Spy Vs. Spy : Cops Attacked by, uh, Cops During DNC Protests

Officers of the law at DNC protest in Denver, Aug. 22, 2008: Don't spray me, bro'. I'M A COP!!
ACLU: Pepper spray used on undercover cops in Denver may have heatened up scene.
By Felisa Cardona / November 6, 2008

See videos of DNC police action, Below.

When a Jefferson County deputy deployed pepper spray into a crowd during the first night of the Democratic National Convention, he did not know that his targets were undercover Denver police officers.

During a melee that occurred Aug. 25 between protesters, police and bystanders near Civic Center Park, undercover Denver detectives staged a struggle with a police commander in order to get out of the crowd undetected.

A Jefferson County deputy, unaware of the presence of undercover police, thought that the commander was being attacked and deployed the pepper spray, according to a police use-of-force report obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.

The report does not say whether the pepper spray used on the undercover police officers was the first deployment or whether the melee already was underway.

About 106 people were arrested during the incident that took place at 15th Street and Court Place.

Denver police have testified during court trials that they deployed officers to the area that night because they had gathered intelligence that anarchists had planned to gather in Civic Center Park, then move toward the 16th Street Mall to wreak havoc at delegate hotels and other businesses during the DNC.

On Thursday, the ACLU of Colorado sent a letter to Denver's Independent Monitor, Richard Rosenthal, asking for the Internal Affairs Bureau to conduct an investigation of the pepper-spraying incident.

"The actions of the undercover detectives on Aug. 25, 2008, may have had the effect of exacerbating an already 'tense situation,' as their feigned struggle led nearby officers and the public to believe that a commanding officer was being attacked by protesters and that the situation necessitated the use of chemical agents," says the letter, written by ACLU staff attorney Taylor Pendergrass.

"Such actions may have escalated the overall situation by causing officers on the scene to fear that the protesters threatened their safety, when in fact, the struggle was only between uniformed officers and undercover officers," he wrote.

Rosenthal said he had received the ACLU's letter about the pepper-spray incident.

The monitor also received a letter from the ACLU last week requesting a probe into possible conflicting or false statements by police and whether the department withheld evidence in some of the protesters' criminal trials.

"The letters have been received, and I am in the process of reviewing and evaluating them," Rosenthal said Thursday.

The ACLU claims videos show that protesters, as well as otherwise uninvolved onlookers, were never ordered or given a chance to disperse before they were surrounded and detained by police.

The city has said it would prosecute as many as 60 accused protesters who declined to accept plea deals. Some cases already have been dismissed after a judge cited a lack of evidence.

Source / Denver Post

DNC standoff between cops and protestors in Denver, August, 2008



Protesters get hit with pepper spray at DNC protest.



Read the ACLU's letter to the Office of the Independent Monitor.

Also see 'ACLU presses Denver to investigate events...' by Nick Cargo / The Raw Story / Nov. 9, 2008

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

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Carl Davidson : Networking at the DNC

Mimi Kennedy and Tim Carpenter of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA).
'At the DNC, all the important stuff these days goes on everywhere EXCEPT on the convention floor'
By Carl Davidson / August 30, 2008

DENVER -- This is my last day in town, and all the talk around the breakfast table is how and where everyone will watch or listen to 'The Speech', Obama's premier performance at Invesco Field. I decide not to waste time hassling long lines or working connections for tickets, since I can watch it on TV in nearby Boulder, where my partner is staying with family.

So I head for the church hosting 'The Nation' and Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). On arrival, I've just missed Rev. Jesse Jackson, but Ron Kovic of 'Born on the Fourth of July' fame and early member of Vietnam Vets Against the War is holding forth on his mistreatment at a past GOP convention. He then reports on yesterday's powerful five-mile IVAW and youth march. He did the entire length in his wheelchair. He can't praise the organizers highly enough, acknowledges that Obama did the right thing, but says to keep pushing on. He ends by asserting that we can't let the right have a monopoly on patriotism, so long as we remember we're also 'citizens of the world.' He gets a standing ovation.

I decide to walk the streets again. I want to take it all in, and reflect at little on what major party conventions are all about.

First stop is the lobby at the Sheraton. For a veteran organizer like me, working away 0n a variety on fronts for 45 years, all I have to do is stand there for 15 minutes and someone I know will show up. Sure enough, someone calls my name, and it's Brian Kettenring from ACORN, now one of their top organizers. I first met him when he was a young student ACORN worker in Chicago. He's been on the West Coast for years, but introduces me to ACORN activists from Pennsylvania, now my base area.

Brian tells me he's headed for ACORN headquarters in DC, where, half-joking, half serious, he tells me he wants them to let him set up a 'Department of Socialism' to discuss 'bigger picture things'. I tell him I've working on just the thing for him, the newly formed 'U.S. Solidarity Economy Network,' with an upcoming conference early in 2009. My trend in SEN is based on David Schweickart's 'After Capitalism' with 'Economic Democracy' as a 'successor system' enroute to a fuller blown socialism. It'll challenge ACORN, but it starts on the ground, where they are. He's very interested, and we decide to stay in touch on it. Plus I now have a new contact in Philly.

So there's lesson number one. Conventions are about horizontal networking. Completely apart from the official goings-on, this stuff happens everywhere. Multiply my short example with Brian by 100, and you get the idea.

From the Sheraton, I take an elevated walkway and run into a building with an inviting, postmodernist display on ecology, energy and related topics. It's aimed at DNC delegates and put up by a high-tech design outfit called 'Partly Sunny: Designs to Change the Forecast. Inside are dozens of displays of green and solar construction materials and firms to build the homes and offices of the future. When a young guide offers to help, I ask 'are any these outfits worker or community coops?' Some are, she answers, and shows me how I can find out more. This gets me thinking that almost all of these firms are what we call 'high road capitalists' and thus some of them possible candidates to pull into our solidarity economy networking.

Now 'Partly Sunny' is just one of thousands of corporate displays, presentations and parties going on all week. While this one is a small, relatively progressive example, all of them, bad guys and good guys, are going all out in the DNC events to draw the country's political class upward and into its orbit of influence.

Thus we have lesson number two. Conventions are about vertical networking and its more aggressive cousin, cooptation. There's a constant influx of newer and younger delegates, candidates, elected officials and party workers to be recruited. If you've been to college, think fraternity and sorority 'Rush Week', and you'll have the right idea.

I head back to the church because I want to catch PDA's summary sessions. Along the way, I run into a dozen people I know wanting to know if I know where they can get tickets (I don't) or telling me about the hoops they went through to get them.

This is lesson three. Conventions are about discovering the pecking orders in the various cliques, and how to turn them to your advantage, for good reasons or otherwise.

So I what do I conclude? Major party conventions are really a lot like high school and the socialization process we all experience in and through them. Learning all the cliques, all the pecking orders, where you can best fit in and suffer least, having a good time in the coolest clubs and extracurricular activities. You know, all the important stuff that goes on everywhere except the classroom. At the DNC, all the important stuff these days goes on everywhere EXCEPT on the convention floor and the 'big night' speeches. These latter events are actually, for better or worse, carefully scripted infomercials mostly far beyond our reach.

A corollary lesson: You can accomplish a lot here, but you better come in with a very clear idea of your core values, your own platform and your strategic orientation. If you don't, you'll wind up being part of someone else's platform and strategy. But if you do, you can make major gains.

PDA is a case in point. As I arrive for the final sessions, Dennis Kucinich is pressing impeachment, whipping out his pocket copy of the Constitution. Next, Steve Cobble, Leslie Cagan, Jaime Raskin (State Senator, Maryland) and Rep Keith Ellison, the Congressman from Minnesota who is also a practicing Muslim, and caused a flurry in the press when he was sworn in using Thomas Jefferson's personal copy of the Koran--all of them are on the platform, ready to follow up and discuss what it means to defend the Constitution and democracy in even broader terms.

Tim Carpenter, PDA's tireless chief organizer and John Nichols of the Nation are setting up the crowd. Tim is explaining how PDA has grown, in just four years, from a few dozen in 2004 to now over 140,000 members all across the country. Mimi Kennedy and Jodie Evans are also there, and add in on how the persistent and audacious pursuit of their 'inside-outside' strategy has succeeded and the turnouts to all the sessions this week shows they've made even greater gains.

PDA, of course, is hardly the only player in the progressive movement. I like much of what they do, and work closely with them back in Beaver County, Pa. But there's also room for improvement and other approaches and organizations, too. My point here is that groups ignoring and avoiding the political events and activities surrounding elections--and you don't have to support any candidate or platform to be engaged in them--are only shooting themselves in the foot.

I'm hardly a believer that basic social change is achieved by elections. But I'm a firm believer that change on this order must proceed THROUGH them, in the long march through all the institutions of our society, building the strongholds we need for the popular power and economic democracy that can take us even farther down the road. With that thought in mind, I'm headed back to Beaver County, Western PA, where I hear Obama and Biden are making a bus tour around the state. It's a very tight race there, and we'll soon see if this helps.

Source / Progressives for Obama

The Rag Blog

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Obama's Grand Speech : Reason for Hope

Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images.
'A historic speech on a historic night'
By David Corn / August 28, 2008

It was a historic speech on a historic night--in a remarkable setting. A crowd of tens of thousands of Americans, filling an entire stadium in the middle of the country, waved American flags and signs calling for "Change." Never in the nation's history had more Americans attended such an event. Never before had an African-American accepted the presidential nomination of a major party in the United States. And the speech of Barack Obama matched the moment.

He connected his own history--the history of a not-quite-ordinary American family--to the mythical promise of America. His rhetoric soared--as usual--but it was tethered to reality: in particular, the stark differences between how Obama would approach the challenges the nation now faces and how John McCain would do so. Obama laced his criticism of the Bush years and the possible McCain years with a dose of populism, which gave portions of the speech a sharp edge. And he brought his pitch for hope and change down to the ground with a succinct description of policy ideas he would work for as president.

Obama, as convention dictates, began with a high-minded theme: America is a land of promise, but, he declared, that promise--especially for hardworking Americans--is in jeopardy, placing the nation at a critical juncture. "These challenges are not all of government’s making," he said. "But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush. America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this." Given that polls show that at least seven out of ten Americans--maybe more--believe the country is on the wrong track and a similar number of Americans disapprove of Bush, his criticism was not at all radical.

In one of the more important passages, Obama, taking a populist turn, made the case that his opponent does not understand this:

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives--on health care and education and the economy--Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made “great progress” under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors--the man who wrote his economic plan--was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a “mental recession,” and that we’ve become, and I quote, “a nation of whiners.”

A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement? It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

Obama blasted McCain for embracing the "that old, discredited Republican philosophy--give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else." He proclaimed that it was time for GOPers, "to own their failure. It's time for us to change America. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States."

He did not say--as Hillary Clinton did during the primaries--that he was running to fight for you. His is still a campaign of collective action--us, not me-- and that might continue to make it hard for voters facing tough economic times to identify with Obama. (Some people desire a champion slugging for them, not a movement to join.) But on tax cuts, health care, outsourcing, energy independence, and education, Obama vigorously outlined the stark differences between him and McCain--and he presented those differences in language designed to appeal to working-class voters.

On national security, Obama ceded no ground to McCain. "If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have," he said. None of his arguments were new--he blasted McCain for being overly eager to go to war in Iraq before the job was done in Afghanistan--but he did so with great confidence. "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell--but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives," he remarked.

Obama sounded strong; he looked strong. "If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice--but it is not the change that America needs," he said. Obama warned McCain to stop questioning his patriotism: "I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first." And, he said, don't go pulling the same-old, Rove-like stunts, accusing Democrats of being nothing but tax-raisers and national security weaklings:

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America--they have served the United States of America.

Throughout the entire speech, Obama's delivery was powerful. He stuck with his now-familiar message of hope and change. He reiterated his call for a politics that transcends pettiness and distractions. But he really took it to the other side--issuing specific charges and offering specific ideas for policy changes. Obama still has one failing as a great speaker: he does not quite step out of the moment of the Grand Speech to talk directly to the individual on the couch who is watching and weighing. He seeks to inspire and attract support with political poetry--but there's a touch of abstraction to the exercise.

Nevertheless, what was in the speech was far more important than what might have been missing. Anyone watching could see that Obama has an economic vision. He showed he had no reluctance to challenge McCain on national security. He linked the policy debates of the moment to the noble currents of American history, noting that this day was the forty-fifth anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech of Martin Luther King Jr. He soared high. He punched hard. He was tough without being mean. It was a near-perfect--or maybe perfect--blend of positive and negative.

Can an acceptance speech make a difference in an election? This was one with the potential to do so. And as the Democrats' convention concluded with fireworks exploding at Denver's Invesco Field and stately orchestral music playing from the loudspeakers, Democrats were entitled to look at their once-improbable leader and say, Mission Accomplished. But the Republicans will have their chance to rip Obama apart at their convention next week--and in the weeks following that. This will be a fierce and bloody election. There will be no more big speeches for Obama, though the debates between the candidates could end up mattering much. Yet on a night when the fast trajectory of Obama's extraordinary life intersected with the slow trajectory of American history, Obama made a passionate and forceful case for himself, for his campaign, and for his view of America and what must be done to serve its citizens. He gave his supporters cause for hope.

Source / MotherJones.com

Thanks to David Hamilton / The Rag Blog

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Denver : Iraq Veterans March Against the Machine

Vets/Rage Against the Machine march in Denver Wednesday.
Rage Against the Machine fans join vets in rousing Denver protest
By Carl Davidson / August 28, 2008

I start the day early loading leaflets and joining Leslie Cagan, Judith LeBlanc and five other United for Peace and Justice volunteers headed to the Denver Coliseum on the North Side of town before 9:00 am.

We're going to the 'Rage Against the Machine' benefit for Iraq Veterans Against the War, organized by the Tent State kids and their allies, and we're expecting about 10,000 young people. It's a beautiful day-sunny, not too hot, blue skies with a few clouds, and the first range of the Rockies clear on the horizon. The concert is to be followed by a mass march to the Pepsi Center, led by the vets, to press their antiwar demands on the Democrats. Since there's no permit, and the Pepsi Center is restricted with 'protest pens' no one intends to enter, there's a sense of tension in the air.

Our UFPJ leaflet has a simple message: Join us Sept. 20 to knock on a million doors for peace. Get signatures on petitions, get to know your neighbors, get outside your 'comfort zones' into new neighborhoods and help us double the size of our movement with new names, addresses and emails.

Since the lines are long and organized, we quickly get out thousands of flyers. A brief rap, and most people say, 'Oh, this is cool. I can do this.' Some don't want to be bothered, interested only in the bands, and a few kids are rather spaced out early since no intoxicants other than the music are permitted on the grounds.

I get a 'workfare' pass into the concert with terrific seats. This means I'm on the security team for IVAW inside the concert and along the line of march. We get our special chartreuse armbands and blue wristbands, a quick training in nonviolent methods in dealing with problems. Then we're into the cavernous space, with a local Denver band, Flobots, which is decidedly left and high-energy hip-hop. IVAW speakers appear between numbers and keep the politics of the day clear and focused.

They have three demands: 'Out Now,' full benefits for returning vets, and reparations for Iraq. They have no great love for the Democrats who keep voting to fund the war, they're angry with Obama for not taking a harder line, but they see McCain as more dangerous, both to the world and to vets. They want militancy, but they insist on nonviolence for the day, and demand a resolute respect for their leadership and ground rules.

When "Rage" comes on the stage and gets itself and the crowd wound up, one thing becomes crystal clear. If you're interested in radical and democratic social change from below, here is one powerful engine for it. You dismiss, ignore or demoralize the high energy and critical force of these young people at your peril. This is a multiclass, multinational force of youth, and on this day, they are accepting the lead of the working class, even if it's taking the form of the politics, militancy, organization and discipline of the Iraq vets.

The beautiful thing is how well it all worked.

The vets marched in formation with cadence at the front, dozens of them in uniform, some in full dress with a chest full of medals. They wanted us to keep a short space for media behind them, then everyone else another few yards back behind a large banner supporting GI resistance to the war. No breakaways and no nonsense. If arrest situations came up, we had our instructions on how to keep those who didn't want to risk arrest still involved, but out of the immediate reach of the police.

I'd guess that at least two-thirds of the 10,000 Rage fans joined us, then we picked up other youth, a few workers, and even Convention delegates along the way. The banners and signs and costume were colorful, the chants imaginative and militant, and the energy infected everyone, even the crowds of bystanders, many of whom broke into applause.

I had one of the harder jobs, keeping people from breaking the front ranks and jumping the banner. But with the vets leadership, we kept the spirit both upbeat and disciplined. Denver's overkill police presence was everywhere, but everything remained civil. Some even felt some sympathy for them, sweltering on a hot sunny day in their new Black Ninja Turtle outfits, which must have been unbearable.

It was a long march, nearly five miles. One problem was keeping everyone hydrated, but cases of water kept showing up at critical points. The best energy was downtown Denver, with the cheering and applause from Convention delegates. But we all knew there were trouble spots ahead.

Denver's security rules meant you couldn't get closer to the Pepsi center than several hundred yards, and then you were to be put in fenced 'protest pens.'

The vets would have none of it. They hadn't risked their lives, supposedly defending the Constitution, to be treated this way. They were going to march until they were stopped and then we'd seen what would happen. As we got closer to the skirmish line, they stopped several times, and the vets took turns giving heart-rending stories to the press, which, by this time, was everywhere, and driving us nuts trying to keep them to respect our lines and discipline.

At the final stopping point, a decorated Marine told the cops they would get no violence from us, and we expected none from them. The three demands were read to Obama's campaign and the Democratic Party. The vets demanded a response, and were determined to wait for one.

So now we had the problem of keeping thousands of people, encircled by police and barricades, in an upbeat, but patient and calm state of mind.

One young Black kid from Denver of our security team rose to the occasion. He starts doing his raps, and those of others as well. The crowd loves it, especially when he gets on their case for not being too good at 'call and response.' So he starts an on-the-spot workshop on how we can all become better rappers.

Next two young African American women start softly singing an old church-based civil rights song 'Those Who Love Freedom…" The lyrics are simple and lyrical, and soon hundreds are singing it, over and over. For me, powerful memories come up from my days on Freedom Marches in Mississippi, when we sang this same song in the face of the Klan and cops. When I start to sing along, my eyes fill with tears from long-buried emotions. To hell with it, I decide, let the tears flow, and I sing along.

Finally, we get the word. The other side blinked. The Obama campaign's top veterans affairs people ask the Vets to send two reps into the Pepsi center to discuss their demands. Moreover, they want an ongoing series of discussions to make sure all veterans concerns are heard and dealt with. That's enough for IVAW to call a victory, even if a partial one, and work out a way to bring the day to a close. It's decided that we part the crowd down the middle, opening a path. The vets do an about face, march in formation though the crowd, and as they pass, to many cheers, we fall in behind, get back to the downtown area, and go our various ways.

I find a way to get to my car, then back to 'tent city' to secure our display in preparations for leaving. I meet up with my team in a Taco joint, where they, along with some of the new media people working with Laura Flanders, are watching Joe Biden's speech. I'll have to read it tomorrow, because given everything we've been through, right now it seems rather trivial.

Source / Progressives for Obama

The Rag Blog

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Police Brutality in Denver: the Face of Democracy

Here are dramatic scenes of the knockdown of Alicia Forrest, a member of Code Pink. The Aspen Times says that a policeman violently shoved her. The Rocky Mountain News reports that she was thrown to the ground "with a smack." The Denver Post quotes the cop saying "Back it up, bitch!" as he knocked her to the ground.

The cops then left her sprawled on the pavement. But when she began complaining to reporters (not about her own abuse, but about the unnecessary arrest of another protester,) they took a renewed interest and hauled her off to jail.

DNC Protests: Police slam CodePink protester to the ground


The Rag Blog / Posted August 27, 2008

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The DNC Sponsors List Is Rather Enlightening

The list I've posted here barely scratches the surface of what the Rocky Mountain News dug out of the public record. I note that this article was published on 12 May, but it is still very timely information. Such notables as Lockheed Martin, Anheuser Busch, Coca Cola, State Farm Insurance, Google, Xerox, Lilly, and a myriad of other giant corporate interests are listed. Click the link below for the complete list. It is enlightening. Remember, these are the guys who are represented at the Democratic convention. Try checking the lists for the Green Party or the Socialist Workers' Party. I'm just sayin' ...

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

List of Democratic National Convention sponsors
Rocky Mountain News / Monday, May 12, 2008

The Democratic Convention Host Committee has released a list of sponsors that includes some of the biggest companies in the nation, and most of them have business with the federal government or long lists of issues they are trying to influence on Capitol Hill.

Below are the sponsors' names, followed by their federal business interests or lists of issues they are trying to influence through lobbying, according to the most recent Lobbying Disclosure Act forms available from the Senate Office of Public Records.

Note that a company's "interest" in an issue could mean advocating either support or opposition, although that is not always indicated in lobbying forms.

* Qwest

General business issues; rewrite of the 1996 Telecommunications Act; Universal Service reform; video franchise relief; broadband deployment; protection of customer records; Networx.

* ForestCity

Military housing; completion of Southeast Federal Center Development under S.F.C. Public-Private Development Act of 2000; navigational servitude for Southeast Federal Center, Washington, D.C.; Transportation; federal funding for project; FEMA flood mapping issue; nuclear energy development; states use of eminent domain; funding of real estate development; project infrastructure.

* Union Pacific

Rail safety issues; rail homeland security issues; rail freight rate regulation and rail capacity issues; Rail Competition and Service Improvement Act; Freight Rail Infrastructure Capacity Expansion Act; Surface Transportation and Rail Security Act; Railroad Antitrust Enforcement Act.

* Xcel Energy

Climate change, renewable energy, related issues; Clean Energy Act of 2007; Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2007; New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security and Consumer Protection Act; Energy Savings Act of 2007, including a clean energy portfolio standard; rail transportation of coal; solar investment tax credit; wind production tax credit; Climate Security Act; pole attachment and related electric utility issues; appropriations for carbon capture and storage research; Clean Energy Portfolio Standard proposals; Provisions in Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 to extend renewable energy production tax credit; Tax issues regarding uranium enrichment and renewable energy; The Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act; Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act of 2007; appropriations bills; Clean Air Act; Clean Water Act, including requirements for electric utility industry.

* SEIU

Contracting out of security guard functions by Federal Agencies; National Defense Authorization Act (extension of temporary authority for contract security guard functions in Department of Energy).

* Vail Resorts

No 2008 reports. (Most recent 2005, lobbying on Small Community Air Service program issues.)

* United Health Group

Medicare Modernization Act implementation; Health Savings Accounts; Medicare Part D; Healthcare IT; Mental health parity; Medicare Advantage; genetic non-discrimination; Health insurance issues; issues concerning federal payments to Medicare Advantage Plans; Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP Extension Act; Legislation and regulation concerning industrial loan companies.

* Molson Coors (Filed as Coors Brewing Co.)

Tax policy; alcohol advertising and self regulation; beer industry's advertising compliant resolution program, including scope of FTC inquiry into self regulatory compliance activities; exise tax on beer; The Clean Energy Act; Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act; Farm Bill Extension Act; Small Business Tax Reform legislation; ethanol production provisions;

* AT&T

Telecom issues, including implementation of The Telecommunications Act of 1996; congressional oversight and video franchise reform; FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Amendments Act; Improving Foreign Intelligence Surveillance to Defend the Nation and the Constitution Act; liability provisions re. federal authorization for acquisition of foreign intelligence information from or with the assistance of a communications service provider; network neutrality issues; cash balance issues in the Pension Protection Act; telecommunications competition; Defense appropriations for telecommunications; SAFE Act of 2007; Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2007; retiree health benefits (concerning prohibitions on companies reducing benefits under ERISA covered group plans); various health plan issues; arbitration issues in commercial contracts; the Cell Phone Tax Moratorium Act (supporting ban on new state taxes on cell phone services); Global Online Freedom Act of 2007; various telecommunications issues; billing and contract regulations in Cell Phone Consumer Empowerment Act of 2007; proposed importation ban on certain handsets; legislation allowing wireless competition on WMATA; broadband deployment issues; E-911 programs; Telephone Excise Tax Repeal Act of 2007; Internet Tax Freedom Act; Bellsouth merger issues; Video franchise reform; Truth in Caller Act; Universal Service Reform issues; International trade issues; FCC wireless spectrum rules; local telephone exchange issues; aviation telecommunications issues; federal communications spending (defense, homeland security, etc.) ; Air Traffic Control Modernization; company interests in Alaska; Rural Broadband Deployment Act; Internet tax issues; etc.

Read all of it here. / Rocky Mountain News

Thanks to Diane Stirling-Stevens / The Rag Blog

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Police Trap Peaceful Protesters in Denver

Denver cops use pepper gas on demonstrators
By Davin Hutchins / August 25, 2008

A calm political protest quickly turned chaotic as anxious Denver police surrounded protesters peacefully marching toward the Democratic National Convention Center. After trapping the crowd between two buildings, hundreds of officers used pepper spray, batons and unwarranted aggression. After being surrounded for 20 minutes, two ANP producers managed to escape after recording the whole affair.

Source / American News Project

Thanks to Common Dreams / The Rag Blog

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Dennis Kucinich : Wake up America

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, preaches “Wake up, America!” to the Democratic National Convention in Denver on Tuesday, Aug. 26. Photo by Charlie Neibergall /AP

See "Kucinich wakes up Democratic Convention" by Rochelle Riley and video of Kucinich's speech, below.

'We Democrats are giving America a wake-up call'
By Dennis Kucinich / August 26, 2008

[Dennis Kucinich gave the following speech during the Democratic Convention today.]

It's Election Day 2008. We Democrats are giving America a wake-up call. Wake up, America. In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the neo-con artists seized the economy and have added 4 trillion dollars of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defense, three times more for gasoline and home heating oil and twice what we paid for health care.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their health care, their pensions. Trillions of dollars for an unnecessary war paid with borrowed money. Tens of billions of dollars in cash and weapons disappeared into thin air, at the cost of the lives of our troops and innocent Iraqis, while all the president's oilmen are maneuvering to grab Iraq's oil.

Borrowed money to bomb bridges in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. No money to rebuild bridges in America. Money to start a hot war with Iran. Now we have another cold war with Russia, while the American economy has become a game of Russian roulette.

If there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold. World records for violations of national and international laws. They want another four-year term to continue to alienate our allies, spend our children's inheritance and hollow out our economy.

We can't afford another Republican administration. Wake up, America. The insurance companies took over health care. Wake up, America. The pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing.

Wake up, America. The speculators took over Wall Street. Wake up, America. They want to take your Social Security. Wake up, America. Multinational corporations took over our trade policies, factories are closing, good paying jobs lost.

Wake up, America. We went into Iraq for oil. The oil companies want more. War against Iran will mean $10-a-gallon gasoline. The oil administration wants to drill more, into your wallet. Wake up, America. Weapons contractors want more. An Iran war will cost 5 to 10 trillion dollars.

This administration can tap our phones. They can't tap our creative spirit. They can open our mail. They can't open economic opportunities. They can track our every move. They lost track of the economy while the cost of food, gasoline and electricity skyrockets. They skillfully played our post-9/11 fears and allowed the few to profit at the expense of the many. Every day we get the color orange, while the oil companies, the insurance companies, the speculators, the war contractors get the color green.

Wake up, America. This is not a call for you to take a new direction from right to left. This is a call for you to go from down to up. Up with the rights of workers. Up with wages. Up with fair trade. Up with creating millions of good paying jobs, rebuilding our bridges, ports and water systems. Up with creating millions of sustainable energy jobs to lower the cost of energy, lower carbon emissions and protect the environment.

Up with health care for all. Up with education for all. Up with home ownership. Up with guaranteed retirement benefits. Up with peace. Up with prosperity. Up with the Democratic Party. Up with Obama-Biden.

Wake up, America. Wake up, America. Wake up, America.

Source / truthout

Kucinich wakes up Democratic Convention
By Rochelle Riley / August 26

DENVER -- Who lit a fire under U.S. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich?

The Ohio Democrat went to church at the Democratic National Convention today, lighting up the 4 o’clock hour as time marched toward Sen. Hillary Clinton’s much anticipated appearance.

Kucinich preached.

I mean he preached like he’d had some lessons from the Rev. Jesse Jackson. And he woke up an audience that until that moment appeared to be mostly waiting to hear anybody else.

“We Democrats are giving America a wake-up call,” he preached. “Wake up, America. In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the neo-con artists seized the economy and have added $4 trillion of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defense, three times more for gasoline and home heating oil, and twice what we paid for health care.”

Sleepy delegates in a half-empty arena began to take notice. A couple of them pointed.

“If there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold,” Kucinich said. “World records for violations of national and international laws … we can't afford another Republican administration. Wake up, America.

“The insurance companies took over health care. Wake up, America. The pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing. Wake up, America. The speculators took over Wall Street. Wake up, America. They want to take your Social Security. Wake up, America.

He had them. Where was this speech when the tiny Ohio congressman was running for president? Or did we really just not pay attention?

“This administration can tap our phones. They can't tap our creative spirit,” he said. “They can open our mail. They can't open economic opportunities. They can track our every move. They lost track of the economy while the cost of food, gasoline and electricity skyrockets. They skillfully played our post-9/11 fears and allowed the few to profit at the expense of the many. Every day we get the color orange while the oil companies, the insurance companies, the speculators, the war contractors get the color green.

“Wake up, America! This is not a call for you to take a new direction from right to left. This is call for you to go from down to up. Up with the rights of workers. Up with wages.”

And Dennis Kucinich began to bounce, the way the ministers of my girlhood churches did.

“Up with fair trade. Up with creating millions of good paying jobs, rebuilding our bridges, ports and water systems,” he said, his voice rising, people rising and grinning at the Dennis Kucinich who was surprising them.

“Up with health care for all,” he said. “Up with education for all. Up with homeownership. Up with guaranteed retirement benefits. Up with peace. Up with prosperity. Up with the Democratic Party. Up with Obama-Biden!”

Hmmmmm. Did the Democrats miss something along the way from the only man with the courage to introduce a resolution in June to impeach President George W. Bush and whose speech reminded those gathered who their fight actually was with?

Source / Freep.com

Dennis Kucinich addresses the Democratic Convention, August 26, 2008



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Chasing The Clean Coal Dragon : A DNC Lobby Adventure

'Clean coal' is in an experimental stage and at best hypothetical
August 26, 2008

DENVER -- Greetings from from the Mile High City! It's a beautiful day here in Denver. The DNC is in full swing, and excitement is in the air...

... and the dirty energy lobbyists are walking the streets. Literally.

For those of you who haven't heard of them, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) is a coal industry front group. They're the ones with the pretty ads on CNN. They even brought you the Democratic debate at the end of January.

They virtually greet Denver visitors with a series of ads at the airport, and they're rolling around town with their mobile billboard.

We've even heard that they're handing out pieces of "coal"... painted green.

If you're easily convinced by such silly swag, I have a bridge to sell you.

You see, here's the background story. When coal industry lobbyists say "clean coal", they're mainly talking about carbon capture and storage (CCS), which, in reality, is only in the experimental stages, and a hypothetical success at best:

A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called The Future of Coal, published last year, suggests that the first commercial CCS plants won't be on stream until 2030 at the earliest. Thomas Kuhn of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents most US power generators, half of whose fuel is coal, takes a similar line. In September [2007], he told a House Select Committee that commercial deployment of CCS for emissions from large coal-burning power stations will require 25 years of R&D and cost about $20 billion.

[...]

The most detailed published assessment [pdf], by Peter Viebahn of the German Aerospace Center in Stuttgart, estimates that at best CCS will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations by little more than two-thirds. That compares with life-cycle emissions for most renewable energy technologies that are 1 to 4 per cent of those from burning coal.

We are unlikely to give up burning coal any time soon, and CCS could eventually have an important part to play by allowing coal to be used without doing unacceptable damage to the global climate. But that isn't going to happen tomorrow. And as to the dream of coal becoming a zero-emissions source of power - forget it.

So, it's fitting that the ACCCE is handing out bits of fictitious fuel. Although we still haven't scored any, Devilstower and I had a chance to chat with several of the ACCCE representatives.

What we learned in our hour-long interview can, unfortunately, be easily condensed into a few paragraphs. I'll let Devilstower take over from here.

Thanks, Page. Our interview rambled over several topics, and there's no doubt that the coal lobbyists are personable guys who know how to make their argument -- after all, that's their job. But when it comes to a few areas, their answers are a lot less than satisfying. (note: while I've tagged my bits and those from Page, I've lumped all the clean coal lobbyists together as "CC," not out of disrespect, but because I can't distinguish their voices on my high quality $9 recorder).

DT: Let's go back to that sign in the airport, which says that "the next president" can count on clean coal to protect the environment and keep the economy strong. But is the next president going to be able to count on clean coal in the next four or even eight years?

CC: We're going to be closer, yes.

DT: But being closer doesn't really help the next president protect the environment or the economy.

CC: We never said that. This is not an answer for the very next president.

DT: That's what the sign says.

CC: It's certainly an issue for whoever is the next president to start working on it.

Page: But you're saying our next president won't have to choose between a clean environment and the economy. That's a huge statement. And very clever.

CC: The issue is simply this. In this country, you could stop using coal tomorrow, but it won't make a dent in global CO2 and it'll greatly raise energy prices. You'll have to build nuclear plants, which will take years, or use natural gas, which would be very costly.

If you stopped using coal tomorrow, this country would shut down.

DT: I don't think anyone's proposing that we turn all the plants off overnight, but that existing 51% of our electrical grid that you're talking about is not "clean coal." It's coal, but it's not clean.

CC: It has to start somewhere.

And that's where the argument becomes circular. Clean Coal would be a great boon to the country if it existed, but it doesn't. Clean coal is a hypothetical fuel, something that might be possible, in a decade or two, with the investment of several billion dollars.

So, while the clean coal lobby presses the idea of their fuel as an inexpensive solution to both maintaining a strong economy and protecting the environment, what they're really pushing is a choice. We can choose to invest our funds in sources of clean electricity that exist right now, today, or we can invest in carbon capture in the hopes that someday, decades from now, it might work. The proposal really ends up having all the downside of investing in fusion (the power source of the future, and always will be) and little of fusion's upside (low overall environmental impact).

The question we're left with is how we handle the power sources we have today, the ones that are powered by not-clean-coal. And the clean coal they talk about is one alternative that's not on the table.

When we got around to talking about the fate of existing plants, we got closer to the real agenda of the clean coal lobby.

CC: Kansas is a prime example. The big story missed in that whole fiasco was that when that plant was cancelled, six wind projects went with it, because the wind developers were going to use the transmission infrastructure from that coal plant.

And that kept the old plants in service, because they can't take them off line to build a new plant with modern technology. When that got stopped, it insured one thing—that the old plants continued to chug along. They had to to keep the lights on.

Page: So you're saying that it's the environmentalists' fault, basically?

CC: Are we saying it's anybody's fault? Absolutely not.

Page: But the Sierra Club's opposition means that people are going to go without electricity or be stuck with old plants?

CC: There needs to be a give and take. When your policy says "no, not under any circumstances," that obviously becomes very contentious.

Page: So Kathleen Sebelius was a real inhibitor to any progress? That's the issue here?

CC: No, not at all, but that's only one instance. We can pick incidents all over the United States right now where they put up legal challenges.

And now we're back to another circular argument: we can't eliminate old coal plants, because there's opposition to building new coal plants. The assumption here is that only coal can replace coal, and while these new plants are certainly cleaner than those they replace in the sense of lowering many other emissions, they make no effort at carbon capture. None. The proposed new plants are not clean coal plants.

The real goal is to promote the building of new plants, clean or not. What they're handing out is a perfect example of what they're doing: plain old coal, with a coat of green paint.

Source / Plutoniam Page and Devilstower / Daily Kos

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Frank Rich : Last Call for Change We Can Believe In

Drawing by Barry Blitt / NYT.
'It’s time for Barack Obama to dispatch Change We Can Believe In to a dignified death'
By Frank Rich / August 24, 2008

AS the real campaign at last begins in Denver this week, this much is certain: It’s time for Barack Obama to dispatch “Change We Can Believe In” to a dignified death.

This isn’t because — OMG! — Obama’s narrow three- to four-percentage-point lead of recent weeks dropped to a statistically indistinguishable one- to three-point margin during his week of vacation. It’s because zero hour is here. As the presidential race finally gains the country’s full attention, the strategy that vanquished Hillary Clinton must be rebooted to take out John McCain.

“Change We Can Believe In” was brilliantly calculated for a Democratic familial brawl where every candidate was promising nearly identical change from George Bush. It branded Obama as the sole contender with the un-Beltway biography, credibility and political talent to link the promise of change to the nation’s onrushing generational turnover in all its cultural (and, yes, racial) manifestations. McCain should be a far easier mark than Clinton if Obama retools his act.

What we have learned this summer is this: McCain’s trigger-happy temperament and reactionary policies offer worse than no change. He is an unstable bridge back not just to Bush policies but to an increasingly distant 20th-century America that is still fighting Red China in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in the cold war. As the country tries to navigate the fast-moving changes of the 21st century, McCain would put America on hold.

What Obama also should have learned by now is that the press is not his friend. Of course, he gets more ink and airtime than McCain; he’s sexier news. But as George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs documented in its study of six weeks of TV news reports this summer, Obama’s coverage was 28 percent positive, 72 percent negative. (For McCain, the split was 43/57.) Even McCain’s most blatant confusions, memory lapses and outright lies still barely cause a ripple, whether he’s railing against a piece of pork he in fact voted for, as he did at the Saddleback Church pseudodebate last weekend, or falsifying crucial details of his marital history in his memoirs, as The Los Angeles Times uncovered in court records last month.

What should Obama do now? As premature panic floods through certain liberal precincts, there’s no shortage of advice: more meat to his economic plan, more passion in his stump delivery, less defensiveness in response to attacks and, as is now happening, sharper darts at a McCain lifestyle so extravagant that we are only beginning to learn where all the beer bullion is buried.

But Obama is never going to be a John Edwards-style populist barnburner. (Edwards wasn’t persuasive either, by the way.) Nor will wonkish laundry lists of policy details work any better for him than they did for Al Gore or Hillary Clinton. Obama has those details to spare, in any case, while McCain, who didn’t even include an education policy on his Web site during primary season, is still winging it. As David Leonhardt observes in his New York Times Magazine cover article on “Obamanomics” today, Obama’s real problem is not a lack of detail but his inability to sell policy with “an effective story.”

That story is there to be told, but it has to be a story that is more about America and the future and less about Obama and his past. After all these months, most Americans, for better or worse, know who Obama is. So much so that he seems to have fought off the relentless right-wing onslaught to demonize him as an elitist alien. Asked in last week’s New York Times/CBS News poll if each candidate shares their values, registered voters gave Obama and McCain an identical 63 percent. Asked if each candidate “cares about the needs and problems of people like yourself,” Obama beat McCain by 37 to 23 percent. Is the candidate “someone you can relate to”? Obama: 55 percent, McCain: 41. Even before McCain told Politico that he relies on the help to count up the houses he owns, he was the candidate seen as the out-of-step elitist.

So while Obama can continue to try to reassure resistant Clinton loyalists in Appalachia that he’s not a bogeyman from Madrassaland, he must also move on to the bigger picture for everyone else. He must rekindle the “fierce urgency of now” — but not, as he did in the primaries, merely to evoke uplifting echoes of the civil-rights struggle or the need for withdrawal from Iraq.

Most Americans, unlike the press, are not obsessed by race. (Those whites who are obsessed by race will not vote for Obama no matter what he or anyone else has to say about it.) And most Americans have turned their backs on the Iraq war, no matter how much McCain keeps bellowing about “victory.” The Bush White House is now poised to alight with the Iraqi government on a withdrawal timetable far closer to Obama’s 16 months than McCain’s vague promise of a 2013 endgame. As Gen. David Petraeus returns home, McCain increasingly resembles those mad Japanese soldiers who remained at war on remote Pacific islands years after Hiroshima.

Economic anxiety is the new terrorism. This is why the most relevant snapshot of voters’ concerns was not to be found at Saddleback Church but at the Olympics last Saturday. For all the political press’s hype, only some 5.5 million viewers tuned in to the Rev. Rick Warren’s show in Orange County, Calif. Roughly three-quarters of them were over 50 — in other words, the McCain base. By contrast, a diverse audience of 32 million Americans tuned in to Beijing that night to watch Michael Phelps win his eighth gold medal.

This was a rare feel-good moment for a depressed country. But the unsettling subtext of the Olympics has been as resonant for Americans as the Phelps triumph. You couldn’t watch NBC’s weeks of coverage without feeling bombarded by an ascendant China whose superior cache of gold medals and dazzling management of the Games became a proxy for its spectacular commercial and cultural prowess in the new century. Even before the Olympics began, a July CNN poll found that 70 percent of Americans fear China’s economic might — about as many as find America on the wrong track. Americans watching the Olympics could not escape the reality that China in particular and Asia in general will continue to outpace our country in growth while we remain mired in stagnancy and debt (much of it held by China).

How we dig out of this quagmire is the American story that Obama must tell. It is not a story of endless conflicts abroad but a potentially inspiring tale of serious economic, educational, energy and health-care mobilization at home. We don’t have the time or resources to go off on more quixotic military missions or to indulge in culture wars. (In China, they’re too busy exploiting scientific advances for competitive advantage to reopen settled debates about Darwin.) Americans must band together for change before the new century leaves us completely behind. The Obama campaign actually has plans, however imperfect or provisional, to set us on that path; the McCain campaign offers only disposable Band-Aids typified by the “drill now” mantra that even McCain says will only have a “psychological” effect on gas prices.

Even as it points to America’s future, the Obama campaign also has the duty to fill in its opponent’s past. McCain’s attacks on Obama have worked: in last week’s Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll, Obama’s favorable rating declined from 59 to 48 percent and his negative rating rose from 27 to 35. Yet McCain still has a lower positive rating (46 percent) and higher negative rating (38) than Obama. McCain is not nearly as popular among Americans, it turns out, as he is among his journalistic camp followers. Should voters actually get to know him, he has nowhere to go but down.

The argument against Obama’s “going negative” is that it undermines his message of “transcendent politics” and will make him look like an “angry black man.” But pacifistic politics is an oxymoron, and Obama is constitutionally incapable of coming off angrier than McCain. A few more fisticuffs from the former law professor (and many more from his running mate and other surrogates) can only help make him look less skinny (metaphorically if not literally). Obama should go after McCain’s supposedly biggest asset — experience — much as McCain went after Obama’s crowd-drawing celebrity.

It is, after all, not mere happenstance that so many conservative pundits — Rich Lowry, Peggy Noonan, Ramesh Ponnuru — have, to McCain’s irritation, proposed that he “patriotically” declare in advance that he will selflessly serve only a single term. Whatever their lofty stated reasons for promoting this stunt, their underlying message is clear: They recognize in their heart of hearts that the shelf life of McCain’s experience has already reached its expiration date.

Is a man who is just discovering the Internet qualified to lead a restoration of America’s economic and educational infrastructures? Is the leader of a virtually all-white political party America’s best salesman and moral avatar in the age of globalization? Does a bellicose Vietnam veteran who rushed to hitch his star to the self-immolating overreaches of Ahmad Chalabi, Pervez Musharraf and Mikheil Saakashvili have the judgment to keep America safe?

R.I.P., “Change We Can Believe In.” The fierce urgency of the 21st century demands Change Before It’s Too Late.

Source / New York Times

Thanks to Shelia Cheaney / The Rag Blog

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Denver : Police and Protesters Make Preparations

Two days before the start of the Democratic convention, police patrol Cuernavaca Park in Denver. The city has spent a year gearing up. Photo by Joshua Duplechian / Rocky Mountain News / AP.
Looks like they're preparing for martial law
By Eli Saslow / August 24, 2008

DENVER -- To the uninformed visitor, it has become difficult to tell whether Denver is preparing for a Democratic National Convention or the institution of martial law. Helicopters filled with armed commandos swooped over downtown in a training exercise earlier this summer. A warehouse was converted into a temporary jail with chain-link fences and signs threatening the use of electric stun devices. Travel agents sold getaway packages to locals, with one company imploring residents to "escape town while you still can."

Hosting a convention necessitates preparing for the worst, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said, and his city has accomplished that with gusto. The possibility of protesters hurling buckets of feces? Denver proposed an ordinance to prevent it. The threat of crowd violence? The city spent $2.1 million on "personal protection equipment" for police.

More than 50,000 visitors will descend on the Mile High City this week, and Denver has spent the past year plotting ways to avoid public embarrassment. The city studied previous convention disturbances and negotiated with several groups that are planning to protest. With an international audience of media members, delegates and the Democratic Party elite expected to arrive this weekend, Denver hopes to capitalize on a chance to re-image itself as "more than a second-tier town," Hickenlooper said.

"The nice thing about hosting one of these conventions is that you can show off," said Hickenlooper, a Democrat who will speak on the opening night of the convention. "We don't want some traffic jam, protest or unfortunate incident to become the big story, because there's too much good stuff going on here. We have the infrastructure to be prepared to handle anything."

Denver worked hard to procure such a visible moment. The city submitted convention bids in 2000 and 2004 but didn't advance deep into the selection process, in part because it lacked enough hotel rooms. After another four years of growth -- Colorado is one of the 10 fastest-growing states in the nation -- Denver submitted a bid for the 2008 convention.

In its pitch, Denver highlighted the Rocky Mountain region's potential to include several swing states. Once solidly Republican, Colorado has a Democratic governor and a Democratic majority in the legislature for the first time in half a century. Nevada and New Mexico also could flip from red to blue in the coming election.

The Democratic National Committee announced that Denver defeated New York City to win the bid in January 2007. DNC Chairman Howard Dean cited "recent Democratic gains in the West" as the primary motive for his decision. By coming to Denver, Dean said, Democrats hoped to signal their intent to compete for votes in the Mountain West.

It was a significant victory for the Mile High City, which has always suffered from something of an inferiority complex. Even though it ranks as one of the country's top 20 metropolitan areas, with a thriving tourism industry and four major professional sports teams playing downtown, Denver residents say their city is often misrepresented as a cow town stuck in the middle of flyover country.

"We've always had to overcome this idea that we're not big enough or important enough to even be part of the national political landscape," said Elbra Wedgeworth, president of the convention's host committee. "That was part of the idea behind wanting to get the convention in the first place. If people see Colorado and the Western spirit, they'll get past all of that."

But the past year also has provided a long and painful lesson in the downsides of hosting a convention, Denver officials said. The city struggled to raise the $50 million it promised to convention organizers. It received a $50 million federal grant for security, but that money has disappeared quickly, officials said.

Downtown office buildings have hired extra security and rehearsed evacuation plans. The Secret Service established 18 working groups in Denver, with assignments to coordinate air security, crisis management and more. The local host committee recruited, trained and organized 20,000 volunteers. Highway officials restructured traffic patterns to accommodate major road closures.

"There are some security measures in place that will be seen, and some that will be unseen," said Malcolm Wiley, spokesman for the Secret Service. "We have a subcommittee to address any possible thing that can happen."

What, exactly, can Denver expect this week? That's difficult to predict, experts said. Conventions have transpired without major unrest since riots broke out at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Four major protest groups -- one called Recreate '68 -- plan to demonstrate in Denver, mostly to demand more rights for immigrants and an end to the Iraq war. Organizers said they expect more than 25,000 protesters to participate, with the stated goal of derailing convention proceedings.

Denver already has experienced a few security scares. Sen. John McCain's area headquarters here received an envelope containing white powder last week, and four employees went to the hospital for examination before officials determined the powder was not lethal. Earlier in the summer, a marijuana advocacy group gathered downtown and started beating people with bats. Police rushed to the scene -- only to realize the protest was staged and the bats were inflatables.

In the local newspapers, Denver officials have outlined several worst-case scenarios: Protesters might chain themselves together with chicken wire, use quick-setting cement to block streets or threaten delegates with violence. One city councilman said anarchists had rented a house in Denver and stocked it with urine, which would be sprayed on crowds as they entered the Pepsi Center.

Protesters denied all of the above.

The protest groups responded by outlining a worst-case scenario of their own. Law enforcement officials might arrest nonviolent demonstrators and use aggressive force whenever necessary, protesters said. The groups described an arsenal of high-tech weaponry they expect to encounter: guns that shoot sticky film and rubber bullets; machines that emanate ear-piercing sound waves; microwave devices that create a burning sensation on the skin.

Denver said it will not use any of the above.

"Basically, what's happening is a cat-and-mouse game," said Adam Jung, organizer of a protest group called Tent State University, which plans to demonstrate in a 50,000-foot "freedom cage" outside the Pepsi Center. "The city keeps coming up with new restrictions on us, and we figure out ways to get around them. That's how it's going to go, until one of us gets the last word."

Source / Washington Post

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

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Democrats Have Turned Sharply to the Left

'They are more liberal than at any time in a generation'
By Steven Thomma / August 22, 2008

DENVER — As they meet for their national convention Monday through Thursday, Democrats are poised to shift their party's course — and the country's.

They're turning to the left — deeply against the war in Iraq, ready to use tax policy to take from the rich and give to the poor and middle class, and growing hungry, after years of centrist politics, for big-government solutions, such as a health-care overhaul, to steer the nation through a time of sweeping economic change.

They are, in short, more liberal than at any time in a generation and eager to end the Reagan era, which dominated not just the other party, but also their own, for nearly three decades.

"Every generation . . . there are changes in people's relationship with government," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. This, he said, is such a time.

The shift of the party also reflects a change in much of the population — evidenced in the policy positions advocated by rank-and-file voters as well as the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

"Government SHOULD do more, especially when you're spending tens of billions of dollars in Iraq protecting the interests of millionaires," said Rebecca Washington, a Democrat and an accountant from Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

"We've got to revoke the tax cuts for the wealthy," said Vicki Balzer, a Democrat and retired teacher from the Cleveland suburb of Berea. "We definitely need to do something more for the economically disadvantaged. . . . We've allowed big corporations to take millions for corporate leaders while workers get nothing."

Nationally, 40 percent of Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections called themselves liberal, the highest since the American National Election Studies program started asking in 1972.

At the same time, the number of Democrats who support a government safety net for the poor — such as guaranteeing food and shelter for the needy and spending to help them even if it means more debt — jumped by 14 percentage points from 1994 to 2007, according to the Pew Research Center.

Support for that safety net also rose by 15 points among independents and 9 points among Republicans.

That's a remarkable change since the mid-'90s, the decade when centrist Bill Clinton dominated the Democratic Party, signed a welfare overhaul into law that forced recipients to work, expanded free trade against the wishes of organized labor and famously declared the era of big government to be over.

"During the era when Bill Clinton was president, there was a clear re-centering of the party," said Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.

Today, she added, "there is a growing understanding that government can play a positive role in investing in our country."

What changed? Several things:

* The Iraq war lasted longer, cost more lives and money, and proved deeply unpopular. A few years ago, Obama was a rare voice in the party opposing the war; today he's one of a chorus.

* Anxiety about a slowing economy resurrected fears about American jobs and paychecks in the global economy. Promises to change trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement punctuated the Democratic primaries.

Also, Obama promises a dramatically different tax policy, one that would raise taxes on the wealthy, cut taxes for the middle class and offer new "refundable" tax credits to the working poor that would wipe out tax liabilities and deliver anything left over in the form of checks.

He also wants to tax oil companies and use the money to give checks to the poor to pay for high fuel costs, or anything else.

* Many Americans recoiled at the weak federal government response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

* Republican George W. Bush turned into one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history. Just as American revulsion at Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980 helped usher in the Reagan era, rejection of the Bush era could help swing the pendulum the other way.

At the same time, the party has new power centers in liberal groups such as Moveon.org and blogs such as dailykos.com, where antiwar fever and anti-Bush anger are magnified.

They helped propel Howard Dean to an early lead for the 2004 Democratic nomination, lost, then regrouped to help defeat pro-war Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut in a 2006 primary, though he went on to win re-election as an independent.

"Enormous dissatisfaction with the Republican Party has brought out the base more," said Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

Ever more vocal and influential heading into this year's election, that base fed the sense that the party should "return to its core values," Richardson said. "The rise of the Internet and bloggers have made the party more progressive."

Schumer also thinks that it's all part of a historic cycle in American politics — or at least he hopes it is.

He said Americans encouraged and grew accustomed to an activist federal government during the Great Depression of the 1930s, one that Democrat Franklin Roosevelt delivered and Democrat Lyndon Johnson accelerated in the 1960s.

They grew disenchanted with that big government by the 1970s, a government seen as corrupt in the Nixon days, unable to stop oil crises or runaway inflation, and unable to rescue Americans whom Iran had taken hostage.

"By 1980, the average person said, 'I don't need government anymore. I'm fine on my own,' " Schumer said.

That sentiment drove U.S. politics for years, helping Republicans win five out of seven presidential elections and giving the Democrats two victories only when they nominated a Southern centrist in Clinton.

This year, however, Democrats rejected Hillary Clinton, who, while arguably more liberal than her husband, was to the right of Obama on big issues such as tax policy and had a history of being more hawkish on national security.

Perhaps it's because Obama was simply a more appealing candidate. But it also might be because times are changing.

Now, Schumer said, Americans feel shaken by big forces such as globalization, terrorism and a sputtering economy. "The whole world changes, and people feel a little bit at sea, and they need help," Schumer said.

Whether the country will turn to a resurgent-liberal Democratic Party to navigate that less-certain world won't be known until November. But for Democrats watching their national convention, it's clear they want something very different.

Source / McClatchy

Thanks to truthout / The Rag Blog

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MUSIC : David Crosby Not Shy About Which Side He's On

'Barack has dignity and moral values, and I believe he loves his country.'
By Ricardo Baca / August 22, 2008

It's hard to believe, but David Crosby, an artist celebrated for his liberal activism as much as for inspired songwriting, will attend his first-ever Democratic National Convention, in Denver next week.

"Usually the people who try to get celebrities to come around to conventions and stuff want bigger ones than me," Crosby said via telephone from his Santa Barbara, Calif., home earlier this week. "They want Jennifer Lopez or something."

And mind you, Crosby won't attend the convention itself. He's going to the Buell Theatre to play an etown show Tuesday with buddies Graham Nash, James Taylor and Ani DiFranco.

"I don't like most politicians, so I don't see what the attraction is to go and be in the middle of a bunch of them," Crosby said. "I'm definitely not going to the convention. I'm going to etown. I have a very high opinion of etown. They're good people, and they do really good work. And I don't think you can say that about most politicians."

What about the dude getting ready to accept the Democratic nomination?

"I think he's a very encouraging guy, a very intelligent man — which is, of course, a complete 180 degree shift from where we've been the last eight years," Crosby said. "The idea of having a guy who can speak in complete sentences is extremely attractive. Barack has dignity and moral values, and I believe he loves his country."

Crosby is just one of many musicians making their way to the Mile High City in the next 10 days. Conventions have grown into media circuses where entertainers and politicos share the same ground for a few days. It's going to be an incredibly busy music week in Denver with performers as varied as Willie Nelson and the Black Eyed Peas, Fall Out Boy and Rage Against the Machine, Daughtry and Melissa Etheridge, the Blue Scholars and Silversun Pickups, Moby and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists — and maybe Dave Matthews, Kanye West and Bruce Springsteen.

While some bold names will be in Denver all week — playing this party, getting spotted at that party, hobnobbing at another party — Crosby is fine with getting in and out.

"I have a friend who does a show on Air America, David Bender, and I'll probably do his show while I'm there," said Crosby. "If we get roped into something else, we get roped into something else."

Crosby understands the weight of the current presidential race, not to mention the great divide in America today. There's a scene in the recent Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young documentary, "Déj… Vu," that films angry fans leaving in the middle of a CSNY concert in Atlanta as the group spoke against President Bush and sang songs such as "Let's Impeach the President." The group knew their political views would make an impact in the South, and that's why they were filming it for the documentary, but they didn't know the reaction would be so severe.

"When you look at the people, the ones who were disgruntled, they're not the people who I really give a (expletive) about," Crosby said. "Truth is, it's good to stir things up. It's good to make people have a dialogue with each other, even if it starts out with people yelling and pointing fingers."

When asked about the dichotomy of an artist-fan relationship — they love your music but not your personality or politics — Crosby changed his tune a bit.

"I do give a (expletive) about them, but I think they're kind of funny when they come to a CSNY concert and get mad about there being politics," he said. "I don't have a lot of sympathy for them. We've been probably the most political band in the world — or at least one of them. Anybody who comes to a concert of ours and expects us to not be anti-war and pro-human and anti-George Bush is crazy. They should have gone to a different concert."

Source / Denver Post

The Rag Blog

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Dem Convention Protesters Call Makeshift Jail 'Gitmo On Platte'

Police build massive 'holding cell' inside warehouse
By Russell Haythorn / August 16, 2008

DENVER -- The discovery of a makeshift jail in Denver's warehouse district is causing outrage among some protesters.

The jail was apparently constructed to house protesters during the Democratic National Convention but the city never publicly announced plans to construct this kind of facility.

Members of the group Recreate '68 are calling the detention center "Denver's inhumane and dirty little secret," "Guantanamo Bay on the Platte" or "Gitmo on the Platte." The warehouse is just feet from the South Platte River.

The jail is made up of large fenced-in cages with razor wire on top. The city said those cages are for the safety of law enforcement agents and those who are arrested. Activists call it a concentration camp unfit and inappropriate for human detainees.

"We're going to be locked in cages in the same building that they already said doesn't have a safe fire suppression system," said activist Glenn Spagnuolo.

"Some of us are calling this the dog pound," said Mark Cohen, with Recreate '68.

Clad in trench coats, bandannas and sunglasses, activists protested outside the detention center Friday in the driving rain. They are asking the city for a public explanation.

"We're trying to shine the light on this little secret political prisoner camp that was being set up in the city of Denver," said Spagnuolo.

"The community surrounding this is primarily poor, people of color, that live around here, who I am sure nobody asked before this was put here," said activist Larry Hales.

Several protestors came with their faces concealed for fear of police retaliation.

"The idea is to protect ourselves from police profiling," said Harold Maude.

The DNC is 10 days away, but it appears the clash of protesters and police has already begun.

The city said it is planning a public tour of the facility in the next few days.

Recreate '68 is calling for the mayor's office to shut down this facility before it even opens.

Copyright 2008 by TheDenverChannel.com.

Source / TheDenverChannel

Thanks to Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog

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Texas Congressman Chet Edwards Pivots Closer to V.P. Nomination

Rep. Chet Edwards,D-Texas, at news conference on Capitol Hill in May. A likely veep pick for Barack? Photo by Lauren Victoria Burke / AP.
Powerful moderate Democrat:

'Simply put, Edwards on the ticket would turn Texas purple in one cycle'
By Matt Glazer / August 14, 2008

The convention is less than two weeks away and the tension is mounting. Who will Barack Obama select to be his running mate? It is starting to look like George W. Bush's congressman, Chet Edwards, is more and more likely.

Rep. Allyson Schwartz (PA-13) has joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi in singing the Edwards praise.

Certainly, Pennsylvania will be key to victory.

Women, older voters, and suburban voters will all be necessary to achieve this win ... Chet Edwards would help Sen. Obama win in swing districts like mine and in states like Pennsylvania...

Chet Edwards would provide strong support to the new administration by engaging Members of Congress to pass critical legislation: health care for all Americans; comprehensive energy policy; new tax policy; and an end to war in Iraq, bringing our troops home safely and responsibly..."

Even as national bloggers like Chris Bowers and some inside the progressive community remain skeptical, the likelihood that Edwards maybe the Senator's choice is increasing.

CQ Politics points to an interesting fact, most of the people rumored to be on Obama's short list are slated for speaking times already, and unless they are scheduled to speak twice, the list is either shrinking rapidly or way off base.

As of yesterday, the only rumored candidates not slated to speak in Denver were, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Sen. Evan Bayh, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Texas Rep. Chet Edwards, and Gen. Wes Clark. With today's announcement from the DNCC that both Joe Biden and Evan Bayh have been scheduled to speak at the convention on Wednesday, the list of 5 is down to 3.

This late afternoon announcement has led some to think Kaine is on the cusp of being announced as Obama's V.P., but something appears to be off in that assessment.

Virginia is already in play. Mark Warner looks to be the heir apparent to John Warner's vacated seat. Adding Kaine to the ticket doesn't look to get Obama anywhere. Clark would be a solid choice, looking at a geopolitical question, what states will Clark move? Clark will also highlight the fact that Obama's resume is focused on domestic policy. Plus, Clark is the only man in the world with a better title than President-Former Supreme Allied Commander. Why would you go from that to Vice President?

That leaves Rep. Edwards. He is a candidate who is a moderate. He is a Democrat who can win tough elections. He is dynamic and engaging. He appeals to independents and moderate Republicans. He expands the base and puts southern races in play on a state and congressional level. He can campaign in rural areas inside New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Georgia, Virginia, and Ohio. Not to mention the fact he would force the Republicans and McCain to dump money and resources into protecting Texas (a state Obama has been organizing in since March).

The Dallas Morning News describes Edwards as a pivot.

Mr. Edwards, 56, is a moderate, a respected voice on veterans and military issues and well regarded across the political spectrum. Colleagues describe him as a pivot between liberals and Blue Dogs - the bloc of budget cutters and gun rights backers - so he could help Mr. Obama reach swing voters.

As chairman of a subcommittee that controls billions in annual spending, he's already got more clout than most members of Congress. He's one of a dozen "cardinals" who serve under the even more powerful Appropriations Chairman, David Obey of Wisconsin.

Mr. Obey called Mr. Edwards one of the "top five or 10 House members" he knows in either party, "an incredibly nice, decent human being" who is "very, very tough minded. ... He is most definitely not a slashing partisan. He would be a very good salesperson for the president's legislative package."

Simply put, Edwards on the ticket would turn Texas purple in one cycle.

Source / Burnt Orange Report

The Rag Blog

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