In Virginia, Webb leads by a mere 8,000 votes over Allen. Don't expect an answer on this one today or even tomorrow. With the Senate lead in the balance, every lawyer in Northern Virginia will be involved on both sides.
In Montana, Tester lead by 2,000 votes. That, again, is way too close to call and a recount is expected. With the low population of the state, that recount should go quicker.
It's looking like 51-49 in the Senate with Lieberman set to make a really tough decision about whom to caucus with.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 3)
1. Lieberman will have no trouble deciding with whom to caucus: he said all along he would caucus with the Democrats. Apart from a handful of hot-button issues, he is clearly and solidly on the progressive end of the spectrum.
Bill Dickinson at 8:02AM on Nov 8th 2006
2. Voting machines down in Montana? What a surprise! The state from which we get that wonderful human being who is the Vice President is having voting machine problems. Wow. And the winner is, the Republican. No need for an investigation.
Martin Berman at 12:25PM on Nov 8th 2006
3. Lieberman isn't necessarily the problem, its people like George Allen, who present a facade on the outside, but on the core on the inside is absolutely rotting through. This was the republican's way of getting past affirmative action and equal opportunity and little things that the rest of us might call "the law", so that someone's racist attitudes can still simmer, like a wolf in sheep's clothing. So one may ask, "how can we tell who they are?" George Bush and Karl Rove, for all of their political gameplaying, actually have made it much easier for the rest of us to spot "them".
Suzanne at 8:16AM on Nov 8th 2006
4. The people have spoken and Al Quaeda has also scored a victory.....they increased the insurgent terrorist activity and got us running....dig deep into yur pockets America....taxes will increase across the board...
Nancy Paulson at 12:31PM on Nov 8th 2006
5. Our VP is from Texas, not Montana. He changed his residency to Wyoming a month before the Republican nomination in 2000 to comply with Constitutionality.
Asher Smith at 8:46AM on Nov 8th 2006
6. You dumbell Berman. The Vice Pesident is from Wyoming!
hank walsh at 8:45AM on Nov 8th 2006
7. Do not be absurd. A government with checks and balances spends far less, and taxes far less, than a one-party government. For the next two years, taxes will not go up, and neither will spending. Also, incompetence in the War on Terror will be checked and the country will much more effectively fight that war. Bush can no longer be complacent on such issues as Osama BinLaden. Who fought WWI? WWII? The answer to both is Democrats. This is a blessing for fiscal responsibility, future (very unfortunately) inevitable tax burdens, and the ability of the United States of America to effectively destroy terror wherever it resides.
Asher Smith at 8:53AM on Nov 8th 2006
8. Gridlock is the best the market can hope for....both parties stink anyway.
alan at 9:02AM on Nov 8th 2006
9. Cheney is from Wyoming, and always has been. He was a senator for about a jillion years.
J. Boyd at 9:04AM on Nov 8th 2006
10. Cheney was a congressman from Wyoming many years ago, but that's not really important. What's important is that Americans have voted to tie a rope around him and the rest of the cowboys.
Jeff from NY at 9:16AM on Nov 8th 2006
11. JUST MAYBE THE DEMOCRATS HAVE FOUND THAT SPINE THAT HAS BEEN MISSING SINCE THIS COUNTRY WAS LIED INTO THIS WAR WITH SADDAM. (I MEANT LED INTO THIS WAR WITH IRAQ.) SINCE SADDAM IS OUT OF THE WAY, EXACTLY WHO AND WHAT MILITARY ORGANIZATION ARE WE FIGHTING NOW? HOPEFULLY THE DEMOCRATS CAN GET US BACK ON TRACK WITH STRENGTHENING AMERICA SO WE CAN DO POSITIVE THINGS FOR THIS WORLD.
BILL at 9:22AM on Nov 8th 2006
12. Several comments:
1. You people that think the Dems will do a better job of running the country have a sever case of deja vu coming.
2. Taxes should increase, why should our children be forced to pay for a war we choose to enter? Afghanistan was a necessary war which we did not finish. Iraq was a choice that was made once Cheney and Rumsfeld took office.
3. Why are so ignorant? We fight over who is better the Dems or Reps when the answer is, neither. All the Dems and Reps care about is getting elected, they only care about the people during election cycles. Don't believe me, then why do politicians spend millions to get a job that pays less $200,000? Americans have allowed corporations to take over our system of government and will do nothing to correct the problem.
4. Personally, I refuse to vote for any Dem or Rep candidate. They may be nice people personally, but once they are elected they are the property of the national parties and the national parties don't give a rat's ass about middle class Americans. Their only concern is holding on to power. Want proof? Look at the Foley scandal. Top Republican leaders were more interested in protecting their power than they were protecting the pages. Look at the Clinton impreachment. Republicans could have impreached Clinton for selling us out to the Chinese but to do so would mean Republicans would have had to open their fund raising books and they did not want to. The Dems are no better. They refuse to close our borders to illegal immigration because they don't want to risk votes.
5. I always vote for the third party candidate on the ballet because I may not agree with all they stand for but at least I know they will vote what they believe. The Dems and Reps vote for whatever will get them more campaign funds.
Kevin Busta at 9:42AM on Nov 8th 2006
13. J. Boyd must be young. VP Cheney was a Congressman from Wyoming. The lack of knowledge among our young people today (we have three voting age daughters in their 20s) is a sad commentary. If you don't know current events, then you surely don't know history. The House will be more, not less, conservative, as vast majority of newly elected Dem. congressmen and women are more conservative than the Republicans they beat. Since we have an all volunteer military, and recruiting is doing well there, the war on terrorism remains stable. You do not change policy in the middle of a war on terrorism which will last hundreds of years. The enemy will blow us up again sooner now, thinking we are so dumb and stupid that we will forget more violence against us (by radical Islamo-Fascists) in a few days, as we have done in just a few years re 9/11. Stupid, dumb, head in sand, naive, and dangerous. Irresponsible thinking by foolish non-thinkers who do not see the writing on the war. We are at war and under now perpetual attack.
George Singleton at 9:42AM on Nov 8th 2006
14. Oh well I may as well add my two cent worth. The republican party as we know it is coming to an end. THANK YOU LORD. President Bush has made all this possible. THANK you Mr. President for being oh so so so. I cry when I hear about young men and women being killed in Iraq. Just about all are 18,or 19, or 20 years old. Why could the U.S. not come home after they found and removed Sadam? We had no business staying. Peace is never going to happen in Iraq.
Maidsawait at 9:47AM on Nov 8th 2006
15. Today is:
November 08, 2006 Wednesday 15 Shawwal, 1427 A.H.
FP editorial on Saddam, war
George L Singleton USA GSingle556@aol.com
Your Nov. 7, 2006 editorial "Saddam's death sentence" has two points I'd like to objectively address.
"For nearly three decades, he had run a tyrannical dictatorship fraught with assassinations of opponents by his death squads and ruthless suppression of resistance to his rule."
This is entirely true. When a person is tried in a court of law, you don't have to "try" every single fact or persons murdered by Saddam or his regime. He is guilty of both individual murders he bragged about in his days as an assassin working his way up to the number one dictator position. He is also guilty of ordering the gassing of thousands of innocent Kurds, men, women, and children. One provable instance of mass murder serves the legal purpose, as you acknowledge by your editorial statement.
Let us not forget recent history. It was Saddam Hussein who in 1990 invaded both Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia in a most violent and unprovoked manner. All that goes on today is a very drawn out conclusion of this war which Saddam brought on himself and his innocent grassroots people. Weapons of mass destruction existed and were used by Saddam and his Baathist regime over many years. Several million Iranian soldiers and civilians were gassed to death by Saddam and his troops during the long drawn out Iran-Iraq War during the 1980s. History proves that life has meant little in the hands of Saddam Hussein.
"A US-Iraq medical mission has put the number of the Iraqis so killed so far at the horrific 655,000 figure. And this was patently an illegal war." This was an inflammatory election year statement using very loose extrapolation methodology against an actual base of fewer than 1,700 deaths, of which half were attributed to war related events such as Muslim on Muslim murders and killings by roadside bombs and such. The LANCET JOURNAL is a UK publication and utilized the antiwar activists extrapolation in part done at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/12/MNGUTLNP6C1.DTL
The cold blooded fact is that the vast majority of violent deaths of all descriptions inside Iraq today are due to Muslims vs. Muslims, Shiia vs. Sunni fighting to gain in a non-democratic way control of the ex-dictator Saddam Hussein's evil governmental process which was defeated and put out in 2003 as a consequence of Saddam's blatant violations of 19 UN Resolutions whereby he repeatedly refused to obey the original 1991 Desert Storm War Armistice.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “The Iraqi government is best placed to maintain records of those who have died in their country. There is no entirely accurate way of estimating deaths in Iraq. Any civilian death is one too many. The situation is of great concern to us. That's why we are backing the Iraqi government to try to combat those perpetrating the violence.” SEE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/11/uiraq.xml
The math if you carefully examine it suggests if true, which it is not, that for all Iraqi males between the ages of 15 and 59, ten percent of that entire demographic grouping have died from violent causes since March, 2003. The number 655,000, extrapolated, would include a subtotal of 42% of the extrapolated 655,000 who were already dying of violent deaths inside Iraq under Saddam Hussein prior to and continuing since the March 2003 invasion.
"Iraq Body Count puts the number of Iraqis killed since March 2003 at no more than 49,000. The Iraq Index, a Brookings Institution study that combines that with recent U.N. statistics, put the number of civilian deaths between May 2003 and Aug. 31, 2006, at 62,000. In June, after several weeks worth of interviews at Iraqi hospitals, morgues and government offices, the Los Angeles Times estimated that civilian deaths had reached 50,000."
From yet another data source on the Internet: http://pajamasmedia.com/2006/10/joisting_with_the_lancet_the_p.php
"The Lancet study uses a baseline mortality rate (the rate during Saddam years) of 5.5/1000 – almost half of the mortality rate of Europe. The mortality rate in the EU is 10.10/1000. Given Europe’s excellent health care, public health infrastructure and, lack of war in the past 60 years, how is it possible that Iraq’s baseline is half that of the EU?" "What we did find for the households as a pre-invasion death rate was essentially the same number as we found in 2004, the same number as the CIA gives and the estimate for Iraq by the US Census Bureau." "The Lancet Study comes up with a post-war mortality rate almost double that of Saddam’s Iraq. In fact, it is roughly equivalent to the mortality rate in Hungary is 13/1000. Does that rate seem plausible, given Hungary’s superior infrastructure and almost 50 continous years of peace?"
All deaths, natural and otherwise, are regretted by all thinking and caring people worldwide. We especially mourn the over 1,000,000 (one million) massacred by the conflict in Darfur in Africa, where another dictatorship is at stake, as was the case with Saddam Hussein.
I am afraid that the world, including the FRONTIER POST editorial page, is faced with a raging Muslim on Muslim religious war which has been simmering ever since the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad (pbuh). This hundreds of years long image of violence between and among Muslims is the image that the world has long had vs. the earliest and intended meaning by Muhammad (pbuh) of "peace" as the motto for Islam. Objectively, the former Christian Crusades lasted off and on around 200 years in ancient times, 1099 to around 1291. Today we are witnessing a Muslim on Muslim war, not a crusade of Christians vs. Muslims, as some would pretend to try to further aggravate the situation.
Some sideline unhappy death statistics to help your readers have perspective: Right now, US military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined, average 1,000 per year (year, not month). US wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan combined average about 6,500 per year (year, not month). Of the US wounded average of 6,500 per year, over 70% are lightly wounded and are returned to duty within a few days to at most a few weeks without having to leave the area of conflict.
During the Vietnam War US deaths average around 5,475 per year. Vietnam War US wounded averaged around 16,000 per year.
Putting historic US war deaths into even more perspective - combat deaths per day:
Vietnam War - 15
Korean War - 30
WW-II - 214
In the USA every year around 46,000 people (or 126 per day using a 365 day year) are killed in automobile accidents. In the USA every year around 1,350,000 (one million three hundred and fifty thousand) people are injured in automobile wrecks and accidents. In Darfur, Africa, as noted above, over one million innocent men, women, and children have been slaughtered in large part due to Muslim hostilities against minority religious folk, most of those killed are both various sect Muslims and Christians.
Sincerely,
George L. Singleton
USA
GSingle556@aol.com
George Singleton at 9:47AM on Nov 8th 2006