37 Days

Dok Zoom at Wonkette:

Remember that the good guys can win. We're them. We have to make it happen.

Remember Molly Ivins, who would tell you to have a good cry and then GET MAD AND PUT YOUR ANGER TO WORK:

So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.

November 6 is 37 days away. Let's get to work.

Don't assume everyone you know is registered or plans to vote.  Next Friday is Kentucky's deadline to register. Ask, and if they say no, drag them down to the County Clerk and register them.  Make sure they know where their polling place is, and they have a ride if they need one.

And fight repug/russian voting fuckery!  Check with your county clerk and make sure you are still registered and that your polling place is still where you think it is.

Best Convention Story Yet

From Susan at Juanita Jean's.

They're everywhere. 

Just How Democrats Roll

Zandar:

Republicans, complain all you want to about the President moving his acceptance speech Friday indoors due to storms, what the Democrats did afterwards for Charlotte is outstanding.

All the fancy catered food intended for the VIP suites and club rooms at the stadium – and perhaps even for the president himself – was redistributed Friday to local soup kitchens and shelters, via Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.

On the menu: thousands of pounds of pecan-fried chicken, baked orzo, fresh crudités, three-bean bake, fresh-cut fruit and something called short rib cobbler.

SNIP 

“It’s really a wonderful order,” said Kay Carter of Second Harvest, which got 7,500 pounds of the food.

“None of this food will go to waste. We contacted every shelter and soup kitchen in town and asked them how much refrigeration capacity they have and how many are they feeding. It will all be gone at the end of the day.”

Second Harvest has a history of redistributing fresh food at a moment’s notice, she said, including leftovers from major golf tournaments.

 This is outstanding, and more people need to know about it.   Spread the word.

If you have a garden, and now have tomatoes and zucchini coming out your ears, pack up your extra and take it to your local soup kitchen, food bank or Second Harvest. Find them here. 

And take along some voter registration forms.

Your Vote is Sacred

I refuse to deny the citizenship, the American-ness, of anyone in this country. I may hate, despise and loathe with every fiber of my being everything you stand for, but you are an American just as I am.

But I am tempted to cast into the pit those who hold their precious citizenship so lightly they cannot be bothered to perform the one and only duty upon which our survival as a country depends.

You who do not vote - no, you are not my fellow Americans.

Charles Pierce at Esquire:

The same dynamic prevails when Congressman John Lewis of Georgia talks to you about voting rights. Nobody knows more than he does about their value because nobody knows more than he does about what they've cost. He was beaten nearly to death in the struggle for them. John Lewis tells you something about voting rights and you say, yes, sir, and you shut the fk up.

John Lewis gave a speech on Thursday night, in the first hour of the convention, that almost nobody saw, which is too bad, because it summed up the great unmentioned subtext of this year's election — namely, that, between the new torrents of money that are overwhelming the system, and the rise again of voter-suppression legalisms in the various states, which are in many cases products of those same new torrents of money, the election is coming perilously close to becoming a puppet show. The Republicans didn't mention that, because they have taken in so much of the new money, and because Republican governors and legislators in the various states are behind the new voter-suppression laws, and everybody knows that. The Democrats are caught in a bind, because they have to play in the new universe of campaign finance, too, and because they're trying to keep up with a symphony of well-financed propaganda that seeks to make voter-suppression into a good-government initiative. John Lewis is not fooled. John Lewis has seen this before. And John Lewis told the convention what he's seeing rising in the country out of his own past.

Brothers and sisters, do you want to go back? Or do you want to keep America moving forward? My dear friends, your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar-all to keep them from casting their ballots.  Today it is unbelievable that there are Republican officials still trying to stop some people from voting. They are changing the rules, cutting polling hours and imposing requirements intended to suppress the vote. The Republican leader in the Pennsylvania House even bragged that his state's new voter ID law is "gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state." That's not right. That's not fair. That's not just. And similar efforts have been made in Texas, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and South Carolina. I've seen this before. I've lived this before. Too many people struggled, suffered and died to make it possible for every American to exercise their right to vote.

And that is simply the way it is, and, if you don't like the truth there, you're welcome to get your brains nearly beaten out of you on the Edmund Pettus Bridge so you would begin to have the most basic qualifications to argue with John Lewis about it.

Watch:

This is Not Fact-Checking. This is Truth-Fucking.

Somebody tells you she is going to drive the 500 miles from Washington, D.C. to Lexington, Ky in five hours. OK, you say, it's interstate all the way, so if you've got a really fast car and you're a trained driver, and you do it in the middle of the night, you mighrt be able to average 100 miles an hour. But you'd be breaking the speed limit the whole way.

 

No, no, she says; I'll drive the 500 miles in five hours without breaking the speed limit.

 

Impossible! you say. You have to speed. If you're going to drive 500 miles in five hours, you are going to speed.

 

The person turns to FactCheck.org, which calls you out for lying because the person promises not to break the speed limit and therefore is telling the truth.

 

Think Progress:

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro cited a well-known study from the Tax Policy Center when he stated that Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s tax plan would “raise taxes on the middle class.” FactCheck.org, however, found that claim to be misleading because Romney “has promised he won’t” raise middle-class taxes:

The keynote speaker and others claimed the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, would raise taxes on the “middle class.” He has promised he won’t. Democrats base their claim on a study that doesn’t necessarily lead to that conclusion.

FactCheck.org is right that Romney’s plan “doesn’t necessarily” raise taxes on the middle class, but it is absurd to base that conclusion on the candidate’s promises. Romney has, indeed, promised not to raise taxes on the middle class. But he has also promised that his tax plan will maintain current revenue levels.

Those promises, by any measure, are totally incompatible, something the Tax Policy Center study made abundantly clear when it found that Romney couldn’t possibly raise enough revenue to maintain current revenue levels by closing tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy. Thus, Romney’s plan will either add to the deficit or raise middle-class taxes, unless he forgoes his 20 percent rate reduction altogether.

Arithmetic is hard. Lying is easy. Stupid is contagious.

Elizabeth Warren FTW

If this speech doesn't get her elected, nothing will.

Sandra Fluke for President

Nothing intimidates this woman.

Nothing can stop this woman.

This woman has no fear.



via Crooks and Liars.

Ignored in Charlotte: The Greatest Danger to Democracy

Charles Pierce, from Charlotte:

There is all sorts of talk about economics here, and we are told repeatedly that the future of our democracy depends on solving our economic problems. But income inequality is the single most dangerous economic problem to the continued existence of political democracy. It is the one issue among them all that could render us a subject people, and already is halfway to doing so. The Republicans deny its existence, while the Democrats seem trapped in an endless cycle trying to mitigate its effects without ever addressing its causes. So I'd like to hear more about income inequality, and a damned sight less about Simpson-Bowles and all the rest of it.

Read the whole thing.

Reminding Democrats Why They Are Democrats

You may have heard about the devastating debate attacks leveled on Mitt Romney during the first night of the Democratic Convention - in a video tribute to Senator Edward M. Kennedy. 

But that video was much more than just the source of hilarity at RMoney's expense. That video was the inspirational reminder to every Democratic voter in the nation of Who. We. Are. and What. We. Stand. For.

John Nichols at The Nation:

“I love this—seeing that debate again,” said Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, a progressive Democrat and frequent ally of Kennedy in foreign-policy fights with the Bush administration. “You know why Ted Kennedy won that debate? You know why he beat Mitt Romney? Because Ted Kennedy was a real Democrat. He didn’t have to worry about getting the talking points right; he didn’t have to check the polls. He spoke from the heart, spoke for his principles. And people loved it. There’s a lesson there for Democrats this year.”

McGovern hit on something important there. The Kennedy moment at the 2012 convention was not just about recalling a fight with Mitt Romney. It was about renewing a progressive program that is too often tempered and softened by Democrats who do not get it.

It was about being against someone, it was and must be about being for something.

So it was that, when the delegates were done laughing at Romney, the senator took the delegates back to where they came from.

There on the screen was the last of the Kennedy brothers explaining once more the point of debates and campaigns and election victories: to advance not just a candidate, not just a party but a set of ideals: healthcare for all; social justice for people of color, for women, for lesbians and gays and immigrants; economic justice for workers and peace.

“When I stopped crying, I remembered how much we miss him,” said Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy.

“There is a void,” said Congressman McGovern. “Ted Kennedy was the conscience of the party. But he was also the master strategist. He knew that we could win by standing on principle. In fact, that’s the way we win best, and biggest.”

On the other side of the hall, a few minutes later, Ted Kennedy Jr. smiled. “My father comes back every four years to remind Democrats why they are Democrats. He did it one more time.”