CIVIL WAR MAY FOLLOW SADDAM DEATH VERDICT...

CHENEY: ELECTION RESULTS WILL NOT CAUSE CHANGE OF DIRECTION IN IRAQ; 'FULL SPEED AHEAD'...

VANITY FAIR: NEOCONS TURN ON BUSH...

new voter ID laws nationally are the most widespread, and most bitterly disputed, of several types of voting procedures that states have adopted after the chaotic 2000 presidential election. The procedures include statewide electronic databases of registered voters, which critics allege have in a few states improperly knocked out eligible people. In another procedure, Ohio and Florida -- battleground states that have produced recent contested elections -- have placed tighter reins on groups that work to register new voters.

...the changes are ploys to suppress voting among poor, elderly, minority and disabled citizens, who are prone to support Democratic candidates.

DENVER - A gay man and admitted male escort claims he has had an ongoing sexual relationship with a well-known Evangelical pastor from Colorado Springs.

Mike Jones told 9 Wants to Know Investigative Reporter Paula Woodward he has had a "sexual business" relationship with Pastor Ted Haggard for the past three years.

Haggard is the founder and senior leader of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The church has 14,000 members.

He is also president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an organization that represents millions of people.

Haggard is married with five children and an outspoken critic of gay marriage.

...In an exclusive interview Wednesday night, Haggard denied the claims and told 9NEWS he is prepared for his own church to investigate them.

...ones started talking to 9 Wants to Know two months ago. He claims Haggard has been paying him for sex over the past three years, even though Haggard preaches that homosexuality is a sin.

Jones also claims Haggard used methamphetamine in his presence on several occasions.

"People may look at me and think what I've done is immoral, but I think I had to do the moral thing in my mind and that is expose someone who is preaching one thing and doing the opposite behind everybody's back," said Jones.

As President Bush throws himself into the final days of a particularly nasty campaign season, he’s settled into a familiar pattern of ugly behavior. Since he can’t defend the real world created by his policies and his decisions, Mr. Bush is inventing a fantasy world in which to campaign on phony issues against fake enemies.

In Mr. Bush’s world, America is making real progress in Iraq. In the real world, as Michael Gordon reported in yesterday’s Times, the index that generals use to track developments shows an inexorable slide toward chaos. In Mr. Bush’s world, his administration is marching arm in arm with Iraqi officials committed to democracy and to staving off civil war. In the real world, the prime minister of Iraq orders the removal of American checkpoints in Baghdad and abets the sectarian militias that are slicing and dicing their country.

In Mr. Bush’s world, there are only two kinds of Americans: those who are against terrorism, and those who somehow are all right with it. Some Americans want to win in Iraq and some don’t. There are Americans who support the troops and Americans who don’t support the troops. And at the root of it all is the hideously damaging fantasy that there is a gulf between Americans who love their country and those who question his leadership.

...when candidates for lower office make their opponents out to be friends of Osama bin Laden, or try to turn a minor gaffe into a near felony, that’s just depressing. When the president of the United States gleefully bathes in the muck to divide Americans into those who love their country and those who don’t, it is destructive to the fabric of the nation he is supposed to be leading.

HARD AS IT IS to imagine now, there was a time in the not-so-distant past when the GOP was considered to be the "party of ideas." As the 2006 campaign draws to a merciful close, the only idea national Republicans seem to have left is that, when in doubt, accuse Democrats of being a bunch of terrorist-loving wimps. But as the boy who cried wolf learned the hard way, fear-mongering has its diminishing returns.

...The Republican message reeks of desperation; the party seems spent.

...The disingenuous formulation remains: Criticize the war in Iraq and you're a Bin Laden sympathizer. Voters seem to be growing tired of such manipulation. Who knows, they may even notice that Al Qaeda's leader, in fact, has not been captured — except in the video montages of Republican campaign ads.

Mr. Allen, a Republican whose campaign professes profound moral shock that actual sex should occur in fiction, has spent months trying to extract himself from his own "macaca"-inspired tailspin. When all else failed -- including an Allen ad in which a woman accused Mr. Webb of misquoting her, although he never quoted her at all -- Mr. Allen apparently decided that what he needed was a sex scandal crafted to smear his rival and timed for the campaign's fourth quarter. Lacking such material in real life, he turned to Mr. Webb's novels, most of which concern the wartime experiences of soldiers and international intrigue. There he found -- horrors! -- sex.

...As it happens, Mr. Webb, a former Navy secretary, assistant secretary of defense and Marine company commander in Vietnam, is an acclaimed novelist whose books are widely read.

...Mr. Allen certainly is an inspiration -- to anyone who believes that political campaigns may be won by diversions and dirty tactics, even as the candidate calls high-mindedly for a discussion of "the issues." Win or lose, he'll be remembered for his performance during this race, and not fondly.

In short, it really sucks looking around at the wreckage that is my party and realizing that the only decent thing to do is to pull the plug on them (or help). I am not really having any fun attacking my old friends- but I don’t know how else to respond when people call decent men like Jim Webb a pervert for no other reason than to win an election. I don’t know how to deal with people who think savaging a man with Parkinson’s for electoral gain is appropriate election-year discourse. I don’t know how to react to people who think that calling anyone who disagrees with them on Iraq a “terrorist-enabler” than to swing back. I don’t know how to react to people who think that media reports of party hacks in the administration overruling scientists on issues like global warming, endangered species, intelligent design, prescription drugs, etc., are signs of… liberal media bias.. . . I hate getting up in the morning, surfing the news, and finding more and more evidence that my party is nothing but a bunch of frauds. . . . Bush has been a terrible President. The past Congresses have been horrible- spending excessively, engaging in widespread corruption, butting in to things they should have no say in (like end of life decisions), refusing to hold this administration accountable for ANYTHING, and using wedge issues to keep themselves in power at the expense of gays, etc. . . . Why do they keep attacking decent people like Jim Webb- to keep this corrupt lot of fools in office? Why can’t they just admit they were sold a bill of goods and start over? Why do they want to remain in power, but without any principles? Are tax cuts that important? What is gained by keeping troops in harms way with no clear plan for victory? With no desire to change course? With our guys dying every day in what looks to be for no real good reason? Why?

On a lavish, weeklong Caribbean cruise last year, software entrepreneur Warren Trepp wined and dined friends and business partners aboard the 560-foot Seven Seas Navigator.

Among Mr. Trepp's guests on the cruise ship: Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada and his family. The two men have enjoyed a long friendship that has been good for both. Mr. Trepp has been a big contributor to Mr. Gibbons's campaigns, and the congressman has used his clout to intervene on behalf of Mr. Trepp's company, according to congressional records, court documents and interviews. The tiny Reno, Nev., company, eTreppid Technologies, has won millions of dollars in classified federal software contracts from the Air Force, U.S. Special Operations Command and the Central Intelligence Agency.

...Mr. Gibbons is in a tight and bitterly fought race (for Governor as the GOP candidate). He held a double-digit lead until two weeks ago, when a cocktail waitress said he accosted her after a night of drinking. Mr. Gibbons has forcefully denied the claim, which is unproven, but details of the case have been page-one news in Nevada, and his lead slipped to six points in a weekend poll.

...Public records show that Mr. Trepp has been a generous supporter of Mr. Gibbons's campaigns. Nevada law prohibits individuals or corporations from giving more than $10,000 to a candidate in a single election cycle. Companies and partnerships that Mr. Trepp incorporated or controls have given almost $100,000 to Mr. Gibbons. These entities, many of which list the same mailing address, gave the maximum amount on the same day last year. Mr. Gibbons said the campaign contributions didn't violate Nevada law because they came through different corporate entities.

...Mr. Gibbons himself touted one earmark in a June 2004 news release. In the release, Mr. Gibbons's office said he "specifically requested" a program that would pay $3 million for eTreppid's automatic target-recognition technology, a computerized technique for picking out objects from a stream of video images.

...In the following year, an email from an eTreppid executive to Mr. Trepp and others at the company described a $1.5 million "plus-up," or earmark, that the company's Washington lobbyist "helped us get through Jim Gibbons."

..."The problem with earmarks is that they don't go through the normal oversight process -- a problem that is much worse in black programs, which have less congressional oversight and obviously no public scrutiny," says Steven Kosiak, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan Washington policy group.

...Between 2003 and 2005, Mr. Gibbons repeatedly arranged meetings and demonstrations for eTreppid executives with top Air Force generals, both in Washington and Reno, according to congressional staff and company documents.

On Sept. 25, 2003, the congressman had breakfast with the Air Force vice chief of staff, where he pitched the promise of eTreppid's technology, according to a memo from a Gibbons staff member to an eTreppid executive. Also in September, Mr. Gibbons, in an email to an eTreppid executive, offered to try to set up a meeting with the National Security Agency. It isn't known if the meeting took place.

In May 2004, a lobbyist acting for eTreppid in Washington reported in another email, "Congressman Gibbons certainly came through for eTreppid!" She said Mr. Gibbons secured a $7 million appropriation for the company.

...House records show that in 2004, the lobbyist pushed for eTreppid's interests in the defense-authorization and intelligence bills. Mr. Gibbons served on both of those committees.

...On the Caribbean cruise in March last year, photos taken on board and at the Atlantis casino in the Bahamas show the Gibbons and Trepp families together at dinners and parties. Also on the cruise were actors Patrick Swayze and John O'Hurley, who played the role of J. Peterman in the "Seinfeld" television series. The group flew back to Nevada after the cruise on a chartered Boeing 727 paid for by Mr. Trepp.

Mrs. Gibbons says she helped pay for the trip by giving a $1,654 check to Mr. Trepp's wife and putting $1,508 on her credit card for on-board expenses. An agent for the cruise line estimated the cost of a comparable cruise for a family of three at more than $10,000, excluding airfare.

The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart (the past few months).

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force is asking the Pentagon's leadership for a staggering $50 billion in emergency funding for fiscal 2007 -- an amount equal to nearly half its annual budget, defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said on Tuesday.

The request is expected to draw criticism on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are increasingly worried about the huge sums being sought "off budget" to fund wars, escaping the more rigorous congressional oversight of regular budgets.

Another source familiar with the Air Force plans said the extra funds would help pay to transport growing numbers of U.S. soldiers being killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

...the president and his administration are the ones who owe U.S. troops an apology because they ''misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it.''

''This is the classic GOP playbook,'' Kerry said in a harshly worded statement. ''I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did. I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium.''

This election is about the fact that Republicans have made us less safe and that Congressional oversight is critical to ensure that Bush and company, with their tragically misguided decisions on Iraq and homeland security, don't make us even less secure over the two years they have left. Period. End of message.

9News/SurveyUSA:

CD-3
John Salazar: 57%
Scott Tipton: 38%

"Majority Watch"/Constituent Dynamics:

CD-4*
Angie Paccione: 48%
Marilyn Musgrave: 45%
*Reform Party candidate Eric Eidsness is not included in this poll.

CD-7
Ed Perlmutter: 51%
Rick O'Donnell: 46%

Secretary of State

Rocky Mountain News:

Ken Gordon: 43%
Mike Coffman: 42%

The Denver Post:
Mike Coffman: 39%
Ken Gordon: 38%

State Treasurer
Rocky Mountain News:
Cary Kennedy: 40%
Mark Hillman: 37%

The Denver Post:
Cary Kennedy: 37%
Mark Hillman: 37%

Attorney General
Rocky Mountain News:
John Suthers: 42%
Fern O'Brien: 38%

The Denver Post:
John Suthers: 36%
Fern O'Brien: 33%

GOP at a loss? Karl Rove has an 11th-hour plan to win

He taps government resources to boost candidates in need.

...the most significant element of Rove's effort to help four-term Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds keep his job may have occurred behind closed doors, when the White House strategist met with a federal disaster relief official contemplating how to respond to the storm. Four days later, Reynolds announced that President Bush would authorize millions of dollars in federal disaster aid for the area.

...(to help in Missouri) Rove's deputies arranged for First Lady Laura Bush to appear with Talent to promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Once a year, the National Park Service bathes the soaring Gateway Arch that dominates downtown St. Louis in pink light — the signature color of the breast cancer awareness campaign. This year, the pink lighting coincided with Laura Bush's visit. The White House says it encouraged the action.

Similarly, the Transportation Department, responding to White House prodding, dispatched the federal highway administrator to Columbus, Ohio, last week to announce grants for a transportation hub to facilitate moving freight among air, rail and highway carriers. The event was designed, an administration official said, to boost prospects for Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio, the No. 4 Republican in the House, who is trailing her opponent.

...Rove's deputies arranged for First Lady Laura Bush to appear with Talent to promote Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Once a year, the National Park Service bathes the soaring Gateway Arch that dominates downtown St. Louis in pink light — the signature color of the breast cancer awareness campaign. This year, the pink lighting coincided with Laura Bush's visit. The White House says it encouraged the action.

Similarly, the Transportation Department, responding to White House prodding, dispatched the federal highway administrator to Columbus, Ohio, last week to announce grants for a transportation hub to facilitate moving freight among air, rail and highway carriers. The event was designed, an administration official said, to boost prospects for Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio, the No. 4 Republican in the House, who is trailing her opponent.

...They will oversee a mobilization of political employees from Cabinet agencies, Capitol Hill and lobbying firms — many of them skilled campaign veterans — to more than a dozen battleground states. Many will act as "marshals," supervising the "72-hour plan" developed by Rove in 2001 with Ken Mehlman, the former White House political director who now heads the Republican National Committee.

...In the summer, they invited hundreds of political appointees from Cabinet agencies, along with other GOP activists and Hill staffers, to attend a pep rally in Washington. The event featured appeals to politically experienced federal appointees to volunteer for campaign work in battleground races in the final two weeks of the campaign.

In a twist that resembled an Amway sales meeting more than a political strategy session, they offered those who signed up on the spot a chance to win an iPod and other prizes.

Where did the revolution go astray? How did we go from the big ideas and vision of 1994 to the cheap political point-scoring on meaningless wedge issues of today -- from passing welfare reform and limited government to banning horsemeat and same-sex marriage?

The answer is simple: Republican lawmakers forgot the party's principles, became enamored with power and position, and began putting politics over policy.

...Now spending is out of control. Rather than rolling back government, we have a new $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription drug benefit, and non-defense discretionary spending is growing twice as fast as it had in the Clinton administration. Meanwhile, Social Security is collapsing while rogue nations are going nuclear and the Middle East is more combustible than ever. Yet Republican lawmakers have taken up such issues as flag burning, Terri Schiavo and same-sex marriage.

They're fooling only themselves.