From Kucinich.us:

Last week, Congressman Dennis Kucinich delivered a petition bearing more than 100,000 names to the Speaker of the House urging that impeachment proceedings begin into the conduct of President Bush. ...With new disclosures that the Administration tried to "cook the books at the CIA" by creating a phony, forged link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, "We cannot step back and let this President escape accountability."

Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel (Dave Lindorff):

The dramatic hearing on presidential crimes and abuses of power held on Friday by the House Judiciary Committee was both a staged farce, and at the same time, a powerful demonstration of the power of a grassroots movement in defense of the Constitution. It was at once both testimony to the cowardice and self-inflicted impotence of Congress and of the Democratic Party that technically controls that body, and to the enormity of the damage that has been wrought to the nation’s democracy by two aspiring tyrants in the White House.

[Most mainstream media outlets] have blacked out news of impeachment. Incredibly, the New York Times, for example, has not even reported on Friday’s hearing, even as a news “brief.” Those news organizations, like the Washington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer, that did report on the hearings did so only in short, inside articles. Though the hearing was aired in full on C-Span (and is still available for download), many Americans don’t even know it happened. 

The Blue America PAC has been striking hard against Blue Dogs, Hoyer and Congress in general for abandoning the rule of law and allowing retroactive immunity for the Telecoms. You've donated and we have responded. As part of our efforts we've also decided to donate money to twelve different Democratic leaders, a thousand dollars each to show that good behavior also is worthy of support too. Here's the list:

Chris Dodd (CT)

Russ Feingold (WI)

Tom Allen (ME)

Tom Udall (NM)

Carol Shea-Porter (NH)

Doug Tudor (FL)

Dennis Shulman (NJ)

Andrew Rice (OK)

Rick Noriega (TX)

Darcy Burner (WA)

Jim Himes (CT)

Jon Tester (MT)

You can read a list of all their very good quotes here. Thank you all!

We've also started running ads against Georgia's John Barrow.

Today the first of Blue America's ads rolls out in Georgia's 12th congressional district where the Democrat who votes most frequently with George Bush on substantive matters, slippery Athens Blue Dog John Barrow, faces state Senator Regina Thomas. The two couldn't be more different. Barrow gobbles up special interests money and votes for... special interests...

And here's more from SavannhaNow: Barrow's re-election no shoo-in...

She has a tough fight ahead of her, but Go Regina...(see ad below the fold)

Continue reading »

Are all Democrats better than all Republicans? Well... it wasn't always that way, but it sure is these days, at least in Congress. Not counting some pretty decent mainstream Republican governors, like Charlie Crist in Florida and Sarah Palin in Alaska, something frighteningly partisan has taken hold of the GOP. It's like America's interests takes a back seat to the narrow ideological purity of their increasingly right wing, neo-Con/neo-Confederate caucuses. But that doesn't take the onus off Democrats who are almost as reactionary. The Inside the Beltway Republicans want to give the Executive branch the authority to order warrantless wiretaps plus hand them retroactive immunity for Bush Regime cronies and possible criminals among telecom industry executives. Quite a few individual grassroots Republicans are alarmed at both prospects.

And then there are the right-of-center Democrats, mostly Blue Dogs, (Chris Carney is one) who, out of fear, are enabling Republicans. Today Glenn Greenwald over at Salon pieces together how Steny Hoyer is working with the Blue Dogs to give Bush just what he's looking for. C&L is working with Glenn and the rest of Blue America to raise some money to hold a Blue Dog accountable. Over 1,000 of our readers have pitched in so far. All those $5 and $10 and $20 contributions have raised over $57,000 so far, almost $10,000 today. If you can... let's make sure the Blue Dogs know that there are Democrats who don't favor retroactive immunity and who don't favor warrantless wiretaps of American citizens. We will be heard on this! You can Donate here...

John Amato: We've been very effective so far when we run a campaign like this and I wanted to say thanks once again for all your help.

Blue America's FISA fundraiser is doing incredible. Thanks so much and keep contributing if possible so we can take swift action against the Bush Dogs. Donate here.

Jane at FDL sez:

What can I say. In a little over 24 hours, much to our surprise, we raised almost $42,000 to go after Bush Dog Democrats who are joining with the Republicans to try and pass retroactive telecom immunity. Woof.

So the question is still -- who do we go after? You can still vote.

As Glenzilla says, "The goal is to raise as much money as possible to run local ads against one or two of them, alerting as many possible voters in their districts of their endless complicity with the most radical, corrupt aspects of the Bush administration's chronic lawbreaking and illegal domestic spying."

Thanks to you, we have a lot of options. Let us know who you think deserves to be the target of our efforts for joining with the Republicans to try and pass retroactive immunity for Dick Cheney and the telecom criminals.

Cast your vote here.

Ha ha, just kidding, Mister Murdoch! Strange Tales (syndicated):

The BBC is spending more than $1 million to teach its staff the importance of telling viewers the truth. Vin Ray, director of the BBC's college of journalism, said the cost of taking 17,000 workers off the job for the two-hour training seminar would add at least another $1 million to the cost. Mark Thompson, the BBC's director general, ordered the training after the broadcaster admitted a series of bogus broadcasts, including made-up winners for phone-in contests and a misleading promotional video for a documentary about Queen Elizabeth.

It's very troubling.

Brian Williams: You know what I thought was unsaid ---they took their position Chris, we're seeing the replay --- they end up in this spot and the sun is coming is just from the side and there in the shadow is John McCain's buckled, concave shoulder. It's a part of his body the suit doesn't fill out because of his war injuries. Again you wouldn't spot it unless you knew to look for it. He doesn't give the same full chested profile as the president standing next to him. Talk about a warrior...

A great many bloggers are participating in "Blog for Choice" today. From a roundup of feminist response to the anniversary in Salon (advertisement req.)

I wish young women knew how deeply their way of life offends the right-to-life establishment and how set this establishment is on changing our lifestyle, either by criminalizing the things that make it possible (the most common forms of family planning) or filling our heads with fears and lies (abstinence-only curriculum). Today, 95 percent of us have sex before marriage, 85 percent of couples have sex once a week (decidedly not for baby making), 90 percent use some form of artificial birth control. The "right to life" movement is dedicated to stopping this.

Nevertheless, many bloggers have neither forgiven nor forgotten that NARAL endorsed Joe Lieberman in Connecticut over Ned Lamont, and Bush-dog Al Wynn in Maryland over Donna Edwards.

Digby said it way better than I could... NARAL is

Yet another thing that has to be cleaned up --- the foolish, moribund, liberal interest groups of the Village that refuse to enter the 21st century. It's exhausting.

Back on topic, this video, which asks anti-abortion protesters exactly what should happen to women who have abortions, is extraordinarily telling.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

PBS' NOW highlighted our efforts (Mo Better Democrats!) to send a very important message to the Bush Dogs and establishment Democrats who support the Al Wynn's of the party when we raised over 100,000 dollars for Blue America's Donna Edwards a few months ago. Here's our ActBlue page for Donna.

With Democrats like Al Wynn, who needs Republicans? Donna Edwards...

Right on, Donna! Big Media Matt Stoller was interviewed for the show and did a tremendous job of explaining our position.

Stoller: I mean if you're willing to compromise on core values with people who operate in bad faith then you will always be ruled, you'll just never get anything done.

PBS:

In Maryland, six-term incumbent Al Wynn is facing a tough challenge from newcomer Donna Edwards. According to Edwards, Wynn has sold out to big business and the Bush agenda, including a vote for the war in Iraq and the 2005 energy bill. Wynn says his challenger is naïve and doesn't understand that there are choices in politics between compromise and doing nothing.

Fueling candidates like Edwards are the foot soldiers of the progressive battle—bloggers and other political outsiders like Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com who are drumming up national support on the Internet.

Martin Schram in The Sacramento Bee (h/t BSM):

Along with the handful of presidential candidates who dropped out so far, voters might be better served if a hundred or so of my political-reporter and pundit colleagues dropped out as well – and were replaced by journalists whose beats are about national security, economics, environment and health care.

Read more...

  If it's possible to make Bush look any stupider---the new NIE report on certainly Iran does.  Silent Patriot posted this on 10/17/07:

 Download (7496) | Play (12899)  Download (4412) | Play (6920)

Bush: But this — we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon…

Is anyone else shocked that it was FOX’s Bret Baier that elicited the “World War III” sound byte? Me neither. Full transcript here if you can stomach it.

Kevin Drum has a good post up and notes:

This NIE was apparently finished a year ago, and its basic parameters were almost certainly common knowledge in the White House well before that. This means that all the leaks, all the World War III stuff, all the blustering about the IAEA — all of it was approved for public consumption after Cheney/Bush/Rice/etc. knew perfectly well it was mostly baseless.

Nothing smells better in the morning to the Neocons than war propaganda. That's why Cheney tried to hold up the report from coming out.

A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran has been held up for more than a year in an effort to force the intelligence community to remove dissenting judgments on the Iranian nuclear programme, and thus make the document more supportive of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s militarily aggressive policy toward Iran, according to accounts of the process provided by participants to two former Central Intelligence Agency officers.

via Amanda: "As ThinkProgress has documented, the White House’s manipulation of the Iran NIE bore a striking resemblance to the controversies that played out over pre-war Iraq intelligence."

We've raised over 100,000 dollars now for Donna Edwards and I want to thank everybody who was able to contribute. We're sending a message to the Bush Dog Democrats and Steny Hoyer. Be true to your party platform and be true to Progressive ideals. We're not going to take it anymore!

Jane Hamsher says:

Of that, Blue America raised $44,000 on our “Better Democrats” page, and another $2,000 on the Blue America page itself so to everyone who contributed to that $46,000 total — we sincerely thank you.

Matt Stoller:

And so we wanted to send a message to Speaker Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Steny Hoyer, the corporate PACs and the whole incumbent protection racket that we aren't just going to call and write and protest anymore. We are going to organize, not just for more Democrats, but for better Democrats.

I think we all know that change takes time and I feel that a good strategy for change is to work on the side of Congress. Hence, Mo Better Democrats....We need to get better Democrats in and Bush Dogs out. Donna Edwards is a smart progressive that's right on the issues. Matt says: "We're at 1,895 donors and $83,738 for Donna. Why is this important? Because Democrats in Congress won't getting the message any other way. Even $5, $10, or $20 is incredibly meaningful." Blue America and Blue Majority and doing a great job---sending that message to Congress. Read Matt's encounter with Nancy Pelosi. It's revealing.

But the moment I mentioned Al Wynn, Pelosi's whole face abruptly changed, her smile melted away, and she got hostile and said in an icy voice 'I know about that.' She then turned away to talk to someone else.

I like Nancy, but like all of us---we're frustrated---so---we're taking positive actions---which will lead to change.

Jane Hamsher:

I don’t have much hope for affecting politics on the presidential level this cycle (which is why we largely stay out of the fray, except to encourage candidates when they take a position we support, even if they’re dark horses). The real potential for change in Washington DC stands not with a horrible system of good intentions and failed hors d’ouvres that reinforces the status quo at the uppermost levels, but with people like Donna Edwards who are willing to speak up and call out careerist hacks like Al Wynn that the Speaker of the House feels compelled to support...read on

Please donate if you can and help send that message to Congress...

  DailyKos:

It looks like pressure paid off.  Mike McIntyre announced this afternoon that he has changed his stand on SCHIP.  More from the release...

Congressman McIntyre stated, "As a long-time advocate for children for over 25 years, and as one who has consistently supported family health issues, I will not support President Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill, and I will vote to override his veto.  My objection to the method of funding for this bill and my support of North Carolina's farmers and the economic well-being of our communities are well-known, but I have always supported the SCHIP program and will do what is necessary to preserve it for the sake of children and families in need.  As Chairman of the Agriculture Subcommittee that oversees tobacco, I will also continue to do all that I can to support our farmers and our region's economy.  That commitment has not changed with this vote for our children."

This flip-flop comes in the wake of national pressure, local pressure from Wilmington, NC MoveOn members, and bad publicity in the Wilmington, NC StarNews newspaper.

The Bush Dogs are feeling the pressure, as Jane says, two down and three to go...keep up those calls and letters. 

UPDATE: Please donate here so we can keep the pressure up with our Blue America ad campaign.

Democrats.com is looking for people willing to launch primary challenges against Bush Dog Democrats.

In 2006, we elected Democratic majorities to the Senate and House for one overriding reason: to end the Iraq War.

In May 2007, both the Senate and the House voted on amendments to end the Iraq War by setting a March 2008 deadline for removing combat troops. Those amendments would have passed if all Democrats had voted to end the Iraq War - but some pro-war "Bush Democrats" voted to continue the Iraq War forever.

As Democrats, we have every right to expect our Democratic Senators and Representatives to vote with us on the issues we care about deeply. And if they do not, we have every right to support candidates who agree with us in Democratic primaries against them.

There are two good reasons to support primary challengers. If we win, we get a better Member of Congress. But even if we lose, a competitive race often persuades the incumbent to change positions on the issue that fueled the primary. In 2006, two key anti-war challengers brought dramatic changes: both Jane Harman (CA-36) and Al Wynn (MD-4) voted for the war in 2002, but voted against the war in 2007 as a direct result of anti-war primary challenges by Marcy Winograd and Donna Edwards.

Of course, challenging an incumbent Senator or Representative is a huge effort. To run a competitive race requires finding an excellent candidate and a building a strong grassroots organization. Happily, the Internet lets us do both.

Use our map or list of Representatives who voted to fund the Iraq War forever. If you are represented by one of these "Bush Democrats," click on their dot and help us find a candidate to challenge them in the 2008 Democratic primary.

 Is there any more of a reason to get "Blogger Rage" Shays outta here and support Jim Himes? Check his performance out on PBS's the News Hour. You go Jan! We've done really good so far. Jane Hamsher, who is hanging in the C&L Bat Cave today---says:

Yesterday’s $5 fundraiser for Jim Himes has netted 80 new donors to our Blue America page, and by way of comparison Shays only had 107 donors during the last quarter. So it would be great if we could find 29 more donors, which would mean Jim had more contributors in just over 24 hours from Blue America alone than Shays had during the entire second quarter. If you’ve got $5 to spare, think of it as a way to combat the useful idiocy of Brian Baird.

Contribute to Jim Himes via Blue America here.

By the way, Baird now is attacking the GAO report and get this: 

Meantime, Baird has so many requests for interviews that he already has offered a two-hour media availability Monday, after Petraeus and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, testify before the House. Democrats opposed to the war held their tongues about Baird last week. But on Thursday, Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., told Congressional Quarterly: "I'll give Brian a gun and let him go to Iraq and shoot whoever he wants."

When asked about Stark's comment, Baird said, "What was that all about?"