Progressive Democrat Issue 108: THOUGHTS

Busy week! I continue to be impressed with the pace and quality of legislation by Democrats in the House. The Senate is lagging a bit, but that is partly because the Democratic majority in the Senate is razor thin...and it includes Lieberman who, though a solid Democrat on many issues, is too close to Bush on other issues and seems to be making his career on enabling some of Bush's worst ideas. The plan for escalation in Iraq can be considered a McCain/Bush/Lieberman collaboration and the consequences in money and lives lost will be on their heads.

I also should add that Presidential hopefuls Vilsack, Edwards, Obama, and Richardson are all calling for withdrawal from Iraq and urging Congress to act decisively. Sounds good! I think Democrats have finally regrown their backbone and, more importantly, enough of them are showing it that it is far harder for the media to ignore.

Here in NY State we had a wonderful special election for the 7th State Senate district where the nastiest possible dirty tricks by the anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-stem cell research Republican candidate failed...the Democrat won, flipping a seat from Republican to Democrat. The netroots and progressive grassroots played a large role in this win, making it a continuation of the excellent progressive/grassroots-moderate/mainstream coalition that won so big in November. I should note that some long time readers of this newsletter were in the thick of things! The newly elected State Senator, Craig Johnson, graciously thanked the netroots for all the help. And you can read about what it felt like to be in the room with Craig Johnson and his campaign on the night of victory. Apparantly it really kicked ass.

Here is this week's issue:

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

BRING THE TROOPS HOME

THE EXXON/MOBIL-REPUBLICAN AXIS OF EVIL

FLORIDA THROWING AWAY THEIR DRE MACHINES

JUMPSTARTING THE SOUTH

BLACK HERITAGE ENDANGERED

NYC FOCUS: Fighting Wal-Mart

NYC GROUPS AND EVENTS

VIRGINIA FOCUS: Running for Delegate

VIRGINIA GROUPS AND EVENTS

MICHIGAN FOCUS

IOWA FOCUS

MIDWEST GROUPS AND EVENTS

NEW JERSEY FOCUS: Jobs and Internships

NEW JERSEY GROUPS AND EVENTS

CALIFORNIA DARWIN DAY EVENTS

CALIFORNIA GROUPS AND EVENTS