http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0871138883/qid=1127488836/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103- 1178532-5209409?v=glance&s=books

Here's what I pulled out of it (below):

What struck me most about Shrub's post-Katrina speech is how wooden, stiff, and unfeeling he cam across.

It reminds me of what Democrats usually do when faced with issues like abortion or gay marriage: we tend to clam up, get stiff, and start spluttering about cold, abstract concepts like "separation of church and state" and "Right to Privacy". And of course, we always lose. Because you don't meet an emotional issue with a cold, rational, uptight, legalistic, "principled" response. It just doesn't work; people don't buy it.

But this is exactly what Shrub just did. Is there some way to turn this into electoral victory?

More stem cells, please.

More Rove/Plame, please.

More Tom DeLay, please.

More SCOTUS nominees, please.

More DSM, please.

More Anti-Social Insecurity bills, please.

More truth about the quagmire these bastards have gotten us into.

More below...

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/4316.html

This is exactly the kind of issue that the Democrats need to push, and HARD. But, behind the scenes. Because this kind of issue pits the Corporate Feudal Lords at Merck against their "allies", the Christian Whackos.

Call it the "DeLay Strategy". Challenge every seat. Fight every Rethug. Force them to spend money.

I think Kos (i.e. the Kos Dozen) has been saying this for a while. It encourages me to hear Dean saying exactly that too. I think we're starting to see the results of our first forays into this.

The Winner-Take-All Society, the Might-Makes-Right Society.

They are, without doubt, despite their anti-evolution fanaticism, the party of Darwin. It's law of the jungle, and there's a reason why we're occasionally given to calling them "Neanderthal".

This is so damn simple, it's silly. Democrats just need to hire the ad agencies and PR agencies and branding geniuses that are well-paid by the gigantic HMO's and insurance companies. They know exactly how to communicate core Democratic values in a heartwarming, all-American way. They do it all the time. They do it very well.

Democrats are there for you. We're here to stick up for the little guy and gal. We're here for the average American. We keep you safe, and healthy, and prosperous. Vote for us.

Basic, simple, "nurturing parent" (in Lakoff's terms) stuff. This is not hard.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/005492.php

So this is the deal Rove has struck with the religious whackos: you deliver us a filibuster-free Senate so that we can shove Social Security privatisation (and more tax cuts, and corporate-lobbyist judges) through the Senate, and we'll pay you back by shoving through a few nutcase religious fanatic judges.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/005458.php

So I sent the following rant to Josh Marshall. Since I doubt he'll actually read it, I'm posting it here too:

I'm furious about Democrats in Congress doing exactly the wrong thing in reaction to poll data showing that voters don't like their politicians to be intransigent.

Not because they are paying attention to the polls, but because they think Democrats are being intransigent and have to change!

This poll data is a huge opportunity. It is the right-wing politicians such as the Bush administration and the Frist/DeLay Congress that are being intransigent! So why aren't we using this poll data to punish them in the polls?!

If we allow the wingnuts to shred the Constitution and remove the judicial branch from the balance of powers, we're all going to be in a heap of trouble.

Jury nullification is what allows "the people" to override stupid laws passed by corrupt legislators and enforced by an out-of-control executive. We need it desperately in these dark days.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/03/29/oil.for.food/index.html

But the Clintons were cleared of wrongdoing in Whitewater too. And that didn't stop the VRWC. I don't think it'll stop them from continuing to try to destroy Annan either.

In his blog, he clearly identifies the threat the RIAA and MPAA pose to independent media:

http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000230037801/

http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/

This is a really good idea, and the right-wing network is so much more VAST, has so much more power, it is really worth mapping out.

I have for much of my life voted Libertarian, and actually am still registered as one, though I won't be for long. After giving way much more money than I could afford to Howard Dean, DFA, MoveOn, MediaMatters, and the Koz Dozen, and then campaigning for John Kerry, I vowed to change my registration after the election, win or lose. I haven't scrounged up the paperwork to do it yet, but it's gonna happen.

Jello Biafra said: "...and Gore made us want to Ralph". Gore-- particularly his wife's sordid anti-porn-rock crusade-- made me want to vote for Harry Browne, which I did. But it only took a couple years of Shrub to make me want to Dean. I'm an enthusiastic Deaniac and have been going to DFA meetings, trying to find ways to help.

It baffled me all through the campaign that more people weren't outraged that Shrub spent to much of his administration on vacation, and away from Washington "working hard" clearing brush and doing political strategy instead of actually governing.

Suddenly I understand. I'm almost done with "Sleepwalking Through History", a history of the Reagan years.

The multinational corporations that truly run this country actually want a government that does nothing, a president that goes on vacation in Kennebunkport and then wastes time clearing brush in Texas for the TV cameras, and a Congress that wastes time passing laws renaming their damn French Fries. And the Christian right-wing "base" agrees with them on one point: they want a lazy, impotent, incompetent government that does nothing, not an active, vital one that actually accomplishes things.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/261558p-224000c.html

This happened. That happened. It went like this. And that's how it was. None of the namby-pamby "alleged" and "but the other side says...", except to boldly justapose it with obvious evidence that they are lying.

Shouldn't it shame the SCLM that such bold, crisp, confident reporting comes from... a tacky little right-wing tabloid?

I suspect what I'll find, but then again maybe not. It seems to me that the blue states and counties are being punished with substantial unemployment, but the red states and counties are fat with government pork.

Something about the ombibus bacon bill, and the punitive Istook appropriations therein, cutting off government blue-state Republicans-- it just made me wonder.