As if that were possible. Molly Ivins was one of the rare political writers who could make you laugh at the same time you were being skewered... or so Bill Clinton once said.  

My local paper claims to be "fair and balanced" but then so does Fox News. They run David Broder (gag), George Wills, Thomas Sowell (double gag) and the unspeakably hateful Michelle Malkin. Occasionally we see Ellen Goodman, but now that Molly's regular Wednesday space is empty we need someone to hold up the left end of the paper every week.

In a radio interview Tuesday, US Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that US interrogators have used a controversial technique know as waterboarding to interrogate senior Al Qaeda suspects.  The interview was done by talk show host Scott Hennen of WDAY Radio in Fargo, N.D.

Although later back-pedalling comments from his staff try to pretend he wasn't really saying what he said, Cheney says he doesn't see waterboarding as torture, and that the use of it was "a no-brainer" for him.   Follow me below the fold for the transcript from the White House website:

Story just up on the New York Times website "Rice Received Qaeda Warning Before 9/11".

Seems that Condi does lie. Surprise surprise!

Money quote below the fold.

At noon PDT (now) the topic of Talk of the Nation is Net Neutrality. Tim Berners-Lee is a guest. You can call or email in. email: totn@npr.org

Taking inspiration from Maura in VA's visit to a Lieberman event, I've decided to make it a point to attend Republican town halls and fundraisers in my county whenever possible to ask the questions that they don't want to answer. I know I won't change Republican hearts and minds, but the press is usually there, and if the questions are good enough and the candidate's answers devious enough it will make the local paper.

Last night I crashed a fundraiser for ex-Safeco CEO Mike McGavick, who is hoping to unseat Senator Maria Cantwell.  This morning I'm in the newspaper. The reporter was not kind to McGavick...

I spent seven hours at our party convention in Clark County WA (suburb of Portland OR) yesterday as a precinct officer and precinct delegate.  It was the best in memory for a lot of reasons, which I'll describe below the fold.

But as Democratic ACTIVISTS (we DO get out of our pajamas, don't we???) we should be curious about what happened at County Conventions around the country, because those are what feed delegates and resolutions to the state and national conventions.  So, after I share the Clark County report, feel free to add yours in the comments.

Christianity's reputation suffers another low blow. The so-called "painter of light" (gag) Thomas Kinkade, who creates those treacly idealized city and countryscapes that are sold for ridiculous sums in many malls across America, is in trouble.

He not only pretends to be an artist (IMHO), he also pretends to be a Christian. Sounds like he's a greedy crook instead.

Excerpts from the sordid story follow below the fold:

Just read this shocking figure in the Seattle Times (an LA Times story. I can only begin to imagine what could be done  with an expenditure of a hundred thousand dollars a minute! on a project like universal health care or renewable energy sources or, or, or.

More details on the administration's BS about how the war wouldn't cost much and wouldn't last long in an excellent earlier post from pdq here but his/her story was buried so far down in the post that I was afraid folks wouldn't get to the details.

Some clips below.

Toastmasters??  That's so last century, you say...so middle America. But consider this:

Toastmasters, which has trained 4 million speakers all over the world since 1924, has a great deal to offer those of us who wish to get better at articulating our progressive values in the public square. Last summer a fellow Dem and I started a new TM club in Vancouver, WA (suburb of Portland, OR) Progressive Voices Toastmasters. Several of our local candidates and precinct officers are members and they've found it invaluable. Now we'd like to see other clubs get started around the country.

If John Kerry is any example of how candidates express themselves, heaven help us! Furthermore, the radical right is gearing up: at evangelical colleges they're getting their student debaters ready for what Jerry Falwell calls
"assault ministry" --   More below the fold:
 

This was the title of an op-ed piece by Marc Hetherington picked up today by my local paper (sorry, no link). Hetherington is a professor of PoliSci at Vanderbilt and wrote Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism last year.

His thesis in a nutshell is that liberal policies are only appealing to the public when the public trusts government. He says that even though government distrust is high right now and is directed at a Republican administration, most Americans will not embrace liberal programs because too few trust the entire delivery system. If liberals turn the party to the left, they will be throwing Republicans a life preserver forever.

I'm just the messenger, and a very liberal one at that, so don't shoot me. Some quotes that support his thesis below the fold.

Americans are no longer who we progressives would like to think we are, and Democratics are trying to speak to a "base" that has become an obsolete fiction. At least that is the conclusion of an extremely important new study by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, summarized in an American Prospect article, "ReMapping the Cultural Debate".

Nordhaus and Shellenberger are part of the market research firm Environics, which studies consumer behavior in minute detail. Their goal was to seek trends and patterns in the data Environics had collected since 1992 in order to challenge progressive orthodoxies and shake up our strategists and strategies. All this in the hopes the information will keep us from hurling ourselves yet again over the cliff.

Their data contradicts much conventional progressive wisdom and this article is a must read. I'll get to why Tim Kaine was chosen to respond to the SOTU after some clips...

When it comes to the political rant, few can do it as well as Garrison Keillor. You get to laugh at the same time you're lifting your fist with him. To cheer you on this holiday weekend let me give you three samples.

First there was his extended anti-Republican rant around the time of the elections - here's my favorite part:

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, ...

Follow him below the fold...

I've been hanging out on DailyKos for several months and feel as at home here as I do at my Unitarian Universalist congregation. Smart people debating issues that matter, progressive thinkers who don't always agree but are open to listening to each other (usually respectfully), a community of people I've come to care about.

Today, geekesque's post about Senator Kent Conrad evolved into  an extended discussion about Unitarian Universalism http://www.dailykos.com/...
 and I was pleasantly surprised by how many UUs came out of the woodwork.

So now I'm curious. Are you UU? Take the poll.

Journalist Stephen Pizzo writing on his blog, NewsForReal, gives us much to hope for. He suggests that the civil suit currently being planned by Valerie Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson, could put the nails in the Bush administration's coffin--nails that Fitzgerald's criminal action may not be able to hammer home.

Some excerpts from his article follow the fold.

For those of you who were unwilling to become part of the NYTimes "pay per view" for opinion pieces, you are missing a priceless David Brooks column.

He must be feeling totally betrayed by Bush because he tears into Harriet Miers' capabilities with astonishing ferocity.

Follow me for a delicious excerpt after the fold:

Like all good progressives, I believe firmly in my responsibility to pay my share of the costs of running this country for the good of all. However, as I watch the Bush administration spend our money for an illegal war in Iraq, sweetheart deals with  Halliburton in New Orelans, and their salivation over "investor opportunities" during the reconstruction (just for starters), I no longer want to give them my money.

I remember that during the Vietnam War some who were  conscientious objectors refused to pay that portion of their taxes that went to the military. I know that currently the National for a Peace Tax Fund (http://www.peacetaxfund.org) is trying to pass a bill to make it possible to shunt their taxes toward a peace fund without getting thrown in jail.

Could we do something similar in protest of the reckless way this administration is spending our money?

Thomas Friedman's column in today's NYT focuses on the US's woeful standing (16th) in the world of broadband connectivity. A Democratic candidate in NYC, Andrew Rasiej, wants to change that - at least in NY. Among other things he notes that the party that knows how to use the latest technology usually wins.

Imbedded in Senator Feingold's commentary on the energy bill was this statement:

"...one thing that happened to the bill in the conference committee was particularly startling to me today.  A provision was tucked into the 1,700 page energy bill conference report..."

There is something terribly wrong when we expect our elected officials to be able to read through 1700 pages of fine print (some of which is stuck in at the last instant)with hundredes of sections and sub-sections (some of which have NOTHING to do with the legislation's focus) and be able to vote in good conscience for OR against the bill. And consider they have several such bills on their plates at any given moment.

And then there's the matter of timing. I remember calling my Rep the day before the bankruptcy bill came up for a vote. When I asked the aide how my rep planned to vote on it, the aide said, "He hasn't seen it yet."

This is not a democracy. Can anything be done?