So reading the New York Times with my breakfast this morning I came across a front page story that really took my breath away. No, it wasn’t the story about the disastrously low approval ratings of Congress (25%) or the President (37%), and it wasn’t the one exposing that four investigators at Gale Norton’s Interior Department had filed suits charging corruption and tolerance of industry malpractice. Nor was it the one about the Holocaust denying president of Iran. No, the front page story that caught my attention was the one about how Neil Young — that iconoclastic musician who has taken a musical ride with his fans from the early Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young up to his most recent album slamming the Bush administration and its prosecution of war — that Neil Young is a model railroad enthusiast who has gone so far as to conceive a system for realistically reproducing the sounds of railroads, and then acquired a minority interest in Lionel Trains to further develop it. Neil Young is now behind a project to capture the sounds of the New York City subway for inclusion in a new model version to be released by year end.

Boy, talk about eclectic. Neil, we hardly new ye!

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In my most recent rant about the nature of opposition, I presented several bullet points about now versus 1994, when Republicans took 52 (not 54 as I stated) House seats from the Democrats. I forgot to include an especially salient point, which is this: Unlike 1994, when 100 House seats were considered in contention, this year only 40 are.

This is do to the rigorous application of micro-targeted demographics by, predominately, the Republican party in the laying out of district boundaries. This has the effect of securing districts safely for the incumbent, even when approval ratings are as low as they are – The congressmen are choosing their voters rather than the voters choosing their congressmen.

District boundaries, in all states but Iowa, are drawn by the state legislatures. This makes it more important than ever to win those state level seats if there will ever be hope of winning national ones. Iowa deserves both praise and study for its approach. Since adopting their solution, wherein a non-partisan panel handles redistricting, the percentage of competitive races has increased.
http://www.fairvote.org/redistricting/reports/remanual/ianews.htm

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In light of the recent war of words between an amazingly naive Pope Benedict and the various voices of Islam, I am reminded of a Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel headline from September 12th. It ran above an AP story about a Baylor Univ. study, “More of us active in religion than thought” it read. Now I know they mean that more of us than thought are active in religion, but I read it as more of us are praying than thinking.

In my last note I wrote about some possible changes on the horizon for incumbents and what Tuesday’s races might mean. There have been some interesting developments in these and other stories.

First off, given today’s terrorism news, I have to expect that Karl Rove is just about worn out from dancing jigs in his office. Nothing makes the GOP happier than terrorism, successful or thwarted. The morning press briefing hosted by DHS Sec. Chertoff was interesting for the brazen attempt by Chertoff and AG Gonzales to take the credit for foiling the plan. They made bold claims of inter-departmental cooperation and US CIA/FBI/DHS investigative efforts in coordination with UK MI5 intelligence leading to this result. Interestingly, however, when the director of the TSA got up to the podium it was obvious that he hadn’t gotten the same script. He told us what the press had already made clear – that MI5 had cracked this case on their own, and that we had only just found out about it. “We have achieved the kind of screening protocol changes that normally take weeks or months in just the past four hours.”

Expect to see lots of stories today and tomorrow about how this bodes for the Democrats hopes in November, with plenty of references to Lieberman/Lamont, etc. The mainstream media is so enamored of Connecticut right now that they’re in no hurry to leave it alone.
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Tom DeLay has quietly announced that he has no intention to actually run for reelection to his seat:

…it seems “The Hammer” has become “The Quitter.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4106498.html

David Wallace, former Mayor of DeLay’s hometown of Sugarland, TX, has announced that he will run as a write-in candidate to keep the Dems from “stealing” the seat (as the TX GOP chair puts it):
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/4106855.html
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I wrote the other day about the ramifications of Rep. Bob Ney declining to run to reelection to Ohio’s 18th. I wrote then that the likely replacement on the Republican ballot line would be State Senator Joy Padgett. Well turns out that a perfect storm of state election laws may keep her off of the ballot as well.

In Ohio, if a party nominee steps down prior to August 21st, a new primary must be held. Also under state law, though, if a candidate loses in a primary they cannot run in another primary that year. Padgett ran for Lt. Gov. in the Republican primary this past Spring, and lost, so this “sore loser” provision may very well keep her off the ballot this Fall. Stay tuned for more obscure Ohio election law shenanigans as they develop.
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No more fun to report (yet) from the Montana Senate race, but here’s something interesting from Pennsylvania:

Incumbent Republican Senator Rick Santorum is locked in a tough battle with Democratic State Treasurer Bob Casey. Casey, who, like Santorum, is “pro-life” is a real threat who has lead the race by 14 points until quite recently, was able to shrug off challenges from the left of his own party. So, the Republicans, believing Sun Tsu’s old axiom “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” sponsored a huge petition drive to get Carl Romanelli, the Green Party candidate, onto the ballot in November. They hoped this would siphon off the votes of disaffected pro-choice voters seeking an alternative to Casey, and give Santorum the win.

The Republican effort was successful, and they collected over 93,000 signatures in their drive (67.700 are needed). Now it comes out that many are invalid. “As many as 70,000” say the Dems:

“thousands of Green Party petition signatures are phony, including such names as Mickey Mouse, Mona Lisa, Woody Allen, Robert Redford, George Bush, Gerald Ford and Lee H. Oswald.”
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06222/712425-177.stm

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Maryland has a long tradition of Democratic state government, which came to an end with the election of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. a few years back. Upon taking office he cleaned house — over 340 state employees were fired, usually at the hands of his henchman, Joseph Steffen.

Reporters for the Baltimore Sun who tried to investigate the return of patronage and influence peddling to state government were ruled persona non grata by Erlich, their press credentials were revoked and state employees were threatened with immediate termination for even speaking with the Sun reporters (which, amazingly, was upheld in court).

Now, however, the legislature is investigating, and right in time for election season. Testifying yesterday, Steffen admitted that party affiliation played a role in his firing decisions:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080900885.html
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The restating-the-obvious award for the day goes to Gen. Wesley Clark, who writes in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece:

The public hasn’t quite sorted it out — but they know a failure when they see one. And Iraq, as well as the larger Middle East policy, is such a failure. …
Iraq isn’t Vietnam. America can’t just walk away without horrendous consequences. But “stay the course” isn’t a strategy. And the longer the bleeding goes on there, the harder the electorate will dig for answers and the tougher they’ll be on those who got us in, and aided, abetted and apologized for them.

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Expect more fireworks from the Randall “Duke” Cunningham earmarks-for-cash scandal to break before election day this Fall. Bob Ney was part of this, but the scandal could well bring down California Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis and others. The New York Times published a several thousand word piece the other day which quoted heavily from Brent Wilkes, the military contractor whose largess was so exploited by Cunningham. He directs withering blame at Lewis and other, both current and former, officeholders.

The latest development is the leak of a memo by California Dem., Rep. Jane Harmon, about the stifling of a report from a Congressional investigation, detailing a similar failure of the system to contain corruption in the letting of intelligence contracts:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-duke10aug10,1,4095709.story?coll=la-news-a_section

There were some interesting developments, politically, yesterday, though you might have missed it if you watched the evening news. First, though, some local announcements…

A reminder of sorts – Russ Feingold’s annual Summer Picnic/Bar-B-Que in Grant Park in South Milwaukee is this Sunday, the 13th. We are proud to be sponsors this year, and hope you can attend. You’ll have a chance to meet the Senator, and other supporters, and have a nice meal. We have always enjoyed ourselves at this event.
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Things are picking up pace in the Donovan Riley for State Senate campaign, in which B and I are both actively involved.

Donovan has garnered endorsements from unions, such as Wis. Federation of Nurses & Healthcare Professionals and SEIU State Council, as well as groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin. Polling data looks good and Jeff Plale (the opponent) looks a little shaken. Every day brings more volunteers to the campaign.

We would welcome your support, too. Please visit the campaign website at http://www.rileyforstatesenate.org and make a donation, sign-up for a yard sign, get involved, or just remember to vote Donovan Riley for the 7th Senate District in the September 12th Democratic Primary.
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Rep. Bob Ney dropped out of the race for Ohio’s 18th Congressional seat. He has been badly tainted by his association with Jack Abramoff, and the Justice Department has made clear that an indictment is only a matter of time:
http://www.cleveland.com/open/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1155026433105190.xml&coll=2

Ney’s likely replacement is Republican State Senator Joy Padgett, who is perhaps best known for using a photo of her State Senate race opponent, Terry Anderson, posed with a Hezbollah fighter, to paint him as soft on terrorism. Anderson, you may recall, was held hostage by Hezbollah for seven years (1985-1992).

Ohio state law requires a primary, so Padgett is not a sure thing. The Democratic candidate will be Zach Space, a Lawyer from Dover.
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Former Rep. Tom DeLay will be on the ballot in his Sugarland,TX Congressional race. Though, like Ney, DeLay has been tarnished by ethics violations and chummy relations with seedy lobbyists, his efforts to remove himself from the ballot after winning his March primary have failed. Surprisingly, his last attempt – an emergency appeal to the US Supreme Court – was turned back by none other than Justice Antonin Scalia, previously known to have enjoyed interfering in elections (ref. Bush v. Gore, 2000).
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/15223781.htm
DeLay’s oponent will be former Rep. Nick Lampson who has kept up a vigorous fund raising pace, and currently has $2.1 million on hand.
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The voters of Connecticut will finally have the opportunity today to put the rest of us out of our collective misery and settle the Lieberman/Lamont question once and for all. Godspeed, say I. Of course, Joe and his Faux-Mentum (in the words of ABC News’ The Note) could decide to run as an independent, should he lose, and we would have to suffer through three more months of the national media wringing its hands over the greater meaning of a single Senate race.

I am so sick and tired of hearing about how this race represents a national referendum on the Iraq war. If we needed one, wouldn’t the incessant polls showing public support at 30% be enough? Does a single Washington reporter really think that any voter in Connecticut is going
to be standing in their polling place today and thinking, “How will my vote effect the national conversation?” I don’t think so. These voters will either “Stay the course” or “Cut and run” without a thought to how this will play in Peoria – they care how it plays in their lives.

Jeez!
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Regarding the Connecticut race, and Lieberman’s fading support from the Democratic party apparatus, Cynthia McKinney’s campaign manager made this analogy:

It’s like when you have a room full of roaches: You go in, turn the light on and they scatter. When people think you’re weak, they defect. Only the true at heart stick around.

Okay, fair enough. But, this is politics — what else would you expect?

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Speaking of incumbent Senators in tough races, Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, he who took more money from Jack Abramoff’s clients than anyone else, is not looking so good up against Democratic challenger Jon Tester. In an interesting early television commercial, Burns had a man
claiming to be Tester’s barber talking about how Tester’s very conservative looking flattop haircut masked his truly liberal heart. Problem was that the man who is actually Tester’s barber was all too happy to talk to the press and tell them that he didn’t think that was true.

Then, in an attempt at Good-only-knows-what, Burns lit into a group of Virginia firefighters whom he came across at the Billings airport:

Burns, one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the fall elections, confronted members of a firefighting team at the Billings airport on July 23 and told them they had done a “piss-poor job,” according to an official state report and the U.S. Forest Service.

The Hotshot crew had traveled 2,000 miles from Staunton, Va., to help dig fire lines for about a week around a 143-square-mile wildfire east of Billings.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2268493

Needless to say, this has driven the Firefighters Union even harder up against the Tester candidacy, along with many other working folk.

I was shaken late yesterday to learn that Hezbullah, the radical militia and terrorist group based in southern Lebanon, had crossed into Israel and captured two Israeli soldiers. This, of course, lead to an Israeli incursion into Lebanon – as any even casual observer would have guessed. I am deeply saddened by this development.

Many of the countries of the Middle East are racked with terror; there are many separate battles and battlegrounds; there is much that people hate each other for over many complex histories. Lebanon, despite our recent memories of it as the seat of terror and internecine violence from the 1970’s and 80s, is as much a victim as any in this. The violence visited upon it in the 1970 and 80s was mostly due to the presence of the Palestinians who, like Hezbullah today, rained missiles upon, and kidnapped soldiers from, Israel. I am no fan of Israel in it’s protracted conflict with and over Palestine, but the actions of the PLO, then, and Hezbullah, today, are foolhardy. The real victims, again, will be the Lebanese.

The capital, Beruit, was thrown into turmoil as various factions formed and faced off against each other: Druse, Maronite Christian, Hezbullah, Palestinains, Shiite, etc. The French and Americans intervened, or tried to, and then Syria saw a chance to take back the territory taken from it after World War I and swept in to save Lebanon from itself. Or so it seemed. In the 1980s, Israel invaded, and occupied large swaths of the country. Israel finally left just a yew years ago.

Syria didn’t leave until last year, after a 29 year occupation. This following it’s atrocious assassination of Rafiq Hariri – former Prime Minister and opposition leader.

Now Israel is back, however briefly we have yet to see. Just how far away are Syrian forces? One must worry.

Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for The Independent, has lived in and reported from Lebanon for over 30 years. Here is a very good piece he wrote last year, March, as the Syrian departure loomed. It has a feel of Hunter Thompson in his most lucid moments, a great sense of immediacy and intimacy with the events going on: http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles470.htm

I will be looking forward to his reportage of this latest bad turn in the history of Lebanon.

A 100 year old elm tree dating from the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt crashed to the ground late last night, narrowly missing the North Portico of the Whitehouse – showing once and for all what Morther Earth thinks of Messrs Bush and Chaney. Ann Compton of ABC News reports:

“The whole root ball came up out of the saturated ground,” she describes, noting that the tree is “at least 100 years old, planted around the time Teddy Roosevelt remodelled the White House in 1902. Its twin a few yards away was actually taken down within the last couple of weeks, dying of Dutch elm disease. The grounds crew here was worried about the big elm, and had recently trimmed it so that if it fell it would not hit the elegant columns of the North Portico or the wall along the driveway. It even missed what they call the Truman Hedge — boxwoods which line the driveway.”

Representatives of the Earth Liberation Front have not responded to requests for comment as of this time.
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As a follow-up to my note yesterday, the Washington Post has coverage of how Jack Abramoff secretly funneled money from his clients through tax-exempt organizations:
Nonprofit Groups Funneled Money For Abramoff: Funds Flowed to Lobbying Campaigns

In addition to Grover Norquist’s “Americans for Tax Reform,”…

A second group Norquist was involved with, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, received about $500,000 in Abramoff client funds; the council’s president has told Senate investigators that Abramoff often asked her to lobby a senior Interior Department official on his behalf. The committee report said the Justice Department should further investigate the organization’s dealings with the department and its former deputy secretary, J. Steven Griles.

Steven Griles was the anti-environment slimeball in the Nth degree who Gale Norton brought with her to be her deputy at the Dept. of Interior. As a former lobbyist for extractive industries, such as oil, timber, gas and mining, Griles certainly had different priorities than protecting the interior. Exploit, exploit, exploit was the watchword.

The dirty side of Griles is also covered in this Rocky Mountain News article:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4801558,00.html
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Bloomberg Media has an interesting article about several major economists dismissing the administration’s claims that immigrants are only taking jobs that Americans don’t want. The gist being that with the wages so severely depressed in certain market segments by the influx of immigrant labor, Americans cannot afford to take the jobs, or are not hired for them.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_us&refer=us&sid=abGKJMCzw2zg
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While awaiting word from the Supreme Court on the legitimacy of mid-decade redistricting and partisan gerrymanders, Democrats in Texas have their day in Federal Court today. The lawsuit filed by the Texas Democratic Party which argues that Tom DeLay’s name cannot be replaced on the ballot despite his resignation from the House. A restraining order issued earlier this month has the effect of possibly postponing the naming of DeLay’s successor by the GOP.

This summer and fall promise to be an interesting time in Washington D.C. And not just from the sweltering heat. In a Senate panel’s report filed last week came an interesting string of connections between Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed (former head of Christian Coalition, current candidate for Lt. Gov. of Georgia) and Grover Norquist (all around anti-tax slimeball). It is well summarized here:

Abramoff, Norquist, Scaife and company: one big happy family

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Do you know who Ben Stein is? He was part of the Nixon speech writing staff, along with Pat Buchannon (far-right gadfly and 2000 Presidential candidate who mysteriously got thousands of votes in heavily Jewish counties in Florida, which even he said pointed to vote counting irregularities) and William Saffire (New York Times language maven and former conservative columnist). More recently he has gained some renown as the droning history professor in Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, for his game show “Win Ben Stein’s Money” and in an ad campaign for Visine.

Well, he is also a lawyer and economist, and writes a column for the New York Times Sunday Business section. His most recent column caught my eye for its very reasonable title:
Note to the New Treasury Secretary: It’s Time to Raise Taxes

His basic message:

Just to give you an idea what you are up against, Standard & Poor’s issued a warning not long ago. The caution was that if the United States government did not seriously alter fiscal policy, Treasury bonds would be downgraded to BBB, slightly above junk status, by 2020. This is a stunning piece of news for the world’s most highly rated security denominated in its primary reserve currency. The S.& P. report said further that if the nation did not make serious changes after that, by 2025 Treasuries would be junk bonds, like the bonds of less successful emerging-markets nations.

Oh goody, what fun. Maybe he should go back to game shows to make George the second more comfortable.
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The Times Bob Herbert wrote a love letter to John Edwards (former Sen., North Carolina and 2004 VP candidate) a few days ago. It is striking in that Herbert was not terribly supportive of Edwards when it might have mattered, but obviously something has changed his mind since then. In any event, it is a good read:
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/opinion/22Herbert.html

This headline over at the Herald Tribune (of southwest Florida) caught my eye:
“Anti-GOP feelings may be affecting local races: Party officials complain that candidates are hard to recruit this year.”
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060619/NEWS/606190579/1017/POLITICS

The gist of the story:

  County GOP leaders say they have struggled more this year than any other to persuade qualified residents to put their names on the ballot.
. . .
“It’s volatile out there,” said Mark Proctor, a Republican consultant in Tampa. “There’s a general fed-up attitude with voters right now.”

It’s almost enough to make you feel bad for them.

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An interesting piece in the June issue of Atlantic Monthly gives voice to concerns felt by William Niskanen, an economist in the Reagan Whitehouse who now leads the Cato Institute. The Atlantic column is here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200606/tax-cuts
but requires a subscription to view the whole article. It is well summarized in a Washington Post Op-Ed piece here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/07/AR2006050700924.html
The gist of the article is that contrary to Reagan era thinking, reducing taxes actually leads to growth in the size of government. In response to John Anderson stating, during a 1980 debate, that “…what I’m going to do is to bring federal spending under control first.”

Reagan scoffed. “John tells us that first we’ve got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes,” he said. “Well, if you’ve got a kid that’s extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance. Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker.” With that statement, Reagan performed one of the last century’s great feats of political prestidigitation.

In his piece, Jonathan Rauch points out that under Reagan’s tax cuts and spending increases government grew, while under Bush I and Clinton’s tax raises and spending cuts government shrank. Bush II follows in Reagan’s footsteps in the government growth department.

Rauch closes his column with the line “The beast is hungry and it has a credit card”
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I recently wrote of quakes within the Republican establishment in Kansas. I have just been tuned in to similar goings on in South Dakota. As in Kansas, several Republicans have recently left the party to run as Democrats, and political extremism in the GOP has even lead to the development of a new MAINstream Coalition:
http://www.mainstreamsouthdakota.org/index.html
whose manifesto reads remarkably liberal.
The South Dakota Progressive blog has more on this development here:
http://www.sdprogressive.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=291&Itemid=2

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It’s nice to see some more sanity sweeping the country. The Wall Street Journal has even started to notice, as reported in ABC News “The Note”:

The Wall Street Journal’s Brody Mullins detects a shift in giving among the Republican-leaning insurance, pharmaceutical and tobacco industries towards Democrats, signaling that “businesses believe Democrats will have more sway in Washington after the 2006 midterm elections or the 2008 presidential contest.”

Well, if you thought last night’s pairing of Paris Hilton and Will Shortz (NY Times puzzle editor) on The Late Show, with David Letterman, was strange… just wait until this Thursday, June 15th, when Jay Leno will host the Tonight Show with his special guests Ann Coulter – the female Newt Gingrich – along with George Carlin – who needs no further introduction.

There was an interesting column about Coulter in, of all places, the Times business section yesterday:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/business/media/12carr.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
David Carr’s second paragraph is this gem:

Ms. Coulter, who seems afflicted by a kind of rhetorical compulsion, most recently labeled the widows of 9/11 “harpies.” It is just one in a series from a spoken-word hit parade that seems to fly out of her mouth uninterrupted by conscience, rectitude or logic.

It was so much fun to see George Carlin play with Steve Moore (President of the conservative Club for Growth) on Real Time with Bill Maher back in 2004:
http://www.safesearching.com/billmaher/print/t_hbo_realtime_100104.htm
Moore looked like a cat’s play toy in Carlin’s hands. It will be interesting to see if he and Coulter actually share the stage for any amount of time on Thursday night. Even if not, that must be one interesting green room. (I wonder what Paris and Will talked about last night…)

Thanks to Russ for bringing this to my attention.