Republicans are sending around the internet a photo of a cute little boy whose T-shirt reads: “The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess Democrats will make of this country if they win Nov. 2nd.” One can only wonder at the insouciance of this message. Are Republicans unaware of the amazing mess the Bush regime has made? It is impossible to imagine a bigger mess. Republicans have us at war in two countries as a result of Republican lies and deceptions, and we might be in two more wars - Iran and Pakistan - by November. We have alienated the entire Muslim world and most of the rest...

Republican deregulation brought about fraud in mortgage lending and dangerous financial instruments which have collapsed the housing market, leaving a million or more homeowners facing foreclosure. The financial system is in disarray and might collapse from insolvency. The trade and budget deficits have exploded. The U.S. trade deficit is larger than the combined trade deficits of every deficit country in the world. The U.S. can no longer finance its wars or its own government and relies on foreign loans to function day to day...

Republicans have run roughshod over the U.S. Constitution, Congress, the courts and civil liberties. Republicans have made it perfectly clear that they believe that our civil liberties make us unsafe - precisely the opposite view of our Founding Fathers. Yet, Republicans regard themselves as the Patriotic Party. The Republicans have violated the Nuremberg prohibitions against war crimes, and they have violated the Geneva Conventions against torture and abuse of prisoners. Republican disregard for human rights ranks with that of history’s great tyrants. The Republicans have put in place the foundation for a police state.

I am confident that the Democrats, too, will make a mess. But can they beat this record? We must get the Republicans totally out of power, or we will have no country left for the Democrats to mess up. [More]

U.S. Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of "high-value targets" in the President's war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Under U.S. Federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees - the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.

"The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change", a person familiar with its contents said, and involved "working with opposition groups and passing money"... Some members of the Democratic leadership - Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections - were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party's presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy. [More]

Until last week John McCain's political handlers had been complacently sketching out their basic strategy: to portray Obama as a mere novice in statecraft, devoid of those powers of mature wisdom and sober judgment with which the seasoned McCain is so richly endowed.

The problem here for McCain is that he's a dunderhead in statecraft, devoid of self control, capricious in moral standards and an imbecile in his lack of political judgment. Across the past four days these deficits have all come home to roost. Often, the deadliest wounds a scandal can inflict are on the second, third and fourth days, as the follow-up stories disclose " troubling new disclosures", "apparent contradictions" and the like. True to this pattern, each successive day since the New York Times finally disgorged ­ at least partially - its story last Wednesday, has brought fresh disasters... As it progresses, the Iseman affair scandal discloses him as an idiot (the view of his horrified staff in 1999 as McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee paltered with the attractive 32-year old communications lobbyist), a liar (in his denials he met with Lowell "Bud" Paxson, the media operator for whom Iseman was working) and a hypocrite (in thundering against lobbyists and their employers, while traveling in their private planes, taking their money and doing them favors).

The better people get to know McCain, the less they care for him. [More]