3,000 to many

I'll eat my hat

I admit it I was wrong, taking down lieberman in Conecticut is a smart move. Lieberman is getting all sorts of money from Non-Democrat affiliated orginzations that would otherwise be going to Republcians, and it would especially be going to Republicans who are in trouble. It also seems to be energizing the progressive base, which is a huge plus. The base is the key to the future, and this is going to help us hugely in november. Also, Ned Lamont is a true liberal, one of the first people to be truly liberal in a while and if we can get him in the senate, he will make us proud.

Go Lamont go

Rules to live by

Many of us remember Ronald Regan saying that the 11th commandment was "Thou shall not talk ill of a fellow Republican." Newsweek recently wrote an article about Karl Rove's strategy of taking it to the strength of your opponent. You keeping hammering them on their strength to negate it and make it a weakness. Now its time for some progressive rules

Lightseeker over at dailykos wrote these and I want to expand on them.

Here they are:

1. We must stand for something, not JUST against the Repubs.

2. In communicating our message to the general public the 3 most important things to talk about are : values, values and values. The fourth most important things are factoids that rattle their cages.

3. Symbols of America are as important as words. From the Statue of Liberty to the Lincoln Memorial to the American Bald Eagle, what you show can be as important as what you say. Use symbols to help convey your agenda more powerfully. [ from the Repub playbook by Luntz ]

4. Democrats must not be afraid of the "G" word (God), indeed the real message of the Gospel is one of compassion and brotherhood not fear and division and that is what we stand for....

5. We must learn to effectively frame our message using our values.

6. We must work on establishing the Democratic brand by publishing it, repeating it , teaching it , and doing these things over and over.

7. We must challenge lazy and unfair media coverage with timely and effective responses and do so every time it happens.

8. We must stop answering questions that are framed badly and start answering bad questions with counter questions.

9. We must learn to engage in civil conversation and not let our message be sidetracked by Republican name calling and trash talk.

10. We must agree with people whenever we can , challenging not their fixed ideas, but their conclusions about them.

11. We must explain how the values we hold will positively impact the lives of the people in our community, directly and immediately.

12. We must tell stories. ......

Lately I am thinking of making this list a Baker's Dozen by adding: Connect your ideas to a master narrative, hopefully one that is shared by other Democrats!

To me what Progressive's and Democrats need to do is sync up our operations. We need to have a coordinated message. A master narrative is essential for the way the Republicans have been controlling the media over the last few years, and we need to start taking the fight to them.

The way you create a narrative is communication; you create email lists and phone databases of people who are best able to disseminate information. We get everyone who is going on tv, everyone who is blogging, and all opinion writers using the same language and this will help shift the media's focus and portray our issues better.

Remember its not cut and run, its redepolyment.
It's not welfare, it's community investment.
It's not banning gay marriage, its adding bigotry into the constitution.
Then again its more then that, its that Republicans are a failure and governing. Republicans forget about those less of then they are. And Republicans only care about people who act like them.

Bush Losing supoort

Latest Polling Shows Bush Losing Key Supporters
WASHINGTON, May 11 - President Bush appears to be losing support among a
key group of voters who had hitherto stood firmly with the president
even as his poll numbers among other groups fell dramatically.
A new Gallup poll shows that, for the first time, Bush's approval rating has fallen below 50% among total fucking morons, and now stands at 44%. This represents a dramatic drop compared to a poll taken just last December, when 62% of total fucking morons expressed support for the president and his policies.
The current poll, conducted by phone with 1,409 total fucking morons between May 4 and May 8, reveals that only 44% of those polled believe the president is doing a good job, while 27% believe he is doing a poor job and 29% don't understand the question.
The December poll, conducted by phone with 1,530 total fucking morons, showed 62% approved of the president, 7% disapproved and 31% didn't understand the question.
Faltering approval ratings for the president among a group once thought to be a reliable source of loyal support gives Republicans one more reason to be nervous about the upcoming mid-term elections. "If we can't depend on the support of total fucking morons," says Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), "then we've got a big problem. They're a key factor in our electoral strategy, and an important part of today's Republican coalition."
"We've taken the total fucking moron vote for granted," says Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), "and now we're paying for it. We've let the Democrats control the debate lately, and they've dragged discourse back into the realm of complex, nuanced issues. So your average total fucking moron turns on his TV and sees his Republican Congressman arguing about Constitutional law or the complexities of state formation in the Middle East, and he tunes out. He wants to hear comforting, pandering, flattering bromides and he doesn't want to hear a logical argument more complex than what you'd find on a bumper sticker."
For Feeney, the poll is a dire warning that Republicans can ignore only at their peril. "This should send a signal that we have to regain control of the debate if we want the support of our key constituencies in the coming election and beyond. We need to bring public discourse back into the realm of stupidity and vacuity. We should be talking about homosexual illegal immigrants burning flags. We should be talking about the power of pride. We should be talking about freedom fries. These are the issues that resonate with total fucking morons."
But some total fucking morons say it's too late. Bill Snarpel of Enid, Oklahoma is a total fucking moron who voted for Bush in both 2000 and 2004. But he says he won't be voting for Bush in 2008. "I don't like it that he was going to sell our ports to the Arabs. If the Arabs own the ports then that means they'll let all the Arabs in and then we'll all be riding camels and wearing towels on our heads. I don't want my children singing the Star Spangled Banner in Muslim."
Total fucking moron Kurt Meyer of Turlock, California also says his once solid support for Bush has collapsed. "He invaded Iraq and all those soldiers died, and for what? We destroyed all their WMDs, but now their new president is making fun of us and saying he's going to build nuclear bombs and that we can't stop him. Well, nuclear bombs are even worse than WMDs, so what did we accomplish?"
Laura McDonald, a total fucking moron from Chandler, Arizona, says she is disappointed that the president hasn't been a more forceful advocate of Christian values. "This country was founded on Christian values," she says, "but you'd never know it looking around and seeing all the Mexicans running around. I thought Bush was going to bring Jesus back into the government. Instead, Christians are being persecuted worse than ever before in history, because all these Mexicans come here and tell Christians that we have to respect their religious beliefs. So now it's illegal for children to pray in school. Soon it will be illegal for them to speak English."
Not all total fucking morons have turned their backs on the president. Jeb Larkin of Topeka, Kansas says he still fully supports Bush. "He is doing a great job. He is a great president. He is a great decider.
I have a puppy.
His tail sticks straight up and you can see his butthole."
And not all Republican lawmakers are concerned about the poll. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), for one, does not find it a cause for anxiety. While he agrees that his party should not take total fucking morons for granted, they "really don't have anywhere else to go. They're never going to be able to understand someone like Al Gore or John Kerry or anybody intelligent and articulate who wants to talk about substantive issues. Just try having a conversation with one of them about global warming. They'll say, 'Oh, but Rush says volcanoes consume more ozone than humans do.' I mean, they're morons! Total fucking morons!"
"They've got nowhere else to go," Alexander reaffirms with a smile, "and they always vote."

They Came for my rights by the horsewithnoname

They came for the tenth amendment in the name of expansive federal powers. I didn't speak up because I am not a terrorist. Also, I don't grow wheat. Or weed.

They came for the ninth amendment in the name of expansive federal and state powers of law enforcement. I didn't speak up because I am not a criminal.

They came for the eighth amendment in the name of extracting information from terrorists by any means necessary. I didn't speak up because I am not a terrorist.

They came for the seventh amendment in the name of binding arbitration. I didn't speak up because I don't sue people.

They came for the sixth amendment in the name of protecting us from terrorists. I didn't speak up because I am not a terrorist.

They came for the fifth amendment in the name of protecting us from criminals and terrorists. I didn't speak up because I am neither a criminal not a terrorist.

They came for the fourth amendment in the name of catching criminals and terrorists. I didn't speak up because I am neither a criminal nor a terrorist.

They came for the third amendment in the name of preserving order. I didn't speak up because I am not a criminal.

They came for the second amendment in the name of stopping gang violence in the streets. I didn't speak up because I don't own a machine gun.

They came for the first amendment in the name of supporting national unity and protecting national secrets. I didn't speak up because I no longer may.

Some people don't get it.

Desperate for Supporters, DeLay Turns to Stephen Colbert

A good sign that Tom DeLay doesn’t have the facts on his side: the top source for his latest defense against his critics is Stephen Colbert.

This morning, DeLay’s legal defense fund sent out a mass email criticizing the movie “The Big Buy: Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress,” by “Outfoxed” creator Robert Greenwald.

The email features a “one-pager on the truth behind Liberal Hollywood’s the Big Buy,” and the lead item is Colbert’s interview with Greenwald on Comedy Central (where Colbert plays a faux-conservative, O’Reilly-esque character). The headline of the “fact sheet”:

DeLay thinks Colbert is so persuasive, he’s now featuring the full video of the interview at the top of the legal fund’s website. And why not? According to the email, Greenwald “crashed and burned” under the pressure of Colbert’s hard-hitting questions, like “Who hates America more, you or Michael Moore?”

Apparently the people at DeLay’s legal fund think that Colbert is actually a conservative. Or maybe they’re just that desperate for supporters.

This was brought to our attention by our good friends and think progress.

Blue baby!

The new Survey USA 50-state Bush approval rating shows the depth of Bush's troubles. In forty-seven states, Bush has a negative approval rating. In seventeen states, Bush's disapproval rating doubles his approval rating. In fifteen states, his disapproval rating is lower than any disapproval rating ever achieved my Nixon nationally. In eight states, his net disapproval is lower than anything Nixon ever achieved nationally. In Missouri, Bush is at 29-68. Missouri.

Here is a county by county picture of his approval ratings



Dems lead the 2008 generic ballot by 19 points, and America thinks Bill Clinton was better than Bush at everything, and by huge margins. It is a blue nation. I'd love to see these map on television and in newspapers for a little.

Fight wiretaps with civil disobedience

Fight wiretaps with civil disobedience?
by Jim J [Subscribe]
Thu May 11, 2006 at 11:30:07 AM PDT

No, I don't mean by giving up our phones. We all need our phones. Can't live without 'em, regardless of who's listening in.

But perhaps this modest proposal will prove popular as a common, inexpensive and relatively risk-free way to voice your opposition to the new police state we find ourselves in:

At the end of EVERY phone call you make -- all of them, even to your dear mama, even to a phone sex operator -- say "Fuck George Bush."

And persuade everyone you know to do the same.
Doesn't have to be theatric, doesn't have to be in context, doesn't have to be accompanied by anything else remotely political.

Just: "Fuck George Bush."

Hopefully, the anti-Constitutional and un-American fascist efforts of Herr Hayden & Co. will be thwarted in some small way by the white noise this protest generates.
After all, they've already put us on the quasi-terrorist blacklist for posting here. They know who we are already. May as well make a statement.

Elections

Pine Valley has 100% voter turnout!

Here is some light for Jim Webb

Political Wire received an advance copy of a New Republic profile of Sen. George Allen (R-VA) in which author Ryan Lizza finds many of Allen's high school classmates surprised that he's considering running for president because of the racist tendencies he displayed as a teenager. They say he "plastered the school with confederate flags" and drove a red Mustang with a confederate flag on the front. Then Lizza got a copy of Allen's high school yearbook:

I stared closely at Allen’s smirk in his photo, weighing whether his old classmates were just out to destroy him. And then I noticed something on his collar. It’s hard to make out, but then it becomes obvious. Seventeen-year-old George Allen is wearing a Confederate flag pin.

When confronted with this evidence, Allen sent an email through an aide with this explanation: "When I was in high school in California, I generally bucked authority and the rebel flag was just a way to express that attitude.”

Republican Corruption

GOP Culture of Corruption Indeed

The ever-expanding list of Republicans mired in scandal, just in the past year. If the Democratic party did this much crap over a 10 year period it would be another 10 years before I'd even consider voting for anyone in the party again...

The GOP List of Shame

Abramoff and Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001480_pf.html
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000182.php

Abramoff and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA)
http://www.auburnjournal.com/articles/2005/12/26/news/top_stories/01doolittle.txt
http://tpmmuckraker.com/doolittle.php

Abramoff and Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH)
http://tpmmuckraker.com/ney.php
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/14263285.htm

Abramoff and Sen Conrad Burns (R-MT)
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060426/NEWS01/604260303/1002
http://tpmmuckraker.com/burns.php

Abramoff and Rep. Dana Rohrabaker (R-CA)
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/10/rohrabacher-abramoff/
http://www.eritreadaily.net/News0306/article0306261.htm

Abramoff and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/newsrelease.php?view=116

Abramoff and DeLay, Doolittle, Ney, Rohrabacher
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/JoshMarshall/081705.html

Sen Bill Frist (R-TN)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/23/AR2005092301811.html
http://thinkprogress.org/frist-stock-timeline/

Sen Conrad Burns (R-MT)
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/04/23/news/state/25-post.txt
http://tpmmuckraker.com/burns.php

Sen Rick Santorum (R-PA)
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=11174
http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/pressclip.php?view=1827

Sen John Thune (R-SD)
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/07/08/news/local/news04.txt
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Thune

Sen George Voinovich (R-OH)
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050403/NEWS24/504030349
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bob_fitr_050731_dramatic_new_charges.htm

Gov Taft (R) and Ohio Coingate
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bob_fitr_050731_dramatic_new_charges.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5746148,00.html

Ky. Gov Ernie Fletcher (R)
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050829/NEWS0103/508290327/1059/NEWS01
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050831/EDIT01/508310315/1020/EDIT
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/kentuckydocket.php#fletcher

Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12141276/

Rep Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050702/news_1n2duke.html
http://tpmmuckraker.com/cunningham.php

Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA)
http://loper.org/~george/archives/2006/Mar/972.html
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/51_87/news/12286-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS (sub req)

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20051223-9999-lz1n23lewis.html

Rep Michael G. Oxley (R-OH)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/18/AR2006041800987.html?nav=rss_politics

Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA)
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000401.php

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20051204-9999-1n4adcs.html

Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/14275670.htm
http://www.swingstateproject.com/2005/07/oh-2_jean_schmi.php

Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC)
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/charles_taylor/

Rep. Katherine Harris ’06 Sen candidate (R-Fla)
http://cfn13.com/StoryHeadline.aspx?id=15039
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/cats/katherine_harris/

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA)
http://www.harpers.org/sb-curt-weldon-kim-employment.html

Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY)
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000158.php

Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/22/AR2006042200995.html?nav=rss_politics

Ralph Reed ’06 Lt Gov candidate (R-GA)
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114548590969830492-KX98zvSUWRHqye46SjeFOdagWUQ_20070419.html?mod=blogs
http://tpmmuckraker.com/reed.php

ex-IL Gov. George Ryan Sr (R)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0604180306apr18,1,6246344.story?coll=chi-news-hed

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr
Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to Vice President
http://www.slate.com/id/2128530/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=I._Lewis_Scooter_Libby

Whitehouse OMB Official David Safavian
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901859.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-10-05-official-indicted_x.htm

White House chief domestic-policy adviser Claude Allen
http://www.slate.com/id/2138116/fr/nl/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/24/AR2006042401825.html

(Karl Rove Coming soon?)

http://www.bugmenot.com/ can help you get around many of the Reg Req sites.

Please steal this list. Email it. Post it. Let it be known.

GE and the War Machine

found this gem about GE and the war machine:

"This cartoon "Conspiracy Theory Rock" by Robert Smigel was shown on "Saturday Night Live" during the March 14, 1998 broadcast but edited out of reruns. For that broadcast, the host was Julianne Moore and the musical guest was the Backstreet Boys.

Video-WMP Video-QT

"The title and the style of the animation are a takeoff on the educational TV series, "Schoolhouse Rock," which was shown as a public service in-between network entertainment cartoons on Saturday mornings in the 1970s...read on"