The right wing blogs are abuzz with the same argument: Zelaya acted illegally in pushing for a referendum to get a 2nd term. (Conservatives reflexively support military coups in Latin America).

Except the referendum would not give him a second term. It was a non-binding referendum to decide on a vote in this November's Presidential election to hold a "National Constituent Assembly" (like a Constitutional Convention)

Yes, the same Presidential election where Zelaya's successor would be elected.

So, how the hell can Zelaya be furthering his stay in office by this referendum? It doesn't make sense. Not plausible.

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For years, even decades, now Republicans have flaunted their ignorance to flout the Democratic Party by calling it the "Democrat Party". It's bad grammar, it's bad manners and it's a childish thing.

But it does bug many Democrats and lovers of English and civility. We don't have to just take it but we can respond with cutting humor: "The Republicant Party."

There have been some fine pushback as of late. The ever feisty Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo) took Rep Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) to task for playing the silly name game. She politely and firmly pointed out we don't refer to the Republican Party as the "Republic Party."

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I'll leave it to the reader to figure out which critter is Republican and which is the Democrat. No prizes.

One day, a traveling scorpion came upon a river that ran wide and swift. He couldn't see any way across, upriver or downriver. The scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation.

He noticed a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.

"Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?"

"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the frog hesitantly.

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Dear Former President Bush:

I really have little to say to you anymore. It's time to focus on the future and the only thing I care about from you in the future is to resist your inevitable attempts at historical rewrites.

Instead, your Presidency should serve as a warning beacon to future politicians to shun lying the country into war, not to deregulate wildly, to govern by uniting and not dividing, to embrace science over fantasy, to avoid politicizing the Justice Dept (at least), to help the people in their need (Katrina).

If we let you rewrite, gloss over and falsify these last eight years, you turn off the beacon. Your ideological heirs could run us up on the rocks again.

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Watching Sunday morning news shows, catching up on Josh's updates from last night's post, and seeing some of the debates I've been in here, it seems we need a better debate and understanding of the benefits and perils of criticizing our new President.

Josh's update makes the point:

If Nate's right about what Obama's plan is, having people pushing for something better from the outside is part of it. So under either scenario, holding your tongue makes no sense, in addition to being unethical.

Adrian Fenty, on Meet the Press just now praised the Obama economic recovery plan, saying it's just what we need. It's nice to be positive, but that's not entirely true.

The truth is that the Obama plan is a damn good start toward what we need, but it's not big enough for the problem we face. So, if we all run around muting any criticism then the Obama Recovery Plan will have fewer voices trying to make it better.

It's likely that Obama and his team have judged they will have a larger plan in the end if they start low to get bargained higher rather than startting high and getting knocked down. There's some logic there.

But if we limit our roles to a choir praising anything he does, we will be doing him a disservice. We can help with spreading the word on the depth of the Bush crater Obama and Congress need to fill. By remaining involved, remaining active, and not adopting partisan fictions around our Leader's greatness, we can help create the policy environment to make President Obama a huge historical success.

Of course, we should remember to keep the disagreements to policy.

You have to hope there's a grand play at work in the economic recovery plan. Josh Marshall notes:

And yet the desire to get a substantial number of Republicans to vote for the bill appears to be having a big impact on the proposal's size and shape. Quite likely, leaving it too small and too tilted toward tax cuts to get the job done.

Paul Krugman and others have shown the current plans for the stimulus are not keeping up with the growing crater left by Republican policies. As Krugman shows, economic output is down by 8% but plans will only cover 3%.

We're hemorrhaging 1/2 million jobs per month now - but the Republicans are obsessed with defending their ideology and the Democrats are obsessing with pleasing Republicans.

Hopefully, that's not all there is to the plan. It's clear that more of us need to advocate for a larger stimulus.

Crossposted at my other blog.

According to the AP, Barack Obama wants to continue and expand Bush's "faith-based" (or "religious") funding programs.

Funny how Obama didn't bring this up in the primary.

These religious funding programs corrupt churches and the government, both. From the little coverage we've seen (mainly through the TPM media empire) these seem to be massive patronage programs for Bush's religious right pals.

And the idea that Obama supports using government dollars in a discriminatory way is just shocking and very very disappointing.

Clinton backer Paul Begala sunk to new lows on CNN yesterday. Begala goes out of his way to repeat and reinforce the Republican stereotype against liberals, describing us as "Volvo drivin', NPR tote bag totin'" liberals.

Memo to Paul Begala: You have made yourself an enemy of liberals and you have forfeited our respect. To propagate the false, divisive and destructive Republican stereotypes is to side with the Republican Party and to legitimize their hateful message.

The Clinton camp is openly at war with liberals. They openly scorn us on network television!  And they want our support?!?!?

Paul says it with a charming smile, but he's still spewing hate and showing the Clinton willingness to throw overboard anyone in the Democratic family in pursuit of their ambitions for power. (Why else is Clinton waging this nomination fight, beyond her own lust for power? Can anyone name the issue she is championing, like Kennedy championed universal health care in 1980?)

This Begala/Reagan stereotype is false! Liberal views are widely shared in America and fast becoming the dominant philosophy. Begala and his Reaganite fellow travelers will oppose us, but we will prevail.

We must bury the Clinton clan -- deep!

(I'm surprised I got through this without the profanity I very much want to use. Anyone have an email for Begala?)

Josh Marshall flags some shameless shilling for John McCain from the Associated Press. We've seen this enough times in enough elections to know the biased reporting has only just begun. 

Well, we need to start pushing back early. Four years ago, Sinclair Broadcasting made plans to show false and misleading Swift Boat reports. The netroots mobilized and pushed back hard. Sinclair had to back off, their stock dropped and they were shown to be Republican shills.

Well, let's not wait until they do their worst this year! We need to get some net activism going on the AP's false reporting and on others (remember the AP's record of biased reporting with John Solomon). You can act today by sending and email to the AP at info@ap.org .

The request should be for a retraction and a correction. Remind them what stakes they're playing with by helping a Presidential candidate obscure his real goals on a major policy issue.

You can call their offices directly, but please don't attack the people on the phone. Be firm, but not nasty. The AP New York phone number is 212-621-1500 (ask for the comment line and then ask for a supervisor). The DC Bureau is 2020-641-9400. Yes, they will try to give you the run around.

Let them hear from you!

The news out of Madison today is that Rep Mark Green, one of two Republican challengers to Gov Jim Doyle (D), was implicated in testimony yesterday in former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen's official misconduct trial.

While in the Assembly, Mark Green was Caucus Chair. The testimony says that staffers worked on campaign material for Mark Green and many others while at their taxpayer-funded jobs with the Assembly Republican Caucus. You can find the story here.

Green and his flacks make very lame and disingenuous denials that he did anything wrong. Apparently, while in the Assembly, Mr Green donned his halo every morning and went to work in a place where everyone but him knew wrongdoing was taking place.

Green's Chief of Staff, Mark Graul, is involved in the testimony and the denials. Mark Graul has already been implicated in Abramoff scandals.

The caucus scandal in Wisconsin involves the use of an army of taxpayer-funded staff working for legislative bosses. Already, four legislators, including Democrats, have reached plea deals.

In short, the caucus system was taxpayer-funded political bossism.

The caucus system corrupted the democratic process by political machines under control of legislative bosses. This led to candidates being hand-picked by political chiefs, instead of being chosen by the voters in their districts. Those favored by the bosses were given support in the form of fundraising, data management, material design, and campaign staff -- all on the taxpayer dime and only if the bosses liked you.

All sorts of bad policy, backroom deals and loyal partyline voting resulted. Few candidates would run against the machine although many didn't appreciate it's power until they tried to get elected without those resources.

This is a rare scandal involving Republicans and sex. The caucus scandal was started when a former Assembly Republican caucus worker, a woman, was involved in an affair with Representative Scott Suder that went awry. She went to the Wisconsin State Journal with memos and evidence that prosecuters followed up on. Suder, himself, was a former legislative staffer.

We need public financing of campaigns, but funding available to all, not funding controlled by the political bosses. 

This label has the benefit of focusing on the parts that we disagree on. Republicans and Democrats agree on the need to spy on terrorists. That’s not the issue and it's dishoinest of Karl Rove to say as much. The problem is Republicans want to give an all-powerful President the power to spy on Americans.  

And, that, my friends, is the core of our disagreement. And when we cast this issue accurately, as the Citizen Surveillance Scandal, it gives us the power to use their Orwellian label, and pivot back to the core issue, forcing the Republicans to defend warrantless citizen spying and focusing on the area of disagreement.

It also allows us to quickly highlight the lie thrown out by Karl Rove and Republicans, that Democrats don’t' want to protect America by spying on terrorists. Plus, it highlights the creepiness of Bush's domestic spying program.

Once, again, that's the Citizen Surveillance Scandal.

Crossposted at

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/26/111414/727