DFA Night School is first!

PATHETIC BLOGGER QUESTION OF THE DAY

196. Huron John
How will one of the pathetic rethugs beat Hillary?

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I guess it depends on which pathetic one is running.

Good One Susan.

Last night, Ken Burns once again  demonstrated his sheer genius by turning a faithful representation of the history of WWII into perhaps the most powerful antiwar statement of all time.

 His matter-of-fact portrayal of the monumental screwups of the second half of 1944, combined with the stark description of the racism and bogotry of the US military, are completely devastating.

 I'm sure he's mightily pissed off all of our chickenhawks and armchair crusaders (of both parties)

Again, I tend to simplify.  If Iowans had been watching the debates ,reading a few good newspapers and knew that 70 of us want out, and if THEY  truly want out of Iraq, Kucinich would be leading.

What's leading in IA is old party machinery, outdated caucus, *organizational skills* and MONEY; hardly good qualities to choose a nominee.

Quality and consistency of voting and spoken word is not even considered.  Even Dodd should be up there.  But no, it's again the least qualified to run our country well and in the interest of the people.

I can hear the pressure and deals and back slapping as I sit here and I am appalled that we've been taken over by thugs and criminals and liars and warmongerers. (DC crowd)

Then again, maybe there are only 2 or 3 progressive in IA, something I've suspected for a long time.  IMO IA is republican most all the way, claiming otherwise.

How else can you account for war parched candidates who change their rhetoric in order to lie themselves into office?  And why in the world are Iowans believing their s*it?

Boggles the mind. ( and not demeaning the good work Phil always does.)

2. I would guess any one of them will use some combination of the techniques I enumerated.

As in 00 and 04, Carville and other Democratic nincompoops will be continually predicting victory while handing the rethugs the asses of the Democrats.

Monica, that was a great link, but the font was tiny.  Cliff notes please, as I got lost in the conspiracies.  It sounds like Russia and China will bring us down when they choose.  Is that the cliff note?

5. Huron John

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Remember the Rovian Rule, go after their strengths, not their weaknesses. So what are Hillary's strengths? Anyone?

5.Huron John

I would guess any one of them will use some combination of the techniques I enumerated.
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possibly, but TV funds are limited, so on which specific attack they put the most money, would depend on whom is running and how vulnerable (or defendable) that person is to the same attack.

I've already given this some thought, John.

One thing I would postulate is that one of Hillary's strength right now is "money," so how many scandals can they go after there, now let's see, there's

1. insider trading on beef futures, a cool $100,000
2. Whitewater.
what else?

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-go-after-limbaugh-2007-10-01.html

Remember the Rovian Rule, go after their strengths, not their weaknesses. So what are Hillary's strengths? Anyone?

nice hair. wide stance.

 So what are Hillary's strengths?

___________________________________________________________________________

Loudest most annoying laugh Ive ever heard....................

Word has been received that John Edwards, candidate for President, will be in Elkader on Friday, October 5th. 

He will be at Schera’s Restaurant, corner of Bridge and Main Streets at 4:45PM.

Hope to see you there. Remember, whether you have made a decision on who to support or not, it is important to check out all of our candidates when they make an appearance locally.

Thanks,

Jean Marie Hall

Clayton County Chair

Clinton's greatest strength.  Bill.  Many folks will be voting for Bill.

machine politics at work LOL

Rove attacks where his candidate is weak. When you point out the flaw, it becomes a draw, they are 'the same" on that characteristic.

14.seashell :-)

Bill. Many folks will be voting for Bill.
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it's true. He's very congenial. Hillary has the brains, but I'd much rather have Bill over for dinner, if I had a choice.

Remember the Blues Bros. "stand by your man"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8bKxdPaX...

16.Phil Specht

Rove attacks where his candidate is weak
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I don't know where i read it, but there was an analysis of his strategy and it was usually the strenghts.

For instance, Kerry was selected in large part for his military service and macho "security" image, ---enter, the Swifties.

3804

Heres how Hillary will deal with those dang gummed Iranians!  Forget nuking them.............

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzVYP0wfEvg

Hillary's strengths (from a Rovian attack the strengths point of view) are experience, Bill and competence.

So, if you want to go after Hillary that way:

Say if just living in the White House gives you experience, we should elect Socks!

Hit Bill on NAFTA, welfare "reform" and what he didn't do to build a Democratic majority in his eight years.

Hit competence by  talking about how she screwed up health care (this also helps on the other two) and how it cost the Dems Congress in 1994 and stopped Bill from accomplishing any major Democratic goals for the rest of his two terms, how she voted for the war, etc.

Of all of those, I get a grin out of the first one. 

Al Gore explained the phenomenon in "An Inconvenient Truth."  This is from the Newsweek article Project Green: The Power of the Sun:

"[I]n sectors like solar energy and biofuels, payrolls are growing so rapidly it's hard for researchers to keep an accurate count. Despite the lack of precise numbers, all observers agree the ranks are growing quickly. Based on the flow of venture capital, K. R. Sridhar, CEO of the fuel-cell start-up Bloom Energy, believes the clean-tech sector could produce 50,000 new jobs by 2010. (By way of comparison, General Motors' hourly work force, which briefly went on strike last week, currently numbers 73,000.) Peter Beadle, president of Greenjobs.com, cites estimates that the solar sector alone could employ 2 million people by 2020—more Americans than currently work as elementary-school teachers.

" . . . .

"The focus on all things green may be getting a little ahead of itself. Between 2005 and 2006, venture-capital investments in the clean-tech sector jumped from $623 million to $1.5 billion, with solar and biofuel garnering the biggest infusions, according to analysts at Lux Research. That's led to talk of an alt-energy bubble. 'From the perspective of investors and entrepreneurs, this is the new Internet,' says Lux Research president Matthew Nordan. Even employees at alt-energy firms acknowledge that renewable energy has suffered false starts in the past. Still, even skeptics suggest that for young workers charting a career path, the industry's allure is hard to beat. 'It's virtually impossible to beat the long-term trends in clean tech,' says Nordan."

22. Tom Bearse

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Thanks to King George and his oil wars, we can count on a perpetual energy shortage and high prices to keep alternative energy going for the long term. maybe we should thank him?

21. rich^kolker
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I am sure republican aides and intern will be spending many weeks going over newspaper archives of the Clinton years looking for clues. Judging from the remarks in the last Republican debate, I would say, social spending, taxes, and breakdown of moral values would be their biggest issues, and they could probably dredge up a lot of slander and spin about all that, between her and Bill.

Another thing was that Bill thought espionage was a very unimportant issue. The author of the book on the history CIA (forgot the name) said Bill Clinton was the least concerned with the agency of all the presidents in the history of the CIA. He blamed "Blackhawk down" on such indifference, and that only after many years did he start meeting with the CIA on regular basis, too little too late.

audrey wrote "You must be willfully not seeing the expressions of wishing for a Dean presidency on this blog."

No. Here was my comment, to which yours refers: "So have I [ruled out a Dean run for the presidency], but have you noticed any remarks on this site to the [effect] that he should run, or that people would like him to run, because they lack enthusiasm for many of the current group of candidates?"

You need to appreciate that Sitka and Mike were explaining how useless it was for me to suggest comparing Obama’s Iran policies with those of Gore or Dean, assuming for purposes of the discussion that they were candidates. I surmised there would be no substantive difference in the respective positions. I purposely asked he question to which you responded to remind Mike that many people here have suggested Dean should run, or want him to, making antipathy towards Obama in this regard all the more difficult to comprehend.

Rovian politics: find a generally held negative perception of a personality characteristic or unpopular principled stand that you are certain will come up later and use that in an early attack, so there is an "I thought so" moment

example

McCain is of an age he will have a long day and get tired, catch him napping at an event after you have first run an ad showing your candidates vitality (Romney out for a morning run in an ad is using this one)

It doesn't matter which candidate Democrats select; rovian politics will attack "socialized medicine".

27. Phil Specht
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Probably. Any kind of reform proposals from a Democrat (especially Hillary), no matter how "market oriented" will be framed "socialized medicine"

Al Oerter, the discus great who won gold medals in four straight Olympics to become one of track and field's biggest stars in the 1950s and '60s, died Monday of heart failure. He was 71.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/01/AR2007100101008.html

I always liked Al Oerter.  For one thing, he lived on Long Island, as I did, and between Olympics went back to his job at Grumman where he was an engineer.  He was not the favorite in any of the four Olympics where he won gold, and competed into his late 40's.  The classic amateur athlete.

Janet Reno was totally on top of the domestic terrorist threat and slept at the office so she could get a quick court warrant if needed to thwart a millenium attack. Bush brushed off the daily briefing on Aug. 8 2001 threat assessment that "al-Queda to attack America using planes as missles", and went back to vacation  letting Cheney exploit the levers of government for the enrichment of his cronies while he cut brush. Historians will uncover what was in the letter Clinton left for Bush in the Oval Office.

I'm pretty sure 50 years from now the record will show G.W.Bush President when al Queda hit the towers.

rovian attacks should focus on who was in charge during the greatest security lapse ... Republicans

when people b!tch about illegals; remind them who was in charge of securing the borders for the last seven years

when Bush vetoes Childrens Health Care over fiscal responsiblity as an issue, point out the size of the Republican deficit, and pass a paygo for his war by rescinding his "fiscally irresponsible" tax cut

Phil, in answer to your question:

There isn't much of one, because there is such a vast difference in
available services. Hosting can run anywhere from $5/month to $5000/month
depending on needs. Also, quite often one can find two companies providing
virtually the same level of service but one charging many times the other.
 
I pay $18/month or so for the hosting I get for smith-family.com. This is
probably more than you might need to pay for the Congressional District
web site.

Thanks Monica, the first offer was $35 a month, and I had heard google will do a stripped down job for $8. $35 isn't out of line if they provide security and backup.

30. Phil Specht
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Interest. Is Janet Reno still around?

Monica

I want the design to include a password protected work space for platform committee work with a link to a page showing our committee vote approved draft, not to be secret about anything since our meetings are open to the public, but simply to have privacy while vitual commuting to do rough work, and save a bunch of highway miles, and there was some dispute about who is responsible for security arrangements for that. The site designer or the server provider

OK, so what exactly is wrong with being socialized?  Isn't social the opposite of selfish and aren't Republicans opposed to selfishness?  Seems to me that somebody's either confused or wanting to confuse.

Yes, there are some people who are opposed to social security.  Most of them are people who thrive on others feeling in-secure.  Why should we pander to these anti-social beings?

What we need to remember is that Rovians hijack terminology for the simple purpose of denying their antagonists its use.  The irony is that by not using the targeted terminology, we inadvertently re-inforce the negatives.  So, for example, by not using the term social, we suggest agreement with its designation as a negative attribute.  

When we come to consider socialized medecine, it's entirely logical and appropriate that there be social involvement in determining its appropriateness and cost, since the individual who needs the service is not equipped to make an informed decision as to either.  In other words, cutting out social involvement merely facilitates the activities of shysters and charlatans and other opportunistic operators--i.e. cutting out social involvement simply serves the criminal element.  Why would anyone want to do that, unless they happen to be of a similar criminal mind-set?

I don't think it's a personal attack to point out that a particular policy is socially destructive.  I can think of no valid reason to oppose societal involvement in medicine.  If there's any time in a person's life when he/she needs social support and involvement, it's when someone is angling to cut off a piece or infuse the body with poisons. 

DEAN '08!

I remember rich's  "campaign in a box" and I am hoping someone has Congressional District Web Site in a box that includes a virtual work space. The essential we agreed on were to have county links to a master calendar, links to the official Congressman's portal, RSSS content feed from the Party and press secretary, youtube capability like here, (but never on the first page, due to sensitivity to the vast rural part on dial-up). We are going to pay someone several hundred dollars just to design the site, but I think a front page that  has just a few links and loads quickly for convienience with much else archived and a click away, Since we are all volunteers I think the monthly server bill will have to include items which might normally go to the webmaster.

Supreme Injustices

"It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much."–U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer

The addition of Justices Roberts and Alito swung the Supreme Court dramatically to the right. Hosted by Emmy-award winning actor Bradley Whitford, Supreme Injustices examines the impact of the first full term of the Roberts Court. Thought an exploration of the personal stories behind two of this term’s most controversial cases, addressing the legal of Brown v. Board of Education, workers and civil rights, we learn just how much power the Supreme Court has to affect the lives of ordinary Americans.

watch the film: http://www.afj.org/for-students/supreme-...

39.Monica Smith

OK, so what exactly is wrong with being socialized? Isn't social the opposite of selfish and aren't Republicans opposed to selfishness? Seems to me that somebody's either confused or wanting to confuse...

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We should call it "State insurance" because that is exactly what we need, a Government alternative that will rival the Private, for profit system, that if used (on a strictly voluntary basis,) will entitle people to tax deductions/tax credits to compensate for payroll health deductions used to pay for the State insurance.

Premiums and copays would be on sliding scale, starting at zero to no limit. Copays would be tax deductible.

37.

To answer some of your question:

The site designer would typically be responsible for implementing this sort of thing. The hosting company will typically provide just a bare system that can be configured as desired by the customer. The hosting provider would be responsible for the physical security of the machine as well as file system level security. Application level security (which we're talking about here) would be the customer's responsibility.
 

Obama raises $20 million in third quarter
Democrat unveils totals as primary contests near

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ob...

South Carolina Democratic chairwomen is afraid to come to Florida.  I can't say that I blame here.  With Geller threatening to sue her state along with the other 3 for inimidating candidates...and being rogue terrorist states...can''t blame her. 

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1533

She's afraid they might shoot her.   I would laugh but it is too embarassing.

42.

Let me respond as a person who hasn't had a medical examination or visit to a doctor's office for about 25 years (i can't remember what year I got mono and had the doctor tell me I would just have to rest and take it easy until I got over it), that insurance is not the answer and co-pays just add unnecessary paper-work.  

One of the things that's happened to the health care industry is that because remuneration has been artificially restricted, providers are motivated to schedule reviews and checkups on a regular basis, regardless of need.  I figure that by failing to have regular check-ups, I've avoided taking estrogen during menopause (which has now been found to be ill-advised, if not simply harmful) and I've avoided getting mamograms and pap smears (which have now been adjudged to be mostly useless) and I've also avoided the risk of contacting some contageous infection from some really sick person who happened to be in a waiting room at the same time as myself. 

Bill would return to office (essentially) under the skirttails of his wife becoming President --

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That might could work. . . . Only that I doubt that Bill has been under Hillary's skirt in a good long time. . . .

_____________________

Brought this forward... Too good....You make me laugh, puddle..

I'm really sorry that Indy Steve feels that this blog is dying. We've certainly evolved from the heady days of the Dean campaign, when it seemed briefly that the "Democratic Wing" was going to take back the Democratic Party, then take back our country.

I do agree that there is less collegiality, and a fairly clear division between Democratic loyalists and those (like myself) who believe that the Democrats are the 21st Century Whigs.  But even though the parameters have changed greatly, there is still a current of energy directed toward disentanging this Nation from the web of corruption and social darwinism (not to mention the bogus "war on terror" and all its manifestations) in which the incredibly evil Bush administration has placed us.

I'm confident that BFA will survive the horrors still to come, and hope  we can influence the course of events in a positive way.

If the repugs blather on about socialized medicine, lets' us talk about how we  now have socialized education, socialized upkeep on roads, socialized medicare etc.  We can't let them control the dialogue anymore.

Or...

compassionate medicine, compassionte health care, modern healthcare...something like that.  Let's steal the "compassionate" away from those turkeys. 

Another in a long line of articles that is beating the drum.

Chorus of Bush Advisers Seek Iran War
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100107B.shtml
Ros Taylor, of The Guardian UK, reports, "John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country." Sarah Baxter reports for The Times UK: "One of the founding fathers of neoconservatism has privately urged President George W Bush to bomb Iran rather than allow it to acquire nuclear weapons." Simon Walters reports for The Daily Mail UK: "British MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior ... officials: 'I hate all Iranians.'"

If it's Clinton/Guiliani, the votes will be counted very quickly.

Repugs 5

Dems 4

The rest will stay home. 

CNN reporting that the fundis are so upset with the thought of Rudy, that there's talk of a third party.  So let's rephrase the numbers.

Repugs 5

Dems  4

New fundi party  33 million

No one can say with any accuracy or meaning how other people will vote  in 08. It's just a way of dissing those we don't like. Unelectability is as big a canard as electability.

52, tongue in cheek, my dear.

48.Huron John

...I'm confident that BFA will survive the horrors still to come, and hope we can influence the course of events in a positive way.
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If you start posting more positive things, maybe that will happen. The effort of people trying to turn this blog into a fiefdom of their own image, ideas and non-partisan idea of what is a progressive ideal, is what will kill it.

The free flow of all points of view, WITHOUT anyone, or any highly active few, trying to dominate it with their own POV will save it in the Dean tradition.

You cannot change the course of events by trying to dominate the conversation, and/or by humiliating those who disagree with you. That will only distill the participation of the blog to only those who agree with you already. What have you gained?

If the repugs blather on about socialized medicine, lets' us talk about how we  now have socialized education, socialized upkeep on roads, socialized medicare etc.  We can't let them control the dialogue anymore.

Michaels Moore has it figured out, When asked the "socialized medicine" question he just asks in return, "do you approve of Medicare? Because that's what it is -- socialized medicine."

I really think we've turned the corner on that red herring.  Americans are ready for "socialized" medicine if DCDems would only grow the spines to realize it. 

52, tongue in cheek, my dear. 

Unelectability seems to the only argument left to stop Hillary. Too bad it's a hollow one. 

I'm really sorry that Indy Steve feels that this blog is dying.

He was just in a funk because I posted Edwards' brown nosing speech to the DLC back in 2002. 

48.Huron John

I do agree that there is less collegiality, and a fairly clear division between Democratic loyalists and those (like myself)who believe that the Democrats are the 21st Century Whigs.

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Democratic Loyalists

or

those (like myself)

John, it is so obvious that you try to pigeon-hole every person here as either WITH YOU or AGAINST YOU, as a "blue" Democrat or a "true" Democrat (or just a "true" good people.)

You set yourself as judge and jury - a witch hunt.

I do agree that there is less collegiality, and a fairly clear division between Democratic loyalists and those (like myself)who believe that the Democrats are the 21st Century Whigs.

It could be that both parties are that way, with their left and right splitting from each respectively. It wouldn't surprise me if the remaining Repos and Dems then joined together as the Demoblican or Republicrat party, which they virtually are now anyway.

With conservatives trying to organize voting "third" party this in light of what they see as GOP betrayels, this would be the perfect time for liberals to do the same.

Where's Ralph when we really need him?