SATURDAY READING ASSIGNMENTS

Stuart Rothenberg is the editor of The Rothenberg Political Reporter.  He writes "At this point in the cycle, with four weeks to go, Democrats have enough credible candidates and enough resources to win both the House and the Senate."  Rothenberg thinks that the stage is set for "a blowout of cosmic proportions next month." 

Michael Reagan, on the other hand, says that all is not lost for the Republicans. Yeah, right.

Amity Shales does a pretty fair job of explaining just how Republicans have embarrassed themselves into this possible (probable?) blowout. 

So .. here from Real Clear Politics .. are your latest poll averages for the Senate and for the House.

More on the wonderful, peaceful religion of Islam.  Muslims can't even bring themselves to leave a poor, defenseless 100-year-old tree alone.  Is anything safe from Muslim fanatics?

OK .. You have a license plate that reads "FOAD1" Anyone have an idea what that means?  The State of Minnesota wants the license back.  Now. 

Someone paid over $100,000 to have this full-page advertisement printed in The Washington Post ... but it was two years ago.  I wonder if he has another hundred grand to spare.

Gay Republicans inside the Beltway are, shall we say, a bit anxious right now.  It seems that someone (you don't think it could be a Democrat, do you?) is shopping a list to the mainstream media.  A list of Gay Republicans and Republican staffers on the Hill.  The goal here is to keep Republican voters at home reeling with disgust on election day.  And the mid-term election is how many weeks away?

Unemployment is down ... again.  Wages are up.  Damn ... this economy really sucks, doesn't it?  If Democrats were in control right now and this economic news was released, it would be banner headlines in almost every newspaper and lead all the network newscasts ... pretty much every night right up to election day.

Howard Dean is upset.  He says that a black or some other minority should have been at the top of the Democratic ticket in Maryland.  Maybe it's just me, but isn't that a quota system of some sort?  Wouldn't it be nice if Dr. Dean could judge candidates by their character and abilities, rather than by their color?  But .. .he's a Democrat.  Must not forget that.

JUST SO TIRED OF IT.

The whole Foley matter, I mean.  I'm totally bored with the whole mess right now.  So ... just a few notes here to catch everyone up to speed ... and then I hope we don't have to mess with this mess on the air at all today.  Unless, of course, something spectacular happens. 

So ... getting up to speed:

Yesterday we heard from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.  After several days of accusations that his office knew about Mark Foley's actions and e-mails last year, but did nothing about it, Hastert came out to set the record straight.  He indicated that no, he would not be stepping down, and no ... he's not going to resign. 

Well ... it might not matter anyway.   Next January he might not have a choice in the matter.  Perhaps if he had shown some leadership on issues such as reducing spending, cutting earmarks (pork), reducing the size of government, fighting eminent domain abuse, voting down the hideous McCain-Feingold atrocity ... and, yes, promoting the FairTax .... maybe things would be different.  He didn't, and they aren't.  So Speaker Pelosi is on the horizon.

Then came the issue of who knew what, when.  Hastert says he knew only of the existence of one overly-friendly e-mail between Foley and a page.  He says the page's family didn't want to supply the e-mail and didn't want anything done about it. 

OK ... that's his story, and he's sticking to it.  Personally I think that when you learn that a gay male is getting "friendly" with young people you're responsible for .. you look into the situation a bit further.   Are we really supposed to believe no one in the entire Republican leadership knew anything about Foley's explicit advances toward the pages and his visits to the page dorm?  Foley had been overly friendly with pages going back since the 90's.  There were people that knew and did nothing about it.  Was Hastert one of those people?  Perhaps not.

So Hastert isn't stepping down...for now.  This scandal will either slowly fade away, or it will get worse if something else comes out about it.  For instance, Foley's lawyer says the disgraced Congressman did not have sexual relations with any of the pages.  Are we really supposed to believe that?  Years of e-mails and chats and Foley never once acted on them?

Hastert is the captain of a big ship that could very well capsize in about four weeks.

MORE BAD NEWS FOR THE GOP

Polls are a dime a dozen....there were polls that showed Al Gore was going to win in 2000 and polls that were certain John Kerry was going to be the next president of the United States.  Polls are often wrong ... but they're also often right on the money.  Now we have a new one is out that is bad news for the GOP.

The bipartisan Battleground Poll, which is conducted by a Republican and a Democratic strategist, says Democrats have an advantage in almost every campaign and have a good chance of winning back the House and maybe even the Senate.  How bad is it?  The House is a foregone conclusion...the poll says the Republicans will easily lose the 15 seats Democrats need and may gain as many as 30. 

So what about the Senate?

Some think there is no way the Democrats can get the 6 seats they need there to pick up the Senate.  The problem is turnout....Republican voters may just not be all that excited about going to the polls.  That means Democrats who are fired up and are expected to turn out in droves will be there to pick up the slack.  It could get ugly.

Maybe this whole Foley thing will blow over and the power of incumbency will preserve the Republican majority.  But that's looking less and less likely.

SO MUCH FOR THE BORDER FENCE

With great fanfare the other day, the president signed a bill approving a 700-mile border fence on the U.S.-Mexican border.  Setting aside the fact that that's about 1,300 miles too short, it was seen as at least the administration doing something about illegal immigration. 

But wait...stop the presses!  All is not what it seems.

You see, the bill the Congress passed and the White House signed was just a "down payment" on the fence...$1.2 billion to be spent to start the construction.  It is expected to cost much more than that.  But today we get word that they money doesn't even have to be spent on the border fence....it can just be spent on border security, or whatever the Department of Homeland Security decides. 

In fact, media reports today say the border fence might not ever be built.  Evidently right after the proposal passed the Congress, lawmakers went to work to undermine it and be sure that it never happened.  So there you have it...once again the do-nothing Congress continues to thwart the will of the people when it comes to the illegal alien invasion.

No wonder the GOP is losing its grip on Washington....they can't even do anything as simple as protect the border.

JUST MORE PEOPLE TO MAKE MAD

The Neal Boortz show is experiencing a little adolescent grow spurt.  Here are just some of the cities that have been added to our syndication recently --- in no particular order, by the way.

KVCE, Dallas, Texas
KDWN, Las Vegas, Nevada
WIBQ, Sarasota, Florida
WVNN-FM, Huntsville, Alabama (simulcast)
WWCK, Flint, Michigan
WJTK, Lake City, Florida
KENN, Farmington, New Mexico
KFKA, Ft. Collins - Greeley, Colorado
KVFC, Cortez, Colorado
WBGB-FM, Jacksonville, Florida (simulcast)
WCMY, Ottawa, Illinois
WILS, Lansing, Michigan
WLBR, Lebanon, Pennsylvania

And more coming!  So many grand opportunities for new hate mail! Maybe even a few friends!

REDNECK SCRAP BOOK

We've hadrednecklimosbefore, but this one really has the redneck touch. More in the Redneck Scrap Book.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft has written in his book that the 9-11 Commission degenerated into show trials.  As you might expect, those who served on the 9/11 Commission are not too pleased.  But Ashcroft is right...the commission was a complete waste of time.

'60 Minutes' did an investigation of the government's 'No Fly' list.  On it they found the names of all sorts of people, including Osama Bin Laden.  That's a no-brainer, but it also includes the dead 9/11 hijackers.  I'm afraid they're a bit too late on that one.

Ramsey Clark, the former Attorney General during the Carter Administration, says a guilty verdict with a death sentence against Saddam Hussein would increase violence in Iraq.  Oh, OK...I get it.  So we're supposed to just let Saddam off the hook because it might make somebody mad?  Spoken like a true appeaser.

The U.S., Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are meeting in London today to discuss what to do about Iran's uranium enrichment program and what to do about it.  Evidently sanctions are on the table.  Already Russia is saying it's too early for sanctions...which is why nothing will ever be done.  Iran knows this, of course.

Evidently Dennis Hastert was all set to appoint former FBI Director Louis Freeh to head up an investigation into the congressional page program, but Nancy Pelosi objected.  The Democrats are mad at Freeh because of his criticism of the Clinton Administration, in which he served.

Larry Sabato and David Wasserman write that the one way you know a party is on the way out in Congress is when it starts giving away seats.  That's what they say the Republicans are doing....the exact same thing the Democrats did in 1994.  Remember Dan Rostenkowski? 

Jonah Goldberg, who says he has no love lost for the Republican leadership in the House right now, says this whole Foley thing is going to backfire on the Democrats.  The Left loved to talk about sexual harassment when it came to Clarence Thomas, but when the problem struck Bill Clinton...their response was much different.

Pat Buchanan looks at Mark Foley's defense for his behavior....that he's an alcoholic who was abused by a priest...and wonders if he'll ever take responsibility for his actions.  Buchanan calls it the Larry King-Oprah defense and analyzes whether or not it will work.

Back during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, Democrats told us that Clinton's affair with an intern and his lies about it were not important and just a way for Republicans to distract from the real issues.  David Limbaugh calls out the Democrats for their hypocrisy in the Mark Foley scandal.

In naming the current scandal "Foleygate,"  Mona Charen reminds the American people that not only can you not trust the Congress with your money, you can't trust them with your teenage children either.  She also says Foley's claims of being a victim is the big trend these days...blaming somebody else.

Don Farmer gets it right on cell phone use in automobiles.  I can't count the number of times I've almost been mowed down by someone just yakking it up and having a grand ole time.

Now isn't this interesting?  An airlift of food for starving French fashion models?  Oh ... and apparently every single elected official in the State of Virginia has been forced to resign.  Find out why.

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