teh Hastert funnies

* ron has a case of teh Hastert funnies. here and here.

* you might remember this from my interview with larisa:

Luke: Hopefully we can make that an election issue in Hastert's race against John Laesch in November

LA: I dont know - I dont think he's going to be running.

Luke: Wow - really?

LA: I have a feeling that the way things are going - remember, there are factional turf wars much like the kinds you see in organized crime. They're at each others' throats - because greed knows no loyalty. I think he's made a tactical error in attempting to remove Duncan Hunter from the Armed Services Committee.

Remember, regarding the Dubai ports deal, Duncan Hunter recently came forward and said that Dubai had allowed nuclear switches and heavy water to be shipped from Turkey, via Dubai, to Iran, the same switches I referenced above as being accurate but together in the wrong context - and shortly thereafter Hastert tried to remove (I am still trying to firm up what actually occurred) Hunter from the Armed Services Committee.

Luke: That's right - and Dubai rejected a U.S. request to stop the shipment.

LA: Right - and I think that really opens Hastert up - if Hunter wants to put some pressure on. In other words, Duncan Hunter is a fairly powerful individual, and fairly aggressive. Despite my reporting on Hunter in certain business areas of his, he really seems to be very much against outsourcing of security of any sort. There seems to be a principle there for him, and he seems to be very adamant about that. So Hunter and his faction have a lot of ammunition should Hunter want to retain his seat, or whatnot. It gives a lot of power and persuasion to that argument. So it should be interesting how this plays out

Luke: Interesting indeed.

Larisa sent me an email earlier saying that Hunter was going to announce his presidential bid. It'd be interesting to know if Hunter has anything to do with Denny's current problems... Is the Turkish faction going to the wall?

* joementum's campaign responds to the NYT's endorsement on Nedmentum:

"Instead, the Times’ ill-informed and tendentious endorsement of Ned Lamont reads as if the editors had outsourced the editorial writing to the same crew of blindingly angry bloggers who have teamed with the Lamont Campaign to twist Joe Lieberman’s record beyond all recognition.

What resulted -– a cant recitation of discredited arguments, along with a willful ignorance of Senator Lieberman’s many accomplishments for the state and the country –- reveals far more about the Times’ knee-jerk biases and lack of rigor than either of the candidates.

The Times most obviously shows its narrow-mindedness by reducing the entire campaign to the war in Iraq, despite the fact that two-thirds of voters in Connecticut consistently say it is not their top concern. Even worse, the Times shows its disinterest in the truth by regurgitating several of the bloggers’ biggest falsehoods and grossly mischaracterizing Senator Lieberman’s position on Iraq.
[]
The most blatant evidence that the fix was in was your assertion that Mr. Lamont is “the far better candidate” to serve in the U.S. Senate. That is simply incomprehensible – and frankly an insult to your readers’ intelligence. "

there's more.

* jeralyn:

CNN Brings Bloggers to D.C. for Election Night

We'll be blogging the results and news tidbits live -- it should be a lot of fun.

Atrios, Christy of Firedoglake, John of Crooks and Liars will also be there.

i'll be drinking, and blogging. variously scared and optimistic, by turns. and swearing at Blogger (actually, let me announce here, that if Blogger is having any troubles whatsoever on Tuesday night, i'll be over at my other site. Check in there if i'm not posting every few seconds.)