Connecticut Leads America in the Democratic Revolution Against Israel-Firster War Entrepreneurs By Hassan El-Najjar

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Connecticut Leads America in the Democratic Revolution Against Israel-Firster War Entrepreneurs

Democrats have to learn the lesson of Lieberman. The Democratic Party and its candidates have to present themselves as an alternative to the Republican War Party. The Democratic Party has to be the party of peace and prosperity. The majority of the American people will vote for hope, peace, and prosperity, not for the Republican "Permanent War."

Failure to articulate a clear peace message will turn people off the Democratic Party and off politics all together because they will see both parties as two sides of the same Zionist Israeli coin.

Blind support for Israel leads to support for its wars to control the Middle East one Arab and Muslim state after another. America has become a de facto Israeli colony, which is used to advance Israeli interests on the expense of the interests of the American people, Arabs, and Muslims. The Israeli wars to subjugate Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq are fully financed by the American treasury, and in the case of Iraq fought by American blood too.

This Lieberman's defeat has to be repeated in every state of the union if Democrats want to save the United States from an imminent bankruptcy ($8.5 Trillion national debt so far), enough of indifference, and enough of leaving the country to be looted and destroyed by greedy warmongerers.

Every member of Congress who poses as a Democrat has to be scrutinize. If he or she is another Israel-firster war-mongerer Lieberman, he/she has to be challenged by another Lamont and defeated.

Finally, Democrats have to acknowledge now that if Lieberman was not on the presidential ticket in 2000, Al Gore would have become the president of the United States. They need to distance themselves from the expansionist, and racist policies of the Zionist state of Israel. Otherwise, they would not be different from candidates of the War Party who blindly serve Israel by fighting its wars against Arabs and Muslims.

Hours after a Democratic primary defeat, Sen. Joe Lieberman filed petitions Wednesday morning to run as an independent in the general election. Senate party leaders in Washington quickly endorsed the anti-war businessman who beat the three-term senator.

In a blow to Lieberman's pursuit of an independent candidacy, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., head of the party's Senate campaign committee, issued a joint statement backing Democratic primary winner Ned Lamont.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the party's 2004 presidential nominee, also called on all Democrats to back Lamont.

"The Democratic voters of Connecticut have spoken and chosen Ned Lamont as their nominee," said Reid and Schumer, who said they "fully support" Lamont's candidacy and congratulated him on the victory and a "race well run."

In Connecticut, Lieberman said his campaign collected more than 18,000 signatures on its petitions, more than twice the number needed to get on the fall ballot under the new party created, called Connecticut for Lieberman. The new party allows him to secure a position higher on the ballot than he would have if he petitioned as an individual.

If the signatures are approved, as expected, it sets up a three-way November race with Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, who won the Democratic primary, and Republican Alan Schlesinger.

"I'm definitely going forward," Lieberman told The Associated Press after his 4 percentage-point loss. "I feel that I closed strong in the primary. I feel we began to get out message across strongly and we're going to keep on going.

"This race is going to be all about who can get more done and who can be a better representative of Connecticut."

Kerry, who had indicated earlier that he would back the primary winner, said, "It's time for all Democrats to come together to support Ned Lamont. It's time for Democrats to unite."

Reid and Schumer said Lieberman has been an effective senator for Connecticut, "but the perception was that he was too close to George Bush and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the president more than anything else."

The two Senate Democrats did not address whether Lieberman should follow through with his plans to run as an independent but it was clear that they do not intend to support him.

Asked earlier in the day if there was anyone who could call and get him to change his mind, Lieberman replied:

"Respectfully no. I'm committed to this campaign," he said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show.

In Cleveland, Republican (War) Party chairman Ken Mehlman seized on the results in the Connecticut primary to assail the Democrats on national security and called Lieberman's defeat a "shame."

"Joe Lieberman believed in a strong national defense (read: strong on keeping America in a permanent state of war for the sake of oil interests, military industrial complex interests, and Israeli interests), and for that, he was purged from his party. It is a sobering moment," Ken Mehlman said.

The Republican (War Party) National Committee chairman said Lieberman's loss also is a "sign of what the Democratic Party has become in the 21st century. It reflects an unfortunate embrace of isolationism, defeatism and a blame America first attitude by national Democratic leaders at a time when retreating from the world is particularly dangerous."

Voters in Connecticut on Tuesday rejected Lieberman for the political newcomer Lamont in the nation's first major test of the depth of anger over the Iraq war. Lamont won with 52 percent of the vote, or 146,061 votes, to 48 percent for Lieberman, or 136,042, with 99 percent of precincts reporting.

A jubilant Lamont told supporter said: "Tonight we voted for big change." The millionaire owner of a cable television company has held local political offices in Greenwich, Conn., but never at the state level. His campaign focused on Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq and his perceived closeness to President Bush.

New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg last week suggested that Lieberman drop plans to run as an independent if he loses by a wide margin. State leaders - including fellow Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd and top officials who had campaigned for Lieberman - planned to rally for Lamont on Wednesday morning.

"I think he really has to take a look at what reality is," Lautenberg said of Lieberman.

Lieberman's loss made him only the fourth incumbent senator to lose a primary since 1980, and came just six years after he was the Democrats' choice for vice president.

In Michigan, moderate Republican Rep. Joe Schwarz lost to a conservative in a GOP primary.

Elsewhere, voters in Colorado and Missouri also chose candidates for the fall elections.

Critics targeted Lieberman for his strong support for the Iraq war and for his close ties to President Bush. They played and replayed video of the kiss President Bush planted on Lieberman's cheek after the 2005 State of the Union address.

Vote totals showed roughly 16,000 more ballots cast for the Democratic Senate primary than the party primary for governor.

Lieberman has had poll results on his side when it comes to a general election. A mid-July Quinnipiac University poll found that while Lieberman trailed Lamont among Democrats, he came out well ahead of both Lamont and Schlesinger among registered Connecticut voters of all affiliations.

The race has been watched closely by the liberal, Internet-savvy Democrats who lead the party's emerging "netroots" movement, groups such as Moveon.org that played a big role in pushing Lamont's candidacy.

In the run-up to the primary, 14,000 new Connecticut voters registered as Democrats, while another 14,000 state voters switched their registration from unaffiliated to Democrat to vote in the primary.

Wednesday morning, Lieberman campaign representative Dan Papermaster handed over two boxes of petitions to officially get Lieberman's name on the ballot, then left the Secretary of the State's office without commenting.

All the signatures turned in must be validated by the town clerks in the towns where they were submitted. Those that are not will go back to the town clerks, who will have two weeks to verify them.

In Georgia, McKinney, her state's first African American congresswoman, was forced into a runoff last month and lost on Tuesday to Hank Johnson, the African American former commissioner of DeKalb County, 59 percent to 41 percent.

In the heavily Democratic district, the runoff winner is likely to win in the fall.

In Michigan, Schwarz, a moderate who supports abortion rights, lost to conservative Tim Walberg, a former state lawmaker. The race drew more than $1 million from outside groups; Schwarz had received support from President Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Associated Press Writer Liz Sidoti in Washington and Connie Mabin in Cleveland contributed to this report.