Prairie Sun Rising

. Have the Courage to Follow Your Heart .

2011-10-05T20:48:00.003-05:00

“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

2011-08-11T21:13:00.001-05:00

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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....

2011-08-07T18:16:00.007-05:00

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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.

2011-07-26T18:26:00.003-05:00

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

2011-06-11T09:59:00.005-05:00

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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

2011-06-10T08:08:00.005-05:00

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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....

2011-06-03T22:21:00.001-05:00

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Muscular liberalism.

Muscular Liberalism

2011-05-14T15:38:00.004-05:00

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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

2011-04-04T08:34:00.004-05:00

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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..."

2011-03-29T15:22:00.005-05:00

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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

2011-03-25T09:05:00.006-05:00

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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

2011-03-19T08:55:00.003-05:00

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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....

2011-03-06T18:23:00.007-06:00

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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

2011-01-18T08:54:00.003-06:00

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

2011-01-17T15:33:00.001-06:00

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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

2011-01-04T14:52:00.003-06:00

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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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Happy New Year

2010-12-31T08:43:00.002-06:00

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Mother Nature's having the last word on 2010 in prairie country. A good time to stay in, stay warm, stay safe.

May your New Year get better!
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Season of Peace Wishes

2010-12-24T09:57:00.001-06:00

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However you celebrate or don't this holiday season, good will wishes to you for peace on earth...and in nations...and in homes...and in hearts.
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Hoary Old Chestnuts Roasting....

2010-12-15T18:49:00.005-06:00

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On Hardball Wednesday, the discussion turned to education, and Salon's Joan Walsh pointed out that John Boehner's sad, sad tears about children mean nothing compared to the lack of action and effort by Boehner to actually improve the lives of children. Right on cue, Michelle Bernard trotted out yet again the magic word of conservative ideologues everywhere: vouchers.

Please.

What good's a voucher going to do for a poor kid whose tuition would be thousands of dollars more than the value of a voucher? What good's a voucher going to do when the next nearest school to the rural combined school is twenty miles away on country highways covered with ice and snow this year.

Walsh had it right. Vouchers are a panacea. The typical grab-a-buzz-word tactic of the right. Shallow. Clipped. About as much value as my spaniel's toenails.

So maybe Boehner ought to dry his poor-poor-me-I-have-to-see-what-I-should-be-doing tears. Pack away the golf clubs and the country club memberships. Visit schools every single week.

And Michelle Bernard. Maybe she ought to chip her manicure a bit by going into a DC school with a paintbrush.

Teachers unions aren't the problem, as follow-up guest Michelle Rhee noted. They're doing their job. It's the rest of us that aren't doing ours.

So to Boehner and Bernard and the ideologues on the right, how about taking in a holiday movie this Christmas season. Waiting for Superman.

Education means all the kids...fix the problems. Don't just divide and favor the vouchered few.
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crossposted at firedoglake/MyFDL

RIP Elizabeth Edwards

2010-12-07T16:12:00.002-06:00

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Elizabeth Edwards long journey and challenges are now over. May she rest in peace.

If the dogs in the media will let her.

Yes, I'm talking about you, Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd. Your disgusting on-air trashing of this woman when her death was just confirmed is beyond loathesome. And will not be forgotten by this former viewer.
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ISAIAH Summit in Minnesota

2010-12-06T09:26:00.006-06:00

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To know just how much Republican Tom Emmer cares about being governor and actually, you know, governing, just one word: ISAIAH.

The recount stall campaign now in progress in Minnesota has absolutely less than zero credibility when you look at Tom Emmer's reaction to ISAIAH.

He and Mark Dayton were both invited to the ISAIAH summit, Shining the Light, a Faith Gathering for Minnesota's Future. Inviting both to the Sunday, December 5 event was covering the bases, as one organizer put it.

Mark Dayton attended.

Tom Emmer never responded.

Meanwhile, the Republican-slanted Minnesota media types are still pretending this is a serious recount, not just more of the same ol' same ol' from the party of craven thuggery.
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h/t MPR news
crossposted at firedoglake/MyFDL

North Dakota: We're Number 1

2010-12-01T17:03:00.005-06:00

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For years we've had Congressman Earl Pomeroy [D-ND] working himself to exhaustion to bring home the bacon for our state. Flood mitigation funds, investments in technology and agriculture, highways, you name it, if it was good for North Dakota, Earl worked his ass off for it. Was on the front lines, too. From his multiple trips to visit our troops in Afghanistan to standing on the riverbanks hefting sandbags right along with his neighbors.

Pomeroy’s requests targeted key priorities such as education, research, technology, the state’s Air Force bases in Minot and Grand Forks and flood control projects in the Red River Valley.

Meanwhile, Rick Berg was nowhere to be seen--except hiding out behind closed doors with John Boehner at exclusive fundraisers.

Then came the election.

And the red tide of megaspending against Pomeroy and for his opponent Rick Berg flooded the airwaves. Like the Red River may be flooding Fargo and North Dakota again next spring.

Pomeroy was swept out of office.

And look at what we got ourselves. We're still number 1 -- our newly elected almost Congressman shows up as Number One on the list of wealthiest new Congressmen, according to Politico:

Richard Berg, who unseated North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy, appears to be the wealthiest newly elected Republican, with assets above $20 million.

The Republican freshmen will have plenty of company in the millionaires club in Congress.

While Earl worked for we in ND, Berg was all about "me, me, me..."

Brace yourselves. And stock up on your sandbags.
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h/t Voice of Dakota
crossposted at firedoglake/My FDL

Zbig and I Are Wondering

2010-11-30T10:25:00.004-06:00

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Could it be?

As Josh notes, Zbigniew Brezezinski (I think it's time I learned to spell that name correctly. I have a hunch we'll be seeing more of ....Zbigniew Brzezinski) posited to Judy Woodruff on Newshour the same question I recently raised about the real source of the Wikileaks drop.

I know, I was being snarky when I wrote this:

There’s an Internet rumor that the Wikileaks leaker is not that kid, he’s just a strawman for the real Leakers, the reincarnated Iraq Study Group, out to force an Iran attack and total undermining of the new Gandhi in the WH.

Some say. It must be so. It’s out there. Right, Cokie?

But now I'm starting to wonder. Hmmmmmmmm.

Maybe Billo ought not be so quick to call for executions.
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crossposted at firedoglake

Connecticut for Toady

2010-11-29T16:36:00.005-06:00

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Having declared his undying love for all things Rupert Murdoch, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman foreshadows his campaign strategy for 2012: Sucking up. Why deal with the middle men, the best Congress money can buy, Republican party which some say is his only hope for re-election.

Having watched Rupert's largesse in 2010 [right, John Kasich?... and thanks a lot, Roberts rightwingcourt], Joe is doubtless busily lining up and counting his chickens....

So why not go right to the spigot and firmly attach your mouth to it.

Watch for it. The imminent announcement from Feckless Joe: Senate candidate of the Connecticut for Toady Party. Coming soon to a Fox program announcement near you.
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Turkey

2010-11-25T22:06:00.000-06:00

May the only turkey in your life be the one on your platter.

Dunce of the Year

2010-11-23T08:20:00.003-06:00

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Motor Trend magazine names its Car of the Year winner: Chevy Volt.

And de facto names Dunce of the Year.
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Prairie Recommends: Froomkin on Bush Lies

2010-11-22T09:20:00.004-06:00

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Dan Froomkin lays out with potent force the craven lies of George W Bush — and those who go along to get along. His The Two Most Essential, Abhorrent, Intolerable Lies Of George W. Bush's Memoir is must reading.

As I reflected in an HP comment,
Having recently toured the Paris Holocaust Museum, it is fresh in my mind how ready nations and people are to deny their own history. Until that history is confronted and acknowledged, there is no honor in the country nor the man. It took until Chirac in France. How long will it take us?

Or will our dumbed-down America keep its blinders on because gosh darn, the boy's done a good job of selling the book, cite GHWB.
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Reads Frank Rich...

2010-11-20T22:01:00.001-06:00

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Prairie pokes her head out.

Reads Frank Rich's Sunday column

Could She Reach the Top in 2012? You Betcha

Decides Rich stopped one step before the real top she can reach.

Pukes.

Goes back into hiding.

Timeout

2010-11-14T22:01:00.002-06:00

Health Care Plus

2010-10-27T21:51:00.007-05:00

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It's a little blustery in Prairie Country these days. A lot of hot air coming out of the special interests on the right, and the RPMs [Republican Propaganda Machine], as they try to enshrine their candidate in North Dakota's only seat in the House side of Congress.

Rick Berg's been as elusive as Sharron Angle, and that Nazi dresser in Ohio that John Boehner's meeting up with at country Republican headquarters in Ohio to promote. Funny, he sneaked in and out of Fargo for Berg. Is this the best we can do?

One of the biggest lies has been about health care reform. So it's refreshing to see plainspoken North Dakotans who are our caregivers and healers speaking with gentle grace against the screaming hordes of Republican distortion.

Give a listen. And then, vote Dem. Because elections have consequences.

And you can judge a man by the company he keeps.
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Mean Girls League New Plebe

2010-10-20T10:59:00.003-05:00

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Obviously since that lawyer apologized to Chee-knee for getting in the way of his "pepper" spray the rightwing thinks they can always demand victims apologize.

Anita Hill's dignity and grace in handling this once-again sexual harrassment tactic perpetrated by the pathetic Virginia Thomas trying to pass muster with the Mean Girls League shows the difference between the women and the girls.

This is only the latest variation on the "man up" theme, this time taunted by Clarence Thomas' teabaggin' wife.

There's only one response for the mean girls' "man up" in all its forms. That's "grow up."

Anita Hill has shown how a grown-up acts all the way through this sorry episode. While the Republican males hide behind their teabaggin' mean girls. And the bichacuda tactics are oh, so jr. high.
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crossposted at firedoglake/ The Seminal

Learning from the Protests of France

2010-10-19T14:39:00.006-05:00

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There's a bit of an uproar in Paris these days. What with the flying rumors of threats from Al Qaeda in Yemen. And then there's that second-volcano-in-Iceland that was supposed to happen following past models, spewing ash hither and yon for weeks.

But what poked through my hectic, multi-layered life these days is the protests against raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. The shallow thinker might say, hey, what are they whining about? We're going from 65 to 67 to .......

It took the students to get me to thinking.

The more countries raise retirement age, the more they strangle the job prospects of students entering the work force.

Because big corporations have already outsourced a ginormous share of the job market. And the struggling economy and reduced buying power of middle class incomes have forced some seniors to work long beyond retirement age to pay their rising costs that don't show up in the COLA stats, while workers are downsized, laid off, early-retired, half-timed, part-timed, two-timed out of their previous standard of living.

And banksters on Wall Street have cynically, criminally, corruptly enriched themselves at the private trough while calling themselves masters of the universe.

So the current generation of American students and recent grads are already facing the fate the French students protest.

Unless we make election day our firewall — because as frustrating as the pace of change is for some of us, the alternative is more of the de-peopleing of democracy, the Constitution, and this country.

But rather than take to the streets, I hope America's students and all the rest of us* will take to the ballot box. I'm counting on you. And so are my grandkids comin' up behind....
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* Yes, I have voted already.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Extremis

2010-10-10T14:51:00.003-05:00

'cause the autumn colors are quickly fading and the election's looming... and just for today I'm going out to the garden and kick up some leaves....

Totally snipped from ThinkProgress—snip for yourself and carry along for any Fox RPM'd TEA-sheep you may run into between now and Election Day:

"Lest there be any confusion about what positions GOP candidates are allowed to embrace, ThinkProgress is happy to provide this handy chart explaining which stances the GOP does and does not view as too extreme:

Interesting, that is, If you're a competent journal

2010-10-09T16:01:00.003-05:00

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So the foreign money into the Chamber coffers story is "out there" but neither the Post nor the Times gets it right, says Think Progress.

At this point, we take a brief timeout for the timeworn aphorism about the person whose paycheck depends on his ignorance....

To which we add,willful ignorance is bliss until your deniability is so pathetically laughable that it strains what little credulity ye olde trad med crumbling pillars have left.
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Oh, and, thanks oodles, Justice Kennedy.
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Foreign Interesting

2010-10-05T13:48:00.004-05:00

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Questions have arisen.

Is Osama bin Laden trying to blow a smokescreen, change the subject, by ratcheting up terrorism gossip?

Is he reeeeeeaaaaalllly, secretly funding the US Chamber of Commerce's campaign against Democratic candidates?

It's "out there." Right, Cokie?
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crossposted at firedoglake/The Seminal

We Know Earl

2010-10-02T18:37:00.004-05:00

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North Dakota has only one Congressional District and our population's pretty small, so 'most all of us know our Congressman, Earl Pomeroy. And he's under assault this election season, by the Republican Party and the Big Oil special interests out of Texas who are the deep pockets on the Republican side this year.

But his opponent has a 26-year state legislative record of his own. And it's not pretty.

The supporters of Pomeroy are determined to do everything possible to get out the vote for Earl. After all, as my daughter says, in this op-ed in the Grand Forks Herald, we've all known Earl and his love of his state and people. It's what drives him.

And the feeling's mutual.
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New York Times article on the fluid House races, including ND

Please Vote

2010-09-28T21:00:00.003-05:00

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what Digby says.

Never goes out of date.
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And Ah-nold wasn't half bad either, today.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As Californie goes, so go we all....
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Go Read C&L Today

2010-09-27T11:39:00.002-05:00

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Must reading at Crooks and Liars this Monday morning.

On Joe Miller, Shades of Gordon Kahl or Tim McVeigh goes to Washington....

And on the cheapidute/greeditude of Ben Stein properly smacked down.
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Lesser Fargo-Moorhead Chamber Lurch to the Right

2010-09-17T15:17:00.007-05:00

The following is a letter to the editor I've sent online to my local newspaper, The Forum in Fargo. I'll let you know if it sees the light of print.... because It — The Mainstreaming of Radicalism — Can't Happen Here ... until it does:
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They bill themselves as Greater Fargo Moorhead's Chamber of Commerce, but the actions of the Chamber this past year contradict that "greater." The Chamber's decision last December to announce the hiring of an executive director, Craig Whitney, whose main claim to fame was working for the hapless former vice president, Dan Quayle, signalled the Chamber's eagerness to dive into the cesspool of divisive and partisan rightwing politics.

Fast forward a few months and Whitney announces the Chamber's new "Voices of Vision" speakers series [The Forum, Thursday, Sept. 16), featuring "world thought leaders and cutting edge business visionaries." Who do they pick to exemplify that? Disgraced military merchant of arms to Iran, convicted felon for his involvement in Iran-Contra, longtime spewer of venomous hate on rightwing talk radio, Oliver North.

The man who hid behind his military uniform as he bald-faced lied to the U.S. Congress.

That's the part Craig Whitney wants to airbrush. Hopes you've forgotten. Or thinks you don't care about. Calling North a prime example and fitting person to launch the [Vision] series to honor individuals who personify the chamber's mission to unify and advance business interests is like calling the serpent in the garden a nice little marketer of apples.

While the radical rightwing makes inroads throughout mainstream Republican circles and too many who call themselves moderate Republicans cave to their thuggery, Whitney is leading the Chamber down the same road. As a small business owner and former active member of the Fargo Chamber, put me on record as saying shame. This twisting of history and attempt to airbrush the disgraceful record of Oliver North and hold him up as a model of excellence says much about both Craig Whitney and the Chamber that hired him.

Voices of Vision? Divisive dystopian nightmare, more like.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Impotent, Limp and Gutless

2010-09-02T15:08:00.002-05:00

No mother gives birth planning to hand her child over to her country, but I gave birth to a combat vet.

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. You gave birth to a juvenile delinquent who had to join the military or go to jail. Just part of the dysfunction of the Palin family on parade. Which you are quick to use to your own self-aggrandizement.

Let's get the context real.

And whazzup with your obsession with penis references? Impotent? Limp?

Really?

Sarah likes to punch hot buttons. And word in the Vanity Fair October issue is, she likes to punch hot buttons offstage, too.

Some say Todd is henpecked, and others see him as the heavy. One person who has been a frequent houseguest of the Palins’ says that the couple began many mornings with screaming fights, a fusillade of curses: “ ‘Fuck you,’ ‘Fuck this,’ ‘You lazy piece of shit.’ ‘You’re fuckin’ lucky to have me,’ Sarah would always say.” (This person never saw Todd and Sarah sleep in the same bed, and recalls that Todd would often joke, “I don’t know how she ever gets pregnant.”) Whatever the nature of the relationship, Todd is now as much a part of Sarah as Hillary Clinton is of Bill. Whether they like it or not, the Palins, like the Clintons, are probably stuck with each other.

And tell people that she has the power to ruin them.

Palin’s former personal assistants all refused to comment on the record for this story, some citing a fear of reprisal. Others who have worked with Palin recall that, when she feels threatened, she does not hesitate to wield some version of a signature threat: “I have the power to ruin you.”

Ruin may start right within the Palin household itself. Where, according to VF, the mother-of-the-combat-vet isn't exactly candidate for parent of the year [tho heaven knows there's bound to be some rightwing ~~group~~ cynical political heavy out there priming that, as well]

There’s a general consensus in town that, at least since the start of the 2008 campaign, Todd has been shouldering the bulk of the parenting and that Sarah’s relationship with her children has grown more distant. The children did not, as Sarah has claimed, have a chance to weigh in on her decision to run for vice president. She did not even deliver the news to them personally; as has been reported, she asked McCain’s campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, to do it for her.

Sarah, your inner Evita is showing. And I bet you've tried out that impotent, limp and gutless line on the First Dude many a time.

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crossposted at firedoglake The Seminal

History, Simpson Style

2010-09-01T09:31:00.002-05:00

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First they came for the immigrants,
And then they came for the Moslems,
And then they came for the food stamp families,
And then they came for the seniors,
And then they came for the vets,

And…. startin’ to get down there, now isn’t it?
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Question of Today: Business Model?

2010-08-18T08:38:00.002-05:00

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If Big Business demands tax cuts and bailouts and loopholes and outsourcing to feed its hungry greedy maw, destroying [the buying power of] the Middle Class in the process, how is that a successful business model?
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Global Warming? It's Already Here

2010-08-12T16:05:00.005-05:00

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Those who pooh-pooh that global warming is a certainty in our future, take note.

It's already here.

In the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. The land of tall pines. A blowdown in 1999 took out huge swaths of those pines. And instead of growing back, trees like red maples are springing up.

The new north woods growing up to replace the millions of blown down trees isn't really a north woods at all but something more akin to the grassland savannahs farther south. Indeed, over the last decade or so, the blowdown has become a giant laboratory for measuring the ecological effects of a warming climate and the role humans are playing in accelerating the change.

Look around your own hometown. I'll bet you'll find changes there, already, too. Or keep your head in the sand and listen to Rush. Yeah, that'll work.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Franken on Net Neutrality

2010-08-05T09:54:00.003-05:00

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Must reading...Senator Franken's op-ed at the cnn.com website.

Our free speech rights are under assault -- not from the government but from corporations seeking to control the flow of information in America.

If that scares you as much as it scares me, then you need to care about net neutrality.

"Net neutrality" sounds arcane, but it's fundamental to free speech. The internet today is an open marketplace. If you have a product, you can sell it. If you have an opinion, you can blog about it. If you have an idea, you can share it with the world.

And no matter who you are -- a corporation selling a new widget, a senator making a political argument or just a Minnesotan sharing a funny cat video -- you have equal access to that marketplace.

Until you don't.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Timeout from Target

2010-07-28T15:08:00.005-05:00

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It's a busy summer. It would be so easy to let this one slide. Except....

I've been a sizeable consumer at Target. And I spend many a weekend in Minnesota. Even think of retiring there one day. Someplace where the grandkids can come visit and their grandma can hold her head up with pride.

Because it ain't easy to fold up the red bulls-eye canvas bag and the white bullseye red thermal bag and take my dollars elsewhere. But I've done it. I'm taking a Timeout from Target.

As I commented over at Huffington Post:

Emmer/Pawlenty/Minnesota Republican policies aren't just anti-gay. They are anti-worker, anti-public education, anti-rural, anti-small town Main Street business, and, may I add, anti-lakeshore. The tax burden on mom-and-pop resort owners is horrific these days. Pawlenty built his reputation by cutting state taxes, shifting the burden on property taxes in counties, small towns and townships. And Emmer will do more of the same.

Frauds, the both of 'em. And shame on Target's new aristocracy for funding their politics and gouging.

That's why I've taken a Timeout on Target.

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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Southern Strategy for Dems

2010-07-25T08:52:00.003-05:00

Maureen Dowd is on to something....
[no, I didn't mean to write MD is on something...hush, now....]

She suggests that Shirley Sherrod should be in charge of black outreach for the White House.

That doesn't go far enough. There should be only two job offers Shirley Sherrod should be considering. And neither one is at the USDA.

Either at the White House or at the DNC, Shirley Sherrod should be in charge of working class development. Arguably we need black outreach...hispanic, Asian, Native American, anyone?

But even more, we need a crystal-clear voice to reach out to all the disenfranchised, and that includes the white working class. Ms. Sherrod gives the most powerful testimony we've heard lately of who is actually working against the interests of both black and white. And who has climbed over the walls of hate and division to make things better for everyone.

Her history lesson of how blacks and whites both worked through servitude side-by-side, intermarrying, getting by, until the powerful elites institutionalized division and racism is a compelling reminder of the power of education. Know your history. Know your nation's history. Seek truth for yourself, don't just rely on screeching heads.

White House, DNC? Do you care? Do you care more than the minority leader of the House who doesn't even know whether his own two brothers have found jobs yet?

We are all brothers. And one sister has shown us a powerful pathway to making sure both white and black can enjoy and aspire to the best of America, not the hate and division.

Now that's a "Southern Strategy" that folks can believe in.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Rich Raging

2010-07-24T20:33:00.006-05:00

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Frank Rich opines on the sorry reaction to the smearing of Shirley Sherrod.

Maybe Frank gets together with these guys for tea and crumpets from time to time. But it's long past time to recognize that this situation, this evil, persists because too many in the media, too many in the political elite, treat the Breitbarts and Limbaughs and Drudges as some amusing little theatre.

Yet incidents of violence are on the rise, threats of danger are on the rise. Who will own the tragedy now foreshadowing?

Who will look in the mirror honestly and admit the false equivalencies, the ginning-up, the "it's out there" level of danger growing within? Beck? O'Reilly? Ailes? Murdoch? Armey? McConnell? Bachmann? Angle? Palin? Erickson? The numbers are legion.

The willful blinders shamefully obvious. The enabling media equally so.

The Breitbarts never change. The evil oozes out of them like fetid slime, spreading fear, hate, division. The wonder is that so many, still, whitewash the full depth of what they do.

White sheets...too easy to crawl between 'em and close your eyes.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Media Fail

2010-07-22T10:43:00.001-05:00

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Be sure to read Josh Marshall this morning on the—my word would be "appalling"—lack of reporting during and after this sorry episode [of trashing Shirley Sherrod] from the millionaire sheep media's club about the true villains of the case: Andrew Breitbart and the execrable Fox Empire.

Unlike Rick Sanchez yesterday, I cut no slack for any "newsers" inside Fox...or outside for that matter. Those who take Rupert's paycheck wear the same sh*tty overcoat. Those who schmooze with Rupert and Roger in the salons in polite Village society, no slack either. Roger Ailes is the unspoken in the punchbowl.
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crossposted in comments at firedoglake's The Seminal

A Rosa Parks Moment

2010-07-21T18:16:00.005-05:00

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When Andrew Breitbart and the Fox Empire of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes launched their smear and destroy campaign against Shirley Sherrod, she did something none of the politicians, none of the aides, none of the chattering class in the enabling millionaire sheep media of The Village had the dignity, the honor, the courage to do.

She said, "enough."

And she said it with a quiet character that put to shame all the screechers and bloviators and rightwing echo chamber and quavering political class and self-important media types who were first knee-jerk demanding her head and then scrambling to point fingers at the White House for throwing her under the bus.

Maybe so.

But Andrew Breitbart and the rightwing screed machine are the bus drivers.

And Shirley Sherrod was the woman who refused to go to the back, sit down, shut up and be abused.

As much as the words of her speech—in its entirety, where she gives a pointed history lesson on how race baiting and division came to be and how it still poisons the most vulnerable among us—as much as her words are a teachable moment....

Even more so is her quiet refusal to give the white-sheet right wing power over her. Her father was murdered by the Klan, her anger would have been justified, understood. But she rose above the rabble on the right.

I'm hoping that's what Tom Vilsack sees in this moment. This is more than a woman fighting for her job.

Some are likening this to Harper Lee's powerful To Kill a Mockingbird, and it's hard not to totally agree regarding my lifetime favorite book. But I think another's story applies more strongly here.

This is a Rosa Parks moment. And I think Rosa would be proud. As the granddaughter of a German immigrant who endured indentured servitude to be an American, I know I am proud of Shirley Sherrod.

She understands my family story as much as her own.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Sister Shirley

2010-07-20T14:31:00.001-05:00

Hi-tech lynching, indeed.

What digby said.
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Parliamentary, My Dear...

2010-07-19T16:27:00.005-05:00

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Sylla-bull. Don't need more than one...
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Finally. Finally the President took the gloves off and called out Senate Republicans for their obstruction of unemployment benefits extension.

What the heck took so long?

And I don't mean to quibble (it's a word, Sarah, look it up...), but is there nobody on the O'speech team who gets the importance of the plainspoken phrase?

Parliamentary maneuvers, my patootie. If you can't bring yourself to call 'em tricks, Mr. President, how about gimmicks?

That's not dumbing-down, that's speaking-plain. And I'll settle for that over speaking-Palin any day.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

North Dakota Today...The Finger

2010-07-07T19:27:00.009-05:00

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In the offices of the North Dakota Public Service Commission (all three commissioners are Republicans), a poster of a 7-year-old girl giving Obama the finger.

According to North Dakota Public Service Commissioner and Republican lifetime hack Kevin Cramer, while the poster hanging in the hall of the Commission's offices of a 7-year-old girl giving President Obama the finger is "distasteful" and "inappropriate," it's really a freedom of speech issue.

State Dem-NPL Chair Mark Schneider has it right: these are not the Republican party's offices, these are the people of North Dakota's offices.

It's not the only anti-Obama poster, either, in the offices where three Republican Commissioners hold sway. And the fratboy conduct of the office that determines all the energy issues for the state is only the latest in a parade of examples of questionable ethics and misconduct/incompetence and cover-up by Republican officeholders and their cronies.

Another of the commissioners, Tony Clark, actually proposed a few days ago to take over the Republican state chairmanship while sitting on the PSC. Let's see, I'm fundraising for the Republicans while I'm voting on your leases and licenses and rate increases. Nah, no conflict there....

Big dollars are flowing into the pockets of those Republican officeholders and candidates these days from Big Oil and Big Energy. North Dakota, some would say, is in an enviable position with budget surplus and low unemployment and energy to, well, burn.

But decades of one-party rule in Bismarck are taking their toll. And this year we're seeing the effects of that, from failed infrastructure in oil country to a governor so busy running for the Senate seat currently held by Byron Dorgan he can't be bothered to actually govern... to.... posters in the public offices of the North Dakota Public Service Commission.

So, Mr. Cramer, I beg to differ. This is not a free speech issue. It is craven ~~exploitation~~ whoring-out of a seven-year-old child.

You'd think they'd finally have some shame.

Or not.
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Contribute to Democratic candidate against Kevin Cramer, a strong-credentialed candidate by the way, here: Brad Crabtree for PSC

crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Beaver

2010-07-05T23:00:00.001-05:00

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Sometimes the headlines, they write themselves....

Some Bemidji beaver artists cloak their sculptures in show of solidarity with artist whose beaver was removed

Great

2010-07-04T15:10:00.004-05:00

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Those of us born and reared in North Dakota don't need Newsweek to tell us this is a great place. ~~Again.~~ Always.

But just in case you didn't know.

Great thanks are due to the tireless work of a North Dakota legendary Senator: Byron Dorgan.
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And hopefully Newsweek will find a buyer soon so they can hire themselves a fact-checker. They can start looking at the local campus of the renowned NDSU Bison in Fargo. Because we all know it's Karen, not Carole. And we coulda told you so...if you'd asked.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Fireworks

2010-07-01T19:50:00.002-05:00

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Lest we forget who pays the price for all the fireworks. And posturing.

can't embed the pic...don't miss it at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mumansky/2557100321/

When will we ever learn, indeed.
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Productive Pelosi

2010-06-26T11:10:00.002-05:00

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I'm with Gail Collins.

Give me one savvy productive Pelosi

over the whole swamp of puerile Palindom any day.
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Bogged Down

2010-06-19T16:00:00.007-05:00

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Don't worry, small people, your troubles are few.
The BP oil execs care about you. Truly. They do.

They said so at the White House. They said so on the Hill.
They said so at the microphone. What's this? There is a bill?

They think about you day by day
While they wile away

Their hours on their yachts
Contemplating neither nail nor cog.

Yachts named Bob that sail around the Wight
Leaving deepwater thoughts to another's plight

They lap up apologia from Joe and from Michele.
They jet deluxe not hike you know, pip pip and whatthehell.

For who would begrudge poor Tony's life
Doubtless with a charming wife.

Yet for all their naughts
The Gulf becomes the Bog.
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Crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal
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UPDATE: More on the matter of the burgeoning bog from Frank Rich. Another 9/11 demands action.
..

Twaddle

2010-06-16T10:32:00.002-05:00

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Tweedle dumb.

Tweedle dumber.
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The only chumps are those who still listen to...and vote for...these twits.
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Go, Tarryl.

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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Dear Calyfornuh...

2010-06-10T10:03:00.002-05:00

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Puh-lease, no.
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Please do not send Catty Carly Fiorina to the U.S. Senate.

Just because she's got hair issues—what's up with that fiddling with her own curls, anyway?—doesn't mean we want to have to put up with 'em, or her, for the next six years.

Please, California, make things left again.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Optics

2010-06-06T10:08:00.003-05:00

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We elected a grown-up.

He gets problems solved.

He works to pass challenging legislation.

But the media wants toddler temper tantrums.
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How do we unelect the media?
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Swaggering Simpleton

2010-06-04T07:31:00.003-05:00

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Dubya's admission raises nary a ripple in the mainshill media.

Media loves them some conflict, some say. But even war crimes are OIYAR.
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"Gone Fishing"

2010-05-31T21:12:00.001-05:00

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Tony Hayward. Chum.
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h/t Think Progress

'Randslide'

2010-05-22T19:46:00.003-05:00

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For now, it's the gimmicky word o'the day.

And the focus of plenty of media punditobabble. Frank Rich offers his take.

But the question is, will Randslide avalanche over the Dems? Or backfire on the Republicans and bury their corporatocracy once and for all?

Seems to me, if you can't even answer a straight question from Rachel Maddow, then the real Randslide is right into obscurity. Dr. Paul, your fifteen minutes are ticking....
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In a Blaze of Glory....

2010-05-13T20:28:00.001-05:00

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Don't you think for a minute that a son of the Dakota prairies (North, that is) will go quietly into retirement. Nosiree.

Way to go, Byron. Give 'em hell.
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Infowrestling

2010-05-10T19:40:00.003-05:00

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The announcement today of Elena Kagan's nomination for Justice on the Supreme Court was just the latest opportunity for the punditocracy to be unleashed like baying dogs upon we hapless teevee viewers who actually hold out hope for a bias toward facts and news on the cables instead of the seemingly ceaseless wallowing in partisan talking points.

I agree with Donna Brazile.

Meanwhile. Instead of running for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut, perhaps pro wrestling empresariesse Linda McMahon should spent her gazillion$$$$ on buying herself a cable "news" network. She'd fit right in.
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Rich.

2010-05-08T19:54:00.003-05:00

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Taking a poke at the eminently pokeworthy Washington press corps' preening selves.
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While Times Square played out virtually unreported.
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Maybe if they'd turned on the New Year's Eve balldrop....
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They R all Faux Snooze now.
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Community Banks Just Say...

2010-05-06T09:07:00.007-05:00

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When a community banker in North Dakota says banking status quo must end, when it's a lead op-ed piece in the state's largest daily, you gotta believe it gets noticed.

Financial reform must be passed into law. And I don't think it's a stretch to presume this banker means now, before North Dakota loses one of the most powerful progressive Democratic Senators to retirement.

Can do, Byron and Kent and Earl?
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UPDATE: And spare me the Beltway Conventional Wisdom that oooooh, boogah-boogah, we can't do [fill-in-the-blank] reform because too much is being done already, just because The Village Elders are still stuck back in the era of "can't spit and chew pretzels at the same time...."

It's out there now, Cokie.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

My Amendment's Better'n Yourn

2010-05-05T15:05:00.002-05:00

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NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg probably thought that if the loophole couldn't be closed now... Well, he probably never imagined, given The Incident in Times Square, that the loophole would not only not be closed, but would be protected by the likes of Lindsay Graham and Susan Collins.

Who would expect U.S. Senators to actually protect the rights of terrorists to buy arms? To selectively support one Amendment while trying to tear down the other? To be so, yes, anti-Constitutional. Anti-law enforcement.

Who's the fool who ever said the Republican party supports law enforcement? Pah!

Or, as commenter Zimzone over at ThinkProgress put it:

Shorter Graham:
We’ll take away your Constitutional rights on Miranda but not your Constitutional right to bear arms.
WTF?

WTF, indeed.
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Another Daily Question

2010-04-28T11:04:00.001-05:00

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What's the difference between Goldman Sachs and the Somali pirates?
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The size of their boats....
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Thought for Today

2010-04-27T15:50:00.001-05:00

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What's the difference between Goldman-Sachs and Bernie Madoff?
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Besides Bernie already being behind bars, I mean.
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Prairie Recommends: Eugene Robinson on AZ law

2010-04-27T08:07:00.003-05:00

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Vengeance is mine, sayeth the rightwing in Arizona... and Governor Brewer and Senator McCain giddyup go along to get along....

Eugene Robinson is must reading today (and when is he not....)
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Pull Up a Chair

2010-04-24T09:09:00.003-05:00

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This morning I've been guest-hosting the Pull Up a Chair thread over at Firedoglake. Here's the link. You, too, can contemplate your inner migrant....

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Lesson Not Learned....

2010-04-20T19:24:00.002-05:00

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In Arizona.
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Pastor Martin Niemoller's words. Anyone listening?

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."
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Prairie Recommends: JK Rowling on true patriotism

2010-04-17T09:46:00.003-05:00

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Ooooh, this essay by J.K. Rowling is wonderful.

I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism.

Every bit as much of a must-read as her Harry Potter series.

h/t and thanks to Phoenix Woman at FDL for the milemarker
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Wear Blue

2010-04-16T07:29:00.003-05:00

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Today is Wear Blue for Child Abuse Prevention Day. April is National Child Abuse Prevention month. Wear Blue. And take care of the children.

Three decades ago I tried to write a true crime story and was overwhelmed by the life story of one child named Sarah. There was no Wear Blue day back then, there were little resources. And she died at the hands of her own father. The story haunts me still. It's the unfinished business of my writerly self.

Now, there is hope and resources...and there is, sadly, too much to do, but today we can start. Wear blue. And learn more. And vow that you will help assure the little children should suffer no more.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

The Elephant at the Tea Party

2010-04-15T16:39:00.002-05:00

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The NY Times poll demographics prove it: the Tea Party is "Dick" Armey and his ilk. White. Male. Older. Republican. I'd toss in greedy and selfish, but that's just me.

So who are they really mad at? Barack Obama? 'cause they sure weren't complaining while Dubya drove the deficit wagon, so the arguments they're mad about financial issues ring hollow.

Or the black man at the head of the RNC?

Or any black man in a seat of power?

Just askin'.
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The Enemy Within?

2010-04-14T10:51:00.005-05:00

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Thought for today courtesy a comment thread over at Thinkprogress:

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”

–Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator

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You betcha.

Pulitzers Due Today

2010-04-12T08:52:00.002-05:00

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Read here about the subtext of the Pulitzers — their role in investigative journalism. Not just honoring, but also settting markers that may guide future journalism.

The announcement is this afternoon, and we'll update.

Meanwhile....

UPDATE Here's the list: 2010 Pulitzers
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The 70% Solution

2010-04-10T19:44:00.002-05:00

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Frank Rich cuts through the economist apologist bullpucky with the finesse of a ginsu knife.

"Mistakes were made..." "everyone believed...."

Maybe the denialist crowd Rich weaves together, including Rubin and Greenspan and the whole WMD platoon, can gather where East meets West and spare us all further spewings of their self-serving sludge.

I believe the word is seppuku.
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Get Over It, You Lost

2010-04-09T09:30:00.002-05:00

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Once again, Jon Stewart cuts through the Confederacy nostalgia claptrap and gets it right.

CW was 145 years ago. South lost. Get over it.

Happy Union Appreciation Month!

And the best part is, Happy Union Appreciation Month works for all kinds of occasions. Maybe the workers at the hotel where the RNC partiers are gathering could pass out commemorative buttons.
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Number 1 Story

2010-04-06T21:57:00.004-05:00

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Via Countdown's replay of Senator Tom Coburn's town hall, we learn the Aussie Emperor Rupert Murdoch has no clothes...and Fox may be foxy, but it's full o'crap [my translation].

So have the Republicans finally awakened to the fact that the Fox tail is wagging them?

And David Frum had it right.
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PRecommends: digby on media violence-pushing

2010-03-31T10:06:00.005-05:00

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When the likes of Roger Ailes' personal kittylitterbox keep slavering over the ramp-up of violence-prompts and deeds and resort to blaming the victim mendacity, then questions must be asked...and answered.

Roger says it's just about the ratings.

digby has her thoughts

and Prairie thinks Roger's a self-loathing avatar taking the Murdoch empire's avarice out on the rest of us.
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Prairie Recommends: Robinson on Rightwing

2010-03-30T10:41:00.003-05:00

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Eugene Robinson writes today in the Washington Post about the rising tide of violent thought, word, and incitement on the right. And cuts through the crapola of false equivalencies.
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Prairie Recommends: Frank Rich

2010-03-28T14:08:00.002-05:00

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Just in case you didn't notice that the choleric rage from the right was about more than healthcare reform.
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Boehner-Cantor Tag Team

2010-03-25T11:34:00.004-05:00

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The unabashed tag team of John Boehner and Eric Cantor have now spoken about the increasingly violent rhetoric and acts against Democrats who voted for healthcare reform, and Eric Cantor makes clear that it's red herring and blame-the-victim time. The false equivalencies are flying around, and political cowardice by the likes of John McCain excusing Sarah Palin's violence prompts are on full display.

It's a pretty wretched sight coming out of Washington these days. Will the media now further fuel the flames? Or will they referee the filibustering and blustering and fingerpointing and call them what they are?

Time will tell. But Mrs. McMahon will fit right in with this crowd if she wins in November.

Who knows, maybe she'd even call a tag team what it is....
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UPDATE: According to Eric Cantor, the Dems are flnning the flames of violence. Thus spake the arsonist.

Law of the Land

2010-03-23T11:19:00.002-05:00

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The Rumpelstiltskins on the right can jump up and down and shout as loud as they want.

Healthcare reform is now the law of the land.

For Marcellus. For Natoma and her family. For President Obama. For the Kennedy family. For the Nixon family, even if he was not mentioned. For the Congress who made the hard votes. For the citizens who called, who wrote, who advocated. For you. And for me.
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What Change Looks Like

2010-03-22T08:05:00.003-05:00

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Healthcare reform has passed.

All the hypocritical whining at the end of the day failed to overcome what President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi led.

As Craig Ferguson would say, it's a great day for America.
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UPDATE: I called my Congressman today to say "thank you." How 'bout you?
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Good Ol' Boys

2010-03-19T17:40:00.004-05:00

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If you missed Thursday night on Comedy Central, Jon Stewart's tour de force about the crazy that is Glenn Beck and Stephen Colbert's scintillating skewering of all things Republican hypocrisy are must see. Must think about, too.

If you've been working and not noticed the misogynistic mindset that drives the likes of Rep. Bart Stupak in his dismissive attitude toward women's healthcare issues and the on-record support by Catholic nuns of healthcare reform.

If you think it's just all talk and smoke and mirrors and something you don't need to think about, then take a look at what a Republican state legislator in little ol' North Dakota thinks about one woman.

And ask yourself, isn't it time to elect more Democrats, not less? To support progress and change, even if it's not moving as fast as you'd like, rather than allowing the status quo to drag us down ever lower?
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Defiant Diehards

2010-03-18T11:02:00.002-05:00

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John Boehner makes it clear. The Republicans are united. They will continue to obstruct. They will continue to be the Party of No.

Lesson learned since the 2008 election? Progressives have been aggressive about electing more and more Democrats in 2006. and 2008.

Obviously we aren't there yet. More Democrats in 2010.

We're on the right track, the Rumpelstiltskin status quo crowd that got US into this mess are still holding their tantrums and their obstruction.

Send 'em home.

Vote more Democrats in 2010.
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Meanwhile, the Old Corruption Unpeeled

2010-03-15T09:49:00.003-05:00

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Like a rotting onion, Michael Lewis peels away the smoke and mirrors of Wall Street on 60 Minutes, and shows these guys as phony as onions pretending to be roses. Too big to fail? Apparently the message is, too stupid to indict.

Delusional? Whatever happened to accountability?

Oh, I forgot. That's just for the little scallions....
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Corruption's Newest Chapter

2010-03-14T20:43:00.006-05:00

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So the Supremes rule that corporations are ~~just like~~ people and can give campaign money unfettered. And the wife of a Supreme starts up her very own Tea Party group which can rake in the big $$$$$.

Just affirms again.... It's not about the ideology.

It's the profiteering and power, ba-bee.....

From the LA Times article, about Virginia Thomas' group, which began before the Supremes decision from which Clarence Thomas did not recuse himself:

As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Liberty Central can raise unlimited amounts of corporate money and largely avoid disclosing its donors.

Recommended: Frank Rich on Rove-Cheney Rewriting

2010-03-13T22:20:00.005-06:00

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Even if they succeed in convincing a few [some of the people all of the time....], Karl Rove and the Cheney family's ongoing revisionist crusade to rewrite their history cannot change its truth.

Or as any dystopian near-future movie will show you, even if the rats outlive us, they're still rats.
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Better Late

2010-03-12T20:19:00.006-06:00

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...than never, I suppose.

Finally.

Howell Raines joins the likes of Niemoller and Joseph Welch.
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It Happened Again....

2010-03-10T20:56:00.003-06:00

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There we were, in line for lunch, a circle of women, achievers, successes in our fields, of a creeping certain age, and we shook our heads in bafflement.

Get it done, Washington.

Get it done, Democrats...it's why we worked so hard to elect you.

Get healthcare reform done. Now.

Stop dithering. Stop jumping at shadows.

Get it done.

Because job-building needs doing, too.

Now.
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"Hang it around their necks"

2010-03-09T16:20:00.002-06:00

The Republicans have their talking point down. Todd the talking strategist told Chris Matthews this afternoon that if Democrats pass healthcare reform, come November, "we're going to hang it around their necks."

Hmmmmm.

Seems to me I saw something being hung around necks not so long ago ... gold medals.

In Sarah Palin's favorite healthcare destination.

Works for me....
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Meanwhile....

2010-03-05T07:36:00.002-06:00

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Stephen Colbert's smackdown of Sean Hannity's smear and distort crusade against ACORN. Priceless. Here's the full episode, because you can never have too much Stephen....

North Dakota blogger's take on the Republicans' fear campaign powerpoint.

E.J. Dionne's deconstruction using Hatch of the Republicans' distortion of health care reform....

Seeing a pattern here? I thought you would.

Uppity Blogger Book Leave

2010-03-04T12:01:00.003-06:00

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Thanks for stopping by my blog from time to time. I'm taking a bit of a sabbatical, directing more attention to a long-term project that hasn't had its just due for a while.

In other words, Prairie's on book leave.

Be good to yourselves. Work for change.

Be the change.
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Fili-bluster Flood Factor

2010-03-02T08:53:00.003-06:00

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Senator Bunning's hold-up action has another consequence. FEMA funding for flood insurance is stopped. New policies cannot be written, existing policies cannot be renewed.

And right now in Fargo, we're looking at a 96% chance of major flooding this spring (did I mention there's a 30-day waiting period for policies to go into force?).

The cities of Fargo-Moorhead are gearing up to fill nearly 2 million sandbags. But in the meantime, it's been 13 years since the major flood of 1997, one year since the 500-year flood of 2009, and nothing has been done on Fargo flood-protection infrastructure.

The Republican mayor of Fargo was quick out of the box to endorse the Republican Governor, John Hoeven, to run for the open seat after Senator Dorgan announced his retirement. And on the east side of the river there's that wanna-be-prez Pawlenty....

Oh, we have a nice new fancy-schmancy hockey arena on the South Side. But infrastructure to protect that south side, hmmmmm, no such luck.

So we'll roll up our sleeves, but the powers-that-be better roll up their sleeves, too, because the once-vaunted shoo-in candidacy of the incumbent Governor could take a real hit in the rising rivers of North Dakota. The Flood Factor this spring could have its consequences come November.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Fili-bluster

2010-03-01T20:38:00.004-06:00

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Senator Bunning's mean-spirited, contentious, and highly damaging little stunt filibuster...which he should be forced to actually stand and do till he wets his tighty-whities...reached a new low today...but tomorrow still awaits.

After all, he's too-obviously being point man for the entire Republican side of the aisle. Why else would they not join with the Democrats to break his filibuster? Senator Kyl was quick to defend the cause, attacking struggling jobless Americans in the process.

There's a whole lotta tighty-whitey in Washington these days. You see it on Faux News where they try to link reconciliation with the "nucular option." Where that quaint old concept of democracy, simple majority, up-or-down vote is under siege by the very people who for eight years jumped up and down like Rumpelstiltskin demanding their right to majority—not super majority—rule.

Among all the arguments about filibuster these days, it takes a small state legislator who is the only announced candidate thus far against the presumed-for-now Republican shoo-in to replace Senator Dorgan to hit on the simple truth.

North Dakota state Senator Tracy Potter said the filibuster has made senators “too important” compared to the House and the federal executive and judicial branches.

“I have sometimes chastised my colleagues (in the North Dakota Senate) that they are overreaching,” Potter said. “We have to have limitations on our power, and recognize our appropriate roles in the system.”

Appropriate roles. What a concept.

And maybe what a condemnation. All those tighty-whiteys have been overreaching ever since, oh, Inauguration Day 2009. The spike in use—abuse—of the filibuster. The endless, mind-numbing screeching of dissonant lies out of rightwing radio and Fox "News." The Tea Party fringe element. The increasingly violence-prodding screeding out of Fox "opinion."

But maybe pointing that out is uppity. I don't know. What do you think, Cokie? Because it's out there....
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Thank you, Keith Olbermann

2010-02-25T13:08:00.004-06:00

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As a "child" of an 85-year-old in the hospital this week, bearing witness to families around us in the ICU unit who are dealing with the trauma of trying to figure out arrangements for their loved ones and what will be allowed by insurance and what won't as they cope with the challenges of medical conditions....

As one who saw too much of the trauma of families dealing with the harshness of the healthcare coverage system amid their traumas of medical circumstance and care during the long years of my husband's illnesses which finally claimed him last July, I have just two words for Keith Olbermann's special comment:

Thank you.

It can't be easy for Mr. Olbermann to talk so publicly about his father's situation. And I thank him for his courage. It can't be easy to advocate so rawly for the reform the American healthcare system so desperately needs. So I thank him for his fortitude. It can't be easy to contain the full extent of the passion he brings to the table. So I thank him for expressing via his microphone what so many of us know and care about and do whatever we can, too, to advocate for.

We may not win this battle—the lobbyists and entrenched interests and too many gutless, selfish politicians and fools weigh against us.

But the cause is just, the need is real, and the people we love deserve no less than our full effort.

So thank you, Keith Olbermann. You honor your father.
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And for one day, this day, my heart is a bit lighter because we've stepped back from the brink, Mom's out of ICU and into a regular room. Go, Mom!
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal