said Bush would announce early next week his choice to succeed Goss. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, Negroponte's top deputy, heads the list of potential replacements, with White House counterterror chief Fran Townsend also on the short list.

Negroponte "apparently had no confidence" in Goss, and Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was also "very alarmed by problems at the CIA," said a congressional source involved in oversight of U.S. spy agencies.

"Supposedly the Cunningham scandal was the last straw," the source said. "This administration may be on the verge of a major scandal.">

Judges challenge Internet wiretap rules

2006-05-05T20:14:00.000-07:00

'Your argument makes no sense,' appeals judge tells FCC lawyer

The Associated Press

A U.S. appeals panel sharply challenged the Bush administration Friday over new rules making it easier for police and the FBI to wiretap Internet phone calls. A judge said the government’s courtroom arguments were “gobbledygook.”

The skepticism expressed so openly toward the administration’s case encouraged civil liberties and education groups that argued that the U.S. is improperly applying telephone-era rules to a new generation of Internet services.

“Your argument makes no sense,” U.S. Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards told the lawyer for the Federal Communications Commission, Jacob Lewis. “When you go back to the office, have a big chuckle. I’m not missing this. This is ridiculous. Counsel!”

At another point in the hearing, Edwards told the FCC’s lawyer that his arguments were “gobbledygook” and “nonsense.”

The court’s decision was expected within several months.

In an unrelated case last year affecting digital television, two of the same three judges determined the FCC had significantly exceeded its authority and threw out new government rules requiring anti-piracy devices in new video devices. Lewis was also the losing lawyer in that case, and Edwards also was impassioned then in his criticisms of the FCC.

In the current case, Edwards appeared especially skeptical over the FCC’s decision to require that providers of Internet phone service and broadband services must ensure their equipment can accommodate police wiretaps under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, known as CALEA.

The new rules go into effect in May 2007.

The 1994 law was originally aimed at ensuring court-ordered wiretaps could be placed on wireless phones.

The Justice Department, which has lobbied aggressively on the subject, warned in court papers that failure to expand the wiretap requirements to the fast-growing Internet phone industry “could effectively provide a surveillance safe haven for criminals and terrorists who make use of new communications services.”

Critics said the new FCC rules are too broad and inconsistent with the intent of Congress when it passed the 1994 surveillance law, which excluded categories of companies described as information services.

The FCC asserted that providers of high-speed Internet services should be covered under the 1994 law because their voice-transmission services can be considered separately from information services. “Congress intended to cover services (in the 1994 law) that were functionally equivalent” to traditional telephones, Lewis said during the hearing in U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia.

“There’s nothing to suggest that in the statute,” Edwards replied. “Stating that doesn’t make it so.”

The panel appeared more inclined to support the FCC’s argument that Internet-phone services — which allow users to dial and receive calls from traditional phone numbers — may be covered under the 1994 law and required to accommodate court-ordered wiretaps. The technology, popularized by Holmdel, N.J.-based Vonage Holdings Corp., is known as “voice over Internet protocol,” or VOIP.

“Voice-over is a very different thing,” U.S. Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle said. He said it offered “precisely the same” functions as traditional telephone lines.

Edwards told the lawyer for the civil liberties groups, Matthew Brill, that on his challenge that VOIP services aren’t covered under the surveillance law, “I didn’t think you have it.”

Education groups had challenged the FCC rules because they said the requirements would impose burdensome new costs on private university networks.

The third judge on the panel, Janice Rogers Brown, did not comment or ask any questions during the arguments.

Reid, Durbin Rip Bush on 'Mission Accomplished' Anniversary

2006-05-04T22:27:00.000-07:00

"Mission Accomplished" has turned out to be one of the most mortifying events for Bush of his entire presidency. For normal people, the banner, the jet landing, the flightsuit, the codpiece — for the pure irony and idiocy of it all — are among the most gratifying moments in the long hard slog known as the Bush years because they prove we were right, even then, when 87% of the country thought he was George the Infallible. Like Senators Reid and Durbin, let's never ever let him live it down. Let's put up our own banner that says, "We told you so." -hl

AlterNet.org

Senate Democrats on Monday observed the three-year anniversary of George W. Bush's disingenuous "mission accomplished" extravaganza in 2003 by ripping the president and his administration on the Senate floor.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) started the day by dramatically reading the names of 16 young Nevadans who have died in Team Bush's Iraq war and calling the day "a sad anniversary of a sorry public relations stunt."

"I mention our troops and these fallen Nevadans for a reason. Today, our country marks an unfortunate anniversary: the 3-year anniversary of President Bush's donning a flight suit to declare 'Mission Accomplished' in Iraq," said Reid. "President Bush's dramatic landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln will be marked historically as a public relations stunt gone horribly wrong."

"Since President Bush rendered his judgment of 'Mission Accomplished,' more than 2,200 American military are now dead, about 20,000 have since been wounded, many hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money expended, and now Iraq is engaged in a civil war, the degree of which is unknown and debatable."

Calling Bush's theatrics on the USS Abraham Lincoln a "…metaphor for the Bush White House's misleading and dangerous incompetence," he invoked Bush's primary purpose for pretending to fly a plane onto the deck of the aircraft carrier, which was to announce that "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.''

Reid then pointed out the 156 weeks that have passed since that declaration, that Iraq is as unstable and insecure as ever and that our actions there have made the entire world a more dangerous place.

"According to the State Department, the number of terrorist attacks has risen sharply around the world," continued Reid. "More than 11,000 terrorist attacks occurred worldwide last year - a 250 percent increase from the year before. Iraq -- a country where Osama bin Laden had few inroads before the war -- has become a training ground and launching pad for international terrorism."

Reid then lashed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for making statements last month that any suggestions by Democrats that the war effort has gone seriously off course were .."amusing almost."

"Amusing? Amusing, Mr. Secretary? Really?" said Reid. "How unfortunate. A failed plan with failed, manipulated intelligence taking us to war. We need a new direction because our troops, their families, and the American people cannot wait for the next President to be elected to do what is right."

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) took to the floor later Monday to reiterate much of what Reid had said and to take Bush to task for so obviously misleading the nation on May 1, 2003.

"Since the President made that speech, this is the grim record. Since that day, over the last 3 years, 2,262 Americans have been killed and 17,202 Americans have been wounded," said Durbin. "This occurred after the President announced to the world that our mission was accomplished."

Invoking comments from all of the retired military Generals who have recently called for Rumsfeld's resignation — including General Paul Eaton, who stated that Rumsfeld "…is not competent to lead America's Armed Forces" — Durbin again called for Rumsfeld to resign.

"I have said publicly, and I will repeat it. I believe Secretary Rumsfeld, for the good of this Nation, should leave as Secretary of Defense," said Durbin, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat. "I believe this for the same reason these generals do. I do not believe he can lead us to the right conclusion in Iraq, and we will pay a heavy price if we do not acknowledge that."

"We need a new direction. We need new leadership. We need to have someone in the Department of Defense and a strategy that will lead to our troops coming home, the sooner the better."

Colbert roasts Bush in hellfire of his own making

2006-05-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

Charles M. Ashley, Online Journal

I have only seen a few news clips of the White House Correspondents Dinner and heard some comments. Although the corporate press is doing all it can to downplay the importance of this event, they cannot entirely conceal the truth.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, said it "wasn't funny," and Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball said Stephen Colbert was "bad."

Typical corporate press disingenuousness — unwilling to dig in and analyze for fear of uncomfortably scratching through the lies into truth. It "wasn't funny" and it was "bad" because the guests didn't laugh. They only cringed and squirmed in open-mouthed incredulity. Well, so what? Colbert was playing to a larger audience.

Both Milbank and Matthews apparently side with the upscale audience at the dinner.

For my part, I thought it was quite funny in an uncomfortably sardonic way. I especially liked the looks on Bush's stupid face as he had to sit there and take it, as it dawned on him that he and his fatal rot would be bathed in the light of comic truth.

"Reality," Colbert jabbed, "has a well known liberal bias."

I liked the incredulous looks on the audience's faces too. They weren't laughing, but that was only because their stupid little money-grubbing, power-mad, self-serving Bush-worshipping egos were invested. The right-wing high muckety-mucks know they are hopelessly entangled with Bush. And the correspondents all know they haven't done their jobs as stalwarts of the so-called Fourth Estate. They also know that the truth will out. It is outing. They feel it all unraveling.

Colbert was roasting the guests at the same time he spitted Bush and turned him slowly in the hell-fire Bush himself ignited with his appallingly arrogant choices. It was a bonfire barbecue of conservative vanities.

Colbert on the press: "Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know — fiction."

I think most people watching on television probably got a sardonic laugh out of watching Bush served a richly earned meal of venom. They were watching the good-old-boy tyrant force-fed just a little of the crow he deserves to eat. One hopes he will wear that crow — albatross style — around his neck for the remainder of his days on this planet.
Unfortunately, he will probably just say, "Aw shucks" and let this brief dawning drain quickly into the forgiving darkness of arrogant dullness. Bush feigned politeness and politely partook, Titus Andronicus style, of the cadavers he himself has produced with his idiotic and tragic war. Except, unlike Tamora, he knew — as well as the likes of Bush are able to know — he was eating the rotting flesh of his own killing, and his face revealed he was utterly cloyed with this revolting food for thought.Colbert: "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday — no matter what happened Tuesday."

Bush is now polling in the low thirties for the very reasons Colbert lampooned the "prezdent." Colbert knows this. And
you've got to hand it to Stephen Colbert for courage — to stand up there in front of that hostile audience and dish it out the way he did. And the emperor Bush having to sit right up there on the dais, naked, for all to see, squirming
, with only a dinner plate and white tablecloth to hide behind. It was priceless. It will go down in the annals of great comedy and will be forever linked to the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush.

"As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling. The president shook his hand and tapped his elbow, and left immediately"(Editor and Publisher, 4-29-06).

Both Milbank and Matthews thought the part with the Bush impersonator was better than Colbert's lampoon. I thought it was good, too, but for different reasons. It was not at all light- hearted as they tried to portray it. The impersonator was the real Bush — stupid, clueless. I felt embarrassed yet again to see his idiocy displayed for all to see. And Bush actually participated in this part, as if it was just a little fun. Ugh!!!! It made me cringe as the impersonator laughed Bush's moronic "heh-heh-heh" and shook his shoulders up and down in that phony-baloney country-fried posturing dog-patch way of his — a sort of Li'1 Abner burned out from cocaine and Jack Daniels. Sickeningly funny. We laugh as we puke and purge ourselves of the Bush administration.

GOP House and Senate leaders infighting on issues

2006-05-03T18:41:00.000-07:00

Raw Story

House Republican leaders had some harsh words for their Senate counterparts Tuesday, RAW STORY has learned.

First reported in today's issue of Roll Call, House leaders moved to make clear their feelings about important pieces of legislation under consideration by the Senate.

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) specifically mentioned a plan proposed in the Senate to issue $100 rebate checks to taxpayers to help blunt the rising cost of gas and fuel. Boehner called the proposal 'insulting.'

Excerpts from the registration restricted article follow:

Hoping to put their stamp on a pair of fast-moving and controversial issues, House Republican leaders lobbed harsh words across the Capitol on Tuesday, criticizing the size of the Senate supplemental spending bill and a Senate proposal to give taxpayers a $100 rebate to offset high gas prices.

In neither case did House GOP leaders direct their criticism at Senate leaders personally. But both instances reflected a heightened desire on the part of House Republicans to make their views heard on well-publicized issues that are moving through the other body.

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) used the strongest language of the day during his weekly press briefing when he emphasized the importance of using market forces to bring down energy prices and dismissed a now-scuttled proposal by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to give out a $100 rebate (though Boehner was apparently unaware that it was Frist’s idea).

“I just think that trying to satisfy voters with $100 vouchers is insulting,” Boehner said. “I didn’t know it was Frist. It doesn’t make any difference who it is. I’m not referring to him. I don’t like the proposal, as you can probably tell.”

Cato Institute: Bush in ‘ceaseless push for power’

2006-05-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

Caroline Daniel, Financial Times

President George W. Bush had shown disdain and indifference for the US constitution by adopting an “astonishingly broad” view of presidential powers, a leading libertarian think-tank said on Monday.

The critique from the Cato Institute reflects growing criticism by conservatives about administration policy in areas such as the “war on terror” and undermining congressional power.

“The pattern that emerges is one of a ceaseless push for power, unchecked by either the courts or Congress, one in short of disdain for constitutional limits,” the report by legal scholars Gene Healy and Timothy Lynch concludes.

That view was echoed last week by former congressman Bob Barr, a Republican, who called on Congress to exercise “leadership by putting the constitution above party politics and insisting on the facts” in the debate over illegal domestic wiretapping of terrorist suspects.

On Thursday Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the judiciary committee, noted: “Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress.”

Mr Healy and Mr Lynch argue that Mr Bush has also failed to protect the right to political free speech by approving a bill that eliminated “soft money” contributions to political parties. He had also cracked down on dissenters, with non-violent protesters being harassed by secret service agents whenever Mr Bush appears in public, it said.

The more serious charges concern Mr Bush’s actions in the “war on terror”. Citing a 1977 interview with President Richard Nixon, who said, “Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal”, the report argues that the administration’s public and private arguments for untrammelled executive power “comes perilously close to that view”.

The authors cite spying by the National Security Agency and the “torture memos”, produced by the Department of Justice to defend the authority of the president over interrogation techniques. “The constitution’s text will not support anything like the doctrine of presidential absolutism the administration flirts with in the torture memos.”

Colbert Slams Bush at White House Correspondents' dinner

2006-04-30T10:40:00.001-07:00

CrooksandLiars.com

Stephen Colbert spoke at the dinner and lampooned pretty much everything he could think of and Helen Thomas. I used the second half of his performance because it included the Generals, Scalia, the Faux press briefing and as E&P reported:

"As he walked from the podium the president and First Lady gave Colbert quick nods, unsmiling, and left. E&P's Joe Strupp, in the crowd, observed that quite a few felt the material was, perhaps, uncomfortably biting."

Video-WMP (low res) Video QT (it's a big file)

"Colbert complained that he was "surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides-the president's side and the vice president's side."

He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd, as well as " Valerie Plame." Then, pretending to be worried that he had named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, "Uh, I mean... Joseph Wilson's wife." He asserted that it might be okay, as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was probably not there.

Colbert's show on Comedy Central, is "Must See TV" at this point already and these types of performances are the toughest in the business to pull off when he's tackling issues that obviously made most of the crowd nervous.

C-Span is running it again in it's entirety.

Atrios has a picture posted about Gannon.

TMV, The Sister, Blondesense, Democratic D, News Hounds weigh in.

Songs of Protest for the Bush Era

2006-04-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

The Nation

There may never be another Bob Dylan. But there will always be protest music of the sort that first endeared Dylan to a mass audience, and that confirmed the power of song to move not just a generation but a nation. Dylan was not the first protest singer; indeed, a good deal of his early Dust Bowl-poet persona derived from Woody Guthrie. And as his more overtly political compatriot Phil Ochs noted in the mid-1960s, Dylan was never comfortable in any movement, a fact that eventually led him to shed his topical-songwriter trappings to become the mythical character that Richard Goldstein examines on page 11. But the artful approach to political songwriting that Dylan pioneered remains an inspiration to today's musicians. And what they sing and say still matters, as the first skirmish of the Iraq War—the frontal assault on the dissenting Dixie Chicks after their lead singer criticized George W. Bush—confirmed.

As the devastation escalated, so did the music. Green Day's album American Idiot, a roaring pop-punk assault on the "redneck agenda" and the warped discourse of post-9/11 America, went to Number 1 on the charts, won a Grammy in 2005 for Best Rock Album and has sold more than 5 million copies. Hip-hop star Kanye West telescoped frustration with the White House's dawdling response to Hurricane Katrina when he told a national television audience, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." On his CDs West has been equally fierce, sarcastically suggesting on his 2005 song "Crack Music" that if anyone's still got questions about Saddam Hussein's supposed chemical weapons stash, "George Bush got the answer."

Now, as Bush's chart position sinks, he's getting even worse reviews. Pearl Jam's new single, "World Wide Suicide," the story of a mother mourning a son killed in battle because his was a life "the President took for granted," tops Billboard's Modern Rock chart. Bruce Springsteen has recorded a rollicking tribute to protest songs by the country's most famous folk singer in a new album, The Seeger Sessions: We Shall Overcome. Moby and REM's Michael Stipe just headlined an antiwar "Bring 'Em Home Now" concert, and the Dixie Chicks are letting Bush know they're not backing down, with their new single, "Not Ready to Make Nice." The extent to which Bush's fortunes have turned may be summed up by the news that pop singer Pink, who began the Bush era promising to "Get the Party Started," is ending it with a sobering lament, "Dear Mr. President," that savages Bush's stances on gay rights, the minimum wage and the war. Hitting even harder is veteran rocker Neil Young, whose post-9/11 song "Let's Roll" was heard by some as a call for war. Young clarifies things on his new CD, Living With War. With a track titled "Let's Impeach the President," it won't feature on George Bush's iPod.

But others in Washington are hearing the power chords. For years, Justin Sane, lead singer of the political punk band Anti-Flag, said it was "left to artists to make the statements that should be getting put into the public discourse." But Anti-Flag is no longer shouting from the sidelines. The band's new CD, For Blood and Empire, features the song "Depleted Uranium Is a War Crime." It was inspired by an appearance at a 2004 Punk Voter rally in Seattle with Representative Jim McDermott, a Vietnam-era vet who has introduced legislation calling for an investigation of the military's use of DU. McDermott is on the CD, and the band is spearheading a drive to get Congress to act on the bill.

Come to think of it, if a 69-year-old Congressman is heeding the call of a punk band, maybe it's time to recognize that, with prodding from outspoken and courageous musicians, the Bush order is rapidly fading and the times, again, are a-changin'.

LIMBAUGH ARRESTED ON DRUG CHARGES!

2006-04-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

Strikes Agreement With Prosecutor, Pleads 'Not Guilty' to Fraud

Brad Blog

"Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. ... And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up."
— Rush Limbaugh, Oct. 5, 1995

Rush Limbaugh today became the latest in a long line of arrested Republicans smiling for their mugshots, though he made a deal to avoid being "sent up" unlike the little people who can't afford the expensive attorneys that he can. From AP...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Rush Limbaugh was arrested Friday on prescription drug charges, with his attorney saying he has reached a deal with prosecutors that will eventually see the charges dismissed if he continues treatment for drug addiction.

The subject of a three-year investigation by prosecutors, Limbaugh turned himself in to authorities on a warrant charging him with fraud to conceal information to obtain prescriptions, said Teri Barbera, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach County Jail.

It's not about the ~~sex~~ drugs, it's about the lying.

Additional coverage:
-- RAW STORY...
-- CBS News...
-- Sun-Sentinel...

Prosecutors alleged that Limbaugh violated the state's "doctor shopping" law by getting four doctors to write overlapping prescriptions and failing to tell them about each other.
...
Prosecutors previously were investigating prescriptions that Limbaugh received from Florida and California doctors between March 2003 and September 2003, when he allegedly picked up 1,733 hydrocodone, 90 OxyContin, 50 Xanax and 40 time-release morphine pills.

In 2003, Wilma Cline, Limbaugh's former housekeeper and her handyman husband, David, gave the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office copies of e-mails and taped phone messages documenting what they allege became Limbaugh's 30-pill-a-day drug habit.

Being attacked by Droopy is a badge of honor

2006-04-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

David Sirota, Working for Change

Forgive me if I am a bit excited - but I received a big badge of honor today. Yes, tonight I was attacked by name in prime time by Fox News. That's right, Brit Hume - the guy who could play Droopy the Disney dog - went after me for my earlier post today about his pal Tony Snow (You can read the transcript here or see the video here).

Hume's piece begins by citing Beltway Democrats rushing to heap praise on Snow, the fringe-right-wing commentator-turned-government spokesman. Then, in his vintage Thurston Howell the Third tone, he turns his guns on me for merely noting the state-run media quality of the whole affair, whereby a supposedly "objective" journalist happily takes the job of the very administration he was supposed to be covering.

What's funniest about this is the fact that instead of seeing Snow's move as an indictment on Fox's purported objectivity, Hume and his network are haughtily bragging about the whole thing, seemingly unaware - or unconcerned - about what it reveals. Also humorous is that in a course of about 15 seconds, Hume manages to commit two of the most basic journalistic errors: he mispronounces my name and makes a factual error by saying I posted anything on the Center for American Progress's website (I left CAP a year ago to write my book).

Then again, we shouldn't be surprised by any of this. Hume has long ago proven he is undeterred by facts and uninterested in actual journalism. He is the type of elitist who looks like he feels underdressed wearing a tie – he looks like he'd feel more comfortable wearing an ascot, smoking a pipe, sipping chardonnay and complaining about having to pay capital gains taxes on his yacht on Maryland's Eastern Shore. He clearly feels threatened that one of his fellow D.C. cocktail party friends was actually ridiculed on the facts. Being attacked by someone like Hume and by a network like Fox, in other words, is one of the biggest badges of honor I've ever had the pleasure of receiving. That I got such an attack before my book even hit bookstores is even more thrilling - because it means there's more to come.

Judge Lets 18 'Grannies for Peace' Go in Peace

2006-04-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Good for you, Grannies. Handcuffing and imprisoning little old ladies just isn't meant to be. (Unless, of course, we're talking about Barbara Bush.) What exactly has become of a nation where unarmed senior citizens are thrown in the slammer for promoting peace — by trying to enlist and fight a war in the place of our sons and daughters? We're so glad you get to go home to the loved ones and communities you have shown the courage to defend. We should do as much for you. Hugs and kisses, Grandmas. Go in peace, indeed. -hl

Anemona Hartcollis, The New York Times

They came, they shuffled, they conquered.

Eighteen "grannies" who were swept up by the New York City police, handcuffed, loaded into police vans and jailed for four and a half hours were acquitted yesterday of charges that they blocked the entrance to the military recruitment center in Times Square when they tried to enlist.

After six days of a nonjury trial, the grandmothers and dozens of their supporters filled a courtroom in Manhattan Criminal Court to hear whether they would be found guilty of two counts of disorderly conduct for refusing to move, which could have put them in jail for 15 days. The women call their group the Granny Peace Brigade and said they wanted to join the armed forces and thus offer their lives for those of younger soldiers in Iraq.

The women — from 59 to 91, many gray-haired, some carrying canes, one legally blind, one with a walker — listened gravely and in obvious suspense as Judge Neil E. Ross delivered a carefully worded 15-minute speech in which he said his verdict was not a referendum on the Police Department, the defendants' antiwar message or, indeed, their very grandmotherhood.

But, he said, there was credible evidence that the grandmothers had left room for people to enter the recruitment center, and that therefore they had been wrongly arrested.

He then pronounced them not guilty, concluding. "The defendants are all discharged."

The women, sitting in the jury box at the invitation of the judge, to make it easier for them to see and hear, let out a collective "Oh!" and burst into applause, rushing forward, as quickly as women their age could rush, to hug and kiss their lawyers, Norman Siegel, the former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Earl Ward.

"Listen to your granny, she knows best," crowed Joan Wile, 74, a retired cabaret singer and jingle writer who was one of the defendants.

Outside the courthouse minutes later, the women burst into their unofficial anthem, "God Help America," composed by Kay Sather, a member of a sister group in Arizona, the Raging Grannies of Tucson, which goes, "God help America, We need you bad, 'cause our leaders are cheaters, and they're making the world really mad."

The trial was extraordinary, if only because it gave 18 impassioned women — some of whom dated their political activism to the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg — a chance to testify at length about their antiwar sentiments and their commitment to free speech and dissent, in a courtroom that attracted reporters from France and Germany.

Despite the judge's demurrals, the verdict was one in a series of victories for protesters who have been arrested by the New York police since the invasion of Iraq.

While more than 300 people were detained for minor offenses during demonstrations at the 2004 Republican National Convention, few were convicted. Also, earlier this year, a state judge rejected the city's efforts to quash Critical Mass, a monthly bicycle rally in Manhattan.

"I was sure we were sunk," said Lillian Rydell, 86, a defendant who testified during the trial that she went to "the school of hard knocks," instead of college.

"I love everybody," she said. The defendants called themselves "grannies" because they are all old enough to be grandmothers, even if some of them are not, and because in their view, grandmothers are a core American value, as patriotic as mom and apple pie.

Essentially, Judge Ross had found himself with grandmotherhood on trial in his courtroom. He seemed to acknowledge his dilemma when he said, in his decision, "This case is not a referendum on future actions at the location in question, on police tactics nor the age of the defendants or the content of their message."

He said he did not fault the police for making a decision in the heat of the moment to arrest the women last October, but he said that as a judge, he had the "luxury of time and hindsight" in which to consider events.

Before the verdict yesterday, both sides delivered their closing arguments.

The youthful prosecutor, Artie McConnell, allowed that it would be foolish of him to "cross swords" with a veteran civil liberties lawyer like Mr. Siegel on the First Amendment. "Luckily for me," he said, "I don't have to, because that's not what this case is about."

The case, he continued, was about breaking the law. "These defendants do not get a pass for who they are, no matter how noble their cause may be," he said.

If Mr. McConnell stuck to prose, Mr. Siegel did not hesitate to offer poetry. The defendants, he said in his closing, "tried to alert an apathetic public to the immorality, the illegality, the destructiveness and the wrongness of the war in Iraq." The grannies could not be punished for failing to obey a police command if that command violated their constitutional right to protest, he said.

When it was over, the grannies seemed ready to do it again. "The decision today says the First Amendment protects you to protest peacefully," Mr. Siegel said, addressing his clients outside the courthouse after the verdict. "So — go do it!"

And the grannies cheered.

MSNBC reports Rove believes he is in legal jeopardy

2006-04-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

Pack your bags, Karl, and get ready for 5 to 10 in the pen. Of course we know that Bush will pardon you. That is, if we don't impeach him first! -hl

Raw Story

Karl Rove has described his three and a half hour meeting with a grand jury as grueling, and is more worried about being prosecuted than ever, MSNBC is reporting.

RAW STORY has also learned that an MSNBC report tonight revealed that one of Rove's lawyers said the presidential adviser described his fifth grand jury appearance as "hell." MSNBC's David Shuster appeared live on Keith Olbermann's 8pm show this evening and stated that Rove was surprised by the tone of the questions as well as the length of time he was required to testify.

Shuster agreed with Brian Unger, sitting in for Keith Olbermann, that it was "easy to imagine" that Rove's legal situation was the cause of his recent reduction of responsibilities. However, he added, "I don't see there's any chance that Karl Rove's going to resign, barring an indictment."

The three and a half hour duration is considered highly unusual for a fifth appearance before a grand jury, Shuster reported. Also not boding well for Rove is the fact that the grand jury plans to meet tomorrow. Some are speculating that an indictment for Rove may be handed up tomorrow, though others have claimed such a fast turnaround time is unlikely.

One MSNBC commentator claimed that the fifth appearance also ties the record held by Betty Currie, former President Bill Clinton's personal secretary.

Impeaching Bush, State by State

2006-04-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

An obscure but constitutionally kosher Congressional rule states that not only the House of Representatives, but also individual states may inititate impeachment of a president. By law, the House must respond to impeachment charges filed by the states. As the "i" word makes its way into more and more mainstream discourse, California, Illinois, and Vermont, for starters, are voting on resolutions of impeachment, which will transmit charges to the US House and get that puppy rolling. Oh what fun! Here's the status of impeachment resolutions state-by-state. This could be the 'gotcha' for the ages. Join the impeach movement here. -hl.

Evan Derkacz, AlterNet

Taking advantage of "Jefferson's Revenge," state legislatures have brought impeachment much closer to reality. Forget bird flu, impeachment is spreading across the nation, state by state.

On Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Dave Zuckerman (Prog.-VT) dropped the third of three nearly unreported bombshells on the Bush administration. Zuckerman, along with 12 fellow lawmakers, introduced a formal resolution for the Vermont state legislature to call on the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach President George W. Bush.

With this resolution, Vermont joined the California and Illinois state legislatures, already embroiled in impeachment debates of their own.

For those who still believe impeachment's just a pipe dream, there are several key developments to consider beyond this burgeoning state movement. In addition to the hawkish Zbigniew Brzezinski's op-ed in Tuesday's International Herald Tribune warning that an attack on Iran could merit impeachment, Salon's Michelle Goldberg and my colleague Onnesha Roychoudhuri both noted last month that the "i-word" had gone public.

In an interview with impeachment expert Michael Ratner, Roychoudhuri observed that:

[T]he distant rumbling is growing louder by the day, creating a resonant echo that is rapidly taking root in public discourse. "Impeach Him," reads the cover of this month's Harper's Magazine. And in a public forum in New York City last week, journalists, lawyers and political figures came together to discuss the case against our president.

While the main impediment continues to be a sycophantic Republican majority, polls show that more Americans favor impeachment hearings than currently approve of the job Bush is doing (33 to 32 percent). In addition, as Bob Geiger notes, Bush's state-by-state popularity is lower than even his anemic nationwide figures suggest, with a paltry four states remaining red two years into his second term. In other words, the population has the stomach for it even if the representatives don't.

The legal basis for these unprecedented state-level actions was discovered when, according to Steven Leser, Illinois Rep. Karen A. Yarbrough "stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the U.S. House of Representatives." The rule was written in a book formerly known as Jefferson's Manual, which, according to C-SPAN, "is a book of rules of procedure and parliamentary philosophy … written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801 … [used by the House] as a supplement to its standing rules." Section LIII, sec. 603 states, "There are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion … [one of them is] by charges transmitted from the legislature of a State …"

Each of the three resolutions mentions Iraq lies, torture and illegal spying , with slight variations in tone and specifics. Assemblyman Paul Koretz's California resolution (which includes Dick Cheney) and the Illinois resolution both include the leak of Valerie Plame's identity , while Vermont's focuses almost exclusively on Bush's most salient transgression, his illegal spying on Americans . The spying charge leads the other two resolutions' list of charges as well.

In December, cringing at the prospect of getting scooped by its own reporter's upcoming book on the subject, the New York Times published a story it'd been sitting on for months at the behest of the Bush administration. The front page story by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau outlined a program for illegally spying on American citizens, which had been explicitly authorized by the president. It became popularly known as the NSA Wiretapping Scandal.

Having failed at pressuring the Times into hiding the story for another three years, the Bush administration opted for its signature blend of hubris and fear, at once admitting publicly to having violated the law but hiding beneath the smoke of "terrorism prevention" and the mirrors of the Nixonian prerogative: "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." Of course, we now know precisely how much water that explanation holds, even if reworded for maximum terror exploitation: "When the commander-in-chief does it, it is not illegal."

Still, despite the fact that no attempt was made to cover up this blatant violation of the law, political will in the Republican-controlled House to bring impeachment was harder to find than a fact in the mouth of Scotty McClellan . Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold's resolution to censure the president (impeachment is a House-only proposition) - a measure supported by a plurality of American voters - included a crystal-clear retort to partisan claims that the illegal wiretapping was necessary:

This issue is not about whether the government should be wiretapping terrorists - of course it should, and it can under current law … But this president and this administration decided to break the law , and they have yet to give a convincing explanation of why their actions were necessary, appropriate or legal.

But the president and his spin doctors had successfully grabbed the reins of the debate by framing the question thusly: "Do you, or do you not, want us to be able to spy on terrorists?" The fact that this and other myths surrounding the president's violation of the law were easily debunked did little to shake Republican Bush worship or Democratic defeatism.

As Feingold's legally toothless censure proposal went into that good night, impeachment took a back seat. Criticism of Rumsfeld took the front seat, and congressional Republicans, with one eye on Bush's tanking popularity and the other on the increasingly ominous midterm elections, began to back away from the president and tentatively joined the calls for an exit strategy - any strategy really - from Iraq.

Enter the blogs. On Jan. 24, well before the Illinois legislator Karen Yarbrough stumbled over this state legislature loophole, blogger arbortender of DailyKos had unearthed the rule that another writer dubbed "Jefferson's Revenge." Fellow blogger Kagro X took the baton, and the blogs have been pushing the story and building the momentum ever since, from Vermont's various town - and countywide resolutions to the Illinois bombshell, through California's and now Vermont's state-level proposals. According to Steve Leser, Democratic state legislators in Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina are also considering either impeachment or censure proposals.

In any case, the three states already debating impeachment represent nearly 50 million Americans, or roughly 16 percent of the total U.S. population.

As promising as this development is, serious questions remain unanswered. If Americans perceive that voting the Republicans out of the House will lead directly to a vote for impeachment hearings, will they instinctively rally around the president despite his unpopularity specifically and the unpopularity of Republicans in general?

Or, more ominously, will an unpopular president, terrified at the possibility of a crushing Republican defeat in '06 and facing impeachment hearings, launch some sort of "October Surprise"?

October Surprise speculation ranges from my colleague Joshua Holland's prediction that measures will be taken to significantly lower gas prices to Dave Lindorff's claim that "a number of journalists told me they worried that Bush, Rove and Cheney, if they thought they were going to lose the House in November and face serious investigations into their crimes and deceits, would do something treasonous, like launching a war against Iran, or perhaps allowing another major terrorist attack against a U.S. target, so that they could then clamp down further on domestic freedom and ramp up jingoistic support among their wavering base."

In the final tally, the state-sponsored impeachment resolutions remain more symbolic than anything - which may be just as well. By building a public case against Bush for his clear violations of U.S. law, Republicans are left with the albatross of Bush around their necks as they tiptoe into the '06 elections. As pollster Jan van Lohuizen wrote to Republican Chairman Ken Mehlman in a memo: "We are now 'brand W.' Republicans."

--------

Evan Derkacz is AlterNet's associate editor and writer of Peek, the blog of blogs.

Judge won't dismiss case against Libby

2006-04-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

Poor Scooter. He just can't catch a break. Gee, the judges keep ruling against him out of some strange notion that the investigation into Plamegate should pass the smell test of fairness in our justice system. What a concept! The Bushies are so accustomed to having things precisely their way, they cannot believe there's an unflappable, forthright straight-shooter heading up an investigation into their various shenanigans. Oh well, too bad. Get used to it. Try as you might, Scooter, the bar of justice ain't bending and Fitzgerald is gonna stay right where he is — with a magnifying glass pointed up your nose. -hl

Toni Locy, Associated Press

A federal judge refused Thursday to dismiss charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former top White House aide who was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges last year in the CIA leak scandal.

In a 31-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton turned down a motion by lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney's one-time top assistant, who challenged the authority of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to handle the case.

Libby's lawyers had argued that Fitzgerald was given too much power - more than the attorney general - and that the appointment should have been made by the president with the Senate's approval.

Walton said Thursday he did not need to "look far" in the law to reject the claim by Libby's defense team. The judge said there is no question the attorney general can delegate any of his functions.

"There was no wholesale abdication of the attorney general's duty to direct and supervise litigation," he wrote.

Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had recused himself from the investigation because of his White House contacts. James Comey, who was deputy attorney general at the time, appointed Fitzgerald, giving him wide berth to conduct the investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters in 2003.

"This case provides the clearest example of why such broad discretion is necessary," Walton wrote. "Here, the attorney general believed there was a conflict of interest ... It was, therefore, entirely appropriate for the attorney general to remove himself completely from the investigation."

Walton said there must be a way to appoint special prosecutors to ensure that "the perception of fairness withstands the scrutiny of the American public" when high-level government officials are investigated for alleged wrongdoing.

Libby, 55, is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, accused of lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned about Plame and what he subsequently told reporters about her.

Conservative columnist Robert Novak named her in a column July 14, 2003, eight days after Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.

The CIA sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the reports. But the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.

Walton said Comey made the legal analysis more difficult by failing to appoint Fitzgerald under Justice Department rules for special prosecutors. As a result, the judge said he had to rely on a series of letters Comey wrote to Fitzgerald outlining the CIA leak investigation.

The judge concluded that Fitzgerald's powers are limited because he can be removed by the Justice Department. Walton also said Fitzgerald's authority will expire when the CIA leak investigation and resulting prosecutions are concluded.

"The integrity of the rule of law ... is challenged to the greatest degree when high-level government officials come under suspicion for violating the law," Walton wrote. "And a criminal investigation of any individuals, prominent or not ... must be above reproach to preserve respect for the fairness of our system of justice."

Sen. Specter Threatens to Block NSA Funds

2006-04-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

You know the tide has turned when a key Republican Senator publicly pushes back at the Bushies. Not as forcefully as we normal people would like, but it's a start. For now, it's clear it'll be a moderate Republican who kicks off the turnaround of this nation, so let's all get behind our good friend the Senator from PA. Arlen, you have a shot at making your legacy something other than that of a doormat for the Bush administration. We're glad you're tired of being stepped on, too. It's not normal and it's wholly unAmerican. Now, just don't back down. We have your back! -hl

Laurie Kellman, The Associated Press

Noting that Congress holds the power of the purse, a frustrated Senate chairman threatened to try to block money for President Bush's domestic wiretapping program.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Thursday he delivered a message to Bush that cut to the heart of the debate over executive power.

"I made the point that the president doesn't have a blank check," Specter said about their meeting Wednesday. "He didn't choose to engage me on that point."

Without a pledge from Bush to provide more information on the surveillance program, Specter filed an amendment to a spending bill Thursday that amounted to a warning to the White House.

The amendment would enact a "prohibition on use of funds for domestic electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes unless Congress is kept fully and currently informed."

Specter also said he would turn the amendment into a bill and hold hearings.

"Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress at the moment," Specter said. "If we are to maintain our institutional prerogative, that may be the only way we can do it."

Specter made clear that, for now, the threat was just that.

"I'm not prepared to call for the withholding of funds," he told reporters later.

"But I think that it is important to elevate the public consciousness as to what is going on," Specter said. "The four hearings we have had and the way the matter is drifting, in my view, is insufficient to safeguard civil liberties."

The move got the White House's attention, but not its immediate cooperation. Bush has insisted that the program falls within his authority and has refused to allow Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other officials to answer many of Specter's questions.

"The appropriate members of Congress have been and continue to be informed with respect to the Terrorist Surveillance Program," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"The administration remains confident that a majority of members of Congress continue to recognize the importance of protecting Americans through lawful intelligence activities directed at terrorists," Perino said.

Specter said he hoped to jolt the public's awareness and "an inert Congress ... which has not stood up to the executive branch."

"You have a Congress which candidly is more concerned about re-election and fundraising and who controls the House and the Senate than about asserting constitutional prerogatives," Specter said. "That's not the way it ought to be. These are matters which require some active congressional action and that's what I'm looking toward."

For now, Specter said he will not bother having Gonzales return to the committee "because he won't tell us anything."

Threatening to withhold money from the wiretapping program is not unprecedented.

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee tried to attach an amendment to the 2007 intelligence authorization bill to withhold money from the National Security Agency if the White House did not disclose information about the cost of the warrantless surveillance program.

The figure was given to a select group of members who have been briefed more fully on the NSA program, and is classified.

Tony Snow On President Bush

2006-04-27T01:16:00.001-07:00

‘An Embarrassment,’ ‘Impotent,’ ‘Doesn’t Seem To Mean What He Says’. Gee, the new White House Press Secretary sounds like a normal person! If only he's stay that way. -hl

ThinkProgress.org

Fox News' Tony Snow is the new White House Press Secretary. Here's some of what he's had to say about the President:

– Bush has “lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc.” [3/17/06]

– 'George W. Bush and his colleagues have become not merely the custodians of the largest government in the history of humankind, but also exponents of its vigorous expansion.” [3/17/06]

– 'President Bush distilled the essence of his presidency in this year’s State of the Union Address: brilliant foreign policy and listless domestic policy.” [2/3/06]

– 'George Bush has become something of an embarrassment.” [11/11/05]

– Bush 'has a habit of singing from the Political Correctness hymnal.” [10/7/05]

– “No president has looked this impotent this long when it comes to defending presidential powers and prerogatives.' [9/30/05]

– Bush “has given the impression that [he] is more eager to please than lead, and that political opponents can get their way if they simply dig in their heels and behave like petulant trust-fund brats, demanding money and favor — now!” [9/30/05]

–'When it comes to federal spending, George W. Bush is the boy who can’t say no. In each of his three years at the helm, the president has warned Congress to restrain its spending appetites, but so far nobody has pushed away from the table mainly because the president doesn’t seem to mean what he says.' [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “The president doesn’t seem to give a rip about spending restraint.” [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “Bush, for all his personal appeal, ultimately bolstered his detractors’ claims that he didn’t have the drive and work ethic to succeed.” [11/16/00]

– “Little in the character of demeanor of Al Gore or George Bush makes us say to ourselves: Now, this man is truly special! Little in our present peace and prosperity impels us to say: Give us a great man!” [8/25/00]

– “George W. Bush, meanwhile, talks of a pillowy America, full of niceness and goodwill. Bush has inherited his mother’s attractive feistiness, but he also got his father's syntax. At one point last week, he stunned a friendly audience by barking out absurd and inappropriate words, like a soul tortured with Tourette’s.' [8/25/00]

– 'He recently tried to dazzle reporters by discussing the vagaries of Congressional Budget Office economic forecasts, but his recitation of numbers proved so bewildering that not even his aides could produce a comprehensible translation. The English Language has become a minefield for the man, whose malaprops make him the political heir not of Ronald Reagan, but Norm Crosby.” [8/25/00]

– “On the policy side, he has become a classical dime-store Democrat. He gladly will shovel money into programs that enjoy undeserved prestige, such as Head Start. He seems to consider it mean-spirited to shut down programs that rip-off taxpayers and mislead supposed beneficiaries.” [8/25/00]

[UPDATE: Also see what Tony Snow has to say on the issues.]

Byrd on Bush: "The Senate can send you home. You better believe that"

2006-04-27T00:11:00.000-07:00

The elder statesman, who put the 'elder' in elder and the 'statesman' in statesman, delivers a none-too-subtle TKO to the Preznit. Having bupkis to lose, Senator Byrd gives Bush pointed heads-up about the awesome power of the co-equal Senate, with no equivocation, no apology, and no fear, just as all of us should. Brace yourself, George. The man is armed (with the Constitution) and dangerous (to criminals in the White House). Consider yourself warned. -hl

Bob Geiger, Democrats.com

There's not much that's glamorous about the part of covering the Senate that requires reading through hundreds of pages of Congressional Record a week. But, if you're a wonkish sort, it can be endlessly fascinating and can sometimes even yield pure gold.

Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) gave a short speech when the U.S. Senate returned from recess yesterday and the longest-serving member in Congress renewed his commitment to the Senate resuming the role it traditionally held until the Republicans took over.

"Senators and other close observers of the institution have grappled with their own ideas about the Senate seeking to highlight its unique and enduring attributes, and to explain its role in the American system of checks and balances. What is it? What is it? What is it that makes the Senate stand apart from other legislative bodies?" said Byrd on the Senate floor Monday."

"But, if the Lord wills it — God willing, in other words — over the next few months I plan to offer a series of addresses in which I shall sample these ideas of the Senate with some explanation of each observer," continued the 88-year-old Byrd, considered by his colleagues to be the Senate's premier authority on the body's history. "Their ideas have ranged from the necessity of the Senate to its role as a balance wheel with the 'People's House,' the other body. They have focused on the rules of the Senate and its civility and decorum. They have viewed the Senate as a protector of constitutional liberties, a source of stability, and a product of politics."

But here's where Byrd really kicks his philosophical speech into gear and addresses George W. Bush — based on Bush's perceived control of the Senate, via the rubber-stamp GOP majority — and, most importantly, broaches the subject of impeachment.

Despite more than two centuries of pressure to change and "modernize" the Senate, as an institution, it remains remarkably similar to the body created at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It retains all of its original powers, including providing advice and consent -- yes. You said it. You better read that again in the Constitution.
It retains all of its original powers, including providing advice and consent to Presidents on nominations and on treaties, serving as a court of impeachment--you better believe it, Mr. President. The Senate can send you home. You better believe that.
If the House impeaches you, the Senate will try you. The Senate, don't forget it, serves as a court of impeachment and has an equal say with the House on legislation. The Senate has an equal say with the other body on legislation.

"If the House impeaches you, the Senate will try you." Man, I like the sound of that.

Byrd, who lost his wife of 68 years just last month, then went on to reinforce the talks he will give in the weeks ahead, saying that his words "…will suggest, the distinctive features of the Senate have survived for so long because they have purpose and will endure as long as they serve the good of the Nation."

Between that and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) lashing out at Bush today, you've got to like whatever gumption some of these guys found while they were on their Congressional break.

Neil Young lets loose a war cry

2006-04-26T23:44:00.000-07:00

We're counting the minutes until the release of Neil Young's most hard-hitting album in years. Finally, this Friday there'll be a soundtrack for our outrage. Sample lyrics are posted below so we can all get ready to sing along like one big happy fuming family. Young was actually an admirer of Ronald Reagan, so he's no radical pinko peacenik, but old Neil can't hack another minute of George Bush. I guess there's a line that no normal person will allow himself to cross. Thanks for being normal, Neil, and for the music, too. -hl

Robert Everett-Green, The Globe and Mail

We met outside a bagel joint in north Toronto, then drove a few blocks to a quiet street where two strangers could sit in a big old Cadillac and listen to the car stereo in peace. Then Robert Young (Neil's brother) slipped a CD-ROM from a plain white sleeve and gave me a rare preview of the nine explosive new songs on his brother Neil Young's much-anticipated album, Living With War.

The disc was made in a hurry, recorded in three days on Neil Young's California ranch and another 12-hour session in a Los Angeles studio. I can hear the urgency in Young's singing, as if there's not a moment to lose when a great lie has spread over the land and only strong, sustained truth-telling can turn it back.

Living With War is a fierce, comprehensive indictment of the Bush administration and all its failures, at home and abroad, but it doesn't feel like an outsider's dissent. It's the work of someone who clearly identifies with the core values of ordinary Middle Americans who voted for Bush, who sent their sons and daughters to war, and who are beginning to feel betrayed.

Flags of Freedom, for example, starts like a proudly patriotic song from the days before the Vietnam War began to stain the self-image of the republic. Young depicts a parade of recruits marching off to war down the main street of their small town, church bells ringing and "the flags of freedom flying." But when the soldiers have passed, with parents and sisters watching, Young pointedly asks: "Have you seen the flags of freedom? / What colour are they now?" It would be hard to miss the sense of doubt and disappointment, made sharper by Young's allusion to a similar, more confident query at the end of The Star-Spangled Banner.

The disappointment turns into rage in Let's Impeach the President. This long impassioned outcry begins with a trumpet flourish from the Last Post and ends with a 100-voice chorus shouting Young's angry responses to numerous clips of Bush's own words about Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and the case for war in Iraq.

"Let's impeach the president for lying / and leading our country into war," Young hollers, "abusing all the power that we gave him / and shipping all our money out the door . . . Let's impeach the president for spying / on citizens inside their own homes / breaking every law in the country / tapping our computers and telephones."

The text alone can't convey the sense of gasping outrage in Young's singing, and his forceful arrangements for guitar, bass, drums and sometimes trumpet. His electric guitar's gnarly, saturated tone has an almost drunken quality, as if it too were reeling from the great betrayal.

But the music throughout the album feels sparse and tightly controlled, as if these statements were too important to be gussied up with ornament. The trumpet, when it appears, does so only briefly, with a different character each time, evoking the sounds of a border town in Bush's native Texas (in Shock and Awe), or doubling the guitar melody like a quasi-human voice (in Living With War).

Likewise, the choir plays several roles, and offers much more than backing vocals. It's the sound of the people, whether represented as a church congregation (in the title song) or a chanting crowd of protesters (in Let's Impeach the President).

Mostly, it's a big-tent collection of ordinary citizens, which at the end of the album sings an a cappella version of America the Beautiful, recalling in a more robust key the final scene of Michael Cimino's devastating Vietnam film, The Deer Hunter.

The title song makes the most powerful use of core American themes and symbols, and the rhetoric of the religious right. Both the melody and the lyrics ("I join the multitudes, I raise my hand in peace . . . I take a holy vow never to kill again") feel hymn-like, in spite of the song's rock idiom. The voices rise as Young inserts a line from The Star-Spangled Banner ("the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air") and it seems at first as if the reference is purely ironic. But he goes on with another line from the anthem, and suddenly the meaning is more ambivalent, more complicated by a sense of bedrock patriotism.

At bottom, this is a profoundly patriotic record. Its predominant theme is spoiled hopes, and the list is long, including hopes for a safe environment, for economic justice at home and abroad, for peace between nations. But a few songs make it clear that Young isn't finished with hoping. Looking for a Leader, which comes right after Let's Impeach the President, is an unvarnished call for a new authority figure who can right the wrong, clear out the corruption, and make the nation's symbols feel pure again. "Some one walks among us, and I hope he hears the call," Young sings, "Maybe it's a woman, or a black man after all."

Young supported Reagan, and was one of the first major rock musicians to lend support to the so-called war on terror, in his 2001 song Let's Roll. It would seem to be a challenge for Bush's allies to brush off his attacks on "the shadow man running the government." But the struggle is already skewed in their favour, because most of these songs probably won't make it on to American radio, which is heavily dominated by the ClearChannel empire. Those are the folks, you may remember, who yanked the Dixie Chicks from the airwaves after Natalie Maines dared to criticize the President in front of a microphone.

Young knows all about that, which is why this album will be streamed for free on his website for a week starting Friday, before a commercial release on Reprise/Warner. It's going to spread on-line, and on college radio, and by word of mouth. It's a media virus, and it's also Young's strongest record in years.

***

Sample lyrics from Neil Young's upcoming album, Living With War:

Back in the days of shock and awe

We came to liberate them all

History was the cruel judge of overconfidence

Back in the days of shock and awe

Back in the days of "mission accomplished"

Our chief was landing on the deck

The sun was setting on a golden photo-op

Back in the days of "mission accomplished"

-- from Shock and Awe

Don't need no Madison Avenue War

Don't need no more boxes I can't see

Covered in flags but I can't see them on TV

Don't need no more lies

-- from The Restless Consumer

Won't need no shadow man

Runnin' the government

Won't need no stinkin' WAR

Won't need no haircut

Won't need no shoeshine

After the garden is gone

-- from After the Garden

Lookin' for a leader

To bring our country home

Reunite the red white and blue

Before it turns to stone . . .

Yeah maybe it's Obama

But he thinks that he's too young

Maybe it's Colin Powell

To right what he's done wrong

-- from Lookin' for a Leader

MSNBC/CNN Reports: Rove to testify a FIFTH time

2006-04-26T13:03:00.001-07:00

Oh, will you just indict this guy already? How long do we have to wait? He's been guilty of something or other at least since his dirty tricks days as a Young College Republican. It was and still is only a matter of time. Actually, Mr. Fitzgerald, we can wait until Iraq freezes over for this......but the champagne is waiting. -hl

CrooksandLiars.com

ReddHedd: "Norah O'Donnell reports on MSNBC that Rove will be testifying today before the G/J for a fifth time in the CIA leak case. I have to say that in my experience, this is really unprecedented - I can't ever remember any witness who was also potentially a subject in an investigation giving a prosecutor this many under oath opportunities to skewer them.

Watch video.

"O'Donnell reports that there are serious questions about how forthcoming/honest Rove has been-and that there are potential questions of more legal jeopardy."

Norah does say that there will be a statement issued by Rove later today for what that is worth.

Rice and Rumsfeld's Iraq visit "useless, unimportant, just another desperate move"

2006-04-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Louise Roug, LA Times

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice both arrived in Baghdad today in an apparent show of support for Iraq's new leader.

The two, arriving without notice, were to meet with Prime Minister designate Nouri Maliki, other Iraqi officials and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

"We just want to make sure there are no seams between what we're doing politically and what we're doing militarily," Rice told reporters on her plane en route to Iraq, according to the Associated Press. "Secretary Rumsfeld and I are going to be there together because a lot of the work that has to be done is at that juncture between political and military," Rice said.

Maliki, a tough-talking Shiite, has less than 30 days to assemble the new government. The country — depressed politically and economically — has slid ever closer to an all-out civil war since the American invasion of 2003.

(Maliki also said he has changed from using the pseudonym Jawad that he had used to protect his family while he was an exiled opposition figure.)

Some Iraqis doubt whether the government will be formed without U.S. pressure. "The Americans are in a hurry to form the government and they know it will not be formed if left to Iraqis," said Izzat Shabander, a politician from former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's slate. "Rice came to be a basic partner in forming the government," especially as it relates to key security and intelligence positions, he said.

But others thought the visit could backfire. Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish legislator, said the visits were "useless, unimportant."

"I guess they are worried about the circumstances in Baghdad and what will follow," he said. "It would be more appropriate if they would leave us alone ... let us solve our problems by ourselves."

"Enough is enough," said Sheik Mahmoud Sudani, a politician affiliated with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr. "Rice's trip to Iraq at this critical time is just another desperate move by the Americans to try to impose themselves on our new government. But they have lost their influence."

In a sign of how the country has changed in the last three years, the most positive reaction to the visits came from Sunni leaders — the most recent political bedfellows of the U.S. administration.

Americans can help coordinate and speed up the process, "which will benefit everyone," said Azhar Samaraii, a Sunni legislator with the Iraqi Islamic Party.

As Rice and Rumsfeld lunched with Khalilzad, violence continued across the country.

Near the disputed northern city of Kirkuk, a roadside bomb killed one civilian, and police found a body in a village south of the city, authorities said.

In the capital, a bomb hidden inside a nylon bag and brought onto a bus killed four people and injured 21. Two other people were killed and four were injured by a roadside bomb targeting police commandos on patrol in the western part of the city.

Another person was killed by a different roadside bomb. Police also recovered eight bodies from various neighborhoods in the capital and the U.S. military announced that American-led forces killed a dozen suspected rebels during a raid in Yusifiyah on Tuesday.

Democrats Should Make Election '06 A Referendum Failed Bush Agenda

2006-04-25T21:18:00.000-07:00

At the 2004 Democratic Convention, John Kerry, et.al, chose not to make the abysmal record of George Bush an issue. What should have been screamed at the top of all the delegates' and speakers' lungs was kept stuffed inside and skirted like the purple elephant in the middle of the room. Why? To keep the message 'positive' and to avoid being labeled by the Republicans as irrational Bush haters. Did that strategy work? Uh...duh... We all remember how Zell Miller and the rest castigated Kerry to no end from the floor of the Republican Convention. It was ugly and a pack of lies but, we have to admit, it worked. I hope Howard Dean learned from this and this time lets the elephant out of the bag, lets the honesty rip and lets it spill all over every moment of airtime and every inch of advertising the Dems put out for November's election. Bush's reputation should be mush by the time we're through. Gloves off now. No more Mr. and Ms. Nice Guy. Let's roll. -hl

By all accounts, the Republican Party is handing over the November midterms to the Democrats on a silver platter. The key question is, do the Dem's know what to do with it? Will they craft a coherent message that will unify the party; arouse the base and attract independents and moderate Republicans; and walk away with the big prize? Or will they simply trip over their own two left feet like so many times before?

If smartly crafted and delivered properly, Democrats have a built-in, no-lose message: the miserable failure of almost six years of the Bush presidency and twelve years of Republican rule. You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to realize that the GOP sludge has officially risen to the top to wreak utter havoc on the party. Just when you think it can't get any worse for them, it does. Consider what the Dems have to run on in terms of the Busheviks' abysmal domestic and foreign policy:

1-Iraq war: WMD, poor post-war planning, Niger/Uranium, Downing Street Memos, 2400 dead soldiers
3-Isolation of America
4-Proliferation of S. Korean and Iranian nukes programs
5-Failure of Democracy in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine
6-Dreadful response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
7-Torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
8-Halliburton contracts and overpayments
9-CIA leak scandal
10-No-confidence vote of Rumsfeld by many in the military
11-Failed Social Security reform campaign
12-Failed Medicare prescription drug plan
13-Letting the oil companies write the energy bill
13-Culture of cronyism and corruption: Rove, Libby, DeLay, Cunningham, Abramoff, Safavian, Ney, Taft and others
14-Largest debt in U.S history
15-Obscene tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans
16-Soaring cost of health care
17-Declining housing market
18-Rising interest rates
19-$287-billion, earmark-loaded transportation bill
21-Failure of public education
23-Illegal wiretappings
22-Failed immigration legislation
23-Astronomical gas and oil prices

Is this not enough for the Democrats to sail through the election in a landslide victory? It sure as hell ought to be. It's time for Howard Dean and Rahm Emanuel to sit down with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and draft our Indictment of the Republican Party. They then must issue a mandate: that every Democrat running for office this Fall must pound the table and drive home these GOP failures. And then they must draft its version of the Contract with America. They must remind voters of these colossal Republican failures, and excite them with a plan for change. A plan for peace and prosperity. Lastly, they must build a truly effective spin machine in the left-wing media to recite the talking points ad infinitum. It's time to start ripping out the pages of the Republican play book.

Democrats Say Lieberman Too Close to Bushies

2006-04-25T11:07:00.001-07:00

Senator Bush-lite is too right for most Dems and he's not an authentic Republican either. But, it's not just his stance on the war that is appalling. It's his lovey-dovey relationship with the abhorent extremists running this country that drives normal people up a wall. Does he have any idea how they're using him? Go away, Joe. You're backing the wrong horse. Let the doorknob hit ya where the good Lord split ya. -hl

Susan Haigh, Associated Press

Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, who once occupied the lofty No. 2 spot on his party's presidential ticket, is too Republican for some Democrats.

The three-term lawmaker, a strong advocate of the Iraq War, proponent of some GOP policies and recipient of a kiss from President Bush, has frustrated several national Democrats and angered enough in his home state to draw a primary challenger.

"I think it's a challenge for Lieberman to reconnect to the rank-and-file of the party and prove he is an authentic Democrat," said John McNamara, chairman of the New Britain Democratic Town Committee.

Bumper stickers spotted in Connecticut read, "Anybody but Joe — I want a real Democrat in '06." Campaign buttons show Bush and Lieberman in an embrace, with the words, "The Kiss: Too Close for Comfort."

In February 2005, after Bush's State of the Union speech, the president hugged Lieberman and planted a kiss on his right cheek.

Call it the buss that launched a challenge.

Ned Lamont, a wealthy Greenwich businessman, is trying to snatch the Democratic nomination from Lieberman, arguing that the 64-year-old senator is "Republican-lite."

"One thing I hear wherever I go, to all audiences, is, 'Come on Democrats, be a constructive alternative, speak loudly and proudly for what you believe, no more mumbling.'" Lamont said.

While Lamont's arguments have struck a chord with many Democrats, Lieberman holds a considerable advantage in money, name recognition and party backing. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama recently traveled to Connecticut to offer a vocal defense of his colleague.

On Thursday, Lieberman launched his first television ads in a decade, addressing the war debate head on.

"I already know that some of you feel passionately against my position in Iraq. I respect your views, and while we probably won't change each others' minds, I hope we can still have a dialogue and find common ground on all the issues where we do agree," Lieberman says in the ad.

Still, the Democratic discontent remains loud.

Edward Anderson is a blogger who helped a friend set up the Web site, http://www.DumpJoe.com., in December 2004, angered by Lieberman's continued support of the Iraq war.

"In Joe's hometown, I can't find a Joe booster. If they are, they're a Republican," said Anderson, who lives in New Haven.

"I think that there's a significant number of Democrats who are disappointed in the senator's stand on the war," said John Stafstrom, a Lieberman supporter and chairman of the Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee. "He has always had some problems with the more liberal wing of the party anyway. This is a perfect excuse for people to show their displeasure with him."

On May 20, some 1,607 Democratic delegates will gather at the state convention. The majority winner is the party-endorsed candidate, but if Lamont garners 15 percent of the vote, he can force a primary. Even if he doesn't succeed, he can petition his way onto the primary ballot on Aug. 8.

McNamara estimates that more than half of New Britain's 31 delegates are leaning toward backing Lamont.

Lieberman has surprised several Democrats with personal calls asking for their support at the convention. He also raised the prospect of running as an independent, a prospect that could boost the Republicans if he and Lamont split the Democratic vote.

Lieberman was first elected to the Senate in 1988, ousting longtime Republican Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. On foreign and defense policies, he has been a moderate, often aligning himself with the Republicans. But on issues such as abortion rights, gay rights and civil rights, he remains a liberal Democrat.

In 2000, Al Gore picked Lieberman to be his vice presidential running mate. Four years later, with Gore out of the picture, Lieberman made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Lieberman traditionally has been one of the highest vote-getters in Connecticut elections, capturing 63 percent of the vote in 2000 while running both for the vice presidency and the Senate.

Brent Dreher, 24, a student at Southern Connecticut State University who recently attended a Lamont speech, said a senator with Lieberman's national stature and experience should not be penalized because of his stance on the war.

"He's been in there long enough," Dreher said. "I don't see any reason to just automatically vote him out because of that one thing."

Ellen Camhi, the Democratic town committee chairwoman in Stamford, said many Democrats are supporting Lieberman.

"He's been there for us. He's been a good senator. While they may disagree with him on a couple of issues, they still support the man, his integrity and what he's done as a senator," Camhi said.

A Quinnipiac University poll, taken in March when Lamont announced his candidacy, showed Lieberman with support from 68 percent of registered Democrats to Lamont's 13 percent.

"It's still hard to imagine Lieberman being upset by Lamont. It's going to take a Herculean task I think," said poll director Douglas Schwartz.

Lieberman has raised $4.7 million for his re-election. Lamont, who founded a telecommunications company, raised more than $700,000 during the first three months of the year, more than half of it from his personal wealth.

Lieberman has likened the challenge to an "old-fashioned kitchen table debate within the Democratic family." His campaign spokesman, Sean Smith, dismissed the senator's detractors, arguing that many are party activists.

"The people who are engaged in this race right now are a certain type of voter," Smith said. "Most of the people who vote on Aug. 8 are living their lives right now and are not paying attention to this race."

Bush's approval ratings slide to new low

2006-04-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

George be limbo, George be quick, George go unda limbo stick, Limbo lower now, Limbo lower now, How low can you go?

The only Republican happy with these poll numbers is......Richard Nixon. -hl

Less than 1/3 say he's handling his job well

CNN.com

President Bush's approval ratings have sunk to a personal low, with only a third of Americans saying they approve of the way he is handling his job, a national poll released Monday said.

In the telephone poll of 1,012 adult Americans carried out Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, 32 percent of respondents said they approve of Bush's performance, 60 percent said they disapprove and 8 percent said they do not know.

That's a significant drop from the way Americans perceived the president a year ago. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll carried out April 29-May 1, 2005, Americans were split on their assessments of Bush's performance, with 48 percent saying they approved and 49 percent saying they disapproved. (Read the complete results document -- PDF)

CNN's poll has a sampling error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points for most questions.

It was one of four conducted within the past 10 days that have yielded similar results: a Pew Center poll carried out April 7-16 gave Bush a 35 percent approval rating; a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll carried out last Tuesday and Wednesday gave him a 33 percent approval rating; and an American Research Group poll carried out Tuesday through Friday gave him a 34 percent approval rating.

Asked whether the term "strong and decisive leader" describes Bush, 46 percent said yes, down from 62 percent who said they felt that way in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey carried out July 22-24, 2005.

Asked whether "honest and trustworthy" describes the president, 40 percent said yes, down from 56 percent in a survey carried out April 1-2 last year.

Americans were evenly split on whether Bush is "competent," with 47 percent saying yes, 47 percent saying no and 6 percent expressing no opinion.

Dissatisfaction with their leader appears to parallel Americans' unhappiness over gas prices. More than two-thirds of Americans (69 percent) said recent increases in the cost of gasoline have caused them hardship, with 28 percent saying they have not, and 1 percent saying they have no opinion.

Asked to rate the level of hardship, 23 percent described it as "severe," and 46 percent described it as "moderate."

That's up from last April, when a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 15 percent of respondents said the price of gasoline was causing them "severe hardship" and 43 percent said it was causing them "moderate" hardship.

Last week, a Lundberg Survey of gasoline prices found the average cost of a gallon of self-serve regular was $2.91. Last April, the average gallon cost $2.29.

Bush's flagging popularity might produce dividends for the Democrats. Asked about the congressional elections slated for November, half of registered voters said they would vote for Democrats if the election were held now, 40 percent said they would vote for Republicans and 6 percent said they did not know.

This question has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Still, that's not significantly different from last August, when 53 percent said they were likely to vote for a Democrat versus 41 percent who said they were likely to vote Republican and 6 percent who said they were undecided.

Bush ignored intelligence on Iraqi weapons, says ex-CIA officer

2006-04-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

The real failure was not in the intelligence community but in the White House that wanted war no matter what. The good news is that 60 Minutes put this on the TV and CBS isn't firing anybody for it, like they did after the Bush/National Guard story. The tide has officially turned. -hl

Dan Glaister, The Guardian

A former leading CIA official said yesterday that the White House deliberately ignored intelligence that showed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Tyler Drumheller, who was once the highest-ranking CIA officer in Europe, told CBS's 60 Minutes programme that the White House shifted its focus to regime change in the months before the invasion.

"The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy," Mr Drumheller said.

Meanwhile a leaked Pentagon document showed that Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, is pressing ahead with plans to reshape the armed forces despite recent criticism of his stewardship from several retired military officers. Plans approved last month by Mr Rumsfeld and leaked to the Washington Post revealed the increasing use of special forces and an increased role for the military in areas that have been the domain of the CIA.

Mr Drumheller, who had a senior role in the run-up to the war, told 60 Minutes that the CIA provided the White House with information from Iraq's then foreign minister, Naji Sabri, who had reportedly made a deal with the US.

"[The source] told us that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programmes," Mr Drumheller said. He said that the then-CIA director, George Tenet, passed the information on to George Bush, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and other senior officials, who were initially excited. But that changed, he said.

"The [White House] group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested. And we said 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.'"

Mr Drumheller said the decision to invade Iraq would be remembered as a grave mistake. "It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it's an intelligence failure ... This was a policy failure ... I think, over time, people will look back on this and see this is going to be one of the great, I think, policy mistakes of all time," he said.

60 Minutes video and more here.

Eighth General joins chorus calling for Rumsfeld resignation

2006-04-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

Rummy Rummy Rummy... Personally, if not for the lives you are costing the US and Iraq, I'd want you to stay just where you are and continue dragging Bush down into the grungy gutters of public opinion. But, since you won't resign and since Bush won't fire you, I guess we WILL have Don Rumsfeld to kick around anymore. Oh what fun. Now, sir, you know how the people of New Orleans felt — blamed, disparaged, unwanted, and left to fend off a man-made disaster of historical proportions. You should've left before the storm — you had the means. Tough cookies. -hl

Raw Story

Ret. Marine General Paul Van Ripper has become the 8th retired U.S. General to call for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, according to an interview with Fox News.

Ripper retired before Rumsfeld took office, but is currently engaged in war games with two branches of the military. He claims that many currently serving share his view.

Van Ripper has stated that Iraq was "When I look at where we are in this war today, and imagine where we could have been if the right number of troops had been put in at the right time and been deployed correctly," Paul Van Ripper "It makes me think we need new leadership."

"If I was the president, I would have relieved him three years ago."

View the entire Fox segment: Crooks & Liars.

Specter: Tax oil companies for excessive profits

2006-04-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

As the CEO of Exxon retires with a $400 million parachute and oil companies post the highest net corporate profits in the history of humankind, we have every reason to raise Cain and demand an investigation, with these oil execs UNDER OATH. What's the problem with taking an oath? Aren't you glad we went to war for oil? -hl

Associated Press

The government should consider a tax on oil companies if they make excessive profits amid rising gasoline prices, a leading Republican senator said Sunday.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a windfall profits tax, along with measures to stem concentration of market power among a few select oil companies, could offer eventual relief to consumers hurting at the gas pump.

"I believe that we have allowed too many companies to get together to reduce competition," Specter said.

"They get together, reduce the supply of oil, and that drives up prices," he said. "In the short run, it's hard to deal with it for tomorrow. But I think windfall profits, eliminating the antitrust exemption, considering the excessive concentration of power are all items we ought to be addressing."

Specter is backing legislation that would strengthen antitrust laws on oil company mergers after his committee held a hearing last month examining the growing consolidation of the oil industry. The nation's largest oil companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., have denied their industry size has affected prices.

Last week, crude-oil prices hit record highs and average gasoline prices nationwide neared $3 a gallon.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he believes gas prices "would come down within a matter of days" if President Bush told oil companies that he was going to support a windfall profits tax.

"But the president will not call the oil companies into his office because he's been too closely allied with those oil companies, and if he does it's going to be a window-dressing conversation," said Levin, who appeared with Specter on CNN's "Late Edition."

Iran, You Ran, Let's Bomb Iran — When a Nut Goes Nuclear

2006-04-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

"Nucular" used to be a funny word. It's not so funny when there's a madman who's obsessed with it and who's so volatile he can't wait to blow up something big quick. That's why so many generals are in mutiny. That's why it is imperative that we disarm this nut immediately. That's why we have to keep talking about it and letting the 33% understand that more than just the Republican majority in the House is at stake here. Where in the Bible does it say that end times will be the intentional makings of a deranged simpleton with a messianic complex and a frustrated inner child? God has nothing good planned for those types. Except maybe a rubber room. -hl

Mark Morford, SF Gate

It's just like playing blackjack in Vegas.

Invariably, sitting right next to you is some guy, eyes shifty and body twitchy and making weird sounds with his mouth and smelling vaguely of sawdust and horse manure and dead dreams, with a huge pile of chips he is quickly turning into a very small pile of chips.

He is suffering. He is playing terribly, grumbling, sneering at the dealer, talking to the cards like they were his personal slutty harem ("C'mon you dumb bitches, do me right," etc.), complaining to his very angry God who is apparently no longer coming through for him. He is getting desperate. His pile is diminishing. He is sweating, glancing around, wondering where all his drunk fraternity friends scurried off to.

Soon he is down to his last chips. He makes one final stab, but his final bet tanks. He is out, the pile is gone.

He then does what every miserable, lunkheaded gambler does at this point: In a fit of alcoholic rage and demonic encouragement, he says, "Screw it" -- and digs into his pocket, pulls out his last remaining crumpled $1,000 bill and slaps it down on the table in one big final gesture meant to turn his fortunes around all at once, goddamn the wife at home and screw a decent meal and forget every ironclad rule of gambling because dammit the gods owe him and he's long overdue for a change in fortune. Yes. Right. Sure he is.

The smart players look at him like he's a wart on their elbow. The gods look at him like he's a brown fungal mold they forgot to let evolve. Everyone looks sidelong at him and sighs, waits for the inevitable.

Sure enough, the lug loses his big Hail Mary bet. He is broke. He cannot believe it. He curses the table, curses the whore cards, swears at the dealer for not treating him better, slams the rest of his drink and his face contorts and his hands shake and he stumbles off into the night, railing against his lousy luck, the gods, all of humanity. Same ol' situation, happening all over Vegas. And, of course, Washington, D.C.

Now, here he is, sitting right next to all the other countries at the Big Table, representing America, it's little Dubya Bush, stewing in his own juices, his poll numbers hovering right near Nixon levels during his darkest days, mumbling to himself, smelling vaguely of sawdust and horse manure and dead Social Security overhaul plans.

He is pockmarked by scandal, buffeted by storms of disapproval and infighting and nascent impeachment. He intentionally authorized the leak of security information merely to smear an Iraq war critic, he lied about WMD and lied about Saddam and lied about making the United States safer and lied about, well, just about everything, on top of launching the worst and most violent and most expensive, unwinnable war since Vietnam.

His formerly enormous pile of betting capital is down to a tiny lump, nothing like back when he had the table rigged and all the pit bosses worked for him and the pile was as big as a roomful of Texas cow pies. But now, fortune is frowning. In fact, fortune is white-hot furious at being so viciously molested, spit upon, raped lo these many years. The truth is coming out: Bush has now lost far, far more bets than he ever won.

What's to be done? Why, do what any grumbling, furious, confused, underqualified alcoholic gambler does: reach down deep and say, "Screw the nation and screw the odds and to hell with the rest of the planet," and pull out one more desperate, crumpled war from deep in your pants, slap it on the table and hear the world moan.

But this time, try to make it serious. Do not rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Do not rule out another a massive air strike, ground troops, special forces, a strategy so intense it makes Iraq look like a jog in the park. Think of yourself as creating a masterful legacy, going down in history not as the guy who restored peace in the Middle East but as the guy who made it all far worse -- but who "saved" the world from Iran's nukes while protecting American oil interests. Yes? Can you smell the oily sanctimony in the air? Is God speaking to you again, telling you to damn the torpedoes and kill more Muslims? You are the chosen one, after all.

Sound far fetched? Don't think even Bush could be capable of using nukes to slap Iran? Perish the thought. All reports from underworld White House sources — most notably by way of Sy Hersh's horrifying report in a recent New Yorker -- indicate that Dubya and his remaining team of war-happy flying monkeys have been secretly laying out plans to attack Iran for months, possibly even using tactical nuclear weapons to get at those deep Iranian bunkers, all because Iran just celebrated its entrance into the world's "nuclear club" by finally enriching some uranium (a critical component of nuclear weapons) for the first time. Cookies all around!

No matter that most analysts say that Iran is far from being a true threat, that a nuclear Iran is at least a good decade away, if not longer. No matter that 10 years is a good long time to work on ways to force Iran out of the game — via negotiation, diplomacy, sanctions — without unleashing another river of never-ending violence.

With Bush in power, there is no waiting. There is no thought of avoiding another hideous war at all costs. To the Bush hawks, diplomacy is a failed joke. Negotiation is for intellectuals and tofu pacifists. In the Dubya world view, the planet is a roiling cauldron of nasty threats, crammed with terrorists and hateful Muslims and foreign demons suddenly growling on our doorstep when, curiously, they really weren't there before he stumbled into power. Amazing how that works.

It is now seven months before what could be a radically influential congressional election, a vote that could very well give power back to the Democrats, who will (with any luck) waste no time launching a number of long-overdue investigations into Bush's failed war and the various scandals and lies and fiscal abuses that led us all here.

For Dubya, now is the time. One last, desperate gamble. Slam that last drink, scrunch up your face, screw the rules and let the bombs fly. What, you don't think he could do it? Don't think a nuclear attack on Iran is possible? You haven't looked into the tiny, ink-black eyes of Dick Cheney lately. You haven't seen Rumsfeld's arrogant sneer, seen Bush looking confused and lost, wondering where all his "capital" went, desperately hunting for a legacy and finding only irresponsibility and self-righteousness and death.

But hell, as we already know, that's good enough for him.

Republicans to Bush: Dump Cheney for Condi

2006-04-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

There is no lesser between these two evils. We don't want either one. She's a mendacious enabler and an incompetent. He is just pure devil's spawn. Not a dimes worth of difference between the two of them. Every last member of the Bush Crime Family needs to go. If the idea is to install Condi as VP so that she can run as the semi-incumbent in '08, please, let's go there. -hl

Sarah Baxter, The Sunday Times

Republicans are urging President George W Bush to dump Dick Cheney as vice-president and replace him with Condoleezza Rice if he is serious about presenting a new face to the jaded American public.
They believe that only the sacrifice of one or more of the big beasts of the jungle, such as Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, will convince voters that Bush understands the need for a fresh start.

The jittery Republicans claim Bush’s mini-White House reshuffle last week will do nothing to forestall the threat of losing control of Congress in the November mid-term elections.

Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard magazine and author of Rebel in Chief, a sympathetic new biography of Bush, said: “There are going to have to be sweeping personnel changes if people are going to take a second look at the Bush presidency.”

Barnes, who is close to the White House, said he believed Cheney would be willing to stand down in order to help Bush. “It’s unlike Bush to dump somebody whom he likes and respects,” he cautioned. “But the president needs to do something shocking and dramatic such as putting in Condoleezza Rice.”

Cheney appeared to have beeen caught napping during a visit to the Oval Office by China’s president, Hu Jintao, on Friday, although he claimed he had been looking down at his notes. It has often been said that he would cite medical reasons should he ever resign.

The best scenario, Barnes added, would be for Bush to announce that “Dick Cheney will be around as an outside adviser and I can call him on the phone, but I’d like to anoint somebody who I think will be the next leader of the United States”.

Tom Edmonds, a leading Republican consultant, said the White House had failed to grasp that the party was in desperate straits. “I have never talked to so many disenchanted Republicans,” he said. “The president even stonewalled the minor changes he made by talking about how he was really perfectly happy with his team. He didn’t even give himself wiggle room.”

One Republican strategist, who did not want to be named, said: “If I were Bush I would think of changing Cheney. It is one of the few substantial things he can do to change the complexion of his administration. The rest is nibbling around the edges.”

Bush’s new chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, quickly put his stamp on the inner workings of the White House last week by stripping Karl Rove, Bush’s most powerful adviser, of his policy-making role and ordering him to concentrate on his forte: winning elections.

Bolten also obtained the resignation of the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, who was nicknamed Piggy in a recent Vanity Fair article because of his resemblance to the hapless victim of the feral boys in Lord of the Flies.

Tony Snow, a Fox News broadcaster who is favoured to replace McClellan, has previously described the Bush administration as “listless” and in dire need of change.

But a new communicator cannot reinvent an old team. Edmonds believes Rumsfeld should go. “The president is loyal to a fault,” he said. “His loyalty shouldn’t be to Rumsfeld but to the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need a new, strong face on the war, such as Senator John McCain or Joe Lieberman (the pro-war Democrat senator).”

Bob Schieffer, a CBS news television presenter, said Bush may yet drop Rumsfeld despite his strong declaration of support. “It was also this president who said, ‘Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job’ and that was just before Brownie got canned,” Schieffer said, referring to Michael Brown, who directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s much-criticised response to Hurricane Katrina.

John Snow, the Treasury secretary, has been left twisting in the wind while replacements for him are openly discussed, and Rob Portman has been brought in to replace Bolten as budget director. Suggestions that Harriet Miers, Bush’s White House counsel who was dropped as his supreme court nominee, would be next to go were denied last week.

Supporters say Bush should live up to his bold claim that he is “the decider” — made while rejecting recent calls for Rumsfeld’s resignation from half a dozen senior generals — and start firing senior people rather than backroom staff.

“If the Democrats win either the House of Representatives or the Senate it will be death and torment. It will be horrible for Bush,” said Barnes. A Democrat win could lead to moves to impeach Bush for leading the country to war on allegedly false pretences, or at the very least, to bog down the president’s legislative programme until he leaves office in 2008.

Rove has been privately warning party activists to expect some losses in the mid-term elections. One insider said: “I’ve heard him say at several party gatherings that the president wasn’t supposed to win in 2000, but he did. We’ve increased our margins of victory time and again. We can’t just keep winning on top of winning so we’re bound to slip back, but we’re still doing better than you would historically expect.”

Only one two-term victor has been more unpopular than Bush at a similar six-year stage in his presidency — Richard Nixon in the months before he was impeached.

LA Times lead editorial: Dump Rummy and Cheney

2006-04-23T16:11:00.001-07:00

Isn't it high time for these Nixon-era repeat-criminals to go? Not according to the Decider who will take them down with him. -hl

Los Angeles Times Editorial

If President Bush hopes that the "shake-up" of his administration initiated last week will re-energize his listless presidency, he's bound to be disappointed. A far more audacious makeover is needed — one that sends Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement.

Second terms are notoriously difficult for presidents. For President Bush, it has been disastrous. His swaggering November 2004 news conference — at which he bragged "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it" — seems from another era. Whatever political capital existed he has squandered with the Iraq war, the Valerie Plame leak inquiry and his ill-advised plan to partly privatize Social Security. His one victory — getting two reliable conservative jurists on the U.S. Supreme Court — is no doubt an enduring one. But there's nothing else.

Hence the yearning for a fresh start, the illusion of a third term. Ronald Reagan, another president hobbled by a second-term scandal, did manage to jump-start his presidency in its last years by bringing new players into his inner circle and engaging in ambitious arms-reduction talks with the Soviets.

Alas, Bush doesn't seem inclined to be that bold. The president has named a new chief of staff and budget director, but this is a merely a case of old loyalists getting new titles. The White House also sent much-pummeled press secretary Scott McClellan packing and, in what seems more like truth in packaging than a real change, relieved arch-political operator Karl Rove of his responsibilities for domestic policy.

It's expected that other heads will soon roll from the Cabinet Room — but not that of seemingly fireproof Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The ax is rumored to fall on Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, considered a lackluster evangelist for the president's economic policies.

Regardless of one's political bias, premature presidential lame-duckitis is not healthy for the nation. And Bush has been on the right side of some important policy debates — namely, in fighting senseless protectionism in cases like the Dubai ports deal, in strengthening the nation's trading relationship with China and, more broadly, in supporting immigration reform.

To his credit, Bush has broken with conservatives in his party, especially in the House of Representatives, who take a purely punitive approach to illegal immigration. But if he was once reluctant to use his political capital to win enactment of a balanced immigration bill, Bush now may be too weak to carry the day at a time when some Republicans in Congress will be tempted to move even further in an anti-immigrant direction. A stronger president also would be in a better position to lead the international community on such issues as Iran's nuclear program.

It's foolhardy to expect Bush to resurrect his popularity by changing his political stripes entirely. But a return (or a first-time visit) to the principles of "compassionate conservatism" would go a long way. His stance on immigration is appropriately compassionate and conservative, and a reawakening to the evils of huge deficit spending would strengthen the administration's credibility on economic matters. Bush also should strive to complete ongoing global trade talks, and for that he would have to take on politically popular farm subsidy programs.

But the remaking of the president in the public eye likely will require more than last week's game of musical chairs. Bush has acknowledged that he has spent much of his political capital on Iraq, and the way to replenish the reserves is to replace the officials most associated with the overreaching that led to the tragedy in Iraq — and with the administration's broader disdain for diplomacy.

Yes, that means dismissing Rumsfeld. The secretary should go not because he has been criticized by a group of retired generals but because he embodies the smugness and inability to acknowledge error that has characterized both the Iraq war and the wider war on terrorism. Rumsfeld has been the pinched public face of an administration that has cut legal and humanitarian corners in dealing with people — including U.S. citizens — suspected of involvement with terrorists.

Suppose Bush didn't stop there. Suppose he also asked Cheney, his mentor and friend but an even more polarizing figure than Rumsfeld, to step down.

We know the objections. The vice president is not a mere presidential appointee but an elected constitutional officer. In choosing a replacement, Bush might be pressured to predetermine the outcome of the 2008 Republican presidential race by anointing one would-be successor over another. Throwing Cheney overboard would be an implicit repudiation of the excessively hawkish foreign policy with which the vice president, even more than Rumsfeld, has been associated.

Unlike most vice presidents, Cheney does not aspire to be president, and he is the consummate Bush loyalist. He would not be giving up a political birthright by agreeing to retire (citing health reasons or a concern about the publicity surrounding the trial of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby). And the problem of taking sides in the 2008 election is easily solved. Bush could nominate as Cheney's successor an elder party statesman — Bob Dole, anyone? — with no interest in the 2008 nomination.

We even have an answer to the complaint that in jettisoning Cheney, Bush would be repudiating his own record. The truth is that the president, however grudgingly, has recognized that he and the administration made mistakes in the run-up to the war in Iraq and in its aftermath. He has not confessed that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, but he has acknowledged with increasing explicitness that he was wrong to believe that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction.

No longer proclaiming "mission accomplished," Bush has been pursuing a sadder-but-wiser policy in Iraq that many Democrats also endorse. It involves ramping up the training of Iraqi troops to take over from U.S. forces while leaning on Iraq's feuding sects to join, however unenthusiastically, in a government of national unity.

Having changed his tune, the president should also think about changing the company he keeps — big time, as Dick Cheney would say.

Ohio Dems Hit on the Nexus of Pro-Life & Common Sense: The 95-10 Plan

2006-04-22T23:20:00.000-07:00

Who can argue with a plan to reduce the incidence of abortion? It's time to call the bluff of the pro-life faction. Here's a plan that might actually get them what they wish for. Question is: Do they really want it or do they just want something to gripe about? Time to get normal! -hl

Jeff Sinnard , Ohio Democratic Catholic Caucus

The Ohio Democratic Catholic Caucus supports in the 95-10 Plan for Ohio.

The 95-10 Plan will reduce abortions 95% over the next 10 years once implemented.

We must move beyond the failed rhetoric of the past and look to the future where women are empowered with real choices regarding their pregnancies.

Instead of failed legislation that makes abortion more difficult to have, the 95-10 plan makes abortions less necessary to have.

Instead of taking away a woman’s right to choose, the 95-10 plan empowers women with the right choices, allowing her to choose life.

The 95-10 plan will do more to reduce the number of abortions than all the speeches, all the campaign ads so called pro – lifers have used over the last thirty years.

All too often in this country concern is not given to the baby who has been born.

Babies and their mothers are forgotten and pushed into a social neverland where they suffer in poverty, neglect, and often abuse.

The basic health, safety and well being of mothers are in jeopardy. Important programs meant to enable women to function as good mothers and lead productive lives such as the ability to continue her education, equal pay for equal work, maternity leave from her job, quality health care, adequate housing, reliable and safe child care, and a realistic minimum wage do not reach many who need them the most.

These programs are often the most criticized and least popular with our federal and state lawmakers.

The correlation between this lack of economic and social means and the abortion rate cannot be underestimated or ignored.

In fact, two thirds of women who have had abortions claim their primary reason for having one is that they cannot afford a child.

Poverty is both a crisis and a tragedy in our modern society in the United States.

Six out of ten women who seek abortions have an income level below $28,000 per year for a family of three.

During the 1990s, the abortion level in the United States reached a 24 year low.

It has long been known there are fewer abortions in countries where women and their babies have access to good health care.

Conversely, according to the World Health Organization, the highest ratio of unsafe abortions in the world occurs in countries where abortions are illegal and where few social services are available.

The Ohio Democratic Catholic Caucus supports in the 95-10 Plan for Ohio.

This does not mean that the specific proposals in this initiative do not need further refinement, debate, and modification.

We are confident that this will happen.

We must move beyond the rhetoric of division and focus on real issues that will address the real problems facing women specifically with respect to abortion.

The debate must start somewhere and this plan will accomplish that.

Our concern and respect for life does not end at birth, but includes an unfailing commitment to the spiritual, economic and social well-being of all children, both born and unborn, pregnant women, and mothers.

More info here:
The 95-10 Plan
Democrats for Life

How the GOP Lost Its Way

2006-04-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

A Reagan Republican mourns the dissolution of his beloved party as the immigration controversy pits the racists ("conservatives/populists") against the corporatists ("Rockefellers/elites") in the battle for the soul of the GOP. Just goes to show you self-destruction can be a beautiful thing. All we normal people have to do is sit back and let the battle rage. -hl

Craig Shirley, Washington Post

The immigration reform debate has highlighted a long-standing fissure in the GOP between the elitist Rockefeller business wing and the party's conservative populist base. Whether the two groups can continue to coexist and preserve the Republican majority is increasingly doubtful as conservatives begin to consider -- and in some cases cheer -- the possibility that the GOP may lose control of Congress this fall.

The two camps are deeply divided. The business elites are interested in a large supply of cheap labor and support unfettered immigration and open borders. The populist base supports legal immigration but is concerned about lawlessness on our border, national sovereignty and the real security threat posed by porous borders.

There is nothing new about this division. It is a 40-year-old fight that has its roots in the cultural, economic, regional and ideological differences between the two camps. Still, most conservatives felt that after the victory of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Revolution of 1994 their point was made and the country-clubbers would know their place. They were wrong. The Rockefeller wing is now attempting to reassert its control over the party and is openly hostile toward the Reagan populists who created the Republican majority in the first place.

Major Republicans have taken to attacking others within their own party as unsophisticated nativists. In a recent Wall Street Journal column, former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie warned populists to cease and desist from promoting "border enforcement first" legislation. "Anti-immigration rhetoric is a political siren song, and Republicans must resist its lure," he said. And in a recent editorial, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol attacked populist Republicans for not recognizing the danger of "turning the GOP into an anti-immigration, Know-Nothing party."

Conservatives see this kind of rhetoric as inflammatory, anti-intellectual and offensive. Far from being driven by xenophobia and intolerance, conservative populists are motivated by a profound respect for the rule of law and by a patriotic regard for America's sovereignty and national security. Upholding the rule of law and protecting our country's borders is important to conservative populists and to most Americans.

To make their argument, some establishment Republicans are invoking Ronald Reagan's name. In fact, Reagan argued that it was our government's duty to "humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship." Reagan was pro-legal immigration, pro-patriotic assimilation and in step with other populist conservatives.

The Republican Party is now unraveling. Sept. 11, 2001, and the war on terrorism stanched a lot of wounds inside the party, but resentment is growing over steel tariffs, prescription drug benefits, a League of Nations mentality, the growth of government and harebrained spending, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, the increasing regulation of political speech in the United States and endemic corruption. On top of all the scandals, it has just come to light that the RNC paid millions in legal bills to defend operative James Tobin, who was convicted with associates in an illegal phone-jamming scheme aimed at preventing New Hampshire Democrats from voting. In doing so, the GOP appears to sanction and institutionalize corruption within the party.

The elites in the GOP have never understood conservatives or Reagan; they've found both to be a bit tacky. They have always found the populists' commitment to values unsettling. To them, adherence to conservative principles was always less important than wealth and power.

Unfortunately, the GOP has lost its motivating ideals. The revolution of 1994 has been killed not by zeal but by a loss of faith in its own principles. The tragedy is not that we are faced with another fight for the soul of the Republican Party but that we have missed an opportunity to bring a new generation of Americans over to our point of view.

All agree that the Democrats are feckless and without a plan or agenda. But most Americans are now presented with a choice between two parties that are both addicted to power -- the Democrats to government power and Republicans to corporate and governmental power. Who speaks for Main Street Reaganism?

It was the populists under Reagan, and later under Newt Gingrich, who energized the party, gave voice to a maturing conservative ideology and swept Republicans into power. We would be imprudent and forgetful to disregard this. But it may be too late, because conservatives don't want to be part of the looming train wreck. They know that this is no longer Ronald Reagan's party.

Craig Shirley, of Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, is the author of "Reagan's Revolution," a book about the 1976 campaign, and is now writing "Rendezvous With Destiny" about the successful 1980 campaign. His firm has clients concerned with immigration issues.

The Great Revulsion

2006-04-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

Is he the Decider or the Uniter? Trust me, he does't know. Well, he's united us, okay. United us against him and the entire Bush Crime Family. Revulsion is too kind a word, but it'll do. -hl

Paul Krugman, The New York Times

"I have a vision -- maybe just a hope -- of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country."

I wrote those words three years ago in the introduction to my column collection, "The Great Unraveling." It seemed a remote prospect at the time: Baghdad had just fallen to U.S. troops, and President Bush had a 70 percent approval rating.

Now the great revulsion has arrived. The latest Fox News poll puts Mr. Bush's approval at only 33 percent. According to the polling firm Survey USA, there are only four states in which significantly more people approve of Mr. Bush's performance than disapprove: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska. If we define red states as states where the public supports Mr. Bush, Red America now has a smaller population than New York City.

The proximate causes of Mr. Bush's plunge in the polls are familiar: the heck of a job he did responding to Katrina, the prescription drug debacle and, above all, the quagmire in Iraq.

But focusing too much on these proximate causes makes Mr. Bush's political fall from grace seem like an accident, or the result of specific missteps. That gets things backward. In fact, Mr. Bush's temporarily sky-high approval ratings were the aberration; the public never supported his real policy agenda.

Remember, in 2000 Mr. Bush got within hanging-chad and felon-purge distance of the White House only by pretending to be a moderate. In 2004 he ran on fear and smear, plus the pretense that victory in Iraq was just around the corner. (I've always thought that the turning point of the 2004 campaign was the September 2004 visit of the Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, a figurehead appointed by the Bush administration who rewarded his sponsors by presenting a falsely optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq.)

The real test of the conservative agenda came after the 2004 election, when Mr. Bush tried to sell the partial privatization of Social Security.

Social Security was for economic conservatives what Iraq was for the neocons, a soft target that they thought would pave the way for bigger conquests. And there couldn't have been a more favorable moment for privatization than the winter of 2004-2005: Mr. Bush loved to assert that he had a "mandate" from the election; Republicans held solid, disciplined majorities in both houses of Congress; and many prominent political pundits were in favor of private accounts.

Yet Mr. Bush's drive on Social Security ran into a solid wall of public opposition, and collapsed within a few months. And if Social Security couldn't be partly privatized under those conditions, the conservative dream of dismantling the welfare state is nothing but a fantasy.

So what's left of the conservative agenda? Not much.

That's not a prediction for the midterm elections. The Democrats will almost surely make gains, but the electoral system is rigged against them. The fewer than eight million residents of what's left of Red America are represented by eight U.S. senators; the more than eight million residents of New York City have to share two senators with the rest of New York State.

Meanwhile, a combination of accident and design has left likely Democratic voters bunched together -- I'm tempted to say ghettoized -- in a minority of Congressional districts, while likely Republican voters are more widely spread out. As a result, Democrats would need a landslide in the popular vote -- something like an advantage of 8 to 10 percentage points over Republicans -- to take control of the House of Representatives. That's a real possibility, given the current polls, but by no means a certainty.

And there is also, of course, the real prospect that Mr. Bush will change the subject by bombing Iran.

Still, in the long run it may not matter that much. If the Democrats do gain control of either house of Congress, and with it the ability to issue subpoenas, a succession of scandals will be revealed in the final years of the Bush administration. But even if the Republicans hang on to their ability to stonewall, it's hard to see how they can resurrect their agenda.

In retrospect, then, the 2004 election looks like the high-water mark of a conservative tide that is now receding.

California protesters "greet" Bush in force

2006-04-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

Even Bubble Boy Bush had to notice his meeting had to be relocated because there were so many people with pickets blocking his way. He's so unpopular in California, why does he even bother? -hl

Watch video: Protesters force Bush to move Stanford meeting

Mercury News

More than 500 protesters beat drums and called for President Bush's resignation Friday as the president prepared to speak to Silicon Valley leaders at the sprawling Cisco Systems Inc. headquarters here.

Police restricted the demonstration to a few blocks from where the president was going to appear, meaning the motorcade would not see the colorful banners calling him everything from a criminal to a liar to a murderer.

The noisy but peaceful protesters said they were not discouraged and pressed to get their messages across as they took aim at everything from Indian health care funding cuts to the war in Iraq.

"Ken's voice has been silenced, but mine hasn't," said Karen Meredith, a Mountain View woman whose son, Ken Ballard, was killed two years ago in Iraq. "Today is a day we unwelcome Bush to San Jose."

Dan Moore took the afternoon off work from Cisco to join the demonstrators.

"I just oppose the direction the president is taking the country, especially when America is supposed to be an economic leader," Moore said. "He seems to be more focused on issues that drive fear into people when there are more important issues like the economy."

Friday's visit was Bush's fourth to Silicon Valley. Cisco CEO John Chambers is a Bush donor.

Hundreds more gathered for a protest later in the afternoon at Stanford University, where Bush had scheduled a private meeting at the conservative Hoover Institution with scholars, including Hoover fellow and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Plans to hold the meeting on campus were scuttled when protesters blocked Bush's motorcade from going through the only entrance. Shultz, who was already hosting a private dinner for Bush later at his Palo Alto home, had the session moved to his two-story, gray-shingled house.

At least three people were arrested for sitting in an intersection during the demonstration, according to organizers. Stanford police couldn't immediately confirm the arrests.

The White House said the protesters blocked the only road into the central areaof the campus where Hoover is located, which forced a meeting with several Hoover fellows to be moved to the campus home of former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Hoover fellow who organized the gathering.

The motorcade instead traveled to the house, which is on the outer edge of campus.

The change in plans delayed the president's arrival by about 15 minutes.

Protesters said they were disappointed that the President would not see them and accused the President of sneaking around to avoid them.

Dems blast Bush for high gas prices

2006-04-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

Capitol Hill Blue

Consumer gasoline prices continue to soar as the Bush administration places too much emphasis on drilling reserves and not enough on alternative fuels, Democrats said Saturday.

In his party's weekly radio address, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida noted that Brazil has announced it will achieve energy independence this year, something the United States has sought since the country's first oil crisis in the 1970s.

"In Brazil, drivers are filling up their cars with ethanol instead of gasoline," Nelson said. "And today in America, President Bush says, 'We have a serious problem. America is addicted to oil.'"

Nelson said Bush acknowledges the problem but refuses to enact policies to address the issue.

"The administration's emphasis is on drilling, a strategy many experts say won't make a dent in the U.S. oil problem," he said.

Nelson noted how the United States has just 3 percent of the world's oil reserves yet consumes 25 percent of oil production.

"We cannot drill our way out of this problem," he said.

The first-term Democrat said the Republican administration must stop being influenced by the powerful oil industry and start promoting production of synthetic fuel from coal and the use of alternative sources such as ethanol.

"We have the technology to raise the mileage standard for all passenger vehicles to at least 40 miles per gallon. The president has urged only a modest 2 miles-per-gallon increase for light trucks," he said.

An oil crisis is looming, Nelson said, with gasoline prices reaching more than $4 a gallon in some parts of the country.

Greater demand and less supply means the slightest disruption "could wreak economic havoc," he said.

"It may be that a terrorist sinks a super tanker in the Strait of Hormuz blocking oil from an oil thirsty world," Nelson said. "It may be a mega-hurricane that goes right up Galveston Bay and shuts down the refineries in Houston."

"Whatever the cause, the crisis is coming."

Tide turns on Dubya's wreck

2006-04-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

The almost universally hated King of the World is putting us all through one long drawn-out shipwreck. What's left in its wake is literally death and destruction and an ogre who takes no responsibility except to crow that he's "The Decider." Well, Decider, this is not a partisan issue; it is a humankind issue, and we're not so sure you're part of that club. You are the Titanic with only a handful of lemmings still on board. This is your destiny: unsalvageable rusticles and bones. Even the bones can't wait 'til you're decomposed. -hl

Mike Carlton, Sydney Morning Herald

SYDNEY, NSW, is a long way from Washington DC but, even at this distance, it is clear that the Bush Administration is falling to pieces.

In recent weeks, scanning the political coverage in the mainstream US media and sampling the blogs has been to watch a flood tide ebbing to reveal a rotting, skeletal hulk. It is the George W. Bush ship of fools, stuck in the mud for the world to see in all its mendacity, its incompetence, its faith-based stupidity.

It is possible, at this late stage, that even Bush himself has begun to realise something is wrong. That oddly simian face is ashen, the eyes leaden. The voice is shrill and its tone defensive.

"I'm the decider and I decide what's best," he squawked to reporters in the White House rose garden the other day, as the screws turned tighter on his disastrous Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. Can you imagine Roosevelt, Eisenhower or Kennedy blurting something like that?

Rummy is looking knackered too, with six retired generals going public to agree that he is "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically", to quote one of them.

These men would have been junior officers in Vietnam, veterans of the all-American nightmare they now see replicated in Iraq. They don't want the mad old warmonger doing it over again in Iran. As former Marine Corps Lieutenant-General Gregory Newbold wrote in Time magazine: "… we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it".

But the Middle East quicksands are not all that is killing Bush's presidency. Domestically, the rot is wide and deep. It is a budget deficit blowing out towards $US700 billion this financial year as Dubya juggles to fund his war while stealing from the American and immigrant poor to bestow tax cuts on the rich.

It is criminal sleaze in Washington, with the Republicans' favourite influence peddler, Jack Abramoff, headed for jail, and one of Bush's closest Texan buddies, the disgraced House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, not far behind him.

It is arrogant, Nixonian trampling of the law to order the wiretapping of American citizens and the leaking of national security secrets. It is the rape of the environment to enrich big business, especially big oil. And resonating with ordinary Americans most of all, it is the loss of the city of New Orleans - not by Hurricane Katrina but by the bottomless incompetence of the feds' post-apocalypse response.

This is a trash presidency, founded on lies and knavery, fraud and ignorant ideological crackpottery.

KARL ROVE is another faux-Texan wheeler-dealer sometimes described as Bush's brain, a courtier most often seen superglued to the presidential right ear. Pink and pudgy, he looks like one of Disney's three little pigs, although infinitely more smug.

Rove was shunted sideways this week in a shuffle of the White House deck chairs which also saw Dubya's press secretary lose his job. His new assignment will be to divert the Republican Party from the coming train wreck of the Congressional mid-term elections this November.

That will be crucial to the survival of this gang. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there would be a good chance of them moving to impeach Bush for high crimes and misdemeanours.

The famous Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein raised just that possibility in a recent article in Vanity Fair magazine. "We have never had a presidency in which the single unifying thread that flows through its major decision-making was incompetence stitched together with hubris and mendacity on a Nixonian scale," he wrote.

Exactly. Compared to this lot, Bill Clinton was John the Baptist.

THE next question is this: what will the Howard Government do when Bush and co decide to bomb Iran?

On past performance, Australia will be the kiddie on the sideline, panting to join the team: "Pick me, pick me." That, of course, is how we wangled our way into Iraq.

To quote the admirable US Marine Lieutenant-General Newbold again: "My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results."

As we have seen, John Howard and Lord Downer are terrific at casual swagger, although neither has ever heard a bullet go pffwt-pzzz through the rubber trees. Luckily, they have not had results to bury. But next time we might not be so easily conned. After the never-ever GST, children overboard, Iraq, WorkChoices, AWB and now Papua, Howard has lost public trust. The moment we hear him blather that no decision has been made for war, that everyone is working for a peaceful solution to the Iran crisis - that's when we know the SAS is already there.

When the shoulders go back, the chin goes up and the lower lip juts out, you know the Prime Minister is lying.

FOX 'NEWS' POLL: Republicans Out of Touch With Mainstream America

2006-04-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

Those identified as independent voters vastly agree with Democrats, not Republicans, as GOP voters continue their move to the extreme political margins

Brad Blog

According to a BRAD BLOG analysis of the Fox "News"/Opinion Dynamics poll [PDF] released yesterday, which showed George W. Bush's latest approval rating at an all-time low of 33%, respondents in the poll who identified themselves as Republican are revealed by the survey time and again to be completely out of touch with mainstream American voters.

A review of the 13 questions asked in the survey where Republican majority responses differed completely from Democratic majority responses to the same question, finds that those identifying themselves as Independents agreed with the Democratic majority opinion nearly 100% of the time.

For example, on the question "Do you think it is appropriate for retired military generals to openly criticize Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during wartime or not?," 71% of Democratic respondents said YES and just 24% said NO.

On the other hand, Republicans had the opposite opinion - YES: 36% and NO: 62%.

Breaking the tie then, were those identified as Independents who agreed with the Democrats on the matter by answering YES: 64% and NO: 32%.

In virtually every single case where Republican majority opinion disagreed with Democratic majority opinion, the Independents agreed with the Democrats -- suggesting that Republican voters, even in (or especially in) a Fox "News" poll are completely out of touch and out of step with mainstream America.

The only minor exception was on the question: "Do you think Donald Rumsfeld should resign as secretary of defense?" Democrats said YES: 57% and NO: 22%. Republicans said YES: 18% and NO: 67%. The tie was broken by Independents barely breaking in Republican favor with responses YES: 41% and NO: 42%.

The poll, however, has a margin of error of plus/minus 3% points. So the response from Independents wasn't conclusive as to whether they agreed more with Dems or Reps on that one question only.

After five years of malicious propaganda by Republican opinion-leaders attempting to paint Democrats as "out of touch with mainstream America," it's interesting to find that the Republicans' own Fox "News" Poll reveals that it is the GOP -- not the Dems -- who now seem to be on the "kook fringe" of American political public opinion.

Democrats volunteer for Katrina clean-up

2006-04-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, fine. Move aside and let the grown-up normal people take care of what the Administration has no interest in whatsoever. Dean's so right on. We've got the heart, we'll take the lead, and we'll do the work if no one else will. And not with some cheap fly-over photo-op either. -hl

Dean: Voters will remember Katrina

Lisa Sidoti, Associated Press

Standing beside rusted-out cars and soggy mounds of debris, Democratic chairman Howard Dean criticized the Bush administration's post-hurricane recovery effort and predicted voters would remember its "incredible failure."

"This is a searing, burning issue," Dean said. "I think it's going to cost George Bush his legacy and it's going to cost the Republicans the House and maybe the Senate, and maybe very well the presidency in the next election."

In turn, Republicans accused Dean and his party of playing election-year politics with a tragedy.

"It's shameful that Democrats are so eager to exploit this national crisis that they revert to finger-pointing for political gain rather than talking about any solutions," said Tracey Schmitt, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman.

The Democratic National Committee is holding its three-day spring meeting in New Orleans, a location chosen so Democrats could help in the recovery effort and highlight what the party calls President Bush's woeful response to the storm that devastated this Gulf Coast city.

Reminders are stark eight months after Hurricane Katrina. In the hardest-hit neighborhoods, blue tarps dot some rooftops, other homes are in heaps and streets nearly empty. Campaign signs remind residents of the mayoral election Saturday, a race in which rebuilding the city is the main issue.

Dean portrayed Democrats as the ones who value community and take care of all Americans, attributes that he said Republicans don't have. "They are the party of selfishness and self-absorption," Dean told the party's executive committee in a morning meeting.

By afternoon, Dean had donned yellow and red gloves, a white plastic jumpsuit and sneakers to help volunteers clean out the one-story brick home where Vincent Copper and the family he raised had lived since 1971.

The home is in the Lower Ninth Ward, which sustained much damage, and Copper said that Friday was the first day since the hurricane that folks had come to tend to his house.

"It's been slow," Copper, a 68-year-old retired shipyard operator, said of the cleanup effort. "They say Rome wasn't built in a day, so ..." he said, his thought trailing off as he gazed at what was left of his home.

Put to work, Dean guided a wheelbarrow full of damp insulation, an old lamp and clothes around the windowless house, past an old trunk askew on the muddy lawn to the front yard where he emptied the load onto an enormous trash pile.

The scene felt somewhat like a campaign event. Dean, a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, left the site after about an hour. Democrats worked in two-hour shifts alongside other volunteers who had spent much of the day cleaning. Dean was there just long enough to help out a little and try to make a point.

"It's worse than the television pictures," Dean said.

Standing beside two mangled cars in Copper's side lawn, Dean said: "I hate to be partisan at a time like this" - and then began his criticism of the GOP.

"This is why the Republicans are going to be out of business," the Democratic party chief said evenly. "Months after the hurricane, it still looks like this. This is ridiculous."

Dean acknowledged that rebuilding takes time, but he said that if President Clinton were still in the White House, "the neighborhood would be cleaned up."

The American people, Dean said, will never forget the president's missteps in how he has handled the hurricane's aftermath.

"Everybody in America saw what happened. It was an incredible failure of this administration," he said. "These folks need to be out of office and we need to put some people in office who know how to deal with the big emergencies."

Forrest Gump's Evil Twin

2006-04-21T19:43:00.000-07:00

Stephen P. Pizzo, News for Real

How extraordinary. Something is happening here that has never happened in America's history. A consensus is sweeping the nation. Not that the war in Iraq is wrong, or that oil companies are screwing us blue, or that the climate is going to hell, or that good-paying jobs are being replaced by low-paying jobs, or that our national health care system is a disgrace, or that that the rich are getting a lot richer while the middle class gets poorer.

While all that's true, and more and more folks are getting it, that's not the consensus of which I speak. Nope. This one is bigger, enormous, huge!

Here it is:
The President of the United States is a moron.

Yes, stupid, dumb as common road gravel. And not figuratively, but literally. George W. Bush, President of the world's last remaining super-power, is a moron. Forrest Gump's evil twin.

I broached this possibility one year ago in a post entitled, Bush: The Worst President Ever? I were a bit early with that one. But what a difference a year makes! Here's the cover story of this week's Rolling Stone Magazine:

So the jury is in: Bush is a moron. If stupid is as stupid does, he's stupid. A botched war on terror, exploding debt, his “what me worry” response to Katrina – and the ongoing mismanagement of the recovery, North Korea has the bomb and Iran is on its way to its own nuke. Think about that for a second because it is definitive proof Bush is a moron. First he identifies three nations as his “Axis of Evil” in the world: North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Then he as a chance to whack one of the three and he picks the ONLY ONE that had no WMD. The only way he could look worse is if it were only two countries – a coin flip – and he still got it wrong.

Yes Virginia, the current occupant of the Oval Office is no longer a crook or an adulterer. He's a moron.

As if that were not a bad enough, we still face two and half years with this man at the controls. NFR reader, Philip Bourgeois, suggested an intervention be launched by former presidents, Clinton, Bush Sr. and Jimmy Carter. Not a bad idea, Phil.

Poppa Bush must be beside himself watching his kid screw up decades of diplomacy in just five short years. He could take sonny into that Oval Office alcove where Monica used to dispense her favors and administer a few long overdue dope slaps.

Bill Clinton could sit the moron down and give him a short course in how balance a checkbook, teach him the difference between capital investment and undisciplined spending and the virtues of saving for a rainy day.

Jimmy Carter could teach Junior the actual meaning of the word “compassionate,” and how to walk that walk. Carter could reveal to him that giving the already comfortably rich even more money, is not compassion. Giving more money to the growing number of those who work 60-hours a week, or more, and still can't get by, is "compassion.” And he could figure out how to cover the nearly 50 million Americans who cannot afford health insurance.

But none of that is likely to happen. One of the trademarks of a moron is contempt for facts that challenge the simple but comfortable fictions that rule their daily routines. You can drag a moron to a library, but you can't force him to learn.

In fact morons get downright testy when someone challenges what they think they know. We saw this trait earlier this week when Bush was asked if he thought Don Rumsfeld should resign. The moron lashed out at the questioner, dashed into his imaginary phone booth and emerged as The Decider. "I'm the Decider, he pronounced, with Mussolini-like swagger. You see, scratch a moron and beneath that smirking, ignorance-is-bliss exterior you discover a fundamental truth: beauty may be only skin deep, but moron goes right to the bone.

I'm staying close to home until this guy is gone. Keeping my head down, my nose clean, and watching what I say in emails for friends. And I have a piece of advice for the Iranians too — this guy really is crazy enough to "decide" that bombing the shit out you is a good idea. Yes, Bush is exactly as stupid as he looks, sounds and acts.

Doubt that at your peril. Fifty-one percent of American voters doubted it. And now we're screwed.

Watch Pink sing "Dear Mr. President"

2006-04-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

She knocks his winkie in the dirt. Prepare to be blown away. -hl

Joe in DC, AMERICAblog

Watch an amazing performance by Pink singing "Dear Mr. President" at You Tube. You have to see it. Seriously.

Feingold's anti-Bush stance pays off

2006-04-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

It's hard to discount a senator who has as much netroots appeal as Russ Feingold. If the senate Dems don't get have his back, guess what, the people do. -hl

Capitol Hill Blue

Sen. Russ Feingold's call for censuring President Bush appears to have paid dividends for the senator's political action committee.

Feingold's leadership PAC, the NAME, Progressive Patriots Fund, pulled in $282,000 last month, according to a report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission. In February, the PAC raised $105,000.

Feingold, D-Wis., announced in March that he introduce a resolution to censure Bush over the administration's eavesdropping program.

"I bet that really did stimulate contributions a lot," said Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The censure resolution, and lack of any other Democrat backing it, really put a lot of Bush-haters onto Feingold."

Politicians use leadership PACs to make contributions to other candidates and finance political travel. The Progressive Patriots Fund has helped Feingold do both, elevating his profile in the process. That will help Feingold if he decides to run for president in 2008.

Earlier this week, the PAC launched a Web ad that mockingly refers to Bush as "king of the United States." The PAC's Web site has a link allowing people to "co-sponsor" Feingold's censure resolution.

George Aldrich, a spokesman for Feingold's PAC, said the spike was probably related to the censure resolution as well as other positions Feingold has taken _ such as his call for a timeline for U.S. troops to come back from Iraq and his opposition to the Patriot Act.

Feingold's PAC finished the period with $466,000 in the bank.

Hu Visits and Who Sleeps?

2006-04-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

Kinda reminds you of those lazy, hazy Reagan days, huh? It's hard work destroying the entire world. -hl

Tim Sloan, AFP

Either Hu was a less-than-charismatic speaker or he was speaking to a very drowsy crowd.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears to be taking a catnap, too.

Anti-tax crusader Norquist failed to pay taxes?

2006-04-21T13:07:00.000-07:00

Could we normal people get away with this? This is unAmerican. Ship him to Gitmo! -hl

Raw Story

Public records suggest that Grover Norquist, president of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform lobby group, has neglected to pay his Washington, DC property taxes for the first half of this fiscal year.

The discovery was made by Campaign for a Cleaner Congress, an organization that has targeted corporate lobbying and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

As of Apr. 18, Norquist's taxes on his $850,000 Washington townhouse had not been paid for the first half of the 2006 fiscal year. Norquist's taxes were due Mar. 31.

Norquist owes $3,822 to the Office of Tax and Revenue, a figure that includes a charge of $394.21 in penalties and interest for failing to pay on time. While no payment appears in D.C. public records at TaxpayerServiceCenter.com, it's possible that the anti-tax crusader's check simply hasn't been processed. Washington D.C. property tax payments can be reviewed here.

Norquist's 810 Constitution Avenue townhouse is assessed at $858,220. The District has proposed his property assessment rise to $1,009,740 for 2007.

Norquist is an inveterate critic of government taxation and once famously declared he wanted to get goverment "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Currently, his Americans for Tax Reform group is under scrutiny by the Senate Finance Committee for its role in handling money in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

ATR took $25,000 from a Texas Indian tribe and another $25,000 from a Louisiana tribe to help set up a meeting with President Bush, hosted by Norquist. The White House has denied knowledge of the transacation, and Abramoff is not known to have said the payment was required to meet the President.

Campaign for a Cleaner Congress has more Norquist property documents here.

Economy is no GOP asset

2006-04-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

If they plan on running on the economy, bring it on! The people aren't buying it. Normal people, that is. How's about those gas prices, eh? The price alone — "$3.15 a gallon" — would make a nice bumper sticker. It IS the economy, stupid, and its impact on regular people is not something the Repubs can crow about, despite the glowing economic indicators, meaningless to most of us, they will pump. -hl

Linda Feldmann, The Christian Science Monitor

Republicans have struggled to get credit for low unemployment and steady growth.

Of all the problems Republicans face heading into the fall political season, one of the most exasperating is the economy.
In many ways, they say, these are the best of times: Unemployment is at 4.7 percent, lower than the averages of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. The economy is showing strong, consistent growth, without significant inflation. And the stock market is roaring along.

Yet many Americans just aren't impressed. A majority tell pollsters they trust the Democrats more than the GOP to handle the economy. When asked in an open-ended question which is the most important problem facing the country today, respondents to a recent CBS News poll named "economy/jobs" second after the Iraq war - and ahead of immigration, terrorism, and healthcare.

"First, there's general concern about globalization and its effect on American manufacturing jobs," says GOP pollster Whit Ayres. "We see low unemployment, but the headlines are dominated by the thousands being laid off by General Motors and Ford."

Underlying that, he adds, is concern about healthcare and being able to afford and keep health insurance if something happens to one's job. The latest run-up in gasoline prices also doesn't help the Republican-led government in Washington, even if there's little it can do in the short term about that.

Independent pollster John Zogby sees the public's skepticism over the economy as part of a larger picture of overall concern over the direction of the nation and a president struggling to recapture Americans' confidence. "It's not just the economy," he says. "If we were at peace or the war was going well or there was confidence in other areas, then the economic news could be bolstered and people could begin to feel better."

In order to understand the full picture on public concerns about the economy, he says, a raft of "secondary indicators" must be factored in: health benefits, pensions, gasoline prices, as well as 401(k)s and stock portfolios.

Even though stocks are strong again, memories of a market dive in the not-too-distant past remain fresh. Mr. Zogby sees a 9/11 effect in people's thinking, not just about the stock market but about other factors close to home, such as safety and security - a concern that something terrible could happen again.

Iraq is also dragging down overall confidence, says Daniel Mitchell, an economist at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. And he blames Republican politicians for "being so fiscally irresponsible" on the spending side of the budget. "Even if the tax cuts have helped, between the bridge to nowhere and now the railroad to nowhere people are probably figuring it's only a matter of time before the bills come due and this all falls apart," he says.

For months, the Republicans have held a losing hand on the array of issues facing the nation, and even on their strongest issue, terrorism, often the best they can do is muster a tie with the Democrats in polls. But on the economy, at least, the White House is hopeful that better use of the bully pulpit can boost public confidence.

"The advantage the White House has on this issue, which they don't on other issues, is the reality really is good," says Mr. Ayres. "The truth may not set them free, but it might improve public perception. So someone with an ability to articulate the good economic news in a compelling and memorable way day after day after day could have an effect on public perception."

In a roundtable discussion with a group of mostly small-business people Monday in Sterling, Va., President Bush acknowledged that "Americans need to keep hearing" his message on the economy. On that day, Tax Day, he stressed his push in Congress to make tax cuts permanent, and asked some at the table to reveal how much they had already saved from tax cuts.

Sitting nearby was Treasury Secretary John Snow, who reinforced the message. What remained unstated was the open secret that the White House is shopping around for a new Treasury secretary, someone who can bring a new voice to the economy-is-strong message - probably someone from the world of economics or finance.

Meanwhile, debate rages among Democrats over how best to take advantage of public disillusionment with Republican government, including the economy. Are bumper stickers saying "Had Enough?" enough, or does the party really need a multipart plan to persuade voters to toss out their incumbent Republican members of Congress? Various Democrats - from Sen. Hillary Rodman Clinton of New York to Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin - are launching strategies to spark debate.

In a recent speech in Chicago, Senator Clinton focused on the middle class, arguing that "tax cuts are not the cure-all for everything that ails the American economy." Secretary Rubin, in his newly launched initiative called the Hamilton Project, has centered concerns on growing income inequality in the US.

At a Monitor breakfast on Wednesday, Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean said "the problem with the president's, with the Republicans' economy is that it's good for their base - 20 percent of the public - but it's not so good for 80 percent of the public."

Human rights group demands special prosecutor for Rummy

2006-04-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

Old Bloody-hands Rummy should be sentenced to the same kind of treatment he's overseen for Gitmo prisoner al-Qahtani. After all, it's not 'torture,' is it? -hl

Rumsfeld Linked to Guantanamo Torture

Haider Rizvi, OneWorld.net

A leading international human rights group is calling for the Bush administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the alleged involvement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials in the torture of a prisoner at Guanatanamo Bay some three years ago.

Rumsfeld could be criminally liable under federal or military law for the abuse and torture of detainee Mohammad al-Qahtani in late 2002 and early 2003, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said this week as some Democratic lawmakers demanded that Rumsfeld step down as Pentagon chief.

The rights group's demand comes in light of findings by a major Internet publication that indicate Rumsfeld might have been fully aware of the abuses inflicted on al-Qahtani, a prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay on terrorism charges.

Last week, a military report obtained by Salon.com included a statement by Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt that raises serious questions about the conduct of the Pentagon chief and other officials concerning al-Qahtani's interrogation. In the report, Gen. Schmidt says Rumsfeld was "talking weekly" with Gen. Geoffrey Miller, a senior commander at Guantanamo in early 2003, about the al-Qahtani interrogation, and that he was "personally involved in the interrogation of (this) one person."

Schmidt's statement also signals that Rumsfeld maintained a high level of knowledge of and supervision over al-Qahtani's treatment, although he did not specifically order more abusive methods used in the interrogation.

Al-Qahtani, who is suspected of being a "20th hijacker" in connection with the September 11 attacks, was denied entry to the United States in August 2001. He is seen by the military as an "al-Qaeda terrorist," who provided a "treasure trove" of information during his interrogation.

The Pentagon admits that al-Qahtani's interrogation was systematic and well-planned. "(His) interrogation was guided by a very detailed plan, conducted by trained professionals in a controlled environment, and with active supervision and oversight," Jeffery Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, told Salon.com in an e-mail.

"Nothing was done randomly," he said about al-Qahtani's interrogation.

Human Rights Watch says it has obtained an unedited copy of al-Qahtani's interrogation log, which suggests that the techniques used on him during the interrogation were "so abusive that they amounted to torture."

The log reveals that al-Qahtani was subjected to various methods of physical and mental mistreatment from mid-November 2002 to early January 2003. For six weeks, he was deprived of sleep, forced into painful physical positions, and subjected to forced exercises, standing, and sexual humiliation.

Al-Qahtani was forced to accept an intravenous drip for hydration and on several occasions was refused trips to the latrine so that he urinated on himself at least twice, according to the log, which also reveals that the prisoner was forced to undergo an enema.

"A six-week regime of sleep deprivation, forced exercises, stress positions, white noise, and sexual humiliation amounts to acts that were specifically intended to cause severe physical pain and suffering and mental pain," said Joanne Mariner, HRW's director of terrorism and counter terrorism.

"That's the legal definition of torture," she added.

Last year, the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps also made similar observations on the al-Qahtani case. He told the Senate Committee on Armed Services that the interrogation techniques used on al-Qahtani violated the U.S. Army Field Manuel on Intelligence Interrogation.

For its part, the U.S. State Department considers such techniques to be torture and has condemned their use in other countries such as Iran and North Korea in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights.

In a February report, United Nations investigators on torture called on the U.S. government to close down Guantanamo and "refrain from any practice amounting to torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

In response, Washington slammed the UN report, noting that the UN experts had declined an invitation to visit Guantanamo because they would not be allowed to interview prisoners.

Independent legal experts say Rumsfeld could be liable under the doctrine of "command responsibility," the legal principle that holds a superior responsible for crimes committed by his subordinates when he knew or should have known that they were being committed but failed to take responsible steps to stop them.

Human Rights Watch's Mariner says a special prosecutor is needed because Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was himself "deeply involved" in the policies leading to the abuse of prisoners, a conflict of interest that is likely to prevent a proper investigation

"The question at this point is not whether Rumsfeld should resign," said Joanne Mariner, "it's whether he should be indicted. A special prosecutor should look carefully at what abuses Rumsfeld either knew of or condoned."

The Pentagon admits that in December 2002, Rumsfeld approved 16 interrogation techniques for al-Qahtani and other prisoners, including the use of forced nudity, stress positions, and "using detainees' individual phobia (such as using dogs)."

However, the military has refused to release the full version of Gen. Schmidt's report on abuses, according to Mariner and others who note with dismay that in July last year Gen. Bantz Craddock dismissed claims that the al-Qahtani interrogation violated military laws.

Also See:
Documents Link Rumsfeld to Prisoner's Interrogation