My Senator Robert Byrd has won. This is not a shock, he has been the senator for damn near ever.

Well I just got back from a “Party” were we gathered to call people. I called 48 people in all. Most were voicemails, but I spoke to 5 solid dems, one mean-ass republican bitch, and I was able to speak to 2 people, and now they are solid Webb voters!!!

Go to http://www.callforchange.org

Now to be fair, I lifed this right off of ThinkProgress‘ site, they do such a great job.

Today, President Bill Clinton taped an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, which is scheduled to be aired Sunday. He was told the interview would focus on his nonpartisan efforts to raise over $7 billion to combat the world’s biggest problems.

Early in the interview, Wallace attempted to smear Clinton with the same kind of misinformation contained in ABC’s Path to 9/11. Clinton was having none of it.

ThinkProgress has obtained a transcript of the interview. Here are some highlights –

Wallace repeats Path to 9/11 misinformation, Clinton fights back:

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of email from viewers, and I got to say I was surprised most of them wanted me to ask you this question. Why didn’t you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President? There’s a new book out which I suspect you’ve read called the Looming Tower. And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, Bin Laden said “I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of US troops.” Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole.

CLINTON: OK..

WALLACE: …may I just finish the question sir. And after the attack, the book says, Bin Laden separated his leaders because he expected an attack and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is 20/20.

CLINTON: No let’s talk about…

WALLACE: …but the question is why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?

CLINTON: OK, let’s talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network…ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was based on the 9/11 Commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said that I did too much. Same people.

Clinton takes on Fox News bias:

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough sir?

CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.

WALLACE: Right…

CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t…I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke… So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..

WALLACE: Now wait a minute sir…

CLINTON:…

WALLACE: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked: Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole? I want to know how many you asked: Why did you fire Dick Clarke? I want to know…

WALLACE: We asked…

CLINTON:…

WALLACE: Do you ever watch Fox News Sunday sir?

CLINTON: I don’t believe you ask them that.

WALLACE: We ask plenty of questions of…

CLINTON: You didn’t ask that did you? Tell the truth.

WALLACE: About the USS Cole?

CLINTON: Tell the truth.

WALLACE: I…with Iraq and Afghanistan there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

CLINTON: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on climate change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about…

WALLACE: [laughs]

CLINTON: You said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion dollars plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.

Clinton on his priorities and the Bush administration priorities:

CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try and kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him. Now I never criticized President Bush and I don’t think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is 1/7 as important as Iraq. And you ask me about terror and Al Qaeda with that sort of dismissive theme when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke’s book to look at what we did in a comprehensive systematic way to try to protect the country against terror. And you’ve got that little smirk on your face. It looks like you’re so clever…

WALLACE: [Laughs]

CLINTON: I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it but I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending special forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise…We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. Until I left office. And yet I get asked about this all the time and they had three times as much time to get him as I did and no one ever asks them about this. I think that’s strange.

Read the full transcript (rough) HERE.

1. Honest Leadership & Open Government We will end the Republican culture of corruption and restore a government as good as the people it serves, starting with real ethics reform.
2. Real Security We will protect Americans at home and lead the world by telling the truth to our troops, our citizens and our allies. We believe in a strong national defense that is both tough and smart, recognizing that homeland security begins with hometown security.
3. Energy Independence We will create a cleaner, greener and stronger America by reducing our dependence on foreign oil, eliminating billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies and use the savings to provide consumer relief and develop energy alternatives, and investing in energy independent technology.
4. Economic Prosperity & Educational Excellence We will create jobs that stay in America and restore opportunity for all Americans, starting with raising the minimum wage, expanding Pell grants and making college tuition tax deductible. We also believe in budget discipline that reduces our deficit
5. A Healthcare System that Works for Everyone We will join 36 other industrialized nations in making sure everyone has access to affordable health care, starting by fixing the prescription drug program and investing in stem cell and other medical research.
6. Retirement Security We will ensure that a retirement with dignity is the right and expectation of every single American, starting with pension reform, expanding saving incentives and preventing the privatization of social security.

Kid you not, Karl Rove the not-so-mastermind of the Bush political machine has offered to help Joe win his election. If you ever had doubts that Joe was really a Republican then read this…

From the ABC News Blog

According to a close Lieberman adviser, the President’s political guru, Karl Rove, has reached out to the Lieberman camp with a message straight from the Oval Office: "The boss wants to help. Whatever we can do, we will do."

But in a year where even some Republican candidates are running away from the President on the campaign trail, does this offer have any value to Lieberman? Still smarting from all that coverage of "the kiss" at last year’s State of the Union, the Lieberman camp isn’t looking for an explicit endorsement. That could create more problems than it solves.

Joe Liberman shows his true colors and once again, it is all about Joe. Joe said, “For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand”. He is saying for the most part “it is all about me, and I could care less if the Democrats of Connecticut want. Like most of my political career I am in it for me, not Connecticut.” If you want to really get a feel for what I mean, look at his real quote, “For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand”, so what party is he talking about? Is he talking about the Democratic Party, that just rejected him, or does he really mean his very own private party. (By the way, where the hell was this resolve to win when Bush stole 2000? Joe said to Al, "Don’t fight it Al, I still have my Senate seat". Again, it is all about Joe")

All in all this proves a point that Ned Lamont has made over and over, Joe is not a Democrat, if he were he would respect the voters of Connecticut and fade into the history books. Joe, you lost, and if you really care about anyone other than your damn self, them you will go away, the voters have spoken.

Other Blogs
DemBloger
Below the Beltway
Scrutator (Right-Wing)
LDOPA.net

More proof that Americans have learned that Republicans can not govern. They are great at getting elected, but once in power they ruin the nation.

From the AP  (Bolds are Mine, deal with it)

Rpublicans are in jeopardy of losing their grip on Congress in November. With less than four months to the midterm elections, the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that Americans by an almost 3-to-1 margin hold the GOP-controlled Congress in low regard and profess a desire to see Democrats wrest control after a dozen years of Republican rule.

Further complicating the GOP outlook to turn things around is a solid percentage of liberals, moderates and even conservatives who say they’ll vote Democratic. The party out of power also holds the edge among persuadable voters, a prospect that doesn’t bode well for the Republicans.

The election ultimately will be decided in 435 House districts and 33 Senate contests, in which incumbents typically hold the upper hand. But the survey underscored the difficulty Republicans face in trying to persuade a skeptical public to return them to Washington.

The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults conducted Monday through Wednesday found that President Bush has stopped his political freefall, with his approval rating of 36 percent basically unchanged from last month. Bush received slightly higher marks for his handling of the Iraq war and the fight against terrorism, weeks after his surprise trip to Baghdad and the killing of Iraqi terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a U.S. airstrike last month.

I hope he gets his ass handed to him by Ned Lamont. We all know that he has shown his true colors and said, "If you don’t give me my nomination, I am going to piss on the Democrats anyway."

Well now he is not hiding the fact that he is really a Republican.

It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war, we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.

Hey Joe, why don’t you go and screw yourself! I do not trust Bush as far as I can toss him. He is a liar, a cheat and death-dealer. He has killed countless in the name of this once great nation, he has made us more feared and more hated than the south side of hell. Joe, you want to lie with dogs do not get pissed when you get fleas. I hope you are sent home this fall, a clear message by the voters of your state that you are a fake, a self-centered ass that has chosen yourself over America, the Democrats, your people, and the people of Connecticut.

News flash Joe, you are now in bed with those that see you as one of the "issues".

Well to show how out of touch Joe Lieberman is with the constituents of Connecticut, Joe took his mouth off Bush’s ass long enough to tell us that he is going to run in the Democratic primary, but because it looks like he is going to have his Bush love’n ass sent packing, he is also going to gather signature to run as an independent, or his spin (I am sure this was given to him by Karl himself) a “petitioning Democrat.”

Now this really brings into question the character of Joe Lieberman. He is loosing the Democratic primary; this means that Democrats are NOT HAPPY with him. So he goes and makes up a new term. “petitioning Democrat”. Now the sad thing is that this will not get him reelected, but will in fact hand the seat to the Republicans, he plans to split the Democratic vote. See, he is working for the Republicans. Joe has no respect for the people of Connecticut, no respect for the Democratic process, and is just a sour looser!

News Stories
The Hartford Courant
The AP

Blogs, and other thoughts on this…
FireDogLake
The Blue Spear
Kmareka.com
MyDD
Emboldened
Bring It On!

Well this is the kiss of death for ol’ turncoat Joe, Ann Coulter just gave his Endorsment to Joe. You know you are out of touch with, well just about everyone on the planet if Ann blesses you with his nod. I would rather have an endorsment from Hitler, at least he loved some people.

Hey Republicans, this is what oversight looks like, this is what honesty and integrity looks like. You see when we see one of our own corrupted, we remove them. I know you guys may not want to do that to every Republican that has shown he is corrupted, we may not be able to get a caucus in ether house.

Breaking: Democrats strip Jefferson of committee seat. - The House Democratic causus voted tonight to strip Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) of his seat on the Ways & Means Committee. Jefferson is currently under criminal investigation for allegedly accepting bribes to help a technology company win several contracts and business deals. He had been asked to voluntarily give up the seat but refused. [ThinkProgress.org]

From the Detroit Free Press (Bolds are Mine)

The war in Iraq has become so unpopular that it could cost Republicans control of Congress, statehouses and governor races around the country, national pollster John Zogby said Friday.

He said 70% of voters believe the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction, adding, “I have never seen a number like that since I’ve been polling.”

He said 68% of voters believe the war in Iraq wasn’t worth the loss of American lives. He added, “Americans want their wars to be won, they want it won quickly and their troops home and out of harms way.”

-snip-

Zogby said his boldest prediction is that Hurricane Katrina, which demolished much of the Gulf Coast in 2005, could be more of a defining moment for the U.S. than the 9-11 terrorist attacks because the storm showed that neither big federal government nor federalism – greater state powers – can cope with large-scale disasters.

Every day more and more Americans jump aboard airplanes to go to far off destinations like grandma’s house, or work, and they put their trust in countless people, hoping they are doing their job, and are happy. One of many in this chain of people is the Air-Traffic Controller; he makes sure that your plane does not crash into another plane. It is considered one of the most stressful jobs in the world; it has a very high burn out rate. So what corrupt Republican lead Congress want to do to make sure we can fell these vital positions, slash the starting pay be almost half, from $30,000 to $17,000!

I would not say it if it were not true (I wish Bush could say the same) but Congress (Republicans and Democrats) wants to FORCE this via legislation.

FairFAA has more

House of Representatives
Rep. Sue Kelly, R-N.Y., and Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Ill., introduced the "Federal Aviation Administration Fair Labor Management Dispute Resolution Act" on Feb. 15 to correct inequities in the current contract negotiating process between the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Air Traffic Controllers’ union.

Senate
Senators Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, Barack Obama, D-Ill., Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., introduced a bill on Jan. 26 that would force the Federal Aviation Administration to engage in productive, good faith contract negotiations with its unions, including the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.  The bill would deny the agency any ability to unilaterally impose a contract without the consent of Congress.

It is unclear to me why the Dems are so on-board with this shot at the unions, but the last think I want is ATC that quit their jobs and go do something else. I also do not see why anyone would enter ACT school so they can go and make minimum wage

Well this is good news for us Democrats come November 2006.

From Zogby (As Always, bolds are mine)

As an increasing volume of news about political and corporate leaders comes out of investigations and federal courthouses instead of boardrooms and Capitol Hill hearing rooms, a new Lichtman/Zogby Interactive poll confirms Americans are distrustful of leaders across the societal spectrum.

Three out of four (75%) said they trust government less than they did five years ago, just 5% said they think corporations do right by the consumers they are in business to serve, and only 25% feel the reporting is fair and accurate in the newspapers they read or the nightly broadcast network news they watch on television. Nearly 60% said they believe the “state of honesty in America” today is in poor shape (18% said it is in the worst possible shape).

The poll was commissioned by author and ethics specialist Jim Lichtman. His latest book, What Do You Stand For?, is now available.

Overall, just 3% said they think Congress in general is trustworthy, compared to 24% who said President Bush is trustworthy and 29% who said they can put their faith in the national court system, the survey shows. Corporate leaders in America are nearly as widely distrusted as Congress – just 7% said they are trustworthy.

-snip-

When asked “What 2 or 3 specific changes would have to take place in order to improve your trust in government today?”, the top three called for, “personnel changes/impeachment proceedings; curtail/eliminate lobbying, minimize cronyism; and campaign finance reform.”

I am glad to see that corruption is being rooted out of politics, Republican or Democrat. So I am sure that the Right-Wings are going nuts because a Democrat’s office was raided by the FBI, I am sure that they are also willfully ignoring the countless Republicans that are under investigation, or are in jail.

I want corruption out of my government, and unlike my right-wing counterparts, I am not a hypocritical shill, I will toss a Democrat out of office just as much as I would a Republican. Sadly the Republicans use to be a party of dignity, Republicans were going to toss Dick Nixon out of office, now, they will let a fellow Republican lead us to war, and do nothing.