I don't know if anyone had a State of the Union thread planned--if one shows up, we can always delete this one. I'm about to be away from the blog for the evening, but here are some links to get the conversation started:
Your State of the Union Checklist from Democracy Arsenal
State of the Union Puts Bush on Collision Course With Himself from the L.A. Times
State of the Union Transcript from Think Progress
Alternate link for comments
The phone just rang, and I heard my husband saying, "What?! That's insane!" When he got off the phone, he informed me that the call was from the mother of one of our daughter's classmates, telling us about a protest that is going on right now. I had no idea about the part of H.B. 3 that you see below in boldface, until we got this call and I went Googling for it:
Demonstration at the Ohio Statehouse at noon to raise our voices against House Bill 3, the bill that will require showing an ID to vote and preventing any challenge to the results of a federal election in Ohio.
Location:Ohio Statehouse, Broad and High Streets, west lawn.
Many of you have probably already read that Coretta Scott King has died at the age of 78.
Young, (a minister in the United Church of Christ) who was a former civil rights activist and was close to the King family, told NBC's "Today" show: "I understand that she was asleep last night and her daughter went in to wake her up and she was not able to and so she quietly slipped away. Her spirit will remain with us just as her husband's has."
"It's discouraging because it seems so hard to make progress," Dean said. "People say, 'Where is the Democratic Party? Where is our message?'"
No matter how bad conditions become, Dean warned, pessimism is not an option.
"We have no right to be discouraged," Dean said. "Dr. King went to jail. He and his people were beaten. Think of what he felt in that Birmingham jail writing those letters. He was looking at a whole country that needed to be woken up."
I was off looking for the list of those who voted no on cloture--I know it was posted on a blog yesterday but I can't recall which one. I checked C-SPAN to see if they had that somewhere, and discovered that the official floor vote on Alito will take place at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. Just FYI for anyone who wants to watch.
Update: Alito was confirmed 58-42. You can see the roll call here.
From Howard Dean's interview on Politically Direct:
The problem is, as you know, Democrats in Washington are risk aversive, and they've got to get over that if we're going to win the presidency back and win the White House back.
WARNING: This post is not suitable for those with an aversion to strong language - you should utilize the alternate link to the comments now.
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A graphic reminder of why challenging Samuel Alito every step of the way is vitally important:
The Republicans know very well that their future depends upon Americans continuing to see Democrats as weak and lacking in conviction. That's all they've got.--Digby
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.
Abraham Lincoln
February 27, 1860
UPDATE: Well, I wish I could say it was even close. The vote to end the debate was 75-25. We'll see what the final final vote is tomorrow. To those of you who are seriously considering ending your affiliation with the Democratic Party, all I can do is ask you to reconsider. We've turned a corner. The Republicans were dropping bricks over the prospect that a Democratic filibuster might actually succeed. It scared the Democratic establishment, too. Why? Because the grassroots got moving because too much was at stake to sit by and not try to affect the outcome. Once more unto the breach, dear friends.
Stick around; help the party elect Democrats we know we can count on to the Senate (and the House). If your Senator supported us by voting 'no' on cloture, be sure to call and say thank you. Alito is just the first battle in the war to take back Congress.
If you need some inspiration, look no further than the guy who inspired us all. Nearly 2 years ago he dropped out of the race for president and I was wondering if that would be the last we'd ever see of him. Thankfully, he stuck around--and we did too. Stay a bit longer.
You can find Part 1 of the interview here.
Bender: Governor, you talked before about how Newt Gingrich had laid out a strategy and, as a tactician, he was very effective. We saw that Karl Rove, who is a tactician if nothing else--maybe no ethics, maybe no conscience--but has laid out a strategy again to the RNC. The same exact strategy from four years ago: they're going to run on 9/11. And, I believe at the time, your comment was, here's Karl Rove who breached our national security for partisan gain.
Dean: Right.
Bender: How do we get people to understand that these people continue to invoke 9/11 on national security and have yet done nothing to make us safer?
Dean: Well, this is actually something that I'm learning the hard way. You know, I rail against injustice and lies and stuff like that, and there's no more dishonest person in the government than Karl Rove, and that's saying something in this government. But the truth is, in some ways we can't respond to it. We have been attacking them because we get so indignant when they lie through their teeth. The truth is, we have to say what our values are. The reason people like this get reelected is because we don't provide an alternative. We have to have a *real* alternative, and we can foam at the mouth as much as we want to about how dishonest and incompetent they are--and they are--but we *absolutely* have to say what we would do differently. We have to tell people what *our* values are. Not just honesty, but balancing the budget--we have to be the party of "our brother's keeper". They're not, they're the party of selfishness, and we have to contrast that we're the party where we all hang together as Americans.
Bender: Governor, is there a Democratic "Contract with America" in the offing?
Dean: Yes.
Bender: When will we see that?
Dean: That is a matter of some dispute and discussion, but you'll see one. Let's not forget we've got a lot of time, and Newt Gingrich did not put his out until the September before the election, so I don't want to wait that long, but we think there's wide agreement among the leadership of the Democratic party that we do want a very plain, easy to understand layout of what we will do within the first hundred days when we take back Congress.
Bender: You've asked, going back to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, that people sign a petition in time for the State of the Union. I believe that petition is at Democrats.org/honesty.
Dean: Oh, you're even better at this than I am! (Laughs) And while you're at it, buy a Democracy Bond at Democrats.org, while you're standing up for honest government.
Bender: So, you sign the petition, buy the bond, and then go out to lunch, because--
Dean: No, you sign the petition, you buy the bond, and then you go down and spend your lunch hour working for a great local Democratic candidate near you.
Bender: Well, that sounds like a plug for a movie: The Great Local Candidate near you. Ken Melhman, speaking of people who can go over the top, asked this rhetorical question last week, and it occurred to me I should ask you so that you can have a chance to answer it. Do you really think that when the NSA is listening in on terrorists planning attacks on America, that they need to hang up when those terrorists dial sleeper cells in the United States?
Dean: That of course is a ridiculous question. (Bender laughs, "You think?") In fact, if the president *wanted* to obey the law, he could have. The law says that you don't need a warrant in an emergency to listen in on a terrorist conversation. You can get that warrant afterwards. This president doesn't believe he has to go to the courts at all.
You know what's more scary? This is really frightening. Now the government is trying to find out what you look at on the internet. They asked Google, who fortunately refused, to provide a million names to them, and their internet habits. That means if you go to some web site that they think is dishonest, they'll know it. Or that they think is defense filled. Now, supposedly this is a child porn sting. Well, fine, go to the child porn people and find out who's looking at that, if that's what you want to look at. This basically lets them have access to whatever they want--it's the Patriot Act, looking at people's library habits, on steroids. And given the persecution of various church people by the IRS, and given the persecution by the FBI and the eavesdropping on people they disagree with, I think that's pretty dangerous to be able to look at whatever you want. Whatever you've looked at on Google they want that too in the government. This government has become a more and more Nixonian and Agnewonian, if I may.
Bender: Agnewonian?! (Bender and Dean laugh) May I quote you on that? I really love the word.
Dean: Well, it's sort of like subliminable.
Bender: Governor, you have an anniversary coming up. As of February 12, you will have been Chair of the DNC for one year. How do you like the job?
Dean: Well, it's a hard job, because as you know, we're fighting battles every day. But a lot's gone on in one year--you know, we've got 30 years of catching up to do with the Republicans. But we now have people in every state, from that state, paid for by the DNC, organizing everywhere. We've elected African American mayors in Mobile, Alabama, we've had four wins in a row in special elections in Mississippi. So, we're making real progress in states that Democrats had previously given up on. So, we're getting ourselves in shape, but it's a long process. I like to tell people "We've turned the wheel, and now we're waiting for the aircraft carrier to respond."
Bender: Well, you're not going to be landing on the *deck* of an aircraft carrier any time soon.
Dean: Uh, no. And mission is not accomplished.
Bender: Well, Governor Dean, thank you as always for joining us on Politically Direct, we're going to be looking forward to the Democratic "Contract for America"--
Dean: Well, we won't be calling it anything like that, either!
Bender: Well, let's have a contest to see what we can name it--
Dean: Maybe "American Values for America".
Bender: --and we'll do it right here on Air America. Thank you for joining us and we look forward to having you back to talk about that when it's released.
Dean: Thanks, David.
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I am practicing my first post, so keeping it simple. I ran across this mighty fine analysis of Howard Dean in the LA Times last year. So I thought I would post it because it still fits the times, and it sounds like this guy appreciates a truthspeaker like we do.
Read the rest of the article here.Dean speaks loudly about things our folks in Washington tip-toe to avoid. He condemns the Iraq war as misguided. He wonders why we don't worry more about nuclear weapons in North Korea.Republicans preach morality, he says, but ignore poverty in the United States. Where is the respect for privacy when Republicans want to legislate end-of-life decisions for a brain-dead woman?
And Dean, the white Christian, acerbically grumbles that our nation is not stronger if we are viewed only as Caucasian mono-religious. Are those comments misguided, or are they timely? The way we see it from this end of the country, the former presidential candidate is catching the wave.
One more thing. Washington Democrats tend to see the world through the prism of their own political futures.
There is more to leading this party than not scaring the horses.
Now the guy's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy's gotta come up with Paulie's money every week no matter what. Business bad? F you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? F you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning huh? F you, pay me.Same thing goes with party loyalists - Democratic, Republican, or otherwise. Any problems? Go to the base. Trouble with oppo research, funding ads? Go to the base. Need foot-soldiers for GOTV and visibility? Go to the base. There's a price tag attached to the base's support, however - we expect you to vote our way on our issues, to oppose our enemies, and to fight for our interests like your life depends on it, because if you sell us out then your political life is over. Poll numbers down? F you, pay us. Got caught porking an intern? F you, pay us. Linked to licentious lobbyists and connected to corporate crooks? F you, pay us. Rather be golfing or wind surfing? F you, pay us. I know that a lot of Democrats don't go to church any more, but they'd be wise to listen to an old R.G. Lee sermon, Payday Someday.
This is the transcript of the first part of Howard Dean's interview with David Bender on Politically Direct. I missed the first few seconds of it, but here's the interview from the point where I tuned in.
Dean: The people who brought us Medicare Part D are now going to try to do surgery on everybody else's healthcare system, and I don't think that's a very good thing. Thirty-six countries in the world *have* a system where everybody benefits and when the Democrats get back in, I'd like to put that up front and center.
Bender: Even Costa Rica, as I recall.
Dean: (Laughs) As I used to say during the campaign. But it's true, if they can have universal healthcare in Costa Rica, we ought to be able to have it in the United States.
Bender: One of the things that you said during the campaign that struck me, this last week. I was at Constitution Hall this last week to see Al Gore's speech. Did you see, or see coverage of the speech?
Dean: I saw coverage of it. You know, he's given four remarkable speeches over the last few years, and that was truly a remarkable speech.
Bender: Well, actually what you said was, "The best speeches given during the presidential campaign in 2004 were given by someone who wasn't running."
Dean: That's true. I think Al is a really deep thinker and a great writer.
Bender: And I guess my question is, why isn't what he is saying shaping the debate more than it is within the rest of the Democratic party? He seems to be our front but people haven't followed in the direction he's been leading.
Dean: Well, I think they are. I think the grassroots people *are* following. The problem is, as you know, Democrats in Washington are risk aversive, and they've got to get over that if we're going to win the presidency back and win the White House back. I, frankly, as you know, I don't agree with anything that Newt Gingrich believes, but I do believe that he's a great tactician and strategist, and what he did to take back the Congress was to differentiate the Republican party from the Democratic party. And before that, the Republicans who were in the minority were doing the same thing that we've been doing which is "Oh, let's *be* like the Democrats, and then maybe we'll win a few seats."
We have to clearly show that we're different. And we can't just say "Oh, the Republicans are corrupt, which is true, we've got to say what we would do differently and how we would lead in a positive way. Now, I think we're making some headway on that. But it's hard, and the progress is sporadic, but I think we're getting better.
Bender: I talked to Senator Obama on this program last week and we talked about the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. And I asked him, because it puzzles me, both sides, both Democrats and Republicans are coming forward with reform legislation. But is seems like people's perception of this is that it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Dean: That's not entirely true. It's true on the Republican side, but the Republicans just basically threw this together. I mean first of all, they don't have agreement between the Senate and the House. Second of all, they're not doing anything about the K Street project, which is where all the corruption came from in the first place. The idear that they would just run all the Democrats out of business and just allow people with a lot of money to give Republicans access, and that is really just blatant corruption.
Bender: But Governor, 82% of the American people, when the Abramoff scandal broke, the question was asked, "Is this unusual or is this the way government works?" And 82% came back and said "This is business as usual, no matter who's in power." How do you change that perception?
Dean: Well, I think they're actually telling the truth. I mean, part of the problem is that the RNC, the Republican National Committee is *much* better at propaganda than we are. And part of the problem, frankly, is the media is lazy as all get-out. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the media write that Democrats were involved in taking Abramoff money. That is simply a lie! Nor did he direct any money to any Democrats. But you wouldn't believe the mainstream newspapers that print that crap. It just is astonishing to me that the reporters won't get off their butts and look at the truth.
Bender: I watched you with Wolf Blitzer. I don't know if you ever saw the footage of it.
Dean: I never did.
Bender: He was remote. You told him, flat out, that he was wrong, and then there was a pause, for a long period of time on the television. He was frozen there, unable to respond.
Dean: Well he *is* wrong. This is a Republican finance scandal, David. And I know, everybody, "Oh a pox on everybody's houses!" No, Americans don't like politicians, but the truth is, in this case, this is a Republican scandal. Not one Democrat has been implicated in this--not one.
Bender: Well, I watched Tim Russert trying to do this again just a week ago. He said that it was 3 million dollars of Abramoff *related* money that went to Republicans, and 1.5 million that went to Democrats. How is he slicing that up, how is he making that contention?
Dean: Because Abramoff has some clients who independently gave money to people like Reid and Dorgan, because they're in their district. People give money to politicians for a variety of reasons. One, they're directed to for quid pro quo, which is what Abramoff has pleaded guilty to. That's corrupt. The other, is they support people who they like. Just like you and I would give a hundred dollars, or a thousand dollars if we can afford it, to a candidate that we like. So the Indian tribes that gave money to Reid and Dorgan, are giving it because they like what they do. It has nothing to do with Abramoff. As I said before, there's not *one* evidence--not any evidence whatsoever that Jack Abramoff directed a dime to any Democrat. We checked through every FEC report, he didn't give a *dime* to any Democrat. He gave thousands of dollars to Republicans. This is a Republican finance scandal, and the media is *lazy*.
Bender: Governor, hang on a second. We need to take a quick break, and we'll come right back.
Will try to post part 2 of the interview tomorrow.
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We've had a lot of posts here about the filibuster in the past few days, and primarily they have been pro-filibuster action item focused. Tonight I want to share one of the links that takes the "anti" stance, a post from John at AMERICAblog entitled Why I Oppose the Filibuster. He gives a number of reasons, but here's one that might resonate for a lot of people here. POsting it without any comment of my own--just putting it out there.
John Kerry is using you.
A leader who uses you for his own personal gain - who plays on your understandable angst and tricks you into supporting a filibuster with no plan whatsoever for victory, who has no plan to win the war of public opinion regardless of the outcome of the vote, who simply is doing this because he wants to win the Netroots' support for his 2008 presidential campaign, to hell with how much it hurts the very goals that Netroots wants to achieve - is no leader in my book.
Cruising into Tuesday evening next week there will be two possible storylines:
1) The Democrats are a bunch of losers, as are all of their supporters. Bush and his giant codpiece looked magnificent at the state of the union, and Mrs. Alito was very happy and smiling sitting next to Mrs. Bush safe and content now that the magnificent and mighty President Bush made that bad Ted Kennedy go away.
2) The Democrats shocked Washington today by holding together, dropping a mighty turd in the punchbowl of the Bush administration, dealing a deadly blow to his nomination of Alito. The president won't be too happy tonight as he gives the 2006 state of the union speech.
Those are the choices.
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.If Truth is stranger than fiction, why are people so compelled to make stuff up?
Philippians 4:8
Thank you floridagal for providing this link to the transcript from Fox News of Howard Dean's interview. BradBlog has the video.
Howard Dean is on Air America *now*. (Update: This is over now, but I hope to have a transcript available at some point. I didn't catch it from the beginning, but I was able to record most of it.)
Some filibuster links/diaries:
FILIBUSTER Swing Votes (CALL NOW!) by judybrowni
Alito Filibuster: Kennedy knows what he's talking about/ Are We Listening? by Tanya
A last, desperate attempt to get through to Senator Salazar by Unitary Moonbat
People for the American Way has this page set up so that you can fax key senators.
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In the previous thread, I saw a note from floridagal about Howard Dean appearing on Air America Direct today, so I added that to the upcoming appearances on the upper left hand side of this page. I did this while I was waiting for Fox News Sunday to come on, so that I could press the record button on the VCR, but not actually watch the whole show waiting for the segment with Howard. What came on instead was Fox and Friends, so I went to double-check the schedule. Turns out I was watching the wrong Fox channel. Apparently it's still coming up, but it's after "Breakthrough with Rod Parsley". I *really* can't have the sound on for that. For anyone who doesn't know this, Rod is the local right wing televangelist who is working to help get Ken Blackwell elected governor of Ohio. Other church leaders in Ohio have called for an IRS investigation of Parsley and another minister. I just saw a discouraging article in The Other Paper (our local newsweekly) which ends by saying
Even if Parsley's accusers make a strong case at the IRS, punishing him would require the approval of an appointee of President Bush, who won re-election in 2004 with considerable help from World Harvest Church.
Professor Wood said the IRS would not shut down a low-level investigation for political reasons. But once it reaches the top of the organization, "I don't know."
And as long as Parsley doesn't say "Vote for Ken Blackwell," odds are good he'll continue to piss off liberals from his tax-exempt pulpit.
There are a lot of great diaries out there about the netroots' filibuster efforts. This post by Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake has been updated a number of times with useful links. See also this post by Georgia10 at Kos: And now, let's get to work. And finally, mcjoan's Kos diary, Senator Kennedy's Call to Arms is definitely worth a read...
Senator Kennedy just had a conference call with a number of bloggers to update us on his and Senator Kerry's filibuster effort, and to encourage the netroots and the grassroots to keep up our efforts. He's very excited by what he's seeing here and throughout the blogosphere, and gave a great pep talk.
He is encouraging you to contact your Democratic Senators, regardless of what they might have said so far, but specifically mentioned Senators Pryor, Lincoln, Cantwell, Murray, Baucus, Harkin, Levin, Bayh, Lautenberg, Menendez, and Lieberman. In addition, he said to keep the pressure on Republican Senators Snowe, Collins, Chaffee, and Stevens.
Senator Kennedy talked in particular about one thing that I think is critical to keep in mind as we approach our Senators, and for them to keep in mind as they are considering this vote. We need to overcome the media noise machine by letting our Senators know that in voting their conscience, and making it clear that they are voting on principle, on conscience, they will overcome the media noise machine calling them obstructionists. We can help them realize this by letting them know that we've got their backs. That they are voting our conscience as well, and that we will not forget their courage.
Just saw this on Oliver Willis, who notes:
They called him everything but a cheese eating surrender monkey. CNN: It's Fox, Only With Less O'Reilly.
Click here for Oliver Willis' post, where you can watch the video.
More on CNN's biased coverage of Kerry can be found at Media Matters, which also has links and suggestions for taking action. By the way, in case you haven't noticed it yet, I added a Media Matters newsbox to this site yesterday. (I did this after removing a number of the affiliate site links from the main blog and putting them on this page, along with links to Cafe Press stores with designs by Demetrius and jc.)
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I don't really have time to pull together a post with actual sentences and paragraphs, but I *do* have some links I would like to draw attention to. So let me just do that.
We OWN THE GOOD FIGHT! by susanhu
Steve Elmendorf is in need of a can of whoopass, if anyone has one handy...
Unlike the blogger at Ohio 2nd, who wrote before the event "It will be nice to finally meet the person that inspired me to get back into politics.", this was not my first time meeting Howard Dean. I met him briefly at the first DemocracyFest in July 2004 and saw him again when he came to speak in Columbus in September of 2004. If you read my post the morning of Janurary 18, you saw that I was something *other* than cool, calm, and collected as I prepared to leave the house.
But right now, as I prepare to leave the house, I am shifting back and forth between exhaustion (I've been working a lot of hours lately), a sense of unreality, and semi-panic that I might forget something I really mean to bring--like the voice recorder or the camera. And all the while in the background there is another mental program running at a subconscious level. My brain is saying its own improvised rosary and it goes something like "Hail Mary, full of grace, pray for me that I don't swallow my own tongue if I get the opportunity to say a few words to Howard today..."
The bumper sticker went over really well. Howard Dean laughed out loud when he saw it--one of those laughs where he throws his head back. In fact, that turned out to be the moment that a local newspaper reporter snapped a picture of him, and I got to see that reaction shot in the paper the next morning.
"Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars, and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. Conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."
-Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Dolphin Research Center
The Dolphin Institute
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Thank you Linda in Cincinnati for posting this link at the BBB.
Was watching tv and this INCREDIBLE ad came on.
You have to see it to believe it.
It IS GOOD!
http://www.americansunitedforchange.org/
I agree, it is. It's like Howard Dean's speech that I posted this morning, except in one minute. With pictures.
What time is it in America?
What time is it when oil company lobbyists sit at the White House helping write their own tax breaks, while you stand at the gas pump paying $40 to fill your tank?
What time is it when Republican leaders are indicted for money laundering, bribery, and obstruction of justice, while political friends get appointed to run life or death agencies?
What time is it when the president gives away billions to the drug companies while cutting health care for our seniors?
What time is it? Time for a change!
The Honest Leadership Act
To stop the abuse of power
End secret meetings with lobbyists
Ban gifts and trips for Congress
To improve the state of our nation, we must improve the state of our leadership.
The Honest Leadership Act: common sense reforms, because it's time for a change.
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