In reviewing the many news items over the past 7-10 days, the following appeared interesting:

I see that Rumsfeld insinuated Democrats were appeasing terrorists. When will this straw man bullshit stop! He also complained there was not enough praise for those who win medals for military service. Hmm, does he mean like the praise and respect his party directed towards medal winners Kerry, Murtha, Cleland, and Gore?

As I've been writing about for nearly a year, California offers up another example of the new federalism, i.e. states stepping in and doing when the federal government won't.

The Taliban is thriving in Afghanistan with the opium crop -- providing 90% of the global supply and financing terrorist activities -- doing better than ever. Yes, what I wise move that was to quickly avert attention away from this country to invade Iraq.

Good to see at least a few Republican strategists concede that the Dems will likely take the House in November.

I recently wrote, "It was announced recently that Karl Rove will once again be turning the dials on the GOP election machine. Given the many unnamed sources we frequently read quoted, any chance we'll see a few from Republicans regarding resistance to Rove once again steering the electoral ship? With polls in the toilet, you'd think more than a few would have grave reservations about going to the well one more time with the evil genius." I now read that Rove doesn't have nearly the power or sway with Republican candidates that he wielded in prior elections.

As for the Dems taking over one if not both chambers of Congress, they're going to have to run the gauntlet successfully this time. What gauntlet? The GOP shit chute: voter intimidation, push polls, Swift Boating, fear mongering, lies, voting machine oddities -- have I missed any?

It's good to see the liberal blogosphere take ABC to task over the fictional 9/11 miniseries that they were going to pass off as objective and fact-based. Based on the reaction generated, as with the Lamont campaign it once again proves that blogs have arrived and can collectively exert tremendous influence.

How sad. It's bad enough half the public still believes Iraq had WMDs, but nearly half also believe Saddam was connected to 9/11 -- despite GW himself proclaiming just a few weeks ago that Saddam had "nothing" to do with it. You talk about conspiracy fanatics....

Surprise! Another hardcore Republican with at least one homosexual in the family tree.

Excellent post by AMERICAblog: "What this idiot [GW] doesn't understand, or chooses to ignore, is that regardless of how evil the enemy, the problem isn't that the American people don't understand the dangers we face. The problem is that the American people have finally understood that we have an incompetent buffoon in charge of tackling said danger. And no amount of prattling about Lenin or Hitler is going to quell people's concerns that Bush is simply not up to the task."

Whereas he used to behave as if the man didn't exist, now Bush is suddenly trotting out bin Laden's name any chance he gets. What's changed? Simply that Bush & Co. are desperate and are willing to take the risk of reminding people that this heinous man is still alive in exchange for the benefit of creating fear. They take the risk not because they choose to but rather because they have to.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright requested a copy of ABC's 9/11 miniseries to view and ABC turned her down -- this despite sending out hundreds of copies to a variety of people including one to Rush Limbaugh. Albright said, "I have been informed by some who had been given the right to view the broadcast that the drama depicts scenes that never happened, events that never took place, decisions that were never made and conversations that never occurred; it asserts as fact things that are not fact." Bill Clinton has also been denied a copy to view.

This bit of news is HUGE: "The AP-Ipsos poll showed that while 54 percent of southern women -- almost all white -- voted for Bush in 2004, 60 percent of those surveyed plan on voting Democratic in November."

Prudential's political strategist, Charles Gabriel, wrote in a report released yesterday, "After no improvement for Republicans in the six weeks we've been reading political gauges in this report, we now predict that Democrats will retake control of the House on November 7." Given his firm's Wall Street connections, I doubt Gabriel is a hardcore Dem.