Blogs
I spend a fair amount of time on the Twitter micropublishing service, sharing links & ideas – to follow along, just click “subscribe” in the left-hand sidebar: Read more
Are Republicans too weary from witch hunts from turning Benghazi from sorrow to scandal and the IRS affair from insensible to impeachable, to be outraged at the news from the NSA?
Are conservative columnists too consumed slandering Snowden as seditious & selfish to save any shock for the domestic spying that has turned citizens into suspects? Did liberals expend so much of their anger -- first at Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping, then at the Congressional cave-in to make it legal -- that they're less fired up at Big Brother Barack?
The government shouldn't, but it is, the Prez said he wouldn't, then he did & the public's so overwhelmed by insult & injury that we don't even know where to direct our outcry.
For a bunch of people who often seem enraged, this time there seems to be an outrage outage.
Let's power-up that outrage again and send a powerful message to the NSA -- after all, we know they'll be listening.
Outraged or out-of-touch, either way come on out where we're never out of topics & you're no outsider at your progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
The Obama NSA has been secretly collecting millions of phone records of American citizens. For all this intelligence-gathering, they haven't found the intelligence to realize how wrong this is.
Turkish authorities have heard the rumbles of uprisings across Europe and the Mid East, but haven't listened to their own people's concerns, nor learned how to peacefully quell a protest.
A Senator who listened to the challenges faced by New Jersey & the nation has passed away. A Governor who can only hear the drumbeat of ambition has chosen an illogical expensive way to replace him.
With governmental leaders these days, you don't have to ask, "Can you hear me now?" But when it comes to responding to their citizens, the real question is, "Why the heck won't you listen?"
If you want to be heard, listened to & engaged, start a convo with the welcoming cohort at your local progressive social club
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
Justice Scalia finally made us proud.
In common with the vast majority of progressives I have considered our two Italian - American Justices to be running dogs of right wing conservatives / corporatists; borderline demi-fascists.
Scalia was on the side of Citizens United; against Obamacare; consistently voting with the other four right wing Justices. Obamacare passed Court muster only because John Roberts pulled a Becket, shocking his political allies.
Justice Scalia, on the other hand, has written several opinions in 4th Amendment cases which progressives should be cheering. His greatest opinions have involved his passionate defense of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. It was Scalia who held, for a majority of the Court, that police need a valid warrant before they can use thermal imaging devices on a suspect’s home, or track his movements 24/7 for a month using a GPS device. Scalia has also written memorable dissents in defense of privacy, including his denunciation of warrantless drug testing for customs employees as “a kind of immolation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug use.” Read more
Busy #opengov week here in NYC. I’m pleased to be attending the following events on behalf of PPF: Read more
In the past ten years, Republicans have revolted against their own cap-and-trade & healthcare plans, against science, common sense & decency, purging the few moderates from their ranks.
In that decade, Democrats took the White House, took the Senate, took & gave back the House, but never took the opportunity for lasting change on economic justice, civil liberties or human rights.
Since 2003, Drinking Liberally has grown from one dive bar to a far-reaching constellation, from sharing a drink to shaping how we think, becoming the bartender of the progressive movement.
Maybe we haven't created the revolution yet, but we also didn't create the sequester, debt ceiling crisis, drones, deep water drilling, indefinite detention or the GMO racket either.
Compare our ten-year to our politicians' tenure and you'll mark our anniversary with the cheers: "Ten more years…and a few more beers."
Drinking Liberally: established May 29th, 2003.
Toast ten years of liberal comrades & conversation by lifting a liberal libation with like-minded lefties at your local progressive social club. Read more
We grieve for those lost in Oklahoma's tragedy, as we did for victims of recent hurricanes and tornadoes, but denial of science keeps us from addressing climate change's role in these unnatural disasters.
We commit to helping Oklahoma rebuild but politicians play games with disaster relief, allow a sequester that weakens our infrastructure & try to starve our ability to rebuild at all.
We mourn loss of life, families, opportunities while we permit drone killings of Americans, let Head Start wither & with it hope for so many & threaten immigrant families of same-sex parents.
We know a tornado is a destructive force. There's no reason that our policies and politics should be destructive as well.
Send relief to Oklahoma and find your own relief in like-minded company & left-leaning conversation at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY. Find - or start - a chapter near you.
Yes. I busted my ass for Obama the first time around.
Opened my checkbook, campaigned, knocked on doors. Did everything I could to see that he carried Florida in the Presidential election.
Not easy in a place where Fred Thompson signs were as common as plastic pink flamingos at the time during the primary and right wing nuts carried Soviet flags outside of local Obama campaign headquarters. Where women thought Palin was the essence of true feminism. I had the lone Obama sign on my lawn in a sea of McCain - Palin cardboard.
But I got the last laugh. At least I thought so at the time.
We had elected a Democratic President and controlled the two Houses of Congress. And we carried Florida.
Maybe something would get done.
Maybe universal healthcare. Maybe peace would come. Maybe a society which would leave behind racism. Maybe repeal of the Bush tax giveaways to billionaires. Maybe we would spend money on people rather than aircraft carriers. Maybe we would stop torturing people. Maybe Gitmo would close.
Maybe. Read more
Is Obama's fatal scandal whether the President called Benghazi an "act of terror" or "terrorist act" or are Republicans reaching for any reason to deploy weapons of mass distraction?
Is the new Watergate whether the IRS scrutinized political groups seeking tax breaks, unfairly denying none of them tax-free status? We're irritated & irate -- but not quite IRS-gate.
Or is the biggest scandal of this administration drone attacks or whistle-blower-crackdowns, record deportations or the Keystone Pipeline? Where are those Congressional hearings?
While the right-wing rustles up an Obamagate, the real scandal's that he never got out of the gate on climate change bills or stronger gun laws, reversing the sequester or closing Guantanamo.
The IRS & Benghazi business can't hold a candle to losing its way: the real Obamagate scandal.
Vent, laugh and share, debate if you date and have a drink while you say what you think at your local progressive social club
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
"Few probably recall the name Dwight Elliott Stone. But even if his name has faded from the national memory, the man remains historically significant. That’s because on June 30, 1973, the 24-year-old plumber’s apprentice became the last American forced into the armed services before the military draft expired.
Though next month’s 40-year anniversary of the end of conscription will likely be as forgotten as Stone, it shouldn’t be. In operations across the globe, the all-volunteer military has been employed by policymakers to birth what Gen. George Casey recently called the “era of persistent conflict.” Four decades later, we therefore have an obligation to ask: How much of the public’s complicity in that epochal shift is a result of the end of the draft? "
Thus wrote David Sirota last week in Salon.com.
"There is, of course, no definitive answer to such a complex question. However, a look back at some lost history shows that today’s public acquiescence to militarism was exactly what the government wanted when it ended the draft. Read more
Banks behind foreclosure fraud & the mortgage crisis are failing to comply with the meager settlement, underpaying homeowners, facing no real enforcement. They continue to pass go and collect $200.
While Lauryn Hill serves time for tax evasion, Enron's Jeffrey Skilling gets a reduced sentence & Wall Street's criminals evade repercussions. Some folks have a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Student debt has now surpassed credit card debt, both of which are at an all-time high. And since bankruptcy can't discharge that debt, Americans are force to keep rolling the dice.
It can feel like 99% of us are on the losing side of a big game of high-stakes Monopoly. Yet in Monopoly, we all start with the same cash & the same rules apply to everyone.
Maybe Monopoly is fairer than what we're seeing now.
Take a Chance on a night of pints & politics, like a Community Chest for like-minded liberals at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
Its Wednesday May 8th! Do you know where your Podcast is? On this day in history back in 1858 John Brown held a secret anti-slavery convention in Canada where he and around 50 like-minded individuals adopted an anti slavery constitution. Brown is one of the most polarizing figures of the chaotic period leading up to the civil war. Hated by supporters of the southern way of exploiting human beings for their own personal gain and glory - I mean advocates of states’ rights; revered by the growing population of civil rights warriors who believed that change would not come without a fight; shunned and shamed by peace loving, meek abolitionists who preferred to sing songs, publish articles, and peacefully assemble to end slavery. Read more
The President got in bed with Republicans to help him pass gun control legislation, but it was no love-match, they screwed him over & the morning after has left us with no new laws.
He continues to court conservatives on immigration reform & budget deals, and he's willing to make big compromises that the morning after look more like mistakes.
Now to do extend a hand to the Christian Right to appeal to those who won't ever be appeased, his administration is opposing access for young women to the morning after pill.
Just because there's no pill to fix the bad political mistakes Obama has made doesn't mean he should deny Americans a legal course out of a bad situation.
Whether a pill or some political will, we could all use a way to make things right -- it's better than mourning after the morning after.
Join a night that you won't regret with conversation, comrades, discussion & drinks at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
This weekend in D.C. – it’s the “un-conference” of the year for #opengov heads & civic engagement developers. That would be Transparency Camp, organized by the Sunlight Foundation. By “un-conference”, it’s a straightforward-yet-refreshing take on usual conference get-togethers – panels are generally organized bottom-up, so actual tech developers can get-together in the same room and look at actual code & actual features & actual data & actual UIs & actual needs & actual opportunities. Well maybe not as much as would be ideal, but it’s still rather refreshing if you’ve spent months looking at a project management system like Pivotal Tracker or whatever & writing grant proposals in Google Docs.
David from OC & PPF will be there to demo our new major project: Read more
Its Sunday April 28th! Do you know where your podcast is? On this day in history back in 1967, Muhammad Ali refused induction into the U.S. military. The self-proclaimed "Greatest Fighter of All Time" cited religious reasons for staging his most important fight; a fight against institutionalized, senseless killing. Take a moment to process these statements - yes, a fighter by profession and religious person (Ali converted to Islam in 1964) refused to go to war! Ali was fined $10,000, sentenced to 5 years in prison, and was stripped of the world title he had won by beating Sonny Liston. He avoided prison while appealing all the way to the highest court, and lost his heavyweight title the first time the same year he won his case in 1971. Muhammad Ali is the only three-time boxing world champion, and is still one of the most intriguing figures in American history. His reason for refusing conscription was because "I ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong." Amazing that the government of a "Christian nation" would seek to take everything from a person who was acting exactly in the manner that Jesus would have prescribed. Read more
