Very well written.  I hope you post his response, if you get one.

Howard is first.

it is the simple little Howardly acts like LTE such as this excellent example that will take our country back

Joe Biden takes votes directly away from Clinton if he moves up in Iowa, listen on This Week and find out why.

One thing I want to mention in regards to the pulse poll, Gore is not running and people need to realize this and drop this pipe dream now. Support someone who has committed to being in the race.

Joe Biden is uniquely positioned to challenge Hillary Clinton on her Iranian war authorization vote; and he did it effectively talking to George S.

before this nominating process is over that exchange will become important, because Biden destroys Clinton's claim that she has the "experience", when she can't even remember that Bush used similar language to go to war with Iraq

the stop Hillary movement goes through Joe Biden in Iowa and if he finishes higher than she does here it would be a big deal

Biden has a long way to come back to actually get the nomination, first he has to pass Hillary.

Jared some us understand Howard's statement of "You have the power" to mean seize your dreams. Who do you support?

4.

Good for JB.

Joe is my third choice in the pulse poll (Obama first, Edwards second) -- OEB.

And to Jared I would further ask, "Did Vice President Gore tell you personally himself that he is not running?  Or was it someone else?"

5.

To the other JB:

wARNING -- Be ready to be piled on (I hope you ate your Wheaties).

Great, great letter, Jody!  Florida deserves much better.

Bollywood:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071021/ap_po/louisiana_governor

Indian immigrants' son new La. governor

By MELINDA DESLATTE, Associated Press Writer

6 minutes ago

BATON ROUGE, La. - U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal easily defeated 11 opponents and became the state's first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction, decades after his parents moved to the state from India to pursue the American dream.

Jindal, a 36-year-old Republican, will be the nation's youngest governor. He had 53 percent with 625,036 votes with about 92 percent of the vote tallied. It was more than enough to win Saturday's election outright and avoid a Nov. 17 runoff.

...

His nearest competitors: Democrat Walter Boasso with 208,690 votes or 18 percent; Independent John Georges had 167,477 votes or 14 percent; Democrat Foster Campbell had 151,101 or 13 percent. Eight candidates divided the rest.

...

The Oxford-educated Jindal had lost the governor's race four years ago to Gov. Kathleen Blanco. He won a congressional seat in conservative suburban New Orleans a year later but was widely believed to have his eye on the governor's mansion.

Blanco opted not to run for re-election after she was widely blamed for the state's slow response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

...

If your in Boston today, ya got the Red Sox at 8pm in Fenway Parkand during the day, the Head of the Charles Regatta:

http://www.boston.com/sports/other_sports/articles/2007/10/18/head_of_the_charles_regatta/

By Milva Didomizio  |  October 18, 2007

This 3-mile boat race, started in 1965 by Cambridge Boat Club members, has grown into a local tradition - and the largest regatta in the world. A great place to watch the 55 races of different skill and age levels, or at least a few of them, is Reunion Village, named because of its unofficial function as a college class reunion site.

...

Spectators are encouraged to use public transportation and the Regatta's complimentary shuttle bus service. 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Free; Reunion Village $1 daily, located on the Boston side of the Charles between the Weeks and Anderson bridges. Race begins at Boston University, DeWolfe Boathouse, Cambridge, and ends at Artesani Park, Allston. Viewing along the Charles River in Boston and Cambridge. 617-868-6200. hocr.org

Jindal probably would have defeated Blanco, Louisiana voters are a wounded beast after the hurricanes. Bush wouldn't fare any better than Blanco.

Never forget.

Jody, I think on this thread, Howard would hold open the door and request you to precede him. That letter is awesome! Kudos and honorary firsties!

* * *

Al Gore has not said he will not run. All he has said is he has no "plans" to run, which for anyone who has been around the block a few times means his plans are subject to change.

I say, if all-things-equal you would prefer Gore, vote Gore until he explicitly asks us to stop the way he did four years ago.

If your candidate is someone else, then extol that person's virtues rather than admonishing people for voting their hearts and consciences.

-- volney

Gore-Boxer '08

I can't stand how disrespectful of the Iraqi war dead George S. is in that flicker of time for In Memorium.

bbl

The pulse poll is tapping into the hopes and dreams of many of us. Gore is in all probability not going to run. But  I believe  he could be drafted. I'm grateful a space for "others" was offered in the poll. Al Gore has experience, a deeper vision and a hard won wisdom our country and the world desperaly needs. And we need to be reminded again that  "we have the power."      Van Parker

Funny they call Jindal "non-white". When I was growing up we were taught that India was the "asian" in "caucasian" and the "Indo" in "Indo-European" and that Indians were Indo-european, caucasian people.

The longer you live the more confusing life gets. LOL

-- volney

no offense to Monica, but ah,hem some other candidates haven't captured a groundswell across the nation, and are a longer shot as of today than Al Gore

volney 

according to my son Jindal comes across as a really bright capable guy

the Democratic Party should have recruited him a decade ago

LSU pulled out a comeback victory as time ran out

Geaux Tigers

If New Hampshire decides on a December primary they can go first, I'm going to vote to keep Iowa in the DNC rules and stick with our date.

I just feel that if we'rere going to have a pulse poll of candidates let's do it of people who have actually committed to running for the office rather than Monday morning quarterback about who we would love to have run for President, it's not going to happen. Frankly I feel Gore is doing more for the environment and for our world by not committing to the mess we now call running for president. It would be such a distraction for him right and it would take away from the issue he really cares about, the future of our planet.

Phil Specht,

  At least George S is doing something like that for the fallen soliders in Iraq, which is more than a lot of the talking heads are doing about the Iraq War. 

Phil Specht
Sun, 10/21/07
10:02 am

Alas, Donna Brazille this morning has had to kinda admit that the 'states', one official in a state no less, has the power given by the people of the state - not her, her committee, her big mouth, her indignation, her pride, or the DNC.

Donna could not even outshine the pathetic mouth-piece of the R spin machine.

... life is good!

Jared

Who do you support and why?

I voted for Gore because I think it just might be the little kick in the pants that gets him into the race, but I'm prepared to caucus for Edwards here if he doesn't.

... sooooo, why was it again that the DNC decided to disenfranchise voters in states, tho it has no such authority in the Constitution? or do we, here in the ranks of patriots, agree that D.C. based movers and shakers should have power over elected Constitutional officials' decisions?

Like the way things have gone in the States or not, i stand behind the Constitution, the way powers were delegated, the ones reserved to the States, the checks of Congress on the Executive, and even the veto of the President.

We must keep that in focus.

P.S. i still want my country AND my Howard back!!

Gore isn't playing the current nomination process "game", but that doesn't mean he couldn't still win the nomination within Party Rules. It might be just what it takes to see the later primary states loom large in importance again. Some old duffer was complaining to me about West Virginia's choice in 1960 as a HHH fan. lol

If Gore entered the week of the Iowa caucus and came in even third he would have great momentum for California and I would love to see Edwards and Gore debate for the good of the country in March primary states.

deaniac

the Constitution didn't even anticipate political parties

Still waiting to hear who Jared actually supports, and why.

Phil, I agree about Jindal, have always had a very good impression of him.

-- volney

party rules only effect the allocation of delegates to the Nominating Convention

Iowa holds a primary the first Tuesday in June. our National Convention delegates are already elected by name within Party rules by then

Assault on Reason is a roadmap to the White House imho.

On topic: Congressional Democrats vs Bush

4 c's

cower,cringe, collaborate, capitulate

Plus, dis your base, then demand its support.

Wake up sheeple

31 It's an assault on the Democratic Party too!

oops I mis-spoke, we elect our degates at large at our State Convention which is the Saturday in June following the Primary (scheduled to promote party unity) and we use those slots to meet gender and diversity targets

And for people who imagine that all those Gore votes would automatically go to Edwards, in my particular case if Gore said "cease" tomorrow I would re-vote with Bill Richardson as my first choice. And if anything happened to him, then it would be Chris Dodd as my first choice.

John Edwards is a nice guy with way not enough experience for president, especially right now IMO. But I respect his supporters who include some of my nearest and dearest.

-- volney

Gore-Boxer '08

John, Gore doesn't disagree with you about Republicrats.

and recent votes show them to be about 20% of the current Party in Congress so primary fights are in order

Phil Specht
Sun, 10/21/07
10:32 am

Are you saying they didn't understand the concept? Get me up to speed here... didn't the English have the Parliament then? Isn't it predicated on parties?

Maybe, just maybe they left all that to the states on purpose.
They also didn't put the FAA in there... are you surprised at that too?

(oops, once again i'll go cower in the corner. lest my elders backhand me... not)

John Edwards would be a domestic President and there has been way too much rachetting up of talk about WWIII.

I like his priorities like true universal health care and I think a President who sets an agenda of a couple of big achievable goals is often successful.

He is pretty good on global warming too, but even better on rural issues which of course I follow.

But the main inbalance in the world is the advantage China has taken of our "free trade" blinders, and stupid trade agreements and their maipulation of currency values that has lead to the collapse of the dollar, and there is where the rubber really meets the global road, and Edwards gets that too. so surprise, if you actually look after the welfare of the American people as President you seek to right some pretty big wrongs.

I don't in anyway think my support for Gore diminishes my agreement with John Edwards' political goals, and if Edwards becomes President I sure Gore will haver a huge role in setting policy on global warming, which may not be true of other candidates.

bbl

Phil Specht
Sun, 10/21/07
10:39 am


... sounds very very complicated. How about the DNC just support the person who gets the most votes from the States?
Oops, there i go again, supposing the voters should have the power.

I guess since everyone appears to be interested, I'm trying to decide between Richardson, Obama, and Edwards. None of the candidates this year have fired me up like Dean did in 03/04 and I wish they would. IMO I just feel that Gore isn't getting in because he doesn't want to go through it again (I don't blame him) and people need to come to terms with that.

Cenk Uygur: Nancy Pelosi did it again. One more apology on a stack of endless apologies from Democrats. Please stop being so damn weak. It's embarrassing to look at. But I'm long past waiting for the Democratic leaders to do the right thing or realize how badly they're being outplayed at every turn. It's time to start rooting for a new generation of Democratic leaders like Pete Stark and Chris Dodd. If they're ready to do the fighting, I'm ready to stand behind them.

In Canada, the Liberals are following the lead of Pelosi/Reid: caving in to the bullying of a  Prime Minister who, with a minority in Parliament, acts as if he has a majority.

BTW, what the heck was up with that thread from 5p.m. Saturday?

... weird.

Responding to the kind words from the late night Kucinich thread from
floridagal .
Sat, 10/20/07
11:40 pm

Excellent letter and points Jody!

FROM THE NYT

Every now and then, we are tempted to double-check that the Democrats actually won control of Congress last year. It was particularly hard to tell this week. Democratic leaders were cowed, once again, by propaganda from the White House and failed, once again, to modernize the law on electronic spying in a way that permits robust intelligence gathering on terrorists without undermining the Constitution.

Check out Edwards on Bill Maher on Friday night. You decide.

40. None of the candidates this year have fired me up like Dean did in 03/04 and I wish they would.

Don't hold your breath!

floridagal .
Sat, 10/20/07
11:40 pm


"Hey, David and the DLC tell us what you really think"

Well, apparently FLgal has missed my constant holding the DLC and specificly Harold Ford Jr.'s feet in the hot coals of true patriotism.
I am well hated by the 'establishmnet' Dems in this area. Even progressives cringe when the hacks for bluedogs and conservative dems, or the powerful themselves(if brave enough, which Harold wasn't), come near me - oftimes i go to them.

It is very pitiful to see this kind of attack, so very ill informed, especially over what the likes of Donna Brazille has ginned up.

Huron John, I'm not.

Hey Deaniac and other friends of Dean (and welcome Jared)

I'm up in beautiful Vermont just outside of Burlington. I'm here for pleasure this weekend and work until Wednesday. My hostess with the mostest has been our own listener, fervent Deaniac and tour director extraordinnaire!

Yesterday we visited the statehouse in Montpelier. All of the portraits of past govenors were so - well - portraitly. And then there's our Howard, grinning while paddling a boat on Lake Champlain.

OMG how the country would be now with his leadership. But they do have us, forging on to protect what democracy we have left.

It's up to us, folks.

Indy thanks for the Maher heads up so I can catch the rerun.

DOWD ON THE CLINTONS

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21dowd.html?ref=opinion

Bill Clinton elevated his neuroses into a management style, running a chaotic White House that took its tempo from his adolescent indulgences and from his volatile marriage. The West Wing weather was determined by the Clintons’ strange emotional and political co-dependence.

In her acid flashback of a new book, “For Love of Politics,” Sally Bedell Smith describes how First Lady Hillary routinely unmanned Bill and his aides, and engaged in sharp spurts of temper that sparked his temper.

“Hillary’s anger was bound up in the intricacies of her marital bargain, which engendered rivalry and resentment along with mutual dependence,” Ms. Smith writes. Political power was her reward for his marital infidelity.

When Bill explains why Hillary should be president, his subtext is clear: We owe it to her for all she put up with from me.

At the breakfast, a reporter asked Mr. Penn if the campaign has polled to figure out how to proceed if Bill’s personal foibles once more take Hillaryland hostage.

The pollster who believes that data trumps DNA brushed off the question, complimenting the former president as “a tremendous asset.”

But if you think that Hillary doesn’t have connubial contingency plans in place, you’re disregarding his DNA — and hers.

GONZO REDUX

(And the Dems are falling over each other to confirm him)

Hey Denise!! you are soooo lucky to be in the company of an unyielding patriot, not to mention sweet and smart.

Indeed, Howard is far from being the cookie cutter politician. I miss him soooo much as OUR leader on a day to day basis.
Me thinks that he would speak for us when nearly the whole of the Congress is sooooo of the tracks. WE are his loudspeaker, the DNC his muzzle

... sadly

VAMPIRE ELITES

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_w__chris_071020_extinction_or_the_el.htm

Human civilization is actually see spot run simple to analyze. What science calls "critical variables" are the vampire elites, i.e., the one percent or less of humankind who are the literal Gods and Goddesses of planet Earth.

The problem is what to do about it, since establishment politics (like establishment religion) is ruled absolutely by vampire elites. The "vampire" modifier here is more than poetry, since the elites are literally sucking the life blood out of Mother Nature. Again, the metaphor fits the rape and murder of our bleeding planet by Texas energy corporations.

Take Bill and Hillary Clinton as a case in point. Bill Clinton may have charisma, but he spends so much time licking the jack boots of Daddy Bush, that his tongue must be as black as his conscience. Also, let's never forget he was elected as a liberal who turn coated into a corporate centrist.

And we don't know if the DLC Hillary Clinton Doll even exists! She/it never takes a stand about ANYTHING, so she, like her husband, is an incarnation of those zero change politicians (i.e., fascists) who the elites manipulate like video games.

So, no help from the house-trained Clintons. But also, no help from establishment politics (i.e., our dem/pug ONE party system).

Thus, this brings us back to square one. The supreme evil of human existence is the Have and Have not distinction, i.e., the vampire elites, but how do we get the majority of the planet to realize this? NOTHING could be more self evident, but our planet suffers not only from the pathology of greed, but also, alas, from the pathology of sloth.

Stephen Colbert is on Meet The Press this morning.

Denise
Sun, 10/21/07
11:16 am

Denise, Lucky you are!! How are the colors?

12.

* rdorgan
Sun, 10/21/07
9:44 am


We Need Reed!

http://www.dfalink.com/campaign.php?id=2...


http://www.gildareed.com/Call-To-Action....

NO FREE LUNCH

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_richard__071019_just_how_much_troubl.htm

The US government requires $70 billion a MONTH in capital inflows (borrowed money) to cover its current account deficit (i.e. the money it is spending – in Iraq for instance --  but not collecting in taxes from its citizenry.  Problem is, the key sources for borrowing this money are gradually drying up, as per the recent dumping of a stunning $52 Billion worth of US treasury bonds by Asian investors, just mentioned.  Central banks in Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam have all begun to cut purchases of US bonds of all kinds, or signaled an intent to do so.  Bottom line: These folks are not going to loan our government any more money, and there may be a whole lot of holders of US treasury certificates who will soon join them, as the value of the dollar continues to slide.

Front page headline from a recent issue of the Financial times of London: “Investors Flee U.S. Securities.”  From the article: “Foreign investors slash their holdings of US securities by a record amount as the credit squeeze intensifies.”  In other words, not only are foreigners dumping our treasury certificates, they’re also dumping out stocks, corporate bonds etc.  To wit:

“Foreign investors flee US securities. By Michael Mackenzie in New York. Published: October 16 2007 17:07 | Last updated: October 16 2007 21:16”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1ed4bb86-7bf8-11dc-be7e-0000779fd2ac.html

 And where are a growing number of US investors putting their investment money?  Answer: outside the US. 

Yale University economist Robert Shiller, who has long predicted this decade's housing market bubble would deflate, said the residential real estate downturn could spiral into "the most severe since the Great Depression" and could well lead to a recession.

sheeez, my spelling this morning has been absolutely horrible.

Well, it's looking more and more like my prediction on Romney will hold up. Now he has been ordained by Bob Jones(and you better bet the fundies will bow to that), as was the boyking. Extremely sadly, these folk are decieved just as their own scriptures predicted.
They have taken the broad path to destruction, and work avidly against the mission of Christ. They forget He fed the poor, healed the sick, and forgave those that varied from his values. The fundies are far far away from those values, they go down Satan's path with the Republican party and it's hypocrits.

FRANK RICH--ARE WE "GOOD GERMANS"?

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/link.php?id=43801

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress...There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country's good name.

gotta run

from Proverbs: "If a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at PEACE with him."

Love ya'll, mean it!!

Kucinich/Feingold '08

MIKE WHITNEY--MORE GOOD ECONOMIC NEWS

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney10202007.html

Is it really fair to blame one man for destroying the US economy?

Probably not. But Alan Greenspan is still tops on our list. After all, Greenspan "presided over the greatest expansion of speculative finance in history, including a trillion-dollar hedge fund industry, bloated Wall Street-firm balance sheets approaching $2 trillion, and a global derivatives market with notional values surpassing an unfathomable $220 trillion." (Henry Liu, "Why the Subprime Bust will Spread" Asia Times) Greenspan is also responsible for slashing the real Fed Funds Rate so that it was negative for 31 months from 2002 to 2005. That decision flooded the housing market with trillions of dollars