This "Operation Chaos" scheme by Rush Limbaugh is pure genius, a guaranteed winner. It fits perfectly into the media's campaign narrative. Meanwhile both sets of candidate supporters are propping up Lardbutt's plot: Clinton supporters want people to believe that they're stronger than Obama against these kind of right-wing attacks, and Obama supporters want people to believe that the dittohead army are the only ones voting for Clinton. Who wins?



That's right: Captain Ass-Boil.

So stop worrying about Rush Limbaugh, and ask yourself this question:

Is this the best they've got? "Operation Chaos"?

81% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction, Bush has the highest disapproval rating of any president since records began, Iraq is going nowhere, and the economy is going down the drain. And the considered, adult, conservative approach to this sorry situation is... "Operation Chaos." Yeehaw!

Funny thing though...

"Operation Chaos" seems to have been the Republican approach to getting George W. Bush elected in 2000. "Operation Chaos" seems to have been the Republican approach to counter-terrorism before Sept. 11th, and the way they've run the Department of Homeland Security since. "Operation Chaos" seems to have been the Republican approach to dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "Operation Chaos" seems to have been the Republican approach to the occupation of Iraq. And "Operation Chaos" seems to have been the Republican approach to the economy.

In fact, "Operation Chaos" seems to have been the Republican approach to governing in general.

So by all means, Rush, please keep on branding away...

and watch their movie for free. I received a promo copy last week and watched it over the weekend, and I highly recommend it to all DUers.

http://www.leadingtowar.com

"Leading To War" is a new documentary about the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, with a simple premise - it is told entirely though news footage. There are no editorial comments, interviews, or guest commentaries - it's just archival footage from the period between Bush's 2002 State of the Union address, to the day of the invasion. The footage is chronologically ordered and is entirely of Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Rice, and the rest of the motley crew giving press conferences, interviews, appearing on the Sunday talk shows, etc.

You may think you remember how awful the run-up to war was, but when you see this footage again, fresh, it's striking how bold the administration was about selling the war, and how incredibly ridiculous some of their justifications were. For example, you might vaguely recall allegations that Saddam had unmanned aerial vehicles capable of spraying WMD, but do you remember when Bush told reporters in all seriousness that "A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland?" The footage is here.

Go now! Watch the movie! Tell your friends! Did I mention it's FREE?

http://www.leadingtowar.com

k&r if you want to help spread the word!

Hi everyone,

Due to the unexpected length of the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, our moderator switch schedule has been thrown somewhat out of whack. Not only that, but we figure now is probably not the best time to be training new mods. I'm sure you understand.

However, some of our current moderators would like to take a well-deserved break, so we are looking for DU members who have moderated in the past to volunteer to help out for the next few months.

We suspect that our regular moderator switch schedule may be out of action until we have a presumptive nominee, so we'll probably continue to operate a sort of "rolling moderator term" until the primaries are over.

If you wish to apply, please send an email to earlg@democraticunderground.com with the following information:


Once again, we are looking for experienced moderators only please. We don't have too many slots to fill so I apologize in advance if we are not able to take you on this time around.

Thanks,

EarlG

I'm doing some research for the Top 10 and stumbled across this article from January 2001 (sorry, it's NewsMax). Anyone remember this?

Hi all,

As you may or may not know, the Admins have been working hard on the new site upgrade (if you missed the previous announcement, check Skinner's thread here).

One of the features we wanted to bring to DU 3.0 is the ability to add discussion threads to sites like Digg, Facebook, Del.icio.us, etc. After doing some research we discovered that it was so easy to do this, we decided to add the feature right now to our current software.

Each thread's original message now contains a button at the bottom, above the poster's signature line. If you click that button, a new window will pop up which will allow you to add the thread to a variety of social bookmarking sites, or even to your own browser's bookmarks.

If you encounter any problems using this feature, please let us know in this thread so we can iron out any bugs which may occur.

Thanks!

EarlG

Check out Road2DC.com - they are organizing ride-sharing for people who are trying to get to DC from all over the country.

There is a post about this in the Activist HQ:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

...or you can visit their site directly at Road2DC.com

Rec this up for all those who need to get to the march!

Drumroll please!

skater314159 has won the Best Sticky contest with this surrealist masterpiece:



...as voted by the members in this thread:

And Tellurian wins the Golden Sticky contest, her sticky was selected by Elad's Magic Golden Sticky Selection Script (otherwise known as a random number generator).



Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who took part in the fund drive last week! We greatly appreciate your contributions, and we hope you enjoyed the return of the stickies promotion.

The Administrators

Dave Allsopp (EarlG)
David Allen (Skinner)
Brian Leitner (Elad)

This week I got the chance to to see a sneak preview of Magnolia Pictures' new documentary about the occupation of Iraq, "No End In Sight." The movie is released on July 27th - for more information visit http://www.noendinsightmovie.com

"No End In Sight" will not be mistaken for a Michael Moore movie. It contains none of the theatrics that Fahrenheit 9/11 was loved (and hated) for - no driving around Capitol Hill reading the Patriot Act through a megaphone, no confronting lawmakers with a military recruiter ready to sign up their kids. Instead the viewer is treated to an hour and forty minutes of dry, evenly-paced discussion by various policy wonks, military veterans, and former members of the Bush administration.

Sound dull? You may be forgiven for assuming so. Like most of you I've been following the Iraq debacle from the start so I expected to be on the receiving end of a long list of things I already knew, and to begin with that's what happened. The opening montage explains that Iraq is in chaos. There is a quick preview of the talking heads who are about to explain in very serious terms what went wrong. You may have the feeling that you've seen this all before - but trust me, you haven't seen it told like this before.

"No End In Sight" is narrated in large part by people who were in Iraq working for the occupation, most of whom seemed to be genuinely trying to make the best out of a bad situation, only to be thwarted at every turn by Bush's neo-con chickenhawks back in Washington. Gen. Jay Garner (administrator of ORHA), Col. Paul Hughes (director of strategic policy for the U.S. occupation), Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (in charge of training the Iraqi army), Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's chief of staff), Amb. Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the U.S. occupation) - the list of interviewees is long and impressive, and their charges are absolutely damning. Journalists (both Iraqi and American), U.N. workers, and veterans of the U.S. military also get to have their say.

This is why the movie is so effective. If you think you're angry about the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq now, wait until you see all that stuff you've heard piecemeal over the past few years put together in a well-presented, neatly-organized package. By the halfway mark the relentless procession of Bush administration disasters had me stunned. An hour in, I was thinking, "Man, and they haven't even gotten to Abu Ghraib yet." By the end of the movie I was reeling. "No End In Sight" leaves very little doubt that the Bush administration blew every single chance they had to get things right post-invasion, from Don Rumsfeld cheering on the looters ("stuff happens!"), to Paul Bremer's de-Baathification program and the disbanding of the Iraqi army, to Abu Ghraib and beyond.

And while the litany of errors, blunders, and strategic assclownery parades across the screen, we're treated to footage of Bush and Co. merrily spinning the news from the comfort of Washington D.C. (Rumsfeld: "I don't do quagmires.") It would almost be laughable if it weren't so bloody despicable.

As I mentioned at the beginning, "No End In Sight" doesn't rely on theatrics to get its point across, and as a consequence it will not be as commercially successful as Michael Moore's endeavors. But to its advantage, the movie cannot easily be dismissed as partisan or biased, especially since it focuses almost entirely on the aftermath of the initial invasion. This is serious stuff, and it gets a serious treatment. If you can get your Bush-supporting cousin or politically-disinterested sister-in-law to sit down with you for an hour and forty minutes and take it all in, it's doubtful that they'll remain unchanged by the experience.

I give this movie two boots up the Bush administration's ass.

It's that time again - Democratic Underground is switching moderators. And we need YOUR help!

DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND SITE MODERATOR

POSITION TYPE

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Our moderators are a fantastic group of people - they freely volunteer their time and effort to keep the site running smoothly, and it's fair to say that Democratic Underground would not be able to exist without their assistance. If you would like to become part of the team for the next three months, read on.

Read this message carefully, it has changed since the last time it was posted. Failure to properly follow application instructions will disqualify you to serve as a moderator.

The next moderator term will last three months, from the end of June until the end of September.

Here are some things to bear in mind before you apply:

• Your political ideology is not important... We need centrists and leftists and everyone in between to serve as moderators.


• We prefer people who have been members for a while, and have made at least a few hundred posts. You must be at least 18 years old. You must have donated at least one time to Democratic Underground using your own name.


• You must be able to log on to DU regularly, and should not take any long vacations between now and the end of the term.


• We prefer people with a generally positive outlook on life, who can be fair and evenhanded, and who don't get easily frustrated. If you sign up to moderate, we expect you to stay as a moderator for the full term. You must understand that it is perfectly normal for the admins to occasionally overturn your decisions, or to make specific requests regarding the manner in which you participate on DU while you are a moderator.


• We prefer that moderators avoid highly controversial topics, or at least moderate their behavior significantly when participating in such discussions. If you have a history of rhetorically hot postings on controversial issues, we may not choose you to serve.


• If you know that you aren't very good at controlling your behavior or your emotions, or if you know that you can't be fair to a particular group of people, please do not sign up to be a moderator. There is no obligation to serve as a mod, and we won't hold it against you if you choose not to.


• Because primary season is drawing ever closer we are asking all of our moderators to tell us their candidate preferences for the Democratic presidential nomination, so we can try to plan a balanced team. If you do not have a candidate preference, or if you prefer more than one candidate, just say so on your application. You are not required to choose a candidate in order to be selected to serve as a moderator.

HOW TO APPLY


We hope to select a new group of moderators on Tuesday, June 26, 2007. There will be a free conference call for the new moderators on the following night.

EarlG
DU Admin

Since Skinner did a post-mortem of last week's Democratic debate, I thought I'd better put something together for the Republican debate (especially since there's no Top 10 this week). I can't promise it will be as thoughtful as Skinner's, but what the heck, let's give it a whirl.

The clear winner of the debate was: Ronald Reagan. Frankly I'm surprised they didn't just dig up his coffin and see who could masturbate into it the quickest. Maybe next time, eh? I'll say this: for a party that's held control of Congress for most of the past 14 years and currently has a two-term president in the White House, they spent an awful lot of time fawning over a dead guy who stopped being president 20 years ago.

The biggest loser was: Iran, apparently.

The smoothest operator was: Tommy Thompson. During the debate Thompson announced that employers should be free to discriminate against gays. Five minutes after the debate, his campaign retracted the remarks saying that he "misheard the question." See if you can figure out which part he misheard:


The most useless person in the room was: Chris Matthews. Could those questions have been any more pointless? Somebody should give this guy a nightly cable news talk show.

The most Reaganesque moment was when: Mitt Romney struggled to remember what he'd said last week.

The Mike Gravel Award goes to: Ron Paul, for being the guy who was apparently just looking for the bathroom, took a wrong turn, and accidentally ended up on the stage.

The biggest no-show was: George W. Bush. Don't expect to see George hitting the campaign trail much next year - that spot is clearly reserved for Saint Ronald of Reagan. As for the candidates themselves, the biggest no-show had to be whatsisname. That guy, you know, used to be governor of Virginia. Oh, it's on the tip of my tongue.

The surprise of the night was: the fact that Rudy Giuliani managed to say "September 11" fewer than 200 times.

The wackiest duffer was: John McCain. Quick tip, John - at the next debate you might want to brandish a cane and shout "Get off my lawn!" in between questions. The field of candidates is already packed with cranky old white men; this will help you to show the audience who can really dodder.

The best moment of the debate was when: three candidates - Brownback, Tancredo, and Huckabee - raised their hands to acknowledge that they don't believe in evolution. No doubt they're also baffled about how the debate was projected into people's homes via magic glowing boxes. They were later seen leaving the debate together in a horse-drawn carriage, presumably heading back to Brownback's for a candlelit discussion on the latest developments in the Crimea.

Well, that was an hour and a half of my life I'll never get back...

Norah O'Donnell had been discussing the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner, the annual event where politicians and reporters go to suck each other's toes. After the break she handed coverage over to Chris Jansing, and the following exchange took place.


Now, obviously this was a jokey exchange, but it made me cringe. Why is one reporter telling another that she'll call her privately later to give her the "scoop." Am I not watching a "news" channel? Aren't the reporters supposed to be giving ME the scoop?

Of course I understand it was a bit of lighthearted fun, an amusing way for one anchor to hand over coverage to the next anchor. But I guess I'm one of these people who think that the press should be, oh, I dunno, giving us the facts about the activities of our elected officials so that we can make better-informed decisions about our government. Ha ha! How foolish of me.

These schmoozy events featuring reporters who think that "access" is more important than reporting the whole truth, are one thing. Watching these same reporters rubbing it it in - even in a jokey way - is just plain irritating.

We have reached our fund drive goal in near-record time. Thank you so much to everyone who donated - your contributions are essential to the continued operation and upkeep of Democratic Underground.

Since this is the second annual "Valentine Hearts" fund drive, it seems appropriate that we should reach the goal on Valentine's Day. However, since only half the week has passed, most everyone seems to be enjoying it, and some people have not yet had a chance to give hearts to their fellow DUers, we've decided to keep the promotion running for the full week.

Most of the rest of the usual fund drive paraphenalia will be gone shortly (the interrupt pages, and in a day or two, the thermometer) - but you will still be able to buy and give hearts until midnight ET, Sunday February 18.

We'll be honest - the Valentine Hearts promotion is a great way to raise funds for the site. But it's also been really amazing to see you all "spreading the love" this week. It's a once-a-year chance for everyone on DU to feel good about their fellow posters and hopefully remember that (at least most of the time!) we're pulling together, instead of apart.

Thank you again for your support!

The DU Administrators

Please read this message carefully. Failure to properly follow instructions will disqualify you to serve as a moderator.

The current moderator term ends soon, and we're looking for volunteers to help us out for the next term. DU is bigger and busier than ever and we're looking for dedicated people who have a little extra time on their hands.

The next moderator term will last three months, from the middle of February until the middle of May.

Here are some things to bear in mind before you apply:

- Your political ideology is not important... We need centrists and leftists and everyone in between to serve as moderators.

- We prefer people who have been members for a while, and have made at least a few hundred posts. You must be at least 18 years old. You must have donated at least one time to Democratic Underground using your own name.

- You must be able to log on to DU regularly, and should not take any long vacations between now and the end of the term.

- We prefer people with a generally positive outlook on life, who can be fair and evenhanded, and who don't get easily frustrated. If you sign up to moderate, we expect you to stay as a moderator for the full term. You must understand that it is perfectly normal for the admins to occasionally overturn your decisions, or to make specific requests regarding the manner in which you participate on DU while you are a moderator.

- We prefer that moderators avoid highly controversial topics, or at least moderate their behavior significantly when participating in such discussions. If you have a history of rhetorically hot postings on controversial issues, we may not choose you to serve.

- If you know that you aren't very good at controlling your behavior or your emotions, or if you know that you can't be fair to a particular group of people, please do not sign up to be a moderator. There is no obligation to serve as a mod, and we won't hold it against you if you choose not to.

Here's how to volunteer:


If you apply but are not selected this time, please don't be offended. We typically have a fairly large number of applicants, and we obviously can't pick everyone who applies.

We hope to select a new group of moderators on Tuesday, February 20, 2007. There will be a free conference call for the new moderators on the following night.

EarlG
DU Admin

 
Part 1 is here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...