Kevin Shaw's blog

The struggle for the soul of the Democratic party is nothing new. It's been contested for over forty years. Eric Rauchway in The New Republic debunks a notion recently put forward by Tom Brokaw on a History Channel program that the FDR coalition and by extension, the Democratic Party, was broken by supporters of left-wing causes and hippes protesting the Vietnam war. He explains that the real split in the Democratic Party was over race.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, started a ruckus in the Senate yesterday by referring to the Senate Republicans as "Bush's 49 puppets." He was referring to the continual roadblocks the Republican minority throws up to prevent floor consideration or voting on almost anything calling it "filibuster on steroids."

Our own Arlen Specter was not about to take that lying down and questioned Reid's ability to lead the Senate majority. He accused Reid of violating Senate Rule XIX that states “No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

Well, once everybody's tempers cooled, the Senate got back to business. The first order of business was the long overdue budget bill regarding transportation and housing.

Guess what...the Republicans objected to bringing it to a vote. Guess who stood up to voice the objection...our own Arlen Specter.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to see the irony in this.

Well, OK, so maybe the murder of hundreds of thousands isn't a reasonable case for impeachment, but maybe grand larceny is. Our penalties for crimes against property have always been more harsh than those for crimes against persons .

In The Great Iraq Swindle Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi reports on how President George W. Bush-appointed contractors in Iraq are exploiting American tax payers.

Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam ­Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient.

Much has been written about the incompetence and ineptitude of Our Dear Leader. It seems, though, that he does exhibit extraordinary skill in one area of expertise: Killing people from a safe distance. In "The War Criminal in the Living Room " Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, writing on Antiwar.com warns that Bush seems intent on continuing to practice this dark art.

Bush is too self-righteous to see the dark humor in his denunciations of Iran for threatening 'the security of nations everywhere' and of the Iraqi resistance for 'a vision that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women, and children in the pursuit of political power'. Those are precisely the words that most of the world applies to Bush and his Brownshirt administration.

"...We have people up there in Congress with the brain of a 2-year-old who don’t know what they are doing, they don’t experience it. I challenge the president or anyone who has us for 15 months to ride alongside me. I’ll do another 15 months if he comes out here and rides alomg with me every day. I’ll do 15 more months. They don’t even have to pay me extra." -- Spc. Gabriel Vassell, 2nd Platoon Apache Company

The Guardian's award-winning photographer and filmmaker Sean Smith spent two months embedded with US troops in Baghdad and Anbar province. His harrowing documentary exposes the exhaustion and disillusionment of the soldiers.

Click to view portions of Smith's documentary, "Inside the Surge"

Maybe! If the company you work for has taken out a secret insurance policy on your life.

Liz Pulliam Weston writes on MSN Money that many large corporations take out "Janitor Policies" on rank and file workers with the intent of reaping a tax-free windfall when they die.

And, there's an interesting local tie-in...

Most states also have advise and consent laws that technically require companies to get workers permission before buying life insurance on them. But attorney Myers said many businesses circumvent these laws by purchasing the insurance in one of the states that doesnt require notice or consent, including Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

You should also note that PA has no ceiling on health insurance premiums, either.

We've all heard a lot of talk about the "Red 'T'" in Pennsylvania over the years. Subtract the "Blue" areas, Philly and Pittsburgh, from PA and you're left with a vague "T" shape.

Well maybe that's not an accurate depiction after all.

The Center for American Progress and Free Press today released the first-of-its-kind statistical analysis of the political make-up of talk radio in the United States. It confirms that talk radio, one of the most widely used media formats in America, is dominated almost exclusively by conservatives.

Check out Philly talk radio:

Absolutely ZERO progressive or liberal voices being heard in the fifth largest market in the country. Hell, even Harrisburg gets United for Progress (thanks, Don). So the next time someone starts kvetching about the liberal media ,you can point to Philadelphia and say, "Not in my town!!"

Before you get all huffy about your liberal creds out Pittsburgh way, note that the same study reflects that KDKA (CBS owned) broadcasts 9 hours per day of conservative talk and 0 (yes, that's ZERO, not a letter "O") hours of progressive programming. And, WTZN (interestingly, also CBS owned) boasts 3 hours of conservative yammering and another zero hours of liberal chatter.

So, there you are. No "T", it's ALL red on the radio. I guess that's why they put those flashing RED lights on the transmitters.

John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism, writes in The Nation:

The Nation - (click to read entire article) -- The campaign to impeach Alberto Gonzales -- organized by Democracy for America and filmmaker Robert "Outfoxed" Greenwald's Brave New Films crew under the slogan "President Bush won't fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales... but YOU can!" -- is keeping the heat on the Bush administration's most scandal-plagued appointee. At a time when the drive-by media is playing the president's game by turning its attention away from the constant -- and increasingly dramatic -- revelations of high crimes and misdemeanors on the attorney general's part, this sort of citizen activism becomes all the more essential.

More than 77,000 Americans have signed onto the campaign's online petition, which declares: "We, The Undersigned, urge the House Judiciary Committee to begin the process of impeachment of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in accordance with Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution,

It depends on what you want to make out of it. In places as disparate as California and Iowa, DFA is strong and growing. Here's an article from John Deeth , a blogger in Iowa, about how DFA is changing the political landscape there:

DFA's Role in Democratic Party Evolving

An organization growing out of a defeated presidential campaign might have seemed likely for a quick fizzle. Yet in the three-plus years since Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, Democracy For America -- originally Dean For America -- has flourished. DFA played the lead role in organizing Saturday’s Progressive Iowa Network (PIN) conference in Iowa City.

Still, with Howard Dean now the head of the Democratic Party, could that DFA activism be channeled into the formal Democratic Party structure? Or has it been?

I discussed the role of DFA within, and without, the official Democratic Party structure with several activists at Saturday’s PIN meeting.

The roots of the DFA phenomenon date back to mid-2003. Supporters of Dean, then an asterisk in the polls, used the then-popular online tool Meetup to find other local Dean supporters and arrange simultaneous meetings across the country. Rapidly, the first Wednesday of the month became Dean Meetup Night as Dean moved from nowhere to front-runner. The specific tools changed, as Meetup changed from a free service to a site requiring payment and then quickly fell from favor. But by that time DFA had established both its own online tools and itself as an organization.

There are some technical and legal differences between DFA and a political party, say Dennis and Robin Roseman. They’re co-chairs of Johnson County DFA and also active in the local Democratic Party. “DFA nationally can do some things that the Dems can't do. For example, DFA can appeal to no-party voters and other-party voters on behalf of candidates or issues without recruiting for the Dems. Johnson County DFA has lobbied Sen. Grassley and ex-congressman Leach by visiting their offices. Elected Republicans would be unlikely to schedule visits from the Democratic Party.”

Dennis Kucinich chose DemocracyFest in Manchester, NH to announce his withdrawal of support for the Holt election reform bill. Congressman Kucinich made the announcement via telephone link to the annual gathering of supporters of Governor Howard Dean.

Watch for more photos, video and reports on the very exciting weekeknd, attended by yours truly and several other Deaniacs from Pennsylvania. That will have to wait until I get caught up on my sleep, however!

Click the "read more" link to read the official press release.