Atrios and Glenn Greenwald make a number of key connections in considering the upswing to our recent mid-term elections. As we said here Bu$hCo will say anything for political effect, regardless of the transparency of the lie.

It is true. They lie, and they lie about things which should cause revulsion in decent people. They lie and people die, and St. McCain and the Last Honest Man and the rest of the Wise Old Men of Washington somehow manage to make it out of bed each day. I don't know what's wrong with their brains, but they don't seem to work as they should.

Everything they accuse others of doing -- exploiting national security for domestic political gain, being 'unserious' about war matters, playing games with the mission of the troops -- is what they do as transparently as possible. And note how they used a senior military official to make the disgusting claim that the violence in Iraq was related to a desire to help Democrats win the midterm election: "A U.S. military spokesman in Iraq last week attributed the increase in violence at least partly to terrorists who want to influence the American vote."

The idea that the sectarian violence in Iraq, which has been spiraling out of control since the beginning of the year, had anything to do with trying to make Democrats win the election was always as transparently false -- stupid even -- as it was repugnant. Yet they say anything, and the media largely lets them get away with it.

Today’s NY Times:

In the deadliest sectarian attack in Baghdad since the American-led invasion, explosions from five powerful car bombs and a mortar shell tore through crowded intersections and marketplaces in the teeming Shiite district of Sadr City on Thursday afternoon, killing at least 144 people and wounding 206, the police said. . . .The attacks were the worst in an intensifying series of revenge killings in recent months, in a cycle that has increasingly paralyzed the political process and segregated the capital into Sunni and Shiite enclaves, and threatened to drag Iraq into an all-out civil war.

Not that we can expect the media to actually confront anyone from the Bu$h malAdministration over these blatant lies, but if they did, I expect the response would be something along the lines of “They obviously know so little about true Democracy that they thought the winners would be seated the day after the elections.”

Because today’s lies don’t really have to logically connect with yesterday’s lies.

But there probably was a connection, because the Democrats plan a long hard series of examinations of all the stupidity, carelessness, and pure bloodymindedness of Bu$hCo.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 — Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies.

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

Mr. Leahy, who has said little about his plans for the committee, expressed hope for greater cooperation from the Bush administration, which he described as having been “obsessively secretive.” His aides have identified more than 65 requests he has made to the Justice Department or other agencies in recent years that have been rejected or permitted to languish without reply.

Klondike, a diarist at Daily Kos, discusses the “Southern White Guy” phenomenon, which is a way of thinking that precedes the Southern Strategy that Lee Atwater devised for Richard Nixon. His emphasis is on the fact that it’s a mindset, not a geographic identifier, and Southern White Guys can be found in the North. (Probably just about everywhere Fox News is king.)

1. Civil rights are rights, not possessions lent by a benevolent majority to deserving minorities.
2. There are amendments other than the second. They all get the same respect. In the Army they say "we salute the rank, not the man". Well in a constitutional democracy, citizens honor The Law, not the particular statute.
3. We don't all agree on religion and we never will, and because of that it must be kept separate from the one thing that we must work together on - our government.
4. Recognizing that we don't all agree on religion, we can not use the common resources to advance the special interests of any one religion for its own sake at home or abroad. Supporting any of them leads inevitably to childish fighting about fairness and is A Bad Idea.
5. Piety is no more of a qualification for public office than table manners, good grooming or a deep interest in movie trivia.
6. Science is a way of figuring out how the physical world works. It operates according to well accepted principles, and we argue with it on its terms. If your religion conflicts with science, then for the purposes of public policy, your religion is wrong. You are free to disbelieve science in the privacy of your own home.
7. Money doesn't grow on trees, and this principle applies whether you use the money to buy big screen TV for death row prisoners or a really, really, really smart bomb to drop on a mud hut in Anbar province.
8. Our current level and structure of fossil fuel consumption is not working out for us or for anyone else on the planet and must be changed.
9. The military is useful for one thing - protecting us from other countries that have attacked us, or are about to attack us. Everything else in international affairs is the province of diplomats.
10. "Kicking ass" is a tactic, not a strategy. If kicking ass is your strategy then you don't have a strategy and you need to cede control of strategy to someone who has one.
11. The international community is not a bunch of thugs, barbarians and pansies, but groups of people with different interests than ours. We will get the international community we deserve - treat it with contempt and it will act contemptibly.
12. We are a nation of 300 million on a planet of 6 billion. Right now, we're on top, but some day we won't be, and on that day every shitty thing we did when we were on top will come back to haunt us.

Klondike considers Southern White Guy’s view of these principles and sees a major difference:

1. Civil rights are a code phrase for infringing on the natural rights of white people.
2. The right of armed self defense is the basic liberty. All others flow from it.
3. The United States is a Christian nation.
4. The government of a Christian nation should be propounding Christian virtues at home and abroad.
5. Public piety is an indicator of moral fiber and a prerequisite for holding public office.
6. Science is a law of the physical world, but the law of God supercedes it.
7. Tax cuts generate revenue.
8. There's enough oil to last forever.
9. Our country is the best, and our military is the best. No one can beat us, so there's no point considering alternatives - if we set our military to it, it will happen. If our military fails it's undoubtedly domestic betrayal, not inherent weakness or bad policy that caused it.
10. "Kicking ass" is often the simplest way to ensure the national interest is served.
11. Most other countries are primitive failures or decadent has-beens that are based on the wrong religion, jealous of our success, have no interests in common with us, and no perspective worth considering. Most foreigners are going to hell.
12. The United States is the only superpower because God has decreed it and we will stay that way as long as we are more righteous than other nations.

The differences between these two views of life are cultural and nothing less than a cataclysmic event will change the Southern White Guy’s view in a hurry. He also considers it a waste of time for Progressives to court that voting bloc.

The Democratic Party is committed to Governor Dean’s “50 state” strategy, and it’s a prudent policy to follow, as we have seen in the most recent elections since that policy paid us huge dividends not envisioned by the DLC politicians like Rahm Emanuel and James Carville. The US won’t survive as a viable political entity long enough for a strategy of picking off a vulnerable seat here and there to pay off. If we want to take back our country and once again live in a Democracy we must resist the attraction of being “Republican Lite” and speak up for what we hold to be true and meaningful. The vast undecided center voted for Democrats out of revulsion over Republican rule. It is up to us to now show them why we rule better, to keep them votig for Progress.

While the comparisons are humorous and mostly on point, we have to work to prove that our system is better and trust to our hard work to slowly change that troglodytic culture of the Southern White Guy. We have to make those comparisons a snapshot in time and not an ongoing cultural fact.

After the election last week, which was rather surprising in some ways (advantage: netroots) and quite shocking in others, we found the bobbleheads of the parrot-Media relentlessly took up Republican talking points that the voters in America didn’t really vote against Mr Bu$h’s personal illegal war of aggression but rather voted against Republicans and for Democrats (mind your step – bump in the road ahead) because they wanted to send the message that the Republican plan for bipartisanship is the method of governance they prefer!

Yes, really. So it seems.

After proclaiming that he was loyally asking for bipartisanship and looked forward to working with the new (Democratic – not Democrat, you ninny) leadership, Mr Bu$h exercised some of that bipartisanship he is world-famous for.

After calling for bipartisanship, President Bush surprised Senate Democrats with plans to renominate a controversial list of judges – some of whom may be unacceptable even to a few Republican senators. “It’s an unfortunate signal,” said one senior Democratic Senate aide.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has not received the nominations yet. As word spread about the nominations, however, the committee’s Republican Chairman Arlen Specter told reporters: “It is obvious they cannot move during the lame-duck session.” After January, he added, questions about the fate of the nominees should be “directed to someone else.”

Quick note: since Senator Arlen Specter, who never saw a fascist law he didn’t get a woodie over, says there is no chance on these law chumps, who have been rejected at least once, if not twice by a Republican Congress, we should prepare ourselves for Darlin Arlen’s announcement on Friday of a new bill he is introducing on Saturday to amend the Constitution so as to allow judges nominated by a President to be approved, without Judiciary Committee approval, by voice vote at 3:00 in the morning.

Lawmakers and others had been waiting to see whether Bush would renominate four particularly controversial appeals court candidates whose nominations had expired without Senate action. He did. The four include two nominees to the Fourth Circuit in Richmond: Terrence Boyle, a district court judge in North Carolina and a former aide to Sen. Jesse Helms, and Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes, who became a symbol of the Bush administration’s policies on terrorism, interrogations and other wartime powers. In addition, William Myers, a lobbyist and critic of environmental rules, was renominated for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, and Michael Wallace of Mississippi, rated unqualified for the appeals court by an American Bar Association panel, was renominated for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.

Two quick notes: An expired nomination is in fact a denied recommendation by the Judiciary Committee, because, let’s face it, the R’s still own Congress. They could have gotten these chumps onto the bench in two days if they weren’t afraid of them. The above quotes come from Washington Wire which is published by the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ does pretty good news even though the editorial page looks like it was teleported in from some other dimension in a far distant galaxy.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall has a similar take on this view, with a cynical but not surprising twist:

Empty gestures intended to placate an angry base. Another reminder of what a weakened White House looks like.

As Guard Changes in Congress, Lobbyists Scramble

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 — Republicans do not cede control of Congress for nearly two months, but money, power and influence are already beginning to change hands. The political economy, at least here in the capital, is humming for Democrats.

Democratic lobbyists are fielding calls from pharmaceutical companies, the oil and gas industry and military companies, all of which had grown accustomed to patronizing Republicans, as the environment in Washington abruptly shifts.

Senator Reid and Congresswoman Pelosi need to nip this crap in the bud. These lobbyists would sell their own grandchildren to score a vote from a politican.

If the Dems give in to legalized bribery the way the Republicans did the voters will turn their dead asses out in 2008, or worse yet, stay home and the Repubs will be back in the saddle. With the lock the Christianists and Likudnik operatives have on the Republican Party the years 2009-2013 will be brutal for Americans.

The so-called K Street Project, an effort engineered by Republicans to dominate the trade, is unraveling, and Democrats say they intend to pass sweeping reforms rather than reverse the project for their benefit.

Democrats say the changing of the guard provides a raft of opportunities, second only to winning the presidency.

“If you’re a Democrat, it’s a good time to be looking for work,” said David Urban, a Republican who is the managing director of American Continental Group, a bipartisan lobbying firm. “For Republicans, there is a little bit of panic that sets in when people realize they have to move out of their office into a cubicle.”

It must be a shock for the flat hand palm up rubber stamp Republicans to realize they will have to go out and get real jobs and actually work for a change.

Readers may remember that on the past weekend Mr Rove had a heated dispute during an interview with some voice on National Corporate Radio over the meaning of pre-election polls.

Via Bryan’s fine little corner of the internet tubes, we learn that cat daddy and Dr squeaky have gained access to the raw data in Mr Rove’s poll.

Now that the Democrats appear to have the opportunity to change the moral and criminal festering swamp that is the Bu$hCo Federal Government, we can expect a massive cloud of smoke from Mr Bu$h about how he welcomes the changes in the House and Senate as the genuine “voice of the people.” He will urge the new leadership to join with him in a “true bipartisan” effort to save America from the ravening hordes of IalsamMexicanJihadistFascists that are just about to climb over our defenseless borders and murder us in our sleep before they rape our children and sell them into slavery.

I certainly hope Speaker Pelosi, (if she takes on the job) Senator Reid (if he remains as Leader of the Democrat Senators) don’t get involved in this foolishness. Joining hands with Mr Bu$h is like kissing a rattlesnake.

Let’s remember the famous words of soon-to-be-convicted Republican power broker Grover Norquist:

Bipartisanship is another name for date rape

There’s a story in today’s Salon (subscription required or watch the ad) discussing Mr Bu$h’s reaction to the voice of the American people:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush struck a businesslike tone Tuesday night as the Republicans lost control of the House, making plans to call the woman poised to become speaker of a Democratic House majority.

"The president's not the kind of guy who is going to be somber about things," said press secretary Tony Snow. But he added: "They have not gone the way he would have liked."

Bush, unaccustomed to political defeat, planned a morning phone call to Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi and made plans to give his take on the midterm election results at an afternoon news conference.

The president watched the results in the White House residence, where Snow described the mood as "businesslike."

Asked if the president was surprised that the House was headed for Democratic control, Snow said it wasn't "a slap-on-the-forehead kind of shock."

A sensible man would have assumed that a 60 year old adolescent, insulated from the harsh realities of the world for all his life, would be stunned by the voice of the people. But if that same child was incredibly arrogant as well, it can be assumed that there was some rage mixed in there as well. Not the frothing, chewing-the-carpet rage that is anecdotally ascribed to Adolph Hitler, but rather a seething inner rage at the audacity of the “little people” to dare thwart his imperial ambitions. Possibly the only external sign would be the famous pouting lips.

Billmon snidely reports that Mr Snow also said

The president watched the results in the White House residence, where Snow described the mood as "businesslike."

"The president often likes to conduct business while curled up in a fetal position on the floor," Snow explained. "It helps him concentrate."

Perhaps that last paragraph was deleted from the Salon story by the time I got to it.

Billmon also adds this tastefully delicate update:

Since it was Bush who said that if the Democrats win America loses, I suppose the only remaining question is whether he'll fly to Pakistan to offer our surrender to Bin Ladin or invite Bin Ladin to come to Washington.

Maybe they could do it on the deck of the battleship Missouri -- just for old time's sake.

The election day activities are over, other than for the inevitable whining and pouty lawsuits from some Republicans who expected to spend the rest of their lives in Congress, slopping away in the public trough, while working out the more remunerative side deals with their special interest clients. But, sadly, it appears that some of their constituents woke up long enough to insist upon change. Good for them

Congratulations and thanks all around to those patriotic citizens who cared enough about their futures to stand in line for an hour or more to exercise their rights as free men and women. We’re proud of you, and grateful for all the many, many people who stepped up to knock down some of the parasitic criminals who have dragged this great country into the gutter.

Looking at races in no particular order, the odious Rick Santorum will be spending more time with his family, so they can pass around that bottle of formaldehyde with the fetus inside. Now, just tell me that the voters of Pennsylvania, through the appropriate court, are going to demand that he pay back that reported $100,000 plus that they had to pay for his children to be home-schooled in Virginia, and I could probably die with a smile on my face. Suffering from a surfeit of good sense, the voters in the Keystone State also made it possible for Crazy Kurt Weldon to spend 100% of his time focusing on the coming criminal trial for influence pandering and passing money back and forth with the Russian mafia. Sweeeeet.

Here in Florida, sadly, the notorious heterosexual Charlie Crist gets four more years to fly for free on Big Industry’s private jets, this time while pretending to be governor rather than Attorney General. Mark Foley’s designated pinch-hitter, state rep Joe Negron, lost to Democrat Tim Mahoney. Negron signed off with one of the classier concession speeches I’ve ever heard in Fla. Katherine Harris will get to spend a lot more time with her family make up case as Bill Nelson becomes our new junior Senator. Karma, Cruella.

Corrupt Republican John Sweeney got beaten by his Democrat opponent, Kirsten Gillibrand, a victim of the Mark Foley scandal. Corrupt Republicans Tom Sweeney and Denny Hastert, on the other hand, both won in their races. Maybe protecting child predators is acceptable in some districts.

Regrets are extended to Fixer of Alternate Brain, who worked hard and long to support his favorite candidate, Dave Mejias, in his bid to oust the odious serial liar Republican Peter King. Fixer, tell that man to stand by. Elliot Spitzer won the race for Governor in New York. Mr Mejias may get appointed to the district after King goes to prison.

Rather unfortunately Whining Joe Lieberman got the pass. I guess that $387,000 in “street money” did the trick. The tragedy here, of course, is that he is a small, vicious cowardly man like his idol George W Bush, and Democrats all over the country are going to pay for the slight he felt over being beaten by Ned Lamont. This despite public appearances from name Dems supporting him, and public promises that his seniority would be respected. He says he will caucus with Dems, which I would interpret to mean that every time they meet behind closed doors to plan strategy he should be subtly patted down, looking for a wire. Commiseration and congratulations to Ned Lamont, a man with class and determination. He ran a noble race, and I certainly hope he steps up again. There was a pickup in CT apparently, in the state races, Chris Murphy takes over from Nancy Johnson.

In Virginia Jim Webb, a certified Viet Nam hero, is sort of neck and neck with George Felix Allen. This one may go to a court for decision, but it’s a terrible indictment of Virginia that they would re-elect a documented racist and misogynist rather than a man who has proven his love for his country.

Bob Menendez has beaten Tom Kean Jr, or the 3rd, or the 4th. It’s hard to keep track. The Kean family has had a piece of the NJ Republican franchise for a lot of years. Kean ran a textbook Republican race, filled with lies, smears, innuendo, smoke mirrors, etc.

Apparently Bob Corker has beaten Harold Ford in Tennessee. That’ll teach Mr Ford to go to Playboy mansion Christmas Parties.

Sanity struck like a bolt of lightning in South Dakota as the forced pregnancy constitutional amendment was defeated. They’ll be back, because it’s important to punish women for being able to have sex babies and enjoy it. Sorry, while I have problems with the concept of abortion, I don’t think I have the ethical or moral right to tell some woman what to do with her body.

Apparently we picked up six new governorships, which is good because governors get to replace senators and representatives who lose their seats due to being arrested and convicted of stealing money. So we may pick up some more Senate and Congress seats down the road.

With an apparent majority in the House we gain the Committee chairmanships, subpoena power, and the ability to hold hearings. The criminal Republicans will fight this tooth and nail. It’s not ever certain their bought-and-paid for media will protect them in that case. No one’s talked about it very much, but Mr Bu$h might have to tapdance just a little bit to get his emergency supplemental appropriations for CheneyBurton Iraq next year. He will not be a happy emperor when that happens. And it looks like he can say good bye to his plan to impoverish elderly Americans by looting the Social Security system to reward his donors in the stock market brokerages. Heck, we might even see some fairness in tax reform now, and maybe even a couple of dollars for the estimated nine million American children who go to bed hungry every night.

It's been a long day, and at 2 I'm going to bed with Golden Earring ringing in my mind.

It's two a.m., the fear has gone
I'm sittin' here waitin', the gun still warm
Maybe my connection is tired of takin' chances
Yeah there's a storm on the loose, sirens in my head
I'm wrapped up in silence, all circuits are dead
I cannot decode, my whole life spins into a frenzy

In contrast to the article just below here are some positive, real news signs of the discord and chaos in the Republican Party. John Aravosis reports:

House Republicans already fighting and blaming each other for losing power

The House GOPers have already begun the blame game. They know they're going to lose tomorrow and they're looking for scapegoats:

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's future is in doubt even if the Republicans retain control of the House because of unease among GOP lawmakers about his handling of the Foley page scandal and what a House ethics committee investigation might conclude about him, according to several Republican aides.

House Chief Deputy Whip Eric I. Cantor (R-Va.) said last week that the House Republican leadership elections scheduled for Nov. 15 should be postponed until the ethics committee delivers its final report. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) confirmed yesterday on "Fox News Sunday" that he and Hastert have discussed that possibility. "We'll see how Tuesday goes and then we'll make some decisions."

Now, if they really want a scapegoat, the Hill Republicans really just need to look down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. Their unquestioned fealty to Bush -- and failure to ever challenge him -- is one reason for their demise. They need to factor in their own incompetence and corruption, too.

But, clearly, the Republicans on the Hill are sharpening the knives. It's going to get ugly. Can't wait to watch.

We can’t either John. Did you order in some extra popcorn?

The always informative Steve Gilliard has a theory too.

It's funny, people are looking at national polling data or even local polls and saying "it's tightening up".

Well, if you need things to worry about, you can worry about that.

But I think there's one poll they haven't conducted, the angry voter poll. The angry voters made 2004 closer than people thought it would be. Now, the GOP is hoping that their targeted appeals with robocall suppression will save some seats and prevent a massacre tomorrow.

But I like to think that there's a voter polling is just missing. They don't answer the calls, because they don't have the time, they use cellphones exclusively, they work off hours, whatever. But every time they see Bush talk about Iraq or Pete King's smug face, they have decided they have to vote and the GOP has to go.

People are predicting a low turnout election. My feeling, is if the weather is good across the country, as it is today, turnout won't be that low. And if a bunch of voters who usually come out only in presidential years show up, it won't be to vote for Bush.

This is admittedly a theory, but then, as the politically driven christianists and their Republicans partners insist, so is evolution and gravity.

He also gives a lot of credence to the family-threatening scandals that have plagued the Republican Party:

So, they are aren't going to see the people who are going to vote angry tomorrow. The problem with the base voter strategy is that if the moderates jump ship, all you have is the base and you can't win with the base.

Another reason I think this may be a factor is the personal nature of the GOP corruption. The Foley story touches people where they live. So they may answer the GOP calls, they may express a preference for Republicans, but in their hearts, they are still so angry about their own trauma, that when they get in the booth, they won't be voting GOP.

Now, if it was just Iraq, I doubt that would be in play, but sexual abuse is often a hidden secret, even between married couples. I think when Mark Foley was discovered, a lot of a Republican-leaning women decided it was time for a change. Men made the same leap when Bush kept defending his failed war.

I think people have stopped listening to the GOP, because for the most part, their pitches are tonedeaf. Finish the job in Iraq, they''ll raise your taxes? Huh? The fact is that getting out of Iraq is the issue, period.

Joe Sixpack and his wife Mary Jane Soccermom may not understand all the nuances of foreign and domestic policy, but they’re very clear about the evils of child predators, and in their subconscious minds, homosexual meth-addicted “christian” ministers are also threats to their own families.

The Republican Party is in trouble. Polls have shown for well over a year now that voters, dissatisfied with Republican rule, have been seeking a change in the makeup of our Congress, more and more voters, likely and registered, desiring a Democratic Congress. Which is one reason why we see Mr Bu$h campaigning in apparently threatened districts that heretofore have been considered “safely” red country. These are districts that have been judged loyal in the Bu$h years, and as always Mr Bu$h’s appearances are in front of carefully vetted audiences. These public appearances are calculated to produce two effects: provide positive public images for the icon of a party and a man brutally tarred with the results of their criminality: scandals piled on top each other, in the last few weeks coming too fast to be easily absorbed into the public subconscious. The second purpose is to shore up sagging and failing incumbent campaigns.

Thus we find reliable Republican shill Adam Nagourney writing in yesterday’s NY Times of a tightening of polls, showing almost-miraculous Republican gains in generic polls that have consistently been bad for the Republican Party over the last 12 months and growing worse by the week:

The announcement [Saddam’s death sentence] out of Baghdad came as polls suggested some gains for Republicans. A Pew Research Center Survey released on Sunday found that the number of likely voters who said they would vote for the Democrats was now 47 percent compared with 43 percent who said they would vote for Republicans. Two weeks ago, Democrats had an edge of 50 to 39. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found a similar tightening.

These kinds of polls, about the so-called generic ballot, measure national trends and do not necessarily provide an accurate measure of what is happening in individual House and Senate races.

It’s all public relations, of course. Flooding the airwaves and print media with pictures and stories about Mr Bu$h appearing in front of reliable crowds is a necessary part of the cult of personality so often seen in dictatorships. These appearances present the façade of an unflappable politician still deeply adored in the heartland, and provide some of the narrative to explain the sudden tightening of polls, which in turn will be used to discredit the exit polls in the aftermath of surprising Republican victories in districts that were showing Democratic Party preferences of 12 to 20 points.

In apparent contradiction of the “resurgent Republicans” myth currently being presented, we find CNN reporting yet more Bu$h unpopularity:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's popularity has dipped to 35 percent, according to a new CNN poll, with 41 percent of likely voters saying their disapproval of his performance will affect their vote in Tuesday's elections for control of Congress.

Sixty-one percent of the 1,008 adult Americans who responded to the Opinion Research Corp. poll said they disapproved of the way Bush is handling his job as president, according to the survey. The poll was conducted by telephone Friday through Sunday.

These actual polls are quite specific and in direct contradiction to the polls cited in Mr Nagourney’s polemic : Mr Bu$h is unpopular, his policies are unpopular, the Iraq war is unpopular, and by extension the Republican Party is unpopular. Polls can be unreliable because there can be a deliberate or accidental bias in how they are formulated, but when you consider the totality of polls taken under all circumstances over the last 12 months they show a specific trend of favoring a Democratic Congress.

Atrios, reporting this CNN poll on his blog, adds:

Also, I couldn't find it online, but they just reported that their generic ballot has Democrats up 58 to 38.

These are just some things to remember in the aftermath of November 7th if we find universally despised politicians like Rock Santorum and George Felix Allen miraculously pulling out a victory.

There's lots of video clip traffic here and there, showing various progressive TV ads. Ned Lamont has a corker.

http://interestingtimes.blogspot.com/2006/10/insanity.html

Best. ad. evah.

Saddam trial verdict may be delayed again

Breitbart News is reporting that the verdict in Saddam Hussein’s trial, which was scheduled to be delivered on November 5th – just before the mid-term elections – may be delayed.

The chief prosecutor at the court trying ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity has said that the verdict, due in seven days, could be delayed again by up to two weeks.

Two weeks ago the Iraqi High Tribunal delayed the judgement in the trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite villagers from the village of Dujail until at least November 5.

But chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Mussawi told AFP: "There are checks which still have to be completed.

"If the judicial body overseeing these checks has not finished by November 5, I expect the court to delay its next hearing by one or two weeks before announcing the verdict," he added on Sunday.

US officials close to the court have said the Iraqi panel of judges is working carefully on a lengthy judgement against Saddam designed to withstand both an expected appeal and the scrutiny of international legal experts.

A high Bu$h maladministration stated, on conditions of anonymity because he has a wife and children, that reports of Mr Bu$h falling on the floor and chewing a carpet in rage are “exaggerated.”

There have been suggestions that Prime Minster Maliki was threatened asked in his videoconference with Mr Bu$h to keep to the schedule that was dictated.

Andrew Sullivan rarely has anything useful to add to the public discourse. We’re eagerly awaiting his swan song article, when he announces that he is retiring from public writing, and we would happily chip in with a modest honorarium to hurry along that day.

But he has an article in today’s Times – no, not that one, the good one in the UK, and it’s the usual collection of faulty logic, poor grammar and spelling, misplaced assumptions, unfortunate metaphors, and ridiculous observations as he tries to explain “the colonies” to his countrymen. Normally we wouldn’t bother, but the title just struck us as somehow….. appropriate.

The backwoods folk are beginning to doubt Bush

On the eve of an election it is the usually disciplined, on-message, obedient Republican party that is at war with itself.

The polls don’t help. They suggest an imminent drubbing, and the newspapers and blogosphere have been full of what are termed “pre-mortems” or “precriminations”[sic]. When a ship looks like it’s sinking, it gets harder to enforce discipline. But the Republicans are coming to terms with the fact that their very success in expanding their party over the past two decades, compounded by the pressure of what appears an all but lost Iraq war, has led to fractures they can no longer paper over.

I’ve been traveling [sic] across America these past two weeks to battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as Illinois, Wisconsin and California. The anger at Congress is palpable. But what’s most striking is where it’s coming from: not so much from Democrats as from restless conservatives and Republicans.

We’re surprised Andrew hasn’t discussed the R’s big problem – hypocrisy about crime, laws, and teh gay thing. But still, we are happy that he’s finally gotten out of the elite, latte-sipping, Volvo-driving Eastern enclaves he normally inhabits.

We suppose he’s unknown in the “backwoods” where they would surely have ridden him out of town on a rail if they had recognized him.

Most critically, it is the rural heartland that is beginning to question Bush and the war. First, they trusted him as a man of God. Then they blamed the media for distorting reality in Iraq. Then their patriotism kicked in as the president urged them to “stay the course”. But now this segment of the population, people who have disproportionately sent their sons and daughters to fight in the bloodsoaked streets of Ramadi and Falluja and Baghdad, show signs of revolt. If Bush loses these voters — or if they are too demoralised to vote at all — the omens are truly dark for the Republicans.

The party’s strategy, after all, has long been not to persuade moderate, suburban America, but to register, organise and mobilise millions of rural evangelical voters who had not voted in large numbers since the 1920s.

Issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage brought these voters to the polls and made the difference. Without them in Ohio in 2004, John Kerry would now be president. The Republicans also gerrymandered their constituencies to ensure these voters were spread around enough to provide narrow margins of victories across the country. The victories were always close ones, nonetheless.

Andrew’s right about the evangelicals, of course, but quite wrong about Ohio, 2004. The Republican win there was due to having Ken Blackwell as Secretary of State. It’s true – you could look it up.

There’s much more, and we would encourage you to read the entire article. It’s surely one Andrew could have written from the front porch of his “cottage” in Provincetown, and saved himself the trip. If nothing else, Andrew is master of the obvious.

There is an excellent video highlighted at FDL who got it from Jim Gilliam.

It’s worth watching, and then for heaven’s sake go over to Do More Than Vote and help out in a local election. Give a few minutes or a few dollars for the sake of our nation’s and our children’s futures.

Some Republican candidates seem ashamed of their party in this election cycle. The Fudge Report is a daily news magazine produced by the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and appears to pretty closely follow the model created by Matt Drudge, with one distinctive exception. The Fudge Report tells the truth.

Republicans Anonymous: GOP Senate Candidates Go Incognito

With GOP Senate candidates working harder than ever to avoid being labeled as Republicans, we wanted to provide some examples of how our opponents are bending over backwards to cover up their partisan predilections and ties to the White House.

Minnesota’s “Makeover” Mark Kennedy: This guy has been part of the Republican Congress for three terms but you wouldn’t know it from watching the ad his campaign is debuting today. In a bio ad, he somehow manages to omit the fact that he is a GOP Member of Congress and has been one of the White House’s most reliable votes in Congress – siding with the President 92 percent of the time.

Maryland’s Michael Steele: A premier member of Republicans Anonymous – literally. This afternoon, Steele admitted that he was the unnamed GOP senate candidate profiled in a newspaper column that focused on how Bush is a political albatross for Republican campaigns. Steele – whose website doesn’t even mention the word Republican – admits that he agrees with Bush on issues like vetoing stem cell research and Iraq but doesn’t want the unpopular President to campaign for him (although he’s happy to have Bush raise money for him, as he did in December).

There are others in this report. Drop by The Fudge Report and get a look at what could well turn out to be one more nail in the coffin of the Fascist Party.

TAMPA, Fla(AP) -- U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris demanded an apology Thursday from Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean, who during a speech this week likened the senatorial candidate to former Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin.

Dean, in a speech to Democratic business leaders in West Palm Beach, made the remark in reference to the Harris' handling of the 2000 presidential election recount when she was Florida secretary of state and an honorary chairwoman of George W. Bush's Florida campaign.
....

Dean said in Wednesday's speech that Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is "going to beat the pants off Katherine Harris, who didn't understand that it is ethically improper to be the chairman of a campaign and count the votes at the same time. This is not Russia and she is not Stalin."

Tell that creature “NO.” Governor. Tell her, “Not only NO, but in fact, Hell No!”

Harris’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Stalin or Dictators approaches one."

We’ve been rather harsh in our commentary about Senator Lieberman, and certainly not bashful in our desire to see him retire from public life after 33 years of being a professional politician. Certainly by now all 25 of our readers have formed their own opinions about the man, his politics, and his goals.

Say this about these two primary candidates: while Senator Lieberman immediately slipped into the standard Republican lying mode in negative campaign attacks, Mr Lamont seems to want to bring a new breath of fresh air to the public discourse. He seems to want to discuss issues, goals, priorities, and it looks like his priorities are the citizens of Connecticut.

Via Liberal Oasis:

A TV ad, with a message approved by Sen. Joe Lieberman, uses a phony Ned Lamont bumper sticker to falsely claim that all Lamont has to say is "No More Joe."

The ad ran today on Hartford's Fox affiliate WTIC-61, during "Fox News Sunday." (It was also shown during C-Span's airing of the Lieberman-Lamont debate.)

The narrator begins the ad with: "In the battle of the bumper stickers, this one has a simple message: 'No More Joe.' But what else does Lamont really have to say?"

A graphic of a "NO MORE JOE" sticker is shown. The second line of the sticker reads: "Ned Lamont * Democrat for U.S. Senate". In the bottom right corner of the sticker is a URL, www.nomorejoe.com.

Problem is: there is no www.nomorejoe.com.

Actually, there IS a www.nomorejoe.com. According to myleftnutmeg.com it is a domain name owned by Highground, Inc, a PAC whose contact representative is Paul Bentz, who backed a man named Dan Saban, in October 2004 when he opposed Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Myleftnutmeg.com concludes:

Highground still owns the domain, though the registration expires next month.

This means two things are possible.

The Lamont campaign is the dumbest campaign in history, making bumper stickers sending people to dead website that they don't own.
Or the Lieberman campaign, desperate to find an attack line against a strong challenger, has to lie and pretend Lamont has nothing positive to say about his own platform.

Mr Lamont has presented a rather unusual TV spot in response, and it appears this is the first in a series of ads. In fact, Youtube.com has a collection of Lamont ads.

Maybe we’re just jaded here at Main and Central, tired of “business as usual” among the criminals, thieves and their pundit enablers of the DC Inner Beltway. But if I lived in Connecticut I wouldn’t want to be represented by a man who uses every pro-Bush, pro-Fascism talking point there is.

I don’t understand this story. Is there some secret hidden meaning? Is this that “insider baseball" I keep hearing about? Or is this just Joshua’s trumpet outside the walls of Joementicho?

Doug Schoen, pollster for Senator Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) 2004 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, has donated the maximum legally possible to Ned Lamont, the Senator's challenger in the Connecticut primary, according to today's Roll Call.

Schoen was also a pollster for Lieberman's bid for Vice President on the Al Gore presidential ticket.

Excerpts from the Roll Call story follow:

Federal Election Commission records show that Schoen gave $2,100 to Lamont on March 7.

Tom Swan, Lamont’s campaign manager, told us, “Doug and Ned have known each other for a very long time.”

Schoen is not Lamont’s pollster, however. “I chose to go in a different direction,” Swan said, adding that Lamont’s campaign has “avoided inside-the-Beltway firms.”

Over at the Daily Kos, Bill of Portland (Maine) has an interesting and somewhat curious diary entry:

Wow...this is an unbelievable admission from Dick Cheney. Let's set it up step-by-step:

1. The Republican "hawks" love to boast of how quickly and efficiently the Iraqi security forces are getting trained and deployed to defeat the terrorists inside their country. They promise that "as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down."

2. The Republicans also love to boast that invading Iraq made America safer because we're "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here."

3. Yesterday, Dick Cheney blew #1 and #2 all to hell with this jaw-dropping admission that we can never, ever pull our troops out:

"If we pull out, [the terrorists in Iraq] will follow us. It doesn't matter where we go. ... And it will continue---whether we complete the job or not in Iraq---only it'll get worse. Iraq will become a safe haven for terrorists."

The only conclusion that can be drawn from the vice president---the architect of this war---is, we're screwed. So today I bid a warm welcome to our Iraqi brothers and sisters who now belong to America's 51st state: Cheneyoming. Whether they, or we, like it or not.
P.S. Who's undermining the morale of our troops now by admitting the mission will never be accomplished? Who could that be, Dick?

Of course, Mr Cheney, whom many consider to be the prime architect of the ridiculous military response in Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, understands that the final goal is actually two goals: undisputed ‘ownership’ of all the oil resources in the middle east, and the undisputed and perpetual mastery of the US political scene by the Republican Party, held in escrow for their masters, Corporate Big Business.

Mr Cheney insists that the US will never leave Iraq (until all the oil is stolen) and pre-positions a perpetual US occupation of Iraq so as to eventually conquer all the other oil-bearing countries in the middle east. Mr Cheney realizes he cannot (once again) tell the truth. He has to camouflage his intent, presenting it behind the veil of anti-terrorism. The fact that “al_Qaeda in Iraq became a self-fulfilling reality is immaterial. I imagine he understood that US occupation of Iraq would draw the crowds, so to speak, and he would be able to point his finger and say, “See? Lots of foreign fighters in Iraq. I told you so.”

There is also an occupation within the US. The Republican Congressional majority, which began in 1994 with Newt Gingrich’s “Contract on America” has been proceeding apace. We had the 7 year long campaign against Bill Clinton, which served two goals. It both marginalized a President, setting him apart from the American public, and served ably to squash any sense of political testicular fortitude among the Democratic politicians in Congress.

And then the stealth campaign to make their hold on power perpetual: the introduction of voting computers in the key states. These machines are eminently hackable, making the reversing of votes for Democrats into votes for Republicans an easy task. At the same time the blocking of many obviously core Democratic voters through the method of just removing large groups of black voters from the voter registration rolls, as was done in Florida in 2000, and in Ohio in 2004.

People have wondered at the recent arrogance and greed of Republican politicians and lobbyists. They shouldn’t be too surprised; expect more of it. Republicans are thieves. And, more to the point, they really don’t expect to ever again lose a national election. They have become experts at the politics of division, ably turning a once-united people into warring factions. A marginalized and divided population tends to revolt by turning its back on the electoral process, and refusing to vote. This enables small, keenly dedicated groups such as the Religious Not-Right maniacs to gain a much larger control over the elections than their numbers should allow them to.

Yes, an almost insurmountable problem, eh? Well, not really. If every one of our readers made a firm commitment to drag TWO like-minded friends or relatives to the polls to vote for Liberal and Progressive candidates, why, that would be 75 more votes for sanity in government. And if you could prevail upon others who think the way you do, and love America, and encourage them to also drag two patriotic Americans to the polls, we might even find ourselves with a huge landslide, one that not even the Republican criminals could cover up.

This, from Laura at War and Piece:

This fascinates, dateline Topeka, Kansas, GOP pols are registering and running as Dems, as social conservatives claim the state GOP: "Mark Parkinson got his start in Republican politics at age 19, as a precinct committeeman. He served six years as a Republican state legislator, eventually becoming state Republican chairman. But two weeks ago, Parkinson announced he was running for lieutenant governor — as a Democrat. He said he no longer felt welcome in the increasingly conservative Kansas Republican Party. Parkinson became the third Republican politician in the last nine months to startle this red state by switching to the minority party. [...] Political observers say the fracture within the Kansas GOP may foreshadow the future for the national party. The division between moderates and social conservatives is expected to define the contest for the party's 2008 presidential nomination."

Wait. Wait. A life-long Republican suddenly decides to run as a Democrat. Please… we already have Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman, both moles, running under our colors. No more Manchurian Candidates.

There is no “fracture” within the Kansas Republican Party. It’s slowly dawning on them that running on both sides of the card guarantees victory for their 10th century social idiocy.

Go dance with them what brung ya, sonny.

Hey, just got an email from our buddy Leonard Clark out in Arizona and he's getting with the program.

Hello Mr. Fish, I'm writing to give you a campaign update from Arizona. This Saturday (May 6th, 2006) is going to be a big day. That day, the State democratic party meeting is going to be held. This meeting will be held at the Pheonix Wyndham hotel. The main meeting will probably not start until late morning but there will be activities held before then. Progressive Democrats of America will be hosting an immigration panel which is open to the public. Some well known communities members will probably be there such as Ben Miranda.

People do not have to be members to attend the meeting. There will be much useful information there. Candidates are not supposed to speak to the whole audience at once but rather will be allowed to man tables at the meeting to meet people. I have contacted the state Democratic party and we will see if they are cooperative (because we know whom they are favoring in the U.S. Senate race. But, one word of caution many people who work in the party at lower levels support our grassroots campaign to win the U.S. Senate for the Clark campaign.)

I'm hoping any of our supporters who are in attendance will help us man our campaign booth because you know that the other guy's 2 million dollars is going to buy him lots of support. I will try to keep you updated on what's going on. By the way, if you or any of your friends can attend this meeting it will be very helpful. I will be there.

Is it a long shot? Yeah, but this may be the year of the Long Shot. No kidding. I suspect that piles o'lobbyist/special interest cash won't be enough (it might even be a detriment if played right) to keep some incumbents in office.

Pass this on, I am.

cross-posted at Democratic Veteran