So, what are you going to do about it?

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

Sunday November 02, 2008 · 7:00 AM PST

2008/11/02 · 07:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The polls show that Early Voters are leaning Dem, in some states pretty hard. In states that have and release demographic and party data, the early voters are largely Dems and disproportionately African American.

But the Republicans are right about one thing; you can only vote once. Maybe those voters are people who would have voted on Election Day, so their votes don't really mean anything.

Or do they?

More below ...

lawyerDan

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

Thursday January 31, 2008 · 8:51 PM PST

2008/01/31 · 20:51

Once upon a time, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04) went along with the corrupt Chicago machine and endorsed Bush Dog Lipinski in IL-03. This was a bad mistake by a good Representative.

Hispanics and immigrants are a large part of IL-03, and a large majority of Gutierrez's district. Lipinski is horrible on immigration, but most politicians see immigrants as useful scapegoats, so there did not seem to be much downside to the endorsement.

Until ...

lawyerDan

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

Saturday January 26, 2008 · 4:54 PM PST

2008/01/26 · 16:54

(fixed the math; thanks for pointing it out)

A 26 point victory for Obama is what the MSNBC exit polls indicate.

Obama: 53%
Clinton: 27%
Edwards: 18%

The news media is being very coy, predicting winners but not saying the percentages. But they are releasing internals which allow one to figure them out.

How? after the flop

lawyerDan

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

Friday December 14, 2007 · 6:36 AM PST

2007/12/14 · 06:36

Here is the money quote talking about interrogations, including water boarding:

Republican 10th District Congressman Mark Kirk says back then, such tactics were justifiable "to wrap up the al Qaida cells, that had just attacked the United States." Kirk says destroying videotapes of the interrogations made sense as well.

How the netroots kept this story from being buried, and why it matters, after the fold.

lawyerDan

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

Saturday November 24, 2007 · 9:14 AM PST

2007/11/24 · 09:14

Is America ready for a woman/African-American/Mormon/Mexican-American President? A friend from rural Missouri, exasperated by neighbors who clearly are not ready, raised that issue the other day. We know that a candidate should be judged on his or her program, principles and record, and are a bit tired of these questions. But in the real world of politics, those are not all the same question. They affect Democrats and Republicans differently. And the reason is related to Lyndon Johnson’s ability to see the future clearly and engineer a huge inter-generational horse trade, and to why the Republican candidates don’t even try to talk to African-American voters or their issues, and to sex with Congressional pages. Let’s tie all those things together, after the break.

lawyerDan

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

Sunday October 28, 2007 · 9:33 PM PDT

2007/10/28 · 21:33

Sometimes we just love a candidate and we will work for him no matter what. Doesn’t have a chance? That’s okay. We are getting important issues out into the public debate. Or building name recognition for next time. Or maybe our favorite is going to win by 15 point? That’s okay too, because she can run for higher office, or help other progressives run for other offices.

But other times we are strategic. We work for someone we don’t really agree with in order to win a larger goal. Or we skip working for the candidate who is highly likely to win (or highly likely to lose) and spend our time on the candidate who is expected to have a very close race. One Democrat I worked for won his Congress seat by a margin of less than one vote per precinct. That night at the victory party each of us felt that our efforts alone may have made the difference.

There may be a candidate that makes sense either way you look at it. More, and why this is a perfect race for a strategic progressive activist in the Chicago area, after the break.

lawyerDan

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

Monday August 06, 2007 · 4:33 AM PDT

2007/08/06 · 04:33

Walking back to YearlyKos from lunch, a companion complained that there is very little discussion on the site of structural economic change. I remembered a piece on how Norway deals with oil profits and wanted to send him a link as a counter example. The piece exists but I was wrong about the source. Here is the best quote:

Our oil profits go to robber barons who give it to their wastrel children to subsidize lives of insane narcissism, but Norwegian oil profits go mostly to the Norwegian people and subsidize the little villages and the roads and rails needed to connect them -- Norwegians are in favor of provincialism -- and also go to the largest pension fund in Europe, $300 billion, which is forecast to more than double in the next 10 years.

The source, after the fold:

lawyerDan

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

Tuesday April 03, 2007 · 5:58 AM PDT

2007/04/03 · 05:58

Bush must not be allowed to silence Congress on Iraq foreign policy. There are two polls today on whether American foreign policy should be guided by Bush's attitude of not talking to anyone who does not agree with him. He has followed it in domestic policy, and in Iran, so he wants to impose it on Nancy Pelosi.

CNN Poll on whether Nancy Pelosi should talk to the Syrians.

AOL poll on whether she should even visit Syria.

lawyerDan

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

Tuesday February 20, 2007 · 9:59 PM PST

2007/02/20 · 21:59

The New York Review of Books is the premier intellectual journal in the US. (That is my way of saying I enjoy reading it, but I am not alone. It has a circulation of 125,000 .) The lead story on the web version, out today, is an anti-war resolution.

How and why, and what you can do, below:

Poll

22 votes Show Results

Which professional association will be next to condemn the Iraq War?

22 votes Vote Now!

Which professional association will be next to condemn the Iraq War?

Political Scientists

1 vote

Economists

4 votes

Doctors

3 votes

Lawyers

2 votes

Biologists

3 votes

Writers

2 votes

Pie Makers

3 votes

Zookeepers

4 votes

CHI: Larger meaning of Chicago election next week

lawyerDan

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

Monday February 19, 2007 · 9:30 AM PST

2007/02/19 · 09:30

The Mayoral Election next Tuesday is not in doubt, but the fate of the Mayor may depend on it anyway.

Mayor Daley is a good friend of President Bush and did nothing to help John Kerry in 2004 and little or nothing to help Dems running in three close races for Congress in the Suburbs in 2006. He has a huge machine of supporters and had he sent them to the suburbs we might have won in IL-06 and IL-10. But he didn’t. Republicans have no strength in Chicago; the contests are always between machine Dems and reform Dems.

For years, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has won everything. Elections. Bulldozing an airport in the middle of the night when he could not get permission to do so. Budgets approved unanimously. But that might not last much longer. Why? That, and a call for help, after the flop:

lawyerDan

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

Thursday February 15, 2007 · 9:12 AM PST

2007/02/15 · 09:12

Congressman Tom Andrews had a diaryyesterday that mentioned that a live interview with Murtha was available on the site of MoveCongress.

What he did not say was that you can listen to it even though the interview is finished.

(He also did not say he is a (former) Congressman. And Director of Win Without War.)

Murtha's stradegy is clever. It is good that he is doing it. But Congress should vote down the Supplemental Appropriation. And if there are not the votes to do that, the fight should still be made on that issue.

3 Reasons Republican Senators Make a Very Strong Case. For ...

lawyerDan

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

Tuesday February 06, 2007 · 8:30 AM PST

2007/02/06 · 08:30

Republican Senators make a very strong case. For defunding. Here is why:

It would be nice to have a discussion of Bush’s plan for escalation. It could be like a nationwide teach-in. Teach-ins are good.

(More "nice to haves", and what we can have, and the three reasons the Dems are being pushed to defunding, all after the flop.)

Newer
Older

RSS

So, what are you going to do about it?

IL-03: Breaking! Rep. Gutierrez UNENDORSES Lipinski

Obama 53% to 27%. - MSNBC polls (did the math)-updated

IL-10: Kirk (R) favors torture & destruction of evidence!

The Asymmetry of the Question: Is America ready for a ______ president?

IL-03: Practically Paradise for a Practical Progressive

Dealing with oil profits (or why not more discussion of structural economic change?)

Polls on "head in the sand" foreign policy

NYRB top story is anti-war resolution! (with poll)

CHI: Larger meaning of Chicago election next week

Watch Murtha decribe his strategy to end war

3 Reasons Republican Senators Make a Very Strong Case. For ...