Benchmark 1,000th Reconstruction Project Completed
Mood:  special
Topic: News

Betas School students file through the gates of their newly renovated school to take part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. >>>>>
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Benchmark 1,000th Reconstruction Project Completed in Iraq

By Denise Calabria
Special to American Forces Press Service

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The public spotlight recently shone on an unassuming, eight-classroom school in the town of Zakho, Iraq, and for good reason. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Region Division, responsible for oversight of reconstruction in Iraq, announced it had identified Betas School as its 1,000th completed reconstruction project.

The Betas School, located amid rolling hills on the outskirts of the town of Zahko, in the northernmost province of Dahuk, is home to headmaster Ibraheem Nuri, 60 students, and seven teachers.

Nuri was visibly pleased and proud. "I have been the headmaster at Betas School for many years," he said, "but I never imagined it could be such a wonderful school. I am very happy for the teachers and students."

Nuri and his students took part in the school's ribbon-cutting ceremony. The children presented flowers and refreshments to all invited guests, including local government and tribal representatives.

U.S. Army Col. Kurt Ubellohde, district engineer for the Gulf Region Northern District, and numerous Corps staff members, as well as members from Washington Group International, the company that performed the renovations, also attended the ceremony. Local Kurdish television and U.S. military media chronicled the event.

Renovations to the school included replacing water tanks, water piping, and sewer pipes; installing toilets and sinks; laying a concrete floor and terrazzo tiles; and installing ceiling fans, interior and exterior lights and a school bell. Repairs also were made to the school safety wall.

While Betas School renovation is the 1,000th project, the pristine schoolhouse also serves as a symbol of the 840 planned school projects throughout the country. To date, 171 of these projects are ongoing, and 580 school projects are complete.

Spending on reconstruction projects in Iraq has reached more than $5.5 billion. Thus far, of the 3,200 total planned projects countrywide, 2,389 have started, 1,215 are ongoing, and 1,174 have been completed in the sectors of Buildings, Health, and Education; Oil, Security and Justice; Electricity; Transportation and Communications; and Public Works and Water.

Denise Calabria is assigned to the Gulf Region Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Related Site: Gulf Region Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

<<<<< Army Col. Kurt Ubellohde, district engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Northern District, and local dignitaries cut the ceremonial ribbon at Betas School, the 1,000th project completed by the Gulf Region Division.
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U.S. Department of Defense ~ Denise Calabria ** Benchmark 1,000th Reconstruction Project Completed in Iraq

Indiana Judge rules against Planned Parenthood's sick ass, militant abortion stance protecting rapists
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Indiana Judge Rules Against Planned Parenthood

An Indiana judge ruled Tuesday that Planned Parenthood of Indiana must let state officials review the medical records of 84 girls younger than 14 who visited Planned Parenthood clinics.

The state's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (part of the Attorney General's office) is investigating whether Planned Parenthood failed to report child molestation. Under Indiana law, anyone under 14 who has had sex is presumed to be a victim of molestation.

On Tuesday, a Marion County Superior Court judge refused Planned Parenthood of Indiana's request for an injunction to block the State Attorney General from seizing the medical records.

Planned Parenthood argued that the request for the records was an unreasonable search and an invasion of privacy, but the judge disagreed.

In his ruling, Judge Kenneth Johnson wrote, ""The great public interest in the reporting, investigation, and prosecution of child abuse trumps even the patient's interest in privileged communication with her physician because, in the end, both the patient and the state are benefitted by the disclosure."

Planned Parenthood of Indiana said it will appeal the ruling, which it called a fishing expedition:

"This ruling puts everyone's medical privacy at risk, shaking the very foundation of the doctor-patient relationship that is at the heart of good health care," said Betty Cockrum, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Indiana.

Cockrum said her organization takes very seriously the law regarding the reporting of abuse and neglect. And she urged the state attorney general not to seize the medical records until all appeals are exhausted. (A spokesman for the attorney general agreed to her request.)

"For our clients, trust is the cornerstone of why they choose Planned Parenthood as their provider of vital health services," Cockrum said in a statement on the Planned Parenthood website. "We are a trusted member of the community and work closely with authorities to protect the young women and men in Indiana."

Planned Parenthood said that in March 2005, an agent of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit entered three Planned Parenthood health centers in Indiana, demanding medical information about specific minors who had received reproductive health services.

Planned Parenthood reportedly turned over as many as eight medical files before filing suit. The organization says none of the 84 minors in question had abortions.

Tuesday's ruling in Indiana has rallied pro-life groups in Kansas, where a similar legal case is unfolding.

Kansas Attorney General Phill Klines has ordered Kansas abortion clinics to turn over the medical records of dozens of women and girls who had late-term abortions in 2003. He wants to know how old the patients were and how far their pregnancies had advanced.

In October, a state judge ruled that the clinics must let Kline have the records, and the clinics are now appealing that ruling in the state supreme court.

Cybercast News Service ~ Susan Jones ** Indiana Judge Rules Against Planned Parenthood

Dutch reject Super-Europe too
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: News

Following in the footsteps of France, 63% of Dutch voters rejected ratification of the EU Constitution today. This should save England from having to vote on it and sends the bureaucrats in Brussels back to the drawing board.

Crushing defeat leaves EU vision in tatters

Massive rejection by Dutch voters likely to bury constitution

By Ian Traynor in The Hague and Nicholas Watt in Brussels

European leaders' long-held dream of anchoring the continent's greater unification in its first constitution was dissolving before their eyes last night after the Dutch delivered the second crushing blow to the idea in three days. Given the chance to have their say in their first ever referendum, the Netherlands voted by an overwhelming majority against the treaty establishing a constitution for Europe.

The Dutch rejected the treaty by 61.6% to 38.4% on a high turnout of 62%, according to a tally of almost all the votes.

Both the turnout and the margin of victory for the no camp were substantially higher than opinion polls had predicted.

Following the French rejection of the treaty at the weekend, the second blow from another founding EU member left the European elite reeling and facing the prospect of a protracted period of recrimination, conflict and crisis.

President Jacques Chirac of France said the double negative had laid bare "questions and concerns about the development of the European project". In Germany, the chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, warned that the crisis over the constitution "must not become Europe's general crisis".

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, said the verdict of French and Dutch voters "raises profound questions for all of us about the future direction of Europe".

Although nine of the 25 members have already ratified the treaty, European leaders last night appeared to be inching towards an acceptance that the double no has killed off the constitution. Jose Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, underlined the more nuanced approach when he made no mention of the need to continue with ratification in a statement and late-night press conference.

"It is a difficult moment for Europe," Mr Barroso said, adding that heads of government would decide what to do next at their summit in two weeks. But he warned EU leaders not to abandon the treaty yet. "I think it will not be wise [for] leaders to come with new initiatives or unilateral decisions."

The Dutch revolt against their rulers in The Hague and Brussels was without parallel. For 50 years, the Netherlands has been a stronghold of European integration, home to the Maastricht treaty that produced the most striking instrument of unification - the euro single currency.

As last weekend in France, the no triumph was ascribed to multiple factors all merging into a voters' mutiny.

The three-party centre-right coalition of the Christian democrat prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, is strongly in favour of the constitution. It is also the most unpopular government in living memory.

The Dutch are wary of forfeiting their veto in European policy making. As the biggest per capita net contributors to the Brussels budget, they also feel bullied by the bigger countries and let down by the single currency, seen to have brought steep price rises while the currency's rulebook has been flouted with impunity by Germany and France. The economy is stagnant and unemployment has risen to 7%.

Growing anti-Muslim sentiment, opposition to EU membership for Turkey, and fears over losing control of immigration policy all contributed to the debacle for the pro-European camp, producing a surly and hostile electorate. The no camp was helped rather than hindered by a hapless government pro campaign which was late in getting off the ground and appeared to take the electorate for granted.

Mr Balkenende said he was "very disappointed" but promised to respect the outcome.

"A no is a no," he stated, but added that the ratification process for the con stitution "can continue" in the 14 member states still to state their views.

For Europe as a whole, the next weeks and months, coinciding with the British assumption of the EU presidency, seem likely to produce bitter clashes on everything from Turkish accession and enlargement to budget agreements and economic policy. There is also the question of what can be salvaged from the constitution, which took two years to be agreed.

In a sign of the changed atmosphere in Brussels, the leader of the Socialist group in the European parliament backed away from his strident calls for ratification to continue. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the president of the Party of European Socialists, said: "It is now up to the European heads of government to come forward with a proposal for tack ling the institutional issues which the constitution is intended to resolve. The future of the constitution must be clarified."

Tony Blair is confident fellow European leaders will eventually accept it is impossible to soldier on after such emphatic rejection by France and the Netherlands. But he accepts it may take time for Mr Chirac to concede that the constitution is dead.

UK Guardian ~ Ian Traynor and Nicholas Watt ** Crushing defeat leaves EU vision in tatters

American lawyers swarm Gitmo
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

You saw this coming. The FBI, Newsweek and then Amnesty International have nicked the swimmer and now the attorneys smell blood. Lawyers are pouring into the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay to make sure that people who used to live in caves are happy with the hospitality of the U.S. taxpayer.

American Lawyers Swarm Guantanamo Bay Detention Center

By Jim Kouri, Vice President of the National Association of Chiefs of Police

The good news is that there are fewer slip-and-fall lawyers in the United States today. The bad news is that there are more slip-and-fall shysters in Cuba. No, they're not going to visit Fidel Castro, although I wouldn't put it past ACLU attorneys to stop by and visit with the Left's favorite dictator. These lawyers are going to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to represent the terrorists and enemy combatants being held and processed at the much maligned military prison. Life is a trade-off: fewer shysters in the US; more of them on a military facility in the Caribbean.

The latest controversy to rattle the cages of the Liberal-Left are the allegations of abuse -- abuse against Korans... excuse me... Holy Korans. The very same Holy Korans that were distributed, at US taxpayers' expense, to those who wish to decapitate, butcher and kill Americans.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff took strong exception to recent media reports of systemic torture and abuse of prisoners at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The International Committee of the Red Cross "has been at Guantanamo since day one," Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "It is essentially a model facility."

Myers noted that the United States spends $2.5 million annually just to ensure that detainees have a proper Muslim-approved diet.

"We've passed out 1,600 Korans in 13 different languages. We've gone to extraordinary lengths to treat people humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions," Myers told Bob Schieffer on the CBS News program "Face the Nation." "We get good marks for the way we take care of people."

The US military has had about 68,000 detainees in custody in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan, Myers said. There have been 325 investigations of alleged mistreatment, 100 of which have been documented. Some investigations are still pending.

Myers said that in the 100 cases where mistreatment has been substantiated, US military personnel have been disciplined -- sometimes quite seriously by court martial. There has been a range of punishments, depending on the severity of the crime, he explained.

Moreover, not all detainee deaths have occurred because of mistreatment. Myers noted that "some people have died from natural causes," and every instance of abuse was brought to light by US military personnel. "We want to treat people humanely," he said.

The number of incidents is "very small compared to the population of detainees that we've handled," Myers told Fox News' Chris Wallace.

The chairman called allegations of torture at Guantanamo false and "absolutely irresponsible." Myers disagreed with contentions made this week by Amnesty International. The human rights group this week said "the US government is a leading purveyor and practitioner of this odious human rights violation." The group also described Guantanamo as "the Gulag of our time." Former Soviet slave labor camps where millions of people died were known as the Gulag.

Myers said Amnesty International is seriously misusing the term Gulag and misapplying it to Guantanamo. "I think I'd ask them to go look up the definition of Gulag as it is commonly understood," he said.

Nonetheless, Wallace observed, allegations of torture and abuse at Guantanamo have sparked widespread media coverage and worldwide protests by disaffected Muslims. "What or who do you think is driving these demonstrations around the world?" he asked.

Myers said that some protests were premeditated provocations -- "planned before the Koran story came out in a magazine."

The Koran story is a reference to a recent allegation in Newsweek magazine that US military personnel flushed a Koran down the toilet. Newsweek later retracted the story. The US military investigated the charge and reported this week that there have been five instances in which the Koran was mishandled. Three of those errors were intentional, and none involved flushing the Koran down the toilet.

Myers noted "instructions for handling the Koran [at Guantanamo Bay] are very detailed."

"I think what contributes to this ... is sometimes the relish on some people's part to play up what I consider to be a very minor piece of this whole effort -- and I don't know why they do that," he said. "I don't know why they relish focusing on this."

Myers said that real outrage ought to be directed at the terrorists who are beheading and killing innocent men, women and children.

He mentioned specifically the murder of Sergio Vieira de Mello, who had headed up the United Nations mission in Iraq; the slaying of Margaret Hassan, "who spent essentially her entire life caring for Iraqi children"; and the beheading of a Japanese worker in Iraq.

All of these innocents, Myers told Schieffer, were killed by "savage, mass-murdering people who will stop at nothing to promote their ideology and their view of the world."

The chairman did acknowledge that there is a real debate to be had about Guantanamo, and it is: "How do you handle people who aren't part of a nation-state effort that are picked up on the battlefield?"

If you release them or let them return to their home countries, he explained, they will revert to their evil and violent ways. "These are the [type of] people that took four airplanes and drove them into three buildings on Sept. 11," Myers said.

"And we struggle of course because this is a different kind of struggle, a different kind of war; we struggle with how to handle them," he said. "But we've always handled them humanely and with the dignity that they should be accorded."

Sources: US Department of Defense, Fox News Channel, CBS News, National Security Institute

Mens News Daily ~ Jim Kouri ** American Lawyers Swarm Guantanamo Bay Detention Center

More Dems voting with GOP in the House
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

Dems are consistently switching parties in large numbers to give the GOP comfortable wins in the House. This is a reflection of the strong support President Bush shares in their home districts, concerns about mid-term elections and chaos in the Dem leadership.

'Purple power' pulls new laws through House

Many Democrats from moderate districts vote with the Republicans on House measures.

By Gail Russell Chaddock

WASHINGTON – Despite the partisan saber- rattling on Capitol Hill, a significant number of votes in the GOP-controlled House are passing with broad Democratic support.

It's a trend that surprises analysts who have noticed the numbers, and it hints at a structural advantage for the GOP as it presses its agenda heading into 2006 elections.

Call it purple power. Although Republican control of the House of Representatives is narrow - a margin of just 30 seats out of 435 total - some 20 percent of House Democrats come from districts that President Bush carried in 2004. Only 8 percent of Republicans come from districts carried by Sen. John Kerry in the presidential vote. In a landscape where most districts are clearly red (Republican) or blue (Democrat), these purple areas represent seats that could be vulnerable.

That looming reality, analysts say, is one of the factors that explains why some Democrats have crossed over to vote with the GOP on issues from tax cuts to abortion.

"For all the focus we've put ... on the growing rift in the Republican discipline, we need to also take a look at how tough it is on the Democratic side, especially for incumbents who sit in Republican districts," says Amy Walter, a congressional analyst for the Cook Political Report.

Wide range of issues at stake

The recent votes with Democratic support include issues backed by pro-business lobbyists: $70 billion in tax-cut provisions in the fiscal 2006 budget resolution, tightening rules for people who file for bankruptcy protection, and limiting class-action lawsuits. Democrats have also lined up with Republicans on some issues important to social conservatives: strict requirements for the use of driver's licenses as IDs and for parental notification when a minor crosses state lines to get an abortion.

On a bankruptcy bill that Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi said would create "modern-day indentured servants," 73 Democrats voted with the Republican majority. Fifty Democrats voted with GOP leaders on class-action reform; 42 on tightening requirements for driver's licenses, 42 for a permanent repeal of the estate tax, 41 on the energy bill, 71 on a gang deterrence bill l that some Democrats said unfairly targeted immigrants, and 54 on abortion notification.

For many of these votes, about half of the Democratic swing support came from the so-called purple-district Democrats, who may be positioning themselves for the 2006 elections.

Support is also coming from some members of the congressional black caucus, which traditionally has given Democrats the strongest party-line voting records in the House.

GOP leaders say it's a sign that their agenda is able to win broad, bipartisan support, even in a highly polarized environment. "It's a sign that we're pursuing good public policy, in the mainstream," says Rep. David Dreier (R) of California, chairman of the House Rules Committee.

In response, Democratic leaders note that none of the votes with big defections from their ranks were designated as party-line votes. "On the issues that make Democrats Democrats, we are strongly united, such as strengthening Social Security, protecting the environment, education, healthcare, and national security," says Jennifer Crider, a spokesman for Democratic leader Pelosi. "On the big fights, Democrats stick together."

But the 2006 electoral landscape is clearly coloring decisions on which votes come to be defined as defining for Democrats, analysts say. And it's giving the GOP House leadership more scope for moving its own agenda, with or without cooperation from Democratic leadership.

"If they're a Democrat from a red district, they have to be looking over their shoulders all the time, and [these votes] are a good way to demonstrate to the Republican-leaning independents in their districts that they have indeed sided with the GOP on a certain number of leading issues," says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

"Why would the Democratic leadership lean on their vulnerable members?" he adds. "They are going to reserve the pressure for a few matters that really matter - and Social Security is the most obvious."

In addition to the electoral calculus, business groups have worked with Republican leaders to build support for issues such as tax cuts, bankruptcy reform, and class-action reform from the grass roots, especially targeting vulnerable Democrats.

More than half of the Democratic votes for repeal of the estate tax, dubbed by Republicans the "death tax," came from Democrats in districts that Bush carried in 2004.

Similarly, nearly half the votes for bankruptcy overhaul and class-action reform came from this same 20 percent of the Democratic caucus.

"In the House, everybody needs a record every two years," says Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, which spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying for a law to shift class-action lawsuits from state to federal courts. "If the only thing your party stands for is obstruction, there's not much to run on. [Former Senate Democratic leader Tom] Daschle learned that last year," Mr. Josten says.

Republicans also buck leaders

Last week's vote to lift federal restrictions on stem-cell research marked a critical mass of Republicans also willing to buck their leadership - and to buck President Bush, who he'll veto the bill. The 50 Republicans who voted against this bill included more than half of those in districts won by Kerry in 2004.

"When the klieg lights are turned off, and no one is watching, it's amazing how much bipartisanship you can find on Capitol Hill," says Michael Frank, a congressional analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Democrats who have supported GOP positions say it's a mistake to interpret their votes as a broad endorsement of the Republican agenda.

"Most of these Democratic votes were to protect themselves from attacks for being weak on crime or taxes - not out of affection for Republican or their agenda," says Rep. James Moran (D) of Virginia, who is working with Congressman Dreier to build bipartisan support for CAFTA, the Central America Free Trade Agreement.

Democratic support will be critical if the president is to win this vote, because many Republicans from manufacturing states hit by existing free-trade agreements plan to oppose it. "A lot of Democrats feel that the CAFTA votes is important for Central America, but don't want to go on record until the last minute because of fear that opposition from the Democratic leadership and its allies will make political life miserable for the next few months," he says.

Christian Science Monitor ~ Gail Russell Chaddock ** 'Purple power' pulls new laws through House

Math looks bad for Dems in Senate
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

GOP consolidation in a larger number of states is dashing the Dems’ hopes for regaining the Senate any time soon. The concentration of Blue state voters makes them somewhat competitive in the Electoral College and the House but the Senate is another story. If the Dems do not stem the tide in the northeast and win back some of the south and mid-west then they cannot win the Senate.

Math Doesn't Add Up for a Democrat-Run Senate

The party needs to win seats in Bush territory for any realistic chance to retake the chamber.

WASHINGTON — Growing Republican dominance of Senate seats in states where George W. Bush has run best looms as the principal obstacle for Democrats hoping to retake the chamber in 2006 or beyond.

With the recent struggle over judicial nominations underscoring the stakes, the battle for Senate control could attract unprecedented levels of money and energy next year.

Democrats are optimistic about their chances of ousting GOP senators in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, states that voted for Democratic presidential candidates John F. Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000. But the Democrats are unlikely to regain a Senate majority — in 2006 or soon thereafter — unless they can reverse the GOP consolidation of Senate seats in states that have supported Bush.

Since 2000, both parties have gained Senate seats in the states they typically carry in presidential campaigns. But this political partitioning provides a clear advantage for Republicans because so many more states backed Bush in his bids for the presidency.

If Democrats only gain in their part of the map, "it's like saying, 'We're going to win more home games but never worry about road games,' " said Matthew Dowd, a political advisor to the Republican National Committee and senior strategist for Bush's reelection campaign. "They could have a great home record but never win a majority."

Republicans control 55 Senate seats and Democrats 44, with Vermont independent James M. Jeffords holding the final spot. In next year's midterm election, Republicans will defend 15 seats and Democrats 17. And Vermont voters will choose a successor to Jeffords, who is retiring.

As the parties approach these contests, the political divide familiar from presidential campaigns figures ever more prominently in their calculations.

Twenty-nine states voted for Bush in 2000 and in 2004. Republicans now hold 44 of the 58 Senate seats in those so-called red states. That's a much higher percentage of in-party Senate seats than Presidents Reagan and Clinton were able to claim in states they carried twice.

More important, on the strength of those states alone, the GOP is on the brink of a majority in the 100-member Senate.

Democrats are just as strong in the states that voted for Kerry and Gore. But there are only 18 of those so-called blue states; Democrats hold 28 of those 36 Senate seats.

Republicans also hold four of the Senate seats in the three states that switched parties from 2000 to 2004 — New Mexico, New Hampshire and Iowa.

This distribution makes it virtually impossible for Democrats to regain a majority simply by defeating GOP senators from blue states, such as their two top targets for 2006 — Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania and Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island.

Whatever happens in those races, the Democrats' ability to win Republican-held Senate seats next year in red states such as Montana, Tennessee and Missouri — and to defend their seats in red states such as Nebraska, Florida and North Dakota — may reveal more about their long-term prospects of regaining a Senate majority.

Democratic pollster Geoff Garin noted that in the last two elections, Democrats have come close to taking the White House, even though they've lost more states than they've won. That's because the high-population states they did win — such as New York and California — have large numbers of electoral college votes. But, regardless of population, each state has two Senate seats, so Democrats must compete on a broader map to realistically contend for a Senate majority.

"You can cobble together a viable electoral college strategy with a minority of states, but you simply can't cobble together a Senate majority that way," Garin said.

As recently as the 1980s, it was common for states to split their ballots in presidential and Senate contests.

But the sharpening partisan edge of modern politics has made it tougher for senators to survive — in effect, behind enemy lines — in states that consistently prefer the other party in presidential campaigns.

The result has been a decline in the Southern Democrats, who bucked the region's growing preference for GOP presidential candidates, and in the Northeastern Republicans, who overcame their area's Democratic tide in national campaigns.

Forty-four states supported Ronald Reagan for president in 1980 and 1984. But partly because of lingering Democratic strength in the South, Republicans after 1984 controlled only 48 of the 88 Senate seats in those states, about 55%.

The trend toward consolidation gained momentum in the 1990s. Bill Clinton won 29 states twice. After his second victory, Democrats held 35 of the 58 Senate seats in those states, or 60%.

In the elections of 2000, 2002 and 2004, Republicans gained a net of six Senate seats in the red states that Bush carried twice. Democrats added four Senate seats in the blue states that twice voted against Bush; Republicans lost another blue-state Senate seat when Jeffords quit the GOP in 2001.

Republicans now hold 76% of the red-state Senate seats; Democrats 78% of the blue-state Senate seats.

This division has reshaped the political landscape most profoundly in the South. Under Bush, the GOP has won the last nine open Southern Senate seats, including five seats vacated by retiring Democrats in 2004. In all, Republicans now control 18 of the 22 Senate seats in the 11 states of the old Confederacy, compared to just 10 of those seats after Reagan's 1984 landslide.

One of the losing 2004 Southern Democratic Senate candidates, who asked not to be identified while criticizing his party, said today's highly partisan atmosphere had undermined strategies that once let the region's Democrats survive even as GOP presidential candidates carried their states.

In that era, the former candidate noted, Southern Democrats won by emphasizing independence and willingness to work across party lines. But today, the candidate said, many Southerners seem deeply reluctant to help Democrats regain Senate control and strengthen their hand against Bush.

"They were very worried about the Democrats having a majority," the candidate said.

Democratic strategists acknowledge that such partisan attitudes represent a huge problem for them in the Deep South. But they believe that in other red states, Senate races may turn more on local factors.

Democrats are most optimistic about contesting Republican-held seats in Tennessee, where Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. is the likely Democratic nominee for the seat being vacated by retiring Majority Leader Bill Frist; in Montana, where Democratic State Auditor John Morrison has begun raising money to challenge Republican Conrad Burns around economic themes; and possibly in Missouri, where Democratic polls have shown some vulnerability for first-term Republican Jim Talent.

But Democrats also must defend five incumbents seeking reelection in red states, with Florida's Bill Nelson, Nebraska's Ben Nelson and North Dakota's Kent Conrad facing potentially difficult races in states Bush carried handily.

In all these races, Republicans are likely to portray the Democrats as obstructionists whose election would empower liberals to block Bush's agenda.

Against such attacks, the Democratic candidates must walk a tightrope, motivating their base with criticism of the GOP agenda while defending themselves against the Republican charges by promising to work across party lines.

In Montana, for instance, Morrison is opposing Bush's plan to carve out private investment accounts from Social Security, but also presenting himself as a common-sense, bipartisan problem-solver.

"Most of the worthwhile public policy gets done somewhere in the center," Morrison said.

In Pennsylvania, the Democratic success in recruiting socially conservative State Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr., the son of the former governor, to challenge Santorum has made that race the early choice as the marquee Senate contest for 2006.

But the fate of red-state Democrats like Morrison should offer a better measure of whether the party can topple the Republican majority pressing its advantages so forcefully.

LA Times ~ Ronald Brownstein ** Math Doesn't Add Up for a Democrat-Run Senate

Racist Barry Bonds won?t ''sign (autographs) for white people''
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

An author is claiming that, in addition to being a jerk, Barry Bonds is a racist. He was asked to sign some jerseys to be auctioned off for a children’s cancer charity. The author claimed that, in front of several witnesses, Bonds made the racists statement and walked off.

Kittle Book

Charity case? Barry, Barry disappointing

Ron Kittle is no fan of Barry Bonds — not after his tense encounter with the slugger at Wrigley Field in 1993. Here's an excerpt from Kittle's book, describing how he approached Bonds with a couple of Bonds' game-worn San Francisco Giants road jerseys, asking him to autograph them for an auction for Kittle's charity for children with cancer:

"I paid about $110 of my own money for them, so they could be auctioned off at the golf outing. I did that all the time for stars like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Derek Jeter and Roger Clemens. When I tell them how their autographs help the cause, every player gladly signs — with one exception.

I walked up to Bonds at his locker in the Wrigley Field visitors' clubhouse, introduced myself and said, "Barry, if you sign these, they'll bring in a lot of money for kids who need help."

Bonds stood up, looked me in the eye and said, "I don't sign for white people." If lightning hits me today, I will swear those were his exact words. Matt Williams and other Giants were in the room and they heard what Bonds said.

I stood there for a minute, and the veins in my neck were popping. I've only been that mad a few times in my life. I was going to beat the (heck) out of him, really kick his (butt), but Williams saw what was happening, so he came over and got between us. Matt said, "Ron, that's just the way he is."

I said, "White guys aren't the only ones who get cancer," but Bonds had turned his back on me and walked out of the clubhouse. Somebody must have run in and alerted Dusty Baker, who was the manager of the Giants then.

So Dusty came out of his office, put his arm around me, gave me a big old hug and said, "Aw, Kitty, he's just got that (bad) attitude again." Dusty gave me an autographed team ball for the auction, but I never got the Bonds jerseys signed. Later, I gave one of them to Scott Paulson, the Wilson sporting goods representative, and shredded the other one. But that day, I drove from Wrigley Field at about 150 miles per hour and sat there, fuming.

I'll never forget what that man said. So if Barry Bonds is looking for a breath of fresh air to live and I'm the only one who has to give it to him, unfortunately, the man will die. I just don't like guys like that."

Asked about the incident, Kittle replied, "It's a true story. How could I make up something like that?"

Bonds' spokeswoman declined comment on Kittle's story. A Giants team spokesman also declined comment.

Chicago - Daily Southtown ** Kittle Book

Illinois Democrats pass fiscal 2006 budget ~ borrow and spend
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Illinois Democrats pass fiscal 2006 budget

CHICAGO - Democratic lawmakers in the Illinois General Assembly pushed through a $43.6 billion fiscal 2006 operating budget late Tuesday, beating a midnight deadline that would have required a super-majority vote on budget bills, state officials said Wednesday.

But the move by the Democrat-controlled legislature angered Republicans who have voiced concerns over some of the measures used to eliminate a $1.1 billion structural deficit and provide more money for schools, health care and other programs.

"It's more borrowing and spending ... money we don't have," said David Dring, spokesman for House Republican Leader Tom Cross.

Dring pointed to the Democrats' plan to defer billions of dollars in payments to state pension funds over several years. But Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration has said the approximately $1.2 billion for the fiscal 2006 budget was savings from a package of pension reforms passed by lawmakers.

The legality of the pension plan has already been questioned by the state's Republican treasurer Judy Baar Topinka. The new budget also taps about $166 million in surpluses from special state funds, a move repeated from the last budget that has also raised constitutional concerns.

The budget also relies on a rosier revenue estimate that would add an additional $200 million to state coffers, and about $250 million in cuts and revenue enhancements and other measures.

Plans to increase cigarette taxes, expand casino gambling and explore selling off the state's student loan portfolio fizzled. The top riverboat casino tax would fall to 50 percent from 70 percent, but the state would be held harmless for two years in terms of the amount of revenue it would receive, said Becky Carroll, a budget office spokeswoman.

Blagojevich, a Democrat, applauded the new budget, saying it will increase primary and secondary school funding by $330 million and generate more than $600 million in federal funds for hospitals through an assessment plan.

Even with the hike in school funding, the Chicago Public Schools said it would have to continue to lay off workers to plug a $175 million fiscal 2006 budget hole. Large school districts in Illinois had called for a $600 million funding boost.

Lawmakers also passed a $10.8 billion capital budget that did not include new bond authorization, Carroll said, adding that bond sales from previous authorizations were set at $1.1 billion in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Washington Post ~ Reuters ** Illinois Democrats pass fiscal 2006 budget

Compromise Could Backfire on Democrats
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

No need for GOP outrage
By Tod Lindberg

The Republican Party is in political trouble as a result of the compromise on judicial nominees, but the situation is hardly beyond recovery: Democrats, too, are in some peril.

As matters stand, in accordance with the deal struck by seven Democratic senators and seven GOP senators, two of President Bush's appellate-court nominees will continue to be filibustered, will accordingly never reach the Senate floor and will therefore in all likelihood be withdrawn by the White House.

Many conservative Republicans think this is an outrage. And there is a distinct possibility that, if conditions persist, by November 2006 outrage will have turned to dismay and demoralization, with the result that GOP base turnout will be depressed: a classic scenario for the opposition party to pick up seats in Congress.

Whence the outrage? It is, simply, the conviction among party activists that "moderate" Republicans in the Senate sold out principle on judicial nominees. The principle is that all judicial nominees deserve an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor, especially if such a vote would yield the majority required for confirmation. The idea that the hurdle judicial nominees have to clear is 60 votes — the number Senate rules require to end a filibuster — is a bald-faced minority hijacking of the Senate's "advice and consent" responsibility, in the view of the party's activist wing. And seven Republicans have now gone along with this hijacking by refusing to agree to pass by majority vote a rule change that would stop the abuse of the filibuster.

Under the compromise, Democrats will have bagged two of the nominees they targeted. But three will make it through. And here, one ought to take pause. If this had been, from the beginning, a fight over a Democratic effort to block two of the president's nominees by any and all of the ample means of chicanery available to members of the Senate, including the filibuster, and if it had been successful, Republicans would have been steamed. But they would not have worked themselves into anything like their current lather.

There would have been no talk of a "nuclear option" or a "constitutional option" to change the Senate rules. The general rhetorical point that nominees deserve an up-or-down vote would be declared in full knowledge that the history of the process shows Republicans and Democrats alike acting to keep the other side's nominees from getting to the Senate floor. The notion that there is something somehow "unconstitutional" about the Senate's rules would never have arisen or, if it did, it would have been dismissed as no more than a rhetorical flourish. And Republicans would probably be pleased by the confirmation of nominees of such quality as the three who are going through.

Now, if you want to really aggravate your own people, what you should do is elevate an issue to a position of maximum prominence, localize the argument around your maximal demands and the maximal means of achieving them, build the expectation that anything less than total victory is utter defeat, keep the issue at a rolling boil for about two solid months in which nothing else much is going on politically — then lose control of the process in such a fashion that an outcome that would have been entirely acceptable in any past context looks to your side like you have been routed.

I thought Democrats would have a hard time accepting any of the filibustered nominees. To a degree, that's true. But they seem to be exhibiting a certain amount of tactical flexibility. And that makes sense, because Republicans are, in the immortal phrase of Weekly World News columnist Ed Anger, "pig-biting mad." What to do? Well, this has all really been about the Supreme Court, hasn't it?

To recover, the White House needs exactly the right nominee for chief justice should William Rehnquist step down. That would be Justice Antonin Scalia. (Justice Clarence Thomas would solve the problem with the right, but would create an opportunity for Democrats to try to block the appointment in a way that Justice Scalia doesn't.) It will then be up to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to persuade the seven GOP dealmakers that a Democratic filibuster of Justice Scalia would be unacceptable under the terms of their deal. After all, Justice Scalia's elevation would do nothing to the balance on the court, and the idea that the constitutionally mandated position of chief justice of the United States would sit vacant because of a Democratic filibuster of a nominee who is already on the court and commands majority support in the Senate is outrageous. It will be up to the GOP seven to make that position clear to their seven Democratic counterparts.

Who, then, takes the Scalia seat? From the vantage of optimal GOP political impact, one of the three who get through according to the terms of this deal. They will just have been confirmed in accordance with it; it would be difficult for the Democratic seven to switch sides and now argue "extraordinary" unacceptability.

That's the point at which Democrats might begin to regret (and Republicans grudgingly accept) last week's deal.

Washington Times ~ Tod Lindberg ** No need for GOP outrage

Social Security plan backed in new poll
Mood:  party time!
Topic: News

Social Security plan backed in new poll

Most likely voters continue to support President Bush's proposal to let younger workers invest some of their Social Security payroll taxes through personal accounts, a new survey finds.

The poll by independent pollster John Zogby for the Cato Institute, which is being released today, found that when voters understood the benefits of personal investment accounts, including a better financial rate of return than the current system, the Bush plan was supported by 52 percent of Americans and opposed by 40 percent.

"The thing that is compelling in this poll is that this is the response you get when you use a positive approach on Social Security reform," Mr. Zogby said. "If you use the 'Chicken Little, sky-is-falling' approach, then voters understand that something has to be done, but don't see the connection between personal accounts and fundamental reform of Social Security."

"There are a large number of voters, especially those under 50, who don't think they are getting the best possible deal from Social Security," he said.

As in past surveys on the president's personal-accounts proposal, strongest support comes from younger voters under age 30, who embrace the idea by a margin of 66 percent to 23 percent.

Support declines somewhat among voters between 30 and 50, with 58 percent in favor versus 37 percent who oppose it.

Voters over 65 oppose personal accounts 52 percent to 40 percent and those over 70 oppose them by 55 percent to 38 percent.

The survey also contained a warning for the Democrats about how their opposition to any reform of the Social Security system is playing with the electorate.

"By an overwhelming 70-22 percent margin, voters believe that opponents of President Bush's proposals for Social Security reform have an obligation to put out their own plan for reforming the program," including 55 percent of Democratic voters, Mr. Zogby said in a report of his findings.

Among supporters, the most popular reason for supporting private accounts was, "It's my money; I should control it," Mr. Zogby said. "This was true for every group except African-Americans, who chose inheritability as their biggest reason for supporting accounts."

The poll's results suggested that Mr. Bush's proposal would be much more popular if he focused "on the points in this poll," Mr. Zogby said in an interview.

"Nobody can understand or relate to the system's insolvency in 2043. But it wins a majority when the issue is raised as a matter of choice and as a positive opportunity," he said. "If it's pitted as just Social Security reform because it is becoming insolvent, that's not enough."

Among the poll's other findings:

♠ Support was strongest (57 percent to 36 percent) in the "red states" that Mr. Bush carried in his 2004 re-election. Support split more evenly (48 percent to 44 percent) in the Democratic "blue states" that Sen. John Kerry won.

♠ Voters by 62 percent to 30 percent remained deeply skeptical about Social Security's promise to pay future benefits. Skepticism was highest among younger voters, with more than 70 percent saying they doubted that the system would be able to pay their benefits when they reached retirement age.

The poll of 1,006 likely voters was conducted May 23-25 and has a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.

Washington Times ~ Donald Lambro ** Social Security plan backed in new poll