Howard Dean is still first.

Time to crank up the old get-out-of-Iraq debate...

Lind has his plan in "American Conservative"

http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_07_16/...

Short synopsis...
We find a strong man that hates us as Miliki is seen as a lap dog. Sadhr will do nicely.
We then hit the road.

[snip]
A restored Iraqi state that is allied with Iran will quickly roll up al-Qaeda and other non-state forces in Iraq, which is the victory we most require. But the world’s perception will still be that the United States was defeated because its main regional rival, Iran, will emerge much strengthened. If Iran and America are no longer enemies, that issue becomes moot.

A rapprochement with Iran may encourage Tehran to use its influence in Iraq to promote the revival of a state, but that is in Iran’s interest in any case once it is clear American troops are withdrawing. Conversely, until it is clear that America has given up its ambitions for large, permanent military bases in Iraq, Iran must continue to promote instability in its neighbor.

Once it becomes possible for both the U.S. and Iran to win in Iraq, we must move to the second element of our new strategy: allowing any elements that may hold the potential of restoring an Iraqi state to rise within Iraq. Consistent with an indirect approach, this means letting go.

It has been a tiring week.   I don't feel enthused.    I am not happy with the attitude of a few of our Florida Dems, and I am trying to be good and not say much.  I did mention to one that they could at least make the primary easier to swallow by not blaming Dean for it.   No answer yet.  But in the name of unity I am trying to keep my mouth shut on other stuff.    One topic off the table is Thurman's lobbying with the former Republican chairman.

Do any of you remember this column about Iraq by Glenn Greenwald.  It was early 2006.  It was called Prepare the Noose.  

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/17

Sitka
Fri, 07/27/07
11:01 pm

That's why you are always trying to attach labels to people.  Like "asshole"? You think the label makes the character.

Interesting, since you're the the who attacks many on this blog for not toeing the Democratic line sufficiently

==================
"ASSHOLE" is the content of your character, bro, when you use personal information that I disclose to you in good faith, and then you ridicule me, making bogus insinuations about the psychological intent of that disclosure - because you disagree with me on an issue.

Sitka is your label.

United we stand, divided we fall.  The Democratic party has people of good and bad character, and not all our core values are perfect, but we need to stay together as a team if we are to win.  People who seek to destroy that unity, based upon extreme and unreasonable expectations and apprehensions, those people work for the opposition, whether they attack us from the Far Left or the Right.

44.

Linda*in*SFNM
Fri, 07/27/07
11:01 pm

Fred wrote: I judge people by the content of their character, not what label they wear."--->> THANK GOODNESS, my label says docker, what would that means? :)

==============

I blew it - love that song - reminds me of when I ran away to San Francisco at 17.

seashell .... wOOT! Poyfect! I love it. You are gOOD.

I cooled off with my walk, but now here I sit back inside after my walk and closing up all the doors, and I'm sweating off my .... again!

Thanks for the reminder, I just put some lotion on my poor FEET!

Floridagal, I hear ya'. I've been saving this one piece of coverage about what's been happening and I think it says things well. They admit in a roundabout way that the Florida Dems really chose this path.

Jul 26, 2:56 PM EDT


Problems Abound for Democrats' Dean

By BETH FOUHY
Associated Press Writer

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It won't be a summer of love for Howard Dean, with peace and understanding in short supply.

The Democratic National Committee chairman faces several formidable challenges. Some states are determined to move up the dates of their presidential primaries despite the potential for upending the nomination process, and the party's convention in Denver in 2008 is already dealing with nettlesome labor and financial woes.

Dean's biggest test will come next year when the DNC will primarily serve as a shadow campaign operation for the party's presidential nominee.

But first he must contend with Florida, whose decision to push its primary to Jan. 29 could set off a ripple effect among other states eager to move up as well. The party's rules and bylaws committee is expected to turn a thumbs down on Florida's plan at a meeting in Washington on Aug. 25, but that's not expected to stop Democrats in the state from observing the new primary date.

With the first nominating contests just six months away, the campaigns of Democratic presidential candidates are frustrated with the uncertainty. It has inhibited their ability to craft a strategy for winning the nomination in what already promises to be an unprecedented race because of the plethora of early contests, record-breaking fundraising and an unusually crowded field.

Critics contend that a stronger chairman might have persuaded Florida Democrats to abide by party rules not to jump ahead of Feb. 5 and refuse to participate in the January primary, which was championed by the state's Republican governor and legislature. Others say Dean did what he could to fight the change, including lobbying Democratic legislators. Ultimately, they said there was little he could do to alter the outcome.

"When it came down to it, our state executive committee said there was zero support for holding anything other than a January 29 primary," Florida Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bobriski said. "It was a force of nature here - they didn't want to see Democratic voters disenfranchised."

For his part, former DNC chairman Don Fowler said states have been poised to upend the primary calendar for years and it was just a matter of time before they succeeded. Regrettably for Dean, it happened on his watch.

"He couldn't have done anything to make this go away - no national chairman can," Fowler said. "The folks in the states would just say, 'Go back to Washington and mind your own business.'"

Then there is Denver, which will host the party's convention next year - a selection Dean himself has called risky.

The choice has indeed been problematic, mostly because of fundraising challenges and the city's fractious relationship with organized labor, a key Democratic Party constituency.

Last month, the convention host committee announced it will fall well short of meeting its quarterly fundraising goal. And this spring, the AFL-CIO threatened to force Democrats to abandon Denver after Colorado's Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed a bill making it easier to set up all-union workplaces. The DNC opened its headquarters in Denver on Thursday.

Dean declined to be interviewed for this story. His aides note that many of the problems he faces have befallen other party chairmen and that Republicans are coping with similar ones, including a potentially chaotic primary calendar and fundraising for their 2008 convention.

The difference this time, Dean aides argue, is that the Democratic Party will be better prepared for the general election than ever before.

"Governor Dean's legacy will be to ensure that our nominee will have a strong infrastructure to win the presidency and to truly be a national party," spokeswoman Karen Finney said.

Underscoring all of this is Dean's vision for how the party should operate - a vision that has met with resistance from many Democratic leaders.

The former Vermont governor is widely popular with state parties and many grass-roots Democrats, who helped fuel his insurgent 2004 presidential candidacy. But he's still viewed skeptically by much of the Washington-based political establishment, which challenges him both privately and publicly.

Some of Dean's most vocal detractors are former advisers to President Clinton, potentially complicating matters between the DNC and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the party's presidential front-runner. They include strategist James Carville, who once called Dean's leadership at the DNC "almost Rumsfeldian in its incompetence."

Dean's focus has been on strengthening state parties, irking those who believe the DNC's chief function is to help fund competitive races. The disagreement broke into open warfare in 2006, when Dean clashed over money and strategy with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who ran the party's successful effort to win back control of Congress.

Dean's so-called "50-state strategy," which has sent paid organizers in state parties across the country - including heavily Republican stalwarts like Mississippi and Indiana - has been mocked by some as naive and ineffective. And his effort to create a national voter database within the DNC has been challenged by operatives, including Hillary Clinton adviser Harold Ickes, who have created a for-profit company building a competing voter file.

Nationally, the DNC's fundraising trails that of its GOP counterpart, even as the Democrats' House and Senate campaign arms have flourished. The DNC has pulled in about $28 million so far this year, compared to more than $46 million for the Republican National Committee.

Still, to Dean's fans - and there are legions of them - the former Vermont governor has taken a much-needed sledgehammer to a calcified Democratic establishment.

"Among DNC members, there's just wild enthusiasm for Howard," said Elaine Kamarck, a former Democratic strategist and professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "The people he's upsetting are the Washington-based political class, who make a lot of money making television ads."

Earlier this year, Kamarck produced an analysis testing whether Dean's 50-state strategy had helped Democrats win closely contested House seats last year. She concluded that in districts where the DNC had placed operatives, Democratic voter turnout went up measurably beyond the "bounce" Democrats were getting nationally.

Dean hired three new staffers for the Indiana party, for example, including field organizers in two congressional districts that changed hands from Republican to Democrat in 2006.

"We've never received the kind of attention and investment from the DNC as we have since Howard Dean became chair," said Dan Parker, the Indiana Democratic Party chairman. "Before, the DNC only cared about states important for presidential races. Indiana is a very red state, so they ignored us."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/D...

this person is the real "encapsulator, summarizer."

Read this.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/7/27/212837/025 

(Don't say ANYTHING about media reform.  SSSSSSHHHHHH.  Until we win the White House in a Landslide.

Then, bring it on.

Yes, PA, like when I was watching MSNBC earlier today and they were discussing something important, like the computer wires for the shuttle being cut, or something like that, when a voice broke through where they had to watch Nicole Ritchie exit the courthouse. If that isn't embarrassing "news coverage" from our media, I don't know what is.


I'm off.

All be well.

Wasn't Greg Palast on NOW?

Hound of Heck ;) 

Linda in SF...I saw that article....the only reporter who covers Dean fairly on this in Florida...sort of...is Adam C. Smth.  

Here is what he wrote today.

http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2007/07/dean-to-florida.html

"

Might the Democratic National Committee foist on America's biggest battleground state some kind of unwanted delegate selection plan for the presidential nominating process? The party rules allow that scenario, which sounds possible from Howard Dean's comments the other day to a South Carolina TV reporter. 

Remember that the DNC carved out Jan. 29 for South Carolina to hold the first southern Democratic primary, only to have Florida leaders schedule the Sunshine state for the same day. Fl Democrats are trying to keep a straight face as they blame it all on Florida Republicans.

Here's what Dean told News Channel 15 in Myrtle Beach: "Well, the Florida drama is not over yet. So I think South Carolina will be well represented. ... My understanding is that South Carolina is not likely to move and that Florida is going to have a different electoral procedure than they think they’re going to have."

I may be in the minority here....or maybe not...cause no one talks about it without getting their head bitten off.  But I think he should stand his ground.  I also read the Aug. meeting likely won't give in to Florida. 

I would share the letter I wrote to one of the main ones dissing Howard...but the blog nanny might bite me.

and Sitka, I expect one of your great toons to depict what I'm going through by the time I return. :)

I won't bite your head off -- especially since I care mostly for reforming the Democratic Party and little for political mechanics. Dean has to stand his ground, of course, now that he's planted his feet on the rulebook. But that SC should always be the first southern primary makes no more sense than the privileged staus of IA and NH. It's an artificial and unfair system that has been foisted upon Democratic primary voters and caucusers.

United we stand, divided we fall.  The Democratic party has people of good and bad character, and not all our core values are perfect, but we need to stay together as a team if we are to win.

So you don't believe in labels --  just blind obedience. 

The bill, which the White House says President Bush will sign, allocates a greater share of funding to cities at higher risk of terrorist attack.

It also requires the authorities to screen all cargo on passenger planes and container ships within five years.

Democrats made the bill a priority when they won control of Congress this year.

Once it is signed by President George W Bush, it will help the party fulfil the third of its six major campaign promises made before the elections last November.

'Keeping promises'

Democrats made the bill a priority when they won control of Congress this year.

Once it is signed by President George W Bush, it will help the party fulfil the third of its six major campaign promises made before the elections last November.

'Keeping promises'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6920198.stm 

Sitka,  trust me, you don't want Florida having all that power.   Our election processes have never been fixed, and there is no telling what can happen.

nite, blogggie

The end of Moyers was stunning....all those young college repugs saying we have to fight them over there so....you know the bs.

Bottom line.  Every one interviewed had a *reason* for not enlisting.  One guy suggested that the training would be too hard for him.

Their minds and cognitive abilities are sharp as cooked noodles.

Yikes, now I go to meditate to get the sound of their idiocy outta my head. 

Sitka,  trust me, you don't want Florida having all that power.

I don't want IA, NH, and SC having undo power either. Those three places all but deciding the nominee every four years is not only unfair to people in later states, but detrimental as well. It allows easy manipulation by party insiders and the people in those states have developed the sense of themselves as being kingmakers which can cloud their judgement en masse. 

Good morning, good blog! It's so nice not to have gotten up at the usual time, but it means that I missed a lot of people. Of course, this is about Monica's usual rising time.

***********
Good point, Monica, about the Allies rebuilding Europe only better ... but from plans that were already in existence and with skilled laborers ... all of whom had a vested stake in the outcome.

***********
Real bummer this am ... woke to the news that yet another member of the family (this time one of the females) is headed to that devastated area of the world known as Iraq for 6 to 11 months ...!

Has there been a new *surge* and it's just happened while we haven't been paying attention?

If there is a just God, she will smite putz & prick with every known plague ever discovered and some that have not yet been discovered ... and then they will roast in Hell forever.

The least that Congress can do is to impeach the bastards!

Ah yes, from the many stories heading today's news about AGAG (which I find is a great title because that represents the sound that I make when I think about him and who he represents ... certainly not the American people), putzCo are trotting out that other tried-and-true meme meaning that they don't have to tell the American people ... or Congress .... anything.

This one is *national security* ... they're now alternating it with *executive privilege, with scorn of Congress and US citizens emanating from every word they speak.

As usual, the emissary is "Snow Job.*

And, of course, they don't see the irony of involing *national security* when it is they who have betrayed that national security time and time again.

====================
Security factors hemmed Gonzales's testimony, White House says
Spokesman calls attorney general's account truthful
By David Stout, New York Times News Service | July 28, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The White House offered a vigorous defense of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales yesterday, insisting that he had not given misleading testimony to Congress, but that national security factors prevented further clarification for now.

"He has testified truthfully and tried to be very accurate," the chief White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said of Gonzales' testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Snow said repeatedly that Gonzales had not been contradicted by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, as has been widely reported, on whether there were serious disagreements within the Bush administration on its secret surveillance program.

Snow said, in effect, that Gonzales had been constrained in what he could say because there was a danger he would divulge classified material. "I understand it's difficult to parse, because what you have involved here are matters of classification," Snow said. "Sometimes it's going to lead people to talk very carefully, and there's going to be plenty of room for interpretation or conclusion."

[...]
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washin...

This is absolutely the WRONG thing to do ... please remind me yet again: just how many of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudi and Egyptian and how many were Iraqi or Iranian?

And, of course, our proxy state in the ME will also get a large chunk ... even after there is proof that they have used the weapons that we provide them against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. That is a very strict "no-no" ... there must have been some retroactive signing statement here.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Impeach ... it's the only *right* thing to do.

===================
U.S. Plans New Arms Sales to Gulf Allies
$20 Billion Deal Includes Weapons For Saudi Arabia
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 28, 2007; A01

The Bush administration will announce next week a series of arms deals worth at least $20 billion to Saudi Arabia and five other oil-rich Persian Gulf states as well as new 10-year military aid packages to Israel and Egypt, a move to shore up allies in the Middle East and counter Iran's rising influence, U.S. officials said yesterday.

The arms deals, which include the sales of a variety of sophisticated weaponry, would be the largest negotiated by this administration. The military assistance agreements would provide $30 billion in new U.S. aid to Israel and $13 billion to Egypt over 10 years, the officials said. Both figures represent significant increases in military support.

U.S. officials said the arms sales to Saudi Arabia are expected to include air-to-air missiles as well as Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which turn standard bombs into "smart" precision-guided bombs. Most, but not all, of the arms sales to the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman -- will be defensive, the officials said.

U.S. officials said the common goal of the military aid packages and arms sales is to strengthen pro-Western countries against Iran at a time when the hard-line regime seeks to extend its power in the region.

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Yet another piece from Robin Wright in today's WaPo ... .

=====================
U.S. vs. Iran: Cold War, Too
By Robin Wright
Sunday, July 29, 2007; B01

After three decades of festering tensions, the United States and Iran are now facing off in a full-fledged cold war.

When the first Cold War began, in 1946, Winston Churchill famously spoke of an Iron Curtain that had divided Europe. As Cold War II begins half a century later, the Bush administration is trying to drape a kind of Green Curtain dividing the Middle East between Iran's friends and foes. The new showdown may well prove to be the most enduring legacy of the Iraq conflict. The outcome will certainly shape the future of the Middle East -- not least because the administration's strategy seems so unlikely to work.

The new Cold War will take center stage this week, as President Bush dispatches Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to the Middle East for a last-ditch appeal to recalcitrant U.S. allies on Iraq. Their pitch to Sunni Arab regimes spooked by the bloc of countries and movements led by Shiite Persian Iran will be simple: Support Iraq as a buffer against Iran or face living under Tehran's growing shadow.

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Dan Froomkin's take on the latest excuse for why AGAG lied.

=================
The Secrecy Excuse
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, July 27, 2007; 1:16 PM

An apparent lie by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could be easily cleared up, White House spokesman Tony Snow says -- but doing so would require discussing matters that must remain classified in order to protect national security.

The information that Snow and the White House are intent on keeping secret, however, has to do with surveillance activities that President Bush abandoned more than three years ago after Justice Department officials concluded they were illegal. In other words, the government isn't doing this stuff anymore, nor -- one would expect -- will it do so again.

The purpose of classification is to maintain operational secrecy for critical national security programs -- not cover up governmental misdeeds. At least that's the theory. (As I've noted before, Bush aides have repeatedly leaked or declassified secret intelligence findings that served their political agenda -- while asserting the need to keep secret the information that would tend to discredit them.) If the White House believed that disclosing information about a now-defunct program would clear Gonzales, don't you think we'd know it by now?

Gonzales is in this bind because he told Congress in February 2006 that there had "not been any serious disagreement" within the administration about the program the White House dubbed the Terrorist Surveillance Program. And he continued to hew that line even after former deputy attorney general James Comey told senators about a March 2004 rebellion by top Justice Department officials and the White House's dramatic efforts to put it down (including a nighttime visit to then-attorney general John Aschroft's hospital bed).

The only way to reconcile Gonzales's statement with the emerging reality is to argue that there's a distinction between the Terrorist Surveillance Program and what Gonzales calls the "other intelligence activities" that Comey objected to. But if those "other intelligence activities" were just elements of the surveillance program, then the distinction is dishonest.

[...]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

So, if the Saudis are really doing this and we're pissed at them for doing it, why are we selling them a bunch more weapons so that they can continue doing it?

Rhetorical question, I suppose ...

But in my retirement phase, I may just end up camping in a few Congresscritturs' offices ... not Conyers because he's doing his damnedest and bravo to him for doing it, but definitely Steny Hoyer's (not my particular crittur, but at least a Marylander and one who is too DLC for my tastes) and, after that, any Rethug who wants to have it both ways.

==================
US accuses Saudis of telling lies about Iraq
· First time administration has made concern public
· Claims royal family is financing Sunni groups
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Saturday July 28, 2007
Guardian

The extent of the deterioration in US-Saudi relations was exposed for the first time yesterday when Washington accused Riyadh of working to undermine the Iraqi government.

The Bush administration warned Saudi Arabia, until this year one of its closest allies, to stop undermining the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates, are scheduled to visit Jeddah next week.

Reflecting the deteriorating relationship, the US made public claims that the Saudis have been distributing fake documents lying about Mr Maliki.

The Bush administration, as well as the British government, is telling the Saudis, so far without success, that establishing a stable government in Iraq is in their interest and that they stand to suffer if it collapses.

Relations have been strained since King Abdullah unexpectedly criticised the US, describing the Iraq invasion as "an illegal foreign occupation".

[...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33029...

Der Decider is also Der Denier ... but since this one is really hitting the pocketbooks, his usual enablers may be thinking twice.

===============
Bush fails to calm battered stock markets
· Claims of underlying US strength fail to convince
· Analysts warn that private equity bubble could burst
Larry Elliott, economics editor
Saturday July 28, 2007
Guardian

The White House last night made a concerted attempt to inject fresh confidence into the world's battered stock markets as share prices suffered a new day of falls on fears that a credit crunch will end an era of cheap funding for corporate takeovers.

With Wall Street down 100 points in early trading after Thursday's 311-point plunge, Mr Bush and his treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, downplayed fears of contagion from the crisis-ridden real estate market and claimed that the US economy was strong.

Mr Paulson said the world's biggest economy was moving to a sustainable pace of growth after official figures released in Washington showed a stronger trade performance and inventory-building by companies helped the US to grow at an annual rate of 3.4% in the second quarter.

After meeting his economic team at the White House, Mr Bush said: "The world economy is strong and I happen to believe one of the main reasons why is because we remain strong."

[...]
http://business.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,...

mary vb: reallly glad that your daughter made it home safely.

***********
Here's a bit of news that she may be interested in.

***********
And it's time for me to get cracking ... one of those *unofficial* office days ... but this is the LAST weekend to go this way.

Have good ones!

==================
Venice holds its breath as the bridge to the future makes its first appearance
By Peter Popham in Rome
Published: 28 July 2007

The boldest public works project to be tackled in Venice for many decades came a big step closer to completion last night when the two great side buttresses of Santiago Calatrava's new bridge for the city were hauled up the Grand Canal.

While the city slept, a huge, purpose-built barge carried the two prefabricated sections of the city's new bridge up the Grand Canal, which was closed to all other traffic throughout the night. Each of the two sections is 15 metres long and weighs 100 tons.

The most delicate moment came when the barge arrived at the Grand Canal's oldest and most famous bridge, the Rialto, which dates from the 16th century. At this point the keel of the barge was within 10 centimetres of the bottom of the canal, while the steel members, like the skeletons of two enormous fish, passed under the celebrated covered bridge with only 82 centimetres to spare. This part of the journey alone took four hours.

Today and tomorrow the onboard crane will lower the buttresses into place at the top end of the canal, near the railway station, the messy bit of Venice - all car parks, bus stops and railway lines - where the real world and the floating world meet.

[...]
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/art...

Good morning, everybody

Canada sent us some cooler air over night and I actually pulled up the covers.  Slept later than usual because Friday nights tend to be a bit busy on our road, especially after the bars close.  I sometimes think people dare each other to take a run down the twists and curves. For a thrill!!!!

While "truthfull" is clearly not the truth, just as trying to be helpfull doesn't usually help, it really doesn't matter because the truth cannot be proved.  You can only prove that something is not true or false.

As for national security--that's a plot to keep the people tied up in knots.

The "them" we are fighting over there so we don't have to fight them over here are terrorists and terrorists are whoever disagrees with Bush Two and his merry gang.  We're all supposed to be quaking in our boots 'cause they've got missiles to lob at civilians.   

If Bush Two and his gang had been collecting data like they should have, they'd know that America is full of empty and half-empty houses.  The only reason Americans have been buying more housing than they need is because not much else was worth having.  It was a fad that came to represent almost 25% of the national economy.  When that fad fades........................

Bill Moyers had the perfect pair on last night in the segment about the counter-productive nature of our occupation in Iraq. and seems to have almost come to the conclusion himself that Out. Now. is the best course.

There is a desperate need for housing for working people at the same time the bigger houses built by two income professionals when they had kids are too expensive as that group wants to downsize.

plenty of construction needs and work to be done, but none of it works without capital and savings and that has been sent to China

I will try to blog with Dodd later

If Iran and America are no longer enemies, that issue becomes moot.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

dog,

Bu there are 2 "special friends" i that region that would neevr allow it...........our Congress is paid off by these guys................

People who seek to destroy that unity, based upon extreme and unreasonable expectations and apprehensions,

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fred,

Im not seeking to destroy anything, its the Democratic party that has destroyed my faith in what it means and what its intentions truly are...............its non American to hibernate in a party that doesnt reflect true American values anymore..............Independent status is the way to go...........for better or worse................

Mike this should restore your faith: note a DFA Democratic freshman:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Washington, DC - Congresswoman Carol-Shea Porter (D-NH) introduced a bill on Monday to rein in the use of presidential signing statements. The Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007 (HR 3045) would prohibit the courts from considering signing statements when interpreting federal laws.

"President Bush has trampled on the constitutional separation of powers through his abuse of signing statements," said Congresswoman Shea-Porter. "He has attempted to usurp power that was given to the Congress, not the President, and has severely bruised the system of checks and balances. This is an insult to the founders of this country and to the American people, and it cannot be allowed to continue."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I found it in the browse all while having to go through DFA link sign in to get here, I hope that means they are working on fixing the glitches at HQ's.

I left the following as a comment on a discussion about Edwards' tax proposals.  Since, it seems a pretty good summation of what I think, I'll repost it here.  Also, I think the reason Edwards has traction in middle America is because they know that their small farms, their small towns and their small businesses have all been swallowed up by corporations that aren't returning any value to the region.  The comment I was responding to suggested that high income people should pay their fair share.

___________________________________

Saving and investing a surplus in a new enterprise are socially worthwhile endeavors.  Manipulating other people's savings to make it look like something is worth more than it is almost inevitably ends up being detrimental to someone. 

That it's possible to argue that the small investor, who was willing to take a risk and trust someone else with his money should blame only himself when the investment is lost, doesn't make it the right thing to do.

It's become commonplace to refer to financial manipulation as just another characteristic of capitalism, but neither vulture capitalism nor predation are consistent with the principle of preserving a portion of current assets for future use (investment) to create more wealth.  That seems to have evolved out of the realization that it isn't necessary to be prudent and avoid wasteful enterprise, when OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY can be tapped.

Financiers are a lot like the insurance guys--middlemen who add no value to an enterprise.  If I had my druthers they'd be taxed right out of existence.

It breaks my heart to hear on the news that financing corporate acquisitions is becoming more difficult.

In the eighties, takeovers were all the rage.  Now the financiers simply target some corporations for failure, so they can be acquired by others for pennies on the dollar and drop more fees into the financiers' coffers.

Extending credit and then pulling the plug is a socially useless enterprise.  At the least, any income from it ought to be highly taxed.

Tap water

the selling of nothing to fools for profit

snake oil salesman

bourgeois personality

materialists

sick society 

Democrat / independent mind

I am writing to you because an issue that is very dear to me is under attack and I need your help.

As many of you may know, my late brother lost his hearing at a young age and I witnessed firsthand the difficulties people with disabilities endure everyday. It was that experience that drove me to work hard to ensure civil rights protections were extended to every individual regardless of a current, past, or perceived disability through the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act seventeen years ago.

Unfortunately this hard work is being undone as the ADA has come under attack from a series of court decisions that have ignored Congress' clear legislative intent regarding who should be protected. The courts have drastically narrowed the category of who qualifies as person with a disability.

That is why I have offered the ADA Restoration Act of 2007 to undo the damage done by the courts and to clarify the intent of the ADA.

Thanks to the decisions of the courts, many people whom Congress intended to protect under the ADA - such as those with epilepsy, diabetes, and cancer - are no longer protected. For example, a person suffering from epilepsy is now forced to choose between treating their condition and forfeiting their protections under the ADA or not taking their medication and being protected.

This was not the original intent of the ADA and I hope you will help me send a loud and clear message to the courts that a person with a disability lives with that disability regardless of whether or not they are currently treating their symptoms.

Please click here to join me and a bipartisan group of legislators and disability rights advocates by signing my petition to tell Congress to pass this legislation today.

The ADA has done so much to break down barriers so that people with disabilities can fully participate in our society, have equal opportunities, experience independent living, and become economically self-sufficient.

However, the attacks on the ADA from the courts threaten each of these four extremely important pillars and unless Congress takes action to restore and strengthen the original intent of this critical civil-rights law, I am afraid that Americans with disabilities will no longer be protected from discrimination and able to freely experience everything our great nation has to offer.

Thank you for your continued support.

Tom Harkin

GOOD NEWS FOR A CHANGE

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/opinion/28scheiber.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

NOT very long ago, the Democratic Leadership Council was a maker of presidents — or, at least, the maker of a president.

But few headlines will be made this weekend at the council’s “National Conversation” in Nashville. The next president of the United States almost certainly won’t be there. Not only are Democratic front-runners like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama planning to skip the conference, but so are the Bill Richardsons and Chris Dodds of the field. That’s probably a good move for the candidates, as the council has become radioactive among Democratic primary voters. But the Democratic Leadership Council’s fading influence is also good news for the entire party

Despite what you hear from the council, the biggest problem facing the Democrats, and the nation, is not the party’s liberal activists.

For seven years, Democrats have faced a radical administration that operates in bad faith. Yet there was the Democratic Leadership Council, still arguing that teachers unions endanger the republic.

Democrats, moderate and liberal, have been bewildered by the group’s post-Clinton agenda. Take, for example, the law passed by Congress in 2005 that makes it harder for ordinary people to declare bankruptcy. The measure’s only obvious beneficiary was the credit-card industry, and most Democrats opposed it. One main exception was a coalition of House members allied with the council. In an implicit rebuke to their Democratic colleagues, these New Democrats declared their support for the bill “as champions of both personal and fiscal responsibility.”

The leadership council made an analogous mistake in the aftermath of the Iraq war. By 2006, most Democrats who supported the invasion had recanted. But council officials doubled down in the face of the fiasco, attacking opponents of the war during Ned Lamont’s Senate campaign against Joe Lieberman.

Today, the council has almost no constituency within the Democratic Party.

On a variety of issues the council, and not the party’s liberal base, is out of touch with the popular mood. A recent Washington Post poll found that 60 percent of independents, along with 70 percent of Democrats, favor withdrawing from Iraq by next spring.

Two decades of work by the Democratic Leadership Council — and a not inconsiderable assist from President Bush — have made the Democratic Party the healthiest it has been in the 22 years of the council’s existence. Democrats should thank the group and then tell it that it’s no longer needed.

I agree paine, Mike is as close to a main stream democratic rank and file as any I have dealt with over the years because they all think for themselves.

ditto heads are in the other party because they can't and have to hear it from Rush

fear/boo/sheeple/republicants

all real democrats are independents at heart, that is why if you find yourself in the middle of the democratic party mainstream you have a whole lot of company

the party of common sense

forward looking realists, sign up here

Phil, hope everyone displays deference  to  the guests you bring to BFA today.

Good morning folks!!!

Good grief - Schumer said that they were duped into confirming Roberts and Alito. Unbelievable!!! Just like the Iraq War - how long did it take until the folks who autorizied it *got it*? We're in trouble - if he's just now getting it. Why is it the good majority of we Deaniacs got all this in the first place? I am losing confidence with our congress ever getting it right.

original intent ?

I don't think so. 

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.