While broad dreams and great hopes attend a time of change, when a long era that looked backward is ending, and a new era searching for the way forward is starting - in each moment, on each day, at each time, there are tasks to be accomplished.

While we will, and must, and should, put forward ideas and proposals on these greater goals, the task of the next two years is to wrest control of the nation back into the hands of the people and their constitution, and out of the hands of an executive who proclaims that the framers intended a President to be dictator in time of crisis. George Washington denied the title of King, and FDR declared that America had no need of dicators, and if in those moments of intense crisis, bound by greater and more powerful evils than we now face - leaders could admit that absolute power is never an absolute necessity, then so it should be with our own moment.

Better known to his readers as "oldman", from a family nickname, Loan Nguyen was a TA at Iowa State University, having earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Michigan. However, it is in the area of applied non-linear dynamics, particularly to the social sciences, which his writing in the electronic world centered upon.

[Earlier a short announcement brought a wide range of appreciation from other members of the bop community. you can read them here.]

Kos has said that impeachment talk is silly. With all due respect, it is deadly serious and completely necessary. The constellation of impeachment is rising.

Since 1952, when the primary era began in all seriousness, 3 sitting Democratic Presidents have had their road to the political graveyard go through the gate of New Hampshire: Truman, LBJ and Carter all faced upset challenges in the granite state. Truman lost outright, and withdrew from the race days later.

[I'll be on My TV Prime Time to talk about the primary calendar later today. It is at 9pm on Channel 50 in the Southern New Hampshire/Boston Metro area.]

[I'll also be on Open Source Radio from 7pm to 8pm - based out of WGBH Boston discussing Miers]

Instead of:

1. "Intelligent Design" use "Ignorant Denial".
   
2. "Intellectual Property" use "Intellectual Capital"
   
3. "Digital Rights Management" use "Digital Rent Management"
   
4. "Tax Cuts", use "Revenue Reductions"
   
5. "Conservative" use "Reactionary"
   
6. "Borrow and Spend" use "Borrow and Squander"
   
7. "Mainstream Media" use "Top Down Media"
   
8. "Pro-Choice" use "Pro-privacy"
   
9. "Abortion rights" use "Privacy Rights"
   
10. "Wealthy" use "Privileged"
    
11. "Free Trade" use "Labor Arbitrage"
    
12. "Tax" use "Recapture"
    
13. "A Tax", use "a drag"
    
14. "Christian Right", use "Christianist Right"
    
15. "War in Iraq", unless you mean the entire cycle, "Occupation of Iraq"
    
16. "Social Security Crisis" use "Budget Crisis"
    
17. "Defense spending" use "military spending"
    
18. "Capitalism", use "Corporatism".
    
19. "Corporate", use "Pyramid"
    
20. "Social" use  "Public" or "National"
    
21. "Bush Administration" use "Bush Executive"
    
22. "Fiscal Liberal" use "Fiscal Libertine"
    
23. "Alternative Energy" use "Sustainable Energy"
    

All the whys below the fold.

Bumped because there hasn't been much discussion of Blunt, the new Majority Leader. - Matt. Image by Miles Kurland. - Jerome

There are two kinds of men that Southwest Missouri is notable for: some are real visionaries, people who can find a way to make the seemingly incomprehensible mess of the world make sense.

However, it also produces another kind of man in quantity, the hill-billy huckster. The man who, while pretending to be an ordinary sort of man from the hills, is something else again. Missouri produces alot of those, men who could sell scales to a snake. In many ways its the converse of the first type: instead of imaging great stories, they make up terrible ones.

Roy Blunt is a man of this second type.

[editor's note, by Ben P] From the Diaries. A Great Essay.

We in this nation, whether born here, brought here by our parents, or drawn here as adults, soon realize the uniqueness of this place in the world. Sheltered from ancient wars, distant from the quarrels that created them, a climate as close to a garden of eden as any you will find, rich in natural treasures for the spirit and the body. Even those who have been locked out of sharing in this richness have seen it - it is why America has spawned so many successful rebellions against tyranny and injustice: because almost nowhere else does a full and equal share of society mean so much.

Katrina has shaken that faith, it has done so first in its scale, but also in its aftermath in our response. It has been a century since an American city died.

Karl Rove and Bobo this morning start the counter attack to reclaim the one issue were Bush has a majority of support - they don't want Arabs flying planes into buildings. Bobo's New York Times Op-Ed could have been shat out from a fax machine from the RNC - the New York Times continues to progress towards being an annex of the Moon owned Washington Times, while Rover's verbal screed proves that the Republicans call anyone a terrorist who stands in their way. Atrios finds an easy way of showing the hypocrisy of the press on these matters - because the right wing uses "gulag" language all the time. And Daily Howler is all over it.

But the reason for this new found aggressiveness isn't that the Republicans or Bush are doing well, on the contrary, the problem is, as EDM outlines Bush has never been more unpopular. Next Hurrah's Dem from CT makes more sense than Bobo in saying that Bush's stubbornness is costing him.

But it is left to Steve Soto to point out the obvious and that is that the Democrats seem to be capitulating at just this very moment.