This week’s Ring of Fire, hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio:

Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm Eastern

Economist and author Jeffrey Sachs will be here to tell us about his plan to wipe out global poverty. Jeffrey is the author of the new book “Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet.”

Congressman and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Bart Stupak (D – MI) will be talking with us about the deceptive advertising being conducted by America’s pharmaceutical industry.

by BooMan

It was an earthmoving election night.

"No one could have imagined the tsunami that just
crashed on Republicans in Mississippi," Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.),
chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an
interview after the victory. "There is no district that is safe for
Republican candidates."

House Democrats now hold a 236 to 199 majority, up from 203 seats they controlled two years ago.

Van Hollen exaggerates. We saw a safe Republican seat in Louisiana's
First District two weeks ago, where the Democrat was held under thirty
percent of the vote. There are probably about 100 such safe Republican
seats. But there are at least 70 Republican-held seats that should now
be considered vulnerable because they have decently funded Democratic
challengers and less of an historical Republican lean than
Mississippi's First District. For perspective, every Republican-held
seat in Michigan has a PVI
rating lower than MS-01's rating of plus-ten. Can you imagine a
Michigan with no Republican House members? Neither can I. And it won't
happen because the Democrats have not fielded well funded candidates in
every GOP district in Michigan. But it could come close to happening.
There isn't a district in Illinois with a PVI rating higher than R+8.
There isn't a district in Minnesota with a PVI rating higher than R+6.

When George Bush finally admitted that radical climate change is taking place and that man-made carbon dioxide is responsible, it was an embarrassment to the extreme fringe of the GOP. It had to be especially uncomfortable for all those letter-to-the-editor writers who used newspapers to tell us that global warming was a hoax. For years, we were overwhelmed by talking points borrowed from all their favorite conservative political radio talkers. Those letters tended to look alike because they were the product of a prepackaged political agenda.  But we can learn from those letters we’ve endured for the last seven years. We can learn to appreciate the dangers of being too committed to every policy and agenda that is handed down to us from the political party of our choice. 

Go back and look and you will see there is no difference in the science of climate change today and the science that existed seven years ago. Put another way, we have wasted seven years in our effort to solve the problem because a purely political agenda became more relevant than the well being of future generations. The concept of the global warming hoax made its way from leadership to the foot solider, unfiltered and unquestioned. It became a party line issue – an inflexible political ideology.  

EPA Official Ousted For Offending Dow Chemical

At the request of Dow Chemical, the Bush administration forced out one of its own hand-picked EPA regulators on May 1st because she naively attempted to do her job by enforcing the law against Dow. EPA officials told Mary Gade, the federal agency's top Midwest regulator to step down from her post or be fired by June 1. Bush appointed Gade in 2006, but Gade ran afoul of the White House when she pressured Dow Chemical to clean up dioxin pollution extending 50 miles downstream from the company's Michigan headquarters. Dow asked EPA headquarters to intervene. In response EPA chief Stephen Johnson's top deputies repeatedly grilled Gade about the case. When she refused to lay off Dow, they stripped her of her authority and told her to quit or be fired. "There is no question this is about Dow," Gade said. "I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I'm proud of what we did."

Gade was formerly a loyal George W. Bush supporter and adviser. In 2000, she praised then-governor and candidate Bush for his "fresh approach" and "strong leadership." But her loyalty couldn't shield her from an administration bent on insulating its chemical industry cronies from public health laws.

Bush's Misleading Claims About the Arctic Refuge Denied by Federal Officials

There is an article in this morning's Washington Post
about some of the racial resistance volunteers for Barack Obama have
encountered on the campaign trail. It depressing, and somewhat
misleading, as out in the field racist responses are few and far in
between. But they do happen, and they happen more often in some regions
than in others. A big part of the Post article focuses on Kokomo, Indiana, and it's no big surprise that there is lingering racism there.

On July 4, 1923, Kokomo hosted the largest Klan gathering in history -- an estimated 200,000 followers flocked to a local park.

On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school
students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major
thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their
windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans,
according to Obama campaign staffers.

Frederick Murrell, a black Kokomo High School senior, was not there but
heard what happened. He was more disappointed than surprised. During
his own canvassing for Obama, Murrell said, he had "a lot of doors
slammed" in his face. But taunting teenagers on a busy commercial strip
in broad daylight? "I was very shocked at first," Murrell said. "Then
again, I wasn't, because we have a lot of racism here."

This week three below-the-fold scandals threatened three politicians while Sen. Obama stayed “clean,” in the good meaning of Sen. Biden’s adjective of a year ago. Because Barack Houdini easily escaped the chains of Rev. Wright and because of “the math” after the North Carolina romp, it certainly looks like it’s too late for Clinton to stop him– just like when the Phillies couldn’t make up seven games with only 14 to play in the National League East race in 2007. Remember?

First came Vito Fossella, as of this writing a five-term congressman from Staten Island-Brooklyn. A good-looking, buff Republican with a reputation, said a colleague, of being “the Paris Hilton of Congressmen,” he lived down to his reputation when, driving drunk, he made the mistake of spilling the beans to cops at 3AM where his mistress and previously unknown love-child were sleeping. If you’re a public figure urging that the 10 Commandments be posted in public places, it’s probably a good idea to live to #4 about coveting other women. And “if you’re going to be in the party of family values,” said commentator Doug Muzzio, “you shouldn’t have more than one.”

Second was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who appears likely to soon join Fossella in the ex-category. It was widely reported this week that a Long Island businessman, Morris Talansky, personally gave Olmert hundreds of thousands of dollars while he was mayor of Jerusalem and running against Ariel Sharon for leadership of the Likud Party. Olmert, suffering his fifth financial investigation in recent years, denied the money was a bribe but said that he’d quit his position if indicted.

(And if he leaves office, it appears likely that he’d be succeeded by a former Labor PM, Ehud Barak, which would delight tabloid headline writers when the likely leaders of the U.S. and Israel meet in 2009.)

RACHEL MADDOW: The Blue Dog Democrat caucus is a caucus of conservative democrats, in Congress.  There are 47 of them.  And you know how we reported yesterday that republicans were throwing procedural votes, procedural roadblocks in the way of the new G.I.. bill?  Well they are. They are doing that.  But the republicans are not the reason why we don't have a new G.I. bill passed yet.  We do not have a new G.I. bill passed yet.  Because of the Blue Dog Democrats.  Because the caucus of conservative democrats. They have decided that they don't want to go along with getting this passed.