Bill Moyers: I'll be watching TV again on Friday Nights

Bill Moyers Journal . Home | PBS

Bill Moyers has a new show on PBS. premiering last Friday night. His guests included Jon Stewart and Talking Points Memo Josh Marshall. Both interviews provided interesting perspective on the news and how people -- especially those of the younger set -- are obtaining their news. Moyers' website offers video of the show, a weblog, transcripts, etc.

For us liberals, Moyers provides fresh and interesting subject matter from a usually mundane medium.

"Don't Touch Me....." or how to shut one's eyes and put his hands over his ears...

The Blog | Laurie David and Sheryl Crow: Karl Rove Gets Thrown Under the Stop Global Warming Bus | The Huffington Post

Last night Thelma and Louise drove the bus off the cliff or at least into the White House Correspondents Dinner. The "highlight" of the evening had to be when we were introduced to Karl Rove. How excited were we to have our first opportunity ever to talk directly to the Bush Administration about global warming. We asked Mr. Rove if he would consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming. Much to our dismay, he immediately got combative. And it went downhill from there.

An interesting post by Laurie David and Sheryl Crow. 

Robert Reich on pills and guns

Robert Reich's Blog: Guns, Anti-Depressants, and the Massacre in Virginia

In the United States, if you are seriously depressed, you can purchase anti-depressive drugs like Prozac, but only if you have a prescription from a doctor. Anti-depressants are enormously beneficial to millions of people but they are also potentially dangerous if used improperly. So, you have to see a doctor and get an assessment before you can go to a drug store and purchase one.



But in the United States, in places like Virginia, a seriously depressed or deranged person can walk into a store and buy a semi-automatic handgun and a box of ammunition. All you need is two forms of identification. You don’t need permission from a doctor or counselor or anyone in the business of screening people to make sure they’re fit to have a gun.

Robert Reich nails this one.  Special interests are rampant.  Today, congress was not able to block a prescription medicine reform bill for medicaid.  Pharmaceuticals have spent millions donating to congressional races.  And people continue to die because of it.



It is a sad week in this country.

Drinking Liberally reaches 200 chapters nationwide

From our friends at the National Level...

What Our 200th Chapter Means

With the arrival of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, the Drinking Liberally
map has hit 200 chapters. And with your help
(http://livingliberally.org/4.21.07), we're ready to go so much
further.

While beer companies should rejoice that more Americans are promoting
democracy one pint at a time, it's the progressive movement that has
cause to celebrate: with every new social club, we're building a
community that energizes and expands Liberal America.

Drinking Liberally has never been about the "drinking" -- it's about
creating a welcoming environment in which newcomers can engage,
activists can connect, and everyone can make progressive politics part
of their every day lives. And that's taken different shapes around
the country.

- In Reading, PA, Drinking Liberally is about hosting 100 activists to
meet grassroot candidates before the '06 election
- In Gooding, ID, Drinking Liberally is about defending the word
"liberal" from libelous attacks in the local newspaper
- In Natchez, MS, Drinking Liberally is about finding a bar where
black and white patrons feel comfortable attending together
- In Louisville, KY, Drinking Liberally is about building a network
that pledged thousands of dollars to local public radio

It's fitting that our 200th outpost is the 11th group in Colorado, a
state that is now tied with Pennsylvania for the most chapters.
Colorado is the center of the rising progressive power of the Mountain
West. Its landscape is dotted with dynamic groups like Progress Now
and Progressive Majority and terrific websites like
ColoradoConfidential.com and SquareState.net, a network of progressive
leaders and organizations that are creating real change and serving as
models of political action for the rest of the country.

We are proud to have 11 chapters in Colorado. We're so proud that we
held our 2006 Drinking Liberally National Conference in Denver...and
led the way for the DNC to follow suit next summer.

This rapid and remarkable growth signals another reason for the
progressive movement to be proud. Drinking Liberally has grown as
much or more between election cycles, when activism traditionally
drops off. We are proving that a liberal identity can and will exist
for many Americans more than once every four years.

Up to this point, Drinking Liberally has been fueled by an amazing
network of volunteers -- as is true for our Laughing Liberally comedy
shows, Reading Liberally book tours, Screening Liberally film series,
Eating Liberally meals and Blogging Liberally special events. But
there is only so large a network can grow and only so long it can last
on such a foundation. We have reached 200 chapters as a loose-knit
operation...imagine what we could do with the resources to build a
strong, sustainable organization?

That's why we are excited about the Living Liberally Launch Party
(http://livingliberally.org/4.21.07), this Saturday, April 21st, in
New York City. Living Liberally is the hub that connects all of these
projects, and will make our network an even more valuable partner to
the progressive movement. We're raising the funds to build our
infrastructure, hire our first paid staff and take our next giant
steps forward.

If you want to celebrate our 200th chapter or just tip your hat to the
local group in your town, if you're impressed with how this network
has grown or trust where we plan on taking it next, please buy a
ticket to this Saturday's event
(http://livingliberally.org/4.21.07/ticket.html). Even if you cannot
attend, you can make a contribution
(http://livingliberally.org/4.21.07/sponsor.html) that will help make
200 a stepping stone to even greater achievements.

Welcome, Pagosa Springs. Thank you, everyone, for promoting democracy
one pint at a time.

Bush Grievances Against Liberal Ideals

At the 2nd March meeting of Drinking Liberally Olympia, members put together a list of grievances against the Bush Administration.  Some of these are illegal. Clearly. Others go against what we consider ethical behavior.  Still others that are actions that are hypocritical of what Bush says he stands for, but his actions speak very differently.  But virtually all them piss us off!!



We came up with 60 different grievances that evening.  Others have contributed since then.  We now have 85 items on the list and still counting.That is with no prior research, no thinking about it prior to the meeting.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  The list is in no particular order or priority. Here goes:

1. Suspend Habeas Corpus
2. Made travel to foreign countries more unpleasant for you and me
3. Made travel of foreign guests much more unpleasant to visit here
4. Stole 2000 election
5. "Compassionate Conservative" only compassionate depending on who you are (i.e., rich)
6. Intimidation of subordinates of those who are fired
7. Mixing political appointees vs. political appointives
8. Arsenic in Water
9. Katrina
10. Iraq
11. Mountaintop Removal
12. Valerie Plame
13. Patriot Act
14. Guantanamo
15. "Old Europe" (Estranging Allies)
16. The name "Homeland Security"
17. Disregarding Civil Liberties (Warrant less Searches)
    
    
18. Renditions
19. Torture
20. Tax Cut and Deficit Policy (i.e. De-tax and Spend Conservatives)
21. Invented "enemy combatant"
22. $9 Billion missing in Iraq
23. Refusal to fund stem cell research
24. Privatizing the military
25. Used hired mercenaries to go into New Orleans immediately after Katrina hit
26. 20,000 National Security Letters w/out warrant
27. Ignoring the Geneva Convention
28. Disregarding International Law
29. Disregarding National Law -- "I am the Decider"
30. $40 billion being spent on unfounded star wars technology
31. No Child Left Behind
32. Cutting financial aid for higher ed
33. Alienating our Gay Community
34. Pandering to the religious "right to life" sect through the Terry Schiavo case
35. Faith-based initiative
36. Lack of action and collaboration with the world community on Global Warming
37. Dick Cheney's secret energy policy written by energy companies for pure profit
38. Constant and Consistent Lying--Actions definitely do not support words (why do people keep believing him?)
39. Lied about "Weapons of Mass Destruction" to get us into an endless, bloody war that has resulted, at a minumum, several 10's of thousands dying, most likely resulting in 100's of thousands dying
    
    
40. Let Afghanistan "rot on the vine"
41. Neglecting Osama Bin Laden
42. Shutting EPA libraries down
43. Drilling in National Nature Preserves
44. Clearcutting
45. Stopping a clear path of scientific information to scientists and the general population
46. Putting a "chastity belt on lady justice"
47. J. Steven Griles, former Deputy Secretary of the Interior, indicted in the Abramoff Scandal
48. Curriculum developed in "No Child Left Behind" initiative directly benefits Neal Bush, George's brother (see http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/8/125556/7027)
49. Appoints Sam Fox as Ambassador of Belgium as a recess appointee after being rejected by the Congress
50. Environmental Degradation is acceptable
51. Ignoring the needs of our veterans and returning injured soldiers
52. Biggest Debt in human history left for our children and grand children
53. New Nuclear weapons
54. The "war president" is the "vacation president"
55. "grammar deficient"
56. Abstinence only funding
57. Abdicating on the middle east peace process
58. US Attorney Schedule
59. Clear Skies Initiative
60. "Healthy Forests" Initiative
61. Bush Administration's attempt to deny citizens the right to sue to enforce
    
    voting rights
62. January 2001 – suspends
    
    implementation of most of former President Clinton's late-term executive orders
    
    regarding the environment, including the "roadless rule" protecting 60 million
    
    acres of national forest, new standards for arsenic in drinking water, and a
    
    phased-in ban of snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park.
    
    
63. February 2001 – cuts
    
    Interior Department funding for environmental policy enforcement by 7 percent.
    
    The Republican-controlled Senate introduces, for the first time, a bill that
    
    would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a proposal
    
    resurrected annually as part of Bush's energy policy.
    
    
64. March
    
    2001 – reverses a campaign pledge by announcing that he will not order mandatory
    
    reductions of carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's electrical
    
    plants.
    
    
65. March
    
    2001 – unilaterally withdraws from the Kyoto Protocol on global
    
    warming.
    
    
66. March
    
    2001 – nominates mining industry lobbyist J. Steven Griles for Interior deputy
    
    secretary.
    
    
67. April
    
    2001 – breaks another campaign pledge, abandoning plans to invest $100 million
    
    per year in rainforest conservation.
    
    
68. April
    
    2001 – nominates Bennett Raley – who once testified that the Endangered Species
    
    Act should be repealed – as assistant secretary for water and
    
    science.
    
    
69. April
    
    2001 – instructs the Interior Department to seek to limit citizen-initiated
    
    lawsuits involving the Endangered Species Act.
    
    
70. April
    
    2001 – Dick Cheney, heading up Bush’s hyper-secret energy task force, meets with
    
    Enron executives (pre-implosion) for advice.
    
    
71. May
    
    2001 – places a freeze on new proposals for expanding the national park
    
    system.
    
    
72. May
    
    2001 – nominates James Connaughton, notorious for his legal defense of General
    
    Electric in Superfund fights with the EPA, to be the chair of his Council on
    
    Environmental Quality.
    
    
73. May
    
    2001 – nominates Linda Fisher, former head of Monsanto's government affairs
    
    office, as second-in-command at the EPA.
    
    
74. May
    
    2001 – releases his energy plan, devised in secret by a task force headed by
    
    Darth Cheney.
    
    
75. June
    
    2001 – BRIGHT SPOT: Vermont Republican Jim Jeffords switches parties, throwing
    
    control of the Senate to the Democrats.
    
    
76. June
    
    2001 – nominates former timber lobbyist Mark Rey for Agriculture undersecretary
    
    for natural resources and environment.
    
    
77. June
    
    2001 – nominates William G. Myers, a former lobbyist for the National
    
    Cattlemen's Beef Association, as the Interior Department's new
    
    solicitor.
    
    
78. July
    
    2001 – announces the opening of 1.5 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil
    
    drilling – although distant from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's shorelines.
    
    
79. August 2001 – seeks to
    
    overturn a federal court order blocking oil and gas exploration off the
    
    California coast.
    
    
80. August 2001 – citing
    
    executive privilege, Bush refuses to respond to a letter from the GAO revealing
    
    with whom Vice President Darth Cheney met as chair of the energy task
    
    force.
    
    
81. August 2001 – the select
    
    intergovernmental committee on terrorism meets for the first time – for 25
    
    minutes.
    
    
82. September 2001 – after
    
    the abject failings of his administration to prevent 9/11, invokes global
    
    terrorism as excuse for increased coal mining and oil exploration in the US,
    
    combined with relaxed regulation and oversight – leading indirectly to the Sago
    
    disaster just over 4 years later.
    
    
83. October 2001 – rams the
    
    USA PATRIOT Act – it’s an acronym, remember? – through a compliant Congress,
    
    expanding the use of National Security Letters and the powers of the FISA Court,
    
    defining a new type of crime (“terrorism-related activity”), and replacing the
    
    “probable cause” language of the Fourth Amendment with the more malleable
    
    “reasonable suspicion.”
    
    
84. November 2001 – nominates
    
    Rebecca Watson – a member of the Board of Litigation of the Mountain States
    
    Legal Foundation and a lawyer who has represented the interests of the mining
    
    and logging industries – to serve as the Interior Department's assistant
    
    secretary for land and minerals management.
    
    
85. December 2001 -- grants
    
    initial approval to a set of administrative rules that would weaken the Clean
    
    Air Act by allowing coal-burning plants to bypass "new source review" pollution
    
    standards when upgrading their facilities.

Dems Call for Review of Bush Appointment

Dems Call for Review of Bush Appointment | The Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Democrats called for an investigation Thursday into whether President Bush acted illegally in appointing Sam Fox ambassador to Belgium. A day earlier, Bush named Republican fundraiser Fox to the post as a recess appointment _ a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress, where Democrats had derailed his nomination. "We view the recess appointment of Mr. Fox as a clear abuse of the President's recess appointment power," three Democratic senators wrote in a letter to the Government Accountability Office, Congress' auditing agency.

Isn't this someone who made a grand show of a willingness to work WITH the congress? The bully is definitely back!

What is Olympia's Liberal Hotspot or Historical Note?

Our national DL Team has requested submissions for the following. Olympia has a large history of progressive politics--I'm just not sure what it is, but I would sure like to find out! I'm not sure about nominating the Tumwater Valley Bar and Grill, it's a great place with great staff, but as a liberal "hotspot:--that is open for debate!

Feel free to comment on this post --or come to the next meeting--we will be talking about this!

An interesting and exciting opportunity has come up for us to
contribute stories and ideas to a new book being published by The
Nation magazine.

They are producing "The Nation's Guide to the Nation," a
coast-to-coast guide to progressive America. In addition to
highlighting different organizations (including Drinking Liberally!),
they want to write about quirky liberal stories and secrets from
across America.

What type of submissions? Really, whatever you think is right...but
below, I've included notes from one of the researchers that may help
guide you.

Thanks! They'd love these ideas in the next week or so. Don't worry
about making them thorough -- just help whet their appetite.

- justin

>From the folks at The Nation:

"The book will identify all manner of unique, offbeat things:
Chicago's finest political saloons and San Francisco's neighborly
coffee houses; where to find fair-traded coffee beans; green markets,
slow foods and anti-fast-food activists; humane-raised meats; radical,
feminist, gay and African-American bookshops and clubs; feminist
erotica, consenting-adult sex clubs and singles clubs for politically
committed people; music stores, festivals and venues; progressive
summer camps and play groups; anti-sweatshop organizations and
non-exploitive clothing makers; progressive realtors, therapists,
ministers, rabbis, undertakers and cemeteries; community radio
stations, liberal commentators and talk shows; a Left-Thumbed Guide to
the Blogosphere; writers rooms, writers unions, writers programs and
writers retreats; alternate energy sources, and cohousing
developments; activist churches, mosques and temples; real alternative
weeklies, socially zines; left history tours and tourists.

"Being that we're talking to Drinking Liberally, it would also be good
to get people to nominate their meeting place for our social section,
but they would need to justify why their bar should be included above
and beyond the fact that DL meets there X nights a month -- for
instance: the bartender/owner is an vet with anti-Bush views and
every local protest march ends here, or it's rumored that Dylan
stopped in for a drink on his way to play the cotton fields of
Mississippi, or this is the first bar to host integrated music nights,
or some storied bit of liberal folklore, you get the point."