I love this picture; isn't it apropos? (photo by Jari Carr)
Hey folks! I would like to say hello to all of you out there surfin' the toobz (thank you Senator Stevens) with us today! It's a fine Tuesday morning so that means it's time for this week's edition of the Countdown to our Liberation from BushCo! The countdown appears every Tuesday at this time. We will go daily during the last weeks of BushCo, but we don't approve of torture, so we'll remain weekly for now...
Today, there are exactly 22 weeks left of Bush and his merry band of lying thugs. This countdown is meant to be a weekly reminder of the embarrassment that resides in our taxpayer funded White House and that celebratory feeling we will all hopefully have when Jan 20th finally arrives. This countdown is for everyone who loves to hate BushCo. Come on in and vent!
This week, we remember good ol' Georgie boy's picking of his Veep...
Today is primary day in the great state of Washington, and one of our endorsed candidates is on the ballot.
Darcy Burner is everything we could want in a candidate: progressive, committed to bold and transformative change, curious, intelligent, the next generation of Congressional leaders.
John McCain spent part of this last Friday at the Aspen Institute speaking about energy issues, including a meeting with T. Boone Pickens. From an interview there
McCAIN: I have a long record of that support of alternate energy. ... I've always been for all of those and I have not missed any crucial vote. But my citizens in Arizona know that when I'm running for the President of the United States I have to be out campaigning.
(go Heather Ryan - our EENR endorsed candidate in the KY-01! - promoted by poligirl)
It is no secret we need our Congress to move in a more Progressive direction. We not only need to elect more Democrats to Congress, but we need to elect Democrats to Congress that will remember who got them elected and what they are supposed to fight for once they are there. On a myriad of issues, we need Demcrats that will go to Washington and fight for the real change that we need in this country.
Hey there all of you fine folks that are out surfin' the toobz this Monday evening! I know Mondays suck, but all we have to do is get through them and that's one day down this week already; only 4 more til the weekend again! Thank God. Or Budda. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster for that matter...
(Crescent Moon Sunset on Yellowstone Lake by Fort Photo)
However, since it is Monday evening, it's time for the Monday Night Twilight - that special Monday evening ritual where we talk about how life's going for each of us...
We also always have those wild and wacky (but true) story links in the Monday Night Twilight, cuz ya all just gotta laugh a little - it's Monday for heaven's sake! And sometimes you just have to read this stuff - I couldn't make this stuff up - (maybe if I worked for the Onion or Colbert...)
Notes on the poll: It's multi-choice; please pick 5... It's tougher than it looks, lol... :o
Well hello all you fine folks out here surfin' the toobz today! This is the Critter Watch, and we do it because, of course, we all know that we have to keep a close eye on those Congress Critters of ours; you never know what they'll vote forsellauction off give away next...
(photo by Cam in Van on Flickr)
The first order of business is to give you the two links to everything Congress, both of which are excellent sources of information:
The first link is for The Library of Congress, affectionately called THOMAS after Thomas Jefferson. Here you can look up just about anything that Congress has done (even previous Congresses.)
The second link is to the GPO Access site regarding Legislative Branch Resources. This page has quick links to many Legislative documents, including Rules, Procedures, Calendars, Reports, etc...
In this week's Critter Watch: The Republican Critters can't seem to get far enough away from their convention in Minneapolis (is it the restroom thing?); The House Republicans and their vacation stunt (better than having to talk to their constituents in this election year I guess...); The Democratic Critters are about to flip on offshore oil drilling (yep, unfortunately, you heard me right...); The big House Impeachment Tease goes on; and finally, an Iran story that apparently wasn't fit to print.
(what ever did happen to election reform? - promoted by poligirl)
Steven Rosenfeld at Alternet reports that we could be in for a sequel to 2004, due to laws enacted by revengeful Republicans in the Ohio State Legislature who were miffed at the audacity, apparently, of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) who joined in questioning the electoral results of the Ohio, 2004 election. Never mind that Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) were two of the election issue heroes of that year, as was our own John Edwards, who wasn't so ready to concede that election as was Kerry.
So what did these Republican legislators do? They made it easier to "cage" voters and challenge them on Election Day. It is estimated that as many as 600,000 voters, from poor, inner city and young communities, could be challenged by Republicans on election day. Remember, that Bush reputedly "won" Ohio by 119,0000 votes.
The gist of this vindictive Ohio election law, enacted after what I call the debacle of 2004, is that mail from the Voter Registrar's office now can not be forwarded to voters. While there are many reasons why mail might be returned, returned mail will be a signal for purging voters under the law as enacted by Ohio State Republican legislators.
Two voter activist groups, Advancement Project and Project Vote, have expressed alarm. More below...
Well hello there to all of you out there on the toobz this Sunday evening. I hope tonight finds everyone doing well and staying cool and dry. And best wishes to all of you in Florida - good thoughts to you as you brave Fay.
(Grand Crescent Moon Sunset by Fort Photo.)
Now I bid you welcome to the last vestige of frivolity until (gasp) you have to go back to work tomorrow. So we will end our weekend properly with The Sunday Sunset. This open thread is meant to try to keep the weekend alive a little longer with our own late night farewell. I'll also post the weekly sunset photo in the body.
The floor for the Sunday Sunset is an open to any stories about your weekend, as well as to any ranting, whining, crying, bitching, moaning, kvetching, and venting any of you would like to do. Laughing is of course definitely allowed and even encouraged, even if it's just desperate hysteria that's causing it.
There are only 2 rules in this particular open thread:
1. Be Good To One Another
2. Vote in the Poll
Notes on the poll: Tonight's Sunset open thread has the theme of spirituality/mysticism/religion. What do you believe in spirituality-wise (if anything)? What shaped/s your beliefs? Do you suffer backlash or scars from upbringing? And in what religion were you raised, regardless of what degree it was (barely or fervently...)? You can pick more than one in the poll as it is possible to have been raised as a mixture...
(it's always midnight somewhere... :D - promoted by poligirl)
Welcome to the Midnight Oil. This diary is open for discussion from a few minutes after midnight through a few minute before (maybe two days later, maybe three). The intro remains the same, but the body is always changing.
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Populist movements don't build themselves, they grow from a process of people learning how to support a series of populist campaigns in a populist way, rather than as passive consumers of corporate political marketing campaigns.
It doesn't matter what the "horse race" outcome of the campaign is, if we fight the campaign. Fighting it, we learn how to fight. Learning how to fight political battles, we become citizens again. Becoming citizens again, we reclaim the Republic that lies dormant beneath the bread and circuses of modern American society.
Hey there everyone out there surfin' the toobz this fine Saturday evening! Hope you are all safe and well (and battening down the hatches if you're in Florida...) and enjoying your weekend!
I'd like to welcome you to our Saturday Evening Photo Blogging! Here's how we play our game: I'll get the ball rolling with our theme and then you all chime in and/or post your photos in the thread. (*Note: photos should not be more than 500 pixels wide due to margin issues.*)
The theme tonight is us, our families, and growing up. Join me below for a trip down memory lane and into the here and now...
(go Harry Taylor - our EENR endorsed candidate in the NC-09! - promoted by poligirl)
Sue Myrick has long since felt, or so it seemed, that she was 'untouchable' and it was her right to be returned to the House of Representatives. The 9th District in the US Congress was 'hers'. Well, there is some new thinking about that and it's coming from Congressional Candidate Harry Taylor.
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