We Never Cease to Amaze Me: A Plea

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Monday February 28, 2005 · 5:26 PM PST

2005/02/28 · 17:26

I remember back when I first broached the subject of Howard Dean for DNC chair with my (quasi-liberal) friends. They were shocked. Thought I was kidding. Then they laughed. "DEAN for DNC chair? Dean the Scream? You're kidding, right? You think the answer to this mess of an election is Dean?" Here we are a few months later, and it's a done deal. Not only was it a done deal, it wasn't even close. I'm pretty sure that we had something to do with it.

The election. What started off as buzz and whispers of voting fraud/irregularities in Ohio turned into a cause that won of the support of several congressional reps. Heck, we even convinced a Senator to challenge Ohio's electoral vote--something that had been done in about a billion years---and something that everyone said we could never do. I remember staying up late, barely awake, writing letters and emails about the election, even when everyone (except all of you) thought it was a lost cause. We forced the issue into the national spotlight. Keith Olbermann covered the story nightly, in large part due to information and support from the blogosphere. Read More

Why Acting Like REAL Dems Sways Red Voters

chicagojulie

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Monday January 24, 2005 · 4:35 PM PST

2005/01/24 · 16:35

I've mentionned my dad on here several times before, mostly as an example of the "old guard" Republicans. He's a Navy vet, but was a huge fan of both JFK and Bobby Kennedy back in his youth. He admires people like Colin Powell and George H.W. Bush (though he thought he stank as a President--too out of touch with regular people). To him, being a Republican stands for fiscal responsibility, environmental conservation, less government intrusion into his own life. He's not anti-welfare or public aid for the poor, but he would prefer to see the dollars put into programs to help the poor break the cycle of poverty, rather than just giving them "hand outs," as he calls them. He believes in a strong national defense, I suspect as a result of the "duck and cover" drills he had to do as a kid growing up in Chicago. He wants America to be the leader of the free world, but doesn't want us to alienate everybody else in the process.

In short, my dad is not that big a fan of Shrub's. Read More

Ha! Success! Chicago Trib Finally Prints My LTE!!!!

chicagojulie

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Monday November 29, 2004 · 10:49 AM PST

2004/11/29 · 10:49

By now, I was sure that the editorial staff at the Chicago Tribune had a "wall of shame," dedicated to those of us on the left who had no chance of getting their letters to the editors published. I was sure that every letter I had ever written them (re: bush, iraq, the election, the first amendment) was languishing there, never to see the light of day.

Last week in Sunday's trib, this idiot wrote a letter to the editor about the media coverage of Iraq, saying that it was "selling out our soldiers," and that the military needed to keep the media there "on a short leash." I was so enraged, I sat down and banged out yet another letter. Read More

Calling OH and FL Kossacks

chicagojulie

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Monday November 29, 2004 · 10:39 AM PST

2004/11/29 · 10:39

I'm not sure that a diary is the proper forum for this, maybe I should have posted this on an open thread, but, if so, I'm SURE someone will be more than willing to let me know.

I have a question for those of you in OH and FL: What are you hearing in the news about the election mess (other than from KO, I mean)? Because I'm on this site every day and hearing all these discussions about the election, I think that I'm being lulled into a false sense of security that the wheels are in motion in both states as far a figuring out what went wrong. Read More

Bill Frist's Outrage at Spending Bill

chicagojulie

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Sunday November 21, 2004 · 3:02 PM PST

2004/11/21 · 15:02

Although CNN still manages to make the Rethugs look like the party of truth, justice, and the American way. But at least the public will get some idea of the crap this party pulls when they think people aren't listening:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday that "accountability will be carried out" against whoever slipped a provision into an omnibus spending bill that would have allowed two committee chairman to view the tax returns of any American.

The language was caught and removed in the Senate on Saturday, but the House will have to approve the fix before the spending bill can be sent to the White House for President Bush's signature.

"I have no earthly idea how it got in there," Frist said on CBS's "Face The Nation." "Nobody is going to defend this."

chicagojulie

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Sunday November 21, 2004 · 2:03 PM PST

2004/11/21 · 14:03

I don't know why I keep sending these things, they never publish them.

This is the letter that I was responding to:

Northbrook -- I can't imagine that any of our soldiers consider it an honor or privilege to be fighting in Fallujah, but then to have the news footage of an apparent execution by a U.S. Marine of an Iraqi shown on TV is nothing more than the news media undermining their efforts and selling them out. These images breed hatred and resentment toward U.S. troops, will keep them there longer and makes their job that much more deadly.

I suggest that if the journalists working in Iraq can't conduct themselves more responsibly, the U.S. military should put them on a short leash.

chicagojulie

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Friday November 19, 2004 · 5:14 PM PST

2004/11/19 · 17:14

Egad. Found this today on Salon.com's War Room, by :

Any doubts that may have lingered about Alberto R. Gonzales' chances of being confirmed as President Bush's next attorney general were put to rest this morning, when Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the New York Times that Democrats will not oppose the move. Critics had raised questions about the legal advice Gonzales had given the White House regarding the use of Guantánamo Bay, and his suggestions that the facility was outside the reach of U.S. courts and the rule of law. That's a finding more and more judges find plainly flawed. Gonzales was also at the center of the White House's post-9/11 legal strategy that the Geneva Conventions were "obsolete" and "quaint."

chicagojulie

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Thursday November 11, 2004 · 12:30 PM PST

2004/11/11 · 12:30

Every day, more and more stories of voting problems in OH, FL, NC, and NH trickle in. Urban voters in OH had to wait in line for 12 hours in some places simply to take advantage of their constitutional right to cast a ballot. Marines are being killed left in right in Fallujah, where all the "insurgents" (I would call them fed-up Iraqi citizens) seem to have simply picked up and left.

The man the President of the United States has appointed to the Office of the Attorney General believes that the US has the right to disregard major portions of the Geneva Convention. The President's choice to head up the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee believes that women should find relief for PMS through praying and reading the Bible. Arlen Specter (remember when he used to be part of the FAR right?) is catching hell from the Born-Again Right for suggesting that the Senate Judiciary Committee will be hard-pressed to confirm any Supreme Court Justice with an eye to overturning Roe v. Wade. Read More

My Letter to John Kass of the Chicago Tribune

chicagojulie

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Sunday November 07, 2004 · 9:33 AM PST

2004/11/07 · 09:33

For what it's worth, I take issue with your recent column stating that liberals are not interested in "learning" about the moral values of the red states. It's not that I don't understand their values or that I don't want to learn about them. . . I just don't agree with them.

I take strong issue with the increasingly blurred line between church and state in this country. That's one of my values. All these red staters who want prayer in schools and the Ten Commandments on the statehouse steps need to ask themselves how they would feel if the President signed off every public address with "Allah Bless America." My guess is that they would all have a collective heart attack. They don't get to dictate a national religion just because they are in the majority. The separation between church and state was enacted by our founding fathers because they understood what it meant to be in the religious minority. If those living in the red states would study the Constitution the way that they study NASCAR events, they might have a better understanding of the issue. Read More

RSS

We Never Cease to Amaze Me: A Plea

Why Acting Like REAL Dems Sways Red Voters

Ha! Success! Chicago Trib Finally Prints My LTE!!!!

Calling OH and FL Kossacks

Bill Frist's Outrage at Spending Bill

Yet Another Letter to the Tribune

Senate Dems To Clear Way for Gonzales

My disgust with the media grows

My Letter to John Kass of the Chicago Tribune