New Site

So my new site is live over at Firedoglake. The URL is:

http://news.firedoglake.com

You can pick up a feed at: feed://news.firedoglake.com/feed/atom/

Thanks everyone. I'll be dimming the lights here now.

And I'll Miss You Most Of All, Scarecrow

You can read my weepy, tear-stained goodbyes to Hullabaloo and Calitics. And now, you're probably wondering what that's all about...

Well, I've accepted a position with Firedoglake running a new site over there that will be called FDL News. The site has not yet gone live bit will come into being in the next couple weeks; in the meantime I'll be posting on the main site over there, starting next Monday (today was kind of a preview). It's an opportunity to do a mix of breaking news, analysis and some original reporting. Firedoglake has some fine bloggers in their stable and I'm excited about the opportunity.

What does that mean for this site, a labor of love for the past five - count 'em, five - years? Well, the large majority of my material will be produced at FDL News. I'm going to keep this site live for a variety of reasons, mostly to keep the archives open. Maybe I'll post some personal insight or two every now and again. But for the most part, "the balcony is closed," as Gene Siskel liked to say.

I'm a little torn up about this. I built this thing from nothing into... only slightly more than nothing. I've written over TWELVE THOUSAND posts here. It will be profoundly odd starting next week to have that not happening anymore. Profoundly odd. I started this out as a hobby, it became an obsession and has now progressed into a career. And it all started right here.

But I'll now have a much higher profile and a better depository for stories that would otherwise drift into the ether. It's going to be a huge challenge and in order to be able to meet the task, I have to focus.

As I said, I start Monday. I'll dim the lights here starting Friday - the weekend will be entirely taken up with moving. I will really miss this scruffy old place.

Thanks to everyone who ever came across this site. It's ridiculous that anyone would spend more than a minute reading what I have to say. It's even more ridiculous that more people will do it from this point on. You've all been great. Knowing me D-Day knowing you readers A-ha!

In The 'Burgh

I am back from a wonderful wedding and honeymoon. I didn't want the new wife finding me with the laptop furtively typing away while on the honeymoon, leading to me getting a quickie divorce, so I held to my pledge to stay away. I'm sure I missed pretty much everything, so I won't bother recapping. So this is just to day that I'm back and on the ground here in Pittsburgh for Netroots Nation. Just a reminder that, if you're at the conference, you can find me on one panel over the weekend.

California: How Process Creates Crisis

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15TH 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM
PANEL, 317
California is the nation's largest state, and is often seen as a bellweather for economic and social change. However, the peculiar dynamic of state government institutions has threatened that role, as the state has slipped into an almost perpetual crisis mode. Despite an overwhelming majority of progressive lawmakers in the state legislature, the two-thirds rule for passing a budget and tax increases, among other issues, handcuffs them and empowers a radical conservative minority. Thirty years of short-term fixes and failed leadership have only exacerbated the problem and put the state—and the nation—in real danger. As Paul Krugman recently said, "Years of neglect, followed by economic disaster—and with all reasonable responses blocked by a fanatical, irrational minority ... This could be America next." In this session, we will look at the reasons for California's budget tangle, the larger implications for the progressive movement at large, and what some organizations are doing to change these outdated rules and take back state government for the people.

And I will be around throughout the weekend, so if you're here, seek me out and say hi.

An Announcement

So I will be away from blogging and the online world for the next week. That's because, in between posts over the last couple years, I met a wonderful girl, and we will be getting married in her hometown of Pittsburgh on Saturday. Somehow she likes the chained-to-the-computer-and-occasionally-unresponsive type. I don't know. But I'm pretty pleased about it.

I know that your main reaction, gentle reader, is "what's in this for me?" Well, I'll tell you. I've lined up a guest poster who you may know from around the blogosphere. Dante Atkins, who posts as hekebolos at Daily Kos and Calitics and everywhere else, will be filling in for me around these parts. Treat him kindly, or with studied indifference, as most of you do me.

After the wedding and a little "mini-moon" (a word I've coined for "shortened honeymoon," how do you like it?), the wife and I will go back to Pittsburgh for the annual gathering, Netroots Nation. So seek me out there and say hello. After all, you'll be on my honeymoon!

By the way, I should again plug the panel discussion I'm running at Netroots Nation on Saturday, August 15 called "California: How Process Creates Crisis," in room 317 at 3:00pm. The panel features myself, Robert Cruickshank of Calitics and the Courage Campaign, Jean Ross of the California Budget Project and AD-21 legislative candidate Kai Stinchcombe. If you're heading to the convention, I hope you can make it.

And that's it for me. Take it away, Dante.

The Shame Of Johnstown

As we head into the home stretch of the election, the disturbing examples of racism has risen. But for me, this one is personal:



My mother is from Johnstown. My grandmother and my aunt still live there. I spent many weeks and months there as a kid. The people in this video are people with whom I have probably eaten in the same restaurants, shopped in the same stores, walked down the same streets. They are working people who haven't had much economic opportunity in their Western Pennsylvania steel town in their lives. To see the racism somewhere that you have spent time is much more impactful. I always knew it was in the background, and I must admit that I've seen it at times in my own family. But a video like this with its countless examples is depressing.

I'm not concerned about Pennsylvania - the leaps forward in voter registration will make a difference. And both of my Pennsylvania resident grandmothers are voting for Obama. Neither were on board but I managed to convince them. But as we've been saying here for a while, the election is merely a part of the fight - then there's governing. And the poison that has been injected into the discourse is going to be a strong deterrent.

But of course, it's no different than the demonization of liberals and Democrats that has been a hallmark of the Republican noise machine for decades. One of the best ways to combat this is to reveal it - to create moments of recognition, moments of shame, moments of revulsion. Johnstown needs to know about Johnstown.

...I should add that this doesn't appear to be the prevailing opinion.



...Nancy Pfotenhauer today - in case you didn't think that the McCain campaign is stoking this:

I certainly agree that Northern Virginia has gone more Democratic. … But the rest of the state — real Virginia if you will — I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message... Real Virginia, I take to be, this part of the state that’s more Southern in nature, if you will.

They don't think Democrats are Americans. And that manifests itself in racism.

The Republican Rules

It is quite amazing that, a scant few years after you couldn't escape talk of the President's penis and thongs and cigars and blue dresses, that even the slightest hint of Rudy Giuliani's adultery and character questions (he broke up with his second wife via a press conference) raises righteous anger and scorn from the media establishment.

And if anyone tries to bring this up should Rudolph be the nominee, you can bet there will be resolutions of condemnation drafted. Heck, maybe this time the Democrats will draft it.