Starting today, Blue America has a new contributor, Gaius Publius. You may already be familiar with him from his work at AMERICAblog, Counterpunch, Naked Capitalism, Smirking Chimp, and Truthout. He tends to write a lot about the Climate crisis, strategies for progressives in a neoliberal-dominated world, Deep State and wealth capture of the political process. He's welcome to write about any topics he wants here at DWT.
Alan Grayson was 30 when the B-52’s were recording “Love Shack,” “Channel Z,” “Roam” and the other classic songs that were released on their most beloved and successful album, Cosmic Thing. He had graduated from Harvard, where he had written his masters thesis on gerontology, done some law clerking for both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia and founded the non-profit Alliance for Aging Research.
Few people know that Congressman Alan Grayson clerked for both Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, respectively the most right-wing and the most progressive justices on the current Supreme Court. We first started to get to know Grayson when he began a primary campaign against Charlie Stuart, a Chamber of Commerce type good ole boy conservative Democrat for the Orlando congressional seat held by Republican Rik Keller.
Last night John Amato and I went to the first of two rallies in L.A. this weekend meant to help turn out Democratic voters. The main speaker was Alan Grayson and he was out here supporting CA-33 progressive Democrat Ted Lieu. Without any doubt, the biggest reactions came when Grayson explained why he was one of the leaders of the fight against arming and training the so-called "moderate" Syrian terrorists-- the tragic McKeon Amendment that passed the House Wednesday, 273-156.
We extended the Fleetwood Mac/Ted Lieu contest we're doing for 24 hours at the request of Alan Grayson. He has something to say about why he's backing Ted Lieu for Congress and why the two of them will be campaigning for Ted in CA-33 on September 19 and 20. So the contest is over today at 12 noon (PT). Here's where you go to be part of it. And below is the message Congressman Grayson sent out to his supporters last night. "Pray the Gay Away"? he asked. And he answered: "No."
Last week Rickie Lee Jones was in Orlando helping Alan Grayson turn out the voters in front of his 75% primary victory on Tuesday. A fews weeks before Peter Case did two concerts for Grayson supporters in the Bay Area.
Over the weekend, Jonathan Martin, writing for the NY Times postulated that because control of the Senate will be largely determined by the ability of Democrats to hold or win 4 southern states that were won by Romney with substantial margins-- Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia-- there is
Last night saw primary results come in for Florida, Vermont and Arizona and for primary-runoffs in Oklahoma. The only thing that interests me in Republican results is if the right-wing punters pick an extremist or criminal type who will be easier for a Democrat to beat. Otherwise, their races don't interest me. Let's look at Florida first: no surprises.
Rickie Lee Jones has been working on her next album in New Orleans. Over the weekend she took some time off to travel to Orlando to help Alan Grayson turn out the vote for today's primary-- which he won with 75% of the vote. At a musical event in downtown Orlando, Grayson introduced her to his supporters and staff by reading the lyrics to one of his favorite songs from The Evening of my Best Day, her 2003 album. The song (below), "Ugly Man" questions what George W.
