Out and About

I'm not much for personal blogging, but I'm leaving on a cross country road trip in a couple of days. I will get the chance to post, and I intend to do so, especially about the attitudes and beliefs that I can observe in the rest of the country (What?! You mean NYC isn't representative of the country?!), but it won't be an every day thing.

I'll be back in about a month or so, at which time regular posting will resume, but until then expect sporadic posting.

Later.

Cloud 9

Has come home.

President Bush called a human rights report "absurd" for criticizing the United States' detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and said Tuesday the allegations were made by "people who hate America."

"It's absurd. It's an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world," Bush said of the Amnesty International report that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.

That man is on an incredible amount of acid right now, or he'd think differently.

One for Big Business

Well Great.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm for destroying Enron Corp.-related documents before the energy giant's collapse.

Why?

It said the jury instructions at trial were too vague and broad for jurors to determine correctly whether Andersen obstructed justice.

That's right, procedure getting in the way of the spirit of the law. Well, I guess they are lawyers after all. But wait, it gets even better.

The ruling is a setback for the Bush administration, which made prosecution of white-collar criminals a high priority following accounting scandals at major corporations. After Enron's 2001 collapse, the Justice Department went after Andersen first

.

In what lifetime? The Bush administration SAID it was a high priority, but how many of Bush and Gonzales' buddies at Enron actually took a fall for anything? How many Haliburton CEOs are spending the rest of their lives in jail for skimming millions off the American taxpayer? Zero. That's right. Based on this sort of corruption and the current economic climate, I come closer every day to seeing a depression (not a recession, not a short term bump) around the corner. Head for the mattresses.

Insult to Injury

By this point we all know not only from thinking about it but also from the downing street memo that the Bush administration artificially constructed and lied about a rationale for the war in Iraq. Well now it gets even better. Thanks to the London Times (because no American media outlet would ever report something important), we now know

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

At least Congressman Conyers is on the case, but there's something very wrong with this country if every media outlet is not blasting coverage of this 24/7.

McCain '08

From the NYT,

Senator John McCain of Arizona, signaled his support on Friday for a compromise in which the White House might allow Senate leaders access to highly classified documents in return for a final vote early next month on Mr. Bolton's nomination as United Nations ambassador.

So much for McCain's stance as the independent who did what he thought was right against beltway and party wisdom. Right now he's trying to place himself as a moderate who is open to compromise, and unlike Frist someone who can actually exercise caucus unity, so he can get the nomination in '08. I say shame on him. You can't be a maverick and shill for compromises like this.

Furthermore, the Democrats would be absolute morons to fall for something like this. Get the documents only to confirm him? What kind of talk is that? The reason we want the documents is to damn him, not praise him. If Democrat moderates try to sell out the party the way they did with the filibuster deal there should be hell to pay. This time we have nothing to lose.

And the Rest

of the economy doesn't look too hot either.

Let the Dollar Dump Commence!

It won't be long.

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Buy 'Em

Finally.

Members of the World Trade Organization agreed today to allow Iran to begin membership talks, with the United States dropping its opposition after Tehran promised to continue its freeze on nuclear activities.

What people and politicians all over the world need to realize is that if people and nations become interdependent through commerce and trade, i.e. if they have a vested monetary and personal interest in keeping trade going, then we stand at much less of a chance of going to war and fighting. Call me crazy, but I think peace is good.

The Ghost of John Bolton

Voinovich (R-OH) says he's still against Bolton's nomination

The Ohio Republican whose opposition to John R. Bolton nearly stalled his nomination in committee circulated a letter on Tuesday urging colleagues to vote against Mr. Bolton when his name reaches the Senate floor, possibly this week.

But we'll see if he'll have the sway to change anything, or if he'll actually vote against Bolton this time, unlike in committee. It still remains to be seen whether the Democrats will try to filibuster Bolton or not and if it will fail. The world's watching.

Update: Bolton's nomination is up and running, Lugar's shilling for him right now on C-Span2.

Logic

Just because we negate something it is not necessarily its opposite. For instance, many progressive bloggers, including kos and chris bowers have been posting the freepers' and wingnuts' reactions to the filibuster compromise, and since the freepers are outraged, as much as some of us on the left if not more, the progressive bloggers have concluded that this constitutes a victory for us.

Well it just ain't so. That line of reasoning is equivalent to: "It is not raining, therefore it must be nice out."

Just because the freepers are all having a hissy fit does not mean that we have won anything. This was a compromise, and without getting into the details of the compromise (scroll down a couple posts) it is clear that the real winner of the day was the status quo. For those of you jumping up and down to say that keeping the status quo on the Senate rules was a good thing - relatively you may be right in the short term, and by relatively I mean how long before they try it again and the Senate is not to be bound by the dead hand of the past - I disagree. We all agree that the status quo of the Democratic party and the current things is foul and noxious. What makes this any different? The status quo will only help us slide further into GOP domination. As for Bower's comment that

Some will say that this moves us closer to theocracy than ever. Of course they will be right. Then again, every day of the 109th Congress brings us closer to theocracy, and this one is no different than the rest. Further, keep in mind that theocracy is what the Republican grassroots want, and the Republican grassroots are pissed off at this deal. If we weaken the energy of the Republican grassroots, we also slow our slide toward theocracy. So while this certainly moves us closer to theocracy in the short term, in the long term it might help us begin a reversal.

I can't find myself agreeing with this. I can't remember what cartoon or movie I saw this in, but it demonstrated that if you place a frog in water and slowly raise the temperature until it is boiling, it won't notice and will die. However, if you try to place the same frog in already boiling water it will jump right out. I think it is the same thing with people. They will not care as much if it is gradual and they do not notice, but try to change things quickly in a big way and they will react.

Instead of seeing the outcome of this compromise in a GOP/Democrat frame, we need to look at it in a status quo/reform frame. The winner - status quo. The loser - reform.

Tin Foil Hats

Just in case you thought this was an expression that some of us made up but doesn't really exist outside of mental institutions, read this.

Filibuster Deal of Doom

I'm not happy. Really not happy. I think out of desperation and spinelessness we ground to a halt over the worst possible option. If you're unfamiliar with the deal the long and short of it is that in return for the Republicans not trying to pull a rule change we are left with:

A. Votes for Certain Nominees. We will vote to invoke cloture on the following judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Circuit), William Pryor (11th Circuit), and Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit).

B. Status of Other Nominees. Signatories make no commitment to vote for or against cloture on the following judicial nominees: William Myers (9th Circuit) and Henry Saad (6th Circuit).

So the bad, but not horrendously bad, judges won't get up or down votes, but the really evil, baby seal clubbing judges are going to get up and down votes and will pass. Maybe if the deal ended at this I wouldn't feel as irked as I do, but it gets worse:

A. Future Nominations. Signatories will exercise their responsibilities under the Advice and Consent Clause of the United States Constitution in good faith. Nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.

Extraordinary circumstances??? Anyone else besides me hear loophole instead? This is setting the stage for a disaster. Extraordinary means out of the ordinary, right? What if Bush throws a dozen Owen nominations at us? The circumstances would certainly cease to be extraordinary. Furthermore it is so open ended that it seems to me if a Democrat tries to filibuster that a Republican does not see as out of the ordinary (apparently like Owen) then the Republican would be perfectly justified in shooting the filibuster down and maybe trying another nuclear option to silence the opposition again. If you think I'm crazy and that would never happen, then why would Mike DeWine say

Some of you who are looking at the language may wonder what some of the clauses mean. The understanding is – and we don’t think this will happen – but if an individual senator believes in the future that a filibuster is taking place under something that’s not extraordinary circumstances, we of course reserve the right to do what we could have done tomorrow which is to cast a yes vote for the constitutional option.

(from Think Progress)

But wait, they're going to make sure we don't get radical nominations:

We believe that, under Article II, Section 2, of the United States Constitution, the word “Advice” speaks to consultation between the Senate and the President with regard to the use of the President’s power to make nominations. We encourage the Executive branch of government to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration.

Since when does Bush give a damn about what the Senate does? Only 10 of his nominations didn't get through and he went right back and pushed them again. All he cares about is pushing his reactionary agenda and even if he sits down with his opponents in the Senate and listens to them he'll just be paying them lip service.

The only maybe plus to this is that we can still filibuster Supreme Court nominations, which should ensure that we don't wind up with another Thomas.

(memo link)

Chris Andersen over at Kos has a rosy view of the deal. He believes that moderates have conceded that filibustering is OK, extraordinary circumstances is something that will not come into play for a long time and because moderates in the Senate believe in advice and consent it will magically spring into existence complete with fairy wings and three wishes. I think Chris has a little too much faith in the moderates. How many Republican moderates exist in the Senate anymore? Collins, Snowe, Warner, Specter, Chafee, McCain? I know there were other Republicans up there but I know that some of them (as well as some Democrats) were looking for a way out to save face. Chris also says

"Extraordinary" is defined according to the impact the nomination could potentially have on the course of the nation, not simply on the character of the individual nominee.

Which is kind of funny considering that he starts off his kick by asserting

Some have complained about this agreement by saying that the extremism of Brown and Owen are the very definition of "extraordinary circumstances."

I disagree.

Well wait a second, not worried that they kick puppies, eat babies or kill cats on the weekends, but we're worried about the consequences that these judges could wreak upon the nation with respect to labor, environmental, commerce, social welfare, etc. Doesn't that fit that definition of extraordinary?

Instead of the mind-numbingly awful deal we wound up with, let's consider the other options that fall under the auspices of the floor vote on the rule change (I can't even begin to imagine what other kinds of compromises would have worked).

1. The filibuster issue comes to fore on Tuesday, there is a floor vote and the Republicans don't have the votes. Democrats win, hands down. Right wing power grab thwarted and Frist exiled to the deepest dungeon of Dobson's Pit of Despair where he is forced to play the role of Jesus in a live stage performance of the Passion with no special effects.

2. The filibuster issue comes to fore on Tuesday, there is a floor vote and the Republicans have the votes. Republicans get their rule change and some considerable gains in the short run but politically it is a huge victory for the Democrats. They can now turn around and portray the abuses of power and one party rule. They can get on every news show and flout the abuse and underhandedness that Republicans regularly use to get their way (Tom Delay connection, anybody? Anybody?).

I know some (a lot) of people will disagree with me on the second outcome, but I believe the Democrats have learned a lot in the last year and are continuing to learn. Under Reid's leadership this party will not bend over and ask "thank you sir, may I have another?" Part of the reason that the counter will be so easy to deliver is that the drive to eliminate the filibuster did not come from the big business wing of the Republican party that has learned how to disguise itself and pass itself off as mainstream, but from the evangelical Christian right wing of the party that cannot conceal its true intentions and whose actions will provoke a severe reaction against them.

The floor vote was going to be a win/win situation for the Democrats. However, it didn't happen because moderates on both sides decided to negotiate a compromise. First off, if someone on the Democratic side is trying to negotiate a compromise it shouldn't be the moderates. Salazar? Nelson? Are these people who represent the mainstream of the Democratic party? Moreover, the moderates on the Republican side they negotiated with (nevermind Graham and the others who stowed away) are only moderates in light of the shift in the Republican party. These were the people who 20 years ago were conservatives. Why is the Democratic party brokering a deal with conservatives? Why can't they stand up and fight for what they truly believe in? That depends on if they do, of course. Now we're going to wind up in a situation where approval ratings for both Congress and both parties will go up instead of an increase for Democrats and a decrease for Republicans.

We've also blown a huge shot at the 2008 election. Is there anyone who thinks Frist could really win? Like I said above, Bush represents big business, which knows how to pass itself off as kinda normal, but Frist represents people who think Spongebob enjoys sodomizing male squids on a regular basis. That's a huge difference to begin with, on top of which Frist has all the charisma of a narcoleptic giving a speech at a pep rally. Now the big winner of the day is McCain. Have you seen the headlines? I haven't seen Democratic names pop up on T.V. yet. I have never and will never vote Republican, but how many people do you think will cross party lines to vote for McCain? That all depends on if he can get his party's nomination, but if he does I don't know how good our shot is in '08.

Because the Democrats were once again unable to stand up for their core beliefs and values we are now in a situation where they have once again aided moving the center of discourse to the right and blew a potentially huge political and moral victory. But I guess for some people that's ok because we only let the Republicans beat us a little and not break anything this time. Well not me. I'm not happy. Really not happy.

Tomorrow's the Day

I know Biden's a senate dinosaur and a beltway boy, but the man can still speak and raise a little hell, which is more than I can say for some senators (Kerry). I don't know much about his voting record, but he gave a pretty fiery speech today pointing out what GOP's really after (undoing the welfare programs of the past 70 years).

The vote goes down tomorrow, be sure to hold your breath until then.

The Man

kicked ass on Meet the Press yesterday.

Videos here.

Just In Case

you thought Iraq was doing alright, think again.

Dumb and Dumber

Yesterday:

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai demanded greater control Saturday over American military operations in his country and called for vigorous punishment of any U.S. troops who mistreat prisoners.

He also said he wants the United States to hand over all Afghan prisoners still in U.S. custody.

Today:

A cable sent on May 13 from the United States Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, said that provincial officials and village elders had impeded destruction of significant poppy acreage and that top Afghan officials, including Mr. Karzai, had done little to overcome that resistance.

The cable also faulted Britain, which has the top responsibility for counternarcotics assistance in Afghanistan, for being "substantially responsible" for the failure to eradicate more acreage.

This is nothing more than today's case of blame it on someone else. First it's really nice to know that the U.S. is more interested in limiting poppy production in Afghanistan than fighting guerillas, which is funny because the entire war on drugs assertion that the money made from these drugs goes into terrorists coffers is false; many small time farmers (not terrorists) farm poppy to make a living. Then it also conveniently ignores the U.S. torture stories that recently broke and ignores Karzai's demands to set things right. Instead we're going to blame Karzai and the British for all our problems.

Likely Outcome?

For the filibuster craziness.

Link.

Day III: Revenge of the Right Wing

The confirmation talks are still going on. I'm really not sure if Frist has enough votes to push the rule change; he might be using this time to stall for them. I think that the judicial filibuster should stay right where it is and I would never support a move to get rid of it, but I agree with Armando over at DKos that for the Democrats politically it would be a boon if the rule change is passed.

Most Americans are always weary of the government overreaching itself and having too much power. This illegal rule change by the GOP reflects that fear in a crystal clear mirror. On top of that, the man spearheading this charge is kittykiller Frist, acting at the behest of the insane lunatic fringe evangelical Christian right (who want to change the law of the land to the law of the bible) in order to secure his 2008 presidential ambitions. I'll grant that the tone of discourse in this country has moved entirely too far to the right over the past four years, but that has only served to make the fringe right hungrier and they're losing all sense of restraint. When it becomes clear that they're pulling the strings in the government people's passive fears will activate and they will vote them out.

"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

The Moral High Ground

The U.S. sure doesn't have it.

Link.

:: blink ::

I guess as long as Santorum's going out he might as well go out with a bang.

Let the Battle Begin!

The fight is on for the life of the judicial filibuster. Who will win? I don't know. You should watch C-Span/2/3. I'll be posting more on this later.

Tin Foil Hats

Remember all that crazy talk by crazy economists about how East Asian central banks were eventually going to stop buying dollars because it would no longer become worth it?

It's time for people who didn't believe tho crazies (including Fed. Gov. Bernanke) to put on their tin foil hats.

Link.

(for why this is the case rifle through some of my earlier posts on the issue)

Filibuster Watch

Today's the day.

Link. Link.

The 4th Estate is Dead, Long Live the Administration!

Why this is trouble with a capital "damn."

Scaredy Cat

Who's running with her tail between her legs?

On a trip that underscored Washington's urgency, Ms. Rice carried a clear message: Shiite political leaders should respond rapidly and effectively to any sign that wavering elements of the Sunni Arab insurgency might be ready to turn to peace.

Cause you don't stand a chance in hell of getting out of Iraq either way, but you're trying too little too late now. Too bad for you.

Link.

Shock

Are any of us? Really?

Link.

Johnny Come Lately

Was against the 9/11 commission, then touted it.
Was against a director of national intelligence, then for it.
Was against being interviewed by the commission, then cited himself for it.

This out of the guy who's tuff on terrah.

Now this.

Pope Dubya

What's that we keep hearing about respect for law?

Hahahahahah

I'll let this speak for itself.

Bolton Prelims

The vote was 10 aye, 8 nay, along partisan lines for the motion of reporting the nomination without recommendation. Not sure where we go from here.

Highway Bill

Oh, the highway bill is done, and it defies Bush in the process. We all know Frist would have tried to pull the plug on the filibuster on Tuesday if he had the votes, but he clearly did not and threw out the highway bill as a stalling tactic. Well kitty killer, you can't stall much longer and you still don't have the votes. What's it going to be?

Bolton Smackdown

"Mr. Chairman, I believe John Bolton is the poster child for what someone in the diplomatic corp should not be."-Sen. Voinovich (R).

Voinovich is certainly putting down his foot and not voting for Bolton and I'm curious to see which of the other Republican senators open fire on Bolton. It looks like it's time for Bush to take a little fall.

The hearings are going on til about 5 or so on C-Span 3.

Somebody Doesn't Learn

He's at it again:

Mr. Rumsfeld's longstanding ambitions [are] to fundamentally transform the nation's military into something leaner, more agile and thoroughly modern.

One of the chief criticisms of the US invasion of Iraq is that we do not have enough troops to police the country for terrorists. We are not fighting a rogue regime with a standing army, we are fighting hit and run guerillas, much like Vietnam. Rumsfeld still wants to cut the size of the army and its bases. What is this man thinking? Today we already have 60 dead. Who knows how many tomorrow. He wants to cut the size of the army? Somebody needs to fire this man, and fast.

Ok, a Couple More Days

Stop dragging it out.

By midweek, the Republicans expect to have in place at least four nominees whom they regard as far better test cases than Mr. Griffith for a showdown over the rules.

Let's get this over with. Do we live in a democracy with checks and balances, or do we live in a one party fascist dictatorship who can rewrite the rules as they please?

Update: Frist said on C-Span that the Senate needs to finish the highway bill, and then the judge issue is going to go down. Don't know when the highway bill is going to be done, but it won't be too long.

Throw Me a Frickin' Bolton

Keeps getting better:

Richard L. Armitage, ordered two years ago that Mr. Bolton be blocked from delivering speeches and testimony unless they were personally approved by Mr. Armitage.

He's up for nomination again on Thursday.

More Bad Reporting

From the NYT,

Seizing on Democratic threats to slow the majority agenda in the Senate, Republicans intend to paint Democrats as uncompromising obstacles to popular legislation. The message is simple, they say - no highway money, no energy bill, no tax relief.

and

Charlie Cook, a veteran nonpartisan analyst of Congressional races, said he believed that Democrats could benefit initially from the showdown if the public interpreted the Republican move as a power grab. But voters could eventually side with Republicans if they succeed in making Democrats seem petulant and obstinate.

The article offers this catch,

Democrats have softened their earlier tone on paralyzing the Senate, saying they intend to push their own initiatives. And they say a snarled Senate has much less public resonance than does a government-wide shutdown like the one in 1995 that backfired on Newt Gingrich, the House speaker, and Congressional Republicans.

But this article is on the whole entirely unrepresentative of the issue. First off, it does not even begin to describe the massive abuse of power that the GOP is committing in trying to eliminate the filibuster. Second, it gets the Democratic stance completely wrong and instead characterizes it with GOP talking points. The Democrats will NOT shut Congress down. If the GOP succeeds in eliminating the judicial filibuster the Democrats will use rule XIV in order to speed up legislation. This involves disregarding the tradition of letting the majority party set the agenda and pushing initiatives to a floor vote instead of letting them get held up in committe. Explain to me how this is holding up government. But meanwhile, the NYT can say what it wants and do FOX News' job for them. However, for me, between the Republican and the mock Republican, I'll take the Republican.

Wimpy

I'll break your filibuster on Tuesday.

Don't Believe the Hype

This is supposed to be good news?

The Labor Department said the economy added 274,000 jobs outside the farming sector in April, the fifth-largest gain in five years. Wall Street had expected an increase of 174,000 jobs, according to a survey by Bloomberg News.

Bulls are trying to use one month's probably outlier data to support their theory that the economy is doing fine. Look, stupids, it's not. The Fed is going to keep tightening rates which will put a damper on business. But the other culprit is corporate America, which has not been investing with its profits; it's been kicking them back to investors in the form of dividend payments and share buybacks. Yet the NYT describes the situation as:

the increased hiring hints that the economic slowdown reflected in other recent data may be no more than a pause.

I don't know where this reporter pulled that idea from, or if she has any background in economics, but anyone actually following the economy knows this to be an untruth. The rest of the article continues on in equally rosy language about the entire economy, disregarding every single bit of evidence contrary to this.

What is even more annoying in this type of economics reporting is the seeming market worship. The market has become people's new god and cult. They assume that the market will wreak what it will, and damned be the causes of what happens. There was not any analysis in that entire article as to what is really going on in the economy that would have sparked an outlier like that. People assume that the market will always yield the most favorable and natural outcome for all, but that is blatantly not true.

Get Out of Jail Free

Great.

The judge, Col. James L. Pohl, ordered the mistrial after Pvt. Charles A. Graner Jr., testifying on behalf of Private England, his former lover, portrayed their handling of a leashed prisoner as legitimate, contradicting her sworn admission of guilt and said she had acted at his request in helping to remove an obstructive prisoner from his cell.

Now no one in any sort of ranking position is going to pay for torture. YAY FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!

Carter

the unstoppable energy machine.

Yeah, we've regressed 30 years.

Mission Not Accomplished

Again,

A suicide bomber pretending to be a job seeker blew himself up outside a police recruitment center in the Kurdish provincial capital of Erbil today, killing at least 46 prospective policemen and wounding as many as 200 other people as insurgents pressed an all-out effort to destabilize Iraq's infant democratic government.

Keep up on these attacks because the national media is trying to sweep it under the rug, but we are not winning this war.

Doubletake

Remember this exchange in Bush's press conference?

QUESTION: Do you feel that the number of troops that you’ve kept there is limiting your options elsewhere in the world? …

BUSH: I appreciate that question.

The person I asked that to – the person I asked that to, at least, is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, my top military adviser.

I said, Do you feel that we’ve limited our capacity to deal with other problems because of our troop levels in Iraq? And the answer is no, he doesn’t feel we’re limited. He feels like we’ve got plenty of capacity.

You mentioned the Korean Peninsula. We’ve got good capacity in Korea.

Thinkprogress correctly points out Bush was lying through his teeth. But it's only getting hammered home even more now.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, informed Congress in a classified report that major combat operations elsewhere in the world, should they be necessary, would probably be more protracted and produce higher American and foreign civilian casualties because of the commitment of Pentagon resources in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It hasn't even been a week since the press conference, it's about time the media jumped on this. I think someone owes us an apology.

Citing Sources

This is the caption for a photo of Laura Bush at the WH correspondents' association dinner:

At the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, President Bush and Ron Hutcheson, the group's president, appreciated Laura Bush's wit.

The only wit Laura has is dimwit, wit's end, and twit. You know it's a speechwriter-the Times admits as much later on. I think it's about time that we had a bill making speechwriting illegal for political campaigns, that way we could really get a read on who the candidates are. Think Bush would have gotten elected without speechwriters? No. Reagan? No. Nixon? Come on. I know there's a strong current of anti-intellectualism in this country, but if you don't trust someone smarter than you to run things by counter-definition you must be dumb. These are also the people who believe in god and religion, so it's a pretty contradictory stance.

Note: I'm not really serious about banning speechwriters.

Well, half serious :P

canpaign

Why has no one ever campaigned on the grounds of a canpaign? I know it's corny, but it's exactly the message that the Democratic party needs to use to get out their message. Face it, Republican governance is creating a hypercapitalist oligarchic theocracy where our freedom becomes more and more limited with each passing day. We have the freedom to live in an ownership society where big business owns the poor, and the last time I checked that's the only real freedom Bush has been advocating in his policies and speeches. Otherwise he talks about spreading freedom around the world, but nothing on the domestic front.

Kos posted a few days ago that the Democratic party should try to sum up its positions and values with the phrase:

Democrats are the party for people who work for a living

It's not a bad idea, but I think the Democrats need to frame themselves as the party who really wants freedom, not just using it as a Macchiavellian tool to exploit cynical ends. Therefore, under Democratic governance, you CAN

have health insurance
have insurance for your later years (SS)
have freedom over your body
live in an environmentally healthy society
live in a society that is free from fear
afford to send your children to school
afford to not live your life in debt
make it in life by working hard

Under the GOP you CAN'T do a single one of these things. Let's take them to task because the Dems are the party of CAN and the Repubs are the party of CAN'T. Let's start canpaigning.