CBlountBlogs

GOP Not Party of Government

The sting of Republican electoral defeats still fresh, the GOP chairman suggested Thursday the party has strayed and challenged it to refocus on core principles and reform.

"We work for the people," Ken Mehlman, the outgoing chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in a speech to a meeting of GOP governors. He reminded the crowd that "good policy makes good politics - and, for Republicans, this must be a time for self-examination when it comes to our policy."

In a disastrous midterm election year for the GOP, Republican candidates lost races across the country and at all levels of government, prompting party leaders to do some soul searching as they seek a winning strategy for 2008 and beyond.

Democrats captured control of the House and Senate, took a majority of governors' posts and gained a decisive edge in state legislatures as Republicans failed to withstand fallout from a sour national mood created by the war in Iraq and scandals in Washington.

"Our nation is stronger and better when Republicans are the party running the government. But, ladies and gentleman, our party should never be the party of government, of Washington, of earmarks, of bureaucracy," Mehlman said, implying that's what the GOP had become at times - or at least what voters perceived on Nov. 7.

Three weeks after the losses, about a dozen GOP governors gathered in this Miami suburb for their association's annual meeting. The 2008 election loomed large, given that the outgoing RGA chairman is Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is considering running for president. Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, also weighing a bid, attended the meeting.

Not to be forgotten, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is widely considered the one to beat and has created a presidential exploratory committee, held a reception for those attending RGA events.

Despite the undercurrent of the presidential race, the focus remained on what went wrong in 2006 and how to ensure the GOP recovers.

"To some degree, we've lost our way," acknowledged Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia, the incoming RGA chairman, who said the party must ensure it implements policies that are in line with its principles.

Romney, for his part, suggested that lawmakers in Washington - not GOP governors - are the ones who need to get back on track, saying: "If the Republican Party, nationally, is looking for a place where it can gain a bit of a guiding post, it would by seeing the successes of Republican governors."

He also took a swipe at Republicans on Capitol Hill for promising to hold down spending but then beefing up budget bills with millions for pet projects. "There's nothing that's going to yield a bigger swat - or a thumping if you will - than saying one thing and doing another," Romney said at a news conference, using the spending issue as an example.

Mehlman, who will leave his post when his term ends in January, said the party's most important task in the coming two years will be to rekindle a spirit of reform - changing its governing while staying true to the party's long-standing ideals of limited government, individual freedom and a strong national defense.

"It must be our party that faces the new challenges of the 21st century head-on. It must be our party that recommits itself also to being the party of change. Because it's the Republicans who are the party of reform on all these issues - health care, job creation and the war on terror," he said.

Republicans, Mehlman said, must take power out of Washington and give it back to Americans, arguing that Democrats won't.

"They believe that government and Washington has the answer to every question, the solution to every problem," he said. "We, as Republicans, don't believe that. But, if you think about it, sometimes over the past two years, we've behaved as if we do."

Late Nite Jokes

Leno

Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson are getting a divorce. I feel sorry for Kid Rock. It’s always the kids that get hurt most in divorce.

President Bush has decided to no longer use the "n word” anymore. Apparently he was at a comedy club in Washington.

More and more on Michael Richards. He hired a P.R. specialist. The bad news – it’s John Rocker.

Mit Romney may run for president. Some wonder if a Mormon could be elected president. I think he’d make a fine president. He’d be standing up there with his 18 first ladies.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is in trouble after giving the finger to fans after Sunday’s game. The Browns quarterback tried doing the same thing but no one was in the stands.

New York Giants Eli Manning tried giving the finger too but it was intercepted.

Elton John had to go backstage for five minutes and throw up during a concert the other night. He then came back and finished the concert. You know what this means? Elton is pregnant.

Letterman

NBC News is now under fire for referring to the Iraq War as a civil war. Today President Bush said, "No, no, no. It’s not a civil war until it’s made into a series of Time Life books.”

The White House Christmas Tree was delivered today. Just what the White House needs – more dead wood.

Conan

The Pentagon is asking Germany to send more troops to Iraq. This marks the first time Germany has been asked to send more troops anywhere.

President Bush’s Presidential Library is going to cost $500 million. That’s $100 million per book.

Jim Webb Threatens to 'Slug' President Bush

Newly elected Senator Jim Webb, D-Va., was so infuriated by a remark from President George W. Bush that the former Marine officer was tempted to punch the commander-in-chief.

The confrontation, disclosed in the influential Washington, D.C.-based publication The Hill, came shortly after the midterm elections at a private White House reception for newly elected lawmakers.

Webb, who defeated Republican Sen. George Allen in Virginia, ran a campaign critical of the administration’s Iraq policy, and has a son, a Marine lance corporal, serving in Iraq.

At the reception, Bush asked Webb how his son was doing.

Webb answered that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, a source close to Webb reported.

"I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush countered, according to the source.

Emily Heil wrote in The Hill: "Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t.”

Webb’s spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd confirmed that "Jim did have a conversation with Bush at that dinner. Basically, he asked about Jim’s son; Jim expressed the fact that he wanted to have him home.”

Todd wouldn’t comment on Bush’s response.

Late Nite Jokes

Conan

"President Bush visited Estonia Today, and he thanked the Estonian President for sending troops to Iraq. Bush's exact quote was, 'Those two guys are doing a great job.'"

"This week, President Bush is planning to attend a 2-day NATO summit to discuss strategies for the war in Afghanistan. President Bush will be giving a speech called: 'Strategies: Whose got one?'"

"There's a rumor right now that Nicole Ritchie recently got breast implants. They thought they were breast implants, actually, it turns out they're just 2 grapes stuck in her windpipe."

"Michael Jackson is planning to follow in the footsteps of Madonna and Angelina Jolie, and do charity work in Africa. Jackson says he wants to get to Africa soon- before all the good kids are taken."

"This weekend, Kevin Federline held a Party in a Las Vegas nightclub to celebrate his rap album. Now more than ever people are hoping that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

"Yesterday, the movie "The Nativity Story", about the birth of Jesus, had it's world premiere at the Vatican. Apparently there was one awkward moment when the guy sitting behind the Pope said, 'Hey pal, take off your friggin hat!'"

"The soap opera 'All My Children' has announced that it will be introducing a new transgender character. As a result, the show will be changing its name to 'All My Children and That Chick With An Adams Apple.'"

Letterman

"Did you hear about this? Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock are getting a divorce. Boy, I didn't see that coming. I'm telling you, if these kids can't make a go of it, what chance do any of us have?"

"Here's the record: Pamela got rid of Tommy Lee and Kid Rock. Unfortunately, she still has two other boobs."

"You know what I like about this time of year? It's all of the holiday specials on TV. It's very – I love it…As a matter of fact, tomorrow night on CBS, they have a holiday special: it's called 'Apology on 34th Street,' starring Michael Richards."

"But Michael Richards now is trying to build a bridge to the black community, and earlier today, he bought a George Foreman grill."

"Here's kind of an odd item in the news: there's a guy in Russia, and he's pulled over by the police. And when he's pulled over, here's what he does: he takes the keys out of the ignition and he swallows them and then he bites the cop. That is essentially me without this show."

"Here's kind of a fascinating change of ideology. NBC has announced that they will now refer to the Iraqi war as a civil war. They're calling the conflict in Iraq a civil war. That's NBC News. And President Bush responded, he said, 'No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not a Civil War until it becomes a series of Time-Life books."

"Here's great news for the holidays: the Christmas tree was delivered to the White House yesterday. That's nice, and just what we need at the White House – more dead wood."

Letterman's Top Ten

Top Ten Shows On The New Gay Television Channel

10. "How I Met Your Brother"

9. "Gary's Anatomy"

8. "Desperate Poolboys"

7. "Everybody Loves Raymond...Especially Steve"

6. "The King Of Queens"

5. "Not-So-Smallville"

4. "I Dream Of Gene"

3. "Gays Of Our Lives"

2. "My Name Is Earl And I Like Construction Workers"

1. "His Deal Or No Deal"

Illegal aliens murder 12 Americans daily

Death toll in 2006 far overshadows total U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, Afghanistan.

WorldNetDaily.com

Joseph Farah - While the military "quagmire" in Iraq was said to tip the scales of power in the U.S. midterm elections, most Americans have no idea more of their fellow citizens – men, women and children – were murdered this year by illegal aliens than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since those military campaigns began.

Though no federal statistics are kept on murders or any other crimes committed by illegal aliens, a number of groups have produced estimates based on data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research.

Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001.

Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq as of last week were reported at 2,863. Total U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan during the five years of the Afghan campaign are currently at 289, according to the Department of Defense.

But the carnage wrought by illegal alien murderers represents only a fraction of the pool of blood spilled by American citizens as a result of an open border and un-enforced immigration laws.

While King reports 12 Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens, he says 13 are killed by drunk illegal alien drivers – for another annual death toll of 4,745. That's 23,725 since Sept. 11, 2001.

While no one – in or out of government – tracks all U.S. accidents caused by illegal aliens, the statistical and anecdotal evidence suggests many of last year's 42,636 road deaths involved illegal aliens.

A report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Study found 20 percent of fatal accidents involve at least one driver who lacks a valid license. In California, another study showed that those who have never held a valid license are about five times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident than licensed drivers.

Statistically, that makes them an even greater danger on the road than drivers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked – and nearly as dangerous as drunk drivers.

King also reports eight American children are victims of sexual abuse by illegal aliens every day – a total of 2,920 annually.

Based on a one-year in-depth study, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. She analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants.

As the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. increases, so does the number of American victims.

According to Edwin Rubenstien, president of ESR Research Economic Consultants, in Indianapolis in 1980, federal and state correctional facilities held fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. But at the end of 2003, approximately 267,000 illegal aliens were incarcerated in all U.S. jails and prisons.

While the federal government doesn't track illegal alien murders, illegal alien rapes or illegal alien drunk driving deaths, it has studied illegal aliens incarcerated in U.S. prisons.

In April 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a report on a study of 55,322 illegal aliens incarcerated in federal, state, and local facilities during 2003. It found the following:

The 55,322 illegal aliens studied represented a total of 459,614 arrests – some eight arrests per illegal alien;

Their arrests represented a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses – some 13 offenses per illegal alien;

36 percent had been arrested at least five times before.

"While the vast majority of illegal aliens are decent people who work hard and are only trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, (something you or I would probably do if we were in their place), it is also a fact that a disproportionately high percentage of illegal aliens are criminals and sexual predators," states Peter Wagner, author of a new report called "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration." "That is part of the dark side of illegal immigration and when we allow the 'good' in we get the 'bad' along with them. The question is, how much 'bad' is acceptable and at what price?"

Late Nite Jokes

Leno

President Bush spent Thanksgiving weekend at Camp David with a small group of friends and family. He would have spent it with a large group but there are no Republicans left in Washington.

It takes five hours to serve turkey in Beverly Hills. Everyone has five dads, so each needs to carve the turkey. There’s the real dad, the step dad, the donor dad…

Have you heard about the tur-duck-en? Very popular. A chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. They now have Tum-alka-pepto after you eat a tur-duc-ken. It’s a Tums stuck to an Alka-Seltzer covered in Pepto Bismal.

A popular item this year is gift cards. There’s nothing like saying, "I don’t care, I don’t know what you want, but have this and you’ll find something you like at this store”.

Some people are saying that soon we’ll have universal gift cards. Cards that can be used at any store. Didn’t that used to be called money?

The Hollywood Christmas Parade was this weekend. This years theme was "Why wait until December?”

Texas A&M University is doing research on making cotton edible. Making food from cotton. If it goes over well they should put it on a stick and start selling it at county fairs across the country.

Letterman

I was reading a periodical and medical researchers say that a number of people have a condition where they have sex in their sleep. Isn’t that crazy? That reminds me of a condition called marriage.

Conan

President Bush is in Europe. Today he visited the country of Estonia. He thanked them for sending troops to Iraq. His exact words were, "Those two guys are doing a good job.”

The upcoming "Nativity Story” movie has its world premiere at the Vatican. There was an awkward moment when some guy in the back said to the Pope, "Hey pal, take off that big hat so we can see.”

Iraq Violence An Al-Qaida Plot

President Bush said Tuesday an al-Qaida plot to stoke cycles of sectarian revenge in Iraq is to blame for escalating bloodshed, and refused to debate whether the country has fallen into civil war.

"No question it's tough, no question about it," Bush said at a news conference with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. "There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented in my opinion because of the attacks by al-Qaida causing people to seek reprisal."

Bush, who travels to Jordan later in the week for a high-stakes summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said an uptick in violence does not represent a new era in Iraq. The country is reeling from the deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the war began in March 2003.

"We've been in this phase for a while," Bush said.

The president dated the current spike to the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra, which triggered attacks and reprisal counterattacks between the Shiite majority and Sunni minority, and raised fears of civil war.

Bush said he will ask al-Maliki to explain his plan for quelling the violence.

"The Maliki government is going to have to deal with that violence and we want to help them do so," the president said. "It's in our interest that we succeed."

Directly seeking help from Iran and Syria with Iraq, as part of new, aggressive diplomacy throughout the region, is expected to be among the recommendations of a bipartisan panel on Iraq. Led by former Secretary of State James Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., the group is expected to present recommendations to Bush next month.

But Bush repeated his administration's reluctance to talk with two nations it regards as pariah states working to destabilize the Middle East.

Iran, the top U.S. rival in the region, has reached out to Iraq and Syria in recent days - an attempt viewed as a bid to assert its role as a powerbroker in Iraq.

The president said Iraq is a sovereign nation, free to meet with its neighbors. "If that's what they think they ought to do, that's fine," he said. "One thing Iraq would like to see is for the Iranians to leave them alone."

The president added that the U.S. will only deal with Iran when they suspend their program of enriching uranium, which could be used in a nuclear weapon arsenal.

"The Iranians and the Syrians should help - not destabilize - this young democracy," he said.

Iran's state-run television, however, quoted Iraqi President Jalal Talabani as saying "we are in dire need of Iran's help in establishing security and stability in Iraq." The comments came after Talabani met Monday with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran.

Far from reaching out to Iran and Syria, Bush also denounced them for trying to destabilize the fragile, Western-backed government in Lebanon.

"That government is being undermined, in my opinion, by extremist forces encouraged out of Syria and Iran," Bush said. "Why? Because a democracy will be a major defeat for those who articulate extremist points of view."

The New York Times on Monday quoted a senior U.S. intelligence official who said the Iranian-backed Hezbollah had been providing training for the Mahdi Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The anonymous official told the Times that 1,000 to 2,000 Shiite fighters had been trained in Lebanon by Hezbollah, also backed by Syria.

Jordan's King Abdullah, who is hosting al-Maliki's meeting with Bush, has warned that the new year could dawn with three civil wars in the Mideast - with one in Iraq added to those already ongoing in Lebanon and between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Bush, dodging a direct answer of whether civil war exists or not, tied the three conflicts together in a different way. He said recent strife in Lebanon and the heated up Israeli-Palestinian dispute are, like Iraq, the result of extremists trying to choke off democratic progress.

"When you see a young democracy beginning to emerge in the Middle East, the extremists try to defeat its emergence," Bush said.

Bush's brief stopover in Estonia, a former Soviet republic with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, was an offering of American gratitude. After lunch Tuesday, Bush headed to neighboring Latvia, another former Soviet republic and anti-terror ally hosting a NATO summit.

Discussions there were to focus on the tens of thousands of alliance troops clashing in Afghanistan with insurgents, particularly in the south where the Taliban is resurgent.

Bush said in Estonia that NATO "members must accept difficult assignments if we expect to be successful." It was an apparent reference to the fact that only a handful of countries - primarily Canada, Britain and the Netherlands - are doing much of the heavy lifting in the dangerous southern provinces.

They want nations, such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain, operating in more secure northern areas, to reduce restrictions on their forces to give NATO commanders more flexibility to use them where they're most needed.

An issue of high concern in central and eastern European countries is their lack of participation in a U.S. visa waiver program that allows business travelers and tourists to enter the U.S. for months using only a passport. Ilves said it is something his country "constantly has been raising" with the United States.

Bush promised to try to convince Congress to add more countries, like Estonia, to the program by adding new security elements to overcome wariness in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"It's in our nation's interest that people be able to come and visit," the president said.

Bush, the first sitting U.S. president to visit Estonia, was welcomed to this small Baltic country with a daybreak ceremonial welcoming at Kadriorg Palace, the official residence and working office of the president of Estonia.

Meeting Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, Bush praised the country for "your economic accomplishment and your contributions to peace and liberty around the world."

The U.S. president also met democracy activists and Estonian soldiers who have served on foreign missions.

Unlike in most of Europe, there is hardly any public criticism here of Bush's administration or the Iraq war. Only a small protest by anarchists had been planned in Tallinn for Bush's visit.

Senate Democrats Demand Classified Data

Senate Democrats are heating up their longstanding demands for documents related to the detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and other matters involving government secrecy.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., who will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee starting in January has asked the Justice Department to release two newly acknowledged documents, which set U.S. policy on how terrorism suspects are detained and interrogated. The existence of the documents has been confirmed by the CIA.

The first document sought is a directive President Bush signed giving the CIA authority to establish detention facilities outside the United States. It also outlines interrogation methods that may be used against detainees. The second is a 2002 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to the CIA’s general counsel regarding interrogation methods that the CIA was empowered to employ against detained al-Qaida leaders.

"The American people deserve to have detailed and accurate information about the role of the Bush administration in developing the interrogation policies and practices that have engendered such deep criticism and concern at home and around the world,” Leahy wrote Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, demanding that Gonzales produce any revisions and analyses of those and other memos. In addition he demanded any CIA documents that interpret the scope of interrogation practices permitted and prohibited by the Detainee Treatment Act or the Military Commissions Act.

"I expect real answers, or we’ll have testimony under oath until we get them,” Sen. Leahy told the New York Times. "We’re entitled to know these answers, and in many instances we don’t get them because people are hiding their mistakes. And that’s no excuse.”

His aides have cited more than 65 requests he has made to the Justice Department or other agencies in recent years that have been rejected or permitted to languish without reply.

Leahy expressed hope for greater cooperation from the Bush administration, which he described to the Times as having been "obsessively secretive.”

According to the Times, Leahy and his fellow Democrats have renewed their longstanding requests for information about some of the administration’s most hidden and fiercely debated operations. In addition, other such requests by committee members deal with subjects like voter fraud, immigration and background inquiries on Supreme Court nominees.

Noting that Democrats will soon control the Congress, the Times predicted that it will be harder for executive branch agencies to sidestep requests for documents. Behind each request, the Times reported, will be the possibility of Democrats’ voting to issue subpoenas that would compel documents or testimony, although Senate aides said they hoped to avoid conflict.

In the face of the renewed demands, there are few signs that the Bush administration is ready to be more responsive. Even though the President has promised to work with Democrats, there appears to be little change in the reluctance of the Justice Department’s officials to start opening its files to Leahy’s committee.

"The department will continue to work closely with the Congress as they exercise their oversight functions, and we will appropriately respond to all requests in the spirit of that longstanding relationship,” department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse told the Times. "When making those decisions, it is vital to protect national security information, particularly when they relate to sensitive intelligence programs that are the subject of oversight by the Intelligence Committees. We also must give appropriate weight to the confidentiality of internal executive branch deliberations.”

Rep. Waxman Mulls Probes of Bush Administration

NewsMax - The lawmaker poised to cause the Bush administration's biggest headaches when Democrats take control of Congress may just be a grocer's son from Watts who's hardly a household name off Capitol Hill.

Rep. Henry Waxman has spent the last six years waging a guerrilla campaign against the White House and its corporate allies, launching searing investigations into everything from military contracts to Medicare prices from his perch on the Government Reform Committee.

In January, Waxman becomes committee chairman - and thus the lead congressional hound of an administration many Democrats feel has blundered badly as it expanded the power of the executive branch.

Waxman's biggest challenge as he mulls what to probe?

"The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose," he said.

The choices he makes could help define Bush's legacy.

"There is just no question that life is going to be different for the administration," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the current committee chairman. "Henry is going to be tough. . . . And he's been waiting a long time to be able to do this."

Waxman, 67, is in his 16th term representing a Los Angeles district that has migrated west over the years to take in some of the country's most exclusive real estate: Bel Air, Malibu, Beverly Hills. It's worlds from the apartment he grew up in over his father's grocery store, in a predominantly black neighborhood where, he said, "There was one other Jewish kid - my sister."

The glitz of his district hasn't rubbed off. He remarks wryly that Malibu's celebrity beach-access disputes are, luckily, not a federal issue. And he's never been to the Oscars.

At first he wasn't invited, and now, "I have this reputation of never having gone." Why ruin it?

Balding, and quiet-spoken, with glasses, a snub-nose and a mustache, the 5-foot-5-inch Waxman isn't an in-your-face political bruiser. But he doesn't shrink from a fight.

At age 28 he challenged and beat a Democratic incumbent to win a seat in the state Assembly. Once in Congress, he muscled aside a more senior lawmaker to become chairman of an Energy and Commerce subcommittee, using the post to summon the heads of big tobacco to the famous 1994 hearing, depicted in the movie "The Insider," at which they testified that nicotine wasn't addictive.

"One of the biggest miscalculations of corporate America," Waxman now calls that.

Waxman also protected and strengthened the Clean Air Act, expanded Medicaid coverage for poor children and wrote a landmark AIDS care bill. Then Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994.

The minority party in the House has few rights, and Democrats have complained that GOP leaders completely shut them out from writing legislation.

So, Waxman said, "I recreated myself as an investigator."

The makeover was a success.

When he became top Democrat of the Government Reform Committee in 1997, Waxman realized that he didn't have to settle for playing defense like most in the House minority. He took advantage of the committee's large staff to hire talented investigators to pursue projects large and small.

His targets have ranged from why the Taekwondo Union was allowing 12- and 13-year-olds to kick opponents in the head, to Medicare drug costs and baseball steroid use, to abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and government contracts given to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton.

After agitating by Waxman, the State Department had to revise a report claiming terrorism had decreased in 2003, to reflect that it actually had increased.

Waxman found overbilling on Katrina contracts and overbilling by Halliburton in Iraq. He revealed that seniors wouldn't really save on premiums by switching to the government's Medicare drug plan. With Davis, he issued a report documenting extensive contacts between the White House and convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The Taekwondo Union agreed to prohibit head kicks by anyone under 14.

And when Bush administration resistance meant he didn't get results, Waxman got headlines for trying.

As Government Reform chairman, Waxman will aim to reassert congressional checks on the executive branch. A priority are government contracts: for Hurricane Katrina cleanup, homeland security and the Iraq war.

Contrary to Republican portrayals, Waxman said he doesn't plan to issue scattershot subpoenas. He said he has little interest in revisiting Bush administration failures that are already well known, such as Iraq war intelligence.

He wants to do it all with the help of Republicans.

"We want to return to civility and bipartisanship," Waxman said. "Legislation ought to be based on evidence, not ideology."

U.N. Exaggerates Death Totals

The Iraqi government hit out at the United Nations on Wednesday, accusing it of exaggerating and "misleading the world" with a report saying that a record 3,709 civilians were killed in violence in October.

The health minister gave no alternative number but said the real figure was about a quarter of that, and suggested U.N. officials obtained their data "illegally" from his subordinates.

"These statistics are not accurate," Health Minister Ali al-Shimeri told state television's prime-time news bulletin.

The U.N. stood by its statistics, saying they came from the Health Ministry itself and were consistent with past findings.

Ministers are under growing pressure from Iraqis and from Washington to curb sectarian violence, not least by reining in militias that are nominally loyal to parties in government.

Last week, officials argued publicly over the fate of dozens of civil servants abducted from a ministry building by suspected Shi'ite gunmen. Shi'ite leaders dismissed assertions from the Sunni minister that dozens of his staff were unaccounted for.

"The Operations Room at the Health Ministry and the Central Morgue did not give these statistics to the U.N.," Shimeri said. "They are eager to go to unreliable sources in the Health Ministry, through a doctor or a nurse, but this is not accurate.

"They want to mislead the world with these exaggerated figures. There is no figure of 7,000 for the past two months. If you want to talk about real figures, then they are a quarter of this figure," the minister said.

However, the United Nations' chief human rights official in Iraq, Gianni Magazzeni, told Reuters: "The data we've received are from the Ministry of Health and the Medico-Legal Institute and are consistent with data we've received before."

The U.N., which many Iraqis still resent for its role in enforcing sanctions under Saddam Hussein, adds ministry figures for hospitals to those from the Institute - the Baghdad morgue.

"Our methodology has not changed," Magazzeni said, noting that Shimeri recently told reporters that up to 150,000 Iraqis had been killed since the U.S. invasion - a figure that would put the monthly death toll since early 2003 at over 3,000.

Shimeri has dismissed an estimate by statisticians that some 650,000 civilians may have been killed since the invasion. The United States gives no figures for civilian casualties in Iraq.

The United Nations concedes gathering data is hard. It has had few staff in Iraq since its main office was bombed in 2003.

A month ago, it said Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's office had banned the Health Ministry and morgue from giving it data, saying this would be controlled by the premier's office.

An official in the Maliki's media office declined to give any figures on Wednesday and referred inquiries to Shimeri.

The minister is a supporter of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia is blamed by Sunnis for death squad violence. It is a charge Sadr, a key ally of Maliki, insistently denies.

Shimeri's apparent estimate of less than 1,000 violent deaths in October is at odds with a figure given to Reuters by a source at the morgue, who said last week it alone received about 1,600 bodies in October, about 1,350 of whom died violently.

During October, Reuters quoted police and other officials detailing the deaths of over 1,150 Iraqis who were apparently civilians. Iraq's chaos means many other deaths go unreported.

Late Nite Jokes

Leno

(All military audience) Wow those Democrats work fast. The troops are back home!

I want everyone to know that none of the jokes tonight were written by John Kerry.

Henry Kissinger says that winning is impossible. Not in Iraq, but for the Raiders.

You can tell it’s Thanksgiving. The price of gravy was up to $70 a barrel today.

Letterman

The weather wasn’t very good for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was so bad that Michael Richards was screaming at Al Roker.

A horrible thing happened during the parade. The Garfield balloon got loose and it killed a rat.

Did you see the Ronald McDonald balloon? I didn’t think it was as much fun this year without the transfats.

We had Thanksgiving at my house. My mom lost her cell phone. We turned the place upsides down looking for it. Then later in the afternoon the turkey started to vibrate.

Dick Cheney was in Iraq visiting the troops. Because nothing says warm holiday cheer like a Dick Cheney sneer.

In Washington, D.C. a confused George W. Bush lit a menorah.

Atheism Is the 'Root of Terrorism'

A lavishly illustrated "Atlas of Creation" is mysteriously turning up at schools and libraries in Turkey, proclaiming that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is the real root of terrorism.

Arriving unsolicited by post, the large-format tome offers 768 glossy pages of photographs and easy-to-read text to prove that God created the world with all its species.

At first sight, it looks like it could be the work of United States creationists, the Christian fundamentalists who believe the world was created in six days as told in the Bible.

But the author's name, Harun Yahya, reveals the surprise inside. This is Islamic creationism, a richly funded movement based in predominantly Muslim Turkey which has an influence U.S. creationists could only dream of.

Creationism is so widely accepted here that Turkey placed last in a recent survey of public acceptance of evolution in 34 countries - just behind the United States.

"Darwinism is dead," said Kerim Balci of the Fethullah Gulen network, a moderate Islamic movement with many publications and schools but no link to the creationists who produced the atlas.

Scientists say pious Muslims in the government, which has its roots in political Islam, are trying to push Turkish education away from its traditionally secular approach.

Aykut Kence, biology professor at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, said time for discussing evolution had been cut out of class schedules for the eighth grade this year.

"The students will just learn there is a theory called evolution defended by Darwin back in the 19th century," he said. "However, views of Islamic thinkers from the Middle Ages about evolution and creation have been included."

Like the Bible, the Koran says God made the world in six days and fashioned the first man, Adam, from dust. Other details vary but the idea is roughly the same.

But unlike in the West, evolution theory has not undermined the traditional creation story for many Muslims.

"Science is hardly an issue in Turkey, therefore evolution could hardly have been an issue," said Celal Sengor, a geology professor at Istanbul Technical University.

Darwinism did become an issue during the left-versus-right political turmoil before a 1980 military coup because Communist bookshops touted Darwin's works as a complement to Karl Marx.

"It looked like Marx and Darwin were together, two long-bearded guys spreading ideas that make people lose their faith," said Istanbul journalist Mustafa Akyol.

After the coup, the conservative government thought a dose of religion could bolster the fight against the extreme left.

In 1985, a paragraph on creationism as an alternative to evolution was added to high school science textbooks and a U.S. book "Scientific Creationism" was translated into Turkish.

In the early 1990s, leading U.S. creationists came to speak at several anti-evolution conferences in Turkey.

Since then, a home-grown strain of anti-Darwinist books has developed with a clearly political message.

"Atlas of Creation" offers over 500 pages of splendid images comparing fossils with present-day animals to argue that Allah created all life as it is and evolution never took place.

Then comes a book-length essay arguing that Darwinism, by stressing the "survival of the fittest", has inspired racism, Nazism, communism and terrorism.

"The root of the terrorism that plagues our planet is not any of the divine religions, but atheism, and the expression of atheism in our times (is) Darwinism and materialism," it says.

One Istanbul school unexpectedly received three copies recently. "It's very well done, with magnificent photos - a very stylish tool of creationist propaganda," said the headmaster, who asked not to be named.

The driving force behind these books is a reclusive Islamic teacher named Adnan Oktar who over the past decade has published a flood of books under the pseudonym Harun Yahya.

"Harun Yahya has managed to create a media-based and popular form of creationism," said Taner Edis, a Turkish-born physicist at Truman State University in Missouri.

Harun Yahya, which is probably a pool of writers, has turned out over 200 books in Turkish and translated many of them into 51 other languages.

Oktar, 50, appears on the group's Web site sporting a clipped beard and dapper suits. His works can be found in Islamic bookshops around the world and downloaded for free over the Internet.

Nobody seems to know how all this is funded. The Harun Yahya organisation, based in Istanbul, declined to comment despite interview requests from Reuters.

Intelligent Design (ID), a more recent argument about life's origins that is championed by U.S. Christian groups, may also be making the leap across the Atlantic.

ID says some organisms are too complex to have evolved without some superior cause, but avoids calling that cause God because that would ban it from U.S. science textbooks.

Akyol, a Muslim believer who says Darwinism is incompatible with his faith, has been waging an uphill struggle to popularise ID here. But most Turks show no interest because they see no need to avoid naming God.

His lonely campaign got an unexpected boost last month when Education Minister Huseyin Celik hinted on television that he might want to see it added to Turkish textbooks.

"If it's wrong to say Darwin's theory should not be in the books because it is in line with atheist propaganda, we can't disregard intelligent design because it coincides with beliefs of monotheistic religions about creation," he told CNN Turk.

Late Nite Jokes

Leno

Today is the busiest travel day of the year. Over 38 million people will be traveling – and that’s just the people coming over from Mexico.

For those of you flying, you can only carry three ounces of gravy with you.

Thanksgiving is a day we spend with relatives. Or as Donald Rumsfeld calls it, acceptable torture.

I went down to the animal shelter and adopted a stray turkey. They taste just as good as the other ones.

In the December issue of "GQ” magazine Al Gore revels that Bill Clinton does not drink. I wouldn’t have guessed that. He doesn’t drink. Can you believe that? When he was hitting on Paula Jones he was sober!

Letterman

Tomorrow is the big Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Sorry kids no Kramer balloon this year.

Thanksgiving is a lot of fun. All my relatives come to town. I picked mom up at the airport. It was embarrassing. We had to wait for a frozen butterball to come down the luggage pickup.

Mom is a tremendous cook though. You know how turkey makes you sleepy? Well mom figured something out to counteract that. What she does is the night before, she marinates that turkey in Red Bull.

Today President Bush pardoned two turkeys at the White House. The turkeys end up a petting zoon in Virginia. It’s the same thing they did with Mark Foley.

Conan

Fox has cancelled its deal with O.J. O.J. is saying that the title of the show and book was not his idea. "If I Did It This Is How It Happened” was not his idea. His idea was "When I Did It”.

Pictures Of The Day

More great pictures from You.

Lame Turkey

O.J. Simpson: 'I Have Nothing to Confess'

O.J. Simpson said in a radio interview Wednesday that his ill-fated "If I Did It" book and TV project was not a confession to the murders of his ex-wife and her friend and that the title wasn't his idea.

"I made it clear from the first day I met the writer that I wasn't involved," Simpson, who lives in the Miami suburbs, said in a telephone interview broadcast on WTPS-AM radio. "I said, 'I have nothing to confess.'"

Simpson also said the reported advance payment figure of $3.5 million was inaccurate. Although he would not specify how much he was paid, he did say it was a "windfall" that would go mainly to pay bills and support his children.

"Would everybody stop being so naive? Of course I got paid," Simpson said with a laugh. "I spend the money on my bills. It's gone."

Simpson's interview came two days after News Corp. (NWS) chief Rupert Murdoch canceled the book and two-part interview that had been scheduled to air Nov. 27 and Nov. 29 on the company's Fox TV network. All copies of the book will be destroyed, officials with publisher HarperCollins have said.

The cancellation came amid an intensely negative nationwide reaction to what was being billed as a thinly-veiled confession by Simpson to the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman. Simpson was acquitted in 1995.

In the Miami radio interview, Simpson was asked point-blank if he killed the pair.

"Absolutely not, and I maintained my innocence from day one," he replied, adding a little later: "No matter what everybody wants to say, I didn't do it."

As for the "If I Did It" title, he added: "That was their title. That's what they came up with. I didn't pitch anything. I don't make book deals."

Simpson also accused the Goldman family - which won a $33.5 million civil wrongful death judgment against him - of "opening up those old wounds" on frequent TV appearances.

"It happens every month to me. Everybody's calling me names," Simpson said.

Simpson said he was approached about the book and TV project, which he viewed as fiction but also as an opportunity to describe more fully his life with Nicole, their post-divorce relationship and other personal details. What he labeled "the incident" is covered in about half a chapter and involves a fictional character named "Charlie," Simpson said.

Details about the killings were purely the creation of the writer, he added.

"If the prosecution read it, they would say 'well, this is impossible,'" Simpson said.

Simpson also said he is weary of the constant media attention focused on him, suggesting it would be better to focus on solving cases such as the recent shooting death of University of Miami football player Bryan Pata.

"There are a lot of unsolved murders, a lot of tragedy over the last 12 years," Simpson said.

Late Nite Jokes

Conan

Everyone is discussing Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes wedding. Some big news from the reception. Tom serenaded Katie with "You Lost That Loving Feeling”. Katie sang back to him with, "I’ve Lost My Dignity and Will To Live”.

The Fox network has cancelled the O.J. special "If I Did It This Is How It Happened”. Instead they will now air "If We Did Air It, This Is What It Would Look Like”.

A new poll says 60% of Americans believe President Bush is doing a worse job than his father. He was cheered up though when someone told him he was the second best president with the name George Bush.

Paris Hilton was singing at a show in Las Vegas and was so drunk she got sick on stage. Vegas has changed its slogan to "What happens in Vegas first goes into Paris, comes out of Paris and stays in Vegas”.

Pictures Of The Day

More great pictures from You.

GOP Pork

Mitt Romney and the 'Mormon Thing'

NewsMax - A charismatic communicator with an actor's good looks, a glowing resume and socially conservative politics, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney could be a dream candidate for Republicans in the 2008 White House race.

But is America ready to elect a Mormon president?

Romney, a devout Mormon and former bishop of Massachusetts' Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is expected to announce in January he will join what is expected to be a crowded field of Republican White House contenders.

Faced with skepticism over what some Republicans call the "Mormon thing," Romney casts himself as a social conservative to the right of both Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, two of the early Republican favorites.

"He is doing all the right things for the social conservatives who drive the nomination process," said Dean Spiliotes, director of research at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College.

"A lot of them find him an attractive candidate. But a lot of them can't get past the whole Mormonism aspect of his faith, which puts him in a difficult position," Spiliotes said.

Analysts say Romney, 59, who did not seek re-election to focus on his national ambitions, looks set to mount a well-funded campaign that could make him a top-tier candidate.

But a more realistic goal, some add, could be the vice presidency.

While traveling the nation as head of the Republican Governors Association, the former venture capitalist has taken increasingly conservative stands on hot-button issues - gay marriage, abortion, stem-cell research and immigration - that could appeal to his party's conservative base.

He has courted Republican donors, met with prominent evangelical leaders, huddled with lobbyists in Washington and recently hired attack advertising specialist Alex Castellanos, who worked on President George W. Bush's 2000 campaign.

On Sunday, Romney asked Massachusetts' highest court to order an anti-gay marriage amendment question onto the ballot if state lawmakers refuse to vote on the issue next year.

Stephen Wayne, a Georgetown University professor and author of "The Road to the White House," said the move "is obviously related to his desire to appeal to the Christian right in the Republican Party."

But Wayne noted a Gallup Poll in September found 66 percent of potential voters of both parties said the United States was "not ready" for a Mormon president, with only 29 percent saying the nation was ready.

"How will Protestant fundamentalists view a Mormon candidate? If the latest Gallup Poll on presidential candidates is any indication, the answer is with suspicion at best," Wayne said.

Mormon leaders have spent decades countering critics who dismiss the faith as a cult and a threat to Christianity.

The once-isolated sect based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is one of the world's fastest growing and most affluent religions, with 12.3 million members globally. But its past could haunt a Romney presidential campaign, including its now-severed links to polygamy and a former ban on blacks from leadership roles.

Romney also must overcome suspicions in the South and Midwest on how he could be a genuine conservative while governing liberal Massachusetts.

He uses humor to try and dispel those fears, telling a South Carolina audience last year that being a conservative Republican in Massachusetts "is a bit like being a cattle rancher at a vegetarian convention."

The son of former Michigan Gov. George Romney has several advantages, political analysts say. He gained national attention for turning around the scandal-plagued 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and earned degrees from both Harvard Business and Law schools before going on to make millions in business.

But he lacks foreign policy experience and has an inconsistent record on some issues like abortion, which he said in 1994 should stay "safe and legal" before more recently declaring himself "firmly pro-life."

The defeat of his lieutenant governor in the race to succeed him as governor this year also was a blow, as was the loss of six Republican governors seats in elections earlier this month while he headed the campaign effort.

"He's going to have to deal with the fact that a Republican couldn't follow him in Massachusetts and a Democrat was able to defeat his record," said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Boston University.

Late Nite Jokes

Leno

The CIA has given up on trying to find Osama bin Laden. They now have a new task of trying to find a Playstation 3.

That’s crazy. People are waiting in lines for the Playstation 3. There’s been riots and even a shooting. So now we have proof that video games kill brain cells.

People have been camping outside of stores in wait to get a PS3. The sad thing is camping outside of a Circuit City to get a PS3 will be the only time some of these people ever camp.

President Bush was in Vietnam. I don’t think he gets it. For example today he called John McCain and said, "I stayed at that Hanoi Hilton you’re always talking about and it wasn’t that bad.”

Thanksgiving is this week. Have you heard of the turducken? It’s very popular for Thanksgiving. It’s a chicken stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a turkey. In Asia they call it the bird flu trifecta.

McDonald’s is coming out with a sandwich version of the turducken. It’s called the McTurd.

Fox has cancelled the O.J. Simpson book and television special. O.J. was very upset. You have to hate people in entertainment, it’s just like somebody to turn around and stab you in the back.

Canceling the show wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was deciding which executive was going to tell O.J. about it.

Now O.J. will have more time to look for the real killer.

Out-of-Wedlock Births Hit All-Time High in U.S.

Out-of-wedlock births in the United States have climbed to an all-time high, accounting for nearly four in 10 babies born last year, government health officials said Tuesday.

While out-of-wedlock births have long been associated with teen mothers, the teen birth rate actually dropped last year to the lowest level on record. Instead, births among unwed mothers rose most dramatically among women in their 20s.

Experts said the overall rise reflects the burgeoning number of people who are putting off marriage or living together without getting married. They said it also reflects the fact that having a child out of wedlock is more acceptable nowadays and not necessarily the source of shame it once was.

The increase in births to unwed mothers was seen in all racial groups, but rose most sharply among Hispanics. It was up among all age groups except youngsters ages 10 to 17.

"A lot of people think of teenagers and unmarried mothers synonymously, but they are not driving this," said Stephanie Ventura of the National Center for Health Statistics, a co-author of the report.

The government also reported that the rate of births by Caesarean delivery continued to climb in 2005 to a record high, despite efforts by public health authorities to bring down the number.

Many experts believe a large number of C-sections are medically unnecessary and done only for the convenience of the mother or her doctor.

The government report includes information from 99 percent of U.S. birth certificates filed last year. The information for 2005 is considered preliminary, but officials said it is not expected to change much.

About 4.1 million babies were born in the United States last year, up slightly from 2004. More than 1.5 million of those were to unmarried women; that is about 37 percent of the total. In 2004, about 36 percent of births were out of wedlock.

Out-of-wedlock births have been rising since the late 1990s.
Several factors may be contributing to the trend, said Dr. Yolanda Wimberly, an adolescent-medicine specialist at Atlanta's Morehouse School of Medicine.

More women in their 30s and 40s, hearing their biological clock, are choosing to give birth despite their single status. Younger women are not as worried about being unmarried, either, she added.

"I think it's more acceptable in society" to have a child without getting married, she said.

Just because a mother is not married does not mean the father isn't around, Ventura noted. She cited 2002 statistics that showed that about 20 percent of all new mothers under 20 were unmarried but living with the father at the time of the birth. That same was true of about 13 percent of all new mothers ages 20 to 24.

According to census figures, the median age at first marriage was 27 for men and 25 for women last year, up from 23 and 20 in 1950. Meanwhile, the number of unmarried-couple households with children has been climbing, hitting more than 1.7 million last year, up from under 200,000 in 1970.

Other findings in the report:

The birth rate among teenagers declined 2 percent in 2005, continuing a trend from the early 1990s. The rate is now about 40 births per 1,000 females ages 15 to 19. That is the lowest level in the 65 years for which a consistent series of rates is available.

The U.S. teen birth rate is still the highest among industrialized countries.

Births to women in their early 20s rose slightly, to 102 births per 1,000 women ages 20 to 24. Births to women in their late 20s - the most productive group in terms of childbirth - was about the same from the previous year, at about 116 per 1,000 women ages 25 to 29.

The C-section rate rose to 30.2 percent of all births in 2005, an increase of 1 percentage point from the previous year. The rate has risen by nearly half since 1996.

"It is clear that the procedure is being overused," Tonya Jamois, president of the International Cesarean Awareness Network, said in a statement. ICAN is a California-based nonprofit organization focused on lowering C-section rates.

Pictures Of The Day

More great pictures from You.

Love, Nancy

O.J. Interview Could Turn Up On Web

The O.J. Simpson project is dead, but the book and the TV interview could turn up in bootleg form in this age of YouTube and eBay, when scandalous information seldom stays secret for long.

News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins, called off Simpson's "confession" Monday after advertisers, booksellers and even Fox personality Bill O'Reilly branded the project sick and exploitive.

A two-part interview had been scheduled to air Nov. 27 and Nov. 29 on Fox, with the book, "If I Did It," to follow on Nov. 30.

HarperCollins spokeswoman Erin Crum said some copies had already been shipped to stores but would be recalled, and all copies would be destroyed. She would not say how long that would take.

But with the interview already taped, and thousands of books either sitting in warehouses or headed to booksellers, his supposedly hypothetical account of how he would have committed the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman appears all but certain to surface.

"A book becomes collectible when it's hard to find, and this will become very, very collectible, surely worth four figures," said Richard Davies, a spokesman for AbeBooks.com, an online seller that specializes in used and collectible books.

It's entirely possible that the Simpson TV interview will get out in some form, said Jeff Jarvis, operator of the BuzzMachine Web log and a journalism professor at City University of New York.

"All life is on the record now," he said. "Anything you can do can get out there and get out there quickly."

The Simpson book will also almost certainly remain underground, with another publisher unlikely to take on "If I Did It."

Even Michael Viner, whose previous releases include a memoir by disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair and a tell-all by four Hollywood call girls, said his Beverly Hills-based Phoenix Books was not interested.

"It's the public equivalent of doing a snuff film," said Viner, referring to films that claim to show a person being killed. "People can make money by doing snuff films, but no one wants to be associated with it."

The Simpson saga took another twist Tuesday when his former sister-in-law, Denise Brown, accused News Corp. of trying to buy her family's silence for millions of dollars.

A News Corp. spokesman confirmed that the company had conversations with representatives of the Brown and Goldman families over the past week and said that they were offered all profits from the book and TV show, but he denied it was hush money.

"There were no strings attached," News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher said.

Denise Brown told NBC's "Today" show that her family's response was: "Absolutely not."

"They wanted to offer us millions of dollars. Millions of dollars for, like, 'Oh, I'm sorry' money. But they were still going to air the show," Brown said. "We just thought, `Oh my god.' What they're trying to do is trying to keep us quiet, trying to make this like hush money, trying to go around the civil verdict, giving us this money to keep our mouths shut."

Pre-publication sales for "If I Did It," had been strong but not exceptional. It cracked the top 20 of Amazon.com last weekend, but by Monday afternoon, at the time its elimination was announced, the book had fallen to No. 51.

Duncan Hunter to Iraqis: 'Saddle Up' and Fight

The United States should push for available and trained Iraqi security forces to be sent to the front lines of the fight to stabilize the wartorn country, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter said Monday.

"We need to saddle those up and deploy them to the fight" in dangerous areas, primarily in Baghdad, Hunter, a California Republican who is interested in his party's 2008 presidential nomination, told The Associated Press in an interview. He took a different tack from Sen. John McCain, a front-running 2008 hopeful who has urged that additional U.S. troops be sent there.

Hunter said in the AP interview that he wants to "Go Iraqi." He also said the Pentagon has told him that some 114 Iraqi battalions are trained and equipped, and 27 of those units are operating in areas that see less than one attack a day.

Monday's statements continued an Iraq war policy debate that has been intensifying before and since midterm elections that saw Democrats grab back control of the House and Senate from the GOP.

Also on Monday, Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, pushed again on his argument that the military draft should be reinstated.

Rangel, incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, had said Sunday that "there's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft."

In a speech Monday at Baruch College, he said he wants to hold hearings into current troop levels and future plans for Iraq and other potential conflict regions.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson endorsed Rangel's position, saying the country currently has "a backdoor draft."

Late Nite Jokes

Leno

I finally saw the "40 Year Old Virgin”. It was a line of guys waiting for the Playstation 3.

People are waiting in lines for that thing. There’s been pushing, shoving, riots – this is the most exercise most of these people will ever get.

President Bush is in Vietnam. He’s just a little behind since he should have been there in 1968.

Steny Hoyer is going to be Majority Leader for the Democrats. Steny Hoyer? Wasn’t he on the "Dukes of Hazzard”? Wasn’t he Cooter’s friend?

The NBA is using a new kind of basketball that contains no animal products. It’s sort of like a Big Mac.

Wal-Mart is coming out with a $2.00 wine. So it looks like Jesus wasn’t the only one to turn water into wine.

Climate Change 'Brainwashing'

NewsMax - The U.S. Senate's most vocal global warming skeptic, James Inhofe, Thursday dismissed a U.N. meeting on climate change as "a brainwashing session."

Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who will step down as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee in January, told a news conference, "The idea that the science (on global warming) is settled is altogether wrong."

A majority of scientists, many in the U.S. government, accept that global warming is spurred by human actions and the emission of greenhouse gases. President Bush said as much in July at a summit of industrialized nations.

Inhofe said he acknowledged that the planet is warming but disputed those who attribute it to human activity and the emission of greenhouse gases. Instead, he blamed climate change on natural cycles.

As an example of U.N. brainwashing at this week's climate change meeting in Nairobi, Inhofe held up a children's book he said was distributed at the gathering, called "Tore and the Town on Thin Ice."

He said the book, the tale of a fictional young Arctic villager who becomes aware of global warming when his dogsled crashes through thinning ice, relies on disputed science.

"This is paid for by the United Nations and it's brainwashing little kids," Inhofe said.

Inhofe did not attend the Nairobi meeting but said some of his staff did.

"What we learned in Nairobi is ... that the real focus has little to do with the fate of the planet and more to do with money -- who has it and who wants it," he said.

Inhofe will be the ranking Republican on the environment committee when the newly elected Democratic majority takes power in January. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat with long-standing environmental credentials, will chair the committee.

Boxer and two other Democrats wrote a letter to Bush Wednesday urging him to fight global warming by putting mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Late Nite Jokes

Letterman's Top Ten

Top Ten Taco Bell Excuses

10. Drugs help hide the taste of coyote meat

9. Can't keep staff focused since the Britney/Kevin split

8. Hard to tell what customer ordered through cheap drive-thru microphone, am I right, ladies and gentlemen?

7. We need to hire more drug-sniffing chihuahuas

6. The drugs should kill the E. coli

5. No number 5 - writer ate bad taco

4. He asked for a value meal, he got a value meal

3. Who cares? It's Impressionist Week

2. Accidentally gave the guy Rush Limbaugh's order

1. We were thinking outside the bun

Conan

President Bush just began a seven-day trip through Asia. So far, everywhere he’s gone in Asia he’s been met by thousands of protesters. President Bush may be the first American to be greeted with the phrase, "We hate you long time.”

President Bush just announced that next month he will host a White House conference on malaria. Bush told reporters, "I’m looking forward to meeting the Marlarians.”

Lawyers in Germany are trying to have Donald Rumsfeld arrested and tried for war crimes. You know things are bad when Germany is accusing you of war crimes.

This weekend, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are getting married in a lavish ceremony – and Holmes will be wearing a perfume that costs $2,400 an ounce. The perfume is called "Eau de Giant Charade.”

Eva Longoria is angrily denying rumors that she will be playing Beyonce’s lesbian lover in a movie. So know one knows if the movie is real or just a dream I had.

O.J. Simpson is going to appear in a Fox special called: "If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened.” Then O.J. will appear in a rebuttal special called: "But Perhaps I Didn’t Do It – Unless Of Course By ‘It’ You Mean ‘Double Murder’ – In Which Case Yes: I Did It.”

Rep. Murtha: Ethics Bill Is 'Total Crap'

The rules governing congressional ethics, proposed by House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, are "total crap," says Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa.

Murtha has been backed by Pelosi as a candidate for House majority leader.

Appearing Wednesday on MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews, Murtha was asked to clarify remarks he made about the ethics bill to a meeting of the conservative Blue Dog Democrats group.

Matthews asked Murtha if it was " . . . total crap to tell people you can’t take a lunch from somebody? Where do you draw — where is your position on ethics right now?"

Murtha at first hedged, claiming that the "crap" he was talking about "is the crap that people have violated the law, the crap that the kind of things that have happened with Abramoff, the kind of things that have happened with some of the members."

"But that’s not what you said," Matthews shot back. "Didn’t you say it was total crap, what she was proposing?"

Said Murtha: "What I said was . . . it is total crap that we have to deal with an issue like this when we’ve got a war going on and we got all these other issues — $8 billion a month we’re spending . . ."

Murtha assured Matthews that he has the votes to win the majority leadership post.

Late Nite Jokes

Leno

President Bush is getting ready for his big trip to Vietnam. Dick Cheney however got a deferment.

There was an embarrassing moment. President Bush had to ask John Kerry for directions. That was awkward.

Soon Nancy Pelosi will be the most powerful woman in the country. Unless you count Oprah.

Three out of five Americans don’t think the Democrats have a plan for Iraq. Democrats were stunned when they heard this. Two people think we have a plan?!

The CIA is now saying that Borat misled them on the facts in going into Iraq.

Borat was actually punched by a guy in New York. Borat went up to talk to him and got hit. In the guy’s defense when he turned around, he saw a reporter with a mustache and just thought it was Geraldo.

A new James Bond movie is out. "Casino Royale”. This about how Bond gets started and gets his license to kill. A license to kill. After Blake, O.J. and Spector that’s not so special anymore.

No Plot, No Crime in CIA Leak Case

Attorneys for former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby dismissed the idea of a White House plot to leak a CIA operative's identity to the press and said Libby plans to tell jurors at his perjury trial that he had no reason to lie.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent years investigating who leaked Valerie Plame Wilson's identity to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003. While nobody was charged with the leak, Libby is accused of lying to investigators about his conversations with reporters.

Fitzgerald wants to keep most of that backstory out of Libby's trial in January. But in court documents filed Tuesday, defense attorneys said they have a right to argue that Libby doesn't believe he did anything wrong.

Novak's story ran as Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, criticized the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq. Former State Department official Richard Armitage has acknowledged being the source for Novak's column, a fact that neither defense attorneys nor prosecutors discussed in legal filings until Tuesday.

"It is doubtful that anyone committed an 'underlying crime' here," Libby's lawyers wrote. "The government's investigation began as an effort to discover which government officials had 'leaked' Ms. Wilson's affiliation with the CIA to Mr. Novak. After years of overheated media speculation that Ms. Wilson's identity had been publicly revealed as part of a White House plot to wreak revenge on her husband, Mr. Armitage (who was no White House ally) finally confirmed in August 2006 that he was Mr. Novak's primary source."

Libby's attorneys said Fitzgerald has perpetuated the notion that Libby was the source and said the former aide should be allowed to tell jurors that he was not - and thus had no reason to lie to the FBI or grand jury.

"Members of the jury will have heard for years that Mr. Libby leaked classified information about Valerie Wilson's affiliation with the CIA, due to inaccurate reports in the press," defense attorneys wrote. "Indeed, the government has contributed to the likely misimpressions that potential jurors will have about this case."

Fitzgerald has not specifically commented on that allegation. In court papers, he has argued that the upcoming trial should not be a forum to debate the leak itself or question why Libby was charged and others weren't.

Pictures Of The Day

More great pictures from You.

McCain - Campaign Finance

Late Nite Jokes

Letterman's Top Ten

Top Ten Signs You're Obsessed With "Lost"

10.After each episode, you do an all-kitty reenactment in your basement

9. You refer to your in-laws as "The Others"

8. While visiting New York, you stood over every manhole and screamed, "Good God - a secret hatch"

7. You're halfway to your goal of licking every cast member

6. Your friend phoned during "Lost." Next day you beat him to death with a hot poker

5. You pitched NBC a show about 12 people stranded backstage at "Saturday Night Live"

4. Co-workers affectionately refer to you as "That loser who's obsessed with 'Lost'"

3. Renamed dental practice "Flost"

2. Your wife is getting sick of playing the bedroom game "Find the castaway"

1. You sat through all ten of these lame jokes

Conan

This week President Bush is flying to Asia to meet with leaders of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Or as Bush calls them, China.

Yesterday, Democrat Russ Feinglod announced that he has decided NOT to run for President in 2008. Which finally answers the question no one asked.

Sources say the prenup Britney Spears made Kevin Federline sign is 60 pages long. The first page handles who gets the money and the next 59 pages handle who gets the trucker hats.

Wal-Mart announced they're coming out with their own brand of wine. Wal-Mart's wine comes in red or white, as well as 12- or 16-ounce cans.

According to a new report, the most frequently delayed flight in the country is Delta's 6:30 flight from New York to Washington, D.C. - which is late 100 percent of the time. Delta officials plan to fix the problem with the 6:30 flight by re-naming it the "7:30 flight."

According to Variety, there is a new movie coming out featuring Beyonce and Eva Longoria playing lesbian lovers. It's called "The Greatest Movie Ever Made."

Sen. Reid Backed Bridge Near His Property

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., backed funding for a bridge between Nevada and Arizona that could affect the value of property he owns nearby.

The planned span over the Colorado River between Laughlin, Nev., and Bullhead City, Ariz., got an $18 million boost in last year's massive federal transportation bill.

Reid, who's in line to become Senate majority leader after last week's election, owns 160 acres of undeveloped property in Bullhead City, several miles from the proposed bridge sites. Development is booming in the area and local officials in Laughlin and Bullhead City support a new crossing to ease traffic on the one existing bridge. They also expect it would add to property values.

Reid aides said his support for the bridge has nothing to do with his ownership of the Bullhead City property, which he values between $500,000 and $1 million on his annual financial disclosure forms. His spokesman said he had no plans to develop the property.

After the Los Angeles Times published a story on the issue Monday, Reid's office issued a five-page fact sheet in response.

According to the statement, Laughlin officials began pushing for another bridge after the nearby Hoover dam crossing was closed because of security concerns after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, pushing traffic onto a single Laughlin-Bullhead City bridge.

Reid and others in the Nevada delegation responded, securing $500,000 for planning in 2004. Reid and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., then pushed for the $18 million in last year's $286 billion highway-mass transit bill.

A final location has not been designated for the bridge, which is projected to cost $30 million to $40 million.

"Sen. Reid's support for the bridge had absolutely nothing to do with property he owned," said the statement from his office. "Sen. Reid supported this project for one reason only - his continuing efforts to move Nevada forward."

Reid and other incoming Democratic leaders have promised to bring more openness to the practice of earmarking, where lawmakers insert funding for pet projects into legislation with little scrutiny.

Late Nite Jokes

Leno

President Bush’s dad is going to help on the War in Iraq. He’s not happy either. This might be the first time a president actually becomes grounded.

Did you see Nancy Pelosi and President Bush during their lunch meeting last week? And you thought you saw more fake smiles when the Clinton’s were together.

John McCain has started an exploratory committee on running for president. Hillary Clinton has started an exploratory committee to keep track of Bill.

I have some good news about the health of Fidel Castro – it got worse!

Castro isn’t expected to make it much past 2007. He’s worth almost $900 million. Today Anna Nicole Smith was seen paddling to Cuba.

Wal-Mart will allow employees to say "Merry Christmas” this year. This year they can do that. They learned how to speak English.

The Oakland A’s new stadium is going to be the most high-tech in the world. Each visitor will have access to wireless internet and reception for their cell phones. They’re trying to make the most annoying stadium ever.

Lieberman Won't Rule Out GOP Change

Democratic Senate leaders, set to take control of the chamber this January, got a gentle warning from "independent" Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman: you don't own me.

Appearing Sunday on "Meet the Press," Lieberman told moderator Tim Russert bluntly that he won't rule out caucusing with the GOP, if circumstances warranted the move.

Such a move, could throw control of the Senate to the Republicans. Democrats, with Lieberman voting with them, control the Senate 51-49. If Lieberman bolts, that divides the Senate 50-50, allowing Vice President Dick Cheney, as president of the Senate, to cast the deciding vote.

Lieberman made clear to Russert that he plans to stick with the Democrats

Russert asked: "If in fact they ask for discipline in the Democratic caucus and you start to feel uncomfortable with it, would you consider crossing across the aisle and joining the Republicans if they gave you the same chairmanship that you had in respect to your seniority?"

"That's a hypothetical I'm not going to deal with now," Lieberman responded. "I'm going to be an optimist and take some encouragement from the fact that this was an election in which in the House and Senate, Democrats came to the majority of both chambers by electing moderates mostly - this was an election that might be called the return of the center in American politics.

"I think that my colleagues and leaders in the Democratic caucus get that.

"This was not a major realignment election - this was the voters in Connecticut and elsewhere saying, 'We're disappointed with the Republicans - we want to give the Democrats a chance.'

"I believe the American people are considering both major political parties to be in a kind of probation because they're understandably angry that Washington is dominated too much by partisan political games and not enough by problem solving and patriotism, which means putting your country and your state first."

Russert pointed out that Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont crossed over and joined the Democrats and they gave him his committee chairmanship, saying, "You're not ruling that out in some future time."

Lieberman admitted, "I'm not ruling it out but I hope I don't get to that point."

He added that during the campaign [Connecticut Republicans] never said, "We're doing this because we want you to switch over. We want you to do what you think is right and good for our state and country."

Russert further pressed him on the question, asking, "Why not use as a condition for your vote for majority leader, for Sen. Harry Reid, that he support the Office of Public Integrity [which Lieberman supports] and lobbying reform? Would you consider that?"

Lieberman again sidestepped, saying: "I'm not going to start by threatening. I'm going to start by making clear what my priorities are, and I'm going to seek the support of my leadership and of members of both political parties."

Lieberman told Russert that he wants to "bring the [Democratic] party back to its historic traditions of strength on national security, foreign policy and innovation and progress in domestic policy like Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy Democrats that I was raised to be. But I'm going to be an independent because that is how and why I return to the Senate. I was elected as and independent, I was elected because I said to my constituents in Connecticut, 'I'm as fed up with the partisanship in Washington as you are, I promise you I will put progress and patriotism ahead of partisan ship and polarization,' so I am now an independent Democrat, capital I capital D."

Pictures Of The Day

More great pictures from You.

Throw Out The GOP

Michael Steele Open to Lead RNC

Maryland Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who lost his race for a Senate seat, expressed interest Sunday in becoming chairman of the Republican National Committee.

"I have not had any conversations directly with the White House yet on this," Steele told C-SPAN.

Ken Mehlman, the current chairman, is stepping down when his two-year term ends in January. Mehlman made a point of emphasizing outreach to black voters and helped recruit Steele for the Maryland race.

Steele, who lost to Democratic Rep. Benjamin Cardin by a margin of 55 percent to 44 percent of the vote, said he believed it was time for the GOP to rethink its views in wake of losing both chambers of Congress in last week's midterm elections, which he described as a "tsunami." Steele said the electorate "was very clear."

"They expected the administration and the party to step up and speak to particular issues and, failing that, there would be heck to pay -- and we paid," Steele said.

Steele said he wasn't sure when an announcement would be made on who will be the new committee chair.

Steele was head of the Maryland Republican Party before being elected lieutenant governor in 2002 as the first black candidate elected statewide in Maryland. His term as lieutenant governor will end in January.

Steele also explained why he largely avoided mentioning his party affiliation while campaigning. In a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1, Steele said it was obvious what party he belonged to and there was no need to "rub it in your face."

"In a state like Maryland, there was an opportunity to move away from the labels and really try to dig beyond, you know, being a Republican or Democrat, red state or blue state," Steele said. "In fact, that's what people are sick of. I think we saw the results on Tuesday just how sick they are."

New Congress to Target NSA Program

NewsMax - Legislation aimed at President Bush's once-secret program for wiretapping U.S.-foreign phone calls and computer traffic of suspected terrorists without warrants shows all the signs of not moving ahead, notwithstanding President Bush's request this week that a lame-duck Congress give it to him.

Senate Democrats, emboldened by Election Day wins that put them in control of Congress as of January, say they would rather wait until next year to look at the issue. "I can't say that we won't do it, but there's no guarantee that we're going spend a lot of time on controversial measures," Democratic Whip Richard Durbin of Illinois said Thursday.

In Senate parlance, that means no.

Republicans for months have known that no bill accomplishing Bush's goal could get filibuster-proof support from 60 senators. Sealing off any hope was what Democratic leader Harry Reid put on his lame-duck to-do list. The warrantless domestic surveillance bill was conspicuous in its absence.

As for next year, Bush should not expect Democrats to allow such legislation to pass without language establishing considerable congressional oversight of any expansion of warrantless wiretaps.

"We have been asked to make sweeping and fundamental changes in law for reasons that we do not know and in order to legalize secret, unlawful actions that the administration has refused to fully divulge," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the next Judiciary Committee chairman. "If legislation is needed for judicial review, then we should write that legislation together, in a bipartisan and thoughtful way."

The Bush administration has a backup plan. In speeches over the next few weeks, the Justice Department will launch a new campaign for the legislation by casting the choice as one between supporting the program or dropping it altogether - and appearing soft on al-Qaida.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will make the eavesdropping program the focus of a Nov. 18 speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for the national security, will make a similar pitch Wednesday to the American Bar Association.

Leahy said that monitoring communications of suspected terrorists is essential but that "it needs to be done lawfully and with adequate checks and balances to prevent abuses of Americans' rights and Americans' privacy."

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush ordered the National Security Agency to monitor communications potentially related to al-Qaida between people in the U.S. and those overseas. He bypassed normal requirements for court approval of such eavesdropping, and the program came under harsh criticism after it was disclosed last December by The New York Times.

Democrats and Republicans on the intelligence and judiciary committees spent much of the year trying to find out details from the administration, to little avail. Much of the information is classified, and the White House has insisted that revealing it would mean compromising the war on terrorism.

The House passed a bill in September to allow warrantless wiretaps under certain restrictions. House and Senate intelligence committees and congressional leaders would have to be notified, the president would have to believe that a terrorist attack is imminent, and certification would have to be renewed every 90 days.

A Republican measure in the Senate favored by the administration would require the Justice Department to report twice a year to the House and Senate intelligence committees the number and kind of any such operations. It would permit the surveillance to continue for up to one year without a warrant.

Late Nite Jokes

Leno

Do you realize Nancy Pelosi will now be second in line for the presidency? She’s behind Dick Cheney. She’s literally a heartbeat away – from a guy without a heartbeat.

John Kerry came out of the closet today. Literally he came out. He’s not gay. The Democrats just let him out of the closet.

A group is already raising money for John Kerry to run for president again. Will that happen? It just depends on how much money the Republicans raise.

Turns out the two biggest things that hurt Republicans in the election were sex and money scandals. After all these years of attacking Hollywood it turns out they are Hollywood!

An amendment to legalize marijuana in Nevada was voted down. It probably would have passed but all the people already on marijuana didn’t show up to the polls until today.

Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is running for president in 2008. What kind of name is that anyway? Doesn’t it sound like a medical problem for an older man? I could picture Wilfred Brimley saying, "Do you have an enlarged Vilsack?”

Wal-Mart is coming out with their own wine. It comes in two flavors – red and white trash.

On the label they of course are telling people to drink responsibly. They don’t want anyone drinking the wine and then getting behind the wheel of their home.

The San Francisco 49ers are moving to Santa Clara. They wanted to move to an area without a team already. Why didn’t they just move to Oakland?

John McCain Cost The GOP The Senate

Hugh Hewitt: The post-mortems are accumulating, but I think the obvious has to be stated: John McCain and his colleagues in the Gang of 14 cost the GOP its Senate majority while the conduct of a handful of corrupt House members gave that body's leadership the Democrats.

In the Senate three turning points stand out.

On April 15, 2005 --less than three months after President Bush had begun a second term won in part because of his pledge to fight for sound judges-- Senator McCain appeared on Hardball and announced he would not support the "constitutional option" to end Democratic filibusters.

Then, stunned by the furious reaction, the senator from Arizona cobbled together the Gang of 14 "compromise" that in fact destroyed the ability of the Republican Party to campaign on Democratic obstructionism while throwing many fine nominees under the bus.

Had McCain not abandoned his party and then sabotaged its plans, there would have been an important debate and a crucial decision taken on how the Constitution operates.

The result was the complete opposite. Yes, President Bush got his two nominees to SCOTUS through a 55-45 Senate, but the door is now closed, and the court still tilted left. A once-in-a-generation opportunity was lost.

A few months later there came a debate in the Senate over the Democrats' demand for a timetable for withdrawal for Iraq led to another half-measure: A Frist-Warner alternative that demanded quarterly reports on the war's progress, a move widely and correctly interpreted as a blow to the Administration’s Iraq policy.

Fourteen Republicans voted against the Frist-Warner proposal --including Senator McCain-- and the press immediately understood that the half-measure was an early indicator of erosion in support for a policy of victory.

Then came the two leaks of national security secrets to the New York Times, and an utterly feckless response from both the Senate and the House. Not one hearing was held; not one subpoena delivered. A resolution condemning these deeply injurious actions passed the House but dared not name the New York Times. The Senate did not even vote on a non-binding resolution.

Nor did the Senate get around to confirming the president's authority to conduct warrantless surveillance of al Qaeda contacting its operatives in the United States.

Weeks were taken up jamming the incoherent McCain-Kennedy immigration bill through the Judiciary Committee only to see it repudiated by the majority of Republicans, and the opportunity lost for a comprehensive bill that would have met the demand for security within a rational regularization of the illegal population already here.

As summer became fall, the Administration and Senator Frist began a belated attempt to salvage the term. At exactly that moment Senators McCain and Graham threw down their still murky objections to the Administration’s proposals on the trial and treatment of terrorists.

As cooler heads sort through the returns, they will see not a Democratic wave but a long series of bitter fights most of which were lost by very thin margins, the sort of margin that could have been overcome had there been greater purpose and energy arrayed on the GOP's side.

Step by step over the past two years the GOP painted themselves into a corner from which there was no escape. Congressional leadership time and time again took the easy way out and declared truces with Democrats over issues, which ought not to have been compromised. The easy way led to Tuesday's result.

It is hard to conceive of how the past two years could have been managed worse on the Hill.

The presidential ambitions of three senators ended Tuesday night, though two of them will not face up to it.

The Republican Party sent them and their 52 colleagues to Washington D.C. to implement an agenda which could have been accomplished but that opportunity was frittered away.

The Republican Party raised the money and staffed the campaigns that had yielded a 55-45 seat majority, and the Republican Party expected the 55 to act like a majority.

Confronted with obstruction, the Republicans first fretted and then caved on issue after issue. Had the 55 at least been seen to be trying --hard, and not in a senatorial kind of way-- Tuesday would have had a much different result. Independents, especially, might have seen why the majority mattered.

Will the GOP get back to a working majority again? Perhaps. And perhaps sooner than you think. The Democrats have at least six vulnerable senators running in 2008, while the situation looks pretty good for the GOP.

But the majority is not going to return unless the new minority leadership --however it is composed-- resolves to persuade the public, and to be firm in its convictions, not concerned for the praise of the Beltway-Manhattan media machine.