Rambling from the North

I am the kind of person who enjoys everone getting involved in politics, and hopefully running for office, but this, is too much.

Virginia hasn’t been kind to Hollywood celebrities who dabble in politics. That hasn’t stopped rumors that actor Ben Affleck is being courted to challenge Republican George F. Allen for his U.S. Senate seat in 2008.

The tidbit appeared this week in The Washington Post’s gossip column, which also noted that Affleck has been spotted shopping for property near Charlottesville. On Monday, C. Richard Cranwell, chairman of the state Democratic Party, declined to discuss Affleck. Affleck’s publicist has denied the chatter.

But Allen’s campaign manager was busily doing some pre-emptive research on Affleck, who has long been a supporter of national Democratic candidates.

“Ben Affleck would get two thumbs down from the voters of Virginia for campaigning with fellow Massachusetts liberals John Kerry and Ted Kennedy,” said Jason Miller. “He would go over with Virginia voters about as well as 'Gigli’ did with the Academy Awards selection committee.”

This could be an entertaining campaign, but is Ben the next Sonny? I don't think so... at least his taste in women is better, his are ownly partially plastic.

In an every growing show of Chutzpah by Senator Mark Dayton, he openly announced he will vote no on the nomination of John Roberts to Chief Justice.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., told The Associated Press Friday he will vote against confirming John Roberts as chief justice.

He said Roberts was "unsuitable for chief justice or any justice for the Supreme Court."

"I am deeply concerned that he and President Bush's next nominee will shift the Supreme Court close to the extreme right for many years to come," Dayton added.

"He responded to questions for three days before the Judiciary Committee but he answered very few of them," Dayton said. Dayton also criticized the White House for withholding documents that committee Democrats had sought.

Further, Dayton argued, the limited information from the nominee's paper record raised troubling issues about Roberts' judicial temperament.

"Judge Roberts declined to disavow disparaging opinions expressed against civil rights laws, voting rights act, wage discrimination against women and others," Dayton said.

I have to say, I am proud of Mark. He stayed very low key during most of his term, I'm sure afraid of the kinds of attacks he had recieved during his campaign. However, since his announcment that he won't be seeking re-election, Dayton has grown some balls- has gone out on his own, and has done whats right, not whats politically expedient.

If only he'd been voting like this for the last 6 years and behaving like this for the last 6 years I could have always been glad to call him my Senator, and more importantly, he would have had a cake walk re-election, now we're in a battle for our state.

At least ya done some good Mark...

In a hilarious move by japanese concom makers, two new condoms are being offered.

BEIJING -- A rubber company in China has begun marketing condoms under the brand names Clinton and Lewinsky, apparently seeking to exploit the White House affair that led to the impeachment of America's 42nd president.

"The Clinton condom will be the top of our line," he said. "The Lewinsky condom is not quite as good."

Liu said the company had chosen to use the Clinton name because consumers viewed the former president as a responsible person, who would want to stress safe sex as an effective way to prevent the spread of the HIV virus.

"The names we chose are symbols of people who are responsible and dedicated to their jobs," he said. "I believe Bill Clinton cannot be unhappy about this because he's a very generous man."

Clinton has campaigned aggressively for heightened AIDS awareness in China, where the disease is spreading rapidly.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go by a dozen boxes, grab my girlfriend, and ask her what her definition of "is" is...

Last night was the annual Bruce Vento Spaghetti Dinner- excpet spaghetti was nowhere to be seen.

It was a nice low cost casual gala, if there is such a thing. Most people were there in ties but no coats, except for Fourth Congressional District Chairman JP Barone, who had come from a theater performance and was wearing tails and a top hat, looking very much like a comical butler.

The speeches went very well. Betty McCollum gave a rousing speech in honor of Congressman Vento, and then introduced Chris Coleman, the next mayor of St. Paul, to a standing ovation. Mr. Coleman's speech was a bit lackluster. It was much of what you'd expect from a polished mayoral candidate, but nothing juicy, nothing fun, and nothing that roused an already aroused crowd.

After Chris Coleman, George Latimer came up as the guest of honor. I can now see why Mr. Latimer was the mayor for 13 years. His speech was amazing. He had people on their feet cheering and enjoying themselves. He was passionate, he was truly amazing.

After the speeches, Mr. Barone introduced all of the elected officials- There were however, some notable absences... Early in the evening all four senatorial candidates were there- but Ford Bell left quite early leaving Patty, Amy, and Kelly, to socialize and be introduced. Mike Hatch was there briefly but had left by the time introductions started, his endorsing opponent Steve Kelley did not make an appearance but had his wife there instead to speak on his behalf. Mark Ritchie was also absent, but his opponent Christian Sande was very evident there with a table and a half full of supporters. Aside from that there were a lot of school board and city council candidates who were also there.

It was a good dinner and a good kick off event for the end of Chris Coleman's campaign, it was also a good fundraiser from what I've been told, so congratulations to everyone from the fourth congressional district who organized this event.

Ok, so normally i talk about politics but today I'm going to diverge a little bit from that- I just got home from one of the best concerts I have ever been to. Green Day's American idiot Tour
was one of the best shows I have ever been to, not only did they successfully bash Bush at every turn, but, they spent a lot of time engaging the audience.
I strongly recommend everyone catch their show!

Another california court has declared the pledge of allegiance illegal but I don't think anything will actually be done at the supreme court level.

The court likes to take cases that are ripe, which means that they actually need action for the consequences to be valid. I don't think that is the case with the pledge of allegiance at this time. There are so many other important things the supreme court should be focusing on, while eventually this will be taken up, i just don't think this is the time for it to happen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4243676.stm

Gee look, Wal-mart finally gets nailed ot a tree for sweatshops. Hopefully we can hit them hard now and stop them.

I don't need to rant on wal-mart, everyone knows the horrors, everyone's heard the stories, lets just not all let it get burried underneath other stories, like it inevitably will.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/13/katrina.washington/index.html

Ok, so bush takes responsibility... in a joint press conference with the iraqi president in response to a question....

This is a cop out. He needs to address the nation directly and say that it is his fault. He is responsible for Brown, he's responsible for the mistakes, and he's responsible for the deaths. It is about time we have some accountablity in the whtie house, hopefully this will make the press realize how badly its needed and attempt to bring some back!

This just in from CNN

Four years ago today, the United States was hit by a terrorist attack.

We still have not recovered.

The minds of men were united that day. We could have accomplished anything, every citizen of the world that day was an American.

Today, the country is more polarized then ever. We look back a week ago, and something equal to september 11th happened. Hurricane Katrina. We see death and devistation, a country, once again in shambles. A world, once again offering its support and help.

We will never have the unity or the amazing outpouring of support we recieved after 9/11. The world is more wary of us now and our behavior towards other countries is significantly worse.

What can the United States do to improve itself again in the world? we must strive to become citizens of both America and of Earth. True cooperating members of the UN, only when we push for these things can we actually achieve a future of prosperity.

In moments like this, I reflect on that day. I reflect on the fact that there truly is good and evil in this world. But I reflect on the fact that we squandared the good. We have wasted the relief, we have shunned the rest of the world. Americans should be united, instead, we are split apart all because of one administration who could not put their evil agenda behind the agenda of its people

So,
before i dissapeared for awhile, the big news story was Karl Rove's involement in the Plum affair.

Now the big story is Hurrican Katrina and how badly the Bush administration screwed it up. (Yes yes, by cutting funds, killing babies, ect...)

But one of the real winners of this is definately Karl Rove.

He was headline news, people were calling for his resignation, now he's old news, burried, if even talked about anymore.

That is the part I hate most about my fellow democrats and the news media. We are all A.D.D.

Honestly, no one is even thinking about the previous stories anymore because we are all focused on other things, like Hurricane Katrina, which is fine, but I hope someone else picks up the Rove story again, the pressure needs to remain constant and consistent or we won't get anything done and the Bush administration will continue to be plagued by scandal, continue to avoid the law, and above all, continue to screw over the majority of America.

ok, so I haven't posted in forever, but now I'm going to start.
I want to keep the world aprised as much as possible on my take on campaigns and elections.

You might be asking yourself, "Who the hell does he think he is? what makes him qualified to tell me anything about the news or elections?"

Thats a very good question, but one I'm not going to answer. I'm going to just put out my opinions and if you agree, great, if you don't, comment and tell me why not.

I am a democrat, I'll be open. There will be bias. But I'm a Clinton Democrat. Moderate about most things, so I hope to be able to approach politics with a moderate voice.

I'm going to start out by saying I also won't blog on Katerina for now. So much news coverage, other things are getting burried. but I'll try to keep people aprised as things go... just not now...