Fundraiser gives incoming lawmakers inappropriate intro to money in politics

The incoming Democratic freshmen of the House of Representatives are about to get their first lesson in good old boy politics. Unfortunately, the example being set by Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) is exactly the kind of initiation these new members don’t need.

Dingell and Rahall are hosting a Washington, D.C., fundraiser Wednesday to help the newly elected Democrats retire their campaign debt. According to the invitation, political action committees (PACs) are encouraged to contribute $20,000 apiece, while individuals are asked to consider chipping in $10,000 each.

What’s wrong with this picture? Before they’re even sworn in, these 23 lawmakers will be exposed to the quid pro quo relationship between elected officials and their wealthy benefactors – lobbyists and corporate power brokers.

Viva La Revolución

If you believe a recent Wired article, I’m starting this blog a few years too late. Blogs are done. Finished. Kaput. They’ve been tossed into the media dustbin, right on top of newspapers and television news.

In his article, Paul Boutin argues that social media, such as Facebook, Flickr and Twitter, have made blogs obsolete. Who has the time to craft well-written blog posts when you can get instant, 140-word gratification on Twitter?

If I totally agreed with Boutin, I suppose I wouldn’t have started this blog. In fact, I started this blog specifically because of social media.

Read more at 800 Pound Guerilla

Sunset in Montvale

The view at sunset from my friend Mike’s property in Montvale at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in western Virginia. Mike, who has 50 something acres, uses this cabin as a barn, though it was a hunting lodge at one time.

Posted at Cosmic Smudge

Letter to President-elect Obama

On behalf of our members, staff and program directors, we offer our enthusiastic and heartfelt congratulations to you and Vice President-elect Joe Biden on your momentous achievement. You inspired millions of new public citizens across our nation – people young and old of all races and creeds who breathed life into the ideal of American democracy by passionately engaging in this election.

We share in the country’s tremendous pride at the extraordinary accomplishment your election represents – a testament to our common belief that America is a land of limitless opportunity, where hard work and steadfast purpose give each and every one of us an opportunity to fulfill our dreams.

Read more at Public Citizen

Our moment is now

I spent the week before the election volunteering for the Obama campaign in the Roanoke, Va. area. This was taken in the Obama campaign HQ in downtown Salem.This card was handed to voters standing in line. On the back is a message from Obama urging people to stay in line and vote.

Posted at Cosmic Smudge

Politico’s whack job on Palin

Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m completely in the tank for Obama. I’ve phone banked for him and I’m heading to Roanoke later this week to work as a volunteer to get the vote out. If you’ve read any of the other entries on this blog, you know that I’m a flaming liberal.

I don’t support John McCain for many reasons, chief among them his decision to add the incredibly unqualified Sarah Palin to the ticket. Well, the truth is I wouldn’t have supported McCain no matter who he named as a running mate, but his decision to tap Palin made me feel a lot better about it.

It’s late and I don’t have the energy to go off on Sarah’s shortcomings — her fake reformer credentials, her questionable ethics, her lack of intellectual curiosity, her inability to form complete sentences, her eagerness to incite the fear, hate and insecurities of the mob. Shit, there’s really not anything I like about her.

Which is why what I’m about to write feels sort of weird: I’m bothered by this whole “whack job” blowup.

Read more at Another Dead Canary

Why McCain will have to wear Ashley Todd’s scarlett letter

Here’s the question of the day: How did the entire blogosphere and twitterverse know intuitively that Ashley Todd was some imbalanced attention-seeker almost immediately after the story broke but John McCain, Sarah Palin and their top staff did not?

Predictably, the liberal bloggers and tweeters were calling bullshit as soon as they heard Todd’s tale of getting mugged and having a backwards “B” carved scratched into her cheek while she was somewhere on the “wrong side” of Pittsburgh. The B, presumably, was for “Barack.” The mugger, a tallish, thinnish black man (apparently dyslexic) became enraged after he noticed that Todd, a McCain campaign worker, had a McCain bumper sticker on her car.

Of course, everyone knew it was a lie just by looking at the picture of her “disfigured” face posted at Smoking Gun. Why would the mugger carve a backwards B? And why did he take extra care not to break her skin with his knife after violently punching, kicking and throwing her to the ground?

Read more at Another Dead Canary

Hey McCain, how do you like your boy genius now?

Can it really be less than two months since the New York Times told the world how political strategist Steve Schmidt had transformed the McCain campaign into “an elbows-out, risk-taking, disciplined machine”? At the time, I remember having a visceral reaction to its description of Schmidt’s “brillilance.”

It bothered me that McCain’s surge in the polls was being credited to Schmidt’s attacking style and his penchant for hard-hitting, negative campaigning. What would you expect from a Karl Rove protege? Were Swift Boat politics going to be validated once again?

Now, with McCain’s campaign in a stuttering, discombobulated, mob-powered free fall, I wonder if Schmidt is still wearing the genius tag? If he gets credit for McCain pulling the race even over the summer, then does he get the blame for the looming electoral-college rout on the horizon?

Read more at Another Dead Canary

The billionaire bailout

I wanted to do a “man on the street” piece for this video because I thought it was important to capture some of the grassroots anger toward the proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Our intern shot the video and I edited it.

What do we want?

She was leading the chant, “What do we want?” during the Bailout for Billionaire’s protest / street performance near Farragut Park in D.C.

Posted at Cosmic Smudge

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