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Sun Jun 29, 2008 at 00:15:51 AM PDT
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( - promoted by kid oakland)
Thirty-three states have U.S. Senate seats up for election in 2008. And anyone following the news over the last year-and-a-half has read about Senate Republicans filibustering anything and everything that moves, breaking the record for filibusters in a two-year Congressional session in less than one year!
It is critical that we expand our majority in the U.S. Senate to reduce this historic rate of Republican obstructionism, so that an Obama administration can proceed with an agenda that helps rather than hinders American progress. I have been following this on my blog, Senate Guru, very closely and have been pushing for us to expand the map of competitive Senate races.
To that end, I have established the Expand the Map! ActBlue page, raising much needed funds for Democratic Senate candidates in uphill but competitive (or very-close-to-competitive) Senate races. Every one of these Democratic Senate candidates who wins her or his race means one less Republican filibustering progressive legislation. And every one of these Democratic Senate candidates has a message that will resonate with voters - all they need are the resources to get their messages out to the electorate and prevent the Republican incumbents from muddying their records.
With Monday night being the deadline for the second fundraising quarter of 2008, it is critical that we get funds in to help these Democratic candidates show strength. So, please, please, please contribute if you can to any of the terrific candidates for Senate on the Expand the Map! ActBlue page. Even though these candidates don't represent your state, if elected, they will defeat the Republican obstructionism that very much impacts you and your state. |
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Thu Jun 26, 2008 at 10:37:25 AM PDT
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| I thought this group might be interested in an experiment that we are starting called RootsWire.Org.
RootsWire is dedicated to aggregating together grassroots blogs - both progressive political blogs, and place blogs. |
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Sun Jun 22, 2008 at 22:22:28 PM PDT
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( - promoted by kid oakland)
Early Friday afternoon, I called Senator Landrieu's office and spoke to a very nice young woman who answered the phone. I asked her where Senator Landrieu stood on the new FISA bill, upon which the House Democratic Leadership capitulated to the telecommunications industry, and the Bush Administration. That nice young lady told me that the staff was going through the provisions of the legislation, and would be advising the Senator. So I am posting this open letter, which I know will be read by her staff, and hopefully passed on to the Senator herself.
Dear Senator Landrieu:
I write to you today to ask that you vote NO on the latest FISA bill that will be in the Senate at some point next week. Not only am I asking you vote NO, I am asking you to filibuster this shredding of our 4th Amendment.
I understand that the current bill brings back the pre-Bush FISA regulations in quite a few ways, and in many ways is superior to the bill voted down by the House earlier this year. However, if there is a line in the sand to be drawn on this issue ... it is retroactive immunity.
More after the jump! |
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Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 19:35:50 PM PDT
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| Petricher at Loaded Orygun has produced a great set of tools for everyone who writes a blog or even just comments. By installing their search for John McCain button, you can easily convert any mention of McCain to a link to an important story that needs more visibility. A number of other related widgets are also available. |
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Mon Jun 09, 2008 at 20:28:10 PM PDT
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| Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress District FL-14, Larry Byrnes is challenging an unfair and undemocratic ruling that has kept him off the ballot for this August.
The Republican-controlled Florida Division of Elections (which you may remember from its recent appearance in the movie Recount) has determined that Byrnes will be a write-in candidate in August, defying the will of the people and the intent of the law. Laws like the one used to keep Byrnes off the ballot are meant to prevent voter fraud and to help ensure that the will of the people is reflected at election time.
On April 15, 2008, Byrnes received a letter telling him that he had qualified as a candidate in the upcoming election. They didn't tell him that he needed anything further. He later noticed that his name was not appearing on the elections website. He called the division and learned that he had not submitted a required notarized loyalty oath, which was required to be submitted the following day. He sent it by overnight courier and it arrived by the deadline. After the deadline, he was told that he had submitted the wrong loyalty oath. He had inadvertently signed the loyalty oath for a write-in candidate, not a Democrat. |
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Mon May 19, 2008 at 20:54:37 PM PDT
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| Wow, who knew that it would be so difficult to invite state-level bloggers to cover the Democratic National Convention? It started out well, with the DNC deciding to credential a blog for each state and territory and grant them unprecedented convention access. That's a brilliant idea and one that I doubt anybody could complain about (except maybe the traditional media). But it looks like there wasn't enough thought put into the process. Whether this was out of a lack of foresight or something else, I'm inclined to think the former, but that doesn't mean that there weren't mistakes made and that some of the decisions made were very questionable at best. |
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Wed May 14, 2008 at 10:42:04 AM PDT
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| DNC Chairman Howard Dean has announced the representatives for the 2008 Democratic National Convention's State Blogger Corps in Denver, Colorado this coming August.
"Similar to the record-breaking voter turnout our Party has seen during the primary season, the demand for these coveted blogger positions is yet another indicator of the tremendous interest in this historic Convention," said Governor Dean. "The Internet has played a critical role in connecting Americans to elected officials and candidates seeking office. The DemConvention State Blogger Corps will continue to foster this dialogue - in all 50 of our states and our territories too - as we head towards this year's historic election and elect a Democrat to the White House."
The selected blogs are listed below the fold. Congratulations to all of the citizen journalists that make up each site's writing team: |
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Mon May 05, 2008 at 22:36:19 PM PDT
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| This is the type of thing that state/local blogs can be particularly effective at leading efforts on...
As I mentioned on the radio show the other day, one of the things we're going to do is make sure that every prominent public official in Florida is on record as to where they stand in terms of the Hate Amendment, the latest proposal to ban gay marriage in Florida. Our job now is to find out where everyone stands on Amendment 2, including: |
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Fri Apr 25, 2008 at 06:18:06 AM PDT
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Wow. At first glance, that's all I can say about the comments from Pastor Hayes Wicker of Naples, Florida. Here's what he said at an anti-gay event last week:
This is a tremendous social crisis, greater even than the issue of slavery.
Wow. |
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Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 18:37:09 PM PDT
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| One day into our campaign to get our congressional challengers to sign on to the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, we've already had one victory. Samm Simpson has endorsed the plan. Knowing Samm, I figured this was an issue that was important to her and that she'd be eager to sign on. We should reward Samm for singing on, so go here and contribute what you can. Hey, I'm a poor adjunct professor/blogger and I was able to muster a few bucks. It's the least you can do. And it's important.
Those of us active in the Netroots and blogging (as well as the more traditional grassroots) need to make sure that we reward candidates who engage in responsible, progressive behavior. Endorsing the Responsible Plan is a great step in that direction. Florida now has seven challengers signed on to this plan (still the top state), and you should consider dropping them a few bucks if you can. It'll show them you appreciate their efforts and encourage others to do the same.
Which is why I'm posting this message. |
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Mon Mar 31, 2008 at 20:43:25 PM PDT
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Florida Progressive Coalition hereby endorses the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq.
Generally, we try to focus on state and local issues but we decided to go outside that for once. Why? A number of reasons: |
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Sun Feb 24, 2008 at 13:47:23 PM PST
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| I used to do search engine optimization (SEO) marketing for a living, and just recently started up consulting again. Not, as I always point out right up front, the URL misdirection and link spam kind. No. The kind where you create human-readable content geared towards providing the information your audience is looking for.
I got started in 2001, worked at it part-time to pay for my first couple years of undergrad, and quit in 2005 to go back to school full time. I started blogging in 2002, and at some point, I realized that all the hard-won markers of success for my clients' web sites came to me easily on my own blog, even if it wasn't getting blogger A List traffic. No one can ever tell me that there isn't value in what we do, even if few of us get paid for it.
In a way, this post has been six and a bit years in the writing. (Has it really been that long? Oh. Well.) I wasn't sure if there'd be an audience for this topic in the political blogosphere before, but considering the frustration I've been hearing from so many bloggers about what seems to be a plateau in traffic that once grew with regularity, we may have reached the limits of natural audience growth. So maybe it's time for something more. |
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Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 13:58:58 PM PST
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| Two interesting districts to target online are:
1. Indiana 7, where Republican Jon Elrod was caught in unethical campaign practices.
2. Illinois 14, where Republican Jim Oberweis was fined by the FEC for breaking the law.
These guys may not be as famous as John McCain, but they also need to be defeated. By adding appropriate links, you can help citizens in their districts find the articles that are most useful to them. |
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Tue Jan 29, 2008 at 08:06:58 AM PST
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| The 2008 Florida Democratic Primary is the first "virtual primary" in U.S. history.
It is a unique event in American history, where technology and people power are being used to determine not only who Floridians favor as the Democratic nominee, but today's primary also will play a key role in determining the next president of the United States.
Last year, the Democratic presidential contenders signed a pledge not to campaign in Florida before the primary to punish Florida for violating Democratic National Committee rules and moving the vote in advance of the February 5 barrier set up in 2006. |
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