Howard Dean updates

I just received this notice about an upcoming Howard Dean appearance in Washington State from Howie in Seattle. If you know of any other upcoming appearances, please email the details to howardempowered at gmail.com.

Howard Dean in Washington State, President's Day, February 20th!
WHAT: Washington State Democrats Annual Crab Feed!
WHERE: ST. MARTIN'S COLLEGE, LACEY, WA.
WHEN: 5PM, FEBRUARY 20TH, 2006

Also, Howard Dean has made the following remarks about the recent anti-gay hate crime in Massachusetts. From February 2:

"The horrible hate crime against members of the LGBT community witnessed in Massachusetts last night is a sad reminder that shameful efforts to scapegoat any group of Americans for electoral gain is a dangerous strategy that carries real human cost. It needlessly plays on people's fears and contributes to a political climate dominated by fear and division. The American people understand that scapegoating groups of Americans for electoral gain is not just dangerous, it is un-American and has no place in our society. Hopefully, born of this tragedy will be a renewed commitment to bringing all Americans together and embracing our diversity. It is time for Republicans and Democrats to come together to find real solutions to the challenges that confront all Americans."

And finally, don't forget to check in here and join in the brainstorming about how to celebrate Howard Dean's first anniversary as chair of the DNC.

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Howard's 1-year anniversary--let's do this thing up right!

This morning and, yikes, into this afternoon, I have been busily cross-posting a diary about Howard Dean's one year anniversary as chair of the DNC. As some of us have already noted, we know that there is likely to be a spike in the negative stories (they're *always* out there, but this is a time of special celebration) in honor of one year with Howard Dean as chair of the DNC.

Please help spread the word about this--it needs to be a wide effort both online and offline. If I have time, I'll come up with something to printout and give to the "shoe leather" Dean supporters. But please post about this at other blogs you frequent, or your own blogs. Here are the places I've posted about this, if you are a member of any of these blogs and would like to give the story a boost by recommending.

Daily Kos
My Left Wing
Booman Tribune
MyDD
Democratic Underground

And a big thank you to ePluribus Media for frontpaging my diary.

Please direct people to the link right under the seasonal picture of young Howard Dean, so that we can all brainstorm ideas.

If you'd like to submit a post for the front page here at Howard-Empowered People, in honor of this anniversary, you can email it to howardempowered at gmail.com

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That 40 ft hole in the New Mexico desert with buried oil company papers.

First a brief public service announcement for anyone who is wondering what's up with Blog for America. At first glance, it looks as though there have been no new comments since around 5 in the morning on Sunday. While there have been no new posts after For a Responsible Texas, there are many newer comments, which are only viewable if you log in to post a comment. And if you scroll down a bit, you see this:

luigi dfa wrote on February 5, 2006 10:24 AM:

Sorry for the blog hiccups Joan. I've been up since 7:30 trying to figure it out. Here's the Sunday morning line up...

Oh, I freaking knew this would happen! I go to the trouble of writing this up, and and as soon as I get ready to publish, I check and see that all the BFA posts from yesterday are online now. Hang it! I'm leaving this here anyway for people who are would like to find out what happened without trying to track down the answer over there.

Floridagal had this in draft and I'm going to flip the switch and post it live. I took the liberty of adding the hotlink to her crosspost at Booman Tribune so that you can recommend the diary there if you feel so inclined.

Posted at Booman Tribune. I thought I would see how the html carries over to here. Never know until I try.

Remember these documents that were buried in the desert in New Mexico? They supposedly pertained to Shell Oil and a pipeline to Mexico. I have just GOT to stop cleaning out my old files because I find all kinds of things that were left hanging. I have two articles from 2003, and one from 2004. I can not find anything on it since.

From May 2003

EOTT finds documents while digging in New Mexico

Thousands of documents allegedly withheld when a surviving Enron subsidiary bought pipelines from another oil company were exhumed Friday from a 45-foot-deep hole on the plains of southeastern New Mexico.

EOTT Energy LLC, the buyer, was tipped off about the buried records by a confidential informant who once worked for Texas-New Mexico Pipeline Co., said Dan Dolan, an Albuquerque attorney representing EOTT. Texas-New Mexico was the Shell Oil subsidiary that sold EOTT the pipelines

The landowners sued Texas-New Mexico Pipeline and EOTT in March 2001 after discovering well water was contaminated in the early 1990s by a pipeline spill. The pipeline was owned at the time by Texas-New Mexico Pipeline.

EOTT workers used heavy equipment and dug by hand to excavate a 45-foot-deep hole on two acres southwest of Hobbs, near the Texas state line. Many of the documents were burlap-wrapped bundles. Most stuck together. They were placed in the boxes and taken to an EOTT office in Hobbs.

Then I read that they may have found more documents buried near Midland, Texas. This article is from June 2003.

More pipeline documents may be collecting dust near Midland

The case of the buried documents just keeps getting more bizarre.

Two weeks ago, a cache of 190 boxes full of documents belonging to Texas-New Mexico Pipeline Co. was dug up from a 45-foot-deep hole at a site along the company's pipeline in New Mexico. Certain assets of the Texas-New Mexico Pipeline Co., formerly owned by a Shell Oil Co. subsidiary, were sold to Enron Corp. and are now owned by EOTT Energy Partners.

There has been much speculation as to what the records might contain, why they were buried, and what impact they might have on litigation between Houston-based EOTT Energy Partners and Shell over an oil spill from the pipeline. But before the dust had even begun to settle on that strange situation, Shell revealed that there is a second site of buried TNMP documents, this one in West Texas.

EOTT has hinted that there could be some very serious illegalities at play. But Shell, for its part, keeps insisting that its relationship to TNMP is only "indirect" and that the documents are nothing important.

I found a very short article from 2004, and then nothing more.

Uncovered Documents May Be Trouble for Oil Company

The date given in this article says the documents were dug up in November 2003, but that does not go along with the other articles. I find the Shell statement at the end so very ridiculous. "pre-existing hole"...

Residents of Midland, Texas, filed suit against EOTT in 2001, claiming that their well water was contaminated by oil from a pipeline leak. EOTT settled with the residents and then sued Shell to recover costs of the settlements and remediation. EOTT argued it did not own the pipeline at the time of the incident and was unaware of any potential environmental problems when it acquired the company. The newly discovered records could change the course of the litigation and result in more legal woes for Shell.

New Mexico District Attorney Thomas Rutledge told the Houston Business Journal that his office will take legal action if it appears that the pipeline company buried the documents to hide or destroy criminal evidence. If the company did indeed try to cover up environmental problems or hide significant information from shareholders, the public, or potential buyers, it could have violated federal securities laws as well as federal and state environmental and pipeline regulations.

A Shell spokesperson told the Houston Business Journal that the documents are simply "office refuse" that was disposed of in a pre-existing hole.

That's funny, a pre-existing hole 40 something feet deep. Nah, we didn't dig that hole, it was already there.

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Sunday night mixed bag

I don't have any one issue to do a new post about, but wanted to use this thread to link to a few items of interest. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the DNC web site for Howard Dean's statement following the death of Coretta Scott King:

"Before her marriage to Dr. King, Mrs. King was a champion of civil rights and the non violent movement in her own right. During Dr. King's life and after his death, Mrs. King was integral to the struggle for equality and justice. A woman of wisdom, compassion and vision, she helped to preserve her husband's legacy and played a key role in making Dr. King Day a national holiday and the King Center a reality. As the work of the King Center continues, local, national and international programs have trained tens of thousands of people in Dr. King's philosophy and methodology of social change.

"Mrs. King once said, 'I want to challenge you to make a courageous commitment, not only to achieve personal success, but to use your success to help create this beautiful symphony of brotherhood and sisterhood, and if you embrace this challenge with prayer and faith and determination, you will surely succeed, and the 21st Century will become a glorious new age of peace and progress for all humankind.'

By the way, I was reminded, when I went to visit the "About the Chairman" page, that a week from today will be Howard Dean's one year anniversary as Chair of the DNC. We should do something nice for him.

Also, Denise recommended this video in the overnight thread. It's Sean Hannity interviewing cartoonist/columnist Ted Rall about the Tom Toles cartoon in the Washington Post.

And Alan in CA had this recommendation:

Published on Friday, February 3, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
The Pangs Of Your Sadness Shall Pass As Your Senses Will Rise
by Christopher Cooper

A very eloquent challenge to (or indictment of) TV newtainment.

Regarding the ball game that so many have been excited about tonight, if I hadn't read about it on the blogs, I probably wouldn't have even known it was happening today. But if I hadn't had a class to go to, I definitely would have watched the Puppy Bowl instead.

More about the candidate forum that took place yesterday, for anyone who is interested: Blue 88/DFA Candidate's Forum Roundup

And, for anyone who is interested, I just put up a new post at my Religious Left blog with some great Fred Rogers stories.

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Faithphobia

Originally posted on The Underground Railroad

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39

A promise is only as good as the character of the person who makes it, and this week we learned just how fickle political promises can be when 19 Democrats went back on their promise to stand up against rabid right-wing Supreme Court nominees. How can we deal with people whose "No" means "Maybe" and whose "Yes" means "Probably not"? How can we deal with people whose word is null and void? How can we have a substantive relationship with someone whose word we cannot trust?

We can't.

But there is One whose Word stands the test of time, One whose Word is from everlasting to everlasting, One whose word creates objective reality and who breathes the breath of life into human existence. If there is no one else in whom we can place our faith, in whom we can trust, we can always trust Jesus if we submit to his will. Someone once noted that many Americans would like to have Jesus in their life, but only as a consultant - they won't yield to His authority, they won't submit to His lordship, they simply won't trust Him. Far too many Americans have bought into the lie of humanism, that mankind is the measure of all things, and far too many Americans believe that it is all about themselves. America's "rugged individualism" is more aptly called "rampant self-centeredness" - it's all about self - but Jesus came to save all of those who would receive Him, those who would believe on His name. Finding faith in a land where iron-clad contracts and prenuptial agreements are the standard operating procedure is much akin to finding a 40 year-old virgin in Vegas, yet that is exactly what we are called to do.

You see, it is truly difficult to trust people - folk are fickle, fake, and phony - but we can trust Him whose word is true, whose word is truth, who came and died that we might have life and have it more abundantly. We can trust Him because of who He is - the King of kings and the Lord of lords, He who is faithful and true, He who is wonderful, our counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Don't believe me? I don't blame you, but believe Jesus:

If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.

The choice is yours, but I'm here to tell you that once you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord: neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In all of these things - and I have had to deal with just about all of these things over the last couple months - nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are more than conquerers.

May the LORD bless you and keep you;
May the LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
And may the LORD,
Who wants you to overcome the lies of the world,
May He turn His face toward you and give you peace.

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Statewide Candidate Forum, Feb 4 (OH)

I would have liked to be able to attend the statewide candidate forum that was held yesterday in Ohio--after all, it was held right here in Columbus. But it ran from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and web site said to R.S.V.P. by Feb. 1. I already had a commitment for that morning. If I was really on the ball, I could have contacted someone to find out if I could attend just part of the event, but, well, I wasn't. Or rather, I have to fit in this blogging and activism thing in around the rest of my life. Anyway, if anyone here did attend, I would like to hear your thoughts about the event.

Here's what I've found so far...there is some live blogging from Mrs. Editor at Ohio 2nd blog here. The first Kos diary I saw about the event was this one: Hackett Booed at Statewide Candidates Forum. Apparently he was booed by Brown supporters for going negative on Brown:

Today about 20 or so audience members "booed and catcalled" when Paul Hackett spoke of Sherrod Brown directly, saying Brown had been a "politician" since he was 21, and asking what was Brown going to accomplish in the Senate that he had failed to in the Congress?

Of course, I've read plenty of put downs of Brown to Hackett as well. Cut it out, okay? It's not cool. Say what *you'll* do if elected. Positive message, please.

The diarist, progressivearlintonian, added:

I had to leave before he finished his Q&A and I walked out thinking, gee, what a huge gaffe by Paul Hackett.

and then I remembered . . .

Paul Hackett is a Marine. He says what he thinks.

Yeah, he's a Marine. He's also an attorney, and as such, he presumably *does* know how to choose his words carefully when it really matters. You can do better than that, Paul.

Here's the writeup about the Hackett/Brown portion of the forum from BuckeyeSenate. He's also written about the rest of the day here and here.

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Saturday night dog blogging

Way back in August, I wrote a diary called "Saying goodbye to big puppy-dog eyes". It was about the experience of going with my mom to turn in the pup she had raised for Canine Companions for Independence, so that he could go on to advanced training.

(In the picture above, he's the one in the back row wearing the pink collar.)

I just wanted to let Larkin's admirers know that this is a big week for him. He and 11 other dogs are going to spend the week working with 8 different human handlers. The goal, as I understand it, is to find the dog that each person best "clicks" with. So, strictly looking at the "odds", Larkin has a 2/3 chance of getting placed (hired?) But since it's about making a good match, I don't think there is any known formula that can tell us what his chances are.

So, anyway, wish him luck, okay? Maybe a quick prayer to St. Francis, if that's your thing. Or "hold him in the light". We're all really hoping he makes it!

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Feminist Betty Friedan Dies at 85

At home, on her 85th birthday, writer and feminist, Betty Naomi Goldstein Friedan, died today of congestive heart failure.

Born in Peoria, Illinois, Friedan attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and also did some graduate work at the University of California in Berkeley. She had a 20-year marriage to Carl Friedan, and her son, Daniel Friedan, is a noted theoretical physicist.

Friedan authored the 1963 bestseller "The Feminine Mystique" which dealt with women's roles in society and promoted the then radical idea that women might aspire to separate identities as individuals. She also cofounded the National Organization for Women and became its first president in 1966, covering a wide range of groundbreaking issues for women.


Other books by Betty Friedan include "The Second Stage" (1981), "The Fountain of Age" (1993), and her 2000 memoir "Life So Far."

Betty Friedan is considered one of the most influential people in feminist politics. More on Friedan can be found at wikipedia and the National Women's Hall of Fame.

"The problem that has no name - which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities - is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease."

- Betty Friedan

May she rest in peace.

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Saturday news roundup

Well, I *planned* to add links to the open thread, but I can't get in to edit it. It appears not to exist, which is a trip, because people definitely seem to be commenting on that thread.

So, I'm posting a new thread that hopefully won't disappear into the ether. The image above is from one of the items in jc's "Designed for You" Cafe Press shop.

'Grandpa Munster' Al Lewis Dies at 95

Here's something I didn't know about Al Lewis:

Just two years short of his 90th birthday, a ponytailed Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent Gov. George Pataki. Lewis campaigned against draconian drug laws and the death penalty, while going to court in a losing battle to have his name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Al Lewis."

He didn't defeat Pataki, but managed to collect more 52,000 votes.

More links of interest...
Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Feb. 2 (includes interview with Michael Schiavo, and Bill O'Reilly winning, once again, Keith's "Worst Person in the World" award.

And a couple diaries to check out:
Single-Payer Health: Cheaper, Better, More Competitive by bonddad
Impeachment: Methods For Your Madness. by Kagro X
Rummy is setting the stage for us to attack Iran by John in DC (Americablog)

Ohio 2nd blog has some live blogging of today's statewide candidate forum.

And finally, please check out my new blog, Faithful Ohio, and pass the link along to anyone you know who might be interested. I've added some links to the sidebar, and posted some excerpts from an excellent sermon Bono gave at the National Prayer Breakfast.


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Open Thread

I thought it was about time for a new thread, and I wanted to include this picture, because it makes me smile. I found it at a site called Cute Overload!


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Ciro Rodriguez: Why I'm fighting to get elected

Ciro Rodriguez has just posted his first Kos diary. For anyone who needs a reminder, Ciro Rodriguez is the Democrat who's running against this guy (seen here getting the smooshy-face "Who's a good little subserviant Democrat? Yes you are! Yes you are!" treatment from Bush.)


So, let's hear what Cuellar's opponent has to say...

People often ask me why I am running for Congress. It's simple, I wanted to continue to do more to work for the people of this district and for the values that I believe are important to hardworking Americans everywhere.

This is a solidly Democratic district. Yet, we have someone in Congress who does not represent the people who live here. In fact, we have someone representing us who doesn't live in the district or keep his Congressional office in the district. We should not have someone in Congress who is consistantly voting on the other side of the aisle! It would be one thing if he was working to enhance Democratic values and morals, but he isn't. He has basically sold out to special interests, big money, Tom DeLay and his Republican pals.

Click here for the rest. And please recommend the diary if you're a Kos member.

Ciro Rodriguez for Congress
Ciro Rodriguez' Act Blue Donation Page

John Aravosis has more on why Ciro Rodriguez is worth supporting.

More from Kos: "Ciro is a good guy, a good Democrat. In the 107th Congress, Ciro was ranked 122 out of 213 in the party's left-right scale, right in the middle. He scored more liberal than such party stalwarths as Patrick Kennedy and Joe Hoeffel, and just behind Zoe Lofgren, John Dingell, and Corrine Brown.

"This is a guy who showed Henry Cuellar the ropes, introduced him to donors, to other Democratic congresspersons including the entire Hispanic caucus, mentored him, until DeLay redistricted them into the same district and Cuellar decided his personal ambitions were more important than the help and friendship Rodriguez provided.

"It's been about 23 hours since I started posting on this race, and in that time the netroots, Atrios, and Firedoglage ActBlue pages have collectively raised nearly $30K. The Cuellar people dismissed our efforts yesterday as a "one-day story". Too bad for them it won't be."


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Gore Helps DSCC Raise Money

Just FYI. I know there is no love lost between many here and the DSCC, but on the other hand, many of us admire Al Gore as one of those seemingly rare "Democrats with spine".

Gore Helps DSCC Raise Money

For the first time in a while, ex-VP Al Gore put his name to an e-mail fundraising solicitation on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Commission.

Gore, in the letter: "Let me be perfectly clear. Our American values are at risk. George Bush is pursuing a truly breathtaking and unprecedented power grab that marginalizes the role of both our federal courts and the Congress. As a result, he has been able to enact the most extreme aspects of his right-wing agenda in virtual secret and without meaningful oversight. It stops now. Together, we can change the balance of power in Washington. We can elect a Democratic Senate in just 10 short months that will stand up to the Bush administration's unprecedented power grab and will stand up for our American values again."

"The single best way to end one-party rule in Washington as soon as possible is to support the DSCC in its mission to elect a Democratic Senate."

Read the rest here.

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A leap of faith

Crossposted at the very new Faithful Ohio blog.

About three years ago, troubled that the public face of Christianity often seemed to be pro-war and anti-compassion, I started a web site called The Religious Left. Now that the voices of groups like Ohio Restoration Project and Reformation Ohio are growing louder and more strident, and seeking to use their numbers and influence to promote an agenda that is harmful to "the least of these", it is vital that other voices of faith speak out.

As you can see from the posts here, some have already begun to do so. Another group has started to meet, focusing not on fighting Rod Parsley and Russell Johnson, but by offering an alternative message.

In November, about 150 religious leaders quietly gathered Downtown at the First Congregational United Church of Christ on E. Broad Street, where Ahrens is senior minister. And from that meeting, a movement is budding - a push back of pastors and rabbis.

"We intend on organizing and having pastors and rabbis talk about issues that are important to the community through their sermons and in the media," said Eric McFadden, Columbus-based field director of the Catholic Alliance for the Common Good, a Washington-based nonprofit group.

"We want to bring attention to many issues we feel that this movement on the right is not conveying to the public - issues of poverty, job loss, health care and a general lack of humanity."

This development is exciting and encouraging to me, and I want to do what I can to help this group, and other compassionate religious voices in Ohio, be heard. And to help us find each other--sometimes progressive people of faith can feel a bit isolated, and it is reassuring to be reminded that we are not alone.

But while I felt moved to start this blog, I know that I won't be able to keep it going without some help. What if I build it, and nobody comes? Could be embarrassing. So, starting this blog, and publicly announcing it, is a real leap of faith on my part.

Here is what I am asking for.
I need:

--help watching for relevant news articles, like the one I linked above.
--relevant links to add to the sidebar
--submissions from people in Ohio, expressing how your faith compels you to work for social and economic justice.

Please email ohiorenee at gmail.com if you have something to submit.

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"You have already started to change the party" Dean, Feb 2004

Kudos to floridagal whose diary was just frontpaged at Booman Tribune, along with these words: [From the diaries by susanhu. Beautifully written, FloridaGal -- as always.]

We're proud to have you on board here, floridagal!

Here's a link to the diary, which is also crossposted at Daily Kos. Click to read the whole diary, in which we are reminded of what Howard Dean said when he dropped out of the race for the presidency in February of 2004. Here's how the diary ends:

But he has shown staying power, acting like a leader showing the party how to go on the offense. He said several months ago they were just learning to an opposition party. He was most surely right on that one.

I thought about 3rd party as well. I was raised pretty moderately, sort of turned liberal since Bush took office. Now some of my friends here in my area and I had to make some decisions. We decided to start getting positions within the party and changing the old ways of doing things. We have partly succeeded, but a way to go yet.

I for one have decided that Dean meant what he said, my husband and I and our friends trust him to keep working to get the party into a fighting machine. I am angry at many of our Democrats, but I have decided to work with the party to change things. Someone in a post said Dean should have more power in the party. He can have that, but only if those of us who want change are willing to work with him.

He is not liberal, but he is practical and sensible and cares about the people more than corporations. He's a virtual bulldog about things when he knows he has people behind him. So I am. I wish us luck.

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Olbermann takes down O'Reilly

If you haven't seen this yet, I highly recommend it. Keith Olbermann does a hilarious point by point take-down of Bill O'Reilly.

And, if you haven't seen it yet, here's the State of the Union parody that's been posted around the blogs this week. Also, check out Frank Caliendo's Bush Routine. He looks nothing like Bush, but he's got the mannerisms down. Gets a bit of Clinton in there too, and nails that as well.

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Supporting this site

Someone asked me recently if there was a way to make the transcripts more printer-friendly. I've tried this with Howard Dean's recent interview on Air America's Politically direct. The transcript can be found here. I will try to do that with some of the other transcripts when I get the chance.

If you find these transcripts useful, please consider making a small donation via one of the Paypal buttons on this page, or shopping at one of the affiliate sites. (This page also has links to Cafe Press stores featuring designs by Demetrius and jc.

Or, if you're low on cash (like many of us these days), another valuable way to help this site is simply by sharing it with others. Especially if you have a Linkup tonight, you might let the people there know about howardempowered.org. And particularly about this message, which can be found in the left sidebar:

This is a "people-powered" blog, in the spirit of the high level of do-it-yourself grassroots contributions to Howard Dean's presidential campaign. The people who blog here have taken to heart Dean's message "You have the power!" If you would like to submit a guest entry, please email it to howardempowered at gmail.com.

Okay, shameless plug mode off now. It doesn't come easily to me, and in fact it kind of makes me squirm. I promise not to go into that mode too often.

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More rapid response

In the previous thread, I posted this rapid response link from Howard Dean's statement about Bush's State of the Union address:
http://www.democrats.org/page/speakout/sotu

I think it is also important to use that link to do some rapid response about the treatment of Cindy Sheehan last night. *This* says something pretty grim about the State of the Union.



Cindy's version of the story is posted as a diary at Kos.

This afternoon at the People's State of the Union Address in DC where I was joined by Congresspersons Lynn Woolsey and John Conyers, Ann Wright, Malik Rahim and John Cavanagh, Lynn brought me a ticket to the State of the Union Address. At that time, I was wearing the shirt that said: 2245 Dead. How many more?

After the PSOTU press conference, I was having second thoughts about going to the SOTU at the Capitol. I didn't feel comfortable going. I knew George Bush would say things that would hurt me and anger me and I knew that I couldn't disrupt the address because Lynn had given me the ticket and I didn't want to be disruptive out of respect for her. I, in fact, had given the ticket to John Bruhns who is in Iraq Veterans Against the War. However, Lynn's office had already called the media and everyone knew I was going to be there so I sucked it up and went.

Click here for the rest.

Also, here is Paul Hackett's response to Bush's speech:
Addicted to Rhetoric: Bush's State of the Union

Update: Thank you, jc, for creating the "Dead to me" board (inspired by the one on The Colbert Report) that now graces the right sidebar of this blog. It's not going to stay there forever. Just...long enough, whatever that turns out to be.

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Message from Howard Dean on the SOTU

Democrats.org has this post up at the Democratic Party blog:

"Message from Governor Dean on the State of the Union"

Governor Dean sent the following message to Democrats across the country following the president's speech tonight.

Dear Fellow Democrat,

Remember this? "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Those are George Bush's famous 16 words from his 2003 State of the Union address, delivered less than two months before he sent troops into war in Iraq.

They were false. Three years later Americans are still demanding answers on the manipulation of intelligence by an administration eager to start a war.

Americans have a lot of questions that went unanswered tonight. When George Bush delivered his State of the Union address, he had a big megaphone and the world's attention. He had the opportunity to regain some degree of credibility with the American people -- more than half of whom disapprove of his performance as president. But he failed to answer the real questions ordinary Americans have about the state of our union:

Click here to read the rest, and check out the following links for more reporting and pictures of last night's festivities.


AP Photo

Satisfactions v. Signatures
Live at Satisfaction in North Carolina
What a Difference 30 Minutes Makes
Watch Parties Getting Started
Governor Dean Just Got off the Stage
Governor Dean Introduction Video
More Photos from North Carolina
Join the Party ... Here's the Conference Call Information
Photos: Dean in North Carolina

One more piece from Howard Dean's response to the State of the Union:

Please take the time to write a letter to the editor about what's wrong with the Republican priorities -- and what we'll do to put America on the right track:

http://www.democrats.org/sotu/rapidresponse

And here's the Kos diary by Tim Tagaris: Governor Dean in NC: Template for a New Democratic Party. Click and recommend, if you're a Kos member.

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Member of the blog family needs help

I don't know how many here remember cdmarine, but she used to post on the big blog back when Dean was running for president. At Daily Kos, she posts as hyperbolic pants explosion, and in the past few days a family crisis has been unfolding. I'm not sure how much of the story I should post here, but please check out her most recent Kos diary: Brother Update III: Advice Needed ASAP

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The man who should be president

I'm not watching the State of the Union. If tonight wasn't a night I had to teach, maybe I could have made it to a State of the Union watch party, but it's pretty hard under any circumstances to make myself watch that man speak. Howard Dean is attending one of these parties in North Carolina. Okay, watching the SOTU under *those* circumstances might actually be bearable.

Now *that* man should be president. Tim Tagaris is blogging tonight's fesitivies over at the DNC blog. Click here for a brief video of Howard Dean being introduced. Tim promises more video by morning.

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