A short 18 months until the next election, and it’s never to soon to start getting the progressive fund-raising machinery cranked up.

I was sorry to read yesterday that progressive caucus dem Keith Ellison has come out in favor of the US imposing a no-fly zone on Syrian airspace.

Absolutely agree with you.

Additionally, I would be more optimistic if more than 44% of dems favored revolution. Show me that poll and I would be happier.

“… we…”

You keep using that word while pushing Dem vs GOP politics, but I do not think it means what you think it means.

In fact I’m fairly sure of it :)

Gotta agree with you on that one.

Hey, thanks for the invite. I live in Mason City.

I’ve been told we’ve got 4 breeding pairs of eagles within a 3-4 mile radius of my house. I usually see 1 or 2 a week flying around town. Lots of great horned owls in my neighborhood too which is right downtown–many a great owl/red tailed hawk aerial fight in early evening during the summer, lol.

Springtime is wonderful.

Here in northern Iowa, it hit 70 yesterday for the first time. Though the trees are still bare, I finally say some daffodils and crocuses blooming yesterday. But midweek promises highs and lows in the 40s and 30s with rain, and hopefully we’re through with the snow.

I grow all sorts of perennials–salvias, russian sage, day lillies, purple, white, and yellow coneflowers, hollyhocks, garden flax, tulips, astilbes, goatsbeard, bleeding hearts, false indigo, peonies, and more.

Got vegetables too–tomatoes, watermelons (sugar babies is a great variety for limited space), herbs, bell peppers, garlic, parsley, cilantro, turnips, potatoes.

I think a great old-fashioned annual to sow by seed in the garden are zinnias, and impatiens for shade gardens.

Today or tomorrow, I plan to till up my small front yard and seed it in native prairie grasses and prairie flowers. It should get 4 feet high, and we’ll see what the city has to say about it come August, lol.

But unlike those other countries the American government has made a public commitment to military intervention in the event the use of chemical weapons could be conclusively proven – as it now appears to have been.

Really?

There are alternate takes on that one:

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2013/04/israeli-general-watches-youtube-video-finds-wmd.html#comments

Sounds to me, that rather than agencies not sharing information, the CIA did in fact share its information with the FBI. The FBI appears to have made a decision not to act on it.

I guess it still hasn’t dawned on the Democratic base that its own party is about to yank the social safety net right out from under it.

And when that happens, it’s a sure bet that a substantial number of dem voters will believe that the repubs did it rather than a dem president, sorta like some people still believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11.

Yet, when election time rolls around next year, it will be all dems all the time, complete with fundraising pleas, lesser of two evils pontifications, and assurances that if dems can capture just a few more elected offices, things will work out for the rosy best.

I agree.

The political in’s and out’s of who’s winning or who’s losing between the dems and the repubs is more or less dead to me. I think it’s basically a useless distraction.

No offense meant to the diarist. It’s jmo.

John Kerry will get right on this.

Here’s his response:

“The American people want a sound social security system that will be there for them when they retire. My policy insures that social security will remain financially solvent far into the future.”

There is a difference between taking political risks, and supporting unpopular policies where there is no risk.

During the 2012 election, many, many so-called progressives supported this man. There was no risk.

Good points. Agreed, and thank you.

At some point you need to stop blaming the Republicans for their filibusters. If someone decide to give a known arsonist matches and gasoline, they now bear most of the responsibility when he burns their house down.

Regarding the filibuster as well as other issues, I think that point was reached by many at least three years ago.

France has too much “gloire” not to do its own torture and its own rendition.

For a counter-take on the housing market, it is argued that 25-30% of single home sales have been cash sales to large companies seeking rental investments (and that speculation is coming to an end), and that the shadow inventory continues at 10 million housing units.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/02/reflections-on-the-current-belief-that-housing-will-come-roaring-back.html