Outside of the immediate political brawl, I was impressed – and often touched deeply – by some of the more emotional events of 2004. When the World Two Memorial was dedicated in May, I wrote my bit on it, but it was the commentary by some of our readers which really did it for me. All year long, it was this running commentary from the readers which made writing worthwhile – comments like this are etched in my memory:

It made me think of an old friend who passed away at age 77 this past January. I knew he served in the Navy in WWII, but only after his passing did I discover he was only 16 when he volunteered and served on the Joy in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. He never talked about what he went through then, preferring to look forward. He took advantage of the GI Bill, getting his college degree (despite not having graduated from high school but getting a GED) and going into teaching. After a Masters and Doctorate degree, he went into school administration until he retired. Not being done with life he was a driving force in creation of the llama and alpaca industry in the U.S. Truly a hero and a great friend who served his country with honor and quiet dignity. Jack Moore, rest in peace.

There was a great deal more just like this on the threads for Ronald Reagan, and the September 11th anniversary.
We’d like to thank all of you who come here – we do it for you and hope you enjoy it and maybe even take away something good from it every now and again. We’re not stopping – the battle has been won but the war goes on.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As a driving force in politics this year, bloggers covered the 2004 presidential campaigns and election. Political candidates also used them as valuable campaign tools.
“The Internet taught us, rather than the other way around,” said former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean.
This year, for the first time, bloggers were permitted to cover the national political conventions firsthand.

Howard Dean… After everything that has happened in 2004, they go back to Howard Dean as the face of political blogging for 2004? Are they nuts? Of course, Joe Trippi was interviewed, and cites the Trent Lott story, not the Dan Rather Memogate story as the big blogger moment of the year. But, if it wasn’t for Memogate I think it is safe to assume that ABC wouldn’t even have thought to name bloggers as “Person of The Year.”
All that side, I’d like to say mazel tov to all us bloggers, the Dean campaign may have put blogs on the map, but we’re the ones who all contributed to making them a landmark.

Don’t we owe the dead, dying and injured the minimal grace not to convert their suffering into a chat-show segment ó the latest left-right clash over the Bush presidency?
And couldn’t the editorialists at The New York Times have forborne ó even just for a week ó making use of the tsunami to complain about U.S. government spending on “development aid”?
Development aid is the blanket term for American grant money handed out to other countries, supposedly to help their economies grow. Development aid has nothing ó nothing ó to do with what has happened.
The aid at issue now is disaster relief.

Read the whole thing here…

I will Post the Names of the Congress people joining Congressman John Conyers when I can verify the names with a News release from thier Webpages.
Pd. Thanks for the Rep Mink Catch. I was using a list from the Florida disputed rollcall.
This is the Text of a letter send to Senator Boxer;
“Dear Senator Boxer,
“As you know, on January 6, 2005, at 1:00 P.M, the electoral votes for the election of the president are to be opened and counted in a joint session of Congress, commencing at 1:00 P.M. I and a number of House Members are planning to object to the counting of the Ohio votes, due to numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal and state law. I am hoping that you will consider joining us in this important effort to debate and highlight the problems in Ohio which disenfranchised innumerable voters. I will shortly forward you a draft report itemizing and analyzing the many irregularities we have come across as part of our hearings and investigation into the Ohio presidential election.
“3 U.S.C. ß15 provides when the results from each of the states are announced, that “the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any.” Any objection must be presented in writing and “signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received.The objection must “state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof. When an objection has been properly made in writing and endorsed by a member of each body the Senate withdraws from the House chamber, and each body meets separately to consider the objection. “No votes . . . from any other State shall be acted upon until the [pending] objection . . . [is] finally disposed of.” 3 U.S.C. ß17 limits debate on the objections in each body to two hours, during which time no member may speak more than once and not for more than five minutes. Both the Senate and the House must separately agree to the objection; otherwise, the challenged vote or votes are counted.
“Historically, there appears to be three general grounds for objecting to the counting of electoral votes. The language of 3 U.S.C. ß15 suggests that objection may be made on the grounds that (1) a vote was not “regularly given” by the challenged elector(s); and/or (2) the elector(s) was not “lawfully certified” under state law; or (3) two slates of electors have been presented to Congress from the same State.
“Since the Electoral Count Act of 1887, no objection meeting the requirements of the Act have been made against an entire slate of state electors. In the 2000 election several Members of the House of Representatives attempted to challenge the electoral votes from the State of Florida. However, no Senator joined in the objection, and therefore, the objection was not “received.” In addition, there was no determination whether the objection constituted an appropriate basis under the 1887 Act. However, if a State – in this case Ohio – has not followed its own procedures and met its obligation to conduct a free and fair election, a valid objection -if endorsed by at least one Senator and a Member of the House of Representatives- should be debated by each body separately until “disposed of”.
Sincerely, John Conyers, Jr.

Two third-party presidential candidates asked a federal court Thursday to force a second recount of the Ohio vote, alleging county election boards altered votes and didn’t follow proper procedures in the recount that ended this week.
Lawyers for Green Party candidate David Cobb and the Libertarian Party’s Michael Badnarik made their request in federal court in Columbus.
The two candidates, who received less than 0.3 percent of the Ohio vote, paid $113,600 for a statewide recount after the vote was certified earlier this month by the secretary of state. They have said they don’t expect to change the election results, but want to make sure that every vote is proply counted.

Enough is enough already. Bush won. Kerry lost. You can count the votes over and over and over and over and over and over and nothing will change that.

we live in a world economy, so when headline writers use the word sluggish, we have to ask: Sluggish compared with whom? According to the November forecast of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, gross domestic product in the U.S. is expected to increase by 4.4% in 2004. Elsewhere, the OECD predicts growth of 4% for Japan, 2.7% for the U.K., 2.1% for France and 1.2% for Germany. For the 12-country euro zone, the figure is 1.8%. To put matters in historical perspective, the last time Japan, Britain, France and Germany had growth rates at or in excess of 4.4%, the years were 1990, 1994, 1989 and 1991, respectively.

There is much more in the whole article, but the essential point is already made; compared to everyone else out there, we’re doing very well – and a deeper look into the data indicates that we’re doing better compared even to our own past best performance (overall growth in Clinton’s best years was 4.25%, a little less than our growth this year). The unfortunate thing about this is that no matter how good things are, as long as a Republican is President we’ll have to put up with this sort of reporting – just another cross the bear, as it were.

United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster.
The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the worldís response.
But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN.
ìI think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,î she said.

Instead of being happy that Bush has formed a coalition with the selfless intent of providing relief to a region in dire need of aid, Secretary Short sees this as a contest where the United Nations should go “unchallenged.”

ìOnly really the UN can do that job,î she told BBC Radio Fourís PM programme.
ìIt is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.î

The UN a moral authority? Is that a joke? Do I have to mention Kofi Annan and the Oil-For-Food scandal?
What’s next? Are the Democrats going to blast Bush for not going through the UN and not building a “legitimate coalition?” Does Bush’s Aid Coalition not pass the global test?
This bickering over who gives what and how much is childish. You think this would be one thing that would not be politicized.

WASHINGTON Dec 30, 2004 ó Sen. Joe Lieberman, traveling in the Middle East Wednesday, said there is strong support in Iraq for the Jan. 30 election, and postponing it would only be a victory for the insurgents.
In a telephone call from Tel Aviv, Israel, the Connecticut Democrat said conditions in Iraq, including an increase in trained Iraqi security forces, have improved since his last visit in July. And he said the escalating violence aimed at intimidating Iraqis to postpone the election or not vote is not working in most of the country.

Now, for our Democratic readers, I’d like to point out that what you have here is a report from an intelligent man who is not a fan of President Bush who has actually gone to Iraq and seen how things are going – this, to make it clear, is very different from a Michael Moore who sits in his pizza-box cluttered apartment spinning conspiracy theories and then putting out a film disconnnected from any semblance of reality. The former is worthwhile, the latter is worthless. What you have to do is learn the difference between the two – go out to a farm and start by having a farmer explain the difference between sh** and shinola.
As to the subject at hand, I agree with Senator Lieberman – the Iraqi people by deed are opting for a democratic future, the terrorists with their barbarism are only managing to kill but not to change minds and the coming vote next month will seal the fate of terrorism. Thank God we’ve got a President who can lead, soldiers who are brave and dedicated, and at least some Democrats who can see things as they are.
Hat Tip: Stranded on Blue Islands

The number of new people signing up for unemployment benefits dropped last week, a hopeful sign that the recovery in the jobs market is moving ahead.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for jobless benefits declined by a seasonally adjusted 5,000 to 326,000 for the week ending Dec. 25. That left claims at their lowest level since the week ending Dec. 11.
The newest snapshot of the labor market was better than economists were anticipating. They were expecting claims to rise to around 335,000.

UPDATE: Stocks surge…