For six years, latterly with the backing of both houses of a markedly conservative Republican Congress, George Bush has led an American administration that has played an unprecedentedly negative and polarising role in the world's affairs. On Tuesday, in the midterm US congressional elections, American voters rebuffed Mr Bush in spectacular style and with both instant and lasting political consequences. By large numbers and across almost every state of the union, the voters defeated Republican candidates and put the opposition Democrats back in charge of the House of Representatives for the first time in a dozen years.
When the remaining recounts and legal challenges are over, the Democrats may even have narrowly won control of the Senate too. Either way, the results change the political landscape in Washington for the final two years of this now thankfully diminished presidency. They also reassert a different and better United States that can again offer hope instead of despair to the world. Donald Rumsfeld's resignation last night was a fitting climax to the voters' verdict. Thank you, America.
Writing by on Tuesday, 7 of November , 2006 at 8:30 pm
It is with great pleasure to tell you that Rick “Man on Dog, I brought home a dead baby for my kids to play with” Santorum has been unseated. The people of Pennsylvania has said, “You are such a crazy mother fucker that we do not want anything to do with you. In face Rick, please do not even come back home, we would rather you maybe go and live in Iraq, or maybe you could move to hell, just don’t come back here.”
Congrats Pennsylvania, you are no longer represented by a total right wing hack!
Writing by on Monday, 6 of November , 2006 at 10:11 am
You know you are doing a great job running the government when the publication The American Conservative in the November 20, 2006 issue has the story, GOP Must Go.
Next week Americans will vote for candidates who have spent much of their campaigns addressing state and local issues. But no future historian will linger over the ideas put forth for improving schools or directing funds to highway projects.
The meaning of this election will be interpreted in one of two ways: the American people endorsed the Bush presidency or they did what they could to repudiate it. Such an interpretation will be simplistic, even unfairly so. Nevertheless, the fact that will matter is the raw number of Republicans and Democrats elected to the House and Senate.
It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome. We need not dwell on George W. Bush’s failed effort to jam a poorly disguised amnesty for illegal aliens through Congress or the assaults on the Constitution carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism or his administration’s endorsement of torture. Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were committed to a prefabricated answer.
As a consequence, he rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they could possibly have done for themselves. Bush’s decision to seize Iraq will almost surely leave behind a broken state divided into warring ethnic enclaves, with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed and thousands more thirsting for revenge against the country that crossed the ocean to attack them. The invasion failed at every level: if securing Israel was part of the administration’s calculation—as the record suggests it was for several of his top aides—the result is also clear: the strengthening of Iran’s hand in the Persian Gulf, with a reach up to Israel’s northern border, and the elimination of the most powerful Arab state that might stem Iranian regional hegemony.
Iraq vet who lost both legs loses VFW endorsement in House race
CHICAGO Tammy Duckworth lost both legs while serving in Iraq. So in her run for Congress, some people figured she would easily win the backing of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Not so.
The group’s political action committee is instead backing the Republican candidate in that Illinois district — a man who has no military experience.
Duckworth says she was never contacted by the organization. The former Army chopper pilot turned Democratic candidate calls it "unfortunate."
But former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey is going a step further. Kerrey, who lost a leg in Vietnam, says the V-F-W "should be ashamed of themselves."
Writing by on Tuesday, 31 of October , 2006 at 4:00 pm
Republican Senator George “Maccaca” Allen’s Campaign beats the shit out of someone who asked the senator questions. Man, I hope you right-wing shits are happy with the new America you have created.
Writing by on Sunday, 29 of October , 2006 at 8:32 pm
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!!!
Writing by on Thursday, 19 of October , 2006 at 6:41 am
For some unknown reason, Florida Republican Mark Foley resigned from his seat in Congress and dropped out of the election, of wait, I remember why he did it, pedophilia. Well the shifty Republicans down in Florida devised a plan, because Mark Foley is still on the ballot, Florida law allows then to designate who can take the votes. In short a vote for Mark Folly counts as a vote for Satan, or who ever they put up. In order to make this clear to people, they wanted to put up flashy political signs, great go for it. Oh wait, they wanted to put them up in the voting booths.
The Republican Party’s hopes of holding on to the Florida 16th District seat of resigned Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley are greatly hindered by the fact that Foley’s name, under state law, must stay on the ballot — even though votes cast for him will be counted for state Rep. Joe Negron, the replacement candidate picked by GOP officials.
And the GOP endured another hit Wednesday when a state judge, ruling on a lawsuit brought by Democratic activists, barred state election officials from posting signs at voting locations and delivering notices about the ballot situation to 16th District voters.
Second Judicial Circuit Judge Janet E. Ferris ruled that a state-run information campaign to inform voters about what critics argue was an internal Republican Party foulup would do "irreparable injury" to Democratic nominee Tim Mahoney and his supporters.
Ferris wrote that elections supervisors are "ordered not to post the proposed notice, and may not deliver the notice to individual voters posing questions about the race in question." Negron’s campaign and the secretary of state’s office, headed by Republican appointee Sue M. Cobb, have told local news outlets they will appeal the decision.
Writing by on Saturday, 7 of October , 2006 at 3:17 pm
Looks like America is waking up and they are not happy with what they see. Want to know what they see, they see a “President” that physically can not tell the truth, they see a war in 2 nations falling apart around our troops, they see a Republican lead Congress that has allowed a sexual predator to stalk our children, they see an administration that could have stopped September 11th had it been able to take it’s head out of it’s ass, they do not feel safer, they hate that there is now legal torture and lastly, this is all been done in the name of Christ… all of these un-Christ-like things…
Bush’s approval rating has fallen to the lowest EVER in the poll, 33%
More worrisome still, the Foley fiasco is jeopardizing the party’s monopoly on faith and power. For the first time since 2001, the NEWSWEEK poll shows that more Americans trust the Democrats than the GOP on moral values and the war on terror. Fully 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win control of Congress next month, including 10 percent of Republicans, compared to just 35 percent who want the GOP to retain power. If the election were held today, 51 percent of likely voters would vote for the Democrat in their district versus 39 percent who would vote for the Republican. And while the race is closer among male voters (46 percent for the Democrats vs. 42 percent for the Republicans), the Democrats lead among women voters 56 to 34 percent.
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Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating has fallen to a new all-time low for the Newsweek poll: 33 percent, down from an already anemic 36 percent in August. Only 25 percent of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country, while 67 percent say they are not. Foley’s disgrace certainly plays a role in Republican unpopularity: 27 percent of registered voters say the scandal and how the Republican leadership in the House handled it makes them less likely to vote for a Republican Congressional candidate; but 65 percent say it won’t make much difference in determining how they vote. And Americans are equally divided over whether or not Speaker Hastert should resign over mishandling the situation (43 percent say he should, but 36 percent say he shouldn’t).
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Democrats now outdistance Republicans on every single issue that could decide voters’ choices come Nov. 7. In addition to winning—for the first time in the NEWSWEEK poll—on the question of which party is more trusted to fight the war on terror (44 to 37 percent) and moral values (42 percent to 36 percent), the Democrats now inspire more trust than the GOP on handling Iraq (47 to 34); the economy (53 to 31); health care (57 to 24); federal spending and the deficit (53 to 29); gas and oil prices (56 to 23); and immigration (43 to 34).
Writing by on Tuesday, 3 of October , 2006 at 9:13 pm
As many readers know, this blog is written out of the great state of West Virginia (The Eastern Panhandle). I am also represented by one of the ONLY state-wide Republican, the one in the left pocket of Jack Abramoff, Shelly Moore Capito.
Charleston, W.Va. – Mike Callaghan, Democratic Congressional candidate (Second District), called for the resignation of Representative Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Representative John Shimkus (R-Ill.), and Representative Dale Kildee (D-Mich.) from the House Page Board in a letter to the Representatives today.
"The three Representatives on the Page Board have been asleep at the wheel. Representative Shimkus has admitted to knowing about the Foley situation, and failed to take any action. Representatives Capito and Kildee may not have known anything about the problem, but that is not an excuse. Why didn’t they know? This is an example of the incompetence that leads to situations like the one they are facing now. These Congresspersons are powerful figures in these young peoples’ lives," Callaghan said.
"Starting a hotline for pages to report inappropriate behavior is great. But, it’s too little too late. It does not address the real issue at hand. Already, we have more pages stepping forward to report misconduct. It has been reported that pages were being warned about certain Representatives for years." Callaghan continued, "How could this have been allowed to go on for as long as it did? As a father of three children, including one who is the same age as the page in question, I find this to be very troubling."
"How can parents feel safe about sending their children to participate in this storied program when no one is keeping a close watch on them? The members of the House Page Board have shirked their duties and have failed the American people," Callaghan said. "That is why I am calling for the resignation of the House Page Board members.
"It is disturbing that the House leadership felt the need to hide this matter instead of initiating a proper investigation into Mark Foley’s messages. As a father and former federal prosecutor, I find this outrageous." Callaghan continued, "The House is being mismanaged. That is why we need to send a former federal prosecutor to clean things up in Washington. We’ve had enough of the partisan games. America needs to be put first, again."
Callaghan campaign manager, Curtis Wilkerson, said of the letters, "Republicans think they are above the law, as we have seen with so many of the scandals that have hit the Republicans this year. We’ve had Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff, and now Mark Foley. Representative Capito has had a connection to each of these Republican scandals. But, whenever she is asked, she doesn’t know about them. Yet, at the end of the day she has had to give back tens of thousands of dollars of tainted money from these tainted Washington Republicans."
Many in Washington and the media have called for the resignation of all involved in the Foley situation. Many of these calls appear to be falling on deaf ears, as the only person to resign to date has been Mark Foley. "The Republicans really dropped the ball on this one. Putting our children at risk and covering it up for political gain is unacceptable," Callaghan said.
Writing by on Wednesday, 27 of September , 2006 at 3:56 pm
Someone better freaken’ pass the message to Bush and Karl, because this new “Let’s blame Clinton for our failures” tactics is not working. Americans squarely blame the Bush administration, and the Republicans that prop him up for the fact that Osama is still a free man.
The recent firestorm over former President Bill Clinton’s culpability for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was fueled on Tuesday when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice contrasted President Bush’s efforts to pursue al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden with Clinton’s efforts. Clinton has strongly denied various suggestions that his administration missed key opportunities to kill bin Laden and left the Bush administration without a comprehensive anti-terrorism strategy. However, Bush — whom Clinton says did nothing about al-Qaeda for the first eight months of his presidency — has the bigger image problem with Americans on the issue.
According to a recent Gallup Panel survey, the American public puts the primary blame on Bush rather than Clinton for the fact that bin Laden has not been captured. A majority of Americans say Bush is more to blame (53%), compared with 36% blaming Clinton.
