What's in a CAMPAIGN SONG?

Our buddy Jesus' General analyzes campaign songs trying to Divine (pun intended) the character of the candidate from the song he (or she) chooses for their campaign rallies. He warns us of the "dangers" of these songs chosen by our "ungodly" candidates.

For instance, Barak Obama chose Stevie Wonder's Signed, Sealed, Delivered for his victory rally in South Carolina. (The General warns us: " it's the kind of devil music that gets the hips a moving in such away that you're fornicating all over the place before you even realize it. ")

Hillary chose Celin Dion's You and I as her song. Again, the General warns us: " has the opposite effect on people. Listening to it causes a man's little soldier to crawl up inside itself and hide, thus making fornication impossible for at least a month."

The General suggests theme songs for the Republican hopefuls...here are his suggestions:

Rudy Giuliani - They're Coming to Take Me Away by Napoleon XIV. Why? Well, because, as he announced during a speech to the Coral Gables Rotary Club, he actually is Napoleon XIV.

Mike Huckabee - Every Sperm is Sacred by Monty Python. We'd have no problem passing Huckabee's personhood amendment to the Constitution if every American heard this song.

Mitt Romney - The Girl from Ipanema by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Because when he passes, each one he passes goes "ahhhh." There's nothin' wrong with having a president who has a purty mouth.

Ron Paul - The Horst Wessel Song. Isn't it time to get the government off the back of your local jackboot cobbler?

John McCain - Bomb Iran - because he sings it from the heart.

Poll: Vote by commenting

BillinPortland over at DailyKos has a poll up about the pResident's State of the Union Speech tonight...he wants to know if you'll watch it....

Thought I would ask the Wood County Dems the same questions...here they are:

Will You watch the STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS?

YES. It is an event of historical importance.

YES. I'll watch it the same way I slow down and gawk at a traffic accident on the highway.

YES. It has more laughs per minute than anything else on TV (except Fox News)

MAYBE.

NO. The Geneva Conventions state that Dubyababbling is torture.

Vote by leaving a comment.....

btw: I took the second option.

How incredibly APPROPRIATE!

I'm going to refrain from posting on the primary for a day or two to avoid the nastiness that is going on ...

Instead....I decided to get back to what we SHOULD be doing and that is bashing the Bush Administration...

I liked to this from our good friend and fellow Wisconsin blogger coldh2O at Billycreek and I haven't seen anything more appropriate to describe the Bu$h Administration. From Harper's Magazine, we get this description of "Dubya's" favorite painting which he has dubbed "A Charge to Keep". Here are a few snippets:

George W. Bush is famous for his attachment to a painting which he acquired after becoming a “born again Christian.” It’s by W.H.D. Koerner and is entitled “A Charge to Keep.” Bush was so taken by it, that he took the painting’s name for his own official autobiography.

snip

So Bush’s description of “A Charge to Keep” struck me as very strange. In fact, I’d say highly improbable. Now, however, Jacob Weisberg has solved the mystery. He invested the time to track down the commission behind the art work and he gives us the full story in his forthcoming book on Bush, The Bush Tragedy:

[Bush] came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination.

Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled “The Slipper Tongue,” published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: “Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught.”

So Bush’s inspiring, prosyletizing Methodist is in fact a silver-tongued horse thief fleeing from a lynch mob. It seems a fitting marker for the Bush presidency.

Bush has consistently exhibited what psychologists call the “Tolstoy syndrome.” That is, he is completely convinced he knows what things are, so he shuts down all avenues of inquiry about them and disregards the information that is offered to him. This is the hallmark of a tragically bad executive. But in this case, it couldn’t be more precious. The president of the United States has identified closely with a man he sees as a mythic, heroic figure. But in fact he’s a wily criminal one step out in front of justice. It perfectly reflects Bush the man. . . and Bush the president.

Horse Thief Escaping a Lynch Mob.....how incredibly appropriate!

Oh.....why not?

I haven't done this for a while so.....why not?

Here's a quick salute to our elected officials....I stopped at County-wide...no offense to our County Supervisors, Alderpersons, School Board Members or Town Officials is intended...

Senator Julie Lassa!

Assemblyperson Amy Sue Vruwink!

Assemblyperson Marlin Schneider!

Sheriff Tom Reichert!

I'm back

Sorry I was gone so long but things have been a bit crazy for me lately. I was derelict in my duty to post the notice of last Thursday night's meeting but I'm glad I didn't because the weather turned into a mess and Dave ended up telling members to use their own discretion on whether to make the trip.

During the day on Thursday, I was listening to my scanner and couldn't believe the number of accidents, rollovers and "motorist assist" calls coming in to the Sheriff's department. Sheriff Tom's boys did a good job but still had to call in off-duty troopers to handle the load....Good work guys....

I think I've been jaded badly by a movie I have seen twice now (-30 degree windchills promote a lot of movie watching, eh?) called Idiocracy. Here's a review of the movie on Wiki... but let me give just a short review of the plot...

A completely "average" individual is recruited for an Army hibernation experiment in which he's supposed to be placed in suspended animation for a year...instead the experiment is forgotten and he ends up sleeping for 500 years, awakening in a world that has been completely "DUMBED DOWN" . According to the (admittedly weak) plot, the Army couldn't find an "average" female recruit to volunteer for the project so they recruit a prostitute. When both of these characters awake in 2505 they find that they are, amazingly, the most intelligent people in the world. The movie takes dead aim at the "dumbing down" phenonomen, anti-intellectualism and rampant commercialism and deftly scores a bulleye. For example, Fox News is the network of choice in 2505 but the host is a "Chippendale" dancer and the hostess is a Playboy bunny......Starbucks has branched out to include massages...massage parlor type...and the "special of the day" is "a double latte with full release" The movie is written and produced by Mike Judge of "Office Space" fame and the humor is remarkably similar.

The problem is....you can't look at ANY of today's news without comparing it to the movie....especially when it comes down to:

The Bush Administration's foreign policy from the LA Times via Atrios:

snip

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is beginning its last year in office by quietly scaling back its foreign policy ambitions as it struggles with new obstacles and rapidly dwindling influence.

snip

The upshot is that the Bush administration is going to be spending the next year managing crises and tidying up messes until the next president takes over, rather than reaching legacy milestones, as officials recently had hoped.

The Republican Presidential Nominee Candidates..from our friends at Crooks and Liars....listen to the crew's reaction to Thompson's speech... (transcript below)

Fredrick of Hollywood just gave a speech in SC that was full of sound and ___, signifying nothing…WTF was that?
Olbermann: What was that about?
Matthews: We were snookered.
Off Camera: What the?
Olbermann: Apparently the people that were asked to sacrifice were you and me…

And finally, in the "arena" of pop culture, we have this:

That's "Siren" from American Gladiators, the top-ranked show on NBC.....

Is it 2008 or 2505?

somebody please....

just

shoot

me....

Something we've ALL wanted to do....

photo from AP...

Admit it....you've always wanted to give Bush "the bird"...haven't you?

In case you missed it, the prezdint was in the Middle east this weekend, rattling the sabre as usual. Here's the Yahoo news story.

Speaking in this Persian Gulf country, about 150 miles from the shores of Iran, Bush said Tehran threatens nations everywhere and that the United States was "rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."
The warning about Iran was much tougher than Bush's admonition about spreading democracy in the Middle East, which had been billed as the central theme of his speech.

Some snarky news of the day

First, WTF is it Now, has this onMcCain's campaign...although it could have just as well been Rudy's campaign......

And they add:

Cadaveresque maverick, straight talking John McStain is going to clean up the nation's political discourse because....well you know, he has been quite a model of civility in the past.
– In a “heated dispute over immigration-law overhaul” last year, McCain screamed at Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), “F— you!” He added, “This is chickens- - - stuff. … You’ve always been against this bill, and you’re just trying to derail it.” [5/19/07]

-In a discussion over the “fate of Vietnam MIAs,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked McCain, “Are you calling me stupid?” “No,” replied McCain, “I’m calling you a f—ing jerk!” [Newsweek, 2/21/00]

-At a GOP meeting in fall 1999, McCain “erupted” at Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and shouted, “Only an asshole would put together a budget like this.” When Domenici expressed his outrage, McCain responded, “I wouldn’t call you an asshole unless you really were an asshole.” [Newsweek, 2/21/00]

Obviously the Alzheimer's is getting worse

and under the heading of : YOU JUST KNEW THIS WAS COMING!

And a well-deserved dirge for UNITY 08!

Dear Duncan

,One of our principles at the outset of this audacious project was transparency and openness. Too often in our recent political history, what you see has not been what you get. For this reason, we are writing you today to lay out the current status of Unity08 and its possible paths

And so reluctantly, especially given the volatility of the present situation, we're forced to scale back, but not cease our operations, and suspend our ballot access project. Our website will become less interactive (it takes staff to answer hundreds of e-mails a day) and we can't in good faith make the $5 million commitment necessary to make a serious start on ballot access.

But we're not closing our doors. We believe it is important to see our case against the FEC through (both for Unity08 and any similar movement in the future) and be ready to gear up if (when) we win our case and political circumstances warrant later this spring. Unity is in the air right now, and Mayor Bloomberg seems poised to run on his own campaign (and the fact is that two independent candidacies wouldn't work) if the parties leave the sensible center open. But all this could change in a matter of weeks.

We still believe strongly that we have the right idea, but it just might (emphasize "might" because who knows what can happen in the next month) not be the right time. In the meantime, a sincere, profound thanks for your help, involvement and support so far and please keep pushing for the simple, but very powerful, idea that solutions to our nation's problems are going to take ideas and hard work from all Americans, and that a political system whose stock-in-trade is division may well be the biggest problem of all.Please know that you have already made a difference and are at the forefront of a movement that may yet save the country.Robert BinghamAngus KingPeter AckermanZach ClaytonLindsay Ullman






But as Whiskey Fire Buzzard says:

Anyway, There are two main problems with sponsoring a political movement premised on the idea that Partisanship is Bad.
1. It's stupid. There is not much of a constituency for the idea that you should get interested in politics because you're... disinterested. That is in fact crazy. No, we can't all just get along. That's why we have a political system in the first place. If everyone were freaking St Francis, we'd all have doves on our arms and squirrels on our heads, and that would be cool, if you're into squirrel poop in your eyes, but in reality, politics is about disagreement. Cheez.
2. It's dangerous. Politics should be personal. Personally, I want a stupid war to end, and I want better health care for my family. Duh. I want these ends achieved. That means I want a political fight, and I want to win it.


hehehehehehehehe

I love this stuff!

Hillary, Hillary and more Hillary

I don't think there has been a more talked about candidate for the Presidency in my life time than Hillary Clinton. It seems that every word she utters, every appearance she makes, every slight facial tick, sets off a barrage of media comments both positive and negative...mostly negative if I recall...

This week's primary victory...and unexpected one at that ...for Hillary over Obama has set off the largest firestorm I've ever seen..

It started with her "crying incident" in a New Hampshire diner which had the Republicans asking "was it staged?" and even had faux news taking a poll on it. And it has been followed by a Maureen Dowd column asking, "Can Hillary Cry her way into the Whitehouse?"

I thought I'd give you a sampling of some the the blogosphere commentary on Hillary. Here's a few links and snippets:

from Whiskey Fire Buzzards, Molly I

I cannot for the life of me figure out what Maureen Dowd has against Hillary Clinton. Commenters like our own SteveB, who frequently notes substantive differences with the Senator on matters of policy, certainly have a strong position, and one which I share, to a great extent. But this isn't that. It's something else, some kind of weird, bitchy, destructive impulse to take out the most viable female candidate for our highest public office in many years. But to what end? Seriously. Is it worth making shit up and parroting her idols on Fox to damage a person who may very well be the only thing standing between America and "Ten Thousand Years o' War" McCain?

A woman gazing at the screen was grimacing, saying it was bad. Three guys watched it over and over, drawn to the “humanized” Hillary. One reporter who covers security issues cringed. “We are at war,” he said. “Is this how she’ll talk to Kim Jong-il?”
Another reporter joked: “That crying really seemed genuine. I’ll bet she spent hours thinking about it beforehand.” He added dryly: “Crying doesn’t usually work in campaigns. Only in relationships.”
Bill Clinton was known for biting his lip, but here was Hillary doing the Muskie. Certainly it was impressive that she could choke up and stay on message.

snip

The message from the wingnut-o-sphere (which the NYTimes seems daily more determined to join) has been clear: if she cried, it was calculated. Why? Because if it's Hillary, it has to be. No other reason.

And...Michelle Malkin through the same site:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Michelle Malkin.
Don’t let the “Comeback Gal” spin fool you. Despite the unexpectedly close finish in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton’s campaign remains in a tailspin. And the Clintons’ pre-Granite State primary finger-pointing has left an indelible mark. It’s the media’s fault. It’s sexism’s fault. It’s the vast right-wing conspiracy’s fault.

Some kinder words, and far, far more thoughtful from our friend H2Oman and his blog

It is a good thing for the democrats to promote Barack Obama as being in the image of JFK; of John Edwards as this generation’s RFK; and Hillary Clinton as our Eleanor Roosevelt. Are the comparisons exact? Of course not. But one similarity is that the same negative things the nay-sayers respond with are much like the negative things people said about JFK, RFK, and Eleanor Roosevelt.It is interesting to note that there is greater difficulty in projecting the Eleanor image, because she is not embedded in the collective TV consciousness. People who have learned about her in modern times are those who read, and reading creates a different type of mental activity than watching TV. When we look at how image played in modern times, Reagan convinced those who preferred to watch the movie rather than read that book, while Carter appealed to literate people.

Interesting analogy, no?

From WTF is it NOW? We have commentary and a clip from Rebecca Traister at Salon:

Salon's Rebecca Traister:
"The glee with which Matthews and other angry male pundits prematurely danced on Hillary's grave made me -- for one night only -- a Clinton supporter..."I have not been a Hillary Clinton supporter. But the torrent of ill-disguised hatred and resentment unleashed toward a briefly weakened Clinton this week shook that breezy naiveté right out of me... I can't believe I'm saying this, but had I been a New Hampshire voter on Tuesday, I would have pulled a lever for the former first lady with a song in my heart and a bird flipped at MSNBC's Chris Matthews, a man whose interest in bringing Clinton down hovers on the pathological, and whose drooling excitement at the prospect of her humiliation began to pulse from the television last week before most Iowa precincts had even begun to report results."Before any tallies were in, Matthews was observing, based on early projections, that if Clinton received the expected 30 percent, it would mean that seven of 10 Iowa voters did not like her, a mean little metric that he did not apply to the other candidates. "It's hard to call yourself the people's choice if two-thirds of the Democrats are voting against you!" he burbled. He was not alone in his glee."

And our old buddy Attaturk posting at firedoglake takes on the "tweety factor" too.

Having been singled out as a main culprit behind voter backlash one might think Matthews would contemplate and consider his behavior.

But we all know that was too much to ask. So yesterday the story from the spittle-spewing Matthews pie-hole was that New Hampshire voters are either bigots or liars -- just like New York voters are sops for electing Clinton in the first place -- because in Matthews' world view they only did so because her husband cheated on her.

On the same blog...actually HER blog, the wonderful Jane Hamser jumped in on the same theme:

Last night, Chris Matthews bristled as Rachel Maddow hoisted him on his own network for his contribution to the "Tweety Factor" -- the pack of hyenas he regularly leads in a disrespectful, chortling chorus against Hillary Clinton (see exhibit "A"). You don't have to be a Clinton supporter, or a woman, to find it disconcerting that night after night, this is considered acceptable behavior on one of the country's largest news networks.

snip

But on cue, this morning, Matthews is back to bashing Clinton as nothing more than somebody's wife. And nobody challenges him, because as Bob Somerby has long argued, when liberal women disagree with Matthews, they're never invited back again. So to the extent that the women on the show aren't a pack of misogynistic vultures themselves (Andrea Mitchell, Maureen Dowd, Kate O'Beirne -- come on down!) and they disagree with Matthews, they're forced to choose between joining in in the festivities or being disappeared.

Wow!

Love her or hate her....Hillary sure draws out the passion of Democrats and Republicans alike. I'm anxious to see how this turns out....

Must be something in the water...

...all my favorite bloggers seem to be serving up an extra helping of snark today...

On edit...in case you're wondering what this is all about....here's the link to YOUTUBE segment showing Sean Hannity "bravely" facing supporters of Ron Paul over excluding Paul from the Republican debates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QTX7Ue_Lx4

from Atrios, the ever wise, Molly I. posts this:






...dedicated to Brave Sir Sean, had nearly fought the Dragon of Manchester, who had nearly stood up to the vicious Paulistas of Portsmouth and who had personally wet himself at the Battle of Dixville Notch...--Molly I.(photoshop courtesy of the divine and gifted watertiger)

In case you don't recognize "Sir Sean"....that's Sean Hannity

Lighten up a little....

Our friend Tbogg is in rare form this morning and his site is a good way to lighten up ...





first, he publishes this picture




With the caption:

GOOD LUCK SENATORS EDWARDS, OBAMA AND CLINTON

roflmao

Then he goes into some "random" news items...the funniest of which is this:

Congratulations to Burger King for their Whopper Freakout commercials which may also serve as public service spots raising everyones self esteem by portraying Whopper aficionados as the kind of people who make eugenics if not desirable , at least worth looking into. No wonder the Islamofalafelists think we're ripe for the picking.

and, of course, making fun of Billo is ALWAYS in fashion:

Bill O'Reilly tries to talk to Barrack Obama and makes a fool out of himself. Bill-O has been around long enough to know that the easiest way to get candidates attention would have been to yell, " Motherfucker, I want an interview!".

There's much more so click on the link and enjoy!

Get on the train...........

Thanks to NJdodge, here's a nice picture of the "Obama Train" coming down the track...as referenced by the incomparable Jane Hamser at firedoglake blog.

Jane takes off on Clinton pollster, Mark Penn in this post and notes that the guy not only has "ethics" problems, but has been and continues to be WRONG on almost every bit of info that he provides to Hillary. Jane thinks the guy should be thrown under the bus....or maybe the train eh?

some snippets:

Positive spin is one thing, but if he's no better pollster than that, I can well imagine that big donors to the Clinton campaign are shaken up. Is that what his own internal polling was telling him? Was he bullshitting the Clintons the same way he was bullshitting the public?

The Clinton campaign needs to retool and they need to do it quickly. Dumping Penn would eject an enormous negative from her campaign. Penn is a notorious union buster who had the amorality and piss-poor judgment to go to work for Blackwater in the midst of her campaign, fer chrissakes. Did he tell her to vote for Kyl-Lieberman too? "No big deal?"

Did they not see this train coming?

Post Iowa....and on to New Hampshire...

On our side, there was much to be happy about in Iowa last Thursday night...

among those things:

An incredible victory speech by Obama....I've heard it referred to by some of our locals as well as hosts and hostesses on NPR as "Kennedyesque". I watched part of it on Youtube and thought it was pretty good, but I still don't see what all the fuss was about.....

Which brings up another thing for us to be happy about. Obama seems to have captured the nation's imagination and there seems to be (as LoLo refers to it) and Obama "fever" going on at the moment. That means that there is some fire ....some enthusiasism in the Democratic Party and especially among the young which accounted for a goodly portion of Obama's support in Iowa.

And another thing to be happy about....Democrats out caucused the Republicans in Iowa at a rate of 2-1. There is much more enthusiasm among Democrats for their candidates than there is among Republicans for their candidates.

And yet, another thing to be happy about.....The total votes for all three leading Democratic candidates in Iowa were INDIVIDUALLY higher than the number of votes for the winning Republican....

And finally....HUCKABEE WON! His victory is driving the mainstream Republican party nuts....here's a few snippets of what his fellow Republicans are saying about him....

from NRO'S "The Corner":

Mike Huckabee's stunning victory in Thursday's Iowa caucuses does more
than change the GOP nomination race. With a platform explicitly grounded in
his Christian faith and a populist economic message, Mr. Huckabee offers the
Republican Party a new political narrative, light years removed from the
limited government principles governing the GOP in the Reagan and
post-Reagan era. This pro-faith, pro-government message may sound strange to
American ears — but it is a staple of conservative political parties on the
European continent. Mr. Huckabee, in other words, essentially gives
Republicans a choice: Does the GOP want to become a Christian Democratic
party? To answer that question, Republicans should look carefully at
Christian Democracy to see if it is a model worth emulating.

In other words....Republicans are doing a whole lot of soul-searching

By the way...Thanks to LoLo for being the perfect Hostess for yesterday's Executive Committee Meeting....

If any of the exec committee members want to become "team bloggers" please post a comment below.

scribe

please, please...let them choose Huck!

Timothy Egan (bio on page) at the New York Times had the guts to say what most Republican main-streamers are actually thinking....Huckabee isn't "one of them" .

But it's even better than that....Huckabee's constituency is the very group the Repubs have been using and ignoring for years....read the whole thing but here are a few choice snippets:

Class war is forbidden in the Republican playbook. But Huckabee, despite an inept last week of campaigning, has forced the Republican party to face the Wal-Mart shoppers that they have long taken advantage of. He’s here. He’s Gomer. And he’s not going away.

snip

Huckabee revels in the class war. He’s Two-Buck Huck, and darn proud of it. He likes nothing better than playing the Hick from Hope. He and his wife lived in a trailer for a while, he points out. His son killed a dog one summer, “a mangy dog” at that, as Huckabee explained to the befuddled national press corps. He said he used to eat squirrels, cooking them up in his popcorn popper. Ewwwwhhh!

snip

“For my family, summer was never a verb,” he says. Take that, Mitt Romney and your perfect family, costumed in Ralph Lauren casual wear down by the shore. And this: “Wall Street types are afraid to death of a guy like me.” You mean, a guy who lost 110 pounds and cooks squirrels in his popcorn popper?

snip

It’s okay to have faux rubes, a la Bush senior and his pork rinds, or George W. and his Midland malapropisms. But when something that looks like the real thing comes along, the Republican royalists get apoplectic. They were appalled at the recent YouTube debate because it looked like a parody of one faction of their party – complete with Bible-waving wackos, trigger-happy gun nuts and Confederate-flag enthusiasts.

In other words, the Republican party has been "playing" these folks for years and now, there's "one of them" who is dangerously close to taking the nomination and they ARE NOT HAPPY!

Read the whole article...its fun...

Republicans acting like.....Republicans

I thought this blog entry from The Washington Monthly was somehow terribly appropriate.





First read these snippets (or whole post if you'd like)





"About mid-way through the ad, during a litany of accusations against Mitt Romney, Huckabee criticizes his rival with this data point: "No executions."



Apparently, Huckabee -- you know, the evangelical, pro-life Republican -- is going after Romney for not having executed any Americans during his gubernatorial tenure.



I realize Republican politics are far more crass than norms should allow, but it's disconcerting to think "You didn't kill anyone" has suddenly become a criticism in conservative circles."

Ummmm...do you think that Huck really doesn't know that Massachusetts doesn't have a death penalty?

Guest editorialist Steve Benen (blog,bio) is just as amazed as I am that it has become so blatant for Republicans to criticize one another for not killing enough people....but if you think that just Huckabee reached the lowest a Republican candidate could go...well, think again.....





Steve points out on his blog that Romney, in a desperate race to justify the millions spent on his own campaign, reaches back to that old, Republican standby, the Lewinsky Scandal, to mine for more votes of the Republican Faithful.





snip





Romney:
“We’ll try and represent ourselves and our nation well also to our kids because I think, I think kids watch the White House and there have been failures in the past in the White House — if you go back to the Clinton years and recognize that — that I think had an enormous impact on the culture of our country,” Romney said. “And we’ll do our very best, our whole family will to — well, if we can’t be perfect, we’ll do our best to uphold and to be a good example for the kinds of values I think people expect from our leaders.”


Steve:



Wow, that sure is dumb.



The Lewinsky scandal had an “enormous impact” undermining American culture? Seriously?





The silliness goes on and on and on..........in Iowa

Happy New Year

Hope everyone enjoyed their New Year Eve celebration in what ever way they chose to celebrate it....and we hope you were safe also...

I remember the "golden days" of the Johnny Carson Show when Ed McMahon would do his heavy drinker schtick...he referred to New Year's Eve as "amateur night". That of course referred to the fact that people who do not normally imbibe or over-imbibe in alcohol find it somehow necessary to go out on New Year's Eve, get drunk, make total idiots of themselves, and possibly spoil the evening (early..oftentimes well before Midnight) for themselves, their dates and anybody who happens to be unfortunate enough to be close to them. People who can't handle alcohol......shouldn't even try.

For that reason, I much prefer to stay home on New Year's Eve....watch a movie, enjoy a good, special home-cooked meal, put the old year in some kind of perspective and prepare myself mentally for the challenges that I will face in the year to come.

This year will be a bit different....it's another Presidential Election year and we have another chance to rid ourselves of the Neocon regime in Washington....unless we "blow-it" again....

I'm none too happy about the field of potential Democratic nominees....neither am I thrilled that the national media and the pundocracy that other bloggers have nick-named "the villagers", (that is , those pundits who are inside-the-beltway, establishment who believe they and they alone know what's "best for middle-America) are once again trying to tell us who our nominee should be.

It's our decision, dammit...

A New Year's Message from Russ

Dear Wisconsin Progressive,

I hope that everyone had a safe and happy holiday season. While I will continue to stand up for the values we share, the New Year brings with it increased opportunity to get our country moving in the right direction.

And while we must fight hard this year to take back the State Assembly, increase our seats in the State Senate, get veto-proof majorities in Congress, and elect a Democrat to the White House in November, there is an election in April that deserves our attention.

If last year’s volatile State Supreme Court race was any glimpse of things to come, outside special interests will do everything they can to unseat Justice Louis Butler.

Justice Butler is a highly regarded legal scholar who attended Lawrence University in Appleton and law school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For the last 11 years, he has served with distinction as a faculty member of the National Judicial College, where he teaches criminal law to judges from across the country and around the world. Justice Butler has spent the last 15 years as a judge, building a record we can all be proud of as he’s worked to make our state stronger and safer.

There are so many important issues that the Wisconsin Supreme Court rules on every year, and the Justices that serve on the Court make decisions that can have a dramatic influence on our state for generations to come. We need leaders like Justice Butler to continue to bring his values, experience and independence to the highest court in Wisconsin.

I’m going to fight to keep him on the State Supreme Court and I hope you will join me. For more information, or to join our effort to support Justice Butler, please contact Butler Campaign Coordinator Peter Knudson at peter@louisbutler.com or (414) 755-2067.

With high hopes,

Russ