Huckabee-Hopeful Hong Hung

GOP Stalwart Arrested in 2-Day St. Paul Prostitution Ring




The Star Tribune reports:

Peter Hong, a longtime Republican operative in Minnesota, was arrested Wednesday afternoon on a charge of soliciting prostitution in St. Paul.

Police spokesman Peter Panos said that the arrest came during the first day of a two-day sting operation during which "johns" and prostitutes responded to ads placed on the Internet and in print. Thirty-five people were arrested Wednesday and Thursday, Panos said today.

He declined to say where the undercover operation was based.

According to city and county records, Hong, 41, of Minneapolis, was arrested at about 3:40 p.m. on Wednesday and arrived at the Ramsey County jail just after 5 p.m. He was one of at least 19 men swept up during the first day of the sting, police records show.

Hong, reached by phone Thursday, said: "I don't have any comment."

Hong has been in and out of the Republican side of Minnesota politics since the mid-1990s, when he surfaced as a genial bulldog campaign press secretary for former Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn. He served as a spokesman for Gov. Tim Pawlenty's campaign in 2002 and for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Minnesota in 2004.



Most recently, Hong was a point person for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Gina Countryman, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Republican Party, said Hong is not currently working for any Minnesota candidate.

He is the third political figure to be arrested in a St. Paul prostitution sting in the past year.

Last summer, police arrested Tim Droogsma, a press secretary to former U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, who initially attributed his arrest to a "severe misunderstanding" before pleading guilty in January to an engaging-in-prostitution charge.

In February, New Brighton City Council member David Phillips was one of nine men nabbed in a prostitution sting. His next court appearance is in August.

Senate Tied In Knots By Filibusters

More accurately, the threat of filibusters by a (relatively) new rule change, the procedural filibuster. Adopted, ostensibly, to "save time," the procedural filibuster, in reality, serves the physical comfort of senators, by not requiring them to stand up in the chamber and speak for as long as sixty senators can't be found to end the debate and vote on the issue. It has other attractions for politicians, among which procedural filibusters enable incumbents to serve their own interests and not those of their constituents - it's a great bluff and cover mechanism by which politicians can avoid going on the record.

Last week, under increasing pressure from the left, Harry Reid finally required Republicans to carry out an actual filibuster of the Levin-Reed amendment to H.R. 1585, the DoD Authorization Act, which would have set a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq. Harry Reid ought to do everything he can to block Republican obstruction, including denying them procedural filibusters.

McClatchy reports:

This year Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before, a pattern that's rooted in — and could increase — the pettiness and dysfunction in Congress.

The trend has been evolving for 30 years. The reasons behind it are too complex to pin on one party. But it has been especially pronounced since the Democrats' razor-thin win in last year's election, giving them effectively a 51-49 Senate majority, and the Republicans' exile to the minority.

Seven months into the current two-year term, the Senate has held 42 "cloture" votes aimed at shutting off extended debate — filibusters, or sometimes only the threat of one — and moving to up-or-down votes on contested legislation. Under Senate rules that protect a minority's right to debate, these votes require a 60-vote supermajority in the 100-member Senate.

Democrats have trouble mustering 60 votes; they've fallen short 22 times so far this year. That's largely why they haven't been able to deliver on their campaign promises.

By sinking a cloture vote this week, Republicans successfully blocked a Democratic bid to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April, even though a 52-49 Senate majority voted to end debate.

This year Republicans also have blocked votes on immigration legislation, a no-confidence resolution for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and major legislation dealing with energy, labor rights and prescription drugs.

Nearly 1 in 6 roll-call votes in the Senate this year have been cloture votes. If this pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous record number of cloture votes — 58 each in the two Congresses from 1999-2002, according to the Senate Historical Office.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., forced an all-night session on the Iraq war this week to draw attention to what Democrats called Republican obstruction.

"The minority party has decided we have to get to 60 votes on almost everything we vote on of substance," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "That's not the way this place is supposed to work."

Even Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who's served in Congress since 1973, complained that "the Senate is spiraling into the ground to a degree that I have never seen before, and I've been here a long time. All modicum of courtesy is going out the window."

But many Republicans say the Senate's very design as a more deliberative body than the House of Representatives is meant to encourage supermajority deal-making. If Democrats worked harder to seek bipartisan deals, Republicans say, there wouldn't be so many cloture votes.

"You can't say that all we're going to do around here in the United States Senate is have us govern by 51 votes — otherwise we might as well be unicameral, because then we would have the Senate and the House exactly the same," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

To which Reid responds: "The problem we have is that we don't have many moderate Republicans. I don't know what we can do to create less cloture votes other than not file them, just walk away and say, 'We're not going to do anything.' That's the only alternative we have."

Some Republicans say that Reid forces cloture votes just so he complain that they're obstructing him.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., called the all-nighter on Iraq "meaningless, insulting" and "an indignity." "There is no doubt that there are not 67 votes present to override a veto. There is little doubt that there are not 60 votes present to bring the issue to a vote."

Republicans also say that Democrats are forgetting how routinely they threatened filibusters only a few years ago when they were the minority, especially to block many of President Bush's judicial nominees. Back then, Republicans were so mad that they considered trying to change Senate rules to eliminate filibusters — but didn't.

"The suggestion that it's somehow unusual in the Senate to have controversial matters decided by 60 votes is absurd on its face," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Although this year's Congress is taking it to a new level, the frequency of cloture votes has been climbing for decades — the result of more polarized politics in Congress and also evolving Senate rules and practices.

Associate Senate Historian Don Ritchie said that since the nation's start, dissident senators have prolonged debate to try to kill or modify legislation. The word "filibuster" — a translation of the Dutch word for "free-booter" or pirate — appears in the record of an 1840s Senate dispute about a patronage job.

From Reconstruction to 1964, the filibuster was largely a tool used by segregationists to fight civil rights legislation. Even so, filibusters were employed only rarely; there were only three during the 88th Congress, which passed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 after two months of filibustering.

Filibusters were infrequent partly because the Senate custom of civility prompted consideration of minority views — and partly because they were so hard to overcome that compromises were struck. In 1917 cloture rules for ending filibusters were put in place, but required a two-thirds vote — so high it was rarely tested.

Post-Watergate, in 1975, the bar was lowered to three-fifths, or 60 votes, and leaders began to try it more often.

By the early 1990s, tensions between then-Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine and Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas upped the ante, and the filibuster-cloture spiral has soared ever since as more partisan politics prevailed. The use of filibusters became "basically a tool of the minority party," Ritchie said.

The current Senate has two other complications: the 51-49 Democratic majority, which includes a pro-war independent and an absent Democrat recuperating from brain surgery, makes it harder to find 60 votes. And the presidency and Congress are controlled by opposing parties, which increases confrontation.

The Senate "has always been a cumbersome and frustrating and slow body because that's what the Constitution wanted," Ritchie said. The new majority's decisions are: "How often are you willing to lose on these issues? Would you rather campaign on the other side being obstructionists? What's a tolerable compromise? They're still working these things out."

Republican Senate leader McConnell said Friday in a news conference that when he became minority leader, "it was not my goal to see us do nothing. I mean, you can always use the next election as a rationale for not doing anything. But as you all know, we've had a regularly scheduled election every two years since 1788, so there's always an election right around the corner."

"A divided government has frequently done important things: Social Security in the Reagan period, when (Democrat) Tip O'Neill was speaker; welfare reform when Bill Clinton was in the White House when there was a Republican Congress. There's no particular reason why divided government can't do important things. We haven't yet, but it's not too late.

"And I think clearly the way to accomplish things is in the political middle, and I would challenge our friends on the other side of the aisle to step up and take a chance on something big and important for our country."

Of course, Democrats say similar things — but then neither side often compromises.

The Tale of David Vitter & The Prostitute?

David Vitter was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1992-1999. He won a special election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999 to replace Bob Livingston who had resigned after admitting to an adulterous affair.

When Vitter entered the race for the U.S. Senate in 2004, Salon.com reported:

As Vitter geared up in 2002 to run for governor, his bitter race against Treen came back to haunt him. A Treen supporter, local Republican Party official Vincent Bruno, blurted out on a radio show that he believed Vitter had once had an extramarital affair.

The Louisiana Weekly newspaper followed up. Bruno told the paper that the young woman had contacted the Treen campaign in 1999 because she was upset that Vitter was portraying himself as a family-values conservative and trotting out his wife and children for campaign photo ops. Bruno, who declined to comment for this story, and John Treen interviewed the woman, who said she had worked under the name "Leah."

But after nearly a year of regular paid assignations with Vitter, the lawmaker asked her to divulge her real name, according to Treen, citing the account he said she gave him. Her name was Wendy Cortez, Treen said. She said Vitter's response was electric. "He said, 'Oh, my God! I can't see you anymore," John Treen told me, citing the woman's account to him and noting that Vitter's wife is also named Wendy. And Wendy Vitter does not appear to be the indulgent type.

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he'd had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston's wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

Do you remember these two?

Vitter, Bruno and others interviewed the alleged prostitute several times in 1999. She also met with a respected local television reporter, Richard Angelico, the Louisiana Weekly said. But Angelico declined to run with the story after she would not agree to go on camera, the paper said. Vitter denied the allegations. But shortly before the Louisiana Weekly was set to publish its story, he dropped out of the governor's race, saying he needed to deal with marital problems. "Our [marriage] counseling sessions have ... led us to the rather obvious conclusion that it's not time to run for governor," Vitter said at the time.

Chris Tidmore, the author of the Louisiana Weekly story, said he interviewed the alleged prostitute by telephone and reviewed the notes of her sessions with Treen and Bruno before publishing his story. He said she had moved away from New Orleans and is now living under an assumed name. Salon could not locate her.

Amid Vitter's denials and the reluctance of his accuser to go public, no newspapers in Louisiana reported on the allegations. And, when Sen. Breaux announced his retirement last December, Vitter jumped into the race to succeed the conservative Democrat. The far-right and confrontational Vitter was the opposite of Breaux, who had been a consensus-builder in Washington with close relationships with Republicans.

Is there life after the U.S. Senate?

"I Have Sinned," Says Senator David Vitter

The phone number of Louisiana's Senator to the U.S. Congress, David Vitter, turns up in D.C. Madam's phone records.

David Vitter, his wife Wendy, with Jack, one of their four children.

The Washington Post reports:

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) apologized last night after his telephone number appeared in the phone records of the woman dubbed the "D.C. Madam," making him the first member of Congress to become ensnared in the high-profile case.

The statement containing Vitter's apology said his telephone number was included on phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates dating from before he ran for the Senate in 2004.

The service's proprietor, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 51, faces federal charges of racketeering for allegedly running a prostitution ring out of homes and hotel rooms in the Washington area. Authorities say the business netted more than $2 million over 13 years beginning in 1993. Palfrey contends that her escort service was a legitimate business.

"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," Vitter, 46, said in a statement, which his spokesman, Joel DiGrado, confirmed to the Associated Press.

"Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling," Vitter continued. "Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there -- with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way."

Neither Palfrey nor her attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, could be reached for comment last night. Sibley told the Associated Press that his client posted the phone records of her escort service on the Internet yesterday, four days after a federal judge lifted a restraining order preventing their publication. The records were included in a series of files on a Web site devoted to Palfrey's legal defense fund.

"I'm stunned that someone would be apologizing for this already," Sibley said.

Vitter is in his first Senate term after serving six years in the House. During his Senate campaign, Vitter was accused by a member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee of carrying on a lengthy affair with a prostitute in New Orleans's French Quarter.

In a radio interview, Vitter called the allegation "absolutely and completely untrue" and dismissed it as "just crass Louisiana politics."

Vitter was the first senator to endorse former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and serves as the campaign's Southern regional chairman. A reliable conservative vote in the Senate, Vitter was among a small group of GOP lawmakers who sought to block an immigration overhaul from advancing last month.

Vitter and his wife, Wendy, a former prosecutor, have four children. On his Senate Web site, Vitter says he is committed to "advancing mainstream conservative principles" and notes that he has his wife are lectors at their hometown church.

Vitter attended Harvard University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He won a convincing victory in 2004, easily defeating two Democrats with a slim majority of the vote, to succeed John Breaux (D).

Palfrey, 51, titillated national media this spring by threatening to auction her list of clients' phone numbers to the highest bidder. She said she needed the money to pay legal expenses, but in May U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered Palfrey to keep the records to herself.

That move came after Palfrey and Sibley had turned over a sizable portion of the 10,000 phone records to ABC News. One client contacted by ABC reporters was Randall L. Tobias, a deputy secretary of state, who said he used Palfrey's escort service for massages, not for sex.

A day later, on April 27, Tobias resigned from the State Department, reigniting the media firestorm over Palfrey's records. That was seemingly snuffed out by Kessler's temporary restraining order two weeks later, but Kessler vacated her order on Thursday, clearing the way for Palfrey to post the records online.

Pamela Martin and Associates hired college-educated women in their 20s, sending them to male clients in the Washington area who, according to authorities, paid $275 to $300 per sexual encounter. Palfrey said that, so far as she knew, her employees and clients engaged in legal sex play -- such as erotic role-playing.

Elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Vitter voted for the Marriage Protection Act in 2006. He was a co-sponsor of H.J. Res. 56, a constitutional amendment declaring that marriage in the U.S. shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.

"This is a real outrage. The Hollywood left is redefining the most basic institution in human history, and our two U.S. Senators won't do anything about it. We need a U.S. Senator who will stand up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts's values. I am the only Senate candidate to co-author the Federal Marriage Amendment; the only one fighting for its passage. I am the only candidate proposing changes to the senate rules to stop liberal obstructionists from preventing an up or down vote on issues like this, judges, energy, and on and on."

On June 21, 2007, Vitter authored a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee expressing support for reauthorization of the Title V Abstinence Education Program of the Social Security Act, in which he wrote:

...Abstinence education is a public health strategy focused on risk avoidance that aims to help young people avoid exposure to harm. These programs have been shown to effectively reduce the risks of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by teaching teenagers that saving sex until marriage and remaining faithful afterwards is the best choice for health and happiness...

Vitter is a rabid opponent of women's reproductive rights.

In 2003, when he was in the House of Representatives, Vitter forced a rider into the Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations Bill disqualifying any agencies that provide abortion services (such as Planned Parenthood) from receiving grants or contracts under the Title X (family) planning program.

Shouldn't Americans Be Running America's Political Parties?

California State GOP Goes Outside The U.S. To Hire Top Aide

For the San Francisco Chronicle, Carla Marinucci reports:

The California Republican Party has decided no American is qualified to take one of its most crucial positions -- state deputy political director -- and has hired a Canadian for the job through a coveted H-1B visa, a program favored by Silicon Valley tech firms that is under fire for displacing skilled American workers.

Christopher Matthews, 35, a Canadian citizen, has worked for the state GOP as a campaign consultant since 2004. But he recently was hired as full-time deputy political director, with responsibility for handling campaign operations and information technology for the country's largest state Republican Party operation, California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring confirmed in a telephone interview this week.

In the nation's most populous state -- which has produced a roster of nationally known veteran political consultants -- "it's insulting but also embarrassing ... to bring people from the outside who don't know the difference between Lodi and Lancaster ... and who can't even vote," said Karen Hanretty, a political commentator and former state GOP party spokeswoman.

U.S. Department of Labor records show the state Republican Party applied for an H-1B visa to fill the job of "political consultant" and was granted a visa labor certification in March 2007. The three-year H-1B visa does not become valid until Oct. 1, 2007, government records show.

Party officials said Matthews has been working in the interim under a "TN" visa -- a renewable one-year special visa for Canadian and Mexican professional workers created under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Matthews was hired by Michael Kamburowski, an Australian citizen who was hired this year as the state GOP's chief operations officer. But neither new official has experience in managing a political campaign in the nation's most populous state -- and as foreign citizens, neither is eligible to vote.

Kamburowski, a former real estate agent who sold property in the Dominican Republic, is a permanent U.S. resident in the process of obtaining American citizenship and does not require a specialized work visa, state GOP officials said.

With just months until the state's Feb. 5 primary and Republicans facing a roster of formidable challenges in California -- a key political fundraising state -- some party insiders are shaking their heads at the hirings.

"There are talented Republicans in California, and the message that (party chair) Ron Nehring is sending is that there's no talent pool here," Hanretty said.

The state party and its 58 county operations face several challenges, Hanretty said, including "redistricting on the ballot, uncertain legislative races ahead of us ... and a number of Republican congressmen who are under federal investigation and are going to be challenged by Democrats."

"Who will help these candidates?" she asked. "A couple of foreign transplants who don't know the political landscape and don't know the history of the complicated politics in California?"

Nehring defended his choices by saying Matthews and Kamburowski are highly qualified political professionals who will be an asset to the party -- and dramatize the GOP ideal of welcoming immigrants.

"Chris (Matthews) was inspired by the recall and by the governor to come to California in 2003 and volunteer for the Republican Party of San Diego," said Nehring, who chaired the San Diego party's organization from 2001 to 2007.

Nehring, a conservative Republican, became state chairman earlier this year, replacing Palo Alto attorney Duf Sundheim.

Nehring said he met Matthews while overseeing a campaign school in Calgary, Alberta, "and when the recall started, Chris said he wanted to come down and be part of it."

Matthews spent a month as a volunteer and in 2004 began work as a paid consultant to the San Diego County Republican Central Committee, party officials said.

As deputy political director, Matthews will be responsible for political campaigning and technology issues because "he has a successful track record of working with the party for the last three years," Nehring said. "He's developed an incredible body of knowledge in those areas. ... He's one of the strongest campaigners I've ever met."

Nehring said he has been inspired that Matthews "has wanted to move to America and become an American citizen ... and we embrace that."

"Our job at the California GOP is to build the most effective campaign organization. ... And the fact that we have two people on staff who want to become Americans ... is a great story that is at the heart of what the Republican Party is all about."

But the party nationally has fought efforts to increase immigration, calling during the recent debate in Congress for much tighter border security and resisting efforts to providing a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the country.

The hiring of two immigrants at top Republican Party posts has handed ammunition to critics who note that many Republicans have spoken critically about the impacts of waves of Mexican immigrants.

"The hypocrisy is disgusting," said longtime Democratic Party activist Gloria Nieto, policy director at San Jose-based Services Immigration Rights and Education Network, or SIREN, an immigrant advocacy nonprofit organization.

Nieto argued that the party has painted Latinos "as the brown menace. ... But it's perfectly OK to hire people from outside the country? What does it say about the Republican Party that they import their hired guns?"

State campaign finance records show that Matthews earned almost $19,000 for work as a campaign consultant in 2005 with the San Diego GOP but has earned little in other years.

While the hiring of Matthews under the H-1B visa for "specialized workers" is legal, it appears to skirt the intention of the program -- which calls for most employers to make a good-faith effort to hire Americans first, according to U.S. Department of Labor regulations.

The H-1B program -- currently limited to 65,000 workers -- is aimed at providing workers for jobs that presumably cannot be filled by American workers, and prospective employers must publicly advertise or post notice of their intentions to hire under such visas, labor guidelines state.

A bill proposed by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., would require that all employers seeking such visas be required to pledge they have made such an effort and that the visa holder does not displace an American worker.

The H-1B program's greatest advocates are Silicon Valley technology firms, which have pushed for more visas so they can hire computer specialists from overseas.

Jon Fleischman, Southern California GOP vice chair, said he was not aware of the hiring of Matthews -- but added that hirings are routinely made without consulting party officers. He said he doesn't consider it a problem to hire foreigners if they are the most qualified job applicants.

Nehring and one of his new hires also are connected to one of the nation's most conservative activist groups, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.

Kamburowski was chair of the group's Reagan Legacy project, an effort to name landmarks in all 50 states after the deceased president.

Nehring was a senior consultant to Americans for Tax Reform and has listed Norquist as a client of his own consulting group. State GOP officials insist Matthews has never had any connection -- professional or volunteer -- with Norquist or his organization.

How Did Businesses Manage To Turn A Profit Operating Honestly & Safely Before They Got Breaks From Republicans?

Probe Set Into U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Installation of Faulty Pumps in New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina



Another 'sweetheart' deal, this time with cronies of Jeb Bush.

The AP reports:

Government Accountability Office investigators are meeting with Army Corps of Engineers officials to ask questions about drainage pumps that were installed before last year's hurricane season even though they apparently were defective.

The pumps were produced by a Florida company under a $26.6 million contract awarded after Hurricane Katrina. They provide flood protection by draining water from this city that is largely below sea level.

An engineer for the Corps working on the pumps project warned in a spring 2006 memo that the machinery had problems that likely would keep them from performing under hurricane conditions.

Last year was a mild hurricane season, so the pumps were not tested in an emergency scenario.

Anu Mittal, the GAO's director for water resources, said a large team of investigators has been assembled to "expeditiously" satisfy a request by U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Landrieu, D-La., has asked the GAO to investigate if there was improper influence in the way the pumps contract was awarded and handled. She also wants to know what danger the pumps posed to New Orleans, and the Corps' rationale for installing them.

Mittal said the GAO is considering Landrieu's questions and will prepare a report.

Since the memo was disclosed two weeks ago the Corps has insisted that the pumps would have worked if they had been pressed into service last year and that the city was never in danger of flooding.

Just peachy.

According to another AP report, the Corps defends its decision to install the faulty pumps, intending to fix them while they were in place because, "some pumping capacity is better than none."

The Corps also defended the manufacturer of the pumps, Moving Water Industries, Corp., for the poor quality of their product because "they were under time pressure." Since installation, the pumps have been pulled out and overhauled ("excessive vibration"), while the Corps tries to get the pumps to work properly for other problems which have included overheated engines, broken hoses and blown gaskets.

The company that manufactures these pumps is owned by Floridian J. David Eller and his sons. Jeb Bush was a parter of Eller's in a business venture ('Bush-El') to market Moving Water Industries' pumps.

In a case that is still pending, the U.S. Department of Justice brought charges against 'Moving Waters Industries' in 2002 for fraud, for helping Nigeria get $74 million in U.S. taxpayer-backed loans so that Nigeria could purchase pumps (deemed unnecessary) at inflated prices.

Turnabout

Air America Offers To Host One Of The Republican Party's Debates



I wonder what Bill O' will have to say about that?

Mark Green, the new president of Air America, writes:

After Nevada Democrats dropped Fox as a host of its Democratic presidential debate -- and after Fox denounced the move as anti-free speech and "Stalinist" -- I thought...damn right! How dare the progressive party in America not allow the conservative Fox to air its presidential debate. So I today contacted key Republican party chairs in the four early primary and caucus states to ask that Air America host their Republican presidential debates.

A blow for speech and against Stalin in one swoop:

Dear Republican Chairman Ray Hoffmann of Iowa, Republican Chairman Paul Willis of Nevada, Republican Chairman Katon Dawson of South Carolina and Republican Chairman Fergus Cullen of New Hampshire,

As the new president of Air America, I'd like to offer to host or co-host one of your upcoming presidential debates.

Why us? First, this would allow your debate to reach many voters. Combining our 2 million radio audience, along with our satellite, internet and web audiences, means that some 2.5 million Americans would hear or read about the debate..

Second, it would allow Republicans to differentiate themselves from Democrats - embracing a debate hosted by a progressive media outlet after Nevada Democrats canceled a debate scheduled to be hosted by the conservative Fox Cable News Channel. The MoveOn organization spurred 265,000 people to complain about the original plan, calling Fox a "mouthpiece for the Republican Party." In reply, Fox's Mort Kondracke called the Nevada Democratic Party's rejection of Fox a "Stalinist" violation of "free speech and free debate." So should you accept Air America's offer, Republicans would both embrace free debate and stick it to Stalin at the same time.

Third, our offer permits you to include any other national media company as a co-host -- like Fox. For example, a panel with Fox representing the conservative viewpoint and Air America the progressive viewpoint would make for a very "fair and balanced" debate -- not to mention that Fox's viewers per evening are coincidentally comparable to our 2.5 million listeners, meaning that several million unique people would hear your debate (assuming next to no overlap between our two disparate audiences).

We would be honored not only to co-host such an event; but also to broadcast it live without commercial interruption on the day that you choose.

I look forward to your response and to working with you on this important event.


Yours,

Mark Green
President, Air America Radio

Will the GOP accept the offer?

Democrats, Distracted Again, By The Firing of U.S. Attorneys

Begging for dollars (Washington Monthly's annual subscription drive is on) Kevin Drum writes:

THE PURGE....Why did the Justice Department fire a bunch of U.S. Attorneys recently? Because they were too zealous in prosecuting Republican politicians? Maybe. Because the Bush administration wanted to reward one of Karl Rove's ex-aides? Definitely. Because they were insufficiently gung-ho about indicting Democrats before last year's midterm elections? That's what one of them said today:

David Iglesias said two members of Congress separately called in mid October to inquire about the timing of an ongoing probe of a kickback scheme and appeared eager for an indictment to be issued on the eve of the elections in order to benefit the Republicans. He refused to name the members of Congress because he said he feared retaliation.

....Iglesias, who received a positive performance review before he was fired, said he suspected he was forced out because of his refusal to be pressured to hand down an indictment in the ongoing probe.

"I believe that because I didn't play ball, so to speak, I was asked to resign," said Iglesias, who officially stepped down Wednesday.

This scandal started out slowly, but it's really been picking up steam as time goes by. Expect hearings soon.

We'd better hope not.

With all that there is to investigate about this administration, to waste time and the public's goodwill holding hearings on the firing of U.S. attorneys makes Democrats no better than Republicans; it's political, and to Americans who are expecting Democrats to be serious protectors of the Constitution and the nation, it's insulting.

Of course the firing of those U.S. attorneys was politically motivated. But it wasn't illegal.

U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. They can be fired at any time and for any reason. And no, Republicans shouldn't be bad-mouthing the performances of these attorneys. They don't need to. They don't need to justify the firing. The fact that they are reaffirms for me that they hope Democrats do take a swing at them; it's good for wasting more time and space in the media instead of working on issues of relevance to Americans. Until Joe Lieberman crosses the aisle and joins the Republican Caucus, Bush's playbook for his last two years in office is more delay, stonewall and obfiscate.

I know this because the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. This is what Bush does when he's playing defense.

Bush has hired Fred Fielding to replace Harriet Miers and word has it that Fielding is there to frustrate all attempts to access paper from the Executive branch. And elsewhere, loyalists (like Gonzales) will ignite logs and roll them into Democrats (see Spartacus). The firing of U.S. attorneys is one such burning, rolling log - something perfectly legal. Political, sure, but so what?

For Chuck Schumer or any Democrat to take a swing at it tells me that Schumer is just another hack politician, worse than the Republicans because he's useless at taking them out and working on behalf of the American people.

It is two years until the next election and all we got out of Democrats from the last election in November 06 was 100 hours (less than two weeks of work in January), of the House passing bills that are unlikely to ever get signed into law. The House is already back on a 3-day work week, the Senate has held all the hearings they're going to have on Iraq and nobody is bringing the troops out. We're in full Presidential election mode two years out. How insane is that?

I hold both Hillary and Obama responsible.

They had no right hijacking the process this early, by not letting the Democratic House and Senate victories remain above the fold after the midterm elections. With their newfound majorities, Senate and House business should have superceded all Washington political news for at least a couple of months. But Obama started this even before the midterm elections. He wasn't even running for re-election, but there he was, everywhere in the media, sucking all of the oxygen out of the elections. Neither Hillary nor Obama are the answer. And I don't see anyone who is on the horizon.

A leader is going to have to emerge, naturally, who is able to effect a plan for the Al Qaeda problem. Not just the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the whole of the region, solving our energy and economic problems in a way that doesn't require war and one in which all Democrats (at the least, and including some Republicans) can rally around.

If Hillary and Obama, and any others in the race, got out of the coffee klatches in Iowa and New Hampshire, and went back to work in Washington, started doing their jobs and working towards this, I'd be interested. The nation is waiting for someone with the vision and the presence to bring Americans through what are going to be very rough times, and together with people all around the world.

But it begins with us. Americans need to reclaim the democracy, and it's going to have to come at the local level, at the grassroots, with citizens pulling together and drafting new candidates for all seats in both houses of Congress.

Bush Family Lining Up Behind Mitt Romney's Campaign

With the Christian Right’s dream candidate, Jeb Bush, seemingly serious about not running, who is the Bush family putting their time and money on?

At Newsweek, Eleanor Clift reports:

Watching the Republican candidates elbowing each other for position on the right is a classic Washington spectator sport. Nobody quite measures up, and they all look a little craven trying. The prize they’re seeking: the evangelical vote, which is crucial to success in the GOP primaries. Republicans can’t win the White House without them, and social conservatives so far have been lukewarm toward everybody in the field.

There’s one politician the Christian right could get excited about: John Ellis (Jeb) Bush. But he’s not running—surely in part because the Bush brand has been so badly tarnished by the Iraq misadventure. A handoff from brother George would have been easy—if only the president had stayed focused on finding Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan rather than rushing off to invade Iraq. But for his brother’s mess, Jeb would be a formidable candidate.

He’s still a likely contender at some point—maybe even as a vice presidential pick in ’08. He can raise money, he has a Mexican-born wife who could help with California, and he can deliver Florida. The restoration is premised on the Republican nominee needing the credibility with the religious right that Jeb could bring. The Bush family seems to be moving its chips to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Several of Jeb’s gubernatorial staffers have signed on with Romney, and Jeb’s sister, Doro Bush Koch, is cohosting a fund-raiser for him. Mom and Dad are reportedly telling friends he’s a fine man and the class act in the race. With front runner John McCain faltering and Rudy Giuliani an unlikely fit with Republican primary voters, Romney looks like the Bush Dynasty’s best bet.

Jeb’s ambition, his intellect and his tenacity have not dimmed. Combine these personal characteristics with his ability to raise money and you’ve got a potent political force, says S.V. Dáte, the Tallahassee bureau chief for the Palm Beach Post and author of “Jeb: America’s Next Bush.” The book is not particularly flattering. Dáte says Bush governed with the openness and transparency of the Politburo; that his tax cuts went to the top 4.7 percent of Floridians and that he created the lowest number of jobs of any governor since 1970. Despite that record, polls show a consistent high regard for him, especially among social conservatives who remember his tireless efforts to sustain Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose survival in a vegetative state—in the face of her husband’s efforts to end life supports because of the grim prognosis—became a cause célèbre for the religious right.

The younger Bush was the one the family thought would become president, but that calculus went out the window when Jeb lost his initial bid for governor in Florida, and George was elected in Texas. Dáte says he wonders what would have happened if both brothers had won that year. George is seven years older but is otherwise out-classed by Jeb, the intellect of the family and, at 6 feet 4, a significant physical presence. Would they have run against each other in the primary? Would there have been a playoff game of horseshoes?

In Washington on a promotional tour, Dáte took questions at Politics & Prose, a bookstore in northwest Washington, where key chains counting down the hours, the minutes and the seconds left in Bush’s term sold out over the holidays. Dáte began with the top five e-mails he got in response to an article he wrote for The Washington Post speculating what a Jeb Bush presidency would be like in its seventh year, if the family plan had worked like it was supposed to. Many readers thought he was endorsing Jeb because he said that the younger brother wouldn’t have screwed up hurricane relief. Dáte believes Jeb would have followed the same siren song of the neocons into war. But once in Iraq, “Jeb would have been less prone to botch the job through inattention and cronyism,” Dáte says.

The thought of another Bush headed for the presidency struck most readers as preposterous. “The single most idiotic article I’ve read in The Washington Post,” said one. “Is this column a humiliating payback for a lost wager?” asked another. “The Bush family (expletive deleted) the world. I have a Colorado spruce in my front yard smarter than you.”

But the author is undeterred by the skepticism. He says it is “inevitable” Jeb will run for president, though he admits ’08 is problematic. Still, if the troops start to come home by the end of this year and the president’s approval ratings start climbing, who knows? Dáte states in The Washington Post piece that John McCain swung by Tallahassee in December 2005 to sound Jeb out about the prospect of running with him, and adds that any Republican candidate would be foolish not to put Jeb on the shortlist. Evangelicals make up a quarter of the country, according to some estimates—and as much as 35 to 45 percent of Republican voters in some states. If anybody has a lock on them, it’s Jeb.

The actual campaign doesn't begin for a long time.

But for an election cycle to have begun so early, and to overheat this quickly, tells me that there are going to be several major shake-outs before the campaigns seriously get off the ground and under way. And two years is a very long time for a vice-president with heart problems and clots in his leg to resist subpoenas and investigations. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Bush family has several contingency plans at the ready, one which calls for their hand-chosen heir (Romney) to replace an ailing (or deceased) Cheney just months before the election.



For that leg up, Romney might then turn around and tap Jeb Bush to run on the Republican ticket with him. It would be so typically 'Bush' to slide Jeb into national politics that way, given that he wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting into the oval office through the front door after the mess his brother has made of the world.

That's just one possibility out of many. Like I said, two years is an eternity in politics.