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Energized. Refocused. Emphoward.
It's been an intense year so far. And the truly intense part of the campaign season hasn't even begun.
2008 began with planning for the DFA Training Academy. The planning was much more difficult than I had ever imagined it could be. While I've planned similar events in the past, I had to remember that those events were in Elmira, NY. In Elmira, venues are easier to come by. Places such as museums that are under utilized by the public are just begging for events to come to them. Here in Rochester it was a different story.
I'll admit there were a couple of times when I was ready to give up. But then, just like a college term paper written the night before it was due, everything came together quickly. The training was a success and I'm sure attendees will be talking about it for quite some time.
It seems that the month of May was the focus of so much energy. The training academy was the first weekend of May and it was an energizing and inspiring event, even for those who have already attended many times. A visit by Jim Dean during the training was an added bonus.
Just a couple of weeks after the training academy, Howard Dean finally visited Rochester. It was a very grounding experience. Initially inspired by Howard to become very politically active in 2003, I have to admit that sometimes it's been tough. Working on campaigns in which you leave part of your heart and soul only to have the candidate lose is heartbreaking.
But when Howard ended his campaign, he started Democracy for America for us--those people he had inspired. And then Howard went on to become the Chairman of the DNC. If Howard never stops, how could I stop or even slow down?
The longtime Deaniacs were literally mesermized by Howard (and I have the pictures to prove it). We've believed in Howard Dean for 5 years and he still inspires us. He re-energized us. The message remains the same--"just show up" & "you have the power".
Sadly, Howard's message from 5 years ago is still valid today and needs to be heard today more than ever. Therefore, we must continue to support those socially progressive, fiscally responsible and grassroots-drive candidates. Our work is not done, may never be done, so have to continue to fight the good fight because we do have the power.
Thanks for your service. I second rdorgan too -- if you serve your community, etc. you are serving your country. I will be doing a lot more serving my community now that I have joined yet another organization in my neck of the woods. ;-)
Jo in Vermont - I agree with your post from the last thread cento percento.
too cool for outdoors and I was bz with paperwork, genealogy stuff, and laundry anyway.
Good day for Chitown, Cubs and Sox both won :-)
So very thankful to Susan Rowe for the article on a previous thread:
http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/05/24/the-love-of-a-gay-man/
(sorry, no toolbar)
I've spent a lot of time dwelling on the similarities and differences between Sharon and her uncle's family and mine. Think it's unnecessary to say it made me cry.
The rest of the dwelling ponderance time was about how unnecessary this current military action is, how it's distracting most of our time,thoughts, money, and effort... and how it's distracting almost all attention, time, thought, and effort from all the domestic issues ~ not the least of which is the deconstruction of the Constitution.
...
The minority leaders of the Florida House and Senate both went along with moving up the Florida primary. They did not even do the good faith effort that would kept the delegates. The Geller and Gelber, Florida House and Senate minority leaders...complicity.
More at the link. Geller just filed a lawsuit against Dean and the DNC. Gelber did apologize and is backing Obama.
That post above did not look anything like what I posted. Trying again.
The Florida legislative Dem minority leaders did not fight the GOP, and thus they were not able to use the "good faith" clause from the DNC because they mostly yes on moving up the primary.
Geller and Gelber, Florida House and Senate minority leaders...complicity.
Here is the video of Geller mocking his own amendment. It is back up at You Tube.
It looked better the 2nd time.
that there was no value in posting lindnm's screeds against Obama on this blog. I beg to differ - I think it's important to recognise that for some of Hillary's supporters it doesn't matter what Obama or his supporters say or do - some folks will simply refuse to see reality when it comes to their girl. I also think it's important to be respectful of Hillary's supporters, but tiptoeing around and avoiding the issues of Hillary's own behaviour in this campaign is simply enabling them to continue with the lies and made-up bs that we see and hear from her campaign. this is much like half the country who believed the compassionate conservative, strong on foreign policy bs about GW and voted for him a second time CONTRARY TO THE FACTS, and who are now (along with the rest of us) paying the price for that mistake. WE DON'T NEED A REPLAY OF 2000 AND 2004. we need tough love - be respectful but don't back down from the facts, dammit!
I'm busy spreading yesterday's diary around.
Yes, we are going to have to get used to selecting people for public office with a little more equanimity. Sometimes a potential hire isn't quite right for a slot the first time out. Think of it as a baseball team. Not every player gets to play in every game; some are needed to warm the bench and even just absorb information while watching closely.
We could have three or four candidates for every position, if we cut back the unnecessary expenses of the competition. If elections belong to the voters, then the voters should be able to decide how they are conducted. If people spend too much of other people's money, that should be a mark against them and when the press tries to make it a virtue, we should point out their self-interested criterion and hold it against them.
using reply to answer myself.
Morning, Jo
If people are bummed by criticism of Hillary here, they should have a look at this:
http://www.againsthillary.com/
But, I do think this is where it started going down-hill--
“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H.
she could have made the point about late primaries (which indeed have no relation to this year's primary, considering the entirely different calendar we have this time) without playing another fear card. I don't think that she meant any threat to Obama, or at least I would like to think that she didn't, but bringing up political assasination is just another way of playing the fear card, just like she continues to play the race card and the gender card and the unpatriotic card. we've had quite enough of that from republicans, thank you. Hillary, your desperation is leading you to say despicable things and it's time for you to face reality. the reason many of us aren't supporting you has nothing to do with your gender, it's because we don't like the Hillary we've come to know during your campaign - we simply no longer like you or trust you and it is plain who the best leader for this country will be. and as you're always saying, Hillary, we folks who voted for Obama don't NEED a President to look out for them, we latte drinking, college educated, white folk and black folk and yellow folk. yup, just what we need - another President who only speaks for and works for those who support him/her. goodnight Hill. it's time to face the music you've been writing.
It's not just in association with RFK or the first time that Hillary has referred to assassination. I had forgotten that the word was used way back before the primary in connection with the claim that it took an LBJ to pass the civil rights legislation. At that point, the word was spoken by someone who introduced her and that person was quickly disowned. However, the context was referenced by Hillary herself when she told an interviewer at FOX:
"
You know, today Senator Obama used President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to criticize me. He basically compared himself to our greatest heroes because they gave great speeches.
"President Kennedy was in Congress for 14 years. He was a war hero. He was a man of great accomplishments and readiness to be president. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a movement. He was gassed. He was beaten. He was jailed. And he gave a speech that was one of the most beautifully, profoundly important speeches ever written in America, the "I have a dream" speech.
"And then he worked with President Johnson to get the civil rights laws passed, because the dream couldn't be realized until finally it was legally permissible for people of all colors and backgrounds and races and ethnicities to be accepted as citizens."
I think I forgot how this topic got started in Francine Torge's mouth because i was so incensed by the formulation
legally permissible for people of all colors and backgrounds and races and ethnicities to be accepted as citizens.
What this sentence tells us is that Hillary Clinton believes the proposition that our civil
rights are given to us by the Constitution and the laws, rather than being god-given and not to be infringed upon by the agents of government. She doesn't consider
the Constitution to be a limiting document, circumscribing the powers of the agents of
government and that the government is us, the people.
The problem with segregation wasn't that some people weren't integrated; it was that
some people were unjustly excluded--for reasons that had nothing to do with their behavior (unlike convicted criminals who
are properly barred from participating in governing until their debt to society is paid).
And thanks for the diary. I was hoping someone from good old DFA Rochester would post about Howard's recent visit.
I've noticed that Howard gets out and travels around a lot. I don't think he gets enough props for all that he does all around the country.
Jim Dean has also visited my little town any number of times in support of DFA candidates and we appreciate all he is doing.
And while I'm at it, Danny, you are doing a great job and the blog is so much better now, even if we still do grumble a little!
-- volney
By being so aggressive, Hillary has effectively stopped any discussion of her own considerable negatives. I give her points for using the best-defense-is-a-good-offense strategy effectively.
But by any measure she is heavily laden with baggage. All the old baggage that will be dragged out and opened up yet again, particularly Rose Law Firm/Whitewater, filegate, etc. And then also the typical family baggage -- not just Bill but her own family.
One example. Barbara Boxer has said she will vote with her state delegation (therefore, for Hillary) but has never come out and endorsed her. Why? Maybe because Hill's brother Tony, the ex-husband of Barbara Boxer's daughter Nicole, is a deadbeat dad owing a huge sum of child support. Maybe not. And no, Hillary is not her brother as Jimmy Carter wasn't Billy. All I'm saying is she has been acting as if she's the only candidate without baggage, but of course everyone has some, even her.
-- volney
- Talking Point Alert, which can be turned back on the Bush enablers
By Imn2Paine on May 27, 2008 7:10 AM EDTFTucker Carlson says, "Americans most fear humiliation"
-he's speaking about pulling out of Iraq.
So to counter, IMHO, it can be said,
-The American people have a profound sense of humiliation in the current POTUS; his Party; and the pundits, proselytizers, and soothsayers propping up all the humiliations of the first two.
do not fear humiliation. People who are secure in their own competence cannot be humilitated. Only people with an artificially inflated sense of self (generally prompted by a need to overcome inadequate performance) are in danger of being humiliated.
Bush Two is a source of embarrassment.
http://www.montanastandard.com/articles/2008/05/27/state/hjjbjehejjefie.txt
Montana Poll: Obama leading Clinton
By Charles S. Johnson - 05/25/2008
HELENA — Barack Obama has grabbed a big lead over Hillary Clinton in Montana’s June 3 Democratic presidential primary, a Lee Newspapers poll shows.
Obama leads Clinton by 52 to 35 percent among likely Democratic voters, with 13 percent undecided in the poll that was taken May 19-21.
pundits, proselytizers, and soothsayers
... Election cometh:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/23/12638/2379
The emerging battleground
by kos
Fri May 23, 2008 at 12:05:03 PM PDT
Obama's obvious inability to garner "white working class voters", which has already decimated his chances in black-majority states like Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, and Maine, is also making it impossible for him to win traditional battleground states like...
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Rasmussen. 5/21. Likely voters. MoE 4% (4/30 results)
Obama (D) 48 (41)
McCain (R) 43 (51)
That's a 15-point swing as the party begins to come together again. Some Clinton supporters may still be in the denial, anger, and bargaining stages of grief, but in states with early contests, people appear to be moving into general election mode.
In this poll, Obama gets 72 percent of the Democratic vote. Still low, of course, but better than the 68 percent he got a month ago. And while a month ago Obama lost the female vote 49-41, he won it 46-44 this month.
Also interestingly, while last month he lost the independent vote 51-43, he won it 51-40, which suggests that McCain is losing some of his appeal with his supposedly strongest constituency (after the press, that is).
Finally, Obama leads with those who make less than $20K a year (52-27), $20-40K (50-44), $60-75K (50-40), and $75-100K (55-40). McCain leads among those who make $40-60K (48-45) and over $100K (46-44). His problems with working class whites is a real, ongoing concern.
OHIO
SurveyUSA. 5/16-18. Likely voters. MoE 4.1% (4/11-13 results)
McCain (R) 39 (47)
Obama (D) 48 (45)
Another big swing in Obama's direction, to the tune of 11 points in five weeks.
...
Let's look at some recent polling showing this trend:
Colorado:
SUSA:
3/17: 46 McCain, 46 Obama
5/19: 42 McCain, 48 Obama
Oregon:
Rasmussen:
3/26: 42 McCain, 48 Obama
5/7: 38 McCain, 52 Obama
Pennsylvania:
SUSA:
2/26-28: 47 McCain, 42 Obama
5/16-18: 40 McCain, 48 Obama
Virginia:
SUSA:
4/11-13: 52 McCain, 44 Obama
5/16-18: 42 McCain, 49 Obama
Missouri:
SUSA:
3/14-16: 53 McCain, 39 Obama
5/16-18: 48 McCain, 45 Obama
An election is not a win/lose process. It's a hiring process and the only poll that counts is the one taken on election day--if the tallies are accurate.
Instead of focusing on predictions, we really ought to attend to the machines that
will compile the ballot results. Our votes are worthless, if they're not recorded and
tallied as cast.
- Over 200,000 on our roads and highways. We are a culture of death.
By Monica Smith on May 27, 2008 8:01 AM EDTmy avatar got stuck out in the margin, and I got stuck in a login loop for over an hour,which was my morning blog time
BTW that is not me in the picture with the Obama Llama, I just like the beast.
... with a new administration:
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_9384350?source=most_viewed
Closing the tax havens
<!--subtitle--><!--byline-->
It wasn't until last week, more than five years into the Iraq War, that Congress passed a bill prohibiting federal contractors from avoiding Social Security and Medicare taxes by hiring workers through offshore shell companies.
...
The largest offender when it comes to dodging payroll taxes is KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton, the defense giant long associated with Vice President Cheney whose tentacles extend all through the American military presence in Iraq.
...
The legislation, sponsored in the Senate by John Kerry of Massachusetts and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of Illinois, calls for the money gained by the measure to be used to finance a tax relief package for veterans that is included in the bill. Modest military salaries and benefits have left many families in tough shape financially, in particular those whose breadwinner has been forced to serve multiple tours as the Iraq War drags on. We would prefer that they get a tax break rather than KBR, DynCorp, et al.
"You can't argue for tax havens and two-and-a-half billion a week for war," argues House co-sponsor Richard Neal of Massachusetts. There is no good argument for either, but at least the tax havens appear close to being shut down for good.
typo - HBR
S/B - KBR
(that'ss what you get when have Halliburton and KBR on your mind at same time [smile])
- one hour and seventeen minutes of trying, (I see now that the clock works)don't say I didn't try
By Phil Specht on May 27, 2008 8:35 AM EDTbbl
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3363031,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
United States | 27.05.2008
Berlin On the Itinerary for Bush, Possibly for Obama
In June, George W. Bush plans to make what's likely to be his last visit to Berlin as US President. But people in the German capital are more enthusiastic about seeing another prominent US politician.
Bush is scheduled to spend June 10 and 11 in Germany as part of a week-long trip to Europe.
...
Bush isn't the only top American politician to whom Berliners may be treated this summer.
On Tuesday May 27, Karsten Voigt -- the government envoy for German-American relations -- said that likely Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was also considering coming to the German capital.
"If a US Presidential hopeful visits Berlin, holding a speech at the Brandenburg Gate and going afterward to the Kennedy Museum, it provides powerful images for the American electorate," Voigt told the daily Tagesspiegel newspaper.
...
Meanwhile, the weekly news magazine Stern gushed: "The 'new Kennedy' wants to visit Berlin."
"I don't see any value in bringing [Linda NM's] posts from another blog to this one."
Since the first Clinton administration, both Bill and Hillary Clinton have been engaged in an ongoing struggle to displace the traditional Democratic Party network and extend the scope of their own power, essentially as a means of promoting DLC policies that will appeal to and gain the support of wealthy benefactors and contributors who help perpetuate them. They have enjoyed a measure of success, although insurgent leaders like Howard Dean have pushed back against this aggrandizement of power.
Gore, never on good terms with Senator Clinton in any case, resisted the Clinton power play by disassociating himself with the Clinton administration as a presidential candidate and endorsing the candidacy of Howard Dean against the hand picked Clinton surrogate candidate, Wesley Clark, and the other Beltway insiders opposing him.
Linda NM was the main Gore cheerleader at DFA, an organization developed from the last vestiges of the Dean presidential campaign. She was never shy about touting the works of Gore's and Dean's critics as long as their criticism focused on Obama. Once their ire shifted to Gore or Dean, she called them out as misinformed hacks. Furthermore, she didn't express any warm sentiments towards Clinton while she had Gravel, Dodd, or Edwards in the race, but they're no longer candidates. Clinton is, so that serves to convert her by some alchemy into a suitable candidate. The prevailing attitude seems to be any port in a storm.
It may be different in California but here in Michigan, this is an example of common hypocrisy. Taking such counterfactual arguments to a different website may be one way of keeping them from the disinfecting sunlight of scrutiny here, but regardless of whether it strikes you as valuable, the portability of such public comments insures that they are held up for review.
Excellent post Tom
So, your rationale for dragging Linda's scattered, irrational, illogical, name-calling rants here, is that your are holding them up to your "disenfecting sunlight of scrutiny"?? Lol.
"So, your rationale for dragging Linda's scattered, irrational, illogical, name-calling rants here, is that your are holding them up to your 'disenfecting sunlight of scrutiny'?? "
Yes, but I didn't call them "scattered, irrational, illogical, name-calling rants."
to justify dragging those rants here....since we all know that her arguments aren't convincing anyone here why don't you sign up at myDD and apply your "disenfecting sunlight of scrutiny", at their blog if you really believe that responding has some noble purpose.
Yes, I described her rants with those adjectives. Her arguments are erratic (and that is the kindest thing I can say about them)....responding would be like arguing with the homeless guy (where I get off at BART) whose political rants are similar...lots of name-calling, though he uses mostly f-bombs. I honestly don't see the point in attempting to debate against, "Liar, he's a lying liar!!", on and on.
actually, I'm going to try to send you a msg. through this DFA thing.
"[S]ince we all know that [Linda's] arguments aren't convincing anyone here why don't you sign up at myDD and apply your 'disenfecting sunlight of scrutiny', at their blog if you really believe that responding has some noble purpose.
"Yes, I described her rants with those adjectives. . . . I honestly don't see the point in attempting to debate against, 'Liar, he's a lying liar!!', on and on."
1) I'm unsure why you suppose I believed that the arguments were convincing anyone. I thought I explained succinctly that reprinting excerpts of these diaries helped expose their inherent hypocrisy. It remains for others to decide whether they're convincing. 2) the "scrutiny" you seem obsessed with isn't mine. It's that of the blog group Linda formerly communed with. 3) The exposure here is for the benefit of bloggers who have indicated that they missed Linda's presence on the blog, thought she deserved better, or both. Maybe that pool excludes you, in which case there's no reason to make it a concern of yours. Under those circumstances, it's not meant for you anyway.
"it's not meant for you anyway."===
No, you are clear that you have a noble purpose...a community service intention in bringing her posts from myDD to here. We disagree and you may have your last word, lol.
- Iraq War May Have Increased Energy Costs Worldwide by a Staggering $6 Trillion
By Huron John on May 27, 2008 8:49 AM EDThttp://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/86515/
The invasion of Iraq by Britain and the US has trebled the price of oil, according to a leading expert, costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone.
The oil economist Dr Mamdouh Salameh, who advises both the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (Unido), told The Independent on Sunday that the price of oil would now be no more than $40 a barrel, less than a third of the record $135 a barrel reached last week, if it had not been for the Iraq war.
He spoke after oil prices set a new record on 13 consecutive days over the past two weeks. They have now multiplied sixfold since 2002, compared with the fourfold increase of the 1973 and 1974 "oil shock" that ended the world's long postwar boom.
Goldman Sachs predicted last week that the price could rise to an unprecedented $200 a barrel over the next year, and the world is coming to terms with the idea that the age of cheap oil has ended, with far-reaching repercussions on their activities.
Dr Salameh, director of the UK-based Oil Market Consultancy Service, and an authority on Iraq's oil, said it is the only one of the world's biggest producing countries with enough reserves substantially to increase its flow.
Production in eight of the others -- the US, Canada, Iran, Indonesia, Russia, Britain, Norway and Mexico -- has peaked, he says, while China and Saudia Arabia, the remaining two, are nearing the point at of decline. Before the war, Saddam Hussein's regime pumped some 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, but this had now fallen to just two million barrels.
Obama and the Dems need to keep beating on McSame with this.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/carpenter/085
Democratic pollster Paul Maslin: "We have to hold Michigan and Pennsylvania. McCain wins one of those states, we are in trouble. They have to hold Florida and Ohio or they are in trouble. The truth about this race [is], this is the year that we shouldn’t lose, and we could lose."
So what's the point of all this early analysis, all this angst before the rush?
Merely to point out to the Democratically confident -- those, that is, who see the lingering primary season as a neutral factor or even a plus, not a negative -- that the GOP is not, in the course of completing its successful arithmetic, counting on any "game-changing event."
Quite the opposite. Republican strategists are, rather, mostly counting on Democrats to be themselves.
Which is to say, for Democrats to let the games proceed as they presently are -- most pointedly, that is, for the party's superdelegates to fail to see the "fierce urgency" of nailing down a numerical nominee now.
Of all the Democratic "party's weaknesses" on which the GOP is resting its hopes, disunity tops the list. Yet disunity cannot be ameliorated until the last internal divider is officially bumped from contention. Only then can effective calls for unity go forth, the wounds begin to heal and those splintered precincts begin to close.
In short, superdelegates are pushing their delicate sense of fairness to the party's breaking point. Two months won't be nearly enough time to overcome settled resentments. It's next week -- en masse and with liberating finality -- or never.
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