Call It A Comeback
Lance lost the Yellow Jersey which is fine given those in front of him aren’t serious contenders. He went down as did Tyler and so did much of Postal. No serious injuries amongst them.
Simoni looks to be out, leaving him with a Monty Python skit about how he is going to challenge Lance.
The most recent Illinois scandal is handled by Rich Miller’s weekly column and OneMan’s good coverage.
For all the crying over what choice Edwards was….
Jim Thompson
Jim Edgar
Jayne Thompson
Steve Rauschenberger
Ron Gidwitz
Pat Fitzgerald
Dave Duerson
Judy Baar Topinka
Andy McKenna
Ditka
And Ryan
Lucky 13th coming?
Thanks to the anonymous Reader for this one.
An interesting question running around blogs is how will John Edwards background as a trial lawyer affect people. It’ll certainly harden the views of some doctors and the Chamber of Commerce, but one has to remember that people like trial lawyers individually and dislike the idea of lawyers in general.
Time has some polling data they are releasing today. Only 28.4% say being a trial lawyer negatively affects their opinion of Edwards. 54.8% says that background makes them think he fights for the average person.
Big numbers:
Registered Likely
Voters Voters
———- ——–
1003 774
Kerry 46.5% 46.7%
Bush 43.5% 44.7%
Nader 3.6% 3.5%
Not Sure 6.4% 5.1%
Wrong track Total 48.8% Registered Voters 50.0% Likely Voters 49.1%
Approve (President) Total 48.1% Registered 48.4% Likely 49.3%
Listen to Tari Renner on Illinois’ Biggest Radio Show!
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Gracias guys:
According to Amnesty International, when the courts blocked Gen. Rios Montt from standing as the FRG candidate in the ’03 elections, the general warned that he could not contain the anger of his supporters, and “thousands of people travelled to the capital in vehicles reportedly belonging to or hired by the FRG to protest. Paramilitaries and rioters armed with machetes and clubs brought the center of Guatemala City to a standstill in what became known as ‘Black Thursday.'” www.archpundit.com reports, “Even the Bush administration threatened sanctions if Rios Montt had won” in ’03. Since Weller sits on the International Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, “he can’t be unfamiliar with Rios Montt’s record of brutality nor his future wife’s complicity in those affairs… There’s both a conflict of interest and a conflict of morality” (archpundit.com, 7/8)
Note–this was from the House Race Hotline
Because this is good sci-fi geek stuff she is peddling today. SG-1 Atlantis is about to start and, okay, I’m excited.
WBBM picked up the story on Weller’s marriage to a genocidal General’s daughter.
A few things here.
First, the fact that she is his daughter isn’t a problem until one realizes she is the leader of his party in the Guatemalan Assembly and so her involvement isn’t simply that of a daughter, but of a key political aide.
Second, at a minimum this raises conflict of interest issues with his position on the International Affairs Committee. This woman is at odds with the Bush administration on human rights even.
Third, there is a moral conflict I can’t resolve and maybe it is just because I know so much about what this woman’s father did and what her party has been about, but to ignore that throws everything away in terms of Democracy and human rights. One can’t condemn Saddam and then say that a chief political lieutenant of a human rights disaster is irrelevant to one’s personal morality. If she had been some traditional Central American woman with no public policy role maybe that would be different, but this woman is a the leader of the damn party in the Guatemalan Assembly.
Fran Eaton at the Leader is threatening exactly what I expected them to do to potential Republican nominees–out them if they are gay.
Don?t kid yourself – as the homosexual agenda advances through the state and federal legislatures, more and more political decisions will be based on our elected lawmakers? attitudes about sexual behavior.
While moderate Republicans blast conservatives for withholding support from candidates on the abortion issue, the state party?s elite, so supportive of the gay agenda, is doing the same thing now on homosexual issues.
It?s all fair game in politics. They say they have a right to privacy. I say we have the right to know about the sex lives of those who request our votes and our support. After all, their responses to our questions could affect their vote on whether they uphold the sanctity of marriage as the constitutional amendment proposed for next week?s vote does.
I won’t have that happen here and in fact I just took down a long archived post that warned Illinois Democrats not to do it to Illinois Republicans. As far as I’m concerned, sex lives aren’t are business until they hit the public arena. Once that happens they are fair game, but it won’t start here. There are two comments that hit the edge right now and I won’t remove them, but they are the absolute edge of where to go with that. Over in Kos’ messages there are some similar types of issues that cross the line for what I’ll allow and I participated in those discussions, but I believe I was discouraging the use of such information.
All along, I don’t think that Jack Ryan’s sex life mattered nearly as much as his attempts to cover up public documents to spare his political career. In one sense, some argue that is a meta-scandal, but to me the difference between the Oberweis and the Ryan strategy of dealing with nasty divorces is important. And I still believe had Jack disclosed the issues it would have died relatively quickly last summer. Now, in the Hull case we had allegations of abusiveness which I think turned out to be not as damaging as the actual information.
Now, is being gay relevant to public office? I guess if you believe as Eaton does that it is relevant to the policy choices one makes, then it could be. So go ahead and lead the witchhunt Leader folks. You’ll be creating a mighty small coalition as you go.
From comments tonight, the Draft Ditka guys will be on Sportscenter (ahhh..the sharp elbows of aspiring politicos fighting to be the guy ;))
And Hannity and Scarborough have contacted them?
ArchPundit