O'Reilly Misfires In "War On Christmas" Attack On Crate & Barrel

Last night, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly took aim at the retailer Crate & Barrel in his latest "War on Christmas" segment. O'Reilly cited a recent article in which Crate & Barrel spokeswoman Betty Kahn is quoted saying, "We would definitely not say Merry Christmas."

O'Reilly claimed to have "confirmed" the quote was accurate. As a result, he said he would no longer shop at the store, and alleged that the six Muslim imams removed last week from a US Airways flight "wouldn't get handcuffed in Crate & Barrel if they started chanting and stuff."

But in an interview with ThinkProgress, Kahn said her quote was misconstrued. Crate & Barrel has no policy encouraging or discouraging store employees from saying "Merry Christmas" or any other greeting. Kahn said she was trying to communicate that the store does not actively require employees to say "Merry Christmas."

Kahn's explanation is supported by the fact that Crate & Barrel's website features various Christmas promotional materials, including a special Christmas section (located at CrateandBarrel.com/Christmas), pictured below:

Think Progress w/video

"We will continue to be flexible, and we'll make the changes necessary to succeed. But there's one thing I'm not going to do. I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete."

"One of his frustrations with me is that he believes that we've been slow about giving him the tools necessary to protect the Iraqi people," Bush said. "He doesn't have the capacity to respond. So we want to accelerate that capacity."

There was no explanation from either side of how that would happen, beyond support for the long-standing goals of speeding the U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi security forces and to give more military authority over Iraq to al-Maliki.

(snip)

"I know there's a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there's going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq," he said. "This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."

At a dinner honoring the First Amendment, Newt Gingrich reportedly suggested a "different set of rules" might be necessary to stop terrorists using freedom of speech to get out their message. Keith Olbermann discusses the constitutionality of this with Jonathan Turley.

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: My view is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that we use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us, to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.

OLBERMANN: If you're going to destroy freedom of speech, bub, you've already lost all the cities.

(snip)

TURLEY: Well, what these guys don't understand is that the best defense against bad ideas, like extremism and terrorism, is free speech. That's what we've proven. That's why they don't like us, is that we're remarkably successful as a democracy, because we've shown that really bad ideas don't survive in the marketplace, unless you try to suppress them, unless you try to keep people from speaking. Then it becomes a form of martyrdom. Then you give credence to what they're saying.

Kim Jong-il to lose iPod privileges

Kim Jong-il is to have his access to iPods and other desirable gadgets cut off as part of US efforts to target sanctions directly at the North Korean leader and his power base.

Aside from his own personal use, Kim is said to use gifts of Western consumer goods to reward loyal government officials.

So, the apparent US logic goes, restricting his access to such goods will help to erode his power base.

Aside from iPods, a list of items targeted by the US and obtained by the Associated Press, includes Rolex watches, cognac, luxury cars and plasma-screen televisions.

LMFAO

Amid a growing barrage of front-page headlines, U.S. embassy officials "strongly suggested" President Bush's twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara Bush, cut short their trip to Buenos Aires because of security issues, U.S. diplomatic and security sources tell ABC News.

But the girls have stayed on, celebrating their 25th birthday over the weekend and producing even more headlines about their activities.

MICHAEL WARE: Well, firstly, let me say, perhaps it's easier to deny that this is a civil war, when essentially you live in the most heavily fortified place in the country within the Green Zone, which is true of both the prime minister, the national security adviser for Iraq and, of course, the top U.S. military commanders. However, for the people living on the streets, for Iraqis in their homes, if this is not civil war, or a form of it, then they do not want to see what one really looks like.

This is what we're talking about. We're talking about Sunni neighborhoods shelling Shia neighborhoods, and Shia neighborhoods shelling back.

We're having Sunni communities dig fighting positions to protect their streets. We're seeing Sunni extremists plunging car bombs into heavily-populated Shia marketplaces. We're seeing institutionalized Shia death squads in legitimate police and national police commando uniforms going in, systematically, to Sunni homes in the middle of the night and dragging them out, never to be seen again.

I mean, if this is not civil war, where there is, on average, 40 to 50 tortured, mutilated, executed bodies showing up on the capital streets each morning, where we have thousands of unaccounted for dead bodies mounting up every month, and where the list of those who have simply disappeared for the sake of the fact that they have the wrong name, a name that is either Sunni or Shia, so much so that we have people getting dual identity cards, where parents cannot send their children to school, because they have to cross a sectarian line, then, goodness, me, I don't want to see what a civil war looks like either if this isn't one.

"We have areas that people of one sect cannot enter for fear of immediate execution by another sect. You drive on a minibus on your way to work, suddenly there's a checkpoint, if you're of the wrong faith, you are dead.... If that's not civil war, if we don't have two sides of a nation going face to face then honestly, I don't know what is."

After six years of technological research, more than $4 billion spent by Washington on new machinery and a widespread overhaul of the nation's voting system, this month's midterm election revealed that the country is still far from able to ensure that every vote counts.

Tens of thousands of voters, scattered across more than 25 states, encountered serious problems at the polls, including failures in sophisticated new voting machines and confusion over new identification rules, according to interviews with election experts and officials.

In many places, the difficulties led to shortages of substitute paper ballots and long lines that caused many voters to leave without casting ballots.
NY Times

A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.

"I don't hate Americans, but I don't like Bush," said Pamungkas, who believed the ritual would succeed as, "the devil is with me today."

He said the jinx would send spirits to possess Secret Service personnel guarding Bush and leave them in a trance, leading them into falsely thinking the President was under attack, thus eventually causing chaos in Bogor Presidential Palace."

The United Nations said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

U.N. officials blamed the death toll increase on the growing influence of armed militias and rampant torture "despite the government's commitment to address human rights abuses."

"Hundreds of bodies continued to appear in different areas of Baghdad handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture and execution-style killing," the officials quoted the report as saying. "Many witnesses reported that perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms."

The mission's human rights office continues to receive reports that the police and security forces are either infiltrated or act in collusion with militias, the U.N. said, noting, however, that the government had recently removed 3,000 employees of the Interior Ministry alleged to have been guilty of human rights abuses or corruption.

White House lowers economic projections

WASHINGTON - The White House on Tuesday lowered its forecast for economic growth this year and into 2008, reflecting the drag from the housing slump.

Even with the downgrade, though, the Bush administration is predicting that the unemployment rate will turn out to be slightly lower than previously thought.

Under the administration's new forecast, gross domestic product will grow by 3.1 percent, as measured from the fourth quarter of last year to the fourth quarter of this year. That's down considerably from a projection of 3.6 percent made during in early June, but would still represent decent growth, especially given the strain on overall economic activity from the housing slump.

GDP measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is the best measure of the country's economic standing.

Top 2%

International business travellers to the US fear mistreatment at the hands of border officials more than they fear terrorism, according to a survey published on Monday.

Focusing on the type of respondent most likely to hold a favourable view of the US, it found that two-thirds of the 2,011 people questioned thought the US "the worst country in the world" in the way it treated foreign visitors at the border.
MSNBC

Rude immigration officials and visa delays keep millions of foreign visitors away from the United States, hurt the country's already battered image, and cost the U.S. billions of dollars in lost revenue, according to an advocacy group formed to push for a better system.

Travel Industry Association statistics show that the U.S. share in world tourism declined from 7.4 percent in 2000 to 6 percent last year. A one-percentage point increase, according to the association, would mean 7.5 million additional arrivals, $12.3 billion in additional spending, 150,000 additional U.S. jobs, $3.3 billion in additional payroll and $2.1. billion in additional taxes.
Reuters

IRAN has invited the Iraqi and Syrian presidents to Tehran for a weekend summit with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to hash out ways to cooperate in curbing the runaway violence that has taken Iraq to the verge of civil war and threatens to spread through the region.

The Iranian move was also a display of its increasingly muscular role in the Middle East, where it already has established deep influence over Syria and Lebanon.
Irish Examiner

Influential figures in Washington have urged the Bush administration to talk to both countries in hopes of gaining their help to bring the violence in Iraq under control. But many of President Bush's advisors oppose the idea.

White House policy has been to isolate Iran to compel the government to abandon its nuclear enrichment program and to refuse to talk with Syria until it drops its support for what the United States considers terrorist groups.
LA Times

It is a shame - and it is embarrassing to us all - when President Bush travels 8,000 miles, only to wind up avoiding reality, again.

And it is pathetic to listen to the leader of the free world, talk so unrealistically about Vietnam, when it was he who permitted the "Swift-Boating" of not one but two American heroes of that war, in consecutive Presidential campaigns.

But most importantly - important, beyond measure - his avoidance of reality is going to wind up killing more Americans.

And that is indefensible - and fatal.

Asked if there were lessons about Iraq to be found in our experience in Vietnam, Mr. Bush said that there were - and he immediately proved he had no clue what they were.

WALLACE: Well, I must say - and we told you before you came on that we were going to talk some about the joke. I agree there's things to talk about after, but there are questions people have, and I'm going to ask you about them, sir.

KERRY: Chris, let me again say to you - I mean, let's be serious about this. This was a bad joke. And I own it. And I apologized for it.

But the full measure of the Republican attack machine knew exactly what I had said, and they set out to make it a distraction.

(snip)

And I've offered - you know, I called Condoleezza Rice, and I said, "Look, let's find a way to work together, because the country needs us to move on." They don't want to talk about a joke that's old news.

WALLACE: But, Senator, in fairness...

KERRY: Only you do.

You want to know what the insult to the troops is? The insult to the troops is sending them to war for false reasons. The insult to the troops is sending them to war without the equipment that they need, without the armor, without the armed Humvees. The insult was having the secretary of defense who, for month after month after month, refused to listen to the Congress and listen to his own advisers. The insult is having troops who have a strategy that has them mired without the diplomacy necessary to resolve what everyone has said cannot be resolved militarily.

And on it goes. When Wallace plays a clip of PART of what Kerry said, taking it out of context, Kerry finishes the rest of what he said, and calls Chris out on the carpet demanding "why didn't you play the rest?"

Read the FULL TRANSCRIPT
Watch the VIDEO

President George Bush suffered his most visible diplomatic setback since his party's defeat in mid-term elections yesterday when Asian leaders failed to back Washington's call for robust action against North Korea.

The rebuff - the second for Mr Bush this weekend on North Korea - underlined the president's diminished powers in the wake of his election defeat. So too did the muted response to Mr Bush's presence in Hanoi, a shadow of the tumultuous reception for President Clinton, when he visited Vietnam six years ago.

Unlike Mr Clinton, who ate lunch in a noodle shop and waded into a rice paddy to look for the remains of a US pilot missing since the war, Mr Bush has largely viewed Vietnam through the windows of an armoured stretch Cadillac limousine, flown in from Washington.

Howard gets a laugh out of James Carville

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for linking the video and providing the relevant part of the transcript. I got this screen cap of Howard laughing--which is at the point where the interviewer says "you can see where I'm headed with this".

Q. The election results were barely in when a top democratic strategist, James Carville - you can see where I'm headed with this - a former advisor to Bill Clinton, started going after you. Let's take a look at what he had to say. (Clip: The RNC did a better job than the DNC, that's the republican national committee and the democratic national committee, this year. He says, the house and senate campaign committees made up for your shortcomings and that Congressman Harold Ford should replace you as chairman of the DNC. First of all, what do you make of his criticism and do you have any intention of stepping down?

DEAN: I have to say I get a laugh out of that one. Here we have - let's leave the federal races aside. The DCCC and the DSCC did do a wonderful job. The truth is we got six governors. We got nine additional legislative chambers. New Hampshire now has a democratic House and senate for the first time in a century. We did great. I think the time really has come now, now that we're in power, at least in the Congress, to pull together, to be unified. We've got a lot to do in t two years. We have a elect a democratic president.

Q. Do you have any intention of stepping down?

DEAN: No, I talked to Harold last night. He doesn't want the job. This is some kind inside the beltway silliness.

Click here to watch the video. (Thanks to Crooks & Liars)

"that there is a physiological cause [pdf link] for relationship failure and sexual promiscuity -- a hormonal cause-and-effect that can only be short-circuited by sexual abstinence until marriage."

He's the full-time medical director for A Woman's Concern, a chain of Boston area crisis pregnancy centers, where he spreads all the usual lies about abortion and uses ultrasound scans as a tool to influence the decisions of women who might be considering abortion.

He was one of the "experts" who determined that federally funded abstinence education programs must mention contraceptives only in relation to their failure rates and promote abstinence until marriage.

Keroack works his heart out for the Christian right. And now,in what has been characterized as a "stealth" appointment by the Bush administration, it appears that, as of Monday morning, he'll be working for us, too.

Full Story at Alternet

Bush: Vietnam war offered lessons for Iraq

HANOI, Vietnam - President Bush said Friday the United States' unsuccessful war in Vietnam three decades ago offered lessons for the American-led struggle in Iraq. "We'll succeed unless we quit," Bush said shortly after arriving in this one-time war capital.

Bush met here with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of America's strongest allies in Iraq, Vietnam and other conflicts. The president said there were lessons to be learned from the divisive Vietnam war - the longest conflict in U.S. history - as the United States wages the unpopular war in Iraq, now in its fourth year.

"We tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take awhile," the president said. He called the Iraq war a "great struggle" and said, "It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful - and that is an ideology of freedom - to overcome an ideology of hate."

In the years since the 1975 fall of the Washington-backed regime in Saigon, the United States and Vietnam have reconciled their war differences. Bush said he found it hopeful that countries can "move beyond past differences for the common good."

AWOL

Abramoff in with Dems? Former Colleagues Say No

"Abramoff Reports to Prison; Officials Focus on Reid, Others," was the headline of an ABC story yesterday reporting that Jack Abramoff, the convicted lobbyist, was dishing dirt on a handful of Democratic senators, Harry Reid (D-NV) in particular.

"Abramoff has offered testimony [to investigators] about his contacts with 'six to eight seriously corrupt Democratic senators,'" ABC News reported, citing "sources close to the federal investigation." One "source close to the investigation" told ABC that $30,000 in contributions to Reid from Abramoff's tribal clients "were no accident and were in fact requested by Reid."

The report was surprising, particularly given that in the thousands of pages of Abramoff's emails, billing records and other documents released over the past two years, there's little evidence that the Republican lobbyist or his team worked very hard to persuade Democratic lawmakers to support their clients, legally or illegally.

......

"Jack has not met eight Democrats in Washington," one lobbyist told us.
Pukes

Pelosi named speaker; Democrats to end leadership feud

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nancy Pelosi was unanimously named speaker-elect by House Democrats Thursday, the first woman set to take a post that constitutionally is second in line of succession to the presidency.

"We made history and now we will make progress for the American people," the Californian told members of the rank and file moments after her selection.

She vowed that after 12 years in the minority, "we will not be dazzled by money and special interests."

Pelosi also called for unity in the party, but within moments she put her prestige on the line by nominating Rep. John Murtha for majority leader -- the No. 2 leadership post -- in a hotly contested race. Voting in that race is under way.

Pelosi

Update: House Democrats name Hoyer to No. 2 post

The memo from Nov. 9, 2006, instructed Fox News' "journalists" to "be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents ...thrilled at the prospect of a Dem controlled Congress."

By itself, the memo was damning enough, but coincidentally, later that same day, Martha MacCallum on the "Live Desk" followed her boss's instructions on what the news would be, to a tee. She stated, without any evidence or pointing to any specific examples, that there were "some reports of cheering in the streets on the behalf of the supporters of the insurgency in Iraq, that they're very pleased with the way things are going here and also with the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld."

(snip)

Similar memos were uncovered during the filming of Outfoxed but Greenwald said the one published Wednesday crossed the line. "If they were journalists, they would be ashamed, but they're not," he said.
NewsHounds

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.

Bush Initiates Iraq Policy Review Separate From Baker Group's

President Bush formally launched a sweeping internal review of Iraq policy yesterday, pulling together studies underway by various government agencies, according to U.S. officials.

The initiative, begun after Bush met at the White House with his foreign policy team, parallels the effort by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to salvage U.S. policy in Iraq, develop an exit strategy and protect long-term U.S. interests in the region. The two reviews are not competitive, administration officials said, although the White House wants to complete the process before mid-December, about the time the Iraq Study Group's final report is expected.

The White House's decision changes the dynamics of what happens next to U.S. policy deliberations. The administration will have its own working document as well as recommendations from an independent bipartisan commission to consider as it struggles to prevent further deterioration in Iraq.

"The president has asked all his national security agencies to assess the situation in Iraq, review the options and recommend the best way forward. The ISG report will be duly considered, and we look forward to their recommendations, as the president has always said," a White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the new initiative has not been announced. "The president indicated Monday that he is interested in hearing interesting ideas both within his administration and from the Baker-Hamilton commission."

Step-child

The CIA has acknowledged the existence of two documents authorizing it to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects overseas. For more than two years, the CIA had refused to either deny or confirm the existence of the documents and had argued in court that doing so could jeopardize national security.

"The CIA's sudden reversal on these secret directives is yet more evidence that the Bush administration is misusing claims of national security to avoid public scrutiny," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Confusion about whether such a presidential order existed certainly led to the torture and abuse scandal that embarrassed America. With a new Congress and renewed subpoena power, we now need to look up the chain of command."

The two documents in question are a directive signed by President Bush granting the CIA the authority to set up detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees, and a Justice Department legal analysis specifying interrogation methods that the CIA may use against top Al-Qaeda members.

Asked whether he would investigate the renditions programme, including the secret prisons and missing detainees, Mr Levin replied: "Yes. Yes, yes and yes."

"I'm not comfortable with the system," the Financial Times reported him as saying. "I think that there's been some significant abuses which have not made us more secure but have made us less secure and have also, perhaps, cost us some real allies, as well as not producing useful information. So I think the system needs a thorough review and, as the military would say, a thorough scrubbing."
The Guardian

-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 Cmt
-Byron L. Dorgan, Chairman of Policy Cmt
-Debbie Stabenow, Chair of Steering and Outreach Cmt
-Jeff Bingaman, Chairman of Cmt Outreach
-Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vice Chair of Cmt Outreach
-Blanche L. Lincoln, Chair of Rural Outreach

Mandate

In court documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the Justice Department said a new anti-terrorism law being used to hold detainees in Guantanamo Bay also applies to foreigners captured and held in the United States.

"It's pretty stunning that any alien living in the United States can be denied this right," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney for Al-Marri. "It means any non-citizen, and there are millions of them, can be whisked off at night and be put in detention."
The Guardian

Nearly 60% of voters in the recent U.S. national elections believe the prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay should either be granted a hearing before an independent judge or be released to their home countries, and fewer than 20% of those polled believe that the detainees should be held indefinitely.

On November 7, voters in six states -- Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio -- approved measures to raise state minimum wage levels by $1 to $1.70 an hour and index them to inflation. These initiatives not only put more money into the pockets of low-income workers, they also increased voter turnout among urban and working class voters in key states, especially Missouri and Montana, where Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate won narrow victories that put the Democrats in control of both houses of Congress.

Just to make it perfectly clear how popular these measures were, here are the numbers:

Missouri - Yes 76% No 24%

Montana - Yes 73% No 27%

Ohio ----- Yes 65% No 35%

Arizona -- Yes 66% No 34%

Colorado - Yes 53% No 47%

Nevada ---Yes 69% No 31%

In addition to the six minimum wage victories on November 7, the legislatures in another six states -- California, Arkansas, Michigan, North Carolina, and Florida -- raised their state minimum wages early this year. As a result, 28 states and the District of Columbia have now passed legislation or approved ballot initiatives raising their state minimums above the federal minimum.

Anthrax hoaxer may be Free Republic poster

The man arrested on Saturday for sending more than a dozen envelopes containing "fake anthrax" to anti-war celebrities, journalists, and politicians may have ties to the conservative supersite Free Republic, RAW STORY has found.

Chad Castagana, a 39 year old Californian named as the FBI's prime suspect in the case, is due in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles today, where procecutors are expected to file criminal complaint against him for sending threatening letters through the U.S. mail. Castagana has an extensive online history, often writing about science fiction and conservative politics, and many bloggers are convinced that he is also a contributor at the conservative activist Free Republic website under the name Marc Costanzo.

.....

Most striking is this Costanzo comment from September, weeks before the anti-Bush MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann was sent a threatening fake anthrax letter in New York: "This partisan loudmouth Olbermann is a demagogue! Someone should find out where he lives and mail him a Ted Kazcinski letter."

After Olbermann received the fake anthrax, Costanzo posted the following:

"Not to make light of the situation, but drama queen Olbermann put on quite a production even after he'd been told the powder was harmless and checked out by doctors and told he was fine. He demanded that he be rushed to the hospital for more tests. I wouldn't be even remotely surprised if he mailed it to himself. I've never seen someone more desperate for attention and approval. I heard from a liberal blog that Olbermann was a prima donna at the hospital, giving the medical staff and the cops a hard time. Keith is a whiny little b@tch! Accepting that, I do not believe he sent it to himself. But that is just guess work."

RawStory

Bradblog.com

What are the odds?

"Did the GOP in your assessment of the data that we have lose Tuesday because it failed to carry out it's goals, or because it succeeded and the voters looked at that and went 'Naah I don't think so'?"

The Bush administration said on Sunday that it would strenuously oppose one of the Democrats' top priorities for the new Congress: legislation authorizing the government to negotiate with drug companies to secure lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries.

"The government negotiates big discounts for the prices of drugs for our veterans," said Senator-elect Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. "But the drug companies got Congress to make it illegal to negotiate for lower prices under Medicare."
NY Times

For big drug companies, the new Medicare prescription benefit is proving to be a financial windfall larger than even the most optimistic Wall Street analysts had predicted.

Drug makers were legally required to give Medicaid a discount of at least 15 percent, and sometimes significantly more, from their list prices. Now Medicaid recipients over 65 are covered through the Part D program, which does not require the same discounts. As a result, drug makers are being paid as much as 20 percent more for the same drugs that they had already been providing to recipients under the Medicaid program.
LINK

Some big name Democrats want to oust DNC Chairman Howard Dean, arguing that his stubborn commitment to the 50-state strategy and his stinginess with funds for House races cost the Democrats several pickup opportunities.

The candidate being floated to replace Dean? Harold Ford.

Says James Carville, one of the anti-Deaniacs, "Suppose Harold Ford became chairman of the DNC? How much more money do you think we could raise? Just think of the difference it could make in one day. Now probably Harold Ford wants to stay in Tennessee. I just appointed myself his campaign manager."

TNR

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, whose party lost both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, will step down from his post when his two-year term ends in January, GOP officials said Thursday.
Buh Bye

"Rumors of Mehlman's sexual orientation first appeared last year in GQ Magazine. The RNC denied the charge. 'Ken Mehlman is not gay,' said then-RNC official Steve Schmidt. However, when asked directly by 'gay' publications, Mehlman has dodged the question."

Democrats take control of the Senate

WASHINGTON - Democrats wrested control of the Senate from Republicans Wednesday with an upset victory in Virginia, giving the party complete domination of Capitol Hill for the first time since 1994.

Jim Webb's squeaker win over incumbent Sen. George Allen gave Democrats their 51st seat in the Senate, an astonishing turnabout at the hands of voters unhappy with Republican scandal and unabated violence in Iraq. Allen was the sixth Republican incumbent senator defeated in Tuesday's elections.

The Senate had teetered at 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans for most of Wednesday, with Virginia hanging in the balance. Webb's victory ended Republican hopes of eking out a 50-50 split, with Vice President Dick Cheney wielding tie-breaking authority.

.....

The new AP count showed Webb with 1,172,538 votes and Allen with 1,165,302, a difference of 7,236. Virginia has had two statewide vote recounts in modern history, but both resulted in vote changes of no more than a few hundred votes.

YahooHoo!

Democrats Sweep Into Power In House

Democrats won control of the House early Wednesday after a dozen years of Republican rule in a resounding repudiation of a war, a president and a scandal-scarred Congress.

"From sea to shining sea, the American people voted for change," declared Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the hard-charging California Democrat in line to become the nation's first female House speaker.

Democrats close in on Senate control

Democrats captured four of the six Republican-held seats they needed to take control of the Senate, winning critical contests in Ohio, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Missouri, and inched closer Wednesday to erasing the GOP's majority.

Seizing on voter discontent with President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, Democrats mounted challenges for two remaining Republican-held seats in Virginia and Montana - and were ahead in both. But in Virginia, Democratic challenger James Webb's lead over Republican incumbent George Allen was razor thin and a recount was likely.

Governors Roundup: Democrats Sweep Up State Houses Nationwide

Democrats made solid gains in governorships across the country, taking Republican posts in Colorado, Arkansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Ohio and retaining every seat they held in 14 states.

House: 201 234 (Dems pick up 33 seats)

Senate: 49 47 2 (with MT and VA still up for grabs, Dems pick up 4 - 6.)

Governors: 22 28 (Dems pick up 12)

"I was directly behind RNC Chair Ken Mehlman this morning when I came out to vote. He lives up my street on Capitol Hill. When a poll worker asked whether he wanted to vote on an electronic machine or use a traditional pencil and paper ballot, he chose the latter."

Sec. of Virginia State Board of Elections Finds Widespread Incidents of Voter Suppression

Over the past several days, voters throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia have filed complaints of incidents aimed at suppressing voter turn out in heavily Democratic and African American neighborhoods. Today, the Secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections Jean Jensen concluded that the incidents appear widespread and deliberate.

"There are now credible reports from multiple jurisdictions around the Commonwealth that establish a pattern of dirty tricks being employed to confuse and frustrate Virginia's voters from exercising their right to vote tomorrow. In addition to reports that have been received by the Democratic Party of Virginia, these local election officials have been receiving reports from concerned voters," said Jack Young, co-chair of Promote the Vote.

1) Calls that Voting will Lead to Arrest.

Tim Daly from Clarendon got a call saying that if he votes Tuesday, he will be arrested. A recording of his voicemail can be found online at: www.webbforsenate.com/media/phone_message.wav

2) Widespread Calls, Allegedly from "Webb Volunteers," Telling Voters that their Polling Location has Changed.

3) Fliers in Buckingham County Say "SKIP THIS ELECTION" (paid for by the RNC) have caused many in the African American community to call the Board of Elections to see if the election is still on. The full tag line says: "SKIP THIS ELECTION... (and then in smaller print): Don't Let the Tax and Spend Liberals Win."

4) Voter Machine Problems.

a. On many ballots in heavily Democratic neighborhoods, Jim's name is cut off. The ballots say: "James H. (Jim)" with no Webb.

b. New reports that ballots in Essex County have Jim's name split on 2 pages. The "James H (Jim)" on one page, "Webb" on the next.

c. Reports of voting machines in Isle of White that do not provide a clear image of the ballot, making voting a challenge.

GOP Hate Machine

Cheney going hunting on Election Day



WASHINGTON --Vice President Dick Cheney will spend Election Day on his first hunting trip since he accidentally shot a companion last February while aiming at a covey of quail on a private Texas ranch.

The vice president, after working at the White House on Monday morning, will head to South Dakota to spend several days at a private hunting lodge near Pierre. Lea Anne McBride, his press secretary, said it was an annual hunting outing and said Cheney spent Election Day in 2002 at the same lodge.

He will be accompanied by his daughter, Mary, and his political director, Mel Raines, who will help him keep track of the election returns, McBride said.

On a Feb. 11 hunting trip in Texas, Cheney shot attorney Harry Whittington in the torso, neck and face when he pulled the trigger on his 28-gauge shotgun. The vice president later called it "one of the worst days of my life" and said, "The image of him falling is something I'll never ever be able to get out of my mind."

Birdshot

Poll: Democrats hold 58-38% edge over likely congressional voters

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The percentage of likely voters who plan to vote for Democrats in Tuesday's congressional elections increased in the past week, and those voters supporting Democrats also seem less likely to change their minds before casting ballots, according to a CNN poll conducted over the weekend.

Democrats hold a 58 percent to 38 percent advantage over Republicans among likely voters in the survey released Monday morning, compared to the 53 percent to 42 percent advantage reflected in the poll a week ago. Pollsters asked people who wires.send-nat-b wires.send-nat-b identified themselves as being likely to vote which party's candidate they would you vote for in their congressional district if the election were being held today.

On this question, the poll has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In the so-called "poll of polls," which averages the results of five national surveys, the Democrats have a 53 percent to 41 percent margin over the Republicans.

Poll: Bush approval drops again; 41% say they'll send a message with vote

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's popularity took another dip over the past week, and four out of 10 likely voters said their disapproval of the job he is doing will impact how they cast their congressional ballots on Tuesday, according to a new CNN poll.

Bush's approval rating fell to 35 percent, with 61 percent of those polled saying they disapproved of the way he is handling his job as president, in the survey conducted on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This represents a two point decline in Bush's approval rating compared to the CNN poll conducted a week earlier and it is four points lower than the survey taken two weeks ago.

The poll's sampling error on the approval rating question is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In the same poll, 41 percent of likely voters said they would be sending a message about their disapproval of Bush when they vote Tuesday. Another 42 percent said their opinion of Bush is not a factor in their congressional voting, while 16 percent said they would be sending a vote of support for Bush when they cast ballots Tuesday.

CNN

The latest Rothenberg Political Report ratings are out. Here are exclusive excerpts provided to Political Wire:

The Senate: "While Senate control is in doubt, with Democrats most likely to win from 5 to 7 seats, we do not think the two sides have an equal chance of winning a majority in the Senate. Instead, we believe that state and national dynamics favor Democrats netting six seats and winning control of the United States Senate."

The House: "Going into the final days before the 2006 midterm elections, we believe the most likely outcome in the House of Representatives is a Democratic gain of 34 to 40 seats, with slightly larger gains not impossible. This would put Democrats at between 237 and 243 seats, if not a handful more, giving them a majority in the next House that is slightly larger than the one the Republicans currently hold. If these numbers are generally correct, we would expect a period of GOP finger-pointing and self-flagellation after the elections, followed by a considerable number of Republican House retirements over the next two years."

Governors: "With Republican seats like Idaho, Alaska, and Nevada in play for state-specific reasons, and Minnesota vulnerable to a Democratic wave, the ceiling for possible Democratic gains is high. We have narrowed our earlier projection from Democratic gains of 6-10 to 7-9."

Mandate

Known as "Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal," the Web site contained about a dozen documents with charts, diagrams, equations and long narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts told the Times went beyond what was available on the Internet and in other public forums.

The New York Times said the documents provided information on building nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

The president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage, has given up his post while a church panel investigates allegations he paid a man for sex.

The Rev. Ted Haggard resigned as president of the 30 million-member association Thursday after being accused of paying the man for monthly trysts over the past three years.

Haggard, a married father of five, denied the allegations, but also stepped aside as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church pending an investigation

Research: Democrats Typically Drink Sprite

A new process of targeting voters based on the consumer choices that they make is giving political strategists new ways to target voters, according to "Good Morning America."

The information, which will help determine if a person is either a Republican or Democrat, is called micro-targeting.

Dr. Pepper -- Republican

Sprite -- Democrat

Pro Wrestling -- Democrat

Monster Trucks -- Republican

Wal-Mart Shoppers -- Republican

Coors -- Republican

U.S. Open -- Democrat

College Football -- Republican

Audi -- Republican

Saab -- Democrat

Organic food shopper -- White Democratic

TV Guide -- Democrat

U.S. News and World Report -- Republican

The report indicated that political affiliation is learned by a compilation of consumer habits and not just one shopping preference.

It is also likely that this type of research will be used for the 2008 election.

YahoooHoo!

Boehner refuses to apologize for faulting generals

In the wake of Sen. John Kerry's belated apology for offending troops deployed in Iraq, House Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner of Ohio is being asked by Democrats to apologize for seemingly blaming senior military officers for any problems with the Bush administration's Iraq strategy.

Boehner, however, does not appear to be budging.
"Good try," he said when asked about demands for an apology.

.....

Rumsfeld, Boehner said, has been pushing the military to transform, but the uniformed military leaders have resisted.

"You have to understand that the generals who have been in charge of the Pentagon have been very resistant to change," Boehner said. "It's the younger generals who understand this new force structure that we need to have for the military of the 21st century."

Boner

(snip)

THE PRESIDENT: My thoughts are that we face an enemy that will kill innocent people. They murder to achieve their objectives, and they use propaganda in order to do two things. One: proclaim their might, and secondly to discourage us. Obviously the idea of their propaganda being displayed is something that bothers me in the sense that I don't want the American people to become discouraged. One: I want them to understand the stakes in this war; and, two, that we're going to win this war and not to be discouraged about the violence and the propaganda that they see. Obviously, some of the violence is not propaganda, but these tapes that they put out are all aimed at shaking our confidence.

Osama Bin Laden himself has said that it's just a matter of time before the United States loses its will and retreats. Give me a second here, Rush, because I want to share something with you. I am deeply concerned about a country, the United States, leaving the Middle East. I am worried that rival forms of extremists will battle for power, obviously creating incredible damage if they do so; that they will topple modern governments, that they will be in a position to use oil as a tool to blackmail the West. People say, "What do you mean by that?" I say, "If they control oil resources, then they pull oil off the market in order to run the price up, and they will do so unless we abandon Israel, for example, or unless we abandon allies. You couple that with a country that doesn't like us with a nuclear weapon and people will look back at this moment and say, 'What happened to those people in 2006?' and those are the stakes in this war we face." On the one hand we've got a plan to make sure we protect you from immediate attack, and on the other hand we've got a long-term strategy to deal with these threats, and part of that strategy is to stay on the offense. Part of the strategy is to help young democracies like Lebanon and Iraq be able to survive against the terrorists and the extremists who are trying to crush their hopes, and part of the democracy is for a freedom movement, which will help create the conditions so that the extremists become marginalized and unable to recruit.

Pigboy's site

Baghdad is under siege

Sunni insurgents have cut the roads linking the city to the rest of Iraq. The country is being partitioned as militiamen fight bloody battles for control of towns and villages north and south of the capital.

As American and British political leaders argue over responsibility for the crisis in Iraq, the country has taken another lurch towards disintegration.

Iraqi leader orders U.S. troops to abandon checkpoints

Moving to wrest control of his army from the United States, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered U.S. forces to take down the barriers they'd erected in their search for a missing U.S. soldier and to end the blockade of Baghdad's largest Shiite Muslim district.

The action was the starkest sign yet of the differences that divide U.S. officials, who've urged Maliki to disarm Sadr's militia, and Maliki, whose hold on power depends at least partly on Sadr and his control of parliament's largest voting bloc.