DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee Meeting

Saturday, May 31, 2008

I'm watching the live coverage of the DNC rules and bylaws committee which has just introduced motions to seat both Florida & Michigan at half votes each with both passing. The motion for Florida passed unanomously while the motion for Michigan passed with 8 votes against. The Hillary protesters were particularly loud and rude. What a surprise. Harold Ickes, who acted like a total ass, let it be known that Hillary will take this all the way to the credentials committee making sure her campaign is as divisive as possible.

This just in: the party at GOP Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio's house with Ken Pruitt, GOP State Senate President co-hosting, was in full swing with a drinking game of vodka shots every time the committee was disrupted by protesters. I understand that if Hillary chose to challenge all of this at the credentials committee Rubio and Pruitt had to each down a pitcher of beer to see who would be left standing after five laps around the pool. The winnner got the golden donkey that was struck for the occasion.

This turned out to be more wildly successful at disrupting the DNC political process than they both could have imagined. And the ramifications of what they wrought have not been played out yet. The GOP in this state is beneath contempt.

Update: this is what Hillary's scorched earth campaign is producing:

We interrupt this update - This just in update: Rubio and Pruitt could not make it to the pool. They both passed out. The party members left standing and sober enough voted unanimously to send the golden donkey to McCain's campaign HQ in Arizona.

Update (continued): The Clinton brand at this point is dead to me. Right now I'm thinking of Godfather II. (Cut to me giving the Clinton campaign the Michael Corleone kiss):

The Clinton brand has broken my heart. They broke my heart.

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Charlie Crist To Remake State Supreme Court?

I've been meaning to comment on a post by Robert of Interstate4Jamming2 where he sounded the alarm on Tuesday about Gov. Charlie Crist being in a unique position to remake the state's highest court with ramifications that will reverberate throughout Florida for years to come. As he reminds us there is more at stake here than just the fact he can reshape the court:

"Not only will Crist be appointing a majority of the seven justices on the high court, he will have by then a majority of the nine-member Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission in his pocket. He has already appointed three JNC members since entering office, and three others have terms which will end this summer."

Though, as Robert points out, Crist's conservative bona fides aren't as sharply defined as his predecessor there is still enough concern to give state residents a reason to think hard about what might be. The most striking thing about Crist being in this position is how this will affect Floridians and the state court system. We must remember what the conservative view of "tort reform" encompasses: the restriction of access for the general public to legal redress through the state court system thereby sheilding state corporate interests beholden to the GOP from accountability.

This issue needs to be watched closely as the court descisions that would be handed down from these Crist appointee's has the potential to afftect our daily lives for years to come.

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Truman's Conscience Joins The Act Blue Community

Friday, May 30, 2008

I'm very happy to announce the addition of Truman's Conscience to the Act Blue community. In the left sidebar you will see that I've added their gateway link for campaign contributions to our First Coast Congressional Candidates for 2008. Right now all indicators suggest we may be on the verge of an historic watershed election. The Democratic Party is poised to make unprecedented gains across the county and it is critical we give all the support we can in order to make this effort a reality. And right now what better way to offer that support than through a contribution to our First Coast candidates via ActBlue.

There has never been a time when the needs of northeast Florida have received so little attention from its its elected representatives. That is why it is imperative we find Democrats willing to serve all the people and not just those with privileged tax breaks and corporate portfolios. We need more Democrats like Corrine Brown, district 3, who continues to work hard serving her constituents as only she can.

There is not enough bandwidth to list all the issues that First Coast voters need to have addressed now. Cliff Sterns, John Mica, and Ander Crenshaw have had other priorities serving the special interests they are beholden to at the expense of the constituencies they serve. Out of all those issues there are three that need immediate attention that can only be addressed by Democrats that have our voter's best interest at heart: (1) a viable energy policy to counter the spiraling and out of control fuel costs that hinder continued growth and expansion of the First Coast communities; (2) a practical and comprehensive healthcare policy that covers all our First Coast residents that is affordable and not subject to pre-conditions; and finally (3) a policy that addresses our veterans' critical needs in post service care and to bring the current GI bill into the 21st century.

There are three First Coast Congressional candidates that need your help and support right now:

Corrine Brown Congressional Candidate District 3

Jay McGovern Congressional Candidate District 4

Tim Cunha Congressional Candidate District 6

Faye Armitage Congressional Candidate District 7

Please give them the help and support they need today. Head over to their web sites and find out how they are willing to give the First Coast community the public service we deserve.

Truman's Conscience will be working hard following these great candidates and doing all it can to aid them in their endeavor. Come and join us and help take our country back from the special interests and corporate lobbyists that serve only themselves at First Coast community expense.

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Florida delegates continue their status as political hostages

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Once again, here we go. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Hillary's manufactured outrage regarding the seating of Florida's delegate slate at the convention is like watching an episode of "As The World Turns." You can step away for a week and miss the daily media melodrama and then jump right back into the story line and you can pick right up where you left off. IOW, you haven't missed a damn thing. Obama is trapped because if he comes out and says what everyone knows, that the nominee will be accorded the power and status befitting the winner, and allowed to seat the delegates, the Hillary supporters will go bananas. That's why he's walking the tight rope and letting this false meme play out so Hillary can have her moment and claim she got the delegates seated on her terms and having them count in her favor.

Here is some parlimentarian 101. After all the hand wringing resulting with the Florida and Michigan delegations being seated with half their votes or whatever formula they come up with, a by this time bored Obama convention manager will saunter up to the DNC Convention Chair and tell him/her to go to the podium and carry out the nominees instructions. The Convention Chair will then move to the podium, bang the gavel, lean down with a look of solemnity and a monotone voice and breath into the microphone, "The chair moves by resolution to suspend the rules of the credentials committee and seat all the delegates with full voting privileges by acclimation."

The convention floor erupts on que. The gavel wielding chairperson leans down again, "All those in favor say 'Aye.' Again, on que and the 'Ayes!' roar up at the podium. The chairperson immediately leans back down again into the microphone and asks, "All those against say 'Nay.' Then without pausing and waiting for a reaction from the floor he/she bangs the gavel and the chair proclaims, all for network tv of course, "The aye's have it!" The band strikes up, the MSM gets their moment of drama, the camera moves in on Bill in the President's box to catch the Arkansas grin and the Hillary wing is vindicated.

New Hampshire is happy. Iowa is happy. The delegates have been sutiably punished by not counting toward the total needed to get the nomination thereby preserving those two states' first in the nation status. But the full slate of delegates are now seated giving the swing state movers and shakers the recognition they want. Everyone is happy that we've finally moved on and the GE focus can now begin in earnest. Florida and Michigan delegates can now crank up their state machine, now that the delegates are officially seated you see, and kick into gear.

Lesson over. There will be a quiz on the day the convention adjourns.

Jesus, how hard was that?

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Happy Birthday Mr. President

On this day in 1917 our 35th President was born. Along with his two brothers, Robert Francis Kennedy & Edward Moore Kennedy, Harry S. Truman, Franklin Delano Rosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and finally my father, who was named for Woodrow Wilson, they define who I am politically. We here at Truman's Conscience felt today would be a great day to celebrate what they all stood for.

As this blog is dedicated to the legacy of President Harry S. Truman, it is an ideal time to remember that it is the ideals they all represented and the principles that governed their actions that drive the progressive movement today. On January 20th, 1961 JFK helped us define those progressive ideals with a profoundness that still rings loud and clear to those of us who want to act on behalf of our country:

"So let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations
.
Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah -- to "undo the heavy burdens...and let the oppressed go free. And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."

Indeed, let us continue what he began. The power in those words he uttered some 47 years, 4 months and 9 days ago still reverberate with the same power and clarity today. As John F. Kennedy helped define the youth and vigor of a generation he inspired, the tragic end he met in his prime makes it all the more surprising to note that today would have been his 91st birthday. So, with his sense of ideals and the hope he inspired let us celebrate his day of birth. For not only is it a celebration of his birthday, it is a celebration of who we are.

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Florida DNC Suit Denied

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Oh, the drama! And those poor bus riders on the way to D.C. to bum rush the DNC offices:

(CNN) — A Florida court threw out a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the Democratic Party's decision not to seat delegates from Florida — as litigants prepared to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

...and somewhere Marco Rubio and Ken Pruitt are bent over with laughter.

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Scott McClellan turns on his boss

Little Scotty McClellan writes a book and throws his boss and nearly his entire staff under the bus? For the life of me I can't imagine why he did that.

Mr. McClellan writes that top White House officials deceived him about the administration’s involvement in the leaking of the identity of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. He says he did not know for almost two years that his statements from the press room that Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr. were not involved in the leak were a lie.

“Neither, I believe, did President Bush,” Mr. McClellan writes. “He too had been deceived, and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth — including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney — allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.”

Oh yeah. Now I remember...

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