Please help us take down anti-gay bigot Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO-04)

Our next candidate we are seeking donations for is Democrat Angie Paccione of Colorado. Paccione is taking on Republican Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, the author and chief sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment - i.e., the legislation that would amend the US Constitution to make it anti-gay.

This race is extremely competitive and Paccione has a real chance to take down Musgrave, the religious right darling and close friend of George Bush who thinks gay marriage is the most important issue in America (seriously).

You can read much more about Paccione - who is one hell of a fighter, and is really ripping into Musgrave - on our ActBlue donor page. And to get a sense of how courageous Paccione is: Paccione openly supports gay marriage.

You can donate via that page, or via the box at the top of this page, or the box right below. Your online donations are totally secure, and neither ActBlue or I take any cut of your donation - 100% goes to the candidate.

Let's give the religious right a black eye they'll never forget.

Angie Paccione (CO-04): $

Check the top of the blog to see how much has been donated already by AMERICAblog readers. The figure updates every 5 minutes. Read More......

An 8-minute video about Iraq you need to watch

Basically, it's a disaster. Above you see members of the Iraqi Army under arrest for apparently attacking US troops. Those would be the guys we're relying on to "stand up" so we can "stand down."

More from Editor & Publisher about the movie. Read More......

GOP child sex predator singled out "hot" boys

Would you send your child to Washington to work as a Page after the way the Republicans have handled this scandal? Read More......

Former aide says GOP congressman broke law

Rep. Jon Porter (R-NN) is the next contestant on the Price is Right! Read More......

GOP columnist slams Limbaugh, Hannity for destroying Republican party

I love the smell of civil war in the morning. Smells like victory.

“Tell us, why, again, Republicans need 55 senators?” Rush Limbaugh asked not long ago. “Why do we need 55 senators when we have so many malcontents and traitors in the bunch? And they all happen to be from the Northeast, and they all happen to be moderates, they all happen to be liberals.”

In that spirit, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies set out to rid the party of this threat. It set up a “RINO Hunters Club” to “root out and hunt down” the squishy centrists who are Republicans in Name Only. The Club for Growth ran candidates to defeat them. Last week on his radio show, Sean Hannity blasted the RINO’s again, saying they were costing good conservatives their jobs....

Why have 55 Republican senators? Why not 25? Why not 15 brave and true? Throw in a few dozen pure-minded Republican House members and you could hold the next Republican convention in a living room.

For the past several years, Republican elites have treated the moderates, upon whom their majority depended, as the deformed cousins of their movement. Congressmen from rock-ribbed Republican districts who’ve never had to confront a dissenting view applaud themselves for their manly courage while scorning the effete wispiness of Northeastern Republicans who go home and battle derision every weekend....

The central fight in American politics now is over where the line is demarking the two zones, and the central Republican problem is that every time the party mobilizes its exurban base it further alienates the marginal voters in traditional suburbs where Congressional elections are won or lost....

So there goes your majority. In the years ahead, Republicans can either reintroduce themselves to the blue-state suburbs or they can ask themselves the dittohead question: Tell us, why, again, do we need to be a governing party anyway?

Excellent point. It's easy to be bold and courageous about your beliefs when your entire audience already agrees with you. Read More......

Open thread

And some updates:

1. You may have noticed that we've added Digg This! and Add to del.icio.us buttons below every post. If you know what those sites are, then I don't need to explain anything. And if you don't know, well, then I'm probably the wrong guy to explain them (perhaps someone can do a good quick summary in the comments). Basically, they're ways of promoting individual posts around the Internet if you think the posts are particularly good. Please take advantage of the links if you think the posts are deserving.

2. Ads. As always, please visit our advertisers and see what they have to say. A lot of them are political ads from friendly organizations - please take action when they ask you to, if you agree with their message.

3. YouTube. You may not know that you can double click the image of a YouTube video on our site and it takes you to that video's home page on YouTube. From there you can rate the video - the more ratings, and the higher the ratings, the better chance that other people will see the video. So be sure to rate away if the video is particularly good. Read More......

Brilliant Dem ads spoof Mac vs. PC ads

These are brilliant. Lots more on DKos.

Here is the first spoof ad:



Here is the Mac ad that it's spoofing:



Here is the second spoof ad:



Here is the second Mac ad that it's spoofing:

Read More......

Bush uses gay rights flag as backdrop for ABC interview

UPDATE: As some of our commenters have noted, everything this White House does is scripted. There is simply no way that Bush did this interview without his people intentionally choosing to have a rainbow flag right behind his head, framing the entire shot. Look at these photos, that flag was clearly meant to be where it is in the frame. The question is why?

Here's Bush with the rainbow flag behind him:



Here's a close-up of Bush and the flag:



And here's the gay rights flag:



They're simply too similar to be anything else. Yes, there is one more row of color in the gay flag vs. Bush's rainbow flag, but I've never seen flags like this other than the gay flag. Normally I'd say this is just a hysterical coincidence. But after the White House defending Secretary of State Condi Rice's description of a gay couple as married last week - mind you, not only did the White House defend what Rice said, but Rice made the announcement in front of Mrs. Bush - I'm smelling a subliminal rat here.

It's very difficult to conclude other than someone in the White House has clearly decided to send out the silent code that "gay is okay" right before the election. It is very difficult to believe that all of this is just coincidence.

Then again, it's not like the Bush administration, including the White House, isn't full of gays - so perhaps the pink mafia strikes again. (Anyone see George Allen's staff, or the RNC, doing any last minute decorating on the set before Bush spoke?).

PS In all fairness to Bush, it's possible this isn't the gay rights flag at all. It may simply be the PACE flag ("Peace" in Italian) used by opponents of the war in Iraq.

Read More......

If Democrats win back the House, this guy gets all the credit

Fascinating profile of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) in Sunday's Washington Post:

Asked if he ever has regrets about his hardball habits, Emanuel stares into his glass of tea for a long moment.

"Look, you're never as tough as they say you are," he says finally.

But the self-reflection lasts only as long as it takes for him to remember the tactics of the other side.

"They call Tammy Duckworth a cut-and-runner when she left two legs in Iraq?" he shouts, jabbing a finger in the air, drawing stares from around the deli. "How dare they! I'm going to give them the medicine that they've been giving out. That's what shocks them."

It takes a Chicagoan to fight a Republican on their own turf. Read More......

Dems asked Kerry to share his millions to help Dem candidates, Kerry said no

Boston Globe:

Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, has given less than $15,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee since the beginning of 2005. Though he has helped candidates in a variety of other ways, his last major financial contribution to the DSCC came a month after he lost the 2004 presidential election, when he used $1 million in leftover campaign funds to help the committee retire its debt....

Last month, when DSCC officials asked all Democratic senators for last-call financial contributions before Election Day, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts was among three lawmakers who donated $1 million each. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York signed a check for $2 million.

Kerry, however, kept his checkbook shut. The senator's aides said he has no plans to give again.

Jerry Lundergan, chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party, said he contacted Kerry's advisers on Thursday, urging them to tell the senator how much the congressional campaigns need his money.

"I have made my wishes known," said Lundergan, whose state features two close House races in which Democrats have a good chance to oust incumbent Republicans. "It's his money to do with what he wants to. But I only hope that he shares some of it with those states, such as Kentucky, which contributed very extensively to his campaign."

Read More......

Bush lied today saying "We've never been 'stay the course'"

This morning, on "This Week," George Bush said "Well, listen. We've never been 'stay the course.'" (Think Progress has the video.)

He lied. Bush has been saying "stay the course" for years. In July of 2003, Bush was saying that exact phrase:

"We're making steady progress," he said. "A free Iraq will mean a peaceful world. And it's very important for us to stay the course, and we will stay the course."

Isn't Dick Cheney part of the Bush "we"? Just months ago, on July 21, 2006, Dick Cheney said "stay the course" was their position:

"This conflict is a long way from over," Cheney said at a fundraising appearance for a GOP congressional candidate. "It's going to be a battle that will last for a very long time. It is absolutely essential that we stay the course."

Unfortunately for the troops in Iraq and the Iraqi people, the Bush "stay the course" strategy was really just a political strategy. It's not working as a political strategy and it's never worked as an Iraq strategy.

Bush just lies. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

Politics and Iraq. Actually, they're the same thing. Here's today lineup:

ABC's "This Week"... — President Bush; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; professional bowler Kelly Kulick.

CBS' "Face the Nation"... — Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.

NBC's "Meet the Press"... — Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

CNN's "Late Edition"... — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; former Secretary of State Alexander Haig; former national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

"Fox News Sunday"... — Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., John Warner, R-Va., Joe Biden, D-Del., and Carl Levin, D-Mich.; business mogul Richard Branson.

Watch and dissect. Read More......

"Stupidity" and "arrogance" in Iraq by US

I couldn't agree any more.

A senior US diplomat said yesterday that the United States had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq, but warned that failure in the violence-ridden Arab nation would be a disaster for the entire region.

In an interview with al-Jazeera, Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US State Department, also said the US was ready to talk with any Iraqi group - excluding al- Qa'ida in Iraq - to reach national reconciliation in the country, which is racked by widening sectarian strife as well as an enduring insurgency.

"We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq," he said. "We are open to dialogue because we all know that, at the end of the day, the hell and the killings in Iraq are linked to an effective Iraqi national reconciliation," he said, speaking in Arabic.

As for the worries of failure, maybe the crazies that thought up this fiasco and the GOP who towed the line should have done some more thinking before making the US responsible for years of trouble. Read More......

Darwin to go online

What a cool project! As long as the theocrats currently running America don't block out the site it should provide hours/day/months of fascinating reading and listening. It is not up yet but keep trying.

The project, www.darwin-online.org.uk, is being overseen by Dr John van Wyhe of Christ's College, Cambridge, Darwin's alma mater.

Consisting of 50,000 pages of searchable text and 40,000 images of original publications, a university spokesman said it was "the first-ever undertaking of its kind" and "the largest collection of Darwin's writings ever published".

Read More......

Bush now wants to set a "timetable" in Iraq

I hear that means the terrorists have won. Read More......

Wash Post: Dems increase chances of taking back the Senate

Let me just say, I told you so. No, I didn't say that Dems would take back the House and Senate. I said a long time ago that even though it looked as if Dems had no chance to take back the House and Senate, things change in politics when you least expect it. That there is always reason for hope. That you should never trust the doomsayers.

Now, having said that, will we win? I dunno. But the fact remains that we didn't have a chance in hell a year ago, and now we may win both bodies. That is how quickly, and massively, the winds can shift in politics. Never give up hope.

And here's the NYT's take, it's interesting. Read More......