During a three-hour tirade about Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to transfer five detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States for criminal prosecution, Rush Limbaugh attacked the "dangerous" "ideologue" Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), who in a Fox News interview that day discussed his support of Holder's decision.
--If Democrats do lose a significant number of House seats in 2010, the chamber as a whole will shift to the right. However, given who will lose, the Democratic caucus will actually shift significantly to the left.
--Yey, there is lots of water on the Moon! That's great and all, but if you want something that will really excite you about potential human colonization of space, check out the new VASIMR rocket--it can travel to Mars in only 39 days! Best of all, it was actually designed to ferry people and goods back and forth to a permanent Moon base, and is already being tested on the international space station. The pieces are really falling into place...
--New Stargate Universe tonight-and the premier of the Prisoner on Sunday. Woo-hoo
When ACORN came under unprecedented attack last election cycle for our work bringing new low- and moderate-income voters of color into the electorate, Adam Bink, one of the editors there, reached out to our small online team and offered the resources of this vibrant progressive community to help us combat the firestorm of accusations and lies pushed by partisan activists.
He and people like Mike Lux, David Sirota, Chris Bowers, Natasha Chart, Matt Stoller, and Paul Rosenberg rearranged their priorities and gave their time to debunk the accusations and put the attacks and our work into context. Their advice was instrumental in helping ACORN build relationships with progressive bloggers and online activists, relationships that helped folks across the blogosphere contribute to our defense. Near the end of the entire saga, in response to a thank you video to the progressive online community that the Working Families Party produced with me, Digby said something that captures what I think is the essence of what happened in 2008. She said, “It’s beginning to feel like a movement.”
Well, it certainly felt like that to me too. And my involvement with the progressive online aspect of that movement all started with the OpenLeft community.
So when I found out that OpenLeft was facing a funding crisis (and I know a few things about facing fundraising crises as the CEO of a poor people’s organization) I knew I had to help. So I did. When ACORN was being attacked, OpenLeft stood up. Now its our turn. When OpenLeft is in trouble, ACORN will always have its back.
But you need to help too. OpenLeft is too important to the progressive movement to be allowed to fail.
If you believe that there is a need for a space that offers deep progressive analysis of both policy and politics, then you need to give.
If you believe that there is a need for a space that offers cogent analysis of the changing electorate and its potential impact on progressive public policy, then you need to give.
If you believe that there needs to be a place dedicated to holding elected officials accountable for their promises around progressive public policy, then you need to give.
If you believe there needs to be a space where progressives can discuss long-term goals, strategies and tactics outside of the short-term urgency of specific campaigns or elections, then you need to give.
Because the truth is that, while there are many sites that do some of these things very well, there are practically none that do them all and do them all so well. And that’s probably the biggest reason that you need to give.
In conjunction with the Open Left fundraiser, I thought I'd go down memory lane with the top 10 Most-Commented-Upon Open Left Diaries. Without further ado, here they are:
10. March 3, 2008. Remember when Hillary Clinton said she and John McCain had the necessary experience to be President but Barack Obama just had speeches? Matt Stoller was kind of pissed about it and wrote a short post: Irresponsible Primary Moves which generated 189 comments. Memorable comment (in response to another): "Take your meds and wipe the spittle off the keyboard" by Taylor (um, passions were kind of high back then I recall).
9. February 8, 2008. During the long Clinton-Obama primary there was concern among many here that the superdelegates might not vote the same as those won through primaries and caucuses. Chris Bowers wrote How I could Quit the Democratic Party which generated 192 comments. Memorable comment: "dear god, please DONT vote for Bloomberg. Vote for a goat or some other farm animal first. Please, I beg you." by Will.
8. October 2, 2008. When news came that candidate Obama was lobbying for passage of the bank bailout bill David Sirota wrote The Obama Bailout Bill which generated 194 comments.
6. January 18, 2009. Two days before Obama's inauguration Paul Rosenberg wrote Obama's "Avoidance of Ideology" which generated 200 comments. Memorable comment: "Where You Been Troll?" by Paul.
5. March 18, 2008. This post by Mimikatz came on the heels of the Jeremiah Wright brouhaha and Obama's speech on race. Obama's Incredible Speech on Race in America resulted in 210 comments.
4. April 27, 2008. Candidate Obama goes on Fox News and Matt Stoller calls him out with Follow-up on Obama and Fox News. 217 comments. Pie fight!
3. September 1, 2008. Shortly after Sarah Palin was unveiled as McCain's VP pick came the news of her pregnant daughter. Chris Bowers' Palin's 17-Year-Old Daughter is Pregnant Right Now resulted in 223 comments and this prescient closing line by Chris: "Over time, I still believe she will become a severe drag on McCain's candidacy."
2. July 7, 2008. A guest post by Melissa McEwan titled Perfectly Logical Calculations, and Why They're Actually Not sparked an interesting discussion about sexism and the 2008 election. A whopping 251 comments put it second all time (I think).
1. December 3, 2008. After Barack Obama's historic election it became somewhat difficult for progressive writers to question his cabinet appointments, bailout plans, etc. without significant resistance from readers. David Sirota's A Mass Psychological Change addressed what he calls the Dear Leader phenomenon.The 271 comments that resulted are, I believe, an Open Left record.
Just a taste of some of the discussion here at Open Left over the last couple of years. These are just the most commented on posts; other posts have had equal or greater impact and caused ripples throughout the liberal blogosphere. I hope this reminder of times gone by will inspire you to make a contribution to keep the project going.
This list goes to 11 (update from Chris): Thanks so much to tremayne for compiling this, but he actually missed the all-time, most commented upon post here at Open Left. Back on February 28th, 2008, my "Picking Obama's Vice-President," cloked in at 347 comments.
If you're reading this, it means you're really dedicated to progressive politics, because it's Memorial Day weekend. And well, I'm here too, so we're in this together.
Our fundraiser is at 168 donors. If you haven't yet, throw in a few bucks. It'll make this site better. It'll bring change faster. Seriously, I'll personally move inauguration day to December 15 if you give today. I know the guy who runs the inauguration ceremony, we went to school together.
Since we started our fundraiser, around 125 people have given, which is pretty overwhelmingly awesome. Our total goal is 400 donors, which, while ambitious, is something we think we can hit. We get between 20,000 to 25,000 readers a day, so we're looking for contributions from a little over 1% of our readership. If you're thinking of throwing in a few dollars, go for it. It takes about three minutes, and it will help us work on better research for the general election, and pay for travel expenses and smoother running of the site. You can give here.
Thanks to all of you who contributed so far. Not everyone wishes to be identified, but here's a public thank you to those who were kind enough to support this work and willing to be publicly thanked. We'll have a more complete list when the fundraiser is done. For now, here's a list of OpenLeft supporters.
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