challenges

Wisconsin State Journal reports:

State election officials have cleared the way for three more GOP state senators to face recall elections, meaning six senators will almost certainly have to defend their seats.

Republicans had challenged recall petitions against Sens. Robert Cowles, Alberta Darling and Sheila Harsdorf. On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board tossed out most of the challenges.

This brings the total number of Republicans facing recall in the cheese state to six. I bet they are glad they stuck by Scott Walker and his radical, right-wing agenda.

Yes I will admit that I am a big Family Guy fan. This past Sunday was a great episode and I knew it would piss off Palin. You go Seth!

Bristol Palin has responded to this:

"When you're the son or daughter of a public figure, you have to develop thick skin. My siblings and I all have that, but insults directed at our youngest brother hurt too much for us to remain silent. People with special needs face challenges that many of us will never confront, and yet they are some of the kindest and most loving people you'll ever meet. Their lives are difficult enough as it is, so why would anyone want to make their lives more difficult by mocking them? As a culture, shouldn't we be more compassionate to innocent people - especially those who are less fortunate? Shouldn't we be willing to say that some things just are not funny? Are there any limits to what some people will do or say in regards to my little brother or others in the special needs community? If the writers of a particularly pathetic cartoon show thought they were being clever in mocking my brother and my family yesterday, they failed. All they proved is that they're heartless jerks. - Bristol Palin"

Pretty rich stuff coming from the family that lives for political exploits.

Who ever thought the head of the RNC would be such a rogue?

(audio only)

Think Progress points this out:

It’s ironic that Steele insisted he was “not backing down,” because directly following Steele’s original statement regarding primary challenges, the RNC walked back his statement in a message to Politico’s Ben Smith, insisting it “has no interest in getting involved in primaries.”

So the head of the RNC is saying one thing and the actual RNC is saying another? Wow do they have a problem.

Seems like our third branch doesn’t much like the secrecy that the President has been trying to instill:

A federal judge on Friday rejected the Bush administration's latest attempt to keep secret the identities of White House visitors and declared that it engaged in illegal record-keeping practices.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth concluded that the practices in dispute took place before October 2004 when the Secret Service transferred large numbers of entry and exit logs to the White House and then deleted internal Secret Service copies of them.

The practices ended, the judge said, after various private organizations went to court in an effort to gain access to the logs.

Even though Bush is gone in 10 days, I think he will live on in the court systems as challenges like this continue.

Wow:

Somewhere in America today, there's a 10-year-old girl who could be the first person to walk on Mars. She's probably playing with a toy chemistry set or a kid's telescope right now, gazing up at the heavens and dreaming big dreams. I know a lot about that girl because in 1961, during the inspirational early days of our space program, that was me.

The world that girl will enter, and in particular the state of our space and science industries, is different for her than it was for me. In some ways, she has greater opportunities. While still unacceptably behind men, women have more avenues to becoming scientists today than they did when I answered a call in a newspaper ad to become an astronaut. In other ways, our space program has lost the national stature it had when I was growing up. In both regards, though, we can and must do better.

I believe this election is critical to how well we will respond to these challenges. I believe it will determine how well and how quickly we sow the seeds of opportunity so that little girl dreaming big dreams can achieve them like I achieved mine. And with these beliefs in mind, I will be voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Read on

You can tell McCain is really starting to worry about his chances for a White House run in 2008:

Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), a staunch defender of the Iraq war, on Tuesday faulted the Bush administration for misleading Americans into believing the conflict would be "some kind of day at the beach."

The potential 2008 presidential candidate, who a day earlier had rejected calls for withdrawing U.S. forces, said the administration had failed to make clear the challenges facing the military.

"I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required," McCain said. "Stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes, a few dead-enders. I'm just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be."

Those phrases are closely associated with top members of the Bush administration, including the president.

It is disturbing when you think about a war veteran like McCain saying this now instead of speaking up when he should have. He is playing politics with the lives of U.S. soldiers and he use to be one. What a disgrace.