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."

Forest rules were illegally changed, judge says

Nation & World | Forest rules were illegally changed, judge says | Seattle Times Newspaper

WASHINGTON — A federal district judge ruled Friday that the Bush administration illegally rewrote rules for managing 192 million acres of federally owned forests and grasslands in 2005 and must consider the environmental impact of its plan before offering another policy blueprint.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in San Francisco suspends the forest rules the administration adopted Jan. 5, 2005. Hamilton said the government did not adequately assess the policy's impact on wildlife and the environment and did not give sufficient public notice.

The judge ordered the Forest Service to suspend its 2005 rule and subject it to a new round of analysis, taking into account environmental protections and public-participation requirements in the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.

Here's another for the list....

The Want of Peach, by Wendell Berry

All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman’s silence
receiving the river’s grace,
the gardener’s musing on rows.

I lack the peace of simple things.
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace.
We sell the world to buy fire,
our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent my mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.

Thanks Oly DL member Liz for sharing this...

Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist: When Liberals Rule The World

When Liberals Rule The World / Stats say the GOP is dying. But red-staters are breeding like drunken ferrets. Who wins?

Here's the good news: The Republican party is dying. Slow, painful, twitching, secreting war and intolerance and desperation like a fetid gas, snarling and gagging like Jabba the Hutt being choked by the hard chain of progress and hope and relaxed social mores and an upcoming Generation Next that seems to sense that screaming about gays and women's rights and Muslims and drugs actually doesn't do much to move the human experiment forward in the slightest. Is this not delicious? Is this not cause for rejoicing? According to Pew Research, the percentage of young 'uns age 18 to 25 (a.k.a. Generation Next) who identify with Republicans has been in steady decline since the early '90s, and now hovers around a meager 35 percent, down from a high of 55 percent in the Reagan-toxic early-90s, and is still dropping, whereas fully 48 percent of 18-to-25-year-olds now lean Democratic ... and rising. Seems Generation Next tend to be more socially liberal and much less worried about the trembling "sanctity" of the failed nuclear family, and are overall less inclined to align with a particular religion. Indeed, it almost makes you want to weep and sigh and go buy a large grass-fed free-range organic hybrid vibrator. Ah, but there is a flip side. A counterargument. A dark cloud of righteous bleakness and it looms like a giant synthetic cheesecake-scented Glade PlugIn of potential misery. It is this: According to another set of data, for the past 30 years or so, conservatives -- particularly those of the right-wing red-state Christian strain -- have been out-breeding liberals by a margin of at least 20 percent, if not far more.

Thanks DL Member Warren for passing this along.

Bush not racing to defend Gonzales

Bush not racing to defend Gonzales - Politics - MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON - President Bush isn't rushing to the rescue of his old Texas friend, Alberto Gonzales, after the attorney general's one-time lieutenant undercut his old boss' account of the firings of eight federal prosecutors. Rather than merely signing off on the firings, as Gonzales has repeatedly stated, his former chief of staff says the attorney general was in the middle of things from the beginning.

Didn't we already know this?

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New Bush Plan to Gut Endangered Species Act

New Bush Plan to Gut Endangered Species Act

The U.S. Interior Department is preparing a wide-ranging set of regulations which substantially weaken the federal Endangered Species Act, according to internal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Center for Biological Diversity.

They will never stop....

Neverland Once Again--And guess what, it's another republican who happens to be running for President!

Crooks and Liars » John Roberts Debunks McCain’s Rosy Baghdad Scenario

On The Situation Room yesterday, John McCain told Wolf that the surge is so encouraging that General Patraeus now travels around in unarmored Humvees and American soldiers can walk around the streets of Bahdad safely. When confronted today by John Roberts, McCain backpeddled faster than he did on gay marriage in Iowa.

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Bush's Never Never Land

Bush: On Iraq, Public Opinion Is On My Side | TPMCafe

For a guy with an approval rating in the low thirties, President Bush sounded awfully sure of himself today. In his remarks this morning, President Bush actually seemed to suggest that when it comes to the current standoff between the White House and Congress over Dem efforts to mandate a pullout from Iraq in the war spending bill, public opinion is on his side -- in defiance of all polls showing the contrary.

Can you believe this guy? He definitely is in never never land!

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Prosecutors Say They Felt Pressured, Threatened - washingtonpost.com

Prosecutors Say They Felt Pressured, Threatened - washingtonpost.com:

"Another former prosecutor, John McKay of Seattle, alleged for the first time that he received a call from the chief of staff to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), asking about an inquiry into vote-fraud charges in the state's hotly contested 2004 gubernatorial election. McKay said he cut the call short.

Ed Cassidy, a former Hastings aide who now works for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said yesterday that the call was routine and did not violate 'permissible limits' on contact with federal prosecutors. Hastings, the ranking Republican on the House ethics committee, also said that the exchange was 'entirely appropriate.'

In remarks after the hearings, McKay said that officials in the White House counsel's office, including then-counsel Harriet E. Miers, asked him to explain why he had 'mishandled' the governor's race during an interview for a federal judgeship in September 2006. McKay was informed after his dismissal that he also was not a finalist for the federal bench."

Yet another Bush Fiasco. Republicans, all kinds from all levels, are taking hits on this one.

Exclusive: Inside the Libby Jury Room | The Huffington Post

Exclusive: Inside the Libby Jury Room | The Huffington Post: "WHAT THE JURY THOUGHT, DAY BY DAY, WITNESS BY WITNESS, AT THE SCOOTER LIBBY TRIAL"

Yesterday, Scooter Libbey was found guilty on four out of five counts. He faces up to 30 Years in prison. The Huffington Post has posted a blog written by one of the Jurors that describes the deliberations. An interesting read.

Next Drinking Liberally Meeting February 26th

Important: Next Meeting Date Monday, February 26th;
No meeting Monday February 19th.

Hello Drinking Liberally Members!

New Meeting Dates:
This email brings exciting news! Drinking Liberally new regular meeting dates are the 2nd and 4th Mondays. The start time and location remains the same: 7 pm at the Tumwater Valley Bar and Grill. Formerly meeting on the 1st and 3rd Mondays, these dates will allow progressive Driinking Liberally to more easily participate in other progressive social events held in the Olympia area during the 1st and 3rd weeks of each month.
Green Spirits, a progressive group of folks who have an interest in the environment, meets on the 1st Wednesday of each month at a rotating schedule. Progressive Spirits, a group sponsored by the Thurston County Progressive Network, meets on the 3rd Tuesday of each month. This meets you can drink--and socialize--with progressives every week of the month in Olympia!

For more information, visit the Pro-Net Website at http://www.tcpronet.org/, which features a great community calendar,

Next Meeting Information:
We will be continuing our discussion on framing issues to better communicate progressive ideals. Please come with an idea on how you might frame the issue of health care affordability and access and around another topic of importance to you.

Links to Information on framing issues can be found here: http://olydrinkingliberally.blogspot.com/2007/02/fwd-drinking-liberally-monday-february.html

Also Drinking Liberally member Sam recommends checking out the following article at the Frameshop by Jeffery Feldman. The Frameshop can be found on the web at: http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/2007/02/frameshop_its_y.html

Mark your calendars! This will be your only reminder for the February 26th meeting as Bruce will be on vacation and away from computers (that's a REAL vacation)!

Keep that positive progressive energy going!

Bruce and Barry

Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance

Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance:

"Seattle, WA – The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance (WA-DOMA) announced on Thursday that their proposed initiative to make procreation a requirement for legal marriage has been accepted by the Secretary of State and assigned the serial number 957. The initiative has been in the planning stages since the Washington Supreme Court ruled last July that the state’s Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional.

“For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation,” said WA-DOMA organizer Gregory Gadow in a printed statement. “The Washington Supreme Court echoed that claim in their lead ruling on Andersen v. King County. The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine. If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they can not have children together, it follows that all couples who can not or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage. And this is what the Defense of Marriage Initiative will do.”"

It's this kind of insane/inane initiative-mongering that makes the need of initiative reform that much more necessary. I strongly believe that signatures for initiatives should be gathered by non-paid gatherers. The minimum wage initiative used only non-paid gatherers (I volunteered to stand out at Percivile Landing and gather signatures) who believe so strongly in their cause that they donate time to their cause.

Queen George and the Invisible Dick | CorrenteWire

Queen George and the Invisible Dick | CorrenteWire:

"Like CD, I have run across an item which says what I’ve been trying to get across (and failing) every time the “We Can’t Impeach Bush Until We Get Rid of Cheney First” argument comes up to conveniently deflate the obvious fact that they both have to go.

Josh Marshall’s weekend guy David Kurtz slams the whole package together in this terrific piece. This started when the TPM crew set out to find out a seemingly basic, easy question: how many people work for the Office of the Vice President (OVP)? Turns out you are not allowed to know this. (Emphasis added). Never mind who they are, what they do, or who comes to visit them during working, taxpayer-funded hours, you aren’t allowed to know how many of them exist, again paid for with your tax dollars. How can this be, you ask?"

The evidence is mounting that the Office of the Vice-President is engaging in questionable power mongering that should belong in the Office of the President. The question is, "why is this being allowed by President Bush?"

Drinking Liberally Monday, February 5th

Hi all!

This is your friendly reminder that Drinking Liberally Olympia's next get together is Monday, Feb. 5th, 7 pm, at the Tumwater Valley Bar and Grill.

In addition to our normal roundtable of current events, this week our discussion will revolve around how us left-leaners can more effectively frame messages that will have more acceptance from those that in the past have not associated themselves with left-leaning principles.

DL Olympia member Liz provided the following information if you want to read up on the subject prior to Monday night--though don't feel like you have to!! :)
___________________________________________________

One of the topics on the agenda for DL's first meeting in February is how liberals can more effectively frame our perspectives. George Lakoff, who is a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley, has written extensively on this topic. Below are links to his website. You'll find some of his articles on the first web link. Click on the second and you can download his book, Thinking Points, Communicating Our American Values and Vision.

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/people/lakoff
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/thinkingpoints

________________________________________________________

Hope you can join us Monday night for what I am sure will prove to be a very fun and informative Drinking Liberally get-together!

Bruce and Barry