Latest in Maine, good but let's wait and see...

Question 1: There is a Maine state law on the books that makes it illegal to discriminate against gays in employment. Should that law be repealed? (This is my summary of what the referendum does.)

216 of 634 precincts - 34 percent reporting

Yes, repeal the pro-gay law - 61,022 - 43 percent
No, do not repeal it - 80,125 - 57 percent

Source: MaineToday Read the rest of this post...

Keep the election results coming in

We still got Maine and California, what you hearing? Read the rest of this post...

FOX News: Because you can't handle the truth

Astute AMERICAblog reader Wildekid pointed out that FOX News seems to be having a hard time dealing with the election results tonight. Or rather, they're dealing with them quite easily - just report them in really really really small type hidden on the page.

While the other news sources, from ABC to the Wall Street Journal, all are reporting the Dem victories in NJ and VA as the top story, on the FOX News Web site, well, those results are buried so small I missed them the first time. FOX does let you know, however, that a gay marriage ban in Texas passed (this was expected), and that Kansas is yet again dissing evolution. I guess FOX needs to pander to its base can't handle the fact that it's no longer 1918, let alone the realities of the truth.

Click on each screen capture of the home pages below to see the image in a legible size.

ABC



CNN



The Wall Street Journal



And then there's FOX

Read the rest of this post...

Coat tails? Try cement boots

Read the rest of this post...

This is tentative, but pro-equality/anti-bigotry forces in the lead in Maine so far

Definitely not counting that chicken till it hatches, but still... Read the rest of this post...

Dem Corzine wins in NJ

Bush is toast. Read the rest of this post...

AP announces Dem wins VA governor's race

So glad chimpy paid a visit last night! :-)

Smells like, victory. Read the rest of this post...

I want election results, damn it

Did we win yet? Read the rest of this post...

Kansas board of education again rules against evolution

But look on the bright side. We no longer have to worry about those pesky Kansas kids competing with our kids to get into Harvard.

Funny, the more they deny descending from monkeys, the more they start acting like them. Read the rest of this post...

It's election night - please do post any updates about any elections you hear

DailyKos is usually the most up-to-date on election stuff. Be sure to keep checking them out and getting back to us!

Virginia results. Read the rest of this post...

New DemsTV is up - we tried the McLaughlin Group style again this week, with better results

UPDATE: The link is having issues. If you click and get a blank page, hit refresh and you should get the page.

Some of you know that a group of friends and I put together a weekly, or so, online TV show of political punditry called DemsTV. We usually do the show, well, differently. I'm at a desk, and the pundits are asked questions individually. This new format, in beta mode - call it DemsTV 1.5 - is an effort to get more conversation going between the pundits, but even more importantly, to get more INTERESTING conversation going. I for one find that I come up with more interesting analyses when I'm challenged by others in a conversation. Anyway, that's the goal.

Take a look and see what you think. Again, we want feedback, so let 'er rip. What do you like, what don't you like, what works, what doesn't, suggestions for what to do, what not to do, etc?

Watch the show here. Read the rest of this post...

New "leak" probe exploding in GOP's face. Trent Lott says it was likely GOP Senators, or Cheney, who leaked it

Oh my. It is a good day to be a Democrat :-)

From the DSCC:

Last Wednesday, the Washington Post ran a front page story revealing that there are secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. Apparently thinking that current and/or former CIA officials leaked this story, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist today launched a formal investigation into the leak. But now, Sen. Trent Lott, one of their own, is suggesting that the Republican efforts could boomerang… in a huge way. Were National Republicans Involved in Yet ANOTHER CIA Leak??

Lott: “We Can’t Keep Our Mouths Shut.” Sen. Trent Lott “stunned reporters” by saying that the issue of secret CIA prisons was discussed at a Republican-only lunch, attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, last Tuesday, the day before the Washington Post reported the story. Lott said of the Washington Post story, “a lot of it came out of that room on Tuesday” and he said of his Senate Republican colleagues, “we can’t keep our mouths shut.” [CNN, “The Situation Room,” 11/8/05]

CNN Calls Potential Senate Republican Leak “Boomerang.” Discussing the Republican investigation into the CIA prison leak and Sen. Trent Lott’s subsequent comments, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “That would really boomerang against Hastert and Frist…that would be a bombshell…” [CNN, “The Situation Room,” 11/8/05]

Were National Republicans Involved in Yet ANOTHER CIA Leak??

What the CNN video here, with Lott implicating GOP Senators. Read the rest of this post...

Former Senator Bob Graham says Cheney was co-conspirator with Libby in RoveGate treason case

Now THAT'S a Democrat. Read the rest of this post...

DC 911 phone system kills yet another

I was heavily involved in uncovering police corruption/incompetence issues in DC a few years back and it's almost amusing, if it weren't so sad and tragic, to read the headlines in the papers two and three years after I'd launched a one-man campaign to try to get the mayor of DC and the city council to actually do something substantive and real about the crime epidemic in our city.

To wit: today's news that the DC 911 phone system incompetence killed yet another DC resident. While it's all nice and good for the police and the city council to cry crocodile tears over the death of this man - who happens to be a friend of a friend - I was involved in exposing the incompetence of the city's 911 phone system, run by the police department, two and three years. Back then, the DC police's incompetent management of the system led to the death of a young man in a Dupont Circle house fire. Scores of neighbors tried to call 911, but no one answered.

The DC police and the mayor denied the calls even occured, until several months of investigating and prodding and interviewing witnesses uncovered that YES INDEED it was the 911 system that screwed up. Of course it wasn't the DC police or the mayor who uncovered the problem - they just denied it from the beginning, then tried to cover it up. It was me working a few city councilmembers who finally uncovered that the city contributed to the death of this young kid, and more importantly, that our 911 system was totally screwed up (more deaths ensued).

How many times do people need to die before the city council, the mayor, and the police chief actually give a damn and fix this city?

My guess is, it's never going to get better - at least not for a long while. This city is corrupt - not money corrupt, but incompetent corrupt. It won't get better because our politicians and leaders and police chiefs are simply unable to act like responsible adults and do something real. Sure, they pontificate a lot, but in the end nothing changes and more people die, while paying $500,000 for one bedroom for new condos in ghettos. Is this a great city or what?

And we call this the nation's capital.

There's a man -- incoherent -- covered with blood. That's the gist of the first call to 911, describing Gregory Shipe, who was shot in the head while walking his dog in Mount Pleasant.

An investigation has now revealed two emergency operators failed to give the incident proper priority. They didn't get police officers headed to the scene quickly enough -- even after the caller reported hearing a pop that could have been a gunshot. For 14 minutes that call was treated more like an accidental fall than a homicide, a city investigation finds.

Councilman Jim Graham tells The Washington Post that delay in getting police to respond may have hurt the murder investigation. Police believe the shooting was a botched robbery. No arrests have been made in the case.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Will be interesting to see the election results tonight. Read the rest of this post...

White House thinks Virginia governor's race is a referendum on Bush

Ok, well, then if you're from Virginia, make sure you vote and your friends vote. Same goes for CA, Maine, Texas, and New Jersey. How many more elections need to be lost by just 100, or 3, votes?

In jumping into the Virginia governor's race just 10 hours before polling booths open, President Bush put his credibility on the line last night and ensured that the results will be interpreted as a referendum on his troubled presidency. But the White House is gambling that after weeks of political tribulations, Bush has little more to lose.

Read the rest of this post...

Hastert and Frist love treason-leaks, but are now up in arms over leaks that show US possibly in violation of Geneva Conventions

You see, to the current crop of Republican leaders, like Senator Frist and Rep. Denny Hastert, leaks that amount to treason during wartime are a good thing, so long as you're a Republican committing the treason by putting our soldiers, our spies, and our families' lives at risk.

But to GOP leaders like Frist and Hastert, leaks are bad things when they actually expose the fact that the US may be violating the Geneva Conventions and committing war crimes by running torture camps in former Soviet prisons (gulags?) in Eastern Europe. Yes, the US acting like a Soviet dictatorship in terms of how we treat other human beings, exposing that fact is a bad thing to the current extreme crop of Republicans running the party. But the US coddling traitors during war time, that's a good thing.

And these thugs call themselves Republicans, let alone Americans?

From E&P;:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Tuesday called for a congressional investigation into who told Washington Post reporter Dana Priest about previously undisclosed CIA interrogation centers.

On Nov. 2, Priest's report on the so-called "black sites" -- which she describes as a "covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago" to interrogate some of the most important al Qaeda captives -- drew worldwide interest and focused attention on the Bush administration's anti-terror strategy.

"If accurate, such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks," Frist and Hastert said in a letter to Senate and House intelligence committee chairmen .

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told E&P; this afternoon that she believes the Post would not "knuckle under" to any subpoenas if such an investigation were convened.

Did you catch that First and Hastert just provided the exact rationale for why traitors are traditionally shot during war time.

"If accurate, such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks," Frist and Hastert said in a letter to Senate and House intelligence committee chairmen.

Yet they have the nerve to defend Karl Rove and Scooter Libby whose leaks at the very least border on treason, and they have no desire whatsoever to investigate that disclosure of information.

This is what happens when one party controls the entire government for too long. The GOP has the White House, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court (7 of 9 justices are Republican appointees), and they've had them for years. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and fair-minded Republicans are now watching their party become more and more beholdened to the Terri Schiavo wing of the party; a corrupt minority of extremists who don't represent traditional Republican values, let alone American values.

It's a sad day when the Republican Senate leader and the Republican House leader don't care that our country is now acting as criminal, as brutal, and as immoral as the Soviet Union and other petty dictatorships we fought so many wars to defeat. They don't care about the crime, they only care that someone found out.

The GOP: Soft on treason, wrong for America. Read the rest of this post...

More on the accusations that US military used chemical weapons in Iraq

The Christian Science Monitor is covering the story now. Read the rest of this post...

Army lowering standards in order to reach recruitment goals

Sounds like another brilliant plan from the Pentagon.

"We have clear experience from the 1970s with recruiting a sizable number of people from the lowest mental categories," said White. After the Vietnam War, the Army accepted a higher proportion of low-scoring recruits, leading to training and discipline problems, he added.

To achieve last month's recruiting targets, 12 percent of those accepted by the Army had the lowest acceptable results. They scored between 16 and 30 points out of a possible 99 on an aptitude test that quizzes potential soldiers on general science, mathematics and word knowledge.

Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey told reporters last month that the Army would begin accepting more people who scored in the bottom third on the military's aptitude test, increasing the proportion to 4 percent from 2 percent. The Army had kept the figure at 2 percent since 1990.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Running off to lunch Read the rest of this post...

Republicans now trying to Swift Boat Ambassador Joe Wilson over Rove-Treason-Gate

Two GOP attack dogs (who are regular pundits on FOX and have been published by Regnery, the nutty GOP publishing arm) are now trying to spread a lie about Joe Wilson, saying he revealed to them in a casual conversation in the Green Room at FOX News in 2002 (a year before Novak outed Valerie Wilson) that Valerie worked at the CIA.

Amb. Wilsons says categorically that this never happened - liked he'd blare this to two total strangers, at FOX News no less - but the two FOX News pundit-authors, who of course suddenly appear out of nowhere two years into the investigation once Scooter is indicted and the Bush White House is falling apart at the seams, are now intent on spreading their suddenly rediscovered "memory."

Coincidence? I report, you decide.

The phony report was first published at WorldNetDaily, then it was repeated tonight on the convervative talk radio John Batchelor Show. Batchelor received but refused to include the statement, below, by Amb. Wilson's and Valerie Plame's lawyer Christopher Wolf.

This is yet another clear effort by the pro-treason wing of the Republican party to resurrect Swift Boat Veteran tactics as a counter-offensive in RoveGate. I hope Wilson sues their asses off.

And lest these guys forget, it was the same Christopher Wolf, Wilson's lawyer, who sued USA Next for $25 million for stealing the wedding photo of the gay couple and using it in a homophobic anti-AARP ad. You haven't heard squat from USA Next after that little suit was filed (the suit is still ongoing). Here's hoping Wolf does an equally good job ripping these bozos.

Here's the letter from Wolf that the conservative stations don't want you to hear:

Dear Mr. Batchelor:

We have seen your posting which states that

Lt. General Tom McInerney, USAF (ret), West Point '59, will join his colleague Maj. General Paul Vallely, USA (ret), West Point '61, on my show Monday 7 November (1005 pm Eastern Time on ABC Radio Network) to repeat and expand upon Vallely's memory that Joe Wilson more than once in 2002 in the green room at Fox New Channel in Washington D.C. boasted about his wife the "CIA desk officer." McInerney has the same memory and more, since both he and Vallely were on FNC between 150 and 200 times in 2002 each.

Please be advised that the proffered allegations are utterly false and are intended to defame our client Ambassador Wilson. Broadcasting such statements will subject you to liability as the statements are knowingly false or made in reckless disregard of the trust or falsity.

We note that you have not invited any representative of Ambassador Wilson to appear on your program in order to allow the record to be corrected. Accordingly, if you insist on broadcasting the scurrilous allegations, as you threaten to do, we ask that the following statement be read in its entirety on the air:

More than two years after the start of the investigation into who leaked the identity of Valerie Wilson's secret CIA identity, Thomas McInerney and Paul Vallely, FOX News commentators and co-authors of a book published by right-wing Regnery Publishing, reportedly have come forward to falsely claim that Ambassador Joseph Wilson told them of his wife's role at the CIA before the July 2003 column by Robert Novak -- the column which revealed for the first time that Ms. Wilson was a CIA operative. It is reported that they claim Ambassador Wilson casually and repeatedly disclosed his wife's status in the waiting area at the FOX News studio in Washington, DC. Those allegations are utterly false and are defamatory. At no time did Ambassador Wilson disclose his wife's CIA employment to these people. The statements appear to be invented solely to discredit Ambassador Wilson in the wake of the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The fact that these persons have not come forward with these reported recollections until now, more that two years after the start of the highly-visible, nationally-watched investigation into who revealed Ms. Wilson's secret CIA identity, is strong evidence by itself that their alleged recollections are invented, and false. Moreover, since Ambassador Wilson never disclosed his wife's status to anyone, including close friends, it is preposterous to suggest that he would have shared the information with strangers in a waiting room. Their allegations are similar to that of the Washington Times newspaper which in an editorial claimed "that numerous neighbors were aware that she worked for the agency", when there was no basis whatsoever for that claim, as demonstrated by a news article written by the Washington Times own reporter.

It has been reported that an individual named Victor Davis Hanson also has said that Ambassador Wilson told Mr. Hanson in a waiting room that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA. In a telephone call initiated by Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media today to counsel for Ambassador Wilson, Mr. Kincaid reported that he has spoken with Mr. Hanson, and that Mr. Hanson denies that Ambassador Wilson spoke to him about Valerie Wilson's CIA employment. Mr. Kincaid also said that while his organization, in his words, "has had its differences with Mr. Wilson", it is not proper to make things up and he intended to correct the record in an upcoming edition of Accuracy in Media's Web Site.

To suggest that Ambassador Wilson breached his own wife's secret CIA status is inexcusable and is a further attempt to smear Mr. Wilson. While one is tempted not to dignify such attacks with a response, the willingness of others to republish the scurrilous statements by these persons requires this response.

Thank you for your cooperation.

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Brutal NY Times Editorial on Bush and Cheney

Brutal, but accurate. This is a good one:

After President Bush's disastrous visit to Latin America, it's unnerving to realize that his presidency still has more than three years to run. An administration with no agenda and no competence would be hard enough to live with on the domestic front. But the rest of the world simply can't afford an American government this bad for that long.

Okay, that's all true. And they have one suggestion. Rein in the King of Torture:

The place to begin is with Dick Cheney, the dark force behind many of the administration's most disastrous policies, like the Iraq invasion and the stubborn resistance to energy conservation. Right now, the vice president is devoting himself to beating back Congressional legislation that would prohibit the torture of prisoners. This is truly a remarkable set of priorities: his former chief aide was indicted, Mr. Cheney's back is against the wall, and he's declared war on the Geneva Conventions.

Mr. Bush cannot fire Mr. Cheney, but he could do what other presidents have done to vice presidents: keep him too busy attending funerals and acting as the chairman of studies to do more harm. Mr. Bush would still have to turn his administration around, but it would at least send a signal to the nation and the world that he was in charge, and the next three years might not be as dreadful as they threaten to be right now.

The rot comes from the top in this administration. Even controlling Cheney won't change much with Chimpy still running the show.

Worst President EVER. Read the rest of this post...

20 Words - Another Iraq War Claim Lie

First, there were the 16 words:

The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
President George Bush
January 28, 2003 State of the Union address

And just eight days later, there are the 20 Words:

I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al-Qaeda.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell
February 5, 2003 U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council

Just eight days later...

From AFP, a newly declassified report shows that the Bush administration knew there were doubts about another part of their rationale for going to war in Iraq - Saddam's connections to Al-Qaeda. Via Yahoo:

US military intelligence warned the Bush administration as early as February 2002 that its key source on Al-Qaeda's relationship with Iraq had provided "intentionally misleading" data, according to a declassified report.

Nevertheless, eight months later, President George W. Bush went public with charges that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein had trained members of Osama bin Laden's terror network in manufacturing deadly poisons and gases.

These same accusations had found their way into then-secretary of state Colin Powell's February 2003 speech before the UN Security Council, in which he outlined the US rationale for military action against Iraq.
...
The administration's drumbeat over alleged Iraq-Qaeda ties reached a crescendo that same month when Powell went before the United Nations to accuse Iraq of hiding tons of chemical and biological weapons and nurturing nuclear ambitions.

His speech, according to congressional officials, even contained a direct reference to al-Libi's testimony, albeit not his name.

"I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al-Qaeda," insisted the secretary of state, who now says he regrets voicing many of the charges contained in that speech.

The unveiling of the documents came as Senate Democrats are stepping up pressure on their Republican colleagues, trying to force them to complete a second report on pre-war intelligence that would focus on whether members of the Bush administration had misused or intentionally misinterpreted intelligence findings.
...
Al-Libi formally recanted last year, according to congressional officials.

This is why what Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate did last week was so important. They shined a light back onto this issue. The question remains - was there a conspiracy of lies fed to the American public to bring us to war with Iraq? When the Secretary of State's Chief of Staff says there was a cabal in the White House, and over 50% of the public says that if Bush lied to us to go to war in Iraq he should be impeached, it's high time the rest of the media starts seriously covering this story.

P.S. - Check out this White House page. Quite the inspirational graphic header, no? Our tax dollars paid for it to lie to us, maybe now it can help tell the truth. Read the rest of this post...

Election Day Open Thread

VOTE. Read the rest of this post...

The Independent (UK) picks up US chemical weapons attack story

If this report is true, the US has lost all of their arguments for invading Iraq. This team just delivers one black eye for the US after another, including their inability to tell the truth.

Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.

But now new information has surfaced, including hideous photographs and videos and interviews with American soldiers who took part in the Fallujah attack, which provides graphic proof that phosphorus shells were widely deployed in the city as a weapon.

Photographs on the website of RaiTG24, the broadcaster's 24-hours news channel, www.rainews24.it, show exactly what the former soldier means. Provided by the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, dozens of high-quality, colour close-ups show bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised or turned the consistency of leather by the shells.

Read the rest of this post...

Blair now blames France for Iraq war

This stuff just can't be made up. Blame Chirac for a lot of things, sure, but the Iraq war? I wish he was joking but the poodle is actually serious. Read the rest of this post...

GOP dirty tricks in Virginia

I do love when family values Republicans show their true colors. Who would Jesus try to trick? Read the rest of this post...

Another open thread

It's 1AM. I'm thinking a big ole substantive post just doesn't seem right. Read the rest of this post...