As we prepare to celebrate the anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from the jackboot of British imperialism, consider a phrase in the Declaration that should surely vex some purported American patriots today: "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind."

The text seems to indicate that the signers of the Declaration believed some level of respect for the opinions of mankind should be considered decent. This would seem to suggest that they actually gave a rat's behind what people in other countries thought of American actions. How different is Washington today from Philadelphia in 1776!

Americans are often criticized for their ignorance of world affairs. But maybe if our government were not constantly screwing up world affairs, the rest of the world would cut us a bit more slack on the whole "knowledge of world affairs" thing. On the other hand, maybe if we knew a bit more about world affairs, our government would not be screwing them up so much.

HOLY CRAP. The Cook Political Report House Honcho David Wasserman just released his latest House ratings, and he has opened the blue floodgates on 30 House districts. And some of them are HUGE news.

The Republican party and the Republican brand are in trouble.  Big trouble.  We all already know this with the anti-Republican sentiment nearly as high as the pro-Democratic sentiment nationwide.  

Our Presidential candidate is up nearly six points in polling averages.  Nearly all of our national groups are outfunding their Republican counterparts (where are you, DNC?) and the Republicans are retiring at a record rate rather than attempt to serve in the minority after a hard-fought battle -- if they even win back their seats.

And if you want more evidence, look below the fold for the changes by the Cook Political Report released today.

Congressman Todd Akin does not believe in the Separation of Church and State.Congressman Akin is one of a select group of Congressmen who puts the Fundamentalist Religious point of view  of Evangelicals and Neo Cons above the Constitution. Todd is a card-carrying member of the American Taliban. He wants to impose a Biblical World View on America.

Hello everyone!  I've finally got some video of Donzella James, the REAL Democrat running in Georgia's 13th Congressional District.  To recap, this seat is solid blue, so there are no electability issues, and the July 15th primary will decide this election.

(Cross posted on New Mexico FBIHOP)

The House passed a deeply flawed FISA compromise that gave phone companies retroactive immunity and did little to prevent the Bush Administration from spying on Americans. We need to stand with Sens. Dodd and Feingold and make sure this legislation is defeated in the Senate. This is especially important as we near the Independence Day weekend.

America’s founding fathers went to great lengths to create a system of checks and balances and protections against government infringement of individual rights. I encourage the Senate to live up to these ideals and oppose the the FISA legislation.

Bob Alexander is running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Michigan’s 8th District. Bob is a progressive Democrat who will fight for our interests in Congress. Bob will fight for good-paying jobs, health care for all, successful schools and less expensive colleges, a clean environment, and a more effective government at all levels.

Kos has talked about better Democrats vs. more Democrats. Bob is a better Democrat. Bob understands the issues that face real people. Over the last 7 years, Bob has helped raise the Michigan Minimum Wage. He is fighting for health care for all of Michigan’s citizens. In fact, he worked on the Ingham County Access to Health Care group that expanded health services for county residents.

Bob is running against incumbent Mike Rogers (Republican). Mike Rogers is an extreme right-wing candidate who usually walks in lockstep with Bush and Cheney. Mike Rogers has a lot of money and name recognition. Bob, on the other hand, is depending on regular people for donations. It is hard for middle class people to make donations right now. I have already donated quite a bit (for me), but all of our bills are going up. The paychecks, on the other hand, are not going up.  

(continued...   keep reading!)

George Fearing for Congress
Please subscribe to my diary if you live in Central Washington or follow the race in WA-04.  Thanks!


Soon I'll write in greater detail about why George is such an excellent candidate for Congress, and there are some great diaries already out there about why Richard "Doc" Hastings is as bad as they get, and why it's in the national interest to unseat him.

Keep your eyes posted for some entries from Mr. Fearing himself in the coming weeks.  For now, for the skeptics and the pessimists, have a look at some of the many reasons why this race is VERY competitive -- much more so than Republicans would like to admit.

But trust me.  The Hastings crew is getting nervous.  We've seen folks drive by or even sit in their cars in front of the office, peering in.  They've mentioned us in a fundraising letter.  It's clear that Doc's campaign knows that we will fight for this.  And this year, we can win.

After the jump.

New coal-fired power plants present the greatest near-term danger to our climate future - and the greatest opportunity to make a difference.

New coal - fired power plants in the U. S. are being defeated one-by-one, and the effort to get all of them stopped must succeed - our climate depends on it.

AND IT WAS TAKEN TO THE BARRICADES THIS WEEK!

Climate heroes scaled the headquarters of Dominion Virginia Power after the company was granted an air permit for a new coal plant.

And Civil Disobedience toward coal is spreading.

GET UP AND STOP A COAL PLANT!

A friend of mine is a long time Democrat and neighborhood activist in Harlem and has been in the news a bit as a very progressive voice for the people of Harlem.

He feels that Rangel is out of touch with the district and is under serving Central Harlem's needs (where the bulk of his votes in his huge victories come from, but not the majority of his donations).

Rangel has the Harlem Democratic Party locked down...so this guy couldn't primary him even if he wanted, so he is seriously thinking about running as an Independent.

Rangel normally wins with over 90% of the vote.

I know the rule about this website electing democrats...but the machine is locking out a Democrat.

Any tips for this David vs. Goliath fight? I have done policy analysis and some positioning stuf for Edwards when he was in the race so I am not useless...but I wanted to ask you for your advice and thoughts...

Growing up in Massachussettes, you can not help but to admire the Kennedy's and there tireless work to help the needy.  They have tradition, charm and money working for them. Arguably, Teddy is the most talented and gifted Politician.
Teddy Kennedy has started his work for a new Healthcare Bill.  He decided on this when he was at Mass General undergoing tx for an aggressive brain tumor.  
The work the Clinton's did on Healthcare in the early 90s helped pave the way for Kennedy's ambitous plan.  And if elected, President Obama is sure to name the Bill, The Kennedy Healthcare Bill.

Join me over the jump for some discussion on Teddy's arduous Health care plan.  

My name is Adam Sullivan. Until recently, I was just another citizen of New York’s 8th Congressional District. Now I am running for Congress as a challenger to Jerrold Nadler for nomination in CD8 by the Democratic Party. And I need your help.

You may legitimately ask why I would challenge Congressman Nadler, a representative with a long liberal voting record. While this is true, Nadler has failed us all where it matters most.

The issue—Impeachment

Some months ago, I joined a pro-impeachment group with the intent of encouraging my congressman to co-sponsor the Articles of Impeachment introduced in the House by Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

There was a good bit of debate on Capitol Hill last week on what to do to reign in oil speculation.  According to testimony given by Michael Masters before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, institutional investors are significantly driving up the price of commodities traded on futures markets.

More after the jump:

As we all know, we're in kind of a holding pattern while we wait another week until the Senate is likely to lay down and give Bush more than he expected on warrantless wiretapping and immunity for lawbreaking.  I know many of us are calling representatives and talking to them when they come in our communities and even organizing inside Barack Obama's social networking site (9,300-plus strong now).  But the reality is that we're likely to come up short.  The Beltway elites are determined to bury their sins and make sure nobody finds out about the extent of this illegal and unconstitutional spy program.

So what do we do?  There's a lot of outrage and energy around this issue, certainly it needs to be channeled.  I think there are a number of options.

Yesterday, June 30th, 2008, was a fantastic day for the Jon Powers For Congress camp.  Here is a look at what happened:

The Constitution is a framework for resolving domestic political contests in a peaceful, lawful and orderly fashion even among the most diametrically opposed of ideological factions.

In fact, the Constitution thrives in this circumstance.

The Constitution prevails when compromise is made strenuous and unjustifiable deviation from the wishes of one's constituents is made political perilous to the representative of the people who forgets his or her duty - to represent their will, not her or his own.

There is no intellectually, morally or political honest conflation of support for the Constitution and self-destructive ideological zeal.

My Congressperson is a...

1. Democrat who has a safe seat

2. Democrat in a possibly Republican challengable seat; help keep this one!

3. Republican in an, alas, safe seat.

4. Republican in a possibly Democratic challengable seat; help change this one!

This connects to a couple different things...

Why you come to Daily Kos?  Some come here just for the politics, anti-Bush and anti-Iraq war.  Some are here because they are from an otherwise deeply Repuglican area and need the community. Others like me come here from an already all Blue area, hoping to help reach out and be able to do something useful.

Also I want to refocus some attention from the Presidential race and towards the need for more & better Democrats in the House. We may wish to consider giving money to strategically targeted House races via ActBlue, to those Democrats where our limited dollars can have the most bang for the buck in increasing our margin in Congress.

If you think that this an imortant and timely discussion, please Rec this diary.

My thanks go out to Virginia Senator Jim Webb on getting the new and improved GI Bill passed by Congress and having it signed into law today:  

On Monday, June 30, President Bush signed into law landmark legislation introduced by Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) to provide post-9/11 veterans with comprehensive educational benefits. Last week, the legislation was overwhelmingly passed by both the House of Representatives and Senate.

Senator Jim Webb introduced this bill eighteen months ago on his first day in office. The bipartisan measure-- principally cosponsored by Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and John Warner (R-VA), has unprecedented support from all major veterans' organizations, in addition to strong bipartisan support in Congress, with a House vote of 416 to 12, and a Senate vote of 92 to 6.