Far-Shooting politics

Another misleading poll headline from CNN

2008-07-05T12:46:00.001-07:00

Today's offering is a diary I wrote on DailyKos about yet another misleading poll headline from CNN.

It seems like CNN has a vested interest in saying that Obama is in trouble for some reason.

McCain's town halls a losing strategy

2008-07-03T02:48:00.000-07:00

I have a post up on Calitics delineating the problems faced by the McCain campaign in trying to campaign via town hall. Worth a read.

And don't forget:

Darcy currently stands at just shy of $328,000 raised on ActBlue. That means that across the netroots, we've come more than halfway to Markos' and Goldy's stated goal of $150,000 on ActBlue for Darcy for the entire month of July.

Keep the momentum going.

Help support Darcy Burner!

2008-07-02T02:08:00.000-07:00

Darcy Burner is my favorite Congressional candidate currently running, and tragedy struck this morning: her beautiful home burned down. The family--as well as the family dog--is ok, though the family cat Charlotte perished in the blaze.

Suffice it to say that Darcy will have a harder time fundraising when she has so much else to worry about right now, and that means that we have to pick up the slack. I've set up an ActBlue page to help Darcy. Please consider throwing a few dollars her way.

Vote Dante Atkins for County Central Committee, AD-42

2008-05-28T03:16:00.000-07:00

Here is a post I wrote on DailyKos featuring my candidacy for Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee for AD-42. It's quite gratifying to get emails from random people whom I know or used to know expressing surprise that my name was on their ballot.

Will it be enough to carry me over the top and into one of the seven spots for County Central Committee? I don't know--but on June 3rd, we'll find out!

If you're a Democrat in the 42nd Assesmbly District of California, I'd appreciate your vote!

Darcy Burner in L.A., 4/9

2008-03-24T16:04:00.000-07:00

Darcy Burner, Congressional Candidate in WA-08 and co-author of the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, is having a fundraiser in Los Angeles catering to netroots and grassroots activists on April 9th. To RSVP for the event, go to its ActBlue page.

Letter to a superdelegate

2008-03-22T04:39:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following email to a superdelegate I contact every single time the Clintons go praising McCain at Obama's expense--like this one.

What follows is what I wrote to my superdelegate contact regarding this incident:

I agree that it's sad for one of our Democratic candidates to be kneecapping another. But what makes it even sadder is that--as is now being realized--Senator Clinton stands very little chance of winning.

Her only--and small--chance of winning comes from trying to damage Obama's electability enough to the point at which superdelegate start calculating that nominating Obama becomes more of a liability than overturning the pledged delegate count and (likely) the total popular vote.

Unless superdelegates start repudiating this strategy publicly, we're going to see more and more of this, because if there's one thing the Clinton campaign has shown, it's that they will say and do whatever it takes to hang onto the possibility of winning, and it doesn't matter who--or what states--they have to throw under the bus to do that. Just look at the reaction to Governor Richardson's endorsement today.

Meanwhile, Obama takes the most damaging thing that his campaign has experienced to date, and delivers a once-in-a-generation speech that could change the way we talk about race in this country (and contrast that with the noncommittal response to Geraldine Ferraro).

So in short, we can expect more of the same to continue--and the end result will be that Obama will be double-teamed all the way until the convention. From there, either we will have a damaged Obama running against a McCain who has had enough soundbites given to him by Hillary in the primary to last an entire election season, or--and this is the far less likely option--we will have a Clinton candidacy that has already alienated entire states and a significant section of the progressive movement (Clinton's campaign surrogates repeatedly calling Obama voters a bunch of prius-driving, latte-sipping elitists didn't increase her likeability in my eyes) damaged by a fractured convention that essentially overturns the results of the primaries and caucuses.

This is the hardest sell I'm going to give you here: if you're a superdelegate without a firm committment to the Clinton campaign, the only way to stop either those two options is to publicly repudiate these tactics and to declare support for Senator Obama as soon as possible. That way, we can avoid two more months of our likely nominee being double-teamed, and concentrate our efforts on attacking McCain, rather than praising him at every opportunity.

I'm one of the new Vice Presidents of LACYD

2007-12-15T00:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday evening I was elected Vice President of Communications of the Los Angeles County Young Democrats. I'll be posting about our activities and what we're up to. You can check out our site here.

dday takes Nunez staffer behind the woodshed for a beating

2007-11-14T02:29:00.000-08:00

I have to give massive props to my friend dday, who had the temerity to give Steve Maviglio of Speaker Nunez' office an absolutely brutal beatdown for coming onto Calitics to concern-troll us about the resolution to censure Feinstein.

Read the full thing here.

If this were old-time SEC football, it would be called an ass-whoopin'.

Resolution to censure Feinstein: here's the procedure

2007-11-13T14:32:00.001-08:00

As you may know, the Courage Campaign and the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party are pushing a resolution to censure Diane Feinstein. It stands very little chance of passage, but it's a good start nonetheless in making people squirm. For those interested in the nitty-gritty, here are the details in how it would work, as per my comment on the Daily Kos diary about the subject:

this will be submitted as a late resolution at the meeting of the Executive Board of the California Democratic Party in Anaheim next weekend.

It is a great way to show that we're pissed off about Dianne Feinstein, but since it is a late resolution, all it takes is one of the 15 or so members of the Resolutions Committee to object to it so as not to let it pass--late resolutions are required to have the unanimous consent of the Resolutions Committee before being allowed to come before the Committee for alterations or votes for passage.

This resolution will draw at least one objection, which will kill it in Committee. The authors have the right to collect signatures of executive board members to bring it to the floor for ratification, and there is a strong likelihood that they'll be able to do that. But the Executive Board as a whole is not the most progressive of bodies--they voted against my resolution to call for the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales in August because they thought it would make the party seem too "radical."

So assuming it moves in that direction, the resolution will fail on the floor.

Which doesn't mean that I don't wholeheartedly support it: I'm a co-sponsor. But I just like to make sure everyone knows exactly what will happen to this at every step of the way.

My friend Matt from Crawfordsville, Indiana

2007-11-13T14:29:00.001-08:00

This past weekend I attended the California Young Democrats retreat in South Lake Tahoe, California. I'm from Los Angeles and it's an 8-hour drive to Tahoe, so I decided to offer the extra space in my Prius to anyone from the area who wanted to carpool with me.

One of my fellow young Democrats who the organizers arranged to go with me was a freshman at Claremont McKenna College, a small liberal arts college with an excellent reputation (though with a price tag to match). Matt hails from a small town in Indiana an hour outside of Indianapolis called Crawfordsville, with a population of about 18,000.

I spent a good deal of time talking to Matt over the course of our 16 hours of car time together, and I feel his family's story is one we would all enjoy.

See, you may all be wondering how it came to be that a young man from a small town in Indiana came to attend a small liberal arts college in California. I certainly was; during my Crashing the States trip a year ago, I got to spend a lot of time in rural Indiana with Barry Welsh, who was--and still is--running for Congress against Mike Pence in IN-06.

Now, Crawfordsville isn't in IN-06, but the principle is still the same as what I wrote about last year. Crawfordsville sits in Indiana's rust belt--an area that used to be in the heartland of automobile part production, but whose factories have long since shut down, whose jobs have long since been lost, and where opportunity doesn't knock unless you knock first.

As Matt describes it, it's an area with significant challenges for progressive beliefs; an area where racism exists in force as a subtext behind community interaction, and an area where "moral conservatism" plays a prominent role in the ethos of a parochial population. But Matt's parents are both Democrats, and Matt himself is a proud Democrat who is not only attending a liberal arts college, but is also actively involved as a freshman in his College Democrats organization. How did that happen?

Well, to hear Matt tell it, his parents used to be the type of conservative Republican endemic to the area back when they both had stable factory jobs. The type of Republican who would complain bitterly about their tax dollars going to support the indigent in the welfare state. But then something happened: The factories closed down. And at that point, all of a sudden that social safety net and welfare state didn't look too bad, and they started to come around to a different way of thinking about political issues.

But that wasn't the end of the story. Matt said that at that point, when his parents were trying to pick up the pieces of their lives after what was essentially the basis of the local economy got shut down, his mom was pretty solidly in the Democratic camp, but his dad was still wavering back and forth, still leaning toward the Republican end of things.

Matt's dad ended up getting back up on his feet and founded a headhunting business. Now, the Republicans would like to think that small business owners would tend to vote their way because of their fanatical fear of taxes and regulations--but just the opposite happened. Matt's dad was now in the unfortunate position of having to provide healthcare for his employees, as opposed to simply accepting it as part of a benefit package at the factory and not thinking about it any further. And Matt's dad saw that being a responsible employer and providing health coverage to his employees was not only ridiculously expensive alredy, but constantly increasing, and that the private sector was simply not accomplishing what the Republican ideology said it could accomplish.

kos told the story recently about his grandfather-in-law, who was a Republican, but then complained about the outrageous costs of his prescriptions. And like the commentary in the link above, it's certainly justifiable to have a slightly derisive attitude to those who are coming around to realizing that taking care of people is a good idea only when they're in need of being taken care of. But lapsed Republicans are indeed lapsed Republicans--and if the idea of a social safety net and public health care are making inroads in rural Indiana, I'd say that our time on these issues has finally arrived.

Dirty Tricks Initiative using direct mail

2007-11-06T22:54:00.000-08:00

I wrote a post for Calitics about the direct mail piece I accidentally received from California Counts, the organization funding the "dirty tricks initiative" designed to siphon off at least 20 electoral votes from California to the Republican nominee in 2008. That post was then picked up by California Progress Report.

The post is basically the same in both places, so go check it out.

In addition, we also now know who's funding the initiative--turns out, once again, it's a bunch of GOP operatives, including the California Republican Party. So, I'm not exactly sure how Darrell Issa can keep claiming it's non-partisan, but I'm sure he'll still find a way to keep on pushing Hillary Clinton's non-partisan worst nightmare.

United Hollywood

2007-11-06T22:42:00.000-08:00

I live in Los Angeles, and obviously, the Writers Guild strike is a huge deal. I had the good fortune of being brought on by the WGA to help them with creating a blog and with outreach to other online communities. I'm happy to say that the fruit of our collective labor is the new blog written by the captains of the Writers Guild, United Hollywood.

I wish the writers the best of luck in getting their message out over the top of the trade publications like Variety, which tends to have its coverage slanted toward the AMPTP side of things. And I hope they get the percentage of internet revenues they so richly deserve.

A minor whine re: Rush Limbaugh and Paul Hackett

2007-09-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

A minor quibble, but important, since I am part of that "long tail" of the blogosphere and my blogging reputation comes not from this site, but from my DailyKos account:

I was the first one I know of to mention that the Rush Limbaugh censure motion should include a reference to Paul Hackett. You can see my original comment here.

And therein lies the difference, and one of the problems of the blogosphere: if I had posted the same thought here originally, nobody would have seen it or cared. But over there, it matters.

did you come here looking for spiders?

2007-09-28T01:38:00.000-07:00

If you came here looking for spiders, I'm really sorry. It's actually a political blog with a spider sidelight every so often. But the fact that every single search that comes here is spider-related gives me an idea: I should do a blog entirely devoted to spiders.

Dirty Tricks initiative abandoned!

2007-09-28T01:24:00.000-07:00

Via my friend and Calitics colleage shayera, it seems like the Republican operatives who were behind the "Election Reform Act" are abandoning their efforts to give at least 20 of our electoral votes to the Republican nominee. For whatever reason, it seems like their fundraising isn't coming through as planned.

I personally find it intriguing that these guys would decide to close up shop right as we internet extremists closed in on the initiative's ties with Giuliani supporters. And I also don't know why they wouldn't spend money on the signatures and force us to spend money defeating it. But hey--I'll take it!

And for old times' sake, here's the blogger video:

Bush will veto Defense bill--because of teh GAY!!!

2007-09-28T01:21:00.000-07:00

[Cross-posted from my Daily Kos diary]

It has been a long, arduous battle to get federal hate crimes legislation expanded to include acts of violence based on sexual orientation. The House has already passed legislation incorporating such an expansion of the original 1968 Hate Crimes statute covering religion, race, color and national origin, but the bill--a bipartisan effort of Senators Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA), just made its way through the Senate with the minimum 60 votes needed for passage.

Now, I know this is on the front page, but what kos' post didn't tell you is that the Hate Crimes expansion in the Senate was tacked onto the defense appropriations bill currently being debated--and that Bush is expected to veto the whole thing, just because of this amendment.

First of all, I'm a little uncomfortable with the strategy of attaching this bill to something like the defense appropriations bill--but then again, the Republicans did similar stuff to us so often in their time in Congress that turnabout is more than fair play. I just think the practice should be outlawed...but regardless...

Yes, my fellow Americans, that's right. It's so important to George Bush that GLBT people not be given the legislative protection of an expanded hate crime bill that he will veto the entire defense spending bill just to make sure it doesn't happen. As Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says:

"This bill will get vetoed," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned. "The president is not going to agree to this social legislation on the defense authorization bill."

Graham contended that the hate-crime provision puts in jeopardy a bill that would fund armored vehicles, pay raises and other things for the troops.

"When I go to Iraq, I don't have a lot of people coming up to me and saying we need to pass the hate crimes bill. They do need better body armor."

That's right, Lindsey. Because when the Republicans were in charge of Congress, you guys did such a fantastic job of prioritizing the soldiers in the field that they had to buy their own armor. Good to know that you and your colleagues care so much about body armor, but protecting gays from violence--including from fellow soldiers in the military--is simply unacceptable.

You know what else I love? The argument that we shouldn't even have hate crimes legislation at all:

Opponents argued that the bill would create special classes of crime victims.

"All crimes of violence are crimes of hate," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.

Ok...by that token, we shouldn't have had the original hate crimes legislation of 1968...or maybe that's exactly what John Cornyn thinks! But the fact of the matter is that the law creates special classes of crime victims precisely to demonstrate to society that certain crimes are especially execrable. That is why we have special circumstances for police officers, trial witnesses and so many other groups of people. Saying that we shouldn't create special classes of crime victims and opposing an expansion of hate crimes on that basis is unashamedly hypocritical. But hey--what else would you expect from your local Republican these days?

But here's what I know--Mr. 25% will think nothing of vetoing the entire defense spending bill just to make sure that gays don't get legal protections they deserve. But if he does veto the whole thing over this, we will need to keep the pressure on our Congress (I hear the sighs, and I sympathize) to make sure they don't cave. And we'll see which Republicans stand with Mr. 25%, as opposed to "putting the troops in danger by not passing the bill." I'm ready for a game of chicken on the railroad tracks with this. Let's see who swerves first.

America's "reality" culture

2007-09-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

I was watching college football yesterday when I saw an advertisement for a Ford minivan. The advertisement depicted a woman who supposedly had her Nissan Murano switched out for a Ford minivan for a week, and was giving testimonials about how much better she liked the Ford than the Murano.

All good, right? Well, this is what the narrator said:

We switched her Murano out for a Ford somethingorother. We told her it was marketing research, but we were actually from Ford!

Umm...I work in marketing research. Have for a decade. In my time, I've been around a lot of automotive research too. And guess what? Having someone use a diferent car for a week and then asking them what they like and don't like is a standard company-sponsored marketing research activity!

So basically--presuming the advertisement was based on a legitimate marketing research study--it was marketing research and they were from Ford. But could the advertisment actually say that and be honest? No.

Instead, we get subjected to this lying, manipulative crap about how the woman in the advertisement was supposedly duped or deceived. We, as a culture, have an increasing, and increasingly incomprehensible, obsession with "reality" programming--namely, any show where supposedly "real" people get duped, deceived, hurt or humiliated by others--or do those same acts to themselves--so that viewers with apparently nothing better to do can feel better that they're not quite as bad off as the people on the show--and that, only because their own humiliating experiences haven't been featured on camera just yet.

Now, it's one thing to set someone up to be "punk'd" from the beginning. I understand why that can be entertaining. But seeing this form of entertainment gain such widespread popularity that we must start taking acts that were perfectly legitimate and giving them the cover of illegitimacy purely to increase their entertainment value makes me retch.

At this point, we're just barely above Idiocracy. Remember what the top-rated show is in that movie? Well, at the rate we're going, it's not going to take us 500 more years to get there.

How far will they go to "support the troops"?

2007-09-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

It has long been clear that the Republicans in Congress have been hiding their support of Bush's permanent occupation under the skirts of the notion of "supporting the troops." Well, the Webb amendment has finally forced some sort of separation between those two concepts--and now we finally get to see whether Republican Senators are more loyal to the United States military, or more loyal to Bush.

It's clear where John McCain stands:

Apparently, McCain not only supports Bush's dead-end policy, he's willing to lie about the Constitution in order to get it done.

Webb points out the passage in question on the Constitution, but for the sake of the readers, here is the exact language from Article 1, Section 8:

The Congress shall have Power to...make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

Pretty darn cut and dry, if you ask me.

But even more impressive is what Webb says when the CNN anchor asks about Bush's veto threat:

Let's see if he dares. And the same goes for the Republicans in the Senate. If they really want to filibuster this, let them be on record as obstructing Senate business for hours and hours and hours just to make sure the troops don't get longer leaves of absence. Let them filibuster, Senator Reid. Make it hurt.

Burn Bush for Burner

2007-08-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

Today is the beginning of the online fundraising drive for Darcy Burner, designed to coincide with George Bush's appearance for loyalist Dave Reichert.

Our goal is $100,000. Help out.

Some thoughts on McNerneygate

2007-08-23T15:53:00.001-07:00

[cross-posted from my frontpage post on Calitics]

First things first: there are other issues besides quotes in the media about the occupation of Iraq. First of all, there are all of Jerry's votes in Iraq. Someone else besides me--I think it was kid oakland, and I for some reason can't find the post--made a list of all of Jerry's votes about Iraq. Except for McGovern, they were exactly what we would want and expect. And Jerry had his own reasons for the McGovern bill that he explained to me in an interview with me when I went to DC.

Now, this doesn't mean that how Jerry is quoted in major beltway media outlets isn't important. It is, especially when it seems like he's flip-flopping to cater to two different audiences. If nothing else, we like consistency in our politicians.

But we have to remember two things. First of all, Jerry is a freshman incumbent who doesn't have very much experience with media and wasn't a politician to begin with. And secondly, especially given the grumbling complaints that a few of us have expressed with Jerry's staff in DC, the message his staff seems to be trying to create for him will only serve to amplify the complaints about how Jerry deals with interactions in the media.

That said, I think that we in the netroots tend to take a much bigger focus on the media than anyone else in the country does because that's what we're all about as an enterprise. One of the main raisons d'etre of our entire movement is media accountability, which leads us to place an excessive amount of attention to anything said and done in traditional political media establishments such as the Washington Post. So a centrist-style flip-flop in the Washington Post will alienate us a great deal, but I can just about guarantee you that it's not what the average voter in Lodi and Stockton is living and dying on.

All this talk about removing Jerry from ActBlue pages or other stuff is insane, in my book. The only reason anybody is even contemplating it is because, well, we all put a lot of work into Jerry's campaign. That's true. But because of all the effort we put in, we put Jerry on a pedestal that perhaps no candidate belongs being on. He became a netroots hero, primarily because of the contrast between him and Richard Pombo. And there still is that huge contrast, and a few quotes out of context in the Washington Post written by a reporter who is intentionally trying to push a "Dems in disarray" storyline isn't going to change that.

But expecting someone--especially a freshman with little political experience--to say and do the right thing every single time is a bit naive, especially in the face of DC staff who might be pushing messaging that we in the netroots would be opposed to. And it's especially not going to happen in a district that still leans Republican and which the NRCC has identified as one of their top targets.

Finally, there are so many issues at work here besides the occupation of Iraq. There is the problem of health insurance. Energy and environment (where Jerry has been an extremely strong leader, statewide and nationwide). Restoring the constitution.

I think, honestly, that we should hold the "we've been betrayed" talk for a time when we've actually been betrayed. Jerry will have his disagreements with us on a few issues. But hey--imagine if any of us ran for Congress. We disagree with each other a lot of the time, and if any of us ran for office we would have wide areas of agreement with each other on the vast majority of issues, but we would have disagreements on strategy a great deal of time.

Bottom line is, hanging Jerry out to dry because of some quotes in the Washington Post is a horrible idea. If anything, Jerry needs on-the-job training on how to deal with media, because the truth is, he wants to end the occupation of Iraq. And the other truth is that we need Republicans to help us end the occupation of Iraq. I think it's naive to believe, as Jerry apparently does, that they'll willingly come to the table without more strong-arm tactics. But if you take what Jerry actually said--namely, that sometimes we don't agree with the Democratic leadership, and that we need Republican help to end the occupation--both of those are true. How often have we on the blogs said, "what the heck are they doing, anyway?"

The only difference is that we don't go saying that crap to reporters at the Post who are out to hurt our efforts.

Last point: I'd like everyone to think about the storyline that would be created by a public abandonment of Jerry because of some Washington Post quotes. I don't think it's a good one.

California Democrats file for national popular vote

2007-08-21T19:05:00.000-07:00

You may have heard about the Republican attempt to steal the 2008 presidential election outright by passing a ballot initiative that would award California's 55 electoral votes to the winner of each of its 53 Congressional Districts, plus 2 for the statewide winner. Since California has 20 Congressional Districts that would likely vote for the GOP nominee, this basically has the impact of giving the Republicans an Ohio-sized chunk of California's electoral votes.

In the comments to the diary linked above, I mentioned that we would be well-armed and well-funded in our efforts to defeat this measure--and indeed, California Democrats have taken an important step toward real electoral reform by proposing The National Popular Vote initiative statute.

First, I should mention that there are promising poll numbers about the Republican coup attempt, but they reveal that educating voters about the actual impact of the initiative will be key to defeating it. Via Rasmussen:

a theoretical sense, 45% of voters nationwide think that’s a good idea. Thirty percent (30%) disagree while 25% are not sure. However, even that tepid level of support dissipates when voters learn that a change in California could significantly increase the number of Republican Electoral Votes. Once that is factored into the equation, support drops to 31% and opposition increases to 43%.

It’s interesting to note that Republican support for the measure barely increases when told of the potential benefit to their own party. That may be due to a sense of fairness or a nagging realization that the same thing could happen in other states where the GOP would lose votes. Forty-five percent (45%) favor the concept in theory and 48% favor it after learning how it would impact the results in California. Among Democrats and unaffiliated voters, support plunges dramatically once the electoral implications of a change in California are explained.

So, bottom line is: even with low-information about a proposal that seems more fair, support can't even break 50%, and traditionally in California, ballot initiatives have nowhere to go but down from their first poll numbers. It seems like even if the Republicans do spend millions to get their coup on the ballot, it's not likely to pass.

And that's without what California's Democrats have just done.

Democratic consultant Chris Lehane is filing for a ballot initiative that will compete with the Republican coup attempt by proposing the National Popular Vote amendment in California. For those that don't know what the National Popular Vote movement does: it is a law that guarantees that the electoral votes of a particular state will go to the candidate that wins the national popular vote, but only after states whose electoral votes exceed the 270 required for victory pass the law. In other words, if California passes the Lehane amendment in 2008, California's electoral votes would still go to the state winner because not enough states have passed the National Popular Vote law; but the moment that enough states have passed the law so that the total number of states sponsoring the law have electoral votes exceeding 270, then the law kicks in in those states, guaranteeing that the winner of the popular vote wins the presidency.

The national popular vote has warmer support here in California. From the Rasmussen poll quoted earlier:

Overall, 54% of voters would like to get rid of the Electoral College and have the winner of the popular vote become President. Thirty percent (30%) disagree. Democrats strongly support this approach while Republicans are evenly divided. Women are more enthusiastic about it than men.

The Republican consultants are saying that if the national popular vote passes, what voters in Los Angeles or Santa Monica say won't have nearly as much impact. Of course, that argument is a stinking pile of horsecrap, because as it is right now, a voter in California, no matter who, has far less impact than a voter in Montana or Wyoming. A national popular vote would empower California voters, and make it worthwhile for both Democrats and Republican to come out here to campaign for votes, as opposed to being ignored because we're a "safe blue" state.

For continuing coverage, as well as other California political coverage, come check out calitics.com.

I'm featured in L.A. CityBeat!

2007-08-16T22:39:00.002-07:00

Check it out.

And while you're at it, check out the Ron Shepston campaign.

My resolutions are up on the CDP website

2007-08-16T13:30:00.000-07:00

First, there's the resolution I wrote opposing subsidies for coal liquefaction...

And, there's the gutted resolution about Alberto Gonzales (actually a sausage-resolution boiled down from separate resolutions authored by me and by Peter Rudinskas).

Senator Denham (R-Merced) attacks himself on budget obstruction

2007-08-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

So, Republican CA State Senator Jeff Denham (R-Merced) proposed an amendment to pay state vendors during the budget crisis. And then, in a gut-churning, rage-inducing display of shameless self-promotion, he put out a TV ad about his amendment:

(Notice how comments became disabled on the video?)

Now, honestly here--if you didn't come to Sacramento to allow politicians to hold schools hostage, then why are you and your fellow Senate Republicans refusing to vote for the budget unless we gut CEQA, which isn't even a budget-related issue? Especially when our Governor, who is also a member of your party, has promised further cuts to satisfy your extremist agenda? If you don't like politicians holding schools hostage, then vote for the damn budget that the Assembly already made deep compromises on.

Bob Brigham did us the favor of posting a price cut-and-splice job in response, and to let everyone know about Dump Denham:

The extremist Republicans in our state never cease to amaze.

Hey idiots: the terror attacks prove OUR point, not yours.

2007-07-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

It's getting to be as reliable as an atomic clock.

Every single time there's a report of a terrorist attack, real or foiled (any place except Iraq, of course, which we'll get to later), the right-wing fanatosphere gets all up in a tizzy, cumulatively--and quite on cue--jumping up and down screaming something whose main message seems to be something like:

SEE? SEE? TERRORISM IS SERIOUS! THERE'S A WAR ON! DON'T YOU GET IT YET? THE SKY IS FALLING!

I submit as just the latest in what has become a very panicked parade of handwringing the piece from the RedState frontpage about the carbombs in the United Kingdom over the weekend.

Please allow me one short reply:

Yes, we read the news too. And contrary to what you think, it proves OUR point.

See, the meme constantly conveyed by Republicans to America through their media empire is that Democrats are just blind to the harsh realities of terrorism, or that we don't understand the threat that terrorism poses--despite the fact, of course, that the urban centers of population most likely to be hit by terrorists all vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrats, which should tell you something.

Regardless, every single time there's an attack on the West, or a threat of an attack--even if it's from seven homeless martial artists in Jamaica--we're subjected to how we dont understand the harsh realities of terrorism. And to this day, I'm not sure whether the perpetrators of this frame actually believe that we don't understand terrorism, or whether they just use that as a form of political opportunism.

I'm inclined toward the latter view. See, for this administration, terrorism serves as an argument for voting Republican no matter whether attacks happen or whether they don't. If there hasn't been an attack, it's because the Republicans have been keeping us safe. If there are foiled attacks, it's proof that we need Republicans in power because they understand how to keep us safe. And, of course, if there are more successful attacks, that'll just make us appreciate the sincere efforts of those who tried to keep us safe. (Because we all need a few more 9/11s to really appreciate Bush, remember?)

There's no accountability--just like Iraq, where if violence is down, it's proof that Bush's policy is succeeding, but if violence is up, it proves that the attackers are desperate, which is in turn proof that the policy is succeeding. Just like Iraq, the Republican framing on terrorism is designed to eliminate any scenarios that could be used as proof of a failure of policy. And we can't let them get away with it.

Because like I said above, the fact that terror attacks are happening--especially homegrown terror attacks like what Great Britain has been seeing--is, in fact, proof of the fact that ~~Bush's~~ Cheney's entire approach to terrorism has been an utter disaster, and that the "taking the fight to them" concept has absolutely no meaning if "they" are not a particular people in a particular location, but can in fact spring up right in your own backyard given the proper mix of social and economic conditions.

The rise of homegrown terrorism proves that winning the battle of ideas is just as important as winning the battles with boots on the ground.

The rise of homegrown terrorism inspired by Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda proves that maybe--just maybe--we should have gone after them instead of starting a bloody civil war by conducting a botched occupation of what was a repressive and cruel, though secular, Arab dictatorship.

The stories of how these attacks were foiled proves that torture and blanket surveillance of American citizens (i.e., making the haystack you're trying to find the needle in even bigger) really doesn't hold a candle to the proven-effective methods of disciplined inter-agency cooperation, targeted surveillance, citizen awareness, and blind luck.

In short, my dear, right-wingers: Here on the left, we "get" terrorism. And one of the things we get is that you don't get it at all.