The Democrats are about two steps away from the Reality TV business.
The 2006 elections will be an opportunity for Democrats. For the first time in many years, Democrats have a strong chance to win majorities in both houses of Congress. Forward Together PAC has already contributed to more than 50 campaigns in more than 30 states. Now we are opening up the process.
You can help us choose the next group of candidates we’ll support. We are looking for fresh faces with fresh ideas - and for solutions-oriented Democrats with a focus on the future - candidates who will help us change the political map. Which candidates are you supporting? Register below and tell us who your Map Changers are!
The first round of voting runs through June 13. The top votegetters thee will advance to a second round (voting from June 14-25), where the top ten will receive a $5K contribution from the PAC. Finally, there will be a third election (June 26-July 4)to determine two final winners, each of whom will get a fundraiser thrown by Gov. Warner.
And the winner is the guy running against Tom Tancredo:
“After an exciting few weeks the MapChangers contest has come to a close. More than 9,000 people voted over the course of the contest, casting 18,500 votes. In a very close third round and after hard-fought final day of voting, Forward Together PAC is excited to declare Colorado’s Bill Winter the winner of our MapChangers Grand Prize.”
“A Fighting Dem, Bill is running in Colorado’s 6th district against controversial Republican Tom Tancredo. The Winter campaign ran a spirited campaign and had tremendous success in turning out their online supporters to bring them to victory. Governor Warner congratulates all eleven MapChangers: Chris Bell (TX-Gov), John Courage (TX-21), Diane Farrell (CT-04), John Laesch (IL-14), Jerry McNerney (CA-11), Patrick Murphy (PA-08), Nancy Skinner (MI-09), Stephanie Studebaker (OH-03), Jon Tester (MT-Sen), Jim Webb (VA-Sen), Bill Winter (CO-06). The online mobilization skills those campaigns developed for the contest will be helpful all the way to election day.”
I’m reading down a bit further, and I see this gem:
Last Friday night I attended a benefit for the Douglas County Women’s Crisis & Family Outreach Center. It was a dinner called “The Empty Bowl” at the Douglas County Events Center. There were several hundred people there to raise money to help protect women from domestic violence. It turns out that domestic violence against women is rampant in Douglas County, which suggests to me that it is likely a problem all over Congressional District Six and America.
Santa Fe County suffers from outbreaks of bubonic plague; you remember, that “Black Death” thing. This suggests to me that it is likely a problem all over Congressional District 3 (NM) and America. But I digress. . .
As the program for the evening said, “Domestic violence is not a private matter. It is a national, state, and foremost, a community issue. Domestic violence affects not just victims, but neighbors, coworkers, relatives, partners and friends. It crosses all age groups, all ethnic groups, all socio-economic groups, and all genders. The consequences of domestic violence know no boundaries.” Surely domestic violence is something we could all agree is a bad thing that we should fight against.
So I looked around to see if Congressman Tancredo was in attendance. He was not, but then that’s not surprising. Did you know that Mr. Tancredo was one of only FOUR members of the U.S. House of Representatives, out of 435, to vote AGAINST re-authorizing the Violence Against Women Act? This act is designed to reduce violence against women and contains important laws that protect women. What kind of man would vote against something like that? He can’t even say he voted a party line, because with 431 House members voting yes, and only 4 saying no, it’s clear that this was a non-partisan issue.
I don’t read minds, so I can’t say why Mr. Tancredo voted against this bill. Does he SUPPORT violence against women? That may be going too far, but I do think it’s safe to say that he isn’t particularly bothered by violence against women. I don’t think he really cares about violence against women. And I don’t think that really reflects how the people of Congressional District Six really feel about this important issue!
I am bothered by violence against anyone, and I will stand up for the right of women to be free from violence in their lives. If you agree with me on this important issue, I hope you will support my campaign and make a donation of whatever size you can afford right now!
So Bill Winters is against domestic violence, violence against anyone in fact? Maybe he could get in touch with one of his fellow “Mapchanger” contestants, Stephanie Studebaker. I’m certain that Bill could help out Steph and her husband, it’s a moral imperative almost.
Help me, Bill Winters!
Yup, it seems ol’ Steph and her husband enjoy going a few rounds now and again.
“This is Jim Studebaker. I’m in Union Ohio. I just got an emergency call from my son. Whose wife Stephanie is attacking him at the moment.” Studebaker then gives the couple’s address.
“There is a history of her breaking a rib once. She has a history of alcohol abuse and domestic violence.”
“She’s very physical.”
“He called me…(unintelligible)..She was attacking him and I didn’t think he would be able to get on the phone to you. He asked us to call you.”
“Send someone to go right away because she is extremely violent.”
Maybe Bill can find out for us how Steph would have voted on the Violence Against Men act?
After an inspiring speech to a crowd of rowdy activists, Congressman Peter DeFazio, a champion against the MAI in Congress, delivers a blow to the “Corporate Fat Cat!”
Um, power to the people, or something.
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Al-Qaida in Iraq confirmed the death of its leader, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, and vowed it will continue its “holy war” in a statement posted on the Web on Thursday.
“We want to give you the joyous news of the martyrdom of the mujahed sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” said the statement, signed by “Abu Abdel- Rahman al-Iraqi,” identified as the deputy “emir” or leader of al- Qaida in Iraq.
“The death of our leaders is life for us. It will only increase our persistence in continuing holy war so that the word of God will be supreme,” it said.
Anybody else remember that techno mix that would play “James Brown . . . is dead?” I think someone should come up with the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi remix. Of course the death of your leaders is life for you guys; now you’ve got nobody telling you to ram cars full of explosives into crowds of children.
Many people may be surprised to learn that Zarqawi apparently worked as a Sybase DBA in Sunnyvale, California during the dot com boom.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq who waged a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and beheadings of hostages, has been killed in a precision airstrike, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday. It was a long-sought victory in the war in Iraq.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the saga of Jesse MacBeth, the Wendy’s employee who claimed to have been an Iraqi-slaughtering Army Ranger. Personally, I’m waiting for Dan Rather to turn up a memo from his former CO, Dave Thomas, ordering him to commit the atrocities he detailed in some left-wing “documentary”. In any event, the thing had barely hit the internet when military folks started sending up all sorts of red flags. Folks who know about such stuff started poking all sorts of holes in MacBeth’s story based on how he wore his uniform in what was supposed to be an official photo. The short form is, the “uniform” he wore looked like something thrown together for an Andy Sidaris flick.
Jesse MacBeth
My question is, why did you people go to all that trouble? I didn’t even have to think about how his sleeves were rolled, or how he wore his beret, or anything of that nature. Heck, all I had to do was listen to his “testimony”.
Here’s an excerpt from a transcript, provided by The People’s Voice, or something:
Once I was in Baghdad, once I got there, my whole aspect of the country changed. When we were in Kuwait we got debriefed about our missions, about the Rangers. Our job over there is to strike fear in the hearts of the Iraqis. That is what they told us. They said do whatever it takes. We’re not going to hold anything against you, you’re not going to get charged for anything. Do whatever it takes to make them fear you; they told us to be brutal. They said we’re not there for them. We’ve got our own purpose. The Geneva Convention, it doesn’t mean crap. The Geneva Convention is something for political crap.
Ok, let’s go past the fact that you get “briefed” before you go to do something and “debriefed” after you’re done doing it; the words are almost interchangeable nowadays to some. Let’s look at something else Jesse said.
Our job over there is to strike fear in the hearts of the Iraqis.
Take another look at this guy.
Our job over there is to strike fear in the hearts of the Iraqis.
Riddle me this, was the A/V Club already deployed? Could they not scrape up a Girl Scout Troop to send to Baghdad? Somebody in the Pentagon said, “What can we do to really make those Iraqi’s fear us? I got it, send that Jesse MacBeth guy over! After the Chess Club and the SCA, he’s our last line of defense!” And then someone hit a big red button or something?
Come on, look again:
Our job over there is to strike fear in the hearts of the Iraqis.
Who on earth is going to be afraid after getting a look at this guy? Ok, ok, besides, “I’m afraid I might pass out from laughing so hard.” Really, you leftists must believe the Pentagon Halliburton is just a bit craftier than this, don’t you? Come on, you gotta believe we’ve got some really super scary Ranger/Seal/Recon ninjas that we could call up for missions like this. Maybe you guys need to watch an Andy Sidaris film or two and concentrate on the gunfights and explosions and not on the…you know…other stuff.
The documentary Jesse MacBeth was interviewed for was carried on a website called Socialist Alternative; I checked the site. While looking it over, I think I found Jesse an opportunity to be involved in another project they’ve put together.
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The 1920s brought a revolution to Mexico, along with the widespread persecution of Catholics.
Missionaries were expelled from the country, Catholic seminaries and schools were closed, and the Church was forbidden to own property. Priests and laymen were told to denounce Jesus and their faith in public; if they refused, they faced not just punishment but torture and death.
During this time of oppression and cruelty, the Knights of Columbus did not retreat in Mexico but grew dramatically, from 400 members in 1918 to 43 councils and 6,000 members just five years later. In the United States at the time, the Knights handed out five million pamphlets that described the brutality of the Mexican government toward Catholics. As a result, the Mexican government greatly feared and eventually outlawed the Order.
They’ll be at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi tomorrow. Mass will be at 5:30pm, followed by veneration of the relics. Come over, I’ll see you there.
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It’s one thing to be stupid. It’s something else entirely to be painfully stupid. Or an America-loathing leftist terrorist-enabler. The Washington Post goes for the trifecta:
The Bush administration is holding a number of terrorism suspects incommunicado in secret prisons abroad without due process or even notification of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and some detainees have been subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. This is a gross violation of international law and American values, and it’s essential to our democracy that such an exceptional policy be subject to public debate. Maybe disclosure of the prisons damaged national security — the CIA has offered no evidence of that — but it’s hard to imagine what could be more damaging than the existence of the system itself.
Here, let me help you imagine:
Waddya think, WaPO, could this possibly be a bit worse for our national security? You hippies are all into visualising, right? Visualise with me here:
It’s one thing to be stupid. It’s something else entirely to be painfully stupid.
Do you have a cat you want to share with us all? email Der_Tommissar at goowy dot com
Before we get to the post, I just want to state I will be printing an email I received weeks ago in the near future. You really want to stay tuned for it.
Anyhow…
Much credit to the International Herald Tribune for exploiting Rule Number One of Journalism:
People will always stop to read about angry villagers.
South Korean police and villagers clash over U.S. base
The South Korean government sent in thousands of police officers and unarmed troops, water cannons and helicopters to drive out villagers and activists from a hamlet on Thursday, saying that their refusal for months to make room for an expanding U.S. military base threatened an alliance with Washington.
These things always make me wonder:
Why do these foreign national governments always have to send in “police”?
Ok, maybe the village didn’t have enough cops, but don’t you guys have like a sherriff or something?
Isn’t there a Korean Roscoe P. Coltrane you can dispatch from the county seat with a few guys to handle this?
What about some state troopers or something?
[Excuse me for being Americocentric, but I just find the idea of national police a bit odd.]
If you’re unarmed, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of being a troop?
Did the villagers carry torches and pitchforks?
Armed with clubs and backed by water cannons, 11,500 police officers stormed the village at dawn. More than 1,000 students, unionists and villagers fought back with rocks and long bamboo sticks, according to witnesses, TV footage and local news reports.
Ok, so they used rocks and long bamboo sticks. I’m a little disappointed, but I can respect their choice of angry villager gear because I celebrate diversity.
I celebrate diversity.
At least 117 police officers and 93 protesters were injured, according to the South Korean authorities, in the clash that highlighted efforts by Seoul to juggle two forces: the U.S. military with 30,000 troops here and a domestic populace that is increasingly disenchanted with the American military presence.
Ok, you need to either train these guys better, or let the troops be armed. Leftists agitators should never inflict more casualties. Maybe we should send some retired Chicago cops over there to help your guys learn that.
To quote Billy Ray Valentine, “May I suggest you use the nightstick, officer?”
The only thing missing, of course, was the appearance of your typical Peace and Justice priests.
The last people to leave the building were several Roman Catholic priests and two lawmakers who had been encamped on the roof. They said they opposed the U.S. military’s relocation because it deprived the villagers of their farmland and increased the possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula.
Leaders of the former Soviet Union were behind the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981, an Italian parliamentary investigative commission said in a report.
A final draft of the report, which is due to be presented to parliament later this month, was made available to Reuters on Thursday by the commission president, Senator Paolo Guzzanti.
“This commission believes, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the leadership of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate Pope John Paul,� the report said.
“They relayed this decision to the military secret services for them to take on all necessary operations to commit a crime of unique gravity, without parallel in modern times,� it said.
The report also says “some elements� of the Bulgarian secret services were involved but that this was an attempt to divert attention away from the Soviet Union’s alleged key role.
A 36-page chapter on the assassination attempt was included in a wider report by parliament’s Mitrokhin Commission, which probed the revelations of Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior Soviet archivist during the Cold War who defected to Britain in 1992.
The Pope was shot in St Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981 by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca, who was arrested minutes later and convicted of attempted murder.
At the time of the shooting, events in the Pope’s Polish homeland were starting a domino effect which was eventually to lead to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989.
The Pope was a staunch supporter of Poland’s Solidarity union and most historians agree he played a vital role in events that led to the formation of the East Bloc’s first freely elected government and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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For those of you who didn’t feel like downloading the file of that “campaign contribution” I’ve got it up on google video. Now it can play right in the frame here. Here ya go.
Do you have a cat you want to share with us all? email Der_Tommissar at goowy dot com
From a ton of sites all around the blogosphere:
The University of Washington’s student senate rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory “Pappy” Boyington of “Black Sheep Squadron” fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school.
Student senator Jill Edwards, according to minutes of the student government’s meeting last week, said she “didn’t believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce.”
Ashley Miller, another senator, argued “many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men.”
Senate member Karl Smith amended the resolution to eliminate a clause that said Boyington “was credited with destroying 26 enemy aircraft, tying the record for most aircraft destroyed by a pilot in American Uniform,” for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.
Smith, according to the minutes, said “the resolution should commend Colonel Boyington’s service, not his killing of others.”
Please feel free to use the following form letter, and pass it to your friends:
Dear Senator/Congressman _______________,
I am writing you to express my strong support for the return of the draft. I strongly urge you to do everything in your power for this to come back into being.
It is my understanding that in the past it was claimed that the draft disproportionately affected the poor and minorities. I further understand that a reason for this was due to draft deferments being given to those in college. In my plan, there would be no burden for the poor at all. I want those drafted to be selected only from the ranks of our college students. Since it appears that the poor do not go to college, they will not be subject to the draft at all.
Now I know you guys love having loopholes in everything, so I know that you would want to have some sort of deferment built into this new draft. I have thoughtfully provided for this. You may provide draft deferments for any student whose major does NOT contain the words “Studies” “Art(s)” “Theory” “Womyn” “Queer” or “Social”. In other words, please put students with those majors at the top of the list.
Oh, and don’t forget grad students. Make sure you get grad students in there too.
I know another objection is the affect that conscripts could have on the combat capability of our current units. I do not suggest you place any of these draftees in any type of a combat role. Lord knows I wouldn’t trust those kids with a staple gun let alone an actual weapon, nor would I expect our military to do so either. Aren’t there latrines that need to be dug in Afghanistan? Don’t we have sandbags that need to be filled, or concrete mix that needs to be spread? This has the added benefit of working around those pesky “conscientious objector” types. My only recommendation would be to keep these individuals away from anything dealing with food or water, given the average level of hygiene displayed by this subgroup.
In order to lower the expenses for these new recruits, and to give them some valuable experience amongst diverse cultures, I heartily recommend they be made to spend each night among the indigenous peoples. Since this type of student loves to learn about other cultures, let them sleep in a strict Islamic culture each night. Who says the draft can’t be educational? Of course, additional security would have to be in place when these soldiers reenter our military facilities.
In an effort to stress their noncombatant role, I believe these drafted individuals should be given pink uniforms and referred to as the “Pink Corps” or pinkos. As an American, I think it is time we put the pinkos to work for our security.
Finally, I would like to bring up the delicate subject of our “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. For the purposes of our draftees, I believe this will need to be changed to, “Don’t Ask, Really Don’t Care”. There will be a number of students who claim to have alternate sexual proclivities in an effort to dodge the draft. Anyone who has studied deconstructive literary theory can tell you, however, that in reality these are the people most eager to serve! I ask only some tolerance for them as they seek to fulfill their obligations with dignity and honor. Some of these folks might also provide video or photographs of such alternative acts prior to induction. The only fitting thing to do with such material would be to distribute them to the locations where those individuals would be living and working in Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, diversity is a two way street! It will be just one small way in which these people will bring tolerance across the globe.
War zones, as we all known, are very dangerous places. A number of the people drafted may sadly never return. However, that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
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, “May I suggest you use the nightstick, officer?”
