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Rep. Mike Rogers was given a free ticket to another term in the House of Representatives, where he can continue with stupid like this, because of some very shifty sleight-of-hand tactics in Michigan's 8th district. (Details here)

MIKE ROGERS: When you think about any of the operations of a soldier in the field that's released could lead to their death, that is an act of treason. And an act of treason is a capital offense and it should be,

You have to stop this culture of disclosure. It's dangerous. It gets people killed.

CENK UYGUR: So would you have supported execution of Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers?

ROGERS: Well, I don't know all the circumstances around it. If it was information that certainly put soldiers at risk in the field and he was convicted of treason, absolutely.

I have my own opinions about WikiLeaks' responsibility with regard to releasing names. But I don't have an argument with them releasing documents, nor do I believe it is an act of treason, nor do I believe anyone should be executed as a result, including Afghans working with the US government.

But this man, Mike Rogers, was just granted another term without any effort. Lance Enderle did not receive enough votes to get onto the November ballot as the Democratic candidate, leaving the ghost rider, Kande Ngalamulume as the non-resident Democrat running for office in that Congressional District.

I don't usually make it a point to slam Democrats, but this begs for it. There is no excuse for the DCCC to have ignored this race and allowed such nonsense to prevail. For all the money they spent sending me little birthday cards to sign for the President along with my $50 donation, they could have actually spent the time to vet this candidate and look for a contender.

Instead, they just ignored it completely. They ignored the fact that a lunatic who thinks executing people for leaking documents is a good thing will now be the de facto winner in November. How hard would it have been in that state to find one candidate -- ONE -- who could have actually gotten something done?

The DCCC misses the point of its sheer existence when it allows nonsense like this and likewise, the DSCC in case of the monumental hairball in South Carolina with Alvin Greene.

For starters, it appears arrogant and entitled. It appears as though Democrats don't really care all that much about districts where they can't get high profile bang for their buck.

But mostly, it's undemocratic. That's all. It's undemocratic to allow stupid to take the place of democracy.

Lance Enderle received 9% of the vote as a write-in candidate. That's not so bad, given that write-ins almost never get even 1%. We made a difference, but not enough of one, given the time and money constraints. And so, Mike Rogers will now represent a district that has just about an even split of conservatives and liberals in it.

Undemocracy at work. Good job, DCCC.

(Brainwrap on Daily Kos has more to say about the MI-08 debacle, too)

I swear on all that is sacred to any of you that what I'm about to write is true. I have to say that up front because even in the bizarro world that is politics, this story is still right out of outer space.

Let's say there was a district in Michigan where a Republican (Mike Rogers) barely won his seat in a special election back in 2000 when Senator Debbie Stabenow won her seat. Like, he won by 111 votes or so. And let's say that the same Republican has won every election since largely because no candidate has really stepped up to challenge in a meaningful way.

In this story, said district (MI-08) is an interesting mix of progressive and militia types, but overall, the district went 2-1 for Obama in 2008.

In 2010, you'd think it might be worth trying to target said district and Mike Rogers for a Democratic win. Here's how it plays, via Swing State Project:

Earlier this year, a young guy named Kande Ngalamulume (he was born in Zaire, now known as the Congo) decided to take a shot. No political experience, he'd lived outside of Michigan since 2002. His biggest claim to fame was having been a track star at Michigan State.

Then it turns weird:

Unfortunately, after finding a lack of financial support (he had only raised a total of around $25,000 or so, I believe), he dropped out of the race on June 2--and not only did so in a very public manner (via email press release), but did so several weeks after the filing deadline...and then left the state.

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Another day and another Republican jackass trying to smear President Obama and his administration on issues of our national security. The newest member of the Peter King Fan Club style is Republican asswipe Congressman Mike Rogers from Michigan, who wrote an op-ed in the NY (f'n) Post yesterday where he attacked Eric Holder for doing the job he's actually supposed to be doing after the NYC bombing failed. Holder is the Attorney General and prosecution is his game, right? We have laws and he follows them, even if jerks like Rogers want to disregard the Constitution and our legal system. Faisal Shahzad is an American citizen.

I caught Rogers on MSNBC earlier in the morning Thursday talking to Monica Novotny early in the 7am hour PDT, and he couldn't even articulate what he wrote in Murdoch's rag. Novotny tries to understand what he's saying and gets to the heart of it.

Novotny: Meanwhile, you've written an op-ed for the NY Post in which you say that Attorney General Eric Holder, that he's just too focused on gathering evidence for a court case going forward as opposed to what you say he should be doing, gathering intelligence to prevent future attacks.

Rogers: Absolutely, when you shift to a law enforcement centered rather than a counter terrorism centered approach to this, it has restrictions and it has consequences. We can talk about all the great thing our investigators are doing after the fact, but the problem is that when you go to a law enforcement approach somebody has to commit the crime first in order for them to be successful first.

Novotny: But the fact is Congressman, that this has happened already so don't they essentially have to wear two hats at the same time because while we want to gain as much intelligence on potential future attacks, we also don't want this guy walking free either.

...

Rogers: You don't want to get this guy when he's getting on the plane to Pakistan after he's left the bomb, you want to get him on the plane from Pakistan when he's on the way to the United States. Huge difference.

Novotny: You say that the government's role should be in prevention then, but do you believe they really aren't doing everything they can to prevent these attacks?

Rogers: I do know this. This administration have made changes that mean some collection activities that we used to do we no longer do and those are classified, but they've suspended certain collection activities. When you do that and they're doing as this notion of a law enforcement centered approach, when you do that you have consequences...

Novotny: You say they are gathering less intelligence and they've made choices to do that.

Rogers: I do think there are some gaps in there that I would love to fill back in so our intelligence can do what it does best.

Rogers is telling the world that the Obama administration is making a concerted effort to gather less intelligence to stop attacks which means the president doesn't care if we get hit again because he's just interested in putting them away. He cites the Ft. Hood shootings, underwear man and Path Finder bomber as his evidence that Obama just doesn't care. What a sad sack of a politician. That was the heart at what Novotny was getting at. Bush would go on TV telling the world of how many attacks he had thwarted. So WTF is he yapping on about?

Rogers said that the Obama administration had made serious changes in the way America collects intelligence on terrorists, but he didn't know what they were because they were classified. Huh? Top Secret, like very hush-hush. Is he trying to leak secrets to the media about the way we go about gathering intelligence?

Here's his moronic piece.

He almost made Rep. Peter King look somewhat coherent. Almost.

Here's a link to his email so if you have the chance, send him your thoughts.

My friend Mike Rogers was simply awesome on Hardball yesterday. Just awesome.

Digby saw it, too. She wrote:

I saw something very interesting today on MSNBC. Barnicle, filling in for Matthews on Hardball, hosted Reverend Eugene Rivers, a well respected, uncontroversial African American preacher, and Mike Rogers, strident gay activist.

Loaded for bear, Rivers came out firing, very aggressively and derisively attacking the gay community for being intolerant and asserting that Warren is a thoroughly acceptable mainstream preacher. ("This is a pseudo-controversy that's been fabricated by the anti-religious left. Fact: Rick Warren is not a divisive figure, there's not one shred of empirical, statistical data to support this unfounded

claim.") That's obviously untrue, but that's not what made me take note of the interview.

The problem was that Rogers took a very unusual tack and said that Rivers coming on the show to defend Warren shows how powerful the gay community is and that he was very happy to see Warren changing his web site just today (to hide his more outrageously homophobic content.) He characterized this as a big victory for gay rights. ("I compliment Rick Warren on seeing the error of his ways and changing his web site.") Rivers was agitated by this and seemed to be frustrated that the dialog wasn't taking the predicted path, rather sarcastically saying things like "well we're all happy now, I guess."

But the really interesting reaction came about when Rogers suggested that if Warren is to be seen as a man who builds bridges between the right and the left that he should quietly and without any kind of fanfare meet with leaders of the gay community and listen to their concerns. Rivers reacted very badly.

Go read the rest.

(From a different angle: on Warren's refusal to meet with several gay and lesbian couples (and kids) for a meal and conversation - after first agreeing to it. What a hypocrite.)

Let me put it this way: I know better than to think I'll win an argument with Michael. It's never happened, and it never will. Every conversation with Michael is dotted with his interjecting, "Can I tell you something?" and my muttering, "Like I could stop you?" He is, hands down, the most talented debater I've ever seen. (Scorpio. Naturally!)

He doesn't just answer the question, he's always ten steps ahead of his opponent. If we could only clone him, we'd never see liberals lose an argument again.

The Cook Political Report (subscription req'd) has looked at 30 congressional races and upgraded them for the Democratic Party. Many of these races are in heavily entrenched Republican areas, but it's clear that the prevailing attitude towards the GOP and the great work these Democratic candidates have been doing (often with help from the netroots) has put a whole bunch more of the House in play:

AL-03 Mike Rogers Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CA-46 Dana Rohrabacher Solid Republican to Likely Republican
FL-08 Ric Keller Likely Republican to Lean Republican
FL-09 Gus Bilirakis Solid Republican to Likely Republican
FL-18 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Solid Republican to Likely Republican
FL-21 Lincoln Diaz-Balart Likely Republican to Lean Republican
ID-01 Bill Sali Solid Republican to Likely Republican
IN-03 Mark Souder Solid Republican to Likely Republican
IA-04 Tom Latham Solid Republican to Likely Republican
KY-02 OPEN (Lewis) Solid Republican to Likely Republican
MN-02 John Kline Solid Republican to Likely Republican
NE-02 Lee Terry Solid Republican to Likely Republican
NV-02 Dean Heller Solid Republican to Likely Republican
NJ-05 Scott Garrett Solid Republican to Likely Republican
NY-13 OPEN (Fossella) Toss Up to Lean Democratic
NY-25 OPEN (Walsh) Toss Up to Lean Democratic
NC-10 Patrick McHenry Solid Republican to Likely Republican
OH-07 OPEN (Hobson) Solid Republican to Likely Republican
PA-03 Phil English Likely Republican to Lean Republican
PA-05 OPEN (Peterson) Solid Republican to Likely Republican
PA-11 Paul Kanjorksi Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic
PA-15 Charlie Dent Solid Republican to Likely Republican
TX-07 John Culberson Solid Republican to Likely Republican
TX-10 Michael McCaul Solid Republican to Likely Republican
VA-05 Virgil Goode Solid Republican to Likely Republican
VA-10 Frank Wolf Solid Republican to Likely Republican
WV-02 Shelley Moore Capito Likely Republican to Lean Republican
WY-AL OPEN (Cubin) Solid Republican to Likely Republican

 Republican Sen. Larry Craig speaks...He was harassed by Idaho and caved to the pressure...What did Nixon say again?

Craig: I am not gay!

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He denies any wrong doing...Pleading guilty was all a big misunderstanding. He just overreacted. Sorry Larry, nobody pleads guilty to this type of charge if they are innocent. He tried to sweep it under the carpet and got caught. He's getting new legal counsel. And he ran away---answering no questions. Wanker.

Glenn Greenwald has a great story about about the Right Wing nutosphere's attack response to Mike Rogers and Larry Craig the last few years. (Craig's statement below the fold)

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John at AmericaBlog live blogged it.

Gannon used a green map to show how red the country is. He goes to a widely publicized event and uses green ink. Quote: "...even though this represents the red-blue county map, it's actually green because I ran out of ink on my printer."

The Talent Show says: Not that I'm trying to make the argument that liberals outnumber conservatives or vice versa, I'm just saying that holding up a map and saying "look at all that red/green" as a way of backing up your point is pretty goddamned retarded.

Wonkette got pissed when Jimmy/Jeff defended Armstrong Williams with the most idiotic defense you can imagine. The go'vt had to pay for NCLB because nobody would print good things about it. That's a journalist folks!

(We are getting swamped with downloads and our servers are behaving badly. My guy is on it to make the downloads faster. QT will be up soon. You can download but just be a little more patient, or please try back in a short while.)

Video-WMP-it's a big file so it's taking time to load. Make sure to press the play button on WMP

Video-QT-seems to be working faster than WMP

Wonkette's site has more: Most popular question for Gannon from an off-camera audience member after the panel ended. "DID YOU EVER SLEEP WITH SCOTT McCLELLAN? J

It comes at the end of the video.

Mathew Yglesias posts: Sorites and Gannon

fishbowl DC posts: Drinking? At the Press Club? Live blogging

Here's a right winger's response to the panel: The vilification of Jeff Gannon continued today at the National Press Club. I haven't found anymore righties commenting on it yet.

Jeff Gannon says he was threatened by Rogers. As I was boarding an elevator to exit the building, this same person made a dash for me with unknown intent...If you saw this person's behavior, you would realize that the threats against my person, property and family have not been exaggerated.

Mike Rogers at blogActive tried to get Gannon to answer some questions after the meeting and responds to the charges by Gannon: I joined Gannon on the elevator heading to the lobby. Gannon raised his fists at me as if to threaten me (some people will do anything to stop a story, huh?) and attempted to intimidate me off of the elevator. read on

Update:Digby has his opinions too: New Star: He makes absolutely no sense, wanders off into unrelated subjects, claims victimhood at every turn, avoids questions like a pro and appears to me to be incredibly stupid, arrogant and deluded all at the same time. A clown that nobody in their right mind could take seriously. In others words, meet the next GOP nominee for President of the United States.