Dems win another seat in the House, recount is over in CT, GOP incumbent lost

Excellent. Read the rest of this post...

Someone allegedly paid terrorist organizations $2 million for release of FOX News reporters

Excuse me? Someone, on behalf of FOX News, reportedly gave terrorist organizations $2m that the terrorists now say they used to buy weapons to kill Israelis? FOX says "it's possible" money was paid to terrorists? And the Bush administration, they were heavily involved in this effort to free the FOX reporters - were they aware that someone was paying off terrorists? Were they the ones who arranged the payment? This is abominable if true.

Palestinian terror groups and security organizations in the Gaza Strip received $2 million from a United States source in exchange for the release of Fox News employees Steve Centanni and Olag Wiig, who were kidnapped here last summer, a senior leader of one of the groups suspected of the abductions told WND.

The terror leader, from the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees, said his organization's share of the money was used to purchase weapons, which he said would be utilized "to hit the Zionists."

He said he expects the payments for Centanni and Wiig's freedom will encourage Palestinian groups to carry out further kidnappings.

Officials associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and its security organization, the Preventative Security Services, confirmed to WND money was paid for the release of the Fox News reporters.... the money was used to purchase weapons.

"We used 100 percent of the money for one precise goal – our war against the Zionists," the Committees leader said.

He said weapons purchased included rockets.

"Regarding the others (the Dugmash clan of the Committees) who received the money, I can tell you one thing is very clear – this went also to be used against the Zionists. I can't say every cent went to buy bombs, maybe it also went to pay for salaries, smuggling, buying shelter."....

A spokeswoman for Fox News Channel told WND she could not provide an official statement about whether Fox was aware of money paid to free its two employees.

A source at Fox told WND many parties were involved with the freedom of Centanni and Wiig, including the U.S. government, and that it was possible money was paid.

Ironically, this news comes on the heels of the leak of an internal FOX memo saying "Be On The Lookout For Any Statements From The Iraqi Insurgents...Thrilled At The Prospect Of A Dem Controlled Congress." Funny, but I bet the terrorists will be even more thrilled at the prospect of FOX News having given them $2m. Read the rest of this post...

GOP leader Bill Frist: We are not winning in Iraq

Uh oh. Read the rest of this post...

The Associated Press' sexism

Check out the caption the Associated Press put on this photo. And tell me that they would dare mention the brand and color of suit Harry Reid was wearing. This is sexist and belittling to the incoming Speaker simply because she is a woman.

Read the rest of this post...

Murtha vs. Hoyer

The battle continues for House Majority Leader, from Hotline:

Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi and political consiglieri Rep. George Miller spent the afternoon twisting the arms of colleagues who haven't expressed a majority leader preference yet. That Pelosi would be willing to stick her neck out for Rep. John Murtha astonishes many of her allies. A top union political official called it "amazing" and worried that Republicans might make Murtha an ethics poster boy the way Democrats did to ex-Rep. Tom DeLay.

Others wondered what would happen if Hoyer won... and whether Pelosi could best have shown her loyalty to Murtha and her fidelity to the smooth running of her caucus by simply staying out. Pelosi loyalists continue to insist that Murtha deserves the job and Rep. Steny Hoyer doesn't; that Murtha better represents the thrust of Democratic Party energy; that reports about Murtha's ethically challenged past and lobbyist-tied present are overwrought and incorrect; that incoming freshman need to know who's in charge. That last point unites critics and admirers of Pelosi. They see her endorsement as an experiment, of sorts, to test just how strong a hold she has over her caucus...

Read the rest of this post...

Senior Iraqi police commanders involved in abduction of 150 people today

These would be the same Iraqi police commanders who we plan on handing the country over to once they're "ready." There will never be a plan for victory in Iraq because the war is over, Bush lost. And no amount of "America!" bravado will change the fact that the patient is terminal. Read the rest of this post...

Catholic bishops adopt plan for outreach to "Persons with a Homosexual Inclination"

You really can't make this stuff up.

The document says it's not a sin to be attracted to someone of the same gender -- only to act on those feelings. The bishops also state that children of gay Catholics can undergo baptism and receive other sacraments in most cases if they are being raised in the faith.

Still, under the guidelines, parishes must instruct gays to remain celibate. The bishops are also discouraging gays from making ''general public self-disclosures'' within their churches about their sexual orientation.

''It is not sufficient for those involved in this ministry to adopt a position of distant neutrality with regard to Church teaching,'' the bishops stated. Gay outreach must include teaching that is ''welcoming yet challenging, loving but firm in the truth,'' they said.

Then again, in all fairness, it did take the Catholic church leadership until 1992 or so to exonerate Galileo for the high crime of claiming that the earth was not in fact the center of the universe (seriously). So, on "Vatican Daylight Time," this is really only the year 1630 or so. So, give them another 400 years and we should be just about the 1950s. Read the rest of this post...

Anticipated Democratic Senate committee assignments

Anticipated Committee Democratic Assignments for the 110th Congress (Subject to Negotiations Following Republican Leadership Elections)

Agriculture
CHAIR: Harkin
Leahy
Conrad
Baucus
Lincoln
Stabenow
Nelson (Ne)
Salazar
Brown
Casey
Klobuchar

Appropriations
CHAIR: Byrd
Inouye
Leahy
Harkin
Mikulski
Kohl
Murray
Dorgan
Feinstein
Durbin
Johnson
Landrieu
Reed
Lautenberg
Nelson (Ne)

Armed Services
CHAIR: Levin
Kennedy
Byrd
Lieberman
Reed
Akaka
Nelson (Fl)
Nelson (Ne)
Bayh
Clinton
Pryor
Webb
McCaskill

Banking
CHAIR: Dodd
Johnson
Reed
Schumer
Bayh
Carper
Menendez
Akaka
Brown
Casey
Tester

Commerce
CHAIR: Inouye
Rockefeller
Kerry
Dorgan
Boxer
Nelson (Fl)
Cantwell
Lautenberg
Pryor
Carper
McCaskill
Klobuchar


Energy
CHAIR: Bingaman
Akaka
Dorgan
Wyden
Johnson
Landrieu
Cantwell
Salazar
Menendez
Lincoln
Sanders
Tester

Environment Public Works
CHAIR: Boxer
Baucus
Lieberman
Carper
Clinton
Lautenberg
Cardin
Sanders
Klobuchar
Whitehouse

Finance
CHAIR: Baucus
Rockefeller
Conrad
Bingaman
Kerry
Lincoln
Wyden
Schumer
Stabenow
Cantwell
Salazar

Foreign Relations
CHAIR: Biden
Dodd
Kerry
Feingold
Boxer
Nelson (Fl)
Obama
Menendez
Cardin
Casey
Webb

HELP
CHAIR: Kennedy
Dodd
Harkin
Mikulski
Bingaman
Murray
Reed
Clinton
Obama
Sanders
Brown

Homeland and Government Affairs
CHAIR: Lieberman
Levin
Akaka
Carper
Pryor
Landrieu
Obama
McCaskill
Tester

Judiciary
CHAIR: Leahy
Kennedy
Biden
Kohl
Feinstein
Feingold
Schumer
Durbin
Cardin
Whitehouse

Intelligence
CHAIR: Rockefeller
Levin
Feinstein
Wyden
Bayh
Mikulski
Feingold
Whitehouse

Budget
CHAIR: Conrad
Murray
Wyden
Feingold
Johnson
Byrd
Nelson (Fl)
Stabenow
Menendez
Cardin
Sanders
Whitehouse

Aging
CHAIR: Kohl
Wyden
Lincoln
Bayh
Carper
Nelson (Fl)
Clinton
Salazar
Casey
McCaskill
Whitehouse

Veterans
CHAIR: Akaka
Rockefeller
Murray
Obama
Sanders
Brown
Webb
Tester

Small Business
CHAIR: Kerry
Levin
Harkin
Lieberman
Landrieu
Cantwell
Bayh
Pryor
Cardin
Tester

Rules
CHAIR: Feinstein
Dodd
Byrd
Inouye
Schumer
Durbin
Nelson (Ne)
Dorgan
Murray
Pryor

Joint Economic
CHAIR: Schumer
Kennedy
Bingaman
Klobuchar
Casey
Webb

Indian Affairs
CHAIR: Dorgan
Inouye
Conrad
Akaka
Johnson
Cantwell
McCaskill
Tester Read the rest of this post...

Mel Martinez: "The Harriet Miers of RNC Chairs," per right-wing blogs

The right-wing bloggers are ticked about the GOP picking Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) as their new party chair. Whereas I just think it's funny, since Martinez is a closet gay-o-phile, and Markos thinks the pick is good for Dems. Read the rest of this post...

South African parliament okays gay marriages

So we're now behind South Africa in terms of civil and human rights. Nice. Read the rest of this post...

Senate leadership elections are over, here are the winners

Robert C. Byrd, President Pro Temp
Harry Reid, Majority Leader
Dick Durbin, Assistant Majority Leader
Barbara Boxer, Chief Deputy Whip
Thomas R. Carper, Deputy Whip
Bill Nelson, Deputy Whip
Russell D. Feingold, Deputy Whip
Charles E. Schumer, Vice Chair of the Conference
Patty Murray, Secretary of the Conference
Charles E. Schumer, Chairman of Campaign Committee
Byron L. Dorgan, Chairman of Policy Committee
Debbie Stabenow, Chair of Steering and Outreach Committee
Jeff Bingaman, Chairman of Committee Outreach
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vice Chair of Committee Outreach
Blanche L. Lincoln, Chair of Rural Outreach Read the rest of this post...

Rahmbo

A great profile in the Chicago Tribune about Cong. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the guy who headed up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) the past two years - that's the congressional body charged with electing Democrats to the US House.

There's some controversy in blogistan over Rahm. Some people can't stand him, particularly because he didn't support (or opposed) candidates they liked and because he openly dissed Howard Dean. Others find Rahm's take-no-prisoners knife-them-in-their-sleep attitude refreshing for a Democrat. You can count AMERICAblog among the latter.

We like Rahm foremost because we won. As Emanuel himself says in the Trib profile, there's one metric for success in elections: winning. And we won, period. That doesn't mean Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean doesn't share credit. He does. As do incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY, the guy running the Senate counterpart to the DCCC, known as the DSCC), and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

But today we're talking about Rahm. The guy is an asshole, to be sure. But he's our asshole. And it's about time we had one.

From the Chicago Trib (the story is huge, but actually a quick read, I suggest you check it out):

Democrats had never raised enough money. Emanuel, a savvy fundraiser who shaped those skills under Richard M. Daley and Bill Clinton, yelled at colleagues and threatened his candidates into generating an unprecedented amount of campaign cash.

Democrats had a history of appeasing party constituencies. Emanuel tore up the old litmus tests on abortion, gun control and other issues. With techniques that would make a Big Ten football coach blush, he recruited candidates who could mount tough challenges in some of the reddest patches of America.

Democrats had blanched at hardball. Emanuel, jokingly called "Rahmbo" even by his mother, muscled weaker Democrats out of races in favor of stronger ones, and ridiculed the chairman of his own party.

In January 2005, when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked Emanuel to head the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, experts predicted that the party would take perhaps three seats. On Tuesday, it picked up at least 28, changing the course of the Bush presidency....

From the outset, there could be only one measure of success: the number of seats the Democrats won. Bill Paxon, a former New York congressman who held Emanuel's job for the Republicans when they seized the House in 1994, explained the unforgiving math.

"Unlike a lot of things in government where there is compromise, there is only one result--you either win or you lose--and you are judged on that," Paxon said. "You can look at fundraising, candidate recruitment and other things, but they are meaningless. The only thing that matters is if you win or lose."

This paragraph is even better than Harry Reid having an opinion on Britney Spears' mojo:

Central to Emanuel's ability to unnerve his political enemies is his fierce intensity, a quality that wasn't initially apparent as he grew up on the North Shore of Chicago. He played peacemaker between his older brother Ezekiel and his younger brother Ari, and he pirouetted around the house. "Ari would be wrestling, Zeke would be pondering deep thoughts, and Rahmmy would be leaping down the stairs and doing ballet dance twirls," his mother, Marsha, recalled.

He's willing to take on the traditional pain-in-the-asses in the Democratic party:

Emanuel was privately contemptuous of such complaints. He saw the Black Caucus as one more party faction, like conservative Democrats, that would rather complain than work. Asked about the number of black staffers at the DCCC--two African-Americans were on his senior staff of about 10 people--he waved his hand dismissively. "You know that every [DCCC] chairman has faced the same criticism?" he said. "OK. So I don't give a [expletive]," he added, literally spitting.

He has the "Democratic problem" down pat:

"You've got to have a thirst for winning," he said. "You know what our party thinks? `We're good people with good ideas. That's just enough, isn't it?' Being tough enough, mean enough and vicious enough is just not what they want. . . . They just want to be patted on the back for the noble effort. No."

To get a sense of the Emanuel boys, and what we're dealing with, here's what the Trib had to say about Rahm's brother, Ari:

Ari went to Hollywood and has become an enormously wealthy agent, not to mention the inspiration for the bombastic Ari Gold character on HBO's "Entourage."

Oh yeah. Rahm is also a fellow Chicagoan. And his birthday is two days after mine. Enough said. Read the rest of this post...

Up to 150 people kidnapped, all at once, in Baghdad today

Jesus Christ.

Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped up to 150 staff and visitors in a lightning raid on a government research institute in downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, the largest mass abduction since the start of the U.S. occupation....

''It was quick operation. It took about 10 to 15 minutes,'' Theyab said. ''It was a four-story building and the gunmen went to the four stories.''....

Police and witnesses said about 80 gunmen were involved in the raid on the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Scholarships and Cultural Relations Directorate in the downtown Karradah district.

Read the rest of this post...

Senate Dems. pick leaders today -- Majority Leaders

They're picking the Majority Leader today in the Senate Democratic Caucus. That's got such a nice ring to it. Running the Senate is a merciless job. There are 99 other prima donnas who each have the power to slow things down. The Senate is so much more free-wheeling than the very rigid and tightly-controlled House. But, Harry Reid is more than up to the task:

Barely a week has passed since the midterm elections in which the Democrats wrested Senate control from the Republicans. Not wasting time, Senate Democrats will be caucusing Tuesday to pick their leaders for the next Congress.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada was unchallenged to become the schedule-setting majority leader, succeeding possible presidential candidate Bill Frist, R-Tenn., whose self-imposed two-term limit expires this year.

The vote-counting Democratic whip is expected to be Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois. Democratic leaders have asked Sen. Charles Schumer of New York to continue as the chairman of the party's senatorial campaign committee after overseeing last week's elections.

On the GOP side, Trent Lott is making a comeback try for a leadership job. And, they have to fill that third-ranking job left open by the loss of Santorum.

Controlling the agenda and what makes it on to the Senate floor are such powerful tools. We're not going to see Harry Reid and the Democrats bringing the gay-bashing constitutional amendment up for a vote. The days of hate-filled legislating are over -- for the time being. Read the rest of this post...

In Ohio's 15th CD, Democrat Kilroy keeps up the pressure to count all the ballots

Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy is still in campaign mode. Now, it's a campaign to count all the votes in her race against incumbent Deborah Pryce:

Just days after the balloting that left her 3,600 votes away from a seat in Congress, Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy has reactivated her campaign to sniff out a few thousand voters who could hold the key to the election.

Kilroy’s campaign called about 70,000 voters last weekend and aired television and radio ads asking people who cast provisional ballots to contact the campaign and county boards of elections to make sure their votes in the 15 th Congressional District are counted.

Kilroy came up 3,536 votes short of toppling Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce of Upper Arlington, but she did not concede the election last week. Kilroy and her supporters think she could win after provisional and absentee votes are counted next week.

That's what we've come to in America -- and Ohio. Don't forget, Ken Blackwell is still the Secretary of State in Ohio. Candidates now have to run campaigns after election day to make sure that all the votes are counted.

In Kilroy's race, this is a very smart strategy. She can still pull this out. She has to be aggressive:

Slightly more than 10,000 people in the 15 th Congressional District cast provisional ballots, which are required when voters cannot produce identification establishing their residency.

Kilroy’s campaign thinks that it will capture the majority of those votes because transient voters tend to favor Democrats — hence the fresh blast of campaign ads nearly a week after the election.

"We’re making sure as many voters as possible who voted provisionally have their ballots counted," Kilroy spokeswoman Amanda Wurst said. "We believe the vast majority of those are voters who supported Mary Jo Kilroy."

So, if the votes get counted, Mary Jo Kilroy will be the next member of Congress from Ohio's 15th CD. The GOP wants to disenfranchise voters. It's the only way they can win some of these races. Read the rest of this post...

The new and improved "did I mention 9/11?" Guiliani to launch campaign

Who could ever forget his greatest hits collection from the GOP national convention in 2004? It was all fear, all night long. Every other sentence was 9/11 and fear, trying his best to inch closer to the extremists in the party who really don't care for him no matter what he says. I appreciated the fact that he was the voice of the nation for a day when our president was wetting his pants in a Nebraska bunker and asking for directions, but one day does not make a president and hardly overturns the rest of his political life. I'm all for Guiliani creating divisions within the GOP, but let's leave it at that. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

To say Iraq is a mess is an understatement. But, it's a mess. An estimated 150 government officials were kidnapped in Baghdad. Yes, 150. All at once. Still no plan from Bush. Because, he's so busy doing what?

Start threading the news. Read the rest of this post...

I wonder if it's possible to give this test to Bush and his team

Something tells me, they would fail miserably.

"The idea is not to toss up roadblocks, it's to make sure people who apply for citizenship and want to become citizens understand and adhere to the values we have as a society, the values that are part of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights," said Shawn Saucier, spokesman for the Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The current exam doesn't guarantee knowledge of those values, Saucier said. A person may know which state was the 49th to be added to the union, for example, but not understand voting rights, he said.

Neither does our president, but he will soon be learning more. Read the rest of this post...

Pelosi 'will ensure' Murtha win, Murtha ally says

She gets two points for gutsy. From The Hill:

House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will ensure that Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) wins his race for majority leader, a key Murtha ally said Monday night.

"She will ensure that they [the Murtha camp] win. This is hard-ball politics," said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), a longtime Murtha supporter. "We are entering an era where when the Speaker instructs you what to do, you do it."....

If Moran’s claims are true, Pelosi is taking an enormous gamble only a week after the election propelled her into the Speakership. If she prevails, she will likely banish her onetime rival Hoyer to the back benches and send a clear signal to her colleagues that she intends to rule with an iron hand. If Hoyer wins, she loses substantial political capital and alerts the caucus that they can successfully oppose her.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Off to bed. Read the rest of this post...

In Connecticut, Dem Joe Courtney's lead has increased again

AP:

Democrat Joe Courtney's lead over Republican Rep. Rob Simmons grew to 109 votes Monday, after dipping to as low as 66 votes earlier in the day.

It's still kind of pathetic that it takes this long. Read the rest of this post...