I've finished my move to Tampa, FL. I'm looking forward to meeting new DUers down here and getting to know the local political scene.

I recently talked with Kathy Castor who is running for the House in a nearby district. Seems like a good race to support.

Give me a PM if you live in the area!

I know some of you think we were handed a great defeat by spineless Dems, and I am tempted to ascribe to that perspective as well at the moment. But let me present a snip from Digby on the historical perspective, and things don't seem so dire now. In fact, they seem promising, in that some of our Dems did the politically awkward thing and some others seemed to be swayed by our own activism.

It's fine to say do the right thing all the time, but that assumes that the "right thing" is a definable thing, which obviously it is not. Your right thing isn't necessarily someone else's, even if that person is a Senator. I'll say what many others have said, we can only prevail by having a majority. So keep fighting for that. If this filibuster vote was your litmus test, then by all means, support a candidate who you think meets your particular purity test. (I've contributed to Maria Cantwell in the past, but I don't plan to give her another dime. I can direct my money better to candidates who fight harder for what I believe to be important.) But don't just take your ball and go home. That attitude won't win us a majority or wrest our nation from the greedy hands of the current regime.

From Digby:

So we only got 25 Senators to vote for a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee who, if defeated, would be replaced by someone just as bad by a president in the pocket of his radical right wing. Well.

Do you know how many votes the Republicans managed to get when uber wingnut Antonin Scalia was confirmed? 98. And Democrats had a majority. We didn't have to even think about a filibuster. We couldn't defeat Clarence Thomas and we had a majority, a huge push from women's groups and a very dramatic set of hearings that went into the wee hours of the morning. It is very, very tough to do.
...
I didn't expect it to get more than 25 votes and I'm frankly stunned that we did as well as we did. Indeed, something very interesting happened that I haven't seen in more than a decade.
...
The last time we had a serious outpouring from the grassroots was the Iraq War resolution. My Senator DiFi commented at thetime that she had never seen anything like the depth of passion coming from her constituents. But she voted for the war anyway. So did Bayh, Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Kerry and Reid. The entire leadership of the party. Every one of them went the other way this time. I know that some of you are cynical about these people (and ,well, they are politic ans, so don't get all Claude Rains about it) but that means something. Every one of those people were running in one way or another in 2002 and they went the other way. The tide is shifting. There is something to be gained by doing the right thing.

....

Read the whole thing, it might make you feel better when this event is put into context.

I've followed Steve Gaghan's career with interest, since he was a friend of mine in high school. I found a really interesting interview with him about researching the Syriana script.

A choice snippet:

(The energy crisis of the '70s comes up; specifically, how we didn't seem to learn anything from that.)

"It’s the same fuckers, man! It’s all the same Nixon guys; they got tossed out of office for a while with Carter. They came back with Reagan; they had a bad couple years under Poppy (George H. W. Bush), who wasn’t really hip to these guys, and then Clinton … and they’re all back! Just look at them! They’re all like a hundred and ten years old, they cut their teeth under the first Nixon administration ... they hang upside down like vampire bats when they’re out of power and they wait around. It’s the same guys: ‘Hey, don’t conserve energy! There’s no problem! Party on!’"

What concerts have you been to that should have been really good, but really sucked?

1. Madonna: Saw her in 1984, she sang totally out of tune the whole time. She must lip-synch now.

2. REM: They played the graduation party at Princeton in 1984, right after their first album came out and before they were very well known. Michael Stipe was so paranoid that he stopped dead in the middle of a song to admonish people to back away from the stage. This was in the Princeton gymnasium.

3. The Cars: Saw them on their Heartbeat City tour, they played only songs from that album and went off stage after 40 minutes with no encore, no hits.

4. Prince: Saw him in Philly around 2001, started his show about 2.5 hours late with no opening band!!

5. Van Morrison: My hubby saw him in Florence in 1983, says he opened the show having his band play his hits before he came on stage (no vocal), then he came out and sang from his latest album for 30 minutes, no encore. The Italians booed him fiercely.

6. David Bowie, Go Tour, Munich Germany, 1997: David was fine actually, but this was one of those big outdoor stadium tours. It rained for 3 days and the ground was a 3 foot deep mudpit. German skinheads were starting riots all over the place during some hard core band before Bowie, and I nearly lost my shoes in the mud.

I would like to propose that we at DU develop a resource for people who want to boycott companies that support Bush and the Republicans and their agenda. I have found some helpful web resources. But I haven’t yet found a really good source listing US companies that support Bush. There are also lots of resources about socially responsible investing, a broader topic that overlaps the Boycott Republicans issue though. I've cross posted in Activism/Events where things move slower.

Can anyone with additional ideas or information please post it here.

Boycott Republicans Resources:

http://www.boycott-republicans.com /
This is really a petition generating site, it does not seem to list companies to avoid

www.ethicalconsumer.org
http://www.boycottbush.net /

These are both UK sites. Boycott Bush lists the top 25 corporate donors to Bush and their UK products, many of which are sold in the US. Does anyone know of a comparable resource for US products and a more comprehensive list?


Socially Responsible Investing:
There are a lot of resources on this. I’ve listed a few that seem really good. It would be really helpful if any DUers with experience or professional knowledge in this area would post their ideas and advice.

http://www.goodmoney.com /
http://www.socialinvest.org /
http://www.socialinvest.org /
http://www.greenmoneyjournal.com /

I was at a luncheon today at which Governor Ann Richards spoke. I'd like to paraphrase some of her witty comments for you all.

We are now entering the predictable part of the campaign season, when every single Democrat knows how to give a better speech, write a better policy, give a better TV appearance, debate better and generally run the entire campaign better than the candidate. This happens every time, because we Democrats care so much, so passionately. One Democrat says, well Kerry came here tonight and he talked about the sequoia trees, but he didn't say a word about the maple trees. How can I get the people around here to vote for Kerry if all he's going to talk about are the sequoia trees, when the important issue around here is the maples? I am here to tell you that John Kerry can't talk about every issue everywhere he goes. And you shouldn't complain when he doesn't. I am here to tell you that this is not just John Kerry's election to win. It's my responsibility and your responsibility to make sure John Kerry wins too.

Every day I talk to the people around me and I tell them to register and to vote. I don't have to tell them vote Democrat, because they aren't stupid, they know that Bush has the worst record of any president on every issue, from education to health care to this ridiculous war in Iraq where 1000 people have died and 200 billion has been spent. It's just that their lives are too busy and too stressful, working 2 jobs, taking care of their kids, worrying how to pay the bills. So every day I tell the woman at the checkout counter at the grocery, who fills my prescription, who drives my cab and who cleans my building, be sure to register and to vote this November.

I've got two pieces of advice for you. One, understand that the people who are running the campaign have experience and know what they are doing. They are getting their message out, although you may not always hear it. Second, stop your whining and bitching, get off your duff and make sure Kerry wins. Support your local candidates and make sure your friends and neighbors vote.


When asked about Bush's success, Governor Richards said W is a good communicator because he is always on message. We might think, and the Democratic candidate might think, boy am I sick of this stump speech, let's change it around. And when asked what time it is, the Democrat will tell you about the history of clocks, the import duties and then maybe tell you what is if he can remember the question. When George Bush is asked what time it is, he answers: America is safer because I got rid of Saddam Hussein. He may get tired of saying it, but the public is just beginning to hear it.

It really burns me up that Cheney keeps using the distorted criticism of Kerry's remarks about the war on terror, making snarky remarks about al Queda not responding to "sensitivity". If you google it, Cheney's remark is all over the news today.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/12/... /

Of course Cheney took Kerry's remark out of context and twisted its meaning, AND fails to acknowledge the numerous times Bush and his officials have used the exact same word in the exact same context.

This needs to be debunked, so I've started this thread to gather information this statement.

Kerry's exact quote, at the Unity 2004 conference in Washington on August 5th: "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history."

Kerry was talking about how to deal with our allies, not with terrorist organizations. So Cheney's claim that Karry wants to "fight a more sensitive war on terrorism" is a total distortion of what Kerry actually said.

I found a website that has a summary of numerous quotations from the Bushies talking about the need to be sensitive.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archi...

Add more if you have them.

Ok, I realize it was a month ago, but I've had some software issues, not to mention some time constraints. So, yes, finally, here are my best pictures from the DNC in Boston. In honor of today's protesters in New York!!

http://www.literalpolitics.com/RamseyRants...

These are the movies that Bowie has had major roles in, although I really liked his brief turn as Pontius Pilot in The Last Temptation of Christ. And I left out his concert films.

I'd have to say my faves are The Hunger, and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. The latter performance was Oscar caliber, IMHO. I like TMWFTE, but it is a little off kilter.

In the interest of fence-mending and promoting ABB here at DU, and inspired by nsma, I will contribute $200 to your candidate, if you can tell me why I should.

I am maxed on my contributions to Dean. I'd like to make a contribution to somebody though.

So, the person who does the best job of explaining to me why their candidate should be the Democratic nominee for the presidency will win their candidate a $200 contribution from me.

I am the sole judge of the best argument (obviously ). I will not consider a contribution to Lieberman, so sorry, but I have to disqualify him upfront (not that I expected to get too many arguments on his behalf). I won't contribute to your candidate if your argument has anything negative in it about any of the other Democrats.

OK, let's play!

I hope everyone has read Skinner's new poll at the top of this GD 2004 forum. I'd like to highlight some of the horrifying comments that Skinner made there:

"I believe that our attempt to moderate the rhetoric on all sides has come at a terrible cost. The level of distrust and animosity toward the moderators, toward the other administrators, and toward me personally are simply unacceptable. We have created a situation in which our efforts are automatically assumed to be motivated by bias,..."

Now I'd like to ask those of you who are abusing the VOLUNTEER moderators and HARD-WORKING DEDICATED administrators, what is wrong with you? As my mother used to say, were you brought up in a barnyard?

I'd like to give a thousand thanks to the moderators who volunteer to spend their own valuable time trying to make this herd of wild cats follow a few simple rules that are based on common sense, courtesy and civility. I am sure they all feel its ludicrous that they have to constantly remind a bunch of adults how not to behave like petulant children. I'd like to give a million thanks to the administrators, Skinner, EarlG and elad, who have spent countless hours developing and running this site so that we, the members, have the best progressive forum on the web. These people all have real jobs and real lives in the real world, so give them a break!

Given the backbone, this site is what we make it. We can use this incredible resource as a place to discuss, organize and create the change we all claim is so desperately needed.

Or, we can call each other (or each other's candidates) names and fight over whose ball is bigger/better/prettier/purer. It's really up to us.

We need to be aware that the press, and not just Faux, is going to try their best to skewer our candidate even if they have to obscure the facts or even outright make things up, just like they did to Al Gore. We at DU should not fall for this tactic just because the victim is not our preferred candidate. I am using an example from Dean, because as a Dean supporter I obviously pay more attention to his press covergae. But I am sure there are examples from other candidate's coverage. Please post any similar stories you might be aware of.

The blogworld has quite a few commentaries recently about the hack job being done on Dean by the mainstream press. Remember the "Gore Lies" perpetrators? Well, they're back.

In reference to this week's Dean-bashing article by Howard Fineman, apparently one of the people Fineman quoted as criticizing Dean on his blog, WVMicko, is not a troll, but a longtime avid Dean supporter and he is ticked off. He sounds off at the Dean blog. I'd like anyone here at DU who has never ever uttered a critical word about a Democrat that they normally support to raise their hand. This person's critical blog comments were intentionally filtered out of a mountain of positive commentary this same supporter has made.

Blogger Needlenose comments on a supposed news article on the Iowa debate by AP writer Calvin Woodward, which opens with this quote: "For a brief time in their debate Sunday, Democrats seemed to be hewing to a New Year's resolution to stick more carefully to the facts on taxes, the budget and more. But old habits die hard."

As the blog points out: "To repeat, that's the lead paragraph of a news article. From the Associated Press, the most mainstream source of news in the United States -- where, apparently, it's now accepted newsroom policy to "objectively" label all Democrats as liars.

And what constitutes a lie, in the view of the AP? Why, even true statements, if they're uttered by a Democratic presidential candidate like Howard Dean:

'He said 60% of Americans got a tax cut of $304 from Bush -- revising a statement in an earlier debate that 60% saved $325. Those cuts appear to be in the ballpark when it comes to the poorest 60% of Americans -- many of whom pay little federal income tax to begin with.' "

The author then goes on to claim that the middle class actually did get substantially higher tax cuts, but only if you pick specific groups of middle class folks, obviously not including the bottom 60%, begging the question of exactly who qualifies as middle class, or what the definition of "is" is.


And dKos takes on AP writer Nedra Pickler, who also wrote about the Iowa debate, but decided to make a few edits in her candidate quotes:

Writes Pickler: "In a feisty, first debate of the election year, Howard Dean drew fire from fellow Democrats on Sunday over trade, terror, taxes and more, then calmly dismissed his rivals as "co-opted by the agenda of George Bush."
"I opposed the Iraq war when everyone else up here was for it," said the former Vermont governor, invoking the issue that helped fuel his 2003 transformation from asterisk in the polls to front-runner."

But in the transcript of the actual debate, Dean didn't misrepresent the positions of his fellow anti-Iraq war candidates. In fact, he specifically credited them: "DEAN: The proper role of the federal government in education is not to pass bills like No Child Left Behind. I have two big policy differences with almost everybody up here. I opposed the Iraq war; with the exception of Dennis and Carol, everybody else supported it."


We have to be ever vigilant DUers. Just because we are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get us. The press has and will continue to distort the words and ideas of our candidates because they by and large all whore for the Republicans. Let us not also become their mouthpieces in some misguided sense of loyalty to a specific candidate. Let us be very circumspect and cautious about what the press says, especially the likes of Howard Fineman and others who relentlessly bashed Gore last time around!!