This is a repost of a diary I wrote two years agoon the 120th anniversary of the Haymarket bomb that forever altered the American labor movement.

Two years ago today, I posted a diary about May Day and the Haymarket bombing. I decided to repost it today in honor of those hung by a corrupt Chicago political and judicial system.

This was the first in the series that included:

May 3rd, 1886 - WORKINGMEN, TO ARMS!!

May 4th, 1886 - The Haymarket Bombing

May 5th, 1886 - Rounding up the Haymarket martyrs

(cross posted at MyDD )

Recently Jeffrey Feldman has begun posting a Violent Rhetoric Watch series which is spotlighting the dangerous rhetoric of those who oppose an Obama candidacy and presidency. To quote Jeffrey:

What I've noticed in the past few months--unfortunately--is that violent rhetoric stands to become the 'swiftboating' of the 2008 election.  In particular, there is a concerted effort across a range of media outlets to define our candidates as violent threats to the well-being of American citizens.  With respect to Obama, this has taken the form of two alarming narratives:  (1) Obama the covert terrorist and (2) Obama the angry black man.  My gut and my experience tells me that these are frames the right-wing will spend hundreds of millions to plant in the American mind.

It may seem unrealistic to say this, but our task will be to prevent that from happening.

Okay I don't do this often... except when it seems right.

There a diary on the Recent list that is in danger of scrolling off.

Please help us here in Ventura, CA

It's a diary about Mary Pallant, a 44-year-old Dem candidate for CA-24 which includes Simi Valley. Simi, if you don't already know, is known as the home of the Ronald Reagan Library... and you have to take the Ronald Reagan Freeway to get there.

What could be sweeter than seeing a progressive Dem take Simi. It's a tough battle but a deeply symbolic one.

I'll 'fess up - I never heard of Mary Pallant until I read thereisnospoon's diary... but she deserves a look.

There was a time in the not too distant past that Larry C Johnson, who tirelessly promotes his ties to the CIA, was a darling of the Left. He spoke out against those in Washington that were trying to smear Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

In recent months, however, Larry Johnson via his writings at his own website and at Arianna's Huffington Post, has shown himself to be willing to do and say anything to smear one of our two remaining Democratic candidates - Barack Obama. He knows which side his bread is buttered on. For LCJ, a Clinton in the White House means access.

There are a number of comments and diaries (both here and at other blogs) that have prompted this diary.

But the biggest reason is that there are a handful of extremists on both sides of the Dem battle that have taken over the conversation. A handful of people who, for whatever reason, feel it is okay to smear our two Dem candidates.

Yep. On this morning's Meet the Press, Tom Daschle gave Russert a huge scoop.

But what did that hard-hitting, bulldog, millionaire pundit Tim Russert do?

Follow me down the rabbit hole for more. (And for more on the rabbit hole analogy go to Land of Enchantment's "Alice" diary).

Thanks to the DKos mining of the Dairy Rescue bunch, I stumbled across this wonderful diary by Shockwave: At Natalin Sarkisyan's Funeral.

The beauty of getting a diary a day is that we can use them to draw attention to other diaries if we want to.

I want to.

I have grown pretty tired of the Rec list lately with its overabundance of candidate diaries. As a result, far too many other diaries of merit get scrolled into oblivion.

Thanks to the Rescue Rangers and especially shayera for Rescuing this one.

I've grown weary of the constant battle here to degrade good Dem candidates in a sport of one-upmanship between diarists.

I've opted to let the three leading candidates words speak for themselves on the Driver's License issue, and would like to caution everyone from falling into the trap that the media is setting.

Kagro X has a front-page post about Fred Thompson's recent visit to the Stepfordian sounding "The Villages" in which he suggests that Grampa Fred forgets his "history".

Forgets?

I don't think so.

I don't think Kagro X believes it. I don't think Fred's people believe it. I don't think anyone believes it.

And I know WE don't believe it.

When asked about the Terry Schiavo case, Fred said:

"I can't pass judgment on it. I know that good people were doing what they thought was best," Thompson said. "That's going back in history. I don't remember the details of it."

I'm gonna go out a teeny little limb here and say that Fred, despite all the ageist pejoratives, isn't forgetting a damned thing.

I say he remembers the details very keenly.

Especially the details about the "good people" involved.

I have two daughters - ages almost 10 and 7 1/2 - who went to bed tonight without knowing about 9/11. Just like we all did six years ago.

And when we woke up, the world had changed. We had changed.

My daughters are going to wake up this morning and plan to go ahead with their usual routine. Getting dressed. Making sure they have their homework in their backpacks. Eating breakfast. Playing with their little twin brothers...

... and learning that terrorists attacked America.

If we had a choice to wake up on September 11, 2001 and not see the news would we grasp at those last hours of innocence?

Today's Washington Post tells us the following:

Another new arrival in the West Wing set up a rapid-response PR unit hard-wired into Petraeus's shop. Ed Gillespie, the new presidential counselor, organized daily conference calls at 7:45 a.m. and again late in the afternoon between the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the U.S. Embassy and military in Baghdad to map out ways of selling the surge.

From the start of the Bush plan, the White House communications office had been blitzing an e-mail list of as many as 5,000 journalists, lawmakers, lobbyists, conservative bloggers, military groups and others with talking points or rebuttals of criticism. Between Jan. 10 and last week, the office put out 94 such documents in various categories -- "Myths/Facts" or "Setting the Record Straight" to take issue with negative news articles, and "In Case You Missed It" to distribute positive articles or speeches.

In wmtriallawyer's Recommended diary, The Impeachment Talking Point that Needs to be Dropped, the diarist makes a point that Cindy Sheehan's statement about Nancy Pelosi contains some errors, most notably:

If Nancy Pelosi doesn't do her constitutionally mandated job by midnight tonight, tomorrow I will announce that I am going to run against her.

The result is that Pelosi, who is now apparently being challenged by Sheehan in the next election, is painted as a Speaker who is not performing her duties.

Once or twice in the past I've been compelled to pen a diary that promotes another diary that needs more attention.

The AP's Nedra Pickler is at it again. Is Obama all style and little substance?

I've argued many times here that we kogs in the wheel of democracy need to be increasingly vigilant in keeping watch on the members of the media. Many of the usual offenders are quick and easy to spot - be they Chris Matthews, Charles Krauthamer, or Richard Cohen. Others are veiled by the (supposed) cache of being AP reporters. There are many among us who still want to believe that the AP is a benevolent source of news and information. We are led to believe that the AP is a "just the facts" organization. But that's just the myth.

Let's look at Nedra Pickler whose latest screed begins with a variation on "Some say":

Here's a scenario that we know now will NOT happen thanks to the excellent efforts of the Left to squeeze Fox out of the Nevada Democratic Primary debate.

But let's pretend for a moment: Fox is hosting a debate and everyone at DailyKos is waiting with sharpened arrows for Brit Hume to ask one of those "gotchya" questions. We've seen it before - they ask a question that is designed not for political discourse, but for sound bites and ratings. A question designed to force candidates back on their heels and, instead of addressing real issues that matter to real Americans, they have to fend off a ludicrous charge that is bound to anger some element of the voting public.

I will admit that I have yet to watch Katie Couric "do" the news on CBS. I find it to be a cruel joke on the American public perpetrated by CBS News. In an era when, more than ever, we need integrity from our news anchors, pundits and reporters, we instead were given the likes of Katie Couric. Far from Dan Rather and even farther from Walter Cronkite, she is an entertainment bobblehead who has nothing to offer the American public when it comes to news, politics, or world events. Her millieu is the morning sofa where she achieves success only in wringing the tears out of the latest tragic figures in American current events.

But then she became a news anchor for one of the "Big Three" and decided to become serious. So out came the glasses, free speech minute, and her CBS New blog.

Sammy Sosa is planning a comeback.

Scottie Pippin hopes to make a comeback.

The Police made a comeback on the Grammys. Yawn.

Shane was wise enough not to "come back."

Now, as Kos notes on the Front Page, David Broder has grand delusions of a Bush comeback.

George Bush? I don't think so. I'll pick Sammy and Scottie as having better chances than Bush in making a successful comeback.