Talk about '<a href="http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/new_mccain_ad_calls_obama_disr.php">disrespectful</a>'?  The official spokesperson on Education for John McCain called the people going to our Schools of Education nothing but a bunch of 'low-achieving students'.  Here's the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec08/education_09-10.html">quote</a>:

<blockquote>Sen. McCain wants to recruit from the top of universities in subject areas -- math and science -- not necessarily through colleges of education that, quite frankly, recruit low-achieving students.</blockquote>

The vast majority of our teachers come from Colleges of Education.  The vast majority are conscientious and willing to devote their lives to the education of our young.  Yet here we have McCain's official spokesperson "quite frankly" writing them all off as "low-achieving".  Is this the kind of person you would have as your spokesperson on Education?

Reaction in the Media to John McCain's relationship with Reverend Hagee has been almost diffident -- especially when you compare it to the grief Obama got for Jeremiah Wright. Nothing new here.

Now finally <a href="http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/mccain_finally_rejects_hagees.php">McCain</a> has had to "reject" Hagee, but he only does so by setting up an almost farcical distinction between his pastor and Obama's pastor:

<blockquote><img src="http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i31/illinoisDemNet/wright_hagee_200x150.jpg" width="200" height="150" alt="Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee" /> "I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright's extreme views. But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual advisor, and I did not attend his church for twenty years. I have denounced statements he made immediately upon learning of them, as I do again today."</blockquote>

Does "Straight-Talk" think we're stupid?  First, there's nothing "immediate" about his actions.  People have known for years -- since the 1960's, in fact -- what kind of preacher Hagee was -- and still Straight-Talk sought his endorsement for President of the United States.

Whatever you think of Wright, at least Obama never asked him that.

So if anyone has some explaining to do, it's John McCain.  People might want to know why his request for an endorsement from someone with a record of 40 years is better than no request -- absolutely none -- by Obama after only 20.  Mr. Straight-Talk has no lessons to teach to anyone.

If the election in Mississippi is any indication of what Americans as a whole are thinking of the GOP, why does the GOP continue to dominate our airwaves and media?

You'd think it was the Dems who were on the skids.

The Chicago Tribune just endorsed Tammy Duckworth for Congress (IL-06):

Duckworth is not nearly as polished a campaigner as her opponent, Republican state Sen. Peter Roskam, who has spent 16 years in the General Assembly. There is something refreshing about that.

Roskam likes to call Duckworth a "liberal," but he's been known to use the term loosely. He labeled Republican U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert a "liberal" when he ran against her in 1998. (Biggert, then a state representative, beat him.)

Roskam rarely breaks from the party line...

....

Tammy Duckworth would shake up the comfy, entrenched politicians in Washington, and she is endorsed.

This is more than just an endorsement for Duckworth. It's a complete slap in the face to her opponent. Read the whole thing...

Just a historical note on the level of debate coming from the Republicans courtesy of the New York Times:

The House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, said, "The same terrorists who plan to harm innocent Americans and their freedoms would be coddled, if we followed the Democratic plan."

So the person who's been a "party" to one of the most disasterous policies in modern U.S. history -- a policy that's made the terrorist threat worse, that's encouraged the recruitment of "jihadists" near and far and seen an increase in the number of serious terrorist attacks worldwide -- that person is calling the Democratic plan "coddling"? Heck of a job he's done! Thank God, we've got experts like him and his Republican friends calling the shots. What would the terrorists do without them?

We hear so much about the "Nation at War" from the Republicans. It's so obvious that they're going to milk this issue for all it's worth in order to save their skin in the coming election. But really, does a "Nation at War" have a Congress whose priorities are the following:

• Gay Marriage
• Flag Burning
• Tax Cuts for the Rich
• Stem Cells
  
• Pledge of Allegiance 

Is this how a Government "at War" is supposed to act?  Is it likely that a Government "at War" will be successful in prosecuting that war when these are its priorities?

The truth is, if our nation were truly in peril, these bozos would be the last ones you'd want to have in charge.  It's amazing they keep on bringing up the subject.

Considering the point we're at in the election cycle, we must be getting close to "Orange Alert" time.  I mean, last time round, a week didn't seem to pass without an Orange or at least a Yellow Terror Alert.  It happened so often, you'd think it were just another GOTV effort on the part of the Administration.

Judging by past performance then, we ought to be coming into Orange Alert Territory sometime in the next month or so.  August 1st -- just after the Democratic Convention -- was the date two years ago.

Of course, nothing has to happen in exactly the same way two times in a row.  The "plot" to blow up the Sears Tower and the more recent escapade to blow up the Holland Tunnel may be harbingers of how things will be handled this time round. We'll slowly go through the Monuments of America, each one enjoying its 15 minutes of glory on the Terror Beat, all leading up to a possible crecendo in October.

By that time, hopefully Americans will be sick -- not so much of terrorism but of how this Administration has handled it.  We've been down this road before.

Although it was just voted down 60 to 39 in the Senate, there's no reason why the vote on the Democrats' Plan for a gradual withdrawal from Iraq shouldn't be held all over again this week.

I mean, last week the Republicans were all condeming the plan as 'cut and run' with Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, criticizing it as "dangerous, reckless and shameless."

"Withdrawal is not an option," Frist went on. "Surrender is not a solution."

Even Gen. Casey, U.S. military commander in Iraq, was reported to have said, "there should be no public timetable."

But that was then and this is now.

This week we learn that the Iraqis themselves want a plan for U.S. withdrawal and Gen. Casey, for all his qualms about "public" timetables, apparently has no problem with timetables so long as they're not "public".

So apparently there's a general consensus that we ought to pull out and that we ought to have a timetable to do it by. Since this is precisely what the Senate Democrats were proposing last week, you'd think it'd be easy to cut through all the rhetoric and red-tape and simply re-run last week's vote. No doubt we'll have picked up a few supporters over the weekend.

From the recent thread: "Net Neutrality or Not?"

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/06/11/2057234.shtml

METAPHOR

"...[T]hink of the pipes and wires that you use to go online as the car you pay for by renting. The question is, should the rental car actively resist the steering wheel when you pass by a burger king and instead redirect you to a McDonalds because McDonalds paid the rental car agency a bribe."

TELCO'S GOING BROKE? - RAISE THE PRICE OF BANDWIDTH

"Google pays for the bandwidth it uses. I pay for the bandwidth I use."

"If the telcos are so worried about big sites not paying their fair share, why don't they just raise bandwidth rates?"

"Not enough money to upgrade the internet? RAISE THE RATES. Google Yahoo and other content providers getting a "Free ride"? RAISE THEIR RATES."

NEW MODEL INTERNET

"Prioritising packets has nothign to do with protecting the bottom line. its totally uneccessary for the reasons they give. It is about being able to finely control every little packet you get, so you can be billed accordingly. Why give up the incredibly profitable Long Distance business model for the 'flat rate' model of the internet, when you can convert the internet into another 'long distance' service?"

"What rankles network service providers is that the current infrastructure doesn't give them much freedom to charge by what people are able to pay; that greatly reduces their opportunity for revenue."

"Every time the big telecom corporations talk about offering tiered levels of service so that they can offer improved, lightning-fast content, what they are really saying is that they want to restrict the flow of the internet so that customers are drawn more to their commerical poopfest."

"I paid for internet access, not Verizon's Paying Friends network."

RESISTANCE

"Google should not pay, and simply post a front page explaining that 'Your ISP is reducing your access to us'. Other companies that bill their users should pay, and pass that cost directly to the users in the form of a line item 'verizon (or whatever) charge *' with a '* please call verizon customer service at 1-888-whatever for questions concerning this charge'"

"...[I]f internet companies have to pay to send their content over telco pipes, then the telcos should pay the content providers for providing the content that makes people want to have internet connections."

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"I don't know why people are surprised by this. The internet has become the only effective free press that almost anyone on the planet can both read AND write to. As such, it's a constant thorn in the side of everyone who wants to control the flow of information. That means every government, every business, pretty much everyone who has soemthing to gain by focusing any segment of the public towards their own goals."

"The only way our government is going to stop screwing everybody in order to help out big business is if the one's who are responsible for this crap get voted out of office. Don't forget that in November."

Progressives are rightfully celebrating the fact that the bill to repeal the so-called "Estate Tax" tanked in the Senate.

Many imagine that this is just No. 2 (Gay Marriage being No. 1) in a series of senseless defeats that the Republicans will bring on themselves as part of their urgent need to show just how out of the mainstream they truly are.

While this is a noble expectation and the Republicans deserve everything they can possibly bring on themselves, part of the restauration of sanity ought to include a "reformation" of our language. And there's no better place to start than with the "Estate Tax".

The Republicans, no doubt prodded to action by the "18 Families", would have you believe that the tax is really called the "Death Tax". This is completely inaccurate since people die all the time and don't have to pay it. Progressives on the other hand demand it be called by its proper name, the "Estate Tax".

I think when we allowed our language to be changed, quite literally under our feet, that's the moment when the initiative slipped out of our hands. One of the first steps in truling regaining power in this country is cleaning up the mess that the Republicans have left behind not simply in government but in the language itself.

For that reason, from now on, let's all agree that it's the "Estate Tax" and not the "Death Tax", that it's Anti-Abortion and Anti-Choice and not Pro-life (since the sanctity of life for these people so obviously ends with birth). Let's also agree that it's not "Entitlements" for God's sake but "Social Programs" that protect and nurture our young, old, and infirm.

Also in general, when faced with an insinuation or insult, we immediately have to challenge it. The Rightwingers can barely finish a sentence without some snark about how liberals are unpatriotic or elitist. They do this so quickly you hardly notice, as if it were mere background and not the substance of whatever other point they were trying to make. And having heard it so often, we barely notice, and let it slip by.

But this is where we ought to stop them dead in their tracks. There's no way we should yield an inch on matters of patriotism, egalitarianism or anything else -- especially when, politically speaking, we're in the "cheaps seats" and all the criticism is coming from the skybox and brimstone crowd.

Allowing your opponent to define the issues puts you at an enormous disadvantage. The rightwingers have understood this for years (just ask Frank Luntz). It's time we got serious about this for the same reason: if you own the language, you control the debate.

Both Bobby Rush (D, IL-01) and John Shimkus (R, IL-19) are members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Both are co-sponsors of the odious HR 5252 -- the bill that would absolve telephone companies of any obligation to observe Net Neutrality, thereby allowing them to discriminate between content, both your's and mine.

Guess what other characteristic the Chicago Democrat and the Downstate Republican both share?

Rep Rush, Bobby L. [IL-01] - Top Contributor: AT&T - (contact)
Rep Shimkus, John [IL-19] - Top Contributor: AT&T -  (contact)

Save the Internet! - Save the Internet! - Save the Internet!

The problem with the Conservative Agenda is that it's simply inapplicable. It sounds good on paper (at least to some) but when time comes to follow through on it, it completely falls apart.

The usual suspects of conservative punditry are eating their own. They're dumping on Bush at the moment, saying he's not a "true conservative". I want to know why just dump on him?

The Republicans control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue - not to mention a good part of the jucidiary. They control everything. If they can't implement their own agenda in circumstances like these when can they?

The truth is simple: the Conservative Agenda is antithetical to Democratic society. People want Social Security, Medicare and Public Education. People want these things not because they're driven by ideology necessarily but because they're inherently practical in supporting what they know works.

The only way the Conservative Agenda will ever be implemented in this society is not through a change of party -- been there, done that -- but through a change in the very nature of our government -- a la Chile in the 1970's.

And that's not going to happen. Rather the consensus is building to kick these incompetent scoundrels out and put in people who know and believe in what they're doing. And that's what's got them running.

Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday.  When I heard the news, I felt a profound sense of relief.  It reaffirmed my faith that there are still parts of our civil society that are impervious not simply to the hate and intolerance of our enemies but to the bad-faith and mean-spirit so pervasive in our own public life.  Simply put if Zacaria Moussaoui had been put to death, the terrorists would have won.

No doubt the verdict of life imprisonment instead of death must have been inexplicable to Moussaoui himself -- Moussaoui who seemed so hell-bent on achieving "martyr" status at the hands of an American executioner.  And certainly the Justice Department of George Bush did everything in its power to accomodate him.   It was a perfect match.

Culture of Punishment 

George Bush as governor of Texas never saw a Death Warrant he didn't like.  The fact that he rarely spent more than 30 minutes going over one before rubberstamping it indicates someone either unwilling or unable to go beyond the surface even when someone's life was at stake.  Devoid of empathy, the world of George Bush had no capacity to understand the motives and conseqences of people's actions.  What distinguished it instead was its relentless willingness to punish first and ask questions later.

It was particularly unfortunate then that he was president at the time of 9/11.  Our adversaries don't realize their luck.  No other president perhaps in our entire history was more ill-equiped to deal with the challenge.  Even his most ardent defenders now acknowledge this. 

But perhaps the worse consequence is the sense of vindictiveness and urge to get even that's always at full-throttle no matter who or what we have in our hands.  This attitude poisons the atmosphere and blame for its development can be laid entirely at the door of George Bush and his party -- a group, it should be pointed out, who historically have used the presence whether real or imagined of an outside threat to do precisely the same thing in earlier episodes which we've lived to regret.

The Case of Zacarias Moussaoui

Which brings us back to Zacarias Moussaoui.  This person was obviously out of his mind.  On the other hand, he's shown himself consistently reasonable at times.  He may have been connected with the terrorists who blew up the WTC but he wasn't immediately involved with the crime.  These considerations make no difference of course to the zealots on the right who see him as a convenient stand-in for the actual perpetrators of the crime and who for that reason will settle for nothing less than his head on a platter.

The jury thought otherwise.  And now the world knows, and we can congratulate ourselves at least in this case, that we do not simply put to death every individual who happens to fall into our hands.  For Moussaoui, an endless incarceration in our jails is probably a worse fate than a fast exit by way of lethal injection.  But what really matters, beyond the outcome, is the fairness and justice of the process itself.  And that no one can impugn -- not even Moussaoui himself.

Rule of Law

Michael Dukakis was famously asked at a Presidential Debate what he'd do if his wife were raped and murdered.  He completely flubbed the response.  What he should have said is that he'd want to murder the guy responsible for this but that he'd hope someone would be there holding him back.

In rule by law, it's not the need for revenge that must be satisfied but the need for justice.  The reason for this is simple: Collectively, we need as a society to be able to get up in the morning and look at ourselves in the mirror.  That's what this verdict provides us with.

Even more, we can use it to fight our adversaries in a way that they are totally unable to respond.  It's the advantage that any free and democratic people have in a conflict over tyranny.  To take life is something they understand.  Indeed, this understanding is something they share with our own domestic zealots.  But to refrain from taking life -- that represents a whole different level of operation.  And if it's lost on them, it certainly isn't lost on the rest of the world.

Clever v. Honest, Great v. Good 

Garrison Keiler once spoke at one of these Press Association Dinners.  He told the reporters that it's really hard being clever and interesting all the time.  It's something they'd find hard to substain in the long run and that instead, if they hoped to survive, that they should simply concentrate on being honest.

We once had Lyndon Johnson proclaim the "Great Society".  I think the same dynamic is in effect.  If we wish to substain ourselves over the long run, it's probably best if we concentrate on simply being 'good'.

Moussaoui claimed at his sentencing that he had "won" and America had lost.  The opposite is true.  The system worked and we can all be proud of it.

Here's an interesting contemporary reaction to the disaster that was the 1994 Election.  I found it dredging through the backfiles of LexisNexis.  It comes from an article titled, "Sorting Through the Post-Election Rubble: a Democratic Perspective" by Fred Yang and appeared in the 12/94-1/95 issue of "Campaigns & Elections":

No amount of spin-doctoring can change what happened on November 8: we Democrats got an old-fashioned thrashing at the polls. With Democrats losing control of the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, along with control of the Senate and 10 gubernatorial seats, the pundits have taken to calling this election the "Revolution of 1994."

But was 1994 a revolution or an evolution? While no one can deny that November 8 was a very good day for the Republicans, it remains to be seen whether the results constitute a mandate for the GOP or simply a rebuke of the Democrats.  Obviously, Democrats and Republicans will be battling along these lines all the way to November 1996.

In terms of how Democrats should position themselves for the next two years, the midterm elections offer the following lessons, most of which are dismaying, but a few that are encouraging.

1. The most important lesson of 1994 is the voters' continued frustration and impatience with the status quo. The bad news for the Democrats in 1994, and potentially for the Republicans in 1996, is that the American voter wants change and wants it fast. When asked in a post-election survey by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal to explain the Republican victories, an overwhelming number of voters attributed the results to people wanting change in Washington.

Unfortunately for Democrats, we became identified as part of the status quo.

2. The most fundamental mistake Democrats made after 1992 was believing that "change" is a noun, not a verb. After Bill Clinton's election as president, voters felt they had given Democrats the "keys to the car" and expected to go places. The results of the 1994 elections clearly show that voters believe the country hasn't gone anywhere, much less gotten out of the driveway.

What Democrats failed to realize until too late is that running on change is not enough: We must do something and we must do a better job of communicating our successes.

3. The American voters were trying to send a message to Bill Clinton, but not the message that the Republicans wished. To a certain extent, the voters were sending a message on November against big government and high taxes. But this was a not a rejection of Bill Clinton; rather, it was a message to the President to get his administration back to his 1992 "New Democrat" agenda of efficient government and economic security. In other words, voters are asking for an adjustment in the ship of state, not a change of direction.

In the post-election NBC/WSJ survey, for instance, only 19 percent of respondents (including just 21 percent of Republicans) said the election returns represented people voting "against President Clinton and his agenda,"  compared to 53 percent who said people were voting for change in Washington.

4. Republicans were largely successful because of what they were not (Democrats), not what they were for. Most Republican consultants tout the effectiveness of the "Contract with America" in the past election, but this claim reminds one of the age-old riddle, "Does a falling tree in the forest make any noise if no one is around?" The fact is that very few voters were even aware of this contract during the election: just 31 percent had heard of the Contract in a late October NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Moreover, very few Republican candidates ran television ads promoting their signing of the contract, while scores of Democrats ran commercials attacking their opponents for supporting a proposal that would endanger Social Security and Medicare. Granted, losing 52 seats in the House does not indicate the Democratic message was successful, but neither should Republicans believe the American people gave them a mandate to implement the entire contract.

In fact, one fight that Democrats should feel very comfortable waging is opposing the GOP's proposal for a capital gains tax cut for the rich.

5. Democrats ran very badly among white men and Perot voters; for the party to make any kind of a comeback in 1996, we need to make inroads with these constituencies. Just 39 percent of white men voted for Democratic House candidates in 1994, compared with 49 percent in 1992. Our surveys  indicate that white men are the most economically insecure segment of the electorate,  and that President Clinton's focus on the economy was the glue that kept these voters with the Democrats....

Unfortunately, I can't post the image itself here but here's a link to a 'Had Enough?' Logo that I put together. People are free to use it.

I've linked our copy to the DNC Action Page though obviously people are free to link to anything they feel will best get the job done.