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RUSH: I want to go back to the archives of this program. I want to illustrate for you my prescience. When I tell you that you are on the cutting edge of the societal evolution if you are a regular listener here, this will establish it. October 18th, 2006. This is prior to the November elections, the midterms, and I was getting phone call after phone call from conservatives saying they were not going to vote. They were mad as hell. They were sick and tired of the Foley thing and Macaca. They were sick and tired of Republicans not...

TAMPA, Fla. - Touch-screen voting machines likely performed properly and were not to blame for the large number of undervotes in a congressional race in 2006, as the loser has suggested, federal investigators said in a draft report obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press. The U.S. Government Accountability Office plans to present the report Friday to a House task force that has been investigating the 13th Congressional District election. Republican Vern Buchanan beat Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes to win the seat 15 months ago. At issue was whether malfunctioning ATM-style voting machines failed to record more than 18,000...

A top political adviser in Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign helped arrange an introduction in 2006 between McCain and a Russian billionaire whose suspected links to anti-democratic and organized-crime figures are so controversial that the U.S. government revoked his visa. Rick Davis, who is now McCain's campaign manager, helped set up the encounter between McCain and Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska in Switzerland during an international economic conference. At the time, Davis was working for a lobbying firm and seeking to do business with the billionaire. There is no evidence that McCain did anything for Deripaska after they met at...

The thread below is from Al-Ekhlaas terrorist forum, the largest terrorist forum on the internet. The author of the thread is expressing his optimism that America will be defeated for many reasons but one of them is that Hillary Clinton may become President. He said:“ Look at the woman that may soon be in charge of the White House. Can the defeat of America be any more evident?”. The thread was written in English not in Arabic and posted in the Ekhlaas English section. The text of the thread: "I'm optimistic Not because things are going well or because the...

ATLANTA - Bucking the trend in many other wealthy industrialized nations, the United States seems to be experiencing a baby boomlet, reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years. The nearly 4.3 million births in 2006 were mostly due to a bigger population, especially a growing number of Hispanics. That group accounted for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. births. But non-Hispanic white women and other racial and ethnic groups were having more babies, too. An Associated Press review of birth numbers dating to 1909 found the total number of U.S. births was the highest since 1961, near the...

JANUARY 10--In our continuing quest to publish the "riders" of politicians (like Dick Cheney, John Kerry, and Rudy Giuliani), here's how Bill and Hillary Clinton like to roll on vacation. When the couple spent a long Easter weekend in 2006 at the swanky Goldeneye resort in Jamaica, hotel staff were provided the below memos describing the Clinton dietary requirements, lodging details, and menus. At the Goldeneye--which is where Ian Fleming wrote his James Bond books--the Clintons stayed in a $3000-a-night private house with friends (and fundraisers) Brian and Myra Greenspun. Along with a Secret Service detail, the Clintons also traveled...

This fell off from underneath the front passenger side of my car (06' Toyota Camry) about a half-hour ago, while I was driving: Anyone know what it is? Is it important to get it back on ASAP? I kind of new it was going to eventually come off as it was making noise and hanging low, flapping the past couple weeks. I fed a wire hanger through the hole two Fridays ago, and hooked it up using the front grate of the car. I knew it probably wouldn't stay on forever.Can't find much on the Toyota forums. There is another...

Had only married women been allowed to vote in the 2006 elections, Republicans might still control the House of Representatives. Fifty percent of married women voting in those elections, the network exit poll revealed, opted for a Republican candidate for the House. Only 48 percent went for a Democratic candidate. On the other hand, had only unmarried women been allowed to vote, the House today might be almost entirely composed of Democrats. While 53 percent of the overall vote in U.S. House races in 2006 went to Democrats, 66 percent of the unmarried-woman vote went to Democrats. What does this...

I am a bit late with this, and you have probably already seen it, but I thought it was worth commenting on anyway. Anjem Choudhury of the Omar Bakri group of jihadists in Britain here appears on the BBC's Hard Talk (thanks to Hana). He is entirely ready to condemn attacks on innocent civilians, but he notes that because non-Muslims have rejected Islam, none of them are innocent. Therefore attacks like 9/11 and 7/7 are perfectly justified.

Things are not working out as Democratic congressional leaders expected. For the first eight months of this year, they struggled to find some way to shut down the American military effort in Iraq. They took it for granted that we were stuck in a quagmire in Iraq, with continuous high casualties and very little to show for them. They pressed hard to get the Republican votes they needed to block a filibuster in the Senate and were cheered when some Republicans, like John Warner, seemed to lean their way. They worked hard over the August recess to pressure Republican House...

Karl Rove, President Bush's political lieutenant, told a closed-door meeting of 2008 Republican House candidates and their aides Tuesday that it was less the war in Iraq than corruption in Congress that caused their party's defeat in the 2006 elections.

A NEW REPORT from the centrist group Third Way complicates one's understanding of the 2006 midterm elections. There are already several competing theories of why last Election Day turned out the way it did. The storyline popular on liberal blogs is that in 2006 Democrats were true to liberal principles, fought back against the Bush machine, opposed the war in Iraq, and as a result the electorate woke up and took Congress away from the GOP.Another storyline that's popular among conservatives says Republicans lost control of both Houses for the first time since 1994 because the party strayed from the...

The Purple Heart on Kent Padmore's chest isn't for the shrapnel from an enemy rocket-propelled grenade that tore a cheek-to-cheek gash across his face. That wound was never documented; Padmore fixed it himself with a liquid suture in the rearview mirror of his Humvee. Padmore, a Marine reservist, works in civilian life as a City of Miami Fire-Rescue Department emergency medical technician, so he knew what to do. He patched himself up because he didn't want to steal precious time from the corpsmen in his unit, who were busy treating more seriously wounded Marines. Instead, the Purple Heart he wears...

In a move to increase its relevance in the presidential selection process, the Golden State is set to jump up its primary from June of 2008 to February 5th, less than a year away. This may benefit New York's presidential aspirants, and especially its Republican one. Last week I noted Giuliani's electric support at the California Republican Party convention. A recent poll has resoundingly brought forth the same message. This morning, the Wall Street Journal's John Fund notes the following numbers: With California moving its presidential primary to Feb. 5 of next year, what Golden State voters think about White...

The year 2006 was a complex time, marked in Iraq by violence, often of the sectarian variety, but also by progress. The past year was one of inclusiveness, as Iraq’s elected government functioned with representatives from nearly every sect and tribe. The year also saw major strides in security operations, as Iraqi Security Forces took the lead in law enforcement and anti-insurgent activity.Iraqis and their Coalition partners faced several challenges during the transformation from decades of dictatorship to a democratic government.Read 2006 year-in-review report here. 

The U.S. trade deficit climbed to a record high for the fifth straight year, with 2006 imports exceeding exports by $764 billion, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. The gap reflects higher oil prices, which increased the nation's import bill, and American consumers' rising appetite for foreign-made goods. The figures raised tensions in Washington, unleashing criticism on Capitol Hill of the Bush administration's pursuit of new trade deals. They also provoked a fresh round of demands for action against China, whose trade surplus with the United States swelled to a record $233 billion last year, according to the Commerce Department. The...

Former congressional candidate Vernon Robinson sounds resigned, and more than a little tired, when you ask him to explain his defeat. "The 2006 election was not a referendum on immigration," he says. "I would have liked it to be, but it didn't happen." That's an understatement. In the tumultuous political year of 2006, Robinson, a former city councilman from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, became one of the country's most notorious voices for a crackdown on illegal immigration. In March, as the Republican-led House of Representatives wrestled with a harsh reform bill that would build a wall on the border and classify...

Mild winter weather has something to do with it. So does heavy selling by financial funds. But a largely overlooked factor in the recent plunge in oil prices may portend an end to the multiyear rise in crude: For the first time in years, the developed world is burning less of it. Fresh data from the International Energy Agency show oil consumption in the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development fell 0.6% in 2006. Though the decline appears small, it marks the first annual drop in more than 20 years among the OECD countries, which...

One last post mortem Tonight I attended an informal dinner hosted by the Hoover Institution. The topic was the 2006 election. The dinner featured Stanford University political science professor David Brady and MIT political science professor Stephen Ansolabehere. Both are involved in (and the latter is heading) a massive empirical study of the 2006 election based on a survey of about 35,000 voters. It's early days when it comes to analyzing the data, but here a few of the professsors' observations: (1) dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq (including dissatisfaction among Republicans) played a huge role in the election, probably...

10 most underreported stories of 2006 WND readers, editors compile annual 'Operation Spike' list -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: January 3, 2007 The controversial movement to merge the U.S., Mexico and Canada into what critics call a "North American Union" – in the face of what is already a massive, national illegal immigration and border security crisis – tops the list of the 10 most "spiked" or underreported stories of the last year, according to an annual WND survey. At the end of each year, news organizations typically present their retrospective replays of what they consider to have been the top news stories...

The year in review: From Pelosi to Pitt, perverts to Paris, Dave Barry offers a last laugh BY DAVE BARRY It was a momentous year, a year of events that will echo in the annals of history the way a dropped plate of calamari echoes in an Italian restaurant with a tile floor. Decades from now, our grandchildren will come to us and say, ''Tell us, Grandpa or Grandma as the case may be, what it was like to be alive in the year that Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears and Katie whatshername all had babies, although...

2006 was a busy year. The Religion of Perpetual Outrage, Islam dominated the news with riots, beheadings, and their quest for world domination. Please, before I begin our long journey through time, if I missed something, please feel free to enter a comment. Let’s have some fun with it! The United States in its infinite wisdom, elected a Islamic Congressman who wishes to ignore American custom and take the oath of office with his hand upon a koran, thus swearing his loyalty to Islam and their God of War, Muhammad. The Pope angered Muslims by using the words “jihad” and...

Agree or disagree? Click the link to read the list.

This year, FOX listened to the American public and just said 'no' to O.J. Simpson. The cancellation of Simpson's interview, in which he would have hypothetically detailed how he killed his wife, made enough of an impact to become one of the American Film Institutes eight moments of significance for 2006. A 13-person jury selected these moments which may include accomplishments, trends, milestones, anniversaries, movements in technology and negative/positive influences on film, television and digital media. Regarding the decision to not air the Simpson special, AFI states, "2006 marked a moment when what didn't air on television was as compelling...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks finished the year with strong gains, with all three major stock averages booking their best performance since 2003. The Dow Jones At the unofficial 4 p.m. close on Friday, the final trading session of the year, marking a 16% gain for the year. This was the Dow's best performance since 2003. General Motors Corp. (

As 2006 passes into the history books, it might just end up being lost, as nothing of really great significance took place in the country. There also wasn't much in the way of world events that significantly affected life in Russia. Analysts summing up the last 12 months make mention of shake-ups in the Prosecutor General's Office and the Justice Ministry, as well as the Sakhalin-2 scandal, in which the state unexpectedly played the "concern about the ecology" card in order to increase Gazprom's share of the project's profits. But did these events make much of a wave with Russians?...

Top 10 Discoveries of 2006 Volume 60 Number 1, January/February 2007 How do you know it's been an extraordinary year in archaeology? When the discovery of the earliest Maya writing and a 2,500-year-old sarcophagus decorated with scenes from the Iliad don't crack ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 list: 1. Valley of the Kings Tomb KV63 was the first tomb to be excavated in the Valley of the Kings since Tutankhamun's in 1922. The chamber held seven 18th Dynasty coffins. 2. 3-Million-Year-Old Child After years of chiseling tiny bones out of sandstone blocks from Ethiopia's Rift Valley, paleontologists announced the discovery of a...

2006 GOLDEN GLOBES NOMINEES ANNOUNCED Leonardo DiCaprio and Clint Eastwood are seeing double this morning — the actor picked up Golden Globe nods for his lead roles in The Departed and Blood Diamond, while the director of the war movies Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima will also battle himself for a statue. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel led the way in the film categories with seven noms, while The Departed brought in six and Dreamgirls five — though none of the musical's were for writing or directing. As expected, royal subjects Forest Whitaker (The Last King of...

Former U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez defeated seven-term Republican incumbent Henry Bonilla in a runoff today, adding another Democrat to Congress and deciding Texas' final congressional seat. With more than half the precincts reporting in the state's largest district, Rodriguez had 57 percent to Bonilla's 43 percent. The two were the top vote-getters in a special election held Nov. 7, but neither got 50 percent, prompting the runoff. Rodriguez's win gives Congress another Democrat after the party won control of Congress in the November elections. Texas added one Democrat already in the suburban Houston 22nd Congressional District once held by Republican...

A new report raises questions about Rahm Emanuel’s assertion that he and his staff knew nothing about disgraced Rep. Mark Foley’s e-mails to former House pages. In an October 8 interview with ABC News, the Illinois Democrat said "no – never saw them” when asked if he knew about the e-mails or instant messages between Foley and former pages before news of the messages broke. Asked if he was "aware” of them, Emanuel repeated, "We never saw them.” But the new House Ethics Committee report on the scandal, released on December 8, discloses that a senior member of Emanuel’s staff...

Dec. 18, 2006 issue - How gruesome was 2006? The year's most consequential person was Iran's president, who says the Holocaust did not happen and vows to complete it. Regarding his nuclear aspirations, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose manias are leavened with realism, treated the United Nations as a figment of the imagination of a fiction—the "international community." Democrats, given control of Congress because of Iraq, vowed to raise the minimum wage. Nimble and graceful Barack Obama became the Democrats' Fred Astaire, adored because of, well, perhaps the way he wears his hat, the way he sips his tea. And the way...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The head of the House Democrats' campaign committee, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, had heard of former Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a former male page a year before they became public, a campaign committee aide told CNN. Foley, a Republican, resigned after the scandal broke. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans have suggested repeatedly that some Democrats knew about the e-mails earlier than they have acknowledged, but waited till midterm elections approached to bring up the issue. Emanuel's campaign committee aide said Friday that the Illinois Democrat was informed in 2005, but never saw the correspondence...

Republican Bonilla Hangs On in TX 23rd, But Hispanic Vote May Decide Outcome: In a runoff election today, 12/4/06, in Texas's 23rd Congressional District, incumbent Republican Henry Bonilla appears to edge Democrat Ciro Rodriguez, 53% to 46%, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WOAI-TV San Antonio. The runoff is in 8 days, on 12/12/06. Bonilla gets 70% of White votes. Rodriguez gets 72% of Hispanic votes. In SurveyUSA's turnout model, 59% of likely runoff voters are white, 36% are Hispanic. If Hispanics make up more than 36% of those who vote in the Runoff, the contest will be...

A top fund-raiser for Senator Clinton's 2000 campaign and self-described "dear friend" of President Clinton pleaded guilty to a felony mail fraud charge in federal court in Chicago yesterday. James Levin, 47, admitted to involvement in a scheme to convince contracting officials at the Chicago Public Schools that his fencing companies, Tru-Link Fence and Tru-Link Commercial, were subcontracting work to businesses owned by minorities or women when, in fact, Levin was simply paying those firms for use of their names. Levin was a key witness at the criminal trial last year of the national finance director of Mrs. Clinton's 2000...

My Kind of GOP Why do the Republicans seem to be on autopilot? By Chester E. Finn Jr. To be a heartfelt Republican has gotten hard in recent years, but while we were in charge in Washington and most state capitols it was easy, though perhaps unwise, to keep still about this. Will the GOP use its recent losses to change itself into something that more people again feel positive about? Or will everyone assume that the 2006 election was just an anti-Bush, anti-Iraq glitch and therefore the party should stay on its present course until those two unpopular interruptions...

Liberal contributions aid final Mitchell campaign push The Business Journal of Phoenix - 5:24 PM MST Tuesday by Mike Sunnucks The Business Journal Arizona Congressman-elect Harry Mitchell received considerable help on the homestretch from liberal advocates in his come-from-behind victory over Republican incumbent J.D. Hayworth. Mitchell, the former mayor of Tempe and chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party, campaigned against Hayworth as a moderate. Campaign finance documents show contributions from U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, John Conyers, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Henry Waxman, David Obey and Charles Rangel. Watchdog groups on both sides of the political aisle rank those Democrats...

Geography Surveyed: OH 2nd Congressional District Data Collected: 10/14/2006 - 10/16/2006 Release Date: 10/17/2006 11:30 AM ET Sponsor: WCPO-TV Cincinnati Schmidt Edges Wulsin, Keeps OH2 House Seat for GOP: In an election for US House of Representatives in Ohio's 2nd Congressional District today, 10/17/06, Republican Congresswoman Jean Schmidt edges Democrat Victoria Wulsin by 8 points, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WCPO-TV Cincinnati. 3 weeks to the 11/7/06 election, Schmidt gets 48%. Wulsin gets 40%. Since an identical SurveyUSA poll released 9/20/06, Schmidt has gained 3 points and Wulsin has lost 2 points. Schmidt had led by 3,...

Per FR rules can only post link. Schmidt's lead over Wuslin grew by 47 votes and her overall lead is 2,912 votes with 7,200 provisional ballots to count in the three biggest counties and 1,500 absentee ballots in Warren County.

Back when Republicans were winning elections in the 1980s, Tip O'Neill used to say that it was because Democratic policies made a lot of people rich enough to vote Republican. Republicans who are saying that the party needs to go back to the principles of 1994 or Ronald Reagan should keep O'Neill's lesson in mind: Successful public policies render moot the issues that bring parties to power. They won't keep winning unless they address new issues. With that in mind, let's examine the successful Republican policies since their takeover of Congress in 1994.

Seats We WonMichele Bachman- MN's 6thDoug Lamborn - CO's 5thGeoff Davis - KY's 4thRon Lewis - Kentucky's 2ndJohn Doolittle - CA's 4th Heroes We Will MissJohn Hostettler - IN's 8thMike Sodrel - IN's 9thJ.D. Hayworth - AZ's 5th The election has had mixed results for immigration reform patriots. The good news is that we got a few great new legislators like Michele Bachman and Doug Lamborn. Pro Borders ballot measures in Arizona and Colorado were passed when the issue went straight to the voters. There was also bad news in this election. Some of our strongest leaders in the House...

Dateline 15 November 2006 The results are in. All that remains is the post-mortem. Everyone will offer simplistic answers. Some Democrats – mostly bloggers - will claim it is a mandate to impeach the President. Most will claim that it was principally about the Iraq War. While this was certainly a factor, there is no evidence that it was the major factor. People were ready to vote Democrat. The electorate has restored the normal situation of the past 50 years, under which Congress and the Presidency have been under different parties. If a President is automatically a lame duck when...

The races for education superintendent and lieutenant governor were too close to call and recounts were ordered Wednesday by South Carolina election officials. The races finished within the 1 percent margin of victory that requires a recount under state law. State officials previously told county election boards to prepare to count the ballots again Thursday. In the education superintendent race, Democrat Jim Rex led Republican Karen Floyd by 564 votes. "This remains an exceedingly close vote count, perhaps the closest in a statewide race in South Carolina history," Floyd's spokesman Hogan Gidley said. "We will await the outcome of the...

Just heard that all Provisional ballots have been processed for the NC District 8 race between incumbent Robin Hayes (R) and Larry Kissel. Hayes had a 440 vote lead. Thursday, 459 provisional ballots out of 1500 were disallowed. The remaining were counted on Friday, Nov 17 and Hayes' lead shrank from 440 votes to 339 votes...so he should be declared the winner.

The final state canvass shows Representative Barbara Cubin winning a seventh term against Democratic challenger Gary Trauner. The State Canvassing Board certified the election results today. While the race remained very close to the end, it still wasn't close enough to trigger an automatic recount. Cubin got 48.3% to Trauner's 47.8%. Libertarian Thomas Rankin got 3.8%. Trauner is a businessman from Wilson. He has said that he would be satisfied with the outcome as long as there were no reports of voting or counting problems.

The elections ended Nov. 7 - but it's just the end of round one in the race for a seat in District 5 of the U.S. House. Rep. J.D. Hayworth trails Democratic challenger Harry Mitchell, 47 percent to 50 percent, according to the Arizona Secretary of State's Office. Mitchell's lead has shrunk from the 52 percent reported on election night. With the two candidates separated by about 5,800 votes, neither side has claimed victory or conceded defeat. There are about 100,000 ballots that still need to be counted, according to the secretary's office.

Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., has narrowly won a second term after a prolonged vote tally in the state’s 8th district. Reports from King and Pierce County elections officials on Monday night showed Reichert ahead of Democrat Darcy Burner by 4,726 votes out of 208,685 cast. Burner called Reichert on Monday night to congratulate him, the Associated Press reported. Although Reichert is a popular former King County sheriff, best known for his role in the apprehension of the infamous Green River killer, Burner gained traction from tying Reichert to President Bush, who holds low approval ratings in the Seattle-area district. The...

If the press release out of the Democratic National Committee is any indication of the knots into which the Democrats would be tied by a presidential campaign by Mayor Giuliani, it is sure going to be an lively couple of years. The DNC's communications director, Karen Finney, a veteran of Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign, greeted the news that Mr. Giuliani had formed a presidential exploratory committee with a press release that must be read to be believed. "Giuliani Was A Registered Democrat For Much Of His Life," the release begins. Only in Washington could the Democratic National Committee issue a...

Republicans were spending too much. So we elected Democrats who think government should cost more. Republicans weren't decreasing the size of government. So we elected Democrats who think government should be bigger and do more. Republicans weren't doing anything about illegal immigration. So we elected Democrats who believe in amnesty. Conservatives didn’t think Republicans were conservative enough. So we elected liberal extremists instead. Voters didn’t mean to impeach Bush. Voters didn’t mean to abandon our Iraqi allies. Voters didn’t mean to raise taxes. Voters didn’t mean to give up on conservative judges. Ya, that makes sense guys. This is what...

A recount is eminent in the race for North Carolina’s 8th District seat in the U.S. House, say campaign officials. But just when that recount will be is still unknown. As of Wednesday afternoon, Republican Congressman Robin Hayes led grassroots challenger Larry Kissell (D) by 346 votes out of 121,090 ballots cast.

Rep. Dave Reichert of Washington’s 8th District is now officially one of the Republican Party’s biggest survivors in a national election campaign that saw the GOP lose at least 28 seats and control of the chamber. Reichert, a freshman who was one of the top targets of Democratic Party strategists throughout this election year, clinched a second-term victory Tuesday when his challenger, former Microsoft manager Darcy Burner, officially conceded the contest. Though Burner had trailed by a couple of percentage points throughout the vote count, her campaign had held out hopes that numerous absentee ballots would narrow her deficit to...