There's been a lot of hoopla over the past few weeks about John McCain's military service. It started when retired General Wesley Clark said that McCain isn't automatically qualified to be President because he was shot down in Vietnam. The media went nuts after that, accusing Gen. Clark of "swiftboating" John McCain. Nevermind in 2004 the media didn't seem to mind doing their part in swiftboating John Kerry. But this time it's a Republicon, therefore it's different.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said the union's International Executive Board voted unanimously to endorse Obama and noted "a historic primary campaign which activated and mobilized millions of voters."
"On every issue that counts, we can count on Barack Obama to stand with our members, our families and our communities," Gettelfinger said. "He has pledged to rebuild America's manufacturing base and to assist the auto industry as we retool toward a cleaner, more modern transportation system."
Gettelfinger also said in the union's endorsement that Obama supports workers' rights to organize, will push to make health care affordable and available to everyone and "understands the need to change our trade policies so that U.S. workers and U.S. companies can compete fairly in the global economy."
In the Democratic Primary, my candidate lost. My candidate was about as progressive as you can get. Pro-choice, supports unions, a friend to the environment, and the list goes on.
Unfortunately my candidate didn't run a strong enough campaign, failed to outraise the likes of Barack Obama, and came to an unfortunate defeat.
My candidate had the guts to keep their name on the ballot during Michigan's primary, when Edwards and Barack said "no way!"
My candidate also had a health care plan that blew Obama's out of the water.
I'm talking of course, about Dennis Kucinich.
Now I know what you Hillary backers are going to say-he had no chance, he didn't win a single state, he dropped out shortly after Michigan's primary, blah, blah blah....
We've been reading on Daily Kos for a while now about the bill that was presented by Jim Webb, the Post 9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Act. The bill will give 100% tuition assistance for any veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom.
As a vet myself, I know from personal experience and the experience of friends that getting the GI Bill, even when you're eligible, is an complicated task. So much so, that many of my fellow Soldiers just stopped trying to go to college on the Army's dime.
Go below the fold to learn how I plan on helping vets go to college
Hello, everybody! My name is Donald Bortz. You all know me as djtyg.
As some of you already know, I'm a OIF/OEF vet. I've written posts that have shown our need to get out of Iraq while I was over there.
Now I'm home and running for office. I'm asking you, my fellow Kossacks, to help me win.
My campaign is using a lot of netroots/grassroots support. Netroots for fundraising and building a volunteer base, and grassroots for the ground game.
While our politicians in DC are debating whether or not they should support the troops, I'm already putting together a plan that will help the veterans in my county go to college and receive the benefits that they deserve but are being denied by the federal government for nothing more than political purposes.
Oakland County has been reliably Republicon for the past 30 years. But that started changing in 2002 when David Woodward became chair of the Oakland County Democratic Party. In 2004 our county won the vote for John Kerry. In 2006 we went blue for our Governor, Jennifer Granholm. This election our Repug County Executive will have a strong challenger for the first time since the 1990's. Our county's 25 member board went from having six Democratic members to 12 in four years. We're one seat away from ending three decades of Republicon rule in one of Michigan's largest counties.
Hello, my fellow Kossacks! My name is Donald Bortz. I've been a Kossack since 2004, when I joined just after the election. I've written over 40 diaries, 2 of which have made it to the rec list. Both of those told of my experience in Iraq. I'm also a frontpager at Blogging For Michigan, an outstanding liberal state blog.
We're all here because we believe in America and our communities. We want to make our country a better place to live. We want to make sure that anyone who works an honest job should be able to afford to pay the rent. We believe in looking after our veterans, and making higher education available so people can have a strong education and the good paying job that goes with it.
We know that you can't be anti-worker and pro-business. Without a strong workforce, our economy will cease to exist.
We believe it's the right of all our citizens to have healthcare.
Even more important, we believe that our elected leaders should stand up for these ideas. And that's why I, Donald Bortz, have decided to run for office.
Recently the DNC unveiled a new ad attacking McCain for saying that he wants American forces to be in Iraq for the next 100 years. McCain, predictably, isn't happy about it. The Repugs have asked the 24 hour news channels to quit airing the ad, and McCain has been speaking out frequently about it.
But for once, the Democrats aren't backing down. From Huffpo:
But the DNC is hardly backing down. In a statement released to The Huffington Post late Friday, DNC communications director Karen Finney said, "John McCain should stop whining. We can see why John McCain doesn't want people to see this ad, but its time for him to defend his own words. Clearly John McCain knows that the more people learn about his real record and his willingness to keep our brave troops in Iraq for 100 years, the more they'll see he is not the right choice for America's future."
The ad begins with a clip of Rev. Wright screaming "Not God bless America, no! God damn America!" Then have a voiceover of a southern white woman in her mid 40's saying:
"This is what we've been seeing from the media and the Republicans for months." (Go to southern white woman standing in a field.) "My name is ____ and I'm an Obama supporter. My husband and I have voted Republican most of our lives, but 2 years ago, his job was shipped overseas due to unfair trade policies and Bush's tax loopholes for big business. We lost our healthcare. Obama has a plan to bring jobs back to America and has a universal healthcare plan to get America back on track.
"I don't care about that crazy preacher, I just want our family to be working again. And that's why I'm supporting Barack Obama!"
Brave New Films got a hold of this footage of the upcoming ABC interview. I thought the interview was extremely thought provoking and ended the free pass that the media has been giving McCain. I would even go so far as to say that after this footage airs, GS may even be vindicated for his atrocious game of tabloid politics at last week's debate. Watch for youself:
If you're watching MSNBC, you've been seeing two stories in regular rotation:
McCain talking about the gas tax.
Oprah losing support, supposedly because she endorsed Obama for President.
And this is supposed to be the network we actually like! CNN isn't doing any better.
We have a media that refuses to talk about McCain's violation of campaign finance laws, but makes stories out of what Obama had to drink in a restaurant.
The time for just sitting by and grinding our teeth has passed. It's time to call out the corporate media and their bias.
We all know how sucessful our letter writing campaign was against KFSO. Last month, Melanie Morgan was fired from the network in part because of our letter writing campaign.
We need to send letters to MSNBC and CNN and telling them to quit kissing McCain's ass and attacking Obama. If we wanted to watch that, we'd watch Fox!
To write to CNN, go here. For MSNBC, send your email to letters@msnbc.com.
Disclaimer: This post isn't directed towards any specific person. Trust me, I've been hearing this from just about everybody.
A year ago liberal activists were in high spirits. We had just taken back the US Congress from 12 years of Republicon rule and were looking forward to a new period of peace, prosperity, and opposition to the Bush administration. In Michigan, we helped reelected Governor Granholm, took back the State House, and made gains in the State Senate. The Republicons were hurting so bad that Michigan Liberal taunted Saul Anuzis with an endorsement for reelection to chair of the MIGOP. We were filled with hope, and life was good.
But since then we've seen a whole lot of things happen that have dampened our spirits. Not just on the blogosphere, but throughout the entire liberal activist community.
For those of you who have been following the saga, Bill O'Reilly originally ripped into John Edwards for mentioning the plight of homeless veterans. O'Reilly originally denied that there were any homeless vets at first, then when pressed said he'd get any homeless vets off the street if he knew of any.
But it seems now he's reneged on that deal, instead saying that he'd just pay for a homeless vet to travel to John Edwards' house. Why won't Billo take them in? Probably because he thinks they're crazy and on crack!
Here I am, on Christmas Day, sitting in my bedroom on my laptop, pressing the refresh button 800 times a day while I try to find the newest recommended diary or front page post.
What the hell am I doing here? Hell, what are we doing here? We could be spending time with our family, playing with our brand new toys, or if we don't celebrate Christmas, getting some really good Chinese food and curling up to a good movie.
But no, we're on the blogs! Yes, people, we are pathetic! Of all the ways we could be spending Christmas, we picked this.
But hell, since it's Christmas, I've included some great entertainment for us blog addicts. Since YouTube is the staple of our visual entertainment anyway, I've provided some videos below.
Thaddeus McCotter (MI-11), aka Thinskinned McCrybaby, is head of the House Republicon Policy Committee. His entire job revolves around telling his Republicon cohorts how to vote and which issues to support.
A few days ago McCotter gave a speech on the House floor in the hopes that his party will save itself by doing everything it did in 2006, save the earmarks for corporations.
Most of the speech was about what McCotter called "The Cashocracy" (along with a lot of Reagan worship), the idea that the GOP sold out in the name of corporate interests, and did so at the expense of the middle class.
This diary is in response to thereisnospoon’s excellent diary on the real reason the Democrats continue to give Bush his war funding (amongst their total surrender of their agenda to keep people outraged), and it’s to call out the Democrats in Congress who are using the continuation of Iraq as a cynical ploy to get votes to their side.
This strategy is beyond stupid. It’s beyond idiotic. It’s so damn dumb that I honestly don’t know a word to describe how stupid it is. And here is why.
We are the foot soldiers of the Democratic party. We provide the small dollar donations that help to compete with what once was the Repubicon cash cow. We go door to door every election cycle in freezing cold weather, routinely taking getting doors slammed in our faces with a smile, because if we responded how we wanted to such door slammer, we would hurt your campaign. Ninety-nine percent of us work for free. We’ve eaten more crap from right-wingers than the entire Detroit sewer system could possibly contain.
Over at Blogging For Michigan, we’ve spent the last 2 weeks raising money for troops that are deployed overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. The goal is to get $350 for each group we are supporting to create and ship care packages to in time for the holidays. As of right now, we have about $3,400 raised, due largely in part by UAW Local 598, and a few donations from bloggers. The money, when divided amongst our 12 groups makes about $283.
We are $804 short of our goal, and since we are donating to 12 different groups courtesy of anysoldier.com, that comes out to about $67 per group.
