While various liberal bloggers + Keith Olberman and Robert Kennedy, Jr. have been trying to convince us that a massive vote stealing scheme (with Democrats & UAW officials in on it) delivered Ohio to George W. Bush in 2004, today’s Ohio papers bring news of a real scandal that really might have made the difference in Ohio.

Shouldn’t this be news outside of Ohio?

Less than a week before the 2004 presidential election, Jim Conrad, then head of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, took steps to ensure that a $215 million investment loss in an offshore hedge-fund would not become public …

So, in the Independence Party court battle over whether the constitutional right to free speech trumps the constitutional right to free association (for the all the gory details, click here), a Brooklyn Court has punted, deciding that what really matters is blind adherence to the plain language of the state’s pernicious election laws, which allows a party the right to attempt to dis-enroll its voters, but only at the request of a county’s local party chair. Since the county parties in question were all controlled by the Fulani-Newman anti-Semitic cult, rather than Party Chair Frank McKay’s ragtag coalition of fast-buck opportunist and tin-foil hatted nutcases, this would appear to be game, set and match. In an incidental and accidental victory for free speech, the Fulaniite zombies will still be able to exercise their First Amendment right to regurgitate whatever hateful bile Fred Newman instructs them to chant, without being deprived of their ability to belong to the Party of Fred's choice. Another defeat for the imperialist, Zionist, running dog lackies of International Capital. "But", in the words of Bob Dylan, "you who philospohize disgrace, and criticize all fears, take the rag away from your face, now ain't the time for your tears".

Sunday morning Arriana Huffington was on CNN pontificating about the Connecticut Primary and other events.

She continued to blast Joe Lieberman for running as an independent and called his actions unprecedented – losing a Primary and continuing to run.

Now in my last post, I pointed to at least one precedent – Mario Cuomo in 1977 who continued his campaign for Mayor against Primary winner Ed Koch as the candidate of the Liberal Party and a party his campaign created – Neighborhood Preservation Party.

But in honor of Arianna, I decided to jog my memory to find more precedents and to see how those who “turned on their Party” were punished.

I received some good news about my daughter’s future orthodontist bill recently.  Good news for me that is, at least in the short run.  My wife’s dental insurance will cover part of the cost.  While that insurance is part of her salary, it does not count as taxable income, and is thus exempt from federal, state, local and social security taxes.  And, we’ll be able to put aside money on a pre-tax basis to cover the balance, under a plan she has at work, with a similar exemption from taxes.  My wife works for a quasi-public agency.  The government, therefore, will end up paying indirectly (through the tax break, and through private dental insurance purchased on her behalf) for about $3,000 of my daughter’s improved smile.  The same government, that is, which (unlike the government of virtually every other developed country) doesn’t provide universal insurance for at least basic health care.  If you aren’t a senior citizen, don’t have health insurance provided by your employer, cannot afford an individual policy, and are thus uninsured, her smile – which you are helping to pay for – may thus be more important to our elected officials than your life.

Call us Neo-liberals, New Democrats, Clinton Democrats. Call us Peter Beinart Democrats. We’re in a battle for the soul of our party, with what might be called the “Michael Moore Democrats” or the “Chris Owens Democrats”, and the perception is that we’re losing.

To cop from the dust jacket of Beinart’s recently published “The Good Fight: Why Liberals  – and Only Liberals – Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again”, we believe the that “America must lead the world by persuasion, not command”, George Bush believes the opposite, and American and the world are suffering as a result. By contrast, Michael Moore Democrats believe we should not lead, and when we do, we are invariably a force of evil. Moore not only believed this in Iraq; he believed this in Bosnia and Kosovo as well (apparently, stopping genocide is morally heinous). In contrast, Clinton Democrats, exemplified by Beinart, believe “that liberalism cannot merely define itself against the right, but must fervently oppose the totalitarianism that blighted Europe a half century ago, and which stalks the Islamic world today” and  “an unyielding hostility to totalitarianism – and a recognition that defeating it requires bringing hope to the bleakest corners of the globe. And it means understanding that democracy begins at home, in a nation that does more than merely preach about justice, but become more just itself.”  To Moore Democrats, the one word definition for a Clinton Democrat is: “Republican”.

The results in Connecticut seem to have created a new species in politics – Progressive Yellow Dog Democrats.

The term Yellow Dog Democrats has it’s origin in the states of the old Confederacy where most Whites pledged to never vote for a Republican because of Lincoln winning the Civil War and freeing the slaves. These voters said they’d vote for a “yellow dog” if he were the Democratic candidate.

But now people who would never be considered in any way similar to these Southern racists also seem to be saying similar things regarding Joe Lieberman.

"We’re a left wing Zionist Movement, and we believe Israel has the right to defend itself, We’re not pacifists. Unlike in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel isn’t occupying Lebanese territory or trying to control the lives of Lebanese. The only occupier is Hezbollah, and Israel is trying to defend itself.”

Yariv Oppenheimer, General Secretary-Peace Now