Netroots Nation: Ask The Speaker

post from MyDD on 19 July 2008 11:20:28 AM. © MyDD

Gina Cooper opened the event by letting us know that any organized disruption would result in the protesters' being escorted out and badges taken. As for the questioning of Speaker Pelosi, she said that impeachment and FISA questions were consolidated[...]

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SPECIAL GUEST STAR: AL GORE.

post from Ezra Klein on 19 July 2008 11:10:00 AM. © Ezra Klein

"The idea of drilling our way out of our energy crisis is ridiculous, if not abhorrent. There used to be an old remedy for hangovers called 'hair of the dog that bit you,' where you go back the next morning and take another drink. That's sort of what[...]

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Signing Off

post from TPMCafe on 19 July 2008 11:09:00 AM. © TPMCafe

First, a big thank you to TPMCafe, and to Kerry, Dana, and Chris for participating in the discussion this week. Second, to wrap up my "mendacity tour" in these parts, I thought I'd offer a quick response to TPM user Reece, who remarks, in the course of wondering why TPMCafe invited a vile conservative and "fucking liar" like me here to chat about my book, that "Republican policies over the past 30 years haven't helped anyone."

This is a very common view on the American Left these days, and of course it's completely true. The end of stagflation didn't help anyone. The Reagan boom didn't help anyone. The peaceful conclusion of the Cold War didn't help anyone. The plunging crime rate over the last fifteen years didn't help anyone. Welfare reform didn't help anyone. Americans are, by every measure, no better off today than they were in in high-tax, high-inflation, high-crime, lower-life-expectancy, balance-of-terror, skyrocketing-welfare-rolls paradise that was 1978. Or if they are better off, the party responsible for running the government during most of that period deserves absolutely none of the credit.

In my snideness, I don't mean to dismiss the failures of the Bush Administration, or the various serious problems in American life, or the blunders and blind spots of the GOP. If Reece took the time to read our book, he'd find plenty of criticisms of the Republican Party, and plenty of attention paid to opportunities that have been missed and crises that have gone unaddressed over the past thirty years. But what he'd also find, hopefully, is a moderately-persuasive case against the increasingly popular "devil theory" of American politics, in which one political party is held to be responsible for everything that's gone wrong in our national life and nothing that's gone right. Liberals who think of themselves as proud inhabitants of the "reality-based community," especially, ought to cultivate enough self-awareness to recognize that reality is a little more complicated than that.

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Last Night:

post from Cotton Mouth on 19 July 2008 11:05:00 AM. © Cotton Mouth

It was pretty cool.

I went to a private reception for Darcy Burner. She's a lady with class and guts and is going to be a great representative.

We then had a reception for many of the netroots candidates. I'm guessing it's one of the very few places where dozens of federal candidates can be found in one place other than the national party conventions.

Some of these folks will win and they will improve congress.

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Netroots Nation: The Future of Enviro Blogging

post from LiberalOasis : The Blog on 19 July 2008 11:02:00 AM. © LiberalOasis : The Blog

After attending two panels on environment and energy activism online, I interviewed several panelists about what bloggers can do to help frame environmental issues and move the debate forward.

Energize America's Mark Sumner and A Siegel both discussed how bloggers can participate in both drafting and advancing clean energy legislation.

Mark Sumner

video details and more

A Siegel

video details and more

And Natasha Chart of MyDD, Open Left and Pacific Views talked about how bloggers make environmental issues more accessible both inside and outside the blogosphere.

video details and more

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Maliki Endorses Obama's Democratic Timetable for
Iraq

post from Taylor Marsh on 19 July 2008 11:01:40 AM. © Taylor Marsh

BY TAYLOR MARSH U.S. Military, via Agence France-Presse -?" Getty ImagesSenator Barack Obama at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan with, from left: William B. Wood, the American ambassador to[...]

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Mikes Blog Round Up

post from Crooks and Liars on 19 July 2008 11:00:46 AM. © Crooks and Liars

TBogg: “Real men vote for McCain?” You mean lying, jive-ass, sissy-ass chickenhawk cheerleaders who dress up in flight suits to play Air Force, but send other people’s children out to die for their lies, and can’t speak in complete sentences? Those kind of ‘Real Men?’ Gristmill: A simple regulatory fix [...]

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Nevada Republican Party Squashes Ron Paul
Supporters In Blatantly Stalinist Move

Ron Paul has 2 authoritarian foes within the GOP
At the end of April we noted how the bosses of Nevada State Republican Party decided to abruptly close down their state convention rather than watch the Party nominate a Ron Paul slate for the Minneapolis Hate Fest.

The far right's presumptive nominee couldn't keep the Nevada state Republican Party convention from disbanding in confusion as a majority of delegates proved to be loyal to Ron Paul, rather than McCain. The Party establishment closed down the whole shebbang and will probably reconvene in Guantanamo or someplace else where the GOP can keep everything buttoned down and under control.

There's been a little update on that today from Reno. The GOP referred to a rare outbreak of democracy within its own ranks as "supporters of Ron Paul hijacked the proceedings and tried to elect delegates for their candidate to the national GOP convention." Heaven forbid!

Claiming that the delegates are too broke and/or uninterested to come to the convention, the GOP executive board said they will save everyone the trouble and just pick the delegates themselves. Stalin would be proud! Many of the legally-elected delegates, however, aren't. They're filing a complaint.

Republican delegate Wayne Terhune says more than one thousand delegates have been silenced with the decision and deprived of their ability to select national delegates.

"The State Executive Committee announced yesterday that they won't bring the Nevada State Republican Convention out of recess," said Terhune, a Republican activist in Washoe County. "They shut down the Convention in April, and now they aren't giving delegates a chance to have their voices heard. This is a violation of the law."

Mike Weber, a local Republican who has served on the National Republican Rules Committee, announced early today he is shifting the focus of his State Assembly race to make sure state delegates have their voices heard. "Most Republicans are getting fed up with party leaders because of underhanded tactics instead of principled leadership," he said in a press release. "The announcement that national delegates will be appointed by a small group behind closed doors only reinforces this distrust."

I wonder if this is part of what Nevada Republican congressman Dean Heller meant when he said the Republican Party needs to ?clean house? and ?the next couple of election cycles are going to do that.?

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http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/07/nevada-republican-party-squashes-ron.
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Checking Out the Candidates

As you know, David Kurtz and Ben Craw are doing a slew of interviews this weekend at the Netroots Nation conference in Austin. We've got a bunch of headliner interviews lined-up. But for my part I'm just as interested in the interviewers we're doing[...]

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Netroots Nation Saturday Blogging

We're watching Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Q&A right now with conference attendees. We'll be interviewing Pelosi later this morning and hope to have the video of that interview posted this afternoon.There's also rumors of a surprise guest speaker here. Stay[...]

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