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JIM PARKER, The answer to Jean Schmidt...

During the last election, Parker had a surprise performance in the Democratic primary.

http://jimparker4ad.blogspot.com/

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world is from the back seat of a stretch limousine.

there is no accountability, and he knows how he got there...

he was born into, no education, or training required...

graft only requires a signature.

do you need more information?

.

This is typical WA-PO propaganda and spin, not only does the post ignore the close GOP wins in 06, it completly ignores the proverbial elephant in the room, which is the Iraq war. King George's soon to be anounced escelation of the war means that there will likly be more of a mess then than we have today. With the GOP fawning all aver the place to be the first in line to support their lord "Georgie boy"
and his insane view of the world as his personal chess board, they are not going to get much support from anyone but the 20% of the neocon nut jobs that still support this disaster.

i don't bother reading your posts anymore, zouk. they are filled with lies, tedious, repetitive, unsupportable arguments and pure BS, all utterly without merit. as i have said before, you are a joke, a parody, a waste of space and time.

I do feel sorry for you though, you don't ever seem to do anything at all but post long idiocies on this blog.

Well Amy, I think you're jumping the gun on whether Edwards is 'great' or not.. but who is? The problem is that our electoral system, which requires grossly inflated amounts of money, is increasingly owned by corporations. They elect the president, we don't. any they don't want someone great. They want someone like bush, who will reliably do what he's told.

Until we REALLY reform the campaign finance system, [and not a feeble superficial 'reform' like mccain espouses] we will have nothing but corporate hacks and shills.

Ford explicitly wanted his opinions kept silent until after his death. Again. look at the difference between him and peanut. shame on that fading media hound who can't seem to get enough attention - woodward, for releasing this so quickly. Poor woodward, trying to maintain his celebrity way past his sell-by date. will, he do anything to stay on the cocktail circuit? first he admires Bush, then he insults him. which way is the wind blowing today. but this type of morality is just the usual fare for you Dems. I need to go take a poll now to see where I should go for New Years eve.

Interesting that you Libs just continue to insult me and ignore any policy implications I bring up. I guess if I had to defend your point of view, I would have to do the same. that may have worked in November but Jan is coming fast. what will madame bug-eyes do when she has to come up with her first idea?

clinton was so brillianrt he thought an intern would keep his secret. that sure is smart all right. they say peanut was smart too, a lot of good that did him. thay say reagan was dumb. but they always say Rs are dumb. what is the point of all this. I said one particular nimrod was displaying a foolishness, which he was. Everyone knows that Rs are too stupid to even vote thier own selfish interests. Otherwise, clearly the vote would be 100% D, like in cuba where the people are the smartest in the world. Is that your position?

Interesting discussion on worst Presidents.

How about the best presidents? Washington, Lincoln, FDR... Why not try for someone of their caliber for 2008?

The question doesn't have to be restricted to "who can win?" The bigger-picture question "Who can rank with the top Presidents ever?" encompasses the short-term "win" question. A candidate who has the potential to be one of the Presidential greats is a ready-made winner.

This is on my mind because Edwards just declared his candidacy.

Can you really see a top ten list beginning "Washington, Lincoln, FDR" that has Edwards in it? To me, that feels inconceivable. Edwards just doesn't feel to me like one of the greats. He just doesn't have the stuff.

Maybe Edwards wouldn't be in the bottom ten either, but is avoiding the bottom ten really the best we can hope for?

If our goal is nothing more than to elect a middling-average President, we should not blame ourselves if the President elected is nothing great.

jaypo -- you don't need a test to measure bushie's IQ. just look at it hiim sputtering out an answer to a question, knitting his brows and straining as if he were having a difficult bowel movement. That's what 'thinking' is like for him.

wow, zouk, you are having some terrific holiday week. busy life, huh? lotsa friends and family? you've made about 50 posts over the last couple days--don't you have ANYTHING else to do?

Oh, yes, you liked Ford:

'He made it very clear that he did not agree with the reasons President Bush laid out for the war, namely the belief that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or that there was some obligation that the United States or the president had to expand democracy."

"(Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and (Vice President Dick) Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq," Ford said.

President Bush has long defended the war in Iraq as part of a larger plan to spread democracy throughout the Middle East.

The 38th president said he disapproves of that strategy.

"I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security," he said.'

Remember, back in the days when you might differ with reepugs, but at least they were rational?

"Don't you see the difference? you are particularly slow, even for a Democrat."

Wow, KoZ, if Dems are so much more stupid than Republicans maybe we should only let Republicans vote. Isn't it awful that one vote from a stupid Dem counts for as much as one vote from a brainy Republican?

Aside from the obvious absurdity of your statement (which like most of your insults is presumably made in the heat of the moment. I'm being charitable, i certainly hope so), you may find this study (not to be confused with the hoax) interesting.

To buy the full report
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2006.00524.x

A summary
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2350564,00.html

Funnily enough Bill Clinton (stupid Dem) has an IQ estimated 20 points higher than Bush (brainy Repub). How odd.

JEP: The MSM is being talked about as a ONE thing, when in fact it takes in many elements as has been pointed out by so many. The loss of reporters that actually try and get the story behind the story have been in decline for many years and as best as I can figure out the two main reasons are money and fear. Money, in that the folks look at the bottom line, not what is in the best interest of the folks that would like to know what is actually going on. Fear, in that this Administration has made it known to all that disagree with it in any way will pay a price that few are willing to pay.

writing shows insight..

not repitition of opinions...

cobbled together by bathrooom haunting afficiandos... of perversion.

..

you are defeated by your own words,

there is no intelligence in your childish zooukings of moral indignation,

I Q is about 93 with the wind behind you...

simpletons fo dull usion.

look up

"appeal to emotion,"

that is the single tool in the arsenal of those who use labeling

and look up what "strawman" means

the intent of that kind of posting is to recast your words, not listen

disinformation is about creating the illusion of information rather than the actuality....

you'll notice I dont argue, I post verifiable information

when someone attempts to capture you in the web of their framing

apply the sword of damocles

speak the truth and let their poop lie their stinkign in contrast.

Wall Street Journal in a poll about 6 months ago

stated that 80 PerCent of all troops in Iraq

were under the impression that there was an Iraq WTC connection

even though there is none.

..

PNAC, Project For a New American Century, was written during the Clinton Yeares...

when George H.W. Bush was defeated for a second term....

Bill Clinton interrupted lobbyists and Military Industrial Types otherwise known as scum sucking windbags...

from feeding like pigs at the trough of greed....

they tried to goad him into action with the deaths of 200 marines....

but he didnt budge....

look it up,

find the connection

Paul Wolfowitz, George W. Bush, John Negroponte, Porter Goss Yale class of '60

Florida/Cuba/Castro/Zapata Oil/George H.W. Bush/Walker/West Indies/WaterGate/CIA

try any combination of those seperated words to find out what your inbreds are doing to destroy your country as they sell you terrorism as magick beans to seperate you from the cow of your middle class

which is going missing to outsourcing..

.

once again,

there is no _war_in_iraq_

we invaded a nother country to steal their oil...

Cheney Midnight Oil meetings...

the people who flew the planes into the WTC were Saudi

the same people who _will_ take over Iraq if we pull out....

the Saudi Oil wells are over 50 years old...

think they are getting close to failing?

and who is getting millions of dollars from the Saudis?

did you know Jim Baker the III, defended the Bin Ladins from lawsuits from the WTC victims?

did you know that George H.W. Bush and Jim Baker the III have both received LARGE CASH PAYMENTS FROM SAUDIS AND UAE?

do you know what treason is?

when you act in your best interests to the defeat of your countries best interests...

.

I don't think the Florida investigation is going to go very far no matter how many times you "re-investigate" it. So 1 expert says Jennings would have won. Who is this witness and what's his story? Another expert claims a Buchanan victory. He's an outspoken conservative from FSU. These "voting experts" have views of their own and may not be able to deviate from that to be fair and impartial. Hell, I wouldn't be if it were up to me...how many on this blog can actually say you could call an election impartially? No matter how close it is? Especially if you have a major bias and people are asking you to say who'd have won.

Truth is, Florida is a unique state in it's voting make-up. The majority of people of Florida lean conservative. Many people from up North living in Florida have libertarian views, but would usually vote Republican. I mean, look at Florida's political heros: fmr. Gov. & sen. Bob Graham-D, outgoing gov. Bush (Jeb)-R, fmr. Gov. Chiles-D and they seem to love current ag. comm. Charles Bronson-R and fmr. congressman Joe Scaraborough-R. Scaraborough's brand of conservatism and Graham's personality and form of liberalism is really the nature of Florida politics. Had Joe ran against Nelson this year, it would have been the only Republican victory of the year and Republicans would still control the senate. Why didn't he? Party leaders wanted him to run, but Joe didn't run b/c he represents the Reagan brand of the Republican sect...not what the Republican party is today.

RE: Presidential rankings - It's totally unfair to rank WH Harrison dead last. He was only in for one month and did nothing to harm the country. That should put him ahead of Pierce and Buchanan at least.

about "the Zarqawi Al Qaeda group"

is that they were CIA trained...

g o o g l e Negroponte Honduras if you really want to know about the war on your intelligence

coined "the war on terror,"

state spoonsored terrorism from your country....

Noriega, Iran Contra, Nixon Watergate

all of the people involved in PNAC are also involved in Iraq

Kagan writing for the Washington Post now was Paul Wolfowitzs teacher...

talk about inbreeding creating defects...

syntho perntinentince?

.

Blarg - are you daft or do you just play that on TV? I don't cut and paste arguments from other posters, but I do occasionally post interesating news items. Don't you see the difference? you are particularly slow, even for a Democrat.

Some excerpts from the real war in Iraq:

The IED: The biggest killer of all. Can be anything from old Soviet anti-armor mines to jury rigged artillery shells. ... Most were detonated by cell phone, and the explosions are enormous. You're not safe in any vehicle, even an M1 tank.

so much for that stale old armored humvee gripe.

Most of the carnage is caused by the Zarqawi Al Qaeda group

so much for the real war on terror gripe

The enemy death toll is supposedly between 45-50 thousand.

The Iranian Shiia have been very adept at infiltrating the Iraqi local govt.'s, the police forces and the Army. They have had a massive spy and agitator network there since the Iran-Iraq war in the early 80's. Most of the Saddam loyalists were killed, captured or gave up long ago.

the soldiers - They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The embedded reporters are despised and distrusted. They are inflicting casualties at a rate of 20-1 and then see s*** like "Are we losing in Iraq" on TV and the print media. For the most part, they are satisfied with their equipment, food and leadership

The Iranians and the Syrians just can't stand the thought of Iraq being an American ally ...

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTY4YmUxYWJlZTVmNzFkMTE2NzcyNWU2NmRjMDM5NGE=

Interesting take on things you won't see in the usual media. An inconvenient truth? so you see the flypaper approach is working. Keep up the good work.

Do you realize that you just criticized me for cutting and pasting YOUR WORDS from this thread, then made a post that's copied entirely from another site? Flip-flopper!

Check out this photo from our mess hall at the US Embassy yesterday morning. Sen. Kerry found himself all alone while he was over here. He cancelled his press conference because no one came, he worked out alone in the gym w/o any soldiers even going up to say hi or ask for an autograph (I was one of those who was in the gym at the same time), and he found himself eating breakfast with only a couple of folks who are obviously not troops.

What is amazing is Bill O'Reilly came to visit with us and the troops at the CSH the same day and the line for autographs extended through the palace and people waited for two hours to shake his hand. You decide who is more respected and loved by us servicemen and women!

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016314.php

Blarg, again you have demonstrated no originality and pedestrian thinking. asking for logical consistency is not an insult unless you are incapable of this action and feel really bad about it. Pointing out that winning as a goal is rather simple and straighforward is not an insult unless you believe everything in life is full of nuance and requires ten committees to study the situation. and characterizing the Dem position as wishing to surrender is factually accurate. So why don't you sort through some postings and try to cut and paste a response now.

"and now you surrender monkeys want to give up completeyly and go live in a cave"

"Why is this so hard for you Dims to comprehend?"

"Everytime you Libs post your views, it shows the logical inconsistency and hopeless conclusions you are forced to reach when drawn to the result."

I suppose when you have nothing but insults in your arsenal, you must do what you must.

so you blame Bush for the current war but absolve Carter for anything he did. as usual the Lib double standard doesn't live up to logic. either the CinC is responsible or he isn't. In fact, he is ultimately responsible for all american military policy. and further, carter graduated from a military academy and served in the Navy. Yet according to you he was clueless about anything military. How very amusing.

And then of course you launch into the usual spate of insults, which do not address the issues but make your side appear to be "better" in some respect, although devoid of any facts and replete with innuendo. I suppose when you have nothing else in your arsenal, you must do what you must. but all your vituperation is not convincing and does not answer the charges in the least. It does point out that you may need anger management - a common liberal affliction these days. but of course its not your fault. Must be global warming.

KOZ - A lot of your "facts" need to be corrected, but the one that stands out today is blaming President Carter for the four helicopter's that crashed on the rescue mission in Iran. That "little problem" was due to the Penagon and CIA planners, you know the same ones that have done such a good job with Iraq? Some of those criminally incompetent fools are still around. One was our recently unlamented Secretary of Defence. They planned it, and managed to sell President Carter on it for being "fool proof", knock out gas and all. ANd, of course, then there are the civilian contractors that sold helicopter's to the Pentagon that they knew full well wouldn't withstand any amount of sand - would, indeed, crash. I wonder when you are going to start blaming the military contractors, the CIA, the Pentagon idiots, and the rest of your right wing friends for that mess, for Iraq, and for sending our soldier's into combat with crap geer, unarmored Humvees, for denying them a workable anti-RPG system, and for all of the acompanying deaths and injuries? Your phony patriotic posturing is wearing a bit thin. The most left wing poster on this forum cares more for our troops, more for the futuire and safety of this country, and is far more patriotic, than you and the other right wing nuts that take up valuable space here.

I would leave the humor to the professionals. you Dems always seem to muff the punchline.

Unless that was your attempt at a substantive discourse, in which case, I would suggest that one liners are pretty shallow on a complex subject and clearly indicate you are out of your depth. but since your underlying argument is so weak I am not surprised you try to get away with it. After all , there is no recourse on a blog. you don't have to answer to anyone and can appear or even actually be a complete fool with no harm done.

"Carter, being an engineer, expected people to play fair"

so that's your excuse for him. Much like the Baker commission expects us to talk to Iran and NKorea. this is precisely why you Dems are such nitwits in foreign affairs. Our enemies do NOT play fair and they never did. they would never stand a chance of beating us if they did.
Perhaps a class in game theory should be required for all political aspirants.

Everytime you Libs post your views, it shows the logical inconsistency and hopeless conclusions you are forced to reach when drawn to the result.

do you mean stealing their oil?

is there some other kinda winning that I am missing?

neither was a Washington Insider...

read, graft oriented policy supporter...

both were roundly condemned for not going along to get a long...

Carter, being an engineer, expected people to play fair, as more gets done when you do that....

Clinton, having actually lived a life and enjoyed a certain amount of exposure to liars and con artists, managed to hold his own...

That is why Project for a New American Century, came into being in 1997....

To make sure that the Military Industrial Complex/Lobbyists and Monied Interests didnt lose their place in the front of the line....

Where they have been permanently ensconced since electoral fraud stole the election from the then president of the United States by popular votes, Al Gore...

But unfortunately Katherine Harris was borne again, just intime to cast her vote for the cloven hoofed one.

neither was a Washington Insider...

read, graft oriented policy supporter...

both were roundly condemned for not going along to get a long...

Carter, being an engineer, expected people to play fair, as more gets done when you do that....

Clinton, having actually lived a life and enjoyed a certain amount of exposure to liars and con artists, managed to hold his own...

That is why Project for a New American Century, came into being in 1997....

To make sure that the Military Industrial Complex/Lobbyists and Monied Interests didnt lose their place in the front of the line....

Where they have been permanently ensconced since electoral fraud stole the election from the then president of the United States by popular votes, Al Gore...

But unfortunately Katherine Harris was borne again, just intime to cast her vote for the cloven hoofed one.

a litle historical perspective will certainly not treat Carter well. I noticed that Truman has been rehabilitated recently. he was despised by almost all when he left office. now he is considered "near-great". why? the fact that carter started us down the slide into terror appeasement will eventually be a very dark stain on his record, as if he needs more trouble. this will not be discovered until after his death. Much like it was discovered that Reagan won the cold war. I am pretty confident clinton I will be remembered for Monica and not much else. with some luck clinton II won't be remembered at all.

My whole point was that Ford got little credit for all the good he did, vetoing all that spending, taking a bullet for the nation by pardoning nixon and in general always being honest and dignified. there are few like him these days. My other point was that we have had many, many do-nothing presidents including especially and most recently Bush I and Clinton. but at least they did no severe harm as peanut did. Bush I did win a war in Iraq, (sort of a punt down the road) and clinton did flex some muscle in Bosnia (despite being illegal and ignoring the UN).

Winning in Iraq - in a sense we have already acheived a sort of victory, we eliminated Saddam and handed the future of the country to the populace. They don't seem to be handling it well and have a long sordid history of killing. But it is nevertheless a noble undertaking and this country should be proud. there are some stategic considerations with oil and nukes that can't be ignored. Our most dangerous enemy is next-door and waging a proxy war with us right now. this is the war we can't afford to lose. Most wars of this type last on average ten years and end when one of the sides is just about all dead. I can't say I would be upset if a general war in the region killed off about half of the adult male population. then, like the Germans, Japanese, Italians, etc. they may become so exasperated, they may consider peace as a solution. surrender by us or even a small retreat will only encourage them and focus the energy on us. when did you all lose your spine and avoid anything difficult. Is this the 21st century America our fathers fought for?

the world done changed in mah absence and not for the better...

there has been a resurgence of delightful stupidity, that I may trim from the nostrils of beauty...

.

That post with the Wikipedia link was mine. Looks like I forgot to sign it; sorry.

If you'd said that you thought Carter was one of the worst presidents, I couldn't argue that. That's your opinion. But you said that he was REGARDED as worst. That's a statement of fact, which can be proven or disproven. Like I just disproved it.

I'm not saying anything about what I think of Carter. Just that repeated surveys show that presidential scholars don't consider him one of the worst presidents.

Hey KOZ,
Define "winning" in the context of Iraq.

lark - the goal has always been to win. Why is this so hard for you Dims to comprehend? Is that concept so foreign to you? Maybe you require a little more nuance.

This is what your vaunted wikipedia has in summary for peanut boy:

"Camp David Accords, Iranian hostage crisis, stagflation and energy crisis, image of ineffective leadership, appointed Paul Volcker chairman of the Federal Reserve to end inflation, deregulation legislation, sought energy legislation"

I would take issue with the "image" of ineffective leadership since it was not an image but real. pitiful. how much do you want to bet that when carter dies they concentrate on building houses and ignore the 76-80 timeframe for his sake out of respect?

I will try to make myself look clever by simply cutting and pasting someone else's exact words. how un-original and how that demonstrates your creative ability. so void of original thought you can't even think up a name for yourself.

wikipedia is for morons to find their sensibilities. science and history is not the purvue of votes and opinion.

carter's policies of surrender, disgrace and appeasement still seems to be running rampant in the Dem party. this was the beginning of the troubles we are in now. Remember Iran was our ally before he came along and pulled the rug out from under them. Remember our military still had some respect before that lunkhead invaded with 4 choppers. Remember the malaise, the sweaters, the lights turned off, the boycotting of Olympics, the killer wabbit, the gas lines. reagan helped tunr this around but then along came clinton for more bowl circling policies. and now you surrender monkeys want to give up completeyly and go live in a cave. Say hi to Osama while you're there.

"his succesor, Peanut Boy is regarded as just about the worst president in history."

Here's a Wikipedia article containing a collection of presidential rankings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_United_States_Presidents

Jimmy Carter averages a ranking of 26.3, in polls of historical scholars. That's not so good, but it's hardly the lowest. He's equal with Ford and higher than Nixon, Coolidge, Harding, Ben Harrison, Garfield, Grant, Andrew Johnson, Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, Taylor, Tyler, and William Henry Harrison.

'In all of this talk of increasing troop levels to accomplish some kind of success or unstated goal, I'm reminded of a software engineering principle called Brooks' Law: "Adding manpower to a late project makes it later." This meshes nicely with analysis of the escalation being designed to carry the war into the '08 election cycle, but I think the administration is cynical enough to push the surge just for this reason, especially since the reasons and goals of the surge have remained nebulous throughout the past weeks. Nobody knows what the goals are anymore, and nobody's asking.'

Can't go a single day without a report about some sleazy repug (or a dozen) stealing money...

Bushie boy is regarded as the worst president in h istory, actually, there, Parody of 'Conservative'... and of course he still is, 'peddling lies and distortions to cement that miserable legacy of his.'

Refelecting back on Ford's legacy creates stark differences between even his moderate politics and the wacked out leftist agenda he fought against. his succesor, Peanut Boy is regarded as just about the worst president in history. the overwhelming Dem congress of Ford's day refused to fund the south vietnamese (although they paid for anything you could think of in those days - spending run amok). this capitulation was probably the lowest point in american congressional cowardice and self-centerdness.

but ford soldiered on. he was always honest, classy, fair and agreeable. He pardoned Nixon, the best thing for the nation at the time, the worst thing for his career.

He was an exemplary ex-president too, avoiding the spotlight and working on local issues. consider the rotten behavior of peanut boy in this regard who is still peddling lies and distortions to cement that miserable legacy of his.

President Gerald Ford - a great American, selfless and honorable. thank you.

Lylepink;

So now there are More Americans dead fighting in Iraq than in New York on 9-11?

Curious, how the MSM marked that profane hallmark with such little fanfare.

This must be some twisted Bush version of "an eye for an eye."

Terrorists kill 3000 Americans and we get our revenge by killing 3000 of our own? Along with hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis who had nothing to do with 9-11.

Not to mention a half trillion tax dollars that might have gone to much more worthy causes, like finding Bin Laden, curing AIDS, college scholarships for poor kids, and stem cell research that could give comfort to millions one day.

Or alternative energy research that might remove the oil-moguls from the top of the world's economic heap.

But, then, it really is their war, now isn't it? Bin Laden lit the fuse, but that neocon oil-for-blood firecracker was just waiting for an excuse to explode.

Their $3 a gallon gasoline and billion dollar weekly profits are just the visible results, and as for what it has done to our society in general, we have no yardstick or set of scales that can measure or weigh that impact.

History will be our judge. But I fear the legacy of George W. Bush will leave an indelible mark of shame on our historic record, that we have managed to avoid until now.

What was once just a bad character called "The Ugly American" has become the standard image the world now sees us through.

Hopefully, new leadership in the near future will help correct these issues, and our blessed nation will recover to some degree the respect we knew before the "season of the neocon" wreacked havoc on our world image.

I meant MikeB, not JimD, for that last post, just wanted to get my references straight..

"as paleo-conservative Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly insists.

Political pundit? Even a caveman can do it... Orielly's living proof of evolution. Fox news is loaded with them, and the WaPo apparently has a few on board.

Has this blog died? Or is our intrepid host on hiatus?

JimB, you're observations of the "floating definitions" of history are insightful, and I might point out, sometimes a bit prophetic. Particularly, when you stated, "the term 'fascist', as it was used in 'between wars Germany', was a technical term specifically applied to parties that cooperated with and were funded by the big corporations and land owners."

This is a very universal description of how ultimate power corrupts so ultimately. Go all the way back to Metternicht, and in the word "fascist" you have efficiently described the pernicious influence of greed and the lust for power to satisfy that greed, that permeates our modern western culture since the middle class became the ruling class, following the era of popular revolutions.

The fascists (royals, illuminati, nazis, whatever label you might trust) want it back, and whatever new (neocon)labels they might espouse simply describe the same old hungry demon, Greed.

It has been my simple observation that greed can rule from the top down, not from the middle out.

Until we certify our democracy as the efficient governance of and by and for ALL the people, it will remain a shallow front for these book-cookers who have replaced blue-blooded heirarchy with big-money treachery.

So whatever label you pick, it remains the same. Greed is God to these money-lovers who protect their bottom lines before they protect the people who produce that line.

Employee ownership, price controls and public scrutiny, the three terms that make a fascist(neocon, book-cooker, no-bidder, corporate icon... whatever label you wish) shake at the knees.

Without their selective morality and corporate lawlessness, they would all have to share the commonwealth with the common people who produced it for them.

A lot of the congress battlegrounds will change once the POTUS candidate is selected. This was often cited by people concerned about Hillary, the effect she would have further down.

Surprised with the lack of seats mentioned from the MidWest. I thought that was supposed to be the key battleground for 2008?

Can't go a single day without a report about some sleazy Dem (or two) stealing money.

"Daniel DeVos, an honorary PAID board member, represents Concurrent Technologies, whose employees have lavished Murtha with more than $53,000 in campaign contributions and PMA with $820,000 in fees. That may sound steep, but the rewards have been substantial: a $150 million contract to operate the Navy Metalworking Center; a $4 million contract from the Army to evaluate fuel-cell systems; and $1.7 million for a weapons of mass destruction response laboratory, among others.

Another PAID director, Jim Estep, is a central figure in an investigation of Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), a Murtha ally and fellow member of the Appropriations Committee. Estep heads the West Virginia High-Technology Consortium Foundation and the Institute for Scientific Research, two nonprofit organizations that Mollohan helped set up and has plied with federal funds."

From the WaPo even.

Wright, JimD - Evan's and other historian's are very careful to note that the term "fascist", as it was used in "between wars Germany", was a technical term specifically applied to parties that cooperated with and were funded by the big corporations and land owners. The term was coined by the communists, not the Italians. Also, the term "Nazi", was coined and used as a derogatory term by the German press. Hitler's National Socialist's *never* used it as descriptive of themselves.

One of the problems with forums like this is the abominable igorance of most readers, passing off commonly accepted "history" as fact, when it is merely a tired retelling of the same ignorant garbage over and over again. I think that is why so many people accept the various press releases being passed off by the press and the political parties as "news". Over the Christmas break, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and the Post were all reporting that it was almost a certainty that Al Qaida (or god knows who else) was going to attack the "Chunnel" or some other European landmark. They were, of course, merely repeating the tired rehashed crap being dished out by Homeland Security and the idiots in the Whitehouse. What amazes me, is that the press apparently still accepts this as fact (and, if they don't, why are they reporting it as anything other than bad propaganda), that the Democrats still go along with it, and that people even bother to listen. What a grand collection of morons we have become!

'1. Myth number one is that the United States "can still win" in Iraq. Of course, the truth of this statement, frequently still made by William Kristol and other Neoconservatives, depends on what "winning" means. But if it means the establishment of a stable, pro-American, anti-Iranian government with an effective and even-handed army and police force in the near or even medium term, then the assertion is frankly ridiculous. The Iraqi "government" is barely functioning. The parliament was not able to meet in December because it could not attain a quorum. Many key Iraqi politicians live most of the time in London, and much of parliament is frequently abroad. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki does not control large swathes of the country, and could give few orders that had any chance of being obeyed. The US military cannot shore up this government, even with an extra division, because the government is divided against itself. Most of the major parties trying to craft legislation are also linked to militias on the streets who are killing one another. It is over with. Iraq is in for years of heavy political violence of a sort that no foreign military force can hope to stop.

The United States cannot "win" in the sense defined above. It cannot. And the blindly arrogant assumption that it can win is calculated to get more tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and more thousands of American soldiers and Marines badly wounded or killed. Moreover, since Iraq is coming apart at the seams under the impact of our presence there, there is a real danger that we will radically destabilize it and the whole oil-producing Gulf if we try to stay longer.

2. "US military sweeps of neighborhoods can drive the guerrillas out." The US put an extra 15,000 men into Baghdad this past summer, aiming to crush the guerrillas and stop the violence in the capital, and the number of attacks actually increased. This result comes about in part because the guerrillas are not outsiders who come in and then are forced out. The Sunni Arabs of Ghazaliya and Dora districts in the capital are the "insurgents." The US military cannot defeat the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement or "insurgency" with less than 500,000 troops, based on what we have seen in the Balkans and other such conflict situations. The US destroyed Falluja, and even it and other cities of al-Anbar province are not now safe! The US military leaders on the ground have spoken of the desirability of just withdrawing from al-Anbar to Baghdad and giving up on it. In 2003, 14 percent of Sunni Arabs thought it legitimate to attack US personnel and facilities. In August, 2006, over 70 percent did. How long before it is 100%? Winning guerrilla wars requires two victories, a military victory over the guerrillas and a winning of the hearts and minds of the general public, thus denying the guerrillas support. The US has not and is unlikely to be able to repress the guerrillas, and it is losing hearts and minds at an increasing and alarming rate. They hate us, folks. They don't want us there.

3. The United States is best off throwing all its support behind the Iraqi Shiites. This is the position adopted fairly consistently by Marc Reuel Gerecht. Gerecht is an informed and acute observer whose views I respect even when I disagree with them. In fact, Washington policy-makers should read Daniel Goleman's work on social intelligence. Goleman points out that a good manager of a team in a corporation sets up a win/win framework for every member of the team. If you set it up on a win/lose basis, so that some are actively punished and others "triumph," you are asking for trouble. Conflict is natural. How you manage conflict is what matters. If you listen to employees' grievances and try to figure out how they can be resolved in such a way that everyone benefits, then you are a good manager.

Gerecht, it seems to me, sets up a win/lose model in Iraq. The Shiites and Kurds win it all, and the Sunni Arabs get screwed over. Practically speaking, the Bush policy has been Gerechtian, which in my view has caused all the problems. We shouldn't have thought of our goal as installing the Shiites in power. Of course, Bush hoped that those so installed would be "secular," and that is what Wolfowitz and Chalabi had promised him. Gerecht came up with the ex post facto justification that even the religious Shiites are moving toward democracy via Sistani. But democracy cannot be about one sectarian identity prevailing over, and marginalizing others.

The Sunni Arabs have demonstrated conclusively that they can act effectively as spoilers in the new Iraq. If they aren't happy, no one is going to be. The US must negotiate with the guerrilla leaders and find a win/win framework for them to come in from the cold and work alongside the Kurds and the religious Shiites. About this, US Ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad has been absolutely right.

4. "Iraq is not in a civil war," as paleo-conservative Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly insists. There is a well-established social science definition of civil war put forward by Professor J. David Singer and his colleagues: "Sustained military combat, primarily internal, resulting in at least 1,000 battle-deaths per year, pitting central government forces against an insurgent force capable of effective resistance, determined by the latter's ability to inflict upon the government forces at least 5 percent of the fatalities that the insurgents sustain." (Errol A. Henderson and J. David Singer, "Civil War in the Post-Colonial World, 1946-92," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 37, No. 3, May 2000.)" See my article on this in Salon.com. By Singer's definition, Iraq has been in civil war since the Iraqi government was reestablished in summer of 2004. When I have been around political scientists, as at the ISA conference, I have found that scholars in that field tend to accept Singer's definition.

5. "The second Lancet study showing 600,000 excess deaths from political and criminal violence since the US invasion is somehow flawed." Les Roberts replies here to many of the objections that were raised. See also the transcript of the Kucinich-Paul Congressional hearings on the subject. Many critics refer to the numbers of dead reported in the press as counter-arguments to Roberts et al. But "passive reporting" such as news articles never captures more than a fraction of the casualties in any war. I see deaths reported in the Arabic press all the time that never show up in the English language wire services. And, a lot of towns in Iraq don't have local newspapers and many local deaths are not reported in the national newspapers.

6. "Most deaths in Iraq are from bombings." The Lancet study found that the majority of violent deaths are from being shot.

7. "Baghdad and environs are especially violent but the death rate is lower in the rest of the country." The Lancet survey found that levels of violence in the rest of the country are similar to that in Baghdad (remember that the authors included criminal activities such as gang and smuggler turf wars in their statistics). The Shiite south is spared much Sunni-Shiite communal fighting, but criminal gangs, tribal feuds, and militias fight one another over oil and antiquities smuggling, and a lot of people are getting shot down there, too.

8. "Iraq is the central front in the war on terror." From the beginning of history until 2003 there had never been a suicide bombing in Iraq. There was no al-Qaeda in Baath-ruled Iraq. When Baath intelligence heard that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi might have entered Iraq, they grew alarmed at such an "al-Qaeda" presence and put out an APB on him! Zarqawi's so-called "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" was never "central" in Iraq and was never responsible for more than a fraction of the violent attacks. This assertion is supported by the outcome of a US-Jordanian operation that killed Zarqawi this year. His death had no impact whatsoever on the level of violence. There are probably only about 1,000 foreign fighters even in Iraq, and most of them are first-time volunteers, not old-time terrorists. The 50 major guerrilla cells in Sunni Arab Iraq are mostly made up of Iraqis, and are mainly: 1) Baathist or neo-Baathist, 2) Sunni revivalist or Salafi, 3) tribally-based, or 4) based in city quarters. Al-Qaeda is mainly a boogey man, invoked in Iraq on all sides, but possessing little real power or presence there. This is not to deny that radical Sunni Arab volunteers come to Iraq to blow things (and often themselves) up. They just are not more than an auxiliary to the big movements, which are Iraqi.

9. "The Sunni Arab guerrillas in places like Ramadi will follow the US home to the American mainland and commit terrorism if we leave Iraq." This assertion is just a variation on the invalid domino theory. People in Ramadi only have one beef with the United States. Its troops are going through their wives' underwear in the course of house searches every day. They don't want the US troops in their town or their homes, dictating to them that they must live under a government of Shiite clerics and Kurdish warlords (as they think of them). If the US withdrew and let the Iraqis work out a way to live with one another, people in Ramadi will be happy. They are not going to start taking flight lessons and trying to get visas to the US. This argument about following us, if it were true, would have prevented us from ever withdrawing from anyplace once we entered a war there. We'd be forever stuck in the Philippines for fear that Filipino terrorists would follow us back home. Or Korea (we moved 15,000 US troops out of South Korea not so long ago. Was that unwise? Are the thereby liberated Koreans now gunning for us?) Or how about the Dominican Republic? Haiti? Grenada? France? The argument is a crock.

10. "Setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is a bad idea." Bush and others in his administration have argued that setting such a timetable would give a significant military advantage to the guerrillas fighting US forces and opposed to the new government. That assertion makes sense only if there were a prospect that the US could militarily crush the Sunni Arabs. There is no such prospect. The guerrilla war is hotter now than at any time since the US invasion. It is more widely supported by more Sunni Arabs than ever before. It is producing more violent attacks than ever before. Since we cannot defeat them short of genocide, we have to negotiate with them. And their first and most urgent demand is that the US set a timetable for withdrawal before they will consider coming into the new political system. That is, we should set a timetable in order to turn the Sunni guerrillas from combatants to a political negotiating partner. Even Sunni politicians cooperating with the US make this demand. They are disappointed with the lack of movement on the issue. How long do they remain willing to cooperate? In addition, 131 Iraqi members of parliament signed a demand that the US set a timetable for withdrawal. (138 would be a simple majority.) It is a a major demand of the Sadr Movement. In fact, the 32 Sadrist MPs withdrew from the ruling United Iraqi Alliance coalition temporarily over this issue.

In my view, Shiite leaders such as Abdul Aziz al-Hakim are repeatedly declining to negotiate in good faith with the Sunni Arabs or to take their views seriously. Al-Hakim knows that if the Sunnis give him any trouble, he can sic the Marines on them. The US presence is making it harder for Iraqi to compromise with Iraqi, which is counterproductive.

Think Progress points out that in 1999, Governor George W. Bush criticized then President Clinton for declining to set a withdrawal timetable for Kosovo, saying "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

JEP: For you and others the striking news is that the loss of lives of our military in Iraq have now passed the losses of 9/11. Our system of holding folks accountable for what they do and prosecuting those that break the law is the question I and a majority, imo, have been asking for years. The DOJ is supposed to do this and I often wonder if they would have to prosecute many of their own by following the laws they swore to uphold.

From today's NY Times..
"BAGHDAD, Dec. 25 -- Hundreds of British and Iraqi soldiers assaulted a police station in the southern city of Basra on Monday, killing seven gunmen, rescuing 127 prisoners from what the British said was almost certain execution and ultimately reducing the facility to rubble."

So, apparently, before they depart, some of the Brits are undoing at least one garrison of Negraponte's "El-Salvador Solution" in Iraq.

Must be "an act of conscience," maybe these Brits have some left.

If Americans knew the truth about how their tax dollars were spent on this war and its hardware for torture, we might feel a little twinge of our own collective conscience.

Garak, they did this in Alabama as well. AL-02, AL-06, and AL-07 used to be competitive swing districts before the 1991 redistricting. What they did was shift all of the African Americans into AL-07 to make it a safe Democratic seat, while taking African Americans out of AL-02 and AL-06 making them uber Republican districts that are never contested. Is this Democracy?

The antichrist has come to Earth, and the forces of good are battling the forces of evil. Your mission: to convert or kill the non-believers.

That's the premise of the new personal computer videogame "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" -- a game caught in a harsh theological and political controversy.

Liberal Christian leaders such as the Rev. Tim Simpson, a Presbyterian minister and the interim president of the Christian Alliance for Progress (LINK), are demanding the game be pulled from store shelves.

"It's essentially faith-based killing," Simpson says, arguing that the game twists the Gospel. "The religious right envisions sitting down by the fireside -- Mom and Dad, Johnny and Susie -- killing all their non-Christian opponents inside the game and imagining this is what, in fact, God wants."

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

Here are five reasons why Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia should be certified as too dumb to deserve re-election:
No. 1 - He wrote this in a letter to his constituents: "When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran."
No. 2 - Right after he wrote the above, he said this: "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped." (Our italics, pathetic irony intended.)
No. 3 - After it was clear that he had stepped in it up to his eyeballs, and with mortified fellow Republicans praying he would apologize, Goode said this: "I do not apologize and I do not retract my letter. The letter stands for itself and I support the letter."
No. 4 - Rep.-elect Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the inspiration for Goode's Muslim-bashing, anti-immigrant rant, is not an immigrant. He was born in Detroit, converted to Islam in college and is the first Muslim elected to Congress. He asked to use the Quran during a ceremonial swearing in ceremony. Religious texts aren't used for the official swearing in. Members simply raise their right hands and recite an oath.
No. 5 - Goode's dim-witted position is unconstitutional. Article VI of the Constitution states "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Any questions, Virginians?

Wishing all posters a 2007 filled with political surprises and astute surmises....
Happy New Year!

http://whathappenedtomycountry.blogspot.com

That 2 of the top 10 in this category of endangered House freshman are from here in Florida is due to the Republican control of the state legislature and te redistrcting process. As we all know, Bush lost Florida in 2000 due to Jeb's felon-voter list (Katherine Harris was nominally in charge, but deferred to Jeb on decisions). Even with 9/11 and gay marriage, Kerry didn't do all that badly in 2004. Democratic registration is neck-and-neck with Republican.

But the GOP has a huge advantage in fund raising and party infrastructure. The Dems really have none. The Florida GOP has received 7-figure gifts from those who have benefited from Jeb's policies, such as repealing the intangibles tax (a property tax on stocks and bonds) and removing almost every obstacle to unlimited real estate development. The Florida Democratic Party is reduced to bickering over phone bills.

How did this happen? Blame the NAACP. The recently-retired head of the Florida GOP credits the NAACP for allowing the GOP to take control of Florida. During the 1990s redistricting, the Florida GOP expected the NAACP to side with the Dems and press for districts that would favor moderates and liberals, who in turn would actually work for minorities. Instead, the NAACP went for bleaching--cram blacks into a few districts to guarantee wins for black candidates. This necessarily let conservatives control the rest of the districts. The then-head of the Florida GOP called this "a gift" and said he couldn't believe the NAACP would fall for it. The NAACP is not stupid. They knew the GOP had no sympathy for blacks and other minorities, that a GOP legislature wouldn't do squat for Florida's minorities, that the core of the Florida GOP was the successor to the segregationists of Nixon's Southern Strategy. But the NAACP put having a few impotent tokens ahead of results.

So now we have a Florida in which the GOP controls the legislature and uses this control to create a massive fund raising advantage to maintain control. And what does the NAACP get? A DCF that jumps all over Terri Schiavo while letting black kids rot. A public school system leaving every minority kid well behind. Environmental degradation of black neighborhoods. Continued suppression on minority voters. And continued redistricting favoring conservative whites over everyone else, especially blacks and minorities.

So when people wonder how can the Republicans have a degree of control so out of proportion to their numbers, they can call the NAACP. They got their tokens, and the people they claim to represent get Jeb and Katherine Harris.

UA, AZ-08 barely went for Bush in 2004 and Giffords is a moderate Democrat who is a good fit for the district.

Justin, AZ-05 is nowhere near Arizona's most conservative district, if anything, it is trending Democratic. Arizona's most conservative district is AZ-06, which belongs to Jeff Flake.

What about Carol Shea-Porter (NH-1), although the district is trending Democrat, it voted for Bush by 4 points in 2004. The Congresswoman-elect only raised $200,000 and is far more liberal than her swing district, she plans on joining the Progressive Caucus.

Another user mentioned that Gibbons's former seat in Nevada might be competitive. While this could be the case, I think the the third district to the South will have a closer contest in 2008, its a swing district made up of Las Vegas's suburbs and the incumbent's share of the vote has been decreasing in both elections since 2002.

Finally, what about AZ-8? Giffords won by a substancial margin but the district is a marginal district that leans Republican. Her opponent in 2006, Graf, was basically a joke and did not recieve financial assistance from the RNC. Will she hold up against real competition?

What about the northern Nevada district that James Gibbons used to represent. I understand that the Democratic candidate got a late start, but that she finished better than expected.

I think the Rocky Mountain West will be the most important battleground for the 2008 presidential elections. I think a lot money will be spend for candidates from Las Vegas to Las Cruces. Than money ought to help mid-ticket candidates.

I am just glad he didn't mention AZ05 that went democrat this year. It is AZ's most conservative district and rumors are flying about another Tempe mayor running or even Dan Marjle(sp?)... it ought to be interesting.

To all of the regular and irregular posters, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

'Destructive and baseless narratives about progressives spread not only because Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity repeat them, not only because Republican operatives promote them, and not only because too many political journalists can't seem to get enough of them.

These narratives spread because journalists like Jeff Greenfield and Jeanne Moos (presumably unintentionally) legitimize right-wing efforts to equate Barack Obama with Saddam Hussein by treating it all as a big joke. Were Greenfield and Moos really suggesting that Obama's name is a reason to dislike him? We assume they were not. But their focus on the topic only encourages others to continue their focus on the topic.

These narratives spread because progressive pundits join in, as when MSNBC's Flavia Colgan repeatedly suggests that Hillary Clinton will have an "authenticity" problem because she used to wear what Colgan describes as "Coke-bottle glasses." Does Colgan think Clinton's long-ago choice of eyewear is a good reason not to vote for Clinton? We don't know; probably not. But it simply doesn't matter. Her comments legitimize disliking Clinton for such ridiculous reasons. They encourage other media figures to keep focusing on such foolishness. Her intent simply doesn't matter; the content of what she says -- and its effect on our discourse -- is what matters.

And they spread when "liberal" columnists like Joe Klein write the "left wing" of the Democratic Party has a "hate America tendency." And when "liberal" columnists like Richard Cohen write, as he did in 2003, that "[o]nly a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman" could doubt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Three years later, Cohen would have the audacity to complain about receiving uncivil emails from progressive critics. No, really. He did.

You know, I can't speak for every liberal in the blogosphere, but what I would honestly like is simply for reporters to be able to do their jobs properly: report the honest facts, not some "he said, she said" version of them that skews things toward a false sense of "balance" because the management is afraid of ticking someone off by being truthful. That reporters are allowed to dig into the difficult stories and really follow-up, rather than being asked to move on to the next "popular" story that might sell more papers or advertising time on the TV.

Sure, I know it's a business, and the media owners are beholden to the same rules of profit that every other publicly-traded company is bound to follow: maximizing shareholder profits is king. But -- and this is the key that Ms. Howell appears to miss out on entirely -- most readers want real, in-depth, aggressive reporting from reporters who are allowed to be skeptics, ask difficult questions of those in power, and further to follow-up on why there is a decided lack of accountability.

We want reporters to be supported and allowed to do their jobs. It is that simple.

And spending an entire Obudswoman's column explaining to the readers why they are too slow to read thorough reporting and why Deb knows best what they should like? Well, that's incredibly condescending coming from a woman who is supposed to be representing all of our interests, and not just covering her own behind, now isn't it? Here's a thought: perhaps the readers who write in with complaints do so because they value what the paper COULD be, and that watching it descend into watered-down, faux balanced swill is painful and also dangerous considering how much real reporting could be done inside the Beltway these days.'

seen any recent pix of bush? he looks increasingly terrified.

'You would think that Republicans would be shamed by the fact so many of them seem to agree with the beliefs of terrorists and other Muslim extremists. For example:

Dinesh D'Souza thinks that "decadent and depraved American culture...angers and repulses other societies--especially traditional and religious ones." You know, like the religious conservatives of al Qaeda.

Congressman Virgil Goode (R-VA) believes, in the manner of the Taliban, that countries should be run by a single religion. They only disagree on which religion should rule.

Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter think Americans are simply asking to be attacked by terrorists.

Bush supporter author Orson Scott Card thinks that, when terrorists call us decadent and evil, Hollywood movies "prove their point."

Mary Grabar, writing on one of the most-visited conservative sites, writes she agrees with pre-Enlightenment views of women, specifically that"Women, without male guidance, are illogical, frivolous, and incapable of making any decisions beyond what to make for dinner." It's unlikelythe Saudis who keep women from taking part in the electoral process would disagree.
Me, I'd be ashamed if these beliefs were held by people on my side of the political aisle, but not Republicans.

The Jawa Report: How many times have we said that Democrat victotry will be seen by Islamic terrorists as a victory for them?

California Yankee, at Redstate: Zawahri may be right, but the Democrats couldn't have done it without the help of the biased media wing of the Democratic Party.

Power Line's AssRocket: I actually agree with Zawahiri on that one...Once again, I think he has a point...Once again, Zawahiri isn't entirely wrong...(And I simply have to add that Jules Crittenden praises Hinderaker for "sacrific(ing) himself to give us a good roundup. No greater love..."
Apparently, in right wing world, reading is now what amounts to sacrifice and is worthy of praise similar to that which Jesus gives to those who sacrifice their lives for their friends [John 15:13].)
Yeah, you're reading that right. Those are four major right wing blogs agreeing with al Qaeda's Number Two!

Hell, Zawahiri should probably get his own log-in over at the Corner for his statement that attempting a diplomatic solution involving Iran would be to "embark on a painful journey of failed negotiations." (Then again, they've got too many radical weirdos over there already...How about My Pet Zawa?)

So far, only the conservative blogger "Captain Ed" has shown the sense to warn his "friends on the internet" that this is propaganda from a "delusional psychopath" and "(t)aking any part of it seriously is a mistake of the first order." Too bad for Ed that so many of his friends are themselves delusional and, therefore, willing to agree with a terrorist as long as he supports their beliefs about Democrats.'

'It was US policy, not anti-American Moslem fanaticism that led Iran directly into the nuclear age. In the late 1960s, Iran stood out as a model ally of the United States. After all, the ruling Shah owed the CIA after the Agency's operatives ousted elected Premier Mossadegh's government in 1953. CIA action followed Mossadegh's declaration that he would nationalize foreign oil holdings. The Shah understood loyalty to those who reinstalled his "royal family" to dictatorial power.

His servility won him nuclear access. "The US and her allies were in fact the driving force behind the birth of Iran's nuclear program in the late 1960s and early 1970s" (Mohammad Sahimi, Iran's Nuclear Program. Part I: Its History October 2003). By 1974, the Shah, after consulting with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, boasted that nuclear power plants in Iran would soon produce more than 20,000 megawatts of energy.

In the mid-1970s, led by Kissinger who saw in Iran a "platform state" to fight communism in the region, Washington proposed that The Shah expand his nuclear capacity by acquiring as many as twenty three nuclear reactors. According to Mohammad Sahimi, the work on the reactors began in 1974 with the help of MIT engineers who contracted to train Iranian nuclear technicians.

Sahimi cites a speech by Sydney Sober, a State Department official who in October 1977, "declared that the Shah's government was going to purchase eight nuclear reactors from the US for generating electricity. On July 10, 1978, only seven months before the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the final draft of the US-Iran Nuclear Energy Agreement was signed. The agreement was supposed to facilitate cooperation in the field of nuclear energy and to govern the export and transfer of equipment and material to Iran's nuclear energy program. Iran was also to receive American technology and help in searching for uranium deposits."

Why, asked critics, should a nation with huge oil and gas reserves invest in nuclear technology? Why not? Both General Electric and Westinghouse sold Iran reactors. These manufacturers of nuclear energy plants for the third world and their media acolytes regaled The Shah for his "westernizing policies," his far-sightedness in seeing beyond the age of oil.

Although his own people had a less flattering view of him, who could Washington trust more? The prestigious Stanford Research Institute "experts" had projected that Iran's nuclear initiation would serve both world peace and US interests. Not only would US companies build nuclear reactors, but the Pentagon would continue to sell weapons and torture equipment to the Shah's army and police and the United States could even recoup some of what it spent buying oil from Iran.

In the mid 1970s, Iran also signed nuclear power construction contracts with France and Germany. The Shah said that these undertakings would generate electricity and desalinate water. But only the naï¿ve would not also suspect that Iranian would also experiment for military purposes. Hey, when good friends get curious, we shouldn't dampen their creativity!

In 1976, President Gerald Ford even authorized the Shah to buy and operate a plutonium-extracting and processing facility - a big step toward converting energy processing to weapons making (David Isenberg, Asia Times, August 24).

It all seemed so ideal! Then, in 1979, a very angry Iranian public made its voice heard. Massive demonstrations brought down The Shah's regime and the new government took US embassy officials hostage. By 1980, an orthodox Moslem regime headed by the Ayatollah Khomeni had replaced the pro-Western monarchy with a very backward looking ideology - or at least theology.'

You write about Endangered Freshmen and ignore the Endangered Vote in the same voice? "Ignore" isn't exactly the right word either. "Denial" would be better!

Or perhaps "In Cahoots" since number one on your list is Jennings framed by "unwillingness to concede this race (which) could damage her party's chances of winning the seat in 2008!!

I echo what someone said earlier... you actually get paid for this? Disgusting!!!

You and your colleagues ought to be in a position better than us out here to know what is happening to the vote in this country. You ought to know by now that, though there are obvious questionable intents surrounding EV machines, in the end we are gonna learn that Diebold, et al was actually a red herring to cover up the real scandal - what happens when VWB... voting while black. Or brown. Or red. Or poor. Or incorrectly on an ex-con list.

Thanks to the Help America Vote Act the end will come in 08 and you ought to be writing about this hijacking of democracy so your children will still have a country.

We've got 2 presidential elections and 2 midterms in the books now and the evidence is overwhelming. If you have no idea what confused? was talking about in their 9:02 when they droped the name Michelle Bachman you sure as hell have no bidness prognositcating to us about endangered freshmen.

And for doing so, for insulting our intelligece, our country, our principles, our future, our right to vote AND HAVE IT COUNT, you get coal in your stocking.

Be thankful. You should get run out of journalism jerk!!

The main problem with your analysis Chris: you keep referring to how President Bush did in each of these districts in 2004, as if that number is an ironclad measure of partisanship. By that measure, Brad Ellsworth, who beat a very weak incumbent who didn't raise any money, should be at the top of your list of vulnerable incumbents, when you consider Bush took 62% of the vote for a 24% win in IN-08 in 2004. That exceeds his performance in any of the districts you mentioned. But Bush has since dropped down to a 31 percent approval rating and has lost Congress. Plus all of these members will have the advantage of incumbency and there is nothing right now to indicate that the political situation for the Republicans is improving in any way. What is far more relevant is how the Democratic presidential nominee does in 2008, which will almost certainly be better than John Kerry. Talking about who is "endangered" at this point is fun, but it really means nothing. At this point in 2004, the GOP was talking up Robert Byrd as being vulnerable and touting George Allen as their next president with his re-election already assured.

Matt, there is no way that someone from the Bush White House like Ari Flescher is going to win that seat. Hall will remind voters that they would be electing a member of the Bush administration and Flescher won't break 45%.

To the nameless poster, I never said that Altmire's seat wouldn't be contested, but that he is a good fit for that district and would be tough to beat.

Anyone talking about congressional politics this early in the game does not have a ounce of credibility. It's amazing to me to see the partisanship and even the misinterpretations of what 2006 was all about.

http://www.enewsreference.com

John Hall is not a great campaigner, I live in the district and he did very little. His margin of victory was Westchester, and while a bulk of the district is in Westchester, losing almost every other major section of the district (Putnam, southern Dutchess...He lost in his home town, and Orange; Rockland county is barely in the district and will be served better in '12 when it and Orange will likely become it's own district). If say Ari Fleisher or Assemblyman-elect Ball runs and can split westchester, John is in Major trouble.

While a Democrat, I am VERY worried about my home district until John wins decidedly.

Jack,

I respectfully disagree with you concerning Jason Almire. I think that will be one of the most hotly contest races in Pennsylvania in 2008.

The district, like those of John Murtha and Tim Murphy, is irregularly shaped and runs from the Ohio well into the rural areas east of Pittsburgh. A lot the Hart/Altmire district leans Republican (Mercer County, Butler County). In addition, George Bush ran incredibly well in normally Democratic Beaver County in 2004.

I could easily see Republican State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (ugh!) or Republican State Sen. Jane Orie making a run for Congress against Almire.

Jason Altmire will need to make a very strong impression during his first term in Congress to scare off any strong competitors in 2008.

BTW, I expect Tim Murphy's seat to come into play in 2008...or sooner

If they plan to have investigations, lets get voter fraud at the top[ of the list, here's one of my very first posts on this blog, from back before the elections.

Fun with fiction; One More Conspiracy Theory;

Lets start with "The Truth" and digress to speculation....

I took this article about New Hampshire shenanigans from Democrat.org., and thought it merited more scrutiny.

Reading it actually inspired me to hit the blogs after a long hiatus, and to get involved again in grassroots organizing, which found me working the street level politics in more than one red-country race.

Read this first, then I would like to make a suggestion as to what those phone calls represented, which I expect were essentially to and from Rove or one of his monkeys, to and from Carl Rove were all about.

For the sake of culpable deniability, I present my case as a fiction scenario, using the characters generated by this news story, to speculate just what actually transpired.

"On the same day that convicted phone-jamming conspirator James Tobin was sentenced to ten months in prison for his role in a criminal campaign to keep New Hampshire voters from getting to the polls, the people of New Hampshire learned that Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove will headline a fundraiser for the state Republican Party. Rove will raise money for the Party amid reports that legal bills stemming from the phone-jamming case have left it almost broke, leaving just $733.60 in its bank accounts. [Associated Press, 5/17/06; Washington Post, 5/17/06]

"James Tobin may be on his way to jail, but critical questions about the criminal campaign to disenfranchise New Hampshire voters still haven't been answered," said Democratic National Committee Communications spokesman Damien LaVera.

"We know there were dozens of calls between the White House and New Hampshire Republicans on the days surrounding and including Election Day, but we still don't know critical details about who was on the line or what was discussed. We know at least three people will see jail time in this case, but still there are no answers about whether or not anyone at the White House or the RNC helped devise, implement or conceal this plot. And now we learn that Karl Rove is coming to town to rescue the New Hampshire Republican Party, which has been practically bankrupted by legal bills in this case.

"The time has come for the White House and the RNC to stop stonewalling on this case. Sending Karl Rove to New Hampshire to rescue the state party sends a disturbing message that Republicans in Washington are more interested in concealing this scheme than in joining Democrats in protecting the fundamental right of all Americans to vote."

Here's the "fun with fiction addendum";

Once upon a time, back before the 2004 election, when Bush's numbers looked impossible, Karl Rove knew his job as political advisor was in deep dutch. To get a jump on things, he convinced some loyal Republicans to register as Democrats in key states, New Hampshire in particular. This way, he has a pipeline to Democratic party phone campaigns, mailing and email projects. Using the fake Democrats, he played political chess with the Democratic machine, responding to their projects with seemingly uncanny insight.

It was not uncanny at all, just immoral. Rove's fake Democrats kept him abreast of every move, so he could counter with dirty tricks and subterfuge. He needed an extensive web of tight-lipped operatives to accomplish it.

But their hubris caught up with them, and some of the lower-level operatives are going to jail. Will they remain silent, about the real reason for the phone calls to and from the White House, made at the time of their crime?

There are a few options to explain the back-and-forth. In my fiction story scenario, Rove's fake Democrats were calling him, or an aide, with the caller ID of the phone numbers they received when the Democrats called during their last-minute banking. Rove was passing those numbers down the line to the future jailbirds, one or two at a time, as they came in from his fake Democrats.

Then, armed with these phone numbers, the New Hampshire Republicans who are now doing hard time would instruct their own illegal phone bank to call and flood the Democrat's outgoing lines with incoming calls, effectively jamming their outgoing process, and at the very least, diminishing their capacity to mobilize the voters they knew could make the difference.

As for the live local appearance, Karl will go there to raise money in order to keep all those "loyal" operatives on the string, and to coldly insure that they keep their mouths shut and their stories out of the press. Rove was stroking the New Hampshire party with a blatant visit that could easily be construed as a subtle threat, which along with the easy money, both warned and pacified the locals.

Quite a fiction story, huh?

If it were true, it would hold with blogs I posted years ago on many fledgling sites, (back in the wee hours of the baby blogosphere, when there were a thousand chatrooms, less than 100 real blogs, back when "the blog" was just being born,) arguing that "we might not get them for voter fraud, but we can sure as hell use the Ricoh amendment to get them for CONSPIRACY to commit voter fraud."

I think that is a verbatim version.

Think about it... Just how many cards are actually holding up this House of Rove? When does a secret get too big to contain? And always, always keep in mind, anyone who might know that this fiction story is actually true would also be considered a conspirator, if only in their ongoing silence.

All it takes is one card to fall out publicly and they will all tumble down.

Just how extensive or systemic it may be, we may never actually know. I suspect they all aspire to join Kenny Lay on some luxurious offshore tax-haven isle, long before they intend to suffer any justice for their greedy, underhanded deeds. Their incredible Texas-sized fantasy of millionaires becoming billionaires, has supplanted the middle class as the Neo-American Dream.

Gas hits $3 a gallon, and for these oilmen, that means Life Is Good!

But, like all Karma, there is just no escaping that Final Truth. History will condemn these people for their greedy arrogance. Hopefully, it will happen in our own lifetimes. It might happen quite soon, starting with the elections in November.

As violence engulfs Iraq and the entire Middle East, our troops are more threatened every day. Watching this happen, the public is not so numb as the current administration imagines. The political winds are blowing at gale force, and the profane link between their election manipulation fraud and their wartime intelligence manipulation fraud only becomes more apparent every day.

So many of them claim to be Christians, which is doubtful, to say the least. These are warmongers, torturers and profiteers, selling weapons, promoting war and torture, defying the laws of man and God to achieve their selfish fortunes.

In the wake of recent revelations about atrocities committed by our own troops, and the ever-escalating violence in Iraq, the term "Mission Accomplished" only coaxes bitter tears or derisive laughter from those of us with an understanding of a very populist reality, that might be easily paraphrased in one simple bumper sticker...

"IT'S THE WAR, STUPID"