On June 3rd there is a primary election in California. Primaries are our chance to make the Democratic Party more progressive, an opportunity too often missed. Progressive Majority is an organization that recruits, trains and helps elect progressive democrats in local elections. They have one of the best success rates of any progressive grassroots organizations (about 50%) and recently won big in Arizona and Wisconsin.

Progressive Majority have some candidates running in California on June 3rd who need your support. Here is a list of candidates running in California who have been endorsed by Progressive Majority):

Although I have done versions of this before, this was inspired by a Daily Kos Diary:

This is what happened Monday, Aug. 29, 2005...the day Katrina hit, John McCain's 69th birthday...the day America realized that Republicans don't give a shit about Americans.

Hurricane Katrina:

I remember the radar images from the weather channel the night before landfall. I remember distincly watching it and thinking, "My god...that's going to be bad." I also remember thinking that the government had better be ready to get people out and to deal with the situation.

I was right...it was going to be really, really bad. I mean THIS bad:

Republican Congressman Vito "Vino" Fossella is really not looking too good right now. His conduct the night of his drunk driving arrest is something he is going to have a hard time living down.

Mug Shot thanks to FossellaFive.org

According to an eyewitness account:

Of all the Republicans I have discussed whose morals are severly compromised, I have to say, Ted Stevens of Alaska just might top the list. I already brought him up in the context of the VECO scandal that has crippled the Alaska Republican Party. But honestly, the VECO scandal is only the tip of the iceberg of corruption for Ted Stevens. Here are some excerpts from the "Ethics Questions" section of his Congressopedia entry...possibly the longest list of "Ethics Questions" in all of Congressopedia:

One of my annual diaries (when I remember to do them) is honoring the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during WW II, which happened to coincide with Hitler's birthday in 1943. I happen to feel that it was a particularly good birthday present for Hitler: the defeat of his elite force by a bunch of half starved, barely armed Jews.

This year the anniversary is particularly poignant because, as in 1943, Passover began at sundown on April 19th and April 20th, the day the uprising took off, was the first day of Passover. And that coincidence influenced the Seder I attended last night. In honor of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, in "honor" of Hitler's Birthday, in in honor of all who fight against tyrrany, I bring you a piece of history worth remembering.

Been kind of ignoring the rumor about the Saudis planning for nuclear fallout from us bombing Iran in April, but some of my readers have been asking me about it, so I want to address it and, at least to some degree, debunk it.

I was reminded today by a foolish comment in a diary on Culture Kitchen by a global warming denier that this nation needs more common sense in Congress. The latest global warming denial foolishness is claiming that because it is cold this winter, global warming can't be happening. This is a huge and blatant fallacy. Trying to deny a century-long pattern (really about 250 year, but strongest in the last century) based on a single season is about as wrong as you can get in science. What we need is more scientific input in Congress...and what better way to do that then electing a scientist to Congress. We have that chance March 8th in Illinois.

I recently I wrote a piece on the very, very nasty corruption among Republicans in Alaska. Specifically, I wrote about a scandal involving an oil services company, VECO, that involves bribery and buying of favors involving four Alaskan Republican State Legislators, one US Senator from Alaska (Ted Stevens) and the lone House Representative from Alaska (Don Young). The single Democrat, a state legislator, initially investigated was never subsequently accused of wrongdoing. In other words, the VECO scandal is exclusively a Republican scandal.

But when I wrote that piece, I hadn't realized I had only scratched the surface. Turns out, one recipient of VECO's alleged bribes, Rep. Don Young, may well be the poster boy for just about every kind of Republican corruption this nation has been seeing.

I have reported many times about how the Republican Parties in Ohio, Missouri and Kentucky were about the most corrupt political establishments in America. One that I have been missing is the Alaska Republican Party. I think it is time I turn northward to discuss what is going on in Alaska.

Willard "Mitt" Romney is "suspending" his campaign. Although this leaves him with some control of his delegates, in effect it recognizes that John McCain is the nominee for the Republican Party. What the Republicans DON'T want you to realize is that in effect they have nominated George Bush all over again. Sure McCain has more brains than Little Bush, but the policies he advocates are nothing more but Bush's own already failed policies.

John McCain has vowed to continue the Iraq quagmire indefinitely...

The Republican Party is offering America a Third Bush Term. As John McCain nearly swept Super Tuesday, the "vision" the Republican Party is offering America came into focus. John McCain is offering four more years of failed Bush policies. It is as simple as that.

I think this was best illustrated when we remember what Bush and McCain were doing while America watched in horror the destruction of New Orleans when the levees broke after Katrina:

Americans like to complain. Grassroots progressives, myself included, in particular like to complain. Sometimes I have seen the complaints become almost an obsession, to the detriment of actually getting things done. Nader is a perfect example of this. I have seen progressive apathy or even antipathy sink some of the most progressive and honest candidates you could ever imagine. This is the danger of being on the forefront of progress. You can get ahead of yourself, ahead of everything and wind up all alone.

As a blogger I get invited to many political events Now as a parent and scientist I can't make many of them, but I still meet more candidates and politicians than the average voter. So I hear lots of political speeches. Usually, since I am meeting similar minded people, I like the speech. But only occasionally do I find the speech to be dead on and exemplary of what ALL Democrats should be shouting from the top of every hill. Things like: Liberal IS patriotic, pro-Choice IS pro-life and marriage equality is about nothing but fairness. Oh, yeah, and how about we have to get out of Iraq. This is what I heard from Steve Harrison, a fairly traditional man running for Congress, and I would like to introduce you to him.

This week I discuss a very personal conflict with Homeland Security, which involved first bad news, then, on appeal, excellent news. Sometimes our court system works! I also cover the response our troops have for Rush Limbaugh, responses to Bush's opposition to healthcare for American children, and I discuss the situation in Burma. I also am finally getting back to some more local stuff including local events in NYC, a brilliant plan for winning in Colorado, and some local Virginia and New Jersey stuff. If you go to any of these articles, please click on some advertisements because that helps me keep doing this!

This is taken (with links to the full thing) from a series on Culture Kitchen and Daily Gotham describing my own family's ongoing experience with Bush's paranoid America. The original story is a three-part (to date) story which has been picked up outside the blogsphere, but not so much within the blogshere.