We need to march on the capital.

We need to start by showing the Republicans that, though they won, we are not afraid.

We need to show them that 48 percent of America is watching and waiting to hold them accountable. They bought it and they're breaking it. We need to present them with the bill.

We need to show the media that 51 percent is not a landslide and not a mandate.

So while watching something last night before the debate, I saw the damnedest thing.

The RCCC is running an attack ad against Melissa Bean, who has Phil Crane on the ropes in the Illinois 8th Cong.

It gave me a smile.

Sorry if this is a repeat, but a quick search turned up nothing.

Our Imperial Leader is sitting down with Larry King for the full hour tonight. Wouldn't have even noticed it if Kerry's campaign hadn't pointed it out.

Presumably he'll be taking calls. We cannot allow him to get the same kind of questions he's been getting at his Q&As. Things like "Can I take my picture with you?" and "Would you describe yourself as the greatest American ever, or only second to George Washington?"

An interesting recollection of the day Nixon resigned from Elisabeth Donovan, then researcher at the WaPo and now research editor at the Miami Herald.

I found the stuff about typesetting and plate-making fascinating. But then, I am and always will be a newspaper and printing geek.

You might find more interesting her speculation that blogs will report out the next Watergate. I'm not sure she's right, but I have almost run out of reasons to think she's wrong.

I've seen a few diaries using Drudge and the Illinois Leader to confirm Alan Keyes is the next Republican Senate candidate in Illinois.

Not quite yet, though.

According to the Sun-Times (just slightly left of Drudge and the Leader):

Illinois Republican leaders asked Alan Keyes, an East Coast conservative who says out-of-state candidates aren't a good idea on principle, to be their U.S. Senate candidate Wednesday. But like a string of previous possibilities, Keyes said he needed a few days to think about it before deciding.

There's typically an ebb and flow of diaries and comments discussing a possible Qaeda attack in September or October, which is to be expected.

Also to be expected I guess is the speculation on who it will help--Kerry or Bush. But what I've noticed more and more lately is an imputation of motive to al Qaeda. An argument that begins with the assertion that Osama bin Laden must want either Kerry or Bush in office and therefore Qaeda operatives will strike or not strike. Maybe I'm off. Maybe it's not a new thing.

But if we want to seriously think about how an attack in September or October will affect this election, we need to stop thinking about the terrorists' motives because it only helps Bush.

I think it's clear Illinois Dem's need to do something dramatic if Mike Ditka were to enter the Senate race.

Clearly the man is a political juggernaut, the type of skilled and practiced debator, reasoned thinker, and crafty communicator who will overwhelm the obvious Democratic advantages in Illinois.

After all, as state Sen. Dave Syverson says. "He's just a decent, ordinary guy that worked hard and wasn't handed anything but made it successful.(sic)"

I'm as outraged as anyone by the Bush ruling on National Forests. I've spent more time in national forests than national parks, at least for camping. When the BLM and Forest Service aren't mucking them up, they're usually great spots to grab a last minute campsite. And I'll never forget the night I spent in a cabin five miles down from Seward, AK on the Kenai Fiord in the Chugach Nat'l Forest.

So I felt some pain and a lot of outrage.

But I also smell an opportunity.

The gall. The hypocrisy. The stupidity.

I simply cannot understand how you can claim to love freedom and democracy, they pull crap like this.

I've been watching the back and forth for the last week over "what al Qaeda wants" out of the bombings in Spain and what they want in general

Did they want Aznar out? Do they want Bush over Kerry? Do they want a Palestinian state? It's nonsense an it really isn't worth our effort to argue over it.

The fact is, the only thing we know that al Qaeda wants is to kill Westerners.

If the foreign leaders flap has taught us anything, it's that the R's are way more organized that the D's.

They had a coordinated message, mulitple goons ready to go on the record with the talking points at the drop of a hat, and an aggressive glee that only the truly psychotic know.

John Kerry has gotten his ass kicked the last week because of it.

It's a cliche to call the Middle East a hornets' nest. But that's exactly what it is.

Exhibit A.

It would appear Kurds in northeast Syria are rioting, or at the least making quite the fuss, and calling out for help from the newly freed Kurds in Iraq.

Dean's on C-PAN live right now talking about globalism and trade. Once again, he's talking sense and once again he's impressive.

Sigh.

Below are a few excerpts. Check your local listings and flip over.

This is just too bizarre:

Nader has now jumped into bed with the ultrasectarian cult-racket formerly known as the New Alliance Party and its guru, Fred Newman: Ralph was the star attraction at a January conference of "independents" that was just a front for the Newmanite crazies. By rejecting the Greens' ballot line, Nader will have huge difficulties getting his name on the ballot. So he went shopping for help in ballot access from the Newmanites. The New York Times reported Nader says he'll "link up" with existing "independent" parties in New York and elsewhere -- which can only mean the Newmanites (who control New York's Independence Party and similar remnants of the Reform Party in many states).

This cult is the antithesis of every value Nader holds dear. A Maoist grouplet in the '70s, the Newmanites morphed into supporters of Pat Buchanan in the Hitler-coddling commentator's 2000 takeover of the Reform Party. Newman recruits and controls his followers through a brainwashing scheme baptized "social therapy," designed to create blind allegiance to Newman. He has frequently dipped his rhetoric in the poisonous blood-libel of anti-Semitism, denouncing Jews as "storm troopers of decadent capitalism." By French-kissing the cultists to get on the ballot, Nader has allowed himself to be used as bait to lure the unsuspecting into the Newmanite orbit, where they risk being sucked into the cult. That's a betrayal of the many young people to whom Nader is still a hero. And an acid commentary on Nader's judgment.

I have a simple request for Edwards supporter: Please tell me how he would be better than Kerry on the national security question?

Let me set the terms. I don't think this election will be fought only over national security. The economy is going to be very important. And your guy has the better economic message.

And I want to vote for him. He's got the campaign skills, the biography, the hair (despite the part-on-the-right-side curse) to go toe-to-toe with Bush.

I have trouble hiding my frustration with Nader supporters (just ask Copernicus).

To me, as I posted on an earlier thread, they're like a guy who says to the Dems, "You're great and I'd love to stay with you...hey there's a hottie at the end of the bar."

But when it turns out they were beer goggling, they won't say "let's get back together." They want us to say it was our fault because we wouldn't put out more.

Lend me your ears

Via Corrente

Made you look

No, actually I decided to write this entry after getting into an exchange on a comments this afternoon about media consolidation. I said consolidation doesn't really upset me as a politial issue, but does as a consumer.

My fellow poster was horrified and said she assumed that meant I had no problem with being force-fed news that was gathered, edited, filtered and delivered by one mega-media monster