I've realized that Patrick McHenry has been a water carrier for banking interests.  What I hadn't realized was how low McHenry, along with Dick Armey's army, would go.

According to Credit Union Times:

Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has written Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass), Chairman of the House Financial Services, seeking a hearing on the issue of individuals and organizations allegedly using non-profits to manipulate real estate and other markets.

The basis of McHenry's complaint is a bogus report February 21st by the Consumer Rights League front group for the predatory lending industry operating out of FreedomWorks national HQ whose sole purpose appears to be attacking the Self Help Credit Union and, in particular, the affiliated Center for Responsible Lending (with, no mere coincidence, the same acronym, CRL) calling it a "predatory charity".

Peace advocates meeting on the National Mall this Saturday will be met by counter-demonstrators organized by two NC men. Larry Bailey of Vets for Truth and BootMurtha.com and Ted Sampley of US Veteran Dispatch and multiple dubious pseudo-political ventures and, Rolling Thunder Motor Cycle Rally.

Ted Sampley of Kinston, the P.T. Barnum of Swiftboating, has created a bogus story that protesters will deface the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial.  It has spun from  Sampley's website with an "Eagles" message board into an organized counter-offensive called
"Gathering of Eagles".  Many have bought into the BS, and message boards hint at physical conflict.  Some suggest developing "limps" to justify canes as potential weapons. There is a way to fight back - peacefully.  Read on and please take action before midnight Friday.

If Republicans had their way this would be the ideal Democratic candidate for President in 2008
He's white, he's male and not so affluent that he can't speak authoritatively about poverty.  He's not an "insider", definitely an "outsider" and has no baggage, literally or figuratively.  He has no agenda to speak of and is clearly not influenced by unions.  He's a self made man, not beholden to any special interest.
© Greg Flynn, use permitted with attribution

The fossilized blog page of North Carolina’s 9th District Congresswoman Sue Myrick is becoming a little treasure trove of information and a monument to Republican hypocrisy the longer it stays up.  As I wrote in Sue Myrick’s Shrine to Ann Coulter, Sue Myrick’s blog started in March 2004 with a total of six entries with the 5th entry about an Ann Coulter fundraiser in April 2005.

The last entry on Myrick’s blog was an April 17, 2005 post about another fundraiser with country music singer Sara Evans:

Sue Myrick is offering an exclusive, one-time event to meet country music star Sara Evans backstage at the Alan Jackson - Sara Evans concert May 5th
:::
Tickets to this very special event include a VIP backstage pass to meet and have your photo taken with Sara Evans, and a great seat to watch country music legend Alan Jackson live in concert.

         The plot thickens below the fold....

People who live in multi-million dollar homes shouldn’t throw stones.  Art Pope lives in what may be the largest and most expensive home in Raleigh’s Country Club Hills yet his 2006 property taxes are listed as "Delinquent" even as his puppets point fingers at the home of John Edwards.  There is one law for the rich and another law for the richer.

The boys at the Pope funded John Locke Foundation were no doubt high-fiving each other Friday when internet traffic shut down Carolina Journal servers in the wake of the "National Enquirer" style hit job on John Edwards living quarters in Orange County.  They seem oblivious to the fact that their own paymaster, Art Pope, is a millionaire living in a large multi-million dollar house in Raleigh’s exclusive Country Club Hills just 147 feet from a property owned by Edwards until about two weeks ago.

John McCain wants your opinion and I think it's your duty as Kossacks to give it.  Actually he asked me but he left the door open for anyone else who wants to tell him what to do about America's military, the war in Iraq and the war on terror, government spending and regulation, taxes and a rating of a list of issues that includes: The War on Terror, Ending Earmarks, Nuclear Arms Proliferation, Preserving Traditional Values, Reforming Social Security, Tax Reform, Illegal Immigration and Protecting our Borders, Government Reform, Health Care, Global Climate Change, Continued Economic Growth, Education, Defense and Homeland Security.

So what do you say?  Can you help John out?  Can you tell him what you really think?

Anderson Cooper kept a couple of vigils on CNN recently.  One New Year’s Eve, in Times Square. The other, Saddam Hussein's execution, Friday December 29th.  He was joined in the studio for an extended period of time by Feisal Amin al-Istrabadi, Iraq's Deputy (acting) Ambassador to the UN.

Between reports from Baghdad and Dearborn MI, Cooper turned to al-Istrabadi for commentary but never seriously challenged al-Istrabadi’s assertions or explored his role in the Iraq quagmire while al-Istrabadi was allowed to spin the incoming reports.

The closest Cooper ever got to a challenge ended with this response:

I'll let you pass on that one.

In 2002 al-Istrabadi, an attorney in private practice, submitted a paper to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations asserting the threat of weapons of mass destruction and the preposterous notion that in the absence of a Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, Sunnis and Shiites would live in harmony.

Wolf Blitzer blinked a few days later on CNN’s Late Edition, Sunday December 31st:

Ambassador al-Istrabadi, unfortunately, we have to leave it right there.

Markos wrote about his "boyfriend" Brad Miller in NC-13: Another Vernon Robinson flameout

Robinson, as is his style, proceeded to run the nastiest of races. He accused Miller of being gay and having an affair with me.

This despite Miller's Diary earlier in the year that Markos And I Are Just Good Friends

Rep. Brad Miller who survived the venomous absurdities of homophobe Vernon Robinson will be live-blogging at BlueNC.com on this morning December 28th from 9am-11am (Eastern). Questions and comments are welcome.

Polls for the 2008 Presidential race, which hasn't even started yet, have been all over the board.  At this point in the game success in such polls has a lot to do with name recognition which is not a very scientific indicator of which yet-to-be-announced candidates might actually have the right stuff to be the President of the United States.  It has not been possible to compare their positions on Presidential issues or activities on an apples-to-apples basis.  That is until now.  One of the tasks of any President is the issuance of Christmas cards.  Today, for the first time it is possible to vote on three likely Democratic Presidential candidates on the basis of performance in a Presidential activity in a poll that is at least as scientific as any poll today. So I present to you three images, one each from the Christmas greetings of John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and, Barack Obama and ask you to vote for you favorite.

Tom DeLay is slowly getting the hang of this blogging "thang". After crashing through the gates with over 100 unmoderated unflattering comments, he pulled over to the right side of the information superhighway and put some filters on them internets tubes before starting up again with moderation, in comments, if not in politics.  All was sweet in Sugar Land when the NY Times which showed up late, yesterday, to suck on Tom's political candy in a fit of hypoglycemic hype completely ignoring the earlier burnt toast which I wrote about here on Daily Kos as NY Times Blows DeLay Blog Story, originally posted at my BlueNC blog.

Today, doing my own follow-up on the Delay website I discovered that while comments are moderated trackback links are not. Simply by following the instructions readily provided I was able to provide a Reference back to the original blog entry at BlueNC.com.

Click on the picture below for a larger image.

The NY Times today published an article by Philip Shenon called The Hammer Strikes a Comeback Blow about Tom DeLay's new blog but completely omitted the fact that when the blog started up a 11 days ago it was quickly bombarded with unflattering unmoderated comments and just as quickly taken down to be restarted in a moderated format with the offending comments removed.  Tom DeLay blew it and the NY Times blew it by not reporting on his false start in this fluff piece about DeLay that displays very little knowledge about blogging.

Not to worry.  Enterprising blogger James J. Risser saved the original for posterity (or posteriority) at tomdelaydotcom.blogspot.com

 
 
Washington Wire brings this to my attention about this morning's challenge to FCC indecency rules, broadcast live on C-SPAN cable and radio.  C-SPAN’s Potty-Mouth Broadcast. Many profanities were used during the hearing.  At issue is the fact that the FCC fines radio stations for such profanities that are regularly used on cable TV with impunity.  Even the Judge brought up the issue of whether the FCC would fine radio stations for broadcasting the hearing.

There is a spirited debate of sorts going on in the pages of The Nation over Tom Schaller's book, "Whistling Past Dixie".  Bob Moser wrote "A New Southern Strategy", an article in November 27th issue.  It's subscription only but I'll summarize the  current debate:

Thomas Schaller's recent book, Whistling Past Dixie, brought together years' worth of poll-tested memoranda in calling for the Democratic Party to kiss off the nation's largest region.

On November 7 the South--a k a Jesusland--showed how wrong that conclusion was. If the Senate lands in Democratic hands, it will be thanks in large part to Claire McCaskill's triumph in Missouri and to Jim Webb's prevailing in the recount in Virginia over the man who was once conservatives' great hope for the White House in 2008. It will not be thanks to the candidate who ran the sort of Southern campaign the sages called "perfect"--Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee

This week in the letters page, Jay Walljasper, whose opinion I would ordinarily respect, writes "knowingly" in response:

Hot off a Daily Kos live blog from their own “Home” John and Elizabeth Edwards came home to Raleigh last night at Meredith College, barely a mile from my own home, for a reading by John Edwards from his new book "Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives".  

The Edwards were introduced by Nancy Olson owner of independent bookstore "Quail Ridge Books" which organized the event and which has a long history with the family she considers “the bookstore family”.  She explained her excitement at seeing an “Edwards Obama” bumper sticker recently, an observation that received much applause.

No time for celebration yet but according to polling by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Democrats Hold Double-Digit Lead in Competitive Districts
GOP Troubles Extend into Home Territory

According to the Denver Post

With polls showing likely Democratic gains, Republicans are pinning their hopes on getting out the vote. But studies show eroding GOP support among white evangelicals, a dependably Republican group.

Charles Taylor foresaw the Iraq quagmire yet still sticks by George Bush's failed policy of "stay the course".

To intervene militarily might so weaken Iraq that it would be invaded and partitioned by its neighbors as soon as we left the country.  Such an event could involve the United States in an open ended commitment that would be a genuine quagmire in a part of the world that is rather alien to us.

See for yourself, in a letter he wrote and then call Congressman Taylor to find out why he changed his mind.

Be warned, Taylor will not stick by whatever he says.

That's why we need Heath Shuler for NC-11.

But don't take my word for it.  Heath Shuler was endorsed today by the Asheville Citizen Times:
Shuler offers hope for a new direction

As we approach the witching hour it's time for a review of the sordid brew that is Vernon Robinson's devious, scary and, hopefully, quixotic campaign:  Interesting take on Vernon Robinson at this post by Michael Fauntroy at the Huffington Post.  Noting how effective Robinson is at raising money with hate he raises the scary thought of how much money Robinson could raise if Republicans actually thought he had a chance at winning. I love MsWings comment that if Miller were everything Robinson says he is

I'd still vote for him before I'd waste a vote on a hate filled loudmouth like Robinson.

Meanwhile Robinson's dirty campaigning tricks have circled the globe via international press in the last few days showing up in London and Australia in stories typical of this Canadian report.  I hope these stories have shown up in Beijing but who knows how the government censors control what Vernon's Chinese donors see.  [more below...]

A NYTimes Article ran yesterday about a new 527 group Americans for Honesty on Issues run by Sue Walden of Walden & Associates of Houston TX though the group has an Alexandria VA address.  The group plans to run ads against Democratic candidates nationwide.  Walden has ties to Lay, DeLay and Bush

Not mentioned in the article is the fact that the sole donor, of $2 million, to Americans for Honesty on Issues listed in FEC records is Bob Perry of Houston TX, a major Republican donor (giving to Bush, DeLay and Texas Republican causes). He is the man behind Swiftboat vets.  Expect this to be just as dirty.

It's not clear from the article who will be targeted but here are the titles listed in FEC disbursements (totalling $1,427,964) for ad productions:
No Funds For Troops
Sponsor
The Tarnished Badge
Path to Citizenship
Tagged
Super-Size
Heart in Tennessee
Six Years & Zip
Tax Attack