April 2010
2 posts
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Corrupt K Street Lobbyists Set Up A New Blue Dog...
Blue Dogs are often most reviled for crossing the aisle and voting with Republicans on key issues like healthcare reform and financial reform. Last November, when 39 Democrats voted against healthcare reform, for example, 25 were Blue Dogs. And when the reconciliation changes came to the House March 25, and 32 Democrats voted with the GOP, 25 were Blue Dogs.
Next week it will be one year since...
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Alan Grayson Faces The Limbaugh Onslaught... Again
Limbaugh was still smarting from Alan Grayson (D-FL) pointing out here at DWT last January that ole Rush was more lucid when he was still taking hillbilly heroin than he’s been lately. “Rush Limbaugh is a has-been hypocrite loser, who craves attention. His right-wing lunacy sounds like Mikhail Gorbachev, extolling the virtues of communism. Limbaugh actually was more lucid when he was...
March 2010
4 posts
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Bassekou Kouyate Live In Los Angeles
Earlier this month I was practically apologizing for writing about my favorite new restaurant in L.A. on my ravel blog because… well because it’s in L.A. and so am I and I just have to drive 15 minutes to get there. And here I am back with the L.A. stuff again. Kind of. It’s L.A. via Mali.
If you follow the travel blog at all, you may recall that a couple years ago I was...
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The Connecticut Republican House Caucus
Should we get them bigger American flags or bigger computer screens?
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Congressional Outrage Du Jour-- Anyone Remember...
Most people outside of North Carolina who have ever heard of this unfortunate batshitcrazy extremist just know Virginia Foxx for her tight embrace of bigotry and radical right buffoonery. Everyone knows she hates immigrants and she hates gays and she hates… well… she sure hates public education. She just doesn’t believe in it. Like so many Republicans, she doesn’t think...
Why Do Conservatives Want To Use Torture On Our...
Yesterday’s D v R showdown in the House wasn’t about healthcare reform or even about the dirty filthy banksters stealing the national wealth. It wasn’t about Afghanistan or about taking the ability of corporations to purchase the services of wily politicians. But it was a showdown that went to highlight one of the basic differences in worldview between conservatives and humans....
February 2010
13 posts
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Why Eric Massa Supports Healthcare Reform Enough...
The first time I ever spoke with Eric Massa, just around five years ago, he impressed me for a number of reasons, his sterling, “non-politician” character being first and foremost. Once we got into discussing the most important issues of the day, I realized that this guy running for a congressional seat in upstate New York’s most overwhelmingly Republican district, had more...
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Today's The Day-- Brownbaggers NOT Teabaggers
At noon today PDA’s second in a series of Brown Bag Lunch Vigils will take place around the country, at congressional offices of members who both support escalation in Afghanistan and members who oppose it. We started looking at this new movement a couple weeks ago and I tried to put it into context as an integral part of the American peace movement last weekend. Since then, the number...
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Maybe Progressives Really Earn The Scorn Everyone...
You’re probably not aware that Democratic members of Congress have to pay “dues” to the DCCC. Blue Dogs notoriously earmark their contributions to other Blue Dogs or for reactionary Democrats within the caucus or running for Congress. This year they’re all getting behind right-wing shill Lori Edwards in Florida, for example. Are members of the much bigger Congressional...
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Is Rush Limbaugh Making America An Uglier Place?
I really hope I’m not going to upset any animal right activists with this photo. If I do, I’m sorry.
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Anti-Cuba Fanatic Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL)...
I often argue with a good friend in Congress who is forever defending Debbie Wasserman Schultz. He likes her because she’s “a tiger” who wants to win and in her position at the DCCC “winning” means defeating Republicans, something she takes to with gusto. Sometimes. Although I was aware of Wasserman Schultz’s tendency towards corruption for some time, it...
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Is There Something We As American Citizens Can Do...
I’m always nervous about boring DWT readers by recounting the adventures I had on my trips over forbidden seas to land on barbarous coasts, to paraphrase Herman Melville; that’s why I have a travel site. But sometimes I just feel that those adventures have a place here too, like last month when I wrote about my experience with Pashtunwali, the code by which the Pashtuns of...
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Billy Kennedy Is Who The Founding Fathers Had In...
It’s only 6am here on the West Coast, but back in Watauga County in northwestern North Carolina it’s 9 and Billy Kennedy is officially kicking off his uphill election campaign to replace one of Congress’ most clueless members, mean-spirited reactionary Virginia Foxx. Right this moment Billy’s at the Watauga County Courthouse Board of Elections in Boone meeting up with...
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The Ron Paul, Sarah Palin Connection-- The...
Unless you go out and speak with hordes of teabaggers at their own events, you might want to romanticize their movement into something more than pure racism and Know Nothing bigotry. You’d be making a mistake— and that has largely been borne out this weekend in Nashville, starting with Tom Tancredo’s xenophobic opening address (see above). The “Tea Party...
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Will The GOP Really Campaign This Year On...
Earlier today we took a look at Wall Street’s Great White Hope— or at least the Republican version of it— in their unceasing battle to control America: Paul Ryan. Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee has come up with a formula of balancing the budget by 2080 and it is primarily based on gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, programs Big Business,...
7 tags
Excitement in North Carolina
My friend’s brother and sister-in-law live in northwest North Carolina’s Piedmont area, the 5th CD, which manages to skirt cities and encompass the suburbs of Winston-Salem and the outer suburbs of Charlotte. The congressional district, which is overwhelmingly Republican (PVI is R +15 and McCain, while losing the state, won the 5th with a hefty 61% of the vote) and overwhelmingly...
January 2010
6 posts
5 tags
You Have The Right To Complain All You Want-- But...
Of course you do! Your ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War (on the anti-conservative side), right? And closer relatives fought in the Civil War (on the anti-conservative side), right? My family tree doesn’t have American roots that deep. My great grandfather fought against the czar in Russia and my grandfather fought against industrialists for the right of working people to form...
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Pashtunwali-- Integral To The Unfolding Tragedy In...
When I got to Afghanistan in 1969, the Hippie Trail wasn’t all that crowded; there weren’t any commercial operators, and there were probably not more than a couple hundred private vehicles a year making the trip from London across Asia to India. There was no train, and in some places of eastern Turkey and western Iran there really wasn’t much of a road either. I had my own...
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McCain May Hope To Ride To Re-election On...
New polling data in Arizona suggests that McCain may be a lot closer to the assisted living facility beckoning him that he believed. According to Phoenix’s New Times, “For the first time since 1994— when he was recovering from the Keating Five scandal— John McCain’s approval rating has hit 40 percent. Maybe Cindy or Meghan should run instead. McCain feels that...
Sheila Dow-Ford: A Progressive Challenger To...
Tuesday John Morgan broke the news that educator and Harrisburg community activist Sheila Dow-Ford is challenging Pennsylvania Blue Dog Tim Holden, one of Congress’ 39 anti-healthcare Democrats. Since Obama has become president, Holden has been crossing the aisle to vote with the Republicans far more frequently than he used to. In the past year, in fact, on crucial votes dividing the two...
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House Progressives Making Another Attempt To...
Chellie and Jared— still fighting for real healthcare reform
As we saw the other day, virtually the only way to turn the Senate health care bill into a positive— a positive that would help re-elect worried Democratic freshmen— would be to restore the public option. This is fully borne out by Research 2000 polling data that shows a snapshot of voter sentiment in 10 contested...
