2 more House races decided, 7 remain undecided

Reuters

Election officials in Wyoming and Georgia certified the incumbents as winners in two close races yesterday. Their challengers did not concede and had 48 hours to ask for a recount.

In Georgia, Rep. John Barrow (D) defeated Republican Max Burns by 864 votes out of more than 140,000 cast. In Wyoming, Rep. Barbara Cubin (R) beat Democrat Gary Trauner by about 1,000 votes out of nearly 200,000 cast.

Barrow's victory means Democrats successfully defended every seat they held in the House and Senate, as they rolled to majorities in both chambers of Congress during last week's voting.

Since they were both incumbents, there's no change in the total number of dems vs repubs in the House, but still, the Dems didn't lose a single seat in this election. That's a message from the voters. Read the rest of this post...

US helps round out bottom of global climate rankings

Being in close company with China, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia is not what we should expect when it comes to critical issues such as the climate. Outside of California, the GOP has yet to come to grips with the realization that participating in efforts to combat global warming not only helps the planet, it is a new business opportunity. The GOP is stuck in a time warp and once again fail to see beyond what their financial supporters tell them. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

So, I was thinking. First you've got this story. Then you've got this story. What's stopping them from putting one plus one together? Read the rest of this post...

Former Bush cabinet secretary Tommy Thompson explores presidential run

I doubt the family values crowd will be very happy with Mr. Thompson once he's fully vetted. Let's just leave it at that for now. Read the rest of this post...

Bush still pushing ultra-conservatives for judgeships

So much for bi-partisanship. Right-wing Bush is back -- or, rather, he never left. Today, Bush sent six judicial nominees to the Senate. Five of them were vociferously opposed by Democrats earlier this year:

The White House on Wednesday submitted Terrence Boyle of North Carolina and William James Haynes II of Virginia to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.; Michael Brunson Wallace of Mississippi to the 5th Circuit in New Orleans; Peter Keisler of Maryland to the District of Columbia Circuit; and William Gerry Myers III and Norman Randy Smith, both of Idaho, for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.

Everyone except Keisler has generated intense opposition from Democrats.

Under Senate rules the nominations must be resubmitted after Congress takes an extended break, as was the case this year for the 2006 election.

"Democrats have asked the president to be bipartisan, but this is a clear slap in the face at our request," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Judiciary Committee. "For the sake of the country, we hope that this is an aberration because the president feels he must placate his hard-right base, rather than an indication of things to come."

Chances are it's not an aberration. Bush is still playing to his base. That strategy failed him in 2006. But, Bush isn't good at avoiding failed strategies. He just sticks with them. Read the rest of this post...

Here we go again

This just in. Sources close to the Abramoff investigation say Harry Reid might have been fingered by Abramoff as one of the Senators he peddled influence to, or from, or whatever.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's not breaking news. It's a rehashed story from almost a year ago. A story that's already been debunked again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

Never mind. Read the rest of this post...

The trouble with "unity government" in Iraq

Prime Minister Maliki is apparently about to revamp his Cabinet. His current collection of Ministers results from intense U.S. and international pressure to establish a "unity government" following last year's elections, and for some reason people thought these Ministers would all work together in magical harmony -- despite having no affection, never mind loyalty, for each other -- to fix Iraq. It turns out, of course, that the Ministers are answering to the leaders of their particular parties and/or sects rather than Maliki himself.

While the U.S. continue to look backwards ("How can we go back to the possibility of a liberalized Iraq?"), Iraqis understand where this is going and they're hedging their bets. Odds are strong that Iraq will be run at a local level by religious and ethnic parties and their respective militias, and with so much oil money to be had, the schemes of corruption and local management are being established. If it continues along the current path, Iraq will be like a city run by the mafia, writ large (both in size and in profits). Its leaders won't be unlike Russian oligarchs, for example, with one foot in legitimate business and governance and the other firmly rooted in corruption and malfeasance.

This process is accelerated when the government is working at cross-purposes with itself. There are a couple solutions to this kind of impasse: a broad-based political agreement or dominance by one particular group that can assert its will. A political agreement requires that all major sides have leaders who can deliver their followers, which is extremely doubtful for the Sunnis and questionable for the Shia (only the Kurdish leaders can be counted on to control their people), as well as the desire for a solution. Right now the rewards for winning these battles (oil revenues) are so great, I don't think leaders are willing to compromise. As for granting power to one group, perhaps that's what Maliki will do with his new Cabinet. If he gives the Kurds increasing autonomy and oil rights, they'll likely back him in Parliament, and he may be able to get enough Shia support to marginalize Sunni influence. The changes he makes in Parliament should be a significant indication of the plans of the ruling Shia elites. Either way, the idea that all parties would work together in government is being exposed as the silliness it always was. Read the rest of this post...

Opponents of withdrawing from Iraq say the only answer is to INCREASE troops levels

Yes, there's a topic no one is talking about. The military guys who say it would be a disaster if we pull out of Iraq, what they propose is that we send more troops. Just like John McCain, they say the same thing - more and more and more troops. How is this not the Vietnamization of the Iraq war - slowly, slowly upping the US presence, but never enough to solve the problem?

Some day the American people get to wake up from their stupor and face a stark fact. They have three choices:

1. Stay in Iraq at the current troops levels, watch the country slide into a civil war, and have zero ability to stop it. Things keep getting worse, US troops keep dying, we never win.

2. Send lots more US troops to Iraq - where do we find them? a draft - and maybe we can stabilize the country over the next ten to forty years, maybe, while US troops keep dying.

3. Withdraw troops from Iraq, watch the country slide into a civil war, and have zero ability to stop it. Things keep getting worse, US troops no longer die, we never win.

This gentleman at the Brookings Institution illustrates the logical fallacy the military "experts" find themselves in on Iraq:

"If we start pulling out troops and the violence gets worse and the control of the militias increases and people become confirmed in their suspicion that the United States is not going to be there to prevent civil war, they are to going to start making decisions today to prepare for the eventuality of civil war tomorrow," he said. "That is how civil wars start."

That is how the civil war starts? It's already started. The militias will gain more control over the country? They are gaining control now. The patient is terminal, and you keep telling us what's going to happen if the patient gets sick. We get it. The patient isn't just sick already, the patient is dying. Stop telling us how bad it could get IF the patient gets sick, it IS going to get bad and there is nothing we or you can do about it.

At some point, someone, please ask one of these brainiacs if they think maintaining the current US presence in Iraq will ever solve the crisis. The answer is no. Read the rest of this post...

Chuck Schumer thanks online community for role in election

A very nice note from Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair Chuck Schumer (D-NY), posted on DailyKos, thanking the online community for its help during the election.

In the comments, Schumer also weighs in on the Lieberman/Lamont race. Schumer notes, correctly, that there was no point in giving Lamont money because he's rich, could self-finance his campaign, and therefore didn't need outside donations - compare that to other races in which the Democrat could not pay their own way. With a limited pool of money, who should get it, assuming both have an equal shot at winning - the rich guy, or the candidate who doesn't have cash?

Secondly, Schumer also notes - though rather subtly - that the DSCC was focused on helping Democrats win Republican seats, and this was not a Republican seat. What Schumer really means, if I may, is that his goal, our goal, was, rightly, to win back the Senate. Since Lieberman and Lamont both said they would caucus with the Democrats, no matter which one won, it would not affect the Democrats' efforts to win back the Senate, no matter how distasteful of a Democrat Lieberman may be.

Compare that to Virginia, in which Democrat Jim Webb was running against Republican George Allen, or Rhode Island, where Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse was running against Republican Lincoln Chafee, or Ohio, where Democrat Sherrod Brown was running against Republican Mike Dewine. If we had lost any of the latter 3 races, we would no longer control the Senate. If we lost the Lamont/Lieberman race, and we did (so to speak), we would continue to control the Senate, and we do.

That's a cold, calculated, callous analysis. But it's also true. Winning back the Senate (and the House) were our number one priorities - they were all that mattered, they were the metric of success. If we didn't win back the Senate and/or the House, we'd have 2 more years of anti-gay constitutional amendments, laws enabling torture and domestic spying, further limits on habeas corpus and every other constitutional and human right, no oversight whatsoever of the Bush administration's failure in Iraq, no oversight of Bush's rush to war with Iran, no effort to address the calamitous effects of global warming, further degradation of the wall between church and state, a further lurch to the right in the Supreme Court and courts across the land, and more.

Thwarting that agenda trumps any other concern.

The only goal that mattered was winning back the House and Senate. And we did. No candidate in any race is more important than that goal. Read the rest of this post...

GOP elects racist Senator, Trent Lott, to leadership

CNN just reported that Trent Lott was just elected Minority Whip by his fellow Republican Senators. Lott is now the number two GOP Senator.

You'll recall that Lott was forced from GOP leadership in 2002 after his comments praising segregationist Strom Thurmond:

Lott provoked controversy when he declared at the Thurmond birthday celebration: "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."

Now we see the face of the new GOP. It's the face of the old GOP: an avowed racist. Read the rest of this post...

They really are going to need a Republican Wife Beaters' Caucus

Yep, another one. This time it's a family values Republican in the Minnesota state legislature. Read the rest of this post...

The new Dem. members meet the Prez

Included in the orientation for new members this week was a visit to the White House to meet Bush:

The welcome at the White House was “a little surreal, when you’ve been running against them for two years,” said Chris Murphy, a Democrat who beat Representative Nancy L. Johnson in Connecticut.

President Bush posed for pictures with all the new members and chatted about their races.

“He said, ‘You beat Chocola,’ ” said Joe Donnelly, a Democrat from Indiana, where the president had campaigned for Republicans, including Mr. Donnelly’s opponent, Representative Chris Chocola.

The president said he had spent a bit of time in South Bend, the heart of Mr. Chocola’s district, Mr. Donnelly said, and “I said, ‘Yes, I’m well aware of that.’ ”

Yes, and Donnelly beat both Bush and Chocola. Read the rest of this post...

Senate Democrats get tough on Iraq

Two articles in today's Washington Post show the difference the elections made when it comes to Iraq. Democrats on the Armed Services Committee, which will include Jim Webb (D-VA) after he's sworn in, already intend to be very aggressive -- starting today:

Senate Democrats impatient to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq will inject a new political dynamic into the debate over the war beginning today as they question the military's top Middle East commander for the first time since their party swept into control of Congress this month.

Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, will face questions on the violence in Iraq and what it means for the roughly 145,000 U.S. troops there during scheduled testimony today before the Senate Armed Services Committee, senators from both parties said.

Meanwhile, the new Senate Majority Leader made it clear in an interview with the Post that Iraq is THE priority:

But it was on the issue of Iraq that he was most passionate. Voter anger over the war swept his party to power with the unlikely defeat of six Republican senators, he said. Democrats must respond to that anger, he added, with hearings to keep the heat on the Bush administration, and with calls for a regional Middle Eastern conference and a revitalized Iraqi reconstruction effort.

This quote from Reid summed up his perspective:

"Three Americans killed yesterday, four British; 150 Iraqis taken out of that building and kidnapped; 1,800-plus went through that one Baghdad morgue but that doesn't count all the dead," Reid recounted. "My displeasure with the president, he doesn't understand the urgency of this. It's all victory for him, but I don't know what that means anymore in Iraq. I do know what we are doing now doesn't work."

Bush hasn't understood the urgency. Congressional Republicans didn't hold Bush accountable. They enabled him.

This is why elections matter. Even today, two separate articles in the Washington Post outline the Democrat's aggressiveness on Iraq. It just shows the change. And, it shows that these are Democrats with power now. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

What's happening out there? Read the rest of this post...

Abramoff starting six year sentence

Still more to come for the GOP culture of corruption. The conversations continue and his sentencing for corrupting politicians and staff has yet to be finalized.

If it were up to the Justice Department, however, Abramoff wouldn't be heading to prison -- at least not yet. He could hold the key to a sweeping corruption case involving Congress, members of the Bush administration and their aides, and prosecutors said putting their star witness behind bars would impede the investigation.

But a Miami federal judge refused to delay the sentence, meaning Abramoff's cooperation will have to continue from prison, where he will be inmate No. 27593-112.

Read the rest of this post...

Blair out-flanked by Tories on carbon emissions

Another amazing moment in British politics. The Conservatives are pressing for carbon emissions targets while Blair talks the talk but now that it is time to legislate, he's going soft on the issue and allowing the Tories to be more aggressive in cleaning up the environment. He's really itching to get on the right wing speaking circuit in America with this kind of sorry behavior.

But the Government is under intense pressure to go further and it faces the embarrassing prospect that its Bill could be beefed up during its passage through Parliament. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will hold talks aimed at strengthening the measure in the House of Lords, where they can defeat Labour by joining forces.

If peers vote for annual cuts, Labour MPs who back the idea would then be more likely to rebel when the amended Bill returned to the Commons. A total of 412 MPs have signed a Commons motion calling for a 3 per cent cut in emissions each year, the highest number to sign such a petition in the last parliamentary session. The backers include 202 Labour MPs.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Bedtime Read the rest of this post...