The Madison (WI) Cap Times now can tell you why we across Wisconsin worked so hard to win WI-08 -- to spare the country a guy we have seen up close and all too personal in our legislature: "Graceless John Gard," as the Cap Times calls him.  Read on:

"Of all the good news for America that can be found in the results of Tuesday's election, it is arguable that none is better than that of John Gard's defeat in his race for Congress.

"Gard, the outgoing Assembly speaker, is well known to Wisconsinites as a crude and self-serving politician. That's a big reason why, when faced with the prospect of sending Gard to Washington, the voters of the Republican-leaning 8th District rejected the Republican's candidacy.

"Despite vicious personal attacks by the Gard campaign and its supporters, Democrat Steve Kagen prevailed in one of the most closely watched races in the country.  Since Kagen's win on Tuesday, Gard has emerged as the sorest of sore losers."

With two-thirds of the vote in so far in a referendum on the war, Milwaukee votes a resounding YES to withdrawal from Iraq.

This is not a win, when we have lost so many women and men in the war.

But this one is women and men like Michelle Witmer, a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for only a few weeks before she was called up for Iraq . . . where she became the first woman killed in combat in the almost-400-year history of the National Guard, nationwide.

No, she wasn't supposed to be in combat.  She worked in supply.  But there is no escape from the combat zone there, for us or for Iraqis -- including the children at the orphanage where Michelle volunteered her time.

Pass it forward: Join her family's Michelle Project at http://home.wi.rr.com/...

Sorry if this has been posted; it doesn't turn up in a site search.  If so, let me know.

Broward Co., FL:
Votes for Democrats are registering for Republicans

From the Miami Herald

. . . .Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen -- the final voting step.

Election officials say they aren't aware of any serious voting issues. But in Broward County, for example, they don't know how widespread the machine problems are because there's no process for poll workers to quickly report minor issues and no central database of machine problems.

Sunday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will endorse Bryan Kennedy, Democrat, in Wisconsin's Fifth District over incumbent Congressman James Sensenbrenner -- an amazing reversal of its editorial stance.

"Editorial: It's time to send the congressman home

"Two years ago, we recommended Jim Sensenbrenner for another term representing Wisconsin's 5th Congressional District.

"Today, we simply cannot. Sensenbrenner has been wrong on too much, from an immigration policy that puts him at odds with much of his own party and the business community to failure to exert meaningful oversight over White House domestic spying policies."

More below the fold.

The message of the Connecticut primary is "much larger" than that state or either candidate, Russ Feingold said today in a speech to the Milwaukee Press Club.  As to the message that our Senator get from yesterday's election, it "could push him in the direction of running" -- but he won't say more until after the November elections.

Read on, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (tomorrow's edition but online now).

Married women in Arizona are being denied the right to vote by the new Voter ID law, according to the LA Times -- which doesn't quite say so, but we know how to read between the lines.  It reports that the "stringent voter identification law being put into effect in Arizona -- designed to keep illegal immigrants from voting -- is also preventing thousands of legitimate voters from casting ballots" in this Tuesday's election.

Much attention in many states has been given to the Voter ID laws' disenfranchisement of minorities, who tend to vote Democrat.

But it turns out that the Voter ID laws also disenfranchise women -- the majority of the Democratic voters for decades in presidential elections as well as many state and local elections.

See http://www.latimes.com/...

From a friend in Madison, Wisconsin -- a refugee from Nazis in Austria decades ago, who will never forget her experiences, and uses them now here:

"A small group of Madison folks met over the weekend to see if we could contribute some proposals for long-range solutions for the people caught in the New Orleans horror.  The attached statement is the result of our thinking.  We have made appointments to see our Congress people and would like them to receive as many calls for these actions as possible.

"The important thing is to get an expression of popular opinion that offers thinking that goes beyond meeting the most immediate needs.  

"Please feel free to copy this statement (below), modify it in any way you like, and send it out to others.  Also please write letters to the editor, using your own language."  

Congress is coming back to Washington to convene within 24 hours, according to Fox News -- not waiting to march in hometown holiday parades this weekend and then starting as scheduled next Tuesday. More below -- but please recommend this diary only to prevent more repetitive diaries. Thanks. Update: A commentator on CNN, I think, just asked whether this would delay the Roberts hearings. No answer as yet -- but it needs to be asked. . . . Also, NOLA mayor Nagin issues "desperate SOS" for his city, out of resources for refugees -- who will have to (per CNN) "march up the freeway to find help somewhere," since Nagin says the feds are not bringing enough busses to remove all of the refugees. Imagine an American mayor having to call his citizens refugees in their own city. Update: OMG, CNN reports that it is raining in NOLA, a city already underwater where levels were starting to fall. No word on how much rain due.

We are reading post after post and viewing scene after scene on tv of a part of our country that is in chaos, of citizens of our country who are dying -- babies dehydrating on bridges, hospitals besieged by looters, families being called looters who are simply and desperately seeking food and supplies to survive.  

We are witnessing our president, cabinet, and other government officials claiming that help has arrived when it has not, that helicopters have arrived when they have not, that all that is happening is not happening -- that we are not also witnessing, minutes later, another levee breaking every day in a total breakdown of the most basic services of a civilization in what claims to be a civilized country and the most modern country in the world.

What can we do?  We're doing it here on DKos -- donating to the Red Cross, writing letters to Bush and Congress and editors, and much more.  

More -- and call to action -- below.

temporarily, because her mother has had a stroke.

It is not a severe stroke, according to Ms. Sheehan.  But it is yet more for her to bear.

I've seen several queries in posts on DKos about the numbers lost and the other costs of in past wars, especially the Vietnam War, so I thought I'd post this now.  

More than two years and two months ago, as we were nearing war in Iraq, I was teaching American history to some students who seemed to think wars always ended in a few months, as most could only -- barely -- recall the 1991 Iraq war.

I warned them of what a long war meant, as I had lived through one before -- especially when a longer war meant the draft.  Some students understood.  One already had served in Afghanistan, and others already were on callup for Iraq.  Some were Vietnam vets or their children.  Many were grandchildren of Korean War and WWII vets.  

But most of the students could not seem to grasp the enormity of war, the longer it lasts.  This rough "fact sheet" on only the wars in our lifetimes -- the lifetimes of their parents and grandparents -- was the result.  (It is from many, many sources such as textbooks, websites, etc.  Corrections and additional information are welcomed).

I don't see this, just received, in recent diaries . . . so fyi from the DNC.  This suggests that the Senate won't go nuclear tomorrow, after all -- but I'm betting there may be some more magnificent speeches by the Dems.

"Reports say that this week the fringe Republican leadership plans to make its final move in the battle over judicial nominees -- they will change the rules to crush dissent in the Senate and throw out the principle of a fair and independent judiciary.

"We have a tough leader in the Senate with Harry Reid. He has kept Democrats together and worked with moderate Republicans trying to get their leadership to step back from the brink.

"But he can't win this fight alone. Every one of us will have to get the Democratic message out -- to our neighbors, in our local press, and, most importantly, to our Senators.

"To do that, you'll need the very latest information. So please join a conference call briefing with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid this Wednesday, May 18, at 11:45 a.m. Eastern time (8:45 a.m. Pacific).

http://www.democrats.org/briefingcall

The evidence from Larry Flynt on the dalliances at Plato's Retreat does not seem sufficiently solid for the Dems to use in the Bolton hearings Thursday.  But all is not lost.  

Nay, we can help to elevate the discussion to a high-minded and literate level so sorely missing from the Senate these days by providing quotations for the Dems to drop into their remarks, since politicians seem to so love using quotations that suggest they have read books with a few more pages than "My Pet Goat."

So how about quotations from the great philosopher for whom the sex retreat is named?

Let's help make the Republicans jump every time a Dem says PLATO!

 

Apropos of the military recruiting scandal, is there a sizeable callup of troops occurring?  There is in my state, Wisconsin, according to local media -- a Mother's Day weekend callup, sadly.

Compare notes: Are you seeing more callups in your states, too?  Is this possibly a major military callup across the country? Why? Are they going to Iraq or ?

More below the break.

The Asheville, N.C. Citizen-Times' latest update to this story, from the pastor's post-services comments, says:

East Waynesville Baptist Church pastor says nobody ousted for political beliefs

. . . ."In a written statement released by [Pastor Chan] Chandler's lawyer, John J. Pavey Jr., the pastor stated, 'This church fellowships openly with all who embrace the authority and application of the Bible regardless of political affiliation, including current members who align themselves with both major political parties, as well as those who affiliate with no political party.'

"The statement goes on to claim that no one has been voted from the membership of the church because of political beliefs.

"'No one has been voted out of this church for politics or any other reason at this point,' Pavey said, in contradiction to the nine members' belief they have been removed from the church rolls.

"'Our memberships were terminated because we did not agree to have a political church," said Thelma Lowe, the lone Republican voted out. "I did not vote for Kerry. . . ."

From Free Press, a plea today to support PBS in resisting Rethug attacks, as reported in the New York Times.  "PBS is in jeopardy," according to Free Press, from "secret efforts by Republican operatives to make our Public Broadcasting System more 'fair and balanced.'"

This could explain concern expressed in recent DKos diaries re recent PBS programming.

 

As I understand the CSpan2 schedule I just saw (but always, always check for local times . . . and for changes) -- two great speeches today by Dems will rerun tonight:

Al Gore on the filibuster, Bolton, etc. -- any minute now. . . .
and
Joe Biden on the filibuster
and
in last place, deservedly, the main Repug rebuttal by Orrin Hatch

And if you want to read how the Senate debate on the filibuster unfolded today, dozens and dozens of DKosers reported in for the record at a diary soon to disappear . . . but if so, you can dig it out at this title:

Catch up here: The filibuster debate in the Senate today [transcript]

This diary is on the filibuster debate on C-SPAN2 this morning. Go to the end for the latest, scroll through to catch up . . . UPDATE 3: You may want to tune in now, if reading this during Chris Mathews, to MSNBC's coverage of what happened as well -- in the Senate, at hundreds of courthouses across the country where MoveOn.org rallied for the filibuster, and what Al Gore had to say in a rabble-rousing speech re the filibuster, Bolton, etc. UPDATE 2: The debate may continue this afternoon. Kossack klw 1963 stayed tuned and listened more closely, catching the details of the announcement that Senate "proceedings are to stop at 1:30 [Eastern time, I think] for no more than 30 minutes of debate for approval of a judge for an Hawaiian District Court."