News just breaking that the West Virginia AG has ruled that a special election can be held this fall to fill the seat of the late Robert Byrd. Both the Governor and the Speaker of the WV House have said they’d like to see such an election. If Governor Manchin does run in the special he would be the strong favorite though not a slam dunk.

May we all have a wonderful Independence Day ! Argue we might, but united we are in freedom.

One of the best versions of our anthem.

Just to show the ‘tolerance’ of hard line Islam. The father and brother of a Harry Potter actress are in court facing charges of making death threats against her because of her ‘immoral’ behavior.

Ok not a Disney scandal but funny Though I think his parents should be charged with child abuse. http://www.aolnews.com/article/cops-accuse-donald-duck-of-driving-drunk/19535273

I posted this video a while back but it dropped off of Youtube. It’s back now and fitting to repost this holiday weekend. God Bless All Who Flew For Us… Apollo, Challenger, Columbia and all the rest I’d join them in a heartbeat

To our Canadian friends, I hope you have the happiest of holidays. Try not to eat too much ! And since HRH is visiting, both anthems this time

I’ve long wondered about the Daily Kos polling, it always seemed to show higher approval for Democrats and lower approval for Republicans than all of the other polling organizations. I hardly expected Kos to pay any attention to my suspicions since I figured I was coming from the other side of the fence. Looks like there was a reason for the wondering. To his credit, Markos has gone public with the problems but I have to wonder why someone at Kos didn’t question these numbers before....

Obviously right now the main focus should be offering sympathy and support to the Byrd family, but at the same time he was a life long politician and would have wanted to discuss the political consequences. The first issue is the fact that Byrd’s death reduces the Democrats to 56 seats plus the 2 independents gives them 58. That is not enough to overcome any filibusters (a Byrd favorite) of pending bills, such as the financial reform act. They would need to get 2 GOP votes and so far I don’t...

Wouldn’t be a normal week if Joe Biden didn’t stick his foot in his mouth. He was doing a public appearance at a custard shop in Wisconsin and asked the manager what he owed him for the food. The manager said no charge and ‘lower our taxes and we’ll call it even’. Now a smart person would have made some generic ‘we are working on it’ kind of comment but not Biden. First he ignored the comment and then he said this Are we sure he doesn’t really work...

Martin Ginsburg, husband of the Supreme Court Justice, has died at the age of 78. The cause of death was an ongoing battle with cancer. Our deepest sympathies to the Justice and her family.

Word just breaking that President Obama will speak to the nation regarding the status of General McChrystal as commander in Afghanistan. Obama has canceled his schedule for the afternoon so it looks likely that McChrystal is out.

If you’d written it for a Hollywood movie I suspect the studio bosses would have rejected it as unrealistic. With the clock literally running down and the game tied 0-0, the US scores the winning goal to advance to the 2nd round. They also won their group for the first time since 1930. Of course US football/soccer is still young compared to the rest of the world so the odds of a cup win are pretty much nil, but this is a pretty nice win for the USA.

Today is primary day again and we have some results to report. In South Carolina Nicky Haley has won the runoff and is probably on her way to being the first female Governor of the Palmetto State. In North Carolina the Senate race will be Marshall (D) versus Burr (R). Marshall led in the initial primary but had to fight a runoff which he seems to be winning easily. At this point Burr seems the favorite but that could change. Utah will be selecting a GOP nominee for the Senate to replace Senator Bennett...

While I personally still doubt the GOP will take control of the House before 2015 there is an interesting analysis at New Republic which suggests otherwise. And they are hardly a right-wing publication.

News just breaking that flash floods have killed at least 12 people at a popular campground about 75 miles outside of Little Rock. Prayers for the victims and their families and best hopes for the rescue workers.

As it seems increasingly likely that tea party activist Sharon Angle will win the GOP nomination to face Senator Harry Reid his chances of winning re-election just doubled, if not tripled. Against Lowden he was a likely loser, against Angle it’s a 50/50 shot.

With the races called in Arkansas and South Carolina, it’s time to focus on Nevada and California. Update: It is quite early but I think we can call the California primaries Whitman for Governor and Fiorina for Senator, the birther loses the SoS race In Nevada the Democratic primaries seem to be over, with Harry Reid for Senate and son Rory Reid for Governor. On the GOP side it looks like Governor Gibbons is going down to a well deserved defeat with US District Court Judge Brian Sandoval taking...

Now that we are getting some clearer returns I thought I’d focus on some of the races that are getting attention from the voters. LINCOLN WINS With 75% of the vote in Lincoln holds to the same 51-49 lead. Not that the networks care, but I’m calling this one for Lincoln UPDATE #4: We’ve got nearly 65% of the vote counted and Lincoln is back on top 51-49 (about 4,500 votes) Things are still pending but it looks like Halter is going to have to make a surge soon if he’s going...

Today is something of a mini Super Tuesday with primaries in Arkansas, California, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, New Jersey, Nevada, South Carolina, South Dakota and Virginia. Some of the races are pretty quiet. In North Dakota it’s pretty much a coronation for the next US Senator but in other states we’ve got some big races. In Arkansas we could see the 3rd US Senator go down this year, in California we’ve got some interesting ballot propositions, in Maine we’ve...