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As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Can't Believe I'm Losing To This Guy 2

This is a compendium of things that have happened just in the past 24 hours, courtesy of your Republican candidates for Congress. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad.

Mean Jean Schmidt of Ohio's 2nd District writes a letter to her constituents called "Why They Hate Us." Written at roughly a second-grade level, it contains some of the most insane projections of American exceptionalism ever committed to parchment.

On every continent in every corner of the planet you will find people that know of the United States of America. The United States is not just another country to them, we are utopia. The United States is a collection of wealth, might, and technology mixed into a culture where freedom is abundant [...]

It is easy to understand that when you know your liberator and he does not come, it must mean he doesn't care. Hearts begin to fill with hate. Evil takes root. Soon all of your problems only exist because the United States failed to solve them.

A young soldier in Baghdad told me a story of a local Iraqi who had questioned him. The local Iraqi wanted to know how a country as powerful and advanced as the United States could possibly send a man to the moon, defeat one of the world's largest armies in hours, and yet still not have the power restored to his apartment.

The Iraqi's perception is that we are all powerful. We watch them from space with technology they cannot even imagine. Surely if we wanted to turn on his electricity we could do so. He has no idea how large the problem is but he knows we can do anything. He was angry. Eventually his air conditioning began running and his anger cooled.


Apparently, Iraqi citizens are "noble savages" who are ungrateful for all the gifts we have bestowed upon them. You know, like rubble. And free limb removal. And civil war.

Support Victoria Wulson in OH-2.

Katherine Harris received a grand jury subpoena and hid it from her Senate staff, AND from the House leadership, which is a violation of their internal laws.

As we've seen most recently in the case of Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) heavily-subpoenaed office, any representative or staffer receiving a subpoena concerning any work-related issue must disclose it, and an announcement is subsequently published in the Congressional Record. It's called "House Rule VIII," and it's cited in just about every disclosure.

Yet a search of the Record turns up no mention of a subpoena for Harris.


And this isn't a staffer being subpoenaed, but Harris herself.

Support Bill Nelson in FL-SEN (though I'm not sure he needs the support; the Harris campaign is desperately in search of a Viking funeral).

Jim Talent made a big stink out of Claire McCaskill's FEC report not being sent in on time, as required by law. The McCaskill campaign showed that it was indeed sent out on time, and that the staffer responsible was actually killed over the weekend in a tragic skydiving accident. Talent's people CONTINUED to berate the McCaskill campaign for "incompetence" after knowing that the staffer responsible was dead.

Berridge, 38, of St. Louis, was among six skydivers who died Saturday in the crash near the eastern Missouri town of Sullivan.

Adrianne Marsh, spokeswoman for the McCaskill campaign, said Berridge's records show she sent the report on July 24, as required, and produced a certified receipt to prove it. Marsh said the filing may have been lost in the mail, but the campaign is working it out with FEC officials.

Marsh called on the Republican Party and incumbent Sen. Jim Talent - McCaskill's opponent - to issue "an immediate apology to Melissa's family and retract their insensitive release."

Sloca declined.

"It's unfortunate that Claire McCaskill has turned this into an issue about the unfortunate death of a staffer to hide from her incompetence," he said.

McCaskill later wrote to Talent directly, thanking him for a previous note of condolence about the death but calling the GOP's claims about Berridge's work "hurtful to her family."

"I would really appreciate it if you would ask your party to stop this and apologize," McCaskill wrote.


Well, yeah, but that dead girl didn't double-check with the post office! What's her problem?

Support Claire McCaskill in MO-SEN.

Richard Pombo had a staffer pen this lovely note in reaction to a newspaper editorial in Connecticut that opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge:

“Connecticut should have its statehood taken away from it. The foolishness of its pampered residents should be demonstrated to others by a government program to bulldoze the entire state, salt the land and construct a windfarm to supply NYC with electricity. And its residents should be relocated to Guantanamo Bay where they can take a number behind the 3 who hung themselves this weekend, since they seem so intent on suicide.”

-- Daniel Kish, a senior adviser to Pombo, in an email


Cut him some slack, it WAS a strongly worded editorial.

Support Jerry McNerney in CA-11.

The lot of nutty Republicans running in the Colorado district that houses Focus on the Family's James Dobson (or SpongeDob Squarepants) put on an interesting show at a Focus Congressional forum the other day:

Bentley Rayburn spoke of opening Iraq to the word of Jesus. He and Duncan Bremer

said they had been called by God to campaign for Congress.

An exchange on abortion between Democrat Jay Fawcett and Jeff Crank was illustrative of the event.

Fawcett explained his prochoice stance by saying: “I have no desire to dictate your faith to you, and I hope you have no desire to dictate mine for me.”

Crank, who supports outlawing abortion, shot back that votes on abortion always are based on the faith of the member deciding them.

“We need to stop this phony baloney about not bringing faith into the public square,” the former Chamber of Commerce vice president said. “We absolutely need to bring faith into the public square.” [...]

Rayburn, a retired Air Force major general, framed several answers in terms of what “we as Christians” would do. As he has throughout the campaign, he described the war in Iraq as a battle against radical Islam and said establishing a democracy in Iraq would send a message.

“That will open up hope within these countries for the gospel of Jesus Christ to change hearts,” he said.

Rayburn and Bremer, a former El Paso county commissioner, said they believe God had called them to run for office.

“I want to be God’s man in Washington,” Bremer told the crowd. “I want to represent the heart of this district . . . whether people who are saved and working side by side with you or whether people who are unsaved.”


What's in the holy water over there in Colorado Springs?

Support Jay Fawcett in CO-5.

This all happened in roughly the last 24 hours. This is from THE PARTY IN POWER.

At least for now.

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