Coal: Kentucky's Renewable Energy

Whenever anybody says "tax incentives for renewable energy," check your wallet.

The energy bill passed this afternoon by the Kentucky House of Representatives reminds me of that trick soap that leaves your hands dirtier than when you picked it up.

It is, not to put too fine a point on it, a billion-dollar blow job on the coal industry.

The press release calls it "A comprehensive energy bill that would create tax incentives for the construction of alternative fuel and renewable energy plants in Kentucky and provide millions of dollars for energy research and development ..."

Well, not really. What it actually does is hand over to Big Coal 50 percent of the construction cost of any energy plant that uses coal ("alternative fuel" being left undefined). Such plants cost a minimum of $100 million to build, and usually closer to a quarter billion. Figure $100 million in cash rebates for each plant, times an infinite number of plants (the bill has no limits, and is such a free-whorehouse giveaway it'll spark a coal-rush to Kentucky), and you're lookin' at a budget buster that'll turn the entire state in a giant pig pen of slave labor for the coal companies.

According to the Lexington Herald, it’s even worse than the 50 percent construction rebate. “Qualifying companies could recover as much as 100 percent of the sales, use, income and corporate tax on a project and as much as 80 percent of the coal-severance tax paid on coal used by approved alternative fuel or gasification facilities.”

Now you’re looking at billions of dollars Kentucky simply does not have, and for what? A handful of jobs that will never earn back the bribe paid to the employer? More sliced-off mountains, more poisoned rivers, more forests and prime farmland turned into moonscapes? More enslaved, impoverished communities, more destroyed roads, more dead miners?

Kentucky Progress calls it the Coal Company Crazy Check Act of 2007.

In the first place, any process that uses coal in any way, shape or form is not, repeat NOT, renewable. Renewable applies to things that keep coming back even after you use them. Fast-growing plants, wind, sun, geothermal. Not oil. Not natural gas. Not coal.

In the second place, so-called "clean coal" - synfuels, gasification, liquefaction, mumbledy-mumble-abracadabra-cation - is a myth. Like cold fusion, only less plausible. Coal companies have been fucking around with supposed technologies for literally decades and nothing has ever come of it.

You think wind and solar power are pie-in-the-sky fantasies that will never work economically? Since the 1970s, solar and wind power technologies - with virtually no help from the federal government - have slowly but steadily improved efficiency and lowered cost to the point that in many parts of the country they are competitive with fossil-fuel generation.

Over a much longer period, Big Coal has wasted hundreds of billions of tax dollars in federal government subsidies turning "clean coal" from a powerful fantasy into ... a highly destructive boondoggle.

Jim Waters, director of policy and communications for the Bluegrass Institute, Kentucky’s free-market think tank, offers an eye-opening short history of the industry's "clean coal" scam. Highlights:

...Frankfort adults who still believe in fairy tales should consider this: Several attempts to create the kind of coal-liquification technology that would provide viable substitutes to oil have become fuel for past taxpayer nightmares instead.

In the 1940s, Congress appropriated millions of dollars to enact the “Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act.” In 1948, the New York Times declared it would result in energy – produced from coal, air, and water – in quantities sufficient enough to “free us from dependence on foreign sources of oil.”

By 1952, these federal coal-to-liquid demonstration plants shut down.

In 1960, Congress (code: taxpayers) paid for construction of six synthetic fuels demonstration plants, including one in Cresap, W. Va. Proponents promised gasoline at 11 cents per gallon.

Didn’t happen. In fact, the Cresap economic disaster called “Project Gasoline,” went in the tank in 1970.

The most well-known energy-liquification effort occurred in the 1970s when an oil embargo threatened America’s economy. Many of us maintain unforgettable images of long lines at gasoline pumps.

In one of many demonstrations of ineptness, President Jimmy Carter signed the 1980 Energy Security Act, authorizing money for the Synthetic Fuels Corporation (SFC) and charging it to produce a half-million barrels of oil per day by 1987. President Gerald Ford previously promised 1 million barrels of oil a day from coal by 1985.

Instead, the SFC shut down in 1985. Not a single coal-to-oil plant produced anything – except the loss of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

He goes on to make the obvious point that if "clean coal" was so easy and fabulous, the free market would be investing in it, as the free market has done for real renewable energy - wind, solar, geothermal.

"Clean coal" needs government subsidies because no money manager with an ounce of sense would invest a dime in it.

But in Kentucky, Coal Is God. Not even University of Kentucky basketball, the State Religion, gets as much worship as coal.

No one in Kentucky is surprised at the way Democratic congress critters cringe and cower and show their asses in submission at the maladministration's mere whisper of terrorism.

We've watched Democratic legislators perform precisely the same way when any governor so much as mentions coal.

Not that Ernie’s any better

“I am glad that the House is working with us to make Kentucky a leader in energy,” said Governor Fletcher. “As we have said from the start, this legislation isn’t just important for a single company – it is important for the future of Kentucky. This legislation is a continuation of the energy strategy my administration initiated three years ago. I look forward to the passage of House Bill 1.”

Energy strategy? The closest thing Ernie has to an energy strategy is his practice of climbing into a state-owned gas-guzzler every morning for the 500-foot commute from the Governor's Mansion to the Capitol Building. No, wait, that's his Get Healthy Kentucky initiative.

What's that you say? What about "renewable energy?" Sorry, it's so easy to miss. The incentives in House Bill 1 for actual, reality-based, affordable, environment-protecting, child-friendly renewable energy are a grand total of ...

wait for it ...

One million dollars.

Peabody Coal probably spent more than that on booze and hookers for the General Assembly.

Postscript: Keep in mind, too, that this bill was passed by the Democratic House. The version that emerges from the Republican-controlled Senate is likely to be stripped of even the weak-ass renewable energy provisions House Democrats wrote.

McConnell's Re-election Troubles Go National

No, unfortunately the Moonie Times has not found compromising photos to support rumors of Mitch's man-love tendencies.

But it has managed to stumble across a few Kentucky Republicans who have serious doubts about the Senate Minority Leader's re-election chances.

Too bad one of them is Larry Forgy, a perennial losing Republican candidate who is being talked up as a primary challenger to Mitch.

“The average Kentuckian feels we are giving away this country with both hands — jobs are going, essentially the primacy of the people who made this country great is going, and Mitch McConnell is lumped with the Washington types on this,” Mr. Forgy said.

But even a county party chair has his doubts, albeit anonymously.

A county party chairman who supports Mr. McConnell but asked not to be identified said Mr. McConnell's re-election next year is uncertain — despite the Capitol Hill clout he brings Kentucky — unless he shows the folks back home he understands their distrust of Washington on enforcing immigration laws.

Wingnut stalwart Tom Buford was willing to go on the record - but only in general "incumbents have it hard" terms.

“The immigration issue is trouble for everyone in central Kentucky,” Republican state Sen. Tom Buford said. “The Iraq war is always difficult for all incumbents, even if they support pulling the troops out. It is a no-win situation when elections are at risk.”

Mr. McConnell registered a 48 percent approval rating last month in a SurveyUSA poll.

The weird part is the article's emphasis on immigration, which has supposedly split the state party and left people angered at Mitch's failure to publicly oppose Smirky's immigration bill.

No question that Kentucky Republicans hate and fear the dusky-hued and accented as much as Republicans anywhere, but even in a major election year here, immigration languishes at the bottom of the issue list.

The governor's race is all gambling, all the time, down-ticket repugs are running on being Not-Ernie, and the General Assembly is busy writing a rubber check for $300 million to Peabody Coal - apparently just because.

Right now, Mitch's re-election hinges on three factors over which he has little, if any control:

- The Governor's race. If Democrat Steve Beshear wins, he'll galvanize Kentucky Democrats for the 2008 election.
- The Iraq War. We've lost 62 Kentucky men and women in Iraq, and each new casualty increases the discontent exponentially.
- His Democratic opponent. At the moment, the field of potential candidates is weak, but a Beshear victory could change that quickly by opening the money spigots.

Hat tip to Bluegrass Report.

Repeat After Me: Bush Killed the Fourth Amendment

UPDATE Below

No surprise Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, is parroting the maladministration's lies on the Gut FISA And The Fourth Amendment For Good Measure Act, but for the record:

Speaking to the national Fraternal Order of Police conference (in Louisville Monday), the Kentucky Republican hailed the update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, saying "we're safer for it."

"Now to me, the idea that we were supposed to extend the Bill of Rights to a bunch of noncitizens overseas, let alone terrorists, wasn't only dangerous, it was the height of stupidity," McConnell said, drawing applause from the police group.

Remind me not to donate to the FOP this year.

To the Courier-Journal's minimal credit, they did indulge in some he-said-she-said stenography:

Civil liberties groups and some Democrats have said the measure went too far, and could enable the government to wiretap U.S. residents communicating with people overseas without adequate oversight from courts or Congress.

"This law has basically given the government the right to scoop up those communications without a warrant," Caroline Fredrickson, legislative director of the national American Civil Liberties Union, said in a phone interview Monday.

How much do we regret not strangling in the cradle the "Iraq (hearts) Al Qaeda" meme and the "Mushroom Cloud" meme and the "Liberals Want Us To Lose In Iraq" meme and all the other lies we let slide because we couldn't believe anybody with the brains FSM gave a walnut would believe them?

We have to put a stop to this "We're Only Spying on Terrorists" meme right now this instant.

It's not going to be easy. I spent my lunch hour today explaining to a highly intelligent, well-informed, very liberal co-worker that the "FISA revision" was actually the removal of privacy rights for American citizens. This co-worker hates Smirky, hates repugs, hates the war, would vote for Satan if he ran as a Democrat. But he couldn't believe that Congress would actually approve a bill that gave the president - any president - the right to spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.

He did make one good point - people don't believe their rights have been removed until that removal affects their lives directly.

So how do we bring this home to people? How do we make them believe their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor are once again on the line?

UPDATE 8:20 p.m.: Always read the blog first. Looks like Gadfly at Watching Those We Chose may have discovered exactly the issue we need to bring this home to people.

Only 12 Weeks Left For Beshear to Lose His 18-Point Lead Over Fletcher

Kentucky Democrats are rejoicing over the latest poll showing Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee Steve Beshear 18 points ahead of Incumbent Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher.

And if they don't shut up and get to work I'm gonna take 'em all out back and beat the crap out of 'em.

In the last month, Beshear's lead has eroded six points. At this rate, come election day it'll be a dead heat.

Don't get me wrong; Beshear's running a great campaign, and Ernie keeps tripping over his own feet.

First Ernie chose to make the campaign all about Beshear's support for expanded gambling, flipping his own previous neutral stance on casinos to reveal a born-again opposition. Gambling is eeeeeeeevvvviiilll, Ernie shouted.

Really? Beshear responded. Then why haven't you shut down the state lottery, closed the racetracks and outlawed church bingo?

Casino interests are mobsters and criminals who will turn all our children into drug addicts and prostitutes, Ernie cried.

Really? BluegrassReport blogger Mark Nickolas asked. Then why have you taken thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the likes of Harrah's, Caesar's and the American Gaming Association?

Not my fault! Ernie whined. It's not like I solicited them.

Oops. Turns out Ernie sent out begging letters to those very eeeeeevvvvviilll criminal gambling interests in hopes they would buy into his $1,000-a-ticket golf fundraiser.

Ernie's one break was U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's better-late-than-never decision to campaign for Ernie, after abandoning Ernie during the primary.

Oops. Ernie paid Mitch back by refusing to endorse Mitch for re-election to the Senate next year.

In February, 12 weeks before the primary, pundits and "experts" - including yours truly - were declaring Ernie dead, with no chance to beat Mitch favorite Anne Northup. In May, he left her in the dust.

Kentucky Democrats lost the governor's mansion to Ernie in 2003 because they couldn't believe that a republican could take away the place they'd owned for 32 years.

This year, Kentucky Democrats can't believe Ernie can overcome an 18-point deficit.

Fletcher's a political moron. He's also the undeserving recipient of exceptional political luck.

Since last November, Kentucky's 2007 gubernatorial race has been held up as a harbinger for the 2008 presidential race.

Let us hope it does not also become a painful reminder of that old but still true saying:

Never Understimate the Ability of Democrats to Snatch Defeat From the Jaws of Victory.

Yet Another Coverup of a Murdered Soldier in the "War on Terra"

If you liked the Pat Tillman case, you'll love this one.

The Angry Independent, guest-posting on The Rude Pundit (no permlink - scroll down to America's Forgotten Soldier) details the horrific case of Private Lavena Lynn Johnson.

Young Pvt. Lavena Johnson, was killed in Iraq on July 19th, 2005. Evidence in the case points to assault and murder. However, the Army has been covering up the killing, calling the soldiers death a suicide instead. The Army has refused to provide the family with key documents, and has ignored the families attempts to find answers in their daughters death.

(SNIP)

My theory on what may have happened to this young soldier? She was likely a victim of a rape or sexual assault of some kind, likely by superior officers or enlisted soldiers. In an effort to cover up their crime and keep her from telling anyone, they decided to kill her. The evidence in the case shows that the suspect (s) attempted to destroy evidence at the crime scene, including an attempt to try to set the crime scene on fire. The new information also shows that there was a blood trail leading outside from Lavena's tent. If she shot herself in the head with an M-16, then she would not have been able to get up and walk outside of her tent to create the blood trail. Another person would have had to do that.

OR an alternate scenario could be that Lavena was a witness to or knew of serious criminal activity involving officers or senior enlisted folks over there. She must have saw something or heard something, and her superiors knew that she could be a witness against them. In an effort to guarantee that she would not tell what she knew, someone decided to have her killed.

____________________________

Fast Forward to May of 2007

Lavena Johnsons body was exhumed and an independent autopsy was performed. The final report is still pending. The Army is still stonewalling the family and Congress regarding documents and other evidence in the case.

This is currently where the case stands.

The publics help is still needed to get this story on the national stage. Once in the spotlight, pressure could be brought to bare to force officials into action.

Please call or write your member of Congress. If you are a journalist or the editor of a newspaper or magazine, you could help by covering the story and getting the word out.

Incredibly depressing post-script: Need I mention that unlike non-hero Jessica Lynch, Pvt. Johnson is neither white nor blond?

Even Worse Than We Thought

In Salon, Juan Cole lays bare the lies behind the claimed reduction in violence in Iraq during July.

By the time all the casualties were counted and reported (not until early August), icasualties.org was giving the July toll as 80, only one less than in March, during the opening stages of the surge.

Worse, comparisons to previous months in the spring don't take into account the searing summer environment. Baghdad in July is one of those torrid colonial locales of which Noel Coward was speaking in his 1923 song when he wrote that only "mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun." The dip in casualties is always substantial in July, since guerrillas usually prefer not to operate with heavy explosives when it is 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade.

And as a tally noted on Foreign Policy magazine's blog, the number of U.S. troop deaths in July, compared with previous years of the war, is anything but a turn for the better:


July 2003: 48
July 2004: 54
July 2005: 54
July 2006: 43
July 2007: 80

(SNIP)

What has surged is not calm or political compromise, but rather the number of guerrilla attacks, the number of U.S. troop deaths compared to the same months in previous years, and the number of Iraqi casualties. That some of the U.S. media and the U.S. public have allowed themselves to be manipulated into thinking the "numbers" from Iraq are a cause for optimism echoes the sloppy and wishful thinking that got U.S. into this mess in the first place.

Iraqi access to electricity and even food and water has fallen, 2 million have been displaced internally and another million abroad since April of 2003. That is not encouraging, to say the least. The "national unity government" of Prime Minister al-Maliki is on the brink of total collapse, as the bad news piles up.

Indeed, the power of positive thinking is an old American value. But sometimes it causes people to fall for pyramid schemes, or even worse.

Yet more evidence than ever before that, as Kevin Drum has argued, the continued American occupation of Iraq is NOT postponing - much less avoiding - a civil war bloodbath, but rather aggravating it.

Falling for the Same Old Line

There are probably 57 different reasons why 16 Democratic Senators (including Jim Webb! - my heart's broken) and 41 Democratic Representatives voted to gut the Fourth Amendment and give The Usurper dictatorial powers.

But if the primary reason was that those 57 dems actually fell - AGAIN - for Rovian fear-mongering, Glenn Greenwald in Salon demolishes that excuse.

Read the whole thing, but here's a taste:

We do not need to wonder or speculate about what might happen if Democrats obstruct warrantless eavesdropping legislation and Republicans are then able to make an issue of it politically. That already happened in 2006. That was Rove's whole strategy. It failed miserably, across the board. And yet the Democratic leadership just permitted, and many Democrats supported, a wild expansion of George Bush's warrantless eavesdropping powers based on a jittery fear of this already-failed tactic, if not based on actual support for these increased eavesdropping powers.

In this post and this one Glenn also makes the point that the 57th Retreating Dems aren't as big a problem as the Democratic "leadership" in both houses, which could have put a stop to the disaster by simply rejecting Smirky's order to pass the law or else.

Mitch at Fancy Farm: Stumbo Draws First Blood

UPDATE Below
Never let it be said that Greg Stumbo doesn't come out swinging. The Kentucky Attorney General is close to the worst possible choice to challenge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for re-election next year, but Greg drew first blood at the 127th annual "Pork, Pie and Politics" Fancy Farm picnic yesterday. The Lexington Herald-Leader's Jack Brammer reports:

McConnell never mentioned his bid for re-election next year. But Democratic Attorney General Greg Stumbo, who has formed an exploratory committee for a possible run against McConnell, brought several dogs with him to make light of McConnell's famous campaign ad against U.S. Walter "Dee" Huddleston in the 1980s, in which he used hounds to search for Huddleston. Stumbo's white polo shirt said he is "hunting for a real U.S. Senator."

McConnell's only decent line was a shot at Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear.

McConnell noted that he defeated Beshear in a U.S. Senate race in 1996 and that Beshear ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1987.

"It's actually good to see that Kentucky Democrats embrace recycling," McConnell said.

Yep, and you're headed for the compost pile, Mitch.

The real fireworks were between Beshear and Incumbent Criminal Gov. Ernie Fletcher. Brammer again:

The two candidates for governor stumped for votes as a heavily partisan crowd whooped for their favorites and heckled their opponents. Fletcher employed costumed characters in the crowd to underscore his comments. Fletcher said Attorney General Greg Stumbo and other Democrats could not stop him even with their "political witch hunt." On cue, a young woman dressed in a witch's black outfit stood up in the audience as Fletcher pointed to her.

He was referring to a lengthy investigation of hiring in his administration that led to three misdemeanor charges against Fletcher that later were dropped when he and Stumbo reached an agreement.

Fletcher later pointed to a character dressed like Moses. "He must be looking for the Ten Commandments, but he won't find them in our courthouses or schools," the governor said.

He was referring to Beshear's decision as attorney general from 1979 to 1983 when Beshear issued advisory opinions that removed copies of the Ten Commandments from public-school classrooms. At the time, Beshear said he had to follow constitutional and U.S. Supreme Court guidelines.

"I obeyed the law," Beshear said yesterday. "As governor I would obey the law. And wouldn't that be a great change to have a governor who obeys the law?" To illustrate his point, about 15 Beshear supporters who were labeled "Ernie's Chain Gang" marched around the crowd while dressed in prison garb and handcuffs.

Fletcher countered with "Easy Money Steve," who threw out casino chips ridiculing Beshear's position that Kentuckians should decide at the polls whether to allow expanded gambling.

Fletcher, who initially said he would not support or oppose a legislative move for casino gambling but now maintains expanded gambling will never occur while he is governor, said casino gambling in the state would lead to an increase in crimes, divorces and bankruptcies.

Beshear accused Fletcher of using scare tactics on the gambling issue, noting that the Fancy Farm picnic's main purpose is to raise funds through charitable gaming for St. Jerome Catholic church.

He called Fletcher hypocritical for not calling for the repeal of church bingo, the state lottery and parimutuel wagering.

After their speeches, Fletcher said "there is a world of difference" between casino gambling and other forms of gambling now in Kentucky.

In his speech, Beshear pounded away at the "failed leadership" in Frankfort the last four years.

Mixing a tourist slogan for Las Vegas with his lack-of-leadership claims, Beshear said, "What's going on in Frankfort right now shouldn't stay in Frankfort any longer." He then rattled off some figures that showed Kentucky in recent years has been dropping in economic development rankings for states.

And the prize for low blow predictably goes to one of the state's slimiest wingnuts.

The two candidates' running mates also did not shy away from each other. Robbie Rudolph, Fletcher's running mate, said Beshear and state Sen. Daniel Mongiardo of Hazard are "a match made in Vegas."

Rudolph said, "Fancy Dan likes young ...." Rudolph then paused, saying he is glad his daughter recently married.

Rudolph's comments were a reference to Mongiardo's engagement to Allison Patrick of Frankfort. There is an age difference of about 25 years between Mongiardo, 47, and Patrick. Mongiardo said they will not marry until after the November election.

Nice double-play there, implying Mongiardo is both gay and a child molester. Classy, Robbie. Very classy.

UPDATE 7:15 p.m.: Ditch Mitch has good Fancy Farm coverage (no permalink; scroll down) and Hillbilly Report has pictures.

Takin' Names for 2008

UPDATE Below

I hereby nominate Sixth District Congressman Ben Chandler, D-KY, for the first name on the DINO Hit List to get a progressive primary opponent in 2008.

The treasonous schmuck was one of 41 "Democrats" voting to let the Usurper put the finishing touches on his American Dictatorship.

In January, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave Sophmore Chandler a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, as a fairly obvious incentive to get him to vote the straight and narrow on the Democratic agenda.

At first it seemed to work, too. Benny voted in line with the leadership on most of the important votes, most recently co-sponsoring a bill to impeach AG Alberto Gonzales.

But Benny's been a shill for this maladministration since his special election in 2004, and now he's reverting to form.

Look, I understand the importance of not eating our young, keeping the majority, red-state politics, blah, blah, blah.

But a vote that blatantly invites Smirky to shit on the Bill of Rights? An engraved invitation to declare himself dictator-for-life? When bush's disapproval rate is poised to exceed Nixon's? When republicans are running for the exits? When a significant majority of Americans trust DEMOCRATS more than republicans on the war on terror?

What. The. Fuck?

No, scratch that. I don't really care what slimy rationalizations float in Chandler's wingnut brain.

With Democrats like Chandler (and Nick Lampson and Henry Cuellar, the ungrateful bastards), what do we need with republicans?

We - real Democrats, liberals, progressive, members of the reality-based community, bush-haters all - WE got these assholes elected. WE handed them the House and the Senate.

WE brought them into this new Democratic world, and WE can take them out of it.

Next year, people will not only be looking for a way to punish republicans hard, they'll also be looking for a way to punish Democratic Collaborators.

2008 is going to be our best chance to not just grab huge majorities in both houses of Congress, but to replace Democratic Collaborators with Real Democrats.

Check out this vote roll to find out whether your Democratic representative is a collaborator. If he or she voted yes, start recruiting a primary opponent today.

Do it now, before voting Democratic makes you an enemy combatant, Guantanamo-bound.

I am extremely relieved and proud to announce that Louisville's own John Yarmuth, D-KY voted keep the Bill of Rights and deny Smirky a crown.

UPDATE, 7:18 p.m.: Logical Negativism has the full list of House Blue Dogs.

Matt Bai Doesn't Get It

The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics

It's a bad sign when, after you finish reading a book you're going to review, and you flip back through the pages, you find that on every fifth page you've written in the margin:

Bullshit!

Bai writes for the New York Times Magazine, so you won't be surprised that this book gave me flashbacks to the Clarence Thomas hearings.

Yeah, Bai hung out with Jerome and Markos, and he attended the first Yearly Kos, and he has one or two not-nasty things to say about Howard Dean, but basically these 308 pages boil down to this:

The Democratic Party has been hijacked by a bunch of clueless billionaires and crazy losers from the blogosphere who don't have the kind of well-designed party platform that will gain them the trust and endorsement of real Democrats like Joe Lieberman and the Editorial Board of the New York Times.

One typical snide snark:

"The blogs ... were, in fact, the voices of the new public square, but it was more like the Parisian public square in the days of the Bastille - not a place where tonwspeople came to carefully consider what their leaders had to say, but where the mob gathered to make its demands and mete out its own kind of justice."

OK, first up for the Internet guillotine: Patronizing MSM Broderists like Matt Bai.

And the section on a Move On house party to come up with five-word progressive agenda items was just about the most condescending thing I've ever read. The "tiny apartment" (Bai couldn't find a place to sit) in "a mostly-black, mixed-income neighborhood" (poor people and minorities - borrrrrring) filled with people who struggled with ideas and weren't poised and eloquent like his Georgetown friends. Good grief, even the snacks were home-made and brought by attendees - haven't these people ever heard of caterers?

FSM give me strength.

But the real crime Bai commits is that in the service of his Beltway MSM agenda he wastes a ton of pretty decent reporting. Bai's premise is that despite a historic political victory last November, the Democrats still don't have a winning platform. And he'll twist any fact, any quote to prove that premise.

One minute he's sneering at dems for phrasing their beliefs in broad, philosophical language - "help working families," "universal health care" - lacking specific policy prescriptions, and the next he's complaining that their beliefs are just a bunch of detailed policy prescriptions, without a broad, overarching philosophy.

And they have the gall to hate Bush and the Republicans! Just because Bush and the Republicans are doing every thing they can to destroy the last semblance of democracy, freedom and the rule of law in this country. How naive. How unserious. How inappropriate. They probably wear white after Labor Day, too.

Then he accuses Democrats of the worst crime of all: working to win elections!

Boy, it's a good thing FDR, Truman and JFK never had to campaign for office - they never would have had time to actually lead the country.

He even trots out that old canard that Democrats have no "new ideas." Gives it pseudo-legitimacy by quoting actual Democrats saying it.

Matty boy. you're about four curves behind. The Liberals and Progressives of the Democratic Party have spent the last 12 years developing exactly the broad philosopies and detailed policy proposals that are not only good for the country but have the approval of the majority of Americans.

No, we don't all agree on the specifics, but that's how ideas and policies get honed to perfection - in the fire of political debate.

What we're just starting to get - in the persons of Jim Webb, Jon Tester and John Yarmuth - are Democratic politicians who are willing to stand up proudly and proclaim those liberal values and policies. And by doing so, win elections.

If you're curious about how we got from the suicidal depression of November 2004 to where we are today, there's some good stuff here - especially about the secretive Democracy Alliance of progressive billionaires.

But The Argument is best read as a warning: that even after the genuine miracles liberals and progressives have achieved in the past two years, the twin stereotypes of "feckless Democrats" and "crazy, nihilistic bloggers" aren't going away any time soon.

Pork, Pie and Politics

If you're going to be spending Saturday afternoon like me, in an air-conditioned living room hiding from a truly vicious heat wave, check out KET's live web-casting from Fancy Farm starting at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.

If you know what Fancy Farm is, and you're not from Kentucky, congratulations! You are a seriously addicted political geek in dire need of A Life. If you're from Kentucky and you don't know what Fancy Farm is, what are you doing reading a political blog? Go back to surfing Facebook, you slacker.

Fancy Farm is a tiny town in the far, far southwestern corner of Kentucky, where, on the first Saturday in August, the population explodes from 600 to 15,000 people there to eat the Best Barbeque North of Memphis and heckle politicians attempting to make campaign speeches outdoors in a heat/humidity index pushing four figures.

Rumor this year is that the Young Democrats are going to dress up in orange prison jumpsuits and march around to mock Indicted and Admitted Criminal Governor Ernie Fletcher.

Republican heckling of Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Steve Beshear is supposedly going to involve a well-funded parody of Beshear's support for expanded gambling. I have a hard time believing they're not going to exploit running mate Dan Mongiardo's - well, the repugs can't decide whether Dan's gay or a cradle-robber for getting engaged to a girl half his age (I do wish the wingnuts would keep their sex fears consistent.)

The event is being emceed by Republican State Senate President David Williams, who has vowed to "control" the crowd. This announcement caused uncontrollable laughter in every precinct of the state. The whole point of Fancy Farm is to goad your candidate's opponent into some kind of foaming-at-the-mouth freak-out that your guy can make the centerpiece of his attack ads.

Fancy Farm always provides political theater at its best; this year, with the first Republican Governor in 32 years running for re-election despite admitting breaking state law and boasting an approval rating worse than George Bush's, is driving partisans on both sides to new heights - depths? - of bring-your-video-camera drama.

Williams' threat of "control" is driving Democrats to a performance-art frenzy. Expect Gestapo-style "security" tactics against Democratic demonstrators.

But the big attraction is Kentucky's own U.S. Senate Minority Leader and Facilitator of the Filibuster Mitch McConnell.

Mitch will have his handful of supporters, of course, and his hundreds of bought-and-paid-for demonstrators, but the Fancy Farm crowd demands its speakers stand up alone and expose themselves to shrieking abuse.

No tame New York Times reporters at Fancy Farm. No Fox Noise sycophants. No Joe Lierberman to hide behind.

Just you, Mitch. You, the heat, the humidity and 15,000 partisans slavering for payback.

And the Food Network, there to check out the barbeque.

Better Late Than Never

Josh Marshall, Founder of the Talking Points Memo Empire, and one of the most eloquent progressive skeptics on impeachment, appears to finally be coming around.

Without going into all the specifics, I think we are now moving into a situation where the White House, on various fronts, is openly ignoring the constitution, acting as though not just the law but the constitution itself, which is the fundamental law from which all the statutes gain their force and legitimacy, doesn't apply to them.

If that is allowed to continue, the defiance will congeal into precedent. And the whole structure of our system of government will be permanently changed.

Whether because of prudence and pragmatism or mere intellectual inertia, I still have the same opinion on the big question: impeachment. But I think we're moving on to dangerous ground right now, more so than some of us realize. And I'm less sure now under these circumstances that operating by rules of 'normal politics' is justifiable or acquits us of our duty to our country.

I've been a loyal TPM fan since 2001, when it was a one-man, bare-bones blog, just a few months old. TPM Cafe, Election Central, Horse's Mouth, Muckraker, TPMTv and the staff that keep TPM at the top of the blogging game were not even gleams in Josh's eye.

Yeah, he's always been a little too fond of the DLC line than I liked, but I was thrilled by the reporter's sensibility he brought to his posts - a sensibility now grown into the major-story-breaking hard news of TPMMuckraker.

And for all his DLC apologia, liberals and progressives owe Josh Marshall a permanent debt of gratitude for putting a stop, virtually single-handedly, to The Usurper's 2005 attempt to destroy Social Security.

I thought Josh was wrong when he expressed doubts about the wisdom of impeaching Bush and Cheney, but I respected his logic.

I respect him even more for his ability to consider changing his mind based on new evidence and circumstances.

Nevertheless, I think he's missing one of the strongest arguments in favor of impeachment: Nixon.

Josh is 38, which means he was in kindergarten during Watergate. I was only in high school, but I remember the extreme shock felt by people of all political persuasions when the full extent of Nixon's crimes were laid bare.

I remember the heart-swelling pride in the strength of our political system when Congressional Republicans and Democrats banded together to expose those crimes and demand the president be held accountable.

I remember my father - a third-generation Republican - and my mother, a sixth-generation Democrat - both emphasizing to me that the true lesson of Watergate was that the U.S. Constitution was stronger than any politican, stronger than any president, stronger than any crime perpetrated against it.

And I remember how all that shock, all that pride, all that faith in the Constitution was swept away by Gerald Ford's pardon.

Nixon skated. The man shat on the Constitution, came within a whisker of establishing a police state that put the East German Stasi to shame, and he skated.

The precedent for The Usurper's treason was established.

Reagan and Bush I used it to escape punishment for Iran-Contra (Presidents are above the law.) And the republican freakazoids of the '90s turned it inside-out to impeach Clinton for telling a lie told by thousands of married people every single day (Impeachment isn't a serious Constitutional mechanism; it's a political tool.)

If Nixon had been impeached, or indicted and convicted for his crimes after his resignation, it would have been much harder for Reagan and Bush I to resist Congressional investigation through secrecy and perjury. It would have been much harder for '90s republicans to justify using the Constitutional majesty of impeachment for a fib about sex.

And it would have been damn-near impossible for George W. Bush and Richard Cheney to continue to trample the Constitution for more than five years after a pre-Nixon Congress would have kicked their asses into the dustbin of history.

If Congress doesn't impeach Bush and Cheney - or given the time constraints, indict and convict them after they leave office - it won't matter who's elected president in 2008. It won't matter if Democrats take the Senate and House with 80-percent majorities. It won't matter if the republican party is shut out of every national, state and local election for the next three generations.

If Bush and Cheney skate, an even more dangerous precedent than Nixon's will be set in stone:

The president is King; Congress is a debating club; the judiciary is a joke; the Constitution is as dead as Ozymandias, and The American Experiment is a historical fluke that failed.

Lame, Lamer, Lamest

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote to both of Kentucky's U.S. Senators (Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning, both republicans) and two of its six Representatives (republican Ron Lewis and Democrat Ben Chandler) and demanded that they support impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney.

I received the following email response from one of them. See if you can guess who it is.

(SNIP)
Though I fully support our troops in their efforts to aid Iraq in its transition from Saddam Hussein's regime, I continue to have serious reservations about the extent of our nation's involvement in Iraq. I was not a Member of Congress when it agreed to a resolution authorizing the President to use force in Iraq, but I believe that Congress, who alone has the authority to declare war, was presented questionable evidence regarding weapons of mass destruction and related matters.

However, now that we find ourselves in this situation, we must look forward and devise a plan to stabilize Iraq, ease the strain on our troops and improve the capacity of our intelligence agencies. Rest assured I will keep your thoughts in mind if the congressional leadership calls for an investigation into the President's reasons for going to war.
(SNIP)

Yep, that's our BennyBoy, DINO extraordinaire. And rotten office manager. His staff sent me the autoresponse for Iraq (which I did not mention in my impeachment demand, which focused on violations of the Constitution), not the one for impeachment. Maybe Benny doesn't have an impeachment auto-response prepared yet.

Nothing from the RWAs, but that's no surprise. McConnell's waaaaay too important to stoop to responding to the likes of a lowly voter (and obvious Democrat/traitor - my name's probably being purged from the voter rolls as I write), Bunning's senile and Lewis is a sniveling weasel.

I'm currently trying to borrow a residential address in Louisville, district of Proud Liberal Democrat and Northup-Slayer John Yarmuth, so I can get past the stupid House email verification system to make the same request.

We'll see if Yarmuth, whose outspoken liberal courage has been making Benny look bad all year, can get it up for impeachment.

From the Land of Liberal Utopia

Bad enough that Sweden uncomplainingly provides its citizens with all the good-government wonders for which we'd kill - a cradle-to-grave social services net, universal single-payer health care, superb education, public transit, renewable energy - now they're doing the journalistic job the American MSM refuses to do.

Via a friend in Canada, a new Swedish documentary on Guantanamo

Effort to Ditch Mitch Stumbles Out of the Block

Two pieces of bad news this week for those hoping to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, next year.

According to the Federal Election Commission, McConnell now has more campaign cash on hand than the entire National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Mitch has $5.7 million - enough to win two or three normal statewide races in Kentucky. The NRSC has about $5.5 million on hand.

As an old Deaniac, I am painfully aware that money isn't everything. I firmly believe that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are going to learn the same hard lesson Howard did: money gets you only so far in Iowa.

Let's hope Mitch discovers the same law of diminishing returns applies in Kentucky.

In even-worse news, the first Kentucky Democrat to go public with intentions to run against McConnell next year is State Attorney General Greg Stumbo.

Stumbo is not exactly an icon of personal integrity. He was arrested for DUI in 1991 and is infamous for fighting and losing a paternity suit filed by a woman with whom he had an affair while married to his first wife. The child was born in 1988 and he pleaded the DUI down to a lesser charge, but both stories still get traction.

Stumbo appeared to redeem himself and become a Democratic hero in 2005 when he investigated, and in 2006 indicted, Republican Govenor Ernie Fletcher for violating state law by firing civil-service-protected Democrats to make room for his republican cronies.

Then Stumbo allowed Fletcher to plead to a misdemeanor, pissing off most of the Democrats who weren't already pissed off about the DUI and the kid.

But the capping stupidity was when he accepted the Lite Guv position on the ticket of Fake Democrat and Criminal Bruce Lunsford.

All his many flaws aside, Stumbo had always been considered one of the sharpest political minds in the state. But latching onto Lunsford, widely reviled as a traitor for endorsing Fletcher in 2003, had Eastern State Mental Hospital dispatching guys in white coats to corral Stumbo.

Proof that Stumbo did not, in fact, know something everybody else didn't came in Lunsford-Stumbo's 20-point loss to Beshear-Mongiardo in the May Democratic primary.

Losing a statewide race doesn't disqualify Stumbo from challenging McConnell. After all, right now there are only two living Democrats in Kentucky who have won but never lost a statewide race: retired Senator Wendell Ford and State Auditor Crit Luallen, neither of whom has any interest in the race. And the other two most likely Mitch challengers - Charlie Owen and Andrew Horne - are also former losers.

No, losing doesn't disqualify Stumbo. Stupidity does.

For the latest on McConnell, keep tabs on DitchMitch.

UPDATE: The Herald-Leader's Pol Watchers blog, with the link to the McConnell money story, appears to be down temporarily. Here's the NYT's piece on national party fundraising.

Fletcher Official Admits Politcal Gagging

If you're reading this at work - on your lunch hour or break, of course! - count your blessings and do something nice for your boss.

You're better off than Kentucky state employees, who cannot read this, or any other blog that republican Governor Ernie Fletcher doesn't like, at work.

Yeah, yeah, they shouldn't be reading blogs at work, blah, blah, blah.

That's what Fletcher officials said. AFTER they got caught blocking a particular blogger who was exposing their crimes and stupidity several times a day.

For 2-1/2 years, from his inauguration in December 2003, Ernie had no problem with state employees reading blogs at work. State computer techs blocked porn sites, of course, and if your blog reading interferred with your work, your boss would call you in for a little chat about productivity, but if you wanted to spend your break reading the latest on Daily Kos or Little Green Footballs, nobody cared much.

But in May 2006, a grand jury indicted Fletcher on charges of violating state merit law by firing civil-service-protected Democrats to make room for his republican cronies.

And Mark Nickolas attacked.

Nickolas, who managed the campaign of Ben Chandler, who lost the governor's race to Fletcher, operated a blog called BluegrassReport.org. For two years, he'd been posting news and snarky commentary about Fletcher's Keystone Kops administration - along with strong criticism of the state's cowardly and incompetent Democrats.

But after the indictment, Nickolas moved into overdrive, and BluegrassReport became the don't-miss, refresh-all-day, multi-commented Blog Everybody Reads.

And Fletcher couldn't take it. One day, state employees checked out BluegrassReport.org and found only a full-page message: "This Site Has Been Blocked by the Commonwealth Office of Technology."

WTF?

That first day, you could still get on Kos, and LGF, and TPM, and Drudge, and all the rest.

So by lunchtime, it was pretty obvious what had happened. Fletcher had specifically blocked BGR because Nickolas - and his many bright, funny, well-informed commenters - hurt his tiny widdle feewings.

Emails flew between Nickolas and his state employee informers, and by close of business, Nickolas was accusing Fletcher of targeting BGR in political retribution.

The next day, all the liberal/progressive blogs were blocked, but state employees could still spend all day soaking up the vomit spewed by LGF and Drudge and the rest of the bush-fellators.

Nickolas cried foul again: Republican blogs were fine, but Democrats and liberals need not apply.

Fletcher officials blustered and lied and stalled, but in the end, they had no choice. To cover up their un-Constitutional gagging of BGR from state computers, they had to block all blogs.

Elephant-footed, they blanket-blocked everything on the Internet, to the point that people who needed information couldn't access even federal government websites.

Over the course of months, COT refined its blocking techniques, lifting the block on specific web sites if an employee could justify it as work-related.

It's still highly suspicious: FOX gets a pass, despite being news-free, as do Amazon and most shopping sites. Right-wing and Christian religious sites get through, but the Flying Spaghetti Monster is blocked.

It's also somewhat arbitrary: Talking Points Memo, TPM Cafe, TPM Election Central and TPM Horse's Mouth are blocked, but TPMMuckraker is not. Salon's War Room blog is blocked, but its Broadsheet blog is not. Kevin Drum's Political Animal blog at washingtonmonthly.com hung on for a few months, but was gone by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Nickolas filed a federal First Amendment lawsuit against Fletcher and kept beating Ernie senseless on his blog.

In June, Nickolas moved to Montana and shut down BGR. But the lawsuit continues, and last Friday former Fletcher technology commissioner Michael Inman dropped a bombshell:

Robbie Rudolph, Fletcher's running mate for lieutenant governor and secretary of the executive cabinet, directly ordered Inman to block BGR.

"It was apparent that the state had intentionally targeted BluegrassReport.org and had blocked the category of blogs and other categories of Web sites in an attempt to disguise that fact," Inman said in a sworn statement.

No shit.

The Blocking of BGR is small potatoes compared to the wholesale burning of the U.S. Constitution perpetrated by Smirky and Darth Cheney. But the testimony of Inman - whom Fletcher stupidly fired - is a crack in the Right-Wing Authoritarian Wall.

It gives me hope on two counts: That republicans with integrity are not a myth, and that they will, when pushed hard enough toward the Dark Side, do the Right Thing. And that blogs like BGR and Watching Those We Chose can, indeed, Make A Difference.

Mark Nickolas and BluegrassReport contributed enormously to the 2006-2007 rebirth of the Kentucky Democratic Party, not least by flaying moribund and corrupt Democrats as raw as he flayed Fletcher and other republicans. Nickolas and BGR strongly supported Steve Beshear's gubernatorial candidacy and played a significant role in Beshear's 20-point drubbing of Fake Democrat and Convicted Criminal Bruce Lunsford in the May primary.

The new chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party is State Treasurer Jonathan Miller, who staunchly opposed Fletcher's Internet blocking. Miller was the Voice of Reason, pointing out that Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and other neighboring states manage to get the work of the people done without denying their employees access to anything on the Internet except porn.

Miller's withdrawal from the governor's race ensured Beshear's victory, so Steve owes him big time.

If Beshear wins the election in November, state employees will be able to read political blogs at work again by Christmas.

BGR is gone, but several other progressive Kentucky blogs are working hard to fill its shoes, including Bluegrass Roots, Kentucky Democrat, Drinking Liberally Louisville, Hillbilly Report, Kentucky Woman and Ditch Mitch Kentucky.

Bush Bleeding Out in Kentucky

Kentucky's got a Republican Governor, a Republican State Senate, two Republican U.S. Senators, and a 2-1 Republican advantage in U.S. House seats.

But now, according to Survey USA, President Smirky is almost as unpopular in Kentucky as fighting-for-his-political-life Governor Ernie Fletcher.

Like Fletcher in another recent poll, Bush is losing in just about every category.

Bush gets the thumbs-down from more than 50 percent of Kentuckians of both sexes, every race (except Hispanics - what's up with that?), every geographical region, independents as well as Democrats, moderates as well as liberals, civilians and members of the military (HA!), and people who think the U.S. won the Vietnam War.

Good Grief, even 48 percent of Kentuckians who are pro-life disapprove of Bush.

The Usurper's still hanging on to Republicans, Conservatives, people who think Global Warming is "made-up," and people who think we're going to win in Iraq (whatever that means.)

In every category, the "Not Sure"s ranged from zero to 4 percent, except 24 percent of Hispanics (what IS that deal?) and nine percent of "Other" races (86 percent of whom disapprove of Bush - more than any category except the 88 percent of people who think we're going to lose in Iraq.)

Yeah, yeah, Smirky's 38 percent approval in Kentucky is still way above his national rate of 29 percent, but this isn't Manhattan.

If Kentucky's deserting Bush, can Florida be that far behind?

Only 16 Weeks Left for Beshear to Lose 23 Points

No, I'm not trying to jinx the Democrat apparently destined to bury Gov. Ernie Fletcher in a historic landslide.

I'm trying to keep Kentucky Democrats from throwing premature victory parties, ignoring the campaign, forgetting to vote and waking up on Nov. 7 to discover that once again the Democrats have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

SurveyUSA's latest poll on the governor's race has Steve Beshear leading Fletcher 59 to 36, with only five percent undecided.

Check out the details - Beshear leads Fletcher in every single sub-category (age, race, sex, region, politics, etc.) except Republicans, Conservatives and people who oppose expanded gambling. And even 43 percent of people who oppose expanded gambling support Beshear, who has made expanded gambling a centerpiece of his campaign.

Beshear sits comfortably with more than 50 percent in every category he leads.

For pity's sake, Beshear even leads Fletcher among Republicans who voted in the primary for one of Fletcher's opponents: 57 percent of Anne Northup's voters and 40 percent of Billy Harper's voters support Beshear.

But here's the killer: 14 percent of people who voted for Fletcher in the primary now support Beshear.

Of course, the poll also has four percent of the people who voted for Beshear in the primary now supporting Fletcher, but that polling point was probably a UK fraternity prank.

Kentucky political campaigns traditionally don't really get going until after Labor Day, but that five percent undecided has got Democrats waaaaaay over-excited. Even if you grant Fletcher all the undecideds plus the entire five-point margin of error, they babble, Beshear still wins by 8 points.

If the election were held today, that is.

Beshear's a smart, savvy guy with minimal baggage who's run a near-perfect campaign since January. No Democrat in the state has a better chance of knocking Fletcher off his throne.

It's still almost 16 weeks. 110 days. 2,640 hours. 158,400 minutes.

And every one counts.

Third Time's a Charm?

Kentucky ranks at the top of world-class lists in just three areas.

We got world-class horses.

We got world-class bourbon. (By federal law, if it ain't made in Kentucky, it ain't bourbon.)

And we got world-class poverty.

And not just any old world-class poverty. World-class presidential-candidate-attractin' poverty.

Robert Kennedy found us first, back in the '60s (although Eleanor Roosevelt knew about us in the '30s.)

Bill Clinton came a-callin' in the '90s, not being above stealing a good Kennedy idea.

And today it's John Edwards.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a strong Edwards supporter. If Elizabeth Edwards were a religion, I'd have to convert from Pastafarianism.

But Appalachia is the Iraq of the War on Poverty. Sure, the intentions are good, but the policy is weak, the strategy non-existent and the tactics akin to emptying the ocean with a teaspoon.

Not to mention the utter bloody-mindedness of the natives, who are less than appreciative of the economic, environmental and social devastation wrought by the various "foreign occupiers," including the timber industry, the coal industry, the pharmaceutical industry (Oxycontin) and bottom-feeding "employers" like telemarketers and chicken-processing plants.

Life in Eastern Kentucky, even for the poorest, is certainly far better than in was in 1962, when Harry Caudill published his passionate expose Night Comes to the Cumberlands. But it still lags far behind the rest of the nation, as the Herald-Leader explains.

The Herald's poll has 59% agreeing that Edwards' visit is a publicity ploy. I agree, but I don't think it's publicity for himself. I think it's publicity for the issue of deep-seated poverty, which hasn't registered on the national radar for more than a quarter-century, since Ronald Reagan taught us that only rich people really matter.

John Edwards isn't making speeches on this Poverty Tour - he's listening to people's stories, hoping to publicize the crisis and maybe gain some insight. So that's a step forward.

And I believe that John Edwards sincerely, genuinely, passionately wants to end poverty in this nation and will do his damndest to succeed.

If a visit to Eastern Kentucky doesn't dash his hopes on the cold, stony ground of Appalachian reality, then he's got a level of progressive determination this nation hasn't seen since FDR.

Who actually DID reduce poverty in Eastern Kentucky.

Tim Johnson, Your Country Needs You

Can someone please explain to me why Senator Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is not voting on the most important issues the U.S. Senate has considered since, oh, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution?

Yes, I know he's recovering from a nearly-fatal brain aneurism, and as someone whose family history includes stroke victims, I emphathize strongly.

But really, they were propping up Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., and faking his votes for years after he was, for all intents and purposes, you know, dead.

Johnson's not bed-ridden. There are photos on his Senate web site of him undergoing physical therapy, walking with a cane. His Newsroom page has more than a dozen press releases just this month announcing the millions of dollars in funding that he has secured for South Dakota.

So why does Harry Reid keep using the absence of Senator Johnson as an excuse for the Senate Democrats not having even a one-vote majority (Joe Lieberman notwithstanding?)

I understand and appreciate the importance of near-constant physical therapy for those who have suffered brain injuries. If it were me, I'd want to be home, as far away from the lethal miasmas of D.C. as I could get.

But these, dear Tim, are perilous times. The fate of this country and the entire planet are quite literally at stake. I don't believe that getting you onto the floor of the Senate, whether in a wheelchair or a hospital bed, to vote to preserve the Constitution of the United States, would kill you.

But even if it would kill you, I am still asking - nay, demanding - that you do it.

When the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence, they were signing their own death warrants. If they'd been caught by the British soldiers who patrolled every street, they'd have been hanged. No trial, no appeal, no delay.

Is your taking a break from physical therapy to cast a vote to preserve the nation they risked their lives to create so much to ask?

Mitch McConnell: Adding ChickenHawk Insult to Iraq Injury

To all you soldiers, Marines and National Guardsmen on your fourth and fifth deployments to Iraq, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has these words of comfort:

Suck it up, chumps, you're not coming home anytime soon.

On Sunday, the Lexington Herald-Leader had an article about McConnell's utter contempt for the hardship the Iraq quagmire is causing the soldiers and families of the Army's Fort Campbell in Western Kentucky, home of the storied 101st Airborne.

A few days after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bo Ward put these words on the sign at his 12-chair barbershop near the main gate at Fort Campbell: "President Bush, show no mercy. Kick their ass!"

But almost six years later, and after more than four years of war in Iraq, Ward's no longer so sure.

"Soldiers are tired; wives are tired; families are getting worn down," Ward said. "I know these boys can't just pick up and come home from Iraq, but we need some kind of exit plan."

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's recent visit to Fort Campbell highlighted the emotional strain and frustration this southwestern Kentucky military town is feeling as the 101st Airborne Division prepares for its third deployment since the Iraq war began.

"We're sorry that the effort in Iraq has been as difficult as it has been," McConnell said Friday on CNN, "but giving up and letting the terrorists come into this country isn't a good plan."

And Mitch would know, given his extensive experience supporting the troops from a bar stool in Louisville during the Vietnam War.

Read the whole thing, but don't eat for a good 90 minutes before or after reading.

DitchMitch (scroll down) also has some choice words on the subject.

Can you imagine Mitch McConnell having to debate a tough Marine veteran like this in his Senate race next year? Someone that actually has a DISTINGUISHED military record and can speak for the veterans and their families that have paid such a heavy price for their sacrifice to their country in Iraq?

Perhaps we can make that happen, eh?

They're talking about retired Marine combat veteran Lt. Col Andrew Horne, who lost the Democratic Congressional seat Primary to John Yarmuth last year, but is still the darling of progressives in Louisville and throughout the state.

Time for the Re-education Camps

I recently heard a retired high-ranking Army officer, a Vietnam combat veteran, speak to a group of veterans on the subject of giving genuine, meaningful support to our troops.

He spoke passionately about the families of dead soldiers who need more than our tears, returning injured soldiers who need more than waving flags, soldiers on fourth and fifth deployments who need more than yellow-ribbon magnets on the backs of SUVs.

I listened to this career soldier, this combat veteran, this son of poverty who graduated from West Point, pour out his heart and I bit my tongue. I respect this man and what he has accomplished, although I deplore his Republican loyalty to this maladministration.

So I did not stand up and scream at him. I did not demand he answer these questions:

- Who sent our finest young men and women into battle without proper armor, without proper weapons, without enough support troops, without a plan for occupation or exit?

- Who put those troops into harm's way by ignoring the pleas of their commanders for more troops, more equipment, more help?

- Who cut the death benefit of soldiers killed in combat in half?

- Who slashed the Veterans Administration budget to ribbons, thus denying adequate benefits and health care to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan?

- Who told the nation that the most patriotic thing we could do during a time of war was to go shopping?

Who, General? Go on, you know who it was. SAY IT!

I have bitten my tongue for more than two years now, as I watched loyal Republicans - particularly military veterans - slowly but surely come to the realization that Smirky and Darth Cheney are destroying their beloved military and even more beloved nation.

I have bitten my tongue and lowered my eyes as they raged against the horrors wrought by The Usurper without ever mentioning his name.

I have bitten my tongue and waited, hoping my refusal to sink to the tempting level of "I told you so" would inspire them to finally admit out loud who is really to blame.

It's not going to happen. They'll never admit their support of The Decider is the worst decision they ever made.

I'm done waiting.

Round them all up. All 54 million idiots and assholes who re-elected this drooling disaster. Every reporter, editor and pundit who disseminated The Usurper's lies. Every service-avoiding couch potato who cheered torture. Everybody who ever watched an episode of "24" and failed to vomit. Every Democratic elected official who ever - even just once - voted in favor of anything this American Stalin wanted.

March them all out to the secret concentration camps Halliburton is building out West and make them confess their sins and recant their anti-Democratic beliefs.

Make them walk, barefooted and without food or water, to the home of every family with a member who served or is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, to crawl on hands and knees the last mile over broken glass and beg for forgiveness.

This isn't about "honest disagreement" anymore. It isn't about "respecting the other point of view."

It's about eliminating from the body politic a cancer, a vicious Democracy-eating bacteria that is destroying this country and everything America has stood for since 1776.

No quarter. No mercy.

When Democrats Attack

Four months from the election that may put an end to Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher's political career, the Democratic House of Representatives is slapping him around.

On July 5, Fletcher called the General Assembly into Special Session. Because the Kentucky legislature meets only 90 days every two years (60 days in even-numbered years, 30 days in odd-numbered years), if the governor wants to get anything done between April and January, he has to drag the legislators away from their real jobs in their home districts screaming and kicking back to Frankfort.

But when the Democratic-majority House met on Friday, Speaker Jody Richards stepped down onto the Floor and told Fletcher to fuck off and die. The dems adjourned sine die and left town, mooning Fletcher all the way.

Kentucky State Police launched a house-to-house search for the bottle of Tobasco sauce somebody emptied into Richards' morning oatmeal.

Special Sessions are supposed to be rare, called only for emergency, but this one is less of an emergency than an oopsie.

Seemed Fletcher had second thoughts about his failure to secure legislation awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary tax breaks to Kentucky coal companies planning to build "coal-to-liquid" plants.

Set aside for the moment that the many hyped plans (clean coal, synthetic fuels, liquefaction, etc.) to use coal in ways that do not put the planet on the fast track to destruction are a galactic boondoggle.

Remember only that Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee Steve Beshear's 40 percent victory in the primary came as a nasty surprise to Fletcher. He was counting on a Democratic runoff to drain Beshear's campaign chest and leave Fletcher way ahead in the money game. Now Fletcher is looking at a united Democratic Party with a well-funded candidate. He needs money.

And where have Kentucky politicians in trouble always found money? The coal industry. Never mind that the coal industry has screwed this state over six ways from Sunday for more than 100 years - it's got the money.

So Ernie figures, hey, give Peabody Coal Company 2, 300 million bucks the state can't afford in unnecessary tax breaks and maybe they'll cough up six figures for my re-election campaign.

And what's the $60,000 per day in costs to keep the legislature in town compared to a 9-figure bribe?

Democrats and various goo-goo commentators screamed bloody murder. Both the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader, plus other newspapers across the state, accused Fletcher of playing politics (which in Kentucky is a sport, not a crime), wasting taxpayer's money and generally being a jerk.

No, no! Ernie cried. The General Assembly also hase to approve all these capitol projects the legislature failed to approve in the spring.

Those would be the capital projects Ernie vetoed. Three months ago, they were worthy but unaffordable. Now they're the dearest wish of thousands of constituents Ernie desperately needs in November.

Richards, who usually stuns the scientific community with his ability to stand upright despite the handicap of a spine made of cooked spaghetti, saw an opportunity to look like a hero and grabbed it.

So here's where it stands tonight:

- Fletcher has suspended the Special Session until July 30 in hopes the Dems will cave, as they usually do.
- In record time, the republican Senate approved everything Ernie asked for, including ponies, then set their lawyers to investigating the possibility of turning the General Assembly into a unicameral body.
- Every special interest in the state with a vetoed capitol project suddenly given a second chance at life by Dr. Ernie - in other words, every special interest in the state - is loudly demanding the dems return to Frankfort to rubber-stamp their appropriations.
- the GOP is making robo-calls to voters in house dems' districts claiming their reps are violating the state constitution and standing in the way of progress.

We haven't had this much fun in Frankfort since 1978, when Lt. Gov. Thelma Stovall waited until Gov. Julian Carroll left the state to call the General Assembly into Special Session to pass property tax reform.

Preach It, Brother Sorenson

If you do not receive the hard copy of The Washington Monthly, go to your local library or bookstore and get your hands on the July-August issue right now. Although the hard copy has already been delivered to subscribers, the Editors have not yet posted the new issue on the web site, for which they will suffer the Wrath of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Because that issue features a new speech by JFK speechwriter Ted Sorenson that just may be his best ever - and for the man who composed "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," that's saying quite a bit.

This speech says everything we lost, lonely, desperate Democrats have been dying - some of us literally - to hear for six-and-a-half unspeakable years.

The Democratic Presidential Candidate who gives this speech will, I swear, get a check from me that same day for the legal maximum contribution, and another for the legal maximum next year.

Even if it's Hillary.

The Monthly's editors asked Sorenson to write an acceptance speech for the Democratic Nominee to give at the 2008 convention. In their words:

"We requested that he proceed with no candidate in mind and that he give no consideration to expedience or tactics - in other words that he write the speech of his dreams."

And boy, did he ever.

I am seriously tempted to retype the entire thing right into this post, copyright be damned.

But as a loyal Monthly subscriber for 27 years, and knowing that they've spent their entire 38-year existence teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, I can't do it.

However, I will give you a few highlights - the ones that had me either sobbing or screaming to the Speechwriting Gods "Why Can't I Write Like That?!"

It takes my breath away.

....

"Nor will I shrink from calling myself a liberal, in the same sense that Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, John and Robert Kennedy, and Harry Truman were liberals - liberals who proved that government is not a necessary evil, but rather the best means of creating a healthier, more educated, and more prosperous America.

"They are the giants on whose shoulders I know stand, giants who made this a better, fairer, safe, stronger, more united America."

....

"My chief political consultant will be my conscience."

....

"Our nation is emerging from eight years of misrule, a dark and difficult period in which our national honor and pride have been bruised and battered. But we are neither beaten nor broken. We are not helpless or afraid - because in this country the people rule, and the people want change."

....

"We are coming back, back to the heights of greatness, back to America's proud role as a temple of justice and a champion of peace."

....

"We will be safer from terrorist attack only when we have earned the respect of all other nations instead of their fear, respect for our values and not merely our weapons."

"If I am elected president, my vow for this country can be summarized in one short, simple word: change."

....

"I shall restore the constituional right of habeas corpus, abolish the unconsitutional tapping of private phones, and once again show the world the traditional American values that distinguish us from those who attacked us on 9/11."

....

"I believe in an America in which the fruits of productivity and prosperity are shared by all, by workers as well as owners, by those at the bottom as well as those at the top; an America in which the sacrifices required by national security are shared by all, by profiteers in the back offices as well as volunteers on the front lines."

....

"The purpose of public office is to do good, not harm; to change lives, help lives, and save lives, not destroy them. I look upon the presidency not as an opportunity to rule, but as an opportunity to serve."

....

"Although we may be called fools and dreamers, although we will find the going uphill, in the words of the poet: 'Say not the struggle naught availeth.' We will change our country's direction, and hand to the generation that follows a nation that is safer, cleaner, less divided, and less fearful than the nation we will inherit next January.

"I'm told that John F. Kennedy was fond of quoting Archimedes, who explained the principle of the lever by declaring: 'Give me a place to stand, and I can move the world.' My fellow Americans - here I stand. Come join me, and together we will move the world to a new era of a just and lasting peace."

There's much more here, about withdrawing from Iraq and establishing peace in the Middle East, about universal health care, about economic and racial justice, about restoring the military, about stopping global warming and reconnecting with allies.

It's the perfect synthesis of policy prescription and soaring rhetoric.

Read it and weep.

Have a Question for Elizabeth Edwards?

Elizabeth Edwards will be in Lexington for a fundraiser Friday at 5 p.m., and I will be there with bells on. Have ordered multiple copies of her book for Christmas gifts, and will try to get her to sign as many as I can get away with before the crowd stomps me.

Don't know if she's going to take questions, but if she does, I will try to ask at least some of the ones y'all post in comments.

I'll try to get pictures, and post them, too.

Why We Do What We Do

One of the bloggers on the group blog Watching Those We Chose, to which I contribute, passed away this week. I didn't know Mandarin well, being a newcomer to this blog. But I thought of him today reading the comments on Glenn Greenwald's Salon post about MSM hysteria over bloggers.

Glenn made a remark about bloggers' growing self-sufficiency, and commenter paradox_left_coaster objected, writing:

Sorry, this self-sufficiency meme is just completely wrong--in money terms Glenn is correct that blogging is just beginning to break out of total reliance for reporting (far as I know, only 2 do it, FDL and TPM), but to state that blogs are self-sufficient as complete entities is flatly wrong.

Only a few make money. I don't know what happened, really, but when Steve Gilliard died something snapped in me, God how undignified it was. Steve deserved a hell of a lot better to have the cup passed around at his death. I hated it, just hated it that somehow even in death our best bloggers are still left begging.

Mike Stark was at Kos's place last night just on this topic, we've got to find better and new revenue streams for our writers. Does anyone think they can keep this up for another 20 years? For nothing?

My hope was that, is that, someone (anyone!) wake up in the Democratic party and get some revenue out there to their best writers. Jesus is sticks in my craw, how many tens of millions did we raise for the party? What do they do for appreciation or sustainability, heya? Not a god damn thing. Fucking Democrats, I'm surprised they put their clothes on in the morning most days.

We are still in infancy, and a long, long way from true sustained growth that rewards our people. I pray for it and work for it every day, but we are a not there yet.

SomeNYguy, a regular Glenn commenter who never disappoints, responded thus:

Not for nothing. For our country. For our Constitution. For our humanity. For our souls.

I get paid to do a job other people want me to do. I would love to get paid for doing what I believe is the right thing to do, but I'd also like to eat chocolate ice cream day and night yet remain slim and healthy. That's simply an unrealistic expectation.

If you want to support yourself and your family in comfort, you don't join the Peace Corps.

It's awfully nice when you can earn a decent living doing the right thing, but it's the rare exception to the rule.

Those of us who have jobs and blog in our spare time may envy those who get to do it all day and all night, but we forget that for many of them, their blogs are their jobs, their readership their source of income.

If you have just one blog that you really love, one that by virtue of its newsworthiness, or its trenchant analysis, or its humor, makes the world a better place, help it out. If it accepts contributions, send it some money today. If it depends on ad income, publicize it to all your friends, relatives, co-workers and strangers on the street.

As Glenn and others make clear daily, a political and cultural Dark Ages is looming, and progressive bloggers are the last line of resistance. Help arm them for the good fight.

Calvinball

Commenter melior at TPMMuckraker comes up with the perfect one-word description of this maladministration's attempt to explain why it is not subject to the Constitution.

"It's more than improvisatory, it's outright Calvinball."

Mitch, Money and Manipulating Elections

You will be stunned to learn that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is doing the Snoopy Happy Dance over the decision by the Bush Judicial Commission (formerly known as the Supreme Court) to overturn the futile attempt by the McCain-Feingold Act to remove the pernicious and destructive influence of corporate money from U.S. elections.

Here's what the Louisville Courier-Journal said this morning:

U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following statement Monday regarding the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission affirming the constitutionally protected right for grassroots lobbying groups to engage in electioneering communications in federal elections:

"Prior to this ruling, citizens were allowed to speak their minds except for just before an election - this ruling corrects that obstacle to free speech. This decision is a victory for free speech and confirmation that grassroots advocacy organizations have the same free speech rights as all Americans.

This is a step toward restoring the rights of citizens of every political affiliation to vigorously engage in political debate, whether the government agrees with them or not.

"Americans have a constitutionally protected right to hold their elected representatives accountable and, I hope, with this important decision, we can begin to undo the stranglehold that campaign finance legislation has placed on political debate."

Background

Wisconsin Right To Life (WRTL) challenged a provision that prevents organizations and corporations from mentioning candidates for federal office during the "blackout" period mandated by Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). WRTL and its supporters contend that the law is unconstitutional as applied to them as it outlaws advocacy on legislative issues during election season.

In an Amicus brief filed with the Court in the case in Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission, McConnell wrote:

"This case presents the exceptionally important question whether BCRA's restrictions on electioneering communications can be constitutionally applied to grassroots lobbying ads that do not serve an electioneering purpose. … The government has not identified a compelling interest sufficient to justify the imposition of BCRA's restrictions on grass-roots lobbying ads during the weeks immediately preceding an election, when constituents are most receptive to political ads."

Leader McConnell has been a defender of free speech rights, particularly as they relate to political debate. His beliefs on the First Amendment led him to challenge the constitutionality of the BCRA following its enactment.

Let's get a couple of things straight. This is NOT, repeat NOT, a free speech case. This is not a victory for the First Amendment. This is a catastrophe for ordinary Americans trying to make their voices heard in election campaigns.

And Mitch McConnell is about as far as anyone can get from being a defender of free speech rights. He is a defender of the ability of corporations to turn American workers into slaves and American voters into sheep.

I once had a conversation with a charming, intelligent, eloquent Libertarian. A real one, not a fake one like Newt Gingrich.

A self-made millionaire, he argued passionately for not just eliminating all limits on campaign contributions, but for establishing "one dollar, one vote." The more money you have, the more votes you get to cast for the candidate of your choice.

Granted, that system would probably not produce results much different from what we get now, but it's hardly what the Founders had in mind.

It is, however, precisely what Mitch McConnell has in mind.

He who has the gold makes the rules.

In case you forgot, Mitch is up for re-election next year, and he's more vulnerable than he's ever been. If you don't agree with Mitch that money equals speech, help defeat him at Ditch Mitch.

Kentucky GOP Rebelling Against Mitch?

Mark Nickolas at Bluegrass Report cites a Robert Novak column that claims Kentucky republicans may be planning to give Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a primary challenge.

But just when it looks like 2008 is going to be our best chance ever to defeat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, bad news steps up to the plate and delivers a high slow one right to the center fielder.


Democrat Greg Stumbo, our apparently insane state Attorney General, is hinting that he will run against McConnell next year. McConnell is throwing a party at the news.


Back in December, Stumbo was flying high, having slapped Governor Ernie Fletcher hard over political hiring, and looked like a strong candidate for governor.


Then he got a look at Traitor and Criminal Bruce Lunsford’s $5 million campaign chest, and announced he’d run as Lunsford’s lite guv.


Up until that moment, Stumbo was something of a hero to Democrats, and was generally acknowledged as one of the top political minds in the state.


After he joined Lunsford, Stumbo had to stay on the move to keep away from the gentlemen in white coats from Eastern State Mental Hospital.


Allying himself with a republican who betrayed the democratic party lost Stumbo the respect and support of tens of thousands of Democrats, many of whom voted for Steve Beshear in the gubernatorial primary as a protest against Lunsford and Stumbo.


After losing the primary to Beshear by 20 points in May, Stumbo then sealed his status as party pariah by declaring it unconstitutional for state universities to let employees purchase health insurance for domestic partners.


The same tens of thousands of Kentucky Democrats who would have stayed home this November rather than vote for Lunsford-Stumbo if Lunsford had won the primary are the same Democrats who will skip the Senate race on the ballot in 2008 if Stumbo is McConnell’s Democratic challenger.


However, the combination of McConnell’s vulnerability and Stumbo’s unpopularity is likely to draw several more Democrats into the primary race. The filing deadline isn’t until January 30, 2008, so there’s plenty of time for stronger candidates to come out of the woodwork, along with the usual collection of losers (I’m talkin’ to YOU, Steve Henry.)


The leading Democrat in the state is still Rep. Ben Chandler, although freshman Rep. John Yarmuth is moving up fast, despite being a proud liberal in a supposed red state. Yarmuth is probably too green to challenge McConnell next year, but if McConnell really tanks before January, Ben might jump in.


If Steve Beshear becomes Governor in December, he will be the official leader of Kentucky Democrats, but neither he nor his lite guv candidate Dan Mongiardo are likely to file for the Senate six weeks after inauguration. If they lose, they will not only have no chance in hell of beating McConnell, they'll be run out of the state on a rail.


Charlie Owen, a Louisville businessman with deep pockets, keeps hinting about running for something, but except for a losing run for lite guv as Chandler's running mate in 2003, he's a political novice.


So is Andrew Horne, who lost the democratic primary to Yarmuth last year, but Horne is also a retired Army Lt. Colonel and an Iraq War veteran. Horne is the darling of Kentucky progressives, who would dearly love to see a real soldier take on the draft-dodging, war-mongering McConnell.


Don't count gubernatorial primary losers Lunsford or Gatewood Galbraith out, either, which means we're probably looking at a four- to six-person Democratic primary for McConnell's seat next year.


Robert Novak claims that McConnell is unbeatable and that Kentucky republicans are nevertheless contemplating challenging him in the primary. Good grief. Anybody who's spent five minutes watching Kentucky politics for the last two years knows that Kentucky republicans even considering challenging McConnell is not just a death-knell for McConnell but an unmistakable Sign of the Apocolypse.

Once again, the place to join the anti-McConnell bandwagon is Ditch Mitch.

Freedom Isn't Free - Up Off Your Duffs!

If you haven't discovered Glenn Greenwald's blog on Salon, stop reading this post and go there right now this minute.

Greenwald's June 13 post is a brilliant, passionate dissection of this maladministration's destruction of the rule of law.

I won't say more except to read it and send it to everyone you know, but I will repost one wonderful comment.

For you children who don't remember the Free Speech movement at Berkely, a tiny history lesson: Mario Savio was a student at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964 when, during a student protest that was being put down by police in Gestapo style, he jumped up on to the roof of a police car (after politely removing his shoes) and delivered a passionate plea for freedom and democracy. He is remembered as the founder of the Free Speech movement.

And no, he was not a communist. He was an American patriot. And he lived Edward Abbey's admonition that "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."

Here's Lish's profound comment:

The reality is that it will take the sacrifice of people who are willing to put themselves on the line to block and disrupt the lawless actions of a corrupt and criminal government. It will require many acts of defiant conscience and civil disobediance before the deadly enterprise of war profiteering can no longer proceed with business as usual. It's either that, or resigned and bitter complacency.

We've been up against this wall before, and the words that need to be spoken have been said over and over again. The ones that I recall most vividly are those of Mario Savio from 1964:

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

Amen, Hallelujah, and May the Flying Spaghetti Monster Touch You With His Noodly Appendage.

Ernie's Begging for Money; Mitch Could Be Next

Oh, I do love the spectacle of rabid wingnuts turning on each other.

Seems Kentucky republicans are deserting Governor Ernie Fletcher in droves. They're refusing to contribute to his re-election campaign, they're giving money to his Democratic opponent Steve Beshear, they're skipping Ernie's parties to schmooze with Steve. They've even formed "Republicans for Beshear."

Just a little more than a year ago, such behavior would have brought The Wrath of the Mitch down upon their heads. They would have suffered the political equivalent of hanging, drawing and quartering and beheading. They would have been stripped of all power, fired from their jobs, had their homes foreclosed, their children expelled from private school and their wives shunned by the Junior League.

They might even have lost their private boxes at the Derby.

But McConnell has lost control of the Kentucky Republican Party. First, they rejected Mitch's very own girl, Anne Northup, and re-nominated bad boy Ernie in a landslide. Then, the ones who voted for Annie refused to rejoin the pack, deciding to support the Democrat instead.

Now, I've warned before about the foolishness of underestimating Mitch McConnell. He is utterly and brilliantly unscrupulous. It's remotely possible that McConnell is so furious at Ernie that he is encouraging his loyalists to support Beshear.

But that would be cutting off his nose to spite his face, and I don't believe McConnell would do that, whatever the provocation.

No, I think Mark Nickolas at Bluegrass Report is right: Mitch has no time or money to spare on the Govenor's race right now.

The Senate Majority Leader is hemorraging power and influence as the Smirky maladministration disintegrates and Congressional republicans race for the portholes.

He's got just enough left to squeak by in his 2008 re-election campaign, and hang on until the next republican senate.

Help pull the last support out from under him. Join the Ditch Mitch campaign today!

Mitch Hates Women, Kentucky and the Medical Profession

Once again, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is standing four-square behind a presidential nomination of a Kentuckian whose professional qualifications and/or personal behavior/beliefs drag this state's reputation further into the gutter.

Believe me, Kentucky is full of highly-qualified, highly-competent, reality- and science-based physicians.

But you'd never know it from the two Kentucky chuckle-heads the Smirky maladministration has nominated to high-level medical positions.

First we had David Hager of Lexington, a supposed ob-gyn who specialized in denying birth control to competent adult women who happened to not have a husband. Smirky appointed Hager in 2002 to an FDA advisory committee on reproductive health drugs and women's health.

Which looked a little strange after Hager's ex-wife revealed that he had endangered her own health by anally raping her on a regular basis.

It's OK, though, because he told her that he accidentally hit the "wrong hole."

Sorry to ruin your breakfast, but contemplate just for a moment the qualifications of an ob-gyn who either anally rapes his wife and lies about it, or doesn't know the difference between a vagina and a rectum.

Hager's mercifully gone, but now we have James Holsinger, a physician at the University of Kentucky nominated to be surgeon general.

Holsinger's colleagues support him, and express surprise at the opposition from gay and lesbian groups to Holsinger, who considers homosexuality a curable illness - not to mention a sin. He has written an excruciatingly explicit summary of "studies" purporting to "prove" that gay sex is unnatural and unhealthy.

If Holsinger publicly cited "studies" purporting to show that non-whites are intellectually and morally inferior to whites, would his colleagues continued to defend him based on his professional qualifications?

Would they express "surprise" that the NAACP opposed his nomination to be Surgeon General?

By the way, Holsinger justifies the "unnaturalness" of homosexuality on the basis of plumbing nomenclature, i.e., the "male" and "female" halves of pipe fittings.

Is he claiming that's the source of the famous hardware-based euphemism for sex?

Senators Barack Obama and Christopher Dodd have expressed concerns about Holsinger's nomination, but Mitch just sails on blithely, shitting on Kentucky's - and the nation's - tattered reputation at every opportunity.

Mitch is up for re-election in 2008, and he's by far the weakest he's been since being elected in 1984. To help Kentucky and country rid ourselves of this menace, join the Ditch Mitch campaign.

Damn You, Dennis Kucinich

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

If I put my money where my mouth is, my money where my heart is, my money on what I actually believe, I would sell my house, my car, my furniture, and my clothes, cash out my retirement and write one big check to Dennis Kucinich.

Yeah, yeah, Ralph Nader, blah, blah, blah.

Fuck it.

Dennis Kucinich is on television right now this minute reading my goddamn mind!

• Out of Iraq This Instant
• Single Payer Healthcare
• Money for the Troops, Not Stupid Weapons Systems
• Voluntary National Service
• Human Rights
• Civil Rights
• Restore American Values
• Global Peace

Shutup, Dennis!

I can't stand it. He has no chance. No chance, NO CHANCE, NO CHANCE!

And the main reason he has no chance is that people like me, who agree with everything he says, who are sitting here tonight sobbing while he speaks our hearts, refuse to support him because he has no chance.

Damn you, Dennis Kucinich.