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The CIA learned in late September 2002 from a high-level member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle that Iraq had no past or present contact with Osama bin Laden and that the Iraqi leader considered bin Laden an enemy of the Baghdad regime, according to a recent Senate Intelligence Committee report. Although President Bush and other senior administration officials were at that time regularly linking Hussein to al-Qaeda, the CIA's highly sensitive intelligence supporting the contrary view was apparently not passed on to the White House or senior Bush policymakers.

The Senate narrowly rejected legislation to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday, handing a defeat to the oil industry and dealing a major blow to Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu, who staked her political career on the outcome. The Senate voted 59-41 for the legislation, falling one vote shy of the 60 needed for passage under the deal bringing it to the floor. But Keystone supporters insisted the defeat would be short-lived. Republican leaders are vowing to try again after they take over the chamber in January — when they will have more than enough votes to get a measure...

“The trend line in Arkansas looks gruesome for Mark Pryor,” Guy wrote in his preview post this morning surveying a handful of closely-watched Senate contests around the country. And who among us could disagree? Consider, for instance, this left leaning (D+7) PPP poll, which dropped over the weekend. Despite the fact that the D/R/I sample breakdown is 39/32/29, Sen. Pryor still finds himself on the losing end:

Democrats may be making their last stand in Arkansas. At the beginning of the cycle, Democrats touted a dream ticket that could help rally the party back to relevance after a series of stinging losses in the state. They cheered Sen. Mark Pryor’s (D) centrist profile and strong family name. In the governor’s race, they hoped former Rep. Mike Ross’s long string of successes in conservative southwest Arkansas would boost him. But months later, Pryor has trailed freshman Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) for much of the summer in the Razorback State and former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) has had a...

This started as a top ten list.Let's face it, with President Obama's awful approval ratings and the unfortunate consequences of Obamacare felt like a sting around the country, Democrats were already vulnerable in this year's midterm elections. These gaffes certainly won't help. Let's take a look at some of the worst mistakes Dems have made on the campaign trail so far:1.) That awful/insensitive/shameful and now infamous ad from the Wendy Davis (D-TX) gubernatorial campaign. 2.) Those colorful campaign memos from Michelle Nunn’s (D-GA) campaign, in which her own campaign referred to her as a “lightweight.” 3.) Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) saying he was...

A new poll, this one by Talk Business and Politics/Hendrix College, puts Tom Cotton’s lead over Mark Pryor at 48-41. The survey included more than 2,000 likely voters and was taken after the last week’s Cotton-Pryor debate (as I understand it, there will be no more debates between the two). The margin of error is plus or minus 2.2 percent. According to Dr. Jay Barth of Hendrix College, the survey shows that both Cotton and Pryor have locked up the support of their respective Party faithful. However, “Cotton has a strong advantage among the state’s voters who term themselves Independents...

Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor argued that the federal government’s desegregation of Arkansas’s largest public school in 1957 was an “unwilling invasion” that took “a local problem out of the local authorities’ hands” and led to deep suspicions of democracy in the state, according to a copy of his college thesis obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Written in 1985, the 30-page paper—which also suggested that the state’s Democratic Party was hindering economic progress, and attributed policies such as welfare and the Equal Rights Amendment to “wild-eyed liberals”—could add to Pryor’s difficulties as he fights to protect his seat from...

On Tuesday, exactly three weeks before the midterm elections, the White House confirmed that President Obama would not be nominating a new attorney general until after the elections. Media reports indicate that the decision to delay was requested by Senate Democrats and was done to avoid the nomination being "caught up in election year politics." Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican (and if the Republicans take back the majority, the next chairman) of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in equating the move to the president's delay of the threatened executive action on immigration, said that "[f]irst it was immigration, and...

Conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe released his latest startling video this week, offering evidence that Arkansas Democrat U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor has been lying to his constituents about his position on marriage. Ahead of next month’s election, the lawmaker has reiterated his ostensible support of traditional marriage as he battles a tough conservative Republican opponent. According to the footage published by O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, however, Pryor’s true feelings on the matter are much different. Speaking to the chairperson of a pro-gay Arkansas Young Democrats organization, an undercover investigator posing as a homosexual potential campaign donor expressed his “misgivings” about Pryor regarding his stated...

A bombshell hidden-camera video released Wednesday airs a claim that Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor has privately told gay rights activists he supports a redefinition of marriage to include gay and lesbians unions. Pryor, who is in a tight reelection battle, has publicly maintained an anti-gay-marriage stance in the red state in order to stay electable

Latinos' furor with red-state Senate Dems escalated this week when the grassroots advocacy group Presente Action began running radio ads against Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), targeting her push against executive action on immigration. The Spanish-language ads will air for a week on two stations and tells listeners: "Senator Hagan voted with the most anti-immigrant senators in Congress in support of the continued deportations of our community." Hagan, locked in one of the most competitive Senate races this cycle, has for months publicly resisted Obama moving unilaterally on immigration and that has earned her the wrath of groups like Presente -...

Should election campaigns and the candidates themselves - be it in Iowa with Bruce Braley (D) saying his rival Joni Ernst (R) is tied to the hip of the Koch Brothers or be it Tom Cotton in Arkansas (R) saying his rival Mark Pryor (D) is tied to the hip of Obama - eschew such tactics? In summation... Should both sides (be it the candidates and PACs on the Republican and Democrat side) eschew this political tactic, or should both sides continue to employ this tactic - and how is the MSM figuring into the dissemination of this political tactic?

Via America Rising, the pause isn’t even the worst part. Turns out Arkansans have Miss Teen South Carolina representing them in the Senate.This question is being put to him because he accused Tom Cotton in August of essentially being pro-Ebola, just as Cotton’s fiendish financier masters demand. Pryor made it an issue in the election so now here’s MSNBC letting him follow up by tossing him what they thought would be a softball. Oops. Pryor being Pryor, though, I wonder how much of this ummmmming is doofishness and how much is him hurriedly trying to calculate how a red-state...

what is likely to become a theme of the last weeks of campaigning before the midterm elections, former President Bill Clinton all but begged voters here in Arkansas not to use their vote as an expression of disapproval for Barack Obama. The president is playing an outsized role in the race between Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor and Republican challenger Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. Obama is seriously unpopular here; a recent survey by the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling put his job approval rating at 31 percent, versus 62 percent disapproval. ... The Democratic effort to free Pryor and...

If you or anyone you know would like to get involved in defeating liberalism in Arkansas, visit the group AR Women Speak website. You can also email Joanne Filiatreau at mrsphilly@sbcglobal.net. You can even make some money in some of the activism. http://womenspeakoutpac.com/ https://pryortooextreme.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WomenSpeakOutAR

Jim Geragthy, acclaimed author and National Review’s chief campaign analyst, has been grousing about the lack of quality polling in key Senate races this year. His frustration is well-founded. So yesterday must have felt like Christmas in September for Jim and political junkies everywhere, as two pollsters released a deluge of surveys covering the most contested races in the country. In light of the results, I’d expect that national Republicans are kicking off the week with an extra spring in their step, as well. We were leaked an advance copy of last week’s much-anticipated Politico/GWU Battleground poll, which was packed...

To finish up the weekend on a bit of a positive note, polling groups around the nation are starting to shift their models from registered voters to likely voters as the days until November shrink. One in particular will be of interest and it’s in the highly contested state of Arkansas. We always thought Mark Pryor was in trouble, but he has been holding on in the polls surprisingly well. This week, the NBC/Marist poll, which previously showed Pryor in a fairly solid position, has taken a big turn and Tom Cotton (who did an interview for Hot Air...

Remember the good old days when political campaigns and the general hysteria they kicked off didn't begin to mount till after Labor Day? It wasn't just customary, it was almost official -- like the beginning of football season or the college term. Or even an astronomical fact, like the autumnal equinox. There were some parts of the good old days that were actually good, like waiting till the official end of summer to turn up the political heat. But that time passed sometime in the last century before the year-round, 24/7 campaign arrived, and with it the campaign war rooms...

Arkansas has had its share of political dynasties, first and foremost the Clintons. The Pryor family may run a close second.David Pryor was a Democratic fixture in the state, serving in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, and as governor. His son, Mark Pryor, now holds the Senate seat he vacated in 1997 and is seeking a third term.Are Arkansans finally getting Pryor fatigue and ready for a fresh face? If so, few Senate candidates nationwide may be more attractive than Republican challenger Tom Cotton.“Roll Call just came out with an article that rated Pryor as the second-most-vulnerable senator...

It’s only a small matter of time until the Obama administration finally, rapturously releases what its hopes will be the crown jewel of its rise-of-the-oceans-slowing climate-change agenda: Regulations capping the emissions from existing power plants, a.k.a., stamping out coal plants across the country. This set of regs is going to be even more complicated and controversial than the regulations for only new power plants the administration released last year, and as the AP obliquely explains, we’re likely to start seeing those “necessarily skyrocketing” energy prices Obama once mentioned pretty quickly here: Electricity prices are probably on their way up...