DCDL

Apparently the Army hired the Incredible Hulk to come up with its new recruiting slogan:

In its battle to win the hearts and minds of recruiting-age Americans, the Army is replacing its main ad slogan — “An Army of One” — with one it hopes will pack more punch: “Army Strong.”

Or possibly it was the crack marketing team of Tonto, Tarzan, & Frankenstein.

A message from Micha, an organizer of the Wednesday Drinking Liberally group (which is moving to Capitol Hill next week):

This Wednesday, at the Olsson’s Books in Dupont Circle (1307 19th St. NW), Andy Stern, President of SEIU International, will be speaking about and signing his new book A Country That Works: Getting America Back on Track. Details about the Author and Book are below.

The Signing will be at 7pm. Afterwards, starting around 8pm, we’ll be gathering at The Big Hunt, also in Dupont Circle (1345 Conn. Ave. NW) for discussion and drinks with Andy.

About the Book:
In A Country That Works: Getting America Back on Track Andy Stern, one of the country’s leading advocates for ordinary Americans who go to work each day, describes the serious economic challenges facing the vast majority of Americans, and uses compelling facts and figures to illustrate how close millions of American families are to crisis.

Stern argues that our political leaders, instead of pushing through vital reforms, have put us in jeopardy by manipulating the tax system in favor of the richest, failing to fix our education system, and not making desperately needed reforms to the health care system. He criticizes labor unions for not adapting to the changing economy and current political landscape, and for using ineffective, outmoded strategies that fail to unite more workers to improve their lives. In A Country That Works, Stern ultimately lays out a practical but visionary plan for reforms that would protect Americans from the looming crises, including an overhaul of the tax system, a transformation of the health care system, simple fixes to the retirement system, and overdue innovations in education.

About the Author:
Over the past decade, Andy Stern has been the head of the SEIU, one of the largest and fastest growing unions in North America. After launching a national debate about the fundamental change needed to reverse labor’s decline, Stern led SEIU out of the AFL-CIO to focus on uniting the nine out of 10 American workers not yet in a union, and was the driving force behind Change to Win, a new labor federation of seven major unions representing six million members.

Determined to build a truly 21st century union to help ensure that workers, not just CEOs, benefit from today’s global economy, Stern has initiated partnerships with overseas unions as well as multinationals to form effective, win-win alliances. He chairs Wal-Mart Watch, the advocacy group responsible for challenging the retail giant to become a leader in corporate responsibility toward its employees and host communities.

Stern began his union career in 1973 as a Pennsylvania social service worker and member of SEIU Local 668 and rose through the ranks before his election as president in 1996. He serves on the board of directors for diverse organizations, including the Institute of Medicine, Rock the Vote, and the Broad Foundation. A frequent blogger, he weighs in on economic and political issues on SEIU.org and as a regular contributor to online outlets such as the Huffington Post.

I hope to see lots of people there, in preparation for the first DC DL Wednesday night in our new location next week!

You may have seen Andy Stern on the Colbert Report last night.

On Thursday, October 12, Join us in the back room of Timberlake’s, 1726 Connecticut Ave NW (Dupont Circle Metro), for this special screening of Robert Greenwald’s latest film, Iraq for Sale.

Cash bar starts at 6:30, and the screening will start at 7:30.

Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers is the story of what happens to everyday Americans when corporations go to war.

Acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed and Uncovered) takes you inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq for Sale uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq and the decision makers who allow them to do so.

It’s time for another DCDL movie outing. This Saturday, September 30, we’ll be going to see the new movie Al Franken: God Spoke:

The makers of The War Room turn their cameras on yet another burgeoning political career. A cinema verite pursuit of Al Franken, shot over the course of two years, the film follows the former SNL writer turned political attack dog from his highly publicized (and well-timed) feud with Bill O’Reilly over Franken’s best selling book, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” to his tireless campaign against George Bush in the 2004 Presidential election.

We’ll be converging on Landmark E Street Cinema, 555 11th Street NW (near Metro Center and Gallery Place), meeting in front of the theater at 7 sharp to go to the 7:15 show. Afterward we’ll head over to the Capitol City Brewing Company, 1100 New York Ave NW (near 11th and H) for dinner and beer. You can meet us there at 9:15 if you’re not going to the movie. Let us know at dcthu@drinkingliberally.org if you’re coming to dinner so we have an idea how many people to tell the restaurant we have.

If you want to make sure you’re in the loop for future events, subscribe to our e-mail announcement list.

Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings (one of several nonliberal blogs I read frequently) lives in Silver Spring and got himself quoted in the Baltimore Sun endorsing the Democratic Senate candidate in Maryland:

Silver Spring resident James Henley, 45, is a Libertarian who said he planned to vote for Cardin to balance power in Washington. It’s nothing personal against Steele, he said.

“At the national level, the Republican Party has become such a repugnant institution that I would like to take as much of the control of Congress away from the Republicans as possible,” said Henley, who works in finance for a telecommunications company.

The Bush administration is having unusual effects on political alliances. Maybe Henley will be showing up at DC Drinking Liberally some Thursday next. After all, David Weigel did show up once, but that may just have been an anthropological investigation.

I think Henley may actually be a libertarian, though, not a Libertarian.

Our friends at NEXT PAC are holding a “Bring Down the House” Bash on Friday to raise money for four Democratic congressional candidates. Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor. I’ll be there.

This event is a fundraiser with a twist. Your $50 donation allows you to vote for the candidates who will receive the proceeds from the night. With our partner, New Democratic Action, we’ve selected four of the candidates most likely to help turn the House from Red to Blue. These races are amongst the closest in the country, your contribution will make an impact, and you’ll have a great time.

Our candidates are:

• Lois Murphy PA-6
• Joe Courtney CT-2
• Patricia Madrid NM-1
• Mary Jo Kilroy OH-15

Please join us next Friday and help make a difference.

September 29, 2006
Eye Bar — 1716 Eye Street NW
2nd Floor
8 pm
Cash and Check ONLY at the door. Credit Card donations must be made online — RSVP HERE.

Bill Clinton on Fox News: (usa today)

Clinton: No, let’s talk about it.

Wallace: But the question is, why didn’t you connect the dots and put him out of business?

Clinton: Let’s talk about it. I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just had a right-wing conservative running their little pathway to 9/11, falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 commission report with three things asserted against me directly contradictory to the 9/11 commission report. And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who
now say I didn’t do enough claim that I was too obsessed with bin Laden.

All of President Bush’s neo-cons that I was too obsessed with bin Laden, they had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say I didn’t do enough, said
I did too much, the same people. They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk Down and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.

While I didn’t understand at first why Clinton was on Fox News, I also didn’t understand why Fox thought they’d get the better of him. After reading over the transcript a few times, I understood, or at least had a reference point for what sharp dialetic means.

From MyDD, via the comments at the Brad Blog:

I just got this email from the Donna Edwards campaign.

Hello,

By now you are aware of the multiple layers of problems that occurred in the Tuesday, September 12, election in Maryland’s 4th Congressional District. Whether these flaws are attributable to incompetence, inefficiency, or fraud — we may never know. Votes are still being tabulated in Maryland’s 4th District — provisional ballots arriving as late as Tuesday, September 19, a truckload of machines and memory cards arriving 21 hours after the polls closed on September 12, changing estimates of absentee ballots to be counted, etc.

Needless to say, the system is deeply flawed — leaving voters with little reason to be confident. In the midst of all of this system failure and uncertainty, I wanted to share with you the transcript of an exchange that took place on Tuesday, September 19, between my opponent, Albert Wynn, and his colleague on the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee:

BARTON: Down in Texas, we had a Democratic primary about 50 years ago that Lyndon Johnson won by 54 votes. And he got the nickname “Landslide Lyndon.” We have Mr. Wynn next. He had a little bit of a tussle last week, but he did win. And so, I want to recognize “Landslide Wynn” for any opening statement that he wishes…
WYNN: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. In fact, they’re still counting, but we’re quite optimistic. And I did take a couple pages out of Lyndon’s book, so if I win, it can be attributed to Texas know-how.
(LAUGHTER)
(UNKNOWN): Did you (inaudible)?
BARTON: I hope not. I hope you win fair and square.
(LAUGHTER)
WYNN: A win is a win.

P.S. Just within the last couple of hours, the Board of Elections in Prince George’s County opened up a machine with no tamper tape (so much for security), and at least one other machine that recorded votes for other offices but none for U.S. Congress.

And from the comments:

Re: Al Wynn Brags of Stealing the Election (3.00 / 1)

I can’t stream audio presently but I think this is the hearing where this exchange occured. Can anyone listen to the webcast & verify this?

by pragmatic adjustable hed on Thu Sep 21, 2006 at 02:27:41 PM EST

Re: Al Wynn Brags of Stealing the Election (3.00 / 1)

Yep that’s it. The comment start at 27:36.

by miguel on Thu Sep 21, 2006 at 03:39:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

One bright spot: the more the gloves come off and politicians are publically seen discussing how the government actually works, the more likely it is to be changed.

Note to K&K - WordPress’ editor doesn’t like nested blockquotes. :D

I don’t normally say much good about Republicans, but I’m having trouble seeing this move by Maryland’s Gov. Bob Ehrlich as a bad thing:

A week after the primary election was plagued by human error and technical glitches, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) called yesterday for the state to scrap its $106 million electronic voting apparatus and revert to a paper ballot system for the November election.

“When in doubt, go paper, go low-tech,” he said.

Ehrlich is most interested in abandoning the Diebold electronic poll books used to check in voters, which featured prominently in e-voting critic Avi Rubin’s account of chaos at one Maryland polling place. The idea would be to go back to a paper-based system of printouts of voters that are manually checked off, like what we use in DC. But Ehrlich also wants to get rid of the electronic voting machines, if possible by November. He’s willing to call a special session of the Maryland General Assembly if necessary.

Unfortunately, Democratic leaders in the General Assembly want to keep the electronic system and throw good money after bad:

But [Senate President Mike] Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) dismissed the idea of a special session, saying elections officials should focus instead on fixing the current system.

“We paid millions. These are state-of-the-art machines,” said Miller, who called Ehrlich’s announcement a political ploy to energize his Republican supporters.

I don’t care how much money has been spent already. When you’ve instituted a poorly designed system that disenfranchises votes and undermines people’s faith that votes are counted correctly, you need to recognize that you’ve made a mistake and move immediately to fix the problem.

One week after being unexpectedly clobbered 63 to 36 percent by liberal incumbent Phil Mendelson in the Democratic primary for at-large councilmember, A. Scott Bolden is still paying for Google ads. I saw one yesterday on DCist, and you can still see them today on Google itself if you search for “Bolden” or “Phil Mendelson”. I know from experience that you do enter an ending date when setting up a Google AdWords campaign, but I guess if you have hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign donations from the business community to outspend your opponent 3 to 1, a few extra web ads here or there don’t make much difference.