Here is Judy's Emily's List endorsement:

http://www.emilyslist.org/candidates/judy_baker/

And her 21st Century Democrats endorsement:

http://www.21stcenturydems.org/candidates/profiles/judy-baker

She has been a real DFA ally and I personally endorse her whole-heartedly!

I have an ActBlue page for her and other Missouri candidates here:

http://www.actblue.com/page/waynemo

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=62407

Obama's support for the FISA "compromise"

In the past 24 hours, specifically beginning with the moment Barack Obama announced that he now supports the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer House bill, there have magically arisen -- in places where one would never have expected to find them -- all sorts of claims about why this FISA "compromise" isn't really so bad after all. People who spent the week railing against Steny Hoyer as an evil, craven enabler of the Bush administration -- or who spent the last several months identically railing against Jay Rockefeller -- suddenly changed their minds completely when Barack Obama announced that he would do the same thing as they did. What had been a vicious assault on our Constitution, and corrupt complicity to conceal Bush lawbreaking, magically and instantaneously transformed into a perfectly understandable position, even a shrewd and commendable decision, that we should not only accept, but be grateful for as undertaken by Obama for our Own Good.

Accompanying those claims are a whole array of factually false statements about the bill, deployed in service of defending Obama's indefensible -- and deeply unprincipled -- support for this "compromise." Numerous individuals stepped forward to assure us that there was only one small bad part of this bill -- the part which immunizes lawbreaking telecoms -- and since Obama says that he opposes that part, there is no basis for criticizing him for what he did. Besides, even if Obama decided to support an imperfect bill, it's our duty to refrain from voicing any criticism of him, because the Only Thing That Matters is that Barack Obama be put in the Oval Office, and we must do anything and everything -- including remain silent when he embraces a full-scale assault on the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law -- because every goal is now subordinate to electing Barack Obama our new Leader.

It is absolutely false that the only unconstitutional and destructive provision of this "compromise" bill is the telecom amnesty part. It's true that most people working to defeat the Cheney/Rockefeller bill viewed opposition to telecom amnesty as the most politically potent way to defeat the bill, but the bill's expansion of warrantless eavesdropping powers vested in the President, and its evisceration of safeguards against abuses of those powers, is at least as long-lasting and destructive as the telecom amnesty provisions. The bill legalizes many of the warrantless eavesdropping activities George Bush secretly and illegally ordered in 2001. Those warrantless eavesdropping powers violate core Fourth Amendment protections. And Barack Obama now supports all of it, and will vote it into law. Those are just facts.

This bill doesn't legalize every part of Bush's illegal warrantless eavesdropping program but it takes a large step beyond FISA towards what Bush did. There was absolutely no reason to destroy the FISA framework, which is already an extraordinarily pro-Executive instrument that vests vast eavesdropping powers in the President, in order to empower the President to spy on large parts of our international communications with no warrants at all. This was all done by invoking the scary spectre of Terrorism -- "you must give up your privacy and constitutional rights to us if you want us to keep you safe" -- and it is Obama's willingness to embrace that rancid framework, the defining mindset of the Bush years, that is most deserving of intense criticism here.

Obama has embraced a bill that is not only redolent of many of the excesses of Bush's executive power theories and surveillance state expansions, but worse, has done so by embracing the underlying rationale of "Be-scared-and-give-up-your-rights." Note that the very first line of Obama's statement warns us that we face what he calls "grave threats," and that therefore, we must accept that our Leader needs more unlimited power, and the best we can do is trust that he will use it for our Good.

Making matters worse still, what Obama did yesterday is in clear tension with an emphatic promise that he made just months ago. As the extremely pro-Obama MoveOn.org notes today, Obama's spokesman, Bill Burton, back in in September, vowed that Obama would "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies." MoveOn believes Obama should be held to his word and is thus conducting a campaign urging Obama to do what he promised.

Incidentally, Chris Dodd made an identical promise when he was running for President, prompting the support of hundreds of thousands of new contributors, and he ought to be held to his promise as well.

What Barack Obama did here was wrong and destructive. He's supporting a bill that is a full-scale assault on our Constitution and an endorsement of the premise that our laws can be broken by the political and corporate elite whenever the scary specter of The Terrorists can be invoked to justify it. What's more, as a Constitutional Law Professor, he knows full well what a radical perversion of our Constitution this bill is, and yet he's supporting it anyway. Anyone who sugarcoats or justifies that is doing a real disservice to their claimed political values and to the truth.

The excuse that we must sit by quietly and allow him to do these things with no opposition so that he can win is itself a corrupted and self-destructive mentality. That mindset has no end. Once he's elected, it will transform into: "It's vital that Obama keeps his majority in Congress so you have to keep quiet until after the 2010 midterms," after which it will be: "It's vital that Obama is re-elected so you have to keep quiet until after 2012," at which point the process will repeat itself from the first step. Quite plainly, those are excuses to justify mindless devotion, not genuine political strategies.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Pragmatists--Team-Players--by-Jerry-Lobdill-080621-664.html

I heard on NPR recently a discussion of the difference between pragmatists and idealists. The definition of a pragmatist was a person who says, "Tell me how the system works, and I'll try to find a way to work within it to make a profit."- An idealist was defined as a person who has a vision of how things ought to work and tries to make the system over according to that vision. These may not be exactly the definitions, but I think they are pretty close. This was an intriguing program because I've been an idealist for as long as I can remember and at various times have been taken to task for not being more pragmatic and for not being a team player.

I like the definition of a pragmatist quoted above because it embodies all that is wrong with pragmatism. A pragmatist would seem to be a person who desires to gain something from his actions and doesn't really care what it takes to succeed. This is a person without values that transcend profit-making. Such a person is a perfect player in the game of business. The usual interpretation of Adam Smith's theory of capitalism says that the market always knows what is best for humanity and that all anyone needs to do is to focus like a laser on making a profit, and all will be well. In this model life is a game, and the person with the most toys at the end is the winner..

Pragmatists will readily abandon any cause that they see as a potential losing proposition. They would never be Goliath's David, never invest in any difficult effort because it is the right thing to do. Their idea is that the nail that sticks out will be hammered in, and so they take pains not to stick out.

In a world of pragmatists we see the Tragedy of the Commons played out repeatedly without concern. Assets such as forests, fisheries, the environment, and the stability of the planet's climate are squandered in a mindless, blind game of business and unsustainable perpetual growth.

Then there is the question of the viability of democracy. It never occurs to a pragmatist to consider whether or not any proposed action by the government, individuals, or corporations is consistent with democracy or undermines it and transforms it into fascism. Corporate power is deemed to be right without question.

Idealists, on the other hand, are the opposite of the pragmatists. If there is anything wrong with the pragmatists' game of civilization, the only hope for creating a society that can survive lies with the idealists.

...lou dobbs just came on to give the "independent perspective." lol!!!

someone was telling me recently that "all" democrats are now "progressives." i wonder if that means that everyone else is now an independent???

By Huron John on Jun 22, 2008 6:33 PM

By Huron John on Jun 22, 2008 6:40 PM

 -----------

I don’t think Obama has a will to [change] this system per se, he’ll rather try to [modify] it

However, the [system] lives (and dies) by its own rules, independent on anyone’s (even Obama’s!!!) will…, lol.     He and anyone else may try to realize what’s going on and/or influence events, but none can stop its inevitable outcome.   Again it’s not easy to understand correctly true intentions behind the words of [system’s] politicians.

I just want to point out some other Obama’s words in contrary to those John has been absolutely justifiable, imo, critiques.

One can read it here:   http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11253.html   

     " 

Obama's plan

By POLITICO STAFF | 6/22/08 11:59 AM EST

Here is the text of an announcement Barack Obama will relase later today calling for a crackdown on "excessive energy speculation":

CHICAGO — Senator Barack Obama today announced his plan to crack down on excessive energy speculation and fully close the “Enron Loophole” to ease the impact skyrocketing gas prices. The Enron Loophole was created by McCain campaign co-chair Phil Gramm at the behest of Enron — just one example of the special interest politics that put the interests of Big Oil and speculators ahead of the interests of working people. And the American people have seen the results: record corporate profits while Americans pay record prices at the pump…..

"

How many "progressives" are on this blog?

Huron, you're on a roll today; altho most days you are. Yes, I was wondering when someone would mention the fact that BO is fear mongering. But hey,

"We have to win the war in Afghanistan." (it's the MIC masters, stupid.)

Daniel's been posting about Bilderberg and other shadowy culty thingies...now maybe it's becoming clearer that he brought us some good info that most here poo-pood. True, some was off the wall, even for me! LOL

Oh dear.  George Step.  panel saying that 61% of people polled agree with McC and disagree with the Court's decision to allow Habeus (sp) Corpus.  So the majority of people think it's just fine to have no legal rights.  Now, why would they say that?  FEAR.  The prisoners have been called *terrorists* and therefore they must be - and must have no rights.

The dumbing down is complete.

McC will put the fear of everything in the voters.  Plus there's always that bombing of Iran thing...Perhaps Israel  will do the dirty work for us, paving the way for a potential repug *win.*

The panel was discussing BO's flip flop on campaign finance.

How do you reduce demand when the population explosion is full speed ahead?  And then there's China and India with the rise of the middle class.

All alone!  sob, sniff

Hey, I'm finally able to post here...I've enjoyed the conversation from the sidelines though. To those that missed Olbermann's Special Comments on the Enron loophole, myDD has a link from this page...http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/6/19/15361/6728
I was also viewing youtube clips today after Subway posted one on air cars over at HEP. These were quite interesting to me...There's a guy in Australia making a efficient rotary pneumatic engine... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D...h?v=Dq8aZVLpf- c. There's also the water engine... http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=8...feature=related as well as salt water as fuel... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T...h? v=Tf4gOS8aoFk

I see I need to figure out this new format.

</

Here's some help, I hope!

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/6/19/15361/6728

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D...h?v=Dq8aZVLpf- c

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=8...feature=related as well as salt water as fuel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T...h? v=Tf4gOS8aoFk

Today I got pissed when I heard a talking head say the "Iranian nuclear threat" for part of the reason for oil's rise.  That's a spin on The Bushies' sabre rattling about it, which does contribute to the rise.

Seashell, I started reading Rashim Khalidi's "The Iron Cage" which is what he calls the Mandate policy of Great Britain which was a basically a developed country's elitist policy of handing over Palestine to their elitist Zionist friends and strategic partners.

Up to page 55 and so far a lot about that policy, and how relatively advanced and educated the Palestinians were (even though they were a rural culture) among Arabians, before the disaster and Zionist militia ethnic cleansings of 1947-48, erroneously referred to in the West as the "War of Independence" [from who or what? Perhaps the rule of law]

The "seven armies" that supposedly attacked the Zionists were in fact, pathetic near-colonial security forces that could scarcely handle their countries.  Two of the countries didn't even have armies, only Egypt had any force considered noteworthy, and they were still occupied by the British.

Good info about the "Iron Cage."  Thanks for the heads up.

I replied up thread - the reply function works and stacks conversations

salt water as fuel, compliments of Reed.

I made the links for Judy Baker's endorsements clickable at the top of the thread.  She's someone worth reading about and helping out if you're so inclined.  Imagine a Senate seat (Claire McCaskill) and a House seat in MO!  w00t!  Judy has a tough primary ahead in August...

           NAIROBI(AFP)
           - A baby hippopotamus that survived
           the tsunami
           waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a
           strong bond
           with a giant male century-old tortoise in an
           animal facility
           in the port city of Mombassa,
           officials said
           The
           hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing
           about 300
           kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down
           SabakiRiverinto the Indian Ocean,
           then forced back to shore when
           tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast
           on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.




           'It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has
           adopted a male
           tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise
           seems to be very happy with being a 'mother',' ecologist Paula Kahumbu,
           who is in charge ofLafargePark, told AFP.





           'After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together,' the ecologist added.


           'The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it
           followed its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo
           becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother,' Kahumbu added.




           'The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very
           tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to
           stay with their mothers for four years,' he explained.




           'Life is not measured by the number of breaths we
           take, but by the moments that take our breath away.'





           This is a real story that shows that our differences
           don't matter much when we need the comfort of another.


           We could all learn a lesson from these two creatures. 'Look beyond the differences and find a way to walk the path together.'

http://democracyforamerica.com/users/271950-richard-renner/blog_posts/25681-renner-endorsed-by-mid-michigan-democracy-for-america-contribute-to-change-in-northern-michigan

http://democracyforamerica.com/users/271950-richard-renner/blog_posts/25681-renner-endorsed-by-mid-michigan-democracy-for-america-contribute-to-change-in-northern-michigan

but I had to bring my wife to work...thanks for the help Sea and Thankful. I see what people mean by grabbing the tool bar, it's here and then it's not.