masaccio @ 67

I tried to make a contribution, but the server says it has a problem. Is there a problem, or did I enter something wrong?

Try this: Carol’s Blue America Donation Link

Neil @ 78

It’s a quiet day here at the lake. Some of the late night crowd is still sleeping in after staying up late to read pages upon pages of DOJ emails from the most recent document dump.

Have you heard? Gonzalez lied again. I don’t know if he said this to Congress under oath but he did claim at a presser that he did not know the details of the US Attorney terminations. He said that his deputy was in charge of it and that he himself should have been more involved. The email indicates he was closely involved; he attended a meeting to plan the terminations. Gonzalez is the fall guy. They want him to dangle as long as possible to insulate responsible White House personnel: Honest people have no fear of testifying under oath.

The President made two appearances this week to make public statements. One was to claim there is no indication of any wrongdoing in the USA terminations: “No indication” I guess they’ve scrubbed the documents thoroughly. The second appearance was to state his intent to veto the Emergency Appropriations Bill and to mischaracterize it. I wonder how he plans to blame the democrats for no funding if he vetoes it. The Dems should take a page out of Bush’s book. Send him another bill after his veto that’s even tougher than the first.

The President and his administration have the right to pursue their policies but they have no authority to break the law, or interpret the law so as to subvert it. This is not politics as usual. This is a Constitutional crisis, to wit: suspension of habeas corpus, warrant-less wiretapping, presenting fraudulent evidence for Iraq war authorization, conspiracy to publicize classified information about a covert CIA agent working on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons; financing a preemptive and illegal war with our children’s tax dollars. Please make it stop.

Have we mentioned lately Bush’s “patriotic” ability to declare martial law? I sent a letter to my Congressman asking him to put that on the agenda real soon.

My Congressman is Lloyd Doggett – even tho he was temporarily redistricted out – I never stopped considering him my congressman – and now I’ve got him back officially – yay!

Redistricting was my intro to politics in Texas at the state level. Double spew!! What was originally intended as the ONLY hearings in the state were in Austin. (Later they added more because of the outcry.) I was there and had signed up as one of the earliest speakers. The hearings were supposed to start in the afternoon. Didn’t start til evening. I got my turn to speak at 5:00 a.m.!

Later, when the County Commissioners were deciding if they wanted to sign up for standing in the matter, I was there to speak to them. Everyone else made such lovely reasoned appeals. I simply said, “Look at what all the Republicans in Congress have been doing already. Do we really need more of them?” They laughed. And, good for them, did enter into the fray. I was at all those hearings. It was quite an education.

Thanks for listening.

So.. what would happen if Nancy told Bush “This is the only emergency spending bill we intend to put forward- you can sign it or not, but this is the best deal you’re going to get.” Or “The next emergency spending bill will be a bill that provides only money specifically earmarked for the transport of personel and materiel one way from Iraq to the US”? I mean, it’s a supplemental for the military, not for the entire government. Does Bush have the authority to shift $ around from other budgets to cover his shortfall in Iraq?

some leeway from other Military accts, but where is he gonna fund a spare 120B?

masaccio @ 79

Howie, in the last hour, we had 2774 visitors, according to the sitemeter. We raised about $1200. We need to think about how to do better. I continue to urge you to consider mining data at ActBlue to see who the big contributors are, those who can help seriously with the giving. Carol Shea-Porter will have to raise a lot of money, and we need to make that doable.

Please. This is not about dollars. This is about votes. If it’s dollars they will win every time. Big donors are big *owners*.

What we really need is for Rahm to take his own advise to heart:

What about your decision to run your re-election as another grassroots campaign without any help from the DCCC. That’s unheard of. Emanuel must have had a fit. He didn’t. This is what the bane of grassroots Democrats told Carol Shea-Porter at their meeting about her decision.

“You know your district better than anyone else. You won.”

If the party does the right thing more often, the Congresswoman and her contemporaries could legislate, and lead.

I’ll do what I can to keep you there.

Second, there are a number of races where serious money would make a difference. I gave a lot of money to Victoria Wulsin, and she came close. She raised about $600K. That was barely competitive with Jean Schmidt. Another $200K would have made a big difference.

We cannot change anything until we elect more people like Shea-Porter and Wulsin. We need to put our money where our mouth is.

Even if you are right that donors are owners, it will be best if we are the owners and not giant corporations.

Howie, in the last hour, we had 2774 visitors, according to the sitemeter. We raised about $1200. We need to think about how to do better. I continue to urge you to consider mining data at ActBlue to see who the big contributors are, those who can help seriously with the giving. Carol Shea-Porter will have to raise a lot of money, and we need to make that doable.

Please. This is not about dollars. This is about votes. If it’s dollars they will win every time. Big donors are big *owners*.

Morris- Well, yeah, but the constitution IS very clear that any and all monies have to be appropriated through the House. I wasn’t asking if Bush would be willing to weasel around it, I was asking if there were any legal avenues for him to get his hands on already appropriated money.

Probably not. But look at Iran-Contra, which was in direct violation of the Boland amendment. Bush’s gang would not hesitate to make that bunch of lawbreaking look like cheating at a game of go fish.

However, making them cheat, and perhaps cheat openly, does have political advantages.