The Chicago Tribune print edition had a fascinating breakdown of voter demographics in these to staunch republican strongholds. Not sure if its in their on line edition but I will do my best to explain it after the fold

Don't know about you but I have noticed over the last few weeks that the news out Iraq is well just not to be found easily in the MSM.

I understand that there is alot of other dastardly things to cover like torture and hugo but the number one thing that some 60% of this country is against is not being talked about.

Wasn't to long ago that bush was propping himself up as the Decider. He would decide Rumsfelds fate and he alone.

I am the Decider he said so proudly.

So I'm listening to this worst excuse of a President in my life time (and I'm 56 years old) just say "Terrorist's are thrown into a panic when someone pulls an election machine lever"

I think that there is a real opportunity to show the American people that we are not as secure as alot of republicans claim we are. What happenned in London today is a clear example of it.

The Democratic party needs to seize hold of this immediately and start developing our talking points and drive bushco back under his rock.

I am very concerned about the executions of the two recent soldiers that were kidnapped just two days ago. My concerns are that outright kidnapping of service men had not been a major focus of Zarquawi. He was trying to tear the lid off of Pandoras box by attacking Iraqi's and sending the country into civil war.

This is without a doubt in my mind,a shift in the insurgent war policy. I think we have all read it here or somewhere else that AlQueda may have disagreed with Zarquawi's policy of attacking Iraq citizens and was trying to tone him down a bit and bring him back in the fold. I have a suspicion that he told them to screw off and get real about driving the infidels out of Iraq and they couldn't take it anymore. The intelligience tip we received on his whereabouts,I think came from Jordan who also has been looking for him. Could it be Al Queada themselves ratted him out thru Jordan so we could eliminate their immediate problem????

Someone has to explain to me the difference between what is going on in Iraq today vs what happened in Rowanda and is now happening in Darfur.

Mainstream news is reporting that two minibuses were stopped at gun point and 21 people were killed including 12 high school age early college age kids. They were murdered for who they were and who they were only. It wasn't an IED or accidental killing. They were murdered because of their heritage. To me that is an act of genocide and I am not quite sure why the MSM and politicians are pussyfooting around it. Senator Biden came close to it today on MTP but couldn't say the G word.

Iraq has fallen into genocide and our troops are there just watching it unfold. There are a number of persons to blame here but Rumsfeld should be out of office now.

Sectarian fighting or Genocide???? WTF is the difference!!!!!!!!!

How long before Goss rolls over and starts singing to the MSM????? Or better yet the FBI that is investigating the Cunningham poker and prostitute parties???? The abrubtness of his resignation is quite interesting in itself. It would appear he blind sided the administration here.

I suspect the phone lines in DC were burning up last night and alot of Repugs didn't get a restful nights sleep!!!!!

Will he go a step further and become a vocal critic????

Just finished watching Senator Durbin fight off the "pigs at the trough" on meet the press. What a balanced line up NBC had this AM. (snark) Four oil barons against one lone Democratic Senator. Senator Durbin did quite well and made points of saying what the Democratic plans have been and still are on energy.

You could really sense the hatred by the group toward toward Durbin but he held his own.

I am even going to give Russert an "atta boy" for asking some half ass decent questions of these oil barons.

If you haven't seen it you still can after noon today on MSNBC web site.

I can remember the Oprah interview like it was yesterday. Our resident said it loud and clear. "I am a WAR pResident". At the time I took at is the illegal war he was waging in Iraq and looked at the statement on face value only.

What I didn't understand back then that he was telling the truth about being the war pResident. I just followed along with everyone else that the "war" was in the middle east.

The war that this man was talking about wasn't militaristic. It wasn't conventional. It wasn't guerilla. It wasn't even addressed at the insurgency in Iraq that has claimed over 2300 deaths of our military familes.

The war that this administration was talking about is the war upon the middle class. They are using the Iraq war to hide the real war they have waged against FDR's New Deal and they are actually winning. The middle class has taken more than a few broadside salvos from this administration and I am stunned that our ship is still afloat.

The rallying cry for November 06 needs to have a reference to "Class Warfare" as part of its platform or they have already won.

Have had this really nagging feeling over the last few months that all this GOP scandal has been perfectly choreographed to get it out early and then when everyone is enjoying their summer the news out of DC may not be good but it may pass thru the cracks because the only ones paying attention will be us political junkies.

Remember the attention span of the average person is probably about 15 seconds and after that they are off to their own derisions.

What we need desparetly is a concerted effort to have continued and large, very large public demonstrations fighting this illegal and corrupt war. Just look at the immigrant workers that have come out in mass to protest. They have a skin in the game and that is deportation of family members. Until the public has a skin in the game regarding Iraq I doubt we will ever see the turnout that the GOP immigration bill has seen.

I guess what I am saying is that we really need to keep the war on the front burner this summer or unfortunately it will be forgotten about come November.

Just watched McCain on MTP say that there were only three choices to make on immigration and they all had some sort of fence or wall in them along our southern border.

It's thinking like this that just dissapoints me on pretty much a regular basis from both sides of the aisle these days.

There is another answer to our immigration problem and it doesn't require a fence or wall being built. What it requires is our elected officials to take the high road and go into serious discussions among themselves and the Mexican government to raise the standard of living in Mexico so that its citizens do not have to escape their country for a better life. Until this is taken seriously the flood of the disadvantage will continue no matter how long or high a fence is built.

We sure aren't talking about fencing in the northern border to stop those pesky Canadians from coming in now are we???? Truth of the matter is there are more of us going north then them coming here.

Been reviewing all the "numbers" as Grahm Kerr the "Galopping Gourmet" likes to talk about during his cooking shows and was kicked in the head very,very hard by the voter turnout by the Democrats in my District.

We had a whopping 1200 to 1400 Democrats get off their asses and go vote for the person that they want to be represented by in our district.

The GOP candidate garnered 4300 votes and ran unopposed.

That's a four to one margin. Kos early today wrote a piece about being concerned as a Democrat that the Nov 06 elections are not going to turn out like we all hope or anticipate that they will. After reviewing these pathetic numbers I agree with him totally.

By the way, the gop candidate in this race was the one and only, Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert.

This is an enormous group of counties here in Illinois and to have 1200 1400 people show up is disgraceful.

There is alot of more work to be done.

 

I am totally confused about which of these candidates I should support. I have been researching both for awhile now and they both appear to be somewhat similar although Laesch seems to be a little more organized but I see him as a Repug-lite for some reason. I voted for Zamora last time around and he did garner 30% of the vote in 04 which I thought was a pretty good showing out here in one of the reddest counties in Illinois.

We really need to field a strong candidate against Hastert and make him accountable again. I just am having a real hard time choosing here. I am leaning toward Zamora but would like more info on Laesch. Maybe I should cross over and cast an anti Topinka/Birkett vote instead and let this take care of itself. Really don't want to do that.

Any ideas Kossacks??????????

Does anyone have any idea what this is about???? When does the army ever go after its officers???? The complete article is posted under the fold.

I vaguely remeber the family having questions about the initial story but this is a somewhat different twist. Does anyone know if blackwater or other mercenary groups were working in the theatre at the time????

I mean what a week it was. Anyone remeber the old news show called "THAT WAS THE WEEK IT WAS" Regardless the news coming out of Washington is just getting worse as each day passes. Like I am not even sure I can read all the coverage of the GOP atrocities in one sitting without doing damage to my eyes. There is just so much that happenned this week.

Anyone else think that it is by design???? Just overload the masses with "our blatant law breaking" and they won't have the time to research it and will just give up on it???

I mean so much happenned this week and I don't see anyone being held accountable. You would think that Cheney should at least be censured until the allegations about him are disproven.

So this Federal judge rules in favor of the husband and keeps the feeding tube out. Think it makes any difference??????????? Not really because we are now on the Federal Level with a whole new set of appeals. The parents will appeal and probably get the injunction to reinsert the tube in her stomach until due process is served (again).

This is an extremely slippery slope for dems. The longer the GOP delays her death the harder it will become for the dems. If she dies during litigation the dems have a real large credibility problem to hurdle over.

This is a real mess for us and I am not sure how to effectively combat it. My initial thoughts were to let the gop run with it and become succumb by it but that only works in a fair and balanced media.

Welcome any comments here. Thankyou

This is for those that just don't know what it was really like prior to Social Security and where our current President wants to return us too,

IN OTHER WORDS: Before Social Security

By BETTY LOU R.TERRY

Few people remember the time before Social Security. And, nobody wants to read about it.

Around the home tables and in the gathering places in the town of Brandon, Vermont, the people discussed that horrid President Roosevelt's latest "New Deal" program. The Social Security Bill passed on Aug. 14, 1935. Employers would have to "kick in" money for their employees' retirement. It would ruin businesses. Everybody knew that only the rich retired to a leisure lifestyle, not farmers, tradesmen, or businessmen.

Those same people seemed to forget that in the case of this town, there was the Town Farm, or another name was The Poor House, paid for by these same people. The Town Farm residents had no homes, families or incomes and were "housed" at the farm. They had the minimal necessities, but no medical care.