Author: PsiFighter37

(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom)

Joe Lieberman is a career politician. He has been a state senator, state attorney general, and a U.S. Senator for the past 18 years. With the exception of two years, Lieberman has been in public service for the past 36 years. While he did admirable work during the civil rights movement, his beliefs have fallen increasingly outside the scope of the Democratic Party. He is perhaps the only member of the Democratic Party to have earned the endorsement of the National Review. Lieberman is an honorary co-chairman of the neoconservative Committee on the Present Danger. As a prominent member of the corporatist Democratic Leadership Council, he has received donations from the energy and pharmaceutical lobby, to name a couple. He receives high ratings from the traditional Democratic interest groups, but on the votes that count, he has never failed to disappointment.

In short, Joe Lieberman personifies the failures of the Democratic Party. He sounds unconvincing, he backs the policies of his campaign backers, and he has a complete lack of vision.

Ned Lamont does not sound like your typical progressive Democrat. He lives in Greenwich, a town known for housing the extremely wealthy and its historically Republican ties. Lamont founded and runs his own business, and his own net worth lies somewhere between $90 and $300 million, a far cry from the humble roots of a fellow netroots favorite, Jon Tester. His only previous public service was as a selectman in Greenwich, where issues were voted on in a largely nonpartisan fashion; he also lost a state Senate race 16 years ago. Despite these attributes, which skeptics may question how they make Lamont fit to serve in arguably the most venerable institution in America, the netroots around the country and the grassroots in Connecticut have empowered the Lamont campaign to the point where Lieberman is pondering an independent run. The latest poll numbers show Lieberman with a scant 6-point lead over Lamont. August 8 – less than two months away – will tell us a lot about who will win the struggle between the power brokers in D.C. and the Internet-equipped grassroots.

The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.

–John Adams

In Crashing The Gate, Markos and Jerome wrote about the Democratic power structure and how it operates in the same losing manner, never learning from its mistakes. The same consultants are hired, the style of the campaign ads remain the same, the policies of a candidate are flexible, and candidates are stuck in a state of perpetual arrested development because of the multitude of interest groups that are severely shortsighted. Joe Lieberman exemplifies the traits of the decaying power structure of the D.C. Democrats. He laughs over his own party’s netroots failure to get candidates elected; he acts in a manner that is appropriate for his corporate masters, not his constituents; he has been a willing accomplice to the Bush administration on the most important of matters – the war in Iraq, judicial nominations – and he has undercut the Democratic Party at every chance he can get. Ned Lamont recognizes that agreeing with Bush as much as Lieberman does is not representative of his fellow Connecticut residents. Clear differences have been delineated between the candidates, and in particular, the idea that party unity is tantamount to the Democratic Party’s electoral success. Whereas Lamont has promised to support the winner of the primary, Lieberman has refused to do so, and his campaign manager has laughed off the very notion of doing so.

The contest between Lieberman and Lamont can be seen in the greater context of the larger struggle that has been fermenting within the Democratic Party since John Kerry’s 2004 defeat. It is a battle between a group of entrenched insiders who are happy with minority status so long as they retain power, and on the other side, there is a rising group of grassroots activists with a non-ideological agenda who are wielding the Internet with increasingly positive results. After all, if a candidate such as Paul Hackett can raise half a million dollars in a few weeks, what power can the DCCC and the DSCC hold over us? They may try to slander us as leftist radicals, but as Yearly Kos demonstrated, we are a fairly sane, pragmatic group of people. The past few years have taught us some important lessons, the most important being that the old framework that Democratic Party politics used to operate under is broken beyond repair.

What has arisen from the ashes of our failures in 2002 and 2004 has been a unified movement within the Democratic Party. Our goal is not to enforce ideological purity – if that were the case, there would never be any chance that we would endorse candidates like Jim Webb or Stephanie Herseth. Instead, our goal is about change – change in government, change in beliefs, change in perceptions. We are here to show that the Democratic Party is indeed a party of ideas. We are here to show that you can be proud to be a Democrat and stand up for what you believe in. And most importantly, we are here to send a message to Washington – America is ready for a change in the way our business gets done. The ultimate outsider, Howard Dean, now has the ultimate insider’s job. History has shown that progress is inevitable, and it would be wise for the D.C. Democrats to recognize this and embrace the grassroots. Otherwise, they will simply collapse…just as Joe Lieberman is in the process of doing in Connecticut.

(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom)

As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

–George Washington

The United States of America was founded upon a novel concept – the notion that all men were created equal, and they could choose themselves who they saw fit to govern. Although some can question whether or not the Founding Fathers genuinely believed what they stated – slavery remained in America, women could not vote, and some such as Alexander Hamilton advocated for a near-monarchy to rule the country – the Constitution was a revolutionary document. It incorporated the social theory of John Locke and the writings of Montesquieu to create a ‘more perfect union’. A system of government unheard of during its birth, America was an experiment, as Alexis de Tocqueville put it.
America has always recognized that it was far from perfect, and the country has evolved as such in order to become a ‘more perfect union. Although it took much bloodshed, slavery was abolished at last. When machine politics thoroughly corrupted the system, laws were passed to make civil servants gain their positions on merit. We passed amendments allowing for the direct election of senators and for the end of withholding a woman’s right to vote. The government instituted a series of policies that helped out the less fortunate and the needy, realizing that taking a laissez-faire attitude was detrimental to our country. With our novel system of government, America has inspired people around the world for generations. Indeed, the Statue of Liberty, guarding the shores of Manhattan, symbolized what America

In this day and age, this is no longer true.

The fall of America has not been a slow and ugly descent. In the past, there were always sweeping, idealistic appeals to the better angels of our citizens. John F. Kennedy, at his inauguration, “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. ” There used to be a sense of collective national pride. Regardless of the adversary, America was unparalleled in its majesty when its citizens were united. No matter what your affiliation, the country always came first. Politics was more honest, people were more informed, and to be a liar an accusation that was to be taken seriously. In America, after a bitter presidential race, we entered the 1960s as if we were in a golden age. Piece by piece, though, the Camelot we had long dreamed of was destroyed. Kennedy, his brother Robert, and Martin Luther King, Jr. – three of the most idealistic Americans in modern times – were gunned down. Vietnam escalated into a war for which the less-privileged youth of America died. Despite these most dire of circumstances, there was a chance to pick up the pieces.

The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

–Theodore Roosevelet

Richard Nixon’s election in 1968 spelled the acceleration of America’s fall from grace. Appealing to the worse angels in Americans with the ‘Southern Strategy’, Republicans made it clear that polite discourse and honesty were no longer welcome. Jimmy Carter’s presidency was an attempt to restore some of the integrity in government, but Reagan’s election ensured the continuation of our identity transformation. In George W. Bush, we have the fulfillment of Roosevelt’s prescient words. For the facade of prosperity, we have sacrified the moral obligations that Americans before us have placed on us. For peace, we are willing to reserve the immoral right to preemptively strike whomever we choose. For safety, we trample over the Bill of Rights that was established to protect us. We disregard the duties that our forefathers have assigned us to uphold. We live a lifestyle that chooses to ignore the hardships around us and celebrate individual acclaim, and money has become the norm by which we measure success and happiness. In politics, the Republicans have devolved into vicious animals, hurling lie after lie, insult after insult, all in false outrage, at those who disagree. There is no middle ground; you are either with us or against us. Everything is black and white, but we can be told black is white, day is night, and people no longer care to learn otherwise.

The rest of the world has not become blind to what we have become. No longer do we appeal to our high moral standards; instead, we always aim for the lowest denominator possible. Each time we think that the bottom has been reached, a new low is attained. It makes me wonder how America could become so lost. It can be easy to blame the other side for the country’s problems, but in a sense, we have failed as well. There is no longer a sense to pledge allegiance to America; we now support ourselves, our sports teams, our favorite celebrities. The common good has been erased, replaced by a selfish standard of individual happiness. In hypocrisy, the GOP appeals to our sense of patriotism…in an effort to boost poll numbers and score cheap political points. The Constitution has become a political ploy with the amendment to ban gay marriage. The American flag has become a political ploy with the amendment to forbid flag burning, a right clearly protected by the very first amendment ever passed. Nothing is sacred anymore, whether it be the deaths of our American soldiers in Iraq or the innocent civilians who died in New York City and Washington on September 11.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.”

–E.E. Cummings

In the coming months, and indeed, in the years leading up to our next presidential election, the battle lines have been drawn. The coming conflict will be for the heart and soul of our country. Americans have finally tired of the vitriol of modern politics, and they are ready for a change. It is clear that our opponents across the aisle are not interested in working together to move the country in a better direction. So the charge of reclaiming the soul of America falls to us. But in a time where conformity is the norm, and dissent is not tolerated, diversity will triumph in the end. It always has, and so long as we recognize that we are not only fighting for political survival, but for the survival of the Constitution and everything that the Founding Fathers believed in, we can – and we will – prevail.

(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom)

Oh greatest leader of the free world, the mighty George Walker Bush, the 43rd president of God’s Chosen Land! I have a proposition for you. To be fair, I don’t know if your daughters currently have boyfriends (or girlfriends, if Mary Cheney has infected them with her horrible disease), but I’d like to take one of them out on a date. Preferably Barbara, since I have a thing for brunettes, but I’m equal opportunity, so I’d be happy with Jenna as well. Hell, if you could ask God for permission, could you see if She could allow all three of us to enjoy a night of unadultered debauchery?

I didn’t mean to anger you, Oh Mighty Conveyor of Subliminable Expressions! Give me a chance to explain.
Your daughters are both gorgeous creatures of God, don’t get me wrong. Jenna isn’t shy about it, but Barbara seems a little like the quiet type. The truth is, Possesser of God’s Phone Number, is that I cannot wait to know more about a brilliant man such as yourself. Other readers of the Holy Book itself have said you are an artist above all others, even on the level of the most selfess and kind painter the world has ever known, Vincent Van Gogh. I want to get inside your mind and learn your Jedi mind tricks. Teach me how I can think of exactly what you’d want to say in your dissertations on democracy. I want to be at your side, ’til death do us part, holding Sharpie pens for you and choosing what pink whistles you will blow during the White House Easter Egg Roll.

When you’re feeling down, I’ll crack jokes about needing wood to remind you that you, Defender of Marriage, that you still have the largest penis in the world – Tony Blair has nothing on you. I want to be the one who goes over to Congress and makes sure to tell cheap whores like Arlen Specter that the two-cent Judiciary Committee chairmanship he holds is in 1776 dollars and that he still needs to put out. A nickname I really want to have is “Soldier”; it will remind you, Sagacious Commander-in-Chief, of the glorious success Iraq has been. I’ll be your systems analyst to help you extend your godly prescience; I’ll be your gatekeeper when those God-hating, abortion-loving, perverted homosexual left-wing liberals invade your bubble of invincibility; and I’ll be your diplomat to tell the rest of the world that yes, we don’t really give a fuck.

I will be your slave, Oh Master. I will mutilate myself if it makes God laugh in Her indispensible glory. All I ask in return, Oh Generous One, is to provide me with a $95,000 annual salary and a ticket to Harvard Business School. If you can spend money on a bunch of nobodys, surely you can at least let me live in reaosnable luxury. And even though I never finished college, I’m sure you can help me get into the most elite business school in the country. I’d be like your son.

So, what do you think, Oh Authority of the English Language? Do you think you can help me out? I promise I’ll take good care of your angels.

Thanks! I knew you’d see it my way.

(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom)

Working at a place of business, the television is always tuned to CNBC. While the only time I really take any notice is when Jim Cramer is yelling his head off, after trading hours, a show called ‘Kudlow and Company’ shows. It’s hosted by a blowhard named Lawrence Kudlow, and one of his topics of discussion today was titled ‘Republican Mojo’. Since the sound was off, I couldn’t (thankfully) hear the blustering bullshit that a man who called the estate tax ‘morally inferior’ was saying on the issue. One of the points brought up in support, it seemed, was Brian Bilbray’s victory over Francine Busby in the CA-50 race. Unless you’re completely removed from reality, though, there are signs quite to the contrary that the Republicans, in fact, have no mojo.
How can I be so sure, you ask? Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, was recently killed, and the talking heads are saying that we may have a breakthrough in Iraq now. The Republicans did hold on to a seat that was held by a convicted GOP congressman who is now doing eight years in federal prison. Additionally, Karl Rove was let off the hook in the Valerie Plame leak case. It seems that there’s good news abound for the GOP these days…but there isn’t. The emperor and his coterie are still wearing no clothes.

The first thing to state is that Bush is not doing so well that he will help his party out in the midterm elections. Rasmussen, by far the most Republican-biased poll out there, puts Bush at 42% approval. That’s not exactly something to crow about. Consider that Bush was at 40%, according to Rasmussen, in May – a time when other leading polls have him in the low to mid-30s. Also, I think most people are overestimating the effect that Zarqawi’s death will have on the American population. Remember when we were capturing all those #3 guys? That didn’t do anything. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has already named a new leader, and it’s not anyone that the U.S. knows about. So much for taking down Zarqawi’s entire operations with his death. The killing continues in Iraq, and people can surely recognize that killing one man – someone who is merely one of many terrorists in Iraq – will not end this war. The only thing that would give Bush any sort of lasting boost would be the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. That is the name that the average American has burned into their brain. al-Zarqawi will go the way of Poland’s membership in the ‘coalition of the willing’.

Secondly, Bilbray’s ascension to the CA-50 congressional seat is not indicative of another surprise GOP wave in 2006. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 44%-29% in the district; the fact that Busby – who, to be fair, was a mediocre, run-of-the-mill candidate at best – was able to come within 4% of Bilbray is incredible. It’s not quite up there on the level of Paul Hackett’s showing in OH-02, but it’s damn close. Bilbray oftentimes ran away from Bush, particularly on the issue of immigration; I can remember when candidates couldn’t wait to stand by Bush at a rally. But it didn’t work for Jerry Kilgore in the 2005 VA-Gov election, and GOP candidates around the country are ducking public appearances with Bush. As evidenced by the bitter divide between the House and Senate Republicans, this is not a party that is unified. This is a party that is in disarray, where its most egregious backers are trying to steer the agenda. Americans have been exposed to the ugly truth about the GOP agenda, whether it be the vile Tom Tancredo or the disgusting Fred Phelps. Only the Democrats can offer a true alternative to the ever-decaying culture of Washington, D.C.; the GOP can try and position itself as a fresh face, but in the end, people will still see the (R) by the name.

The poll results are telling. In Tennessee, a state Bush won easily in 2004, Harold Ford (DLC hack that he may be) is running very close with all three of his potential Republican opponents. In Ohio, a new poll shows Ted Strickland beating the pants off of Kenneth Blackwell, and Sherrod Brown, for all the beatings he’s taken in the blogosphere, is showing a strong lead over Mike DeWine. Rick Santorum is quickly becoming a lost cause, with the linked Rasmussen poll showing him down by 23 points – and it’s a Rasmussen poll. Jon Tester is ahead of Conrad Burns in Montana. Until there are actual poll numbers that show any true reversal of the GOP’s fortunes, their electoral chances this fall are looking dim as ever.

Finally, some may fret that Karl Rove’s return means that another withering campaign will drive us to our knees. However, this year is different. Political missteps have been made abound this year by the White House, and no matter how much they try to divert attention – whether it be the immigration bill, the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, or the constitutional amendment to ban flag burning – the news coming from Iraq cannot be hidden from them. With the stock market suddenly in free-fall, only good news from tomorrow’s CPI numbers will be able to put an end to this period of market correction. If not, there may well be a bear market on the horizon, and if the GOP is forced to defend on real issues such as the economy, they will sink faster than a rock.

Simply put, the average American’s bullshit detector has smelled enough to be alert. Karl Rove may not have been indicted, but we can beat him now – and you know why? It’s because we are no longer scared of him. It’s because the people of America will no longer be cowed into terror by this administration. It’s because the ‘permanent majority’ that Rove had envisioned for the GOP was based on lies…and sooner or later, like Austin Powers discovered in ‘The Spy Who Shagged Me’, the Republicans have no mojo.

(originally posted at Deny My Freedom)

After a couple weeks into release, I finally got around to going to see ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, Al Gore’s documentary on global warming that intertwines his biography as it relates to the issue. These moments – wrapped into the parts of his vaunted ‘slide show’ presentation – give the movie the heart and the soul to go along with the brains of Gore’s presentation. Being someone who considers themselves at least better-versed on the issue of global warming than most people, I was amazed to learn a few things about the ‘greenhouse effect’ that I did not know before. While the movie generally stays away from the deep scientific explanations, the point comes across clearly: if we do not change our ways, life on planet Earth, as we know it, will change dramatically…forever.
Contrary to what reviews may have stated, there is not much ‘humor’ to the documentary. While it does have its funny moments – there is clearly a Matt Groenig-produced bit that will have you rocking in your chair with laughter – Gore handles the issue with the seriousness it deserves. You will see pictures that made audience members where I saw this (a suburb of New York City) gasp at the marked difference that only 20 to 30 years have made in some of our environments. You will see graphs of clear, hard scientific evidence showing you the dramatic changes in various indicators. There are projections that will frighten you and make you wonder just how things went so wrong, and why no one has done anything to stop it. At one point in the movie, Gore asks that very same question, and it is with silence that the reply comes. In the course of the last century, we abandoned our duty to the planet in the name of economic growth. The logical question to ask is plainly simple.

The movie covers the 2000 election only briefly, and you can hear in Gore’s voice the complete devastation of having ‘lost’ that race caused him. In these voiceovers between segments of his slide show, you will listen to an Al Gore whose voice will haunt you. As you see him in different settings, whether it be out in nature or giving his presentation around the world, you will come to realize that this is not the man who came off as stiff and wooden on the presidential campaign trail. It’s not the caricature that the mainstream media has made him out to be. It is the voice of a man reborn, a man who has rediscovered a driving force of his life. It is an Al Gore who is deeply passionate about informing the world of an issue that is dismissed by the press and by most politicians as a theory, not a fact. You might imagine that he would harbor resentment against those who continue to ignore the onset of global warming at the world’s peril, but surprisingly, you will hear very little vitriol directed at the Bush administration or at the Republican Party in general. It is not a political issue, Gore says, it is a moral issue.

When the theater lights come back on, and I heard the voice of Melissa Etheridge sing over the credits, the mission was clear: it is up to us to inform people about global warming. Our leaders refuse to address the problem. Our press continues to question the veracity of the science. But when you think about the hundreds of millions of people that could possibly be affected by the consequences of global warming, you begin to realize that it is absolutely necessary to address it. Gore recognized that it was his duty to go around the world, city by city, family by family, person by person, to open the eyes of others to an enemy – ourselves. We exacerbated global warming. We created the problem. But we can fix it. The strength of humans united to change the world is a powerful thing, and it is up to us to ensure that, as our former vice president put it simply, political will is indeed a renewable resource.

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, look up your closest theater showing it and see it. If you have seen it, see it again. Stay for the credits and learn a little about what you may be able to do. And finally, tell everyone you know about it. It is up to us to plant the seeds of a movement to save our planet.

(originally posted at Deny My Freedom)

It’s a sad shame that the word ‘liberal’ has taken on such a demonic meaning in politics today. Only a rare few politicians will admit to being deemed as liberal; most people tend to run away from the label these days. Most polls show that more Americans consider themselves to be conservative than to be liberal. In a time when the Democrats have a dearth of charismatic leadership and a troubling inability to frame issues – something that is not helped by the right-leaning mainstream media – it’s a fight that we won’t win for some time. However, it allows for hack pieces like this one by Andrew Taylor to give off the vibe that if the Democrats take control of Congress, the big bad liberals will tax your ass to hell and all the other evil things we’re supposed to be.

WASHINGTON – If the chips fall right for Democrats and their party seizes control of the House,
President Bush’s agenda on Capitol Hill would fall into the hands of some of his most dogged opponents.

It’s not just would-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, but a boatload of Democrats newly running committees who would determine what legislation gets debated and which programs and agencies get scrutiny.

So who are the chairmen to be?

-a Polish-American lawyer with a reputation for making witnesses quiver.

-a die-hard liberal from New York’s Harlem with 35 years in the House.

-a free-spending progressive from Wausau, Wis.

-one of the few remaining “Watergate babies” swept into Congress in 1974.

First, it’s important to notice the title of this hit piece: “Prospective Democratic chairs all liberal”. First of all, this is a blatant lie, as the author himself points out later in the article. Secondly, notice the descriptions of the above politicians (John Dingell, D-MI; Charles Rangel, D-NY; David Obey, D-WI; George Miller, D-CA) are hardly relevant to the jobs they do in Congress. What is the insinuation of singling out Dingell as Polish-American? The rest of his description gives one the impression that he is one hell of a frightening character. Charles Rangel may indeed be (he is) a ‘die-hard liberal’, but with the negative connotation that the word entails, it gives a bad image of him. Calling Obey a ‘free-spending progressive’ is a much-outdated term; if you asked most progressives what they believe in, I’m sure most of you would say that fiscal responsibility is one of their beliefs. This enforces the notion that Democrats are ‘tax-and-spend’ politicians, even though it’s been the GOP that has been spending more money than we have at a record pace. Finally, is Miller’s only accomplishment is that he was elected in the 1974 midterms that heavily decimated the GOP congressional delegation?

It’s disingenuous that a piece that should be profiling Democrats about what they’ve accomplished during their time in Congress is about anything but that. What’s even worse is that they mention that African-Americans would be chairing committees, such as John Conyers (D-MI) with Judiciary and Alcee Hastings (D-FL) with Intelligence, and then they promptly introduce readers with these less-than-flattering notes about the representatives:

Conyers has been accused by former aides of misusing his office by turning them into baby sitters for his children. He is the prime sponsor of a resolution that seeks to investigate grounds for possible impeachment of Bush over the war in
Iraq…

Hastings, a charismatic former federal judge, was impeached and removed from the bench in 1989 for fabricating evidence that secured his acquittal in 1983 on bribery charges.

Great job, AP. The Democratic Party is full of a bunch of free-spending crooks who use their congressional offices for babysitting, while the GOP is completely blameless. It’s not like Dennis Hastert, John Boehner, Bob Ney, Roy Blunt, or any of those guys ever did anything wrong. It’s a sad reflection of our time when the wire services, which should be the most impartial source of news, is putting out hit jobs like this.

The ideal thing would be that someone on our side with some charisma – a Barack Obama, for example – come out and simply re-frame JFK’s famous position on liberalism for our times.

…if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”

(cross-posted at Daily Kos)

I know there have been several diaries detailing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Rolling Stone article about the 2004 election being stolen. I know it’s always been site policy to disregard these so-called ‘conspiracy theories’, but I think it’s time for Markos, the other FPers in general (well, except G10, who was/is the only FPer I can recall who vigorously questioned the outcome of the election with her fine work in late 2004), and the Kossack community to acknowledge the plain and simple truth: the 2004 election was most likely stolen, and George W. Bush was illegitimately elected.
I don’t think what any of us have been putting out there are necessarily ‘conspiracy theories’ – that is the type of stuff Wayne Madsen was posting after the 2004 election, going as far as somehow tying in the BCCI into the stolen election. These are concrete facts that have been coming out. Do you honestly believe the bullshit that Bush voters were less likely to tell exit pollsters who voted for them? Do you honestly think it’s just a happy coincidence that every notable problem in the election had to deal with Bush getting more votes? Do you think that it is not possible for the GOP to backhandedly change vote totals in paperless ballot machines when the largest electronic voting machine companies are headed by big GOP donors? Do you think the Republican effort to suppress turnout by scaring African-Americans and former convicts was the only step they took? Why do you think Karl Rove was working the phones at night when the exit polls were showing Kerry overwhelmingly winning? How to do you explain a methodology that was hailed as by far and away the most accurate polling project ever?

There are too many questions and not enough answers. It’s shameful that the largest progressive site like Daily Kos does not address these issues more seriously. The fact that the people who are the most prominent on this site seem to repress these notions don’t help the cause. Chris Bowers wrote about getting serious about election reform, but let’s keep in mind that our strength is in numbers. Daily Kos is the largest liberal blog out there. We can individually do our part, but nothing has the organizing power like a full blog behind an effort – just see what our efforts did for Paul Hackett. If the gatekeepers of Daily Kos continue to disavow the notion that the 2004 election was honestly won by Bush, then there is something deeply wrong. I understand that progressives need to be forward-looking, but you only learn from your past mistakes, and if we continue to believe that turning out more voters will be the key to winning elections, we will keep losing. We need to fix the system that was broken in 2000 and 2004, and we need to have the full support of Daily Kos to do it.

(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom)

I’ve been a Democrat for as long as I can remember. Granted, that’s not a long time (I was born during the second term of Ronald Reagan’s presidency), but even when I considered myself a moderate-to-conservative Democrat during the Clinton days, there’s never been a day where I really liked the Republicans. The only one I ever took a liking to was John McCain in 2000, but as his hypocrisy has been exposed over the years, my intense dislike for him, along with his neoconservative colleagues has swelled.

The fact is, no one except the Kool-Aid drinkers like George W. Bush anymore. Harris Interactive puts Bush below the 30% mark, and most other polling outfits (except for the Republican-skewed Rasmussen outfit) put him barely hovering above 30%. With these numbers, one would imagine that the Democrats would be on the offensive these days. But they rarely are, so it’s time to issue an ultimatum, courtesy of another corrupt GOP president, Richard Nixon: it’s time to shit or get off the pot.
Yoss made excellent points in his earlier diary on the issue. One has to wonder if the Democrats in D.C. really give half a shit about winning elections. As Markos and Jerome wrote in Crashing The Gate, Democrats continue to hire the same losing consultants over and over while shunning those who do win races. It’s these same consultants that turned Al Gore into a stodgy wooden man on the campaign in 2000, and it’s the same group that told Kerry to downplay his only real accomplishment in the Senate – his BCCI investigation – during the 2004 campaign. I don’t doubt that while the influence of the grassroots, thanks to the installment of Howard Dean as DNC chair and the rise of the netroots after the 2004 election, has multiplied exponentially, we still hold very little power comparatively.

This is where the problem lies: for the establishment Democrats, they see this as a fight of an entrenched power (them) against an upstart rising (us). They would probably be happier staying in the minority so long as our influence is diminished. You keep hearing people call the liberal blogosphere extremists or terrorists or something along the lines of being anti-American, but in fact, we are the ones who are returning true democracy to a Republic that has since long succumbed to the power of money. This is just one reason why the Democratic Party has such trouble articulating any policies – whether it be strengthening Social Security, instituting universal health care, or increasing veteran’s benefits – it doesn’t win points with the big political donors.

Furthermore, we have to convince the average American voter, someone who is far less informed abotu the issues and politics in general, that we are fit to govern. Simply not being the idiot doesn’t make us better by default. We need to present ideas to counter the stuff that the GOP throws out there. I can tell you what I think the Democratic agenda should be – raise the minimum wage to at least $7/hr, reduce pork barrel spending, modify the new Medicare plan, repeal Bush tax cuts, heavily invest in alternative energy, encourage the purchase of hybrid cars through tax credits, pull out of Iraq by the end of the year – and that’s just a few of the things I believe in. There’s a wealth of great plans that the average American can embrace…and yet we don’t push it. Some may argue that Newt Gingrich didn’t unveil the Contract of America until September, two months before the election, but there was already a general unifying theme. In our case, having a unified message won’t necessarily do it – we have a media biased against us, and we have policymakers who, for the large part, are extremely unimaginative in their ideas (giving people $500 to spend on gas?! Come on!). Right now, we need to formulate a progressive agenda that moves past the staleness of harmful GOP policies and pathetically weak (for the most part) Democratic rebuttals of change. Yes, the ‘culture of corruption’ sounds nice, but you need to back it up with substance.

Even with these low poll numbers – caused by the continuing quagmire in Iraq, Katrina, and God knows what else – we continue to roll over to an extreme right-wing agenda. We didn’t put up a fight against now-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, an extremist of the worst kind in the judiciary. We didn’t put up a fight against General Hayden, the man who oversaw the NSA spying program. We didn’t put up a fight on a stupid, idiotic bill proclaiming English to be the national language. It’s time for the Democrats to stop shitting on us, wipe up, and start fighting back…or they can continue to abet the wholehearted shitting on the Constitution that has been going on the past 5 1/2 years.

It’s time to shit or get off the pot.

(cross-posted at Deny My Freedom)

Hunter has done a series of excellent diaries on the astonishing ‘walkback’ that conservatives have been doing as of late. Nowadays, we have Reagan appointees running as Democrats for the U.S. Senate; we have notable conservatives such as William Buckley and Bruce Bartlett speaking out against a Republican administration that has had a GOP-controlled Congress acquiescing to its every wish. To me, it’s indicative of the five stages of grief: conservatives have long been in denial about the true nature of this administration, but more are finally beginning to accept what Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button has said for a few years: George W. Bush is a failure.
The first stage is denial.

“It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.”
John Hinderacker, Powerline, July 28, 2005

“Now when he is at his lowest point yet in the polls is the time for those who love and admire President Bush to say so. Depending on the final success of his already successful campaign to bring the rudiments of democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, George W. Bush, #43, may go down as a truly great president, who against fierce odds turned the entire Middle East in a new, more democratic, and more creative direction…What I do want to argue is that, after Washington and Lincoln, Bush is the bravest of our presidents.”
Michael Novak, National Review Online, May 23, 2006

The second stage is anger.

“‘Clintonian Triangulation’ gets two thumbs down from the Kos crowd; noted. Maybe y’all should just, you know, fight harder! I mean, on every issue. Think – maybe it’s just that you’re not quite left-wing enough for all those middle-class midwestern and southern voters …

And after all, what does a Clinton know about winning elections anyway, right?

The Kos-wing of the Democratic Party is like a chimp caught in a chinese finger trap.”
INDC Journal, January 28, 2006

“I know it will come as a shock that a number of ‘open-minded progressives’ at The New School acted like fools today during Sen. McCain’s commencement address. They don’t like his views on just about everything — Iraq, Iran, the War on Terror, abortion, gay marriage, etc. — and the fact that he spoke at Liberty University the week before. When Sen. McCain spoke at Liberty there were also some in the audience who disagreed with him on some issues. But they listened respectfully to an elected official who had also spent nearly 6 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Such courtesy was evidently in short supply in Greenwich Village.”
Daniel McKivergan, The Weekly Standard, May 19, 2006

The third stage is bargaining.

“If that’s the case, then I’ll have to plead guilty to allowing sanity to triumph over paranoia and common sense to win out over stupidity.

Or, dare I say, patriotism to trump defeatism?”
Reply to a post by Daniel Drezner, September 21, 2005

“One of the keys to President Bush’s election victories was his commitment to appoint judges who would strictly interpret the constitution and not legislate from the bench.”
Ken Connor, Center for a Just Society, July 1, 2005

The fourth stage is depression.

“For two full days, George W. Bush was bashed. He was taken to task on his handling of stem cell research, population control, the Iraq war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina. The critics were no left-wing bloggers. They were rich, mainly Republican and presumably Bush voters in the last two presidential elections.”
Robert Novak, September 22, 2005

“Mr. Bush is in the hands of a fortune that will be unremitting on the point of Iraq. If he’d invented the Bill of Rights it wouldn’t get him out of his jam.”

William Buckley, Jr., March 31, 2006

The fifth and final stage is acceptance.

“If Bush were running today against Bill Clinton, I’d vote for Clinton.”
Bruce Bartlett, March 8, 2006

“We do know that four years after September 11, the whole foreign policy of the United States seems destined to rise or fall on the outcome of a war only marginally related to the source of what befell America on that day. There was nothing inevitable about this. There is everything to be regretted about it.”
Francis Fukuyama, September 12, 2005

(cross-posted at Daily Kos)

As we all know by now, except for perhaps a choice few who still believes everything Fox News tells them, there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was of no threat to us, and he was not connected in any way to the attacks of September 11. Yet the administration cherry-picked and manipulated intelligence to persuade Americans otherwise, garnering popular support for a war of our choosing, not of necessity. Three years later, we are once again faced with a situation where we can either solve our differences peacefully through diplomatic means, or we can turn once again to using military might. I made this slideshow to reflect upon the past three years…because the consequences of war are ugly; they are heart-breaking, and it is something our country should not have to go through again.