Any minute will might get news from the Rules Committee.

How might a writer script this week’s events to make them as dramatic as possible?

Consider the following improbable scenario. And even if all these unlikely events did occur, the party leaders will bring things to a rapid and orderly conclusion.  Surely.

The End Game, Part I
Why Hillary Should Win(According to Hillary)

Hillary's key arguments will grow stronger as the week's events unfold. South Dakota is in play. If Obama does not appear to clearly win and Clinton does not appear to clearly lose, the race will go on. Perception will trump reality, giving Clinton a final chance to change reality.  

Last fall, several others and I criticized Daily Kos for running ads from Chevron for an "Astroturf" campaign opposing a California initiative to combat climate change. Every environmentalist in the country strongly supported the California initiative, but it failed, in part due to the opposition from oil giants.

After DK chose not to remove the ads, I wrote a pissy diary announcing that I was quitting the site, and I did. For 6 months, I refrained from reading the site, posting comments and writing diaries.

My purpose today isn’t to rehash all that, which is in the old diaries. Good times.

My purpose today is to say...I’m back! (Actually, I came back in March, but then left again.) The point is...I’m back, again! Can I hear a "Wahoo!"? Nothing but crickets? OK.

I know ZERO of you even knew that I was gone (a tear), but I still want to explain why I’m returning, because I think my reason is relevant to more people than just me.

Simply stated, Daily Kos is the most important thing to happen to progressive politics in our country in a generation. Its benefits far outweigh its flaws. And everyone needs to support it. Including advertisers.

This diary is obsolete, since the issue it describes, namely, Alberto Gonzales falsely and illegally reporting his profession as "Judge" to the Texas State Bar, is no longer active. Mr. Gonzales' profession with the Texas State Bar has just been updated to "Profession: None Specified."

Last weekend, Cthulhu diaried that Alberto Gonzales may be lying about his profession to the Texas State Bar in violation of Texas law.

It appears Alberto Gonzales misled the Texas State Bar

In response, I reported the possible violation to the Texas State Bar through their website, and today the Texas State Bar sent me an email requesting that I file a formal grievance.

I'm writing now to encourage all DKos'ers to file grievances against Gonzo with the Texas State Bar using this form (to print out and send in): Grievance Form

Note: Some parts of the form, specifically those concerning attorney-client disputes (which this is not), are irrelevant to our grievance. Just indicate that on the form.

There were so many things wrong with today's second half-hour of "Meet the Press" that I hardly know where to begin in discussing them.

Should I start with the all-star cast of Richard Perle and Tom DeLay masquerading as experts on how to win the Iraq War? How about with Russert's multiple failures to answer bald-faced lies by these quacks, or with Russert's ridiculous pumping of Tom DeLay's latest book?

Those are all good choices, but for now I wish to focus on a single statement Tom DeLay made which may well go down in the history books as one of the most hypocritical sentences ever uttered.

Although I don't have a transcript yet, it was essentially that:

Impeaching a president during war time is unpatriotic.

Why is this statement so hypocritical? Answer: because Tom DeLay led the impeachment of the only American president who ever has been impeached during war time.

New Mexico Republican Senator Pete Domenici's central involvement in the attorney purge scandal has seriously stained the once-popular politician -- increasing the odds that a Democrat will replace him in 2008.

DKos'ers in New Mexico can help raise the local profile of this scandal and improve Democratic prospects by attending town hall meetings that Senator Domenici's staff is planning to hold this Monday in Tularosa and Cloudcroft, New Mexico.

Tell Senator Domenici, fellow citizens and the press that New Mexicans don't condone Domenici's style of corrupt politics and demand a change in:

Tularosa, 9:30-11 AM, Monday, March 19
Cloudcroft, 1:30-3 PM, Monday, March 19

Details on the flip.

My explanation is on the flip.

For the past five years, Sen. George Allen, has failed to tell Congress about stock options he got for his work as a director of a high-tech company. The Virginia Republican also asked the Army to help another business that gave him similar options.

Congressional rules require senators to disclose to the Senate all deferred compensation, such as stock options. The rules also urge senators to avoid taking any official action that could benefit them financially or appear to do so.

The options date from the late 90s when Allen had left the Governor's mansion but hadn't been elected Senator yet, so you might think, "He was a private citizen when he received the options. No problem, right?" Think again.

According to AP:

Those [ethics rules] exist so the public can police lawmakers for possible conflicts of interest, especially involving companies with government business that lawmakers can influence.

It doesn't matter when Allen got the options. The Senate ethics manual is clear: he owns the options, and thus he's required to report them, so that Congress and we can monitor possible conflicts of interest.

Oil, natural gas and coal have been the energy workhorses for the last 100 years. To meet the world's future energy demand, we have to expand these old sources and begin making the new ones viable. By working together, we can prepare for this next era of energy. www.willyoujoinus.com

Please allow me to explain why.

http://www.electoral-vote.com:2006/

This is a milestone, but I hardly think that Democrats should rest on their laurels, so rather than writing about the predictions, I want to relate a story that the website's author told in today's blog.

In it, Republican Rich Warrant, running against Bernard Sanders in the Vermont Senate Race, really embarassed himself yesterday!

"Kerry is a 'flip-flopper'."
"Gore can't be trusted."

We need to do the same thing with the Foley coverup.

Talking about specific Congressmen (e.g., Hastert, Boehner, Shimkus, etc.) and positions (Speaker, Page Committe Chair) is useful -- but it can complicate our message if not grounded in voters' minds.

My suggestion -- say this over and over:

Foley 5! Foley 5! Foley 5! Foley 5!

Let's give "Foley 5" the resonance of "Watergate" or "Keating 5."

This makes clear that we're talking about a group of people (the Republican enablers), not just Foley, without requiring us to explain who all those people are and what they did in a way that confuses some voters.

Once we establish the phrase, we can brand people with it and then discuss details.

Let's all practice again:

Foley 5! Foley 5! Foley 5! Foley 5!

I admit it. Since this Foley scandal broke, I've done nothing but read blogs and watch news about men hitting on boys, leaders lying, and media going crazy. What a show!!

But suddenly, it's 5 or 6 news cycles later, and (flip):

Paleo (http://www.dailykos.com/...) in the diaries offers this breath-taking quote from Lieberman regarding who he will caucus with if elected: the Democrats or the Republicans.

From The Hill (http://hillnews.com/...) (my emphasis):

Lieberman said he would keep his senior position in the caucus, even though he lost Connecticut's Democratic primary, and is running against Democratic nominee Ned Lamont, whom the Senate Democratic leadership has endorsed.

"That's what I've been told," said Lieberman in an interview Friday, before Congress recessed for the election. "Caucuses like to keep as many members as they can, not discourage membership," implying that leaders risk his defection to the GOP if they strip him of seniority.

Translation: We could win nearly every key Senate contest and still not gain control of the Senate, thanks to Joe.

This is blackmail. It's flabbergasting. Reid should deal with this, and Lamont should paint Connecticut with this quote.

Both offices indicated that they are very concerned about the issue and preparing press releases calling for action.

By contrast, I noticed that neither Senator Talent nor Bob Corker has said a word about Foley or, just as importantly, about House Republican leaders who shielded Foley for so long. And Talent and Corker both still want us to believe that they are independent?!?

Please call the McCaskill and Ford campaign offices and tell them that you really want them to issue these statements about the Foley/Hastert mess and tell them what you hope those statements say:

Ford:
-In Nashville: 615-244-6161
-In Memphis: 901-685-8885
-In Chattanooga: 423-266-4123
Email: info@claireonline.com

McCaskill: 816-356-1659; Email: info@claireonline.com

BTW, I think similar statements would be useful coming from other key Democrats like Webb, Menendez, etc.

Now it's up to us to leverage this week into victory for the American people.

Republicans are in the water on the verge of drowning. But they haven't drowned yet. And now isn't the time to stand by and watch. Now isn't the time to distract ourselves with other issues.

Now is the time to aggressively and mercilessly throw every Republican candidate in this country one anvil after another, each and every day between now and the election.

Like many terrific lawyers, my uncle is the opposite of litigious. He never litigates a case for which he can't find clear evidence to support his side, and he never litigates trivial cases.

That said, my uncle is adamant that there appears to be enough evidence of "civil or criminal negligence and possible cover-up" on the part of Congressmen Boehner and Hastert for the FBI and Justice Department to launch an immediate investigation into their involvement in the Congressman Foley sex scandal.

Nancy Pelosi, Harold Reid and all of us should be demanding such an investigation immediately, to everyone who will listen.

It's my uncle's strong opinion that we don't just have a political scandal on our hands. We may have a major crime involving the top leaders of the Republican party, and we need to handle it as such.

BUT THE BOTTOM LINE IS CLEAR ENOUGH: Organized posters representing Republican candidates are taking over many online community fora with viral postings, and we need to combat them.

"Viral marketing" and "viral activism" are nothing new, of course. Just this week, it was revealed that the policy director for Republican Congressman Bass was concern trolling Hodes blogs.

The problem is that use of this activity on behalf of Republicans is picking up steam fast this campaign season, and we need to fight back.

This is 2006, and if we want Dems to win, part of what we have to do is venture into online communities and face down paid Republican posters on every single post--just like in MSM.

Here are a few places to start:

http://www.craigslist.org
http://www.myspace.com
http://www.facebook.com (not open to everyone)
Other online gathering places such as political and newspaper blogs -- ESPECIALLY the ones we disagree with

That's the only question we voters should be asking so-called "moderate" Republican candidates like Lincoln Chafee, Tom Kean, and death-bed convert Mike DeWine in this fall's elections.

Because if the answer is that "moderates" like Chafee, Kean and DeWine will support paleo-conservatives like Mitch McConnell to run Congress--and they will, then it doesn't matter how "moderate" Chaffee and his cohorts appear on certain issues.

A vote for moderates like Chafee, Kean and DeWine is not a vote for moderatation. It's a vote for more of the same.

(1) We can't take back all of Congress if we don't beat "moderate" Republicans Chafee, Kean and DeWine.

(2) And many voters are failing to ask the single most important question that could lead to these moderates' defeat -- the question above.

Harold Meyerson's says all this a lot more eloquently than I in today's Washington Post:

Meyerson's Piece in WaPo (sign-in may be required)