NM-Sen: Tom Udall raised $2.1 million in Q2.

No word yet on how much Steve Pearce raised, but I will say that between Udall's fundraising prowess, and his jaw-dropping polling leads, his campaign is looking more and more Warneresque every day.

Here's Udall's newest campaign ad:

KS-Sen: The local media, it appears, is taking Jim Slattery's campaign quite seriously, even floating the idea that Slattery could actually be Kansas' first Democratic Senator in John McCain's lifetime.

Kansas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since the Great Depression.

Through 13 presidents and five wars, Republicans have held its two seats for 76 unbroken years — the longest streak in the nation.

But today’s political climate could weaken their grip.

"The Republican brand is really bad in many parts of the country, with Kansas being better than many, but still not good," said Scott Bensing, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "It’s not a top-tier race, but it’s one of those where, should Democrats come into a bunch of money, it’d be a race."

Democrats actually do have a bunch of money (at least, the DSCC certainly does). This is not a top-tier race right now, but it's instructive that even Republican operatives acknowledge the potential this has to be a solid flanking race, perhaps even an upset.

AK-Sen: Orange to Blue candidate Mark Begich is going up on the air, with a 60-second biographical ad and a 30-second ad on energy issues.

Here's the bio ad:

Note that Begich references transparency in finances, and "special favors for elected officials", without actually mentioning Ted Stevens' name. Nicely done.

TX-Sen: The Hill comments that despite a huge cash advantage, and sitting in a state that has been bright red of late, Big Bad John is actually vulnerable.

The Texas senator’s support has dipped below 50 percent in the most recent Rasmussen poll. Cornyn also lost an important ally last month when the Texas Medical Association rescinded its endorsement as punishment for his vote on Medicare legislation.

To be sure, Cornyn is not expected to lose his seat to state Rep. Rick Noriega (D). He’s a Republican from a red state, with double-digit polling leads and a wide fundraising advantage.

Yet Cornyn acknowledges winning a second term won’t be easy.

It's going to be awfully tough to beat Cornyn this cycle, as Rick Noriega's fundraising numbers have not been strong. But I'm pleased to see that Cornyn is at least a little concerned.

House Races

NC-08: Per the latest Public Policy Polling poll, Republican Robin Hayes leads Democrat Larry Kissell by seven points:

Weak reelect numbers for Hayes, as he's seven points under the magic 50% mark.

Fully 48% of the district has no opinion of Kissell. In addition, Kissell draws support, in this poll, from just 55% of black voters, a number we'd certainly expect to go up.

GA-12: With one week left until primary day in Georgia's 12th District, State Sen. Regina Thomas has raised a meager $45K in her challenge to incumbent Rep. John Barrow.

That being the case, Thomas is no doubt banking on a heavy black turnout (the district is 45% African-American) to unseat Barrow. Barrow, however, has been touting his support from Barack Obama, in order to try and neutralize this factor:

Barrow’s campaign has made much of Obama’s endorsement, and last month Obama cut a radio ad for the sophomore Congressman who endorsed his presidential primary bid back in February.

The reason for Barrow’s enthusiasm for Obama almost certainly has to do with the fact that 45 percent of his district is black, which means that half the primary electorate could be black. But it probably also means that the Congressman, who came fewer than 1,000 votes away from losing his seat to a Republican in 2006, believes his tougher challenge this cycle lies in the July 15 Democratic primary rather than the November general election.

Obama's support for the second-term Blue Dog is interesting, and a major coup for Barrow.  I hope that when he is in the Oval Office, Barrow and the other Blue Dogs will remember that he had their back when they needed it.

NY-25: Orange to Blue candidate Dan Maffei is pulling in plenty of cash, nearly $500K in Q2, and now sits on nearly a million dollars.

Maffei spent $918,000 on his losing effort in 2006, compared to more than $1.7 million for Walsh. This cycle, Maffei has already raised $1.3 million.

The leading Republican candidate in the Syracuse-area 25th district, former Onondaga Legislature Chairman Dale Sweetland, was not prepared to release his latest fundraising figures on Monday. This will be the first quarter that Sweetland has submitted an FEC report.

Unless Sweetland had a mammoth first quarter, he's in big, deep, wide, cavernous trouble.

NV-03: Jon Ralston reports (via Political Wire) that Dems have an increasing registration advantage in NV-03, which spells trouble fo Rep. Jon Porter.

"The Democrats now have a 55,560-voter lead over the Republicans in a state that was dead even a presidential cycle ago. But the numbers in NV-3 should be the most worrisome to the GOP, as Democrats now have a nearly 24,000-voter lead in a district that was even only two years ago. The slow-but-sure Democratic spread in that district means that Rep. Jon Porter will have to run a kitchen sink campaign against state Sen. Dina Titus to survive and will have to do so flawlessly, too."

LA-01: Well, the Democratic Party has quite nearly succeeded in fielding a credible candidate in all of Louisiana's districts, even the blood-red, R+18.1, Bush-got-71% LA-01.

Meet Jim Harlan, the Democratic challenger to freshman Steve Scalise.

"Pro-life, pro-gun, fiscally conservative" Democrat Jim Harlan announced his candidacy for Congress on YouTube on Independence Day, bringing a self-funding challenger to recently elected Republican Rep. Steve Scalise this fall.

Harlan, who was a registered independent until February, attended the Democratic Convention earlier this year for the district’s special election in March and decided to get involved.

Is he serious? Well, he's already committed to putting over $500,000 of his own money into the race:

Harlan made his money, according to Coon, building up factories across the country and internationally for a wide variety of technologies and businesses. He will report more than $500,000 to the Federal Elections Commission later this month, which is more than what incumbent Scalise reported in the first quarter.

The $500,000 is mostly Harlan’s personal wealth, Coon said, "but he hasn’t begun to raise the money he can."

Well, that sounds pretty serious to me. In addition, Harlan has already raised $70,000, over half of what the last candidate for this seat, Dr. Gilda Reed, raised for her special-election race against Scalise.

We can thank Dr. Reed, however, for draining Scalise's coffers; as of April 13 he had $126K in the bank (having raised and spent over a million dollars on the race), meaning he may actually start off in the whole against Harlan.

That doesn't mean Harlan can win here. Kerry got 28% in 2004, and Reed got 22.5% (to Scalise's 75%) in the April special election. Still, given the obviously decent resources of the Harlan campaign, there's every reason to expect a significant improvement in Democratic performance here.

At the very least, Scalise will have to raise and spend his own money to win his own race, rather than funnelling it to the cash-strapped NRCC.

Harlan should be the strongest candidate we've had in this district in recent memory, and his entry speaks to a shocking and thrilling revitalization in the Louisiana Democratic Party.

Many had abandoned hope for Democratic politics in the state after Hurricane Katrina, but since then, we have not only held a very strongly Republican seat in the Third District (Charlie Melancon's), but we have taken a solid Republican seat in the Sixth District (Don Cazayoux's), and are fielding serious candidates in the First and Seventh Districts (where Don Cravins, Jr. will be taking on Charles Boustany).

If we can get a solid candidate against Rodney "Traitor" Alexander in the Fifth District, it will be a beautiful clean sweep in Louisiana.

On the web:

Orange to Blue ActBlue Page

Jay Rockefeller, on the Senate floor, speaking in opposition to the Bingaman amendment:

Mr. President, Senator Bingaman, who I greatly respect in all ways, has offered an amendment altering the liability protections of Title II. That's it. His amendment would postpone the implementation of the liability protections until after 90 days [after] the submission of the final report of the Inspectors General required under Title II. Now, I appreciate the Senator's desire to have more information out there, but I want the Senate as a whole to contemplate what we're asking here. We're talking about a year for the Inspectors General to complete their report. Well, you know, does it really work that way? Is it really a flat year? Are we going to send out federal marshals to have them all do their reports on the exact day? It'll probably stretch a little bit. Maybe it won't, maybe it will. But you can't assume it won't. And you've got to add on 90 days. And then you could get to the question of the immunity.

Uh, hey, good question, Senator! What will the Congress do if the Inspectors General don't complete their report on time? Or complete it at all? Or even start it?

Send out federal marshals? Ha ha! Yeah! Ha... oh, wait. That's actually a serious problem. What if the Inspectors General don't do the report?

Seriously. What if they just don't?

Why would they? What are you gonna do? Cut their budget so they will have even less chance of doing it? Pass a law saying the law saying they have to do the report is "exclusive?" Subpoena them? Hold them in contempt? Impeach the president?

So Rockefeller opposes the Bingaman amendment because the Congress has no way to make sure the IGs will finish on time, or finish at all.

What a damn moron.

How do all the people who feel certain the bill ensures "accountability" like that one?

• Rasmussen: voters perceive Obama moving to the middle. The danger of Obama's recent calculating moves isn't even that he might be moving to the "middle". It's that he's now acting like every other politician. For those who thought he was something "new" and "different", fact is, he's behaving like every other politician before him.

  Beside that, now that Obama is seen as "less liberal", that should improve his poll numbers, right? Wrong.

  So, now that Obama is perceived as moving to the center, while McCain is still perceived as conservative, Obama's poll numbers should improve, right? Wrong. According to the daily tracking poll from the same polling firm, Rasmussen, the campaign has not changed at all as a result of Obama being perceived as less liberal:

  • Obama has been at 49% every single day since June 22nd
  • Obama has been at 48%, 49% or 50% every single day since June 8th
  • Obama has led by between 4-6% every day since June 23rd, and in all but three days since June 11th. In the other three days, he twice led by 3%, and once led by 7%.

  Poll movement of this small degree is not really movement at all, but rather "statistical noise." So, while there has been substantial movement in how liberal Obama is perceived as being, and even though McCain is viewed just as conservative as ever, there has been no movement whatsoever in the national matchup. This is very strong proof, even scientific, that Obama's move to the center has not won him any votes, and that the perceived change in the ideological gap between Obama and McCain did not impact their relative vote share.

  Or maybe not, as Josh Orton argues:

  As much as I'd like to believe that Obama's recent triangulation hasn't been effective, I'm just not sure these numbers prove it. As we've looked at before, the strategy for Obama is a multi-state/multi-path tour to the nomination. Exactly which blocs of voters are we talking about? In which states? [...]

  Point being, I guarantee that the Obama campaign doesn't gauge the success or failure of messaging by the rise and fall of top-line national tracking polls - this is a state-by-state, constituency-by-constituency race.

  Poblano also disagrees. Me, I think Obama was fine before his capitulation on FISA, and that his mainstream Democratic positions were mainstream American positions. I also think Obama is talented enough that he could've sold his mainstream politics to the American people.

  This debate is almost academic. If Obama improves, is it because Obama is "moving to the center", or because people are tuning in and preferring him to McCain? Is it because Jeremiah Wright is a distant memory almost forgotten by everyone? Is it because gas prices are going up and jobs keep getting lost?

  There's no way to quantify the reason Obama goes up and down, and I doubt the majority of people follow each policy pronouncement for where it sits in the "middle". Like I said, Obama was already in the middle. All his maneuverings at this point are merely political (avoiding attack ads), rather than ideological.

• Headline:

  Bush administration is protecting privacy and constitutional rights -- of tomatoes

• So McCain claims that he'll balance the budget in his first term, yet offers no numbers or evidence to back up his fantastical claim? Why isn't he being laughed off the stage?

  So what are the numbers behind that? We just asked the McCain campaign and the response we got was ...

  It's pretty straightforward, as we win, costs will go down with a smaller footprint over time, and those savings will go to deficit reduction. It's really the logical extension of Senator McCain's position as articulated in the 2013 speech. Achieving success in Iraq would obviously lead to reduced expenditures on the effort.

  This is what's behind McCain's promise. I'll do a lot of things that will get the deficit down. One of them is the the guarantee of victories in Iraq and Afghanistan and obviously that will save a lot of money.

• It's impossible to spoof this.
• Exactly like slavery.
• Yeah, there's not much to be happy about with this Congress.
• Incompetence at FEMA? Nope, Holy Joe doesn't care. It might make his BFF Bush look bad!
• A great start to the Tour de France this year. Catch the play by play over at Podium Cafe. My own bikes (road and mountain) have been getting extra work these last few weeks. Every year, I get a huge motivational boost around this time of year, for obvious reasons.

In 2004, Bush beat Kerry in Nevada by three points:

At the time, Republicans held a one-point advantage in voter registration in the state. Today, Democrats have opened up a 5-point advantage, and it's growing.

According to the secretary of state's office, 55,560 more Democrats than Republicans are on the active voter rolls in Nevada, as of the end of June. The gap widened from 50,020 in May and represents 5 percent of the 1,031,984 active voters [...]

"That's a 6-point shift in just one presidential cycle," [Kirsten Searer, deputy executive director of the Nevada Democratic Party] said. "I think it's fair to say this is a trend at this point. It's very good news for Democrats up and down the ballot, from Assembly and Senate all the way to Congress."

Simple math shows that this 55,560-vote advantage is much larger than the difference in the popular vote in 2004. All things being equal, McCain would be in trouble. But, of course, all things aren't equal this year, and increased Democratic voter registration is yet another obstacle the GOP must face in what has become an impossible year for them.

Just consider what his proposed presidency would look like:

All of this intrigue breeds discouragement among even those former McCain associates who do not dispute the notion that voters now might be getting an early glimpse of the messy, unstructured way in which a McCain White House might be managed. They are hard-pressed to explain why Mr. McCain tolerates this — or encourages this — or why he has trouble cutting ties with people who have not served him well over the years.

"I can’t answer the why," said John Weaver, who was one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers before being forced out in a shake-up last year. "It is just that way and for his own sake, he needs to finally, firmly decide where he wants to take this campaign."

No one, apparently, will be officially in charge (or officially responsible) for anything in a McCain administration, if the campaign is any indication:

It seems none of the competing advisers working on Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign can actually agree who is in charge.

This morning on Fox News, McCain denied that Steve Schmidt now runs his campaign -- despite his recent promotion -- saying "Rick Davis is still the guy in charge." He added that Schmidt has simply "taken on some more responsibilities."

Meanwhile, the New Republic reports the McCain campaign is "pushing back" on informed speculation that GOP consultant Mike Murphy would soon join the campaign -- even though McCain reportedly offered him the top strategist job last week.

(Semi-latest word from The Caucus is that Murphy's out, but who knows what the next hour will bring.)

Ah, yes. Cronyism, lobbyists moving in and out of the campaign, turf wars, mixed messages on every conceivable issue and/or strategy, muddled policy, no clear-cut responsibility or oversight ... what's not to love about the third Bush term?

Daily Kos is throwing a "grand ol' party" during Netroots Nation for our dedicated readers.  If you are attending the Netroots Nation convention, you are cordially invited to the Daily Kos party on Friday, July 18th.  

(Click on image to see full size.)

How can you get in the party?  Simply meet us in the lobby of the Austin Hilton at 8:30pm on Friday, July 18th (with your Netroots Nation credential) and join the big orange parade over to Maggie Mae's on Sixth Street. Space will be limited, so don't be late!

You're going to hear a lot today about how much the FISA Amendments Act have been improved from the last iteration coming from the Senate. That will be the cover for those who vote for this bill, even with Title II--the immunity provision--included.

But, about those "improvements," here's Kit Bond:

We believe that this new bill that we're considering, H.R. 6304, which passed the house with a strong majority vote of 293-129 last friday, should be passed here. As with the senate's original FISA bill passed several months ago, the compromise that is before us required a little give-and-take from all sides. But in essence what we have before us today is basically the Senate bill all over again.

I am aware of those that some on the far left want to paint this as some radical new legislation. But if you read the language, it's not different. the press picked up on this trait last week and kept asking me to help them find the purported big changes that no one could find. There really is not much that is significantly different, save some cosmetic fixes that were requested by the majority party in the house.

There's a potential fix to this bill, Bingaman's amendment that would delay the immunity until an IG's report is completed. That's the amendment that Mike and Mike say is poison pill that will result in a Bush veto. Because this amendment is subjected to a 60 vote rule, the chance that it will be passed is slim.

Thus, the final bill that Senate votes on tomorrow will probably be "basically the Senate bill all over again." The 29 Senators who voted against that Senate bill that has only received "cosmetic" fixes should vote against it again, and be joined by their colleagues Clinton and Obama, who didn't vote on it, in voting "no" on the final bill if that Bingaman amendment doesn't pass.

Does anyone really want a President McCain to have the expanded surveillance powers this bill confers? Or even a President Obama? Do these Democrats want to be responsible for dramatically weakening both their and the courts' power vis-a-vis the executive? That's what they're about to do.

Call them and tell them to vote for the Bingaman amendment and vote against final passage of the bill if Bingaman doesn't pass.

Meet the Press, August 12, 2007:

MR. MOULITSAS:  ... I do agree with Harold the, that we, we do need to work together, and I hope you’ll be at next year’s YearlyKos conference...

REP. FORD:  I hope you’ll come to ours, too.

MR. MOULITSAS:  ...nicknamed -- it’s going to be called Netroots Nation, but, but what we need...

MR. GREGORY:  Would either of you go...

MR. MOULITSAS:  Yeah.

REP. FORD:  I would go.

MR. GREGORY:  ...to each other’s conventions?

MR. MOULITSAS:  I would, I would go.

REP. FORD:  I—I’d—I’ll make clear that I will be there next year.

Now:

Whose Movement?

Since its inception, one of the primary goals of the Netroots has been to examine the future of our movement.

Who are our leaders? Where should we build infrastructure?

And after last year's YearlyKos Convention, Markos went on Meet The Press to debate that very topic with Rep. Harold Ford Jr. Now, the two are meeting again at Netroots Nation for a lunchtime keynote discussion about party infrastructure.

This won't just be any keynote. This will be a chance for you to hear a casual discussion between the current chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and a Netroots favorite. Then, you'll have a chance to ask questions of your own.

The noon session will be moderated by Arshad Hasan, Executive Director of Democracy for America.

The session's scheduled for lunch on Friday, July 18.  Will you be there?

Harold Wolfson, former top Hillary Clinton advisor, announcing his move to Fox News Channel:

"Fox has the largest audience in cable television -- many of its viewers are independents who will help decide the next election," said Wolfson of his decision. "It's critically important for strong progressives to be talking to and offering analysis to that audience."

Reality:

An audience that decides for itself, based on "fair and balanced" coverage, ought not to reach monolithic conclusions. Yet, in our 2004 polling with Media Vote, using Nielsen diaries, we found that Fox News viewers supported George Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7 percent. No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News viewers.

Democrats can pretend that there are "independents" watching Fox News, but the data is clear -- it is the most reliably Republican outlet in the nation, more likely to deliver Republican votes than even conservatives!

If Wolfson likes that check Fox News is waving at him, then by all means he can grab it. It's a free country. But there's nothing noble about it. He should stop pretending he is doing anything more than whoring himself to the opposition.

The Florida Republican Party (and some Democrats like Debbie Wasserman Schultz) are kept afloat by the corrupt south-Florida Cuban-American mafia. Now, their three south-Florida reps are facing the challenges of their lives, and at least two are already in serious trouble.

Bendixen & Associates. 6/6-22. MoE 5% in each district. (No trend lines)

Joe Garcia, up against Mario Diaz-Balart, is an Orange to Blue candidate. Martinez is going up against Lincoln Diaz-Balart. These numbers are nothing short of stunning. I've thought these races were quite competitive for some time, but I wouldn't have expected the Diaz-Balart brothers to be in this much trouble. And given that both Garcia and Martinez are raising great money, we have the makings of a series of dramatic upsets in South Florida this year.  

Annette Taddeo in FL-18 still lags, both in money and in this poll, but if she can keep it close, hers is one of those districts (like NH-01 and Carol Shea-Porter in 2006) that can get swept in by the force of larger trends (in this case, a strong Latino turnout for Obama and the entry of a large percentage of new voters, along with the collapse of the GOP brand). But she's got a ways to go before we can say she's "keeping it close".

But that is a lone bright spot for Florida Republicans (and their hard-right Cuban exile allies), who should otherwise be on "panic" mode given the Martinez and Garcia numbers.

On the web:
Orange to Blue ActBlue page
Raul Martinez for Congress
Joe Garcia for Congress
Annette Taddeo for Congress

Race tracker wiki: FL-21 FL-18 FL-25

DNI McConnell and AG Mukasey have penned yet another missive to Harry Reid, this time to warn him that the most promising of amendments to be considered to the FISA Amendments Act, Bingaman's provision that would delay immunity until after an IG report, is utterly unacceptable. There's a surprise.

Emptywheel at FDL covers the salient points:

And I gotta say--the fact that DNI Mike McConnell and AG Michael Mukasey claim they'd advise Bush to veto the bill if it included Jeff Bingaman's amendment--holding off on giving the telecoms immunity until after the IG study mandated by the bill was completed--makes me rather suspicious that Bush intends to spike the IG investigation....

As we have previously noted, any FISA modernization bill must contain effective legal protections for those companies sued because they are believed to have helped the Government prevent terrorist attacks in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.

   [snip]

H.R. 6304 contains such protection, but the amendment would reportedly foreclose an electronic communication service provider from receiving retroactive [immunity] until 90 days after the Inspectors General of various departments, as required by section 301 of H.R. 6304, complete a comprehensive review of, and submit a final report on, communications intelligence activities authorized by the President between September 11, 2001, and January 17, 2007. The final report is not due for a year after the enactment of the bill. Any amendment that would delay implementation of [immunity] in this manner is unacceptable. Providing prompt liability protection is critical to the national security. Accordingly, we, as well as the President's other advisors, will recommend that the President veto any bill that includes such an amendment.

Now, I'd be charitable and buy Mike amd Mike's claim that they're just worried about a delay. Except that they make this completely cynical bid to suggest that the SSCI's review of the program was adequate to expose what really happened with this program....

So we know that--at the very least--the IG investigation will have reviewed John Yoo's role in this process, whereas SSCI has not done so. You think maybe there's something that OPR found but is hiding (and on that note, here's the LAT's recent discovery of something I covered last year--that OPR never has to reveal the results of its investigations)? Mike and Mike don't want you and I to find out what that is until after McConnell's former buddies in the privatized spying racket get their immunity.

And, too, though Mike and Mike don't want to say it, they also don't want us to have any leverage over both the telecoms and the Administration(s) to make sure we get our IG review. Telecom immunity, after all, is a pretty fucking big carrot. We're way more likely to get what we want out of them--timely cooperation and security clearances--if we withhold that carrot until we get what we want.

But Mike and Mike, for some reason, are dead set against that happening.

It's hard to imagine that the Bush crew ever really considered the possibility of in IG investigation of this program, and now that's pretty much confirmed. They've engineered the OPR investigation to be a dead end and were able to show the SSCI into writing this ridiculous bill without even having the benefit of knowing what they are immunizing the telcos for. Here's one more investigation that is utterly unacceptable.

Should this perfectly reasonable and bipartisan amendment pass, the bill will be vetoed. Because this president is above the law. The DNI and the AG say so, and Congress is about ready to ratify that assertion, so there you go.

Following last week's federal court decision in Al Haramain v. Bush, now we know both that the federal courts would rule the program illegal AND that FISA was always "exclusive." Now we also know that there will likely never be any IG report, no matter what Congress does.

So what's left among the rationales for passing this, again?

Update: The debate on this bill will occur today. Because of Jesse Helms funeral, also today, all votes will be held tomorrow.

Courtesy of the House Majority Leader's office:
FLOOR SCHEDULE FOR TUESDAY, JULY 8, 2008

Votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m.

Suspensions (8 Bills):

1. H.R. 5741 - To amend the High Seas Drift net Fishing Moratorium Protection Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to improve the conservation of sharks (Rep. Bordallo - Natural Resources)

2. H.R. 3981 - To authorize the Preserve America Program and Save America's Treasures Program, and for other purposes (Rep. Miller (NC) - Natural Resources)

3. H.R. 1423 - To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to lease a portion of a visitor center to be constructed outside the boundary of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in Porter County, Indiana, and for other purposes (Rep. Visclosky - Natural Resources)

4. H.R. 4199 - To amend the Dayton Aviation Heritage Preservation Act of 1992 to add sites to the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, and for other purposes (Rep. Turner – Natural Resources)

5. H.R. 802 - Maritime Pollution Prevention Act of 2008 (Rep. Oberstar – Transportation and Infrastructure)

6. H.R. 5975 - To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 101 West Main Street in Waterville, New York, as the "Cpl. John P. Sigsbee Post Office" (Rep. Arcuri – Oversight and Government Reform)

7. H.R. 6061 - To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 219 East Main Street in West Frankfort, Illinois, as the "Kenneth James Gray Post Office Building" (Rep. Costello – Oversight and Government Reform)

8. H.R. 6092 - To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 101 Tallapoosa Street in Bremen, Georgia, as the "Sergeant Paul Saylor Post Office Building" (Rep. Gingrey – Oversight and Government Reform)

* Conference Reports [definition] may be brought up at any time.
* Motions to go to Conference [definition] should they become available.
* Possible Motions to Instruct Conferees [definition].

In the Senate:

Convenes: 10:00am
Up to one hour of morning business, 10 minute limitations.

Following morning business [definition], the Senate will resume consideration of H.R.6304, FISA legislation.

Recess from 12:30pm - 2:15pm for the weekly caucus luncheons.

Votes:
There will be No Roll Call Votes during today's session of the Senate due to the funeral services of former Senator Jesse Helms.

Day one of the Senate's FISA consideration starts today. Debate begins on the bill and three amendments: Feingold-Dodd, Specter and Bingaman. But actual votes on those amendments, and then votes on cloture on the bill and passage of the bill will be postponed until Wednesday. (How? By unanimous consent agreement. That's how the Senate typically sets its schedule, unlike the House where the Speaker invokes a standing rule to postpone votes.)

Oh, P.S., a little reminder:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said he’s not going to let his effort to impeach President Bush die a quiet death in committee.

He said Wednesday that he’ll bring his resolution back in 30 days if the Judiciary Committee, to which it was referred Wednesday, doesn’t act on it.

Thirty days from the date his resolution was referred to the Judiciary Committee is July 11th -- this Friday.

And on a related note: Karl Rove's subpoena comes due on Thursday, the 10th. He's not coming.

Tuesday is a good day to abbreviate.

G. Terry Madonna & Michael L. Young:

McCain is cleaning up more than 3 to 1 among voters who think the country is headed in the right direction, he's ahead 20 points among voters whose personal finances are better off compared to last year, he's clobbering Obama 4 to 1 among voters who think family values are the top issue of the campaign, he's hammering him by 25 points among voters who say foreign policy is the biggest issue, he's beating him 5 to 1 among voters who list illegal immigration as the top issue, and he's winning by more than 20 points among voters who rank taxes as the most important issue.

Of course, there's a slight problem for McCain there. Can you find it?

Cheri DelBrocco: Hello, Memphis! Here's the story of John McCain and how he treated his wife. And, sister, it's not gonna be pretty.

It was the Summer of '98, that the Gladiators of Virtue were riding high. They were strutting their stuff with Ken Starr and his seven million dollar witch-hunt. They had Bill Clinton just where they wanted him. He had done the hot and nasty with a young intern, and was lying about it, so by God, he was going to pay for his sins. Many of those sultans of sanctimony, who are now surrogates and staff for the McCain campaign, have strangely become as quiet as little church mice when it comes to discussing the fact that John McCain has always had a reputation for being as horny as a three-balled tomcat. Loving the sinner, but hating the sin, the Moralizing Crusaders in the Republican party have suddenly laid down their swords.

Bob Herbert:

"What’s he doing?" is the most common question heard recently from Obama supporters.

For one thing, he’s taking his base for granted, apparently believing that such stalwart supporters as blacks, progressives and pumped-up younger voters will be with him no matter what. A taste of the backlash this can produce erupted on the candidate’s own Web site.

Richard Cohen: On energy, Carter was right and Reagan was wrong. Fat lot of good it did him.

Stumped:

Dear Stumped,

What if the Supreme Court had selected Al Gore as the winner in the 2000 election? Would 9/11 have occurred? I think not. Would we be fighting two wars in two Mideast countries? I think not. Would we have spent three-quarters of a trillion dollars to fight a war of choice? I think not.

Gordon Schesel

Dear Gordon,

Are you right about all of this? I think not.

Dear Stumped,

Are you right about any of this? I think not.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

"First Choice"

That's the name of a political TV ad starring John McCain. Powerful stuff:

"America is under attack by depraved enemies who oppose our every interest and hate every value we hold dear.

It is the great test of our generation and he has led with great moral clarity and firm resolve. He has not wavered, he has not flinched from the hard choices, he was determined and remains determined to make this world a better, safer, freer place.  He deserves not only our support but our admiration."

It even ends with a hug.

You really should watch it. It's a textbook example of how to position a candidate with judgment. As in, very very very very very poor judgment.

Oh look, a maverick balloon!  [POP!!!]

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Political blogging in Egypt has its limits. Government responses apparently don't. At the Christian Science Monitor, Liam Stack wrote on Monday:

^{Politics on Facebook brings trouble for young Egyptian}

When Egypt’s secular opposition groups called for a nationwide strike to support disgruntled factory workers last April, Ahmed Maher wanted to help. So he did what many middle-class 20-somethings here do: He logged onto Facebook.

Two weeks before the strike, he and a friend, Esraa Abdel Fattah, started a group on the popular social-networking site to support the walkout and invited friends to join. But soon they realized they had much more than just a new Facebook group on their hands. ...

By the day of the strike, more than 60,000 Egyptians had joined the group, and Maher went into hiding rather than face the possible wrath of the country’s feared State Security Investigations (SSI) unit. ...

Even though the second nationwide strike never got off the ground, Maher was arrested in early May, just two days after he had returned home, by four carloads of plainclothes police.

In an interview last week, Maher says he was shackled, blindfolded, and stripped. He says the police dragged him across the floor and beat him for almost 12 hours. They demanded to know the password to his Facebook account and asked for information about the 60,000 people in the group, then threatened to rape him if he would not comply, he says.

"Maher’s treatment is part of a pattern of abuse and extralegal intimidation by state officials," says Joe Stork, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch. "Egypt needs to put an end to the lawlessness of its law enforcement officers."

From Agence France Presse June 1:

A blogger released after weeks behind bars over deadly protests at Egypt's biggest textile plant for higher pay and controls on prices, said Monday he and his fellow detainees suffered weeks of "torture".

"We were subjected to electric shocks, to beatings and there was no food and or drink for the first few days," blogger Karim el-Beheiri told AFP a day after his release. "We went through weeks of torture and humiliation."

Beheiri, Tarek Amin and Kamal al-Fayoumy, three worker activists, were arrested on April 6 at the Misr Spinning and Weaving company in the Nile Delta industrial city of Mahalla after riots which left three people dead and hundreds detained.

An interior ministry official confirmed the three had been released but denied they had been mistreated.

"These are false accusations," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Everything took place within a framework of human rights."

Amira al Hussaini at Global Voices wrote on May 16:

Egyptian bloggers, cyberactivists and activists on the ground continue to pay the price for speaking up against the rising cost of living and calling for higher wages and a better life. What started as a call for a strike on April 6, quickly spiralled out of control, with a face off between rioters, protesters and the police. Here's an account of what has happened and is still happening to some of the activists who have used the worldwide web to spread news of what is happening at home.

During the unrest, on April 6 and 7, Egyptian bloggers worked round the clock telling the world about the workers' revolt that shook their country, as thousands rioted at a textile mill in Al Mahalla. They were also among the first casualties of the unrest, which left some killed, scores injured and an undetermined number of activists, organisers and mere spectators behind bars. Their coverage came in the form of blog posts, YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, Flickr shots, Facebook messages and all other online tools they could get their hands on.

The saga seems to continue, as some activists are still detained, six weeks after their arrest, prompting calls from their colleagues for their immediate release. Others, allegedly harassed, physically abused and later released by the police, continue to use online tools to tell the world their story.

The Overnight News Digest has been posted.

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are Louisiana1976, Yashua, jennyjem, grog, dadanation, and joyful with  vcmvo2 as editor.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference ~ Robert Frost -- from the poem -- Two Roads Diverged in A Wood ~

The diaries up for rescue this evening are:

Divergent Views: The Environment

• anth continues this informative series on Solar Power in Musings on Solar Power & the Future ( pt. 2 ) (vcmvo2), while NNadir argues that solar energy is not the solution it's cracked up to be. (Louisiana1976). So which is it? You decide!
• Deoliver47 pays tribute to those who have lived and died while riding the storm out in Huracan - return of the Gods. (jennyjem)
• faithfull writes the first installment in the new series on mountaintop mining removal in Appalachia. This series is a reminder of what's being lost in Mountain Monday. What is a Mountain Monday? (vcmvo2)
• bklynarch brings the news that deforestation may be easier to fight than we thought in Rainforest Destruction - Greater and More Concentrated. (jennyjem)

Divergent Views: Race & Civil Rights

• colonelgreen looks at two contemporary Senators and their journey on race in Jesse and Robert: Two Roads Diverged in the Senate. (grog)
• JackieandFritz memorializes a little-known activist for civil rights in Sixty Years Ago Today. (jennyjem)

Divergent Views: Mortgages, Lies & The Videotape

• Stranded Wind fills us in on yet another potential financial meltdown as Indymac Bancorp trading halted (mortgage disaster). (joyful)
• KlausFraktal describes the insidious ability of the traditional media to buy into right-wing swiftboating in Media Doubles Down on Iraq "Flip-Flop" Smear. (vcmvo2)

The Road Less Traveled

• In an aptly titled diary, Muzikal203 asks the penultimate question: What is "winning" John McCain? (vcmvo2)
• Jeff Huber writes an incisive diary on Secretary Gates's misuse and abuse of the CIA, and what that will cost future generations in Spy vs. Congress. (vcmvo2)

All the difference

• In A lucky day [updated w/ pic], Carnacki reports that he has officially gone to the dogs! (vcmvo2)
• In Lives Changed: 2 Stories from Kenya, carolh11 looks at how "social entrepreneurism" and the ripple effect it has on lives in developing countries. (grog)

jotter has High Impact Diaries - July 6, 2008.

va dare brings Top Comments 7.7.08 Summer Book Rec' Edition.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this Open Thread.

::

Kathryn Jean Lopez:

re: Civics   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn't George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn't it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? How's that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures? How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?) Reach out and touch the young before they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he's a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.

Like I said, crazy. Saturday. Have a good one.

Oh my god that's so cute. Don't you just want to pinch K-Lo's cheeks?

She thinks that Bush gives a damn about children! Such idealism, untainted by the stench of the thousands of kids Bush has sent to an early grave in the Iraqi meatgrinder.

She thinks Bush knows a damn thing about the Constitution! Such innocence, as she's blissfully unaware of what Bush has done to our cherished founding document the past eight years. (The White House shredder has gotten a heavy workout.)

She thinks Bush could break children from cynicism and keep them from getting jaded, even as those kids' parents struggle to economically survive in Bush's America.

I must admit I fell in love with K-Lo's special brand of wingnuttery in 2006, when she insisted on election day that Santorum was going to win his Senate race against Bob Casey. (Casey would win 59-41, or by a massive 3-2 margin). Such uninformed hope and certainty in the face of all evidence (and reality!) was the perfect encapsulation of the conservative mindset. If she just _willed_ it, and said "Santorum is a good closer" enough times, then by golly, he would close good! We saw it again with her crush on Mitt Romney. And we've just seen it with George Bush.

And despite being so consistently wrong, she's a trooper, and continues to spew her crazy talk for all to see.

Yeah, it's all lunacy, but give her props for recognizing it for what it is. Lunacy. Beyond being highly entertaining, it's quite endearing.

Update: Ablington in the comments:

My 2 year old already knows his
shapes, colors, numbers and letters. What else could W teach him?

Update II: Sadly No! beat me to it.