A Perfect Storm for the Democrats Equals Toxic Soup for Republicans and Russ Feingold says Bush Policies Breaking U.S. Army in Today's Details 9/29/05

- With the Republicans hip-deep in ethics quicksand, Democrats don't need cohesion anymore -- they're just watching as their rivals sink 13 months before the midterm elections. "Thank God it's not September, 2006," mutters GOP consultant Scott W. Reed, who worries that the ethics issue "has the potential for longer-term damage." Actually, the damage could get worse. A federal grand jury probing the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame is close to winding up its work, stoking fears among some White House aides that political guru Karl Rove might be targeted.

- A federal judge ruled today that graphic pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America's image. Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of "rape and murder" and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were "blatantly sadistic." (So why isn't DR stopping the torture rather than spending so much time stopping the release of the photo's? He who has nothing to hide, hides nothing! Perhaps he needs to concern himself with changing the culture of the U.S. military from one that's "blatantly sadistic" to one of honor.)

- Three suicide attackers exploded a string of near-simultaneous car bombs in a mainly Shiite town Thursday, killing at least 60 people and wounding 70, Elsewhere, a roadside bomb killed five U.S. soldiers fighting in a hotbed of Iraqi insurgency.

- The President's policies in Iraq are breaking the United States Army. As soldiers confront the prospect of a third tour in the extremely difficult theater of Iraq, it would be understandable if they began to wonder why all of the sacrifice undertaken by our country in wartime seems to be falling on their shoulders. At some point, the sense of solidarity and commitment that helps maintain strong retention rates gives way to a sense of frustration with the status quo. I am concerned that we may be very close to that tipping point today.

- On the September 27 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity and right-wing pundit Ann Coulter told co-host Alan Colmes that they "don't believe" a report that Army Ranger Pat Tillman was a fan of leftist author Noam Chomsky, opposed the Iraq war, and planned to vote for Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in the 2004 presidential election. But according to a September 25 San Francisco Chronicle report that Colmes cited, Tillman's mother said that he had planned to meet privately with Chomsky and that "Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war." Tillman, a former pro football star, served in Iraq before being killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004.

- Republican members of Congress say there are signs that the Defense Department may be carrying out new intelligence activities through programs intended to escape oversight from Congress and the new director of national intelligence.

- Addressing a caller's suggestion that the "lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years" would be enough to preserve Social Security's solvency, radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett dismissed such "far-reaching, extensive extrapolations" by declaring that if "you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies "would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," then added again, "but the crime rate would go down." (I don't mean to confuse the issue but wouldn't you get the same result if you aborted all the white babies???? Or even just the offspring of Republicans?)