Air America's Rachel Maddow On The Money Primary

by S-Q @ 6:38 AM MDT

Keith Olbermann on Countdown with Air America's Rachel Maddow on the money primary. (April 05, 2007)

Dems Expect To Open New Fronts Against Bush

by S-Q @9:05 PM MDT


House Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), have recently focused on the Iraq war, but the party is expecting to open new fronts against the president. Among the topics floated: closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and limiting some USA Patriot Act provisions. (By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post)

Washington Post

Even as their confrontation with President Bush over Iraq escalates, emboldened congressional Democrats are challenging the White House on a range of issues -- such as unionization of airport security workers and the loosening of presidential secrecy orders -- with even more dramatic showdowns coming soon.

For his part, Bush, who also finds himself under assault for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, the conduct of the Iraq war and alleged abuses in government surveillance by the FBI, is holding firm. Though he has vetoed only one piece of legislation since taking office, he has vowed to veto 16 bills that have passed either the House or Senate in the three months since Democrats took control of Congress.

Despite the threats, Democratic lawmakers expect to open new fronts against the president when they return from their spring recess, including politically risky efforts to quickly close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; reinstate legal rights for terrorism suspects; and rein in what Democrats see as unwarranted encroachments on privacy and civil liberties allowed by the USA Patriot Act.

Thanks To Bush, The GOP Committed Suicide!

by S-Q @12:20 PM MDT


Salon

A new study shows that unless the Democrats self-destruct, they could walk into the White House in '08 -- and might hold it for years.

By Gary Kamiya

March 27, 2007 | Democrats should give two cheers for George W. Bush. He and his political mastermind, Karl Rove, dreamed of achieving a permanent Republican majority. Instead, his disastrous presidency has dealt a devastating blow to the GOP, one from which it may not recover for many years.

That's the inescapable import of a major study of American voters' values and attitudes by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, released March 22. The study finds that voters have turned dramatically away from the GOP since Bush took office. Iraq, of course, is the single biggest reason for this. (A separate Pew poll, released on March 26, shows that 59 percent of Americans want their congressional representatives to support a bill calling for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by August 2008, with only 33 percent opposed.) But even more troubling for Republican strategists is the fact that underlying attitudes and beliefs are trending against them. The study's implication is that the GOP, especially in its current far-right incarnation, was facing serious structural, long-term problems anyway, and that Bush delivered the coup de grâce.

GOP Expects Defections as House Debates Iraq Resolution

Three days of intense debate over the Iraq war begins in the House today, with Democrats planning to propose a narrowly worded rebuke of President Bush's troop buildup and Republicans girding for broad defections on their side.

Both parties will jockey for prime time before the C-SPAN cameras, with leaders claiming the best time slots and rank-and-file members trying to make the most of the five minutes each will be allotted. If all 435 House members use their five minutes, debate will last 36 hours. It is likely to begin by late morning and run until midnight tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday. A vote is expected Friday.

After watching their counterparts in the Senate stall and sputter last week, unable to agree on ground rules for a debate on Iraq, House leaders are forging ahead, determined to send a statement to the White House to condemn a troop buildup.

Democrats will file a nonbinding resolution against the Bush plan while Republicans will try to broaden the dispute and seed doubt in the Democratic approach. Although Senate Republicans were able to block debate on a resolution condemning Bush's war policies last week, it will be much easier for Democrats in the House to bring a measure to the floor.

The GOP, whose members have conceded they are likely to lose, is treating the debate like a mini-political campaign, deploying a rapid-response team to counter Democrats' statements, aggressively trying to get its leaders on television and radio, and creating a "resource center" off the House floor where members can fill their arms with maps, research material, videos or other visual aids to use during their floor time.

"We may lose the vote, but we'll win the debate," said Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

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House Democrats Set Framework for Iraq Vote

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — House Democratic leaders said today that the Iraq war resolution scheduled to be debated next week would be limited to President Bush’s plan to dispatch more troops to Baghdad, leaving any controversial decisions over war spending for a later discussion.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and other party leaders met with members of the Democratic caucus for more than an hour today to discuss the framework of the first major debate over Iraq since Democrats took control of Congress last month. The three-day debate is set to begin next Tuesday.

The leaders reassured Democrats that the nonbinding, symbolic vote against the troop buildup plan would be the first — not the final — expression of opposition to the war. A letter signed by 71 House Democrats urged the party’s leaders to take a stronger stance, including outlining a six-month troop withdrawal plan.

“There’s no doubt that everybody in the caucus understands that this is a first step — an important step for Congress to express their view of support or opposition to the escalation and the increase of troop levels,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader.

The Iraq resolution will allow lawmakers to voice their support for the troops, Mr. Hoyer said, even as they state their opposition to the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

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