A drive by President Bush to win passage of a modest trade deal with Colombia erupted Wednesday into an angry partisan confrontation between the White House and House Democrats, with both sides using trade as a surrogate for an election-year battle over jobs, national security and the sinking economy.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, took the White House by surprise when she announced plans Wednesday to block a vote on the Colombia accord. The move effectively holds the measure hostage until Mr. Bush agrees to more economic relief for Americans.

Ms. Pelosi’s action would scrap House rules that require a vote within 90 days of the measure’s being submitted by the president. It came only two days after Mr. Bush’s effort to gain the upper hand by sending the Colombia bill to Congress with the understanding that a vote would be required this year.

At stake for the Bush administration and Republicans is a deal that business leaders have pushed for and that would provide support for a crucial American ally. Democrats, meanwhile, feel caught between organized labor, which opposes the deal and wants Colombia to do more to stop killings of union leaders, and business groups, many of which donate to Democratic campaigns.

Hastily assembling at the White House, a team of cabinet members led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. assailed Ms. Pelosi’s move as damaging ties to Colombia, encouraging anti-American forces in the region and jeopardizing the economy.

Full story here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to remove a key timeline from legislation moving forward with a free trade pact with Columbia is drawing the ire of the House Republican whip.

The funniest thing about the Liebercrat letter threatening Nancy Pelosi and the DCCC is the inflated sense of influence these donors think they have. 20 big donors threaten to pull their support for the DCCC, eh? Let’s just assume for a moment that all 20 maxed out to the DCCC in 2005-2006, collectively raising $500,000 for the organization. That’s pretty unlikely, but let’s just assume it for now.

For starters, in 2005-2006, the DCCC raised $140,000,000, and $500,000 a drop in the bucket. Second, small, online donors now completely swamp a handful of big donors in contributions to the party. In the month of February alone, small online donors raised $75,000,000 for Obama and Clinton combined, putting up, in one month, 150 times the entire amount these donors could have potentially (but didn’t) contribute to the DCCC in the 2006 election cycle.

Here are the results:

√ Democrat Andre Carson: 25,621 votes (53 percent)
Republican Jon Elrod: 21,418 (44 percent)

327 of 445 (73 percent) precincts reporting (10:33 PM Eastern)

Update [by Jonathan Singer]: WISH-TV has called the race for Andre Carson, ensuring that this seat will stay in the Democrats’ hands.

Congressman Steven King of Iowa, who has decided to further disgrace Congress by seeking a fifth term there, delivered himself of the sort of bigotted and ignorant comments about Barack Obama that we have come to expect from the rightwing Republicans who have made such a mess of our economy and of the world.

King is the man who dismissed torture at Abu Ghraib as mere “hazing,” and maintained that his wife was in more danger in Washington, D.C. (with all those black people, he apparently meant) than civilians were in Iraq. He also said that the 72 virgins in paradise promised to Muslim martyrs probably all looked like Helen Thomas (the distinguished octogenarian Arab-American White House reporter).

In short, King is not just a garden variety conservative. He is something close to being a white supremacist.

So King begins by saying the opposite of what he means:

‘ “I don’t want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name - whatever their religion their father might have been,” he said. ‘

But of course, he does want to disparage Barack Obama on racist grounds. And he goes on to do so.

“I’ll just say this: When you think about the option of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States — I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?” ‘

I presume it would look like America is less racist than the Muslim world had thought, and therefore much less like the bigot Steve King. The left-leaning Beiruti newspaper al-Safir predicted recently that Obama will never be president, because he is being effectively smeared as “a Muslim,” and soft on terrorism and insufficiently supportive of the Israeli far right.

Back to Peasant, I mean, King:

‘ He continued: “I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror.” ‘

I see. And why would al-Qaeda dance in the streets that a Christian of white Kansas and Kenyan heritage, who promised to bomb them in Pakistan, had become president?

Full post here.

Welcome to my latest diary on the Democratic primary to represent Iowa’s third Congressional district. It’s been a while since my last summary of how the race is going, because I got sick recently and spent a week in the hospital.

Both candidates have stepped up their campaign activities in the past month, and I’ll bring you up to date in this diary.

For background on Ed Fallon’s challenge to incumbent “Bush dog” Leonard Boswell, see this diary, which has biographical information on both candidates, and this diary, which outlines the main arguments for and against each candidate.

I’m covering this race more frequently and in more detail at the Iowa progressive community blog Bleeding Heartland.

I have not seen any public polling on this race, and I have not heard anything about the results from Boswell’s internal polling.

Boswell is taking the challenge seriously. Since the beginning of the year, he has been e-mailing constituents more regularly. This past week I got my first call from a field organizer for Boswell as well as a direct-mail piece touting the incumbent’s record on the economy. Also, Boswell held a telephone town-hall meeting on Tuesday, but I was not able to listen in.

I was intrigued to read that in mid-February Boswell signed on to House Resolution 333, which calls for impeaching Vice President Dick Cheney. One benefit of Fallon’s challenge is that it has pushed Boswell toward some progressive positions he might not otherwise have taken. Another example (which Fallon likes to point out) is that Boswell did not sign on to the Safe Climate Act when it was introduced in March 2007. However, after word got around that Fallon was planning to declare his candidacy, Boswell signed on to that legislation in December.

Full post here.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most prominent Catholic serving in the U.S. government, called Sen. John McCain to reject the endorsement of Texas televangelist John Hagee, who has labeled the Catholic church “the great whore,” a “false cult system,” and linked it to Hitler’s Nazi movement.

“That behavior is outside the circle of civilized debate in our democracy,” Pelosi said during a Thursday conference call. “I certainly think John McCain should reject his endorsement and I’m sure it won’t be long before he does.”

McCain has come under heavy fire from Catholic groups across the political spectrum for appearing with Hagee last week and declaring he was “proud” of the endorsement. Subsequently, McCain told reporters that Hagee’s backing “does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for and believes,” but added, “I am very proud of the Pastor John Hagee’s spiritual leadership to thousands of people.”

Full story here.

Survey USA, which has been remarkably reliable this cycle at the presidential level, has a new poll out of Illinois’ 14th (conducted for Roll Call) showing Democrat Bill Foster ahead of Republican Jim Oberweis by 7 points two days out from Saturday’s special election. Brownsox brings us the subscription-only Roll Call story:

Full story here.

ARRA News Service - Family Resource Council: Congress is getting a head start on next year’s budget after its knock-down, drag-out fight over the current plan. With the bickering over the FY08 budget lasting well into the calendar year, both the House and Senate Democrats are unveiling new proposals that could divide the parties even [...]