You can name the entire Congressional Delegation from your home state

You have a link to a page on your favorites talking about the Presidential race in 2020

That's right. Yesterday at a debate between Rep. Virgil Goode of Virgina's 5th district and his Democratic challenger Tom Perriello Goode said this

"And they want me out of Congress, the liberal Democrats want me out. And they want me out because I'm a conservative voice, if we can silence that person that's exactly what we want, we want more mushers up here  in Congress that won't speak out and stand out. They want a Obamajority in this country, Tom is on the Obamajority list for the US House of Representatives, they want to get him in there because they know he is going to be voting with them. They want to control the White House, 60 votes in the US Senate and a strong majority in the US House of Representatives."

Goode is famous for using bogeymen to scare people, he attacked Rep. Keith Ellison for being a Muslim and repeated tall tales about China that even Dick Cheney said where false.

Now he's found a new bogeymen. He's attacking the Obamajority, an ActBlue page started by a 14 year old blogger--me.

So I was listening to the radio a couple of weeks ago—I believe it was the POTUS 08 channel on XM—and there was a discussion taking place about (what else?) the 2008 presidential race.  Now one of the people taking part in the discussion was our own Georgia10, so I had to listen.  Anyway, a right winger called up and just blasted Georgia for something she didn’t say and during his diatribe he sort of derisively spat out the term "blogger" at her as if it were an epithet.  I’ve been sort of ruminating on this issue for a while, but at that particular moment it crystallized for me and I realized that I wanted to say something about it.

I’ve watched with some degree of horror as possible VP after possible VP is put up by the media,then bloggers take turns lambasting him/her for not being their favorite choice. (Yes, Talkingpointsmemo, I’m looking at you).  Pro-Clinton bloggers in particular have been especially aggressive in trying to tear down candidates. (Yes, TalkLeft, I’m looking at you.) The truth of the matter is that we should learn to differentiate between guys like Senator Lieberman, who spring from the self-hate wing of the Democratic party, and centrist democrats who disagree with elements of the progressive cause, but share the fundamental beliefs of the party.  The latest victim of the Anti-VP buzz  is Senator Evan Bayh.

After a number of fits and starts, the RootsWire project to aggregate blogs from the Democratic Convention is up and running.  We've been in Beta for the last month, but are now in full production mode.

Welcome back to another installment of UP News. The guys in this interview are indeed, card carrying liberals, and not only that, they are the ones coordinating events for the Big Tent event for Bloggers in Denver for the Convention.
John Erhardt and Aaron Silverstein are my kind of activists. Both are Editors for Square State, which is one of the main blogs in Colorado. Additionally, Aaron is with Democrats Work and will be organizing the Delegates for Actions in Denver the week of the convention.  John is the state coordinator of Living Liberally/Drinking Liberally
and is putting the fun in the Big Tent Event by getting some top notch food, bands and events.  I will be there with my brother in law, Tomas Custer, who runs Hispanic Tips and who was interviewed here on NPR.

By Mitchell Aboulafia  

I was tempted to title this piece, "The Cowardice of Bloggers," but I figured that this might be needlessly inflammatory. No reason to get people angry by calling them cowards just to get a bit of attention. (READ ME because I’m too controversial for words.) I have to admit that the temptation was great, for it seems that one needs to become the Dr. Strangelove of the Blogosphere to get noticed these days.

For the record, before I begin, I should make it clear that I am not suggesting that pseudonyms be banned from web sites. Nor I am suggesting that it isn’t fun and at times useful to use a handle that hides your true identity. Everyone wants to be Clark Kent on some days of the week. And of course there are serious political reasons, for example, retaliation by employers or governments, for hiding one's true identity.  No question, there are good grounds for using "pen names." With this string of caveats in place, I now make my case.

The Blogosphere is about to be buried in junk. When exactly it will be totally buried is anyone's guess, but I see the sphere turning into the electronic equivalent of Wall-E's earth, probably before the glaciers melt.

Memo to Republican candidates: There is actually an outer limit to fake outrage stories. Let's allow NJ-03 Republican candidate Chris Myers to demonstrate, shall we?

Release Date: Jul 22 2008

Myers Demands Adler Apologize to Troops, Veterans, Military Families for Web Video Comments

Adler referred to radical liberal bloggers as "the new citizen soldiers"

         Mount Holly, July 22, 2008-Decorated combat veteran and congressional candidate Chris Myers (NJ-3) today demanded that his opponent, career Trenton politician John Adler, apologize to United States active duty troops, veterans and military families for comments he made in a YouTube video posted on his web site.

         In the video, entitled "John Adler: a progressive," Adler admiringly refers to radical liberal bloggers from the Daily Kos and other liberal blog sites as "the new citizen soldiers".  The video can be found at Adler's campaign web site (www.adlerforcongress.com/video), or on YouTube at the following link: http://youtube.com/...

         "On behalf of our active duty military personnel and their families, and the tens of thousands of veterans living in the 3rd Congressional District, I am calling on John Adler to remove this video and apologize for his outrageous comments," said Myers, himself a former Navy Lieutenant and decorated combat veteran of the Persian Gulf War.  "These radical liberal bloggers are in no way, shape or form ‘soldiers,' and referring to them in that way is an affront to the brave men and women in uniform fighting to defend our freedoms around the globe, the veterans who have done so in generations past, and their proud families."

Without even bothering to get into the fact that the progressive netroots do in fact encompass many actual soldiers (which should come as no surprise, since all you need to have is a computer and a modem -- there are lots of dentists, too, but Republicans don't get outraged about dentists, even "radical liberal dentists"), I think we can safely say that Myers' ridiculous tirade is about as stupid a thing as anyone could ever imagine a candidate attaching his name to.

Thank God for geniuses like Myers, who can finally save confused New Jerseyans from metaphors, analogies and all sorts of linguo-fascism! They hate us for our figurative language, you know!

Does anyone think Myers would ever be able to find us the critical mass of soldiers who demand this apology? Who need it more than, say, some body armor and a lift home for their buddies?

The "falling off a log" response to this idiocy (note to Myers: I'm not actually on a log) would be to name some of the prominent members of our community who've served. But that understates the mendacity of his comments and legitimizes them. Better for residents of New Jersey's third district to take a closer look at Myers' own rhetoric and remember that everything he says must be taken literally. Anyone care to scour his web site and see who's owed an apology next?

With the need for constant vigilance against comparisons of mass destruction, one wonders when Myers will find time to campaign. By which I mean campaign for office, not conduct a military campaign! My apologies to everyone who ever has conducted such a campaign, or watched one on the History Channel!

What a friggin' dork.

UPDATE: Local color and the Adler response at (where else?) BlueJersey.

Here's another roundup of Netroot Nation 2008 coverage in the media and on the blogs.  There will be a special Daily Kos edition soon along with a final roundup edition when I can get them pulled together.  

Check out the previous NN08 roundups:     #1      #2

Crossposted at Reality Window

Rewrite:  I've lost the bait and switch headline referencing Hillary's "I've got the popular vote so if I don't get the nomination, we're like Zimbabwe" line in May.

Because the real parallel between us and Zimbabwe is a lot deeper and more ominous than a toss-off line in a primary campaign.  It goes straight to the heart of who we are as a nation, and why that matters to the rest of the world.

I'm always curious about how events like NN08 are covered so I poke around to see who's saying what.  I thought I'd pass along some of the more interesting bits I've found. It's not an exhaustive list.  Please feel free to add your finds in the comments.  

So, here's a round up of news and blog coverage of Netroots Nation through about 2pm EST on Saturday.  Check out the links including lots of video links below the fold.

Here's yesterday's edition.

Cross-posted at Reality Window

There's obviously a lot of noise about Barack Obama's "shift to the center" inside the blogosphere, and today it bubbles up into the mainstream.  The LA Times thinks that most Democrats don't care (based on nothing but anecdotes from insiders), while the Washington Post thinks his ideology is problematic, saying that liberals are calling him a centrist and Republicans are calling him a liberal, so who knows???

I think these thumbsucker pieces offer little in the way of identifiable information.  Then again, so does the blogosphere, increasingly.  That herd mentality we've all noticed in the traditional media has definitely migrated over, and the narrative has definitely hardened.  There is perhaps no bigger critic of Obama's vote on the FISA bill than I.  At the same time, I can't believe that this wasn't a far bigger story, particularly in the blogosphere.

We agree with Jon Henke that "there will always be a place for the amateur blogger who can get good information and write with a unique voice."  And we believe that once people get a taste of activist, netroots democracy it will be difficult - if not impossible - to convince them to return to mass media passivity.  For candidates, the challenge will be to harness the power of the netroots or lose to those candidates who do.  Either way, as the Washington Post concluded following the Yearlykos Kos convention in early August 2007, "Like it or not, the [netroots] appear to be here to stay".

So conclude Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox in their new book (published June 30) Netroots Rising: How a Citizen Army of Bloggers and Online Activists Is Changing American Politics  I will tell you now that I think anyone interested in understanding the netroots would be well advised to read this book.

Tired of being asked for money by campaigns...take a little break to help out a fellow blogger, a foodie community and farmers being affected by the floods.

Subscribe to Edible San Francisco today and we’ll donate 100%of your subscription to the Iowa Farm Aid fund (valid 6/19/08 - 07/01/08).

And why should you do this you may ask? Well...

I've just read a half-hour's worth of angry bloggers bemoaning Obama's support of the FISA compromise.

At first glance, I was also disappointed in Obama's decision.  However, upon closer inspection, I can see now that the fight isn't over yet.  

In this week's issue of TIME magazine, arriving in print and online tomorrow, columnist James Poniewozik uses the passing of Tim Russert to highlight the decline of the Old Media and the rise of the New Media, described as  "bloggers and YouTubers: a diffuse army of the uncredentialed, uninhibited and - most terrifyingly - unpaid.  In Russert, the press lost its most authoritative mass-market journalist, just as it is losing its authority and its mass market."

Poniewozik  explains: "It's too simple to say that the new media are killing off the old media.  ...What's happening instead is a kind of melding of roles.  Old and new media are still symbiotic, but it's getting hard to tell who's the rhino and who's the tickbird."

So, rhino or tickbird, hear this: He goes on to cite a DailyKos "scoop" this week in his evidence of the trend.

I have a question;
   I realize this may be a bit neurotic, but some professions are inundated with rumors and issues of legal liability;  so, in that context, I may have lost my mind, but I need to ask:

  What are the liability laws for bloggers? If I recommend something am I responsible for it? Someone asked about home insurance yesterday and I told my experience. Then I became scared that somehow I was responsible for my suggestion. Am I?

If a blogger on one blog mentions professional credentials does that mean their advise could be seen as professional advise?

I won't make this a long entry. But there's a major Boycott of the Associated Press going down.