Dave Obey gets good publicity...FROM A REPUBLICAN!

In case you didn't catch it, David Brooks, a conservative columnist, has a list of things the Republican Party must do in order to rid itself of the stink of Jack Abramoff. His third "suggestion" is interesting:

Third, Republicans need to steal David Obey and Barney Frank's lobbying-reform ideas. For some insane reason, having to do with their own special interests, Democrats have been slow to trumpet the ideas coming from their own party. Republicans have a chance to hijack them before the country notices. Specifically, there should be a ban on lobbyist-paid travel. (Members should be allowed to take spouses on publicly financed travel because it is important that members get out and see the world.) Former members should not be allowed to lobby on the House floor. All lobbyist contacts with government officials should be posted on the Internet.

Our favorite Congresscritter, Dave Obey, has been a voice in the wilderness for years when it comes to the Democratic party. Maybe this mention by a prominent conservative columnist will wake up the ruling powers within the Democratic party and they will listen to Dave.

Brooks has sounded an alarm bell for us that we should be paying attention to. The Democratic Party needs to get "out-in-front" of the issue of lobbying reform and take a firm stand against corruption. We have an opportunity before us much like the one the Republicans had in 1994 where they rode to power on a theme of "Reform".

If the party chooses the reform platform route, it must also be willing to make some very hard choices. Nobody can be naive enough to believe that corruption only exists within the Republican Party. If there are instances of corruption within the Democratic Party we must have the courage to expose it and deal with it of our own volition and not wait for it to be exposed by some special prosecutor. That will take extraordinary courage because we will risk losing the opportunity to regain majorities in either of the Houses of Congress.

Maybe we need a quick lesson in courage from Dave Obey.

and as an aside.............

I don't usually watch Chris Matthews' program Hardball on MSNBC (also occasionally known as MSRNC, (for Republican National Committee)) but I did last night to see if Matthews would admit that he was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser for a charitable group known as The Capital Athletic Foundation. That foundation was founded by everybody's favorite exterminator, Congressman Tom Delay, and a repository for money (bribes) from Jack Abramoff's clients. As it turns out and audit exposed that less than 1% of the money went to the organization's stated mission: "athletic activities for inner-city youth". Matthews didn't admit his involvement and went on reporting the Abramoff story with all the self-righteous indignation that we've come to expect from him.

There was a side benefit to watching Matthews last night though. He reported on Newt Gingrich's speech in which he called upon the Republican Party to reform itself and also to "fire" Delay as Minority Leader. To his credit, Matthews reminded correspondent Andrea Mitchell (who has her own problems regarding the Plame Incident and now the NSA ILLEGAL spying scandal) that Gingrich himself had left Congress under the cloud of scandal. After Andrea reluctantly admitted that Gingrich "had issues", Matthews said singer's reminded him of the old Hollywood quote: "I knew Doris Day BEFORE she was a virgin."


ROFL

Later.

Ed

Happy New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To all my fellow Wood County Democrats, I wish you a safe, healthy and prosperous 2006.

Actually it's 11 pm our time but I just watched the East Coast celebrations on TV. Okay, admit it. How many of you celebrate at 11 o'clock and fall asleep before midnight our time?

I was going to post a fairly long post concerning some of the topics that Dave discussed on Ryan Lindsay's Insight show on Friday but decided to put if off until a little while. I will just use this space to congratulate Dave on a good job on the show.

As the deadline for filing papers for local offices approaches, I have heard some encouraging news about Democrats filing for office. I'll write more about this later.

Good luck to all in the New Year...be safe if you're out tonight.

Christmas for Democrats

Hi everybody.

Best wishes for a Happy Holiday Season to everybody in Wood County.

Those of you who are into the "blogosphere", are aware that there is a fascination in Democratic circles with the work of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald who is conducting the investigation into the outing of former CIA Agent and wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson by Robert Novak. A lot of joking is going around about having a "Merry Fitzmas", that is getting indictments of top Republicans given to us for Christmas presents. In honor of that, Symbolman of Take Back the media, has given us our own Fitzmas Tree to decorate. It's a lot of fun to play around with.

Here's a graphic to give you a hint of what's in store:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v77/mayor80/fitzmastree.jpg

Here's the link:

http://www.tbtmradio.com/flash/merryfitzmasornaments.swf

This link is provided with full permission of Take Back the Media and the famous Symbolman himself.

Last Chance Democracy Cafe

If you haven't heard of this series of articles, you're really missing something.

The Last Chance Democracy Cafe is a series of articles by Stephen C. Day writing for Buzzflash.com. It is set in a Cafe owned by a retired lawyer and features conversations among him and an eclectic group of regulars at the Cafe. More than any other site, I have found Day and his mythical group of liberals to more clearly give voice to ideals of the Democratic/Progressive movement than any other site I have visited.

Here's a link to the archives.

http://www.buzzflash.com/day/index.php

Read it at your leisure. There are lots of episodes. I'm pretty sure that, like me, you'll become a devoted fan of Stephen C. Day and eagerly await each new episode.

Ed

Don't let Bush scam you again!

Finally, somebody took the time to go back and find the quotes that President Bush was referring to in his speech from Alaska (at Elmendorf AFB with our troops used as a backdrop)in which he "quoted" Democratic leaders supposedly supporting his invasion of Iraq. In case you haven't seen it, here's the text of his speech:

"Let me give you some quotes from three senior Democrat leaders: First, and I quote, 'There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons.' Another senior Democrat leader said, 'The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.' Here's another quote from a senior Democrat leader: 'Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think the President is approaching this in the right fashion.' They spoke the truth then, and they're speaking politics now."

Break it down: There are three separate Democrat leaders quoted but Bush doesn't use their names. The Rude Pundit Blog took the time to track them down and guess what...

They were all quoted COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTEXT.

Here's the link if you want to see EXACTLY what was said...and let me give you a hint: what they said wasn't what Bush claims it was. http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

The next time you're having coffee with friends and they start mouthing the Republican Talking point that:

"The Democrats supported Bush and now they're just playing politics." Well, you'll have the evidence.

I was raised to believe that the Office of the President of the United States deserved great reverence and respect but I cannot believe how this man continues to dishonor the Office he holds.

I'll stop here before this becomes a rant.

E

Our Fundamentalist Friends have been duped!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/3/224529/687

The above link to Daily Kos shows how cynically the religous right and our fundamentalist friends have been duped by the leaders of the Republican Party.

Look at this quote from Delay's aide, Scanlon:

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

There it is. The Neocon strategey exposed for all to see. And do you know what the worst part is?

It's this: that memo from Scanlon came out of the investigations into indicted Lobbyist Jack Abramoff who has now been tied directly to Tom Delay.

Feel free to read the post and also be sure to pass it to others.

e

WARNING! SATIRE FOLLOWS

Editor:

I was strongly opposed to Senator Dave Zein’s newest incarnation of the Concealed Carry Law until events just this very week convinced me that Zein is probably right. Let me explain.

The first thing that happened to convince me was at the grocery store. There I was in the “Express Lane” which is clearly market “15 Items or Less”, and sure enough, the lady in front of me had at least 20 items. I politely asked her to go to another line and she told me to do the dame thing to myself that Dick Cheney told Patrick Leahy to do. Well! If I had been allowed to carry a gun, she wouldn’t have been so snippety!

Then, on Central Avenue, I saw a guy in a pickup truck make an illegal left turn. If I had a gun on me I could have pursued this wanton lawbreaking individual and held him for the police. But, alas, I’m not yet allowed to carry a gun.

But the most important thing happened at the Clinic. I think I saw a terrorist cleverly disguised in a lab coat. He looked to be of Middle-eastern descent or something like that but it was obvious that he wasn’t from around here. He had a name plate and badge that he got from who knows where that said “Doctor” so-and-so and he looked like he had access to sensitive places at the clinic. He could have been a terrorist and if I had a gun I could have detained him until Homeland security could question him. Hey. We’ve all got to do our part because you never know how many terrorists are lurking in Spencer, Auburndale, Stratford or Marshfield.

So you see, I think Zein is onto something.