It's never over until it's over

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Monday January 25, 2010 · 8:36 PM PST

2010/01/25 · 20:36

To put it another way, we won big in 2008. But that doesn't mean it's over. The problem the Democrats and the Liberal base has bumped into is that there has been a period in the last 12 months where things got soft and simple-minded. The GOP loss in 2008 has made them crazy. But they're in the mode of thinking - let's throw any crap against the wall and see what sticks ie. incubator / start - up mode.

We're in Hubris mode. I know it's the 3rd rail of Senate politics, but why Harry Reid ? Why oh why? Where's our new lion of the Senate? And, where has Biden been?
Wasn't he supposed to help our causes in the Senate??
The battle wasn't won in November 2008. It was just begun!

orleansd

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Tuesday December 01, 2009 · 11:27 AM PST

2009/12/01 · 11:27

Afganistan is so very different from the two other wars that have become the definition of corruption, mismanagement and failure - Vietnam and Iraq.

Iraq was blood for oil, a rush to war without giving due credence to the UN WMD inspectors, a personal vendetta from a 95 I.Q. war mongering President and his evil Vice President, etc.

Vietnam was a product of the Cold War, where it became the front for what was basically a functional World War III.

Afganistan has no signficant oil reserves.
The 20th century cold war between East and West is over.

So the paradigm has shifted. The comparisons do not apply.

So that begs the question - Why turn up the volume on our involvement in Afganistan?

Answer: Terrorism, drug running and arms trade. We need to contain those where we can. With more troops, we can have a positive effect here. Yes we can. Or at least it's worth waiting more time and giving Obama more of a chance to see what happens...

This is still Bush's mess. This is still a smaller effort in terms of troop levels than Vietnam or Iraq.

Poll

77 votes Show Results

How long will you give Obama on Afganistan before you make up your mind about the effect?

77 votes Vote Now!

How long will you give Obama on Afganistan before you make up your mind about the effect?

6 months

1 vote

1 year

13 votes

2 years

10 votes

3 years

7 votes

Already made up my mind - it's a failure

43 votes

Already made up my mind - it's going to be a success

3 votes

Yes They Can

orleansd

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Saturday June 20, 2009 · 11:15 PM PDT

2009/06/20 · 23:15

Iran is in the middle of a tidal change in their society. Folks are debating whether it's Tienamen Sq. or Iran 1979, or something else.

I think it's most similar to the US in September and October of 2008. Millions of donors, giving $10, $20, $50 for the first time in their lives to the most grass roots political campaign anywhere in modern history voted in the polar opposite of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. We went from an idiot, legacy arch conservative to a self-made pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps African American named Barack Hussein Obama.

Our revolution was non-violent, elegant, dignified, civil. But make no mistake, it was the functional equivalent of a revolution.

orleansd

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Wednesday June 17, 2009 · 8:41 PM PDT

2009/06/17 · 20:41

It will be blogged and Twittered and Facebooked and MySpaced. It will be blackberried and iPhoned and texted on millions of devices. The difference between today and previous periods of uprising is that information can get out to many, many people in a very short period of time. Information about fraud, corruption, destruction, hypocrisy... On one scale that's what happened in 2008, when Obama organized the best grass roots campaign in modern history. The old playbook of swing state focused, TV ad, politics switched to blogs, facebook and myspace. Information was dispersed faster and events were organized with better efficiency and probably better accuracy than ever before. On a very different scale and a much more potentially dangerous yet also revolutionary one, the events in Iran over the past few days are ruled not by state propaganda or TV etc., but by the technology of Twitter and texting that's mobilizing thousands, hundreds of thousands, to non-violent protest and community organizing.

orleansd

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Wednesday June 03, 2009 · 9:40 AM PDT

2009/06/03 · 09:40

Can you imagine George W. Bush speaking in Cairo? Can you imagine? It wouldn't have happened. It couldn't have.

Sure it's going to be a flowery speech, low on substance, high on rhetoric. Sure it's going to be mostly pomp and circumstance. Will anything immediate or direct come of it. ... No.

But, but, but - the fact that he has an attentive audience, the fact that this isn't just academic, but the voice of a new generation in American politics, a new name in American politics (not Bush or Clinton), a nearly post-Iraq war presence in American politics is important. Very important. This speech lays groundwork. It's a foundation.

orleansd

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Thursday March 05, 2009 · 8:23 PM PST

2009/03/05 · 20:23

In the latest attempt to seem relevant - the hail mary pass. They can't seem to come up with any ideas so they're causing a delay in the budget vote - forcing a stop gap measure so that the government doesn't shut down. Nothing says, I support the American people like threatening to shut down the government when the economy is tanking, the people are cheering the new administration's efforts at stimulus and on health care, etc. etc.

They're killing it with that 20% to 25% that will vote with them from hell to high water, but for the rest of the 75% to 80% of us that want things to keep moving forward - please old, tired GOP - GET OUT OF OUR WAY

orleansd

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Saturday February 21, 2009 · 10:09 PM PST

2009/02/21 · 22:09

We're in the alternative universe we all ......dreamed about....... A Democrat in the White House named Barack Hussein Obama, once rated one of the most liberal members of Congress. Nancy Pelosi, a woman, is speaker of the House and Congress is heavily Democratic. Young, progressives believed in a better day, and from Facebook to the daily paper, cynics and staunch Republicans lost and the Future won.........Won a war that shouldn't have been waged, the worst economy in 70 years and a broken system in dire need of fixing from Wall Street to Main Street. The banks are zombies of their former selves. AIG, once the world's biggest and most respected insurance company is a shadow of it's former self. Hell, Warren Buffet's losing money. A correction on the grandest scale. But let's get some perspective.

orleansd

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Saturday February 14, 2009 · 4:57 PM PST

2009/02/14 · 16:57

Judgment comes in waves
It ebbs and flows and the tide rises high
The crash and the foam and the undertow
Treacherous, but beautiful, surfing to shore
above the sharks and jellyfish.

Skies clear and staunch silliness evaporates
with the growing warm winds and breezes
blowing away the messy, fuzzy dark tempest
clearing and cleaning space for a new better
set of angels, a new careful, thoughtful

set of ideas

orleansd

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday January 26, 2009 · 11:20 AM PST

2009/01/26 · 11:20

Obama will have the votes to get his legislation passed. We have a huge majority in the House and a good enough majority in the Senate. I'd love to see a filabuster in the Senate on the stimulus package because it would put nails in the coffin for the GOP. Obama's enjoying a 70% plus approval rating. He has the best economic team assembled in decades. Job creation is better than tax cuts and everyone know it. Jobs mean that a person can pay his or her bills, buy new things, save for the future, etc. Tax cuts don't guarantee anything about how that money will be spent. If it's all put in folks proverbial matresses to ride out this rainy day, it won't do a thing to stimulate lending and get the engines of the economy moving again. And anyway - we have the votes to get the package passed. It can either be by a small margin or a large one, but it will pass.

orleansd

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Thursday January 22, 2009 · 10:41 PM PST

2009/01/22 · 22:41

George W Bush, Bill Frist, Tom Delay..................

What a difference an election makes!

Do you think their side cringes at Obama, Reid and Pelosi like we cringe at their freakshow trios past?

orleansd

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday January 05, 2009 · 8:56 PM PST

2009/01/05 · 20:56

Isn't it interesting that folks in Ramallah aren't bombing Israelis.

Isn't it interesting that folks in Southern Lebanon aren't bombing Israelis.

Isn't it interesting that Iran, Syria and various others that refuse to recognize the right of Israel to exist aren't bombing Israel.

But punk Hamas militants in Gaza have been firing rockets at Israel for weeks and months, causing bodily injury and property damage throughout Southern Israel.

And, under Sharon, a hawk, Israel withdrew from Gaza.
... and what happened. Decay, unemployment, religious fanaticism...filled Gaza.

What happened....? Why does this tiny sliver of a society feel so abandoned that they resort to violence, smuggling, underground tunnels and stashes of very dangerous weapons... ??

orleansd

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday December 21, 2008 · 8:14 PM PST

2008/12/21 · 20:14

About 6 million votes - that's the estimate the GLBT community offered Obama in the November election. With the Warren controversy, it's likely he'll lose about half of those votes, maybe more if the kids are paying attention. But what are those 3+ million going to do in 2012? Vote for the Republican that gets nominated? No, they're not. Unless the Republican comes out for GLBT rights - a policy platform that's toxic to any GOP contender. The GOP contender will have to go kiss Warren's ring to get nominated. The GLBT community won't vote for such a candidate.
If anything, they'll stay home.. But Obama won't lose them to the GOP.

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