Countdown to November 7th:

[Ninong]

Rebecca,

The NY Times has noticed that Bush has jumped on the anti-gay marriage bandwagon again because the fear factor campaign theme didn't seem to be working:

Editorial
Conserving That Compassion

Published: October 28, 2006

When future generations of Americans look back on the current era, they’ll puzzle over what it was about George W. Bush that made people imagine there was anything compassionate to his conservatism.

Having apparently lost all hope that he can use terrorism to scare voters into electing Republicans this November, the president has now begun raising the threat of gay marriage.

The moment the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a ruling on the subject this week, Mr. Bush began using every possible excuse to bring up “activist” judges and gay weddings on the campaign trail. “I mentioned his love for his family,” Mr. Bush said at a rally for a Republican Senate candidate in Michigan. “He understands what I know, that marriage is a fundamental institution of our civilization. Yesterday in New Jersey we had another activist court issue a ruling ...”

The court in New Jersey, for what it’s worth, was hardly activist. The State Legislature had given gay couples the ability to unite in domestic partnerships that gave them most, but not all, of the legal protections available to married heterosexuals. The court simply said that both kinds of partners deserved the same legal protection, and left it up to the lawmakers to figure out how to do it. Hardly a thunderbolt from the sky, but Mr. Bush took up the cause of protecting the “sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society” as if a cadre of antifamily jurists had just abolished matrimony.

All this is, as everyone knows, just a show for rousing the base. If the last month has taught us anything about the Republican Party, it is that homophobia is campaign strategy, not conviction. Congressmen who trust their careers to gay staffers vote for laws to enshrine second-class citizenship for gays in the Constitution. Gay appointees and their partners are treated as married people at official ceremonies and social gatherings. Then whenever an election rolls around, the whole team pretends it’s on a mission to save America from gay marriage.

Mr. Bush and his faithful acolytes seem perfectly willing to stoke fears that create division and sorrow in a country that doesn’t need any more of either. The president has just a little more than two years left in office. You’d think that for once he’d want to consider devoting his time to making things better instead of worse.

P.S. -- If fear's not working, just drag out ignorance and hate again, at least the base will eat it up.

[Ninong]

More lies from the Democrats who have infiltrated the Republican controlled federal government. This is obviously a cheap trick by the Democrats to try to get people's minds off the real danger that threatens our country -- Nancy Pelosi and her San Francisco values.


Airport screeners fail to see most test bombs

By Ron Marsico
Newhouse News Service


NEWARK, N.J. — Screeners at Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the starting points for the Sept. 11 hijackers, failed 20 of 22 security tests conducted by undercover U.S. agents last week, missing concealed bombs and guns at checkpoints throughout the major air hub's three terminals, according to federal security officials.

The tests, conducted Oct. 19 by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents, also revealed failures by screeners to follow standard operating procedures while checking passengers and their baggage for prohibited items, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

(...)

"We just totally missed everything," the official said.

P.S. -- TSA is in the Dept. of Homeland Security; FEMA is in the Dept. of Homeland Security.

[Ninong]

President Bush supports Dave Lamberti

"No doubt in my mind with your help Dave Lamberti will be the next United States Congressman. Dave and I believe in a lot of things." -- George W. Bush, Oct. 28, 2006, speaking at a campaign rally for Jeff Lamberti.

[Ninong]

The GOP just dumped $3 million yesterday into attack ads against Menendez in New Jersey. That's a lot of help for Tom Jr. Is it enough???

[zhenya]

The GOP just dumped $3 million yesterday into attack ads against Menendez in New Jersey. That's a lot of help for Tom Jr. Is it enough???

Naaa, Tom is dead....

[Ninong]

Gene,

I think Tom Jr. is trailing right now but you never know what constant negative attack ads can do. Of course, they could backfire and leave voters less impressed with Tom Jr.

Speaking of negative ads, remember the outrageous ad the Republican National Committee ran in Tennessee against Harold Ford, Jr.? The one that ends with the bare shouldered blonde winking and say, "Harold, call me."

They're trying to portray Harold Ford, a 36-yr-old single guy as a party animal in contrast to their good family values guy, Bob Corker. Well I don't know if Corker himself is a swinger but his daughter Julia sure looks like she's trying out for a starring role in one of those "Girls Gone Wild" videos. Check out the photos here.


Mr. Corker's daughter is on the left. Why should Mary Cheney have all the fun?

They should post this on the church bulletin board. Or Craigslist. :eek3:


P.S. -- In that attack ad against Harold Ford, Jr., one of the "sins" the RNC claimed was that Ford had received a contribution from someone in the porn industry. So now some enterprising young Democrat has been sifting through FEC.gov to find porn industry types who have contributed to the RNC. Turns out that Nicholas T. Boyias, the owner and CEO of Marina Pacific Distributors, one of the largest producers and distributors of gay porn in the U.S., contributed to the RNC three times in 2004 and twice in 2005. There's nothing wrong with the RNC accepting donations from someone in the porn industry or the liquor industry or, heaven forbid, even the tobacco industry but it does show Rove and Mehlman for what they are, petty little hypocrites!

P.P.S. -- Porn queen Mary Carey gave the GOP $5000 last year and they definitely know who she is... and how she made the money! She also gave money in 2006 and she was invited to lunch with the President AGAIN!

[Ninong]

Michael Steele, the GOP senatorial candidate in Maryland, is running a sleazy push poll. I found this on a blog:

Just got off the phone from a push poll for Michael Steele. My favorite question was (paraphrasing) "Do you favor carrying out medical experiments on unborn babies?" A close second was "Do you want to have your taxes raised?"

P.S. -- For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the language used by the Republican wingnuts, "medical experiments on unborn babies" refers to embryonic stem cell research. The "unborn babies" are blastocysts that are no more than a few days old that would have been destroyed anyway.

[Ninong]

I think I have found a worthy successor to Katherine Harris in the House. She's the GOP candidate in MN-6 and the scary part is that she's currently leading.

Her name is Michele Bachmann. Check out the video of Michelle explaining how she was chosen by God to turn this country into a theocracy.

P.S. -- Check out her stiletto heeled black knee-high boots! Condi would kill for those.

[Ninong]

I realize it's still nine days out but here is my best guesstimate as of right now:

Democrats will have a net gain of 27 seats in the House.

Democrats will have a net gain of 6 seats in the Senate.

Democrats will have a net gain of 7 governorships.

[Ninong]

Asked about the November 7th elections, Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino just said this on CNN: "We're on the verge of victory. You're going to see Republicans in the win column on November 7th."

Yes, she was predicting "victory" for the Republican Party on November 7th. There is no way that they will lose control of either the House or the Senate. That's the same line that has been spouted by Bush and Cheney all week.

They're all drinking the same Kool-aid.

[schrocat]

I think I have found a worthy successor to Katherine Harris in the House. She's the GOP candidate in MN-6 and the scary part is that she's currently leading.

Her name is Michelle Bachmann. Check out the video of Michelle explaining how she was chosen by God to turn this country into a theocracy.

P.S. -- Check out her stiletto heeled black knee-high boots! Condi would kill for those.

A "fool for Christ" indeed.

Her words, not mine.

[Ninong]

Senator Macaca is getting desperate. His campaign (or Karl Rove) got Matt Drudge to print excerpts from some of Jim Webb's Vietnam novels in the Drudge Sludge Report. That way they can turn around and reprint them in campaign flyers and say "as reported by..."

Taken out of context, these passages are sure to confuse many voters. Fortunately for Jim Webb, most of those voters would have voted for Macaca anyway. The most shocking passage describes something that is a common practice in some other cultures but repulsive to Western audiences. Something that would be a criminal act here is an expression of parental love in those countries. It was something Webb witnessed and therefore included in his novel to give an accurate depiction of the cultural traditions there.

It may have been a foolish move on Senator Macaca's part to attack novels written in the early 1980's that describe Webb's Vietnam experience because while Webb was earning three silver stars and the Navy Cross, Macaca was chilling out on a dude ranch. And the fact that the Marine Corps has been using Webb's novels for the past 20 years to teach the history of the Vietnam war doesn't support Senator Macaca's charge that they are pornographic pulp fiction.

In this video clip, Jim Webb answers Senator Macaca's charges by reading some of the glowing reviews his books have received. He failed to mention the glowing review by Saint John McCain but it's available online.

George Allen has three silver stars, too. They came on the Confederate General's costume he wears every Halloween.

[schrocat]

George Allen has three silver stars, too. They came on the Confederate General's costume he wears every Halloween.

[Ninong]

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah for traditional Republican conservative values!

Y'all be sure to come out and vote for me, ya heah! Round up all ya friends and bring 'em along.

[Ninong]

Wow! All of these polls are dated today and yesterday and it looks like across the country the Democrats have made gains over where they were just a week ago. Just take a look at where the closely watched senate races stand:

Ohio: Brown (D) 57%, DeWine (R) 37% D: +20

Pennsylvania: Casey (D) 54%, Santorum (R) 38% D: +16

Rhode Island: Whitehouse (D) 43%, Chafee (R) 33% D: +10

Montana: Tester (D) 51%, Burns (R) 47% D: +4

Tennessee: Ford (D) 48%, Corker (R) 43% D: +5

Virginia: Webb (D) 47%, Allen (R) 43% D: +4

Missouri: McCaskill (D) 47%, Talent (R) 47% Even

New Jersey: Menendez (D) 48%, Kean (R) 42% D: +6

Maryland: Cardin (D) 49%, Steele (R) 42% D: +7

Washington: Cantwell (D) 52%, McGavick (R) 41% D: +11

Florida: Nelson (D) 56%, Harris (R) 30% D: +26

Democrats expect to win Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Montana. They increased their leads in the first three of those and Crazy Conrad Burns narrowed the gap a little in Montanta but he still trails by 4 points.

In the next three states, Tennessee, Virginia and Missouri, the Democrats hope to win two of the three. Last week they were trailing by three or four points in Tennessee and Missouri and tied in Virginia. Now the Democrats are ahead in both Tennessee and Virginia and tied in Missouri. I think the really outrageous negative attack ads that Karl Rove and Kenny Mehlman have been running against Harold Ford, Jr. have backfired. Ford now leads by 5 points and last week he trailed by 3 or 4 points.

Sen. Macaca trails Jim Webb by 4 points and last week they were virtually even. The GOP hoped to capture New Jersey but as of right now, Menendez has a 6 point advantage. The only reason I showed Maryland and Washington is because the GOP was hoping to capture those two seats but it looks like they won't succeed with either one.

I threw in Katherine Harris just for laughs.



P.S. -- If the election results end up exactly the same as today's polls, the Democrats would pick up either 6 or 7 seats in the Senate, depending on whether they win or lose in Missouri. They need six seats to gain control.

Just glancing through some of the House seats, it's obvious that a lot of the seats that were considered safe for the Republicans have closed a lot and are now in play. A lot depends on the get out the vote effort but things are looking good for the Democrats. Based on today's polls, they could easily gain 30 seats in the House. They need 15 to gain control.

[Ninong]

CNN released their polls today and the only major difference with the polls quoted in my above post is for the Corker-Ford contest in Tennessee. CNN shows Corker ahead by 2 points among registered voters and by 8 points among likely voters. Also, in the Missouri race, they show Talent and McCaskill tied among likely voters but McCaskill ahead by 8 points among registered voters. Their Tennessee result is the one that is surprising compared to other recent polls. I wonder when it was taken? Some of the other polls show a dramatic jump for Ford during the three or four day period when the RNC's sleazy attack ad was getting all that national coverage.

The TPM listing (the one I posted in the above post) seems to be reporting likely voter results rather than registered voter results. This is always a tricky issue because the different polling organizations use different proprietary methods for determining likely voters. They started making this distinction some years back after it was realized that polls of all registered voters were not all that accurate because certain groups were more likely to vote than others no matter what they told the poll taker. For example, retired people are more likely to vote than any other group and married women are more likely to vote than unmarried women, etc.

[Ninong]

Slate gives their take on some of the recent political ads here. It's hilarious! Check it out.

[Ninong]

"You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. No President wants to be a war President, but I am one."—George W. Bush, Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2006




P.S. -- Here's another good one: "You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."—George W. Bush, Interview with CBS News, Washington D.C., Sept. 6, 2006

[SPasse]

George,

OK, The Dems are going to take the House.

What does your crystal ball tell you about the Senate?

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

Right now my crystal ball tells me that the Democrats will gain 27 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate. Margin of error would be +/- 5 seats in the House and 1 seat in the Senate.

I had to turn of the cable news programs a few minutes ago because it was too much to listen to without puking. None of the talking heads wants to put John Kerry's comments in context. They're going along with the official White House line that Kerry was talking about the troops being "stuck in Iraq" because they didn't do well in school. That's NOT what he was talking about.

You have to hear what he said just prior to the comment that they're making a big deal about to realize that he was knocking George Bush. He did a series of one-liners about Bush, starting with "He was born in Texas, but lives in a state of denial." Then he went on to talk about Bush not paying attention in school, implying that his lack of knowledge of history is what caused him (Bush) to end up getting stuck in Iraq.

So now the Republicans think they have something they can play with for the next seven days. They're probably making a VERY big mistake. Why would they want to bring up the subject of the war in Iraq? They're trying to say that Kerry insulted our troops but he wasn't talking about our troops, he was talking about our president.