PSoTD

Last year I asked my blogroll this question:

What does the federal holiday, "Labor Day", really mean to you?

A lot of you posted. But now I want to ask you all a slightly different question to consider in the next week.

What should the federal holiday, "Labor Day", mean to America? And how should we appropriately honor the day?

If you choose to post on this question, let me know and I'll link to it next week.

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Do you want to know why people want the wealthy taxed at a higher percentage? And inheritance taxes? Maybe things like this are part of it...

Leona Helmsley's decision to leave $12 million to her dog so it could live out its life in luxury proved once and for all that she was not one of the little people.

It's because the middle class, and the poor, see lots and lots of examples where the super-wealthy have no freaking clue how to wisely spend their money after they're not around to spend it. 12 million could do a lot of good, and maybe it eventually will after this dog dies, but not due to Leona Helmsley's vision.

From Hampden Township

Trick-or-Treat night will be held Thursday October 25th from 6 to 8 p.m.

Good grief. That's almost a week from the real Halloween. What is the possible difference between holding it on a Thursday and holding it on a Wednesday. The artificial need for consistency on this is watering down the holiday.

There's a real reason for the township to avoid holding trick-or-treat on a Friday or Saturday night - the theory being that kids are less watched on weekend nights, can stay up later, parents hire babysitters, etc., so there's more opportunity for kids to create mischief. Better to hold it on a school night.

But I absolutely don't understand the theory of taking it from a Wednesday night and moving it almost a week prior.

Here's a funny thing about those conservative bloggers actually attacking the police for the arrest: Larry Craig pled guilty.

As for this thought:

Perhaps we should get rid of the fools in the party.

Maybe you should start with Larry Craig.

I swear, Bush comes off as a stooge, even on the White House web site. He does not, and can not, lead, even his own administration. About the Gonzales resignation:

After months of unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department, Judge Gonzales decided to resign his position, and I accept his decision. It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.

Never mind the whinyass crying about "politics" from a guy who pushed for the most politicized administration ever - Mr. 50% plus 1 can pout all he wants about that. No, it's this part:

"created a harmful distraction at the Justice Department"

we should really focus on. Bush knew this? And refused to do anything about it. And would have kept on allowing it to happen unless Gonzales quit? Who thinks that is leadership?

Following an idiot doesn't make the idiot a leader. It just proves the followers are stupid.

From Alberto Gonzales' resignation statement:

Even my worst days as Attorney General have been better than my father’s best days.

I wonder what his father would think about that. Wedding day, birth of kids, graduations... better than all that? Wow, Alberto must really think his father's life sucked.

The Moderate Voice has more.

Literally... there seems to be a rash of "anti-sagging" ordinances around the country.

Whoever Larry Craig really is, it's apparent that he's not able to stand up for the important decisions he's actually making for himself. Which makes him pretty sad.

United Mine Workers of America sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, calling on Congress to appoint "an independent, bi-partisan committee of coal mine safety experts to investigate the Crandall Canyon disaster."

And it's going to happen...

The House Labor Committee chairman on Monday asked Murray Energy Corp. to turn over a slew of documents related to the Crandall Canyon mine, saying the recent tragic events there "raise many troubling questions."

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who heads the committee with oversight of federal mine regulators, requested the company produce 13 different categories of internal documents, including any complaints or transfer requests by miners, engineering studies and even pre-shift and on-shift exam books regarding the safety of the mine.

"Specifically, I am concerned about the safety of the mining operation at Crandall Canyon and the stewardship of mine operations" by Murray Energy and it's subsidiary, UtahAmerica Energy Inc., leading up to the mine accident that has cost three rescuers lives and possibly six more feared dead, Miller wrote to the company's legal counsel Monday.

First of all, people really need to start defining what they mean by "winning the war".

And they need to quit moving the goalposts. Be honest. Here's how America is going to decide on the Iraq War: they will assess the real costs of "winning the war" versus the real costs of "losing the war" and they'll vote accordingly. Right now, it looks to me that most Americans think the cost, in blood, money, future status of the American military AND the American reputation, is much higher to "win the war" than it is to "lose the war", however defined. That's why people polled wanted us to get out of Iraq. They've made a gut level decision.

Why gut level? Because that's really all they have. Most of what they get from the Bush Administration and conservative pundits looks like pie-in-the-sky fantasy, and they're not willing to bet on that when they're getting rising death totals and stories about a depleted military and bubbling questions about reinstating the draft. They get platitudes from the Republicans, not much more from the Democrats, and statistics in the news media.

Statistics mean more than platitudes to Americans. A realistic longterm game plan means more than platitudes to Americans. Be honest, quit talking in terms of September 2007 and start talking in terms of September 2017 if you're interested in convincing Americans about "winning the war". Because 2006 showed that they're going to vote against who they think are more platitudinous for the war.

I'm not quite sure that's enough at this point (for him). Actions should have consequences.

Definitely not enough for this administration.

So what's the union going to do about the Federal Government disappearing behind the mine owner for all things public in the Utah Mine tragedy?

One of the things that comes out of the Bush Administration on a pretty regular basis is the practice of discounting. What's the true cost of the Iraq War? They won't give us the cost, in casualties, in money, without a discount - it's always the lowest number they can try to force on the public.

When you have to sell crap, you have to discount. Sure, it's crap, but it's half off, or a third of the price, etc. You can never go beyond platitudes to describe your crap, but you can always keep cutting the cost. "It makes your life better, and at half the price of the other guys!" It's still crap not worth even close to the price, but it's cheaper than what the other guy is pushing.

Bush treats the Iraq War like something sold in a dollar store, and unfortunately, that's actually an insult to those stores.

That's what this "surge is working" chant really is. Here's some actual metrics to judge the surge by.

According to this article, public nudity is losing its power to shock.

The practice has seemed to be overused the past few years. More importantly, maybe we shouldn't find the naked body as shocking anyway - so maybe this is a good thing in a way.

On the other hand, I shudder to think what kind of natural things protesters might find to use for "shock value" in the future. Poop ins?

George W. Bush hopes to rig federal regulations to prevent children and low income families from getting health insurance.

In order to keep the program focused on low-income children, the Bush administration has notified state officials that before they can enroll children from families earning above 250 percent of the federal poverty level — $51,625 for a family of four — states must first enroll at least 95 percent of children from families earning below twice the poverty level.

Dennis Smith, director of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations, said the new requirement is "aggressive, but doable."

State officials and Congressional Democrats such as Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark, D-Calif., disagreed.

"There aren't any states that are going to get 95 percent of people signed into these programs," Stark said. "They have set a hurdle that's impossible. They might as well just come out and say let's kick kids off the rolls."

Catherine Hess, senior program director at the National Academy for State Health Policy, said Vermont has the nation's highest enrollment rate at roughly 92 percent.

Another new requirement calls for new enrollees above 250 percent of poverty to go without insurance for a year before they can enroll in SCHIP. The new rules also require the new higher income enrollees to pay co-payments or premiums that are roughly what they'd pay in the private market.

In 2006, the average premium for health insurance for a family of four was $11,500. - and increasing nearly ten percent a year. Good luck fitting that into a $60,000 family budget.

Why does George Bush hate poor kids?

Yeah, I know this is a Republican trick to increase votes for their guy in the general election, but it's also a great way to water down the importance of California as a Presidential battleground, too.

California voters are inclined to support a proposed ballot initiative that would change how the Golden State allocates its electoral votes in presidential campaigns, but they're not yet sold on the idea, a Field Poll released today showed.

Currently, California employs a winner-take-all system that awards the state's entire 55 electoral votes to the winner of the state's popular vote.

Under the proposed measure, which could be on the June 2008 ballot, the presidential election would become, in essence, a congressional district-by-congressional district contest. The winner of the statewide popular vote would receive two electoral votes, but the remaining votes would go to the winner in each of the 53 congressional districts.

Let's just say, for argument's sakes, that this change might create a split, such as 33 votes for the Democrat, and 22 votes for the Republican. That's a difference of 11 votes.

That's Tennessee. That's Indiana. California will be lessening their importance, in the overall scheme of total votes, to the value of those states. If that's what they want to do, they'll be regretting their loss of power in Presidential politics.

I wish I could say otherwise, but this doesn't seem to me to be a surprising situation for the mine owner/miner families/government to find themselves in at this point.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, at least publicly, it seems that Bob Murray has been a big problem. I won't argue his motivations since I can't know them. But he has come across terribly on television, and done so rather continually. Whether he's doing so or not, he's appeared to be inaccurate and perhaps dissembling. In addition, he's really made little public effort towards "expectation management" - he's built up this possibility all this time that the miners were alive, even though there was no evidence indicating such. He also built up an expectation of a "rescue" that would come sooner than this. We can all be hopeful and optimistic, but it has to be tempered officially with a grimmer potential reality.

But Bob Murray isn't necessarily trained to do these things, and really shouldn't have been the public spokesperson for rescue efforts after the first day or two. There needed to be a dispassionate, focused, believable, trusted voice for this effort, one with nothing other than mine safety in general as a priority, speaking to the public. This did not happen, for reasons that are beyond me. If this had been an airline crash, we'd see NTSB or FBI taking the lead with information to the public - not an airline CEO. If this had been a sinking cruise ship at sea, we'd hear from the Coast Guard, not the cruise line. The government would take charge, privately and publicly. This has not happened here, at least on the public side, and that's been a problem since the beginning.

Note to Hillary, as the frontrunner, and to any other candidate who is thinking about the calculations involved in selecting a Vice Presidential candidate: I don't care about geography, and I don't care about gender or race. I care about the direction of this country. I do not want to see a repeat of the mistake made by Gore and the Democrats in 2000 with the Lieberman selection, because whoever is selected is likely to be (eventually) a heavyweight candidate in a Presidential election, and their opinions and policy choices matter. A LOT. Selecting a Vice Presidential candidate should be more about what Democrats hope to pursue as policy in the next open party nomination process, and less about "the math", because people really don't vote for a candidate based on the Vice Presidential nominee.

And that is exactly what I'm going to read into it. This is a policy decision. And if a politician is picked with some difficult policy preferences to stomach simply because of "the math", I'm going to have some serious problems going forward with this party.

I suspect this is a story we won't hear after Hurricane Dean gets through the Cayman Islands, but...

Dean was expected to pass to the south of the Caymans but the government said it still posed a "significant threat" to the islands. Forecasters said the islands could receive up to 12 inches of rain.

Hundreds of frantic vacationers lined up at ticket counters for special flights home, and many slept on the airport floor. Cayman Islands Gov. Stuart Jack said all but 1,500 tourists had been evacuated from the British territory by Sunday afternoon.

So... did all the tourists get out, or were some stuck there because of airline issues?

Here's some Cayman webcams to check out, if you're curious.

Hopefully, the process continues peacefully.

In the subprime mortgage debacle, there are plenty of bad guys - lenders, sellers, buyers, builders... that worked the same side of Living Irresponsibly Beyond Your Means Avenue. Right now we're hearing about the kicking that certain lenders and other big businesses are getting in the stock market relative to this debacle, which to my way of thinking, makes the life view a little more palatable on Maintaining Within Your Financial Reality Street.

However, it seems to me that we've been through this already, recently, with the largely IRRESPONSIBLE and the medium Irresponsible and the minute irresponsible, and that was through the DotCom bust. And sure, there were big companies that disappeared and distresses for investment companies and some people lost their job and all that, but here's a question:

Did it percolate to your local area?
Were the people in your local area - the stock brokers, the investment people, that pushed DotCom irresponsibly and locally, hurt by their market?
Did the marketplace make a local correction for those people?

I'm not talking about if business had a downturn. I'm wondering whether there were local repercussions - personal repercussions - for these folks. Did Mr. SellAnything get a reputation as a ripoff artist, and did local folks punish him for being so callous to the needs of his neighbors and friends?

I guess what I'm getting at is the investment folks corollary in this recent affair - the real estate companies and individual realtors that focused, catered, and eventually abused the real estate marketplace in order to sell higher priced real estate to a portion of marketplace that had no business buying it. If you've looked at buying a home the past 5 years or so in your area, and you even looked occasionally at the high priced market, you had to notice some realtor names popping up, over and over and over again, for these million dollar plus properties.

And here's my question about them - what will be their downside for doing so? Will the public know that they were part of building this bubble? Is it possible for the public to find out the eventual foreclosure rate on houses sold by an agent? How does the marketplace "grade" these participants in the scandal?

Or do they just get to take their money and keep on going like nothing they did really was wrong?

Interesting question. He has to know he has no hope of winning, no hope of being the VP choice. So the question is, does he do more to advance his policy causes by running, or by not running?

I think there's a valid consideration, brought up in this article, that on at least some issues, Kucinich isn't helping his policy causes by running.

I really think that Democratic Party pundits should be smarter than to publicize that they'd like someone in their party to emulate Karl Rove. In fact, we should be getting as far away from that as we can.

We can advocate passion and focus in politics. But Karl Rove was much, much more than that - and much, much less. Republicans are going to be paying a heavy price in the years ahead for his allegiance to a person over their Party, and Americans are constantly paying a price for his allegiance to a person over the Constitution.

Whatever the Democratic Party pursues that it believes is right, it should pursue it as that belief, but never, never, ever again sully the reputation and the appearance of that belief by suggesting we need a Karl Rove.

Budowsky deserves to be repudiated up and down the line. How can a guy who recommended "n 2002 for a “Star Spangled” national unity ticket of Bob Kerrey and John McCain" be someone that ANYONE should listen to about "conviction politics"?

It's tense.

The independent Electoral Commission in Sierra Leone has released more results from last Saturday’s presidential and parliamentary elections. In the latest results released Tuesday, Ernest Koroma of the opposition All Peoples’ Congress (APC) party continues to lead incumbent Vice President Solomon Berewa of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). Charles Margai of the People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) party is in third place.

Andrew Kromah is executive director of SKYY FM in Freetown and KISS FM in Bo, both VOA affiliates. He told VOA that although it is still too early in the vote count, it appears Vice President Berewa might be in some trouble.

Hopefully the country will be successful in holding this election, with any change of power occurring without violence. But it's very tense.

We were going to continue updating this website with photos and news reports of the last few days and the unfolding results as well as events of today's exciting day for Sierra Leoneans. Unfortunately, our offices at 17 Garrison Street have been surrounded by irate youths of the All People's Congress who are loudly remarking that they will deal with those who published that their Leader is an illiterate. We are closing down and escaping until tomorrow morning when the place is brighter... Rest assured that all staff are going to be safe. The secretaries and drivers and production men have already left and the publisher has called for back-up who have safely escorted her out. She is currently at the British Council attending the last press conference of the day. All staff are however safe and the police have been informed. We will be back tomorrow. Bye for now.

© Copyright by Awareness Times Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

I think Susie nailed it - Turdblossom wants to work for Fred Thompson.

Maybe it was swamp gas...

Aviation officials from Iraq's Kurdish region on Saturday dismissed reports that a Swedish airliner had been targeted by a missile as it took off with 130 passengers on board.

According to the Swedish TT news agency, the pilots of a MD-83 jet saw flashes in the sky on Thursday as they took off from Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq and feared they may be under attack.

But the chairman of the Sulaimaniyah Airport Authority, Kamaran Ahmed, said a local investigation found no evidence that a missile was fired and blamed the scare on bright lights being used on the ground.

"We think that the object that had been noticed by the pilot 'suspiciously' was a special type of 'high intensity lighting projector' mounted on vehicles usually used by hunters in the area," he said, in a statement in English.

The beam could also have been from a light used by farmers during a rush to harvest in the region, the statement added, while insisting that security forces had searched a 30-kilometre (18-mile) diameter area around the airport.

The Kurdish regional government also said there was no reason to worry.

"No plane at the Sulaimaniyah International Airport has come under attack.

I see a lot of this crap from time to time when I look around conservative blogs:

NOTHING will bring the Far Left into the Pro-American fold ever again. EVER.

But what I never see any of these wusslingers explain is what they mean by Pro-American fold. What is their idea of Pro-American? How do they define it? Because as far as I'm concerned, I think that's what the real debate is about - how do we define a positive America?

Not that I expect these kind of poser commenters to have much to contribute to such a discussion.

Ugh.

Declassified papers in Canada show that in 2002 officials suspected that the US had sent a Syrian-born Canadian, Maher Arar, to Syria to be tortured.

The previously blacked-out passages in the documents were released after a court order.

US security officials arrested Mr Arar at a New York airport in 2002 and deported him to Syria.

In Canada, a government inquiry completely exonerated Mr Arar of any links with terrorist groups.

The Canadian government had fought to keep the unreleased sections of documents submitted to the Maher Arar inquiry from coming out.

They reveal that in 2002 a Canadian intelligence official in Washington wrote to his superiors about the so-called rendition to third countries by the FBI and the CIA.

In the same year, in October, the deputy director of Canada's intelligence agency wrote: " I think that the US would like to get Arar to Jordan, where they can have their way with him."

That was just two days after US officials sent Maher Arar to Syria, via Jordan. He had been detained while changing planes at John F Kennedy airport in New York.

He was imprisoned for almost a year and it is widely accepted in Canada that he was tortured, although Syria has denied this.

Anyone who thinks we need a horrible terrorist event in our country to "wake America up" is a potential terrorist. It doesn't matter what the reasoning is - they believe in the use of terrorism as a means to an objective of purpose in this country. And all of those people should be shipped out of this country immediately, even if Fox News can't staff their network anymore.

On Monday, I asked this question:

Will Joe Lieberman support the Republican candidate for President in 2008, reasons why or why not, and what's the political value to him?

and asked bloggers to blog about it.

Many did, with thought-provoking posts. I've linked all the ones I've found below, and I strongly recommend that you read them. ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE IN THE NEWS MEDIA. Because if you're in the news media, and particularly, if you're in political reporting, there's no reason for you to be surprised, or even worse, to feign surprise, if and when Joe Lieberman chooses to endorse the Republican candidate for President in 2008. IT IS EXPECTED. What's more, by your feigned shock, you'll be adding to a narrative that Republicans will want to push - that moderates should vote for Republicans, because look at Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller.

So, political media - educate yourselves on voter expectations. Read these blogs.

• Forecasting Lieberman
  
• Who will be Joe’s date?
  
• Turncoat Joe
  
• Lieberman & The 2008 Election
  
• How Independent Can A WarWhore Be?
  
• Joe Lieberman for Vice President
  
• The Night of the Living Lieberman
  
• PSoTD Wants Me To Talk About Joe Lieberman
  
• Who will Chancellor Palpatine Joe Lieberman support [from the GOP] in 2008?
  
• Ze Hot Fleshes
  
• Because He Asked
  
• Joe neocon Lieberman and Iraq
  
• Since he asked...
  
• Joe Lieberman is a Republican
  
• Joe Lieberman sold his soul a long time ago
  

If I missed your post, let me know and I'll add it.

Nice to know we haven't bothered to spend Homeland Security money that could effectively increase the number of burn unit beds in this country.

Remember the meddlesome neighbor, Mrs. Crabtree, on Bewitched, always poking her head into everyone's business? Sometimes Bush's "foreign policy" reminds me of her. From Taiwan:

Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Randy Schriver said yesterday that the United States is opposed to the content of a referendum proposed by Taiwan's ruling party on the issue of whether Taiwan should join the United Nations under the name of Taiwan, saying that since more 70 percent of Taiwan's citizenry support the idea, there is no need to hold such a referendum.

Schriver made the statement at a press conference in Taipei as a leader of a visiting group from the American Enterprise Institute. Schriver arrived in Taiwan on Monday for a five-day visit aimed at obtaining the latest information on the nation's political and electoral situation, according to David Wang (王建業), spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Schriver said he and his AEI research team will publish a report on Taiwan-U.S. relations early next year which will cover opinions from different political parties in Taiwan and the U.S. and will be submitted to the U.S. president.

Describing his conversation with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Wednesday, Schriver said he told Chen that the U.S. government is opposed to the content of the proposed referendum but not the idea of a referendum per se.

I guess this government practice just seems to me to have trouble written all over it.

Three opposition lawmakers in Tajikistan have released an open letter to President Emomali Rahmon objecting to the closing of mosques by Tajik authorities, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reported.

Tajikistan, which has started a campaign to reregister mosques, has closed and destroyed a number of unregistered places of worship.

The letter, signed by Muhiddin Kabiri, Mohammad Sherif Himmatzoda, and Khodzhi Akbar Turadzhonzoda states that many mosques remain unregistered due to bureaucratic problems.

Two mosques were destroyed last week and many more were closed down in Dushanbe’s Sino district for functioning without a license.

There are some 300 mosques in Dushanbe. Most of the buildings are used by local people as community centers for all kind of social gatherings as well as for prayers.

Authorities have been blaming some imams for illegally using these buildings for prayers.

In the latest move placing pressure on religious institutions, authorities in Dushanbe have ordered hundreds of local imams to take a special test of religious knowledge to prove their fitness for the job.

I'm not a fan of Democratic Presidential candidates saying this kind of stuff:

Clinton is doing her best to stay above the fray, as she did on Tuesday night in a Democratic debate in Chicago, shrugging off attacks from her rivals and emphasizing the need for unity to defeat the Republicans.

"You know, I've noticed in the last few days that a lot of the other campaigns have been using my name a lot. But I'm here because I think we need to change America. And it's not to get in fights with Democrats," she said.

"I want the Democrats to win. And I want a united Democratic Party that will stand against the Republicans," she said.

Look, as far as Americans are generally concerned, we want results, and it's up to candidates to prioritize the results they're looking to get for Americans, and explain how they're going to do that. Standing up against Republicans? I'm sorry, I'm not looking for an opposition candidate, I'm looking for someone who can figure out how to get America on her way to getting better - it's a proactive approach, not a reactive approach, that I want.

And for wanting Democrats to win? WE KNOW THAT. Don't insult our intelligence.

Newt Gingrich, recently:

“None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war," Newt Gingrich told a group of about 300 students attending a conference for collegiate conservatives.

The news of Gingrich’s bold departure from the contentions of our current administration that we are indeed winning the war on terror sent shock waves literally around the world. According to a news article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week, the United States – and logically the Western world – must take immediate steps both to wean ourselves off of imported Middle Eastern petroleum and at the same time to develop vigorous programs for creating alternative energy sources while exploring and utilizing our own extensive domestic oil, coal and oil shale reserves.

The former Speaker of the House from Georgia openly and strongly criticized fellow Republicans for not having addressed the very real threats facing the United States from Islamofascist groups and rogue nations which are all supported and sustained by our own petrodollars.

“We controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for six years, " he said, “and don't think you can look and say that was a great success."

To a point, you have to agree with Gingrich in his assessment - we are not effectively trying to win a war on terrorism. He does admit that the Republicans are playing a PR game for purposes of PR, with no real design to make a change. We are prolonging a "war" for the purposes of keeping Republicans in office, nothing more, nothing less.

But Gingrich still thinks that terrorism is something we can "war" against. We can't, just like we can't "war" against homicide, or theft, or sexual assault, or fraud. We can provide tools for safety, we can educate the public, we can enforce the laws, we can try to heal the world of terrorism - but we can't "war" against it. There are always going to be sick individuals that that will gravitate to an idealogy of hate. Protecting people from that, and trying to strengthen healthy ways to keep people from doing that, is what we should be doing. We have to win the battle of the minds, not the battle of the bodies. Wars are not the way to do that.

From Atrios:

I think the only time I met Terry McAuliffe was when he wandered by at the Palm when I was having lunch with Begala and Carville. Yes that's a jokey namedropping thing. But more to the point, when I see him on the teevee I realize my resistance to Clinton is largely due to a desire to flush out the Clintonite shadow government and move on to the new. It isn't that I'm strongly opposed to these people, it's that I'm opposed to the permanent Washington floating world and my belief that anything which disrupts the permanent class is, in and of itself, a good thing.

You can see why conservatives loved the term-limits idea, it's part of the same concept of removing a permanent ruling class - and one that is starting to treat elective seats as inheritable by birth - by any means possible.

Unfortunately, the elective seats are just the pinnacle of that class. The consulting, lobbying, and administrative bureaucracies that now encase every elected seat are where the real deadwood is, and only by electing people who don't surround themselves with the same old deadwood can we hope to have new ideas and thinking get into power positions in Washington.

I don't know about you, but I really would like this to be the last election in which the names James Carville and Terry McAuliffe get bandied around with a Presidential candidate.

A few days ago I posted this guest post at Susie's:

The timing is about right for Democrats to start stating the obvious suspicion: Joe Lieberman will endorse a Republican Candidate for President in 2008. There’s no reason to cede news value to the Republicans for such an “announcement” next year, when some regular drumbeating of this political opportunity for Lieberman can easily reduce it. Democrats shouldn’t be concerned that by doing so now they will appear to be “moderating” the Republican candidates, but should be concerned that a Lieberman announcement of support of the Republican nominee next year will be reacted to by the shallow national media in such a way.

In short - the likelihood is too great that Lieberman will support ANY REPUBLICAN NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT in 2008 over ANY DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT in 2008 to ignore until it happens. It won’t be about people, but about power, and about Lieberman’s future political opportunities. Rather than act dismayed when it does happen, Democrats should be honest in the news media - and repetitively vocal - about why Joe Lieberman may just do that next year.

I just don't trust the Democratic Party Establishment to call Lieberman on this now. I am afraid they will dilly and dally and fret and hope that Joe doesn't go all turncoat in the Presidential Election and when the day comes that he does (and you just know it's going to happen), the Democratic Party will get bathed in a propaganda push about how the moderate Democrats are splitting from the "liberal left", bleh bleh bleh, and the response will be incredibly, but foreseeably, weak. Beyond weak, to the point of pathetic.

And it doesn't have to happen. News shock value does not have to be ceded to the Republican candidate. There's no reason there can't be a discussion about this now - including the positive and negative reasons why Lieberman might support a Republican - in the media.

So I'm asking the bloggers below - those on the PSoTD blogroll - to post about this question this week: Will Joe Lieberman support the Republican candidate for President in 2008, reasons why or why not, and what's the political value to him?

Let's get the Expose Joe's Date in 2008 party going!

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The House Democrats got caught with their pants down last night when they gaveled a vote to close while votes were still flip-flopping and accidently ended up on the wrong side of the count.

The NY Times describes a scene straight out of Animal House with the G.O.P playing the Deltas, John Boehner as Otter, Michael McNulty as Greg Marmalard and Steny Hoyer as Dean Wormer...

“Shame! Shame!” Republicans chanted across the aisle. Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, R-N.C., thumped the back of a chair in rhythm with the chant. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, R-Ohio, repeatedly covered his mouth with his hand, pretended to cough and bellowed a barnyard epithet.

McNulty, whom Democrats often tap to preside over contentious debates, could be heard on television insisting “I called it 214-214.”

Hoyer asked for unanimous consent to vacate the vote. Republicans objected. He then moved to reconsider the vote. Boehner moved to adjourn, a motion that was not in order during the reconsideration vote. Most Republicans walked out of the chamber in protest.

House Republicans are now threatening to hold their breath until they turn blue if the Democrats don't honor the original vote. I guess you can't blame them since not much has being going right for them lately. Even a victory on technicality is a victory.

I say put 'em on Double Secret Probation!

It's perfectly sane to take nuking Islamabad off the table in our pursuit of Bin Laden. Enough with the mindless posturing. Barack Obama is starting to win me over.

The Irregular Times wonders if Justice Roberts gets out his Big Bag of Shrooms on weekends.

... I doubt the suggestion in the Daily News article that these seizures could be brought on by stress. The kind of stress that is required to bring on seizures is pretty rare in places like out on the golf course or on a boat dock at a vacation home. If John Roberts really is having stress-induced seizures that lead him to lose consciousness and fall down while playing golf and walking out on the dock at his oceanside vacation home, then he’s a maniac.

There is something other than stress that can induce “seizures” that make people fall down and lose consciousness: Psychoactive drugs. Remember when Britney Spears all of a sudden lost consciousness and had to be carried out of her birthday party? It wasn’t stress that caused that incident.

How do we know that Justice John Roberts isn’t losing consciousness because he’s on some kind of drug obtained by prescription or on the street?

Put down the bong!