On Friday, we asked DFA members to vote on which Republican to target next with our new TV ad exposing the Republican attacks on Medicare, Social Security and education.
It was close, but the winner was clear: Republican Eric Cantor.
The link goes to ActBlue. It would be fantastic to have this ad flood Cantor's district, reminding voters of the costs of supporting the Republican agenda. In fact, while Labor Day is a great start, I hope DFA runs this ad again and again as we near the election.
Women finally earned the right to vote 91 years ago today - after 72 years of largely unappreciated, back-breaking, work. It took another 66 years before we elected the first Democratic Senator in her own right - today Barbara Mikulski is the longest serving female Senator. And she shares the chamber with 11 other Democratic women.
I'm proud and lucky to be a part the community of campaign staffers who has worked to get women elected. The work that we have all been able to do is because of the women who paved the way for us and 91 years later, there have been over 100 pro-choice Democratic women elected to the halls of the U.S. Congress, and more than 500 women to state and local office.
And those are the women who are standing up for us fighting everyday - but there aren't enough. We've seen what happens when Republicans are in charge - since day one it's been an all-out war on women and families: they've tried to repeal health care reform, strip funding for family planning, eliminate collective bargaining, gut education, end Medicare, and destroy the economic safety net for many Americans.
If we stand together - just like we've done so many times already this year - we can stop the Republicans and elect people who will fight for us every day. I can tell you right now, 2012 will be game changer if women get to the polls. So on the 91st anniversary of the 19th Amendment, I'm asking women across the country to stand up and pledge to vote in 2012.
The suffragists paved the way for our success - and now, it's up to us to continue their fight. We have the chance to change things in 2012 - by mobilizing our families and friends and getting women to the polls to help elect Democrats up and down the ticket.
With each race we win, each new staffer that is trained, each blog we write, we are working toward that victory, but we need everyone together. There is so much we can do and after 75 years of struggle for suffrage we must be united in standing for those who will always stand for women and families. I want to take this anniversary to thank all of those brave women who came before me, and all of those young women just joining the fight. The suffragists gave us the right to vote in 1920, and in 2012, I'm sure as heck going to use it.
There have been buzzings about a potential Senate run by Elizabeth Warren for some time - but things kicked in high gear Tuesday afternoon when EMILY's List Director Stephanie Schriock tweeted she'd meet with Warren in Massachusetts the day previous. Roll Call also reported Warren was "wooing democrats at Boston house parties."
Today the superhero of the economically disenfranchised announced she is filing paperwork to open an exploratory committee for the U.S. Senate race against Scott Brown who replaced Ted Kennedy after his death.
Scott Brown has been no friend to regular Americans. When it comes to big banks on Wall Street, Brown refused to vote for a tax on banks and hedge funds with over $50 billion in assets. When everyday families can't make ends meet, surely Brown could support them over companies with over $50 BILLION in the bank?! But no. Americans took the hit once again because Brown refuses to put people first.
In a piece by Yves Smith on Naked Capitalism Elizabeth Warren becomes the target of a fantasy Presidential run, but the same benefits of her unwinable race against President Obama can also be true as a viable challenger to Scott Walker.
Warren has been branded as a scourge of banks. Even though it should be common sense that selling exploding toasters is bad business, the fact that she talks repeatedly and persuasively about the need for rules to have markets work well makes her a threat to much of Corporate America. Note that their heated opposition to the idea of fair play reveals the importance of treating customers badly, looting the official coffers, or both to their business models.
At least she's an equal-opportunity smear artist. I know this happened a few days ago, but I had to address it. Bob Cesca covered it with his post: Malkin and Fox News Are Stalking Children Again
It's a brand new conspiracy involving President Obama and an 11-year-old girl. The plot? To ask a question at a town hall meeting.
Scary. Run for your lives and all that.
Rewind to Tuesday afternoon when an 11-year-old girl asked President Obama a question about the "mean things" she observed on various protest signs outside. Malkin and other wingnuts swooped into action, investigating and exposing the girl's parents as -- shock, horror! -- supporters of the president. The girl's parents even donated some money and volunteered on the campaign.
Mind blowing, I know. It's like the Donald Sutherland scene in JFK.
But considering that there were literally millions of volunteers associated with the president's campaign, and considering that tickets for the event were available online where millions of supporters of the president typically hang out, it stands to reason that a few actual, you know, supporters would manage to acquire tickets.
Yet beyond this earth-shattering information uncovered by Malkin that Obama supporters attended an Obama event, there isn't any evidence whatsoever that the 11-year-old girl was coached or scripted by the White House. None. And, it goes without saying that Malkin and Fox News Channel are entirely ignorant of the fact that similar Bush events were revealed to be literally and entirely staged and scripted with attendees having to sign loyalty oaths.
Sean Hannity had Malkin on his Fox News show to try and justify her actions. I mean it's sickening. And yet networks like NBC put her on the TODAY show as if she's a credible person.
Malkin: The lie about the astroturfing is very important and I spent a lot of time today on my own blog talking about these Obamacare human stage props that OFA and HCAN have put forth. And yesterday in Portsmouth we saw it with that little girl who's mom happened to be a very invested and close ally of the Obama administration....
The lie is that she denies any astroturfing has been taking place at the town halls. I won't even post the information because it's been so heavily covered, but the words "truth and "lie" are interchangeable with Michelle so why bother giving her evidence when she clearly knows about it.
Wasn't Malkin's infamous, and creepy, 2007 Baltimore drive-by* bad enough? I guess not, because now Malkin's zeroing in on a young Massachusetts school girl. Why? Because she got to ask president Obama a question at a town hall forum. Bad idea! (She was an "in-the-tank questioner.") The girl may as well have painted a bull's eye on her back because Malkin and her online detective palsare takin' that kid down!!
Stay classy, Michelle.
Next up, Malkin steals a toddler's pacifier because his parents live in San Francisco and had an Obama bumper sticker. "It's just another cry baby socialist!"
Sometimes the juxtaposition of events is just too good to pass up. Take Wal-Mart, for instance.
The Sunday NY Times quoted Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. saying that Wal-Mart would never again "try to go over the heads of local politicians in their quest for store growth, as they did in Inglewood, Calif., where they sponsored a referendum last year to try to sidestep city zoning." He lied.
At this moment, Wal-Mart is deeply involved in fighting a local government over a "Big Box" ordinance.
Flagstaff Arizona is a college town of about 60,000 people in the mountains of northern Arizona. The town has a unique and historic character. The city's motto is "They don't make town's like this anymore." The Flagstaff city council wants to keep it that way. So last year, they passed an ordinance limiting the size of new retail establishment to 125,000 square feet. By comparison, the Wal-Mart in Flagstaff is 106,000 sq. ft., and the Target is 98,000.
A few real estate moguls and development Nazis took offense at the ordinance. With the help of Wal-Mart money, they collected enough signatures to challenge the ordinance with a referendum vote. The vote is happening right now. It's a mail-in ballot. The County Recorder will count the votes on May 17.
According to the latest campaign finance report, Wal-Mart has spent more than $280,000 trying to overturn one local ordinance. This makes this little local election the most expensive in Flagstaff's history. The Wal-Mart money is spent on full-page newspaper ads and mailings, both full of vicious Orwellian rhetoric implying that a zoning ordinance that limits store size is somehow the same as burning books. Yeah, go figure.
So, when H. Lee Scott Jr. says that Wal-Mart doesn't do that sort of thing anymore, he's a liar....I'm so surprised.
now, I grant you that in this best of all possible worlds, the ideal way to handle important matters would be for Our Fearless Leader not to be involved in any way, and I find it kind of reassuring to discover that the White House agrees with me.
The violation of the no-fly zone Wednesday led more than 30,000 people to quickly leave the White House complex, the Capitol and the Supreme Court and triggered an eight-minute "red alert" at the White House.
At the time, Bush was riding a bicycle at a wildlife center in suburban Maryland and wasn't told of the alert until after he had completed his ride at 12:50
According to the latest campaign finance report, Wal-Mart has spent more than $280,000 trying to overturn one local ordinance. This makes this little local election the most expensive in Flagstaff's history. The Wal-Mart money is spent on full-page newspaper ads and mailings, both full of vicious Orwellian rhetoric implying that a zoning ordinance that limits store size is somehow the same as burning books. Yeah, go figure.
So, when H. Lee Scott Jr. says that Wal-Mart doesn't do that sort of thing anymore, he's a liar....I'm so surprised.
It pains me to trot out my disgraced Lakers, blindly beloved since childhood, as the big bad bully who frightfully illustrates what is happening to us all. But it fits: The mega-rich Giant bludgeoning the hapless little guy until he goes splat on the ground.
The Goliath Andrew Bynum, or at least the people who manage his cracked image, knew enough to apologize for his assault on the scrappy Lilliputian named J.J. Barea. And he will cough up $700,000 in fines and lost wages.
The GOP? Not so much.
While crippling the middle class, demonizing and de-funding the poor and the unemployed, while walling off the wombs of women like a condemned lot full of slums, even while killing Medicare, the Republicans and their billionaire puppeteers simply sneer all the more. Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, Rick Scott, Dan Snyder, Boehner, Cantor, Bachmann and the Pauls seem genetically incapable of remorse or fair play.
They will never stop throwing their vicious "Koch-ed" elbows into the neck of nearly every American. They will never apologize. And with their bought-and-corrupted legislatures and Supreme Court, they will never be fined or suspended.
Splat, splat, splat we all go. It stings. It’s demoralizing. And still there is one thing that these bullies remain deathly afraid of: that we all pick our battered bodies off the hard floor again and again and vote them out of the game.
This is NOT democracy at work. After a Democrat finishes his debate time and yields the floor, there's a "flash vote" and the Republican majority passes it.
After much buildup in the 61-hour debate -- of Republicans wanting things to be over, and Democrats railing against Republicans who they said would cut off debate -- at about 1 AM Speaker Pro Tempore Bill Kramer (R) announced that he would hear a voice vote for a roll call on final passage. Immediately, the majority Republicans shouted their ayes, and the Democrats were booing, as they tried to be recognized to demand a separate motion to cut off debate.
Then Kramer called the vote. Within seconds, the digital vote system on the wall announced 51 ayes and 17 nays, and voting was suddenly closed. With a total of 96 members, that got to a majority for the bill but left 28 members who hadn't had a chance yet to vote.
At that point, the Democrats got up, chanting "Shame! Shame! Shame!" and similar exclamations, as the Republicans filed out of the room.
Shame, indeed. After agreeing to hear debate on amendments, cutting that debate off in what certainly appears to be a coordinated and orchestrated move isn't democracy and certainly not representative democracy. It is, however, a taste of the arrogant Republican thuggery that seems to be all the rage these days.
One of the concerns over this flash vote was the possibility that the Capitol building would be closed to protesters, who have created a little city inside during the protest. According to the WSJ, all but the first floor will close to overnight protesters now that there are no legislative hearings or sessions.
I don't think that will deter anyone, especially after seeing the strongarm tactics of the Birch Republicans in Wisconsin.
Update: The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) just released a statement in solidarity with the Wisconsin workers.
New York, February 25, 2011 -- “Last night’s vote by the Wisconsin Assembly was an attempt to undermine organized labor and the men and women across the country who depend on their unions for a voice in the workplace. The NBPA proudly supports our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin and their stand for unequivocal collective bargaining rights.” – Billy Hunter, NBPA Executive Director
“Wisconsin public-sector workers tirelessly deliver services on a daily basis to millions of Wisconsin residents. The right of these hard-working men and women to organize and bargain collectively is fundamental. Wisconsin’s workers deserve better than last night’s vote. Today, our union stands proudly with our fellow union members throughout the state as they continue their fight.” – Keyon Dooling, NBPA First Vice President, Milwaukee Bucks
UPDATE: Lawrence O'Donnell talked to Democratic Assemblyman Cory Mason and Republican Assembly Majority Leader Scott Suder on the outrageous and unprecedented behavior of the Assembly Republicans. Watch how Suder employs the Republican playbook of deflecting all of O'Donnell's questions and talking over Mason's airtime.
What will Bush do with his Mandate and his Political Capital? He got the highest vote total for a presidential candidate, you know. Did anybody notice who’s second on the list? A Mr. Kerry. Since when was the term "mandate" applied when 56 million people voted against a guy? And by the way, how about that Karl Rove and his Freudian slip on "Fox News Sunday"? Rove was asked if the electoral triumph would be as impactful on the balance of power between the parties as William McKinley’s in 1896 and he forgot his own talking points. The victories were "similarly narrow," Rove began, and then, seemingly aghast at his forthrightness, corrected himself. "Not narrow; similarly structured."
Republican’s are freaking out about the voter turnout in Florida. They are trying to close the vote down at 7:00PM. Sharp. No matter if you are on line or not. The unofficial word on the street is that out of the approximate 18% who have voted already, the edge is going to Kerry 2-1. We are manning the phones reassuring democrats that they will be able to vote if they get on line before 7:00PM, no matter how long it takes to actually vote. We will also be bringing food and drinks to all voters waiting on line throughout the day and night.
As reported today on the nationally broadcast Ed Shultz Show part of the Jones Radio Network, former U.S. Weapons Inspector, Scott Ritter declared that the Bush administration helped subvert and manipulate the recent heralded election in Iraq. According to Ritter, who made the original charges in a joint appearance with journalist Dahr Jamil in Washington state, the Bush administration was determined to control the outcome of the Iraq vote at all costs. "The U.S.cooked the election in Iraq," claimed Ritter. Ritter went on to explain how the victory of the Shia was a forgone conclusion to Administration members.What wasn't a foregone conclusion was the percentage of victory. A majority victory of the Shia would give them control of the Parliament and under current Iraqi law allow the Iranian-influenced Mullahs to draw up the new Constitution. read on
