Blogger stinks. It's been down for six hours.

It's been hiccuping all week. Hell, all year. I have serious concerns as to whether Google is up to the task of the coming election and the traffic it will entail. Read More......

Cliff Schecter kicks butt -- again

Cliff is on a roll. In this interview from earlier today, it's really two against one, but that's no problem for Cliff. Watch how it's done:

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Americans support first 100 hours agenda of the House Democrats

Two weeks ago, Nancy Pelosi unveiled the Democratic agenda for their first 100 hours in power. Newsweek's latest poll shows strong, bi-partisan support for the Democratic plan:

Most worrisome for the president, should the Democrats retake one or both houses of Congress, the American public supports their proposed “First 100 Hours” agenda. An overwhelming majority says allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies should be a top priority for a Democratic Congress (74 percent, including 70 percent of Republicans); 68 percent want increasing the minimum wage to be a top priority, including 53 percent of Republicans; 62 percent want investigating impropriety by members of Congress to be a top priority; and 58 percent want investigating government contracts in Iraq to be a top priority. Fifty-two percent say investigating why we went to war in Iraq should be a top priority (25 percent say it should a lower priority and 19 percent say it shouldn’t be done.)

When Pelosi announced the plan, she said she was going to "drain the swamp." It's looking more likely she'll get that chance. The Newsweek poll showed the generic numbers at 55% - 37% -- a commanding margin for the Democrats.

When the GOP loses, they will get even more ugly and more obstructionist. Clearly, the Democratic agenda resonates with the American people. They've had enough of the Republican agenda that has failed most Americans. Read More......

Jim Gibbons (happily married, of course) still being dogged by alleged assault

GOP Congressman Jim Gibbons, who is also the GOP candidate for Governor in Nevada, is caught up in a major scandal as we first reported Wednesday. The plot continues to thicken. Although Gibbons would do a photo op with his wife, he wouldn't answer questions from reporters:

On the first two of those calls, Mazzeo was short of breath, difficult to understand and slurring her words. By the final call, however, she seemed more articulate and her statements were consistent with the detailed account she gave to police about two hours later.

Campbell, like Gibbons, refused to take questions. By doing so, they failed to resolve questions that remain about what happened in a parking garage across the street from the restaurant at Hughes Center near the Las Vegas Strip.

Gibbons said he walked with Mazzeo to the parking garage to help her find her truck. Once in the parking garage, he said, she slipped and he caught her as she fell.

His account is consistent with what he told police last Saturday, although his version has differed in some ways from what his campaign said previously. Most significantly, the campaign has said the incident occurred just outside the restaurant, not in a parking garage.

Mazzeo says she didn't slip, but rather, he pushed her against a wall and threatened her.

Whatever happened, Gibbons, a right wing conservative, is a married man. He was drinking and cavorting in the middle of a campaign. He's a hypocrite with bad judgment. Read More......

McCain can't even tell the truth about whether he had an after dinner drink

Seriously, this guy needs to stop telling each audience what they want to hear at the expense of the truth.

From the Washington Post:

Act Two involved a dinner between Clinton and McCain and two other senators during a trip to Estonia two years ago, when Hillary suggested a vodka-drinking contest and McCain was said to have a fine old time.

But when McCain was asked about this on "Hannity & Colmes," he said it never happened. "I'm glad to hear, Senator, you weren't drinking shots with Senator Clinton," said an apparently relieved Sean Hannity. McCain also told Jay Leno the incident never happened.

But the Atlantic's Josh Green chatted up the senator and "McCain lit up at the recollection. 'It's been 50 years since I'd been in a drinking game,' said McCain. ... He added, admiringly, 'She can really hold her liquor.' "

That prompted Dowd to call Mr. Straight Talk's office, where an (anonymous) aide explained: "After dinner, they had drinks. It was not a drinking contest, the way you and I think of a drinking contest. John had two drinks."

Doesn't that sound...rather Clintonian? It all depends on the meaning of the word contest.

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$10,000 for Scott Kleeb (D-NE-03). Damn nice job, folks.

I was expecting/hoping that we could raise four or five thousand. I wasn't thinking we'd raise ten thousand. That was amazing. As a fellow midwesterner with lots of Nebraska friends, I thank you. That kind of money will make a REAL difference in a place like Nebraska where ad buys are far less expensive than New York or Philadelphia. We're talking, literally, Scott can probably double his ad buy in the last week of the election because of your donations. That is huge.

There are a lot of races that need money. We know that. The top tier races have millions being poured in. Other races, like Kleeb's, aren't as high up on the national radar. That means they're not getting the donations that the very high profile races can generate, and therefore YOUR donations make a huge difference.

Joe, Rob and I are working on picking the next crop of candidates to present to you, and we will start naming names shortly. I figure we'll give you a candidate or two every other day or so, shoot for a goal of raising ten thousand a candidate, and then move on to the next pair. We will continue to choose races where the Dem has a real chance of winning, where the advertising rates aren't that expensive (i.e., not NYC or Philly), but in which the national money isn't coming in - that way, your ten thousand dollars can have a huge impact.

I'm really excited about this. Good job, folks, and thank you. Seriously. Read More......

Conservative Ohio paper takes back endorsement of GOP gubernatorial candidate, calls his conduct un-Christian

Wow.

We've been following Ken Blackwell's career for years. Our file on him is more than an inch thick. We've talked with him personally and come away impressed with his intelligence and commitment to change -- both of which are much needed in this state.But while Blackwell may still get some of our individual votes, he's lost our endorsement, for whatever it's worth. His total nastiness at the Monday debate with his opponent, Democrat Ted Strickland, has proven that he's really not the kind of man we need as our next governor. Personal attacks of dubious accuracy should have no place in a political campaign. As Strickland said, "Mr. Blackwell, you should be ashamed of yourself."

Both Blackwell and Strickland have campaigned as religious people. Blackwell is an evangelical Christian and Strickland an ordained Methodist minister. The Monday debate showed which one has a greater understanding of Christian conduct.

You can watch the part of the debate that apparently flipped out the conservative paper against the Republican candidate, Ken Blackwell.



TPM Muckraker reports that Blackwell is also trying to start a whisper campaign that Strickland is gay. Which is funny coming from a Republican when practically half his party in Washington is gay.

Hat tip (or hate tip, in this case) to Paint Ohio Blue blog. Read More......

George Allen can't explain his position on Iraq. That's what the GOP defines as "flip-flopping"

Funny how this happened. Allen adopted the Bush/Rove "stay the course" political strategy. But, it's hurting him. His fellow Senator from Virginia is advocating a major policy change. But, George is trapped. He's only viewed Iraq through a political prism. Policy never mattered to George. He's a policy lightweight.

Bush even made it worse for Allen when he gave one of those terror, stay the course, speeches at an Allen fundraiser on Thursday. Froomkin wondered if it was "more than Allen wanted?" And, as noted below, both Bush and Rummy are digging in their heels.

Allen is in deep trouble in his campaign. Iraq is a political problem for the pseudo-cowboy. With no clue, Allen has started flip-flopping:

Republican Sen. George Allen called for "changes in tactics" in how the U.S. is fighting the Iraq war on Friday as he continued to face questions about his morphing position on the war.

"The situation there is one that needs adjustments, that needs changes in tactics. We need to adapt to the situation on the ground," Allen said at a campaign event Friday morning with GOP leaders of the state legislature.

Allen's real problem is that he has no core. He's a caricature. Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

It's the weekend....only three weekends left.

More proof from the non-partisan experts that something is happening. The Cook Political Report made more House ratings changes yesterday. All are changes in the right direction:

IN-03 Souder Solid Republican to Likely Republican

NY-25 Walsh Likely Republican to Lean Republican

OH-02 Schmidt Likely Republican to Lean Republican

PA-04 Hart Likely Republican to Lean Republican

PA-08 Fitzpatrick Lean Republican to Toss Up

SC-05 Spratt Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic

WA-05 McMorris Solid Republican to Likely Republican

WV-01 Mollohan Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic

This is all good for 17 days out. The Cook Political Report carries weight. This means the GOP is defending more seats they thought were safe.

Okay. What else? Read More......

More fallout in Blair cabinet

Can you believe it? People actually resign in the UK instead of towing the line and humiliating themselves. Wow, what a concept. It's always amazed me that nobody seems to resign in the US no matter what the circumstances and regardless of how many lies they are asked to promote. Looks like a few lessons to be learned from our friends in London.

Clare Short angrily resigned yesterday as a Labour MP, condemning Tony Blair for "half truths and deceits" over the war on Iraq and accusing his Government of being "arrogant" and "error-prone".

The former Cabinet minister furiously attacked the Chief Whip Jacqui Smith for bringing about the "breaking point" that forced her to quit the Labour whip in the Commons after 23 years.

She also accused the Labour leadership of dirty tricks by leaking her letter of resignation to the press, saying it had been posted privately to the Chief Whip on Thursday.

It all sounds so familiar. In addition to criticizing the war in Iraq, she also nails it on the erosion of civil liberties, something that has been eroded both in the US and UK in the name of the so-called war on terror.

"But then there is the issue of top up fees, all the erosion of civil liberties, cash for peerages - more and more errors have come piling on to depart more for social democratic values that have made it more difficult to support the Government."

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CNN poll: 74% of Americans think Congress out of touch

This number is almost the same as the results in 1994 when the GOP came to power. Also included in the poll is a fair amount of pessimism with the American public about the American dream. When you hand out so much on a silver platter to your friends who already have silver platters, tables, houses and private jets, surprisingly the public finds it hard to see any opportunity to rise and live the American dream.

Seventy-nine percent of those surveyed in the new Opinion Research poll said they feel big business does have too much influence over the administration's decisions. The poll comes after a congressional lobbying scandal and questions about White House ties to the Halliburton Co., a key U.S. contractor in the Iraq war.

The percentage of people who feel the administration is overly influenced by corporations is up 10 percentage points from a poll conducted in April 2001, a few months after Bush became president.

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