DNC Chair, Gov. Howard Dean M.D. is always first!

Richardson.

My hunch is that if Hillary looks like she's going to get the nomination -- Bloomberg will run.

"I watched "So Goes the Nation" this week. It was heartbreaking, and I did not agree with so much of it. But I did agree with Ken Mehlman surprisingly. I will paraphrase him. He said he could not remember when an "out" party had gotten voted "in" unless they put forth ideas that the "in" party did not.

In the film George Bush kept saying over and over...that we may not agree with him but we knew where he stood. He did not care if we agreed. It did not matter. He was doing his thing to win.

I think we were not partisan enough. I think our ideas and policies were far better for the country than were those of the "in" group. But I do not think we got them across powerfully enough. We were trying to appeal to their base far too much, while they were working quietly getting out "more" of their base..."

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1724

Linda wrote "Tom...gee, would that be the interview from April 2006?"

No.  I assumed it was more obvious that a simulcast on C-Span over the Thanksgiving holiday would be from November 2007.

Since endorsing Clinton in September, Strickland has campaigned for her three times in Iowa, including what was to be a quick trip Dec. 9 that turned into "the trip to hell and back," Strickland said. He expected to return to Columbus via Chicago early that Sunday night but was waylaid by bad weather, getting home at 6 a.m. Monday -- via Las Vegas.

"Iowa is not an attractive place to be in the wintertime," Strickland said, adding that Iowa "is not a representative state and the caucus is not a fair way to register public opinion, in my judgment."

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

great link Tom

but why should "public opnion" allocate delegates to a Party's nominating convention?

http://www.dfalink.com/poll.php?id=508

most people I talk to that don't vote do so because "there is no difference between the parties" even though you and I know it not to be true

I agree with you floridagal we aren't partisan enough

NEW YORK TIMES HYPOCRISY

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

The NYT has been one of the leading facilitators and cheerleaders among the MSM for Bush, and covered up the illegal spying 'till after the 04 election

5. Tom wrote"No. I assumed it was more obvious that a simulcast on C-Span over the Thanksgiving holiday would be from November 2007."


--> Tom, you didn't write it was a simulcast and the only search I found, being Governor Schweitzer has backed away from pushing Coal, was an interview with Bill Press in April 2006


199.

Tom Bearse
Mon, 12/31/07




Linda wrote "And, thankfully, Governor Schweitzer has not been pushing it of late."

Someone watching C-Span over the Thanksgiving holiday might have seen the Bill Press Show simulcast featuring Gov. Schweitzer as a guest promoting exactly this program.
****

You see here:
April 28, 2006
Governor Brian Schweitzer
Lesley wrote this at 8:20 am:

Today we have a very special guest for our big interview, and he’s in the studio with us! He’s the first democratic Governor of Montana since 1988, Brian Schweitzer! Governor Schweitzer is here to help Bill and Jonathan with The Blame Game, and to talk to about how we can solve the ongoing energy problem in the country.
http://www.billpressmedia.com/?m=200604

Just got the email about Wednesday's link-up and conference call from Iowa.  i have to tell you that I am not happy with the designation of Kucinich, Edwards and Obama as progressives.

Progressive, in my book, is moving towards greater equality for all people.  Kucinich is an authoritarian.  He's representing the interests of ordinary people fairly well, but he's looking to accomplish things as president (an executive official) that he couldn't accomplish as a policy setter because he refuses to work with people.

Edwards is essentially an old-time Democrat--someone who wants to do FOR people what he perceives they can't do for themselves, not what they expect him to do.

Obama has been inserted into a community with which he has great sympathy but for whose toil and tribulations he has little appreciation. This is evident when he suggests that the reasons American public schools are failing is because parents aren't paying sufficient attention.  If parents were able and if it were sufficient for them to supervise the education of their children, there would be no need for specialized institutions of education and higher learning.   The reason our public schools aren't educating is because they assume that first they have to instill discipline--i.e. make the children obedient.  It's a prejudice with which they approach their jobs.  Consequently, when children don't acquire new skills it's because they're not disciplined enough--if they just held still and let the wisdom be poured in, they'd be fine.

(Our grandson tells us that his whole school now has group counseling sessions twice a week which they are not supposed to discuss with anyone because they signed "confidentiality agreements" to that effect.

Of course, he may be lying, but we're checking.  He was a little shocked to learn that at 14 he's not of legal age to sign any kind of agreement or contract).   

oops, you did write simulcast after Bill Press Show. Sorry, but that still doesn't mean it couldn't have been a repeat.

MadFloridian wrote: "I watched "So Goes the Nation" this week.

I tried to watch it on YouTube but there wan't enough. i think I'll go rent the CD.

Monica, I agree with you on their poor choice of "whom" is "progressive" and who is not. If Hillary isn't progressive, neither is Obama. If Edwards is Progressive, then surely the one pushing bolder environmental and Global Warming iniatives and the same health care as Congress, Senator Dodd, should be too.

I'm off....my tiling project is calling. (yes, this seems to be a permanent project) :)

3902

Jerry's campaign website has a bat. Go for it! Swing the bat! http://www.jerrymcnerney.org/index.asp


----- Original Message -----
From: Jerry McNerney
To: Susan Rowe
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 11:56 AM
Subject: Thank you...Keep it going!


Greetings!

I have asked for your help and you have generously come thru. You deserve my thanks and gratitude, and I do thank you. Because of your generosity, we have been able to raise the bar and set our goal just a little higher. Every dollar donated today brings us that much closer to victory in 2008.


We need just $5,000 more today, the last day of the reporting quarter. Can you please send $10, $100, $500 - whatever you can give - today?

All the donations we receive today will discourage our opponent and give us that much more strength in the fall of 2008 when we will be campaigning full force for the November election. By gathering our resources now, we can have a strong ground
campaign to keep this seat for the Democratic majority.

Thank you, again, for all that you have done and all you will do. Please consider sending a donation and help us roll into 2008 with the strength and momentum that only you can provide.

Happy New Year!

Jerry
Congressman Jerry McNerney D-CA-11


P.S. Every dollar we raise in these last hours of 2007 is saved for the campaign in 2008. Your donation today helps us secure victory tomorrow.

http://www.jerrymcnerney.org/index.asp

------------

Contributions are not tax deductible. We may accept contributions from an individual totaling up to $2,300 per election; $4,600 per election cycle. Federal law prohibits contributions to the campaign from corporations, labor organizations and national banks; from any person contributing another person's funds; from foreign nationals who lack permanent resident status; from federal government contractors. Paid for by McNerney for Congress.

Linda wrote "the only search I found, being Governor Schweitzer has backed away from pushing Coal, was an interview with Bill Press in April 2006."

That clearly indicates a problem with your search.  This is from the Bill Press Show website:

"November 28, 2007

"Today's Podcast

" . . . .

On today’s show - CSPAN! We got a lot of new listeners and a lot of new callers, who let Bill know what they think of the Republican Party’s shifting values. CAP founder John Podesta and Fellow Joe Cirincione check in studio, along with the lovely Miss Appropriations to talk about her support for George W. Bush. NBC Host Tim Russert calls in, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, and a special YouTube preview of Rudy Giuliani.

" . . . .

"Today's Guests

" . . . .

"Governor Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) joins Bill at 8:33 AM ET to talk about energy policy."

"Seven months on, commanders and analysts say America's aggressive strategy of targeting al-Qaida in Iraq strongholds is paying off: U.S. casualties have dropped sharply. As of Sunday night in Baghdad, 21 deaths were reported in December, one more than in February 2004, which was the lowest monthly total of the war."

I find this to be very good news.  Et vous?

Susan Rowe....16

Jerry was a DFA candidate who sort of lost his way there for a while. How is he doing with the "surge" and Iraq these days?

Fox wrote "I find this to be very good news.  Et vous?"

It's the reason Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld all owe General Shinseki an apology.

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

2007 Performance Review:  At current levels;  Dow Jones Industrial Average (+6.8%), Nasdaq (+10.0%), S&P 500 (3.9%), Russell 2000 (-2.7%), S&P 400 Midcap (+6.9%).  Last year was better for stocks; Dow Jones Industrial Average (+16.3%), Nasdaq Composite (+9.5%), S&P 500 (+13.6%); Russell 2000 (+17.0%), S&P 400 Midcap (+9.0%).

I find this to be very good news.  Et vous?

I find this to be very bad news. 

"What the recent publicity about the 'success' of the troop surge has ignored is this: The Bush administration has downplayed the collapsing political situation in Iraq by directing the public's attention to fluctuating numbers of civilians killed. While there have been some relative gains in security recently, even there the picture remains dubious. The Iraqi ministry of health, long known for cooking the books, says that a few hundred Iraqis were killed in political violence in November. However, independent observers such as Iraq Body Count cite a much higher number -- some 1,100 civilians killed in Iraq in November. They reported that bombings and assassinations accounted for 63 persons on Saturday, the first day of December, alone.

"Indeed, the 'good news' of a lull in violence is relative at best. In fact, Iraq's overall death rate makes it among the worst civil conflicts in the world. Even if one accepted the official Iraqi government statistics, the average number of Iraqi deaths directly attributable to political violence in the past three full months has been around 700 per month. That pace, if maintained, would work out to about 8,400 deaths a year. (I am citing the kind of war statistics produced by passive information gathering such as in newspapers. Using a more comprehensive public health study such as the one that appeared in the Lancet last year, which takes into account deaths from criminal violence and insecurity generally, would result in much higher numbers.) In all of Northern Ireland's troubles over 30 years, only about 3,000 persons are thought to have been killed. In Kashmir since 1989, some 40,000 to 90,000 persons have been killed in communal and guerrilla violence; if we take the higher number, that's roughly 419 killed per month. Perhaps only Somalia and Sudan witness killings on that scale, and no one would say that "good news" is coming out of either of those places.

" . . . .

"The lack of virtually any good political news from around the country is what drives the war boosters to cite death statistics. Obviously, the people of al-Anbar Province are tired of their young men being blown up by Saudi and Moroccan jihadis, and they have mobilized to stop the foreigners. But no one is arguing that al-Anbar's roughly 1 million predominantly Sunni citizens have suddenly become enamored of the Shiite government in Baghdad. Nor has the strategy of using local Awakening Councils to combat the so-called forces of al-Qaida been nearly as successful in Diyala Province, which is mixed, with Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

"Obviously, if the U.S. military wants to stop car bombings by banning vehicular traffic to certain markets, it can do so, especially using thousands of extra troops concentrated in specific areas. But although there has been a relative lull in violence in the U.S.-reinforced Baghdad, the U.S. military acknowledges that the Iraqi capital is still a very dangerous place. One question is whether the violence will explode again when U.S. forces inevitably withdraw. But the far more important question is this: How much longer can Iraq limp along as a failing state before it really begins to collapse?"

Fox wrote "I will take that as a yes!!"

Yes, great news.  You must see me jumping up and down, don't you.

I find this to be very good news.  Et vous?

2007: bush is finally about to enter his last year in office.

I find this to be very good news. Et vous?

New thread for progressives!

Et ce n'et pas vous, reynard

I have a "bat" for 'ya.

Chellie Pingree & Future Sen. Tom Allen (D-ME).

http://www.actblue.com/page/mf

Neither of whom support the so-called "surge," BTW.

...and are progressive Dems.

Collins needs a strong boot in the ass (as well as joementum stumping for her--both endorse McCain).



fmi, Ned Lamont's take:

http://nedlamont.com/news#blogs

Thanks~

Regarding Fox and his market analyses: why is it that stock market indicators are always the instruments used by Republicans to measure the health of the economy?  Because, wealthy Republican investors and political contributors are the people who make money in the market.  It is why the spoils of the American economy is divided between the have everythings and the have nothings.  It's why the annual salaries of hedge fund officers and managers I posted a week or so ago rise to and beyond the $1 billion figure.  

Consider this comparison of the 1929 market crash and today's hedge fund market, part of a more detailed analysis by Scott Thill of Morphizm.com:

"Hedge funds are pretty much the same thing. They play both sides of the market, going long on stocks they feel will pay off in the end, and going short on those they don't. Except for one glaring difference, according to Overstock.com CEO and hedge fund activist Patrick Byrne.

"'Craps is a good analogy,' he told me via email. Except that hedge funders 'are also the croupier and own the casino management and the gaming regulators.'

"Byrne isn't the only activist convinced of the analogy. Engineer, investor advocate and InvestigatetheSEC.com webmaster David Patch took it much further in an email exchange. 'Hedge funds are more and more becoming a craps game,' he assented via email, 'but the problem is more than just those sitting at the tables become the losers. The industry pools their bets in such concentrated levels that the funds begin to drive the markets to levels beyond the values that would normally be dictated by the fundamentals.'

" . . . .

"[I]t was massive if unregulated short sales, known as naked shorts, that gave the infamous 1929 crash (which in turn spawned the Great Depression, its long, long legs).

"'There were a lot of unregulated short sales in the stock market crash; that's true,' [Clinton undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs and senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council's Progressive Policy Institute Robert J.] Shapiro confirmed. 'And regulating short sales were part of the initial regulation from the SEC in 1936.'

"Byrne is a bit more colorful on the subject. 'I do think it played a role. Hedge funds were called pools back then. Rich guys got together, pooled their capital and manipulated the stock market. And, in fact, newspapers covered the pools like they would cover sports teams; it was public entertainment. It wasn't too dissimilar from the way the New York Times is trying to make rock stars out of hedge funders today.'

"In other words, naked shorts are a final confirmation that hyperreality has been with us as long as the Bible. They are virtual transactions, ones that never actually occur.

"'In short sales,' Shapiro explained, 'you don't own the share you sell; instead you borrow it. Then you replace it when you cover the short. If you're right and the price has gone down, you replace it at a lower price, and the difference between what you sold it for and what price you replaced it at is your profit. The problem with a naked short is that you don't borrow the share you sell. You sell it without ever borrowing it. In effect, you invent a share.'

"If this is beginning to sound like a game of Monopoly built on fake money, that's because it is. By injecting so many invented shares into the market using naked shorting, hedge funds have not only created an economy in which they can manipulate the stocks of companies smaller than Microsoft and Wal-Mart, but they have also created a market in which there are more shares than actual stocks. And that's about as hyperreal as an economy can get.

"'It's essentially counterfeiting,' Byrne added. 'You're creating counterfeit shares in the system. . . ."

" . . . .

"It is precisely this imbalance between real and invented shares that Byrne and others argue is primed to explode the subprime collapse into a full-blown economic depression.

"'There are a lot of us who think we are living on the edge of 1929,' Byrne continued. 'When you consider what's happened with mortgage-backed securities, you get the feeling these might be the first rumblings. There may be more IOUs in the system than there is liquidity, in which case the entire thing is going to vapor lock as soon as it is exposed. One of the healthiest indications of the vibrancy of an economy is capital formation. Seven years ago, America was responsible for 57 percent of IPO capital raised around the world. Now it's down to 16 percent. A national disaster.'"

Tom, I'll take you at your word that he (Schweitzer)talked about Coal energy on that interview.

Some how that doesn't make me feel any better.

Maybe one day he'll listen to the experts and stop pushing special/business interest over what's good for the rest of us.

Regarding the lead article.......

If you're interested in promoting HR676 in relation to the Presidential candidates, you really should mention Dennis Kucinich, whether you consider him a major candidate or not, since he is the 'ONLY' one who is. HR 676 is the only plan that is not for profit and is co-authored by Dennis.

BIDEN MEMO RIPS EDWARDS

Edwards, electable? Not so much, according to a blistering memo out this afternoon from Biden Communications Director Larry Rasky.

“[T]he evidence that Edwards is more electable is at best thin and is probably misleading,” Rasky writes in the memo, which reads more like it is straight out of the RNC's research shop. “The first question mark is that Edwards was unlikely to hold onto to his North Carolina Senate seat in 2003 when he decided not to run for re-election. In short, if John Edwards is so electable, why couldn’t he be re-elected in his home state?”

He then hits Edwards for not carrying his home state as part of the Kerry-Edwards 2004 presidential ticket, and that they even lost Edwards’ home county.

“At the end of the day, despite repeated assurances, Kerry-Edwards also failed to win a single southern state,” Rasky writes. “So it’s understandable that this time around, even John Edwards’s own people are acknowledging his vulnerability: Rob Tully, a former state party chairman and Edwards backer, said “if he doesn't win Iowa or come very close this time, ‘we're done.’”

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/12/31/541133.aspx