Kibbitz

From Yoni:

Garance Franke-Ruta of The American Prospect writes up a potential

Joe Lieberman vs. Jim Dean

2006 Senate race.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/02/index.html#005571

My idea? we should have fantasy politics teams. points are based on money raised, press and poll numbers.

I got this little diddy in my e-mail today, nice to know she can just brush off her loss from 4 months ago and start up for 2006 alreadt. I think this should be a part of fantasy politics. Anyone want her for their team? Anyone wanna go, I'm trying to think if cegelis is worth $50 though it'd be a lot better if Hyde had to retire for health reasons, I actually think she would have a chance then.

Fundraiser for Christine Cegelis

*GOING FOR THE GREEN*

The event-of-the-season blowout benefit party for CHRISTINE CEGELIS FOR CONGRESS

Send Democrat Christine Cegelis to Congress to Fight the Bush Agenda (and get Henry Hyde OUT of Illinois District Six!)
Tuesday, March 15th
5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Cactus Bar & Grill
404 S. Wells Street, Chicago

Hey, think of it as training for St. Patty's Day, as well as a chance to help a great progressive candidate get the green she needs to turn red into blue in Illinois District 6!
Party includes: * two hours of open bar* "world famous" Cactus taco nacho bar
Suggested minimum donation: $50
Fundraiser Committee (in formation):
Sponsors - write or raise $500: Heartland DFA Meetup, Jessica Pfeiffer, Sandra Verthein
Hosts - write or raise $250: Josh Aronovitch, Zach Borrenpohl, Shannon Fisk, Leo Klein, Jason Liechty, Fran Martone, Mary Cay Marubio, Ray Pempak, Philip Pessin, Greg Sweigert

I just really really agree with this diary from dailykos and its really quite nice to hear someone actually stand up for a women's rights in a loud and proud voice.

From DailyKos:

Hi. Remember me? I'm a woman. A grown-up woman. I function in daily life with an astonishing degree of autonomy. I manage my household. I pay my bills. I pay my student loans after having put myself through graduate school. I'm a boss. I make decisions affecting the work lives of a dozen or so people on a daily basis. Hell, I can even operate a motor vehicle.
I am a fully realized, fully functioning, fully capable human being. I contribute to society, to the economy, and to the lives of my friends and family. I also happen to be capable of growing another human being inside my body.
Ah, that's where the trouble starts, isn't it?
See, it seems when the subject of that potential life form brewing in my body comes up, that autonomy, that individuality, and self-determination seems to get lost in the public eye. Suddenly, that most private possession--my body, my womb--becomes the ground for public debate.
A debate that we're in danger of losing, even within our own party judging by discussion that occurs on this site with alarming regularity. We're losing that debate in large part because we've allowed the discussion to be reframed so that the individual woman and her rights are no longer at the center. What's more, this focus on the fetus has extended far beyond the debate on abortion to become a much larger societal issue.
By way of example, here's a question for you. How many women were murdered in the United States this past week? Go ahead and try Googling it. Good luck finding that statistic. But we all know about the story from Texas of the woman who was seven-months pregnant, killed by the would-be father. That story was all over the news this week. Is the murder of that woman, Lisa Underwood, and her son, Jayden more tragic than the murder of the five or six or dozen other women and children who were killed this week? Enough so that we don't even know how many died? Enough so that we don't know any of their names? We know Lisa's name because she was killed while pregnant.
And her murderer can be prosecuted for a federal crime, because we now have a federal law that makes it a federal crime to kill or harm a fetus or embryo at any stage after implantation in the womb, giving separate legal status to a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus, even if the woman does not know she is pregnant.
Around the country, state prosecutors have relied on a host of criminal laws already on the books to attack prenatal substance abuse. Women across the nation have been arrested and charged with a wide range of crimes, including possession of a controlled substance, delivering drugs to a minor (through the umbilical cord), corruption of a minor, and child abuse and neglect.
These are examples of the concerted effort by the far-right to grant equal legal standing, equal rights, equal protections to the unborn. Even to the fertilized egg. And because no one wants to be labelled anti-baby, we've let it happen. We've let them reframe the debate to give the fetus equal standing with the woman whose body it is a part of.
I say none of this to suggest that I am anti-child, just as I would hope those inclined to flame me would not like to be called anti-woman. We don't need to continue to put the woman in opposition to the fetus as the far-right would have us do.
I say this so that no one forgets what really is a stake in this debate. The most fundamental right of me, my sisters, my friends--all of us citizens of the United States--for self-determination.

This one is from the American Prospect.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/02/index.html#005

I think we should start a fantasy politics team. Like, pick know who you think is going to win certain races in 2006 and 2008 and then we'll assign points based on poll ratings and such like that. It could be fun!

Ok, this website is pretty frightening. There's nothing like trying to make people believe that left-wingers that are against the established order are terrorist. Oh how I love the politics of fear mongering.

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individual.asp

This is from Salon's War Room http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html, which is one of my favorite political gossip sites. I mean, its all about the gossip and especially rumors of whoese going to be running in a couple of years. I think Biden could be the perfect match to howard dean's chairmanship. I mean they are both very blunt and outspoken people, it could be a real change for the party and get it out of the rut that its been in for the past few years.

Joe Biden in 2008?
We're just a month into Four More Years -- time flies when you're having fun -- but plenty of Democrats are already making moves for 2008. John Edwards has already made a trip to New Hampshire; Evan Bayh has hired an experienced New Hampshire political organizer (as well as former Howard Dean pollster Paul Maslin); Hillary Clinton has sought middle ground on abortion; John Kerry is keeping his supporters connected through a series of mini-campaigns; and Bill Richardson and Tom Vilsack are both thinking hard about making runs of their own.

Now we can add another name to the list: Joe Biden tells the San Francisco Chronicle that he's thinking about the White House, too. "I'm sounding it out," Biden told the Chronicle during a testing-the-waters swing through California this week. "In all my career, there's more at stake than any time since I've been a senator ... (and) I have some pretty clear ideas about what I
think should be done."

Biden ran in 1998 but dropped out early after he was caught plagiarizing part of a speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock. While the plagiarism charges might be fodder for the Republicans -- trumped-up charges about a war 30 years earlier were apparently fair game in the 2004 race -- they'd probably be considered ancient news in the Democratic primaries.
Still, Biden acknowledges that he may have an uphill fight ahead of him -- and not just because Hillary Clinton is sitting on top of the mountain. Biden says he wonders whether Democrats "would be comfortable with me as the nominee." It's apparently a reference to his blunt talk on Iraq and just about anything else: In the course of his interview with the Chronicle, Biden warned of a coming "cesspool" in Iraq, suggested that the FBI is "completely impotent," referred to the "sheer frigging incompetence" of the FBI and Homeland Security, and said that, while he's deeply concerned about the effect steroid use has on the "ethics of this country," he "almost" couldn't care less "whether Jason Giambi's heart gives out or Barry Bonds is crippled.''
Biden's bluntness is a staple of Senate hearings these days -- his comments during the Alberto Gonzales hearings bordered on the bizarre -- but he's also winning a lot of praise from Democrats looking for their leaders to stand up. Biden will get his next big test in the coming weeks, as Republicans make William G. Myers III their judicial test case in the new Senate. Biden voted against the Democrats' filibuster of Myers when he was up for confirmation last time around, and Senate Republicans are counting on him to do the same this time. It's a bit of a trap for Biden. If he sticks with his prior vote, Democrats will accuse him of paving the way for the confirmation of extremist judicial nominees. If he switches, the Republicans will accuse him of flip-flopping and then blame him when they aim for the "nuclear option."

Welcome to the campaign.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/24/abortion.investigation.ap/index.html

A couple of things really bother me about this:

1) Doctor patient privelage.

2) Since when did attorneys get to decide what was the best choice for the mother and since when did they know about the mother's health than the docter.

3) When did Kansas start using Gustapo like techiniques to find out who had an illegal abortion?

4) How is prosecuting women who had safe abortions going to help Kansas children? If anything it will probably harm them because they will be afraid of life saving abortions or getting help with their pregnancies because they are underage. Not only that, a fear of arrest will just fuel the demand for unsafe, illegal, backroom abortions. We need to stop this type of fear mongering from people that are trying to impose their morals on other. Ugh.

So I'm a sucker and I donated to Michigan, but only because they finally have a DC internship program and my contribution goes only to that. So this the link to what they sent me in my e-mail. Pretty corny, but makes you proud to be Maize and Blue.

http://www.giving.umich.edu/flash/flashthankyou.html

What do you guys think of Bush's latest trip to Europe? The headlines make it seem like everything is going wonderfuly in Europe and Bush is now Europe's BFF. I just can't believe that all the sudden the EU has gone from hating us over the Iraq war to now loving us, especially seeing as most world leaders hated bush and wanted him out in the past election.

Where are you? I'm at -8.38 on the economic and -7.18 on the social scale.

http://politicalcompass.org

Yesterday Hunter S. Thompson took his own life. Its not that far fetched in my opinion, especially if you've read any of his works. He had a lot of issues that he didn't deal with except for taking by taking a lot of drugs and eventually they were just going to be to much for him. Cheers to him for lasting as long as he did and giving the world some faboulous writing.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/02/21/thompson.obit/index.html

One thing I do have to say though. I know his most popular work is fear and loathing in las vegas, but I really think that anyone working on a campaign should read fear and loathing on the campaign trail 1972. This is a faboulous insight into the 1972 campaign trail and because its HST, he is brutally honest about what he sees. he doesn't care about who he offends, so long as he's telling the truth. He really gets across the energy that was apart of the McGovern campaign, some of the same energy that we saw on the Dean campaign a year ago. Reading that book made me realize just how many similarities there were in both campaigns, though McGovern was able to win in Wisconsin and come back, Dean lost Wisconsin and dropped out the night of the primary. The grassroots is still the same, though the way to win a campaign is very different. Back in 1972 you could win without New Hampshire and Iowa, now that's impossible, you gotta take them both to guarentee the primary. Ok, everyone should read it if you like politics.

The moral of the story? Its good to have independent voices giving out an opinion that is different from the opinion of the voice of the top five media companies!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-gleaner,1,1375290.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Its so rare that you see someone in Washington actually stand up to someone that isn't of the opposite party, that this is kinda refreshing in a lefty, hippie kinda way. Its also nice to hear politicians bring an issue to the forefront that hasn't been played all over the news. Being a political junkie, I've never heard of slave labor being used in chocolate production and it really makes me question how globalization has affected the production of everything that we eat and drink.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/14/chocolate.lawmaker.ap/index.html

This is a link to Zack Exley's blog:

http://www.zackexley.com/arch/280105part1.html

Basically it explains what he feels should happen with the grassroots and the future of organizations like MoveOn and ACT. I think that he has some really good points, the most important one being about the lack of organization with all the 527s. From what I saw there was a lot of disorganization in the Kerry campaign, probably because of the size of it and because it is very hard to make an efficent organization of that size, also because the Kerry campaign just ran a lot of things inefficently. But that's not the point, coming out of DFANH, it was really nice to hear people praise the organization. It was actually exciting to go to work everyday in NH, not something that I dread everyday when I woke up. You never knew what was going to happen that day. Also, I think this is the first thing that I've read from outside the DFANH organization that actually recognize that the field organization was the reason that Dean actually got 2nd place in NH. It nice to hear the proper praise for that one, because without the strong field organization built by Karen and Tom, Dean should have come in about dead last. So hooray for some long overdue recognition!

Courtesy of Seth and the members of the DNC failing the New York Times Test:

Unless you are one of the DNC members – then you can answer a SURVEY?!?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/10/dnc.poll/index.html

Insight – Dems. need to work together and stay on message – not answer CNN polls.

If you're on any type of a Democrat list, you, like me get about 30 e-mails a day (post-election too) from various interest groups and the party either asking for money or telling you the facts about things. But here was Clay's thoughts on the matter, thought it was funny:

Those forwards make me wonder how long the "grassroots" will hold up under the constantpressure of solicitation...So far it seems the only thing most Democrats have gleanedfrom the last election is how to wear are asses out with emails for politicalpositioning. Hope the Doctor will teach'em a thing or two about real grassroots.

So lately I've been thinking about how much I missed writing, especially academic writing. Yes, I write long e-mails on a daily basis, but really I want to do more than that. For the time being, I figured I'd start with little "reaction papers" to the books I've just finished reading. Keep in mind that this is all just an exercise to get me writing in cohesive structures. Today's book is How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer.

First of all this book strays from what I have been reading lately because of one major reason, it has very little to do with American history or American politics. Both of these topics have been my obsession lately, probably because I'm trying to figure out what to do about the election results. Anyways, back to the book. Frank is clearly a rabid soccer fan who figured out a way to combine his two favorite passions, soccer and writing. The book examines the culture around soccer in different parts of the world, mainly in Europe. There are a couple of trips to Iran, Brazil and well he's an (surprisingly) American. Through Frank's travels through all these areas, he meets with local soccer fans, local heroes and players. His trips are very similar to the retired American males dream of traveling the US visiting baseball stadiums in an RV for a summer, except the require a passport.

My favorite part of this books is what I learned about the politics of all of these countries. Foer does an amazing job of mirroring the political events of the country to what has happened in their soccer leagues or with their clubs. The corruption that has plagued Brazilian soccer has also plagued the Brazilian government. The bribery of referees in Italian soccer is rampant, bribery in government is equally rampant. This book also is a great primer on soccer for the soccer deprived like myself. It really gives you an idea as to why soccer is so important to other parts of the globe. Especially when you realize that soccer represents modernization to the Iranians and other Muslims.

Ok, this is all I got for now, but I think its a step in the right direction to get me back to analytical thinking. Next time, I should probably be a little bit more critical when I read the book and a little less tired when I write!

CNN.com - Reid blasts Bush over RNC document - Feb 8, 2005*

so here's what I gathered from this article. 1) The president only wants to work with people that have the same opinion as him, meaning no one that could possibly tell he's wrong. 2) The white house does not understand the definition of an opposition party. 3) Only the 51% of the 60% of the public (those that voted for Bush in 2004) are mainstream America. 4) The republican party is just going to further extremes of nastiness for no reason.