I don't want to waste Hillary on the SoS position. I want her in the Senate for the next 30 years...

Yes, she could do it and do it well, but so could lots of other people. Few have shown such aptitude for the Senate as she has demonstrated. Stay in the Senate, Hil, and take it over!!

So, the CEO of Home Depot thinks any retailer not throwing money to influence the outcomes in fovor of the GOP in MN and GA should be shot. First, in a fair recount, it would not matter how much money they threw at the issue, the result would be a win for the candidate with the most votes...so is he urging retailers to get into the act of bribing judges, or does he want to hire a fake rabble to riot in a repeat of the Brooks Brothers riot in Miami. If so, he will find that Minnesotans are made of sterner stuff than those cowards in Miami.  Secondly, so, disagreeing with this cretin's political views should be punishable by death? Did he never read the US Constitution?

While he has the right to his opinion, I also think he needs some schooling in American democracy and the power of the people - not just the CEO's. Perhaps a demonstration of people power and the power of the pocketbook combined would help. Perhaps it would be useful for people to boycott Home Depot until he is fired. That seems like good karma. Woudl folks be interested?

I believe you can best judge a party's own assessment of their candidates and platforms by their strategies to win elections - especially their unethical strategies. Democrats believe their platform and their candidates are the best for the most people and carry out that belief through massive voter registration drives and encouraging everyone - even sometimes those not permitted - to vote. Their strategies reflect their honest assessment that the more people who vote, the more likely they are to win because they are the best party for the most people.

Republicans pursue strategies to limit voter participation and suppress even legal voting. They place obstacles in the way of voting such as voter id requirements and through challenging voters' right to vote based on spurious assumptions that if their home is in foreclosure they can be living there. The post flyers threatening prosecution for voting, claiming police will be serving warrants, and so on. They send out notices with false precinct addresses. They have a new one, though, in Florida that has gotten even Republican elections officials pissed off.

They are sending letters to registered Democrats to check and averify their registration claiming they are registered as Republicans. I kid you not. See the store here.

Yes, it helps them win elections and confirms for the record that even in their own minds they believe their platform and candidates can not win an open, honest and fair election.

The Republicans always love to talk about cultural abasement in terms of the poor and most particularly in terms of African Americans. They trot out Moynihan's phrase "defining deviency down" and complain about single mothers, absent fathers and rap music.

However, I submit that the most successful effort to define deviency down has come from the Republican party itself. From Nixon to Reagan to Bush to McCain, we have had a string of administrations and campaigns marked by corruption, secrecy and lies. And the result is that McCain's campaign staff arrogantly and flippantly boasts that they don't care that the media calls them on their lies.

Yes, they know they are lying in the ads. They know that using words like disrespectful and arrogant to talk about Obama is code talk to white folks to tell them to shut down the "uppity" black man. They don't care though, because they have so successfully lowered expectations of integrity and honesty among Republicans, it's not a story when they are corrrupt, lying conmen.

Corrupt Republican? Yawn!  Been there, done that.

And so they get away with it - there's no outrage because they have exhausted and outlasted outrage.

So, Chris Matthews, James Carville and other pundits refuse to believe their lying eyes when they see the loathsome, racist personal attacks coming out of the McCain campaign. The exculpate McCain of any complicity in the ads - insisting he cannot know they are happening.  Fine! Let's go there.

If John McCain is so incompetent he doesn't even have control over his campaign's message and advertising, he is too incompetent to be in the Senate, let alone in the White House.

So, go ahead and say he's too good a guy to do that. Pretend that McCain would not do or say anything to get power. Make all those justifications because you can't have it both ways. If he's innocent of those ads, he's an incompetent manager who has no business in the presidency. If he's aware of those ads, he's vile, racist and corrupt and should not be withing 30 miles of the White House. Either way, those ads disqualify him from the White House.

Josh says Palin reminds him of someone - it's on the tip of his tongue. In an effort to help him out, I suggest the person he is thinking of is Louise Fletcher

Josh says Palin reminds him of someone - it's on the tip of his tongue. In an effort to help him out, I suggest the person he is thinking of is this one: http://www.collegefootballresource.com/storage/louisefletcher.jpg

Having listened to the Norm Coleman ad going after Franken for "juicy porn" , I have to wonder how well it would work.  
Minnesotans are a bit touchy about having their accent mocked - and particularly when it's done poorly.  You have no idea how many people were pissed off by Fargo and refused to even see it. 
Coming from Minnesota, I am familiar with the accents of the different regions from the North Woods where I am from to the Range to the Cities and nowhere have I heard that accent anywhere in the state. The person speaking sounds like an ignorant buffoon. 
I think this is a case of a New Yorker (Coleman) not getting Minnesota and perhaps looking down on the state as provincial and backwards. I cannot see it being effective with anyone who is not already disposed to vote Republican.

There's no need for Obama nor anyone else to vote on the FISA bill now, it's unnecessary thanks to a Bush-appointed Appeals Court judge.

Judge Reject Bush's View on Wiretaps

Highlights from the article:

A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the “exclusive” means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law.

He said the rules for surveillance were clearly established by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a warrant from a secret court. “Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence activities to be conducted,” the judge wrote.

 “Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities

Like many Democrats, I get sick and tired of the false presumption that Republicans are better for the military, more patriotic and just generally more all-American than Democrats. It's as false as the myth of the morality and steadfast wholesomeness of the Heartland - a myth belied by objective statistic on divorce, teen pregnancy, drug addiction and violent crime statistics.

It seems that no outrage pierces the prejudices of the media. That our soldiers showered in contaminated water because of Bush cronyism does not do it. The shameful treatment of soldiers returning from Iraq doesn't do it. The Walter Reed scandal doesn't do it. The Republican opposition to the new GI Bill does not do it. The media are conditioned to see Republicans as pro-military and nothing seems to change their mind.

But what if they were trying to keep our veterans from voting?  The Bush Administration has blocked voter registration efforts at VA nursing homes, rehab centers and the like. Sure shows how hypocritical their concern for military ballots in Florida was when they want to prevent vets from even registering to vote.

Two real heroes have taken this fight straight to the VA, Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats have protested loudly and publicly. The Secretary of State herself went to do voter registration and was turned away.

For more information, you can read this article:
http://tinyurl.com/4maytw

Yes, Obama is wrong to vote for the FISA bill. No, that should not result is people refusing to vote for him as he is no Tweedledee to McCain's Tweedledum just as Gore was not a mirror of Bush. Thanks, Ralph!
However, I am disheartened by those who seem perfectly willing to give up our 4th Amendment rights because they trust Obama won't abuse the power and they believe he will win. First, he might not win. Second, what about in 2009 or 2013 or whenever the GOP comes back into power.  
The GOP was all for limiting the president's power while Clinton was in office and then threw their libertarianism under the bus under Bush. Are we equally unprincipled? Do we think unconstitutional powers are okay for us? 
The Achilles Heel of our constitution and the balance of power that has served us so well is that it requires that we place our trust in the system of government, not the individual. The reason we have gone so far astray is the direct result of the personality cult the Right built around Bush. Let's not do the same around Obama...because even if he does not abuse those powers, they will exist and be passed on to those who may not deserve our trust.

McCain has asked for a series of town hall debates with Obama. I personally like the Town Hall debate style so long as CNN doesn't plant questioners with trivial and demeaning questions they wrote.
However, Obama is a good debater both in town hall situations and in formal moderated debates. Yes, he had one bad debate, but that was the ABC moderators' obsession with trivia, not his performance itself. The thing is, McCain is only good in the town hall format. 
Clearly, Obama should insist on several forms of debate, not just the one that shows McCain in his best light. McCain, however despicable his policies, is someone that people find likable and engaging. He connects with people on a personal level in some way. In town halls, he seems frank and honest. In more formal conditions, he is ill at ease and seems at best, inauthentic. More importantly, he seems dishonest. 
Obama has no need to avoid town hall debates. He does well in them. Just don't let McCain shine at every debate by allowing them to be in the only format he can shine in.

Hah!  Bet you thought this would be a Clinton v Obama post, but it's not. The headline is valid for that battle, too, but this is about something altogether different: the bitterness with which we battle our ideological allies.

It's natural. I know I feel much more anger toward Senator Wyden when he disappoints me than I do about Senator Smith's generally abysmal record on everything. But then I don't expect much from Sen, Smith and I know Wyden knows better and should do better.

But you know what, we agree on more than we disagree on and our hopes and dreams for the long-term are more similar than dissimilar. That's what makes his failures more upsetting, but rationally, I know that I can accomplish more with him than with Smith.

So that's what really angers me about the CNA's attack on SEIU. With declining union membership nation-wide, why the hell is a union using such unscrupulous tactics? They're even attacking card check.  Good grief, we already have the right wing vilifying unions, we don't need that coming from our own - and from a union no less.

I have a vision of a just and equal society. I know it won't happen tomorrow. It may not happen in my lifetime, but I think about what that means and and what it will take and then endeavor to do my best to support reforms that will get us there and oppose impediments to my goal. I try not to use strategies and messages that will impede my goal.

For example, activists love to make their policies sound better by saying "working people deserve..." when really they mean all people deserve...and just lack the courage to say it. If we are true progressive liberals, we believe that all people deserve quality health care they can afford...we can say that and the earth won't fall in and we will not reinforce the idea that some people don't deserve health care.

So, those of us who have access or know someone, take a minute and tell CNA that their tactics hurt more than SEIU, they hurt the entire union movment - including CNA. And let's tell both SEIU and CNA that they need to sit down and come to a grown-up mature and responsible agreement on how to disagree.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3655/demolition_crew_butts_in_where_deft_organizers_need_to_tread

As it should have been:
All Presidential Candidates Set Aside Partisanship and Ambition to promote Idol Gives Back Charity

As it was:
McCain Crassly Crosses the Line to Score Partisan Points during Idol Gives Back

I watched his smarmy performance last night - his obvious discomfort, his not very funny partisan digs and thought that her was a real insight into the man.

He has one task, make a plea for charity. Instead he uses it to attack the Democratic party. He put his ambition and partisanship ahead of the charity - incredibly self-involved and selfish.  He cannot ever seriously make a nonpartisan, bipartisan sort of claim when he would crassly take advantage of this event for his personal partisan ambitions.

Obama and Clinton struck the right notes, they didn't try to score points off each other or the Republicans, they rightly put the charity ahead of themselves. Not so McCain. He's not Mr. STraight Talk or Mr. Moderate, He's Mr. It's All About Me.