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Lincoln's Grave Warning Realized

...a letter from President Abraham Lincoln to William F Elkins on 21 November 1864:

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

Eight Principles of Uncivilization

by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine


‘We must unhumanise our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.’


  1. We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.

  2. We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of‘problems’ in need of technological or political ‘solutions’.

  3. We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.

  4. We will reassert the role of story-telling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.

  5. Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.

  6. We will celebrate writing and art which is grounded in a sense of place and of time. Our literature has been dominated for too long by those who inhabit the cosmopolitan citadels.

  7. We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our fingernails.

  8. The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will find the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.



The Dark Mountain Manifesto

(excerpt)
Walking on lava

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilisation
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those who witness extreme social collapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about the truths of human existence. What they do mention, if asked, is their surprise at how easy it is to die.

The pattern of ordinary life, in which so much stays the same from one day to the next, disguises the fragility of its fabric. How many of our activities are made possible by the impression of stability that pattern gives? So long as it repeats, or varies steadily enough, we are able to plan for tomorrow as if all the things we rely on and don’t think about too carefully will still be there. When the pattern is broken, by civil war or natural disaster or the smaller-scale tragedies that tear at its fabric, many of those activities become impossible or meaningless, while simply meeting needs we once took for granted may occupy much of our lives.

What war correspondents and relief workers report is not only the fragility of the fabric, but the speed with which it can unravel. As we write this, no one can say with certainty where the unravelling of the financial and commercial fabric of our economies will end. Meanwhile, beyond the cities, unchecked industrial exploitation frays the material basis of life in many parts of the world, and pulls at the ecological systems which sustain it.

Precarious as this moment may be, however, an awareness of the fragility of what we call civilisation is nothing new.

‘Few men realise,’ wrote Joseph Conrad in 1896, ‘that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.’ Conrad’s writings exposed the civilisation exported by European imperialists to be little more than a comforting illusion, not only in the dark, unconquerable heart of Africa, but in the whited sepulchres of their capital cities. The inhabitants of that civilisation believed ‘blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion,’ but their confidence could be maintained only by the seeming solidity of the crowd of like-minded believers surrounding them. Outside the walls, the wild remained as close to the surface as blood under skin, but the city-dweller was no longer equipped to face it directly.

The remainder of the essay can be read online: Dark Mountain manifesto.


Paul is the author of One No, Many Yeses and Real England. He was deputy editor of The Ecologist between 1999 and 2001. His first poetry collection, Kidland, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. His website is www.paulkingsnorth.net

Dougald writes the blog Changing the World (and other excuses for not getting a proper job). He is a former BBC journalist and has written for and edited various online and offline magazines. His website is www.dougald.co.uk

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The "Eight principles of uncivilisation" are expanded in the Dark Mountain manifesto (also available as PDF or purchased as a limited-edition, hand-stitched pamphlet.

See the site for the blog and information about their upcoming festival May 28-30.

Several Energy Bulletin contributors are on their Blogroll, including John Michael Greer, Sharon Astyk, Rob Hopkins and Dmitry Orlov. Also mentioned are Wendell Berry and Ivan Illich.

George Monbiot recently wrote a column in the Guardian about Dark Mountain Project: I share their despair, but I'm not quite ready to climb the Dark Mountain.

On Common Dreams, Robert C. Koehler wrote a related piece: Dark Green.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Original article available here
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our American Objectives

"Our national goals must be to rejuvenate the domestic economy; transfer the economic basis of our nation from consumptive to productive; recapitalize education and the technologies industries; achieve complete energy independence; move towards renewable energy sources;
restore public confidence in the government's ability to undertake large national infrastructure projects, and re-assert its right to set goals and policies to ensure those projects proceed smoothly; define the overarching standards for a reconstructed America including a federal review of the building and planning codes now in use, and probably the writing of new mandates that set out 21st-century standards and priorities for energy use, urban and transportation planning, and environmental design, which once put into law and accepted into general use, will be very difficult to change; commit funding for a massive 10- or 20-year program that will upgrade or replace failing components of America's infrastructure as the nation is broke (as it was in FDR's day) and this kind of spending needs to be seen as the long-term investment in our economic future that it is; restore a fair, honest, broad-based system of public contracting that will put large numbers of Americans to work on these new projects (and write the new rules in a way that ensures that the firms doing the most innovative work don't have to compete with unfair behemoth corporations like Halliburton and Lockheed for the lion's share of the funding) so that once there is a healthy, competitive construction industry that knows how to build sustainable projects—and is relying on the government to keep it in business—we will get a political constituency that will fight to ensure that the rebuilding will continue for the next several decades, regardless of what political party is in power; use the forces of globalization and information to strengthen and expand existing democratic alliances and created new ones; employ these alliances to destroy terrorist networks and establish new international security structures; lead, through our historic principles, on international cooperative efforts in spreading economic opportunity and democratic liberties, nation building, counter-prolification, and optimum environmental protection and safeguards; and cherish, honor, and protect our history and traditions of liberty and freedoms domestically particularly with respect to the Bill of Rights."

"The renewed social contract for America with its middle class and poor must:
  • Raise the minimum wage still higher and on a regular basis. It has fallen far behind increases in inflation since the 1970s, and that affects higher level wages as well.
  • Encourage living-wage programs by local governments. Governments can demand that their contractors and suppliers pay well above the minimum wage. There is substantial evidence that this does not result in an undue loss of jobs.
  • Enforce the labor laws vigilantly. Minimum-wage and maximum-hour laws are violated to a stunning degree. American workers shouldn't be forced by their employers to understate the number of hours worked or be locked in the warehouse so they can't leave on time. Workers often make only $2 and $3 an hour.
  • Unions are not seeking a free pass to organize secretly when they advocate for open check-offs on cards to approve of a union vote. They are seeking to organize without persistent and often illegal management interference. Penalties for illegally deterring such organizing are so light, it makes little sense for management not to pursue strategies to stop organizing even at the cost of prosecution.
  • Request that trading partners develop serious environmental standards and worker-protection laws. This is good for them, bringing a progressive revolution and a robust domestic market to their countries. It is good for America, which will be able to compete on a more level playing field.
  • Demand that the president, governors and mayors speak up about unconscionable executive salaries and low wages. The influence from the top cannot be underestimated. A president who looks the other way sends a strong signal to business. A president who demands responsible treatment of workers will get a response. Business does not like such attention.
  • These measures should be accompanied by serious investment in modernized infrastructure and energy alternatives, which can create millions of domestic jobs that pay good salaries. It should also be accompanied by a policy that supports a lower dollar -- contrary to Rubinomics -- in order to stimulate manufacturing exports again. Accomplishing this may require a new system of semi-fixed currencies across the globe. The unabashed high-dollar policy of the past twenty years has led to imbalances around the world that have contributed fundamentally to US overindebtedness.
  • And finally, the nation needs more balance on the part of the Federal Reserve between subduing inflation and creating jobs. Americans can live with inflation above 2 percent a year. There is no academic evidence to support a 2 percent annual target, although the Fed has made this its informal target."

The Continuing Case for The Second Bill of Rights for All American Citzens

...from Michael Lind on Salon.com on 11 January 2010 ....

The Case for Economic Rights

FDR said it and it holds 66 years later: There are benefits and opportunities every American should expect to enjoy

Three score and six years ago, the greatest president of the 20th century gave one of his greatest speeches. On Jan. 11, 1944, in a State of the Union address that deserves to be ranked with Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" and King's "I Have a Dream" speech, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for recognition of a "Second Bill of Rights." According to FDR:

"This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights -- among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty. As our nation has grown in size and stature, however -- as our industrial economy expanded -- these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness."

Roosevelt did not argue that economic rights had superseded basic, old-fashioned political and civil rights. The argument of authoritarians and totalitarians that economic rights are more important than non-economic liberty was abhorrent to him. Instead, with the examples of the fascist and communist regimes of his time in mind, he argued that the purpose of economic rights was to support and reinforce, not replace, civil and political liberties:

"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. 'Necessitous men are not free men.' People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all -- regardless of station, race, or creed."

President Roosevelt was not promoting economic rights that were necessarily enforceable in court, but rather economic benefits and opportunities that every American should expect to enjoy by virtue of citizenship in our democratic republic. Many of the rights he identified have been secured by programs with bipartisan support. These include:

"the right to a good education" (the G.I. Bill, student loans, Pell Grants, Head Start, federal aid to K-12 schools) and

"the right of every family to a decent home" (federally subsidized home loans and tax breaks for home ownership). But even before the global economic crisis, the U.S. fell short when it came to full employment --

"the right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation"

-- and a living wage --

"the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation."

Roosevelt's vision was controversial at the time and is contested today. When it comes to providing a safety net for Americans, there are three distinct paradigms, which I would describe as economic citizenship, welfare corporatism and faith-based charity.

Supporters of faith-based charity among "theoconservatives" such as Marvin Olasky argue that modern social insurance like Social Security and Medicare was a mistake. The medieval British and colonial American systems of relying on religious institutions to care for the sick and poor should have been continued and built upon, with government subsidies to "faith-based institutions."

The secular business-class right, however, has shown little interest in faith-based charity, perhaps because it is difficult for rent-seeking bankers, brokers and other private sector actors to extract huge amounts of money from tax-exempt church hospitals and church soup lines. The right's preferred alternative to the progressive vision of economic citizenship is what I call "welfare corporatism." Whereas economic citizenship views protection against sickness, unemployment and old age as entitlements of citizens in a democratic republic, welfare corporatism treats these necessities of life as commodities like groceries or appliances, to be purchased in a market by people who are thought of as consumers, not citizens.

Let's contrast ideal versions of the two approaches. In the ideal America of economic citizenship, there would be a single, universal, integrated, lifelong system of economic security including

single-payer healthcare,

Social Security, unemployment payments and

family leave

paid for by a single contributory payroll tax (which could be made progressive in various ways or reduced by combination with other revenue streams). Funding for all programs would be entirely nationalized, although states could play a role in administration. There would still be supplementary private markets in health and retirement products and services for the affluent, but most middle-class Americans would continue to rely primarily on the simple, user-friendly public system of economic security. As Steven Attewell points out, the Social Security Act of 1935 was intended not merely to provide public pensions for the elderly but to establish a framework for a comprehensive system of social insurance corresponding to President Roosevelt's "right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment." Attewell writes: "We need to go back to the original drawing board -- the Social Security Act of 1935 -- to finish the job it began and create a truly universal and comprehensive social welfare state."

In the utopia of welfare corporatism, today's public benefits -- Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and, in a few states, public family leave programs -- would be abolished and replaced by harebrained schemes dreamed up by libertarian ideologues at corporate-funded think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Tax subsidies would be funneled to insurance companies, brokers and banks. Social Security would be replaced by a bewildering miscellany of tax-favored personal savings accounts. Medicare would be replaced by a dog's breakfast of tax subsidies for purchasing health insurance and personal medical savings accounts. Unemployment insurance would give way to yet another Rube Goldberg scheme of tax-favored unemployment insurance accounts. As for family leave -- well, if you're not wealthy enough to pay out of pocket for a nanny for your child or a nurse for your parent, you're out of luck.

The strongest case for economic citizenship instead of welfare corporatism is economic. Economic citizenship is more efficient and cheaper in the long run, because the government need only meet costs, while subsidized private providers must make a profit. The Democratic and Republican supporters of welfare corporatism justify their system of massive subsidies for for-profit healthcare and retirement security with the claim that market competition will keep down prices. If only that were true. Competitive markets are probably impossible to create, in the highly regulated insurance sector and the highly concentrated financial sector that sells private retirement goods and services.

It follows that a policy of subsidizing oligopolies and monopolies, via government subsidies to consumers, in the absence of government-imposed price controls, is a recipe for cost inflation, as the providers jack up their prices, sending the consumers back to Congress to demand even more public subsidies. By its very nature, welfare corporatism funnels public resources, in the form of tax breaks, to rent-seeking, predatory firms in the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) sector, with ever-swelling dead-weight costs on the economy. Welfare corporatism equals corporate welfare.

Unfortunately, most progressives have failed to make the case against the libertarian myth of market competition in the provision of social insurance. All too many, including President Obama, have made the too-clever-by-half argument that the public option would keep prices down by means of market competition. In other words, the center-left has borrowed a bogus argument about competition from right-wing free-market fundamentalism in order to defend a token public program that ceased to be of any interest once Obama and the Democrats in Congress ruled that Americans with employer-provided insurance would be banned from joining the public option. When you're reduced to parroting the opposition's erroneous theories, in the process of begging for a slight modification of the opposition's pet program, you clearly don't have the nerve or the patience to play the long game in politics.

In a response to one of my earlier columns, Will Marshall wonders how I can dare to criticize the legacy of Bill Clinton, a Democrat. My reasons should be clear by now. I am not a partisan Democratic operative focused on winning the next election. I am interested only in strengthening the republic through a gradual expansion of economic citizenship in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights. If this means criticizing Democratic presidents who expand welfare corporatism instead of economic citizenship, so be it.

As part of his opportunistic policy of triangulation between his own party and the opposition, Bill Clinton joined the Republicans in a three-pronged assault on New Deal economic citizenship. He and the Republican Congress abolished Aid to Families With Dependent Children, a flawed and unpopular means-tested program for the poor that should have been reformed as a national program rather than turned over to the states as the neo-Confederate right insisted. Instead of piecemeal expansion of single-payer healthcare, Clinton pushed a version of employer-based welfare corporatism plus subsidies that came out of the playbook of moderate Republicans like Nixon. And we now know that Clinton secretly agreed to support Newt Gingrich's drive to partly privatize Social Security, in return for dedicating the federal government's imaginary future surpluses to what was left of Social Security. In 2005, Will Marshall argued in favor of private accounts, on the grounds that they would soften up Americans for cuts in Social Security: "If today's workers start saving and investing more in stocks and bonds, the returns they earn would allow us to trim their Social Security benefits later, without reducing their overall standard of living."

While George W. Bush pushed for partial privatization of Social Security, he failed because of massive public opposition. But Bush and the Republican majority in Congress succeeded in enacting the Social Security drug benefit, a flawed but genuine expansion of economic citizenship. Clinton is the only president to have successfully supported the destruction of a New Deal entitlement, while Bush presided over the greatest expansion of the Rooseveltian entitlement system since Lyndon Johnson passed Medicare.

For his part, Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton, rejected single-payer in favor of a moderately conservative welfare corporatist approach to healthcare reform. In contrast, Obama's proposal for student loan reform, an idea discussed in the Clinton years, would move in the right direction, away from welfare corporatism and toward economic citizenship, by replacing subsidized third-party lenders with direct government provision of student loans to needy college students.

Parties are coalitions of interest groups, they are not public philosophies, and presidents, great and minor, are and have to be opportunists. In contrast, reformers only have a chance of succeeding if they stick to their basic principles and keep their eyes on the prize. Progressives should support any politician, Democrat or Republican, who expands economic citizenship to the detriment of welfare corporatism, and they should oppose any politician, Democrat or Republican, who expands welfare corporatism to the detriment of economic citizenship.

Any more questions?

Monetary Cost of Iraq War

05 November 2008

Live Coverage of Election 2008, Part Four

2:01 am MST: VA was a state that was a place of change in the 2008 elections. The state voted for a Democrat for US President for the first time since 1964. Obama ended with about a 52 - 47 margin with about 1.791 million votes out of 3.426 million cast and counted so far. With 99 % of the precincts reporting, Obama had a margin of about 156,000 votes.

As was widely expected, Democratic challenger Mark Warner scored a decisive nearly 2-1 win over the GOP candidate Jim Gilmore to fill the seat being vacated by the retirement of longtime GOP stalwart John Warner, no relation to Mark Warner. This is one of about five pickups so far in the US Senate for the Democrats at this point. Mark Warner joins James Webb in the US Senate making Virginia's senators both Democrats for the first time since the 1960s.

The eleven seat Virginia congressional delegation will consist of five Republicans and five Democrats. One seat is still not decided in finality, but the Democratic challenger is leading the Republican incumbent by less than 1200 votes out of over 314,000 cast. The district has a full 100 % of its precincts reporting. This means two Republican incumbents went down to defeat in The Old Dominion. Democrats ended up gaining three seats in Virginia for the upcoming 111th United States Congress.

2:18 am: The results from Montana changed since they were last checked a few hours back. John McCain came back to win the state and claim its three electoral votes. At this time, 89 % of precincts had been counted in Big Sky Country, and McCain had over 208,000 votes or 51 %, to just under 188,000 or 46 % for Obama.

This changes the electoral college tally to 361 for Obama and 177 for McCain, and thats including MO as a McCain state.

2:23 am: Checking the latest results from WA shows incumbent Democratic Governor Gregoire has been projected as the winner over GOP challenger Rossi in a rematch from the contest between these two in 2004. With 51 % of precincts reporting, its 54 -46 for Gregoire as she has over 803,000 votes comparted to over 697,000 for Rossi.

No change from the earlier reported US House results as the Dems will have six or seven of the nine seats. Eight of the nine incumbents were winners, as the GOP incumbent representative losing in House District Eight at the moment with but 26 % of the precincts in that district reporting.

2:29 am MST: The race for the US Senate seat in OR currently held by GOP incumbent Smith still remains close and undecided. With 71 % of the precincts reporting at this moment, Smith has a lead of just over 4800 votes out of the over 951,000 counted thus far which is essentially a tie.

The results for the five US House from The Beaver State remains as before with four Dems and one Republican to be part of the next Congress just as there is for the current Congress ending in the coming weeks.

2:38 am: AK has some updated results, and they are surprising and unsettling. Incumbent GOP US Senator Stevens continues to hold a narrow lead in his quest to remain in the Senate despite his felony criminal conviction recently. At this moment, with 81 % of precincts reporting, Stevens leads his Dem challenger Begich by less than 4000 votes out of about 187,000 cast and counted thus far, for a margin of 48 - 46.

Republican incumbent US Congressman Young leads Democratic challenger Berkowitz by a 53 -44 margin or by less than 15,000 votes. It would appear Young will hold on to his seat.

If Stevens (in the US Senate since being appointed in late December 1968 to fill the seat of recently deceased AK US Senator and having been subsequently elected in 1970 and re-elected six more times) does win, it will set up a very comfortable confrontation. Leadership of the Senate, both Republican and Democratic, has vowed to expel him from the Senate if he tries to be seated in January's new Senate. An expulsion of Stevens could lead to Sarah Palin becoming the next US Senator from AK. Palin, currently governor of AK, could resign, and the succeeding governor, current Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell, could appoint her to fill out the near complete remaining term of Stevens if he is expelled or resigns. Quite a strange turn of events if it does come to pass.

2:55 am: Checking back on the First Congressional District race in ID shows at this point with 79 % of precincts reporting in that part of ID shows Dem challenger Minnick still leading GOP incumbent Sali by over 5500 votes out of more than 247,000 cast and counted thus far, giving the upset hopeful Democrat a slim 51.1 to 48.9 percent lead. Stay tuned.

2:59 am MST: Results from NV are now all final. The GOP incumbent from House District Two, Heller, did win re - election to that seat with a 52 - 41 margin of victory over Dem challenger Derby that broke down to a better than 170,000 to over 136,000 raw vote total for each candidate.

3:03 am: The number of popular votes on the national level shows the President - elect with over 61 million votes (61,621,079) to nearly 55,000,000 for John McCain (54,894,307).
This breaks down to a 52.89 % to 47.11 % totals for each.

3:10 am: Ohio was an important battleground state that was essential for McCain to win for him to have a chance to take the White House. But Obama won the state by over 200,000 votes out of over 4.9 million cast and counted so far for a 51 - 47 margin at this point. At this late hour Ohio is showing 95 % of its precincts reporting.

The eighteen member delegation in the US House from Ohio for the upcoming 111 United States Congress will consist of nine members of each party. Democrats picked up two seats from The Buckeye State, with one incumbent Republican losing and one seat being vacated by a Republican switching to Democratic representation. Among the incumbents winning was Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Cleveland who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for President earlier this year and led the effort to get President Bush impeached unsuccessfully in recent months.

3:17 am: Like OH, PA was a state that McCain desperately needed to win to have any chance of gaining victory in the election. He really did not come close in spite of spending much time and resources in The Keystone State in the final months and weeks of this very long campaign. Obama won going away with a 55 - 44 margin of victory as he won by over 600,000 votes out of over 5.7 million cast and counted thus far.

PA will have twelve Democrats and seven Republicans in the next Congress. One Republican incumbent was defeated in The Keystone State which means the Dems picked up one seat in the US House from PA. Among the incumbents winning was Congressman Paul Murtha, a small bit of a surprise.

3:25 am: MN is going to be a photo finish for the race for the US Senate seat from The Gopher State. Republican incumbent Coleman had a narrow lead of less than 2600 votes out of the over 2.409 million cast and counted thus far. 99 % of MN precincts have reported at this moment. Stay tuned.

As for the eight US House seats from The Land of 10,000 Lakes, serve held form as five Democrats, all incumbents won; three Republicans, two of them incumbents, also were winners. So the delegation remains at 5 -3 for the Democrats.

3:32 am: Colorado had many ballot issues for voters to consider. One of the more important ones would have mandated that governments in The Centennial State end affirmative action. At this moment with 84 % of precincts reporting, the measure is barely losing by just over 15,000 votes out of the over 1.945 million cast and counted thus far. Amendment 50 which expanded gambling in CO was a winning issue, as was Amendment 54 which sets restrictions on campaign contributions from government sole-source contractors. All other amendments (a total of seven) and referendums ( three) went down to defeat in CO. Among the losers were some that involved questions of taxation sources and outlays.

In the contests for the Colorado State Senate, Democrats won 12 of the 18 seats being considered. The Colorado State House looks as if went 38 - 27 for Democrats.

3:52 am: The Wyoming State Legislature has been overwhelmingly Republican for many years and this election did not change that. The Wyoming State House appears as if it will hav 40 Republicans and 17 Democrats. The Wyoming State Senate had 20 seats up for election with Republicans winning 16 of them. Both houses of the Wyoming legislature will have veto proof majorities for Republicans to limit powers of sitting Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal.

One strongly disturbing story about these legislative elections in WY was that 34 of the 60 seats up for vote in the WY House were uncontested, and 11 of the 16 seats up for election in the WY Senate were also uncontested. Very sad and troubling.

4:04 am MST: Still no final results from ID in regard to that First Congressional District contest. Democratic challenger Minnick continues to hold a slim lead over GOP incumbent Sali with 90 % of the precincts reporting. Minnick had a lead of a little more than 4300 votes out of the over 297,000 cast and counted thus far. That works out to a 51 -49 percent margin at this point.

4:07 am: 99 % of precincts are now reporting in AK, and what seemed improbable has happened. Unless there are a lot of absentee and military ballots that are yet to be counted, incumbent GOP US Senator Stevens has scored a narrow win over Democratic challenger Begich by a little more than 3300 votes out over 209,000 cast and counted thus far. This sets up the big fight and possible subsequent turn of events I discussed earlier.

In the race for the at-large US House seat from AK, GOP incumbent Young has apparently won with a 52 - 44 margin over Dem challenger Berkowitz, a margin of less than 17,000 votes.

Could AK Lt Governor Parnell betray Palin in the scenario I discussed earlier and appoint Rep. Young to fill out Steven's seat, putting Palin into the House seat instead ? Stay tuned....

4:18 am: Preliminary results from CA show 34 of the 53 US House seats from The Golden State going to Democrats - no change from the current Congress and no CA incumbents losing.

With 86 % of precincts reporting from across CA, the highly charged Proposition 8 banning gay marriage is winning by a 52 - 48 margin or by about 335,000 votes out of 9.24 million votes already cast and counted thus far.

4:23 am: ND went for McCain over Obama by a 53 - 45 margin or by a better than 26,000 vote margin out of over 302,000 cast and counted thus far. It was thought by some in recent weeks that Obama could possibly win The Peace Garden State presidential vote.

The at - large US House seat remains in the hands of Dems as the incumbent Pomeroy wins over the GOP challenger Sand by almost 75,000 votes out of over 306,000 cast and counted thus far for a 62 - 38 margin.

The Republican Gubernatorial incumbent Hoeven easily won re-election with a 74 - 24 rout of the Democratic challenger Mathern, with a margin of over 157,000 votes out of over 302,000 cast and counted thus far.

4:29 am MST: At this point CNN is projecting the US House to have 251 Democrats, 173 Republicans, and 11 seats still undecided. Thats a pick up of just 16 seats for the Democrats thus far, less than what many estimated including yours truly.

4:33 am: There were eleven contests for governorships across the nation on Election Day, and Democrats won seven of those contests. Republicans were winners in UT, ND, IN, and VT; while Democrats won WA, MT, MO, WV, NC, DE, and NH. The only seat that turned over was in MO.

4:36 am: The contest in MN between Coleman and Franken remains razor tight at this moment with Coleman, the GOP incumbent, leading Franken, the Dem challenger, by 676 votes out of over 2.86 million cast and counted thus far. A third party candidate, Independent Barkley, has amassed 15 % of the vote with over 437,000 votes thus far. Barkley has certainly had an impact on this election.

4:41 am: KS went Republican as expected with a even a US House seat switching over from a Dem representative to an Republican one in what is a rare case in this election. Incumbent GOP US Senator Roberts won re-election by a 60 - 37 margin over Democratic challenger Slattery.

4:44 am: Republicans won convincingly across OK for federal offices as the GOP incumbent Inhofe scored a 57 - 39 win over Dem challenger Rice to keep his US Senate seat. The Repubs also kept their margin in the US House from the state by taking four of the five US House seats as incumbents won all five contests in The Sooner State.

4:48 am: TX remained a solid cradle of Republicanism as McCain won the state's presidential vote 55 -44; incumbent GOP US Senator Cronyn won re - election over Dem challenger Noriega by a 55 -43 margin; and Republicans picked up one US House seat by ousting the Democratic incumbent in the 22nd House District to increase the party's margin in the delegation to 20 - 12. Eight of the US House seats in TX were uncontested, with the GOP the winner of six. One of those contests saw former candidate for the Republican nomination for President, Ron Paul, win again.

4:55 am: Little change in the numbers from ID as now 95 % of precincts are reporting. Democratic challenger Minnick continues to hold a slim lead over GOP incumbent for that First Congressional District from The Gem State. Minnick leads by more than 43oo votes out of nearly 328,000 cast and counted thus far. This translates to a narrow 51 - 49 margin.

4:58 am: The race in OR between incumbent GOP US Senator Smith and Dem challenger Merkley remains close with 74 % of precincts in The Beaver State reporting. Smith leads by a little more than 10,000 votes out over 1.09 million cast and counted thus far. Stay tuned.

5:01 am: MI went for Obama for President, and returning incumbent Dem Levin back to the US Senate by comfortable margins.

The 15 US House seats from The Wolverine State switched to a Democratic majority for the delegation as two Republican incumbents were defeated to make it 8 -7 for the Dems. Among the Dem winners were John Dingell, returning to the House for a 28th term as he has been in DC representing Michigan since 1955; and John Conyers, first elected in 1962 and returning for a 24th term in the US House.

What is additionally amazing about Dingell is that his father, John Dingell, Sr, served the same congressional district in MI from 1933 to 1955. That means this district, which makes up the SW suburbs of Detroit, has been in the same family for 75 years and will continue to until Dingell, Jr probably passes away sometime in the next decade or two.

What a dynasty, and one that has greatly benefitted middle class and poor Americans thankfully.
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5:16 am: Well, the Mountain Time Zone Perspective Blog is going to wrap up its coverage in the next several minutes after being on the job for over ten and one - half hours largely uninterupted.

5:18 am: Results from AK remain the same as recently discussed.

5:19 am: In ID, Minnick leads by over 4500 votes over Sali with 98 % of precincts in. It looks like a Dem pickup in The Gem State for the US House and an increase in the lead for Dems from the eight state Mountain States region to a 17 - 11 margin, a reversal from the current Congress.

5:23 am: Coleman leads Franken in MN by 757 votes out of over 2.857 million cast and counted thus far. Stay tuned.

5:25 am: Time to call it quits for the long night into morning. Employment responsibilities for this writer loom in about nine hours. A complete and final update will be published on this blog after 12:30 am on early Thursday morning 6 November following my employment obligations on WED 5 November afternoon and evening.

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