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Dear Readers:

We’re moving to a New Blog!

I’m happy to announce that short of finishing some unpacking and little re-arranging, the new and improved Dem Daily Blog is now live. Come on over and check it out!

This blog and all of the archives will remain here online and in a few days the comments will be turned off. Update your bookmarks, and your blogrolls and…

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Cross posted from the New Dem Daily Blog:

Barack Obama laid out his new energy plan today. David Roberts of Grist did some pre-speech musing on Obama’s proposal on Grist this morning saying that it appears to be “a fairly bold proposal, worth cheering.”

Key points of Obama’s plan “to combat global warming and achieve energy security” include:

• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the level recommended by top scientists to avoid calamitous impacts.
• Invest $150 billion over the next ten years to develop and deploy climate friendly energy supplies, protect our existing manufacturing base and create millions of new jobs.
• Dramatically improve energy efficiency to reduce energy intensity of our economy by 50 percent by 2030.
• Reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce oil consumption overall by at least 35 percent, or 10 million barrels of oil, by 2030
• Make the U.S. a leader in the global effort to combat climate change by leading a new international global warming partnership.

Obama’s full plan is available here and the text of his speech as prepared for delivery is available here. Maybe it’s just me, but I think all of the candidates have a long way to go to get up to speed. Back in June in a speech at the National Press Club, John Kerry challenged the Democratic Majority today to take bold approaches to solving our environmental crisis caused by Climate Change. Obama’s plan comes close, but not close enough. Brian Beutler weighs in calling Obama’s plan, “… extremely good. Exceptional in some places, slightly nebulous in others…”

Memeorandum has more buzz here.

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We’ve moved to a New Blog!

I’m happy to announce that short of finishing some unpacking and little re-arranging, the new and improved Dem Daily Blog is now live. Come on over and check it out!

This blog and all of the archives will remain here online and in a few days the comments will be turned off. Update your bookmarks, and your blogrolls and…

Join us at the New Dem Daily Blog!

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When not trying to get Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic, fired, the rival Weekly Standard’s blogger, Michael Goldfarb, shakes those pom-poms and high kicks rather strenuously for war, death and the continued occupation of a country that never did anything to harm us. This is, perhaps, not surprising, considering WHO the Weekly Standard speaks for.
According to SourceWatch:
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Bruce Springsteen will be on 60 Minutes tonight, discussing his new CD: “Magic,” and responding to “critics who call his anti-war sentiments unpatriotic,” Springsteen says, “the real sin against patriotism is saying nothing while your country is being harmed.”

When reminded that his anti-war views, prominent on his new album, “Magic,” will cause people to say he is unpatriotic — as his critic have charged before — Springsteen says “That’s just the language of the day…the modus operandi for anybody who doesn’t like somebody…criticizing where we’ve been or where we’re going,” he tells Pelley. “I believe every citizen has a stake in the course, direction of their country. That’s why we vote…It’s unpatriotic at any given moment to sit back and let things pass that are damaging to some place that you love so dearly and that has given me so much,” says the 58-year-old musician.

In the interview, Springsteen points out the direction in which the U.S. is going, by his estimation. “I think we’ve seen things happen over the past six years that I don’t think anybody ever thought they’d ever see in the United States,” says Springsteen. “When people think of the Unites States’ identity, they don’t think of torture. They don’t think of illegal wiretapping. They don’t think of voter suppression,” he tells Pelley. “They don’t think of no habeas corpus,” he says, referring to the people being held by the U.S. government in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“Those are things that are anti-American,” Springsteen says. “There’s been a whole series of things that…I never thought I’d ever see in America,” he tells Pelley.

60 Minutes airs at at 7:30 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. PT.

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“Now is the winter of our discontent.”
-From King Richard III (I, i, 1)

Last week, big chunks of America were caught up in two enormous soap operas. The first was Ken Burns’ documentary, “The War,” that was pulling in network-type ratings. It reminded us of World War II, which I, as a child of the ‘fifties, grew up with omnipresent and memory fading, to the point that they could put “The War” on TeeVee as a weekly drama, “Combat,” and a sitcom about Stalag 13, “Hogan’s Heroes.”

We have profoundly forgotten that “Greatest Generation.”

And then, the first straight-up barfight of the New Media left and right: the controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s “Phony Soldiers” comments.
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What is most difficult part of organizing the viable Red District Campaign? It is creating seed money funding and the resultant hiring of professional staff. When running against well-funded professionals, the Democratic Candidate needs professionals in his campaign as well. So it boils down to early money. As Emily’s List has said for so long: Early Money Is Like Yeast.

In Red District elections routine measures of campaign viability, the ‘conventional wisdom’, do not apply. So what is the state of routine measurement in Washington, DC? Secondly, how can existing Officeholders and Political Action Committees of all types and for all causes help change the Red District campaign paradigm?

It is ritual in Washington, DC not to pay serious attention to any Congressional candidate, particularly Red Districts, until they hit $100,000 in funds raised. When that threshold has been met, the DCCC and other organizations begin paying attention. Doors begin to open. In Blue Districts, Open Seat Districts and closely contested races this may be a reasonable method of distinguishing between campaign organizations that are viable and those that are not.

Secondly, Washington and the PAC’s have an aversion to participating in a Democratic Primary Election. While understandable in contested Democratic Primaries, most Red District campaigns have only one Democratic Candidate. There is, realistically, no ’stampede’ to compete in the most difficult of races against money and incumbency.
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You can tell when the Rightie blogosphere has spun off its axis. The self-delusion and rationalization has finally reached that magical moment when spoiled White Southern Chicks decide that World War II vets’ stories aren’t convenient, and can, therefore be dismissed, since they coincide with points of view with which spoiled White Southern Chicks disagree.

Here’s the inconvenient facts, from The Washington Post:

When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.

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David Brooks tried to figure out why the Republican Party is in “shambles.” John Cole on Balloon Juice does a much better job explaining their problems:

For starters, people got tired of being associated with these drooling retards. Then, when they realized that these drooling retards had ideological allies running the show in the Bush administration and then began to experience their idiotic policies, they moved from disgusted to outright hostile.

Like me. It had nothing to do with Burke, and everything to do with what the party had become. A bunch of bedwetting, loudmouth, corrupt, hypocritical, and incompetent boobs with a mean streak a mile long and no sense of fair play or proportion.

Seriously- what does the current Republican party stand for? Permanent war, fear, the nanny state, big spending, torture, execution on demand, complete paranoia regarding the media, control over your body, denial of evolution and outright rejection of science, AND ZOMG THEY ARE GONNA MAKE US WEAR BURKHAS, all the while demanding that in order to be a good American I have to spend most of every damned day condemning half my fellow Americans as terrorist appeasers.

And that isn’t even getting into the COMPLETE and TOTAL corruption of our political processes at every level. The shit is really going to hit the fan after we vote these jackasses out of power in 2008.

Go read all of Cole’s brilliant observations! I’ve never voted Republican and probably never will, but it’s heartening to see the truth laid out from a former believer.

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Sad but true… Paul Krugman nails the attitude of “today’s leading conservatives” who are “Reagan’s heirs.”

If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, they don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.

On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded S-chip, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, providing health insurance to an estimated 3.8 million children who would otherwise lack coverage.

In anticipation of the veto, William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.” Heh-heh-heh.

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Well, first he said that he’d resign, effective September 30. Then, he said he’d resign, CONDITIONAL on what the judge said about withdrawing his guilty plea. (And that he was completely innocent.)

THEN, he said, that while September 30 had passed, he’d wait for the judge’s ruling.

The judge did not allow him to withdraw his guilty plea.

And so, Idaho Senator Larry Craig’s long bout of bizarre, lying behavior continued today, as he confronted the judicial ruling in what we’ve come to think of as the inimitable Larry Craig manner:

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UPDATE 5:28 PM PDT: Today, CNN has noted a plethora of stories that relate directly to the issues raised in my earlier story.

• Police probe racial incident at school for deaf
• Coast Guard tries to deal with noose incidents
• Student apologizes for making ‘Jena 6′ re-enactment

Here’s an excerpt from that last story:
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I am sick to death of all the pussyfooting around the subject that has occupied the media for the duration of this premeditated, illegal war of terror that we the people of the United States have allowed to be waged against the people of Iraq, in our name, for the last several years.

No matter how much lipstick and rouge we smear on the face of this war no matter how we attempt to  dress up the evil and bestial acts that have been performed in its unholy name, it still has the hideous countenance of an evil swine from hell.

It is an illegal war, begun and conducted under false pretenses, by a group of criminal liars and thieves in the United States Government, abetted by a cowardly congress who abrogated their constitutional duties in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds and furthered by a complaisant press that ignored their obligation to remain independent from government, from their sponsors and report the facts. 

The members of the completely rogue executive department acted in their own self interest in a quest for personal power and wealth, in concert with the usual domestic and international corporate pirates who, in the depths of their insatiable greed, continually amplify human conflict to their own ends and bring poverty, war, suffering and death down upon the world.

There is no such animal as extraordinary rendition, nor do I know of the existence of any beasts called enhanced interrogation methods.

The first is kidnapping, it is illegal, a felony and the second word is torture, its meaning is clear:
NOUN:

  1. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
  2. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
  2. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
  3. Something causing severe pain or anguish.

Torture is illegal in this country, a felonious act, it is illegal in the world at large, according to several conventions that we are legally bound by. Anyone committing torture, causing it to be committed, directing its commission, or training others in its techniques is guilty, guilty of war crimes, of crimes against humanity and crimes against “Nature’s God.

The people who lied us into this war are not statesmen, nor are they patriots acting out of a misguided love of country, as I have heard in some quarters. They are murderers, murderers, modern day Nazis or Fascists if you prefer, cold dispassionate sociopaths, heinous criminals, without conscience, without mercy, without humanity.

I read in the press and heard in the media yesterday and this morning of the “murky legal territory” in which the “private contractors” operate in Iraq and the murky area of law in which our dedicated public servants must operate as they determine just how far they can go in the extreme physical abuse of human beings before they stray in to a “gray area.”

Bullshit, I think that when a lying pig of a lawyer like David Addington describes a “murky legal area” it means that he thinks he can get away with it. The legal situation in Iraq was intentionally  designed to protect the mercenary scum that we send there to perform high priced serial murders as they fulfill bloated contracts to protect our criminal leadership, thieving diplomats and cowardly congressmen.

I believe that the actions of following people must be investigated and, if warranted by the evidence, tried in criminal courts, and if convicted, face the full consequences of both US and International law:

George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Eliot Abrams, Scooter Libby, John Hannah, David Wurmser, Andrew Natsios, Dan Bartlett, Mitch Daniels, George Tenet, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, David Addington

There are more, in every corner of the executive, the congress, among the highest levels of the military as well as the intelligence community, various think tanks, news organizations, public and private corporations and other NGOs.
This is a cancer that must be quickly, loudly and publicly removed from the heart of America.

Enough.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

Related stories,sources and links:
The Architects of War
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Convention Against Torture
Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
Red, white and mercenary in Iraq
Yet More Impeachable Revelations
Bush’s Fascist, Private Army of Paid Cutthroats, Murderers and Mercenaries

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Congressman Tim Ryan, an outspoken opponent of the war and a consistent voice that speaks truth to power, has a fine diary up at DailyKos explaining his endorsement. It explains the process he went through to make this endorsement. It’s revealing of both Ryan and Dodd. Please read the original. Here’s my own reaction to the Ryan endorsement as published in the comment string at DKos.

As a candidate I’ve been impressed with the fire Dodd has shown in the debates, the innovative use of live video ,(thank you, Tim Tagaris), and his specific policy statements.

Look again at Rep. Ryan’s list of Dodd’s accomplishments and you begin to get a better view of this man who has been going about his job quietly for 24 years.

*Dodd authored the Family and Medical Leave Act which allows people to take off work when a family member is sick.

*Chris Dodd was the named by Head Start as their Senator of the DECADE.

*He served 26 years on the Foreign Relations Committee and understands what we need to do to rebuild our standing in the world.

*Chris Dodd, the current chairman of the Senate Banking Committee was one of the authors of the Sarbanes-Oxley act which mandated greater protections for investors after Enron.

*Right now, he is leading the fight in the Senate to protect homeowners from the foreclosure crisis.

As to policy disagreements, if we again get caught up again in single issue politics we defeat our own purposes.

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Regular readers will recall my posting last month, “CNN, the KKK and the Jena 6” which drew THIS long response in the wee hours last night. Normally, I’d just shine it on, but it really illuminates what I’ve been talking about for a long time: that racism in America, while increasingly hidden, remains deeply masked, deeply felt, and deeply entrenched. Here, on The Democratic Daily, this appeared:

Comment from: DR. FESTLER MN

I find it interesting that you mention the nooses were painted in school colors and were apparantly (sic) intended on “supporting” a football theme of “Hang the Here, Cowboys” - a rival town’s team coming in for a visiting game.

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