Glenn Greenwald: How myth gets built into conventional wisdom

Here are two examples perfectly illustrating how conventional wisdom is created by journalists and pundits who are either lazy, dishonest, or both:

(1) James Carville tells The New Republic's Ryan Lizza that he thinks Harold Ford should replace Howard Dean as DNC Chair. Lizza turns that into a claim that "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."

That in turn leads Anne Kornblut in her article today in The New York Times -- identifying the "winners and losers" in the midterm elections -- to assert that "the jury is still out on Howard Dean" because:

With rumblings of a movement to draft Mr. Ford to replace Mr. Dean at the national committee, several Democrats privately said Mr. Emanuel was winning the power struggle.

Bush’s Chernobyl economy; hard times are on the way

I can't vouch for the truth on this one, but my 'gut' does.--Dictynna

by Mike Whitney
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Nov 9, 2006, 01:24

In the next few months, a financial crisis will arise somewhere in the world which will jolt the American economy and trigger a swift and precipitous decline in the value of the dollar.

This is not speculation; it will happen and there is nothing that the Bush administration can do to stop it.

All of the traditional supports for the dollar have been removed by a shrinking economy, a massive $800 billion account deficit, dramatic increases in the money supply, and the reckless manipulation of interest rates.

Now, the noose is tightening. Our foreign trading partners can see that we are bobbing in an ocean of red ink and are refusing to buy back our debt in the form of US Treasuries. This is a death sentence for the dollar. It means that in a matter of months the once-mighty greenback will crash through the floor and free-fall through open space.

Digby: Moving To The Right

No, not us. Them. It's hard to see how it's possible for them to move any further, but they think it is.

The dog-beater whines:

"Laura Ingraham said it best. When Congressional Republicans wait until the First of October to begin reaching out to their base, they are destined to lose. That was the GOP s downfall. They consistently ignored the constituency that put them in power until it was late in the game, and then frantically tried to catch up at the last minute. In 2004, conservative voters handed them a 10-seat majority in the Senate and a 29-seat edge in the House. And what did they do with their power? Very little that Values Voters care about.

Digby: Lieu-sieur

"The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I'd expected," Rove tells TIME. "Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard [the disgraced evangelical leader] added to the general distaste that people have for all things Washington, and it just reached critical mass."

Exit polls showed heavy discontent with the course of the war, and Bush announced the departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the next day. But Rove took comfort in results of the Connecticut Senate race between the anti-war Democratic nominee, Ned Lamont, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic primary over his support for the war. "Iraq mattered," Rove says. "But it was more frustration than it was an explicit call for withdrawal. If this was a get-out-now call for withdrawal, then Lamont would not have been beaten by Lieberman. Iraq does play a role, but not the critical, central role."

How pathetic is it that the great GOP magus is reduced to finding his silver lining in an Independent beating a Democrat in a blue state?

Digby: Taunt-ology

Glenn Greenwald catches the Washington Post airbrushing history from their very own paper to protect President Bush from being called a liar when he even admitted to the lie. (These internets are dangerous boys. You can't just go around doing this anymore because people will catch you.)

Greenwald writes:

It is now conclusively clear that President Bush lied last week, several days before the election, when he vowed definitively to reporters that Donald Rumsfeld would remain as Defense Secretary for the next two years. At the time he made that statement, he was deep into the process of replacing Rumsfeld, if not already finished, and the President knew that the statement he made about Rumsfeld was false at the time he made it. That is the definition of "lying."

Digby: Winning Into Losing

Despite my clear allegiance to the netroots and my belief that they were vital in this election, I have refrained from weighing in too heavily on the internecine fighting in the hope that it would blow over as our victory sank in and people gathered their wits and properly apportioned credit. I was more than willing to say Rahm and Chuck had done their jobs and that we did ours which means that the party won big, giving us a real governing coalition instead of a bare majority That seems like a nice, lukewarm water assessment designed to let everyone have a fair share of the credit.

Billmon: The Toe Sucker Gets It

In any investigation, you always work from the bottom up:

While the left would be appeased by investigations into why we invaded Iraq in the first place, it is financial scandals that will do the greatest damage to Bush and the Republicans.

Democratic committee chairmen will examine Halliburton contracts in Iraq, royalty deals for offshore oil drilling, defense procurement scandals, and resource leases in national forests and wilderness areas. They will examine the nexus between campaign contributions and favors from the trough of the executive branch.

Avedon Carol: Winning does not settle it

Something I've found annoying this cycle is that no one has been talking about the exit polls. This seems very odd to me. Don't you want to know? Don't you want to know whether "the exit polls were right" or not? Don't you have any questions about any races? Sure, we won, but don't we still need to know, and don't we realize we still need to use every tool in the box to ensure fair elections? It's important, people.

I'm really unhappy about this. Why are we seeing so little about exit polls? Oh, yes, it's because the networks have been fairly secretive about the numbers this time. Why is that? Why shouldn't we always be able to compare those numbers? Who is it who benefits from keeping those numbers secret? Not the voters, that's for sure.

What We Learn When We Learn About Economics

Ezra Klein: I'm glad to see the terrific Mark Thoma take notice of my friend Chris Hayes' article chronicling his observations from an introductory economics course at U of Chicago. I'm actually writing this from Hyde Park, center of the U of Chicago conspiracy, where wandering around pass under flapping posters from the Ayn Rand Institute blaring "A GREEDY CAPITALIST IS A POOR MAN'S BEST FRIEND."

It's a fun place. Hayes' article is about how economics is taught here, given that the school hosts the most famed economics department in the nation. There's a nonpartisan, empiricist aesthetic that offers the theories a sense of certainty they don't possess. I've known many kids to enter Econ 101 and come out merrily explaining why the minimum wage is a travesty, only to get through a few upper-division courses and turn on a dime. But since the vast majority of folks who take any economics will only take it once, the vastly simplified, misleadingly clean concepts of the introductory courses, offered with an assuredness the theories' don't deserve, stands. And thus a market worship, driven by the belief that theoretical efficiency has been proven to translate into actual equity, permeates.

Billmon: Proctological Exam

It looks like the folks at Halliburton better get ready to bend over and drop them:

Rep. Ike Skelton knows what he will do in one of his first acts as chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the Democratic-led House: resurrect the subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

The panel was disbanded by the Republicans after they won control of Congress in 1994. Now, Skelton (D-Mo.) intends to use it as a forum to probe Pentagon spending and the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq war.

Skelton: (pulls on rubber glove) This is going to hurt -- a lot.

Of course, as far as I'm concerned, the Dems could shove it in so deep they're tickling the Cheney Administration's adnoids.

ActBlue Can't Wait For '08

Not a day too soon, ActBlue.com jumps into the '08 field with its newest fundraising tool. The Democratic online fundraising giant met with the FEC this week to get their latest project approved: Setting up fundraising accounts for potential 2008 presidential candidates.

Results cast doubt on Brownback's presidential effort

By MATT STEARNS, McClatchy Newspapers

As Sen. Sam Brownback surveyed the presidential landscape over the last two years, he always insisted he had one major advantage: The country was becoming more conservative. Maybe not.

No Such Thing As Luck

Posted on Nov 10, 2006

Nancy Pelosi, set to become the first woman, Californian and Italian-American speaker of the House, defied the odds to drive her party to victory. According to a San Francisco Chronicle profile, Pelosi’s determination and cold calculation had as much to do with the Democrats’ success as President Bush’s unpopularity.

---

San Francisco Chronicle:

Washington—On a snowy morning last December when the talk in Washington was that Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s support for pulling troops from Iraq might cost Democrats the 2006 election, a reporter asked Pelosi whether she needed to gain seats in the coming election to return as Democratic leader.

Conservatives sifting through the ashes of Tuesday's overwhelming electoral defeat

Christian evangelical leaders start rallying the troops for 'the biggest battle we have faced for our core beliefs' says the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins

In an election-eve communication, the Reverend Donald Wildmon, the founder and chairman of the American Family Association, sent an email to his supporters urging them to get out and vote "for the sake of our children and grandchildren." The email continued, "It is not merely control of Congress that will be decided ... but also control of the federal courts who are assuming more and more influence over the core values that you and I care about most."

Many who identify as Christian conservatives may have taken warnings from Rev. Wildmon and other conservative Christian evangelical leaders to heart and showed up at the polls. But this time around, in some races religious voters played an important role in electing Democratic candidates.

Tomgram: Plebiscite on an Outlaw Empire

Outlaw Empire Meets the Wave

5 Questions for Our Future
By Tom Engelhardt

The wave -- and make no mistake, it's a global one -- has just crashed on our shores, soaking our imperial masters. It's a sight for sore eyes.

It's been a long time since we've seen an election like midterm 2006. After all, it's a truism of our politics that Americans are almost never driven to the polls by foreign-policy issues, no less by a single one that dominates everything else, no less by a catastrophic war (and the presidential approval ratings that go with it). This strange phenomenon has been building since the moment, in May 2003, that George W. Bush stood under that White-House-prepared "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared "major combat operations have ended."

Warrantless Wiretaps Unlikely to Be OK'd

Saturday November 11, 2006 12:31 PM

AP Photo WX102

By LAURIE KELLMAN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Legislation aimed at President Bush's once-secret program for wiretapping U.S.-foreign phone calls and computer traffic of suspected terrorists without warrants shows all the signs of not moving ahead, notwithstanding President Bush's request this week that a lame-duck Congress give it to him.

Senate Democrats, emboldened by Election Day wins that put them in control of Congress as of January, say they would rather wait until next year to look at the issue. ``I can't say that we won't do it, but there's no guarantee that we're going spend a lot of time on controversial measures,'' Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois said Thursday.

Paul Krugman: The Great Revulsion

I’m not feeling giddy as much as greatly relieved. O.K., maybe a little giddy. Give ’em hell, Harry and Nancy!

Here’s what I wrote more than three years ago, in the introduction to my column collection “The Great Unraveling”: “I have a vision — maybe just a hope — of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country.”

At the time, the right was still celebrating the illusion of victory in Iraq, and the bizarre Bush personality cult was still in full flower. But now the great revulsion has arrived.

Attytood: Tin-foil hat time: Were Bush and Rove "The Producers" of an intentional flop?

"Under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than with a hit."
-- Accountant Leo Bloom, from "The Producers."

There are five stages of grief -- anger is the second, right after denial, and that's where the Republicans are at right now. The sudden ouster of the highly unpopular defense secretary Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, just hours after the GOP electoral bloodbath, has led to most angry Republican fingers pointing straight at Karl Rove & Co.:

"The White House said keeping the majority was a priority, but they failed to do the one thing that could have made a difference," one House GOP leadership aide said Thursday. "For them to toss Rumsfeld one day after the election was a slap in the face to everyone who worked hard to protect the majority."

Maybe it's just because the Democrats actually won something, but for the last few days, something has just not felt quite right about either Tuesday's election, or the White House's handling of the voting and the aftermath. We have no doubts that a majority of American voters wanted change on Election Day, and they wanted the Democrats to be the agent of that change.

But we've also followed politics -- and the rise of George W. Bush and Karl Rove -- intensely these past six or seven years, and so beginning on Tuesday night, we were increasingly surprised at all the dogs that did not bark in the 2006 election -- dogs that raised quite a ruckus in the last three national elections.

Mark Morford: Eleven New And Happy Things

Santorum dead, religious right imploding, Bush whimpering in the corner. Can we all exhale now?
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, November 10, 2006

1) (Chant, in happy sing-song voice, while holding bottle of wine, Astroglide and copy of Rob Brezsny's Pronoia): Rick Santorum is gone, Rick Santorum is gone, oh praise Jesus, Rick Santorum is gone. The third most powerful and first most reprehensible "Christian" Republican lawmaker in Congress was also arguably the most homophobic, misogynistic and small-minded of them all, especially given his sticky sheen of fundamentalist goo.

Remember Rick? He's the one who equated homosexuality with pedophilia and bestiality. He championed intelligent design, tossed Terry Schiavo's lifeless body like a political football, voted against Plan B and funding for contraception education and voted to ban abortions on military bases (among many, many other attacks on women's rights), thus earning himself a whopping 0 percent rating from NARAL. He also voted to cut the NEA, increase school prayer, pursue ANWR drilling and on and on. Ricky's voting record is the ethical equivalent of a pie full of nails left over from the "Passion of the Christ" bake sale. Women, the sexually awake and Dan Savage fans rejoice: Rick Santorum is gone. Praise Jesus and pass the wine.

MNSBC online poll: 87 percent say 'plenty to justify' Bush impeachment

RAW STORY
Published: Friday November 10, 2006

An MSNBC online poll shows that the overwhelming majority of its participating voters believe President Bush should be impeached.

The poll asked the question, "Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?"

White House in for a hefty dose of oversight

LOS ANGELES — The Democratic congressman who will investigate the Bush administration's running of the government says there are so many areas of possible wrongdoing, his biggest problem will be deciding which ones to pursue.

There's the response to Hurricane Katrina, government contracting in Iraq and on homeland security, political interference in regulatory decisions by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, and allegations of war profiteering, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., told the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

"I'm going to have an interesting time because the Government Reform Committee has jurisdiction over everything,” Mr. Waxman said Friday, three days after his party's capture of Congress put him in line to chair the panel. “The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose.”

Digby: Krugman

The election wasn’t just the end of the road for Mr. Bush’s reign of error. It was also the end of the 12-year Republican dominance of Congress. The Democrats will now hold a majority in the House that is about as big as the Republicans ever achieved during that era of dominance.

Moreover, the new Democratic majority may well be much more effective than the majority the party lost in 1994. Thanks to a great regional realignment, in which a solid Northeast has replaced the solid South, Democratic control no longer depends on a bloc of Dixiecrats whose ideological sympathies were often with the other side of the aisle.

Digby: Reaching Across The Aisle

... with your feet planted firmly on your own side.

I am not going to criticize Nancy Pelosi for talking about bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle because, you know, that's politics. It would be churlishly Republican not to say such things in victory.

But actions speak louder than words and I stand by my earlier admonition to the new Democratic majority:

The chattering classes are all abuzz with the notion that now is the time to bind up the nation's wounds and work across the aisle. (I can't help but wonder why they didn't see the need for such rapproachment during the last decade of slash and burn GOP partisanship.) This pattern is well documented. The Republicans will continue to drain the treasury and play out their "movement" experiments and then have the Democrats step up and clean up the messes they make until this is stopped.

Digby: [sic]Tandrums

You knew Atlas had to be on the verge of a meltdown, didn't you? Today didn't help. Her lovah-man is being sent up to the hill again and it may be that he won't actually be confirmed.

Via Alex at Martini Republic:

Is this to be the latest blood sacrifice coming out of a bowed Bush White House? And I say here, now, STOP THE INSANITY. Throwing our best, our brightest to the insatiable leftist beast makes them hungrier. Rumsfeld, now Bolton? WTF? and Why?

Digby: Welcome Back Reagan Democrats

Good for Jim Webb. He denied the idea that he'd become a Democrat purely on the basis of Iraq. He explained that he'd originally become a Republican on national security issues but that like a lot of people who'd done the same thing, he'd always been concerned with matters of economic fairness and social justice. He feels very comfortable in the new progressive Democratic majority.

People of sense are beginning to see that liberal-hating, low taxes, guns and Jesus aren't enough to sustain the country they want to live in --- and that for all the Republican chest thumping about national security they are no more capable or serious than a bunch of kids playing RISK.

Digby: Southern Comfort

Many of you probably read Tom Schaller's postings throughout the blogosphere on TAPPED, The Gadflyer and Daily Kos. He has also written a book called "Whistling Past Dixie" where he makes the case for a non southern strategy. It's a very interesting thesis that makes a basic point, which nobody wants to admit, but which is undoubtedly true: the conservative majority in the south is much more conservative than the rest of the country and the Democrats simply cannot win by trying to accomodate it. And by conservative, I'm not talking about what we used to think of as conservative, I'm talking about the special regional conservatism that's dominated the GOP since it gelled as a southern dominated party in the early 90's.

Digby: Meet The New Guy

...same as the old guy.

It's great that Rummy's gone and all, but if anyone really thinks Robert Gates is going to bring fresh thinking to the Iraq or is the type of old hand who will speak truth to the codpiece, they are sadly mistaken. Gates is one of original bad guys:

Gates was investigated during the late 1980s and 1990s by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh over whether Gates had told the truth about the Iran-contra affair, which occurred during his tenure as deputy to Ronald Reagan’s CIA director, William Casey. Questions about Gates's knowledge of secret arms sales to Iran—and the diversion of proceeds to support the Nicaraguan contras—caused Gates to withdraw his nomination to succeed Casey as CIA director in 1987.

Digby: We Are All Conservatives Now

So I keep hearing that the conservatives really won yesterday, and yet:

From the country's heartland, voters sent messages that altered America's culture wars and dismayed the religious right — defending abortion rights in South Dakota, endorsing stem cell research in Missouri, and, in a national first, rejecting a same-sex marriage ban in Arizona.

Conservative leaders were jolted by the setbacks and looked for an explanation Wednesday. Gay-rights and abortion-rights activists celebrated.

Digby: Mainstream Progressives

12 years ago today I remember driving through a wierd other worldly landscape and listening to Rush on the radio the morning after Newt's big victory. As remains true for most of rural America, his was the only radio station that I could get out there in the middle of nowhere. It was a festival of chest beating and nationalism that brought to mind some unpleasant associations with certain historical figures from the 1930's. Their arrogance and disdain was on display even as they celebrated their big win --- all they could talk about was that the country had rejected the soft and squishy hated liberals.

Digby: Spinning The Ratf***

Wolf Blitzer: Let me talk a little bit with you about some of the reported glitches coing up in voting. Democrats are already charging the Republicans are engagin in some dirty tricks out there and they're complaining about some of the activity especially some of those so-called robo calls that have gone out from the national republican campaing committee.

I want to give you a change to respond to the charge that your side is engaging in dirty politics.

Ken Mehlman:I'm not familiar with that Wolf. I thin that my goal is to get more Republicans and more Democrats and more independents. Everyone who is watching this show, I don't care what your politics are, I want you to go out and vote.

Digby: Monitoring The Dirty Tricks

Two unbiased observers, Joe Scarborough and Michael Smerconish, just pointed out that it's sickening to see Democrats whining about election irregularities when they do exactly the same thing, even worse. Like in Philadelphia where they are allegedly "mining votes" left and right as we speak. Or New Jersey where they have rigged the voting machines.

Digby: Waiting, Waiting...

So, MSNBC has chosen the most partisan Republican election lawyer in the country, Ben Ginsburg, to be their legal expert. (I'm kind of surprised they couldn't get Limbaugh to reprise his earlier work with the network.)

In other news, the robo-call aspect of the vaunted 72 hour GOP Suppress the Vote operation seems to have captured the attention of the media. At least for now.

Digby: First Hack

I have never been one to criticize Laura Bush. I actually feel a little bit sorry for the woman, considering to whom she's married. I always feel a little bit sorry for Republican wives (except Lynn Cheney...)

But now she's pissed me off. Via Vegacura and Olberman I see she said of Michael J. Fox that "it's always easy to manipulate people's feelings with these awful diseases."

Digby: The Night Before Midterms

By Verse in the comments


'Twas the night before mid-terms
And all through the House
Speaker Hastert was ranting
The filthy old louse

"Tomorrow they choose, and the future is clear.
We'll be handed our asses by the voters this year"
"Coach" Hastert was rattled, his confidence lost
For Nancy Pelosi would soon be his boss!

Digby: Losin' It

The legendarily confident Karl Rove is sounding a little bit frayed this morning. Charlie Christ (R- Closet), running to succeed Jebbie in Florida decided that he'd be better off campaigning with St. John McCain today instead of the Bush Brothers. It looks like the only one who will be seen with them on stage is the kooky Katherine Harris.

Digby: Perverting Reality

I have long written that the right has retired the concept of hypocrisy. But until I read this piece by David Frum over at alicublog I didn't realize that they had actually formulated a moral philosophy to justify it. It is truly astonishing:

Roy writes:

Frum's opening made me think he was just going to show sympathy for a fallen sinner; later, I thought he would be content to tag on some contempt for a liberal media pile-on; but eventually I realized to my horror this man, a professional writer who had once been employed by the President of the United States, was rejecting a taboo as old as human society:

Consider the hypothetical case of two men. Both are inclined toward homosexuality. Both from time to time hire the services of male prostitutes. Both have occasionally succumbed to drug abuse.

Digby: Call Me, Harold

Via Talking Points Memo, I see that we are able to see some results of the Corker "call me" ad in tennessee and it's not pretty:

The poll suggests that a Republican ad mentioning that Ford attended a Super Bowl party attended by Playboy playmates and featuring a white woman telling Ford to "call me," hurt Ford. A whopping 81 percent of likely voters saw the ad.

While 67 percent said it would have no effect on their vote, 23 percent said it made them more likely to vote for Corker and 10 percent said it made them more likely to vote for Ford.

Slashdot: US Citizens To Require ''Clearance'' To Leave?

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday November 04, @10:08AM from the hotel-americana dept.

jo7hs2 writes

"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed a system which will in essence make it mandatory for you to have permission before leaving or entering the country, effectively putting everyone on a no-fly list unless the government says otherwise. Interestingly, the proposal does not seem to cover personal travel, only that on some sort of carrier like an airline or cruise vessel. While this certainly is concerning, it isn't exactly new, as a passport is already required for circumstances covered under the proposal."

Digby: Jesus Doesn't Mention It

Following up tristero's post below, it's interesting that David Kuo says something along those lines in this new TIME magazine article:

"The evangelical obsession with homosexuality makes this especially ironic. For many evangelical leaders, anything related to homosexuality is this special, dark sin. But that's not what the Bible says," says Kuo. "Really it's a sin like gossiping to your neighbor. Jesus doesn't even mention it at all."

Nobody made it sound darker or more sinful than Ted Haggard.

Digby: Stale Cakewalk

Everybody's talking about the the neocon rats deserting the sinking ship article that's coming up in the December Vanity Fair. It's a doozy. There are two excerpts however that I think are just priceless.

First, there's Michael Ledeen, who sent his totally inexperienced 29 year old daughter to Bagdad to work as a financial advisor for the Coalition Provisional Authority in the early days of the invasion, blaming it on the bitches:

"Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."

The other is Ken "Cakewalk" Adelman:

And if he, too, had his time over, Adelman says, "I would write an article that would be skeptical over whether there would be a performance that would be good enough to implement our policy. The policy can be absolutely right, and noble, beneficial, but if you can't execute it, it's useless, just useless. I guess that's what I would have said: that Bush's arguments are absolutely right, but you know what, you just have to put them in the drawer marked can't do. And that's very different from let's go."

Digby: Blue Heroes

As we close in on the election, with our prospects looking good, I think the netroots and the blogosphere deserve a little pat on the back and none moreso than the Blue America Pac, which raised more than half a million dollars this cycle for a very specific and original purpose:

The Blue America PAC was formed on August 24 to raise money to put “Have You Had Enough” on the radio in the form of 30 second advertising spots for various Blue America candidates. As you can see from our list, most of our candidates are in low-cost media markets where just a few dollars will go a very long way. We have no candidates in expensive media markets like NYC or Boston or Los Angeles or Chicago. These are “dollah a hollah” markets. We’re hoping to have people humming their way into the polling booths come November. The story of the song is here and please watch Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, Music For America and Down With Tyranny for updates—and for the videos.

Digby: Children's Crusade

I suppose a lot of people have already written about this at length, but it's so stunning I have to highlight it here.

When it was revealed yesterday that the internet document dump to the "Army of Davids" contained plans for building nuclear weapons in arabic, I knew that the 101st Keyboarders and Pete Hoekstra and Rick Santorum had been agitating for it for some time. I also knew that Stephen Hayes had been saying that the "proof" of Saddam's huge cache of weapons and terrorist ties was in those documents and that the braindead intelligence agencies were either incapable or were liberal hippies and could therefore, not be trusted to do it right.

Digby: Full Speed Ahead

Andrew Sullivan just said on NOW that he doesn't like the idea of voting for the Democrats but it's the only way to get through to Bush.

Sadly, I fear that it isn't going to work:

Four days before the election, as Republican candidates battle to save their seats in Congress amid a backlash over the war in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney told ABC News the administration is going "full speed ahead" with its policy.

"We've got the basic strategy right," Cheney told George Stephanopoulos in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on "This Week."

Digby: Going Normal

It looks like the good and decent people of South Dakota are going to reject the Sodomized Virgin exception. Say Jalapeno!

According to a Mason Dixon poll commissioned by the Argus Leader, the supporters of the abortion ban are trailing the in the polls 52 percent to 42 percent with 6 percent still undecided.

Digby: They're Gonna Keep Him?

Jesus oh Jesus how I want to see Joe Lieberman lose. Connecticut Dems who say they are voting for Lieberman: you know not what you do.

Crooks and Liars has the video of Lieberman's shameful, angry appearance on Imus this morning in which he says:

"You've gotta join one caucus or another to protect your seniority so I've said I'd caucus with the Democrats. But I'm gonna be very independent."

I don't doubt it. He's made it clear that he's caucusing with the Democrats purely for the purpose of maintaining his seniority. If this thing comes out 50/50, I don't suppose there's any chance the Republicans will offer him up a juicy chairmanship and give him seniority to jump, do you? Nah, they wouldn't do that. And surely he wouldn't agree to such a thing after promising he wouldn't, right?

Digby: Secretary of Hack

Wow. Andrea Mitchell just reported that the Secretary of State went on Laura Ingraham's wingnut propaganda show and said the "Army of Davids" documents proved that Saddam was working on a nuclear program. Lucky for us that Mitchell pointed out that the documents were from before the first Gulf War.

Billmon: The Wave

The exit polling data has an interesting chart that may explain those last-minute pre-election polls that supposedly showed the Republicans closing the gap with the Democrats, at least on the generic ballot.

When did you decide your House vote?

For whatever reason (John Kerry's nightclub routine, the GOP robocalls from hell, something they ate for dinner) voters who made up their minds in the last week before the election were less likely to pick the donkey over the elephant than those who made up their minds before that time, and a lot less likely than those who made up their minds on the day of the election itself (which I'm guessing includes more than a few who literally made their choice when they stepped into the voting booth).

Morning-After Pundits Take Winners to Task

Victorious Dems lectured by media establishment

11/9/06

On the day after Election Day 2006, pundits from major U.S. news outlets had, as one would expect, substantial amounts of political criticism for the party that faced major losses. What is more remarkable is the amount of criticism and caution directed at the party that won major gains.

Virtually unanimously, the political commentators providing the initial analyses of the election for the nation's most influential news outlets downplayed the progressive aspects of the victory, characterizing the large new crop of Democrats as overwhelmingly centrist or even conservative. "These Democrats that were elected last night are conservative Democrats," declared CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer (Early Show, 11/8/06). CNN's Andrea Koppel (American Morning, 11/8/06) referred to the "new batch of moderate and conservative Democrats just elected who will force their party to shift towards the center."

Robert Parry: The Secret World of Robert Gates

By Robert Parry
November 9, 2006

Robert Gates, George W. Bush’s choice to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary, is a trusted figure within the Bush Family’s inner circle, but there are lingering questions about whether Gates is a trustworthy public official.

The 63-year-old Gates has long faced accusations of collaborating with Islamic extremists in Iran, arming Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq, and politicizing U.S. intelligence to conform with the desires of policymakers – three key areas that relate to his future job.

Gates skated past some of these controversies during his 1991 confirmation hearings to be CIA director – and the current Bush administration is seeking to slip Gates through the congressional approval process again, this time by pressing for a quick confirmation by the end of the year, before the new Democratic-controlled Senate is seated.

Billmon: Still the White People's Party

I know I'm looking for dark linings to silver clouds here, but I still find this exit poll data depressing:

Republican share of two-party vote

Whites: 51%
White men: 53%
White women: 50%

Granted, if you back out the lop-sided results in Dixie (and oh how I wish we could) the totals aren't as bad. But still, in the midwest heartland, the best the Dems could manage was 47% of the white vote. In the west it was 49% -- a meager one percentage point plurality.

Bush set to lose UN enforcer

JOHN Bolton's troubled nomination as US ambassador to the United Nations is "going nowhere", a key Democratic senator said today after the party scored big in mid-term elections.

Joseph Biden of Delaware is expected to chair the Senate Foreign Relations Committee if Democratic control of the US Senate is formally confirmed.

"I never saw a real enthusiasm (for Bolton's nomination) on the Republican side to begin with. There's none on our side. And I think John Bolton's going nowhere," he said.

ABCs of Plan B

'Morning-after' pill available in drugstores next week

November 8, 2006

BY JIM RITTER Health Reporter

An over-the-counter "morning-after" pill now being shipped to drug stores should be available to consumers by next week, its manufacturer said Tuesday.

The pill, Plan B, reduces the risk of pregnancy after unprotected sex by 89 percent. It initially was available by prescription only, but this limited its effectiveness -- the longer after sex the pill is taken, the less effective it becomes.

Karl Rove Re-Aligned

By Andrew Gumbel, HuffingtonPost.com. Posted November 9, 2006.

Karl Rove's dream of ushering in a generation of Republican rule is officially dead. What now?

Bye bye, Turd Blossom. Karl Rove's dream of refashioning the American political landscape and ushering in a generation of Republican rule is officially dead. The radical Republican revolution, which began with Barry Goldwater, hit paydirt with Ronald Reagan and reached its highwater mark with the 1994 Contract With America, has come to a screeching halt, and it's largely the fault of George W's consigliere.

Make no mistake: when Rove was good, he was very, very good. He understood exactly how to manipulate, divide and intimidate the electorate so he could eke out the narrowest of winning margins -- the 50 per cent plus one model, which was as much as the radical Republican policy agenda was ever going to muster. But divisiveness will only take you so far. Politics is, above all, the art of coalition building. Without the Rehnquist Supreme Court, without a supine Democratic Party in opposition and, above all, without 9/11, he would never have made it even this far.

AP: Startling findings in Tillman probe

By SCOTT LINDLAW and MARTHA MENDOZA, Associated Press Writers
2 hours, 1 minute ago

In a remote and dangerous corner of Afghanistan, under the protective roar of Apache attack helicopters and B-52 bombers, special agents and investigators did their work.

They walked the landscape with surviving witnesses. They found a rock stained with the blood of the victim. They re-enacted the killings — here the U.S. Army Rangers swept through the canyon in their Humvee, blasting away; here the doomed man waved his arms, pleading for recognition as a friend, not an enemy.

"Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" the NFL star shouted, again and again.

The latest inquiry into Tillman's death by friendly fire should end next month; authorities have said they intend to release to the public only a synopsis of their report. But The Associated Press has combed through the results of 2 1/4 years of investigations — reviewed thousands of pages of internal Army documents, interviewed dozens of people familiar with the case — and uncovered some startling findings.

'Air shower' set to cut water use by 30 percent

As Australians become increasingly alert to the importance of using water wisely in the home, CSIRO researchers have found a way to use a third less water when you shower – by adding air.

9 November 2006

The scientists have developed a simple ‘air shower’ device which, when fitted into existing showerheads, fills the water droplets with a tiny bubble of air. The result is the shower feels just as wet and just as strong as before, but now uses much less water.

The researchers, from CSIRO Manufacturing Materials Technology in Melbourne, say the device increases the volume of the shower stream while reducing the amount of water used by about 30 per cent.

Barbara Ehrenreich: “Values” Voter Raise Minimum Wages

Work just got a little more rewarding in Arizona, Montana, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and –according to CNN projections – Colorado. Voters in these states just approved increases in their minimum wages – from $5.15 an hour all the way up to $6.85 an hour in Ohio. The six new states join the enlightened 18 that had already raised their minimum wages, for a total of 24 states where it’s beginning to be worthwhile to get up and go to work in the morning.

I’m especially proud of my home state, Montana, which a decade ago was best known for its white supremacist militias. I feel like the Abe Lincoln character in the Rozerem ad: “Welcome back,” I want to say, “We missed you.” Except that the Montanans aren’t falling asleep – they’re waking up from their weird, scary, claustrophobic dream.

Social exclusion changes brain function and can lead to poor decision-making

Poor Bridget Jones. At the beginning of the first film about her diary and life, the character, played by actress Renée Zellweger, is fat and alone in her apartment where she mimes one of the great self-pitying song hits of all time: "All by Myself." But Bridget's problem may be more than skin deep.

In new research, reported in the current online issue of the journal Social Neuroscience, researchers from the University of Georgia and San Diego State University report for the first time that social exclusion actually causes changes in a person's brain function and can lead to poor decision-making and a diminished learning ability.

The Iraq Mandate

Robert Dreyfuss

November 08, 2006

Robert Dreyfuss is an Alexandria, Va.-based writer specializing in politics and national security issues. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005), a contributing editor at The Nation, and a writer for Mother Jones, The American Prospect and Rolling Stone. He can be reached through his website, www.robertdreyfuss.com.

For the first time in American history, Americans have gone to the polls in wartime and rejected that war. Not only that, but they’ve done so overwhelmingly. Just as the election of 1932 was a seismic repudiation of the failed economic policies of the Hoover Republicans, the election of 2006 was a landslide against the Bush Republicans and their criminally misguided war against Iraq.

Amid pre-election polls showing that voters oppose “staying the course” by margins of as much as three to one, the American people have issued a sweeping mandate to the U.S. government: Get out of Iraq.

Britney Spears, William Blake, and Voting With My Dog

The nonsensical election coverage of the cable news networks.

By Troy Patterson
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006, at 11:15 PM ET

Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006

"I feel like Tucker's gained a few pounds." This was my fiancée—generally a perceptive lass—cocking an eyebrow at our TV around 1:25 p.m. ET. Tucker Carlson's smirk was firmly in place behind the anchor desk on MSNBC. He was interviewing Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who, despite being a self-described "Italian kid from a steel town" and all, might have put on a necktie for the occasion. Carlson—nicely despicable as a pundit, hopelessly afloat as an anchorman—asked Santorum the same question that Fox News' Martha MacCallum had put to him 10 minutes earlier: Why, unlike so many of his fellow Republicans, had he not tried to distance himself from President Bush? Santorum answered. Meanwhile, the graphic at the bottom of the screen read, "Santorum tried distancing himself from Pres. Bush." The control room did not quite seem to be in touch with the control room, and that's what it was like in the afternoon and early evening: Much heat, much noise, no light, no action.

Exposure to chemicals may harm young brains

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - Exposure to industrial chemicals in the womb or early in life can impair brain development but only a handful are controlled to protect children, researchers said on Wednesday.

There is also a lack of research and testing to identify which chemicals cause the most harm or how they should be regulated, they added.

Will the results force out Rumsfeld?

By Mark Oliver / Midterms 2006 03:38pm

The newly empowered Democrats were today renewing calls for Donald Rumsfeld to be sacked as the US secretary of defence.

George Bush last week gave Mr Rumsfeld an unequivocal vote of confidence for his "fantastic job". But one topic on bloggers' minds today is whether the midterms will prompt Mr Rumsfeld's resignation. One UK blogger, Richard Norman writes: "The Democrats now have some political capital. Rumsfeld should be their first purchase."

Blumenthal’s First Draft of History

By Rick Perlstein

How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime
By Sidney Blumenthal

Journalistic compilations are a crucial part of America’s literary, intellectual and political heritage. They enjoyed a golden age in ’60s and ’70s trade publishing: Gazing over the library of books I am using to write my own history of the years 1965 to 1972, I see collections by Joan Didion, Garry Wills, Jack Newfield, Steven V. Roberts, Jonathan Schell, J. Anthony Lukas, Tom Wolfe and Michael Herr, compiled from Esquire and the Nation, National Review and the New Republic. Without them, our understanding of postwar America would be much the poorer.

South Dakotans Reject Tough Abortion Ban

By DAVID CRARY

The Associated Press
Wednesday, November 8, 2006; 1:20 AM

South Dakotans rejected a toughest-in-the-nation law that would have banned virtually all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest -- defeating one of the most high-profile state measures facing voters Tuesday.

The outcome was a blow to conservatives, who also had cause for worry in Arizona. An amendment to ban gay marriage was trailing there with returns nearly complete; it would be the first defeat for such a measure after prevailing in more than two dozen states in recent years.

PM Carpenter: Memo to Dems: "It Takes a Nixon"

Angry, restless Democrats and independents discredited my electoral pessimism last night in humiliating the retrograde party of medieval values, so why do I feel like Dick Nixon immediately after crushing the opposition in 1972, the man who, as described by one of his Cabinet members at the time, had a "joyless, brooding quality" about him?

Journalist-historian Theodore H. White attributed the victor's untimely depression to his profound dismay that "the American government ... had, without a doubt, grown too cumbersome to cope with the tangles of the post-war world at home and abroad." Nixon may have been on top, but he mostly felt cornered -- restrained by institutional custom, frustrated by bureaucratic blockades, cobbled by Congressional fiefdoms.

LANDSLIDE! ...a big thanks from Michael Moore

November 8th, 2006

Friends,

You did it! We did it! The impossible has happened: A majority of Americans have soundly and forcefully removed Bush's party from control of the House of Representatives. And, sometime today perhaps, we may learn that the same miracle has happened in the Senate. Whatever the outcome, the American people have made two things crystal clear: End this war, and stop Mr. Bush from doing any more damage to this country we love. That is what this election was about. Nothing else. Just that. And it's a message that has sent shock waves throughout Washington -- and a note of hope around this troubled world.

Now the real work begins. Unless we stay on top of these Democrats to do the right thing, they will do what they've always done: Screw it up. Big Time. They helped Bush start this war, and now they should make amends.

Molly Ivins: Campaign '06: Goodbye and Good Riddance

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted November 7, 2006.

Congress stands before us so hopelessly corrupt that the stench has washed all over the country.

Right to the end, this insane conversation between reality and Not Reailty. The president of the United States STILL says we are reducing terrorism by fighting in Iraq; STILL says we are creating democracy; STILL says we're preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and making Israel more secure; and, shoddiest of all, STILL not allowing that our fallen have died in vain.

The vice president, meanwhile, has announced that, all things considered in Iraq, "if you look at the general, overall situation, (the Iraqi government is) doing remarkably well." And now he's gone off to hunt in South Dakota, thus demonstrating a perfectly balanced sense of reality. South Dakota is so sparsely populated, it's really hard to hit another hunter.

Hello, Speaker Pelosi! Dem House Majority Could Be 30-plus

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 4:31 PM on November 7, 2006.

It's a huge takeover for the Democratic Party after 12 years of being out of power.

For the first time since 1994's "Republican revolution" the Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives. Dozens of competetive races have yet to be decided but, according to NBC, the Democrats may wind up with a 30-seat lead or more.

Nancy Pelosi is likely to become the first female Speaker of the House, replacing embattled Bob Hastert, and it remains to be seen whether a Pelosi-led House will try to impeach the President.

Children show strong preference for those smiled on by fate

I suppose this explains "Dancing With The Stars"...--Dictynna

5- to 7-year-olds more attracted to lucky individuals and groups than victims of bad luck

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 7, 2006 -- Children as young as five to seven years of age prefer lucky individuals over the less fortunate, according to new research by psychologists at Harvard University and Stanford University. This phenomenon, the researchers say, could clarify the origins of human attitudes toward differing social groups and help explain the persistence of social inequality.

The work, by Kristina R. Olson and colleagues, is published in the latest issue of the journal Psychological Science.

New report cites ethics and justice as critical in world's approach to climate change

Ethics, human rights, and distributive and procedural justice must be an integral component of international negotiations seeking any comprehensive solution to climate change, according to a new report released here today at the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The report asserts that many nations are taking positions that are ethically problematic.

The "White Paper on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change" draws strong ethical conclusions about positions taken by some governments in climate change negotiations on several issues. For instance, the paper concludes that those nations that use scientific uncertainty, cost to their national economy alone, lack of action by other nations, or waiting for new, less costly technologies to be invented as justifications for not reducing their emissions to a level that represents its fair share of safe total global emissions, are acting unethically.

UPDATE 5-Nicaragua's Ortega headed back to power, blow to US

(Adds new results; comments from Ortega, Cuba's Lage)

By Kieran Murray and Catherine Bremer

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Former Marxist revolutionary Daniel Ortega was headed back to power on Monday in a presidential election 16 years after Nicaragua's voters ousted him to end a brutal civil war with U.S.-trained Contra rebels.

Ortega's almost certain victory was a blow to Washington and reinforces an anti-U.S. alliance in Latin America led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Iraq War Will Cost More Than $2 Trillion

By Linda Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz
The Milken Institute Review

Friday 03 November 2006

Two scholars, one a Nobel Prize winner, revisit their estimate of the true cost of the Iraq war - and find that $2 trillion was too low. They consider not only the current and future budgetary costs, but the economic impact of lives lost, jobs interrupted and oil prices driven higher by political uncertainty in the Middle East.

In January, we estimated that the true cost of the Iraq war could reach $2 trillion, a figure that seemed shockingly high. But since that time, the cost of the war - in both blood and money - has risen even faster than our projections anticipated. More than 2,500 American troops have died and close to 20,000 have been wounded since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. And the $2 trillion number - the sum of the current and future budgetary costs along with the economic impact of lives lost, jobs interrupted and oil prices driven higher by political uncertainty in the Middle East - now seems low.

One source of difficulty in getting an accurate picture of the direct cost of prosecuting the war is the way the government does its accounting. With "cash accounting," income and expenses are recorded when payments are actually made - for example, what you pay off on your credit card today - not the amount outstanding. By contrast, with "accrual accounting," income and expenses are recorded when the commitment is made. But, as Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, notes, "The budget of the United States uses cash accounting, and only the tiniest businesses in America are even allowed to use cash accounting. Why? Because it gives you a very distorted picture."

Budget Scare Stories

Dean Baker

November 07, 2006

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer.

Budget numbers can be complicated. Politicians exploit this fact to mislead the public about their successes and their opponents’ failings. Foremost in the former category is President Bush’s effort to tout the decline in the budget deficit over the last two years as evidence of the success of his tax cuts.

While the budget deficit has fallen by almost $200 billion (or 1.4 percent of gross domestic product) in the last two years, this is a normal cyclical pattern (deficits fall when the economy recovers), not evidence of the success of Bush’s tax cuts.

TaxProfBlog: KPMG Corporate Tax Rate Survey

Blog: Dramatic drop in corporate tax

KPMG has released its annual Corporate Tax Rate Survey covering 86 countries:

Since 1993, KPMG has published an annual analysis of corporate tax rates around the world. In our initial survey, the rates from 23 countries were examined. Now, in 2006, the list stands at 86 countries. The survey has recorded a consistent and dramatic reduction in corporate tax rates over that 14-year period. This reduction began in the mid-1980s in the United Kingdom when the government of Margaret Thatcher lowered the corporate tax rate from 52 percent to 35 percent between 1982 and 1986, forcing other countries to follow suit. Once one major industrialized economy cuts its rates, others seem compelled to do the same, in a process of international tax competition that continues and intensifies over time. In the past 14 years, the average corporate tax rate of countries surveyed by KPMG declined nearly 29 percent (28.7), dropping from an average of 38 percent to 27.1 percent.

UN watchdog: $22 mln missing in Iraq contracts

WASHINGTON, Nov 6 (Reuters) - An audit of 15 noncompetitive contracts paid for by U.S. government agencies with Iraqi oil money was unable to account for $22.4 million in funds, a U.N.-led watchdog said on Monday.

The audit by KPMG, ordered by the International Advisory and Monitoring Board, or IAMB, said in some cases Iraq did not receive goods, there were "unreconciled payments" and there was no evidence that steps were taken to fix previously reported problems.

The contracts varied, from oil pipeline security, police and military training, printing of the new Iraqi currency to the purchase of vehicles and food.

FBI looking into possible Va. voter intimidation

Officials probing reports of phone calls allegedly intended to confuse voters

NBC, MSNBC and news services

Updated: 25 minutes ago

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the possibility of voter intimidation in the U.S. Senate race between Sen. George Allen, a Republican, and Democratic challenger James Webb, officials told NBC News.

State officials alerted the Justice Department on Tuesday to several complaints of suspicious phone calls to voters who attempted to misdirect or confuse them about election day, Jean Jensen, Secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections, told NBC’s David Shuster.

Michael Kinsley: Thank God I voted first

The Democrats may be poised to win the House, but their manifesto does not inspire confidence

Michael Kinsley
Tuesday November 7, 2006
The Guardian

What will a Democratic House of Representatives be like? The Republicans have been painting a portrait of Democrats roasting children on a spit in the Capitol Rotunda. Hoping for a more encouraging view, I picked up A New Direction for America - a 31-page manifesto released by House Democrats in June. All I can say is, thank goodness I voted beforehand.

The Democrats promise "security, prosperity and opportunity" in "diverse, safe and vibrant communities". They will "protect Americans, secure our borders, and restore our position of international leadership" through "homeland, energy, and diplomatic strategies". And we're only up to page three.

Bad at war, good at democracy

Simon Jenkins

November 7, 2006 01:32 PM

America thinks itself good at war and is bad at it. America thinks itself bad at democracy and is good at it, very good.

Every time I visit America at election time I am left exhilarated by the sheer, pulverising potency of its democracy. Nowhere on earth are the mighty brought so low, nowhere is power so tested by fire. Yet ABC news this morning could announce judgment day with the downbeat message that it was "the nastiest mid-term election in history."

Nasty is right. Within two minutes of turning on my television I hear "Andrew Cuomo is lying", Bob Menendez is supported by kickback hoodlums, worst calumny of all, Thomas Kean "supports George Bush". Almost everyone is in favour of killing babies, rupturing stem cells and torturing Iraqis. The corridors of power are awash in corruption, adultery, mendacity and sin. The torrent of abuse is relentless and, to those used to the bland hustings of European oligarchy, gloriously refreshing.

The Disjointed States of America

By Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted November 7, 2006.

You can't understand this country's politics using red and blue; the USA's voting patterns make more sense when the country's Wal-Marts, ecological habits, income and population size are spread across the same map.

After the results are counted on November 7, the varied political complexions of the 50 states will play a big role in post-election punditry. But beware of Wednesday-morning quarterbacks whose analysis goes no deeper than a contrast between red-state believers and blue-state pagans.

The assertion that America's red-blue divide is rooted in "moral values" was recently and rightly condemned by Newsweek's Jonathan Alter as an explanation that is "loaded and unfair, and was popularized by lazy-minded journalists." Pundits have latched onto "values" because nothing else seems to explain why so many millions of non-wealthy Americans are so insistent on voting so heavily against their own economic interests.

Rare infections after medically induced abortions likely not drug-related

Since 2000, five women in North America who had medically induced abortions died from toxic shock caused by a Clostridium sordellii infection. This has led some people to question the safety of the combination of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol frequently used in MIA procedures.

Researchers link ocean organisms with increased cloud cover and potential climate change

Atmospheric scientists have reported a new and potentially important mechanism by which chemical emissions from ocean phytoplankton may influence the formation of clouds that reflect sunlight away from our planet.

Billmon: The Idiocracy Vote

Two recent polls -- by the Pew Center and ABC/Washington Post -- show a sudden tightening in the generic congressional ballot, with the Democratic lead shaved from 11-13% two weeks ago to 4-6% now. The main reason: an abrupt change of heart on the part of many independent voters.

There seems to be a debate about how real this trend is -- two other polls, by Time and Newsweek magazines show little or no tightening -- and what it might mean, if it means anything.

My hunch is that the trend is real, although possibly exaggerated by some shifts in the partisan composition of the surveys, particlarly the ABC/Post poll. But we've also seen polls pointing to a sudden tightening in some specific races, such as the Montana and Rhode Island Senate contests. On the other hand, recent polls in the House races, if anything, look worse for the Republicans than they did a week ago. And several key Senate races, such as Missouri, remain tight as a tick.

No Sex For You

Stephanie Coontz
November 06, 2006

Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and is director of research and pubic education at the Council on Contemporary Families. Her most recent book is Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage (Viking Press).

The Bush administration’s recent decision to fund programs urging unmarried 19-to-29 year-olds to abstain from sex has unleashed a storm of indignation around the country. When I was asked to comment on the policy on two radio talk shows, I was surprised to find that I was actually less offended by this right-wing initiative than were my conservative hosts and their audiences. Callers overwhelmingly expressed their outrage at the idea that the Feds should be paying people to advise grown adults on how to conduct their sex lives.

My own reaction is, in the words of our president, "Bring ‘em on." Here’s why I welcome the attempt to target older men and women with the abstinence-only message: It’s so ludicrous it’s almost harmless. I’m even willing to offer the religious rightists who have gradually taken over America’s sex education and reproductive health programs some free advice.

Bush's marriage brokers take another hit

Americans United lawsuit seeks to block taxpayer money from being used by faith-based organizations to promote marriage

In 2005, the Vancouver, Washington-based Northwest Marriage Institute, a fundamentalist Christian organization, received two federal grants worth $97,750; a $50,000 Compassion Capital Fund grant came from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a $47,750 sub-grant came from the Institute for Youth Development, an intermediary organization that distributes "faith-based" funds for HHS.

On Tuesday, September 12, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Americans United) filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Tacoma, Wash., -- on behalf of 13 state residents -- against HHS, seeking to block taxpayer funding of the Northwest Marriage Institute program because it consists of "Bible-based" marriage education.

UN to appoint former Moonie as head of World Food Programme

· Candidate was Unification Church figure for 20 years
· Bush administration is backing application

John Hooper in Rome and Ed Pilkington in New York
Tuesday November 7, 2006
The Guardian

Kofi Annan will this week put a former leading "Moonie" in charge of the UN's biggest humanitarian aid agency after vigorous lobbying by the Bush administration.

Josette Sheeran is to be appointed executive director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), according to diplomatic and UN sources.

Ms Sheeran, also known by her married name Shiner, was a member of the Rev Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church for more than 20 years. She became one of its most influential figures as managing editor of the Washington Times newspaper, which was founded by Mr Moon.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 11/06/06

Recent statements by the vice president appear to indicate that he views the outcome of the election as "an irrelevant trifle" that will have no impact on the conduct of the war, as he also prepares an election-day offensive. Plus: Pro-marijuana ads target Bush and Cheney.

"Democracy Now!" discusses voter suppression in the midterm elections, People for the American Way provides a roundup of problems already documented, and "thousands of lawyers" fan out across the country looking for voting irregularities.

A new automated "twist on push polls" is being used to steer voters to Republican candidates in tight races across the country, including "repeat-call-back robocalls" that are designed to seem as if they are from the Democratic campaign, in order to suppress voter turnout.

After the "hell disaster" we have visited on Iraq, "we cannot even claim moral superiority" to Saddam Hussein, Robert Fisk contends, as questions about U.S. complicity in his crimes, and the potential negative social consequences of the 'trial of the century' are raised.

Regulations set to go into effect in January are said to require everyone entering or leaving the U.S. to have "specific prior approval" from the Department of Homeland Security.

As Daniei Ortega 'heads to Nicaragua vote victory,' NPR's coverage of his campaign is criticized for "turning history on its head," concerning the conflict between the U.S. and Nicaragua in the 1980s.

YouTube commenter suggests that "Dedicated to Haggard" might have been improved if the soundtrack was from somebody gay, like George Michael.

Frank Rich: Throw the Truthiness Bums Out

Each voter will have a favorite moment from the fabulous midterms of 2006. Forced to pick my own, I’d go for Lynne Cheney’s pre-Halloween slapdown of Wolf Blitzer on CNN. It’s not in every political campaign that you get to watch the wife of the vice president of the United States slug it out about lesbian sex while promoting a children’s book titled “Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America.”

The pretext for this improbable dust-up was a last-ditch strategy by the flailing incumbent Republican senator of Virginia, George Allen. Desperate to resuscitate his campaign, Senator Allen attacked his opponent, Jim Webb, for writing sexually explicit passages in his acclaimed novels about the Vietnam War. Mr. Webb fought back by pointing out, among other Republican hypocrisies, Mrs. Cheney’s authorship of an out-of-print 1981 novel, “Sisters,” with steamy sexual interludes suitable for “The L Word.”

Talking Points Memo: What happens if Republicans retain control of the Senate?

Here's a sample of what's in store (emphasis added):

Across the aisle, [Sen. Bob] Bennett [R-UT] is confident Republicans will hang on to control of the Senate, just barely, and could see the body being split evenly down the middle, with Vice President Dick Cheney tipping the balance ever-so-slightly to the Republicans. If he's right, Bennett will have the ear of the presumptive Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell.

There is no one in the Senate whom Bennett is closer to than the Kentucky Republican. For nearly two years, the two senators have had a deal in place where Bennett would become counsel to the majority leader, a hand-picked adviser, putting him in the inner circle of Senate leadership and in the room for every deal cut and horse trade that gets done.

And McConnell has already given Bennett the green light to use his chairmanship of the Joint Economic Committee to take another swing at one of Bennett's pet projects: overhauling Social Security.

America's Slide to Totalitarianism

By Robert Parry
November 6, 2006

If the last-minute polling trends showing a powerful Republican comeback carry through the Nov. 7 elections, the end of America as we have known it for more than two centuries will be at hand.

In a political version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the country might look the same – people driving their SUVs to the mall or eating at fast-food restaurants – but it will have internally changed. Election 2006 will have been the ratification of George W. Bush’s grim vision of endless war abroad and the end of a constitutional Republic at home.

Report: Feds Refusing FBI Terror Cases

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, The Associated Press
Nov 5, 2006 7:02 PM (1 day ago)
Current rank: # 142 of 7,352 articles

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department increasingly has refused to prosecute FBI cases targeting suspected terrorists over the past five years, according to private researchers who reviewed department records.

The government says the findings are inaccurate and "intellectually dishonest."

The report being released Monday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University raises questions about the quality of the FBI's investigations.

Paul Krugman: Limiting the Damage

By Paul Krugman
November 6, 2006

President Bush isn’t on the ballot tomorrow. But this election is, nonetheless, all about him. The question is whether voters will pry his fingers loose from at least some of the levers of power, thereby limiting the damage he can inflict in his two remaining years in office.

There are still some people urging Mr. Bush to change course. For example, a scathing editorial published today by The Military Times, which calls on Mr. Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld, declares that “this is not about the midterm elections.” But the editorial’s authors surely know better than that. Mr. Bush won’t fire Mr. Rumsfeld; he won’t change strategy in Iraq; he won’t change course at all, unless Congress forces him to.

Allen's Options

Why did a beleaguered hi-tech company grant 50,000 stock options to George Allen on the eve of his 2000 election to the Senate -- and his departure from the company's board?

By Garance Franke-Ruta
Web Exclusive: 11.01.06

On October 20, 2000 -- just 18 days before former Virginia Governor George Allen was elected to the U.S. Senate -- Xybernaut, a Virginia-based technology company, on whose board Allen served, held an early annual shareholder meeting and awarded Allen a tidy bonus of 50,000 stock options. Allen was granted the stock as part of his re-election to the board at a time when polls showed him to be the favorite in the impending senate election against Democrat Chuck Robb, and when it was clear that he would have to resign his board seat if and when he became a senator. Senate rules forbid members from serving on corporate boards.

Abortion Doctor Wants O'Reilly Probe

Clinic Representative Says, 'Our Worst Nightmare Has Happened'

By JOHN HANNA, AP

TOPEKA, Kan. (Nov. 4) - An abortion doctor plans to ask for an investigation of the state attorney general and Bill O'Reilly over comments by the Fox television host that he got information from Kansas abortion records, the doctor's attorneys said Saturday.

Dr. George Tiller said he will ask the Kansas Supreme Court on Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and take possession of the records of 90 patients from two clinics.

Editorial: This election's missed debate

The Monitor's View
Mon Nov 6, 3:00 AM ET

As campaigning for the midterm elections winds down, many Americans may ask if something was missed among issues that so dominated the national debate, such as Iraq. One issue too often overlooked but close to home is how to help US workers adjust to tough global competition in wages and goods.

Even in the few campaigns for Congress that featured free trade, candidates usually debated how to prevent it, not how to adjust to it.

U.S. defends itself on global warming

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Mon Nov 6, 8:26 AM ET
NAIROBI, Kenya - The United States is doing better lately than some countries in restraining growth of global warming gases, and it isn't likely to change its stand against mandatory controls, a U.S. negotiator said Monday as 5,000 delegates opened the annual U.N. climate conference.

Among those nations that do accept the Kyoto Protocol's emissions caps, "with few exceptions you're seeing those emissions rise again," Harlan Watson told reporters.

Progressives Poised to Take Control of the Democratic Party

By David Sirota, In These Times. Posted November 6, 2006.

The Dems have gotten used to kicking their party base in the face, and the situation is ready to explode. No matter what happens Tuesday, progressives are sure to shake things up in 2007.

In its widely-circulated August profile of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Time noted, "House Democrats have been more unified in their voting than at any other time in the past quarter-century, with members on average voting the party line 88 percent of the time in 2005." The numbers don't lie. But they do obscure a little-discussed truth: Divisions in the Democratic Party are sure to grow larger, whether the party wins or loses the mid-term elections.

For the better part of 20 years, Democratic divisions have seethed under America's political surface, with only the rare contested presidential primary providing a release valve. Any number of self-defeating pathologies emanating from inside the Democratic Party have worked to raise the temperature: From President Bill Clinton's embrace of corporate-written trade deals that crushed the party's working-class base to congressional Democrats' complicity in the Iraq War and rejection of the growing anti-war movement, Democratic Party elites have gotten used to kicking the party base in the face.