Russ Feingold

Liz Benjamin says that presidential hopeful Russ Feingold will speak at the Empire State Pride Agenda annual fundraiser on October 5th.

The richest man in America, Bill Gates, has maxed out his contributions to Bill Frist's political committees. He also gave $2,000 to Sen. George Allen.

That outrageous North Carolina congressional candidate, Vern Robinson, has another ad attacking his opponent in an unusual way. "Instead of spending money on cancer research, Brad Miller spent your money to study the masturbation habits of old men."

Amanda Gordon has pictures of Rudy Giuliani, Joel Klein, Barbara Walters and others from the Met Opera's opening night gala.

Daily Gotham says the Mayor's newly created Sustainability Advisory Board is meeting Wednesday behind closed doors.

Phase two of the Atlantic Yards Project, the one with the apartments, has no real deadline.

Somebody created a Wikipedia-like database political opinions.

EnWhySeaWonk spots someone reading "The Truth About The Jew" on the L train.

"Unmarried women unhappy with status quo," and other key findings of a "ground breaking" report from Greenberg, Quinlan Rosner Research is here. Eligible voters who enjoy long walks in the park, read on.

It's official. More people have been killed serving in Iraq and Afghanistan than were killed on Sept. 11, notes Greg Sargent.

And pictured above is the very kind Mark Green campaign aide who sent me (and other reporters?) a thank you note after the campaign.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

When I tuned in C-Span for the White House briefing today, they were reairing this morning's Washington Journal call-in. In the space of five minutes I heard two attacks on the closeness of U.S. policy to Israel. Both callers described Israel as an aggressor. One call was reasonable, the other was clearly antisemitic, in a comment about "letting the Jews" run America. This is hardly the first time I've heard such attitudes on C-Span. A few weeks back a caller asked Sen. Russ Feingold and his host why all the guests on the show were Jewish. Quick on his feet, Feingold said that Jews are good at talking.

I get attacked a lot for my critique of American policy in the Mideast. I'm not generating those call-ins, though. They are a genuine reflection of shifting American attitudes towards our joined-at-the-hip alliance with Israel. As someone here said a few weeks back, the Israel lobby may be looking at its Elian Gonzales moment, that moment when a special interest's precious interest suddenly becomes the property of national attention.

Plainly the new focus on the Middle East is going to generate some antisemitism. The way to respond to it is condemning it but also opening the subject up to wider discussion. Just yesterday a big editor I saw in the city marveled that the Times had managed to all but suppress the raging controversy over the historic Mearsheimer-Walt paper, the Harvard/UChicago profs who say that the Israel lobby skews America's true interests in the region. The Times has done one skimpy piece about the paper, on B8 (yes, followed by the (majestic) Tony Judt op-ed). That is inexcusable.

A view has taken hold on the left that the way to impeach George Bush is over the domestic spying business, his failure to get Congressional approval. The activities Russ Feingold wants to censure him for.

This feels to me like getting Capone on tax evasion after he's rubbed out a whole crime family. Impeachment is not a criminal procedure. You're not depriving someone of liberty or property, just the privilege of occupying a federal office. It's not about breaking the law, it's about "high crimes and misdemeanors." That's vague language, purposely. Ken Sanders argues that high crimes and misdemeanors means political crimes, including abuses of power.

That's the way to go after W. His judgment has been so poor on Iraq and his indifference to the consequences of his actions so staggering, that he's endangering the health of the republic. He's offered ten different deceptive reasons for the gravest decision a president faces, blasted another society to bits in the name of various utopian delusions, set world opinion against us, made the Middle East Osama's sandbox. Those are high crimes in my book. Not yours?

The Daily News reports that another strategist working for Kathrine Harris has left for the KT McFarland camp.

The Times reports on John Spencer's national fundraising drive.

The Sun reports on David Yassky's resolution in support of Russ Feingold's motion to censure the president.

And the Albany Times Union reports that former senate candidate Thomas Dadey Jr. of Syracuse is suing his former engineering firm.

—Nicole Brydson

The Affect Effect   To the Editor:    read more »

The Affect Effect

To the Editor:  read more »

None of this fits any of the tried-and-true formulations in the red-and-blue American playbook.  read more »

Eve Kessler reports that Russ Feingold, playing wildly against type, will be speaking taking his message to Brooklyn Saturday at a "funky little synagogue" in Park Slope.

Quinnipiac's "National Thermometer" poll is out today. It's something like what traditional pollsters call a "net favorable" rating, only conducted by asking participants to rate politicians betwen 0 and 100 on a "feeling thermometer."

The results are bizarre, and favor people nobody's ever heard of -- Mark Warner and Russ Feingold match Hillary simply by clustering around the "50" mark, which in their case reflects obscurity, but in hers polarization.

Grumble grumble. We report, you decide.

(1)..Rudolph Giuliani.........................63.5

(2) Barack Obama.............................59.9

(3) John McCain..............................59.7 (4) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice......57.1

(5) President Bill Clinton...................56.1

(6) Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards..50.8

(7) Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.........50.7

(8) New York Sen. Hillary Clinton............50.4 (9) Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold.............49

(10) Virginia Sen. George Allen...............48.6

This is a few days old; just catching up on a backlog here.

In response to the suggestion here about a gay revolt against Hillary, Hotline on Call wonders who gay voters and activists will turn to, and suggests ... Tom Vilsack.

Because "he's not afraid to touch gay issues," which is to say he's against beating up gay kids.

I love Hotline's newish blog, which regularly breaks news, but I think this mis-reads the situation. What's changed is that marriage is starting to become a litmus test for mainstream gay groups and -- of more importance to Democrats -- donors. It's hard to imagine that some new form of nod-and-wink to gay rights, while opposing a central issue of interest to ordinary gays and lesbians, is going to persuade anyone.

The question for 2008, to the extent that this matters, is whether a longshot from the left will come out strong in favor of same-sex marriage, and raise a pile of early money from deep-pocketed gay donors (who were important to Howard Dean's early surge back when civil unions were big). Russ Feingold seems the only one with a shot at doing this: So far, he's fought the Defense of Marriage Act and the Federal Marriage Amendment, and taken the stance that marriage is an issue to be decided at the state level. He seems to duck the issue of whether he actually supports same-sex marriage, though he seems to hint at supporting, saying:

"I generally think a society where people who are monogamous, where people who love each other come together and form stable families is better than the opposite."

As a guest on ABC's "This Week," Sen. Russ Feingold sniped at Hillary's presidential prospects, saying that 'Republican lite' won't cut it for 2008. (ABC's website and the NY Post both have more info on his appearance; the New Republic also ran an insightful profile on him earlier this month.)

Are these the seeds of a new "Stop Her Now" movement...on the left?  read more »

If not, how to explain the budding Senate candidacy of Steve "Bike Chain" Greenfield, a little-known sax player from New Paltz who is challenging Hillary for the Democratic Senate nod? Mr. Greenfield's campaign Web site has pics of his arrest during the RNC; a more colorful site, perhaps, features his band Andy G. and the Roller Kings: he's on the far right, wearing sideburns and a hip rock n' roll sneer.

I'm a little late on this link, but don't miss this New Republic piece on Russ Feingold as the thorn in Hillary's (left) side.  read more »