. Have the Courage to Follow Your Heart .

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“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

- Steve Jobs

Run, Liz, Run

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Elizabeth Warren. U.S. Senator.

I like the sound of that.

Don't have to live in Massachusetts to be enthusiastic about that.

Give 'em hell, Elizabeth.
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An argument can be made....

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A local Fargo ND newspaper "reporter" recites that phrase today as part of a cautionary opinion piece about the local union which has been locked out of work at American Crystal Sugar:

An argument can be made that the aggressive behavior of unions is why so many jobs have been shipped overseas.

Ironic really, coming—as the Forum staffer's opining does—in the same section as the editorial page editor's mocking column about the end-of-days caller who also had a totally self-selected spin on reality.

But in the spirit of the reporter's educating us rubes who didn't come by way of the Rust Belt or the Big Oil/Bible Belt, I have a few arguments that also can be made.

Yep. An argument can be made that the moon is made of green cheese.

And since we're talking about jobs and workers and lockouts and how workers oughta smarten up and take what's offered to them, here's another argument that can be made:

Workers should go back to working for room and board, and for the hours the managers want to assign them. Dark to dark is good. Oh, and family values urges we keep whole families out there working on those sugar beet piles like they used to work in the fields. An argument can be made.

Heck, while we're at it, there's no need for running water or electricity for those workers' homes ... all that electrification stuff, that's socialist, and we don't need socialism in this country. An argument can be made.

On the other hand, an argument can be made that the attitude the Forum reporter and the American Crystal manager espouse is what is killing the middle class ... and has been since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and unions discovered what happens when unions cave and break ranks. Michael Moore's making that argument.

And there's one more argument that can be made: standing on the sidelines can't be an option anymore. We're all in this country together, and there are those first three words. We, the people. We each must participate or we get the government, we get the leadership, we get the community we deserve.

So. An argument can be made that as a responsible member of my community who sees injustice in action in the American Crystal lockout, I must choose to boycott the brand.

And yes, I am. While American Crystal chooses to lockout, I choose to leave out American Crystal from my shopping list.
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crossposted at firedoglake/MyFDL
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Caregiving vs. gimme, gimme.

The forces of selfishness and greed and mindless authoritarianism have got their heels dug in and their arms crossed and their brains switched to "off."

To heck with fairness and balance and entitlements and earmarks and government and ....

Enough.

Just raise the debt ceiling. No frills, no fuss, no foney-baloney. Stop acting like spoiled toddlers.

Enough.

Local Color

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Cruising my hometown newspaper from a distance this morning, I came across a cliched expression of moral outrage about Anthony Weiner. More specifically, about Nancy Pelosi's refusal to yell "off with his head." [sorry, couldn't resist.]

I commented, but it being the Fargo Forum with a longstanding Republican bias, I don't expect my comment to get thru moderation. I'll be pleasantly surprised. Just in case, here it is:

People who live in glass houses…. David Vitter and diapers and prostitutes. Republican Senator.
Mark Foley and underage pages. Republican Representative.
Chris Lee and craigslist ads for transsexuals. Republican Representative.
Newt Gingrich and infidelity in the House parking ramp and dumping two wives with cancer. Republican. Speaker of the House. Presidential candidate.
Mary Bono Mack and the breast licker being investigated by the FBI. Republican Representative.
John Ensign and the predatory stalking and coerced sex with his best friend’s wife and payoff after. Republican Senator.
Larry Craig. Minneapolis men’s room stall toe tapper. Republican Senator.
And John Boehner. We’ll see how that goes….
The problem with pointing a finger is there’s always more pointing back at you.

Thing is, when either side demands the resignation of an opposing elected official, without consistently demanding the resignation of one of their own, then the same ol' same ol' continues. When the cronies protect their own ... And when the voters stand pat and just vote their party line, then we all deserve what we get.

We need grown-ups. Not coverups. For that reason alone, Anthony Weiner should resign. As should David Vitter. And Tom Coburn. And Charlie Rangel.

UPDATE at 6 p.m.: Call me pleasantly surprised: The blog monitor at the Forum's Area Voices did not censor my comment. And call me so not-surprised: The original blog-poster retorted with the predictable oh-yeah, so-are-Dems....

In the good ol' summertime.... here we are again, media-obsessed with a salacious story. Go read Joe Nocera in today's New York Times. That's a pleasant surprise, too. In the Rich-Herbertless NYT, someone to look forward to reading.

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Jobs Crisis

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No, I do not care about Sarah Palin's emails.
I do not care about Anthony Weiner's penis.

I care about jobs.

Work matters.

I believe I will start working to fire incumbents. Until they catch fire and start doing their jobs to put Americans back to work, everybody in The Village should feel the fear Americans feel ... about losing their jobs, finding a job, facing the bleak future.

Mitch McConnell and John Boehner may think obstruction and filibusters are the way to get back into power, but, hey, guys... your team are incumbents, too. And if I were the O'Bama team, I'd be running on what's actually been accomplished even as the Rethugs all tried to handicap and handcuff the President at every turn. Gulliver and the Lilliputians comes to mind.

Of course, that Republican Navy Seal's comments pro Obama on the Daily Show didn't hurt, either.

But we're on short time now to the 2012 election. Everyone who is an incumbent should be mindful that everyone in this country is only one day away from unemployment. Everyone.

See you at the ballot box.... All of you.
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Still Waiting....

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Muscular liberalism.

Muscular Liberalism

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That heading's a phrase I heard a Brit politician use on the occasion of the first anniversary of the coalition government.

Looking forward to when our American politicians start thinking ... and legislating ... that way.
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crossposted at firedoglake/MyFDL

Launch Monday

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President Obama launches his re-election campaign today.
Laura Bush is Todaying her book tour.
Tim Pawlenty is pushing his inner Mad Men.

So I've got a couple questions.

How much delay in the Mideast democracy movement was because of Bush's willful invasion and botched strategy for after in Iraq? The intelligence was not wrong. The intelligence-manipulators were.

When will the old media start looking at the botched economy Pawlenty left behind in Minnesota?

Must we wait for the historians?

crossposted at firedoglake/MyFDL

"I Refused to Allow a Massacre..."

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Now if he were just talking about the GOP war on America's middle class and workers and the jobless and the seniors and the children's education here in America, too.
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Judgement at Concordia

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Last night I attended a National Book Award event at a local college, featuring John Dower, a Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author who has written Cultures of War, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq. He discussed the parallels in "shock and awe" tactics and the strategic imbecility of having no backup plan...after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, after America invaded Iraq.

Dower commented that one of the greatest tragedies of the failure to hold hearings or any kind of "conversation" much less trials about Iraq is that the complete record is likely lost to history. Unlike the record we have from Nuremberg and Tokyo.

Instead we have Rumsfeldian revisionism that will only get worse, I'm thinking. No wonder Dubya mocked the historians. Although, even with the limited record of leakers and piecing together what was on the record yet willfully ignored by the groupthink of the men who made these decisions with Mad Mary hovering over them [I will never get that iconic picture scrubbed from my brain!], judgements are being made. And Dubya's not dead yet.

Invading Iraq -- one of the most colossal failures in strategic thinking in global and military history.

The pullers of the levers of power may want to deny it, to cover it up, to leave it in the dustbin, to not contemplate their own culpability. The media may go along because their own colossal failure to do their jobs, instead, to enable, to steno the run-up to war would be revealed, as well. The incestuous little village may want to keep its tidy little salons free of such petty annoyances as accountability. Starting with looking at their own bare faces in the mirror. And thus, the lesson of history could be lost to future generations

Heckuva job, Bushie.

Unless.

Unless there are men and women of honor and courage and a sense of history as well as right and wrong who will one by one come forward and place their testimony, their documents, on the record.

Failing that, this truly will be a failure of "intelligence."
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crossposted at firedoglake/MyFDL

R.I.P. Warren Christopher

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Homegrown North Dakota, was Warren Christopher. A citizen who moved on while doing us proud.

Rest in Peace, Warren Christopher.
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Hey, John Boehner....

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Remember those schoolkids you get too teared-up to visit?

They're living in poverty these days, they tell us on 60 Minutes. They're living in cars and cheap hotels and the spare rooms of their neighbors and in shelters. They're dropping out of school to try to help their unemployed parents pay the bills. They're seeing their Playstations and Barbie dolls get sold for storage fees. Too soon, one in four will be a child in poverty....

They're blaming themselves, these kids, for the fate of their family.

I blame you.

Sometimes a kid's American dream is as simple as a home.
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crossposted at firedoglake/MyFDL

Conrad Retiring

MSNBC is reporting that Kent Conrad will announce he's not running for re-election in 2012.

Hmmmm. Anybody heard Bud Selig's plans lately?

Quote for every day

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‎"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. " ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

h/t to Mary on FB for the reminder.

Gettin' It Done

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While Bloomie and Christie were whining from their elitist perches during the blizzard, Cory Booker was getting it done for his constituents in Newark.

I'm saving this commentary on Hypocrisy he's written for HuffPost, because—given the speed with which the bullpucky spin's already rising in DeeCee—I've a hunch I'm going to need to go back to it for clear-eyed vision from time to time this year.

Booker's writing about health and hypocrisy, but his message transcends carbs of sugar. Take heed.
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