Fired up and ready to go?  The typical American consumer is tired and fed up, and some of those lifestyle changes we are seeing in the face of high gas prices, growing inflation and the rising cost of living are quickly becoming habits that may have long-term staying power.  

Republicans are brutally effective at taking advantage of whatever conditions present themselves to push forward their odious agendas, but in the face of the economic squeeze, here's a look at what the situation may portend for the long-term progressive agenda, and an opportunity to harness the positive changes for the advance of society.  

Want to start your own radio show?  Well, you're going to need an agent, a lawyer and a big contract.  Just kidding!  With new online radio platforms, all you need to get started are a few basics.  Oh, and co-hosts aren't a bad idea.

***Scroll down for an On Topic radio show discussing this diary***

The primary wars have gotten ugly, but when we look back, the beauty of the 2007/2008 primary cycle is going to be the battle of the small and large donor, the 50 States strategy and the DLC focus-on-the-states-you-can-win strategy, and the old politics versus the progressive people-powered politics.  

Yet in another shining example that the Clinton crowd just doesn't get it, we have big Clinton donors threatening to withdraw their sizable donations to the DNC if they don't get their way: Seat Florida and Michigan for Clinton or WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!  We will take our money and go home.

I don't want to hit too hard on the old versus new theme, but as has been made very apparent this this cycle **NEWSFLASH**: it's the small donors, stupid!

Michigan and Florida and politics, OH MY!

A girl's gotta have her offline life, too, right?  And while lately I've been guilty of indulging of late in a little too much of things apolitical, it always helps to have an ear to the ground.  

My friends don't read Daily Kos.  They don't really understand why I went to Chicago for a political nerd convention" and they were really surprised when I told them we got profiled in LA CityBeat for this campaign we are working on down in CA-42 for Ron Shepston. And even though they love me, they don't listen to my Political Nexus radio shows.  

But you won't believe what I have been hearing. Because it sounds a lot more like drinking liberally than girls' night.

Do you keep finding jobs only to be told you need more experience?  Or graduate from college only to realize that every help wanted ad asks for a years worth of experience, minimum?  What do you do when all you have is that degree you spent %#*! for?  And how are you supposed to get any experience if you have no experience!?!?

Believe me, I know how frustrating it is as a Young Kossack to navigate your way through the entry level job transition.  You often feel you're barely qualified to apply for anything--including jobs you aren't even interested in.    

Congratulations!  It's time to compensate for the gap between your our educational system and the job market!   I could go on and on about how ridiculously our eduicational and employment sectors intersect, but that could be a whole other diary.  Instead, four years out of college, let me walk you through some tips to compensate for that lack of "experience."  

Take me back to bobby socks, baby!  Only in this scenario, let's envision what a modern meld of Republican Republic social engineering and their nostalgia for an idealized 1950s would get us.  Follow me back in time and into the conservative mind...

In case your pocket doesn’t feel fully picked by college costs, graduate school, wages that don't keep pace with inflation or that crappy service sector job, there is always the roof over your head to worry about.  And when it comes to real estate, today’s young kossacks under 35 are swimming against the tide--of lemmings.

In case the Bush tax cuts, the millions Halliburton has "lost" in Iraq, and the abolition of the Estate Tax (for those who work so hard at not working) weren't scandal enough, the New York Times reports on tax reforms from 2003 that are effectively allowing companies to defraud millions from the US government--and get away with it.  

Oh, but those of you who work for a living?  Don't get any funny ideas about your taxes : somebody needs to be left holding the bag.

Last year was a good year for global warming--from a PR perspective.  

There was An Inconvenient Truth, this TIME cover here and that Newsweek cover there.  Blowhards like Neil Cavuto railed against Happy Feet for what they shrilly decried as "far left" propaganda.  There was also, unfortunately, the discovery that  "a giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic."

However, there are a lot of misconceptions still out there about this issue, including and especially regarding college graduate employment figures.  As one commenter responded to bondad:

College Grads Can't Find Jobs?  Can that be right?  The BLS tables show that the unemployment rate for college graduates currently is 2.1%...Unfortunately for many college graduates, it seems that the reading and writing standard English and speaking clearly requirements present insurmountable hurdles.  

Cartoonist Michael Ramirez is also out in an apparent move to deflect criticism.  A liberal and a conservative, for an equal fair game?  Not while wing nut columnist Max Boot remains.  And definitely not when you compare the caliber of Scheer and Ramirez.  A picture may be worth a thousand words, but come on.  

Did they do it on purpose? Opps

Vetoed a Ban on Execution of Mentally Retarded Inmates

Has Established A Reputation for Verbal Gaffes

It's not W...  Meet Rick Perry, Republican Governor of Texas!

We all read about the infuriating case involving Frances Newton in the excellent diary by Michael Alton Gottlieb. She is scheduled to die tomorrow, September 14, 2005, despite serious questions as to her guilt and her court appointed attorney who has been banned from practicing law until late 2007.
It turns out that Governor Perry has faced controversy over his death penalty policies before.  For those of you calling and writing his office, a little background on Governor Rick Perry.

More below the fold...

more below the fold...

"The greatest danger to a democracy is an increasing bureaucracy. As the bureaucracy becomes more entrenched, it becomes less responsive to both the government and the people."

Unfortunately, this is THE WORST POSSIBLE lesson to take from Katrina because it is the most blatantly false.
 

The Republican attack on the American people has given us a lot of despicable policies;  tax cuts for the rich, the disastrous Iraq war policy, the repeal of the "Death Tax" under the guise of lies and attempts to undermine and dismantle Social Security.  But even I thought these people had limits.  

My mistake.  House Speaker Dennis Hastert has now come out to undermine and question the use of federal aid for disaster relief.  

"Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she has asked the White House to send more people to help with evacuations and rescues, thereby freeing up National Guardsmen to stop looters."