That’s it, ladies and gentlemen. It’s time. We’ve money bombed for candidates, we’ve money bombed for causes, and now it’s time for the DKos community to drop several thousand dollars on the Blue America PAC vs Retroactive Immunity.

The House has already voted, but we need to show the Senate and other politicians how unpleasant life is going to be for those who either support or passively allow Telco Immunity to go through in this bill (and, alternatively, how much we would shower our affections on those who support us in our hour of need).

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I am a Democrat. I am an enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama, and was a major fan of and supporter of Chris Dodd's efforts to derail FISA phone-company protection legislation. I have over 2500 comments on DKos going back several years. I am certainly not a recent "McCainiac" troll or community agitator. I do not believe my credentials should be in doubt here.

I am in doubt as to whether Chris Dodd should keep his Banking Committee chairmanship in the light of his involvement in the recent Countrywide influence-peddling scandal and alleged violations of Senate Ethics rules. I could be convinced either way.

I love Chris Dodd and I know this community has a lot of support for him, and for good reason. But this issue needs to be investigated.

Very interesting and unfortunate if true tidbit from Colin Powell in his interview on Meet the Press this morning:

MR. RUSSERT:  Before you go, Newsweek magazine reports that Senator Barack Obama has sought you out for your advice on foreign policy.  True?

GEN. POWELL:  True.  I’ve met with Senator Obama twice.  I’ve been around this town a long time, and I know everybody who is running for office, and I make myself available to talk about foreign policy matters and military matters with whoever wishes to chat with me.

This is a letter to my friends in Rhode Island about the upcoming RI Senate election. I wrote this myself: it's not a form letter or anything I copied off a web site. I don't have any kind of special agenda here, merely the hope that at the end of this letter, you'll be more likely to vote for Sheldon Whitehouse, and less likely to vote for Linc Chafee.

The biggest "problem" that I think are perceived with the Democrats is that they don't "stand" for anything. I think that the Democrats desperately need a "Contract with America", although a lot of it will take some salesmanship and we need to make sure we put this into Democratic frames instead of Republican frames. In this diary, I'm describing what I think needs to be done, and am leaving the question of how to sell it to other people. This list is not all inclusive, just some items I think we need.

In my opinion, the primary problem facing America in the early 21st century is the oil problem. It suffuses all we do, so my thought is to create a plan that includes energy policy as a centerpiece, both as a national security and an economic security issue.

This plan is my own plan. Most of these items are stuff that the government is going to have to move on initially. Hopefully, the government can work out some public/private partnership deals and try to offload some of this onto the private sector once the plan gets moving. This plan is hardly exhaustive: it's more a list of ideas than a fix-all solution.

Jim Kunstler has the following to say about the recent uptick in oil prices:

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a roundtable discussion (in the Book Review) between three prominent young "liberal" intellectuals (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Michael Tomasky, and Peter Beinhart) about what the Democratic Left can do to reclaim its place as a credible opposition. None of these hotshots mentioned the fact that the nation faces a defining crisis over our energy supplies. I don't think the word "oil" was even mentioned by this clueless trio. They have no idea what kind of convulsion we are heading into.

     Somebody ought to bring this to the Democrat's attention. America has a problem bigger than social security, or the price of prescription drugs, or gay marriage. America is heading into a situation in which it will no longer have an economy. The Republicans at least have an excuse for their willful blindness -- they've already taken the position that the life of extreme car-dependency and everything it implies is not negotiable. They are committed to defending that position, no matter how foolish it may be.