criticizing Howie Klein's taste in music ...

and 'challenging' the authoritah of the sitemonitor who decided to go all 'Kos' on me.

Apparently statements like "Music is politics & crap is crap, whether it comes from McCain, Hillary, Howie or you" just dont fly over there.

I seriously doubt John Amato knows any of this has gone on - but God I hate the swagger-stick-Nazis that occasionally show up - they give progressives a bad name.

/rant

PS - I'm on a jet at 4am & out of touch for the next few days, so I wont be responding to any comments - thanks for letting me vent.

Withhold funds? Doesn't seem likely while the AUMF is in place - then it hit me - Can Congress rescind the AUMF?

So I put it to you, political scholars of the frogpond - Is this an avenue which can be pursued?

It seems likely that if authorization can be given, it can also be withdrawn, particularly given the massive failure of the President to perform at any acceptable level, but I am no authority on the subject of the lines of political authority in our government.

Please feel free to comment.

A name that speaks eloquently of conviction, dedication to purpose, integrity, leadership.

Al Gore.

It's time visit the "Draft Al Gore" website, at http://www.draftgore.com/ , & add your name to the rolls.

Then, tell your friends - and tell them to tell their friends. Let's let Al know that he is wanted & needed at this perilous time in our country's history.

Turns out they're right, sorta ... Beltway Culture, if not American Culture may never be the same.

If, as many of the experts and polls are saying, the Democrats win the House of Representatives, then it follows that the loftily titled Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2006 should pass, at least in the House.
...
The act is a tough document, authored by Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco-area congresswomen who has been the Democratic House leader since 2002. She will likely be the House Speaker if the Democrats win next Tuesday.

Here are some of the new rules Pelosi wants:

• No House member may accept any gift of any value from lobbyists, or any firm or association that hires lobbyists.

• No free travel, which means an end to the corporate jet line every Friday at Reagan National Airport.

• No free tickets to Redskins games; or no meals of any value, even at a McDonalds; no front-row seats at entertainment venues.

• House members will no longer be able to slip in special-interest projects on unrelated legislation. Such measures will no longer be allowed on a bill once negotiations between the Senate and House are complete.

• Further, all bills will be made available to the public a full 24 hours before a final vote; presumably this gives watchdog groups a chance to flag any skullduggery.

• Lobbyists will no longer be able to use the House gym ... .

• Lobbyists will no longer be allowed onto the House floor or to use the cloakrooms just off the floor, preventing last-minute arm-twisting.

• ... No member or staffer will be able to negotiate for employment in the public sector without disclosing such contacts to the House Ethics Committee, and within three days of such contact being made.

• ... all of this will be audited and investigated by a new Office of Public Integrity, and that office reports, directly and only, to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

"San Francisco Values" indeed. Every town ought to have such high standards.

Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/champblog/2006/10/nancy_pelosis_tough_new_rules.html

('Cuz they only report this stuff in Canada.)

That leaves Carper, Pryor, Salazar, Nelson & Landrieu as the last of the self-hating/skeleton-in-the-closet Dems who still support (for whatever unfathomable reason they may have) ol' Holy Joe.

This is weak tea, as far as I'm concerned, but better than nothing.

Read about it at HufPo

But today, Ned Lamont showed me that he really gets it.

He said:

"Good judgment is an essential part of good governance"

Hallelujah!!!

Right to the heart of the matter!! The reason why the last five years have been such a clusterfuck is the horrible lack of good judgement on the part of our top leadership. "Surrounded by 'good' people", my bright pink fanny!! The man in charge (or woman, if that be the case) better have more than five working brain cells if they want my vote - and Ned Lamont gets that.

No more inbred idiot chillun, it's bad for all of us.

Here's some of the rest of Lamont's article from the Wall Street Journal, by way of Josh Marshall:

    In the past week, my victory in the Connecticut Senate primary has been labeled everything from the death knell of the Democratic Party to the signal of our party's rebirth. Beneath all of this punditry is a question that I want to face directly: how the experience I will bring to the U.S. Senate will help Connecticut and the Democratic Party during this time of testing for our country.

    I ran at a time when people said "you can't beat a three-term incumbent," because I believed that President Bush, enabled by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, had weakened our country at home and abroad. We're weaker economically, because we're more dependent on foreign energy and foreign capital. Our national security has also been weakened, because we stopped fighting a real war on terror when we made the costly and counterproductive decision to go to war in Iraq...

    Good judgment is an essential part of good governance. But we're bogged down in Iraq, and hamstrung in the war against terror, by leaders who lacked judgment, historical perspective, openness to other cultures and plain old common sense. We offer something different.

    But in the final analysis, the results of this election say less about me, and more about the people of Connecticut. They turned out in record numbers; they spoke every day with a simple eloquence and urgency about the country we love. They oppose the war and the fiscal nightmare crafted by President Bush and his allies. But their vote, finally, was one based on pragmatism and reality, on optimism and hope. And it is to these ideals and values that we plan to address my campaign in the months until November.

It's great that Lamont has come this far, but the fight isn't over.

While Lieberman clearly called in a buttload of favors to get the 'celebrity' endorsements he did in the primary, & won't likely do even that well in the general election, you can bet they will be doing serious arm-twisting wherever they can to advance Joe or the other Joe-lites & little Georges that oppose us this November & two years down the road.

Still, at last, I see a little light at the end of the tunnel & I'm not afraid its an oncoming train.

:-)

Last week, as I participated in the thread on dKos that got me banned, the thread whose subject was election malfeasance in Ohio, a few things jumped out at me:

First was just how widespread is the belief that our election system is just shot to hell & degraded to the point of having no more credibility (& maybe less) than that of Ukraine, Belarus or some Third World Banana Republic.

Second was the palpable sensation that some people are ready for violent revolution to regain control of their government - their loss of faith in the trustworthiness of our current system is that far gone;

Third was a challenge from mcjoan - "What have YOU done...?"

Quite frankly, I haven't done much. Like the fabled Tommy, "I became aware this year". Well, not this year, not even last year, but late 2002 - when Bush first began rattling his (our) saber at Iraq, after what I considered a feeble attempt to get Osama.

The light has slowly come on & I began to acknowledge that I personally had to take an interest in, & get active in, this stuff, because those I had trusted to act in my stead were failing miserably at that duty. And, by that, I mean the entire political class - the Republicans for their headlong gallop into corruption, & the Democrats for their failure to act as a check.

At that time I participated in an aviation hobbyist Forum run by a Brit, but with a substantial US membership & I began to become appalled at the racism, rampant jingoism, & blind acceptance of Bush administration policy of the other participants. When I argued that US policy was wrong-headed & went against our highest principles, I was met with the usual "Why do you hate America?" bullshit. So, I began reading the blogs, starting with Josh Marshall, Digby & CalPundit, & after a while I found dKos. Altho' Kos claimed to be all about getting Democrats elected, it was the rich variety of topics, contributed by everyday people, that really impressed me & dKos became my daily news source. After a while, I even signed up & began participating. I had made around 500 posts over the course of two years before I was abruptly banned for suggesting that, perhaps, if the WTC Towers were brought down by controlled demolition, the means by which this was accomplished was thru the use of small, low yield nukes similar to the warhead of the B61 "bunker buster" (whose yield can be 'programmed' to be as small as .3KT).

Early on in my career at Kos I wondered aloud whether Kos was a genius or just lucky. As I read other blogs I thought I observed blogger-burnout, where the writers became exhausted & couldn't find fresh topics or fresh angles to write about. Kos's genius (or lucky break), IMHO, was in giving progressive voices a forum to express themselves - that "rich variety of topics" that I mentioned above.

Allowing OTHER PEOPLE to post on his blog kept the material fresh & relieved Kos himself of the burden of providing it all.

And there were plenty of passionate, articulate people who were happy to have a venue from which to speak. Progressives are all about 'free speech', however, and the quashing of discussion of certain topics and claims that "this is my private board & I make the rules" hurt his credibility as a progressive, by revealing an ugly, controlling side to his personality. Instead of being a place where one can become educated about political action amongst a group of friendly progressives, it is a collection barely controlled "self-governing" children, ala 'Lord of the Flies', where diverging opinion is met with chants of "Kill the Pig" ... errr, "Ban Him".

He has been less successful at being "about getting Democrats elected" & his efforts to refocus on that effort - to 'use the resource' (ie, the people who read the blog)has also disappointed people. People don't like being cast in the role of 'cow' - to be continually 'milked' for the contribution du jour, or told who they 'must' or 'must not' support.

But I digress.

Fourth, and most important was this: In the mob scene that was what became of our "discussion" of election fraud in Ohio, there were a few clear voices that rose up - and, one of them belonged to a fellow who called himself Henry David.

He advocated, as an alternative to violence, the establishment of a 'Velvet Revolution' type of mass protest and that is where this idea of the 'First Tuesday Movement' began.

The idea is to begin a loosely coordinated mass protest and reform of US Election Policy - with escalating levels of action taking place on the First Tuesday of every month.

We would begin by formulating a bill of State & Federal election reforms, to be uniformly applied across the country, and then we would agitate for adoption of this bill thru a series of increasingly strong actions.

Our bill of election reforms would include some or all of the following:

• - mandatory voting as a duty of citizenship - ala 'jury duty',
  
• - an Election Day 'holiday' to enable people to exercise their right & fulfill their duty,
  
• - 100% publically funded campaigns,
  
• - re-establishment of the "equal-time" provision for political use of the media,
  
• - votes to be cast & counted on paper ballots only,
  
• - non-partisanship required for Secretary of State & other election officials,
  
• - requiring of open sourcing of all physical, electrical, hardware & software specifications for voting machinery,
  
• - requirement for open verifiability in all registration, vote-casting & vote-counting procedures,
  
• - etc (add your ideas here - I'm sure that I've left many important points out).

Start by a letter-writing, fax & phone campaign to get the bill sponsored & introduced.
Write, call & fax your Congress-critter of the 'First Tuesday' of every month until the bill is passed in the form we desire.

Continue the calls, faxes & letters every month as the bill progresses - if the bill gets watered down, ignored, poisoned, etc - escalate the calls, faxes & letters to the First Tuesday of every week.

If that doesn't work, go in person to their offices on the First Tuesday of every month (what will they do if there are even 20 people inevery office, local & national, of every Congresscritter, every Tuesday, all waiting patiently to talk to the Critter about the same topic?)

If THAT doesn't work, it is time for work stoppages, sit-down strikes, sick-outs, boycotts of newspaper, cable & cell phone subscriptions, & other economic protests until the elected finally get the message that it is the people that rule & the they will have their will be done.

So - how about it? Is this a crazy idea? A bannable offense? Or something that just might work to take the reins of power back & put them in the hands of the people, where they belong?

If it just might work, what ideas do you have that would make it better ('cuz surely what I've laid out is not the best it could be)?

The floor is open.