Vote Obama – if you want a centrist Republican for US president

Because Barack Obama has adopted so many core Republican beliefs, the US opposition race is a shambles
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 December 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/27/vote-obama-centrist-republican

American presidential elections are increasingly indistinguishable from the reality TV competitions drowning the nation's airwaves. Both are vapid, personality-driven and painfully protracted affairs, with the winners crowned by virtue of their ability to appear slightly more tolerable than the cast of annoying rejects whom the public eliminates one by one. When, earlier this year, America's tawdriest (and one of its most-watched) reality TV show hosts, Donald Trump, inserted himself into the campaign circus as a threatened contestant, he fitted right in, immediately catapulting to the top of audience polls before announcing he would not join the show.

The Republican presidential primaries – shortly to determine who will be the finalist to face off, and likely lose, against Barack Obama next November – has been a particularly base spectacle. That the contest has devolved into an embarrassing clown show has many causes, beginning with the fact that GOP voters loathe Mitt Romney, their belief-free, anointed-by-Wall-Street frontrunner who clearly has the best chance of defeating the president.

In a desperate attempt to find someone less slithery and soulless (not to mention less Mormon), party members have lurched manically from one ludicrous candidate to the next, only to watch in horror as each wilted the moment they were subjected to scrutiny. Incessant pleas to the party's ostensibly more respectable conservatives to enter the race have been repeatedly rebuffed. Now, only Romney remains viable. Republican voters are thus slowly resigning themselves to marching behind a vacant, supremely malleable technocrat whom they plainly detest.

In fairness to the much-maligned GOP field, they face a formidable hurdle: how to credibly attack Obama when he has adopted so many of their party's defining beliefs. Depicting the other party's president as a radical menace is one of the chief requirements for a candidate seeking to convince his party to crown him as the chosen challenger. Because Obama has governed as a centrist Republican, these GOP candidates are able to attack him as a leftist radical only by moving so far to the right in their rhetoric and policy prescriptions that they fall over the cliff of mainstream acceptability, or even basic sanity.

In July, the nation's most influential progressive domestic policy pundit, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, declared that Obama is a "moderate conservative in practical terms". Last October, he wrote that "progressives who had their hearts set on Obama were engaged in a huge act of self-delusion", because the president – "once you get past the soaring rhetoric" – has "largely accepted the conservative storyline".

Krugman also pointed out that even the policy Democratic loyalists point to as proof of the president's progressive bona fides – his healthcare plan, which mandates the purchase of policies from the private health insurance industry – was designed by the Heritage Foundation, one of the nation's most rightwing thinktanks, and was advocated by conservative ideologues for many years (it also happens to be the same plan Romney implemented when he was governor of Massachusetts and which Newt Gingrich once promoted, underscoring the difficulty for the GOP in drawing real contrasts with Obama).

How do you scorn a president as a far-left socialist when he has stuffed his administration with Wall Street executives, had his last campaign funded by them, governed as a "centrist Republican", and presided over booming corporate profits even while the rest of the nation suffered economically?

But as slim as the pickings are for GOP candidates on the domestic policy front, at least there are some actual differences in that realm. The president's 2009 stimulus spending and Wall Street "reform" package – tepid and inadequate though they were – are genuinely at odds with rightwing dogma, as are Obama's progressive (albeit inconsistent) positions on social issues, such as equality for gay people and protecting a woman's right to choose. And the supreme court, perpetually plagued by a 5-4 partisan split, would be significantly affected by the outcome of the 2012 election.

It is in the realm of foreign policy, terrorism and civil liberties where Republicans encounter an insurmountable roadblock. A staple of GOP politics has long been to accuse Democratic presidents of coddling America's enemies (both real and imagined), being afraid to use violence, and subordinating US security to international bodies and leftwing conceptions of civil liberties.

But how can a GOP candidate invoke this time-tested caricature when Obama has embraced the vast bulk of George Bush's terrorism policies; waged a war against government whistleblowers as part of a campaign of obsessive secrecy; led efforts to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs; extinguished the lives not only of accused terrorists but of huge numbers of innocent civilians with cluster bombs and drones in Muslim countries; engineered a covert war against Iran; tried to extend the Iraq war; ignored Congress and the constitution to prosecute an unauthorised war in Libya; adopted the defining Bush/Cheney policy of indefinite detention without trial for accused terrorists; and even claimed and exercised the power to assassinate US citizens far from any battlefield and without due process?

Reflecting this difficulty for the GOP field is the fact that former Bush officials, including Dick Cheney, have taken to lavishing Obama with public praise for continuing his predecessor's once-controversial terrorism polices. In the last GOP foreign policy debate, the leading candidates found themselves issuing recommendations on the most contentious foreign policy question (Iran) that perfectly tracked what Obama is already doing, while issuing ringing endorsements of the president when asked about one of his most controversial civil liberties assaults (the due-process-free assassination of the American-Yemeni cleric Anwar Awlaki). Indeed, when it comes to the foreign policy and civil liberties values Democrats spent the Bush years claiming to defend, the only candidate in either party now touting them is the libertarian Ron Paul, who vehemently condemns Obama's policies of drone killings without oversight, covert wars, whistleblower persecutions, and civil liberties assaults in the name of terrorism.

In sum, how do you demonise Obama as a terrorist-loving secret Muslim intent on empowering US enemies when he has adopted, and in some cases extended, what was rightwing orthodoxy for the last decade? The core problem for GOP challengers is that they cannot be respectable Republicans because, as Krugman pointed out, Obama has that position occupied. They are forced to move so far to the right that they render themselves inherently absurd.

How Well Did Herman Cain Know Lawrence King?

Herman Cain isn't the only African-American conservative who spent time in Omaha, Nebraska during the mid-eighties. From DownWithTyranny.blogspot.com:

Omaha is tornado country, so when I say it's a great big small town, I'm talking acreage versus gossipy connectivity. It's flat and spread out with few tall buildings, but everyone is a whisper away from everyone else's business. It's not so big as to be home to two up-and-coming black Republicans with strong ties with the bigwigs in the Republican Party who could never cross paths. Restaurant people of all colors make it a point to know each other. To know what secrets wandering waiters and chefs may have taken with them as they move from job to job, etc... Wealthy Republicans are an even tighter clique. Wealthy black Republican restaurateurs in Omaha Nebraska in the late '80s were more likely to have been twins than not to have social if not business ties.

Lawrence E. King was a fixture in the Omaha black community. He had seen his opportunity gathering up black folks' money in a credit union known as the Franklin Credit Union, which he'd taken over in 1970. By 1976 there where whispers about this 300-pound socialite living large. There were minor stabs at investigating him, but the police did not want to be seen as the big bad white guys picking on the little ol' great big black man.

Tales of King entertaining guests with cocaine, hookers and hustlers were pervasive, but Omaha has some strange code of silence. It had been for many years a sort of mob neutral zone. "Tony might whack Vinnie in Chicago," but in Omaha their kids and wives would peacefully shop, play and picnic together. Drawing attention is not acceptable. Bush flew to Omaha on 9/11 in a very standard emergency protocol, and not one in ten Americans ever knew. Lily Tomlin and her partner Jane Wagner were a known couple around "The Big O" long before Lily came out. Omaha had lots of stories and still does, but none of them are news.

King -- who had been recruited by the RNC to get out the black Republican vote -- in his rise through the Republican ranks, was able to be the sum of their black best friends, as it were. He sang the national anthem at the 1984 and 1988 Republican conventions. In 1986, the Franklin Federal Credit Union moved into brand-new digs that also served as headquarters for King's burgeoning catering and food-service empire. King began making donations to the Omaha Press Club, the Republican Party and even gay rights organizations (especially those funding area youth programs). Upon being told he had no style by a ten-year-old boy, he went shopping and became a clothes junkie, big-time-- thus earning the nickname "Reverend Alice." People really began talking. Franklin Federal Credit Union seemed to be all right until an audit of King's taxes revealed what appeared to be some missing funds. A phony "certificates of deposit" scheme. Initially it was thought that $400,000 had disappeared. Then $4 million. Ultimately $40 million was determined to have vanished.

The FBI raid of the credit union sparked rumors that drugs and child pornography were discovered in the lower levels of the facility. It had been whispered that King had used the basement of the credit union as a "waiter academy" to train young men (twinks and blinks) in the fine art of waiting tables for what was hopefully to become his restaurant empire. In an Omaha World Herald interview, he spoke about how he wanted his places to be real elegant; the waiters would wear white dinner jackets. But King's deeper desires were rumored to be something quite different.

There was a lot of recruiting going on for guys to come be part of King's catering business. Many teens and young men talked of being expected to "put out," and rumors of pornographic video shoots circulated in the gay and black communities. After the raid there was an investigation into what had become of the missing funds. Eventually a private investigator was hired by the state legislature to look into stories of an international child prostitution ring. He interviewed dozens of waiters and folks around Omaha who had been curious about King's lavish gifts and extravagant ways. But things seemed tempered by the fact that King hung out with presidents, and area journalists. And owned a bank, and a sushi bar and...

The investigator is said to have flown to Chicago to meet with a person who had damning photographic evidence as to what was going on in the bowels of Franklin. That investigator never made it back to Omaha. His plane mysteriously blew up on the return flight. Primary witnesses suddenly changed their stories, and those who did not were convicted of perjury. One rent boy who testified that he was farmed out to several closeted power brokers in and around Omaha died mysteriously in New Mexico.

King was convicted of bank fraud and served nearly 10 out of the 15 years to which he was sentenced, but the grand jury concluded that all of the salacious allegations were merely "a big hoax" (wtf!) These allegations included supplying children for satanic blood rituals in Spain and supplying teens to a sex party in Washington, D.C., where some of those teens claimed they saw George W. Bush in attendance.

The story is larger and dirtier than what is within the scope of a DWT guest blog, and in fact was the subject of a Discovery Channel investigative report. Alas, that program was "purchased" a week before it was to air by some anonymous party...

Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2011/07/does-herman-cain-have-40-million.html

Cain Dropping Like a Rock

Herman Cain's repeated attempts to brush aside sexual harassment charges are faltering and his once high-flying presidential campaign is likely to suffer, according to neutral Republicans.

Cain had managed to tread water for more than a week after news reports first surfaced of two anonymous charges of sexual harassment made when he led the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. But when Sharon Bialek went public Monday to say he'd once groped her, the story started to seriously threaten Cain's public support.

"He was already slipping before these stories came out. This will accelerate his decline," Republican pollster Whit Ayres said.

"Now we see Cain supporters having pause," Iowa Republican analyst Craig Robinson added. "He can no longer laugh it up. This is serious, serious stuff."

"My sense is he's dropping like a rock," South Carolina Republican strategist J. David Woodard said...

Cain sinking like a stone, neutral GOP analysts say
Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers
11-8-2011
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/11/08/129690/cain-sinking-like-a-stone-neutral.html

The Republican Death Wish

Robert Reich
Thursday, May 26, 2011
http://robertreich.org/post/5866971185

Forty Senate Republicans have now joined their colleagues in the House to support Paul Ryan’s plan that would turn Medicare into vouchers that funnel money to private health insurers. They thumbed their nose at the special election in upstate New York earlier this week that delivered a victory to Democrat Kathy Hochul, who made the plan the focus of her upset victory.

So now it’s official. The 2012 campaign will be about the future of Medicare. (Yes, it will also be about jobs, but the Republicans haven’t come up with any credible ideas on that front, and the Democrats seem incapable of doing what needs to be done.)

This spells trouble for the GOP. Polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans — even a majority of Republican voters — want to preserve Medicare. They don’t want to turn it over to private insurers.

It would be one thing if Republicans had consistency on their side. At least then they could take the high road and claim their plan is a principled way to achieve the aims of Medicare through market-based mechanisms. (It isn’t, of course. It would end up squeezing seniors because it takes no account of the rising costs of health care.)

But they can’t even claim consistency. Remember, this was the same GOP that attacked the President’s health-reform plan in 2010 by warning it would lead to Medicare cuts.

Former President Bill Clinton counsels Democrats not to say Medicare is fine the way it is. He’s right. But instead of talking about Medicare as a problem to be fixed, Democrats should start talking about it as a potential solution to the challenge of rising health-care costs — as well as to our long-term budget problem.

Can we be clear about that budget problem? It’s not driven by Medicare. It’s driven by the same relentlessly soaring health-care costs that are pushing premiums through the roof and causing middle-class families to shell out more and more money for deductibles and co-payments.

Some features of Obama’s new healthcare law will slow the rise — insurance exchanges, for example, could give consumers clearer comparative information about what they’re getting for their insurance payments — but the law doesn’t go nearly far enough.

That’s why Democrats should be proposing that anyone be allowed to sign up for Medicare. Medicare is cheaper than private insurance because its administrative costs are so much lower, and it has vast economies of scale.

If Medicare were allowed to use its potential bargaining leverage over America’s hospitals, doctors, drug companies, and medical providers, it could drive down costs even further.

And it could force the nation’s broken health-care system to do something it must do but has resisted with a vengeance: Focus on healthy outcomes rather on costly inputs. If Medicare paid for results — not tests, procedures, drugs, and hospital stays, but results — it could give Americans better health at lower cost.

Let the GOP go after Medicare. That will do more to elect Democrats in 2012 than anything else. But it would be wise and politically astute for Democrats to go beyond just defending Medicare. Strengthen and build upon it. Use it to reform American health care and, not incidentally, rescue the federal budget.

Paul/Ventura 2012?

From PrisonPlanet.com:

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has an important message for Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul – ditch the Republican Party and run for President as an independent.

On the day that Obama officially announced his 2012 Presidential campaign underway, the spotlight will now turn on those who are expected to set the wheels in motion to run against the president.

One name mentioned over and over again for the past few months has been Republican Congressman Ron Paul. However, Ventura, who was victorious as an Independent himself in 1998, believes that Paul can mount a more powerful challenge by distancing himself from the GOP establishment.

And Ventura even offered to throw his own name into the hat as a possible running mate.

“If Ron Paul would quit the Republican Party, and he asked me, then I would give serious consideration to running with him.” Ventura told syndicated radio host Alex Jones today.

“I will not run as a Democrat or Republican. I want nothing to do with these parties. They are the problem, they are not the solution.” the former Governor added.

“They’re the ones that have been in control of this country, as Ralph Nadar calls them, the two party dictatorship. They are the ones that have us in this mess. They are the ones who have caused all the debt problems… it’s time to throw them out. The people of this country can do a major thing and its so easy. The next election, don’t vote for ANY Republicans or Democrats. That would be the greatest thing that could happen in this country, to bring down and destroy these two political parties.” Ventura urged.

Congressman Paul has recently been victorious in several Republican straw polls of potential presidential nominees, and he has raised a staggering $3 million already this first quarter via his various grass roots organizations. That is more than any other potential Republican nominee thus far.

Ventura believes Paul should fully capitalize on his political popularity and make the break from the GOP.

“He won’t get the Republican Party nomination, he has to understand that.” Ventura said.

“The Republicans are not going to put Ron Paul up as their Presidential nominee. He is too much of a rogue, he is not bought and sold by multinational corporations. Plus the biggest thing of all, he calls for an audit of the Federal Reserve.” he added...

Ventura is currently promoting his new book, 63 documents The Government Doesn’t Want You To Read. The former Governor explained that he had dedicated the book to Congressman Paul as a thank you for his tireless efforts to bring more transparency to Washington.

“He was the only Congressman we have that had the courage to go out on the floor of the Congress and support Wikileaks,” Ventura noted, alluding to the whistle blowing website.

“Like Ron Paul said, no one has died from Wikileaks. How many people have died from the trumped up intelligence and the lying that got us into the Iraq war. And then he said something even more profound. He talked about in a free country like ours, when the truth equals treason we are in big trouble.”

While Ron Paul has yet to announce whether he will mount another presidential run, he may want to take Ventura up on his offer before the former pro-wrestler turned political powerhouse looks toward an even more ambitious role.

“I never said who would be President and who would be Vice President.” Ventura quipped.

“Ron and I may have to flip a coin.”

Ventura Urges Ron Paul To Run For President As Independent
Steve Watson
April 4, 2011
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ventura-urges-ron-paul-to-run-for-president-as-independent.html

Activist assaulted by Rand Paul supporters in Kentucky

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/paul-o27.shtml
Activist assaulted by Rand Paul supporters in Kentucky
Hiram Lee
27 October 2010

A video widely distributed on the Internet documents supporters of Rand Paul, the Republican and Tea Party-backed senate candidate in Kentucky, physically assaulting a liberal activist prior to a debate held on Monday in Lexington.

The victim, Lauren Valle, 23, a member of the pro-Democratic Party group MoveOn.org, was among a crowd of Paul supporters who had gathered at the site of the final debate of the election. As the candidate made his way into the debate hall, Valle attempted to present him with a satirical “employee-of-the-month award” from a fictional company called “RepubliCorp,” used by MoveOn.org to draw attention to Republican candidates’ ties to major corporations.

Video captured a number of Paul’s supporters reacting to Valle’s presence with evident rage. They violently forced Valle, a small woman who clearly posed no threat, to the ground. At least one man in the crowd then held her on the ground against her will, while another man holding a Rand Paul campaign sign stomped on her head, shoving her face into the concrete sidewalk. The assailant was later revealed to be Tim Profitt, a Paul campaign worker.

It is clear that the force of the kick could have severely injured Valle. While Valle was able to speak with the local media following the incident, her face was left swollen and her neck and shoulders were hurt. She spent the night in a Lexington hospital with a concussion and a sprained shoulder.

The attack is another indication of the type of deranged and fascistic elements being mobilized by the Tea Party movement and its candidates as they seek to form a popular base for extreme right-wing politics in the US. The Tea Party appeals to the most backward sentiments—anti-immigrant chauvinism, militarism, racism, religious intolerance, anti-gay bigotry—with the full support of its corporate backers and the Republican Party establishment.

The viscious rhetoric espoused by leading figures in the Tea Party movement, including Rand Paul, has created a political climate that, in effect, sanctions and encourages attacks like the one carried out on Lauren Valle.

The emergence of the far-right, and the growing threat of violence it portends, cannot be fought through the Democratic Party. This is made clear by the immediate context in which the attack on Valle occurred, the Senate race in Kentucky, which has been a thoroughly reactionary affair in which the objective interests of the state’s working class, devastated by the economic crisis, are completely blocked out.

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, Paul’s Democratic opponent in the election, has run a right-wing, anti-working class campaign in which he has attacked Paul from the right.

Conway is a millionaire, a supporter of the Iraq War, an advocate of the indefinite extension of the Bush tax cuts, an outspoken advocate of the death penalty, an opponent of gay marriage, and a steadfast ally of the state’s coal companies.

Most recently, Conway has attempted to smear Paul by questioning his devotion to Christianity in a series of television attack ads.

It was revealed late Tuesday afternoon that the assailant filmed in the video is Profitt, who serves as Paul’s campaign coordinator in Bourbon County. The Paul campaign said in a statement that is has “disassociated itself” from Profitt.

On Tuesday, Profitt was served with a summons to appear in court. Police have lodged fourth-degree assault charges against him.

Profitt insisted the incident was not as bad as it looked and attempted to justify his actions. “I’m sorry that it came to that, and I apologize if it appeared overly forceful, but I was concerned about Rand’s safety,” he told the Associated Press.

In comments to the Huffington Post, Valle said she sensed the assault might have been premeditated. Several people came up behind her before the attack, and she said she heard one of them say, “We are here to do crowd control (and) we might have to take someone out.”

“One or two people twisted my arms behind my back and took me down,” Valle wrote. “It was about two-to-three seconds after that that another person stomped on my head.”

Police said that Rand supporters had earlier fingered Valle as a threat, but said that they declined to act because she had not done anything illegal. “It’s not illegal to take a picture with somebody,” Lexington police spokesperson Sherelle Roberts said.

Another Conway supporter said he was also threatened by Paul campaign workers at the event. Michael J. Grossman, described by the Lexington Herald-Leader as “a corporate official in Lexington,” said a Paul supporter tried to “take me down” moments after Valle was attacked.

“It was a relatively calm political event until the Rand Paul people simply went nuts when their candidate arrived,” Grossman said. “By and large they appeared to be a very hostile group of people who were looking for trouble, and I guess they got it.”

Tea Party ‘founder’: Palin, Gingrich a ‘joke’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/tea-party-founder-slams-tea-party/
Tea Party ‘founder’: Palin, Gingrich a ‘joke’
Daniel Tencer
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

A financial blogger and ex-CEO credited with being one of the original "founders" of the Tea Party has come out against the movement, saying it has been hijacked by the very people it was protesting and is now obsessed with "guns, gays and God."

In a "message" to the Tea Party Wednesday, Karl Denninger declared that he "ought to sue" anyone who uses the Tea Party name "for defamation."

"Yeah, that's a joke," he writes. "But so are you. All of you. Especially Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, and douchebag groups such as the 'Tea Party Patriots.'"

Denninger writes: "Tea Party my ass. This was nothing other than the Republican Party stealing the anger of a population that was fed up with the Republican Party's own theft of their tax money at gunpoint to bail out the robbers of Wall Street and fraudulently redirecting it back toward electing the very people who stole all the ****ing money!"

Denninger runs Market Ticker, a financially-focused blog that has been strongly opposed to bank bailouts and has railed against excessive government spending. He founded the group FedUpUSA in early 2008, shortly after the collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns.

In January of 2009, Market Ticker bloggers including Graham Makohoniuk and Stephanie Jasky suggested "mailing a tea bag" to Congress to protest the planned $800-billion stimulus package and $700-billion bank bailout. Denninger followed that up with a call for a "tea party" protest to coincide with President Obama's inauguration, thus helping to unofficially launch the political movement.

“I saw everybody fawning over Obama with the inauguration and yet here he was appointing people like Larry Summer[s] and Tim Geithner to his team who were all part of creating the problem,” Denninger said in a media interview.

Now Denninger says the whole movement has been steered away from its mission to demand fiscal responsibility from government and financial institutions.

The Tea Party was initiated as a political protest against the unlawful and in fact unconstitutional usurpation of power from the Congress and The People in the form of extortion-led bailouts of enterprises that had engaged in acts that I, and many others, believe were at least civilly actionable and in many cases crossed the line into criminal activity.

This indictment is not limited to the nation's large banks, although it certainly starts there. The corruption of our economic and monetary systems runs the gamut from Fannie and Freddie through their ties to Congress (including literal sexual encounters in some cases), banking interests selling trash securities to everyone from pension funds on down, judges who don't judge but rather protect monied interests on Wall Street, The Federal Reserve intentionally debasing our currency and monetizing government debt, government spending that is running 40% above revenues and much more.

In short, The Tea Party was and is about the the corruption of American Politics and the blatant and outrageous theft from all Americans that has resulted. It is about personal responsibility and enforcement of the law against those who have robbed, financially ****d and pillaged the nation.

Yet today we hear literally nothing about these issues among the so-called "Tea Party" candidates and their backers. Sarah Palin has not said one word about locking up the banksters that brought up on the housing bubble and economic collapse. Not one word about Bernanke's out-of-control Fed and the arguably unlawful monetization of Fannie and Freddie paper, not to mention the monetization of the Federal Debt.

The GOP's "small government" tea party fraud

http://salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/02/21/libertarianism
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010
The GOP's "small government" tea party fraud
By Glenn Greenwald

There's a major political fraud underway: the GOP is once again donning their libertarian, limited-government masks in order to re-invent itself and, more important, to co-opt the energy and passion of the Ron-Paul-faction that spawned and sustains the "tea party" movement. The Party that spat contempt at Paul during the Bush years and was diametrically opposed to most of his platform now pretends to share his views. Standard-issue Republicans and Ron Paul libertarians are as incompatible as two factions can be -- recall that the most celebrated right-wing moment of the 2008 presidential campaign was when Rudy Giuliani all but accused Paul of being an America-hating Terrorist-lover for daring to suggest that America's conduct might contribute to Islamic radicalism -- yet the Republicans, aided by the media, are pretending that this is one unified, harmonious, "small government" political movement.

The Right is petrified that this fraud will be exposed and is thus bending over backwards to sustain the myth. Paul was not only invited to be a featured speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference but also won its presidential straw poll. Sarah Palin endorsed Ron Paul's son in the Kentucky Senate race. National Review is lavishly praising Paul, while Ann Coulter "felt compelled [in her CPAC speech] to give a shout out to Paul-mania, saying she agreed with everything he stands for outside of foreign policy -- a statement met with cheers." Glenn Beck -- who literally cheered for the Wall Street bailout and Bush's endlessly expanding surveillance state -- now parades around as though he shares the libertarians' contempt for them. Red State's Erick Erickson, defending the new so-called conservative "manifesto," touts the need for Congress to be confined to the express powers of Article I, Section 8, all while lauding a GOP Congress that supported countless intrusive laws -- from federalized restrictions on assisted suicide, marriage, gambling, abortion and drugs to intervention in Terri Schiavo's end-of-life state court proceeding -- nowhere to be found in that Constitutional clause. With the GOP out of power, Fox News suddenly started featuring anti-government libertarians such as John Stossel and Reason Magazine commentators, whereas, when Bush was in power, there was no government power too expanded or limitless for Fox propagandists to praise.

This is what Republicans always do. When in power, they massively expand the power of the state in every realm. Deficit spending and the national debt skyrocket. The National Security State is bloated beyond description through wars and occupations, while no limits are tolerated on the Surveillance State. Then, when out of power, they suddenly pretend to re-discover their "small government principles." The very same Republicans who spent the 1990s vehemently opposing Bill Clinton's Terrorism-justified attempts to expand government surveillance and executive authority then, once in power, presided over the largest expansion in history of those very same powers. The last eight years of Republican rule was characterized by nothing other than endlessly expanded government power, even as they insisted -- both before they were empowered and again now -- that they are the standard-bearers of government restraint.

What makes this deceit particularly urgent for them now is that their only hope for re-branding and re-empowerment lies in a movement -- the tea partiers -- that has been (largely though not exclusively) dominated by libertarians, Paul followers, and other assorted idiosyncratic factions who are hostile to the GOP's actual approach to governing. This is a huge wedge waiting to be exposed -- to explode -- as the modern GOP establishment and the actual "small-government" libertarians that fuel the tea party are fundamentally incompatible. Right-wing mavens like Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin and National Review are suddenly feigning great respect for Ron Paul and like-minded activists because they're eager that the sham will be maintained: the blatant sham that the modern GOP and its movement conservatives are a coherent vehicle for those who believe in small government principles. The only evidence of a passionate movement urging GOP resurgence is from people whose views are antithetical to that Party. That's the dirty secret which right-wing polemicists are desperately trying to keep suppressed. Credit to Mike Huckabee for acknowledging this core incompatibility by saying he would not attend CPAC because of its "increasing libertarianism."

These fault lines began to emerge when Sarah Palin earlier this month delivered the keynote speech to the national tea party conference in Nashville, and stood there spitting out one platitude after the next which Paul-led libertarians despise: from neoconservative war-loving dogma and veneration of Israel to glorification of "War on Terror" domestic powers and the need of the state to enforce Palin's own religious and cultural values. Neocons (who still overwhelmingly dominate the GOP) and Paul-led libertarians are arch enemies, and the social conservatives on whom the GOP depends are barely viewed with greater affection. Sarah Palin and Ron Paul are about as far apart on most issues as one can get; the "tea party movement" can't possibly be about supporting each of their worldviews. Moreover, the GOP leadership is currently promising Wall Street even more loyal subservience than Democrats have given in exchange for support, thus bolstering the government/corporate axis which libertarians find so repugnant. And Coulter's manipulative claim that she "agrees with everything [Paul] stands for outside of foreign policy" is laughable; aside from the fact that "foreign policy" is a rather large issue in our political debates (Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia), they were on exactly the opposite sides of the most intense domestic controversies of the Bush era: torture, military commissions, habeas corpus, Guantanamo, CIA secrecy, telecom immunity, and warrantless eavesdropping.

Part of why this fraud has been sustainable thus far is that libertarians -- like everyone who doesn't view all politics through the mandated, distorting, suffocating Democrat v. GOP prism -- are typically dismissed as loons and nuts, and are thus eager for any means of achieving mainstream acceptance. Having the GOP embrace them is one way to achieve that (Karl Rove: some "see the tea party movement as a recruiting pool for volunteers for Ron Paul's next presidential bid . . . . The Republican Party and the tea party movement have many common interests"). Additionally, just as the Paul-faction of libertarians is in basic harmony with many progressives on issues of foreign policy and civil liberties, they do subscribe to the standard GOP rhetoric on domestic spending, social programs and the like.

But that GOP limited government rhetoric is simply never matched by that Party's conduct, especially when they wield power. The very idea that a political party dominated by neocons, warmongers, surveillance fetishists, and privacy-hating social conservatives will be a party of "limited government" is absurd on its face. There literally is no myth more transparent than the Republican Party's claim to believe in restrained government power. For that reason, it's only a matter of time before the fundamental incompatibility of the "tea party movement" and the political party cynically exploiting it is exposed.

Ron Paul Warns Of Neo-Con Takeover Of Tea Party Movement

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-paul-warns-of-neo-con-takeover-of-tea-party-movement.html

Ron Paul Warns Of Neo-Con Takeover Of Tea Party Movement
Grass roots groups founded by Congressman’s supporters have been infiltrated by Republican party operatives
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Congressman Ron Paul warns that the movement his supporters founded nearly three years ago has been infiltrated and overtaken by neo-cons, following the de facto election of Sarah Palin as the leader of the nationwide tea party movement.

Speaking with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Paul said his message was “somewhat different” to what the tea party groups are now espousing and that his core ideals had been “diluted” since the tea party movement began to grow.

“The Republican party wants to make sure there’s a neo-con type of influence,” said Paul, adding that Palin’s endorsement of his son’s Senate campaign and platform gave him pause.

Paul said that the neo-con influence on foreign policy was still very much alive within the White House as well as the tea parties, proving that a movement originally founded on a strong populist stance is beginning to mimic exactly what the establishment wants.

“More troops in Afghanistan, bombing Yemen and bombing Pakistan and thinking about going into Iran, so that’s the infiltration philosophically of different positions,” said Paul.

As Alex Jones warned yesterday, if there was ever any doubt as to the true intentions behind Sarah Palin being forwarded as the de facto leader of the tea party movement, everything was made clear following her speech at the Republican-funded “Tea Party Nation” event in Nashville this past weekend.

During her keynote address and in subsequent television appearances, Palin aggressively beat the drums for war with Iran while failing to mention any of the issues that formed the bedrock of the original tea party movement – namely ending an unconstitutional foreign policy that is bankrupting America and auditing the private Federal Reserve.

Since it was hijacked by neo-cons, the tea party movement has slowly turned on Congressman Ron Paul.

As the Dallas Morning News reported on Sunday, Paul has three opponents in the March Republican primary attempting to unseat him, all of whom have ties to the new incarnation of the tea party movement run by neo-cons.

McCain's wife, daughter back gay marriage

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/20/AR2010012004764.html

McCain's wife, daughter back gay marriage movement
By JOAN LOWY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 20, 2010

WASHINGTON -- Cindy McCain, the wife of 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, and their daughter Meghan have posed for photos endorsing pro-gay marriage forces in California.

Mrs. McCain appears with silver duct tape across her mouth and "NOH8" written on one cheek in a photo posted Wednesday to the Web site of NOH8, a gay rights group opposed to Proposition 8. The ballot measure passed by California voters in 2008 bans same-sex marriage.

The McCains' daughter Meghan, who has been outspoken in her support for gay rights, has also endorsed NOH8. She appears with silver duct tape across her mouth and "NOH8" on a cheek in a photo on her Twitter site.

Cindy McCain contacted NOH8 and offered to pose for the photo endorsement, the Web site said.

John McCain's office said in a statement that the Arizona senator respects the views of members of his family but remains opposed to gay marriage.

"Sen. McCain believes the sanctity of marriage is only defined as between one man and one woman," the statement said.

John McCain backed an Arizona ballot measure passed by voters in 2008 that defined marriage as between one man and one woman.

The NOH8 Web site praised Cindy McCain's willingness to publicly endorse a cause that is unpopular within the Republican Party.

"The McCains are one of the most well-known Republican families in recent history, and for Mrs. McCain to have reached out to us to offer her support truly means a lot," the site says.

"Although we had worked with Meghan McCain before and were aware of her own position, we'd never really thought the cause might be something her mother would get behind. We have a huge amount of respect for both of these women for being brave enough to make it known they support equal marriage rights for all Americans."

Meghan McCain said Wednesday in a Twitter message linked to her blog: "I couldn't be more proud of my mother for posing for the NOH8 campaign. I think more Republicans need to start taking a stand for equality."

Meghan McCain was asked to be the keynote speaker at next month's National Equality Week at George Washington University in Washington for her advocacy, but her appearance has drawn criticism from Republicans on campus, the NOH8 site said.

McCain's Senate re-election campaign said Wednesday that his presidential running mate, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, will come to Arizona to campaign for him in March. Palin has been a vocal opponent of gay marriage.
---
On the Net:

http://www.noh8campaign.com/

http://twitter.com/mccainblogette/

"Close Friend" Throws Out Suit

http://www.truthout.org/091509S

Cheney and Rumsfeld's "Close Friend" Throws Out Suit Against Alleged Abu Ghraib Torturers
Tuesday 15 September 2009
Jeremy Scahill Rebel Reports

Should Judge Laurence Silberman have recused himself from a case involving alleged torture for which his buddies were ultimately responsible?

On September 11, the US appeals court for the District of Columbia announced in a 2-1 decision that it was throwing out a lawsuit against CACI International and L-3 Communications Titan unit, which are being sued by Iraqi civilians for their alleged role in the torture and abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison. The companies provided interrogators at the prison at the height of the abuses there. The suit alleges that employees of the companies conspired with U.S. Army reservist Charles Graner, who was convicted of prisoner abuse on January 14, 2005 and is currently serving 10 years at Fort Leavenworth, and others to torture prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Several of the plaintiffs are Iraqis whose torture was depicted in graphic photos revealed over the past several years.

The judge who wrote the majority opinion, Laurence H. Silberman, said: "During wartime, where a private service contractor is integrated into combatant activities over which the military retains command authority, a tort claim arising out of the contractor's engagement in such activities shall be preempted."

The decision was swiftly celebrated by the private security industry. "The court's decision today is an important step toward resolving all legal matters regarding the company's mission and duties in Iraq," Jody Brown, executive vice president for public relations at CACI, said in a statement. "We have said from day one that these lawsuits are completely without merit and designed to pursue a political agenda."

"This is big, and this is the kind of good news the contracting community needs," wrote one security contractor on his blog. "Precedents like this are what we need for further protection in the future for similar cases."

Scott Horton, the great military and constitutional law expert wrote at Harper's that Silberman's opinion "reflects an amazing ignorance of or indifference to the basic concepts of the law of armed conflict:"

That law imposes a rule of absolute accountability on any persons fielded in a conflict, including contractors. It does not permit impunity or immunity. Not every aspect of the law of armed conflict is subject to private enforcement in the courts. But the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct is. The United States agreed in ratifying the Convention Against Torture that it would provide individuals who were tortured with legal recourse. The Alien Tort Statute, which formed the basis for the suit, has historically been used in federal courts to give foreigners compensation for claims of torture. But Judge Silberman decided to grant the contractors immunity from such suits.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Merrick B. Garland wrote:

The plaintiffs in these cases allege that they were beaten, electrocuted, raped, subjected to attacks by dogs, and otherwise abused by private contractors working as interpreters and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison. At the current stage of the litigation, we must accept these allegations as true ... No act of Congress and no judicial precedent bars the plaintiffs from suing the private contractors - who were neither soldiers nor civilian government employees. Indeed, the only statute to which the defendants point expressly excludes private contractors from the immunity it preserves for the government ... the Department of Defense has repeatedly stated that employees of private contractors accompanying the Armed Forces in the field are not within the military's chain of command, and that such contractors are subject to civil liability.

"Republican legal architects talk about a culture of accountability, but what they are introducing is actually a culture in which corporate surrogates torture, rape, and abuse with no consequences whatsoever," writes Horton.

Beyond the legal issues here, which Horton deftly tackles, there is another issue: Judge Laurence Silberman himself. Silberman was appointed to the bench by President Reagan in 1985, but he had already made a name for himself in right wing political circles. Several journalists have dug deep into Silberman's alleged involvement with the arms-for-hostages deal, his exoneration of Iran-Contra figures Oliver North and John Poindexter and Silberman's role in promoting the career of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. For a good summary of Silberman's career see this excellent article by Michele Goldberg on Salon.com. Goldberg writes:

[Silberman] has been near the febrile center of the largest political scandals of the past two decades, from the rumored "October surprise" of 1980 and the Iran-contra trials to the character assassination of Anita Hill and the impeachment of President Clinton. Whenever right-wing conspiracies swing into action, Silberman is there.

A veteran of the Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan administrations who is close to Vice President Dick Cheney, Silberman has a reputation as a fierce ideologue who doesn't let his judicial responsibilities get in the way of his Republican activism.

Judge Silberman also counts among his "close friends" former vice president Dick Cheney and former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld - going back to their time in the Ford Administration. Rumsfeld was ultimately the official responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib at the time of the alleged torture of the plaintiffs in this case and Cheney was a major architect of the torture program. One of Bush/Cheney's key "torture lawyers," John Yoo, clerked under Silberman. Silberman also was chosen by President George W Bush to co-chair the Iraq Intelligence Commission. The 600+ page report Silberman's commission produced placed the blame for "intelligence failures" squarely on intelligence analysts and exonerated officials, like Cheney, who worked tirelessly to politicize intelligence to fit the White House's political agenda and its drive to invade Iraq. In June 2008, Bush awarded Silberman the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2004, former Nixon staffer Kevin Phillips said, "In the past, Silberman has been more involved with coverups in the Middle East than with any attempts to unravel them."

Should Silberman have recused himself from this case?

In 1994, the Supreme Court found that "Disqualification is required if an objective observer would entertain reasonable questions about the judge's impartiality. If a judge's attitude or state of mind leads a detached observer to conclude that a fair and impartial hearing is unlikely, the judge must be disqualified." [Liteky v. U.S., 114 S.Ct. 1147, 1162 (1994)] There are also these decisions: Courts have found that Section 455(a) of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. §455(a) "requires a judge to recuse himself in any proceeding in which her impartiality might reasonably be questioned." [Taylor v. O'Grady, 888 F.2d 1189 (7th Cir. 1989)]. In Pfizer Inc. v. Lord, the Court stated that "It is important that the litigant not only actually receive justice, but that he believes that he has received justice." [456 F.2d 532 (8th Cir. 1972)]

Do Silberman's relationships to Cheney and Rumsfeld whose policies ultimately led to the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib constitute "reasonable questions" about his "impartiality?"

The opposition to the Obama healthcare plan

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/pers-a12.shtml

What is behind the opposition to the Obama healthcare plan?
12 August 2009
Patrick Martin

President Obama’s proposed restructuring of the US healthcare system has come under ferocious attack over the past week. Right-wing activists, in many cases organized by groups affiliated with the Republican Party or financed by sections of the healthcare industry, turned out at town hall meetings to shout down Democratic congressmen or Obama aides. There have been death threats and some actual violence.

The right-wing attack combines hysterical distortion of the provisions of the Obama plan (frequently, and falsely, branded as “socialized medicine”) with an appeal to the concerns of wide layers of the American population who sense, quite correctly, that the healthcare restructuring being promoted in Washington will come at their expense and will benefit only the big corporate interests.

Chief among the distortions has been the claim, fostered most notably by former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, that the Obama plan promotes euthanasia and that millions of elderly people will be hauled before a federal “death panel” to decide whether paying for their healthcare was warranted based on their “level of productivity in society.”

The actual provision, Section 1323 of one version of legislation that has passed one committee in the House of Representatives, merely states that Medicare will now reimburse doctors who hold end-of-life counseling sessions for beneficiaries who want to know their options on hospice care, living wills, and similar services.

Palin, who resigned as governor of Alaska July 26 in order to pursue a national career as spokeswoman for the fascistic wing of the Republican Party, is appealing to the same Christian fundamentalist elements who mobilized around the case of Terri Schiavo in 2005.

The popular disaffection with the Obama healthcare plan goes much further, however, than the fanatical right-to-life constituency. The Obama administration has based its program for healthcare restructuring entirely on the argument that healthcare costs are bankrupting the US economy and that controlling and reducing these costs is essential.

The logical conclusion of this policy—even if officially denied by the White House—is that somebody’s healthcare is too expensive and must be cut back or eliminated. Millions of people fear that that somebody is likely to be them and their families. One opinion poll published last week showed that 53 percent believed they would be worse off or no better than before under the Obama plan.

Obama and the congressional Democrats have sought to use the frenzied outpourings of his right-wing critics to discredit all opposition to the measures that the administration is pursuing to cut social benefit programs like Medicare and impose even greater burdens on American working people.

The crudest effort along these lines came in a column published in USAToday Monday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, which branded the opposition to Obama’s healthcare plan “un-American attacks.” They criticized the right-wing disruptions as an effort to suppress discussion, then pledged that the healthcare “reform” would mean higher-quality care, an end to insurance company abuses and “stability and peace of mind for the middle class.”

In his radio speech Saturday and at a carefully controlled town hall meeting in New Hampshire Tuesday, Obama sought to soothe popular concerns over the implication of the healthcare cost-cutting and put a “progressive” gloss on what is a fundamentally reactionary and pro-corporate policy.

The president told his New Hampshire audience that charges that his program will cut Medicare benefits for the elderly were false. “It’s a myth that we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits,” he said. “We’re not.” He claimed that the only cut in Medicare would be $177 billion in subsidies to insurance companies that operate private Medicare Advantage plans. But all the plans moving through the House and Senate—with full backing by the White House—call for substantial reductions in Medicare reimbursement to hospitals and doctors, which will inevitably be translated into cutbacks in care for the elderly and disabled.

One of the first questions taken by Obama—no doubt prearranged by White House political operatives—was from a woman denied coverage by her insurance company because of a pre-existing condition. Expressing sympathy for her plight, Obama sought to use the exchange to present his program as a benefit for those whose healthcare benefits have been cut back or eliminated by profit-driven insurers.

The real relationship of Obama and the Democrats to the insurance industry was far more accurately described by BusinessWeek magazine in its current cover story on healthcare “reform,” headlined, “The Health Insurers Have Already Won.” The magazine details how UnitedHealthGroup, the largest US health insurer, has used its influence in Washington, particularly with conservative congressional Democrats in the “Blue Dog” caucus and Obama advisers like former senator Tom Daschle, to effectively dictate the parameters of the healthcare legislation moving through Congress.

“The industry has already accomplished its main goal of at least curbing, and maybe blocking altogether, any new publicly administered insurance program that could grab market share from the corporations that dominate the business,” BusinessWeek wrote approvingly. UnitedHealthCare, Aetna and Wellpoint have “also achieved a secondary aim of constraining the new benefits that will become available to tens of millions of people who are currently uninsured. That will make the new customers more lucrative to the industry.”

In other words, the corporate profiteers have a tight grip over the healthcare legislation. Their political servants in both the Republican and Democratic parties can be relied on to guarantee their financial interests are served by any healthcare restructuring, or to torpedo the bill outright if that proves necessary.

Over the past several weeks, there has been detailed press coverage of the enormous sums that the drug companies, the insurance companies, the for-profit hospital chains and other corporate interests have poured into “lobbying” and “campaign contributions”—the two Washington euphemisms for outright bribery. (See “US health care lobby pumps millions into Obama’s cost-cutting drive” and “The drug lobby demands, and gets, Obama pledge to protect health care profits”)

According to press reports Tuesday, the drug industry lobby PhRMA will launch a $150 million advertising blitz in support of Obama’s healthcare reform drive, after the White House reaffirmed its promise that it will limit the industry’s “contribution” to the cost of healthcare restructuring to the $80 billion agreed on in closed-door talks between Obama aides and PhRMA chief Billy Tauzin (a founding member of the “Blue Dogs” before he left Congress to become an open rather than concealed representative of the drug manufacturers).

Obama has repeatedly avowed his support for capitalist medicine, and the “right” of drug companies, the insurance companies, the medical equipment manufacturers, and a host of other parasites to profit from the sick. His differences with his Republican opponents are purely tactical, and largely concern which sections of corporate America will benefit the most from the current legislative undertaking.

Nothing that emerges from the machinations of big business politicians and corporate lobbyists in Washington can serve the needs of working people. Medical care must be made available to every American citizen and resident, provided for at state expense as a basic human right. This requires the nationalization of the insurance companies, the drug companies, and all the other healthcare profiteers, and the establishment of a system of socialized medicine provided free to all who need it.

Sarah Palin not under FBI investigation

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-palin5-2009jul05,0,7018263.story

Sarah Palin not under FBI investigation, agency spokesman says
The former GOP vice presidential candidate's surprise resignation as Alaska governor had set off speculation, including rumors of a pending federal corruption probe or charges.
By Josh Meyer
July 5, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- A day after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resigned, a federal official in her home state dismissed one potential explanation for her sudden and unexpected resignation: a rumored FBI investigation into the former Wasilla mayor on public corruption charges.

Despite rumors of a looming controversy after the Republican governor's surprise announcement Friday that she would leave office this month, some of them published in the blogosphere, the FBI's Alaska spokesman said the bureau had no investigation into Palin for her activities as governor, as mayor or in any other capacity.

"There is absolutely no truth to those rumors that we're investigating her or getting ready to indict her," Special Agent Eric Gonzalez said in a phone interview Saturday. "It's just not true." He added that there was "no wiggle room" in his comments for any kind of inquiry.

The FBI has been active in mounting corruption investigations in Alaska, some to see whether local, state and federal lawmakers illegally received favors, money or free construction work from businesses or people seeking favors.

The most high-profile case was against former Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, whose conviction last year on charges of lying on Senate ethics forms stemmed from charges that a politically connected developer had done work on his house illegally.

The Obama administration Justice Department threw out the charges in April, saying prosecutors had failed to turn over potentially helpful information to Stevens' defense team. Some bloggers have speculated that such an FBI investigation was underway on Palin, who still had 18 months left in her term.

Also Saturday, the former GOP vice presidential nominee posted a statement on her Facebook page, not offering specifics but indicating that she had broad goals after she leaves the governor's office.

She did not say whether she planned to run for president in 2012, but criticized media coverage of her announcement:

"How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country. And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make."

josh.meyer@latimes.com

Republican VP candidate, congressman Kemp dies

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/02/kemp.obit/

Former Republican VP candidate, congressman Kemp dies
Story Highlights
Jack Kemp, former congressman and vice presidential candidate, dies at 73
Kemp announced in January he was battling cancer
Before politics, Kemp was a professional football quarterback
Kemp also served as secretary of housing and urban development (1989-1993)
5-2-9

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former congressman and Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp died Saturday at age 73 after a battle with cancer, his family announced.

Jack Kemp, a former congressman from New York, was the GOP's vice presidential candidate in 1996.

A onetime professional football player, Kemp served nine terms in Congress as a representative from New York and was former Sen. Bob Dole's running mate in 1996. He was a leading advocate of "supply-side" tax cuts, advancing the argument that cutting taxes would boost economic growth and yield more revenue for the federal government.

"The only way to oppose a bad idea is to replace it with a good idea, and I like to think that I have spent my life trying to promote good ideas," he told CNN in a 1996 interview.

Kemp "passed peacefully into the presence of the Lord" Sunday evening, a family statement said. He disclosed his illness in January.

"During the treatment of his cancer, Jack expressed his gratitude for the thoughts and prayers of so many friends, a gratitude which the Kemp family shares," the family said.

Kemp quarterbacked the Buffalo Bills to back-to-back American Football League championships in 1964 and 1965, before the merger that created the modern NFL. When he retired in 1970 after 13 seasons, the California native ran for Congress and represented the Buffalo area for 18 years in the House of Representatives. View photos of Jack Kemp's life »

"He championed free-market principles that improved the lives of millions of Americans and helped unleash an entrepreneurial spirit that all of us still benefit from today," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said in a statement issued late Saturday.

The 1981 tax cuts signed into law by Ronald Reagan, which cut marginal tax rates from 70 percent to 50 percent, bore Kemp's name as a co-sponsor. Critics mocked the policy as "trickle-down" economics and pointed to the decade's growing budget deficits as evidence that supply-side theories didn't work, but it has been GOP orthodoxy ever since.

Kemp mounted an unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988, losing the Republican primaries to George H.W. Bush. But once in office, Bush made Kemp his secretary of housing and urban development -- a post Kemp used to promote what he called an "empowerment" agenda of tax breaks for urban businesses and expanded home ownership.

Unlike many of the other conservatives of his era, Kemp actively courted African-American support. In 1992, he told CNN's "Larry King Live" that the GOP "could be a Lincoln party in terms of attracting black and brown and men and women of color and low-income status and immigrant status who want a shot at the American dream for their children."

How to identify political parties

This little old lady calls 911. When the dispatcher answers she yells "Help, send the police to my house right away! There's a doggone Democrat on my front porch and he's playing with himself!":

"What?" the dispatcher exclaims.

"I said, there's a daggone Democrat on my front porch playing with himself and he's weird. I don't know him and I'm afraid. Please send the police!" the little old lady repeated.

"Well now, how do you know he's a Democrat?"

"Because, you dang fool, if he was a Republican, he'd be screwing somebody!"

Report from the Brooklyn trenches

2/8/2009
Mitchell Cohen From Bensonhurst
mitchelcohen@mindspring.com

All it takes is dragging myself to one local Democratic Party meeting, even one hosted by a progressive and Green-friendly State Assembly member like Bill Colton (47 A.D. - Bensonhurst), to make me again realize two things:

1) How important regular local meetings are for congealing a "force" to accomplish *anything* ; and,

2) Why, despite all of our problems, I am a Green and not a Democrat.

I've just returned from a "breakfast" at my NY State Assembly representative Bill Colton's clubhouse. There were around 120 people there, crammed into a bagel-and-cream-cheese fluorescent brunch at $25 a pop.

Also present, every NY Democratic Party politician and his .... I was going to say "mother", but the 12 on the stage were all men, and all White men until City Council member John Liu joined the dais.

The ostensible purpose was to hear NY State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli speak. THIS, I thought I'd be interested in. I have some very pointed questions about the way NY under Governor Patterson and Mayor Bloomberg is smashing working class people in order to pay off the interest on the debt to the banks.

But no questions were allowed -- at least not while I was there.

I left, needing to throw up after Senator Schumer spoke. Didn't hear our new Congressional rep McCann, nor Boro President Marty Markowitz, nor any of the other bevy of liars and thieves.

It was only out of respect for Bill Colton and the fine work he is doing on every level with our community that I didn't shout out my questions or comments.

But one fellow did. He was in his 90s, stood up and interrupted Schumer's speech. Schumer is a consummate schmoozer -- man, is he good at it! You'd never know from his talk about his parents in Florida, his youth in East New York where his father was an exterminator (!), how billionaire-banker-friendly his actual voting record is.

As Schumer was peakocking around the stage bragging about how they'd convinced three moderate Republican Senators (2 from Maine, and 1 from Pennsylvania) to join the Democrats in passing the so-called "stimulus" package, otherwise known as "bail out the billionaires", a 90-year-old grizzled Brooklynite got to his feet and shouted out, "Kill all the Republicans."

Schumer tried to regain the floor by saying, "Well, I wouldn't go that far," but the elder man said, "I was a kid in 1929 at the Great Depression, and the Republicans did then what the are doing now. I say 'kill them all'."

Schumer regained the floor with some witty remark, and went on. I was tempted to shout out, a few minutes later, "Kill the Democrats," but thought better of it, berated myself for copping out, and left as State Sen. Carl Krueger was about to begin.

Had we been allowed to ask questions, I would have asked:

1) What are you doing about CitiBank's unilaterally raising its Credit Card rates to 21 percent last week? Here they're getting billions of working class funds in the bailout pushed by the Democrats, and they accelerate their soaking of working people and those on fixed income and making it HARDER to get credit -- exactly the opposite of what the Stimulus package is supposedly designed to do.

2) The transit fare is slated to go up to $3 a ride, to raise $1.2 billion claimed by the MTA as its deficit. Meanwhile, the interest on the MTA's capital expenditures (NOT operations) -- that is, the building of the 2nd Ave. subway, etc. -- is $1.5 billion for this year. So the transit fare is being increased to pay the INTEREST to the banks on loans the MTA had taken. At the same time, we're giving the same banks tens of billions of dollars. Why haven't the Democrats earmarked the funds they're paying for bailing out the billionaire shareholders to paying off the bank loans, so that no fare increases and no layoffs would be needed?

3) Why doesn't the City impose a 5 cents transfer tax on every stock transaction? There are tens of billions of shares traded every day. A puny 5 cent tax would pay off the entire City debt in a month, and add tens of billions of dollars to the City's coffers, which could be used to make mass transit FREE, AND hire more teachers to reduce class size, AND clean up the environment, AND hire more Parks Dept. workers to remove the artificial turf and restore and maintain natural grass to the City's parks.

Those are what I was prepared to ask.

I would have also asked something about where NY State invests its pension funds under DiNapoli's control, but it was just too last minute and it would have been too convoluted.

Feel free to add more to this list, it would help us out the next go 'round.

I'm glad things went so well for Bill Colton and for local Democratic Party chair Mark Treyger (who was my mom's student years ago in second grade). Maybe they can serve some organic vegetables, fruit and free-trade coffee the next time, and invite local activists like me -- and hopefully some women -- onto the panels in the future.

Whew, what a welcome moment it was to rush out into the 60 degrees sunlight, breathe deep the glorious Brooklyn air, and remember why I'm a Green and not a Democrat!

Who You Callin’ a Maverick?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/weekinreview/05schwartz.html

October 5, 2008
The Nation
Who You Callin’ a Maverick?
By JOHN SCHWARTZ

There’s that word again: maverick. In Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican candidate, used it to describe herself and her running mate, Senator John McCain, no fewer than six times, at one point calling him “the consummate maverick.”

But to those who know the history of the word, applying it to Mr. McCain is a bit of a stretch — and to one Texas family in particular it is even a bit offensive.

“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.

In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand.

Sam Maverick’s grandson, Fontaine Maury Maverick, was a two-term congressman and a mayor of San Antonio who lost his mayoral re-election bid when conservatives labeled him a Communist. He served in the Roosevelt administration on the Smaller War Plants Corporation and is best known for another coinage. He came up with the term “gobbledygook” in frustration at the convoluted language of bureaucrats.

This Maverick’s son, Maury Jr., was a firebrand civil libertarian and lawyer who defended draft resisters, atheists and others scorned by society. He served in the Texas Legislature during the McCarthy era and wrote fiery columns for The San Antonio Express-News. His final column, published on Feb. 2, 2003, just after he died at 82, was an attack on the coming war in Iraq.

Terrellita Maverick, sister of Maury Jr., is a member emeritus of the board of the San Antonio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

Considering the family’s long history of association with liberalism and progressive ideals, it should come as no surprise that Ms. Maverick insists that John McCain, who has voted so often with his party, “is in no way a maverick, in uppercase or lowercase.”

“It’s just incredible — the nerve! — to suggest that he’s not part of that Republican herd. Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again.’ ”

“He’s a Republican,” she said. “He’s branded.”

How The Democrats Can Blow It...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/22249602/how_the_democrats_can_blow_it_in_six_easy_steps/print

How The Democrats Can Blow It ...In Six Easy Steps
A blueprint for losing the most winnable presidential election in American history
MICHAEL MOORE
Aug 21, 2008

For years now, nearly every poll has shown that the American people are right in sync with the platform of the Democratic Party. They are pro-environment, pro-women's rights and pro-choice. They don't like war. They want the minimum wage raised, and they want a single-payer universal health-care system. The American public agrees with the Republican Party on only one major issue: They support the death penalty.

So you would think the Democrats would be cleaning up, election after election. Obviously not. The Democrats appear to be professional losers. They are so pathetic in their ability to win elections, they even lose when they win! So when you hear Democrats and liberals and supporters of Barack Obama say they are worried that John McCain has a good chance of winning, they ain't a-kidding. Who would know better than the very people who have handed the Republicans one election after another on a silver platter? Yes, be afraid, be very afraid.

In an effort to help the party doofuses and pundits — and the candidate himself — spare all of us another suicide-inducing election night, as the results giving the election to the Republican pour in, here is the blueprint from the Democrats' past losing campaigns. Just follow each of these steps and you, the Democratic Party establishment, can help elect John Sidney McCain III to a four-year extension of the Bush Era.

1. Keep saying nice things about McCain.

If you want to help elect McCain, keep blessing him as if he were the white knight who accidentally hopped on the wrong horse. Keep reminding a country at war that he, and he alone, is a war hero. That he's been "good on global warming" and campaign finance. Say that enough, and you know what happens? People start to believe it! You've sold them on the idea that McCain isn't a bad egg, and they do not hear the rest of what you have to say: "But John McCain is four more years of George W. Bush."

Don't remind people that McCain wants to help the oil companies even more than Bush did. Don't bring up that he wants to outlaw abortion. Back away from painting him as the guy who thinks it's a good idea to stay in Iraq until pigs fly. That way, if you keep praising him, you can send a mixed message to the less informed, who are simply not going to figure it out. When they walk into a voting booth, they will see two names on the ballot:

BARACK OBAMA
WAR HERO

Trust me, this ain't Sweden you're living in. War Hero wins every time.

2. Pick a running mate who is a conservative white guy or a general or a Republican.

Yes, it will seem like smart politics at first. Shore up Obama's lack of military experience with a hawk. Be true to Obama's message that he'll be a president for everybody by having him run with a Republican. Make a pitch to the purple states of Virginia and Indiana by putting one of their own on the ticket. Or make the red state of Ohio happy by handing the vice presidential slot to its governor. Just so long as Obama's running mate screams "same old, same old," making it harder for him to attract the new voters he needs to win.

There is nothing wrong with picking someone who can help him win a swing state or someone who has more experience than he does in certain areas. But when I hear pundits say things like, "He has to pick a Catholic," well, John Kerry was a total Catholic, and the Catholic vote went to Mr. W. I mean, here's one of the largest groups in the country — 66 million Catholics — and they/we have only allowed one Catholic to be president in 219 years. You would think they would have been flocking to Kerry in 2004. THAT IS NOT THE WAY PEOPLE THINK. IT IS THE WAY PUNDITS THINK. Keep listening to them and you can help elect John McCain the next President of the United States.

3. Keep writing speeches for Obama that make him sound like a hawk.

Here's what Obama said in front of the American-Israeli lobbying group the day after the final primaries:
"The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat."

And: "Let there be no doubt — I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel. Sometimes there are no alternatives to confrontation."

Sounds like a speech McCain would give. Sounds like he's ready to invade Iran. Obama staked out an even worse position for the Palestinians vis-à-vis Jerusalem than the one held by George W. Bush. Keep that up, and more and more supporters will be less and less enthused. He also says he wants to send more troops to Afghanistan. The implied message of all of this is that the Republican plan is a good plan. So why would voters want to elect the candidate imitating the Republican when they can get the real thing?

4. Forget that this was a historic year for women.

Obama should be making a speech about gender like the brilliant one he gave on race back in March. Millions of people, especially women, had high hopes for the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Attention must be paid. And you don't pay attention to it by having your advisers run your wife through the makeover machine, trying to soften her up and pipe her down. Michelle Obama has been one of the most refreshing things about this election year. But within weeks of the end of the primary season, the handlers stepped in to deal with the "Michelle problem."

What problem? She speaks her mind? She wears what she wants? Her biggest sin, according to the punditocracy, was to say that, as a black woman, this may be the first time in her adult life she's been really proud of her country. Shock! Surprise! Outrage! But not from any of the black women I know.

You have to be white and stupid to not know what she was really saying. If you don't understand, let me ask you this: Have you been proud of what this country has been doing in the past few years? Are you proud your neighbors had their house taken from them? Are you proud to be sending a good chunk of your paycheck to the oil companies so they can post record profits? Are you proud to know your vice president outed one of our spies and put her life and the lives of others at risk?

That's all she was saying — what we are all feeling.

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both lost the white-male vote but won the White House. They did so by winning the black, Hispanic and female vote. That HAS to be Obama's strategy to win. Otherwise, Cindy McCain will be our new First Lady.

5. Show up to a gunfight with a peashooter.

Convince yourself that the Republicans are just going to roll over and play dead because there is simply no life left in their party. Convince yourself this one is in the bag! Convince yourself that if you play by the rules, the Republicans will too.
And when McCain and his people roll out their nuclear arsenal on you, just go all sweet and sensitive and logical. Believe that the truth shall prevail, that good people will see what the Republicans are up to. As they smear you, your family, your religious beliefs — cower, back down, go on the defensive.

If they say you should quit your church, quit your church! If they explode over your speaking the truth about the anger and despair of the white working class, take it all back! If they ask you to stand on your head and do the hokeypokey, snap to it and do it with a smile on your face — and don't forget to apologize for not doing the hokeypokey earlier; you meant no disrespect, and please don't take it as any indication that you do not love your country, your flag and your Christian God.

Do all of that and then listen for that sound — the sound of your supporters shuffling away in silence. They'll stop showing up at campaign headquarters. They'll say they're too busy to go on another door-to-door literature drop. On Election Day, they'll do their duty and vote, but they will not be up at 6 a.m. driving around the city's neighborhoods, picking up strangers who need a ride to the polls.

And on the way to the polls, some of them might just come to a stoplight, turn around and go home. Maybe they'll pick up a six-pack on the way. Maybe there's a new episode of Deal or No Deal on tonight. That would be nice. The girls are pretty, especially the blonde in the third row. Wait, they're all blond. No, not that one — THAT one! Oh yes, I see her. She is pretty. But the Man in the Booth has picked up the phone! He's calling down to you. Deal? Or no deal? No deal! No deal! Don't do it! Hey, I'm outta beer! Why didn't I pick up a case? Now I gotta spend eight bucks on gas to go buy more beer! Aaaaarrrggggghhhhhh!!!! HOWIE MANDEL ISN'T WEARING A FLAG PIN!! U-S-A! U-S-A!

6. Denounce me!

Obama, at some point, might be asked this question: "Michael Moore has endorsed you. But he recently said (fill in the blank with some outrageously offensive line taken out of context). Will you still accept his endorsement, or do you denounce him?"

And he better denounce me, or they will tear him to shreds. He had better back away not only from me but from anyone and everyone who veers a bit too far to the left of where his advisers have told him is the sweet spot for all those red-state voters. I won't take it personally. After all, I'm not the guy who married him or baptized his kids. I'm just the idiot who went to the same terrorist, Muslim school of flag-pin desecrators he went to.

I remember poor John Kerry not even being able to admit, when asked by Larry King, if he had seen Fahrenheit 9/11. "No," he said, "I haven't. . . . I don't plan to, right now." But he had indeed seen it. I sat there watching him say this, and I just felt sorry for him and for the election he was about to lose.

We can't take four more years of this madness, Barack. We need you to be a candidate who will fight back every time they attack you. Actually, don't even wait till you have to fight back. Fight first! Show some vision and courage and smoke them out. Keep asking why these lobbyists are McCain's best friends. Let's finally have a Democrat who's got the balls to fire first.

So Barack, by denouncing me, you can help McCain get elected. Because when you denounce me, it's not really me you're distancing yourself from — it's the millions upon millions of people who feel the same way about things as I do. And many of them are the kind of crazy voters who have no problem voting for a Nader just to prove a point.

Elections have been lost by just 537 votes. I don't want that to happen to you.

From the forthcoming book "Mike's Election Guide," by Michael Moore. Copyright © 2008 by Michael Moore. Reprinted by permission of Grand Central Publishing, New York, NY.

McCain get-together may be a tryout

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-mccain22-2008may22,0,4355425.story

McCain get-together may be a tryout for running mate
At least three high-profile Republicans, including Mitt Romney, will join the Arizona senator at his Sedona cabin for Memorial Day.
By Maeve Reston
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 22, 2008

When he escapes to his retreat outside Sedona for Memorial Day grilling this weekend, Arizona Sen. John McCain will have some high-profile company -- at least three Republican politicians widely viewed as potential running mates.

Among the guests invited to McCain's cabin are former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who campaigned with McCain recently in New Orleans.

McCain strategist Charlie Black insisted the gathering would be "purely social" and had "nothing whatsoever to do with the vice presidential selection process."

"Wouldn't it be difficult to interview people for vice president with the other competitors there?" he said.

McCain's aides have been silent about when McCain might choose a vice presidential candidate. And though McCain has said he's narrowed his list to about 20, he has said he will not reveal their names to spare them embarrassment if they are not chosen.

Playing down the significance of the weekend, Black noted that McCain and his wife, Cindy, have hosted similar events when other presumed contenders, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, have spent the day at McCain's secluded Hidden Valley Ranch.

McCain has invited nine couples this weekend, including Black and his wife. Black declined to name the other guests.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, former EBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman and FedEx Corp. Chief Executive Frederick W. Smith are also expected to attend, according to campaign and Republican sources who asked not to be named when discussing the guest list.

Republican pollster Whit Ayres said he expected McCain to look for a "next-generation governor" from a battleground state who would be seen as "a good potential president."

Several Republican strategists said McCain's campaign had an interest in fueling running-mate speculation to draw attention to the campaign, which has been overshadowed by the Democratic presidential contest.

Some political analysts also said there would be advantages for McCain to name a running mate early. A partner on the trail could help McCain raise money as he tries to catch up with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who has raised significantly more. McCain's poll numbers are also expected to drop when Obama becomes McCain's lone opponent, and news about a running mate could help counter that.

Republican consultant Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole's presidential campaign in 1996, said it was "extremely early" for McCain to be doing public tryouts. Serious interviews would likely come after the top candidates have been vetted by lawyers and accountants, Reed said. But he acknowledged a key component in choosing McCain's running mate would be determining compatibility. The weekend, Reed said, "is a perfect way to see how people really are, how they interact with other people."

The most crucial test of chemistry may be with Romney, who is seen as one of the strongest potential candidates to join a McCain ticket. When they were rivals for the GOP nomination, McCain was at times disdainful of the former CEO's experience and qualifications to be president, dismissing him as a "manager," not a leader.

Their personalities could not be more different. McCain is irreverent, temperamental and loquacious; Romney is straight-laced, even-tempered and disciplined.

But having Romney, 61, on the ticket could help McCain with the religious right and conservatives. Romney courted the party's conservative activists assiduously during his presidential campaign.

"I think Romney is the favorite of most who are one circle removed from McCain," said Vin Weber, a Republican lobbyist who supported Romney in the primary. "But no one knows what the innermost circle -- McCain, Cindy, [advisor Mark] Salter, [campaign manager Rick] Davis, Black -- are thinking."

Campaigning with them recently, McCain has lavished praise on Crist, 51, and Jindal, 36. Both men could provide a youthful presence on the ticket.

Crist is hugely popular among Republicans and Democrats in Florida. His eleventh-hour endorsement of McCain is credited with helping the senator clinch Florida's January primary and put him in position to win the nomination.

A former state attorney general and state lawmaker, Crist is more affable than ideological and is viewed with suspicion by conservatives. He has built a reputation as a consumer advocate and environmentalist who also backed prisoner work crews and opposed abortion.

Picking Crist, whose approval rating hovers around 70%, would all but assure a McCain victory in a state the GOP must win to gain an Electoral College majority.

A spokeswoman for Crist said McCain called him personally to invite him and his girlfriend, Carole Rome, a Miami businesswoman, to the weekend getaway.

Jindal has been considered a rising GOP star since he was elected governor in October. Before winning -- making him the nation's first Indian American governor -- Jindal served two terms in the House.

Choosing Jindal could appeal to younger voters. But he may be regarded as too green to be second in line to the presidency, particularly when the McCain campaign's central line of attack against Obama is that he is too inexperienced to be president.

maeve.reston@latimes.com

Times staff writers Janet Hook and Peter Wallsten contributed to this report.

Republicans fear public has lost confidence

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-05-14-gopfallout_N.htm

Republicans fear public has lost confidence
By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY
5-14-8

WASHINGTON — Republicans must regain the confidence of Americans and recast their message to voters to avoid a catastrophe in the fall congressional elections, top GOP officials said Wednesday in a stark postmortem of a loss in rural Mississippi.

Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who runs the committee tasked with helping elect Republicans to Congress, said Tuesday's defeat in Mississippi — after losing GOP seats in other special elections in Illinois and Louisiana — was evidence that "a large section of the American people doesn't have confidence in the Republican Party."

"What we've got right now is a deficiency in our message and a loss of confidence by the American people to do what we say we're going to do," Cole said in a conference call with reporters.

He said, "When you lose three of these in a row, you have to get beyond campaign tactics and take a long hard look: Is there something wrong with your product?"

Cole did not elaborate on potential defects, but Democrats had a ready answer.

"The Republican message is 'no, veto, and status quo,' " said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He said Republicans couldn't win in Mississippi even though they poured $1 million into the race, sent Vice President Cheney to campaign and tried to link Democratic candidate Travis Childers to the controversy over Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's former pastor.

Obama mentioned Childers' victory in a speech in Michigan. "This is a hard-core Republican seat, and they lost it by 8 points. They did everything they could. They ran ads with my face on it."

In a memo to GOP leaders posted on Politico's website, retiring Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., offered a blunt verdict: "The Republican brand is in the trash can. … If we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf."

"This is as bad as it gets for any party," said David Wasserman, House editor of the Cook Political Report, which tracks each race. "I've never seen a more defeated tone." Nevertheless, Wasserman said, his analysis shows the Democrats will pick up far fewer districts than they did in the 2006 election, when they gained 31 seats. He estimates the Democrats will gain five to 10 seats in the fall. "Democrats won most of the low-hanging fruit in 2006," he said.

Democratic leaders, not surprisingly, have a different view. They hope to capitalize on their winning formula in Mississippi and Louisiana, where their candidates' cultural conservatism played well.

"This clearly is a sign that there is no congressional district that is safe for Republican candidates who are following in the Bush shadow," said Van Hollen, whose committee has $44.3 million on hand, compared with $7.2 million for Cole's National Republican Congressional Committee.

Davis called the atmosphere for House Republicans "the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than the fall of 2006."

House Republicans met with Cole in the Capitol to sift through the ashes of defeat in Mississippi's 1st District, which became vacant when Republican Roger Wicker was appointed to the Senate to replace retiring Republican Trent Lott. House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio called the result "a wake-up call." But there is no consensus on how to fix it.

Former speaker Newt Gingrich has urged House Republicans to come out with a series of dramatic proposals, including a moratorium on congressionally directed spending items known as earmarks. His ideas were not widely embraced.

Boehner is rolling out an "American Families Agenda" this week focusing on national security, tax cuts, balancing the budget and boosting domestic oil production.