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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

04 November 2008

Live Coverage of Election 2008, Part Three

11:01 pm MST: In WY, GOP challenger Lummis wins the at - large US House seat in The Cowboy State, defeating Democratic candidate Trauner by a 53 - 43 margin or by about 25,000 votes to fill the seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Barbarba Cubin, a seven term incumbent. This is a disappointment for WY as its entire delegation will just the opposite of NM, entirely Republican. Outside of monies for national parks and other federal lands, not much money will be coming into WY particularly for transportation, water projects, and education with these developments. Sitting Governor Dave Freudenthal will have be the voice in Washington DC to help WY get a bigger share of the federal pot for projects and investments long overdue and ignored by the state's congressional and senatorial delegation, particularly roads and highways, mass transit, improvements and upgrades concerning public lands, and assistance and incentives for developments of alternative clean energy sources such as wind and solar which are incredible abundance across The Equality State.

The final numbers from the voting for the Presidency from citzens voting in WY ended up with a McCain margin of 66 -32 or by over 80,000 votes out of over 236,000 cast. Obama only carried two of the 23 counties in the state: Albany in SE Wyoming where the University of Wyoming is; and Teton in NW Wyoming where the wealthy and enlightened enclave of Jackson Hole lies. In some WY counties, McCain got over 80 % of the vote.

11:18 pm: The contest in Minnesota for the US Senate seat between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken remains extremely close at this point. With 78 % of precincts reporting in MN, Coelman has a 6000 vote lead.

The delegation in the US House will likely be 5 -3 in favor of Democrats, but two seats that are held by incumbent Republicans remain closely contested with about 70 - 80 % of precincts reporting in each of those two districts at this moment. A comeback win by the Dem challengers in those two districts remains a possibility.

11:25 pm: In NV, Obama leads McCain 57 -41 or by over 129,000 votes with 40 % of precincts reporting from across The Silver State. The state remains unprojected at the moment.

Results are slow to come in from rural outlying NV as only 22 % of the precincts that cover the state that makes up the Second Congressional District are reporting. In that contest, the incumbent GOP Heller leads the Dem challenger Derby by about 11,000 votes or by a 49 -44 margin. In District One, the incumbent Dem Berkley has won re-election easily, while in the Third District, the Democratic challenger Titus leads the GOP incumbent Porter by more than 19,ooo votes or by a 48 -42 margin with 54 % of precincts in that congressional district reporting.

11:32 pm: New Mexico is moving towards close full completion of votes being counted rather early compared to what is transpired historically as the number of precincts reporting has passed the 90 % mark across the state and in all three congressional districts. The three Dem challengers continue to lead comfortably and its becoming all but a sure thing they will all win, resulting in a pickup of two seats in the US House for Democrats. Tom Udall cruised to an easy win for the open US Senate seat by about a 60 - 40 margin as he has a better than 135,000 vote lead with 93 % of precincts reporting across NM at this moment.

11:36 pm: Dem incumbent Governor Gregoire continues to lead GOP challenger Rossi; at this moment with 43 % of precincts reporting, the margin is by over 46, 000 votes or by a 53- 48 margin.

11:40 pm: CA has an enormous 53 seat delegation in the US House of Representatives, over 12 percent of the total national number of representatives. Results at this moment are still in the very early stage with some seats showing zero votes being counted still almost three hours after the polls close in The Golden State. Thus, it is much too soon to make any kind of conclusions from the votes cast across the state for this congressional delegation. It is likely a somewhat final analysis will not be presented on this blog until sometime early THR 5 November am.

11:47 pm: The races for Congress in AZ ended as they were anticipated earlier with a 5 - 3 edge in the delegation for Democrats, an increase of one. The First Congressional District than covers much of eastern and northern AZ switched over to the Dems with Kirkpatrick beating Hay by around a 55 -40 margin or by over 35,000 votes with 96 % of precincts reporting.

Two ballot issues of interest in AZ both won comfortably: The statewide ban on gay marriage, and the clarification of language in the state constitution and state laws when addressing issues concerning illegal aliens and employment.

11:52 pm: SD saw victories by incumbent Democrats for contested seats in the US Senate and US House. Incumbent Johnson was an easy winner by about a 63 -37 margin or by more than 88,000 votes over Repub challenger Dykstra. In the race for the at-large seat, incumbent Dem Sandlin has scored a wide victory by a 68 -32 margin or by over 125,000 votes.

A controversial ballot issue in The Coyote State went down to defeat as limits for abortions were not chosen by SD voters by about a 55 - 45 margin or by about 35,000 votes.

In the voting for president among SD voters, John McCain took about 54 % of the vote as compared to 44 % for Barack Obama, with McCain having about a 33,000 vote edge.

12:00 Midnight: Results continue to come in rather slowly from OR, as at the moment just 43 % of precincts have reported. Dem challenger Merkley leads Repub incumbent Smith by about 3800 votes in the US Senate contest. It is unclear as to when a decision may come into view.

12:05 am: NE did indeed have all three GOP incumbents hold their seats in the US House, and Johanns took the US Senate seat by a 58 -40 margin. Ben Nelson will remain the sole Democrat in Washington DC from Nebraska as an elected official.

12:10 am: Like NV and OR, results are slow to come in from ID. In the race for the First Congressional District, Dem challenger Minnick leads GOP incumbent Sali by a 52 - 48 margin or by less than 6000 votes with 50 % of precincts reporting. Lets hope we get a result in the next two to three hours. In the US Senate race from ID, GOP challenger Risch has been declared the winner over Dem candidate LaRocco, keeping this seat in Republican hands after the retirement of Larry Craig.

12:14 am: Across the Mountain States region, Democrats have picked up seats in the US House of Representatives from the following: one in AZ, one in CO, and two in NM. MT, UT, and WY will remain the same with no changes in political party representation. Two seats remain unsettled in NV, and one in OR.

Going into the election, Republicans held 17 of the 28 seats from the Mountain States region in the US House of Representatives. These new results have now led to the 28 member delegation switching to a 15 - 13 Democratic majority, and an 18 - 10 differential still remains a possibility.

As for the US Senate, Democrats hold two seats from CO, MT, and NM; one seat from NV; and none in AZ, ID, UT, and WY. This election's results mean the Senatorial delegation from the eight state region will be 9 -7 in favor of Republicans, an increase of two for Democrats, and the closest margin since the late 1970s.

Four senators will be up for re-election in 2010, in what is called a Senate Class III election Those senators from the eight state Mountain States region are Republican John McCain from Arizona; Democrat Ken Salazar from Colorado; Republican Mike Crapo from Idaho; and Republican Robert from Utah. Salazar and Crapo will run for re-election and are strongly likely to be returned to the Senate at this point, while it is unclear at this moment what the plans are for McCain and Bennett as far as running again. McCain will be 74 and Bennett 77 in 2010, and retirements by one or both are possible. The race to replace a retiring McCain could be a real horse race in AZ, while in UT sitting governor Huntsman may be opt to make the move up as well as several other noteworthy Beehive State Republicans. Utah will almost surely keep the Senate seat in GOP hands, while a change to Democrats is a possibility in AZ. It is difficult to imagine Crapo being ousted unless a major unforeseeable circumstance eventuates. Thus the delegation from the Mountain States region should remain as a Republican majority or at worst evenly split between the two parties two years from now.

12:37 am: The polls have been closed in AK for over one and one-half hours now, and results are coming, although rather slowly but not unexpectedly given the size and vastness of The Last Frontier. John McCain leads Barack Obama 58 -40 or by over 24,000 votes with 45 % of the precincts reporting. In the US Senate race, the GOP incumbent Ted Stevens, a recently convicted criminal felon, has a small lead over Dem challenger Begich by a 49 - 46 margin or by 4400 votes. In the US House race for the at - large seat, the incumbent Repub Young leads the Dem challenger Berkowitz by a 52 -44 margin or by about 9300 votes. Hopefully most of the votes will come in over the next three plus hours before this reporter calls it a night.

12:43 am: MO remains a very close race for the presidency as at even this late hour the race is all but deadlocked. 99 % of precincts are reporting from The Show Me State, and McCain leads Obama at this moment by less than 400 votes out over 2.85 million cast. A recount may become eventually necessary here.

A seat in the US Senate was not up for re-election in MO, but as usual the entire congressional representation was up for vote. The nine member MO congressional representation will stand with five Republicans and four Democrats for the 2009 - 2010 Congress, the 111th United States Congress.

12:51 am: US Representative Chris Shays of CT went down to defeat tonight, and that means there are no Republicans whatsoever in the US House from the six state New England region. This is a marked change for this region from just a few decades ago when it was a strong GOP represented region.

12:55 am: IN has remained close all night in that state's contest for the presidency. Obama will apparently win the state as he has a 23,000 vote lead over McCain with 99 % of precincts reporting as over 2.68 million votes have been cast in The Hoosier State.

Like MO, IN had no senatorial election this year. The nine member Indiana congressional delegation will remain the exactly same for 2009 with 5 Democrats and 4 Republicans. All nine are incumbents and were re-elected by at least comfortable or wide margins.

1:02 am: FL, the nation's fourth most populous state, was viewed as yet again a battleground state that would largely come down to the wire as the vote for President was concerned, and it did not disappoint. Obama squeaked out a two percentage points victory over McCain, winning by about 200,000 votes out of 8.125 million cast to claim the state's 27 electoral votes.

The 25 member Florida delegation for the 111th United States Congress starting in January 2009 will consist of 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Two Congressional Republican incumbents and one Democratic congressional incumbent went down to defeat in The Sunshine State, resulting in an increase of one Democrat for the state's next congressional delegation beginning in January 2009.

The ballot issue in FL to ban gay marriage passed easily by a 62 - 38 margin.

1:20 am: NC was another state that went deep into the night before a winner emerged for the state's electoral votes which totalled 15. Over 4.19 million votes were cast, and Obama ended up with a margin of just over 12,000 votes.

Democratic challenger Kay Hagen ended up winning the US Senate seat by a 53 -44 margin over GOP incumbent Elizabeth Dole, wife of longtime Republican Kansas Senator and 1996 GOP Presidential nominee Bob Dole.

The thirteen seat delegation to US House from NC for the next Congress will consist of eight Democrats and five Republicans. All 13 incumbents ran for re-election with only one, the Republican from the Eighth Congressional District, being defeated. Thus, NC will see an increase of one Democrat to the state's delegation.

1:33 am: 50 minutes ago Obama held a tiny lead over McCain in MO. More votes have been tabulated since then, and at this moment the lead has switched over to McCain. His lead is a little less than 5000 votes, 1.440 million to 1.435 million. I will keep an eye on this and update it again in the second half of the 2am MST hour.

1:37 am: Numbers from NV continue to trickle for the contest for the Second Congressional District. Only 42 % of precincts hve currently reported, but projections are giving the race to GOP incumbent Heller over the Dem challenger Derby. The other two races are final. Earlier Dem incumbent Berkley won easily in District One, and now results from the Third Congressional District show Dem challenger Titus has upset three term GOP incumbent Porter by a 48 - 42 margin or by about 18,000 votes. This is yet another pick up for the Democrats for the US House and gives the party 16 seats in the 28 seat delegation from the eight state Mountain States region.

In the presidential race from NV, Obama won easily. With 73 % of the precincts reporting now, the President - elect has a 56 -42 lead over McCain, with over 513,000 of the over 903,000 cast and counted so far.

1:44 am: Its taking a long time to count votes in ID. The race for the First Congressional race remains undecided. With 72 % of the precincts reporting, Dem challenger Minnick continues to lead GOP incumbent Sali by about 44oo votes out of over 233,000 cast and counted so far. That is a margin of 51 -49.

1:47 am: HI is the state that gives the President - elect his widest margin of victory over John McCain. With 99 % of precincts reporting, Obama has a 72 - 27 margin with over 298,000 votes out of about 409,000 cast, a difference of about 188,000.

The two member House delegation from The Aloha State will remain both Democratic as both incumbents won by overwhelming landslide margins.

1:51 am: It now appears the final electoral college totals will end up as 364 for Obama and 174 for McCain. Thats a better than 2 - 1 margin of victory for the President - elect. The 11 electoral votes now in the McCain category could still spill back to McCain, resulting in changing the scoreboard to 375 to 163, nearly 70 % for Obama.

The question now is, is this a landslide and a mandate ?

That is going to be the subject of much debate and discussion over the coming weeks and months.

1:56 am: I will start a new post with more new entries at the top of the 2:00 MST hour. The title of the post will remain about the same but end with words, "Part Four".

*****
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