This puts the Republican leadership in a dilemna. They should be telling Shays they won't be blackmailed into giving him a leadership post. But are they so desperate to hold on to seats in Congress that they will give in to this joker?

It will be fun to watch. This party does not know how to lick its wounds right now. It is eating its own flesh. And no leader seem to be in the wings to turn that around.

I think the Dems should LET THEM FILIBUSTER!

Imagine watching Republicans one after another saying why we should be leaving the troops there longer, making them sacrifice more, keeping them away from their families longer, making their children parentless. Then let try to get anyone to believe that they support the troops...

once the campaign picks up, check out
http://electoral-vote.com/
for daily updates. Its still pretty slow right now, but once we're in the thick of it the webmaster is pretty diligent about updating his maps with the latest poll data.

JD: Thanks, good links and I think that they support the 50/50 view.

But the two-color state-by-sate maps shouldn't be used by amateurs who don't understand that those maps are good for only one or two things in what is a quite complex equation, those things being electoral college voting or Governor's parties.

Such maps ignore population density, which is critical to understanding the relative strength of the political parties.

There are a lot of good election map websites available now. Here are two other good links:

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

http://www.mcwetboy.net/maproom/categories/electoral_maps.php

Nichevo writes
"If other moderates pick up the guantlet, it may well mean that the Republican party has to either choose to move to the center or lose seats."

Likely so. GOP leadership needs to start deciding whether their long-term future should be tied so closely to Bush admin policy. I think former Speaker Gingrich is on target in pushing for the GOP to 'sever' itself from the Bush legacy. Right now they're spending a lot of time shutting down Dem initiatives in order to protect the Bush admin. I suspect those decisions will come back to haunt them...

I suspect that this is a cagey move on Shay's part. He has spent much of the past decade arguing that Republican moderates are shut out of the picture. If other moderates pick up the guantlet, it may well mean that the Republican party has to either choose to move to the center or lose seats.

Andy and Judge, no problem. Those are neat maps, aren't they?

Really shows how divided we are as a country, and it seems as though it's almost 50/50.

Try to imagine the squealing outrage of the rightwingers if a Democrat wasted the time of the Senate, and tried to block free speech, by censoring a newspaper ad paid for by US citizens:

'As Congress considers a series of bills that would drastically alter the course of the Iraq war, one prominent Republican senator will be focusing his efforts on condemning a newspaper advertisement.

The Huffington Post has learned that Sen. John Cornyn, R-TX, will introduce a sense of the Senate resolution Thursday criticizing MoveOn.org's recent advertisement in the New York Times. The ad called into question the credibility of Lt. General David Petraeus, suggesting the pseudonym "Betray Us."

Which brings me to the Petraeus hearing.

To a remarkable extent, punditry has taken a pass on whether Gen. Petraeus's picture of the situation in Iraq is accurate. Instead, it was all about the theatrics - about how impressive he looked, how well or poorly his Congressional inquisitors performed. And the judgment you got if you were watching most of the talking heads was that it was a big win for the administration - especially because the famous MoveOn ad was supposed to have created a scandal, and a problem for the Democrats.

Even if all this had been true, it wouldn't have mattered much: if the truth is that Iraq is a mess, the public would find out soon enough, and the backlash would be all the greater because of the sense that we had been deceived yet again.

But here's the thing: new polls by CBS and Gallup show that the Petraeus testimony had basically no effect on public opinion: Americans continue to hate the war, and want out. The whole story about how the hearing had changed everything was a pure figment of the inside-the-Beltway imagination.

One of my pet peeves about political reporting is the fact that some of my journalistic colleagues seem to want to be in another business - namely, theater criticism. Instead of telling us what candidates are actually saying - and whether it's true or false, sensible or silly - they tell us how it went over, and how they think it affects the horse race. During the 2004 campaign I went through two months' worth of TV news from the major broadcast and cable networks to see what voters had been told about the Bush and Kerry health care plans; what I found, and wrote about, were several stories on how the plans were playing, but not one story about what was actually in the plans.

There are two big problems with this kind of reporting. The important problem is that it fails to inform the public about what matters. In 2004, very few people had any idea about the very real differences between the candidates on domestic policy. It remains to be seen whether 2008 is any better.

The other problem, which has become very apparent lately, is that this sort of coverage often fails even on its own terms, because the way things look to inside-the-Beltway pundits can be very different from the way they look to real people.

Thanks from me also for those links, JD. They really make some interesting points.

OT, Shays has the leadership over a barrel given the recent wave of retirements. I can't see them not agonizing over this; they may very likely not give him what he wants but it'll be painful.

'Rudy Giuliani was on the trans-Atlantic campaign trail Wednesday, schmoozing with conservative idol Margaret Thatcher and bragging about his international credentials.

"I'm probably one of the four or five best known Americans in the world," Giuliani told a small group of reporters at a posh London hotel as onlookers gathered in the lobby to gawk at actor Dustin Hoffman, who was on a separate visit.'

This guy is sooo in love with himself it makes me puke. This, some people think, is presidential? How low the bar is after mr. bush.

Senate Republicans killed three major measures via filibuster threats today: habeas corpus for enemy combatants, a House member for DC, and the Webb Amendment on troop rotations. It is part of an unprecedented use of the filibuster by Senate Republicans in the 110th Congress. I don't use "unprecedented" lightly. McClatchy ran the numbers, as we noted back in July (thanks to Kevin Drum for the reminder). At that time, Republicans were on pace this term to nearly triple the previous record high for the use the filibuster in the modern era.

WASHINGTON -- This year Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before, a pattern that's rooted in -- and could increase -- the pettiness and dysfunction in Congress.

The trend has been evolving for 30 years. The reasons behind it are too complex to pin on one party. But it has been especially pronounced since the Democrats' razor-thin win in last year's election, giving them effectively a 51-49 Senate majority, and the Republicans' exile to the minority.

Seven months into the current two-year term, the Senate has held 42 "cloture" votes aimed at shutting off extended debate -- filibusters, or sometimes only the threat of one -- and moving to up-or-down votes on contested legislation. Under Senate rules that protect a minority's right to debate, these votes require a 60-vote supermajority in the 100-member Senate.

Democrats have trouble mustering 60 votes; they've fallen short 22 times so far this year. That's largely why they haven't been able to deliver on their campaign promises.

By sinking a cloture vote this week, Republicans successfully blocked a Democratic bid to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April, even though a 52-49 Senate majority voted to end debate.

This year Republicans also have blocked votes on immigration legislation, a no-confidence resolution for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and major legislation dealing with energy, labor rights and prescription drugs.

Nearly 1 in 6 roll-call votes in the Senate this year have been cloture votes. If this pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous record number of cloture votes -- 58 each in the two Congresses from 1999-2002, according to the Senate Historical Office.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/18218.html

MoveOn.org and the media mess: News outlets, Republicans, lose all sense of perspective in the wake of the "Betray Us" ad - It's not just the GOP that's gone over the edge; the media has flipped out over the controversial MoveOn.org ad last week. Eric Boehlert: Last Monday, on the same day that Gen. David Petraeus was testifying before Congress about how important progress was being made in Iraq, the Pentagon announced that nine American service members had died that day in Iraq.... Among the same cable news channels, there were more than 500 mentions of the MoveOn ad last week. According to the decisions being made at cable TV news, the advocacy newspaper ad was 250 times more important than a rash of American fatalities in Iraq.

"We will not tolerate the killing of our citizens in cold blood," al-Maliki told reporters. "The work of this company has been stopped in order to know the reasons."

Al-Maliki said the shootings had generated such "widespread anger and hatred" that it would be "in everyone's interest if the embassy used another company."

This is now the face of the US to the world -- cold-blooded murderers and mercernaries.

This man is a complete moron. I honestly think he's either stupid, as Nixon thought, or just senile:

'Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson met with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in Tallahassee this morning and said he wouldn't rule out drilling for oil in the Everglades.
"Gosh, no one has told me there is any major reserves in the Everglades," the former Tennessee senator said when asked about the issue. "Maybe that's one of the things I have to learn while I'm down here."

He continued, saying "I'm not going to start out by taking this, that or the other off the table in terms of our overall energy situation."

Jeb Bush caused controversy in the state when he wanted to lower the buffer-zone for drilling to 125 miles from the state, so we'll see how drilling in the Everglades goes over in the Sunshine state.'

The return of the "country club Republicans"

Former GOP Rep. and vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp, complaining that Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and John McCain are avoiding presidential debates focused on African-American and Hispanic voters: "We sound like we don't want immigration; we sound like we don't want black people to vote for us. What are we going to do -- meet in a country club in the suburbs one day?"

Hours after blocking a vote on restoring habeas corpus rights to detainees and citizens, Senate Republicans and Joe Lieberman blocked consideration Wednesday of a bill that would have guaranteed U.S. troops as much time at home as they spend deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Both measures had bipartisan support, but not enough to get Senate Democrats over the 60-vote hurdle that a Republican-plus-Lieberman filibuster would have presented. Republicans Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, John Sununu and Gordon Smith joined all Democrats in voting to move forward on the habeas corpus bill. The same group -- minus Specter and Lugar, plus Norm Coleman and Susan Collins -- joined all Democrats in voting to move forward on Jim Webb's troop bill.

After the remaining Republicans joined Lieberman in killing Webb's bill, the Senate considered whether to proceed with a watered-down, non-binding "sense of the Senate" measure John McCain proposed as a way to provide cover for Republicans who didn't want to be seen as voting against the troops. Although Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Tim Johnson, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson and Bill Nelson crossed over to support what Webb called a "fig leaf" of a bill, enough Democrats stuck together in opposition to block McCain's measure from getting an up-or-down vote either.

Having thereby blocked actual consideration of three different measures aimed at addressing two of the most critical issues facing the United States today, the Senate adjourned for the evening.

The NYT and WP front a look at how Sunday's shootout in Baghdad involving the private security company Blackwater USA has highlighted how those that work for the State Department are often exempt from regulations that affect Defense Department contractors. The Post points out that Iraqi authorities had already raised concerns about Blackwater's "aggressive street tactics" and yesterday, the Interior Ministry said there have been six other cases in which the company's guards fired on Iraqi civilians. Despite previous incidents, the State Department continued to protect the company. The shootout has once again raised concern about how "thousands of heavily armed private soldiers in Iraq operate with virtual immunity," says the NYT.
How many people actually died in Sunday's shootout is still an open question as the numbers vary from "at least eight" to "as many as 28."

'The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with Senate Republicans blocking a measure by Sen. Jim Webb that would have mandated that active-duty troops couldn't be redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan unless they were given as much time at home as they had spent in the war zone.

Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, had a prominent GOP co-sponsor in Sen. Chuck Hagel, but the proposal gathered support from only six Republicans, so it fell four votes short of the 60 necessary to prevent a filibuster.'

I just want you all to ask yourselves why, when the Democrats tried ONCE last session to mount a filibuster -- every newspaper in the country had it on the front pages, as if it were an outrage. The Republicans screamed, ranted, and whined like the children they are -- calling it 'obstructionist'.

Now republicans are filibustering EVERY SINGLE BILL the democrats introduce -- notice how it now takes 60 votes to pass anything? But have you read even ONE reference to this anywhere? The minority party is now blocking the will of the majority of the people and the faithfully rightwing media can't be bothered to notice. As usual, when the R's lose, they move the goalposts and the media sheep willingly allow themselves to be fleeced.

So much for supporting the troops. The R's don't even consider them human--they are merely pawns in a power struggle.

Nice find JD, My favorite is the congressional 2006 map next to the map or america at night.

It seems to me that Shays is only doing the honest thing, if he actually responded that way to the reporter's question (it wouldn't be the first time the newspaper got a quote wrong).

He's saying, either give me the leadership post or I'm gone. At least the GOP can make a reasoned choice about it now, rather than be surprised in '09.

Garak, as for the GOP being a 'regional' party, that's silly. Go take a look at the red/blue maps here

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

or here

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2006/

and tell us who looks to be more 'regional'.

Footnote: There's also this bizarre passage, suggesting that Baghdad is so safe that the only people we can find to man its high-risk checkpoints are Peruvians:

There are now more private contractors working in Iraq than U.S. soldiers serving there. Many are not U.S. citizens. Triple Canopy, another private firm, usually hires Peruvians to man the checkpoints inside the International Zone and Ugandans to guard distant airbases. The Peruvians, known as "incas" among Americans there, usually do not speak English or Arabic--a persistent source of complaint by Iraqi politicians who speak one or both languages

There is no way that Shay's will get this post now. He was in for the fight of his life if he ran anyway, and this will give him an excuse to not run. The real power of the leadership posts in congress (and especially the house) is the ability to appoint ranking members and committee chairs.
If one congressional member can demand a ranking position just because he/she is from a purple district, it will set a bad precendent where the 'secure' districts don't have a chance of getting a ranking seat. Not to mention that this could also work its way up to the leadership too. What if next election Shay's says "Boehner I will retire unless you give me minority whip." No way that the GOP goes for this.

For uncensored news please bookmark:

www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.com
www.onlinejournal.com
www.globalresearch.ca

Media, Democrats silent on police attack on University of Florida student

By Barry Grey
20 September 2007

Two days after Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old journalism student at the University of Florida, was assaulted by campus police and given an electric shock for asking critical questions of Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry at a public forum, the US media has largely dropped the story.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the US and around the world have accessed various videos of the incident that are posted on the Internet, but the establishment media has decided to downplay the violent attack on free speech at a major American university.

After being dragged from the floor microphone by six police officers, handcuffed and shocked with a Taser gun, Meyer was held overnight in jail. The arresting police have recommended that he be charged with violently resisting arrest, a felony with a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and disturbing the peace and interfering with school administrative functions, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of 60 days in jail. As of this writing, formal charges have not been laid against the student.

Meyer was released from jail Tuesday morning. His lawyer said he will plead not guilty on all charges, adding, "I think the videotape speaks for itself."

On Tuesday, some 300 students demonstrated at the Gainesville, Florida campus to denounce the police attack and demand that the officers involved be disciplined and the use of Tasers be banned.

At a press conference, University of Florida President Bernie Machen said he "regretted" the incident, but went on to suggest that the police action may have been justified. "We're absolutely committed to having a safe environment for our faculty and our students so that a free exchange of ideas can occur," he said. Later he told the press he thought it was "an open question as to whether or not the student impeded civil discourse."

Two of the officers have been placed on paid administrative leave and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it would launch an investigation. Machen also announced the formation of a student-faculty commission to investigate the incident.

Scattered press report on Wednesday, generally confined to the inside pages, for the most part portrayed Meyer as a disruptive publicity hound. He was referred to variously as a "heckler," "agitator" and "prankster." Typical was a Washington Post article headlined "Aiming to Agitate, Florida Student Got a Shock"

"This was not Meyer's first escapade as a provocateur, but it may be his most physically punishing," the reporter quipped.

For the rest please go to:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep2007/meye-s20.shtml

There's been a lot going on this week -- so much that I haven't been able to comment on maybe the biggest story of all, and that is the uproar surrounding the U.S. security firm Blackwater USA and its alleged shooting up of civilians in Baghdad. It's the biggest story because Iraqis are so angry over this, it may be the final tipping point in their relationship with their self-proclaimed liberators.

Tonight I see that Matt Drudge -- the man who "rules our world" in the DC politico-journalism complex -- has decreed that the right-wing version of what went down with Blackwater in Baghdad is the storyline that needs to get out there. And so he's done something he only does in a pinch and linked not to a mainstream news org but to the conservative Pajamas Media, and its correspondent Richard Miniter.

Miniter -- who's written from Baghdad before -- claims that even the CIA can't operate in and around Baghdad without the gun-toting Bklackwater guys, which may well be true, as it's been reported that the State Department has halted many of its outside activities, even in the supposedly safe Green Zone. He also suggests that the people killed were not civilians but "civilians", with quotation marks, and that entire anti-Blackwater campaign is some kind of Iranian plot to undermine the highly successful -- according to Miniter, anyway -- surge:

'According to exclusive information obtained by Pajamas Media's Washington editor Richard Miniter, the movement of key CIA station personnel in Baghdad has been all but shut down. Are we witnessing Iran's counter-strike to the surge?
Movements of key CIA station personnel in Baghdad--along with most State department diplomats and teams building police stations and schools--have been frozen for the second day in a row, according to a State department source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Essentially, the CIA, State department and government contractors are stuck inside the International Zone, also known as "the Green Zone," in Central Baghdad. Even travel inside that walled enclave is somewhat restricted.'

The bizarre logic here escapes me. The surge is working so well that our own CIA agents -- trained for months at "The Farm" in Virginia to learn how to kill a man with a ballpoint pen, and that sort of thing -- are now afraid to walk out the front door without a bevy of allegedly trigger-happy men toting machine guns and firing indiscriminantly?

My God, what was it like in Baghdad before the awesome power of the surge?

Seems like Shays retiring would be another step by the GOP in becoming a regional (i.e., Southern) party. Maybe that book "Whistling Past Dixie," which argues the Dems can win the White House and Congress without winning any Southern states, may be right.

The mercurial Shays can take his ball and go home. Just remind him to close the door as he leaves the GOP without a single House member from New England.

It is a sad state of affairs in this country when the President or his party will not give rest to our brave men and women fighting terrorism in Iraq. May God bless our tired, exhausted troops.

Self fufilling prophecy

"I'll let you know....

The vote was 56-44. It missed the 60 vote minimum. Warner helped torpedo whatever chance it had to pass because the White House got to him as usual....Let's thank the Rubber stamp Republicans for not supporting our troops. Kudos to Senator Webb for standing strong.
"

Suppor tthe troops.

Chris, Articles suggesting Weller's next. It might make sense to do a bigger article on the Republican retirement picture. This is starting to look like an avalanche.

"and soon Virginia's 11th district)" I like the way you slipped that in the sentence about retirements in vulnerable seats, Chris.

If Tom Davis runs in the Republican Senate primary and loses, can he still run for the House seat in VA-11? I guess that the Filing Date would be the key factor here. [See Lieberman in CT last year]

Tom running against Gerry Connolly would be much more interesting than Mrs. Davis running against Gerry.

"duh duh duh. Another biyes the dust"

Man, CC, can you step across the aisle for a minute and interview a D? No wonder you recycle RNC talking points, you're surrounded by people who spout them. I've listened to McConnell; the man's just a few delusions shy of being a wind-up version of KOZ.

Shays is a very brave congressman; it'll certainly stick in the craw of the GOP leadership to appoint someone they consider a RINO to the ranking seat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

A better title for this blog entry: Revenge of the Moderates?

And if they do promise him the ranking position (it's good they recognize it that way and not as a chairmanship, since the Republicants stand no chance of taking back the House), he still has win re-election.

Imagine the morale within the leadership if they give him what he wants, he runs, and then loses. oops.

Yeah, I am delusional all right --utterly detached from actual reality.