I'm Going, Are You?

Take Back America 2008 kicks off in less than 18 days! Register today to secure your spot alongside the thousands of progressive leaders, thinkers and activists driving the fight in 2008 to take back Washington for the American people.

Here’s just a partial list of this year’s speakers:

* Sen. Barack Obama (invited)
* Sen. Hillary Clinton (invited)
* Norman Lear
* Arianna Huffington
* Kathleen Turner
* Rep. Jan Schakowsky
* Van Jones
* Bill Moyers
* Jane Hamsher
* Eli Pariser
* David Bonior
* Digby
* David Sirota
* Barbara Ehrenreich
* Robert Greenwald
* Rich Trumka
* Christy Hardin Smith
* Naomi Klein
* Anna Burger
* Rev. Jesse Jackson
* Rick Perlstein
* Matt Stoller
* Gloria Totten
* Cenk Uygur

Join these and the thousands of other progressives fighting to take our country back from the out-of-touch politicians and special interests who’ve had their way in Washington for too long. It all kicks off in less than 18 days!

Register today! Be part of the energy and the growing momentum that will make 2008 our year.

We look forward to seeing you in Washington.

For those that can't make it, I'll be liveblogging the whole thing. It'll be just like you were actually there! It'd be better if you were actually there, but you do what you have to...

99 years, 10 months, 16 days

That's how many days we have left in Iraq if John McCain becomes president and implements his 100 years plan.

McCain Hates the Environment

John McCain expanded upon his lifetime 24% rating from the League of Conservation Voters by getting a 0% rating this year. That means he always voted against the environment. Always. That's not what we need in the White House during crucial environmental times.

Disgusting

This is amazing:

The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate, according to people involved. The secretive effort underscores the enormous risk senior GOP operatives see for a party often criticized for its insensitivity to minorities in campaigns dating back to the 1960s.

The RNC project is viewed as so sensitive that those involved in the work were reluctant to discuss the findings in detail.

..."Republicans will need to exercise less deafness and more deftness in dealing with a different looking candidate, whether it is a woman or a black man," Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway said. "But at the same time, really charge back at any insinuation or accusation of sexism or racism.

"You can't allow the party to be Macaca-ed," she continued, referring to a much-publicized remark made by former GOP Sen. George Allen that played a significant role in his 2006 defeat. "I think the standards are higher and the bar is lower for the Republican Party."

Republicans interviewed for this story uniformly believe they will have to be especially careful. Many expect to be held to a higher rhetorical standard than is customary in campaigns, in part because of perceptions of intolerance that still dog the party.

As Pam said, "perceptions"? If you have a report like this coming out of your party, racism and sexism aren't perceptions, they're facts.

Good News

GOP Defending 9 of 10 Most Vulnerable Senate Seats. That's on top of defending 29 of 34 open seats in the House (possibly 30 of 35). Not a good year to be a Republican.

McCain's No Maverick

He's a stooge for the Republican Party, willing to bend or break the law to support his party, regardless of the effect it has on the people.

Case in point -- the Jack Abramoff scandal. In 2002, McCain led the committee that investigated the scandal and while he completely let crooks like Tom DeLay off the hook, one part of the investigation in particular, seems to border on criminality on McCain's part.

In an e-mail recently reported about on The Huffington Post, it's clear that McCain knew about the time about the involvement of Alabama gubernatorial candidate Bob Riley in the Abramoff scandal. But this connection didn't appear in McCain's report and wasn't released until long after Riley defeated incumbent Don Siegelman in a contested and shady election by a mere 3,000 votes. Once of the concerns for Siegelman was potential ethical concerns quite similar to those Riley is accused of. If it wasn't "faulty" voting machines that threw the election to Riley, certainly the withholding of valid and relevant evidence by McCain did.

Action Alerts

Sign the Petition: Emergency Petition to Stop Telecom Immunity (Deadline: ?)

Sign the Petition: Hold John McCain Accountable for Breaking the Law (Deadline: )

Sign the Petition: Home Foreclosure Crisis can be Stopped! Support S. 2636 in This Week's Senate Vote (Deadline: Ongoing)

Tell Your Story: Tell Us What's Happening In Your School with Sex Education (Deadline: ?)

Sign the Petition: Support the Healthy Teens Act (Deadline: ?)

Sign the Petition: Put Prevention First! (Deadline: ?)

Send a Letter: Protect the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge (Deadline: ?)

McCain the Liar, Part 3

John McCain isn't a big fan of the truth:

But, earlier in his administration, when the Republicans controlled Congress, Bush routinely signed budgets that included pork-barrel projects and earmarked spending.

"That was probably the biggest mistake the Bush administration made," McCain said Tuesday.

...

In 2003, he was against tax reductions and spending increases because the war might cost a lot. In 2008, he thinks Bush should have vetoed even Republican-passed bills because of pork. That's consistency!

Not so fast:

2005 Budget Resolution (voted 3/12/04): Yea
2006 Budget Resolution (voted 3/17/05): Yea
2007 Budget Resolution (voted 3/16/06): Yea

Seriously, John McCain Isn't Presidential

John McCain loves inappropriate, insulting jokes:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?

Because Janet Reno is her father.

McCain the Liar, Part 2

John McCain isn't a big fan of the truth:

"Everybody says that they’re against the special interests. I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to."

John McCain

This is coming from the man that took $422,376 from lobbyists.

McCain the Liar, Part 1

John McCain isn't a big fan of the truth:

Broadcaster Lowell “Bud” Paxson yesterday contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson’s behalf.

Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson’s quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.

Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, likely attended the meeting in McCain’s office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. “Was Vicki there? Probably,” Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post yesterday. “The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings.”

The recollection of the now-retired Paxson conflicted with the account provided by the McCain campaign about the two letters at the center of a controversy about the senator’s ties to Iseman, a partner at the lobbying firm of Alcalde & Fay.

So Much for the Surge

Apparently, it's not working:

What the US has been calling the success of a “surge,” many Iraqis see as evidence of catastrophe. Where US forces point to peace and calm, local Iraqis find an eerie silence.

And when US forces speak of a reduction in violence, many Iraqis simply do not know what they are talking about.

Hundreds died in a series of explosions in Baghdad last month. This was despite the strongest ever security measures taken by the US military, riding the “surge” in security forces and their activities.

John McCain Is Not Presidential

His greatest hits:

• "I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon." - John McCain, making clear his wish that a (now-former) foreign head of state will die.

• Accusing the Democrats of being sore losers and obstructionists motivated by partisan "bitterness" just because they had the temerity to not treat Condoleezza Rice's confirmation as Secretary of State as "a foregone conclusion."

• Accusing Vietnam veteran and Congressman Jack Murtha of being "too emotional" to be rational about the war.

• Sending freshman Senator Barack Obama what Matt Stoller called "remarkable" and one of "the single most bitter, nasty letters I have ever seen from any Senator."

• Threatening to leave an appearance before the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department because members of the audience challenged his statements on immigration, organized labor, and the war. He also questioned their work ethic and skills, telling them "You can't do it, my friends," when some accepted his hypothetical job offer of $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

• Threatening to commit suicide if the Democrats won a majority in the Senate.

• Using the racially-charged and highly inappropriate term "tar baby."

• Singing about bombing Iran:

• Responding to criticisms of that hilarious little ditty by snapping: "Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends. My response is, lighten up and get a life," without, naturally, the merest glimmer of irony that he'd been casually joking about taking lives.

• Telling Jon Stewart he'd brought him an IED from Iraq as a gift:

• Responding to Congressman Murtha's criticism of that hilarious joke with: "All I'm going to say to Murtha and others. … Lighten up and get a life," to which Atrios said what ought to have been obvious to any halfwit but eluded the evidently witless McCain: "The point is that dead troops and other victims are no longer capable of getting 'a life'."

• Erupting at fellow Republican Senator John Cornyn in a meeting about immigration legislation, during which McCain accused Cornyn of raising a concern just to torpedo a legislative deal, "used a curse word associated with chickens," and shouted "[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room!"

• Responding to one of his supporters asking of Hillary Clinton, "How do we beat the bitch?" by laughing

McCain Doesn't Support the Troops

Otherwise, he'd have done something to help this problem:

[American troops in Afghanistan] felt eclipsed by Iraq. As Sgt. Erick Gallardo put it: “We don’t get supplies, assets. We scrounge for everything and live a lot more rugged. But we know the war is here. We got unfinished business.”

Where was McCain when the troops needed him? How can they trust him in the future?

McCain Broke the Law He Wrote

Oh, the hypocrisy:

McCain publicly declared that he would accept the matching funds (and therefore abide by the spending limits). But since he was broke, he had to go to a bank and secure a loan under dubious conditions. Since he appears to have secured the loan by using his eligibility to accept the federal matching funds, it seems fairly clear that he is committed to the federal matching funds system.

The DNC's complaint will allege the following. Fist, that McCain used his status as a candidate operating under the federal matching fund program to gain access on state ballots without having to spend any money to submit signatures....

That is a material gain from pledging to accept the matching funds. Another material gain from pledging to accept the matching funds is the ability to use his eligibility as collateral, which he did to secure his loan.

Finally, by receiving these material benefits from his pledge to enter the matching funds system, he is bound to abide by the spending limits. The matching funds program requires one to spend no more than approximately $57 million dollars for the entire campaign up until he officially becomes the nominee in September. Through January, he had already spent over $46 million.

Barbara Boxer on the Cutting Edge of Technology

Well, for politicians, at least. She's trying out a lot of things online:

A few weeks ago, I told you about two BarbaraBoxer.com social networking tools that have brought together members of our online community in a fun, engaging way.

Already, 5,000 of you have plotted yourself on our Supporter Map to show how far our community spans across the country and around the world -- and more than 11,000 of you have voted in our Issues Poll. (In case you're wondering, Global Warming leads with 25% of the vote as the #1 issue facing America today.)

With such a positive response to these first 2 widgets, we're launching a few more exciting social networking tools on our website -- which you can grab and embed on your own website, blog, or social networking page: Click here to visit our new Web 2.0 Widget page today!

Here's a quick overview of our newest Web 2.0 widgets:

Cozmo Video Player: Our new Cozmo widget allows you to easily watch different video clips we've posted, including a clip of Al Gore and me at an event together, my speech on global warming at the National Press Club, and a CNN news segment where I talk about climate change with Wolf Blitzer. You can even embed our Cozmo widget on your own website, where new videos will be posted automatically as we publish them!

Eventful: Through our Eventful widget, you can vote for me to visit your city for an event. As campaign season heats up, and as the Senate schedule allows, I'll do my best to schedule a visit. So be sure to vote for your city, and invite other friends to participate as well!

Bridgit: With our Bridgit widget, you can easily "bridge" yourself to my Facebook profile, MySpace page, and a host of other online communities that I'm now a part of. I'm hoping that you'll "friend" me on one or more of these sites that you frequent -- and if you ever forget how to get to one of my online profiles, you can always visit my Bridgit page to "bridge" yourself again.