O’DONNELL: Can I ask you, too, about what Maureen Dowd wrote in today’s New York Times about the Republicans targeting Michelle Obama. She wrote: “It’s good news for Obama that Hillary’s out of the race. But it’s also bad news. Now Republicans can turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of ‘Kill the witch.’” What’s your reaction to that?

DURBIN: Well, I know Michelle. She has been my friend and a friend of my wife for many, many years. She can take it. She can handle herself. She is a very accomplished person. But I will tell you this: the hottest ring in Hell is reserved for those in politics who attack their opponents’ families. And if there are some Republican strategists that think that’s the way to win the election, I think they are wrong.

O’DONNELL: Wow, well, there you have it. That’s a line. Senator Durbin, very interesting, thanks for joining us. We appreciate it.  ~huffingtonpost.com

When asked during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, whether he would “pursue the violations that have been made against our Constitution by the present administration”, Biden answered in the affirmative.

“We will not be stopped from pursuing any criminal offence that’s occurred,” he continued, going on to praise congressional committees for the deliberate pace of their inquiries into alleged Bush administration misdeeds.

Members of Congress are “doing the right thing, they’re not making false accusations about anything … they’re collecting data, subpoenaing records, they’re building a file”, Biden said.

“If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued – not out of vengeance, not out of retribution, out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president — no one is above the law.”

Obama sounded a similar note in April, vowing that if elected, he would ask his attorney general to initiate a prompt review of Bush-era actions to distinguish between possible “genuine crimes” and “really bad policies”.

“[I]f crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,” Obama told the Philadelphia Daily News. “You’re also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve.” ~guardian.co.uk

Wow.

Near the start of the march, two women and a young man secured themselves with chains to a car that obstructed traffic.

“I would like a world of direct democracy,” said one man, who gave his name only as Alex, as he was led away by officers.

A larger group of about 200 protesters dressed in black roamed through the streets of downtown St. Paul, shouting and chanting and throwing street signs and concrete planters into the roads. Many of them wore black bandanas across their faces and some wore black balaclavas.

At one point, a police officer grabbed one of the youths. Others wrested him away, then appeared to knock the officer to the ground. On one knee, the officer released an arc of pepper spray that gushed into the air in a thick cloud.

The crowd backed off. A young man scattered bundles of nails secured with duct tape in the street. Over the next 40 minutes or so, the crowd weaved through streets, sometimes pursued or approached by police, but often eluding groups of police officers or sheriffs deputies.

Some members of the group smashed windows while others objected.

“Is this really protesting?” a young woman shouted, apparently in anger. ~http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

Direct democracy = disruption and destruction. This is what Obama wants to bring us. Social upheaval is in fact ‘change’. Revolutions are in fact ‘change’. This does not mean the changes would be good are beneficial. All evidence points to the contrary. The left’s idea of change will not benefit society at all and is certainly meant to begin dismantling American capitalism.

Delegates and passersby hurried out of the way as they saw the group approaching. Projectiles bounced off the windows of the U.S. Bank Center, but a young man used a hammer with a yellow handle to smash a window of the First National Bank.

Others in the crowd pried up red paving stones and used them as weapons, and some protesters smashed windows at Macy’s and a police car window.

The crowd soon dispersed, but apparently with the intent of coming back later in the day. It was not immediately clear whether there were injuries or arrests. ~http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

Katrina Vander Heuval:

Last month, the bipartisan Rand Corporation concluded in an important report that the very notion of a “war on terror” is counterproductive, and that intelligence and police cooperation should be the centerpiece of our strategy. More recently, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman — no milquetoast when it comes to using military force — criticized the Dems’ position on Afghanistan as ill-conceived “bumper sticker politics.” Friedman quoted a valuable Time article by Afghan expert Rory Stewart. Reporting from Kabul, Stewart explains: “A troop increase is likely to inflame Afghan nationalism because Afghans are more anti-foreign than we acknowledge, and the support for our presence in the insurgency areas is declining … The more responsibility we take in Afghanistan, the more we undermine the credibility and responsibility of the Afghan government and encourage it to act irresponsibly.”

Stewart, a longtime observer of Afghan politics, makes clear that the temptation to throw more military forces at the problem may do more harm — to our security, to the Afghan people who are already angry about mounting civilian casualties, and to the stability of a region whose underlying conflicts require political resolution not more US or NATO troops.  ~alternet.org

Is America Ready To Send Its Political Opponents to Jail?

You can expect hardball in a presidential campaign, especially one in a country as divided as ours seems to be. But the kind of hardballs being pitched is an indication of the people and policies that an incoming administration will be employing.

That is why it’s particularly troubling that the Obama campaign has filed a criminal complaint against the people behind an ad being run that links Obama to avowed terrorist William Ayers.

One can only imagine what an Obama Justice Department will be doing to it’s political opponents. But then liberals have never really had a square idea of free speech.

Howard Dean Calls the GOP - A “WHITE” Party

“If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the [laughs] Republican party.”

Pedestrian.

RALEIGH - L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he’d ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms.

Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, as called for in a directive to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley.

When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours’ delay, one of Eason’s employees hung the flags at half-staff. ~newsobserver.com

Naked liberal prejudice and hate.

This tells you how much liberals overvalue their own personal political opinions. Normally you wouldn’t fail to honor the death of those you merely politically disagreed with.

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.  ~rasmussenreports.com

Pelosi, Reid, congratulations.

From Powerline:

If this report is correct, Nancy Pelosi was carrying on her own foreign policy in opposition to that of the United States, trying to work with the socialist Hugo Chavez and the Communist FARC terrorists to undermine America’s ally, Colombia. In normal times, this would be unthinkable. Given the crazed state of today’s Democratic party, I’m not so sure.

Further, the statement that Pelosi designated the outrageously left-wing Jim McGovern to head up her mission to the terrorists is also interesting. It may tie in with this document, which, as reported by the Associated Press, apparently records an attempt by Democrats to encourage FARC to hold on until Barack Obama becomes President:… ~powerlineblog.com

We know that Chavez is a favorite among the lefties here in the US. With myriads of actors and politicians making pilgrimage to see the glorious leader and his 21st century socialism at work. We know too that leftist NGO’s actively and routinely give aid and comfort to these leftist revolutionary/terrorist gangs.

As we learn more about the Colombian military’s daring hostage rescue last week, one detail stands out: In tricking FARC rebels into putting the hostages aboard a helicopter, undercover special forces simply told the comandantes that the aircraft was being loaned to them by a fictitious nongovernmental organization sympathetic to their cause called the International Humanitarian Mission.

It may have taken years for army intelligence to infiltrate the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and it may have been tough to convincingly impersonate rebels. But what seems to have been a walk in the park was getting the FARC to believe that an NGO was providing resources to help it in the dirty work of ferrying captives to a new location.  ~online.wsj.com

Some of the Democratic missteps started soon after planning for the event began. The Democratic National Convention Committee decided not to take cheap office space and instead rented top-quality offices in downtown Denver at $100,000 a month, only to need less than half the space, which it then filled with rental furniture at $50,000 a month. And in a costly misstep, the Denver host committee, early on, told corporate donors that their contributions were not tax-deductible, rather than to encourage donations by saying that the tax-exempt application was pending and expected to be approved.  ~nytimes.com

It’s a good thing that Republicans gave up on fiscal responsibility and let Democrats take over congress eh?