DownWithTyranny!

If you're a regular DWT reader you already know we think the single most corrupt member of Congress is Jerry Lewis (R-CA). Between Ken and I, we've done dozens of stories on his criminality over the past couple of years but if you need to catch up, let me suggest this and this for starters.

Done? OK, now that you know who this character is, let me point out that Republican propagandist Robert Novak does a weekly right wing politics column for Human Events every week and this week he's reporting on the potential for upsets in California House races. Discounting the absurd wishful thinking of Republicans who are dreaming they can touch one of the most admired congressmen in the state, Jerry McNerney, Novak has figured out most of the GOP soft spots.

The most obvious one, of course, is Doolittle (CA-04) who has been written off by all observers, regardless of political affiliation as someone unlikely to ever win another election for anything, unless he moved to Utah. He barely kept his seat against political new-comer Charlie Brown last time and if there were another election today ...   more »

DownWithTyranny!

Earlier today we reported on the dire response Republican candidates are getting in New Hampshire-- no volunteers, no contributions, no one to come to their boring events-- while Democratic candidates are generating lots of enthusiasm, excitement, donations, etc. Today's right-wing Moonie Times reports that New Hampshire isn't the only trouble spot for the thoroughly discredited Republican Party.

While a clearly psychotic Bush pounds on his chest and screeches embarrassingly that he's the boss, the Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over his immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors last week.

Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee's chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told the [Moonie] Times...

There has been a sharp decline in contributions from RNC phone solicitations, another fired staffer said, reporting that many former donors flatly refuse to give more money to the national party if Mr. Bush and the Senate Republicans insist on supporting what these angry contributors call "amnesty" ...   more »

DownWithTyranny!

Earlier today Sarasota, Florida city commissioners passed over the former Largo city manager in their search for a chief executive for their city. Steve Stanton-- now, after a successful operation, Susan Stanton-- came in third and was praised as "very committed, very attuned to the community" and "very qualified in regard to budget issues," according to Mayor Lou Ann Palmer. A Republican, Susan says she may run for Congress against Vern Buchanan, the far right extremist who was declared the winner after a highly irregular-- well, not highly irregular for Florida-- vote count.

In his few months in Congress, Buchanan-- another ethically challenged Republicrook looking to turn public office into a personal gold mine-- has managed to amass one of the most radical right voting records in the entire House-- even worse than the garden variety rubber stamp he promised to be.

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Sirotablog

The Sociopath of the Week award goes to those in the media and political world who best exemplifies the lunacy of a deranged sociopath. That is, those “whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.” This week’s award goes to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. While on a [...]

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DownWithTyranny!

OK, the New Hampshire GOP has suffered some setbacks recently. Lots of them were caught stealing elections (for Sununu especially) and are rotting in prison now. Their corrupt and anti-democratic shrinking little party lost both chambers of the state legislature, both the state's congressional seats, and the Democrat got 72% of the vote in the gubernatorial race. Since then, the state has gotten even bluer. But even with that said, things are not looking well for the 10 (or 11 now?) little white dwarves running for president.

According to today's Boston Globe "Democratic presidential candidates are drawing bigger crowds, more donors, and more energy from the New Hampshire electorate than Republican hopefuls are, a sign to officials in both parties of a lack of enthusiasm for the current GOP field and a tired state Republican Party still reeling from a historic defeat in November." No one is going to their stultifyingly dull events and no one much cares what any of the Bush rubber stamps have to say. It seems all but over for the GOP and their Iraq psychosis.

But Democratic campaigns are reporting unprecedented turnouts at events at this stage of the campaign, as party ...   more »

by William D. Hartung

A few years back, when President George W. Bush described Libya’s decision to put aside its nuclear weapons program, he applauded the Qaddafi regime for abandoning its quest for “weapons of mass murder.”

When it became clear that Iran was seeking to develop its own capacity to enrich uranium, the Bush administration made veiled military threats by stating, “No options are off the table” in addressing Iran’s program.

Then after years of calling for sanctions and other “tough” measures, the administration engaged in serious negotiations with North Korea about its nuclear weapons programs.

This record of anti-proliferation activity – however uneven its application – certainly gives the impression that stopping the spread of nuclear weapons is a top administration priority. But a closer look at its policy on this issue suggests that nothing could be further from the truth.

Perhaps the clearest example of President Bush’s “do as I say, not as I do” rhetoric is the Department of Energy’s “Complex 2030” plan to build a new generation of nuclear weapons. With a potential price tag of $175 billion or more over the next two decades, the initiative calls for the replacement of every deployed warhead ...   more »