John Albert Burks #644: “Abeline ReporterNews.Com
‘Convicted Killer of Waco Tortilla Shop Owner Executed,’ by Michael Graczyk.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas parolee and twice-convicted burglar was executed Wednesday evening for fatally shooting a Waco tortilla shop owner during an unsuccessful robbery more than 11 years ago. In a brief final statement, John Albert Burks, 44, greeted some relatives who served as witnesses and told them it was “going to be all right.” Burks said “the Raiders are going all the way y’all.” He looked at his witnesses and told them: “You pray for me, it’s going to be all right.” Then he told the warden, “It’s going down, let’s get it over with. Y’all take care.” “

Bush Pledges to Work With Democrats – Examiner.com: ”

WASHINGTON – President Bush pledged Wednesday to work with Democrats after the ‘thumping’ his party got on Election Day. He named a new defense secretary to oversee the war in Iraq, a change the president said was going to happen whoever won the elections.

Bush said former CIA Director Robert Gates would replace Donald H. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. The president said Rumsfeld was a ‘patriot who served this country with honor and distinction.’
Bush said he had been talking with Rumsfeld about whether it was time for a fresh perspective at the department, and the two agreed Tuesday that it was appropriate for Rumsfeld to resign.
‘He, himself, understands that Iraq is not working well enough, fast enough,’ Bush said. The president planned to meet with Rumsfeld and Gates on Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office.
Bush called Democratic leaders to congratulate them on their victories in Tuesday’s voting and he expressed both disappointment and surprise over the election results. He admitted that he wrongly predicted a Republican victory on Election Day.
‘Actually, I thought we were going to do fine yesterday, shows what I know,’ Bush said. ‘But I thought we were going to be fine in the election. My point to you is that, win or lose, Bob Gates was going to become the nominee.’
Bush seemed stoic about the election, proclaiming: ‘This isn’t my first rodeo.’
‘I recognize that many Americans voted last “

One of the most moronic media lines last night, and continuing through today, is how ‘conservative’ these newly elected Democrats are.
Except, that they’re not. In the Senate:
Bernie Sanders, VT: So conservative that he’s a ‘socialist’. His National Journal ‘liberal’ rating is 89.7 (out of 100).
Sherrod Brown, OH: NJ liberal rating is 84.2. For comparison’s sake, Harold Ford — a real conservative Democrat — had a 58.3 rating.
Sheldon Whitehouse, RI: An unabashed liberal in every definition of the word. I mean, he defeated a liberal Republican.
Claire McCaskill, MO: She’s a progressive on every major issue. In fact, it was one of the GOP’s lines of attacks against her. As the conservative Real Clear Politics wrote in its race summary:
State Auditor Claire McCaskill lost a close governor’s race two years ago to Gov. Matt Blunt 51% – 48% and thus starts out of the gate with a high level of name recognition and a solid base of support. However, McCaskill lost 90 out of 97 counties statewide and has a problem of being perceived as too liberal outside of metro St. Louis and Kansas City. Missouri is a relatively, culturally conservative state that President Bush won by 3% in 2000 and 7% in 2004 and running the standard Republican playbook hitting McCaskill as too liberal on judges, the war, and taxes should be enough for Talent to carry the day.
Amy Klobuchar, MN: There’s nothing ‘conservative’ about our newest senator from one of the bluest states in the union.
Jon Tester, MT: One of the people accused of being a ‘conservative’ Dem, yet he’s against flag burning amendment, against an amendment banning gay marriage, against the Patriot Act, and against t”

Daily Kos: State of the Nation: “Notice anything about the media’s post-election coverage?
The Republican battle cry echoed by the press prior to the election was that Democrats have no plan. That Democrats are short on ideas. That Democrats were basically passive mutes. That Democratic candidates were basically blank-eyed dolts that dutifully kept their mouths shut as the GOP imploded.
In reporting on GOP talking points that ‘Democrats will raise your taxes,’ the press did not temper their parroting of these talking points with fact check (hey voters, remember, the President has the last word on taxes via his veto power). In reporting on outrageous ads, they failed to mention the lies contained therein, choosing instead to salivate on the shallow and gush over graphics.
The Democrats’ 100-hour-plan was barely a blip on the radar screen. Hours of so-called ‘analysis’ was focused on what those subpoena-hungry liberals would do to ’embarrass’ the president. Republican talking point after Republican talking point was fed into the noise machine and irresponsible members of the Xerox media spat the distortions out without analysis. They did not balance lies with truth as a responsible press should have done; rather, they chose to air the Republican hysteria without rebuttal.
Only now, after most races have been called and it’s clear that the Democrats will take power, only now do they report on that which they had suppressed throughout the campaign. Now we get articles detailing the Democrat’s tax plan. Now we get articles on the minimum wage and the effect of a Democratic house on industry. Now we get articles about how Democrats stand for a balanced budget. Now the talking heads report breathlessly on the 100 hour agenda, on how Democrats will affect the middle class, and how Democrats will try to fix healthcare.
Now the press chooses to re”

Crooks and Liars: “Lieberman Wins
By: Jamie Holly @ 7:31 PM – PST

Christy from Firedoglake was just on CNN giving her analysis of Lieberman’s win tonight.
Video – WMV Video – QT
Christy was right on when she said Ned Lamont changed the conversation on the campaign trails to the failures in Iraq and the lack of accountability by the administration.”

Daily Kos: Deep inside Santorum’s noggin’: “Deep inside Santorum’s noggin’
There’s something that has been really bugging me about the Santorum scandal: In the now-famous interview, Santorum says:
In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.
Tell me, what kind of person walks around talking about ‘man on dog’ sex? I can confidently say that the thought never enters my mind unbidden. Yet Santorum, in the course of a conversation with a reporter, casually mentions bestiality. The AP reporter was naturally taken aback:
I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was going to talk about ‘man on dog’ with a United States senator, it’s sort of freaking me out.
I would be freaked out if anyone started talking to me about ‘man on dog’ sex. It’s not normal. For a Senator to bring the topic up to a reporter is, well, beyond belief.
So Republicans — this is your number three guy in the Senate. Aren’t you even the least bit embarrassed? And if the ‘man on dog’ thing doesn’t get you, then what about this?
He and his wife, Karen, have seven children – including, as Santorum puts it, ‘the one in Heaven.’ Their fourth baby, Gabriel Michael, died in 1996, two hours after an emergency delivery in Karen Santorum’s 20th week of pregnancy. The couple took Gabriel’s body home to let their three other young children see and hold the baby before burying him, according to Karen Santorum’s book of the ordeal, ‘Letters to Gabriel.’
Having suffered the ordeal of a miscarriage last year, I can’t begin to imagine the horrors of losing a baby hours after birth. But passing around the baby’s corpse to his other children?
I’ll”

reality-based educator: Webb Now Leads By More Than 11,000 Votes In VA: “Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Webb Now Leads By More Than 11,000 Votes In VA
Still more absentee votes to be counted and some provisional ballots to be counted tomorrow.

Tomorrow, lawyers from both sides will canvass all the precincts to see if they were any glitches or problems.

We’re waiting on Montana. The race is tightening. Dem Tester has a 7,000+ vote lead with 72% of the precincts counted.

Wow – what a night. It looks like it will come down to VA and MT.”

Shreddin’ With Dick ” Spotted on 10/19, by an eagle-eyed Wonkette reader: The Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services truck making its way up to the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory.
Fun fact: Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services has been contracted by the Secret Service for our Executive Branch’s record-not-keeping needs.
The present contractor providing Pickup & Destruction of Sensitive Waste Material services is Mid Atlantic Shredding Services and the current rate is $0.095 cents per lbs.
You better get crackin’, Dick — that evidence won’t destroy itself!”

Crooks and Liars: By: Jamie Holly @ 8:18 AM – PST
Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Alter discussed the attempts to suppress voters in Virginia last night. Today it has turned into a much bigger story:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the possibility of voter intimidation in the U.S. Senate race between Sen. George Allen, a Republican, and Democratic challenger James Webb, officials told NBC News.
State officials alerted the Justice Department on Tuesday to several complaints of suspicious phone calls to voters who attempted to misdirect or confuse them about election day, Jean Jensen, Secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections, told NBC’s David Shuster….read on
Between corrupt Republicans, the robo-call scandal and now this, investigators are going to be busy for a very long time.”

Poll Workers Struggle With Vote Machines: “Poll Workers Struggle With Vote Machines
– By ANICK JESDANUN, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, November 7, 2006

(11-07) 11:52 PST , (AP) —
Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts Tuesday, delaying voters in several states and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead.
In Virginia, state election officials called in the FBI after several voters complained about getting phone messages that sent them to the wrong precincts.
Many of the voting machine problems surfaced as the polls were opening.
In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new touchscreen machines that they couldn’t get to start properly.
‘We got five machines — one of them’s got to work,’ said Willette Scullank, a trouble shooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board.
In Indiana’s Marion County, electronic optical-scan machines that read paper ballots initially weren’t working right in more than 100 precincts. Poll workers had trouble using a computer port to connect those machines to new touchscreen models, which handicapped voters use, County Clerk Doris Anne Sadler said.
Election officials in Delaware County, Ind., and Lebanon County, Pa., extended polling hours because of early machine troubles blamed on bad programming.
In Colorado, Democratic Party officials said they would ask a state judge to keep Denver polling places open an extra two hours Tuesday because of long lines. Power failures in the area had knocked out laptops used to verify voter registration, forcing workers to call the central office for information.
Jonah Goldman of the La”