Enough Damage In Iraq by Aziz Anis

We have already caused the Iraqis enough damage and pain by our unfair and unjust invasion with a drummed up false accusation of their possession of weapons of mass destruction just to satisfy Cheney's drooling greed for oil wells and creating an opportunity for Halliburton to amass more wealth. We were already engaged in another grossly unnecessary, ill planned and ill managed war in Afghanistan to capture one single terrorist whom we could have captured or killed with one small expertly planned and executed navy seal operation just as how President Obama did, and yet the corrupt and incompetent Bush/Cheney administration without achieving our goal there, threw us into another unpaid for war of bad greedy evil choice bragging that we are exporting our Democracy to the Middle East as if our style of Democracy corrupted by Republican Ideology is doing us any good, bankrupting us in the process and leading us into the deep ditch of the worst recession in our history. What a bunch of shameless hypocritical spineless bastards to scream now "we told you so" ignoring totally the fact that Obama was elected President campaigning on the promise of getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. That is precisely why Americans elected him twice. He is doing nothing else other than simply fulfilling the promises he made. Iraq wanted us out so we left, they should now take care of their own problems. Our interference would only cause them more pain and lead us backwards into another disastrous entanglement we have hardly just extricated ourselves from. 

He Is Our Son by Gail Stone

I don't understand the negativity related to this young man - well, except for the fact that bringing him home was a decision made in lieu of consultation with Congress. Even with that consideration, it seems to me that the naysayers should dig deeply within themselves and find a little compassion, and a little appreciation. This young man joined the military. He has served in the longest war in the history of the United States - a war started under questionable circumstances. So what if during his time in Afghanistan he began to question the morality of that war? So what if he indeed did voluntarily abandon his post? So what if he suffered a complete emotional and psychological breakdown and behaved in a manner not fitting to a soldier? I'm not saying he did so. I'm just saying what if he did? Going to war was an act of patriotism. He was not drafted. That fact, in and of itself, beckons our responsibility to not leave him there in the hands of the enemy. We should bring him home, even if he is not in an emotional state that results in the existence of a desire to come. I feel very sad for his parents, and for the community in which he grew up. They have been bullied into canceling plans to welcome him. I put myself in his mother’s skin, and cannot imagine the turmoil she must be feeling. He is her son. He is our son. 

What We Should Be Doing On Our Campaign - by Sharon Newell Holle

Your County and State Democrats should be working to organize weekly phone banking and door knocking in your district.

If you wish to help your Democratic Party door knock and lit drop (literature drop) simply contact your County Democrats and offer to sign up for a door knock lit drop event.

Democratic Party online websites are another way that you can get signed up for Door Knock lit drop/Phone bank events. You can check out their website, find an event nearest to you and get signed up!  Your Democratic Party needs you and will be so happy for you to join in!

Door Knocking and Lit Dropping

When you sign up for a door knock lit drop event your Democratic Party will schedule a place for a group meeting before you go out door knocking.

At this meeting you will be given a packet with a printed out map and copies of the names and addresses of the neighborhood that you will be door knocking at. These people will all be registered voters in your district. They will include on this list, along with the name of the person, their age, their political party, and if they have volunteered in past elections. In your packet you will find brochures for all of your Democratic Candidates at the Local, State and Federal levels. This is the informative literature that you will be handing out to the people on your walking list. It is to help educate our community about who is up for election/ re-election and general information about what they plan to do for “We the people” if they get elected or re-elected.

At the meeting your Democratic leaders will be giving you a short training/question/answer session before you go out on your way to door knock.

For door knocking the things that you should bring are:

1.       Mode of transportation

2.      Bring a bottle of water

3.      Bring a cell phone if you can

4.      Ink pen to mark your door knocks

5.      Clip board to write on (should be provided by the county party).

6.      Wear comfortable clothes to suit the weather conditions and comfortable walking shoes.

7.      Have knowledge about your Democratic Party and Candidates because there will be questions.

8.     Bring your smile!

To door knock you simply walk up to the door with the correct address and knock or ring the doorbell. If the door is answered you simply say “Hello” and ask for the person or persons that are on your list at that household. When the person comes to the door simply introduce yourself as a Volunteer for the Democratic Party helping to drop literature off about our Democratic Politicians and Candidates.

Be prepared to answer any questions about your candidates and Democratic Party.

Ask if they would like to volunteer for the Democratic Party.

Mark on your address sheet that you have made contact with this person

Make a note on your address sheet if the person or persons are interested in volunteering for the Democratic Party and how they would be willing to help out.

If no one answers the door, simply leave the literature in their door. DO NOT PUT THE LITERATURE IN THEIR MAIL BOX! IT IS A FEDERAL OFFENSE TO TAMPER WITH SOMEONES MAILBOX!

Move on to the next address and continue until you are at the end of your list. When you are finished with every address, return to your designated meeting place. Turn in your finished packet. All done!

Your Democratic Party should be organizing these events every week on certain days. Each week you will be door knocking and phone banking for different reasons. You will be trained for these changes before you are allowed to go to work. It is not hard work, it is enjoyable work. Most people that you talk to are very interested and want to talk to someone about our politics. I have had some very pleasant conversations with the people that I meet during door knocking, even made new friends! They are the people of your community, it’s great to get out and meet them!

Phone Banking

If you wish to help your Democratic campaigns by phone banking you can sign up the same way you do for door knocking. Sign up with your Democratic Party online.

Your Democratic Party will establish a meeting room for phone banking and phone banking events. They normally supply cell phones or cordless phones for you to make the calls from. They will provide you with a call script and a list of names along with their phone numbers. These names are registered voters taken from the VAN. The VAN is an updated electronic list of all registered voters from your county and state that your county party has access to. You will be making different kinds of calls for different phone banking events. You will be trained by your County Party leaders at each event.

For phone banking the things that you should bring are:

1.      Bring your cell phone just in case the group you are volunteering for does not have phones for you to use.

2.      Bring a bottle of water

3.      Bring scratch paper to take notes

4.      Bring an ink pen or pencil to mark your tally sheet and to take notes

5.      Bring your reading glasses if you need them

6.      Be well informed about the types of calls that you are making. Be able to answer questions.

7.      Be ready to encourage people to get involved in the campaign. Use a good motivational line to get them to sign up.

8.     Be polite and courteous

9.      If you cannot answer a question, find someone who can.

Right now your campaign should be making phone calls to identify who is supporting your candidates. Then you will have another group of phone bankers calling the supporters and trying to get them signed up to volunteer for the campaign. We are now at a stage where we are building an army of Democratic volunteers which we intend to grow and grow all across the country! 

Gathering for door knocking in Scott County, Iowa

Field Organizer - Jeff Wolf

Check in and door packets

Discussing the maps

Scott County, Iowa Coordinators for the Democratic party from left to right - Sharon Holle, Judy Voss, Beverly Strayhall

The Deal Sweetener by Aziz Anis

It is really getting old and mean to criticize the president about every single decision and action he takes. No one no matter how inept they are can possibly be wrong one hundred percent of the time. It is just not practically possible. When they are taking hundreds of decisions every day, they are bound to at least be right a couple of times. You lose every credibility when you accuse anyone of being wrong one hundred percent of the time. Even when he traded five worthless Taliban for one American soldier and brought him home to his parents, republicans had to fault him. They did not fault Bush or Cheney for sending our children in harm’s way so readily to unnecessary wars. I only wish Obama traded this soldier for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove and the five Taliban just as a deal sweetener. 

Super Tuesday Primary Races by Laurel Davila

The Daily Kos has done an excellent job at setting us up with all the news we need regarding tomorrow's Primary races. This will be a big help tomorrow evening to be able to see how we did in one place, as all the results for each race will be posted on their liveblog starting at 8 p.m. Eastern.

"Tuesday brings us the biggest primary night of 2014 (though far from the last) with eight states going to the polls. On tap we have Alabama, California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. Below is our guide to each state arranged by poll closing times. We'll be liveblogging the results at Daily Kos Elections starting at 8 PM ET Tuesday, when polls start to close." - Darth Jeff, Daily Kos

Special thanks go tohttps://www.facebook.com/gettingaclue1 for the photo meme (which we altered a bit to change 'Blue' to 'Democrat' at the bottom) so please head their way and give them a 'like' and tell them we sent you? Thanks!

http://www.dailykos.com/blog/elections#

https://www.facebook.com/ProgressiveDemocratsMovingForwardNotBack 

Liberalism, Conservatism and the Progressive Movement by Michael Hoyt

I am a progressive. I rarely call myself a liberal anymore. Many  liberals on the far left are nearly as bad as conservatives on the far right. Those liberals were so disappointed with the president they helped elect that they didn’t bother to note the record wall of obstruction he ran into. They only knew that they didn’t get what they wanted right away. I don’t know, maybe they thought he was a king or a czar. They thought he could wave a magic wand and everything would get better. They were so disappointed that they didn’t even bother to come out and vote in 2010, allowing republicans to take control of the House of Representatives and many governorships, thus being able to maintain control of the house through gerrymandering. No, I’m not that kind of a liberal.

Liberalism is defined as a political philosophy founded on the idea of liberty and equality. While being true, this definition doesn’t even begin to describe what a liberal is. Basically, liberals believe that those with the most should help those with the least and that wars should be used as a last resort and only for national security and never for corporate interests. The liberal believes the government is responsible for the welfare and safety of its people and should pass laws to that end. The government should support its elderly, its veterans and it’s mentally ill. Liberals believe in education and that everyone should have equal opportunities regardless of race, ethnicity, sex or sexual orientation. The biggest problem with liberalism is that the further left it gets, the more rigid it is. Far left liberals leave no room for compromise and when they don’t get what they want, they tend to blame the president rather than the obstructionists.

Conservatives believe in nothing more than power and profit and will use any means at their disposal to get it including rewriting their own bible and the constitution of the United States. Old conservatives, [pre-Reagan] at least gave some semblance of caring about the people and used compromise to further their agenda. Today’s conservative makes no pretense. They claim to support veterans, women, gays, blacks and every other group of people while constantly blocking legislation that supports these groups and passing their own laws that would undermine them. The conservative movement is for sale to the highest bidder, who at present, happen to be Charles and David Koch, who have managed to purchase every single Republican law maker and the majority on the Supreme Court. Conservatives have taken control of the media and through that media have propagandized the American people and convinced millions to vote against their own interest. Their idea of compromise is to do it their way.They have called liberals and progressives Nazis, Communists, Marxist and worse while carrying out their own fascist agenda.

The conservative agenda has, where it has been followed, served to move the United States backward in time. Here is a list of what the Republican agenda has brought us:

According to,

http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/america-ranks-among-indutrialized-countries.html

• 1st in gross domestic product
• 1st in number of billionaires in the world
• 1st in health expenditures
• 1st in military technology
• 1st in defense expenditures
• 1st in military weapons exports
• 16th in maternal mortality rates
• 21st in 15-year-olds’ science scores
• 22nd in low birth weight rates
• 23rd in neonatal mortality rates
• 25th in 15-year-olds’ math scores
• 27th in infant mortality rates
• Last in relative child poverty
• Last in the gap between the rich and the poor
• Last in adolescent (age 15 to 19) birth rates
• Last in protecting our children against gun violence
• Worst in the number of persons incarcerated
• The United States and Somalia (which has no legally constituted government) are the only two United Nations members that have failed to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• The United States is the only major industrialized country that does not guarantee prenatal care to pregnant women. We used to be near first in the last 12 items on this list.

We should be real proud of ourselves. The United States has generated more billionaires than anybody else in the world while having the most children in poverty—THANKS CONSERVATIVES.

Many in the progressive movement refer to themselves as liberals. The agenda of liberals and progressives, which is to move the country forward, is essentially the same. The main difference is that progressives know who to blame. They recognize the obstruction of conservatives. Progressives know that in order for our country to function there must be a certain amount of compromise. Even the constitution was referred to as a bundle of compromises.

The problem is that with those on the far left blaming the wrong people and refusing compromise and those on the right forcing their agenda through by any means necessary and refusing any attempt at compromise the country comes to a standstill. The only cure is to put more progressives and liberals in office.  

http://mhhoyt.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/208/ 

Bourbon and Bullets by Richard Schatten

This is why America is today, the greatest reality show on Worldwide TV...we have an ongoing Class War, Race War, and a Culture War...simultaneously, all conflicting with each other, while having our greatest War of all...Blatant Ignorance versus Common Sense, Logic, and Critical Thinking.

There's so much Horseshit being spewed in Politics, today...that it just flows out into their endearing fan base. Gun Perversion?? There are those who sleep with an gun under their pillow, not of fear...but, because it's 'their' gun...a perverse pleasure?? It's how deeply you feel about your gun, I presume.

You got those, who want nothing more in life than to become a Cop, and catch the "Bad Boys"...and use their authority, for their own self-gratification where Laws...swing towards that Grayish area. And then you got those...who want nothing more in life, than to live out their perverted fantasies of violence. Now days, mass shootings 'are' what gets their imagination, rolling. Cynically I can say; let these two fight it out, and let them neutralize each other...neither, have the right moral reasons to carry firearms. But seriously, is there any real solutions to get all this lunacy today, with guns...stopped??

Now, you have those who seriously want to stop, and end all this violence...but, political perversion has played its hand, on how some states reflect on Gun Violence. Jeb Bush signed the "Stand Your Ground" Law in Florida...and you can see how wonderful that works!! In Georgia, you can take a gun inside Schools, Stores, Churches, Restaurants...and if your thirsty? Bars!! What's a better mix, than Bourbon and Bullets on a thirsty dog day afternoon?? And in Texas?? well?? Texas is Texas...and with all due respect, to the good fine people of Texas... it's the home of insane Batshit Political Buckaroos, need I say more?? All, Red States...by the way.

Nothing is ever going to stop, until some common sense prevails, and a serious national discourse is started. Yeah!! we're talking about it now...but, how many more kids have to die?? how many more people have to die??...before any action is taken?? Not while this Political Circus Atmosphere, is still around!!