Brought forward from a dead thread.

GO Clarkies!

Submitted by Kat on July 7, 2008 - 11:18pm.

From ..... wait for it...

Politico: ( you can skip page 1 if you'd like)

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11532_Page2.html

snip....

The third candidate to draw online strength from his defeat in 2004 was Gen. Clark, who actively engaged bloggers and online activists, and offered a voice of military experience that bolstered the confrontational antiwar stance of his supporters. His PAC, Securing America, retained a robust following; his podcast is one of the most popular in the nation.

Clark’s attention to his online supporters was repaid last week, when Sen. John McCain’s campaign seized on Clark's comments that McCain’s military experience isn’t a qualification for executive office and accused Clark of demeaning the Arizona Republican’s service.

After Clark broke with the cycle’s pattern of huffy outrage and apology by refusing to back down, he won cheers in the blogosphere, and drew support from his online base, which flooded reporters and Internet comment sections with e-mails defending him and his remarks. When Congressional Quarterly this week asked readers of its website to choose the best running mate for Sen. Barack Obama, Clark emerged as the winner.

"Gen. Clark respects the netroots activists enough to engage them, debate them and listen to them. They in turn respect him and can see the truth in what he says even when the media doesn't,” said a Clark aide, Erick Mullen.

... snip

“No self respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her self.” - Susan B. Anthony, 1872

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards began military maneuvers on Monday, news agencies said, the same day the U.S. Navy said it was carrying out an exercise in the Gulf.

Link. 

At my blog
NYT: Dems should "start over" with FISA

Thanks to Central Mass for some good info, too!

DEBATE ON NOW ON C-SPAN2

imbillorightsmanandiapprovethismessage
www.BillORightsMan.com

Got Vote?
Four Boxes of Freedom: Soap, BALLOT, Jury, Ammo

I sent an erm "comment" into the O! site regarding his spinelessness last week & this is the third email I've gotten from them for fundraising, despite trying to unsubscribe every time to a newsletter to which I did not opt-in.

-------------

Dear -

 image (you gotta see this- is Pepsi the force behind this man?!)

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/openconvention1?source=feature_open_convention

I wanted you to be the first to hear the news.

At the Democratic National Convention next month, we're going to kick off the general election with an event that opens up the political process the same way we've opened it up throughout this campaign.

Barack has made it clear that this is your convention, not his.

On Thursday, August 28th, he's scheduled to formally accept the Democratic nomination in a speech at the convention hall in front of the assembled delegates.

Instead, Barack will leave the convention hall and join more than 75,000 people for a huge, free, open-air event where he will deliver his acceptance speech to the American people.

It's going to be an amazing event, and Barack would like you to join him. Free tickets will become available as the date approaches, but we've reserved a special place for a few of the people who brought us this far and who continue to drive this campaign.

If you make a donation of $5 or more between now and midnight on July 31st, you could be one of 10 supporters chosen to fly to Denver and spend two days and nights at the convention, meet Barack backstage, and watch his acceptance speech in person. Each of the ten supporters who are selected will be able to bring one guest to join them.

Make a donation now and you could have a front row seat to history:

https://donate.barackobama.com/yourconvention

We'll follow up with more details on this and other convention activities as we get closer, but please take a moment and pass this note to someone you know who might like to be there.

It will be an event you'll never forget.

Thank you,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

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The freakshow continues.  

......Regardless of the reason, Obama didn’t decide to reschedule, appear late, or cancel the event (and give up the money? Never!). So in typical Obama fashion he phoned it in. And if the speech he gave is any indication, downticket Dems have much to be worried about. See, this function was about them. He was supposed to be there for Senate candidate Kay Hagan, and Gubernatorial candidate Bev Perdue. They need a strong candidate at the top of the ticket to help them get elected. I think they have a lot to be worried about. From Obama’s “phone speech”:

Finally I want to make sure that I acknowledge Lieutenant Governor Bedford who was going to be the next Governor of North Carolina. She is running an outstanding race and I think she’s going to have a chance to address all of you before this thing is over.

Yeah, just one small problem with that. Her name is not Bedford. It is Beverly Perdue. And she “was” going to be the next governor? Oh, she “was” going to be the next governor until you became the presumptuous nominee! I’m sure Ms. Perdue was thrilled by that blunder. Several months ago I would have said she was a shoe-in to win. Not any more. This is going to be a disastrous year for Democrats, and if by some cruel twist of fate we end up with Obama as President, I am afraid we can only expect four more years of “phoning it in”.

LINK

And to think we could have had this.

As a dear friend so aptly said....."We are so scr*wed!"

“No self respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her self.” - Susan B. Anthony, 1872

They want to know when we are leaving before they sign a MOU. Did anybody ever believe Cheney would agree to leave Iraq?

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080708173950.vpy06uxo&show_article=1

McCain's going to stick to that 100 year thing. I suspect O will do it as well.

Pelosi thought Bush couldn't ignore Maliki. Guess again?

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Pelosi_Bush_ignores_American_people_but_0708.html

As he did in his NALEO address, according to advanced excerpts, McCain will talk about his support for comprehensive immigration reform but will insist that the borders must be secured first; he’ll emphasize his military background; and he’ll note that one of his fellow POWs was a Mexican American.

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/08/1186505.aspx

Maybe I shouldn't't rehash the whole media attack of the Wes thing, but I can't help myself.

In Elanor Cliff's hit piece she said Wes was wrong because McCain doesn't't wear his military service on his cuff. I guess she was wrong and Wes was right. Who knew?

"Moving To The Middle" Garners Obama Zero Votes

By Big Tent Democrat

What Bowers Said:

According to Rasmussen, that CW is mirrored by the shifting perceptions of the general public, who view Obama as less liberal than they did one month ago. . . . So, now that Obama is perceived as moving to the center, while McCain is still perceived as conservative, Obama's poll numbers should improve, right? Wrong. According to the daily tracking poll from the same polling firm, Rasmussen, the campaign has not changed at all as a result of Obama being perceived as less liberal.

I will go one step further. Ras does not publish crosstabs, but I would bet dollars to donuts that most of the folks who now perceive Obama as "less liberal" are liberals themselves. It seems to me all Obama has accomplished with his "move to the middle" is anger the Dem base, created a "flip flopper" meme and changed the terms of the debate to one where the Dem position is the "Far Left" one. So Obama has ceded important ground on issues and gotten no help at all (indeed, it likely will hurt him in the longer run) politically. Hell of a move there Obama campaign.

Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.

And the coalition formed (and rapidly growing) to fight it.

Aug. 8, 1974 vs. July 9, 2008

by Glenn Greenwald

The votes in the Senate on various amendments to the FISA "compromise" bill and to the underlying bill itself were originally scheduled for today, but have been postponed until tomorrow (Wednesday, July 9) to enable Senators to attend the funeral of Jesse Helms. Rejection of the amendments -- including the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy amendment to strip telecom immunity from the bill -- is all but certain, and final passage of the bill (with the support of both presidential candidates) is guaranteed.

Once passed by the Senate, the FISA bill will then immediately be sent by the Democratic Congress to an eagerly awaiting and immensely pleased President Bush, who will sign it into law, thereby putting a permanent and happy end to the scandal that began when -- in December, 2005 -- he was caught spying on the communications of American citizens in violation of the law. The only real remaining questions are (a) whether Bush will host Steny Hoyer and Jay Rockefeller at a festive, bipartisan White House signing ceremony to celebrate the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment and the rule of law, and (b) whether Bush, when he signs the bill into law, will append a signing statement decreeing that even its minimal restraints on presidential spying are invalid.

As part of the campaign to target those responsible for the ongoing destruction of core civil liberties and the endless expansion of America's lawless surveillance state, we have a full-page ad in the "A" Section of this morning's Washington Post, the purpose of which is to serve as a final argument directed to the Beltway class, a clear statement of exactly what it is that they are really about to do this week (click on both parts below to read the ad with large print or click here for the highly readable .pdf version):

~ snip ~

As I have described previously, the campaign we have been conducting is intended to be only the first step -- not the last -- in taking a stand against the endless erosion of core constitutional protections and the rapidly expanding Lawless Surveillance State. We have created a new organization, Accountability Now, to conduct the ongoing battle to target and remove from power those who enable these abuses; to force these issues into our political discourse; and to prevent the Washington Establishment from continuing to trample on basic constitutional protections with impunity.

The first campaign of this new organization is the formation of Strange Bedfellows, the ideologically diverse coalition we have formed with liberals, libertarians and others who are devoted to the preservation of our core constitutional liberties and the rule of law. Before it has even begun, The Wall St. Journal and numerous online venues have written about this unique coalition.

To initiate and fund our new campaign, we have teamed with the individual who was behind the innovative and extraordinarily successful Ron Paul "money bombs" -- Trevor Lyman, along with Rick Williams and Break the Matrix -- to plan an "Accountability Money Bomb" for August 8. That is the day in 1974 when Richard Nixon was forced to resign from office for his lawbreaking and surveillance abuses. That day illustrates how far we have fallen in this country in less than 35 years, as we now not only permit rampant presidential lawbreaking and a limitless surveillance state, but have a bipartisan political class that endorses it and even retroactively protects the lawbreakers.

To participate in the money bomb and support our new organization, you can pledge to donate here -- or by clicking on the logo above. On August 8, those who pledged will make their actual donations in whatever amount they choose, and the results will then be announced.

This type of ideologically diverse coalition devoted to the preservation of basic constitutional protections and the rule of law -- modeled after the still-growing and increasingly potent left-right coalition that has spontaneously arisen in Britain to fight against their Establishment's corrupt seizure of limitless surveillance and detention powers -- can be a new and powerful force. Those who are responsible for these erosions need to be undermined and the nature of the debate over these issues needs to be changed. A successful start and the support of as many people as possible is vital to launching this effort the right way -- in a way that will enable its presence to be heard and felt in the Beltway precincts that need to hear and feel it.

More>>>

Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.

* * * * *

With regard to the Senate FISA vote, a new event occurred yesterday that underscores the pure lawlessness of what our Congress will do this week. One of the pending Senate amendments -- the only one with any remote chance of passing -- is an amendment (.pdf) sponsored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (co-sponsored by GOP Sen. Arlen Specter and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey). The Bingaman amendment would merely postpone the granting of telecom immunity until 90 days after Congress receives the Inspector General's audits of the President's NSA spying program which the new FISA bill mandates, and would freeze the telecom lawsuits in place until then.

The rationale behind the amendment is clear and simple: namely, members of Congress, the vast majority of whom know virtually nothing about what the telecoms did, shouldn't grant immunity unless they know what this illegal spying program entailed. If the IG Report reveals that the program (even though illegal) was devoted to a benign and proper purpose, then Congress (if it is so inclined) can grant immunity then. But if the IG Report reveals the spying program to be something other than what the President and the telecoms claim it to be -- if it entails far more invasive surveillance of Americans or was abused for improper purposes -- then immunity would obviously be wildly inappropriate. Even the ACLU and EFF, the lead organizations behind the telecom lawsuits, favor the Bingaman Amendment.

That amendment is a true compromise. It rests on what should be the completely uncontroversial proposition that Congress shouldn't immunize the lawbreakers until they at least know what was done. In the meantime, the lawsuits are frozen so that telecoms are spared the tragic burdens of having to account for their behavior in a court of law like everyone else does.

Revealing what telecom immunity is really about -- ensuring a permanent cover-up of Bush surveillance crimes -- Bush DNI Mike McConnell (who previously worked on behalf of the telecom industry to increase their government surveillance contracts) and Attorney General Michael Mukasey sent a joint letter to the Senate yesterday vowing that the President would veto the entire FISA bill if the Bingaman amendment were included, and issued this standard fear-mongering decree:

~ snip ~

So not only does our Safety require that telecoms be immunized from lawsuits over their lawbreaking, but we can't even wait until we know what was done before immunizing them. Even waiting to immunize telecoms will gravely imperil "national security." Frightening. Immunize telecoms -- now, not later -- or prepare to be slaughtered by the Terrorists. And that's all Congress needs to know. McConnell and Mukasey end the letter by advising that they "strongly support the prompt passage" of the House FISA bill. I bet they do. ...

Manipulative appeals to "national security" are, of course, exactly what has enabled the Bush administration to bully Congress into giving them everything they want for years -- "give us the powers we want and immunize our lawbreaking or be killed by Terrorists." That's how our country has been "governed" in the Bush era -- with heavy-handed, authoritarian decrees that we must comply with our Leader's secretly-formed judgments if we want to survive -- and it's likely how it will continue to be governed. And that is the mentality -- in an even more absurd formulation than is typical -- that is likely to lead the Congress yet again to comply this week with the President's orders in full.

* * * * *

Read on>>>>

Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.

Obama Abandons Coordinated, Downticket Campaigns?

by: Chris Bowers

Iowa Independent makes an extremely disturbing allegation: the Obama campaign is not integrating downticket campaigns into a "coordinated campaign" structure. Instead, local Democratic staff are being fired and replaced with Obama staff:

~ snip ~

Obama sent dozens of staff to help out with Bill Foster's special election in the Illinois 14th congressional district, and has also sent campaign staff to all fifty states. As such, what is really disturbing about these charges is that the promise Obama's campaign and movement held out for a fifty-state strategy that supported downticket candidates everywhere could be a mirage. If local staff are being fired, coordinated campaigns are being abandoned, and everything is replaced with Obama-focused infrastructure, then this isn't really party building, it isn't really a fifty-state strategy, and it isn't really a movement. It is, instead, an entirely top-down organization serving a single purpose: electing Barack Obama.

As Matt wrote several weeks ago, Obama is indeed consolidating all party infrastructure. He also seems to be discarding several important aspects of Democratic and progressive infrastructure as part of this consolidation. While one can made an argument about the value of 527s (or lack thereof), laying off local Democratic organizers who were working on a coordinated campaign up and down the ticket, and replacing them with national staff from other areas of the country, is simply not justifiable. That is an anathema to the fifty-state strategy, and to the principle of building up the party everywhere.

These are just allegations, so I will reserve more incendiary judgment for now. I will be very interested to see more details emerge on this story, both in Iowa and in other states around the country.

Update: Just talked with a couple of staffers in a different region, Update New York. There will be a coordinated campaign for congressional and state senate races in the local hotbed, Rochester. It will not be impacted by the Obama campaign. So, this does not appear to be the case everywhere. One possibility is that this is only happening in the uber-swing states, like Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia. Not a total disaster, but still not great. Looking for more info.

Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.