Democrats: Plan B

American people plan B: Tax Revolts and Consumer Strikes. Money is the only thing they understand.

We have waited for too long for leadership out of Washington, while millions lose their homes, thousands lose their relatives in the sands of Iraq for GOP corporate supporters' bottom lines, more and more Americans go without healthcare every year and many, many more have inadequate healthcare.

It's time for the American people to act. What are we paying taxes for? Just think about it.

We have already consumed ourselves into deadly obesity, more and more gadgets that we don't need and we don't know what effect these gadgets are having on us and/or our kids, fossil fuels that get more and more expensive everyday and are killing the planet at a rapid pace, and we have, as a nation and as individuals, lived way beyond our means for over 40 years now.

It's time for Plan B, alright, but Plan B belongs to the American people and we need to act on it.

Plan B For Pelosi And Reid

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, December 14, 2007; A39

Congressional Democrats need a Plan B.

Republicans chortle as they block Democratic initiatives -- and accuse the majority of being unable to govern. Rank-and-filers are furious that their leaders can't end the Iraq war. President Bush sits back and vetoes at will.

Worse, Democrats are starting to blame each other, with those in the House wondering why their Senate colleagues don't force Republicans to engage in grueling, old-fashioned filibusters. Instead, the GOP kills bills by coming up with just 41 votes. Senators defend themselves by saying that their House colleagues don't understand how the august "upper" chamber works these days.

If Bush's strategy is to drag Congress down to his low level of public esteem, he is succeeding brilliantly. A Post-ABC News poll released this week found that only 33 percent of Americans approved of Bush's handling of his job -- and just 32 percent felt positively about Congress's performance. The only comfort for Democrats: The public dislikes Republicans in Congress (32 percent approval) even more than it dislikes congressional Democrats (40 percent approval).

The Democrats' core problem is that they have been unable to place blame for gridlock where it largely belongs, on the Republican minority and the president.

In an ideal world, Democrats would pass a lot of legislation that Bush would either have to sign or veto. The president would have to take responsibility for his choices. The House has passed many bills, but the Republican minority has enormous power in the Senate to keep the legislation from getting to the president's desk. This creates the impression that action is being stalled through some vague and nefarious congressional "process."

Not only can a minority block action in the Senate, but the Democrats' nominal one-vote majority is frequently not a majority at all. A few maverick Democrats often defect, and the party runs short-handed when Sens. Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama are off running for president.

And Bush is learning that even when bills reach his desk, he can veto them with near impunity. On Wednesday, Bush issued his second veto of a bill to extend coverage under the State Children's Health Insurance Program to 10 million kids. Democrats have the high ground on the issue and more than two-thirds support in the Senate, but the bill lacks a veto-proof House majority.

Bush has nothing to lose. He can't run again. He doesn't have to face the voters again. He can do pretty much as he pleases, until he runs up against someone else with nothing to lose, and he and the Republicans are creating more of them every day.

After Bush vetoed the first version of the SCHIP bill, Democrats changed it slightly to make it more attractive to Republicans. And the new version passed both houses, too. When Bush vetoed the SCHIP measure again, almost nobody paid attention. The Post ran a three-paragraph story on the corner of Page A18; the New York Times ran a longer story -- on Page A29.

Democrats can't even get credit for doing the right thing. If Congress and Bush don't act, the alternative minimum tax -- originally designed to affect only Americans with very high incomes -- will raise taxes on about 20 million middle- and upper-middle-class people for whom it was never intended.

Sounds like another reason for a tax revolt. That is about the only thing that will get anyone's attention

Democrats want to protect those taxpayers but also to keep their pay-as-you-go promise to offset new spending or tax cuts with tax increases or program cuts elsewhere. They would finance AMT relief with $50 billion in new taxes on the very wealthiest Americans or corporations. The Republicans say no, just pass the AMT fix.

Here's a guarantee: If the Democrats fail to pass AMT relief, they will be blamed for raising taxes on the middle class. If they pass it without the tax increase, deficit hawks will accuse them of selling out.

What's the alternative to internecine Democratic finger-pointing of the sort that made the front page of yesterday's Post? The party's congressional leaders need to do whatever they have to do to put this year behind them. Then they need to stop whining. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should put aside any ill feelings and use the Christmas break to come up with a joint program for 2008.

They could start with the best ideas from their presidential candidates in areas such as health care, education, cures for the ailing economy and poverty reduction. Agree to bring the same bills to a vote in both houses. Try one more time to change the direction of Iraq policy. If Bush and the Republicans block their efforts, bring all these issues into the campaign. Let the voters break the gridlock.

If Democrats don't make the 2008 election about the Do-Nothing Republicans, the GOP has its own ideas about whom to hold responsible for Washington's paralysis. And if House and Senate Democrats waste their time attacking each other, they will deserve any blame they get next fall.

postchat@aol.com

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Is It Gonna Take A New Revolution?

or are the Dems going to find some real courage or just tell the truth; that they really don't care that Junior has driven the country over a cliff in pursuit of never-ending criminal wars, war-profiteering and the absolute shredding of the constitution, international law and treaties galore.

December 12, 2007

To Hell with Truthiness; Try Some Ballsiness

P.M. Carpenter

The Founders intended the U.S. Senate to move slowly, to act deliberately, to be distanced from the frenzied passions of the masses, whose emotional release would come from the lower House and then be softened by the smaller, upper body of quiet contemplation.

That was the plan. After all, they operated in the Age of Reason; they envisioned sure, steady progress and the thoughtful march of history. And for a couple hundred years, the plan worked reasonably well (with one rather major exception in the mid-19th century).

But the Founders failed to anticipate and therefore Constitutionally guard against the development of rabidly entrenched political parties, and they certainly never foresaw the likes of today's GOP, which has twisted the senatorial concepts of contemplation and minority rights out of all recognizable form.

If it's true, and it is, that Senate Democrats have behaved a bit devilishly lately -- and I won't take time to review that sordid history -- one must nevertheless have a little sympathy for the devils. Look at what they're up against: a GOP minority that still thinks it's the majority, a GOP stubbornness not seen since the Gingrich days, and a GOP that is grotesquely focused on pure politics over any consideration of actual public policy. In short, the Senate under GOP minority rule is the antithesis of all the Founders envisioned -- that of a dispassionate, institutional buffer for the common good.

P.M., let's not forget that the Dems don't have a majority really. We cannot count Lieberman as a Democrat. I'm not all that sure about the blue-dogs, either. Either way, the senate has become a nightmare to the founders, were they still able to dream. As a matter of fact, the entire system has become a nightmare for all of us, still able to dream and it all boils down to this: The lie of duality, the two party system, so entrenched it may well take another revolution to really take our country, money's hold on the political system as well as the electoral one.

The New York Times this morning has an excellent overview of today's senatorial rathole, summarizing that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell "and his fellow Republicans are playing such tight defense, blocking nearly every bill proposed by the slim Democratic majority that they are increasingly able to dictate what they want, much to the dismay of the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, and frustrated Democrats in the House."

Not to mention some independents, like us, who are beyond frustrated.

In fact, GOP obstructionism has morphed so far from the exotic to s.o.p., it occasionally enters the realm of the conspicuously comical; for example, "The Senate Republicans are so accustomed to blocking measures that when the Democrats finally agreed last week to their demands on a bill to repair the alternative minimum tax, the Republicans still objected, briefly blocking the version of the bill that they wanted before scrambling to approve it later." Nasty habits die hard.

In that characteristic doublespeak that only modern GOPers do so well, Mr. McConnell portrayed his party's slithering yahooism as "a positive message of our vision of America." In other words, when you're entrenched behind the eight ball, make your defensive crouch look like a plus -- like you're America's last, and best, salvation, and never mind that what you're defending against is what voters voted for in the last election.

And you know what? There's a reasonably good chance Mr. McConnell and his party will get away with it in the next election. Why? Because, simply, they know how to sell a message, no matter how mind-bendingly farcical that message may be. How? Simply by hammering away at it over, and over ... and over ... and maintaining the unbroken employment of that chorus of singing angels and that brood of prehensile flag-wavers in the background.

Yet after 30 years of this instructive and wildly successful right-wing swill, the Democrats still haven't gotten the hang of it. They merely cower in the face of it, instead.

Well, gee, folks, those miserable GOPers are upsetting our plans, they say. And that bad old Republican POTUS would just veto whatever we did manage to send up, they say. Boo-hoo and sorryass us, they say.

But you know -- don't you? -- how Republicans would handle such a sticky situation were both the situational roles reversed.

They'd say, terrific! Let the Democrats filibuster, but force each and every filibuster onto the floor. Let us have cloture vote after cloture vote. Let us, to break the monotony, send bill after bill to the Democratic president for his veto. And then let's do it all over again, step by bloody step. Let the Word go forth across this great and vast land that we could be great again, if only it weren't for those uncompromising Dems.

Now bring up the angels and the flag-waving clowns.

It's an exquisitely simple technique. To be effective, however, it does call for one other essential element: balls -- huge, swinging and unapologetic ones.

Need I say more?

Heavens No! You went one sentence too far, P.M.

The last thing we need in this country, or in the world for that matter, is more testosterone. What we need is a special kind of courage; the kind that allows people to stand tough for their principles. That kind of courage comes from the heart (I'm not talking about emotionality), not from any organs below it. The kind of courage that will not be ignored. Then, it takes a strong, educated, knowing mind to execute the task the courageous heart brings forth in any situation.

As a life-long independent, what I can't figure out is whether the Dems simply lack courage or really have no objections to where the Bush Goopers have taken this country. Of course, there is always the fear of what Bush and Cheney have on any one of them, since they have, most probably, been spied on since before 9/11. This bunch makes J. Edgar look saintly in comparison.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The Bush Pattern Of Obstruction Of Justice

And His Democratic Enablers.

Pathetic!

And we must all wonder why....


Published on Saturday, December 8, 2007 by Salon.com

“Missing” Evidence Is Familiar Bush Pattern

by Glenn Greenwald

The New York Times‘ revelation that “the Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody” conclusively demonstrates obstruction of justice which, if Michael Mukasey has an ounce of integrity or independence, will be the subject of a serious and immediate criminal investigation. While the revelation is obviously significant, it is also is part of a long-standing pattern of such obstruction.

In April, I compiled a long list of the numerous court proceedings and other investigations which were impeded by extremely dubious claims from the Bush administration that key evidence was mysteriously “missing.” Much of the “missing” evidence involved precisely the type of evidence that the CIA has now been forced here to admit it deliberately destroyed: namely, evidence showing the conduct of its agents during interrogation of detainees.

The most glaringly similar case was when, during the trial of Jose Padilla, DOJ prosecutors told the federal court that key videotapes of Padilla’s interrogations by DOD agents, including the last interrogation they conducted of him, could not be located, a claim which — for obvious reasons — prompted expressions of incredulity from the Bush-appointed federal judge and virtually everyone else:

A videotape showing Pentagon officials’ final interrogation of al- Qaida suspect Jose Padilla is missing, raising questions about whether federal prosecutors have lost other recordings and evidence in the case. The tape is classified, but Padilla’s attorneys said they believe something happened during that interrogation that could explain why Padilla does not trust them and suspects they are government agents. . . . .

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke was incredulous that anything connected to such a high-profile defendant could be lost.

“Do you understand how it might be difficult for me to understand that a tape related to this particular individual just got mislaid?” Cooke told prosecutors at a hearing last month. . . .

Miami criminal defense lawyer David O. Markus said the missing tape makes the government agents look like “Keystone cops.”

“You can’t help but be suspicious,” Markus said. “It’s the government’s burden to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. When it ‘loses’ evidence, defense lawyers are right to cry foul.”

Not even the Bush administration could be so inept as to “lose” videotape records of the interrogations they conducted with one of the highest-profile “War on Terror” detainees, whose case had been the subject of intense judicial proceedings from the early stages of his lawless detention in 2002. The revelations yesterday of deliberate destruction of interrogation videos by the CIA obviously compels an investigation into how such videotapes in the Padilla case disappeared as well. There is another aspect of this pattern of lawlessness highlighted by yesterday’s revelations: the endless complicity by two key Democrats on the Intelligence Committees — Jay Rockefeller and Jane Harman — in many, if not most, of the incidents of Bush law-breaking. As the ranking Democrats on the Intelligence Committees (Harman’s tenure as such ended this year when Nancy Pelosi wisely refused to name her as Committee Chairman), both have been notified of most of these abuses, and in virtually every case, they have done nothing to stop them.

Both lawmakers were, for instance, briefed about the administration’s illegal warrantless eavesdropping long before it was revealed. Rockefeller’s reaction was confined to a pity-inducing, hostage-like, self-protective handwritten letter of meek protest he sent to Dick Cheney in 2003. He did nothing else.

Harman was even worse. Upon disclosure of the lawbreaking, she quickly turned herself into the leading Democratic defender of Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program — and a leading critic of the NYT for having reported it. From Time in January, 2006:

G.O.P. strategists argue that Democrats have little leeway to attack on the issue because it could make them look weak on national security and because some of their leaders were briefed about the National Security Agency (NSA) no-warrant surveillance before it became public knowledge. Some key Democrats even defend it. Says California’s Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee: “I believe the program is essential to U.S. national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”

The same exact enabling behavior occurred with the CIA’s destruction of these interrogation videos. In his confession letter yesterday, CIA Director Michael Hayden said that “the leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency’s intention to dispose of the material.” Rockefeller admits he learned of this in November, 2006. And he did nothing. Identically, AP reported: “Rep. Jane Harman of California, then the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and one of only four members of Congress informed of the tapes’ existence, said she objected to the destruction when informed of it in 2003.” But as was true with Rockefeller’s “objections” to the NSA lawbreaking, her objections were confined to private expressions of “concern” to the CIA, and she took no steps — no press conferences, no investigations, no demands for a criminal referral, no court action — to impede this destruction-of-evidence plan in any way.

Clearly, it is the Bush officials who have engaged in this chronic lawbreaking and subsequent obstruction of justice who bear primary responsibility. But it is the complete abdication by Democratic intelligence “leaders” in Congress of their oversight duties which have played an indispensable enabling role in all of it. The administration knows that there will be little meaningful opposition in Congress to anything they do, little willingness to investigate it or hold them accountable, which is why they have been so brazen in doing these things. As former OLC official Marty Lederman put it:

Jay Rockefeller is constantly learning of legally dubious (at best) CIA intelligence activities, and then saying nothing about them publicly until they are leaked to the press, at which point he expresses outrage and incredulity — but reveals nothing. Really, isn’t it about time the Democrats select an effective Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, one who will treat this scandal with the seriousness it deserves, and who will shed much-needed light on the CIA program of torture, cruel treatment and obstruction of evidence?

And beyond all of that, Rockefeller is, of course, currently working with Dick Cheney to lead the effort to vest lawbreaking telecoms with amnesty, which will result in the complete stifling of any investigation and adjudication of Bush’s surveillance lawbreaking. And his partner in lawbreaking acquiescence, Jane Harman, co-signed a letter (.pdf) to Mike McConnell in August on behalf of the House “Blue Dogs” assuring him of their commitment to obtaining amnesty for telecoms (what they called “our private sector partners”). And, as former intelligence officer A.J. Rossmiller noted this week, the recent release of the NIE on Iran showed that Democratic Intelligence Committee leaders have “no idea what’s going on” with those issues either. The country has stood by while one incident after the next of deliberate lawbreaking and cover-up at the highest levels of our government has been revealed. It is just axiomatic that when high government officials can break the law with impunity, the country no longer lives under the rule of law. That has been the United States for the last six years.

A key ingredient in that pattern has been the ineptitude and outright consent of the leading Congressional Democrats on the Intelligence Committees, particularly Jay Rockefeller. Lawbreaking of this sort will stop only once those with the ability to do so decide to impose real consequences and accountability for it. Until that happens, it will continue. Why wouldn’t it?

UPDATE: Jane Harman’s office emailed this:

Several blogs are reacting to incorrect information about Jane Harman’s position on the videotapes destroyed by the CIA. The original AP story, which reported that Harman was informed of the tapes’ destruction in 2003, was wrong and has been corrected. Harman was never informed of the tapes’ destruction (reported to have occurred in 2005) and made clear to the CIA that any proposed destruction would be a bad idea. Her 2003 letter to the CIA General Counsel which she has urged be declassified has never been responded to. The updated story is here.

Duly noted, but that changes nothing of what I wrote. Harman was notified of the CIA’s plan to destroy the videotapes and did nothing other than send a private message to the CIA advising them not to do so. There are all sorts of mechanisms available to the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee to investigate and expose illegal conduct on the part of the intelligence agencies (as I set forth here). That’s the whole reason why the Intelligence Committees were created. Harman invoked none of those mechanisms. Quite the contrary, upon learning of the CIA’s intent to obstruct justice and destroy evidence, Harman did nothing other than privately ask them not to do so (and presumably never bothered to follow-up to receive any commitment from them that they wouldn’t destroy that evidence). In other words, upon learning of the CIA’s intent to commit a criminal act, she pointlessly (and self-servingly) put herself on record as being opposed and then went about her business — exactly as Jay Rockefeller did upon learning that the Bush administration was illegally spying on Americans. That isn’t why we have Congressional oversight of the intelligence community, and it speaks volumes that Harman’s office apparently thinks this version of events reflects well on her at all.

UPDATE II: This post by Jonathan Schwarz, regarding a highly revealing interview given by Sen. Rockefeller earlier this year to Charles Davis, explains much of this.

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book “How Would a Patriot Act?,” a critique of the Bush administration’s use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, “A Tragic Legacy“, examines the Bush legacy.

© Salon.com

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Don't Expect Truth From McClellan

We won't be shelling out bucks for bullshit.

That's for sure. Maybe Cheney can buy several million of this BS book. He can afford them. But from what we understand, the little dough boy and Darth don't get along all that well.

Even little press secs. have an ego.

If the Democrats can't bring themselves to act on Bush and Cheney, all is lost for America.

Were I not already dying, I would be making plans to leave.

November 21, 2007

A Final Plea To Congress To Out This Accountability-Denying, National Security-Breaching, Justice-Obstructing Administration

Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan remains the master of Orwellian obfuscation, only these days for fun and profit.

The Bushies -- who now include a long and growing list of former acolytes, such as McClellan -- as well those constitutionally charged with overseeing their misdeeds, can't even do scandal in a traditional way. You'll recall during the Nixon administration there was a thing called the smoking gun -- guns, actually. We had real investigative committees grilling thoroughly corrupt insiders and getting to the actual truth. The guns blasted and smoked almost daily. Mistakes were made, indeed, but we got to the criminal bottom of each and every one, and before the chief perp left office.

(As much as we love you P.M., we simply must add a correction. If there is anything the last 40 years have taught us it should be that we didn't get anywhere near the unholy bottom of Nixon's crimes, nor will we now, get to the bottom of the Bush crimes, all of them, I and II. What's more; Nixon should not have been allowed to resign, thus avoiding trial by the Senate. How can the U.S. ever be trusted when we allow our criminals in high office to walk away?)

In a way, those were the days. As dark and squalid as they were, we nevertheless pulled ourselves out of the muck by exposing it to the clean light of day. And we did it by the book, which is to say, the U.S. Constitution.

Today? We see medals donned on the criminally incompetent. We witness internal promotions in repayment for the most despicable of on-the-job screw ups. We watch neocon nincompoops escape accountability and settle into cushy think-tank jobs. We get Congressional excuses and foot-dragging and table-offing.

And, we get memoirs -- those telling-all while saying-nothing memoirs, guaranteed to rake in the cash for the criminals, incompetents and nincompoops.

In April, we'll get Scott McClellan's: "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What’s Wrong With Washington."

Mr. McClellan probably does know much of what actually happened, but if you think he's about to tell us, think again. His publisher, PublicAffairs, will release 400 pages of little more than fog and shadows. That's what "Scottie" excels at generating; and that, of course, is the principal if not only reason he was Bush's spokesman. Clarity is the enemy of national betrayal.

His story on the Plame affair, no doubt, will stop where his publisher's teaser leaves off: "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so."

What the hell does that mean? Of course they "were involved" -- an inconsequential passive usage that fails to compete with even the just as inconsequential but at least more rhetorically ominous, "mistakes were made."

Note what he didn't write: "five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were directly and knowingly responsible for my doing so."

The latter may well be the case, but we won't read or hear it from Scottie. Indeed, he's already gone as far as he'll publicly go, without penalty of perjury. On the day Scooter Libby was convicted of just that, McClellan, who had long since left his White House podium, "made no suggestion" to CNN's Larry King "that Bush knew either Libby or Rove was involved in the leak. McClellan said his statements to reporters were what he and the president 'believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given.'"

What's more, "In recent conversations and in his many public speaking engagements, McClellan has made it clear he retains great affection for the president." So don't count on anything more appearing in print, come April.

So when it does come to getting at the truth, what's missing? Think back to the Nixon days, and the missing piece looms large.

An aggressive Congress; one willing to take on a sitting president, to let the subpoenas fly and the investigators delve -- one willing to demand answers that travel beyond the obfuscating fog and arrive at the liberating truth. McClellan's "teaser" may in fact say little of authentic substance, but it does profoundly add to Congress' already plentiful cause for investigating obstruction of justice at the highest level.

I realize there are Democratic swing districts that might be endangered by an aggressive Congress, and that upholding the rule of law and enforcing constitutional imperatives pale in comparison to such electoral exigencies. But millions who retain some affection for the Constitution are beggin ya: Give it a go, anyway. You might be surprised at the public's reception -- a public that has had enough of this accountability-denying, national security-breaching, justice-obstructing administration.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Who are The DEMbulbs Afraid of and Why?

Ah, if we only had the answer to that one question, the whole puzzle would fall together

October 11, 2007

The Allure of Cryptofascism

With respect to the Fourth Amendment hatchet known as the Protect America Act, may I ask what constituency Congressional Democrats are politically nervous about other than the cryptofascist crowd?

More than enough is never enough for the Bush administration. It has sought and received legislative approval after approval that enhance its anticonstitutional aims, yet once again, enough is not enough. Yesterday the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees crafted and approved legislation that "provides authority for the government to obtain 'basket' or 'umbrella' warrants for bundles of overseas communications" -- an unwarranted offense to the Fourth Amendment -- which prompted not smiles, but rage by the administration.

Consider the soi-disant logic behind the rage. Said the president prior to the committees' approval: "Terrorists in faraway lands are plotting and planning new ways to kill Americans. The security of our country and the safety of our citizens depend on learning about their plans. The Protect America Act is a vital tool in stopping the terrorists, and it would be a grave mistake for Congress to weaken this tool."

How is it weakened by the bill, according to White House arguments? By not immunizing telecommunications giants from prosecution for past acts -- those would be all those perfectly legal acts, says the White House -- and by extending the unconstitutionality of mass warrants for merely two years, rather than extending this Fourth Amendment killer in perpetuity.

Hence one major objection to the current bill has nothing to do with the present task of fighting terrorism, while the other objection extends beyond the White House's tenure. A three-dollar bill is less phony than the objections to this one.

And the hell of it is, the players know it -- especially Congressional Republicans, who've been handed the White House's objections to the modified Protect America Act only as a vital tool to shore up their base. After all, the White House will do whatever it wants anyway; impunity is guaranteed.

But since we've thrown logic to the specious winds, at least we can enjoy Congressional Republicans' rather paradoxical democratic dabbling in cryptofascism.

One, they have "attacked the legislation, saying it [gives] too much authority to judges who are not competent to be reviewing intelligence programs" -- oh, that one is just too easy -- and two, they say "that the failure to provide immunity to telecommunications companies would deter companies from cooperating with intelligence agencies in the future" -- even though each and every lawsuit would get automatically kicked by the state secret doctrine.

But, as stated, you can't beat anticonstitutional thugs with logic, because logic isn't what you're fighting.

So what's left of Republicans' arguments? Nothing, of course, but pure cryptofascist appeal. The only way to secure the American Way is through its destruction, step by itty-bitty step, or, by leaps and bounds, if you prefer. And there's no constituency so motivated to democratically condone its destruction like the cryptofascist crowd. It's one of the more curious manifestations of philosophical suicide known to man.

Is it really the suicidally inclined that Congressional Democrats wish to please, thereby committing the same act themselves? Sad to say, yep, which reveals the most fundamental of democracy's flaws: its willingness to reach up from its belly and throttle its own throat, all in the name of security -- the politicians', not the nation's.

It's not too much to ask that the Dems just do what's right. But it probably is too much to expect it. So we await the Senate's cave-in, which the House is likely counting on anyway. There is, after all, a freedom-loving election year coming.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Many More Weeks Like This Past One....

...and the GOP will be burned toast, or so it would seem.

Still, we have reached so many damn tipping points, I've lost count.

October 6, 2007

A Tipping Point?

By Dan Fejes

There have been a few different events this week that could foreshadow a different approach towards the President. It looks like his aura of invincibility may have been chipped away in a number of important ways, and for the first time there may be reason to think an effective push against his imperial style has begun.

For starters there is Seymour Hersh's latest installment in his series of essays on the Bush administration (short version: it's roughly how Sam Houston characterized Jefferson Davis). By publicizing the shift in strategy from justifying a big war over nuclear weapons (as in "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud") to smaller strikes against Revolutionary Guard targets Hersh shows the administration simply wants war. As in Iraq, the goal is to once again find one reason everyone can agree on. It's a fairly damaging piece of reporting despite White House dismissals and might (might) lead to a stronger effort from Congress to prevent the President from starting another war.

Next is the AP report that "[a] program to employ spy satellites for certain domestic uses is on hold indefinitely" because "lawmakers demanded more information about its legal basis and what protections are in place to ensure the government is not peering into Americans' homes." What's interesting is that a Department of Homeland Security program is being delayed because of concerns from lawmakers. DHS is an executive branch agency and in the past few years we've gotten used to the executive branch paying no heed to the legislative. The article doesn't (maybe can't) go into more detail but it would be nice to know how legislators' concerns prompted DHS to change course. The bigger picture, though, is that the legislature objected and the executive backed down. We haven't seen too much of that lately.

Then there were the two signs of life from Congressional Democrats: Henry Waxman turning down a Republican request to postpone the Blackwater hearing and David Obey's statement that he wouldn't allow a military budget out of committee if it didn't have a withdrawal deadline of January 2009. Obey's threat will be the much more important story if he actually follows through on it. It's the kind of political move that could force a confrontation with the President because it narrows the opposition to the House Appropriations Committee, perhaps just Obey himself. Senate Republicans can't filibuster it, Senate and most House Democrats can feign powerlessness (shouldn't be a stretch) and it could turn into an Obey-Bush showdown. I don't know enough about Obey to make a prediction, but if he decides to go to the mat over it the Democrats' weakness as a caucus would be completely out of play.

Waxman's moving ahead with the Blackwater hearing is another first. Congressional Republicans have provided political cover for George Bush by implementing a policy of delay and filibuster. Since Bush doesn't want to veto bills he has his allies prevent them from getting to his desk, and since he doesn't want oversight he looks to delay investigations any way he can. He has been largely successful in this and has had the full cooperation of the Congressional GOP. Putting off an embarrassing hearing about the conduct of mercenaries in Iraq is of great interest to the White House but they were prevented from doing so this week. And speaking of vetoes, he was forced this week to issue just the fourth of his presidency. The fact that it (a) passed when he didn't want it to (b) is very popular (c) couldn't be vetoed under any principle he could credibly claim and (d) might go into law anyway is a remarkable set of circumstances. Any one of them would have been hard to imagine a year ago and yet this week all came together in a single bill. Moreover, afterwards Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa said: "The administration's position ... it was either 'my way or the highway.' Well, that's not how the legislative process works. Now we've got to do what we can to try to override." It's a stunning and rare intraparty rebuke of Bush as well as a welcome reminder of how our government is supposed to work.

Finally, some footnotes. Former DOJ lawyer Jack Goldsmith testified before Congress about White House lawbreaking as part of its Citizen Surveillance Program, a federal judge threw out Bush's executive order to let ex-Presidents hide their papers forever and there were new revelations about wide-ranging use of torture. (The issues themselves aren't footnotes, just the role they could play in changing momentum at the moment.) Throw in a poll that spells out solid majority opinion against the war and you have an overview of a potentially historic week. Right now it's impossible to say how it will play out, but it's just possible that it represents the moment newly-emboldened actors began a decisive push against an overreaching executive.


Authors Website: http://pruningshears.squarespace.com/

Authors Bio: Dan Fejes lives in northeast Ohio.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Is Administration's Strategy in Iraq Making The U.S. Safer?

The very fact that General Petraeus could not answer that question is all Congress should need to know.

Will the Democrats Betray Us?

By FRANK RICH

The fact that America's surrogate commander in chief, David Petraeus, could not say whether the war in Iraq is making America safer was all you needed to take away from last week's festivities in Washington. Everything else was a verbal quagmire, as administration spin and senatorial preening fought to a numbing standoff.

Not that many Americans were watching. The country knew going in that the White House would win its latest campaign to stay its course of indefinitely shoveling our troops and treasure into the bottomless pit of Iraq. The only troops coming home alive or with their limbs intact in President Bush's troop "reduction" are those who were scheduled to be withdrawn by April anyway. Otherwise the president would have had to extend combat tours yet again, mobilize more reserves or bring back the draft.

On the sixth anniversary of the day that did not change everything, General Petraeus couldn't say we are safer because he knows we are not. Last Sunday, Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the C.I.A.'s Osama bin Laden unit, explained why. He wrote in The Daily News that Al Qaeda, under the de facto protection of Pervez Musharraf, is "on balance" more threatening today that it was on 9/11. And as goes Pakistan, so goes Afghanistan. On Tuesday, just as the Senate hearings began, Lisa Myers of NBC News reported on a Taliban camp near Kabul in an area nominally controlled by the Afghan government we installed. It is training bomb makers to attack America.

Little of this registered in or beyond the Beltway. New bin Laden tapes and the latest 9/11 memorial rites notwithstanding, we're back in a 9/10 mind-set. Bin Laden, said Frances Townsend, the top White House homeland security official, "is virtually impotent." Karen Hughes, the Bush crony in charge of America's P.R. in the jihadists' world, recently held a press conference anointing Cal Ripken Jr. our international "special sports envoy." We are once more sleepwalking through history, fiddling while the Qaeda not in Iraq prepares to burn.

This is why the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, including those more accurate than Mr. Bush's recent false analogies, can take us only so far. Our situation is graver than it was during Vietnam.

Certainly there were some eerie symmetries between General Petraeus's sales pitch last week and its often-noted historical antecedent: Gen. William Westmoreland's similar mission for L.B.J. before Congress on April 28, 1967. Westmoreland, too, refused to acknowledge that our troops were caught in a civil war. He spoke as well of the "repeated successes" of the American-trained South Vietnamese military and ticked off its growing number of combat-ready battalions. "The strategy we're following at this time is the proper one," the general assured America, and "is producing results."

Those fabulous results delayed our final departure from Vietnam for another eight years — just short of the nine to 10 years General Petraeus has said may be needed for a counterinsurgency in Iraq. But there's a crucial difference between the Westmoreland show of 1967 and the 2007 revival by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Westmoreland played to a full and largely enthusiastic house. Most Americans still supported the war in Vietnam and trusted him; so did all but a few members of Congress, regardless of party. All three networks pre-empted their midday programming for Westmoreland's Congressional appearance.

Our Iraq commander, by contrast, appeared before a divided and stalemated Congress just as an ABC News-Washington Post poll found that most Americans believed he would overhype progress in Iraq. No network interrupted a soap opera for his testimony. On cable the hearings fought for coverage with Britney Spears's latest self-immolation and the fate of Madeleine McCann, our latest JonBenet Ramsey stand-in.

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker could grab an hour of prime television time only by slinking into the safe foxhole of Fox News, where Brit Hume chaperoned them on a gloomy, bunkerlike set before an audience of merely 1.5 million true believers. Their "Briefing for America," as Fox titled it, was all too fittingly interrupted early on for a commercial promising pharmaceutical relief from erectile dysfunction.

Even if military "victory" were achievable in Iraq, America could not win a war abandoned by its own citizens. The evaporation of that support was ratified by voters last November. For that, they were rewarded with the "surge." Now their mood has turned darker. Americans have not merely abandoned the war; they don't want to hear anything that might remind them of it, or of war in general. Katie Couric's much-promoted weeklong visit to the front produced ratings matching the CBS newscast's all-time low. Angelina Jolie's movie about Daniel Pearl sank without a trace. Even Clint Eastwood's wildly acclaimed movies about World War II went begging. Over its latest season, "24" lost a third of its viewers, just as Mr. Bush did between January's prime-time address and last week's.

You can't blame the public for changing the channel. People realize that the president's real "plan for victory" is to let his successor clean up the mess. They don't want to see American troops dying for that cause, but what can be done? Americans voted the G.O.P. out of power in Congress; a clear majority consistently tell pollsters they want out of Iraq. And still every day is Groundhog Day. Our America, unlike Vietnam-era America, is more often resigned than angry. Though the latest New York Times-CBS News poll finds that only 5 percent trust the president to wrap up the war, the figure for the (barely) Democratic-controlled Congress, 21 percent, is an almost-as-resounding vote of no confidence.

Last week Democrats often earned that rating, especially those running for president. It is true that they do not have the votes to overcome a Bush veto of any war legislation. But that doesn't mean the Democrats have to go on holiday. Few used their time to cross-examine General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on their disingenuous talking points, choosing instead to regurgitate stump sentiments or ask uncoordinated, redundant questions. It's telling that the one question that drew blood — are we safer? — was asked by a Republican, John Warner, who is retiring from the Senate.

Americans are looking for leadership, somewhere, anywhere. At least one of the Democratic presidential contenders might have shown the guts to soundly slap the "General Betray-Us" headline on the ad placed by MoveOn.org in The Times, if only to deflate a counterproductive distraction. This left-wing brand of juvenile name-calling is as witless as the "Defeatocrats" and "cut and run" McCarthyism from the right; it at once undermined the serious charges against the data in the Petraeus progress report (including those charges in the same MoveOn ad) and allowed the war's cheerleaders to hyperventilate about a sideshow. "General Betray-Us" gave Republicans a furlough to avoid ownership of an Iraq policy that now has us supporting both sides of the Shiite-vs.-Sunni blood bath while simultaneously shutting America's doors on the millions of Iraqi refugees the blood bath has so far created.

It's also past time for the Democratic presidential candidates to stop getting bogged down in bickering about who has the faster timeline for withdrawal or the more enforceable deadline. Every one of these plans is academic anyway as long as Mr. Bush has a veto pen. The security of America is more important — dare one say it? — than trying to outpander one another in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate need all the unity and focus they can muster to move this story forward, and that starts with the two marquee draws, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It's essential to turn up the heat full time in Washington for any and every legislative roadblock to administration policy that they and their peers can induce principled or frightened Republicans to endorse.

They should summon the new chief of central command (and General Petraeus's boss), Adm. William Fallon, for tough questioning; he is reportedly concerned about our lapsed military readiness should trouble strike beyond Iraq. And why not grill the Joint Chiefs and those half-dozen or so generals who turned down the White House post of "war czar" last fall? The war should be front and center in Congress every day.

Mr. Bush, confident that he got away with repackaging the same bankrupt policies with a nonsensical new slogan ("Return on Success") Thursday night, is counting on the public's continued apathy as he kicks the can down the road and bides his time until Jan. 20, 2009; he, after all, has nothing more to lose. The job for real leaders is to wake up America to the urgent reality. We can't afford to punt until Inauguration Day in a war that each day drains America of resources and will. Our national security can't be held hostage indefinitely to a president's narcissistic need to compound his errors rather than admit them.

The enemy votes, too. Cataclysmic events on the ground in Iraq, including Thursday's murder of the Sunni tribal leader Mr. Bush embraced two weeks ago as a symbol of hope, have never arrived according to this administration's optimistic timetable. Nor have major Qaeda attacks in the West. It's national suicide to entertain the daydream that they will start doing so now.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Obama: Dems Don't Have Votes

Obama, that is not the point.

This is a matter for all of Congress, not just Democrats. It is a matter for all Americans, not just Democrats.

As independents, we will be taking names and kicking ass!

Obama: Democrats don't have Iraq votes

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer

Fri Sep 14, 6:18 AM ET

Despite the Iraq war's unpopularity, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday that Congress lacks the votes to force a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops and will focus instead on putting a ceiling on the number deployed.

"One way of ending the war would be setting a timetable. We're about 15 votes short. Right now it doesn't look like we're going to get that many votes," Obama said, referring to the number needed to override an expected veto by President Bush.

The Illinois senator said the most likely scenario would be to grant troops more time at home between deployments, a politically popular step that's difficult to oppose and one that would have a practical impact.

"You have to at least give people a one-year break for every year served in Iraq," Obama said. "At least that would put a ceiling on how many troops could be sent there at any given time."

In his speech before about 300 people at a park in this eastern Iowa town of 6,100 people, Obama focused on his plan to begin pulling troops out of Iraq immediately and complete the withdrawal by the end of next year.

Later, at a town hall-style meeting in Anamosa, Obama vowed to press Congress to confront the president. Voters, Obama argued, are demanding action and candidates must spell out their views clearly.

"They are very frustrated over a disastrous war," said Obama. "I think it's very important for everybody to take home a record of where these candidates stand on this war."

Obama said Congress should at least try to reverse course on the war.

"We should not wait until George Bush is out of office to start bringing this war to a close," said Obama. "I believe that Congress should not and must not give George Bush a blank check. I believe Congress should impose a timetable and some constraints."

With only a thin Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress, Obama said the effort may fall short.

"I cannot guarantee we can get all the Republicans we need, but we have to try," said Obama.

Obama spoke on the same day Bush was to address the nation, seeking support for his plan to maintain troop levels in Iraq until next summer, then withdraw about 30,000 troops if conditions are favorable. Bush has said he's basing his plan on the advice of the nation's military leaders.

Speaking with reporters, Obama dismissed Bush administration claims that an increase in troops has brought progress to Iraq.

"After an additional 30,000 troops and enormous sacrifice, we are back to where we were in June 2006," said Obama. "We have not made progress politically."

Obama argued that Bush's plan "is not a change in course. We need to start a more substantial withdrawal and we need to start it now."

Obama also rejected arguments from some of his Democratic rivals that his plan to pull troops out of Iraq is not aggressive enough.

"If anybody disputes that we can get more than one or two brigades out per month, then they should talk to the military experts," said Obama. "There is a strong consensus among the military that that is the quickest we can do it."

Obama's proposals come amid frustration among many Democrats that the narrowly divided Congress has been unable to take decisive action to end the war.

Obama ended his swing at a rally in Dubuque with about 500 people, where he defended his plan to withdraw troops in phases. He returns to the state on Sunday to speak at Sen. Tom Harkin's annual steak fry near Indianola.

Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Just Cut Of The Damned Funding

Yeah, like that's gonna happen. The Goopers will say the Dems are not supporting the troops and hundreds will be killed as a result. Other Goopers and dumbasses will actually believe that. No kidding, they will.

After all, they don't believe in evolution, but they do believe that Jesus is going to come back and clean up their mess.

The dumbing down of America has been a splendid success.


Published on Thursday, September 13, 2007 by Ted Rall.com

The War Party: Democrats Lie to Prolong Iraq; Reporters Go Along

by Ted Rall

Americans don’t know how their government works. Democrats, in control of Congress, are taking advantage of our ignorance to continue the Iraq War. Which brings up two questions: Why won’t the “antiwar” Democrats act to stop the carnage? And why aren’t reporters calling them on it?”

Democrats,” writes Charles Babington in an Associated Press item that appeared in hundreds of newspapers, “control both chambers [of Congress] but lack the numbers to override President Bush’s vetoes of bids to mandate troop withdrawals from Iraq.” It’s a half-truth at best: the Democrats’ narrow majority is less than the two-thirds majority they’d need to override a presidential veto. Here’s the full truth: it doesn’t matter.

In June Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s Extra! Magazine wrote: “If the Democrat-controlled Congress wanted to force the Bush administration to accept a bill with a withdrawal timeline, it didn’t have to pass the bill over Bush’s veto–it just had to make clear that no Iraq War spending bill without a timeline would be forthcoming.”

Democratic leaders know that. And here’s how I know they know: days after taking control of Congress, on January 30, they invited five constitutional law experts to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask them how they could end the war. Four out of five of the experts swore that the Democrats could stop the Iraq War just…like…that.

“Today we’ve heard convincing testimony and analysis that Congress has the power to stop the war if it wants to,” said Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI). Yet eight months later, there’s still no end in sight.

The Dems won the 2006 elections with promises to end the war. Weeks after taking over Congress, however, Republicans spooked them with one of the most ludicrous talking points of all time. Cutting off the money, they said, would abandon U.S. soldiers at the front, their ammo dwindling as Al Qaeda insurgents swarmed over them. (Actually–the fact that I have to write this speaks to the American right’s intellectual dishonesty–the troops would go to the airport. They would board airplanes. They would fly home.)

Democrats worry that they’ll be portrayed as weak on defense if they act unilaterally to pull out of Iraq. Irony of ironies, they’re wussing out to avoid looking wimpy. Forcing Republicans to vote with them to end the war, they calculate, would give them political cover. Extra! continued: “Democrats may not have wanted to pay the supposed political costs of [cutting off funding], but news coverage should have made clear that this was a choice, not something forced on them by the lack of a veto-proof majority.”

Rather than set the record straight, the media continues to spread the Democrats-can’t-stop-the-Republican-war meme this week:

Michael Duffy, Time magazine: “If Democrats had more votes–particularly in the House–they might be able to force Bush to change course. But Bush will fight any resolution fencing him in with a veto that, as things stand now, the Democrats cannot override. But the President’s critics will continue to try, hoping to attract moderate Republicans who are fearful of losing their seats next year.” Occasionally Time invites me to its Christmas party. If I score an invite this year, my present for their fact-checkers will be a copy of the Constitution.

Marcella Bombardieri, The Boston Globe: “In the Senate, Democrats have only a 51 to 49 majority, far from the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster and the 67 needed to override a presidential veto. All efforts to force a troop withdrawal have failed, and the party will have to count on substantial Republican defections to make any further progress this fall.” I’ll be checking the Globe for a retraction.

Brian Knowlton, The New York Times: Knowlton dutifully quoted Democratic Senator Joe Biden’s claim that there were “political limits on his party, even with the Congressional majority it has held since the November midterm elections. ‘This is the president’s war,’ [Biden] said. ‘Unless we get 67 votes to override his veto, there’s nothing we can do to stop this war…’” Not only did the Times fail to call Biden on his brazen lie, it gave him the last word.

You’d think the Democrats would want to end the Iraq War before their likely retaking of the White House, but that’s because you’re a human being, not a politician. Politicians are happy to dispatch hundreds of young American men and women to certain death (along with thousands of Iraqis), if the bloodshed squeezes out an extra half percentage point at the polls. Reid and Pelosi prefer to run against a disastrous ongoing Republican war than point to a fragile Democratic-brokered peace.

Why are so many respected journalists parroting the Democratic party line? I suspect that corporate media culture, rather than Judith Miller-style malfeasance, is largely to blame. Ink-stained newsrooms have been replaced by bullpen offices indistinguishable from those of banks or insurance companies. Reporters used to come from the working classes. They distrusted politicians and businessmen, and politicians and businessmen loathed them. Today’s journalists are products of cookie-cutter journalism schools. Because graduate schools rarely offer scholarships, few come from the lower or middle classes. They look like businessmen. When they meet a politician, they see a possible friend. They wear suits and ties. And when a U.S. senator like Joe Biden feeds them a line of crap, they gobble it up.

Ted Rall is the author of the new book “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?,” an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America’s next big foreign policy challenge.

© 2007 Ted Rall

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

What Now, Congress?

This article speaks of what Democrats plan to do or not do. We are more concerned with the Congress, period, since the Democrats do not have anywhere near a veto proof majority in the Senate.

Little will be slipping down the old memory hole between now and the election in 2008, and we don't really give a damn who continues to vote for this incredibly vile war nor do we care which party they are in. They will pay for their continuing support of what is essentially the mother of all war crimes.

While the Bushites may have stopped using the term, "stay the course," that is exactly what they are doing in an effort to dump Junior's failures in someone else's lap.

Democrats Weigh Moves on Troop Cut

By CQ Staff |

10:05 AM; Sep. 11, 2007

By John M. Donnelly and Josh Rogin, CQ Staff

After the top U.S. general in Iraq recommended the withdrawal of some 30,000 troops by next summer, Democratic leaders now must decide whether to press for legislation that would bring troops home sooner.

In more than six hours of testimony Monday, Gen. David H. Petraeus told a joint hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees that a Marine Corps unit that typically totals about 2,200 personnel can come home this month, and an Army brigade, about 3,500 soldiers, can return home in December.

His recommendations, which President Bush has indicated he will adopt when he reports to Congress on the progress of the war by Sept. 15, appeared to complicate the Iraq calculus for Democrats, who have been planning to introduce compromise legislation as soon as next week that would require the beginning of a troop reduction by the end of the year but would include no deadline for completing the withdrawal.

Petraeus’ recommendation also takes political pressure off Republicans, who had warned that they might break away from supporting Bush’s Iraq strategy if Petraeus could not show progress in his testimony.

Petraeus said that in 2008 he plans to bring home the remainder of the roughly 30,000 U.S. forces that Bush added this year in Iraq as part of his so-called surge strategy, which would reduce U.S. forces there to the pre-surge level of about 130,000. That decrease was all but inevitable, however, because the Pentagon cannot sustain the larger force without extending tours of duty, which officials have rejected.

But Petraeus, who testified along with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said he would disclose in March how soon U.S. troop levels could go below 130,000. A more rapid withdrawal would lead to “catastrophic consequences” in Iraq, he warned.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded that the Petraeus plan was too little, too late and called on the administration to pull out more troops sooner.

“The president promised the American people that this surge would be a short-term effort to provide space for political reform and national reconciliation in Iraq,” she said in a statement. “Today, despite overwhelming evidence that neither goal has been achieved, Gen. Petraeus testified that the surge would last at least until next summer. This is simply unacceptable.”

In the Senate, where Petraeus and Crocker are scheduled to appear Tuesday before the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, Democrats also expressed skepticism about their testimony.

“Nothing today suggested that President Bush’s eight months of escalation have done anything to achieve political progress in a deadly civil war,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

But translating such protests into legislation will be no easy task, and in coming days Democrats in both chambers will have to sort out their next steps. Although the defense authorization bill (HR 1585) is scheduled to return to the Senate floor next week, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has not decided whether to consider any Iraq-related amendments to it or to take up the issue in stand-alone bills. Democrats are mulling over several such ­measures.

Senate Democrats were expected to continue to put political pressure on the administration Tuesday, pressing Petraeus and Crocker not only to bring more troops home sooner but also to change the mission of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Changing the Mission

“The biggest [question] for me is: If they are asking for more time, it’s to do what?” said Ben Nelson, D-Neb., a Senate Armed Services Committee member who is leading moderates in an effort to write new Iraq legislation that would force a change in mission away from policing sectarian strife.

The challenge for Democrats will be to move beyond rhetoric. They had previously endorsed legislation that would set firm dates for starting a withdrawal of most troops this year and ending it in April. In recent weeks, they started drafting alternatives that would drop the end date.

Now Petraeus has pre-empted that idea by recommending that Bush begin a withdrawal this year.

As a result, Democrats in both chambers are expected to focus on how quickly troop levels can drop from the current level of 168,000 to 130,000 and then fewer. Many Democrats said Monday that although it may not be clear where they will end up legislatively, they are not going along with the schedule that Petraeus laid out.

“The battle lines are exactly the same,’’ said Louise M. Slaughter, D-N.Y., who chairs the House Rules Committee.

“If what Gen. Petraeus said is that things are getting better and let’s wait for next summer, we won’t go along with that,’’ Slaughter said as she entered Pelosi’s office for a late-afternoon leadership meeting to discuss Iraq strategy, among other topics.

Chief Deputy Majority Whip Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., said the 2007 part of Petraeus’ withdrawal plan is not sufficient.

“It’s a beginning, but it’s not nearly as big or as much as people would like to see,” he said.

Republicans, however, said the Petraeus plan represented a real change of course.

“I don’t think beginning the drawdown, particularly since some of it comes immediately, is saying, ‘Stay the course,’ ” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters in a conference call. “I think what it’s saying is that what we’re doing is successful.”

Hey, Mitch, If that is what it means why didn't Petraeus simply say that. What he said was that there would be a 30,000 troop draw down in June of next year. Due to troop rotations, that many troops would have to come home anyhow, or start losing their minds, committing suicide or war crimes. Petraeus said that he could request they be held over, so therefore it was a drawdown. Say what?

Only 5,700 personnel (not all combat troops) will be leaving this year. Wonder when they arrived in-country this time? This is all total B.S.; political cover for Goopers.

Petraeus undermined not only the Democrats’ budding legislation but also the criticism some of them had leveled against his credentials. Several Democrats had said Petraeus would be delivering a report written by Bush or that Petraeus had doctored data on security trends. MoveOn.org stirred partisan passions with a full-page New York Times ad questioning Petraeus’ veracity under the headline, “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”

Petraeus began his testimony with a shot at such contentions.

“Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself,” he said as he began his remarks. “It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or Congress.”

Petraeus appeared to successfully parry Democratic assaults on the surge strategy Monday, countering their claims of failure with statistics that showed a sharp decrease in violence over the past eight months. Crocker acknowledged that there had been little political progress by the Iraqi government, but he pointed to progress at the local level, where Sunnis have joined U.S. forces in the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq and have offered to join the Iraqi army and national police. He said the central government had responded by sending more money to Sunni areas.

Democrats also found it difficult to sustain their questioning because each lawmaker was limited to five minutes in the hearing, which more than 100 members attended.

Alan K. Ota, Adam Graham-Silverman, Bart Jansen, Kathleen Hunter and Edward Epstein contributed to this story.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

A Pox On Both Their Houses

Our Politics are and will remain one huge lie until there is a multi-party system which better describes what politicians stand for.

Democratic House Officials Recruited Wealthy Conservatives
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 06 September 2007

This letter sent from then DCCC Head Rahm Emanuel to Democratic House hopeful Jan Schneider underscores a DCCC policy of remaining "neutral" in primary races. Schneider soon came to doubt the letter's sincerity.

It was the day after Christmas 2005 and Christine Cegelis sat alone at her dining room table, trying to figure out how to tell her campaign volunteers that she was going to drop out of the 2006 Democratic primary.

The next evening she was to meet with friends and colleagues who had organized around her candidacy for the House of Representatives in the 6th District of Illinois. Her volunteers had walked block after block of the suburban district and spent hours making phone calls to solicit donations and promote the campaign. Many of these people had been at Cegelis's side during her 2004 campaign and witnessed the fruits of their labor when long-time Republican Representative Henry Hyde decided to retire instead of facing Cegelis again in 2006. This was their shot to have a national impact.

But pressure coming from the national Democratic Party was too great. The Democrats had found a challenger for Cegelis, an Iraq veteran named Tammy Duckworth. Contributions were pouring into the opposing campaign and Duckworth was shuttled into the national media spotlight. Cegelis began receiving calls from Democratic members of Congress informing her that they were planning to support Duckworth.

Some of Cegelis's own paid campaign staff implored her to drop out; and she had every reason to listen. She had only $40,000 in the bank, her campaign manager had given up on the campaign and given her office staff two weeks' paid vacation without Cegelis' permission, and her media coordinator had recently quit. Rumor had it that Illinois Senator Barack Obama was going to star in television commercials for Duckworth - star power the Cegelis campaign could never match.

The next day when she sat down in her campaign office with her twelve closest volunteers, Cegelis prepared herself to admit defeat. She laid out the worst-case scenario: The Democratic Party was willing to spend millions of dollars to defeat her in the primary. If she did manage to beat Duckworth, the party would not help her in the general election, leaving the campaign on its own to face a Republican candidate who was hand picked by the national Republican Party.

Instead of agreeing to quit, every one of her volunteers looked her in the eye and said, "We are here to fight."

In May 2004, a former candidate for the New York State Legislature named Cynthia Pooler founded November Victories and Democrat Unity, online forums for new candidates who were running for Congress as Democrats.

"Before you knew it, candidates started talking about the difficulties they were having with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic leadership," Pooler said.

According to Democratic candidates who ran for House of Representative seats in 2006, Rahm Emanuel, then head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, took sides during the Democratic primary elections, favoring conservative candidates, including former Republicans, and sidelining candidates who were running in favor of withdrawal from Iraq.

Appointed as head of the DCCC by then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Emanuel spearheaded the Democratic Party effort to regain control of the House of Representatives during the 2006 election cycle. Emanuel claimed credit for the Democratic takeover and was promoted to chairman of the Democratic Caucus, the fourth-highest ranking position in the House. But his election tactics have been criticized by progressive activists and former Congressional candidates.

According to his critics, Emanuel played kingmaker by financially supporting his favored candidates during primary contests with other Democrats. His critics say that this interference was in direct contradiction of a DCCC policy to "remain neutral" in party primaries.

According to Doug Thornell, spokesperson for the DCCC, "The policy of the DCCC is not to get involved in primaries, unless there is an unusual circumstance that demands it. I cannot speculate on what those circumstances might be. The majority of these cases [2008 primaries] will be left up to the voters on the ground. Meddling hasn't taken place this cycle, and for the most part last cycle. That isn't an accurate way to describe what happened. We are cognizant of having local support for our candidates."

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, would not comment on the DCCC's alleged interference.

However, a source close to the DNC indicated that there was disagreement between Dean and Emanuel over election tactics. In his recent book, "The Thumpin'," Naftali Bendavid, a journalist who spent months inside the DCCC operation and at Emanuel's side, reported a heated conversation between Dean, Emanuel and Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) regarding election strategies of the DCCC and the DNC. At the time, Dean was focusing on helping local organizations across the country to mobilize their communities to support Democrats. Emanuel wanted to focus the resources of the national party on specific races that were the most likely to be competitive for Democrats. According to Bendavid, Emanuel said to Dean, "You're nowhere, Howard. Your field plan is not a field plan. That's fucking bullshit ... I know your field plan - it doesn't exist. I've gone around the country with these races. I've seen your people. There is no plan, Howard."

How Emanuel came to his decisions about which candidates to support against Democratic opponents is known only to Emanuel and his staff. Emanuel declined direct comment on this story. But an examination of individual races reveals a pattern of financial and political support for wealthy conservative candidates and an assault on their grassroots-supported opponents who were running on platforms that included a full withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

Illinois's 6th District: Christine Cegelis vs. Tammy Duckworth

A well-documented instance of interference by the DCCC during a Democratic primary occurred during the contest between Christine Cegelis and Tammy Duckworth. Cegelis, a strong proponent of withdrawal from Iraq, encountered unexpected and effective opposition from the DCCC.

Cegelis challenged former 16-term Republican Congressman Henry Hyde in 2004. An information technology specialist, Cegelis had no previous experience in politics, but decided to face off against an entrenched incumbent Republican. Her 2004 campaign, run on a meager budget with mostly volunteer staff, was able to create a tightly knit grassroots infrastructure in the Illinois 6th Congressional District. In 2004, Cegelis received just over 44 percent of the vote. The 82- year-old Hyde decided to retire rather than face another reelection campaign in 2006. This seat became a top target for the Democratic leaders and a microcosm of a much larger battle for the future of the Democratic Party.

Emanuel, himself a congressman from the neighboring 5th District of Illinois, apparently tried to recruit six different candidates to run against Cegelis. According to Kevin Spidel, campaign manager for the Cegelis campaign, all of Emanuel's attempts failed because the potential candidates "all said 'hell no!' They knew the resentment they would face. If you were in the district, you knew how much Cegelis was loved. She built her own machine."

Eventually, Emanuel found a candidate who lived just outside the district, Tammy Duckworth. Duckworth, a helicopter pilot who was severely injured in combat in Iraq, was convinced to run against Cegelis by Emanuel and two Democratic heavyweights, Illinois Senators Dick Durbin and Barack Obama.

Duckworth was not a proponent of a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. The Los Angeles Times, quoting Duckworth, reported that she believed the military should not "'simply pull up stakes' in Iraq because it would 'create a security vacuum' and 'risk allowing [Iraq] ... to become a base for terrorists.'" According to the same article, Duckworth supported "a pullout of US forces on a schedule based on the training of Iraq's armed forces."

Expedited withdrawal from Iraq was a main plank of the Cegelis campaign platform.

According to Bendavid's book, "Duckworth quickly became the center of a nasty fight over Emanuel's tactics." According to Bendavid, "Emanuel, Durbin, and other Democratic leaders did not believe Cegelis was working hard enough or raising sufficient money ... [Emanuel, Durbin, and other Democratic leaders] used their clout to persuade Duckworth to run and to direct money, attention, and endorsements her way."

Tim Bagwell, a grassroots activist and Cegelis campaigner, said that Duckworth was "hot-wired" into the national media and fund-raising circuit by the DCCC. George Stephanopoulos, who served in the Clinton administration with Emanuel, interviewed Duckworth on his Sunday morning ABC News program, elevating her to national prominence.

According to Spidel, the Cegelis campaign was prevented from accessing Democratic fund-raising and Political Action Committee lists held by the DCCC. Cegelis said that many of the potential donors she contacted had been instructed by the DCCC not to give her campaign money. She felt that she was locked out.

"To tell you I didn't take it personally is wrong," Cegelis said, adding, "this was the wrong way to choose a representative. It is wrong of parties to exclude people from the primary elections. The primary is the time for the people to choose who is on the ballot; those decisions should not be made in back rooms."

Bendavid goes on to quote Emanuel saying of Cegelis, "If she would only work as hard as she would goddamn whine.... She's the only one who says, 'What can you do for me?" adding, "[Cegelis] could absolutely win. She's just not doing it."

Emanuel's assertion about Cegelis's work ethic was hotly contested by members of her campaign.

Cegelis said that she woke up at 4 a.m. every day to go to train stations in the district to shake hands with commuters during the morning rush hour. Then around 9 a.m. she would get on the phone in her campaign headquarters to try and bring in contributions. She would walk to a volunteer's house near her headquarters, where she would nap on the couch from 4:30-6 p.m. After dinner she would get into her car and drive to different neighborhoods for "Coffee with Christine," small gatherings in the homes of constituents of the 6th District where neighbors would gather to share their ideas with Cegelis.

According to Spidel, Emanuel worked against Cegelis because of her support for withdrawal from Iraq and her outspoken opposition to "free trade" legislation like the Central American Free Trade Agreement. "In 2006 the DCCC was Emanuel's personal weapon. He executed based on his needs. He needed votes on 'free trade' legislation that he supports, and he knew that [Cegelis] was one of the Democrats who would vote her own way," Spidel said.

Spidel said that Emanuel worked to defeat Cegelis because she represented a threat to the established Illinois Democrats and because she did not seek their approval before running. "Chicago politics is a family. If you didn't go into the city and kiss certain rings, you were not given certain resources like Political Action Committee lists and donor lists. Cegelis' success hurt some egos and the party didn't like their lack of control," Spidel said.

While Cegelis maintained strong volunteer support, the DCCC-backed Duckworth campaign spent close to $1 million in the primary. The race was extremely close, with Duckworth receiving 44 percent to Cegelis's 40 percent.

"Cegelis was the reason the district was in play in the first place," Spidel said. "If a candidate was able to grow a serious grassroots campaign, especially in a district that historically favored Republicans, it seems illogical to try and challenge it from outside the district. If a Congressional district was completely off the radar before 2004 and the only reason the DCCC was looking at it as a pickup opportunity in 2006 was because of the work a grassroots candidate did, to have come in and discredited the grassroots candidate undermined the entire effort. The DCCC just threw their money away."

Duckworth was beaten in the general election by a right-wing Republican, former State Senator Peter Roskam. One of Roskam's main criticisms of Duckworth was the fact that her home was not located in the district. Roskam won with 51 percent of the vote to Duckworth's 49 percent.

Florida's 13th District: Jan Schneider vs. Christine Jennings

Dr. Jan Schneider, a graduate of Yale Law School and a Ph.D in political science, ran as the Democratic challenger in Florida's 13th Congressional District against Republican Katherine Harris in 2004. In 2004, Schneider was the most competitive Democratic challenger in Florida, garnering 45 percent of the vote against Harris, but Harris won.

Harris vacated the seat in 2006 in order to run for the Senate. Harris' departure was an opportunity for Schneider and her locally mobilized campaign to win a seat for the Democratic Party.

Schneider was an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq and made the war a central issue in her campaigns. Schneider said recently that she "supports the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq to begin within the next 120 days," a plan approved by the United States House of Representatives in July of this year.

Schneider faced a primary challenge in 2006 from Christine Jennings, a former Republican banker and businesswoman. According to a candidate information page hosted by The Sarasota Herald Tribune, "Jennings doesn't have a specific direction for conducting the war and says she needs more information." Regarding the withdrawal legislation passed by the House in July 2007, Jennings said that she was "not sure whether she would have voted for it." According to Congressional Quarterly, "many Democratic officials thought Jennings's business background would make her a more viable general election contender."

Schneider defeated Jennings by nine percentage points in the 2004 primary.

Schneider became concerned about possible interference from the DCCC during the 2006 primary because, according to Schneider, Jennings had a very wealthy Democratic contributor on her side. Frank Brunckhorst III, a well-known donor to both the Democratic Party and to powerful Democratic members of Congress from Florida, accompanied Jennings to the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

Schneider sat down with Emanuel in 2005 to address her concern that Jennings might get preferential treatment from the DCCC during the primary. According to Schneider, Emanuel told her that the DCCC's policy was not to choose sides during primaries. On May 26, 2005, Emanuel wrote a letter to Schneider reiterating the policy of the DCCC: "You expressed concerns about the DCCC getting involved in party primaries. While our preference is to avoid having them, our policy is to remain neutral," stated the letter, signed by Emanuel.

Schneider claims that Emanuel broke this policy during the 2006 primary race. "Emanuel caused the Schneider campaign to be removed from the DCCC website and circulated solicitations for contributions to Democratic candidates indicating that there was no [Democratic] primary in the Florida 13th," according to a memorandum Schneider prepared.

Schneider blames the DCCC for misleading Senator John Kerry (D- Massachusetts) into thinking that Jennings was running in the primary without any competition from within the party. Kerry gave a $1,000 donation to the Jennings campaign, which was publicized by Jennings as an endorsement. When Schneider confronted Kerry about this donation, Kerry apologized and said that he donated based on assertions by Emanuel that the race was "a targeted race with no primary," and that he never meant to interfere with an intra-party contest, according to Schneider. Congresswoman Shelly Berkley (D- Nevada) says that the DCCC sent her a letter asking her to contribute to races where there was no primary. The letter listed the Florida 13th as a race with only one Democrat pursuing the party's nomination.

Appearing on the satirical comedy central program, "The Colbert Report," in May 2006, Schneider expressed her frustration with the Democratic Party. "I'm pretty disgusted with both parties these days - the Republicans for what they stand for and the Democrats for what they don't."

In 2006, Jennings received 62 percent of the primary vote and defeated Schneider. Jennings went on to lose to Republican Vern Buchanan by 373 votes in a district with electronic voting machines that did not produce a verifiable paper record. More than 18,000 ballots recorded no votes for either Buchanan or Jennings. An election challenge filed by Jennings is making its way through the House Administration Committee.

Cegelis and Schneider, outspoken anti-war candidates who ran competitive campaigns in 2004 against incumbent Republicans, were challenged and defeated from within their own party in 2006. Both races ultimately ended in extremely close losses for the Democratic Party.

California's 11th District: Jerry McNerney vs. Steve Filson

One grassroots campaign that made withdrawal from Iraq a central issue was able to defeat a DCCC-backed candidate despite direct interference during the intra-party primary.

Democrat Jerry McNerney, an engineer and wind energy expert, had previously challenged incumbent Republican Richard Pombo in 2004. With a late start and little organization, McNerney's 2004 campaign only received 39 percent of the vote in a district that voted 45 percent for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. McNerney's effort put the 11th District back into play, and his campaign was revamped in order to mount a serious challenge to Pombo in 2006.

McNerney was a strong critic of the occupation of Iraq and publicly supported Congressman John Murtha's "redeployment" plan for US combat troops serving in Iraq. According to A. J. Carrillo, campaign manager for McNerney, this position on the war made McNerney seem like a fringe candidate to Democratic leaders in Washington. "In the fall of 2005, candidates who were in favor of enforcing a timetable for withdrawal were considered 'liberals' who couldn't win in districts that trended Republican," Carrillo said.

In a move that seems to run contrary to Emanuel's stated policy that the DCCC was to "remain neutral" in primary contests, McNerney's primary opponent, Navy veteran and former Republican Steve Filson was, according to Carrillo, endorsed in the primary by the DCCC. In contrast to McNerney, Filson did not campaign in support of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

According to Carrillo, Filson was on Emanuel's short list of top-tier candidates, a designation that helped steer early campaign donations to the Filson campaign. "Party insiders were calling and asking that McNerney drop out and let Filson take on Pombo," Carrillo said. According to Carrillo, when McNerney refused to step aside, the DCCC went to work on behalf of his primary opponent.

Carrillo saw DCCC press secretary Sarah Feinberg assisting the Filson campaign at a debate between the two candidates during the primary. Carrillo claims that he received word from a Congressional source that the DCCC was advising Filson's campaign on messaging and strategy. Carrillo's source leaked the information from the DCCC to the McNerney campaign.

Apparently the DCCC ordered a company that prints and distributes campaign mailings to targeted voters not to work with the McNerney campaign. According to Carrillo, he had spoken to the company and faxed them a contract, when a representative from the company called him and said that there was "a minor issue with the DCCC but it shouldn't be a problem." The next morning a company representative called back and said the company could not do business with the McNerney campaign. "The company said that they got an ultimatum from the DCCC. They did a lot of business with the DCCC, so it wasn't worth risking it all just for our campaign. We had to scramble to find another company," Carrillo said.

Despite the primary interference, McNerney did not get discouraged. "Jerry was not bitter or angry about the experience," Carrillo said, adding, "he just went out and decided to prove them all wrong. He really is Mr. Smith goes to Washington."

The campaign received a boost from an old-school Republican, former Congressman and veteran Pete McCloskey, who came out of retirement to challenge incumbent Congressman Pombo in the Republican primary. Pombo beat McCloskey, but the fight left Pombo damaged. McCloskey, one of the authors of the Endangered Species Act, attacked Pombo for his assault on environmental protection regulations and his association with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. After losing the primary, McCloskey supported the McNerney campaign. McNerney ended up winning the seat with slightly more than 53 percent of the vote.

Florida's 16th District: David Lutrin vs. Tim Mahoney

Wealthy businessman Tim Mahoney, a self-described "fundamental Christian," was recruited by the DCCC to run against then-Congressman Mark Foley in Florida's 16th District. According to The Palm Beach Post, Mahoney switched his registration from Republican to Democrat in July of 2005. Mahoney did not support a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

David Lutrin, a school teacher, union activist and staunch supporter of immediate withdrawal from Iraq, decided to run against Foley before Mahoney entered the race. After Mahoney declared his candidacy, Lutrin was contacted by field organizers for the DCCC who asked him to drop out and let Mahoney run unopposed.

Lutrin said that he also met personally with Mahoney. During a three- hour breakfast meeting, Mahoney offered Lutrin a higher-paying job if he agreed to drop out of the primary. "Mahoney tried to get me to run in a different district. He offered me a job at one of his non-profit organizations where he said that I would make more than I was making as a teacher. He said I could campaign full time while working at his non-profit as long as I agreed to drop out of the race," Lutrin said. Lutrin declined the job offer.

According to Lutrin, when he refused to step aside, the DCCC shored up local political support for Mahoney. The local AFL-CIO chapter, of which Lutrin was a member, came out with an early endorsement of Mahoney's campaign. According to Lutrin, the union told him that "they would like to back a fellow union brother, but Mahoney has more money and more political support from the party." Lutrin eventually dropped out of the race when the local teachers' union decided to support Mahoney.

Before it was revealed that then-incumbent Mark Foley had engaged in sexually explicit conversations with a teenage Congressional page, Florida's 16th district had been considered a safe seat for Republicans.

It has been reported that the DCCC knew that Foley was engaging in inappropriate communications with Congressional pages before the story made headlines. According to CNN, a Democratic House staff member sent copies of suggestive email correspondence between Foley and an teenage Congressional page to the DCCC communication director, Bill Burton, in the fall of 2005. Burton later said that he had informed Emanuel of the emails when he received them.

On October 8, 2006, Emanuel joined Republican Congressman Adam Putnam (R-Florida) on ABC's "This Week," hosted by George Stephanopoulos to discuss Foley's conduct. Emanuel dodged multiple questions about when he became aware of the misconduct by Foley. Democrats were decrying the lack of action taken by then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert on the issue.

The exact date that the DCCC became aware of the Foley emails that resulted in his losing the election and the exact date that the DCCC's recruitment of Tim Mahoney to switch parties and run as a Democrat against Foley are not yet known at the time of this writing.

Mahoney won the seat in 2006 and joined The Blue Dog Coalition.

The New Democratic Majority

While Emanuel is given credit for turning power over to the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, the majority is fractured.

Many of the candidates that Emanuel helped elect have joined with a group of self-styled conservative Blue Dog Democrats and have cast key votes with Republicans and stymied Democratic efforts to end the occupation of Iraq and the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.

Thirteen of the Democratic members of the House elected in 2006 joined The Blue Dog Coalition; a group that, according to its spokesperson, has no official stance on withdrawal from Iraq or the president's warrantless wiretapping program. However, 30 out of 47 of the Blue Dog members broke with the majority of Democrats and cast votes in favor of the recent Protect America Act, a bill that greatly expanded the power of the executive branch to spy on Americans. The caucus also broke with the majority of Democrats when 40 of the Blue Dog members voted to continue funding the occupation of Iraq without a timetable for withdrawal.

In an interview shortly after his election, freshman Blue Dog member Tim Mahoney told the Charlotte Sun, a local paper from his district, that he attended a meeting with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and told her "The president should be free to maintain troops in Iraq, if the purpose is to thwart terrorism."

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This story is based on a month-long investigation by Truthout into the practices of the DCCC and scores of interviews with Congressional spokespeople, political activists and former candidates for office.

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Matt Renner is an assistant editor and Washington reporter for Truthout.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

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