John Conyers yesterday...and the Seattle PI today...ask us the same question: are you ready to rock the boat on healthcare and fight for genuine reform?

The answer is yes from a growing number of people....editorial boards across the country, 450+ labor organizations, 59% of physicians, the national nurses movement, and--I suspect--a majority of delegates to the Dem convention.

While watching a youtube video I noticed this John McCain ad on the page.

Was this ad leaked? It cleearly indicates that Joe Lieberman is part of McCain's "team."

Does this mean that Joe Lieberman will be McCain's VP or am I just crazy?

While the Democrats celebrated Hillary's second-place finish as a yet another phony "triumph" for women's liberation, Susan Faludi sketched the big picture in an editorial for the New York Times.

Today, the United States ranks 22nd among the 30 developed nations in its proportion of female federal lawmakers. The proportion of female state legislators has been stuck in the low 20 percent range for 15 years; women’s share of state elective executive offices has fallen consistently since 2000, and is now under 25 percent. The American political pipeline is 86 percent male.

Women’s real annual earnings have fallen for the last four years. Progress in narrowing the wage gap between men and women has slowed considerably since 1990, yet last year the Supreme Court established onerous restrictions on women’s ability to sue for pay discrimination. The salaries of women in managerial positions are on average lower today than in 1983.

Women’s numbers are stalled or falling in fields ranging from executive management to journalism, from computer science to the directing of major motion pictures. The 20 top occupations of women last year were the same as half a century ago: secretary, nurse, grade school teacher, sales clerk, maid, hairdresser, cook and so on.

Hillary Clinton's candidacy was killed by the media patriarchy, a male blogocracy, and Obama's unscrupulous race-baiting, and now women are under tremendous pressure to forgive and forget again.

Women have been forgiving and forgetting over and over ever since they got the vote 88 years ago, and most of them are still living in the low-wage ghetto of second place in everything: The woman is a nurse, the man is a doctor, the man is a boss, the woman is a secretary, and this job profile is the same as it was in 1950.

Forgive and forget...

Thanks to Susan Faludi for reminding us that Hillary Clinton's second-place finish isn't a "historic break-through"...

It's the same old shit, and if Hillary Clinton weren't putting a brave face on it, the same old mob would be howling for her blood.

One of the perks of being in person at an event like the Big Tent and the DNC Convention in general is getting access to some really cool events you can't get to anywhere else.  No, I'm not talking about the after-parties; those actually tend to be fairly lame, imho.  I'm talking about the really informative morning and afternoon sessions where activists have the opportunity to learn things you can't get elsewhere.

Today, the New Leaders Council (not in any way affiliated with the odious DLC) put together a lunch meeting where a pollster from DemocracyCorps (Greenberg) presented for the first time their latest Mountain West polling data, just made available here on their site (PDF only).  It's an awesome wealth of material that confirms what most of us DFH bloggers have been saying for a long time: Obama is our best candidate with great coattails; there is no "Hispanic" problem; the best way to win swing voters is to play to progressive strengths; and John McCain has a serious uphill road to hew in the Mountain West.

"If folks were expecting any drama tonight, they'll just have to make due with the uplifting kind." Such was the bottom line of David Goldstein's blog for HorsesAss.org, entitled "A Stunning Lack of Disunity." I ran into David here at the Big Tent (the DNC mecca for new media journalists, bloggers, reporters, and non-profit leaders - erected here in Progressive Future's parking lot), and thus launched into a discussion of the disparity between the media's playing up the contention between the Obama and Clinton camps, and the actual on-the-ground unity within the Democratic Party.

This diary by Shliapnikov over at Daily Kos really burnt me up. The idea that this great American and humanitarian and liberal Democrat was barred from speaking at the Democratic convention is unbelievable?

The story goes like this:

Things have changed around a little bit in my Senate rankings. But instead of an analysis of which seats are more likely or less likely to switch from red to blue, it has simply become now just a matter of which seats are more likely to flip.

Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley was one of four Senate challengers who spoke at the convention today in Denver. Jeff Merkley took to the stage and laid out his vision for 2009 and beyond. Jeff is very thankful to have been given the opportunity to speak at the convention. We just put the video of Jeff's speech up on our You Tube page, Check it out