Am I first?

Ned!

I’d like to give a shout out to our moderators on the TROLL PATROL! BOO YA!

Jane, Christy, Fitz and Ned

John Fund is a __________.
(Please fill in the blank at home.)

The winger called something Jane wrote/did unconscionable on Hardball. Moulitsas promply cut off and unable to respond.

Mrs. K8! {{{{}}}}

How are you?

“My goodness…”

My first posting to this new system…anyone else having trouble with everything freezing up when trying to post? Is it a Firefox update problem? (just updated the browser yesterday)

I tried posting a lengthier msg in the thread below and got frozen out…and my first success at being first in thread (above) was *threatening* to freeze up. Any suggestions appreciated by this non-techie.

Jane

Markos on Hardball tonite opposite John Fund. It wasn’t pretty. Markos was eaten alive because Fund used the old Rethug method of Coitus interruptus and filibuster. Must come up with a game plan when paired against such slime.

As the Dixie Chicks would say, “We’re not ready to make nice” especially to Fund and his ilk.

As John Matuszak exclaimed just prior to the kickoff in the movie “North Dallas Forty “, “Let’s kill the cocksuckers”.

You are more techie than me, my friend…

“How do you turn this thing on?”

John Matuszak
‘The TOOZE’
RIP

I have immoderate fondness for impressive moderators. If all the trolls got through that are trying, I would have danced my gigantic feet off by now.

Mrs. K8 @
8

My first posting to this new system…anyone else having trouble with everything freezing up when trying to post? Is it a Firefox update problem? (just updated the browser yesterday)

I tried posting a lengthier msg in the thread below and got frozen out…and my first success at being first in thread (above) was *threatening* to freeze up. Any suggestions appreciated by this non-techie.

It showed up, MrsK8 – twice. Just took a while. We seem to have been attracting quite the herd of trolls these days, and the mods and filters have been working overtime.

Hey Leslie!

Big big hugs back to you, sweetie!

Am sorry I’m on my way out the door to physical therapy RIGHT NOW. :-(

I lost so much time trying to post a lost-in-the-ether frozen out msg below, and now it’s time to go. Will look for you later this evening…

Smooches to all firepups!

NDF is the best football movie. Real and dirty.

Wow,something I can agree with!.If Senator Lieberman loses he should bow out and
I believe he will.

Hi Mrs. K8 – If by ‘frozen out’ you mean you got an ERROR message. I have gotten those several times too. It ends up usually with my having to close all windows, and shut the machine off. Then start all over again. Sometimes waiting as long as 1/2 hour.

So you are not alone in having posting problems. However, I have absolutely no clue why — other than the usual FDL being down temporarily.

“Every vote counts!”

Uh-Oh

*sigh*
.
.
.
*tap tappity*

Lautenberg told Page that in the event of a big primary loss, Lieberman would have to “take a look at what reality is.”

Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less..”

Lieberality.

Troll patrol rocks.

Didn’t see Fund but he’s the king of the rubber-lipped cut-off. They asked me to do the show and I said “you know, I think I’d rather have my wisdom teeth re-extracted.” I’m glad it was Markos and not me, he’s much better under those circumstances.

I went to lunch with CTKeith, TrueBlueCT, and James and Will from the BBC. We ate lobster. I couldn’t crack the shell so Keith grabbed it and broke it with his bare hands. It was awesome.

Really good lobster.

i want to see joe BURIED on tuesday. then the thugs can go back to their holes from wherever they came from. right fran?

Stephen @
7

“My goodness…”

:-) Happen to have just hit that point now in my media box. Mouth was trying for avuncular disappointment, I think, but hands said something else.

Violence tends to be up in the spring, summer, and fall.

On the NewsHour, Shields and Bobblehead Brooks both agreed that Lieberman was going to lose. Babbling Brooks also said that only a few nudniks still believe that anything good can come out of Iraq “in the short term”. Of course, he might have added that in the long term, we are all dead. Also Boneheaded Brooks must have had a brain infarct because he was until quite recently in the nudnik “it will turn around” category. Blowhard Brooks took a swipe at the minimum wage. He said it only affected teenagers. Shields to his credit called him on that.

In some ways, you have to admire Broken Record Brooks. He gets the Administration’s talking points in order each week and always finds a way to work them into the conversation. He may be a shill but he is a disciplined shill.

My first posting to this new system…anyone else having trouble with everything freezing up when trying to post? Is it a Firefox update problem?

It’s happened to me once or twice, but my biggest problem is that I can’t comment from my Treo smartphone, which is kind of a bummer.

Jane!! (BTW, I left a comment for you in mod)

OT And, about the troll patrol stuff and mods- I was waiting for a new article to put up some perspective. So, I did mod for quite a while, every day, several hours a day, starting way back when. (VG establishes self as “voice of experience”). It became apparent to me when FDL stats rose that some additional mods were needed, apart from those in place. I thought that *ilson would be fabulous- thankfully THANKFULLY higher powers and *ilson himself agreed. (VG claims *ilson as her baby.) Other great mods were recruited via other means, but I have a special thing for *ilson cause *ilson is my baby.

I finally burned out bec. of several reasons, including serious day job demands. If it can happen to me, it can happen to other mods. So please all, give yourselves as many attagirls or attaboys that you need every time you DO NOT feed the trolls.

*ilson explained it in a memorable way earlier today. *ilson does have a way with words!! So, this is what *ilson said:

~~ *ilson: “I used to have cats — they’d bring to me a live mouse and then play roughly with it — what joy they had! — the mouse was terrified — I usually grabbed the mouse and threw it out of the house. I knew if I let the cats keep playing with the mouse, I’d soon have bloody mouse parts all over the floor.
Same with trolls — you-all have such fun batting them around but after a while it just gets messy”

Could not have said it better. Classic, *ilson.

Really good lobster.

*This* is primo lobster.

Eli – “stupid smartphone!”

(hee)

Fran,

If what you say is true, that would be the classy — not to mention the right — thing to do.

Lieberman should bow out if he loses, but my guess is several people will have to sit and explain it very s-l-o-w-l-y to him. He’s been in office 18 years, and came thisclose to being VP in 2000. An air of desperation has set in around him. It explains the nasty campaign tactics and the idea of running as an independent.

I hope he does the right thing for the party and the country, but it won’t be easy for him.

Stephen @ 15

NDF is the best football movie. Real and dirty.

Have never seen it. I should.

Jane Hamsher @ 22

Troll patrol rocks.

Didn’t see Fund but he’s the king of the rubber-lipped cut-off. They asked me to do the show and I said “you know, I think I’d rather have my wisdom teeth re-extracted.” I’m glad it was Markos and not me, he’s much better under those circumstances.

I went to lunch with CTKeith, TrueBlueCT, and James and Will from the BBC. We ate lobster. I couldn’t crack the shell so Keith grabbed it and broke it with his bare hands. It was awesome.

Really good lobster.

Hmmmm . . . really good lobster, or Hardball?

You’re a wise one, Jane!

Rock some trolls for those of us who can’t get to CT – we’ve got your back, here at the lake.

OT Your daily energy prices.

Average price for regular gasoline 8/4/06 in 50 states and DC

$3.00 plus 27 states
$2.90 plus 21 states
$2.80 plus 3 states

Average national price: $3.007, up $.006
Highest recorded national average price: $3.057 9/5/2005

Highest average price: Hawaii $3.371
Lowest average price: South Carolina $2.845

Oil Prices

Nymex Crude Future $74.60
Dated Brent Spot $76.28
WTI Cushing Spot $74.76

Gas prices remain high. Oil: Speculative pressure stemming from tropical storm Chris continue to ease. If there is a ceasefire in Lebanon, there may be further declines but below $70 I don’t know.

“stupid smartphone!”

Maybe it’s *too* smart, and WordPress just isn’t ready for its genius.

Jane Hamsher @ 22

Troll patrol rocks.

Didn’t see Fund but he’s the king of the rubber-lipped cut-off. They asked me to do the show and I said “you know, I think I’d rather have my wisdom teeth re-extracted.” I’m glad it was Markos and not me, he’s much better under those circumstances.

I went to lunch with CTKeith, TrueBlueCT, and James and Will from the BBC. We ate lobster. I couldn’t crack the shell so Keith grabbed it and broke it with his bare hands. It was awesome.

Really good lobster.

Fund mentioned your name on Hardball. Useful idiot ; )

Markos was fine. He knew he wasn’t going to get a word in at the end, so he sat back and laughed at the absurdities the frogboy was spurting. Early on, he (markos) won my heart when he said that the voters of CT were responsible for Ned’s success, not him or Jane or netroots in general. We helped out where we were needed. The races ahead of us will define this Democratic party. Lieberman was an easy target.
If you live in NM, please vote!

John Casper @
18

“Every vote counts!”

But is every vote counted?

Looks Like Joe is trying to snooker folks into thinking he’s already pretty much given up on the primary so they’ll go back to sleep while he keeps up his GOTV campaign full bore, hoping the other side (us) will ease off and he can pull close. Combine that with this silly “if I lose by less than ten points I’m still running” business and it’s clear that Joe not only thinks like a rethug he campaigns like one. Dirty tricks, name calling and deception. If he thinks that will make him a winner in anyone’s eyes, or at the polls, he’s even more deluded than I thought. And I thought he was pretty damn deluded.

Keep fighting, Jane! Don’t let up and don’t rest ’til Tuesday. Say, ‘Til Tuesday, wasn’t that a band? Be careful, voices carry, you know.

Jane Hamsher @ 22

Troll patrol rocks.

Didn’t see Fund but he’s the king of the rubber-lipped cut-off. They asked me to do the show and I said “you know, I think I’d rather have my wisdom teeth re-extracted.” I’m glad it was Markos and not me, he’s much better under those circumstances.

I went to lunch with CTKeith, TrueBlueCT, and James and Will from the BBC. We ate lobster. I couldn’t crack the shell so Keith grabbed it and broke it with his bare hands. It was awesome.

Really good lobster.

The stunts that John Funds, Newt Gingrich’s, etc. can pull, and yet still be accepted by the MSM, just boggle the mind. IOKIYAR

Fund co-authored Cleaning House: America’s Campaign for Term Limits (Regnery Gateway, 1992

Funny how we haven’t heard so much about term limits in the last decade.

at a little after four in the morning, it’s still 90ºF in Baghdad …

‘Scuse me. Sheesh, leave at the wrong time and you’re sunk. I can’t for the life of me figure out why astralplame is taptaptapping along.Is it a troll thing?

Fran has us all on edge.

What does give me a bit of concern over all this is WHY has Clinton come out to endorse Holy Joe?
Surely Clinton isn’t that much of an ignoramus (stupid Prick)?
What people SAY and what they actually DO are quite often Two different things. Joes Voting record and his love of all things Republican (including their Pres.) has surely got to tell Clinton something?

Hey Clinton…Here’s a tip….drop Lieberman!! The guy’s a Republican in Democrat clothing, fuck him off into the ether forever!

I will bet a bottle of good Washington wine that if Lieberman loses he runs as an independent. It’s all about him, dontcha know.

*ilson46201

at a little after four in the morning, it’s still 90ºF in Baghdad …

but is it a dry heat?

OT sorry if already noted. Bush advisor, pleads quilty to theft (at target stores)…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14189452/

Sorry, EPUed from the last thread:

WaPo’s E.J. Dionne on KO just now:

“[Hillary] was looking at Rumsfeld but seeing Ned Lamont.”

It’s FireDogLake-effects politics.

Jane @ 22

There’s only one way to deal with arrogant fools like Fund. Laugh in his face. They absolutely can’t take ridicule, and they deserve it so much.

That, and yeah, cut him off in midsentance with a hearty laugh and an “Are you kidding?” He’s rude and in that arena one has to respond somewhat in kind while trying not to totally descend to their level.

Notice that Bill came out for Joe, but not Hilary. I knew he was sunk then. BTW-WTF is up with Barbara Boxer?

yup, it’s dry heat unlike VietNam !

Eli @ 35

“stupid smartphone!”

Maybe it’s *too* smart, and WordPress just isn’t ready for its genius.

Maybe you need a banana phone!

immanentize @ 30

Fran,

If what you say is true, that would be the classy — not to mention the right — thing to do.

Things are just too important.He always struck me as being a gentleman despite
verbal attacks to the contrary.The real
problem is the Republican majority who
have created a country for the middle class
that I don’t recognize any longer.

I hade fresh lobster in Maine one summer, and since have never had lobster go good.

I’m going to register my disatisfaction with Senator Lautenberg, who is my senator, and generally a sane man. I was schocked to read he campaigned for Loserman.

I always get a reply from the Senator. I will wait to see what he has to say in defense of himself.

I once saw Lou Dobbs call out John Fund for general rudeness … Fund remained stunned, silent and petulant.

Really good lobster.

Mmmm … lobster.

mommybrain – indeed. A way to disengage by engaging in another way. Kind of like blowing bubbles.

Markos was great. Didn’t take the bait. Fund did mention Jane’s name but not the blog name. They cut Markos off at the end and he’s responded on DKos here.

I keep thinking of NoMoJo waking up and looking in the mirror and wondering what it was that happened to him. Sad. But sadder still the folks that have had to live with his decisions and votes.

I need a shoe phone, Now that’s smart. Agent Smart.

We’re in the fog of war now, and will be till the vote counts come in. Who knows what Holy Joe and the entire dem/pundit/corporate/lobbiest establishment forces are up to, except that you can be sure it is to defeat us! Who do they think they are kidding!

The only way to avoid a knife in the back or a gernade in the lap is to have discipline and stick to the basics, remained focused. That means GOTV

I just finished the MPRE exam a few hours ago (and the bar exam last week). I now have the time to go to CT, but no $$ having not worked for several months now. Bummer. Maybe I should do what the General advises and go up on Joe’s dime! Canvass for Joe! It might make for some interesting reports from the road.

Valley Girl, are you now VG again for good?

Jane – keep up the excellent work – thank you. Come a couple states further north some time for some really great lobster (aka ‘bugs’)*grin*.

Also see this – he’s desperate.

Not sure what it would take to get a defeated Lieberman out of the race, not even threats by Reid, the Clintons, et al. to figuratively break his political legs.

One thing that I am more sure of. If Lieberman even squeaks by with a win on Tuesday, he will re-appear on the Hannity and the Imus shows crowing about it. The only question is whether he does it before or after his reelection in November. If that doesn’t motivate the GOTV effort, nothing else will.

Apologies for sharing that cauchemar.

Any update on how the signature gathering is going for Joe?

BTW really good lobster? Try Nantucket. Not to mention steamers.

*ilson46201 #51

yup, it’s dry heat unlike VietNam !

Well, that makes all the difference at least wrt the heat. Now if we could do the same about the quagmire part.

Stephen @ 37

Markos was fine.

i agree : KOS was good. KOS’s derisive laughter at the greasy fund, his purile interrupting, and his impotent new gop mcgovern in 72 line were priceless.

and Markos’s line about valuing honesty was the best of the segment.

barnicle was obviously strapped by the time.

NefLes- no, I think I am M (M/VG) for good. But, since I was making a comment about moderators (and I am trying to do a bit of moderating right now) I thought I’d use my original moniker. And, I thought that Jane might not know who M is, cause she’s had so many much more important things to consider!!!!

immanentize @ 30

Fran,

If what you say is true, that would be the classy — not to mention the right — thing to do.

Help me out a bit.It’s obvious to many that I’m new here.What is a troll and what are the dutys of the troll patrol?

RevDeb @ 58

Markos was great. Didn’t take the bait. Fund did mention Jane’s name but not the blog name. They cut Markos off at the end and he’s responded on DKos here.

That’s a great editorial Kos has quoted there.

attta-mods!

Stephen @ 4

John Fund is a __________.
(Please fill in the blank at home.)

Pillbury Do-Boy

Why is John Fund appearing on tv? Is he done being sued by his ex-girlfriends daughter that he got pregnant? The civil case was in court in July.

I think everyone who contributes to this site know the significance of the Tuesday election. It is not just that the leading war-monger in the Senate will be defeated. The American people, through Democratic voters in Connecticut, will send a clear message to the White House, the NeoCon lobby and the Democratic party. We’ll also discover that the inside-the-beltway MSM pundits can no longer dictate what candidates are acceptable and what candidates are non-acceptable.

Kos’ take on his Hardball appearance: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/4/183211/7684
His opening paragraphs:

Well, that Hardball appearance was a waste of time. They cut the segment short and did so after letting John Fund rant on forever. I supposed if I’m going to do those stupid shows, I need to learn to be rude and interrupt like John Fund did.

Or just not do them. Because I swear, those people just lie. And on TV, there’s no one to googlecheck them or see if their assertions make sense.

Far be it from me to suggest to Our Lord and Master that he should have known that before he accepted the gig, but c’mon, Kobe was smart enough to tell Jane not to do it. Just sayin’.

Wess @
44

What does give me a bit of concern over all this is WHY has Clinton come out to endorse Holy Joe?
Surely Clinton isn’t that much of an ignoramus (stupid Prick)?
What people SAY and what they actually DO are quite often Two different things. Joes Voting record and his love of all things Republican (including their Pres.) has surely got to tell Clinton something?

Hey Clinton…Here’s a tip….drop Lieberman!! The guy’s a Republican in Democrat clothing, fuck him off into the ether forever!

It’s a win-win scenario for the Big Dog. If Joe wins, Bill can claim it was because of his support. You know he was giggling at the other end of the phone when Joe begged for his help. If Joe loses, Bill gets to give a speech where he solemnly says we must abide by the wishes of the voters and support Ned Lamont. Being the professional that he is, Bill will be able to give this entire speech without chuckling.

Imman – I don’t know if you watched any of the questioning of Rumsfeld, but Talent wore his yellow tie.

Watch the clip, you’ll understand a lot about yellow ties. “Talented” you might call them. ;)

A troll is a poster who makes unwarrented personal attacks, or makes comments which are intended to be disruptive or start flame wars. Also can apply to those who take contrary positions which are not backed up by facts and are intended to annoy or deride others.

Stephen @ 4

John Fund is a __________.
(Please fill in the blank at home.)

bidet account?

crappy piggybank?

fran —- just today alone, I have had to delete a number of comments which use incredibly racist and sexist language to attack Jane and Christy. The right wing have adopted Lieberman and are attacking progressive blogs. Thank heavens folk dont see the crap we delete!

North Dallas Forty? Bush version:

North Dallas Snorty

or

Debile does Dallas

*ilson46201 @ 80

fran —- just today alone, I have had to delete a number of comments which use incredibly racist and sexist language to attack Jane and Christy. The right wing have adopted Lieberman and are attacking progressive blogs. Thank heavens folk dont see the crap we delete!

Yeah, I forgot about the racist and sexist stuff.

Mary- sorry I haven’t followed the Talent q. Rummy thing, but are you giving Imm sartorial advice? Watch the clip?? Oh, not the tie clip I guess… can you give a brief report?

this EPU’d comment (#368 last thread) garnered a chuckle:

John Galindo says:
August 4th, 2006 at 5:15 pm *

*ilson46201 @
9

clunky old mechanical voting machines are still used in CT

Good, so then after the vote on Tuesday Leiberman can claim he would have won handily if Deibold machines been in place. Oh well.

*ilson, did you see my Ode to *ilson at #27?

*ilson46201 @ 80

fran —- just today alone, I have had to delete a number of comments which use incredibly racist and sexist language to attack Jane and Christy. The right wing have adopted Lieberman and are attacking progressive blogs. Thank heavens folk dont see the crap we delete!

They come from the Blogostomy™! (And they’re full of it.)

mods rock

BarbB 75 – I agree, but wouldn’t it be a cool game/reality show concept?

Half the audience has high speed access and gets to fact check the interviewees -the other half doesn’t. The no-access half has to vote on statements selected by the googlers being lies or truth.

thank you for those kind remarks, VG

*ilson46201 @ 80

fran —- just today alone, I have had to delete a number of comments which use incredibly racist and sexist language to attack Jane and Christy. The right wing have adopted Lieberman and are attacking progressive blogs. Thank heavens folk dont see the crap we delete!

I just want to thank you for keeping me from those who would sully my beautiful mind. This is not snark. I tend to go off on trolls and waste a lot of valuable time. One of the reasons I don’t read comments on HuffPo or Slate any more.

The Mod Squad

I know I keep shilling for Giliard, but he does it again Here (starts by quoting Jane’s post :

Except I don’t think this is what is happening. You have two public polls showing a massive Lamont lead, so maybe Lieberman tried a Jedi mind trick, but I think someone got in his ear, one of his kids, his wife, and he unleashed the hounds. I fully believe that Lieberman’s team wanted to save the money for an “indy” run. Or to get paid.

And it’s not like Lamont is gonna release his poll numbers anyway, but it doesn’t matter. When I played football, and we had a lead, we always said it was zero-zero. If my candidate was up by 13 points, I’d say that was bullshit, regardless of what my numbers said.

Joe got a bug up his ass and said spend the money.

Now, this wasn’t going to affect the Lamont campaign because they aren’t stupid, but Rennie was right about something else, this isn’t going to be fought in New Haven and Stamford, but the small towns Lieberman has ignored. They’re the ones who got the ball rolling on Lamont, and that’s who will make the difference. Because it’s the towns where there will be turnout.

Now some people are assuming that independents who registered as Dems are mostly Lamont supporters, that may be, but some are coming to save Lieberman.

I don’t know how many people have worked campaigns, but kids running around with voter lists is not the way to do it, especially if the kids are white and the neighbors not. All they’re doing is what ACT did in Ohio, pester people who have already committed their vote. Someone said about that, people would say they agreed with you, but they had already told the person at the church they would vote their way.

They may get a nice reception at the door, but Lieberman probably lost their votes a while back.

Sure, shitty campaigns can win, but the ground game can’t be a weekend of face saving. It has to be in play for a month or so. Lieberman’s events are a joke, he’s got mostly young kids who don’t know the areas they’re working in doing his canvassing. Lamont has neighbors canvassing neighbors and that’s what Bush did in Ohio.

I know Tim, Jane and Maura were freaked when they heard that Lieberman was tossing money and bodies at Lamont. I’ve been there. But truth be told, if you have to wait until election weekend to get people out, you have to hire them, you’re in trouble. If he had said 50 churches were going to canvass for him, you’d have a real problem, because that’s playing into authority and family and friendship. But white kids from Jersey? Kids? Not having any clue on how to approach black people? It may cost him votes.

Let me explain.

Go read his explanation again HERE.

Hi, guys!

I just got home from the Lamont rally in Greenwich. Nearly 100 LieberKidz and the LieberThug Lobbyist decided that they didn’t need to spend their time actually contacting voters, but rather carrying cheap plastic toys and Lieberman signs to try to disrupt the rally.

Spazeboy and CTBob will have plenty of video later.

The short story is, it’s really sad that the Lieberman campaign is reduced to spending their money on this kind of stunt rather than actually contacting voters when they’re down in the polls!

Morris Sheppard @ 90

*ilson46201 @ 80

I just want to thank you for keeping me from those who would sully my beautiful mind. This is not snark. I tend to go off on trolls and waste a lot of valuable time. One of the reasons I don’t read comments on HuffPo or Slate any more.

The only value they have for me is to keep me informed on what the Republicans are scared of. If a topic attracts a troll swarm, you know it’s touched a nerve.

Jane

If they are trying to make the story about you,
that tells you how effectuve you are.

Both Sheild and Brooks thin that Leiberman is toast. Hardball and Washinton Week in Review had to talk about Jane,

I’m telling you, don’t underestimate the power of the netroots.

By the BY brooks (I think) said lamont has a double digit led over Joe??? ANt chance of that??? I wonder if that came from Joe’s own poling?

*ilson- my pleasure, believe me!!! And, not just “kind” remarks, but heartfelt, baby!!! (oh, I also spotted *ilson as a Renaissance Man, Party Elder, computer hacker, etc. etc.)

“I’m not a mod or a rocker. More of a mocker.” –Ringo Starr

Maura did they ruin the rally?

Eli @ 93

Morris Sheppard @ 90

*ilson46201 @ 80

I just want to thank you for keeping me from those who would sully my beautiful mind. This is not snark. I tend to go off on trolls and waste a lot of valuable time. One of the reasons I don’t read comments on HuffPo or Slate any more.

The only value they have for me is to keep me informed on what the Republicans are scared of. If a topic attracts a troll swarm, you know it’s touched a nerve.

Very true. Thanks

Morris Sheppard @ 78

A troll is a poster who makes unwarrented personal attacks, or makes comments which are intended to be disruptive or start flame wars. Also can apply to those who take contrary positions which are not backed up by facts and are intended to annoy or deride others.

Well I think we have more than enough flame wars to go around these days and thank you Morris.I have no desire to annoy or deride.
I probably will have contrary positions from
time to time but will try to back them up!

It comes through in your posts Jane, that you are taking your joy in the journey. You are remembering where this all started, your posts in January and Ned’s name recognition in single digits. No one then thought that the biggest concern on August 4, would be overconfidence, because Ned was leading by too wide a margin. No one (except perhaps you and Tom Swan) thought that CT would be the political Gettysburg of 2006. No one thought Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson would be campaigning in CT for Ned Lamont.
And oh by the way, the headquarters for NARAL, PP, and a lot of unions that endorsed Joe, roadkill. And oh by the way, the Big Dawg himself put his arm around Joe, same result, roadkill.

The short story is, it’s really sad that the Lieberman campaign is reduced to spending their money on this kind of stunt rather than actually contacting voters when they’re down in the polls!

Maybe it’s a Hail Mary, where they’re hoping to goad Lamont into some kind of fatal gaffe.

Aloha FDLers.
In case anyone remembers me, I have been busy the last few months with a job search and move. I’m newly ensconced in the Spam State, enjoying a view of the Pacific and Diamond head from my apt. Anyone want to clue me in about Hawaii politics? What’s a good blog?

VG – Talent was just batting clean up for the Republicans on the Armed Services committee and showed up bug eyed with concern that Rumsfeld needed more money, more life’s blood and limbs from the soldiers, etc.

Just your basic Republican questioning a Member of the Admistration. He was, however, prominently wearing a yellow tie. IMO, the yellow tie is always a first sign of trouble.

The night Colbert showed up wearing one sent fear pangs right through me – the things that guy will do to stay in character.

I remember you marky!!! Spam State? What’s that about?

Maura at 92

How did this play at the rally? Did any one think this was a genuine showing of dislike for Lamont or was it seen more as a desperate and thuggish play by increasingy frightened Lieberthugs?

*ilson46201 @ 80

fran —- just today alone, I have had to delete a number of comments which use incredibly racist and sexist language to attack Jane and Christy. The right wing have adopted Lieberman and are attacking progressive blogs. Thank heavens folk dont see the crap we delete!

Well that’s good trash talk should stay
where it belongs~in the garbage!

Frank Probst, Wess — Frank’s probably right about this, but the intended audience for Bill’s win-win play is NOT Democratic voters. It’s aimed at corporate donors for HILLPAC and HRC’s campaigns.

Plural.

As Kos and Jerome pointed out in CtG, Bill was bad for the Democratic Party. He may have done a credible job as president, but he did jack-diddley-squat for the growth of the Party and he still doesn’t do a damned thing to grow the party.

Not one damned thing.

If Bill was all about the Dems and winning, he’s smart enough to read and assimilate CtG and everything the netroots have so clearly laid out for him, that the Party needs to be reenvigorated from the bottom up. He could be touring the country working the grassroots to get them motivated — but, no, nada, no visits out here in the hinterland.

Only to big ticket venues.

I voted for the man twice. I cannot vote for Hillary at this point because of him, and I’m glad I won’t be asked to vote for him a third tie. The Big Dog kissed my already fading loyalty good-bye when he pulled his win-win schtick with Joe-Nertia.

marky, was wondering where you got off to. re-blog, fdl is still the place to be.

marky @ 102

Aloha FDLers.
In case anyone remembers me, I have been busy the last few months with a job search and move. I’m newly ensconced in the Spam State, enjoying a view of the Pacific and Diamond head from my apt. Anyone want to clue me in about Hawaii politics? What’s a good blog?

hey, welcome back. There was a fellow who commented here and linked to his HI blog with photos of Pearl Harbor Memorial and an aircraft carrier arriving in port. Don’t recall who it was, however….

Eli, I’m sure that’s all it can be, because that kind of behavior sure won’t help anybody to vote for Joe on his “merits”.

BTW, here’s another in our collection of Pundit Pivots:

http://billmon.org/archives/002630.html

never been ” awaiting moderation” before. quoting Gilliard can get a bit iffy with the language police, I guess.

Stephen @ 43

Fran has us all on edge.

Sorry,I hope its not a calling!

Anyone have any idea why Rummy actually testified yesterday? Who told him to do it? And why? That conversation had to be a steamer.

Mary- ah– I see. It’s unconscious, I suppose, the yellow tie thing. Next time imm shows up we will make sure he gets the word about not wearing yellow ties. He’s off to mom’s (leaving Mrs. and Jr.) to put in the wearing hours for his last big writing push before tenure D-day (Aug 14).

Olberman on Coulter…”Why she hasn’t been banned on this network I do not know”

GO KEITH!

As Kos and Jerome pointed out in CtG, Bill was bad for the Democratic Party. He may have done a credible job as president, but he did jack-diddley-squat for the growth of the Party and he still doesn’t do a damned thing to grow the party.

The most destructive thing Clinton did to the Democratic party was to make the DLC triangulation strategy look like a winner.

fran, you mentioned you were visiting your brother at the VA hosptial earlier today. I hope everything is going as well as can be expected.
When you have the opportunity, please give your brother the gratitude of everyone at FDL for his service and sacrifice for our nation.

Eli, I’m sure that’s all it can be, because that kind of behavior sure won’t help anybody to vote for Joe on his “merits”.

Ned really doesn’t strike me as someone who’s going to snap and start blurting out cuss words or hitting people, ya know?

John Casper, great points.
I seem to have missed the Meaning of The Yellow Tie. Is it mystical?

Could someone give me a thumbnail of what exactly the “triangulation” strategy is supposed to be? The time has come for me to admit I have no idea.

revdeb- I didn’t see that (will reload page F5) but maybe just too many linkys.

this is a politician, a thing of the moment. joe will decide when he has to, and it will all be about winning or not. it will not be until the last second before he loses face as even a lobbyist. and watch, within a few days probably of the loss, he will be appointed, annointed, as the sec of defense to replace the former.
let us not kid our selves about joe and his ideals. that is tooth fairy stuff to a tick.
I hope Ned is the start of something quite different, but he owns Walmart and Halliburton stock. a person of conscience would not.

The “even bigger than Lieberman” part of the story, to me, is how often the unmentionable conventionals are saying that Dems showing some spine here and there is tied to this campaign.

No wonder Hannity, O’Reilly, Limbaugh, etc. all endorsed Lieberman.

Was it Colbert who said, “Just what I like in a Democrat – cowardice.” ?

Morris Sheppard @ 105

Maura at 92

How did this play at the rally? Did any one think this was a genuine showing of dislike for Lamont or was it seen more as a desperate and thuggish play by increasingy frightened Lieberthugs?

Guys,don’t over react. Political pranks are par for the course and never forget, our side does have “the kiss” which is such a great prank.

Having made a prank a prominrnt feature of our message, we look like whiners if we complain if they try to prank us back.

Much more important — did the prank lack wit and imagination? Don’t be a hypocrit or whiner, be a performance art critic!!

Eli @ 118

Eli, I’m sure that’s all it can be, because that kind of behavior sure won’t help anybody to vote for Joe on his “merits”.

Ned really doesn’t strike me as someone who’s going to snap and start blurting out cuss words or hitting people, ya know?

Yes, Eli, but I recall that Joe was pretty frightened of Maura…

Gilliard quote and link at 92 now if you refresh the page. It’s worth it IMHO.

Also VG, putting together a list of FDLer’s coming to volunteer in CT to send to siun. wanna be on it e-mail me at my name at mac dot com.

Could someone give me a thumbnail of what exactly the “triangulation” strategy is supposed to be? The time has come for me to admit I have no idea.

Triangulation is the act of a candidate presenting his or her ideology as being “above” or “between” the left and right sides of the political spectrum.

Yes, Eli, but I recall that Joe was pretty frightened of Maura…

If Joe thinks Ned is as chickenshit as he is, then I guess the harassment strategy makes sense…

Plus maybe he thinks Ned is doing it to him.

revdeb- thanks- I have been avoiding opening my email, for fear of what horrors await (*you have 123 new messages* e.g.) but will try to get up my courage.

On McClauglan(sp) report…Everyone said Lamont will win Primary…including Blankly and Zuckerman…everyone except Zuckerman said Lieberman is FINISHED politically and will win the general election…HMmmm

meta – opinion only. I think Rumsfeld picked up on the fact that some of the Senators were going to be loaded for bear. IMO, he wanted to be there as a presence to keep his dressup boys in line. It can be spun anyway by anyone, but I think when you get down to it – he got to thinking he needed to be there to assert himself over this sidekicks.

I did notice that he opted out of standing all through the hearing, despite his cutesy folksy quips about torture and standing.

Looseheadprop 124

I agree. But there are pranks, like the kiss float, which are clever and not physically disruptive, and then there are pranks that expose the pranksters essential anger and meanness. Seems to me that Lieberthug pranks are on that level. Also bad performance art — no catch, no humor.

*ilson…4:43pm

One can only imagine some of the stuff the right-wingers spew here that we don’t see. Thanks for the garbage collecting and disposal you do.

Prank ‘n stein

Morris Sheppard @ 132

Looseheadprop 124

I agree. But there are pranks, like the kiss float, which are clever and not physically disruptive, and then there are pranks that expose the pranksters essential anger and meanness. Seems to me that Lieberthug pranks are on that level. Also bad performance art — no catch, no humor.

The Kiss Float is teasing or taunting, not bullying.

oldtree @ 122

this is a politician, a thing of the moment. joe will decide when he has to, and it will all be about winning or not. it will not be until the last second before he loses face as even a lobbyist. and watch, within a few days probably of the loss, he will be appointed, annointed, as the sec of defense to replace the former.
let us not kid our selves about joe and his ideals. that is tooth fairy stuff to a tick.
I hope Ned is the start of something quite different, but he owns Walmart and Halliburton stock. a person of conscience would not.

Old tree

Do you think that is why everybody was suddenly beating up on Rummy the other day? They are gonna shitcan Rummy to make room for Jooe after he loses?

THAT would be interesting. I wonder if Rummy will go quietly or if he will tell tales?

VG – I didn’t know Imman had a tenureday in his near future. Thanks.

Franco 130

Was that Lamont will win the general? Or Lieberman? If joe is finished politically I assume you meant they said Lamont. N’est ce pas?

Do you think that is why everybody was suddenly beating up on Rummy the other day? They are gonna shitcan Rummy to make room for Jooe after he loses?

I think they’re saving Lieberman for veep…

Franco @ 130

everyone except Zuckerman said Lieberman is FINISHED politically and will win the general election…HMmmm

is the word “Lamont” missing between “and” and “will”? If not, I’m puzzled by the logic.

punaise @ 134

Prank ‘n stein

Prank it up.

Sorry Morris…Yes they said LieberLIAR is finished politically and lamont will win…the only one who thinks LieberLIAR will win the general is Zuckerman the troll!

punaise @ 134

Prank ‘n stein

Pranks for the memories.

Mary, Ha! Yeah, Rummy sat it out alright. Thanks for the explanation. It makes perfect sense that he would be there to intimidate and silence. Pace really did look like he was squirming uncontrollably. When he took that position, he was portrayed as a man of the highest principles, and I have no doubt that was once true. It must be a tough slog at this point.

astralplame @ 120

Could someone give me a thumbnail of what exactly the “triangulation” strategy is supposed to be? The time has come for me to admit I have no idea.

Triangulation
I doubt the link will help much, but it’s a visual of the mathematical definition.
This is from a wingnut site, but I think it’s a good high level definition. It gets a lot more complex.
rightwingnews
“For all intents and purposes, triangulation is the art of trying to be all things to all voters, or at least getting as close as possible. What you want to do is support things that will fire up your base without alienating the voters in the middle. Then when your opponent comes up with an idea that may allow him to pull away some of your support, you don’t fight him, you adopt his idea, whether you agree with it or not. Doing this allows you to pull in the moderates who along with your base which will make it likely that you’ll win at the ballot box. In short, triangulation is political akido that allows you to defeat your opponent by replacing your principles and ideology with polling data.”

Oh no Eli. I hadn’t even thought of that – but he is one guy who could be relied upon to pardon the whole gang of criminals.

Sorry punaise…I am answering too many emails and watching TV and reading this blog at once…BAD ME….
Lamont will win OF COURSE…even that hideous troll Blankley said LieberLIAR was finished…
I guesss he diddn’t get Miss Piggy Rove’s fax and talking points

OT-punaise, can you believe that they opened Devil’s Slide today, a month early? That’s really incredible.

lhp, great advice.

Wit, imagination, and that precisely-placed sting of truth.

Mary- imm said Aug 14 as a deadline (I assumed that was for the article he is writing for submission right now). The TP (tenure package) is typically due sometime before the beginning of the academic year (Fall), but usu. alas, no feedback until Spring. Horrible waiting, in my experience.

Eli 135

The Kiss Float is teasing or taunting, not bullying.

Exactly! An example of good performance art.

Eli @ 117

As Kos and Jerome pointed out in CtG, Bill was bad for the Democratic Party. He may have done a credible job as president, but he did jack-diddley-squat for the growth of the Party and he still doesn’t do a damned thing to grow the party.

The most destructive thing Clinton did to the Democratic party was to make the DLC triangulation strategy look like a winner.

The DLC was useful and helpful in 92, 94, and 96 — even now, many of their policy positions would be supported by the blogosphere.

Unfortunately, the DLC has become the enemy of reform, because of their constant backstabs and attempts to Sistah Soljah any one to the left of a corporate check writer.

Marshall Whitmann: STFU, and go back to the GOP. They need you; we Democrats will do just fine on our own, thank you very much.

Rumsfeld to Pace: I want you to tell a lie THIS big.

and lamont will win

Prank on it.

ck at 152

Marshall Whitmann: STFU, and go back to the GOP

Puhleeeze!

Morris Sheppard @ 132

Looseheadprop 124

I agree. But there are pranks, like the kiss float, which are clever and not physically disruptive, and then there are pranks that expose the pranksters essential anger and meanness. Seems to me that Lieberthug pranks are on that level. Also bad performance art — no catch, no humor.

That’s exactly my point. Don’t complain that they showed up and tried to pull a prank. Complain if the prank lacks wit. Mock a failed prank (corolaary, give grudging respect if they manage a decently funny one though– tthe honesty and class will pay off in the short AND long run)

Don’t get down into the crankiness with them/

Don’t whine, don’t winge, don’t tit for tat.

If the prank was sodden and leaden, talk about that. Don’t complain if they are trying to do a prank, though. After all,, immitation IS the sincerest form of flattery.

I am with LHP — these days, I say, what if one of Lamont’s supporters did what Lieberman’s did? Would I support it, be indifferent? or opose, condemn and villify it? This is a good test for all my reactions these days, because I am frankly losing perspective as we get close to Tuesady. So, applying that test, I would have condemned a Lamont supporter doing what Goostein did, especially if s/he were a lobbyist from elsewhere.

What is a “prank”? A pun that is rank.

the DLC was created in the middle 80s after the stunning success of Rev. Jesse Jackson’s first Presidential run. In 1988 the DLC ran Al Gore as the conservative opposed to Jackson and Dukakis but they aimed their fire at Jesse…

Is Marshall Whitman elected? That needs to be a blog focus after November 2006, fer sure.

I have to say one of the main reasons I enjoy FDL so much (other than the high level of intelligence and superb snark) is that the mods are on the trolls like chickens on a bug. It is great to not have the comments polluted with stupidity. If I want that crap there are plenty of sites full of it…

Hawaaian Sovereignty issues are a good place to start Marky. I’ve been out and lurking mostly also. When the sun shines here one has to take advantage. Yes, I recall the first ‘L’ thread and it does seem a long time ago. Blogdom is here to stay and I take extreme care in passing the word. “LAMONT’

Maura,
Or anybody else who knows

What exactly DID the Leiberyouth do at the Lamont rally? What were the toys for? What are we actually talking about?

Rumsfeld to Pace: I want you to tell a lie THIS big.

And he did tell a lie that big, at least as far as regular consumer of news can tell, when he smartly jumped in after Rum finished trying to justify himself to Hillary and claimed that in his experience every line commander in the history of the world has gotten every soldier and piece of equipment they ever asked for, thanks solely to Donald Rumsfeld.

Maybe I wouldn’t have just lost my last bit of patience with Gen. Pace if that hadn’t been so gratuitous. Warner could have kept his maunderings about putting “our” material into the record to himself, too.

looseheadprop @ 137

Do you think that is why everybody was suddenly beating up on Rummy the other day? They are gonna shitcan Rummy to make room for Jooe after he loses?

THAT would be interesting. I wonder if Rummy will go quietly or if he will tell tales?

I think they’re watching Bush’s approval rating staying at about 40% (or less) with disapproval of the war staying at 55% with a lot of “strong” disapproval. Poll trends aren’t going their way. If they go home and talk to their constituents during the break they want some cover. It’s not getting better in Iraq. They were just trying to start saving themselves.

Who — even J-Lie — would really want to be SecDef now even if Rummie does get canned?

The DLC was useful and helpful in 92, 94, and 96 — even now, many of their policy positions would be supported by the blogosphere.

This may be so (I wasn’t political enough at the time to debate it), but IMO they’ve been taking credit for Clinton’s successes, which were due to Clinton’s political brilliance far more than the DLC. I believe Clinton could have won with Feingold or Wellstone’s politics, possibly even more handily.

Apparently, John’s Fund only got him part way to Connecticut

All hail -ck- !
On a late-nite thread that I am too lazy to look for,, before the debate, before Joe announced his “Plan B,” and while Joe was still leading Ned in the polls;
-ck- told me to quit my sandbagging about moral victories not his words , because Ned was going to win decisively can’t remember the exact wording, but IIRC, -ck- made it clear that it wasn’t going to be close.

meta @ 148

OT-punaise, can you believe that they opened Devil’s Slide today, a month early? That’s really incredible.

no kidding? so I could have taken the coast route coming back from Pajaro this morning, rather than Hwy 17 over the summit, which, although I’ve driven it hundreds of times, still seems like a dangerous roller coaster ride.

Jane’s right, of course. There’s no margin for RGJoe on August Eighth. He loses, he’s out.

Those are the rules Ned’s playing by, and he’s shown himself the gentleman throughout this primary campaign. No Single Digit Solution for RGJoe. Nine or under? “No Indy run, Joe.”

=================
Had Enough, Connecticut?
=================

Hey Marky, been wondering how you were doing. Here’s a few blogs to get you started. Being of Hawaiian heritage, I have a different attitude about Hawaii. You might also check with FDL regular orangejumpsuit, too; she probably has some suggestions for you.

Esoteric Bowl by Kane at Hawaii stories – hawaiistories.com/kane/ — Kane may be haole, but he is a lovely, gentle soul with wonderful photographs.

Hawaiian Independence Blog – hawaiiankingdom.info

The Real Hapa – not a lot of content, but you’ll learn about “hapa” – realhapas.com

Justice for Hawaiians – maldito.livejournal.com

Had another link but it’s on my other machine in a different set of bookmarks; most of the content is Hawaiian language, though. You might a Hawaiian language dictionary — ONLY the Mary Kawena Pukui one will do — on your shopping list.

BTW – are you getting the hang of all those vowels? Heh. You can check this site for geocities.com/~olelo/ — best site I’ve ever found on the subject.

prostrate – yes on Pace, yes on Warner.

If they spent as much time and effort watching over the war as they did watching over Rumsfeld, there would be a few more whole bodies and living kids coming back from Don&Dick’s Excellent Adventure.

OT- oh- imm I finally opened my email today- just send you response. Again, when are you going into seclusion?

Morris Sheppard @ 158

What is a “prank”? A pun that is rank.

that’s OK, rank is meant to be pulled

By the way, Mary and M, I have worn a gold tie which is quite fetching but (even though my son recently gave me one) I have never worn a yellow tie. I mean, who do you think I am?

.

.

Jerry?

Arrrrrr! HoJo must be made to walk the prank

Mary, you know Photoshop!

TeddySanFran 170

No nine or under? Right of course, but if the is line is 10, I’m still going with the overs.

Jerry’s tie didn’t come from an adorable offspring. The source can cancel out the karma. *g*

Take care all -

hail to -ck-

someone fill in for me for Howie’s candidate chat tomorrow.

Kak @ 165

looseheadprop @ 137

Do you think that is why everybody was suddenly beating up on Rummy the other day? They are gonna shitcan Rummy to make room for Jooe after he loses?

THAT would be interesting. I wonder if Rummy will go quietly or if he will tell tales?

I think they’re watching Bush’s approval rating staying at about 40% (or less) with disapproval of the war staying at 55% with a lot of “strong” disapproval. Poll trends aren’t going their way. If they go home and talk to their constituents during the break they want some cover. It’s not getting better in Iraq. They were just trying to start saving themselves.

Who — even J-Lie — would really want to be SecDef now even if Rummie does get canned?

I agree withthe logic of that analysis. Someone on one of the Frinight shows said Rummy getting his keister fried was a sign that even Hillary was waking up to the power of the netroots (I’m paraphrasing), I was asking if that wa the hypothesis being advanced.

I’m still agnostic. I am still trying to figure out my own opinion and am therefore trying to understnad the opinions of others

punaise- catch me up on the Devil’s slide thing- not Hwy 1 I assme. Santa Cruz County has always (as far as I am up to date) resisted widening Hwy 17 between SC and SJ as a measure to stop even more urban sprawl. (Does it still have only one billboard?)

JohnC – just getting faster at google, and now and then googling some odd combinations. *g*

I just posted about the rally at My Left Nutmeg:

http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/sh…..aryId=2537

Off to Dr. Zheng, my acupuncturist, to deal with this awful pain I’ve had in my shoulder. Better a pin than a pain, I guess. I’ll stick you all with that and go.

Have fun kiddies.

punaise @ 177

Arrrrrr! HoJo must be made to walk the prank

VIOLATION!!! Ticket that Bluebeard! International Talk Like a Pirate Day is not until September 19th this year!!!! So stow that bilge water!

/wonder if any of the interviewers will has joe of he’s going to “cut and run” from the democratic party if he looses the primary

imm- 2 attaboys for you! Gold tie? Fetching? huh? Lame (lame the French way)?

Jane Hamsher @
22

Troll patrol rocks.

Didn’t see Fund but he’s the king of the rubber-lipped cut-off. They asked me to do the show and I said “you know, I think I’d rather have my wisdom teeth re-extracted.” I’m glad it was Markos and not me, he’s much better under those circumstances.

I went to lunch with CTKeith, TrueBlueCT, and James and Will from the BBC. We ate lobster. I couldn’t crack the shell so Keith grabbed it and broke it with his bare hands. It was awesome.

Really good lobster.

Kos is so Kute. And now I’ve seen his “I don’t want to talk about Jane Hamsher” face, on Hardball.

He did so well with John Fund. But I bet the lobster was better.

immanentize @ 185

punaise @ 177

Arrrrrr! HoJo must be made to walk the prank

VIOLATION!!! Ticket that Bluebeard! International Talk Like a Pirate Day is not until September 19th this year!!!! So stow that bilge water!

sorry, chum. throw me to the snarks.

Has anyone linked this yet? ctblogger put up a flash video of Lieber-fellater AFL-CIO President John Olsen, giving a rousing anti-war speech at an anti-war rally in Hartford in March 2006. F*cking hypocrite. Video is at the end of the diary.

Sanctimonious Pr***k Lieberman’s tactics are like those the rethugs used in the 2000 recount debacle in Florida. Especially, like the so called “Brooks Brothers Riot” at the voter precinct HQ in Miami. Creating effing mayhem is the name of the game. Right, Holy Joe?

“If Lieberman loses he should bow out gracefully…” I realize “gracefully” is open to definition. But Lieberman? I do not think he has the component that allows one to be graceful. If Joe Lieberman “bows out” it will be because of reasons other than grace. I think.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day is not until September 19th this year!!!! So stow that bilge water!

But, I mean not to defend punaise or anything, but by then HoJo’s campaign will have long since fallen into the prank.

I’m just sayin’.

Want to express a note of caution — not to be a buzzkill, but to exhort you to greater action.

Remember Dean’s primary run? We felt this way; this all feels SO familiar, the heightened buzz about all the positive news, the forward mo’, the way Blog for America chattered all day long.

Remember Ciro Rodriguez? We were going to do our best to ditch that wretch Cuellar, and we put our shoulder to it but hard.

Remember Hackett? Yeah. He was all that and a bag of chips; many of us drove to OH to work for him.

But in the end, we came up short. It wasn’t always something we grassroots folks could help; Dean’s campaign was treading new ground far too quickly without enough balance between newbies and old timers; Rodriguez was an uphill battle that started too late; Hackett pulled off a small miracle gaining as much as he did, but we simply never grokked that he was in a solidly red district.

That said, Lamont can still win and win well. But it will take cool heads, determination, simple and basic GOTV on the ground, and a full awareness that politics is a contact sport.

Get your game on, gang. Keep your head down, follow through, swing easy.

And win.

punaise @ 109

marky @ 102

Aloha FDLers.
In case anyone remembers me, I have been busy the last few months with a job search and move. I’m newly ensconced in the Spam State, enjoying a view of the Pacific and Diamond head from my apt. Anyone want to clue me in about Hawaii politics? What’s a good blog?

hey, welcome back. There was a fellow who commented here and linked to his HI blog with photos of Pearl Harbor Memorial and an aircraft carrier arriving in port. Don’t recall who it was, however….

Ditto punaise, marky, welcome back.
punaise was it Nate?
Totally back punaise wrt the photo of the aircraft carrier, Ronald Reagan, entering Pearl and a nice photo of the AZ Memorial too.

Maura,
You’re the best!

We’re all going to work really hard tomorrow and until it’s over and Ned wins.

Thanks Rayne

“There was a fellow who commented here and linked to his HI blog with photos of Pearl Harbor.”

Yes, John Casper, that would be Nate, and it’s good to see you again Marky. I hope the ’slow typing in the comments box’ problem has been solved.

John Casper –

My prediction is Ned Lamont 64%, HoJo 32% — but the only way we get there is if the Lamont Campaign and friends work their tails off to GOTV. If they don’t, HoJo might pull out a squeaker.

Eli –

In the early 90’s, the Democratic Establishment was totally moribund and hidebound, and the DLC was the only new idea factory around.

Hell, the Democratic Establishment is still moribund, but the DLC has become mouthpiece for the decrepit hidebound wing of the party.

Morris Sheppard @
78

A troll is a poster who makes unwarrented personal attacks, or makes comments which are intended to be disruptive or start flame wars. Also can apply to those who take contrary positions which are not backed up by facts and are intended to annoy or deride others.

Well put. I believe that the term first came into use in the early Internet days to describe folks trying to cause nastiness on email lists. I think the etymology lies in the idea of “trolling” as fishing with a lure, looking for someone to “bite” on a comment. So – at least as originally used – the term implied an underlying deviousness and bad faith in what was being said on the surface. What Jane and other here call “concern trolls” adhere the closest to that original meaning.

Of course, like in other areas of life, standards decline over time, so that even that much indirection is beyond the reach of many wannabe trolls these days. Like Lieberman’s newly hired young Thugs, they just want to disrupt, no subtlety or shrewdness about it.

Rayne- agreed- you are correct re: keep on the game. I figure that it is important not only for Lamont to beat Lieberman, but to beat him by as wide a margin as possible. The bigger the margin, the clearer the message. So part 1: win. Part 2: win really big!

Looseheadprop! Just got home — please send me an email to pat at nursesnotebook dot com. I have a reporter interested in looking into donations, and if you have any FEC lawyer expert contacts who would be willing to talk with a reporter (on or off) please let me know.

revdeb- I just sent you an email.

more about trolls than you ever need to know …

MEET THE PRESS WITH TIM RUSSERT
WEEKEND LISTINGS 08/06/06

CONDOLEEZZA RICE
Secretary of State

LANNY DAVIS
Supporter, Sen. Joe Lieberman Re-election Campaign Author, “Scandal: How ‘Gotcha’ Politics Is Destroying America”

JIM DEAN
Supporter, Ned Lamont Senate Campaign
Chair, Democracy for America

Why not Joe and Ned for themselves?

Thanks Maura,

I think they are just trying to provoke some type of outburst and I hope everyone who is travelling to CT remembers to keep a cool head.

Speaking of cool heads did T-Rex make it to CT. I know his kitty was sick last night.

Valley Girl @ 181

punaise- catch me up on the Devil’s slide thing- not Hwy 1 I assme. Santa Cruz County has always (as far as I am up to date) resisted widening Hwy 17 between SC and SJ as a measure to stop even more urban sprawl. (Does it still have only one billboard?)

Highway One at Devil’s Slide (northern San Mateo County, near Pacifica) has been closed for quite a while due to a major landslide. I think they finally approved a bypass tunnel, but that’s not built yet. The current re-opening would be repair to the existing road.

I believe you’re right about Hwy 17 vs. growth, but folks have long been commuting to Silicon Valley from Santa Cruz and beyond. No new billboards, but it’s a narrow winding road built in the early 20th century, and people drive it like a superhighway, along with the gravel trucks lumbering along, and driveways and roads that have no on-ramps/off-ramps. FDLer Suzanne could elaborate, I’m sure!

OT The Senate voted not to invoke cloture on a measure to increase the minimum wage tied to a decrease in the estate tax and assorted other tax provisions. The vote was 56 for, 42 against, and 2 not voting (Baucus whose nephew was killed earlier this week in Iraq and the hardpressed Lieberman. 60 votes were needed to invoke cloture on debate and proceed to final consideration.

Democrats who voted for cloture:
Byrd (D-WV), Lincoln (D-AR), Nelson (D-FL), Nelson (D-NE)

Republicans who voted against cloture:
Chafee (R-RI) and Frist (R-TN)

As Bargain Countertenor noted earlier today, Frist’s vote was a tactical maneuver since it allows him to ask for a reconsideration of cloture at a later date. Chafee is in a difficult race in Rhode Island. So here’s my question what’s the deal with these 4 “Democrats” and I think that the quotation marks are in order.

Mocha Dem- haven’t seen any updates from TRex today, except that he took JC to vet. His flight to CT is tomorrow (Sat) arriving ~ 4pm Hartford.

prostratedragon @ 193

International Talk Like a Pirate Day is not until September 19th this year!!!! So stow that bilge water!

But, I mean not to defend punaise or anything, but by then HoJo’s campaign will have long since fallen into the prank.

I’m just sayin’.

thanks for the non-defense! :~)

In the early 90’s, the Democratic Establishment was totally moribund and hidebound, and the DLC was the only new idea factory around.

Fair enough; my beef is with the DLC *now*, which is basically an agent of the Republican party. And the Dems won’t cut ties with them because they think they won some elections back in the day, and somehow still haven’t noticed that their success dried up completely when Clinton left the White House.

It’s the same obliviousness that kept Bob Shrum employed election after election (why couldn’t the Dems have interpreted Clinton’s victories as “Democrats can get elected president if they don’t let Shrum anywhere near their campaign”?).

Thanks Valley Girl

kirby — Ned should really be on the ground in CT, talking with CT voters. Were he running for POTUS, I’d agree, but not this weekend before a primary for a guy who had single digit name recognition 8 months ago. He should be pounding the pavement where CT residents can see him and learn more about him.

Maybe if polling comes back in the 15 points plus range the week before the election, Ned should be on MTP…

Maybe if polling comes back in the 15 points plus range the week before the election, Ned should be on MTP…

If Ned will not go to the pumpkin, perhaps the pumpkin should come to Ned.

punaise- OMG- you do not have to explain to me what Hwy 17 over the mountains is like. I have survived it hundreds of times. Even made from SC to SJ airport in 35 minutes!!! And, way back when/ then they did not have those concrete crash barriers in the middle.

Fall Prank

Can’t leave for even a couple hours – waaay too much to catch up on.

One thing’s for sure, and you get a better sense of it when you read multiple hundreds of comments at once, and that is that the energy and excitement level is reaching new heights. And it’s only Friday…this reminds me of Christmas Eve nights not being able to sleep for the excitement of Christmas morning – is anyone feeling like sleep will be easy Monday night?

I think that:
(1) Lieberman’s campaign is a reflection of what and who it’s all about – it’s about Joe.

(2) Joe’s campaign team is playing mind games, big time, and it seems like Ned and his team are just too smart to fall for it.

(3) I have not heard a single talking bobblehead opine that Joe was going to win on Tuesday, and it seems like an awful lot of Beltway insiders – including his colleagues in the Senate – have all gone out to buy some black crepe for Joe to hang on Tuesday night.

(4) Bandwagon Syndrome is in full swing (see #3, above). The insiders smell political death and the vultures are circling.

(5) This IS going to be a watershed moment for the party, and even if Ned’s victory doesn’t send the centrists running and the old-line strategists looking for cover, I’m thinking that we will have a louder voice and more seats at the table in the planning for 2006 general elections, as well as for 2008.

(6) Is it Tuesday yet???

I for one would NOT be sorry if the MTP match-up were cancelled. Frontrunners never gain in debates, they only tread water (unless their opponent just totally screws up like vomiting on the host or something)

Valley Girl @ 216

punaise- OMG- you do not have to explain to me what Hwy 17 over the mountains is like. I have survived it hundreds of times. Even made from SC to SJ airport in 35 minutes!!! And, way back when/ then they did not have those concrete crash barriers in the middle.

V.G. You are from the Santa Cruz area?

Hugh 209,

Bill Nelson(D) of Florida is a triangulating DINO and he is terrified of both the Florida rethuglican voters and his many rethug contemporaries. I think he is even afraid of Katherine Harris.

RiverBend has another post up. A very sad look at Iraq from the perspective of an Iraqi girl.

The Colorado DLC report on the DLC Confab in Denver — not bad, actually . . .

http://www.coloradodlc.org/ndu0806.htm

Valley Girl @ 215

punaise- OMG- you do not have to explain to me what Hwy 17 over the mountains is like. I have survived it hundreds of times. Even made from SC to SJ airport in 35 minutes!!! And, way back when/ then they did not have those concrete crash barriers in the middle.

VG – it was context for other readers.

VG
2 e-mails back to you, one with my contact info. Hope to see you in CT. I’m psyched.

Nice catck Kirby,
Jim Dean is Howard’s brother:
“Who heads Democracy for America?
James H. Dean, Chairman
As the chair of Democracy for America (DFA), Jim Dean is committed to carrying on what his brother, Governor Howard Dean, started – strengthening grassroots participation; and the recruitment and election of fiscally responsible and socially progressive candidates to all levels of government. This is a long-term investment that will pay off if we are willing to stand up for what we believe in and support candidates at every level of political office.

Jim has been working with Democracy for America since it was founded last March. He previously worked on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, beginning in early 2002. Jim has been responsible for a variety of campaign functions including but not limited to fundraising, surrogate activities, political organizing in his home state of Connecticut, and supporting several additional DFA state organizations.

Jim has also always been an active fundraiser for Governor Howard Dean, including his eleven years as Governor of Vermont, and prior four years as Lieutenant Governor. Both Jim and his wife, Virginia worked full time on Howard Dean’s first race for Lieutenant Governor in 1986.

Prior to the Presidential Campaign, Jim worked in the Marketing Research business holding various positions, including business development, marketing, and sales at both Yankelovich Partners Inc. and Greenfield Online Inc.

Jim, his wife and three children live in Fairfield, CT”

Hey, imho, Lanny Davis is the fucking best talking head out there infinitely better than John Fund. He actually listens to what the opponent says, then throws it back at him/her with the argument shredded, staying on his own message, and smiling the whole damn time. I hope Mr. Dean watches a lot of video tape of Lanny before MTP taping, and buckles his chin strap.

Sandlin- I went to grad school at UCSC and Santa Cruz has since been the “home of my heart”. Until a few years ago I regularly went to visit many great friends who still lived there. Always stayed with (now) married couple who I shared a house with. Not so often now- they and others have moved elsewhere.

Maura @ 184

I just posted about the rally at My Left Nutmeg:

http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/sh…..aryId=2537

Maura
thanks. Your lftnutmeg post hit a very nice note. Not PO’d that Leiberyouth is trying to make a slpach, just sad at the bad job that is being masde of it.

I espeacilly like your gracious acknowledgement of the good canvessing efforts and small acts of kindness that you have seen from the leiberyouth.

You post is a good example of how to do this right

prankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn

Valley Girl @ 227

Sandlin- I went to grad school at UCSC and Santa Cruz has since been the “home of my heart”. Until a few years ago I regularly went to visit many great friends who still lived there. Always stayed with (now) married couple who I shared a house with. Not so often now- they and others have moved elsewhere.

I have lived in S,C, county since1979 except for 6 years when I lived in Prunedale with my soon to be ex. Let me know when you are *passing by* or here.

Santa Cruz? Does anyone remember the inside heated pool, with the fountain in it, on the boardwalk? Or the Coconut Grove, or the roller coaster?

kirby @ 203

Looseheadprop! Just got home — please send me an email to pat at nursesnotebook dot com. I have a reporter interested in looking into donations, and if you have any FEC lawyer expert contacts who would be willing to talk with a reporter (on or off) please let me know.

Kirby

i don’r deal with the FEC. I do election monitoring. Very differant. I wishI could help you.

Matt Stoller just posted about the rally at myDD. Video

punaise @ 229

prankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn

Pun: laughter is God’s best medicine. And you usually get me to laugh.
thanks

If Lamont wins (still a Big If) the first thing he ought to do is reach out graciously to the people who voted for Lieberman. Showing some class like that will go a long way, and hopefully make Lieberman even less likely to stick around for the general election in November.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 231

Santa Cruz? Does anyone remember the inside heated pool, with the fountain in it, on the boardwalk? Or the Coconut Grove, or the roller coaster?

Of course. Now that area is not so safe. Gang activity.

MyDD

Yoohoo, kiddies! Lessee, I’ve been away from the ‘puter and all news for nilly 8 hours here, so before I disappear into backtracking your recent threads, any major internal or external headlines should I be on special alert for?

Shorter lotus: whattup?

Thanks for the linky love, *ilson – and the troll patrol, bang up job. Index fingers must be quite tuckered out pressing down so firmly and for so long on the can of RAID, you and all the other mods.

sandlin @ 233

Pun: laughter is God’s best medicine. And you usually get me to laugh.
thanks

:~) (it’s the other occasions I worry about)

Mercy buckets, Rayne (shhh, punaise!)

kirby @ 206

MEET THE PRESS WITH TIM RUSSERT
WEEKEND LISTINGS 08/06/06

CONDOLEEZZA RICE
Secretary of State

LANNY DAVIS
Supporter, Sen. Joe Lieberman Re-election Campaign Author, “Scandal: How ‘Gotcha’ Politics Is Destroying America”

JIM DEAN
Supporter, Ned Lamont Senate Campaign
Chair, Democracy for America

Why not Joe and Ned for themselves?

DFA is going huge for Lamont. I am being deluged with email from DFA. I talked to Jim Dean on the phone about month ago and he said that DFA was enthused about Lamont, but I have been very impressed at how hard they are pudshing this race

Rich Lowry says it is all over in Connecticut. More spin or is Lieberman’s staff really as resigned to a loss as it appears?

*ilson46201 @ 240

Mercy buckets, Rayne (shhh, punaise!)

darn it, man, don’t you know it’s

a) mercy buttercups, or
b) Marcy Bopeep?

lhp — while neither DFA Jim Dean nor DNC Howard Dean could say it, you surely must feel that Howard is pulling for Lamont, too, yes?

Heh. If Lamont wins free-and-clear without dispute, just watch what happens at the DNC.

Oh, baby. Pass the popcorn, it’s gonna’ be good!!

Patrick Kennedy @ 243

Rich Lowry says it is all over in Connecticut. More spin or is Lieberman’s staff really as resigned to a loss as it appears?

Spin City. They’re all pushing the same talking points. Kinda the way repugs do things. Not much in the way of original thinking.

We are not amused, nor that easily fooled.

Punaise

Have I ever told you that I think you are a national treasure?

(((((hugs))))

expert opinion says the pessimism ‘covertly’ exuded by the Lieberniks is a feint to dissuade Lamont activism.

Rayne @ 195
I need to add Francine Busby.

I am virtual calling for Move-On this week-end from So. California, but I am really feeling none of us can do too much. CA:50 really hurt. (Damn DLC)

Rayne @ 245

lhp — while neither DFA Jim Dean nor DNC Howard Dean could say it, you surely must feel that Howard is pulling for Lamont, too, yes?

Heh. If Lamont wins free-and-clear without dispute, just watch what happens at the DNC.

Oh, baby. Pass the popcorn, it’s gonna’ be good!!

Well then I think the decible level will go down. Rahm might actually stop shouting at Gov. Dean. Hey, a girl can dream?

Condi tonight on MSNBC

Made excuses for Rumsfeld, Administration, and worst of all treated moderator as a “DUMB FRESHMAN” in a graduate level class. Where is Warren Christopher when we need him? There is no such thing as “diplomacy” that is occurring at this present time. Call in Strobe Talbot (a classmate of the preznit) to do REAL diplomacy.

lhp – you’re too kind!

Call in Strobe Talbot (a classmate of the preznit) to do REAL diplomacy.

So Condi would be kinda like Strobe Light?

Thanks for the “traditional” troll link, *ilson. It led me to this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

When I lived in northern California, the biggest problem with Hwy 17 was that it had been engineered wrong. It canted to the wrong side on a couple of those mountain curves. Oops. The other problem was that cars overheated.

lhp, one of those “pranks” wound up injuring a reporter. Drawing metaphorical blood is one thing, but the real stuff is another, IMO. And how is Mittens doing? Does she still need pink bubblegum medicine?

Eli @
253

Call in Strobe Talbot (a classmate of the preznit) to do REAL diplomacy.

So Condi would be kinda like Strobe Light?

I sure hope Darkblack isn’t inspired by that wordplay …

looseheadprop, what kind of time commitment is typical for election monitoring? I’m interested if it isn’t so time consuming as to interfere with campaign work.

LHP #250:

I linked to this Stirling Newberry piece on the Dean-to-Ned Transition and What It All Means earlier today, but I thought you and Rayne might want to take a peek:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080406A.shtml

Stirl does great meta-analysis, and there’s lots of substance wrapped by some great quotes.

I sure hope Darkblack isn’t inspired by that wordplay …

Just be grateful I couldn’t do anything with the lobster.

If only they had been talking about the Middle East at the time…

Wow, I swear I just stepped away for a few minutes and threads are out of orbit!

punaise – ode to B-52’s and *ilson for he’s a Rock Modster.

Just testing this one : placebo coup

Eli — you mean like Condi inviting the Israelis and Hezbollah to settle their differences over a good old-fashioned Maine lobster dinner?

Mary @
147

Oh no Eli. I hadn’t even thought of that – but he is one guy who could be relied upon to pardon the whole gang of criminals.

ding ding ding

VG, yes there is still the one billboard s/b 17 just before you get into scotts valley.

EPU’d collaborative riff on Condi from last thread:

I’m still trying to figure out how you can have one foot in the torture chamber and one foot in the Judge’s Chambers.

She’s A Chamber Maiden alright.

Marilyn Chamber(s)

Chamber Pot

At the risk of being EPU’d, I want to enjoin all of you FirePups who aren’t able to be in CT over the next several days to remember that there are races in your own backyards and across the rest of the country.

There’s an election to be won in November, even if there is no contested primary where you are on Tuesday.

Here’s your marching orders:
– Go to 100actions.com and get today’s Action you can do; catch up and do actions 100-99-98-97. These are things that are simple and easy, eating-an-elephant-one-bite-at-a-time steps.

– Go to DFALink.com and find the closest DFA group to you, find out how you can plug into their organization and take local action.

– Go to Meetup.com and find the closest progressive events near you; make a point of encouraging those folks to take 100Actions.com, too.

– Be sure to follow Do More Than Vote (DMTV) as it begins to roll out more sites across the country; hey, maybe you can roll one out, too!

– And join the StatesRootsProject.org along with the rest of us FirePups who are already there; get a login, start adding content and events you find at DFALink and Meetup.

– Check the Moveon.org site for the phonebanking efforts this weekend.

I’m going to be pesky and repost this a couple times this weekend. The lowest level of participation in a democracy is voting; it takes more than that to actually ensure your democracy. Your founding fathers did more than write on a bunch of parchment; they risked their lives taking action. You won’t even have to do anything that strenuous. Now get going and WIN!!!

Eli — you mean like Condi inviting the Israelis and Hezbollah to settle their differences over a good old-fashioned Maine lobster dinner?

I was more thinking of an Iraq lobster, actually. (Down! Down!)

Eli

yeah, strobes gone off by “accident”

I doubt Condi visited San Fran when she was at Stanford. I was so pissed at her conference – smiling in between talking about all those who had been killed. She is not simply an academician hired by tis administration, but a pathetic person caught up in the narcissism and grandiosity. She has nothing to fall back on in terms of real relationships in her life except for GW, and unfortunately, inspite of the fact that she is (apparently) schooled, will relinquish her intelligence to someone whom she sees as giving her something greater (????)

Eureka Springs, AR @ 258

punaise – ode to B-52’s and *ilson for he’s a Rock Modster.

Just testing this one : placebo coup

two-fer LOL! (LLOOLL?)

between Iraq and a crevisse ?

zoebird 266:

I have yet to hear of anything that Condi is competent at, other than piano and skating, and I’m kinda relying on secondhand reports there.

thanks for the non-defense! :~)

Just trying not to be too helpful!;>)

*ilson46201 @ 260

Eli — you mean like Condi inviting the Israelis and Hezbollah to settle their differences over a good old-fashioned Maine lobster dinner?

Ah, that takes me back to the good old days a couple of years ago when she used appear regularly in the news exhorting the heads of Islamic states to submit to the will of the international community.

op99 @ 256

looseheadprop, what kind of time commitment is typical for election monitoring? I’m interested if it isn’t so time consuming as to interfere with campaign work.

Depends on the level of commitment you want ot do and whether you are a lawyer or not.

Asuuming not:

It is one long grueling day on election day from a litttle before the polls open till a little after the polls close, plus a couple hours for a training class a week or so before.

if you are a lawyer, we can add pre election dday inspection of absentee ballot applications, inspecting the voting machines and possibly recounts and post election litigation.

it is my dream to get the dems organized enough to actually fdo voter roll purge litigation, but right now we have to pick and choose cases and try to get big firms to take them on Pro Bono.

There is also orgaizationa work for those who want to give up sleeping year round

Eli

hus went to yalie with gw and strobe.

said strobe was an incredible mind, was a russian scholar from day one, and if you can get him speaking anywhere, hear him. incridible. warren chrisopher was a great secretary of state. google him. gw. was much what he is like today. drinking, making fun of the guys who come through the hall, calling names, getting bAD GRADES. NOTHING CHANGES

Teddy #261 — oh yeah, you can ring that one again. I completely missed that one by Mary.

Dead straight. JoTheHo, if he had the opportunity, would dismiss charges and/or pardon the lot of them.

Where’s SecDef in the line of succession should the POTUS and VP step down…???

Oh.My.God. It’d be “It’s TOOBZ!” Stevens before it would fall to SecDef Rummy or his heir apparent, JoZo, and only after that greey pig Hastert.

Stevens would Toobz any charges against the lot of them.

looseheadprop @ 271

Not a lawyer – where do I sign up?

Oh.My.God. It’d be “It’s TOOBZ!” Stevens before it would fall to SecDef Rummy or his heir apparent, JoZo, and only after that greey pig Hastert.

This is why I don’t get super-excited about impeachment, although it *would* be nice to send the message that this country takes the rule of law seriously.

Mary @ 88

BarbB 75 – I agree, but wouldn’t it be a cool game/reality show concept?

Half the audience has high speed access and gets to fact check the interviewees -the other half doesn’t. The no-access half has to vote on statements selected by the googlers being lies or truth.

Gosh, Mary, that does sound like fun! Maybe C-Span would do it – - or high-school journalism or computer classes might have some fun with that.

Did anybody here ever go to Baptist Vacation Bible School? In our little town, there weren’t enough Episcopal kids to populate a proper Bible School, so we all went to the one at First Baptist.

They had games where you had to race to be the first one to find a particular Bible verse. How much more fun to be able to verify or call out a teevee know-it-all pundit!

Eureka Springs, AR @ 259

…Just testing this one : placebo coup

Medicare part D

Redrawn Texas Congressional districts are in.

Central Texas gets Lloyd Doggett back!

Doesn’t look as good for John Courage, though. Those are some pretty conservative counties he got.

Looks like primary results will be thrown out and there’ll be a special free-for-all election in November with a runoff in December.

New Wolcott for those who might wish to partake:

http://jameswolcott.com/archiv…..girded.php

. . . and your little dog, too @ 279

Redrawn Texas Congressional districts are in.

And to the credit of the judges who re-drew the districts, they got rid of a couple of those long skinny districts Delay and Co. gerrymandered created.

Seems like the Constitution calls for Congressional Districts to be “contiguous and compact” or something like that, and these are much moreso than Delay’s handiwork.

Little Dog and all firepups…
Good evening.

I’m doing some stuff for John Courage. It could happen…

But its looking good for Ned. I can not believe how much attention this race is getting. Ned is everywhere! Stay the course firepups, it is within our grasp!

“It’s TOOBZ!”

Check out the whole succession list, ye who dare: vp, speaker, toobz, then state, treasury, defense, abu, interior (where the bureau of indian affairs still awaits cleansing), agr, commerce, labor, h&hs, hud (democrats and heathen begone), trans (literally, as opposed to spiritually, vacant), energy, education, vets.

I remember terrifying myself early last year with a brief glimpse of this reality, in terms of the lack of adult supervision around Bootsy.

Only 822 days till the presidential election, or 900 days until the next inauguration.

Eli 7:31 pm — yeah, been sweating the impeachment thing, too…

But I tell you what, I’d like the chance anyhow.

I’d like a Democratic majority in both houses to take their slow, sweet time milking out mega-investigations that last right up through November 2008. I’d like the investigations to be on the upperfold of every newspaper in America for the next 2 years, and the corrective actions cleaning up after these f*cking elephants on the lowerfold.

Death by booga-booga, as the joke goes. Long, slow, torturous booga-booga.

Good evening Lambs of the rabid type and puppies of fire!

Mahalo to all the FDLers who answered my last post. I’m going to be here in HI for 1 year.. looking forward to a great time.

al-Scooter @ 257

LHP #250:

I linked to this Stirling Newberry piece on the Dean-to-Ned Transition and What It All Means earlier today, but I thought you and Rayne might want to take a peek:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080406A.shtml

Stirl does great meta-analysis, and there’s lots of substance wrapped by some great quotes.

This is my favorite bit

” They believe in confidence, competence, community and coherence – and it shows in how they campaign. They have a basic faith in this new world of Internetworking, “

That’s just poetic

I think its important to remember that people like ‘popular’ causes. Look at all those ridiculous yellow ribbons. The most important thing is for us to keep our eyes on the ball. No let up. Keep this quest to take the country back on the front burner. However ‘bad’ the ‘thing’ the other day was, it got ‘the cause’ so much attention. “No publicity is bad publicity. Jane was mentioned on ALL the cable news networks! How great is that?

Then you have the “crazy blogger left’ label. No problem. we know our perspective is one of, sorry to invoke superman here but, “Truth, Justice and The American Way”. The more people hear the common sense of the message the more they sign on. OK, that’s my rant.

Please return to you regular programming.

It would serve us right, and maybe reduce the amount of time for the country to regain, say, a quarter of the standing it has lately lost by a generation or so.

Hmmm, maybe I’ll have a look at that Conyers report tonight, or at least this weekend.

NY Times article has some info on the GOTV efforts of both campaigns from the union perspective:

“Mr. Lieberman, slipping badly in recent polls, still has solid organizational support: Major unions are planning phone banks on his behalf. Firefighters are taking the day off to drive older voters to polling stations. Black churches are distributing literature focusing on some of the historically most reliable Lieberman supporters, in the belief that the more Democrats show up to vote, the better his chances are.”

“There were small, but potentially telling, signals that organization alone might not rescue Mr. Lieberman. Two union chiefs who support Lieberman, including the head of the Connecticut A.F.L.-C.I.O., were expected to leave the state to honor other commitments in the critical final hours.”

WQhat Rayne said:

Cubed!

Rayne @ 264

At the risk of being EPU’d, I want to enjoin all of you FirePups who aren’t able to be in CT over the next several days to remember that there are races in your own backyards and across the rest of the country.

There’s an election to be won in November, even if there is no contested primary where you are on Tuesday.

Here’s your marching orders:
– Go to 100actions.com and get today’s Action you can do; catch up and do actions 100-99-98-97. These are things that are simple and easy, eating-an-elephant-one-bite-at-a-time steps.

– Go to DFALink.com and find the closest DFA group to you, find out how you can plug into their organization and take local action.

– Go to Meetup.com and find the closest progressive events near you; make a point of encouraging those folks to take 100Actions.com, too.

– Be sure to follow Do More Than Vote (DMTV) as it begins to roll out more sites across the country; hey, maybe you can roll one out, too!

– And join the StatesRootsProject.org along with the rest of us FirePups who are already there; get a login, start adding content and events you find at DFALink and Meetup.

– Check the Moveon.org site for the phonebanking efforts this weekend.

I’m going to be pesky and repost this a couple times this weekend. The lowest level of participation in a democracy is voting; it takes more than that to actually ensure your democracy. Your founding fathers did more than write on a bunch of parchment; they risked their lives taking action. You won’t even have to do anything that strenuous. Now get going and WIN!!!

Rayne 284:

Investigations and Shocking Revelations, maybe even criminal charges, would be absolutely delightful, and I have little doubt that non-whitewash investigations would find all *kinds* of dodgy and illegal shit.

Impeachment, at this point, would be largely symbolic. Powerfully so, but would not really have any effect on Republican policy.

Or push Conyers to next week and look at the GOP paper at Rawstory, especially to see whether this checks out:

Approval of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ plan for new, court-martial-like trials for terror detainees seems to be a priority, …

IIRC, that’s the bill that would make Rumsfeld the new Justice Czar. Really wack stuffsky.

I’ve just been doing a quick scan through the Conyers dox and I’m wondering what will happen to all this. Will spend time to do a close read tomorrow, but he’s pretty much putting it all out there on the table. But then so have a lot of others on this and many other BushCo obscenities.

op99 @ 275

looseheadprop @ 271

Not a lawyer – where do I sign up?

What state do you live in?

Rayne – I’m with you on the steady drip, drip, drip of investigations. I honestly don;t think it would take too long for enough truth to come out that there would be resignations.

On the other hand, this Republican Congress has put us squarely behind the eight ball in terms of there being so much that needs doing and fixing after years of time wasted on things like flag burning and gay marriage.

There would have to be some balance that would ensure that a Democratic party-controlled Congress would be cracking the whip on substantive legislative issues, while marching the criminals in the administration ever closer to the end of the plank – otherwise, the ammunition going into 2008 is just that all we were interested in was getting even with the Bushies.

Frankly, I don’t think we can afford to let up for a minute, but it’s so important that it just has to be done.

I say this like it’s easy – me, the one who has (1) a mother who just came off an 18-month waiting list for a retirement community, and needs to pack up and sell the house she’s been in for 47 years, (2) an aunt who is getting ready to go into assisted living over the objections of her asshole husband, and for which Adult Protective Services is now coming into the picture and (3) a daughter planning a wedding for next April, two weeks after tax season ends – my busiest time at work. Yeah, there’s also a full-time job…a husband, two dogs, two cats and a bunch of fish.

We need to get working on increasing the length of the days by about 12 hours, or I am going to have to give up sleep, and perhaps the time it takes to eat. One. day. at. a. time. Deeeep breaths….

Have had 2 tidal wave dreams in the last two weeks – those are the ones that mean I am feeling overwhelmed…no shit.

punaise ….mod squad – hahahaha

to the FDL Mod Squad — thank you thank you thank you

Hey the President is back down in Crawford for a little self Imperchment this week. A little bird just left my house after telling me of a few folks who are at camp Cindy Sheehan on her new land while W. is in town. Hope that gets another round of footage this year.

looseheadprop @ 295

What state do you live in?

New York (Rochester, Monroe County)

HopeSpringsATurtle @ 282

Little Dog and all firepups…
Good evening.

I’m doing some stuff for John Courage. It could happen…

But its looking good for Ned. I can not believe how much attention this race is getting. Ned is everywhere! Stay the course firepups, it is within our grasp!

Hope

Is John Courage a candidate? I thought John Courage was a very nice UK beer. Am I out of the loop?

*ilson46201 @
255

Eli @
253

Call in Strobe Talbot (a classmate of the preznit) to do REAL diplomacy.

So Condi would be kinda like Strobe Light?

I sure hope Darkblack isn’t inspired by that wordplay …

oh, *, you love to tempt darkblack. Nice mods, btw. ty

marky @ 286

Mahalo to all the FDLers who answered my last post. I’m going to be here in HI for 1 year.. looking forward to a great time.

Marky

Learn to surf!!!

It is an ultimaye zen.

Did you know that PJF went all the way to Autralia to learn to surf? word!

Rayne @
273

Teddy #261 — oh yeah, you can ring that one again. I completely missed that one by Mary.

Dead straight. JoTheHo, if he had the opportunity, would dismiss charges and/or pardon the lot of them.

Where’s SecDef in the line of succession should the POTUS and VP step down…???

This could be a part of their October surprise. Veep out (health etc), appoint Lieberman Veep, get the full Senate on-board with a National Unity Government. This thinking presupposes a Part One, probably involving devastation in The Homeland.

Which they can do.

lhp at 300

He’s running in south texass..he’s a good guy, but little dog calls it well, his chances are only so-so. here’s his linky:

http://courageforcongress.org/home/

This is all so predictable. Lieberman’s support for bush and for the war, is THE issue, of course.

And this contest could be the beginning of the unravelling of the bushturd security blanket.
It’s at the point that one tug on the right thread (no pun…) can make the whole bloody, insane, shittaree disintegrate.

And ALL of the asshats know it, which is why they’re falling all over themselves to “help Joe”. If he goes down, every candidate in every race, will take note, and react accordingly.

Let’s hammer the bastards, and watch them start the long, deadly, pantsshitting process, as their warped worldview melts in front of the whole planet’s eyes. :o)

tanbark @ 305

This is all so predictable. Lieberman’s support for bush and for the war, is THE issue, of course.

And this contest could be the beginning of the unravelling of the bushturd security blanket.
It’s at the point that one tug on the right thread (no pun…) can make the whole bloody, insane, shittaree disintegrate.

And ALL of the asshats know it, which is why they’re falling all over themselves to “help Joe”. If he goes down, every candidate in every race, will take note, and react accordingly.

Let’s hammer the bastards, and watch them start the long, deadly, pantsshitting process, as their warped worldview melts in front of the whole planet’s eyes. :o)

Are you talking about the incumbent Democrats?

Let’s hammer the bastards, and watch them start the long, deadly, pantsshitting process, as their warped worldview melts in front of the whole planet’s eyes. :o)

I have a hammer !!

Fini FiniQuote @ 285

Good evening Lambs of the rabid type and puppies of fire!

Wow, hi Fini, how are you? (Big day today y’all — Fini and Donita got me to crack open my iTunes and buy something: Donita’s Spin You’re In!)

FFT, you sure do spend a lot of time at your keyboard — you know, like when you see somebody in a bar and say, “Wow, she’s ALWAYS here” and then your best friend sez, “Yeah, whenever YOU are.”

Anyway, hi Fini!

LHP #287:

From what I’ve seen, Ned has a huge advantage: all he has to be is himself. He doesn’t have to do a con job on himself and others to live his dreams. And that integration frees up an enormous amount of energy to do good things.

Someone (wish I could remember so as to give credit) the other night referred to Joe as a “concern troll”. To me, that’s an absolutely brilliant observation. Looking at the man and the way he campaigns, I’d say the tragedy of Joe is that he’s living a lie. Only he’s not the only one who’s being hurt by it.

HopeSpringsATurtle @ 288

I think its important to remember that people like ‘popular’ causes. Look at all those ridiculous yellow ribbons. The most important thing is for us to keep our eyes on the ball. No let up. Keep this quest to take the country back on the front burner. However ‘bad’ the ‘thing’ the other day was, it got ‘the cause’ so much attention. “No publicity is bad publicity. Jane was mentioned on ALL the cable news networks! How great is that?

Then you have the “crazy blogger left’ label. No problem. we know our perspective is one of, sorry to invoke superman here but, “Truth, Justice and The American Way”. The more people hear the common sense of the message the more they sign on. OK, that’s my rant.

Please return to you regular programming.

Yeah, and let’s not forget that the “incident” managed to get BOTH Reverends the cable-news opportunity to bat the blogger questions outta the park, and then talk about Ned!

Forgive me, I don’t see a new thread…

but this is a must read over at CTBob. His video is hilarious and it’s second only to witnessing this meltdown in person.

connecticutbob

I don’t see a new thread?

op99 @ 299

looseheadprop @ 295

What state do you live in?

New York (Rochester, Monroe County)

OK I can hook you up. need contat info> I will forward to th e area coordinator for where you live. NYS has a full fledged election monitoring effort

RevDeb – I would love to work with other FDLers this weekend. (Enjoyed the FDL get together in Branford)

Could you add my name, too? I responded to the Lamont campaign request for grassroots volunteers this weekend, but haven’t heard back. Would be happy to send you my contact info.

Hope

i don’t mean to sound flip. But when I was in law school, John Courage was my favorite beer

I take all this “Lieberman will lose” talk is that if joe only loses by 5 points, everyone will consider it a ‘win’ by Joe and will be encouraged to continue. The Lautenberg quote about 10 points and Joe drops out is also spin as to what they think the difference might be, il.e. less than 10.

Jane is right – we should all say, and we are, that if Joe loses, it is over for him. Any further effort on his part only prove him to be a spoiled little brat.

No matter the margin, we should just all feel “so very sad for Joe.” Can’t help himself — sad to see a man demeaning himself that way.” Not joyous in his defeat (come on – we can do that) but sad that a once good man has come so low. :( oh poor Joe is our motto.

They are spinning to beat the band about those darn expectations. Now anything less than a 10 points win = a Joe win NOT.

Don’t know why I needed to say that out loud because everyone else has just said the same thing but I wanted to affirm my thoughts in black and white. No high expectations that after August 8, everything will be fine. Still a mountain to climb.

Signed up for phone banks tomorrow pm. My NYT was never better today, in my eyes. I can’t wait to hear from TRex; my man in the scene! Thank you giving me this priviledge to participate in something that I truly believe in.

Way off topic from threads ago

BarbaraB – I was going off Macheath’s read of Krugman. I only read the sports, the business section (which are conveniently located in the same section where I live) and do the crossword in the Times, I don’t read the op-ed page.

But, having read your excerpt of Krugman – he’s right for the wrong reasons. Nothing changed in 94 that somehow made politics party, rather than personally, oriented. Politics has always been party-centric in this country – once Washington went home the cult of personality was killed.

Joe was left with no party line to run with since he abandoned his party long ago – he changed, the world of politics didn’t. Thus, Joe had no choice but to run on “personality,” what a kind, standup, great guy he is/was.

And if Joe stole anything from repugs, it was making the election a referendum on his personality, not the policies he supports/ed. Which is what repugs try to do with Chimpy these days since they too have only failures in terms of policy and actions.

Running on being the life of the party (no pun intended) is the last refuge of failed party politicians, since they have nothing else to run on. That doesn’t mean that politics in this country has changed, it means the particular person running for office, in this case Lieberman, has nothing else to run on or with. Whether that is sad or not doesn’t matter, but Lieberman forgot what he job is and who his employers are, and he’s going to be fired and it wouldn’t matter if he were the greatest, bestest guy whose ever lived, and thta has always been true of American politics.

Hi Firepups,

About to be EUP’d and have been lurking rather than writing for a while due to time constraints, but I’ve got to say, this place, and you all, are the greatest! I feel like I’ve never been away, and plan to phone-bank it via MoveOn as best I can. Sitting here and reading the comments, of folks new and old, I feel like I’ve never been away. What a marvelous community this is, and such wonderful people you all are, each and every one (trolls excepted).

And the neat thing about election work is, it’s contagious! You get so involved, builds up into such intensity towards the end — you get hooked on it and keep wanting to go back for more. I could probably build a better sexual analogy but I don’t think I need to…

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK — it’s time for something terrific to happen and maybe, this time, it will!

Anne 8:03 pm — you do have your hands full, don’t you?! We’ll just have to get your back for you, and we’ll all of us just take it one step at a time.

I think of that movie Parenthood, with Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen, whenever it seems like there’s just too, too much schtuff going on…and how Martin’s character finally grokked the stress response he had to life’s ups and downs. Big cleansing breath and relax, enjoy the ride.

This year at this house we’ve had to deal with my spouse’s second surgery for oral precancer, my MIL’s slow decline after two hip replacements, a fall and subsequent reparative surgery, the usual chasing around with an adult stepchild and two school-aged kids, increasing amount of contract work for me and increasing amount of travel for the spouse combined with exponentially more political work due to the election. Crazy, all of it, I should be bald from tearing out my hair, not sleeping well at all.

But then I have this lovely pool of crazy-sane goofy-calm intelligent-smartassed people to hang with whenever I need to chill, and thank the Toobz for internet access when needed most.

Just go with the flow, Anne; imagine those big tidal waves as opportunities to learn to surf. We will get through this somehow, learn how to hold the feet of our own kind to the fire as we are with Joe-nertia, so that they get on the stick and fix this mess every day.

Myself, I am imagining the immense collective sigh of relief we will have once we win back a majority — and a bigger sigh when we take back the White House. I remember sneaking into work a bottle of bubbly to drink with my fellow Democratic coworker when Clinton won over BushI; we drank and cried during the Inauguration, thankful for the end of the Reagan-Bush years. It will be like that again, keep the faith — and better, since I will be drinking and crying together with so many more Democratic friends here and across the toobz.

lhp at 315

I like a good flip sometimes especially over beer.

Teddy at 310

Right on.

Hi Firepups,

About to be EPU’d, and have been lurking rather than writing for a while due to time constraints, but I’ve got to say, this place, and you all, are the greatest! I feel like I’ve never been away, and plan to phone-bank it via MoveOn as best I can. Sitting here and reading the comments, of folks new and old, I feel like I’ve never been away. What a marvelous community this is, and such wonderful people you all are, each and every one (trolls excepted).

And the neat thing about election work is, it’s contagious! You get so involved, builds up into such intensity towards the end — you get hooked on it and keep wanting to go back for more. I could probably build a better sexual analogy but I don’t think I need to…

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK — it’s time for something terrific to happen and maybe, this time, it will!

Not joyous in his defeat (come on – we can do that)

I can’t.

Thus, Joe had no choice but to run on “personality,” what a kind, standup, great guy he is/was.

Oops.

DAB send your contact info, days you can work, where you are staying, etc. to my name at mac dot com.

Going to bed very soon so as to get up early and head south.

Sorry- seems that Christy’s tomorrow thread got triggered by mistake. But, TRex is a comin up. Whenever he decides to hit the publish button, I assume.

Spazeboy @ 311

Forgive me, I don’t see a new thread…

but this is a must read over at CTBob. His video is hilarious and it’s second only to witnessing this meltdown in person.

connecticutbob

Bwahahahaha! Welcome to the NEW (and instant) media JoeMo!!! Seeya later : )

Dannyboy – You speak the truth, I am we are the greatest. Yay me us! ;-)

EPU!! How fitting!! Here in the EPU zone!!

True, but we haven’t been EPU’d yet.

I’ll take a poll – should I actually read the oped’s before commenting on someone’s post on them? I think omniscience is enough.

MSNBC poll – should bush be impeached?

TRex thread now up

HopeSpringsATurtle @ 282

Little Dog and all firepups…
Good evening.

I’m doing some stuff for John Courage. It could happen

…

Hi, Hope:

What is the Courage campaign’s take on the new districts?

Spazeboy @
311

Forgive me, I don’t see a new thread…

but this is a must read over at CTBob. His video is hilarious and it’s second only to witnessing this meltdown in person.

connecticutbob

Spazeboy, THAT ROCKS!
If Jane or Trex is having trouble finding something to post for late-nite, I think CTBob’s video works great. You guys hammered Goodstein with the truth. Campaigning is a lot about stamina and Mr. Goodstein and his candidate don’t have it. It looks to me as though Joezoe’s campaign has lots of generals and no privates. Ned’s campaign is heavy on infantry/privates and light on Generals. That’s why you’re winning.

I was just running the kos hardball interview over in my noggin. I remember Fund slipped in the “Jane Hamsher people donated over 50k to Lamont,” snarly remark. Kos didn’t get in a reply such as Large Corporations are sending Joe 100k a day.

Grrr

It looks to me as though Joezoe’s campaign has lots of generals and no privates.

What are you talking about? It looks like they’re *all* dicks.

new thread: Trex on bondage

OT I know, but,

That Video that malkin has of your interview with Ned can only help Ned if people watch it, a big if with people who do best when told what to think, but, hey, you never know.

Friendly, positive, determined, what’s not to like?

They really are deluded and selfish fools.

Evil Parallel Universe at 8:25 pm*

I beg to differ; after Watergate, both parties broke down, and politics became every politician for themselves.

Jimmy Carter? Elected as an outsider, running against Washington.

Ronald Reagan? Elected in a landslide, running against Washington.

GHW Bush? Won as an Anti-Tax, Anti-Establishmentarian opponent of a Tax and Spend LIBERAL.

Bill Clinton? Won as a communitarian outsider, with a big assist from the Anti-Establishment Ross Perot.

The American Political Parties broke down after Watergate; in the wake of this breakdown, every candidate became a free lancer, running against Washington and their own party establishment.

On the GOP side, the barbarian wing nuts were poised to take over; when GW Bush recognized the potential of the wing nut / evangelical durable majority, the arc of power was set in motion.

On the Democratic side, all candidates were free lancers, sucking the K-Street tit, while mouthing empty platitudes for the rubes back home, while they did K-Street’s NAFTA CAFTA bidding.

The pissed off Democrats, Nutmeggers and Netroots, are poised to mount Joe Leiberman’s head on a pike — as a lesson to the other Dems, who play GOP Lite corporate footsie.

And that — in a Nutmeg Shell — is how we got here, and where we are at.

DON’T BELIEVE THAT LIEBERMAN IS CUTTING GOTV or getting ready to throw in the towel, says KOS today:

The extent to which the [Lieberman] field campaign is being cut seems to have been greatly exaggerated by their own campaign. Lieberman staffers are taking their $60 a day and knocking on doors and making phone calls at this very moment.

Remember, it ain’t over till the polls close and the votes are counted!

Lieberman’s decision to keep his senate seat when he ran with Gore said it all; did he learn anything in the intervening years?

LIEBERMAN: BOW OUT GRACEFULLY. THINK OF SOMEONE BESIDES YOURSELF.

looseheadprop @ 313

I’m back – don’t see you on next thread so I’ll answer here. Email me at opera99 at rochester dot rr dot com, and I’ll reply with my contact info. Thanks!

Good luck nuking the Dem party on Tuesday!

GO NED!

Love,
GOP

Hi Jane,

Tonight on Olbermann, Lieberman’s poor showing in the polls was blamed for Hilary’s call for Rumsfeld’s resignation. You’re kickin ass, girl!

Jane,

I think you may be misinterpreting Lautenberg’s intentions. I think Sen. Frank is pretty confident that Nomentum is gonna lose, and he’s gonna lose by a reasonable margin, and I don’t think Lautenberg’s gonna support any sort of Indy run. So this is his way of breaking it to him gradually, sort of like the way you would tell your petulant 4-year-old that his pet turtle passed away…

I have always thought Lautenberg was one of the good guys. Why is he letting himself be used by that schmuck Lieberman?

‘He loses, he’s out. The end.’

Perfect title for a Tuesday night.

I think this is exactly what we need to hear: if Joe loses by a big enough margin, people will call on him to withdraw, therefore, EVERY VOTE COUNTS.