Every time George W. Bush comes out and gives absolute public support for somebody working for him, that person is inevitably out of job in a few days. It happened to Mike Brown, former head of FEMA. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Bush came out in public support of Brown a few days later, and Brown was gone by September 12, 2005. It happened to Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense. Bush, in an admittedly blatant lie to the entire country, told reporters on November 1, 2006, that Rumsfeld would not be replaced and would be with Bush until the end of his presidency. On November 8, 2006, the day after the election, Rumsfeld was gone. The same thing apparently has happened to Paul Wolfowitz. Last week, Bush supported him 100%, even in the midst of this bizarre World Bank scandal. Seems, though, that Wolfowitz will be resigning in June. Alberto Gonzales should start packing his bags, because George Bush has given him his total support in the midst of the scandal involving the firing of numerous attorneys in the Attorney General's office. The Senate is ready to enter a symbolic no confidence vote on Gonzales, and it really is only a matter of time before Gonzales will not be able to function at all. I give him 2 weeks at most. Why can't we get Bush to give his entire cabinet, and Vice President Cheney, a big public announcement of total unequivocal support, and maybe they will all quit by July 4th, and we can really have a great celebration!! Come on George, I dare you! Your hollow words of praise are truly a curse on anyone and anything they touch.

The news is full of stories that Rick Renzi, Republican congressman from Arizona, is about to resign in the wake of a scandal involving a federal land swap. The FBI recently raided the offices of the Patriot Insurance Agency, owned by his wife. Renzi has recently resigned from all his committees, including the House Intelligence Committee. Top Republicans are already looking for his replacement.

The FBI also recently raided a home (in Virginia) of California Republican Congressman John Doolittle, and he has been connected to the Jack Abramoff scandal. Doolittle says he absolutely won't resign, but I remember all those other Republicans saying that too, like Duke Cunningham, Tom Delay, Bob Ney, and Mark Foley. Strangely, Doolittle just resigned his seat on the House Appropriations Committee, which won't do much to help his claim of innocence.

Just last Friday another top Republican, assistant secretary of state Randall Tobias, resigned because of his connection to the high-profile prostitution case of Jeane Palfrey, dubbed the "D.C. Madam". Tobias admitted to being one her clients.

The Republican party only has itself to blame for what is being called a "toxic environment" Republican fundraisers. Democrats will have another golder opportunity next year because Republican corruption is depleting its usual monetary advantage and many more Republicans will be vulnerable to Democratic challengers. 2006 was great, but let's make 2008 even greater!

Well, it appears that the lesson ole Georgie learned from the November "thumpin'" of the Republican party is that Americans want lots more troops in Iraq. The word is out that Bush is ordering at least 20,000 more troops to be deployed to Iraq ASAP. These won't really be new troops. Folks who were supposed to come home will be ordered to stay put, and those scheduled to be sent in the future will be sent sooner.

How can so much stupidity be concentrated in one person? A temporary (using the term loosely) increase in troop levels will mean nothing, and it certainly isn't what the country was hoping for when it ousted scores of Republicans in the November elections. Bush is planning a big press conference soon to explain his new strategery. He should just repeat what he said in a press conference last June, when he was asked if the tide was turning in Iraq: "I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" That makes about as much sense as anything else he's ever said about Iraq.

I'm sure that most of you have heard by now that Democrat Ciro Rodriguez won the special Texas runoff election on Tuesday in TX-23, a sprawling district that includes a huge chunk of the US-Mexico border. He garnered 54% of the vote, and the Republican incumbent, Frank Bonilla, only got 45%. This was really amazing, because in the general election Ciro only got 20% of the vote in an 8-person race, and Bonilla had 48% !! This victory in what appears to be the last undecided congressional race of the election (unless we can get a new election in FL-23), is a particularly sweet one for me. I was feeling a bit depressed that neither of the close races in Ohio (my state) went the Democrats (OH-2 and OH-15) even after the recounts. I got an email from Ciro's campaign asking for contributions, no matter how small, so I sent him something, and apparently a lot of other people did as well. The result is that Democrats now have 233 people in the House instead of 232, and the Republicans only have 202. The Democratics have achieved a greater victory than the Republicans got in 1994, when they only won 230 seats and the Dems ended up with 204. Three cheers for Ciro Rodriguez for capping off this historic midterm election season! (read more about the victory at HispanicBusiness.com)

The following story is being reported in a number of newspapers today, written by Shatha Al-Awsy, a reporter who often writes for McClatchy Newspapers. It is incredibly moving, very vivid, and completely believable.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - I left my home Monday.

As my family fled the fighting that's engulfed our neighborhood in Baghdad, I gazed out the car window, thinking that I might never again see the fruit stand off our street, the shops where my sisters and I bought soft drinks, the turquoise-domed mosque where we prayed in the holy month of Ramadan.

And to think I'd spent Sunday in my garden, using the forced free time of a curfew to plant geraniums for spring. Later that night, Shiite militiamen encroached on our Sunni enclave; the reverse had happened in so many other neighborhoods, and now it was our turn. Any thoughts of the future were overshadowed by the need to survive the night....

link to full story

Well, after almost 3 weeks, the votes have finally been counted in the OH-15 congressional race, and the incumbent Deb Pryce supposedly beat Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy by 1,054 votes, out of more than 200,000 votes cast. There will be an automatic recount, so the saga continues. Read story here

Personally, I don't see how we can trust any of the numbers coming out of the Ohio Secretary of State's office concerning this election--the SoS website still has glaring errors, including a report that the total voter turnout for Cleveland (Cuyahoga County) was 562,498 ballots casts, when it is clear from looking at the totals for each specific race that no more than 430,000 votes were counted. There has been no good explanation for this massive discrepancy.

SurveyUSA just did an updated approval/disapproval poll of all 100 Senators (including the lame ducks), and my soon to be ex-Senator, Ohio's own Mike Dewine, came in dead last, number 100, with a 34% approval rating. Of course, Mike's real low point came when Chris Matthews told him to his face that his campaign was an embarrasment. The little interview clip is still on Youtube if you want to relive the moment.

I used to live in PA, so I was also tickled to see that Ricky Santorum came in next to last, number 99, with 37%. Jim Talent, also a Repub. loser in Missouri, was 98th, with 37% approval. Also interesting: 8 of the top 10 most popular Senators are Democrats, and 14 of the top 20 are Democrats. On the other hand, 8 of the bottom 10 least popular Senators are Republicans. Now, if the Republicans were sharing this little tidbit of information, you would be hearing the word "mandate" being thrown around. We Democrats, though, are so cautious. Why don't we ever get to have a mandate? Apparently a lot of people like us, they really like us.

One final note (and this may be a record): our pathetic governor, Bob Taft from Ohio, has an approval rating of 12%. How is that even possible? Needless to say, he is also dead last, 50th out of 50.

It looks like the official cause of death of the Russian ex-spy/dissident Alexander Litvinenko is that he was poisoned by the radioactive element Polonium-210. Traces of the deadly element were found in his urine, as well as at a sushi restaurant he visited the day he became ill, at his home, and at a hotel he visited. read more ..."

Before his death, Litvinenko had been investigating the death of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian investigative journalist who was gunned down Oct. 7 in her Moscow apartment building. Litivinenko had also been seeking to uncover corruption in Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB.

Litvinenko had worked for the KGB and later for the FSB. In 1998, he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill tycoon Boris Berezovsky. He spent nine months in jail on charges of abuse of office. He was acquitted and took asylum in Britain.

It is pretty obvious that Litvinenko was assassinated by Russian agents working for the Kremlin. Russia uses Polonium-210 in its nuclear weapons program as part of the bomb trigger mechanism, and many people have accused Russia of giving Polonium-210 to Iran in order to help Iran develop nuclear weapons. What is going in Russia? George Bush considers Russian "President" (aka dictator) Vladimir Putin to be his buddy, even while Putin goes around ordering "Cold War"-style assassinations of ex-KGB agents? Oh, by the way, Putin had this public statement to make: "I convey my condolences to those close to Mr Litvinenko, to his family..." My suggestion to those people close to Litvinenko: run far, run fast, and hide.

ActBlue now allows you to contribute to all the likely Democratic presidential contenders, even though they don't have official campaign committees yet.

You can click on the presidential candidates here.

Funds raised for a candidate go to that person once he or she becomes a candidate. In the event that the person does not actually become a candidate, the money goes to the Democratic National Committee. For more details, see the FAQ on the site.

As of today, here are the names listed on the Actblue website:

Tom Vilsack
Mike Gravel
Evan Bayh
Joe Biden
Wes Clark
Hillary Clinton
Jon Corzine
Howard Dean
Christ Dodd
John Edwards
Al Gore
John Kerry
Barack Obama
Bill Richarson