Fitz and Roots!

What is up with the new page format? Its godaweful ugly and taxing to read. The western world standardized on justify left for a reason. Hope this is just a temporary bandwidth thing and not a permanent change. Love the site but its literally giving me headaches.

Errr…. well that was weird, the site was like that all morning then I complain and the next time I refresh it’s fixed.

It could be a browser issue I guess, but I choose to blame the NSA.

Sorry

Fitztastic!
What a treat watching the video.
Just got my copy of CTG this morning; can’t wait to get into it.

OT - bill frist operates on a gorilla (i’m not kidding)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....?startat=1

As far as I know, I am the only person from Utah to attempt to sign up for the project. If there is anyone, ANYONE, from Utah interested in doing this, sign up!

UT liberal — thus far, we only have two from WV as well. (Carnacki, I’m looking at you…where are you, man?) Any other Mountaineers out there, take the plunge. Please!

If you’re in Texas, PLEASE sign up for our group at http://groups.google.com/group/stateproject-texas. We want to do an action at the state Dem convention on June 9. Maybe we can have a conference call this weekend. Join and get involved!

CALL CALL CALL

If the reps have this unusual CTG group book delivery yesterday, followed by calls today, their staffers will start feeling like “there’s something going on here.”

Give ‘em that feeling.

Staffers at all three offices I spoke to today were saying they personally planned to swipe their office’s copy at the earliest opportunity.

One thing we’ve been hearing lately from sympathetic staffers (with apologies to David Mamet) is that whether your Senator is with you or against you, always be calling.

Windowdog #2
You may want to check your browser font, etc preference settings..the page has been perfect for me. I am on a Mac with Safari and Firefox..

CA-Roots Project members are contacting Senator Feinstein about her committee vote yesterday to approve General Hayden to run the CIA. According to the Washington Post, she considers him “an honest broker” although she was heard to say after questioning him, “he didn’t answer any of my questions.” One of the questions she asked, of course, was about waterboarding and torture. Hayden deferred his answer to the closed SSCI session.

Is it “honest” to decline to answer Senators’ questions about torture in open session? The Senate passed the torture ban 90-9 and President Bush, Hayden’s boss, signed it.

Email Senator Feinstein at: http://feinstein.senate.gov/email.html

WaPo article about the SSCI vote yesterday:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01123.html

One person makes a huge difference. Get active. Each person has powers within in himself that he doesn’ know he has. Partipating in democracy at any level reminds us of an American value: the dignity and importance of the ordinary citizen.

Act, do, inspire.

spelling police ” pregressive ” first paragraph s/b ” progressive “.

oops — thanks, op99 — will fix it. That’s what I get for posting without doing a thorough spellcheck.

I really like that my comment header continues to stay dusty rose color, at least to me…

Did anyone just catch the Shuster report on MSNBC? I missed the bulk of it — and it was on the Fitz investigation, grand jury and potential for Rove indictment. Ahhhh….hate it when you are cleaning up the living room and miss news. If anyone saw it, I’d appreciate a summary if you have time. Thanks!

First time I logged in this AM, all was normal. Ever since about 8:30 EST it has been grey, no left justification, no boxes around the comments, just a mess. It was like this for me a couple weeks ago for a full day, but it turned out to be a server issue at FDL.

I am in through an AOL browser

Previous Thread # 76

tom - chicago says:
May 24th, 2006 at 8:28 am
I need suggestions for my banner in Chicago’s “Bike the Drive” for my bike this weekend.

How about:

Eat the R(e)ich

It kinda has an anti-fascist-egalitarian-enviro-conscious-self-sustaining-energy-crypto-cannabilistic-paranoia-(are they getting that hungry and desperate?!) vibe.

They are certainly a sufficiently large, albeit toxic, fuel source. (Be warned that such a position may potentially provoke a dreaded War on Bikes response from the ruling class…)
~

OT– Sorry Christy; did not see it– was just reading Jordan’s post on the mine safety situation and Senator Byrd is on the floor of the Senate right now talking about the situation…

looseheadprop — if you clear your browser cache, it may help. (Or so I’m told…)

looseheadprop @ 17-

Me too! (to your entire comment) At least I’m now seeing the refresh comment button.

I get the dusty rose for a new comment right after it posts, but then it goes gray again. Must be a Mac thing.

Woot! to the Roots folk who participated in yesterday’s project! You guys rock!

No-I’m getting it too and I don’t have a Mac.

I’ve got the dusty rose bar and there’s a little timer that is counting down in the lower left hand corner of the comments section.

Interesting thoughts by Steve Clemons this morning..

“While I have some issues with Hayden, I do believe that he is one of the last hopes in restoring some order at the CIA and rolling back Donald Rumsfeld’s colonization of the nation’s national security bureaucracy.

Rumsfeld is my target, and those who see Negroponte, Hayden, and Rumsfeld on the same page are incorrect.

Negroponte will use Hayden to gore Rumsfeld, Stephen Cambone, and William Boykin.

And some in the White House — a bit frustrated that Rumsfeld is not “removable” at this time, as one staffer told me — does not mind cultivating a bit of competition among the President’s intel rivals. This helps give the President some latitude beyond Rumsfeld and is, in general, a smart move that also may be good for the country.

For Dems and others concerned about national security decisionmaking, learning to turn some of these internal tensions into opportunities — as I think Russ Feingold sometimes does — is something that the Democratic Party leadership needs to master to get back into the race.”

My daughter’s best guy friend will be interning in Hillary’s office this summer, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to him to find out when he starts. I am going to give him my copy of the book and see if I can get him to talk it up, because it sounds like, from comments on the previous thread, that the people in her office are pretty clueless.

Will update with any news on that front.

OT but interesting

http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/.....eb388743_4

According to a new Zogby poll, there are apparently a large number of Americans that just don’t believe the offical 911 story.

This reminds me of that post debunking conspiracy theories that then goes on to describe in fabulous detail all the ways that the official 911 narrative is the loopiest conspiracy theory of them all.

Link to humorous debunking of offical 911 narrative provided below.

Tone is satirical throughout, not a serious attempt to provide a new narrative, just poking holes in the offical story.

http://tinyurl.com/mz6y7

There’s another flavor of roots project we can do as well. I have a business where I talk to a lot of customers: small & large business people and individuals, both in person and on the phone. I use every opportunity to bring up the idea of truth vs. lies, of government spying on us and our electronic communications, and on sending young people to a war that was based on lies. I say it with passion, humor, and wink-wink ain’t it the truth. 95% of the time I get a positive response, so I take it to the next level—specific suggestions or questions about the next elections, or about writing or calling our senators (we have a wonderful congress person.) I figure my role is to crystalize the political thought just a little in as many local folks as I can reach.

Did anyone just catch the Shuster report on MSNBC?

Was it new today or just the repeat from yesterday’s Countdown?

Hi. Just spoke to a staffer at Congressman Jim Cooper’s office (he represents Nashville). They are aware of the book and I put in a plug for him to read it. Thanks to everyone for all the hard work to get this done. Y’all are awesome!

Popping in for off-site user support suggestions:

I’m on a Mac using Firefox. When I first hit the site today, it was back to the broken layout of yesterday. I figured things were up in coding land so I didn’t chime in.

An hour later, cleared cache, returned to the home page and all was well with the added bonus of the Refresh Comments button. Wonderful new feature, thanks!

Try this is you’re still seeing the gray background, small centered type:
Go to a blank page or to Google.
Clear the cache.
Bring up FDL main page.
Then refresh again.

Hope this helps.

Sincerest thanks to Roots folks - you guys do indeed rock.

Hilde

Rob at 30 — it was new for today. He said they’d have more on Hardball, but I missed the substance of the report — just caught the tail end. Am hoping they’ll have him on as a repeat update soon.

UTLiberal #6 - you are not alone - e-mail sent

OT in my ongoing defense of English as the national language:

First off, I don’t want you to think I’m some mujik talking mat, a khren spouting govno. That said, I believe for clarity’s sake blogs should only use English for they have an important role as the new samizdat. They are the means by which we can combat the boyars of beltway borsch and the apparatchiks of the Bush agitprop, i.e. the Judy Millers and Tim Russerts, the Roves and the Mehlmans. After all, these are not an intelligentsia with ideas but, like their bosses, a nomenklatura with connections. It is precisely these connections which blogs are so effective at uncovering just like a matryoshka until the truth comes out. They are our spetsnaz fighting against the corporate media and the comfortable kulaks of the right. I am sick of the ideological, nonsensical pogroms mounted by these babushkas of babble. We are not lishenets yet. Guantanamo is a katorga but our country can still be saved from the fullblown gulag though Cheney like some evil Ded Moroz makes his lists and watches.

Thanks to all of you who participated in direct democracy. You rock as well as inspire. I immediately call Harkin, my good Senator and they relayed that several of us netdooters had called. Called Boswell, other Iowan’s Democratic Congressman and they promised to check and call back that they’d received a copy.
I offerred to send Harkin a copy of Glenn’s Patriot book and they were quite interested. Keep the faith, folks. A sea change is coming.

Oh boy. Now I don’t have a refresh comment button and I can’t refresh comments beyond my last one @20.

Sorry I am not a netdooter but a “net do gooder” or a plain old netrooter

Christy - I just caught part of Shuster’s report myself. What I did catch:

1. Some people (lawyers?) close to those who have testified before the GJ say that if Fitz was going to clear Rove he probably would have done it by now.

2. GJ scheduled to meet today (I know, I know…) - no news of anything from there so far.

3. Hardball to have several (former?) Federal prosecutors on today who have been in a position similar to Fitz (meaning investigating high govt./WH officials) talking about what goes into their decision to indict (or not) these high-level people.

Not much, but it’s all I have…

Hugh @ 35 –

Uhhh . . . what language are you writing in?

My babelfish universal translator seems to be on the fritz . . .

To everyone having problems with the site not displaying right-

I found the problem. The people experiencing the problem were actually loading from the old hosting company. I have put the new files on the old servers so the problem should be resolved now. If you are still experiencing problems then clear your browsers cache and you should be ok.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Thank you Jamie for all your work making this site way kewl!

Thank you Jamie for all your fantastic work. It means so much.

OT - ‘Anonymity’ of phone call record data.

I swear my head is going to explode if I hear one more MSM commentator say, in reference to NSA monitoring of phone records, that “the data is anonymous - it’s just the phone numbers — no names are attached”. BS!

The ignorance of such statements is appalling. No, the data is NOT anonymous. If you have a phone number, you in fact, have the name, the address, and much more. Don’t believe me? Go play here for a bit:

http://www.411.com/10668/reverse_phone

Of course the data sets available to the NSA are vastly superior to anything available at 411.com. For one thing, you can’t have a phone number in the US that is ‘unlisted’ with respect to the NSA. But you get the point. If you have the number, you have the name. Even your most rural 2-horse sheriff’s department can easily obtain a name and address, given only the phone number.

One of the most basic and yet most powerful things you can do with databases are to join them together. And the NSA has more expertise in joining large data sets together than perhaps most college IT departments. Joining call record data to customer names is beyond trivial — first year info mgmt students wouldn’t break a sweat.

So please, Mr. or Ms. Journalist, do a little basic research and quit participating in the steno pool.

test

Thank You Jamie - I really didn’t think I could looove this site any more , but man oh man do I love what you are doing

THANKS!!!

ck #40

It’s all good patriotic American, most of which can be found in a good patriotic American dictionary or the following:

http://www.answers.com/topic/l.....ian-origin

Jamie, we all really appreciate your hard work behind the scenes! Thank you for everything you are doing –

From the previous inspiring thread (totally great action!!)…Me to me said that “The Democrats were waiting for us”…”They read us!”.

How about an(other) article about the Roots Project and then hundreds of comments directed specifically to our representatives? Maybe another way to begin, or continue, to communicate our very serious concerns about what’s happened to our country.

We need to open every avenue and communicate with those we elected to be our voice and ask them to stand up and speak for us.

Way to go on the CTG !

I’ve called my congress critters about it. Here’s the toll free to the Capitol switchboard at 1-888-355-3588 again.

We should all write to the national news media, and even our local TV stations if we have Dems in office to suggest this story as a “human interest” piece. i.e. What do the Dems who got the book think? What do the Dems who bought/delivered the books think?

Also, if Senator Feinstein can’t accept gifts can she accept the loan of a book if someone in DC promises to come back for the book when she’s done reading it?

fyi, your front page is all messed up because the blockquote in the “Crashing the Gates of Congress - And Action Request for Everyone” post isn’t closed. All subsequent posts are enclosed in a quote and it gets worse with every subsequent blockquote.

Maybe you need to add to your template a reminder to close html tags. (site editor note: I’ve amended this posting because the tags won’t show up in the comments section.)

Christy, this is just a drive by post, but if I could make a suggestion.

Put any email addresses in your posts in the form of stateproject at gmail dot com.

It will cut down on the spam the address will receive because the spambots will not be able to automatically harvest it from your site.

It’s also a good tip for anyone who posts their email publically.

Jamie — could you briefly describe how the site should look? I have the refresh comments button, but everything else looks the same. I’ve cleared my cache. Thanks.

OT

Pelosi has formally requested Jefferson’s resignation from the Ways and Means Committee. Jefferson has now declined Pelosi’s request.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/000732.php

Bionic - thanks, I made that little change.

Per several posts on the last thread, it finally occurred to me (hits self on forehead) that doing advocacy in congressional offices apparently is a lot like other group selling situations. Back in the day, I used to run marketing programs for same.

I need to think more about this, but a couple of things stood out for me. I absolutely loved the story about the IT guy and the demographics. No office, not even Hillary’s, is a monolith. IDing and helping allies is wonderful leverage to build upon. Going back often enough to build rapport but not so much to get in the way will help tease out those internal relationships. Doing so makes us and them more efficient in getting both of us what we want.

The other thing is to make the relationship a two-way street: what can we do for our allies (existing and potential) in those offices to help them advance our mutual agenda, or at least make their day-to-day lives a little easier and still stay within legal and ethical boundaries?

These projects are great, low-cost (though labor-of-love-intensive) experiments to take CtG to the next step: the netroots-politician interface. This is just a beautiful concept, regardless of what concern trolls say!

Now lets see how this post works: IE6, NT 4.0, on a PC that’s older than some of you.

Not completely OT, there is a good piece over at Seeing the Forest on how people want transformational change, not just tinkering around the edges of things like health care, etc. Look at the article here:

http://www.seeingtheforest.com.....nt_tra.htm

Ed N Sted says:
May 24th, 2006 at 9:59 am

Don’t know if this has been posted before, but here is a link to last weeek’s Businessweek (not a bastion of liberal tin hat theories) which reports that the government has spent MILLIONS on database purchases last year alone to get identifying information on people. So we KNOW that they have the ability to match up names with phone numbers. They are simply BUYING the data to circumvent the law against government COLLECTING personal information.

http://www.businessweek.com/ma.....986068.htm

A Dem pre-emptive strike of their own? This afternoon, Dems will begin their own hearings on Iran. Dr. Jessica Tuchman Matthews is on the docket to testify, which for me means things are looking up.

Looks great. Jamie, you’re a genius!

Now back on the freeway…!

Ed N Sted @ 44

my red neck neighbor and I just looked up his ‘unlisted’ phone number in the link you provided - I learned some new swear words!
poor bastard, I can hear him yelling at Telco from here (apprx. 1000 yards) - next up - his Senators and Congressman

I knew these databases were out there, but thanks for providing a handy link for us all to use in our talking points

guess I’ll go and make sure Bubba doesn’t make any threats to Cornyn staffers . . . lol !

I see my post has been “held for moderation” even though there’s no naughty words or urls in it. Are all posts being moderated?

If you’re having comment spam problems you should look into activating Akismet and installing the SpamKarma 2 plugin. Ruthless solutions for spammers without keeping commenters away. Type in codex.wordpress.org and look up fighting comment spam.

I wonder if anyone will even see my comment by the time it’s unmoderated. :’(

meta– agreed! Hope the hearings will be captured by cspan and broadcasted.

cbl @ 60 –

Direct citizen political action — one red neck at a time!!!

Curioser @ 61 –

What number is the moderated comment? I’ll look at it . . .

FWIW, I heard Lawrence O’Donnell on with someone the other day - might have been Tweety - and he was saying that it’s important to know whether Fitz asked Rove to appear, or Rove requested to appear that last time. O’Donnell said the conventional wisdom is that if Fitzgerald were close to indicting Rove he would not have asked him to come back, and that if Rove’s attorneys thought their client was about to be indicted, they would not have requested that he appear. O’Donnell says Luskin - who he says has never been wrong on proocedural matters, like who asked whom to appear - says Fitz asked Rove back, and O’Donnell opined that that should be seen as meaning Rove is less likely to be indicted.

On the other hand, he also said that this case is somewhat unique, that Fitz is a careful and methodical prosecutor, and basically, no one really knows what anything means.

Curioser: You haven’t experienced the true meaning of being an FDL addict until you have been ‘moderated’ and/or EPU’d.

Hugh says:
May 24th, 2006 at 9:46 am

ROFL! (although lishenets and katorga are new words for me, need to check them out)

O/T A Litle Early Afternoon Cheer

Al Gore on Today Show (h/t Atrios)

linked text

choochmac - 57
Having once been a statistician and database guy in universities, I know for a fact that you can twist and turn multiple databases in every which way from sunday to extract data. And simply extracting names, addresses, etc, is an elementary exercise. I used to do extracts from multiple databases with a million or more records each on a relatively low powered PC in a package called FoxPro in less than five minutes, which were then distilled down to statistical summaries. And this was back in the 1990’s. Elementary, dear Watson.
- sofistic (thank god I’m retired)

open sesame!

Just spoke to a person in Maria Cantwell’s office — who at first seemed unaware of the book - then said Oh, yes, I think I know what you are talking about. I told her I was calling from Seattle because I really hoped that Sen. Cantwell and her staff would read the book. I thought they would find it helpful.

Go Roots! Go FDL.

CK @ 63 it’s (comment 50) showing now, I think.

Got to get back to earning a living. :(

OT:

FDL has had non-displayed images all week on my browser. This appears to only affect FDL’s internally hosted images, and not externally linked ones.(example: Pach’s May 22nd Vandehei piece has an externally linked image nested within that displays fine to me). What is show in the images place is the alt/text title only. Javascript is enabled, and cache/cookies have been repeatedly cleared/replaced.

When tracked back to the image’s URL, a 404 error message is displayed, along with FDL header and blogad sidebars. This occurs in both IE6 and Firefox.

Is anyone else having this difficulty?

Deborah at 49.

Yep the Dems read us. I heard Howard Dean speak last week and his remarks were full of FDL jargon. I hear FDL lingo from other lawyers in NY.

At least twice I have heard the term EPU used to describe the last person stuck in a long exchange of voicemeail or phone tags.

I see our slang it in emails from folks all over DOJ and the FBI. I hear it in conversations I have with deadtree reporters.

You know, I never hear anyone mention this site by name, but I know they are lurkers or influenced by lurkers, because I hear them talk the talk; the same themes, the same use of language, and especaily the same nicknames.

Firepuppies, I don’t think you fully appreciate how effective you are, how respected, how much your hard work is paying off. You are changing the way thinking people think talk and write about important issues. I admire all of you, and our goddesses, I mean hostesses, most of all.

darkblack - I see the images fine at work, but get the non-displayed images at home. Using IE6 both places.

Also, the “Refresh Comments” button freezes my computer, but F5 works.

All Hail the General (Jesus’) …

This is OT but continues the Letters to NYT Editor thread below on the front-page expose: How Often Do Bill and Hill Do It, anyway?

HEEERE’S JESUS’ GENERAL …
All the news that titillates

The French bastards at the Times removed my comment about their article on the Klintons:

“Although I enjoyed the Time’s piece on the Klintons, I was very disappointed that you were unable to nail down how often they do the wild thing. I was also hoping that you’d provide a detailed description of the former president’s thingy. Does it really curve to the left?

“Still, even without these things, it was the kind of important journalism we’ve come to expect from the Time. You should be proud.

“Hopefully, you’ll continue to do stories like this. I’d be very interested in learning how often John Bolton gets him some without having to pay for it.”

STILL J’S GENERAL …
Well, at least this one remains:

120. What I want to know is if, like the praying mantis, Judith Miller eats the head of her lover during coitus. Can you ask Mr. Sulzberger?

Comment by Gen. JC Christian, patriot — May 23, 2006 @ 2:36 pm

posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot | 11:07 AM
—
See fer yerself: www.patriotboy.blogspot.com

darkblack — it may be due to our server migration. I’m posting via the new server — but if you are still viewing through the old one at Hostgator, you won’t be able to pick up the images. That may be causing the hiccup. Hopefully the rest of the servers will catch on to the new location for us soon, and everyone will be able to get images. Sorry for the glitch.

P J Evans #66

Katorga is a tsarist precursor of the gulag.
Lishenets is loss of the right to vote or hold office.

77:

Scooter, Pinch, and Ahmad Chalabi still have their heads on. Anyone seen Mr. Judy Miller lately?

refresh

OfT: Example from wingnut NRO of the damage Jason Leopold does
“Former Intelligence Officials”
“What do Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Joe Wilson, David Shuster and Jason Leopold all have in common? Seixon connects the dots:
There can no longer be any doubt that most of these explosive and uncorroborated “news” stories are being manufactured by the tight-knit group of former intelligence officials in tandem with Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, and most likely backers in the Democratic Party. It is also probably no coincidence that David Shuster and Chris Matthews of MSNBC have carried many of the same rumors and false stories, such as the one claiming that outing Plame damaged efforts on Iran. Shuster has been hyping a Rove indictment as imminent for over a month, something only one other source has been doing: Jason Leopold….”

IMO no one is better on Cable/network teevee than Shuster at covering Plamegate. Now, thanks to Leopold’s “me first attitude,” NRO is using his errors and failure to retract to slime Shuster, Wilson…. IMO it’s not so important for the readership of the NRO, but it hurts momentum we have built up with some in the corporate media.

Thank you, Lobstergirl and Christy…I suspected it may have been a case of ‘those darn servers’.

;>)

John Casper

I could not agree with you more. Query, is there anything constructive we can do about it?

Anyway to give Schuster either cover or encouragement? the purpose of the sliming is to intimadate Schuster, his boss or both.

How do we antidote that?

Thoughts anyone?

Goody, i just got the dusty rose bar! how pretty!

An idea for next time - local progressives in all 50 states donate a book to their representatives’ local offices. It would be more work, logistically, but would also show we’re paying attention not only in DC but also where we all live.

I’d suggest 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Fight the Right; I read it recently and found a lot of great ideas and recommended reading, etc.

Sorry to go OT here, the Roots Project is wonderful, but this is just horrific. Ehud Ohlmert is announcing Israel’s intentions to unilaterally and illegally (read the Geneva Conventions!) annex large swaths of the territory it occupies…and Bush cheers, Congress cheers, the press fails to provide context, and the progressosphere pretty much just yawns, at least until Juan Cole revs up his engines. (Arianna was totally snookered by Ohlmert some months back and gave him the keys to her blog.)

Blind support, by even most progressive Democrats, of Israel’s blatant violations of law and treaty are a big part of why the US is hated around the world and deserves it.

You want to reduce the terrorist threat?

1. Intelligence, law enforcement, limited covert and/or military action when necessary.

2. Effective monitoring of shipping routes and ports of entry.

Democrats are all over these points, as they should be. BUT, BUT, BUT….

3. To the extent that we’re behaving illegally and/or reprehensibly, and thereby earning international contempt, STOP THE BEHAVIOR!

Our leaders’ robotic approval of anything and everything the Israeli government does is reprehensible. As is the silence of most of the progressive blogosphere. It makes us all less safe, for no gain to American interests.

Wow, I really don’t think Hastert, Frist or the other complainers would recognize the Constitution if it bit them in the ass, so I wonder what they’re REALLY afraid of here….I think I smell a little what’s-good-for-the-goose. Hastert, after all, has been implicated in the Abramoff sewage and the Sibel Edmonds whistleblowing thing…..what’s in YOUR FREEZER, Denny??

Hastert Demands FBI Return Documents

By LAURIE KELLMAN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, May 24, 2006; 1:28 PM

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Dennis Hastert demanded Wednesday that the FBI surrender documents it seized and remove agents involved in the weekend raid of Rep. William Jefferson’s office, under what lawmakers of both parties said were unconstitutional circumstances.

“We think those materials ought to be returned,” Hastert said, adding that the FBI agents involved “ought to be frozen out of that (case) just for the sake of the constitutional aspects of it.”

John Casper, looseheadprop:

The preemptive work on this has already begun, but has not wholly taken off: repuduate Leopold and Truthnot.

The right, as predicted, is using them to discredit all of us, and the Fitzgerald investigation. They may even be feeding disinformation to Leopold.

More awareness building on this must be done. This is Barbara Comstock’s campaign.

Rudy at 70

I delivered to Murray and mentioned the WA group to the recipient. I’ve been in pretty close touch with them through annie. I passed on how much they had appreciated their meeting in Seattle.

Well if it wasn’t for Leopold I wouldn’t know all about Luskin’s cat and subsequent worm infestation.

Re person-to-person activism: one of the guys I work with is a Republican, but like so many other conservatives is disgusted with Bush and the administration. The other day he was complaining about them, and I said, “No matter what party you are - vote for Democrats in November.”

He said he couldn’t because they wouldn’t be on his ballot, and I told him he could write in anyone he wanted. He said, “That’s true - yeah, I’ve had it with this bunch.”

One person at a time.

So Jane is visiting relatives here in Oklahoma?
Another of the gazillion, bazillion reasons why I’m proud to be an Okie!

Also, if Senator Feinstein can’t accept gifts can she accept the loan of a book if someone in DC promises to come back for the book when she’s done reading it?

They said she’d accept it by mail, so we’re mailing it to her.

Oh, now I see the rose bar everyone’s talking about! Very pretty indeed.

Leslie-
All candidates should be on the november ballot. They’re just not going to be on the primary ballot in the spring.

An idea for next time - local progressives in all 50 states donate a book to their representatives’ local offices. It would be more work, logistically, but would also show we’re paying attention not only in DC but also where we all live.

This is currently a net roots best practice for a constituent visit. Leave behind a book that is consistent with the theme of your visit.

lobstergirl @ 87 - try this one. same article.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying, “We have a great deal of respect for the Congress as a coequal branch of government.”

CNN is the worst. Right now they have pictures of Jefferson and Pelosi side by side on their homepage, with the healine below saying:

“Angry lawmakers demand FBI return seized documents”

It goes on to provide a somewhat accurate story, that points out the Republicans are the ones asking for the documents and Pelosi is asking for Jefferson’s resignation. But the damage is already done in the public’s mind by the headline and photo. Incredibly misleading and irresponsible. Pravda

Dadhusker, LMAO.

John Casper #82: It’s that PROJECTION thing again - accuse the “enemy” of doing exactly what you do - and be sure to slop on piles of FAUX OUTRAGE!

Gossip - planting rumor and innuendo that get picked up as the CW - is the rightwing stock-in-trade - Drudge, Swiftboaters, etc. - it’s Karl Rove’s favorite tactic - besides, of course, accusing others of doing it.

I know y’all know all this - just venting my REAL OUTRAGE at the rightwing slimeballs - again!

Great catch at 98, xyz!

Thank you for bringing this up, ralphbon. This is an ongoing illegal theft of land and occupation. What makes it even more egregious is the horrific conditions that have worsened for the Palestinian people since the election of Hamas. We are contributing to the misery. The Israeli government is illegally withholding the monies of the Palestinian people– money to pay for food, medicine, salaries, water and electricity.

We, as a nation member, member of the Security Council, and vocal critic of the UN, never insist that Israel comply with resolutions passed. But look at the price Saddam and his nation paid for their noncompliance. Utter and transparent hypocrisy.

Amy Goodman is devoting a large part of her show to this issue today.

http://www.democracynow.org/ar.....24/1435247

lobstergirl @ 87 - try this one. same article.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying, “We have a great deal of respect for the Congress as a coequal branch of government.”

I know, I got a good laugh out of that one.

Just called Mike Michaud, D-ME, spoke with Matt in his office and asked if Mike had recieved his copy of “Crashing the Gate”. He said that he had. I told hime that the netroots project has roots in Maine.

Also dropped off copies of “What Would a Patriot Do?” to ocal public, college, and high school libraries.

Thanks for giving us this opportunity to serve Christy, Jane, & Pac.

my #101– should be: are the horrific conditions, not is

My suggestion for another project - apologize if it’s been suggested before:

Lapdogs - by Eric Boehlert - delivered to the media people who fit the title - print and TV.

Of course a case could be made that books would need to be delivered to 99% of the press corps - which would make it one expensive project!

John Casper, looseheadprop, pach:

The good news is that in the long run all attempts to smear “the internet” and “bloggers” with a broad brush will fail. But in the short run, great damage can be done. This is a sign that Comstock et al fear us and we have their attention.

I think the bottom line is that we have to continue to act aggressively as an engine of truth and a clearinghouse for information. Now, our campaign should be to shed light on those who attempt to smear us all via Leopold. We are off to a good start, I believe.

Let me also say that the last thing we want to do is start second-guessing ourselves in an effort to curry favor with those who are criticizing us. But then, everyone here at FDL knows that already. This Comstock campaign should be taken up as a badge of courage for us.

We have her complete attention, and now she and her movement have ours. It makes sense that they should fear us. We are their worst nightmare - a group of independent thinkers who are pursuing the truth and trying to shed light on an administration dedicated to secrecy. Never in human history have the forces of transparency (the internet, the netroots) and the forces of secrecy and deceit (this administration and their allies) come into such clear conflict on such a vast scale.

If they want to hamstring us with their smear tactics, they can feel free to try, but it will only make us more determined in our cause. And, because we have the resources of the internet and each other, we can investigate and pick apart the Republican machine piece by piece and expose it to daylight in real time.

It is an exciting time to be alive and I look forward to participating in all the FDL and the other progressive blogs have begun. One thing that we might decide to focus even more of our attention on is “oppo research”. For example, there was talk before of using private investigators to dig deeper on Comstock and her ilk. That is a great idea, and one to which I would donate if given the opportunity.

new thread: “Libby’s Defense Strategy: ‘Through the Looking Glass’”

Taking the action further, am doing a preemptive strike tomorrow, giving CtG and Patriot to the campaign staff of Russ Warner, who will crush Dreier in November (doesn’t hurt to be positive).

Speaking of Boelhert, he had an interesting observation of the MSM: “During the Clinton years there was this mindset that we can print anything we want - any half baked allegation - as long as it’s leaked from either a prosecutor or republican on the hill. And two and three months later, when nothing pans out and it turns out to be complete fantasy, A we don’t write about it agian, or B, we pretend it wans’t fnatasy and we just keep writing about it as if it were a fact. That was the mindset during the CLinton era, and the mindset during the Bush era is the complete opposite. The mindset did a complete 180.”

OT: The Washington Post story on the FBI searching Rep. Jefferson’s office only mentions Hastert as complaining. It associates this with Sen. Specter’s arguments with the Administration about illegal NSA surveillance, but I’m not sure that’s valid. Democrats, according to the Post article, are only calling for Jefferson’s resignation from the Ways And Means committee.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....tml?sub=AR

Thanks for the heads-up, Angie. I always download DN during the day and listen on my subway ride home.

It’s a shame this is an issue that even the good guys, like Feingold and Conyers, won’t touch.

Aside from us, Israel is the preeminent power in the Middle East. It has a large advanced military and is nuclear armed. The idea that it feels threatened by the Palestinians in general or Hamas in particular is ridiculous. Even if there were a return to the Intifada, Israel’s existence and security (although not it’s peace of mind) would never be in jeopardy.