On Wednesday, call Senate Dems and demand that they support Lamont, and that Lieberman be removed from every Democratic seat he holds on any committee

He is a disloyal Republican partisan. He now openly defies the will of the Democratic voters, and would rather risk our party's future, our chance to take back the Congress in the fall, in order to coddle his increasingly-conservative ego.

Fine, Lieberman wants a fight with Democrats, he's got one.

Our voice has to be heard, we need to stand for something. Can't we even stand to agree on who won our own elections? Joe Lieberman doesn't respect the voters, and he doesn't respect the decision of the Democratic Party, plain and simple. So he's no longer welcome in the party.

Call every single Democratic office in the Senate on Wednesday and demand two things:

1. That the Senator immediately come out in support of the Democratic Senate candidate from Connecticut, Ned Lamont.

2. That Joe Lieberman be immediately kicked out of every single committee seat given to him by the Democratic party. Joe Lieberman is more interested in his own welfare than the welfare of the party. It's time for him to go. And it's time for us to tell the Democratic party that we're going to war over this race.

3. Markos makes a great suggestion. Call the liberal interest groups who supported Lieberman and, now that Lieberman has lost, demand that they support Lamont who likely has a 100% record on most of their issues, and certainly he is better than the Republican candidate. I will be happy to help on this, so please give me feedback about any guff you get from the groups.

If that's what Joe Lieberman and the Democratic Party wants over the next three months, then that's what they're going to get. It's going to be a disaster for the party, and will jeopardize our chances of taking back the Congress. But Joe Lieberman made that decision for all of us. So let the war begin.

Actually, I'd call the Senate offices now, fill up their mailboxes for the morning, then hit them all day tomorrow. Read the rest of this post...

Lieberman concedes, says he will run as an independent in November

Give to Lamont NOW, we need to stop Lieberman. Enough is enough.

Lieberman concedes and says he will run as an independent. He just, again, attacked Democrats in Washington for being too partisan and "playing political games" rather than working with the Republicans. Yes, that's been the biggest problem with the Democratic party the past six years, they've stood up to George Bush too much. Yeah, I wish.

What an arrogant, out of touch, jerk.

This will be a disaster for the Democratic party, and it is all of Joe Lieberman's making.

1. If Lieberman runs as an independent, HE will be "the" big story of the November elections, rather than the endangered incumbent Republicans.

2. As a part of the story, Lieberman has already made clear that he will be running with Karl Rove's talking points, attacking Democrats for supposedly being soft on national security and not remembering the horrors and lessons of September 11. Rather than have this be a national election about the Republican incompetence, Joe Lieberman will make the entire country focus on his election in which he will portray himself as the last "strong on security Democrat."

3. The blogosphere and the grassroots will, understandably, spend most of their time fighting Lieberman rather than focusing on other important races that could swing the House or Senate to our side.

4. Democratic politicians will likely divide along lines of supporting Lieberman or supporting Lamont, enraging the grassroots and the blogs, who will then retaliate. Lots of energy, lots of anger, and all of it spent attacking our own, rather than the Republicans.

Joe Lieberman claims he's a Democrat. He claims he doesn't really want to hurt his party. If this is true, then he needs to step down with dignity and recognize that he lost. The alternative is to risk his party's chance to win back the Congress after 12 years in exile. And make no mistake, that is exactly what Lieberman is now doing. Jeopardizing our chance to take back the Congress because he refuses to abide by the results of the people. Then why did he run in the race at all?

The Democratic Party cannot afford the risk an independent Joe Lieberman race poses to our success this fall. The only question is whether they, and Lieberman, both realize this fact, and whether they're going to do anything, fast, to head it off. Read the rest of this post...

Live Lieberman-Lamont election results

UPDATE: 11:01:

95.32% reporting:
Lamont 51.92% -- Lieberman 48.08%

UPDATE: 10:56 pm:

94.39% reporting:
Lamont 51.73% -- Lieberman 48.27%

UPDATE: 10:51 pm:

93.85% reporting:
Lamont 51.65% -- Lieberman 48.35%

UPDATE: 10:46 pm:

89.17% reporting:
Lamont 51.60% -- Lieberman 48.40%

UPDATE: 10:41 pm:

87.03% reporting:
Lamont 51.84% -- Lieberman 48.16%

UPDATE: 10:37 pm:

86.63% reporting:
Lamont 51.82% -- Lieberman 48.18%

UPDATE: 10:21 pm:

83.56% reporting:
Lamont 51.88% -- Lieberman 48.12%

UPDATE: 10:16 pm:

82.62% reporting:
Lamont 51.83% -- Lieberman 48.17%

UPDATE: 10:11 pm:

81.28% reporting:
Lamont 51.71% -- Lieberman 48.29%

UPDATE: 10:07 pm:

79.95% reporting:
Lamont 51.75% -- Lieberman 48.25%

UPDATE: 10:01 pm:

76.87% reporting:
Lamont 51.76% -- Lieberman 48.24%

UPDATE: 9:56 pm:

73.66% reporting:
Lamont 51.73% -- Lieberman 48.27%

UPDATE: 9:51 pm:

71.79% reporting:
Lamont 51.61% -- Lieberman 48.39%

UPDATE: 9:46 pm:

64.71% reporting:
Lamont 51.6% -- Lieberman 48.4%

UPDATE: 9:42 pm:

56.55% reporting:
Lamont 52.17% -- Lieberman 47.83%

UPDATE: 9:36 pm:

54.01% reporting:
Lamont 51.98% -- Lieberman 48.02%

UPDATE: 9:32 pm:

50.27% reporting:
Lamont 52.12% -- Lieberman 47.87%

UPDATE: 9:26 pm:

44.39% reporting:
Lamont 53.09% -- Lieberman 46.91%

UPDATE: 9:16 pm via the Hartford Courant:

33.82% reporting:
Lamont 54.09% -- Lieberman 45.91%

From the CT Sec. of State, online. You may need to hit fresh several times, you'll eventually get the page.

The New York Times home page seems to have very up-to-date numbers, too. Probably easier to check theirs.

Hotline On Call also is updating frequently.

And, here's the Hartford Courant. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread - C-Span is doing live coverage of the Lieberman-Lamont race starting at 7:45pm Eastern

Have at it. You should be able to watch C-Span's coverage online here. Please do post updates about what you hear on the show in the comments, so others can be up to speed.

C-Span just said that the polls close at 8pm in Connecticut, but they probably won't have any returns until 8:35pm. Read the rest of this post...

Turnout may be favoring Lamont vs. Lieberman

From Hotline's blog:

Keeping with Kevin Rennie's reporting, a call around to a few more town halls in CT reveals a pattern: the more affluent towns are turning out in much higher numbers than blue-collar communities.

Two well-heeled towns, Chester, in the CT River Valley, and Old Saybrook, on the Long Island Sound, both report turnout of 46% -- as of 5 p.m.

Meanwhile, across the state and the class divide, registrars in the old industrial towns of Danbury and Waterbury say not a lot of folks are coming to the polls.

The Waterbury registrar could not offer total numbers, but said it was "definitely not heavy," but "a moderate" turnout. He doubted they would reach 40%. In Danbury, 2432 of around 8000 registered Dems had voted as of 5 -- about 30%.

Affluent = Lamont, blue collar = Lieberman. More from Markos on turnout and what it means. Read the rest of this post...

Endnotes in Ann Coulter's latest book rife with distortions and falsehoods

The truth hurts. Read the rest of this post...

Even the National Review blog doubts the Lieberman "hacking" story

The traditional media bought the hacking story hook, line and sinker. The Lieberman campaign has milked the story all day...even bringing in the Connecticut Attorney General. But you have to know it's bogus when even the National Review's blog doubts it happened. They love a good intra-Dem. squabble:

While it’s possible that someone actually hacked joe2006.com, from what I’ve seen, this seems to be the least likely option. More likely, this whole episode started last night with a simple over-usage of bandwidth. In the rush to get the server back up, a temporary site using minimal bandwidth was likely uploaded — “Vote for Who You Know, Vote Joe.” I looked at the source code on this particular page, and it didn’t appear to be coded by a hacker — the code was much too fancy. (Who ever heard of a W3C-compliant hacker?) Probably, the page was put together in DreamWeaver or FrontPage. My instinct tells me FrontPage since cPanel can be setup with FrontPage Extensions. (Nevermind that a hacker would be more likely to say something obnoxious about or denigrating of Lieberman.)

Because joe2006.com appeared to have been hacked (a sensible guess when the site went down on election eve), bandwidth problems were complicated by the ensuing deluge of hits, finally bringing down the entire server this morning. Drudge links and heavy traffic tend to do this when there isn't a backup plan in place. The site has been up and down ever since.

As for a staged operation, that seems unlikely given all of the above. This looks to be simply the work of an inexperienced technical consultant, but that’s just my guess.

Read the rest of this post...

Afternoon Open Thread

Lots of news coming from CT. High turnout in UConn's town. MyLeftNutmeg reports the Sec. of State was on the radio talking turnout:

Bysiewicz, Secretary of State,is projecting an overall turnout of between 40-50%, which is 10-20% more than expected, and double what occurs in normal primary years.

Markos figured out why Lieberman's site is down. Seems like the Lieberman campaign wants an issue, not a solution. Gives him an excuse to run indy.

What's going on in the rest of the world? Read the rest of this post...

Just another day of death and destruction in Iraq

Some people say to Bush, "well, civil war this, civil war that." And, then people die all over Iraq:

A series of bombings and shootings killed at least 31 people Tuesday, most in the Baghdad area, as more U.S. troops were seen in the capital as part of a campaign to reduce Sunni-Shiite violence that threatens civil war.

Three bombs exploded simultaneously near the Interior Ministry buildings in central Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding eight, police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid said.

A couple of hours later, two roadside bombs ripped through the main Shurja market, also in central Baghdad, killing 10 civilians and wounding 50, police Lt. Mohammed Kheyoun said.

It's all background noise to Bush. Civil war this, civil war that. Read the rest of this post...

Don't forget my buddy Cynthia McKinney

She's up today as well in a run-off election. Hey, maybe her father can get Mel Gibson to help out at the last minute. Read the rest of this post...

What was the turning point for Lieberman?

Lots of great election day commentary all over the blogs today.

Political Wire surmises that the decision by Lieberman to go indy was the turning point:

Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) decision to make contingency plans to run as an independent in the event he lost today's Senate primary may have been the turning point in this campaign. Though no polls asked the question, the decision will almost certainly cost him votes.

That decision was one of the decisive events in the campaign. It probably reinforced what people were already thinking. Read the rest of this post...

DeLay pushing a write-in for his seat

Hotline On Call:

Remember, Tom DeLay can voluntarily withdraw from the TX 22 ballot. The state party just can't replace him. But -- what if DeLay steps aside and endorses a write-in candidate? That's a possibility, reports Time's super-scooper Mike Allen.

A Republican official with first-hand knowledge of the deliberations by DeLay said he "more likely than not" will go that route, although he had not made a final decision. "With DeLay, you never know," the official said.

Allen does have good sources - he was the first guy DeLay told he wasn't running.

UPDATE: Yep, he announced it. He's taking his name off the ballot, otherwise it's "hypocrisy." That's rich. DeLay worried about being a hypocrite. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

We get pictures:

















Couple good Connecticut sites for everyone not in CT to feed your obsession:

NedLamontBlog

ConnecticutBlog

LamontBlog Read the rest of this post...

Another top general says "civil war this, civil war that"

You'd think that when top generals are talking about the danger of Iraq erupting in to civil war, the President might listen. Well, that's what you'd think if we had a real President, not Bush.

Think Progress has a clip of ABC's interview with General George Casey (the top U.S. commander in Iraq) who said civil war is "possible" and the "most significant threat." Instead, you may recall that just yesterday Bush blew off what "people say" about civil war:

Yesterday, President Bush dismissed the concerns expressed by Casey and other Generals. Bush said “You know, I hear people say, Well, civil war this, civil war that. The Iraqi people decided against civil war when they went to the ballot box.”

Abizaid, Casey and the other generals warn of civil war in Iraq. Bush hears yadda, yadda, yadda. Read the rest of this post...

George Bush, the lame duck of destruction

From MilitaryWeek.com:

The evangelical in the White House crossed a milestone this week.

For the rest of the world, this milestone passes largely unnoticed in the midst of Middle East fear, death, and destruction in Iraq, in Gaza and the occupied territories, and now in Lebanon. Specifically taking a back seat to the Israeli-Hezbollah war is the ongoing and tragic status of American-occupied Iraq.

But in Washington, history was made when George W. Bush finally, and for the first time, used his presidential veto power to reject a piece of legislation from his loyal Congress.

The veto, as Bush explained in a public ceremony framed by chattering toddlers, was done to prevent American taxpayers from being “… compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos.'

He went on, “Crossing this line would be a grave mistake and would needlessly encourage a conflict between science and ethics that can only do damage to both and harm our Nation as a whole.'

Science and ethics are two areas where George W. Bush cannot be accused of knowing too much, thinking too deeply, nor retaining even a shadow of personal humility....

Read the rest of this post...

Another massive privacy violation

That's two this week, and it's only Tuesday. Read the rest of this post...

Note to the Media: New poll shows why Joe Lieberman is having problems

I wanted to follow up on something Joe posted last night. A new Washington Post/ABC poll shows clearly why Joe Lieberman is having trouble winning his Democratic primary in Connecticut.

As I wrote yesterday, people are frustrated that the country is going in the wrong direction on every issue and nobody in Washington seems to care. The Republicans charge ahead like bulls in a china shop, while the Democrats run and hide. That's the public perception.

What that translates to is a general disdain for Republicans and anyone who embraces their wrong-direction policies or who accommodates such policies through action or inaction.

People are frustrated. They're tired of the Republicans and their arrogance, their failed policies, their incompetence, and their inability to learn and grow from their mistakes. That is why the blogs came about, and it's why we've been successful at getting a voice. We are tapping into that frustration and, yes, anger, and channeling it towards an effort to change things for the better.

And that, my reporter friends, is what is happening in Connecticut and across America.

Joe Lieberman is a victim of the anti-incumbent, anti-Republican times in which we live. He is not a victim of the peace movement. He is not a victim of the Iraq war. He is part or the larger passion play that is taking place across the country against the incumbent party in power. Republicans control the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government. Americans believe our country is heading in the wrong direction and we, rightfully, are finally holding those running the country accountable, in addition to those who enable and embrace them.

I'll stop repeating myself, but this is important. Whatever happens in the Connecticut race today, the media, from George Stephanopoulos at ABC to Dan Balz at the Post, both journalists I respect a lot, are being simply lazy. The media never understood what motivates the Democratic blogs, and now they're extrapolating that misunderstanding to the fall elections. They think the blogs are about far-left anti-war politics, so they naturally now think the elections are about the same.

To wit: today's column from Dan Balz:

Lieberman's instincts for collegiality and bipartisanship, once regarded as virtues, are now seen as virtual disqualifications by his critics here and nationally.

No, no, NO. The problem isn't Lieberman's instincts, it's his actions. He has not acted in a collegial and bipartisan way. He has undercut his own party in an extremely partisan way, and has embraced a president who is incompetent and become a prime defender of that president's greatest failure. It isn't bipartisanship when you cross party lines to embrace and prop up failure. It's crazy.

Balz continues:

Long one of the Democrats' most prominent hawks, Lieberman has found himself at odds with the rank and file in his party, not only for supporting the war so vigorously but also for refusing to engage in the rhetorical combat of a politically charged moment in history. He has warned fellow Democrats that hyper-partisanship on foreign policy issues damages American interests.

No. The problem isn't that Lieberman is a hawk. I am a hawk. Second, the problem isn't that Lieberman supported the war, it's that he continues to say that the war is a good idea and apparently going swell. And finally, it is absurd for Balz to suggest that Lieberman is ailing because he has refused to engage in the rhetorical combat of a politically charged moment. The man accused every single one of us who had concerns about George Bush of being insincere at best, and fifth columnists at worst. That is about as politically charged as you can get - and worse yet, Mr. Lieberman decided to charge for the other team.

And one more point, Balz totally misconstrues what Lieberman said about the Democrats. Lieberman didn't warn us of anything. He accused us of endangering America's national security simply because we were speaking the truth about the wrong direction this country was his heading in. After 5 years of successful Republican efforts to stifle free speech and debate in America, to have one of our own adopt the Republican "dissenters are traitors" mantra simply broke the camel's back (and Lieberman reiterated the same thing yesterday). (To Balz's credit, the rest of his article points out the other reasons Connecticut voters are upset with Lieberman, but by then the damage from the article is done.)

What do I suggest the media do differently in its coverage? How about you ask us about what motivates us, rather than simply pull it out of your imagination. Interview the top bloggers. Interview the voters in Connecticut. Ask them what motivates them. Don't just assume, ASK us, ask THEM. And what you'll find is that our and their attitudes parallel YOUR OWN POLL.

We are anti-incumbent, pure and simple. So please, stop buying into Republican talking points about who we are and what this election is about, and start doing your job which is to report the truth, not the spin.

Especially worrisome for members of Congress is that the proportion of Americans who approve of their own representative's performance has fallen sharply. Traditionally, voters may express disapproval of Congress as a whole but still vote for their own member, even from the majority party. But 55 percent now approve of their lawmaker, a seven-percentage-point drop over three months and the lowest such finding since 1994, the last time control of the House switched parties.

"That's dramatic," said Republican consultant Ed Rollins, who was White House political director under President Ronald Reagan....

Among voters across the board, 38 percent say they are more likely to oppose candidates who support Bush on Iraq compared with 23 percent who are more likely to support them....

Some Republican strategists said they fear it may be enough for Democrats to hammer home on the troubles of the country. "There's just a frustration that a lot of things are going wrong and nobody in Washington understands," Rollins said. "Even though the Democrats haven't really picked up the ball and offered an alternative, the numbers keep getting worse and worse."

Read the rest of this post...

Beginning of the day open thread

Okay, it's morning in America. Today is election day in Connecticut. I have a rather long post that we'll put up shortly, discussing the latest polls and why the media can't seem to understand what is motivating this race. Read the rest of this post...

Middle of the night open thread

I love that the Spanish have a word for this time of day, la madrugada. It's the time between midnight and 6am. I just think it's cool they have a word to define something we don't define - probably because they're usually still out enjoying the evening during that time. Read the rest of this post...

Cease-fire that won't, um, cease the fire

Nearly four weeks ago, the Bush administration insisted, much to the chagrin of the international community, that there was no sense in supporting a cease-fire unless is was "sustainable." They didn't want to stop the fighting until they were sure the fighting was going to stop, goshdarnit, and it had to be part of a long-term solution.

Now, weeks (and nearly 1,000 deaths) later, the U.S. supports a U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolution that everyone seems to agree won't do much to halt the violence. It doesn't address the two Israeli soldiers, Lebanese prisoners in Israel, disarming Hezbollah, Shebaa Farms, or really any of the underlying issues. It calls for an end to Hezbollah's rocket attacks and "offensive action" by Israel, but how that's defined is wholly unclear. As Time says,

All of which brings up the question, what's the purpose of pressing for the adoption of a cease-fire plan that's dead on arrival?

Lebanon has offered to send 15,000 troops into southern Lebanon, which may help create a diplomatic breakthrough, but it's pretty clear that Hezbollah and Israel both want to take another week (or two or three) to try to establish some kind of "decisive" victory. It's not going to happen, of course, so both sides will claim victory. Of course, just by surviving, Hezbollah has won, in a sense, and Nasrallah has become a cult hero, so Israel has to be hoping that some kind of decent international security force will compliment Lebanese troops to create a real security zone. If Israel couldn't destroy Hezbollah, maybe it can back them off the border.

I'm not optimistic. A border manned by the French and Lebanese is likely to be about as secure as documents on a VA computer. Read the rest of this post...