Victory Is Ours

I'm still recovering from the last few days- I very nearly killed myself campaigning in the last week. Sprains, possible stress fractures, vomiting blood, etc. But it was worth it.

We crushed them. Utterly. For the first time since I moved to Burnsville, I have a Democratic State Representative (Will Morgan) and a Democratic State Senator (John Doll). Will won all 10 precincts in his district, John won 21 of 25 in his.

It was like this all over the place. Tim Walz won in CD1. Jon Tester won in Montana. Jim Webb won in Virginia. Claire McCaskill won in Missouri. Sheldon Whitehouse won in Rhode Island. All sorts of amazing wins.

There were a lot of campaigns I really, really wanted to see win, ones I got really emotionally invested in, that didn't, and that's hard. Dean Johnson effectively sacrificed himself for the rest of the party and to do what's right. I wanted to see a solid win for Mike Hatch, wins for Patty Wetterling (CD6), Ned Lamont (CT-Sen), Peter Goldmark (WA-05), etc, etc. I wish Kristin Hedger had won for ND's Secretary of State. I hope that we build on all of those, and prepare for next time.

I'm mostly glad we have so many victories, though (and hope I can finally get a job...) - this changes everything.

I'm going to take some time to recover, to heal, to analyze. And then it's back to my mission in life- defeat every Republican, everywhere, and make sure they don't come back.

And I've been quoting this a lot since Tuesday night: As Genghis Khan and Conan the Barbarian said: "What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!"

What to Say

I've been meaning to post on a number of things lately, but just can't come up with the words. The tricks pulled that meant we'll be stuck with the 2008 RNC convention instead of the DNC convention we should have had (and probably, based on my conversations with current DNC members before the RNC announcement, would have had...) pissed me off, and then came this atrocity of the torture vote.

That torture bill is blatantly anti-Constitutional. It's not just that it goes against all American principles, values, morals, and ethics. It's not just that it contravenes the spirit of every bit of law since the Magna Carta. It's directly, obviously, illegal. It cannot be logically reconciled with the Constitution as law.

I remember the oath of office sworn by our public servants. Obviously, those who voted for this do not. They swore to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They have broken that oath; moreover, they have put themselves forward as enemies of the Constitution. It is now the duty of those who actually believe and honor that oath to take action.

The embrace of torture and attempting to put men above the law does harm to our Republic; it imperils our security; it threatens the well-being of our armed forces who are in harm's way; it aids our enemies in attacking us; it gives comfort to our enemies in their own barbaric violations of the rights of mankind.

It is the very definition of treason.

This bill will be struck down. If not by the courts "within days", as unnamed sources allegedly tell the media, then eventually by law or by ruling. This will not stand. But those who would attempt to force such an abomination upon us must face the consequences of their actions.

Every single one of them must be replaced in office by people who will honor their oaths, people who will not betray their country in time of war for what they think will gain them short-term political gain.

I'll be expanding on this greatly over the coming months. In the short term (ie, the next month and a half), every Republican who voted for this should lose in this coming election (as this would be very nearly all Republicans in Congress, I obviously do not expect this to happen, I am merely stating what should), as should Joe Lieberman (The only non-Republican with a Democratic opponent to vote for this cycle, now that primaries are over).

Slightly longer term, all those who voted for this and continue in public office beyond the election must be challenged at the next opportunity: every single Republican must have a credible, reasonably-funded Democratic (anti-torture) challenger in the general election, and every single Democrat who voted for this must have the same in their next primary. (Here in Minnesota, I don't want my party's initials on a ballot line next to Collin Peterson's name ever again after this election.) Some will decry purges, left-wing extremism, litmus tests, blah blah. Let them, it doesn't matter. For example, I've defended Sen. Ben Nelson to people in the party for years. I've said he's the best we can expect in Nebraska. His opposition to stem cell research (and thus, support of my death) made me stop defending him, and with this, I will not be silent and neutral about him either. The people who went against Democratic and American principles this time have done it many times before. Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, Ken Salazar, Henry Cuellar... these people again and again defy everything we stand for. Enough is enough. Remove them all. From power, from positions of influence, from the public discourse. They have failed in the duties, failed to honor their oaths, and betrayed this nation.

Longest term? End the Republican party. Its leaders took the illegal actions that this bill was written to pardon; its leaders had the bill written; nearly all of its officeholders voted for it. The countless offenses perpetrated in its name and in our names by its hands are themselves inexcusable; this, however, is the last straw. It is not enough to "send them back into the minority for decades", as I've heard some fondly hope for. Another party will rise; our electoral system virtually guarantees it. But there must be no more such thing as the U.S. Republican Party, and its leaders must never again be allowed into the halls of our government.

Treason has been committed. The nation deserves justice.

Primary Night

Back home after DFL parties... the party party, so to speak, and Keith Ellison's.

I am so very happy we won one- Keith Ellison will be the next Representative from Minnesota's Fifth District, and the first Muslim in the U.S. Congress. He's a great guy, and actually goes out there and talks about how we need single-payer universal health care, not "universal access to affordable health care" or similar weasel words.

I'm saddened that it looks like Steve Kelley didn't win for Attorney General. I really like Steve, he's a model DFLer, a true progressive, and I wish he were being elected to something this year. I'm sure Lori Swanson would make a good AG, but I worry about getting her there. It won't be easy. We have to do it anyway, though. It's completely against my nature to ever, through action or inaction, allow a Republican to prevail over a Democrat if there's anything I can do about it.

So there's something of a mix there, but Keith Ellison going to Congress makes me happy. So I'll think about that for now, and leave the rest for tomorrow.

Primary Day

So the day arrives. Here's hoping all the DFL endorsed candidates win their primaries.

CD5 is, of course, the center of attention... Keith Ellison deserves to win this one, and the district deserves the best representation possible.

The Attorney General's race is the other really interesting one. Steve Kelley is by far the best-positioned to win, and was the only candidate who appreciated the value of the DFL endorsement.

Governor isn't even a contest. Sue Jeffers is a bigger threat to Pawlenty than Lourey is to Hatch.

I'll have more to say once the results are in.

On sockpuppetry

So, there's a lot of talk about TNR's Lee Siegel being fired, using his praising himself with a sockpuppet in the comments as an excuse.

Ezra Klein wrote an interesting piece, which included an item highlighted at Lawyers, Guns, and Money that I ended up writing a long comment on. Figured I'd post it here as well (though I should really edit it up a bit.. ah well):

I've been hanging about in various online fora for about 15 years (not as long as some, but a long time considering my age). This sort of thing is extremely common in a host of media, anything that's decent-bandwidth many-to-many and allows pseudonymity.

Basically, those who don't have a lot of experience in a high-feedback environment think that you can be anyone, pretend to be someone else.

Not really.

Sure, you can use any name you want, change it at will, and if you're not out there as your real-life identity anywhere on the net, you can claim a different background, a different name.

But there's still only one you. Even if you remove people's real names from their comment, even if you remove their pseudonyms (and btw, I find pseudos reveal much more about a person's mind than the name their parents gave them)... posts of just words, with no names attached... it's still very possible to tell who wrote what (far easier with a limited pool of writers you alredy know, of course.) For some of us who basically live in the text fora of the net, when you read someone's writing, you can basically "hear" their "voice". (As a side note, I often find major published commentary hard to read, because the voice isn't consistent- I can "hear" an editor talking in parts, and it's jarring.)

Posting under another name doesn't change who you are, it doesn't change your voice. (Some people can change their voice and convincingly "be" two people, but it takes skill and experience.) Names are just a handy label for the voice, it's not how someone is known to their readers.

Siegel is exactly the sort of person I can see falling into the trap. To him, it's always been about his name, and he's probably used to editors reworking his content... he probably thought changing his name and claiming to be a different person IRL would make people think he was someone else, but those are just minor data attached to the voice.

We can hear you, Lee.

I'm surprised Ezra would be subject to the pull, though... but then again, I don't know him that well. Maybe he's got more writing background than high-traffic correspondence background.

CD5: Erlandson calls moderate Muslim a "Hamas supporter"

The Strib reports on the CD5 candidates' positions on pulling out of Iraq. As you'd expect in that race, they all want to, but disagree on the details.

But a little "gem" in that article is buried near the end. AHS caught it:

Erlandson also accused Ellison of appearing recently with a supporter of the Palestinian group Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. Erlandson's aide said he was referring to Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington D.C., who attended an Ellison fundraiser last Friday in the Twin Cities sponsored by a group of Muslim businessmen.

What the hell, Mike? CAIR's pretty damn far from Hamas. They're, pardon the phrasing, extreme moderates. This will not go over well at all (and it shouldn't). Erlandson's going to have to apologize for this one at some point, unless he wants to jump on the neocon hate-the-Muslim bandwagon, and I don't see that working for him.

CD5: The Amundsen Mess

Jason Amundsen, campaign manager for 5th District "Miscellaneous Candidate #4", Paul Ostrow, is apparently an idiot, in addition to a backstabbing, disloyal slime-peddler. He sent out info on a 911 call where a mentally ill woman claimed Keith Ellison had assaulted her (which was quickly dismissed as baseless by police) to all the local media (who ignored it, since there was no "there" there), and MDE (who ran with it). Amundsen did this... wait for it... from his home computer, which comes up on reverse DNS as jason.amundsen.dsl.visi.com. Smooth, man, smooth. I bet he's never heard of caller ID, either.

Amundsen has now resigned. He'd best hurry up and start showing some contrition, apologize to Keith, and aim all his attacks at Republicans if he wants to work for a DFLer again.

Brodkorb will probably still be bringing the 911 call up in posts a year from now. The amount MDE and other local Republicans are going after Ellison is interesting. You'd think they'd save their efforts for races where they have a candidate, but for some reason, Keith Ellison really gets under their skin. It's probably typical Republican hate for a successful black Muslim, but it still seems odd.

Dan Weinand tracked the slime back to Amundsen, and has the full story.

Stem Cells, Part 1

I've got a hell of a lot to say about stem cell research. I'll probably be dead within roughly 20 years without stem cell-based therapy.

But the biggest thing about it is... the current state of affairs is such a total waste. Those cells? The ones that could be used to save my life? They aren't being saved, they aren't going to become fetuses, much less babies.

They are thrown in the trash.



The whole "debate" on the issue is whether those cells are used to save lives or whether they are thrown in the trash. It's not between using them and them beomcing people. Anyone who's among those opposing the progress of stem cell research needs to be able to answer me one question:

Why should I die so that those cells can go into the trash?