Burbank Democratic Club

Moments after Al Gore gave his acceptance speech for An Inconvenient Truth, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to give the Academy Award for Best Documentary to Jesus Camp.


[with apologies to Mark Evanier]

FOX ATTACKS OBAMA
(Click the link above to sign a petition to the Nevada Democratic Party to Cancel a planned Democratic Presidential Nominee Debate hosted by Faux News.)
Watch the Video below to see the latest unfair, unbalanced smear campaign fox news has launched against Obama. (Obama has banned the fox news reporters from his campaign.)

From calitics:

This is a breaking news item. I just spoke to Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-SF, about his introduction of net neutrality legislation in the Assembly tomorrow. The bill will be based off of the Maryland bill that was introduced by Delegate Herman Taylor of MD.

The importance of this legislation can hardly be overstated. California is the largest player in the technology industry; it only makes sense that California should be a leader on this issue. As Matt Stoller mentioned, progressives have often times been focused solely on the federal government, but I, and many others, have been arguing for a long time that the states, especially this state, are a great opportunity for progressive legislation. The market power of California makes it impossible to exit the state. See the history of the catalytic converter if you don't believe me.

Passed by the House of Representatives February 16, 2007.

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That--

(1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and

(2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.

That's it folks. The House passed it -- but even there 180 Republicans and 2 Democrats were so concerned about the second part that they couldn't cast their vote for the first. Does that mean they don't support the troops?

And in the Senate, the GOP won't even let the exact same wording come to a vote. Republicans are filibustering! They are using Parliamentary procedure to prolong "debate" indefinitely. On Saturday, the Senate fell 4 votes shy of cloture and sending the resolution to the floor for an "UP OR DOWN VOTE?" Does that mean Repubicans (and Joe Lieberman) don't support the troops? (ps. John McCain didn't even show up - he must be really worried about Giuliani.)

But I think ultimately this is a disastrous strategic mistake for the Senate Republicans...the blocking of the vote that is. Because they are exerting real power and in doing so they MUST take credit for their role in enabling Bush. If they had voted for cloture to end debate and let the vote come to the floor - the results of the vote (likely to have passed) would have been at the hands of the democrats, who could then be held (in 2008) for responsible for their actions.

As I see it, for the Republican Senators running in 2008, it's all about not being blamed for what happens in the next 18 months. Allowing Bush to get away with his surge (without allowing even a vote on a non-binding resolution) they can be blamed. And sorry, but 2 years from now, no one will remember which GOP Senators were allowed to vote for cloture in a vain effort to save their hides

Here is the current graph of the results of the Democratic Presidential Nominee survey. To take the poll, Click Here.


(As of 10:07am 02-21-07)
This isn't an auto-updating image - I'll have to repost it every now and then.

Labels: Poll

McClintock said he will not attend Schwarzenegger's address because he is so dismayed by the governor's positions."

"'Many Republicans supported him in 2006 based on the simple, unequivocal campaign promise he made not to raise taxes,' McClintock said. 'He broke that promise and proposed the second-largest tax increase in state history. I will never trust another word he says.

Republicans backed the Governator becasue he was the only Republican who had a chance of winning in this bluest of blue states. McClintock is living in dreamland if he thinks anything else.
But any news of a split in the California Republican Party is good news --- and we can hope their annual convention will provide more entertaining fodder for us.

But lest we forget that Arnold is not our friend:

"From a conservative point of view, what they get from Schwarzenegger is blocking the alternative," said John J. Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College. "He prevented Phil Angelides from becoming governor. He's containing the ambitions of Democrats in the Legislature. He's putting a limit on how far to the left they can take the state. Given the leanings of California, that's significant."

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military drive to train and equip Iraq's security forces has unwittingly strengthened anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which has been battling to take over much of the capital city as American forces are trying to secure it.

Read the rest.

It really isn't news to most of us, but just another reminder of how incompetent our administration is. The only good news is that Al-Sadr has nothing to gain by killing US soldiers -- yet.

Labels: Iraq