The AP is reporting that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave Christmas gifts to staff at his condo, including, gasp, his doorman. The gifts were $600 in 2002, $1200 in 2004 and $1500 in 2005 and came from Reid's campaign fund.

The AP report is, of course, the crack work of star reporter John "Oppo" Solomon. Now how, you might ask, did Soloman dig up this delicious dirt? FBI wiretaps? Whistleblower? DOJ search of Reid's office? Giftbaskets in his freezer? No, it was listed on the campaign reports that Reid filed with the FEC. You see this expense is a grey area and Reid's lawyers ruled the Christmas gifts were a legitimate expense.

Roll Call is reporting that Nancy Pelosi is working to get her caucus in line in support of Net Neutrality. The vote on the COPE act will come up next week. The bill currently doesn't have any meaningful protections to maintain a free and democratic internet. This bill must be defeated. Whatever you think of Pelosi, she's been good at keeping the caucus together, hopefully this will be no exception.

Big Telecom wants you to believe net neutrality is an impediment to fairness and innovation on the internet. Of course, the truth is just the opposite; the internet has been a force for innovation because of net neutrality. And nothing would be less fair than giving one company's data preference over another's.

Robert Litan of the Brookings Institute shills for Big Telecom. My rebuttal on the flip.

Arianna points out the term Net Neutrality sounds more like a 'Swiss tennis match' than a conspiracy to take over the internet. But that's just what it is. Big Telecom, companies like AT&T and Verizon who operate the data lines that the internet runs on, want to throw out the first amendment of the internet; they want to auction off the ability for one website to load faster than others. What does that mean?

Reads the headline on this balanced Reuters piece. The article quotes U.S. spokesman Major Rick Lynch who is predicting an easing of sectarian violence after Iraq's long awaited unity government is finally formed.

Attacks on civilians had jumped 90 percent across Iraq since a Shiite shrine was bombed in February, but "ethno-sectarian" bloodshed had more than halved in Baghdad in the past week, U.S. spokesman Major General Rick Lynch told a news conference. [emphasis mine]

Now, I'm no math whiz, but isn't that still something like a 45% increase in violence since the elections in December?

The major continues...

Last week we learned that Iran has succeeded in enriching uranium and declared themselves a member of the Nuclear Club. This report was followed by 24 hours of frenetic cable news coverage: breathless talking heads brandishing satellite photos and telestrators notching up the fear with each red circle and arrow.

Then I read this: "Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, U.S. Says." OMG! 16 days!!! Next my local television news reported Iran is training an army of 40,000 suicide bombers to be deployed against American and British targets. Good grief!

Is it hype? In a word, yes. We all know Iran is years away from gaining a nuclear weapon. We know this is just another reckless, Rovian political ploy to distract attention from the fiery wreck that is the Republican party.

I want to thank you for recently endorsing Senator Feingold's call from last August for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by year's end. That you would stand with Feingold, when so many in our party are afraid to, speaks volumes about your character.

Unfortunately, Senator -- and I'd like to heap nothing but praise upon you for taking this strong, clear position -- but, unfortuntately, you had your chance to stand up and lead this country. It began on January 27, 2004 and ended November 2 of that same year. This was your chance to shine. To show the party and the American people that you were the man to lead us. You are and always will be a great Senator and, as a former presidential nominee, you are granted party elder status and the bully pulpit that accompanies it. You would have made a great president. Your penchant for pragmatic, in-depth policy-making would have enabled you to deftly lead us through these uneasy times. Hey, if you'd won, we may even have withdrawn from Iraq by now.

Nick Coleman, columnist for the Star Tribune, calls it the Swift Boating of Iraq. Hesiod calls it Swift Boating in Reverse. Whatever you want to call it, it's a piece of sh*t and it's still stinking up the airwaves in Minnesota.

You can see the ad for yourself.

The CBS affiliate in Minneapolis, WCCO, runs this ad several times a day. I saw it myself at least three times yesterday. Other networks are also running it, but I think WCCO should be targeted because of this: WCCO pulls ad critical of Pawlenty. Tim Pawlenty is our Republican governor.

Update: My lastest diary on this subject. Hesiod's latest: Swiftboating in Reverse: Update. Kare 11 issues a statement saying they neither agree nor disagree with an ad which is simply untrue. I will be contacting them today to let them know they must take a position on advertising which is untrue.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) has taken more privately funded trips than any other MN lawmaker link.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Norm Coleman took a dozen privately funded trips last year totaling more than $37,000, visiting places from Armenia to Alaska, an Associated Press review has found. Such trips would be banned under a proposal by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

In fact, from 2000-2005, Norm took more privately funded trips than all but 5 other Senators.

A.P. is reporting that Shiite cleric Ali al-Sistani is considering calling for U.S. forces to leave Iraq after the December 15th elections.

NAJAF, Iraq - Iraq's top Shiite cleric is considering demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. and foreign troops after a democratically elected government takes office next year, according to associates of the Iranian-born cleric.

If the Americans and their coalition partners do not comply, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani would use peaceful means such as mass street protests to step up pressure for a pullout schedule, according to two associates of the cleric.

From Think Progress: http://thinkprogress.org/2005/10/12/oreilly-rove/

O'REILLY: And then you have Libby, vice president's chief of staff.

SAMMON: Right.

O'REILLY: And you have Rove, all right, both linked into these two reporters.

Now the two reporters are saying one thing to the grand jury. And Rove and Libby are saying another thing.

And now what looks like is Fitzgerald trying to figure out who's telling the truth and who isn't. And if Rove gets indicted, that could bring down the Bush administration, I think.

Holy blowhards! Does he mean bring down as in impeachment or Bush will simply become irrelevant and ineffective without his brain? Will the rest of 'em follow like rats from a sinking ship or is O'Really just trying to play the "I'm actually objective" card?

A group of 40 senators -- 39 Dems and Jeffords -- have written a letter to Bush calling on him to provide a clear "Strategy for Success" in Iraq.

The letter itself isn't particularly earth-shattering. Basically it says things are all mucked up and Bush needs to come up with a strategy to make it better.

Interestingly, the phrase "Strategy for Success" appears four times in the letter itself and two additional times in the intro -- which appears to be a press release from Sen. Feinstein's office. Several other Dems have been parroting it in recent interviews. Way to go Dems! You've come up with you're very own party-wide soundbite.

Raw Story is reporting that, according to Senator Feingold, Democrats will announce their plan for Iraq.

WASHINGTON -- Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) says Senate Democrats will soon introduce elements of their party's plan to resolve foreign policy with regard to Iraq. "You'll see more evidence of that coming out of the Democratic caucus this week,"

About freaking time. Will it be a call for a timetable for withdrawal? Probably not.

Feingold says some of his colleagues are warming to the idea of a timetable, but he didn't want to identify particular senators by name. He spoke to RAW STORY in an interview Wednesday.

"I don't want to characterize their minds," he explained. I've had a number of people who've said, 'I'm very close to your position. I'm almost there.'"

What are they waiting for?

It gets A LOT worse.

Iraqi president wants PM to step down

Iraq's Kurdish president Jalal Talabani has called on the Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite, to step down.

Talabani has accused the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, which holds the majority in parliament, of failing to fairly distribute government positions to Kurds, neglecting ministries run by Kurdish officials and refusing to move ahead on the resettlement of Kurds in the northern city of Kirkuk.

The Kurds threaten to split from the government...

Talabani has made veiled threats to pull the Kurds out of the coalition if their demands are not met, a step that could bring the government's collapse.

The Talabani/Jaafari feud has been brewing for several days now. The potential collapse of the Iraqi government sounds like a big deal to me. Maybe now that AP has picked this up, some U.S. news sources will report it.

I'm fairly sure this hasn't been diaried yet here at dKos -- not suprising given the other big stories currently playing out. In fact, a Google News search shows only around 14 results.

Last Thursday, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) held an informal hearing on Capitol Hill to discuss an Exit Strategy from Bush's war in Iraq. Republican Leaders in the House refused to call for the hearing -- or even provide meeting space -- which was crammed into a tiny corner room in a House office building. "It was virtually impossible to get a room for this subject,'' said Woolsey. Twenty-nine Representatives, including Walter Jones (R-NC) attended hearings. The Democratic leadership was notably absent.

As I did yesterday, I'm using my one diary to tell the community how they can help survivors. I'm a little dismayed that so few of the diaries on this topic make it to the Reco list and, of course, by the speed at which they disappear off of my recent 50 list.

Anyway, just got clued into this by Nag over at BooTrib. It's the PeopleFinder Wiki Project. You can donate your time helping to consolidate survivor lists into a master database. Check it out.

Yesterday my wife and I and two friends went down to Kelly A.F.B. here in San Antonio to volunteer to help Katrina survivors. Kelly is housing the first survivors to come to San Antonio: 5,000 of the 25,000 who will come here. Being a Saturday, there were hundreds of people there to volunteer. Our friend also went on Friday and she said there weren't nearly as many volunteers then.