They are staying put.

The center is right, far right.

All power to the corporations.

Fund War! Not People.

Vote Democrat or Republican!

Support the status quo!

Your Vote makes them Strong!

I always wonder how Nature made a tuna fish so perfect and round that it fits into a tin can.

A vegan grocery store checker I know always advises the guy who bought a ham to return it.

In a bad neighborhood never honk. The Tuna Fish lovers will come get you for some lunch.

One would think that Democratic losses from 2000-2004, and their gains in 2006 when they began speaking more forcefully against the Republicans, would have proven the "move to the center" strategy to be a loser. It is terrible strategy, not to mention terrible policy.

It's like they are stuck in 1990s Bill Clinton mode, trying to emulate his strategy in order to reap his level of political success. But Bill was successful for reasons other than his centrism, not to mention the circumstances and perceptions of Americans have changed. Maybe if politicians were forced to experience the circumstances that most of us experience -- for example, if they didn't have guaranteed excellent health care plans; if they didn't have their job security guaranteed for a certain number of years; if their incomes were closer to the incomes of most Americans; if their children felt more compelled to join the military -- maybe then they would be more convinced of the need for a strong change of policy direction.

I am sorely disappointed in Obama's recent moves. I saw the Olbermann interviews in question and while I personally do not view them as worshipful of Obama as Glenn does, I think the idea that Obama was being some kind of strategic mastermind by being willing to jettison the civil suit option against the telecoms in favor of keeping the criminal prosecution option open is wishful thinking and willful blindness. Unfortunately this same idea has been reiterated on liberal talk radio this week; I heard a host lambasting a caller for "not understanding" how retroactive telecom immunity for civil suits was really unimportant compared to criminal prosecution. Apparently Scooter Libby's pardon never existed...?

In April, Michael Chertoff announced that the government will turn the most advanced spy satellites in its arsenal on American citizens, and the announcement brought barely a whisper from the media.

A number of years ago I created a garden at a local apartment building that housed women who'd been homeless and who were trying to get back on their feet with the help of some local agencies.

One woman was an almost complete recluse, rarely emerging from her small room. I was able to coax her out and get her to talk while showing her how to weed and take care of the garden. Her overwhelming fear, stated repeatedly in low whispers, was of the "satellites watching and listening to us".

At the time I was overwhelmed with pity and hoped that the gardening would provide her with a way to overcome her "irrational" fear. Now I have to wonder if she was simply more perceptive than I, or perhaps merely prescient.

Hasn't John Dean backed away from his initial impression, based on a quick reading of the "compromise", that it left open the possibility of criminal prosecution? Also, given that after-the-fact immunizing a corporation from even being sued is, I believe, something radically new in the law, it's far from clear, at least to this attorney, how such a prosecution would proceed. And what would be the likelihood of success of finding a corporation guilty beyond a reasonable doubt after the President. both presidential candidates, and both houses of Congress have affirmed that no one can even make a legal claim that this corporation was liable under a preponderance of the evidence standard?

Obama made a promise to oppose telecom immunity. On the basis of that promise, people gave him money and votes. Rather than trying to discern some secret plan that Obama has not even hinted at -- at least Nixon had the decency to announce that he had a secret plan to end the Vietnam War -- Olbermann should consider whether his idol has committed fraud.

I was one of those who filled Glenn's e-mail box with pleas to address the Olbermann-Alter segment. I could not have hoped for a better job on his part, so devastating that the mainstream media figure he has exposed has felt compelled to respond, first on dailykos and now in his own forum. Olbermann deserves some credit for at least acknowledging the criticism and trying, albeit poorly, to address it. Alter, in contrast, appears to be lying low; perhaps he realizes that, unlike what Olbermann said, his pronouncements were indefensibly ignorant.

Excellent post, Glenn. The undebatable 'soft center' premise of the corporate-censored media is one that the American people would cheer to see challenged.

By no means are the people of this country simply waiting for our politicians to decline to answer "Yes" or "No," in favor of the "safe" soft "center," before casting their votes for that inscrutable Maybe. Obviously, on the other hand, the corporations are holding out for that unprincipled Maybe, because that's the loophole through which their power continues to hold sway. And, of course, they own the media that's telling us what we want. What a sham and a fraud the self-serving corporate "conventional wisdom" continues to be - Barack Obama better wake up, and soon. There's no middle ground for corporate America; Obama's going to have to make his choice between the people and corporate power. Receiving accolades from the corporate-censored media for turning his back on the American people will come back to haunt Obama, if he chooses to continue down that path to the presidency.

Our potential leverage is Congress. - paul spencer

Indeed it is, paul (that's why you never hear the corporate-censored media explaining that to the American people; they're busy, instead, permanently entrenching the idea of a kingly president as the end-all, be-all "Decider" of our nation's future course).

With regard to FISA, as I've noted, we need to turn (or send on a field trip) 11 Senators of the 20 Democrats who voted to invoke cloture on the final Senate FISA bill - which included blanket immunity - in February. [The cloture vote on the motion to proceed last week is not a valid indicator of the pending cloture vote, post-amendments, on the bill itself, should the immunity provision not be stripped or modified.] Which also means holding February's 29 No votes (including Obama) during the final cloture vote July 8th. 41 "No" votes - should Kennedy be absent (39 if both Kennedy and McCain are absent) - will sustain the continuing filibuster objections of Dodd and Feingold on the next cloture vote July 8, should all three immunity-related amendments fail to pass that day.

These are the 20 Senators who may, or may not, be available to the public this week in their states [has anyone yet spotted a Senator home at work in public during this "District Work Period?"]:

Max Baucus, Evan Bayh, Tom Carper, Bob Casey, Kent Conrad, Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Inouye, Tim Johnson, Herb Kohl, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Claire McCaskill, Barbara Mikulski, Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Ken Salazar, Jim Webb, Sheldon Whitehouse

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=S891&position=all

The eleven I think we have the best chance of turning:

California's Dianne Feinstein

Delaware's Tom Carper

Florida's Bill Nelson

Indiana's Evan Bayh

Missouri's Claire McCaskill

Montana's Max Baucus

North Dakota's Kent Conrad

Pennsylvania's Bob Casey

Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse

Virginia's Jim Webb

Wisconsin's Herb Kohl

The six Senators here from California, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, Rhode Island and Wisconsin all have Democratic Senators from their own states on the other side of this issue. In Pennsylvania Casey's Republican counterpart (Specter) is clearly not happy with the FISA state of affairs regarding telecom immunity. That's seven Senators who have no local peer pressure to take the position they're taking, especially if the presumptive nominee of their party (for whom some of them are superdelegates) asks them to vote with him against cloture. [Pressuring Hawaii's Inouye and Colorado's Salazar may also be worth a shot.] It's not enough for Barack Obama simply to skip this cloture vote and to avoid lobbying his colleagues, though those are no doubt his preferred strategies at this point, judging by his past behavior on "national security" votes (though to Obama's credit, he made a point to cast votes on this in February, unlike Clinton).

So, hoped-for principled leadership on FISA from Obama aside, residents of those eleven states have a unique opportunity to apply some vital constituent pressure this week, which just might pay off with huge dividends for our Constitutional system of government on Tuesday, July 8th.