September 2007 archive

The Law is beautiful, the Law is cruel. It is self evident truths and inhumane oppression. What ever it is was brought home to me, last night, not by the Blood and Guts War which we never see, except in our dreams, but by an asshole who jumped in line and was cranked to go. 

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers’ Alliance, and My Left Wing.

As discussed here, Jim Webb’s bill would have mandated “dwell time” to give our exhausted troops a break. It stood a good chance of passing until Senator Warner did a 180 and withdrew his support. In the end only 6 Senate Republicans showed that they give a damn about the well-being of our fighting men and women.

I was going to write something tonight on economic policy, and how a logical, moderate approach to the issue would put you to the left of today’s Democratic Party, but then I read Buhdy’s front page essay.

So instead, I’ll riff on some thoughts on what I see good about this blog. Folks sometimes focus on what they think they’re doing wrong, and ignore the things they actually are doing right.

For decades now, we’ve had a war on drugs. And, we’ve had a variety of programs to address the educational problems of this country – the latest is a complete mess called No Child Left Behind.  Perhaps we’ve been going about it all wrong….. perhaps I have a better idea….. perhaps it’s below the fold

Around 2000 persons met at the St Paul Cathedral on Saturday afternoon (September 15) to hear anti-war speeches from veterans and others before heading as a group to the Excel Energy Center, the site of the upcoming Republican National Convention. After reaching the Excel Energy Center, we walked to the State Capitol grounds where speakers continued the rally.

We had a message for anyone who continues funding the unjust war in Iraq and from the sign below you can see that we had a special message for Republicans.

crossposted at Daily Kos and Truth & Progress

Is it too late for Al Gore to enter this year’s presidential race?

For those of us who are political junkies and are fervent supporters of our candidates (declared or not), we probably don’t have the ability to see the forest from the trees. As for the majority of voters out there in this massive country of ours, the longevity of Campaign 2008 seems to be getting on their nerves by a 2:1 margin

While political junkies have enjoyed the extended pre-season for Election 2008, most voters say that the debates and other campaign activities so far have been annoying and a waste of time.  A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 56% of Likely Voters hold that view while only 29% say the campaign so far has been interesting and informative.

Read below the fold as to why there may be hope for late entrants to this ‘War and Peace’ long of a presidential campaign.
 

I have said previously that the House, and not the Senate, will be the body to end the war. My argument at the time was:

Just look at the last supplemental vote. In the Senate, Only 14 voted against the bill. Two of those Senators who voted no were Republicans, and they did not vote no because they wanted to end the war in Iraq. In other words, not even a quarter of the majority in that body considered taking a serious step to end the war.

I still think it’s more likely that ending the war in the House will be easier, but the numbers in the Senate from a seemingly insignificant vote this evening yield an interesting result.

more

I am against buhdydharma’s new policy against I/P diaries.

Some people are expert on I/P. I happen to be one of them.

So buhdyfreakindharma, bite me!

Here’s your damn I/P diary, now BAN ME!

A few days old, but still, this difference in approach is something that needs to be discussed, and I would like your collective take on more aggressive progressives.

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