John Edwards will be in New Haven on 8/17 to help Ned's campaign.
It's getting some nice attention on the blogs. Will list those tomorrow, 8/13.
I'm up early as I have to fly to the DC area in a few hours, but I see good news on the NYT:
Lamont Defeats Lieberman in Primary
(photo credit:myleftnutmeg)
Ned Lamont, a Connecticut millionaire whose candidacy for the United States Senate soared from nowhere on a fierce antiwar message, won a narrow victory in the Democratic primary last night over the incumbent, Joseph I. Lieberman.
and interesting snip
Mr. Lamont said that former Senator John Edwards, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2004, was the first Democratic leader to call him last night. Mr. Lamont also gave a prominent spot at a rally last night at his headquarters in Meriden to several African-American supporters, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
Thanks, JRE. You were up late last night, I was not. Sorry about your plane not making it to the Helena rally, but you'll be in Bismarck today. Thanks for supporting Nick Lampson this fall in doing a fundraiser for him. The Texans will love him more!
Stay cool, all.
Sidenote to Bob on Crazy Politico, hope whatever your family problem is, it will resolve itself. My prayers are with you.
Go Ned Go! Democracy via netroots at work here. I love it!
Tags: John Edwards, JRE, Ned Lamont, Senate Race 2008, Connecticut, Nick Lampson, Texas congressional races, Benny's World, blogs, netroots
BW readers, I have been silent about the Lamont-Lieberman race on this blog. It was a race that a few months ago, was supposed to be an easy win for Joe Lieberman.
But the more Joe L kept talking that the situation in Iraq was better, the worse it got for him. His message turned off so many people who had planned to vote for him, but now are switching their vote.
To borrow from a post just made a few minutes ago by Scott Galindez in Truthout:
Is Lieberman Producing for Democrats?
Ned Lamont doesn't have to win on Tuesday for a loud message to be sent to the Democratic Party leadership. That message is that rank and file Democrats want an opposition party in Washington that doesn't rubberstamp the policies of the Bush administration.
For Ned Lamont to be leading against a powerful incumbent who is not embroiled in scandal is already a victory. Joe Lieberman cannot blame a messy scandal for his poll numbers. This campaign is about the issues that the voters of Connecticut care about.
To me, it was wrong of Joe L to blame the bloggers. He has himself to blame for wanting to side with neo-conservatives/PNAC'ers in wanting to stay and fight in Iraq instead of calling for a withdrawl of troops over time, just as JRE did say over the weekend (albeit, it's not the first time he has said this).
But if Joe L wants to blame it on the bloggers if he loses, so be it. Time will tell if netroots activism will finally get a candidate we want to win. It didn't work for Howard Dean, but the political climate has changed in 2.5 years. We are tired of this war and we are sick to death of making more enemies over there with each passing day.
I don't doubt that Ned Lamont will have a learning curve if he wins the primary and the general election to become a Senator. He will have to resist corporate lobbying interests, which will be difficult. Things he cares may not make it back his home state, Connecticut, especially if the Dems cannot take back the Senate. Bush will veto most bills that support the greater good and not just the corporate special interests. And that will be tough for his constituencies--as well as others.
Unlike many Dems I hang out with in blogs and chat rooms, I tend to support the candidate over the party. In this instance, I cannot support Joe Lieberman, even he pulls off a HST of 1948. I won't be bitter since I don't live in Connecticut. But if Ned Lamont wins, as polls say he should be able to (but then the pollsters said Kerry/Edwards ticket would be the winner), it is a victory for the American people who are out there blogging, working hard for less pay, and need health care--and a smackdown for greedy corporate interests--such as energy companies who are ripping off Americans because conflicts in the Middle East are causing the prices to go up, and executives keep rewarding themselves with big parachutes.
I endorse Ned Lamont on the eve of the primary. Good Night, and Good Luck.
Tags: Ned Lamont, Joseph Lieberman, Connecticut Senate race 2006, Iraq, corporate interests, netroots, John Edwards, JRE, bloggers, Benny's World
Spark in the Drawer's photos of the Pittsburgh rally here.
Favorite line that s/he takesaway from the speech: "Anyone can sign a card and join the Republican Party. It should be just as easy to join a union!"
<--- Here the pic to go with it
I agree. I'm not a member of a union, I am a manager, and have union employees work for me. They are fighting for a new contract as I type, but it will be left up to my institution and the union to work that out. I get paid whatever I am given, but fighting for better pay for the union is their right, and I'm glad they have it.
So should Wal-Mart employees have that right.
Tags: Wake-up Wal-Mart rally, John Edwards, unions, rights, responsibilities, Pittsburgh, Benny's World, Spark in the Drawer blog
Joan Cassidy, librarian, New York State United Teachers, Latham, N.Y., was honored as the 2006 recipient of the John Sessions Memorial Award presented by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of ALA, for her work in creating the Albert Shanker, “Where We Stand” database, an on-line archive of more than 1,300 New York Times columns by Albert Shaker, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) from 1974-1977. The award is named in honor of John Sessions, former AFL-CIO Education Director and co-chair of the AFL-CIO/ALA Joint Committee on Library Services to Labor Groups.
The annual conference included ALA-APA sessions on affordable health care options, pay equity advocacy training, strategies for collective bargaining and the benefits of managing a library with a union.
Joan is one of my SLA Labor Librarians caucus colleagues. She's a hard worker!
PEARL, Miss. - Can an outside politician go to Iowa these days and not be seen as a presidential wannabe?
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said months ago that he won't run for president in 2008, but he might stir up talk of a possible candidacy by speaking in Des Moines on Aug. 16.
Asked if he's eyeing a run for the White House, Barbour shook his head.
"You can rest assured. I'm on hurricane duty," he told The Associated Press.
He responded to questions on Friday during a visit to the new Mississippi Emergency Management Agency headquarters in the Jackson suburb of Pearl.
Barbour, now 58, was Republican National Committee chairman from 1993 to 1997 and is still well connected in national GOP circles. He has helped raise money for Republican candidates in Missouri, Georgia and other states.
Barbour said he's going to Iowa at the request of the Republican State Leadership Council, a group that helped him unseat Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in 2003.
This past Friday, I was surfin' the Net for articles about John Edwards. I do this for 2 reasons: one, often I am looking for news for the JRE Buzz. But secondly, there are times when I believe there are disceptive posts, in which the poster may not have her/his facts straight about JRE, or some are just downright wrong, I will post a comment, or debunk, as we in the blogosphere say. Elizabeth Edwards spoke recently in Iowa about respect and that means telling the truth. She added that her grandmother used to say about untruthiness, "The intent to decieve is the same as a lie. "
I stumbled across Crazy Politico's blog, as I had seen the blogger, Bob, post some untruths about JRE on the Wake-up Wal-Mart blog. I decided to visit his blog. At first I thought he was a moderate in his views, so I decided to post something there concerning the topic of John Edwards speaking at the Pittsburgh rally. Bob was essentially saying that he thought JRE was a hypocrite by having Wal-Mart stock and allowing the 2004 campaign folks to shop there if he was so against Wal-Mart's business practices of low wages, purposely not employing folks enough hours to make them eligible for health care, but yet, the workers worked more than part-time, and how taxpayers had to pick up their healthcare tabs by emergency room visits for those who could not afford to pay, or medicaid for those not eligible for medicare.
It was later that I read that JRE had sold his stock in Wal-Mart, but even if he hadn't and it was through trust funds someone else managed for him, I wouldn't have cared. Why? Here is what I wrote:
Well, I have Wal-Mart stock too via a mutual fund. But I suppose in the Republican world there is or should not be such a thing as shareholder activism. If I had been in Pittsburgh, I would have been cheering Senator Edwards on. He has a right to challenge Wal-Mart and stand up for many who cannot get a job somewhere else, in which many folks have become the working poor as a result of layoffs at industrial plants in big and smaller communities. Wal-Mart needs to start treating its workers with the dignity that Sam Walton had for them when he was alive. After he died, the children didn't want to work at Wal-Mart, and certainly, Helen Walton was in no position to head the company either. Thus, the ones in high management who hijacked the company have been playing games with their employees for years and there have been a number of lawsuits filed against them on work discrimination.
Wal-Mart relies on the state's Medicaid programs as health care; that's big rip-off to the taxpayer, who also shops at Wal-mart. Wal-mart needs to pony up for benes to the worker. Better yet, universal health care, but until this country wakes up and smells the health care crisis coffee, employees in service organizations need to have the right to unionize and bargin for better wages and benefits. After all, China made Wal-Mart to allow unions in their country. Wal-Mart needs to step up and allow it in the US too."
Here was the response of Ted, one of the regular bloggers:
Trust me largebill, if Bennyboy had a clue, he wouldn't even post his diatribe here. Who does he think he is appealing to??
The Limo Liberals still have the black vote and if they ever lose it, they are DONE!!!! Without the black vote, they are history. Bennyboy and those like him just plant their "garbage" on any site they find, to promote more garbage.
John Edwards is just a guy with a hairdo and a shyster lawyer. People like him are the reason there are lawyer jokes. Bennyboy is the reason there are moron jokes.
Yes Benny, this is a personal attack but you matching wits with me is like drawing on Wyatt Earp with a squirt gun. Get over it.
You are nothing more than a liberal with an agenda which is more dangerous than a Hells Angel with an Attitude. (sans Ted Nugent)
Get over yourself and don't come back here again! You are too stupid to be someone allowed to vote - I hope!!!!
Now, I'm certain Ted thought I was a guy a neighborhood bar, that he had punched me in the nose, and threw me out.
Just so you all know the context, BW readers, my spouse votes for Republicans most of the time (except for Alan Keyes, who really was incompetent to be our national Senator from Illinois), but he wishes the Republican Party was more like the days when it didn't spend so much money. He felt that the Democratic Party left him during the late 1970's, and was a Reagan Democrat who switched over in 1984. So, I know what it's like to be Maria Shriver, but also I believe love doesn't know a political party either.
Not so fast, Ted. So here's what I blogged back:
CP Readers,
Like Karl Rove and those at Freeprepublic.com, Ted has chosen to attack me and Senator Edwards on a personal level because of fear that Senator Edwards is making a correct stance about Wal-Mart's poor business practices. I think it's unfortunate that Ted has to resort to calling people he disagrees with "stupid" and telling me "not to return" when it's not even his own blog. I'm not intimidated by his comments, especially since he knows nothing about me or my politics. But I'll provide one tip: I am a blue moderate, and I happen to live in Bob's state.
Where my error was is that is a conservative blog--I didn't read the blogroll very carefully.
Incidentally, my spouse is a conservative, but he doesn't call me stupid for my support for many stances which concur with Senator Edwards's views."
So even though I physically don't have "balls" (as blogger Marc Canter asked JRE about political will at Gnomedex), I think I must have grown some blogger ones to be bold enough to enter that neighborhood, and took the high road in doing so, just as JRE would do.
Crazy Bob and Ted and whoever at Crazy Politico's Rantings, here's what I look like. And the man you see to my right has the backbone and courage this country needs in our next leader. He and His Wife (seen below, with me and Iowa blogger/bud Jackie R) inspire me every single day to be a good patriot and stand up for what I believe in: One America in which a government that works best for all people.
Update: the discourse on Crazy Politico turned civil last night. We'll see how it progresses.
Tags: John Edwards, Wal-Mart, WakeupWalMart.com tour, health care, truth, debunking, benny's world, conservative blogs, conviction, backbone, deception
Yesterday was a proud moment for the new 6 inductees of the Hall of Fame. I was pleased to see Warren Moon and John Madden get in, along with Harry Carson and Reggie Wright.
But for this Dallas Cowboy fan, it was gratifying to see Troy Aikman and Rayfield Wright be inducted. I remember Rayfield Wright when I was growing up in Lubbock. Every Sunday in the autumn was sacred. I recall going to church and when the Cowboys were going to play at Noon, the minister made certain that his sermon was a little shorter so that we could get home on time to watch the kickoff and Tom Landry quietly watching what his team would do. Rayfield Wright played right tackle for quarterback greats such as Roger Staubach and Danny White. After many grueling losses to Pittsburgh during the 1970's, Wright finally got his first Super Bowl ring in 1978, then retired in 1979.
Troy Aikman was the great Cowboy quarterback of the 90's. I lived in the Boston area when the team had back to back wins, and he was voted MVP of one of them. They won a third championship against Pittsburgh, albeit, I didn't consider it their greatest victory as there were some questionable calls. But Troy had grace through it all, and I was proud he was not a braggart, unlike some of his teammates, who ended up in jail.
I think Wright summed it up well when he said (as quoted by the NYT today), "Some say that patience is a virtue,” said Wright, who played all 13 of his seasons with the Cowboys. “After 22 years of eligibility, God knows that I’m not a saint, but I am a Dallas Cowboy. I’m privileged to be in such a stellar class.”
You're right on, Rayfield. Congrats to you and Troy.
Tags: Troy Aikman, Rayfield Wright, Dallas Cowboys, NFL, Hall of Fame 2006, Benny's World
Elizabeth Edwards had an amazing Rocktober with her book tour. (Last year, JRE had one with the Opportunity tour). I'm going to report what I've read from the various blogs and online news from the past couple of weeks, as most of the posts were from women and they are geeks too! (photo credit: Enoch Choi, via Citymama blog)
One Voice, aka Carolina Girl, and Iddybud posted on the OAC blog about their experience in meeting Elizabeth at the book signing in Charlotte. Both of those bloggers had some great takeaway moments.
I also enjoyed seeing Elizabeth's response to fellow blogger Anonymoses' question about the OAC blog, as recorded by Iddybud (and posted with NCDem's assistance) on Youtube this week.
And if that weren't 'nuff, Elizabeth was at the Converge South conference, one that Sue P actually was kind enough to find me a home host, but alas I couldn't go due to increased air fares. But it looked to me that Elizabeth rocked the place with her talk on building online communities. Elizabeth is a natural teacher, and does her homework/lesson plans ahead. When as when she talked to Maryam Scoble about weight loss, Elizabeth shared with Maryam that she had lost 40 lbs after going off steriods for her cancer treatment, and had read Maryam's blog about her own weight loss. How cool is that? Maryam recently added about her encounter with Elizabeth:
"I met Elizabeth Edwards at ConvergeSouth and she touched my heart. I expected to meet a well polished politician and lawyer and get the party line from her. Instead I met a real woman who talked to me from the heart, a mother who has survived the death of her son, who is also a cancer survivor, a best-selling author and well involved with her husband's political career. She is an Internet and web veteran and has been involved in building and contributing to online communities for many years. Interviewing her was one of those proud moments in my life that I will remember for long time to come. "
Elizabeth also stayed for the whole morning, listening to others on steps of the room, rather than just in a chair. Dang, I wish I could have been with her and met the others, including Iddybud and Anonymoses, who also attended.
Anyway, at lunchtime, she did an interview with the Scobles, the ultimate geeks, that is finally up on the Podtech. I've read mainly positive reviews of the interview, only one or two who didn't think it was that great, but due to the technical aspects, not the content.
Then there was the fisaco with the Ladies Home Journal last week. How insipid. Elizabeth was trying to point out that her choices were different from Hillary Clinton's, mainly that children gave her the greatest joy, whereas Hillary wanted political power. Nothing wrong with either choice, but when Elizabeth saw that she was being misquoted, she called Senator Clinton to explain. Why this conversation got in the press is beyond me. But I guess Senator Clinton's aides were so eager to leak the information. As someone at BlueNC pointed out, Elizabeth learned a quick lesson on being more careful what one says, and to apologize when necessary. But I did write a LTTE at the NYT. As it didn't get printed, I can repeat what I wrote here:
Last night the AP released a story about Elizabeth Edwards calling Senator Clinton concerning some misquotes from a Ladies Home Journal luncheon for Mrs. Edwards this week. The Times chose to run the story.
I am appalled that the Times chose to publish this story and nothing else about Elizabeth Edwards' book tour, which commenced in NYC on October 2. There was no article about that event. There is no book review either even though "Saving Graces" is on the Times' best selling list for nonfiction. Her book has touched women who can relate to the loss of a child, and how Edwards persevered during a battle with breast cancer.
If this one story about a conversation between Mrs. Edwards and Senator Clinton is all that's fit to print, then the Times seems to already be showing favoritism towards Mrs. Clinton's possible run for the presidency in 2008.
Still haven't seen a book review on NYT. But the Washington Post did one last Wednesday.
Elizabeth did a midwest gig last week. In Chicago, she was eclipsed by Barack Obama's book signing, but she did an interview with WGN's John Williams and there is a podcast available (you have to dig for it, sorry). Elizabeth was also in Des Moines, as reported on the OAC blog.
Elizabeth had a good week this week in California. She met with the Silicon Valley Moms' bloggers group. They were blown away from their meeting with her. City Mama read Saving Graces before meeting with Elizabeth, and had this to say about her book:
But the most striking thing about the book is that she seems to remember every single person in her life that sustained her, supported her, helped, and inspired her along the way, through good times and bad. She remembers the names of servers, janitors, supermarket baggers, her first teachers, neighbors, friends and colleagues, and she seems to have named them all in her book. Saving Graces is part memoir and part one big, huge thank you letter. It is probably the kindest, more generous book I have ever read. In writing it, Elizabeth Edwards is teaching us all a thing or two about how to be gracious. About how to be a genuinely good person. We can all learn from the example she sets.
To read other SV Moms' reports, go here but also here to read another CJ on Spot-on blog.
Last night, she was at Univ of Washington, but haven't found a report from that event yet.
More buzz l8tr...
Tags: Elizabeth Edwards, Saving Graces, Iddybud, Anonymoses, book tour, Silicon Valley moms, Benny's World
This blog is for my friends and acquaintances who were formerly with the John Edwards campaign, which had the most progressive agenda. I am a progressive liberal, musing about politics and life.
