liberals

Drinking Liberally: Indianapolis

Great idea — Drinking Liberally: “An informal, inclusive progressive drinking club. Raise your spirits while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher. Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics. You don’t need to be a policy expert and this isn’t a book club – just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it’s not taboo to talk politics.”
Indianapolis has a chapter, with an email mailing list and forums. I signed up, and I’ll be going once we get the house squared away.

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blaming mathematics for your inability to add

From the crushworthy site NonSequitur:

So while many liberals may perhaps share the satisfaction of having been right about Iraq and Afghanistan from the very beginning, this does not mean (1) that they are gleeful over the damage that has been done to America, and more perniciously, (2) that they brought it about or desired it. The current weakening of America’s standing in the world was one of the arguments against silly saber rattling and thinly justified foreign misadventures, not the desired outcome. Taking them to task for having been right all along, as is the current fashion among those who were wrong all along, is like blaming mathematics for your inability to add.

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The Myth of Big Government Liberals

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Atrios has a dead-on post about the myth of “Big Goverment Liberals.”

I don’t know any “big government liberals” in the sense that Andy means. I don’t know anybody who gets a stiffy at the thought of raising taxes and increasing government spending as a share of GDP just for the hell of it. Liberals I know tend to think there are things government should do and we should, roughly, figure out how to pay for those things, though we’re not entirely allergic to deficit spending. When taxes have to go up to cover interest and debt repayment costs no liberals I know are going to go “YAY! HIGHER TAXES! WOO HOOO!”
For a long time the Left was tarred as idealistic utopians, addicted to ways of doing things no matter what the consequences. I have no real opinion on whether that criticism was ever true, but in any case it’s something which has been embraced wholesale by the Right. They have a small government fetish, and that fetish is linked almost entirely to the top marginal federal income tax rate. Liberals have no such corresponding fetish for “big government” even if they tend to be fans of some government programs conservatives like to demonize as being “big government liberalism.” No one’s going to enjoy sweeping up after Bush’s fiscal train wreck.

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When you pay attention to work, you miss all the good stuff

For the past couple days, StAllio! has been covering a fun controversy brewing in Indiana politics concerning the “Bloody 8th” congressional district race between Republican incumbent and right-wing loony John Hostetler, and his hottie Democrat opponent, Sheriff Brad Ellsworth.
Ellsworth’s daughter is an IU student, and happened to have a facebook page where she’s alleged to have had pictures of herself holding what might have been a bottle of beer, or might have been a bottle of root beer. I’ve seen the pictures, and I couldn’t tell. Similarly, Maggie Daniels, the daughter of Mitch Daniels, had pictures that appeared to show her engaging in underage drinking on her facebook page.
Fellow IU student Joshua Claybourn has a blog at In the Agora, where someone provided links to these two facebook pages. Claybourn, being a Republican and an employee supporter of Hostettler, proceeded to send the Ellsworth link to the newspapers, while concealing the Daniels link.
Chaos ensued, Claybourn was attacked, then he tried to cover up his involvement, blah blah blah. Go read the story at StAllio’s page, which has been published on Atrios, BTW. I’m so jealous.

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President Washington Used Electronic Wiretaps

“President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale.” — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales while testifying before congress on illegal wiretapping
No, I’m not shitting you, he really said that, and you can see the video yourself.
Can I also point out that aside from the fact that there weren’t electronics in Washington’s time — he was also fighting the Revolutionary War. You know, the one we had before the Constitution that makes this stuff illegal. So, technically, if he had some electronics with medium voltage cable, and, you know, so did the British, he would legally have been allowed to wiretap them, on accounta, we didn’t have a government yet.
But can I just point out that Gonzales is one of the brilliant minds running our country?

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