Oakland County has been reliably Republicon for the past 30 years. But that started changing in 2002 when David Woodward became chair of the Oakland County Democratic Party. In 2004 our county won the vote for John Kerry. In 2006 we went blue for our Governor, Jennifer Granholm. This election our Repug County Executive will have a strong challenger for the first time since the 1990's. Our county's 25 member board went from having six Democratic members to 12 in four years. We're one seat away from ending three decades of Republicon rule in one of Michigan's largest counties.
Hello, my fellow Kossacks! My name is Donald Bortz. I've been a Kossack since 2004, when I joined just after the election. I've written over 40 diaries, 2 of which have made it to the rec list. Both of those told of my experience in Iraq. I'm also a frontpager at Blogging For Michigan, an outstanding liberal state blog.
We're all here because we believe in America and our communities. We want to make our country a better place to live. We want to make sure that anyone who works an honest job should be able to afford to pay the rent. We believe in looking after our veterans, and making higher education available so people can have a strong education and the good paying job that goes with it.
We know that you can't be anti-worker and pro-business. Without a strong workforce, our economy will cease to exist.
We believe it's the right of all our citizens to have healthcare.
Even more important, we believe that our elected leaders should stand up for these ideas. And that's why I, Donald Bortz, have decided to run for office.
Recently the DNC unveiled a new ad attacking McCain for saying that he wants American forces to be in Iraq for the next 100 years. McCain, predictably, isn't happy about it. The Repugs have asked the 24 hour news channels to quit airing the ad, and McCain has been speaking out frequently about it.
But for once, the Democrats aren't backing down. From Huffpo:
But the DNC is hardly backing down. In a statement released to The Huffington Post late Friday, DNC communications director Karen Finney said, "John McCain should stop whining. We can see why John McCain doesn't want people to see this ad, but its time for him to defend his own words. Clearly John McCain knows that the more people learn about his real record and his willingness to keep our brave troops in Iraq for 100 years, the more they'll see he is not the right choice for America's future."
The ad begins with a clip of Rev. Wright screaming "Not God bless America, no! God damn America!" Then have a voiceover of a southern white woman in her mid 40's saying:
"This is what we've been seeing from the media and the Republicans for months." (Go to southern white woman standing in a field.) "My name is ____ and I'm an Obama supporter. My husband and I have voted Republican most of our lives, but 2 years ago, his job was shipped overseas due to unfair trade policies and Bush's tax loopholes for big business. We lost our healthcare. Obama has a plan to bring jobs back to America and has a universal healthcare plan to get America back on track.
"I don't care about that crazy preacher, I just want our family to be working again. And that's why I'm supporting Barack Obama!"
Brave New Films got a hold of this footage of the upcoming ABC interview. I thought the interview was extremely thought provoking and ended the free pass that the media has been giving McCain. I would even go so far as to say that after this footage airs, GS may even be vindicated for his atrocious game of tabloid politics at last week's debate. Watch for youself:
If you're watching MSNBC, you've been seeing two stories in regular rotation:
McCain talking about the gas tax.
Oprah losing support, supposedly because she endorsed Obama for President.
And this is supposed to be the network we actually like! CNN isn't doing any better.
We have a media that refuses to talk about McCain's violation of campaign finance laws, but makes stories out of what Obama had to drink in a restaurant.
The time for just sitting by and grinding our teeth has passed. It's time to call out the corporate media and their bias.
We all know how sucessful our letter writing campaign was against KFSO. Last month, Melanie Morgan was fired from the network in part because of our letter writing campaign.
We need to send letters to MSNBC and CNN and telling them to quit kissing McCain's ass and attacking Obama. If we wanted to watch that, we'd watch Fox!
To write to CNN, go here. For MSNBC, send your email to letters@msnbc.com.
Disclaimer: This post isn't directed towards any specific person. Trust me, I've been hearing this from just about everybody.
A year ago liberal activists were in high spirits. We had just taken back the US Congress from 12 years of Republicon rule and were looking forward to a new period of peace, prosperity, and opposition to the Bush administration. In Michigan, we helped reelected Governor Granholm, took back the State House, and made gains in the State Senate. The Republicons were hurting so bad that Michigan Liberal taunted Saul Anuzis with an endorsement for reelection to chair of the MIGOP. We were filled with hope, and life was good.
But since then we've seen a whole lot of things happen that have dampened our spirits. Not just on the blogosphere, but throughout the entire liberal activist community.
For those of you who have been following the saga, Bill O'Reilly originally ripped into John Edwards for mentioning the plight of homeless veterans. O'Reilly originally denied that there were any homeless vets at first, then when pressed said he'd get any homeless vets off the street if he knew of any.
But it seems now he's reneged on that deal, instead saying that he'd just pay for a homeless vet to travel to John Edwards' house. Why won't Billo take them in? Probably because he thinks they're crazy and on crack!
Here I am, on Christmas Day, sitting in my bedroom on my laptop, pressing the refresh button 800 times a day while I try to find the newest recommended diary or front page post.
What the hell am I doing here? Hell, what are we doing here? We could be spending time with our family, playing with our brand new toys, or if we don't celebrate Christmas, getting some really good Chinese food and curling up to a good movie.
But no, we're on the blogs! Yes, people, we are pathetic! Of all the ways we could be spending Christmas, we picked this.
But hell, since it's Christmas, I've included some great entertainment for us blog addicts. Since YouTube is the staple of our visual entertainment anyway, I've provided some videos below.
Thaddeus McCotter (MI-11), aka Thinskinned McCrybaby, is head of the House Republicon Policy Committee. His entire job revolves around telling his Republicon cohorts how to vote and which issues to support.
A few days ago McCotter gave a speech on the House floor in the hopes that his party will save itself by doing everything it did in 2006, save the earmarks for corporations.
Most of the speech was about what McCotter called "The Cashocracy" (along with a lot of Reagan worship), the idea that the GOP sold out in the name of corporate interests, and did so at the expense of the middle class.
This diary is in response to thereisnospoon’s excellent diary on the real reason the Democrats continue to give Bush his war funding (amongst their total surrender of their agenda to keep people outraged), and it’s to call out the Democrats in Congress who are using the continuation of Iraq as a cynical ploy to get votes to their side.
This strategy is beyond stupid. It’s beyond idiotic. It’s so damn dumb that I honestly don’t know a word to describe how stupid it is. And here is why.
We are the foot soldiers of the Democratic party. We provide the small dollar donations that help to compete with what once was the Repubicon cash cow. We go door to door every election cycle in freezing cold weather, routinely taking getting doors slammed in our faces with a smile, because if we responded how we wanted to such door slammer, we would hurt your campaign. Ninety-nine percent of us work for free. We’ve eaten more crap from right-wingers than the entire Detroit sewer system could possibly contain.
Over at Blogging For Michigan, we’ve spent the last 2 weeks raising money for troops that are deployed overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. The goal is to get $350 for each group we are supporting to create and ship care packages to in time for the holidays. As of right now, we have about $3,400 raised, due largely in part by UAW Local 598, and a few donations from bloggers. The money, when divided amongst our 12 groups makes about $283.
We are $804 short of our goal, and since we are donating to 12 different groups courtesy of anysoldier.com, that comes out to about $67 per group.
Two years ago this week I was at a military base in Iraq, looking forward to the dinner that was being served. In the military it’s sort of a rule that Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only two days in which you’re guaranteed a good meal.:)
The dinner was being served at 11 a.m., during lunch hours. I got there 20 minutes prior, anticipating the rush of people who also were looking forward to one of the few days in which they are given the closest thing we would get to a home cooked meal. I was glad I made it early-five minutes later the place had a line going almost a mile long.
It’s also a tradition that your military leadership serves the food on the holidays. So behind the rows of food were officers and senior NCOs (Sergeants). Our base commander was the first up to serve the choice between ham and turkey.
I got myself some turkey, along with the usual stuff you’d get at Thanksgiving: Sweet potatoes, cornbread, green beans, mac and cheese, and of course, pumpkin pie.
Sorry for the title, but I posted a diary about this yesterday, only to see it flushed down the drain.
Blogging For Michigan has started a troop care drive. Led by fellow Kossack and owner of Blogging For Michigan Christine Barry, with the help of GM/UAW Local 598, Shiawassee County Commissioner Jack Johnson, and others, we are asking for your donations for our fundraising efforts. Every penny you donate will be used to send food, clothing, DVDs, and bathroom items to troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We're doing this to coincide with the holiday season, as this is a hard time of year for our troops to be deployed. Every penny that is donated is going towards either buying things for the troops or for postage.
There’s not too many things more depressing for a Soldier (or Marine, or Sailor, or Airman) than to be away at war during the holidays. Well, actually there are things much more depressing, such as losing a friend, getting the "dear John" letter, having a piece of your body blown off in an IED explosion, but being thousands of miles away from home during Christmas is definitely in the top ten for most troops.
When I was in Iraq, one of the things that helped during "the most wonderful time of the year" was the surplus of care packages that came in during Christmas time. I remember when my Sergeant shared with us an entire case of ramen noodles he had received that helped us have a little piece of home (of course they only lasted about 2 days before we ate them all, but they were still delicious). Things like that help to keep you going when all you’re thinking about is home.
There were many factual errors in the diary about both Clinton and Edwards in the receiving of campaign contributions. Allow me to explain.
The claim about receiving "healthcare contributions" is misleading because subgroups within the healthcare group are conflicting with each other. In this group there are insurance companies that hate the idea of a universal healthcare plan, as well as groups that would like to see a universal healthcare plan such as hospitals, nurses, and doctors.
In the diary I am responding to, the claim was that Hillary Clinton received $2.7 million, Barack Obama received $2.2 million, and John Edwards received a "meager" $600,000 from the healthcare industry.
(Sorry for the short diary, but I'm up past my night shift bedtime).
Many of us on the left have sought for a word to counter the right's use of the phrase "Democrat Party". We've experimented with some, such as Publican, Republican American Community, and others, but we couldn't get them to work because they didn't roll off the tongue and were too obvious.
But Republicon works. It's every bit as subtle as "Democrat Party", and rolls off the tongue easier than "Republican American Community". But the slight change of one letter implies that the Repugs are con artists, evil, and after your money.
So the new word, my Democratic friends, is REPUBLICON.
