AddieStan

Amy Goodman , the host of Pacifica's "Democracy Now!" radio program, has been arrested in St. Paul while trying to free two of her producers. All manner of mayhem has broken out in the Twin Cities, with water hoses and tear gas being used in answer to a handful of some 50 or so ruffians who went on a window-breaking spree after breaking away from a 10,000-strong peace march. Yesterday, police raided at least one peace group's headquarters -- a private home -- with guns drawn. Here's the press release from "Democracy Now!": Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE www.democracynow.org September 1, 2008 Contact: Denis Moynihan 917-549-5000 Mike Burke 646-552-5107, mike@democracynow.org ST. PAUL, MN—- Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested he...

It appears that FEMA is doing a good job in Louisiana. Of course, the real test is yet to come, since FEMA's real job is to deal with the post-disaster issues of housing and general survival of storm survivors and evacuees. Your blogstress hopes the administration truly learned its lessons and has heeded the advice of what career civil service employees remain in its ranks. What happened during FEMA was not some sort of general incompetence on the part of FEMA's rank and file; it was the result of the politicization of the agency by the Bush administration. Indeed, well ahead of Katrina, FEMA workers tried to turn the attention of Congress to the lack of readiness created by political decisions made by the administration, but found no takers for the suggestion of an investigation. Here's Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal 's Storm Tracker blog: After overseeing one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will now sh...

In light of fears that the GOP will exploit the suffering of Gulf-Coast people to its own favor, Michael Tomasky says , not so fast: Now consider a flood, especially in the aftermath of Katrina, and especially a flood hitting an urban area, a situation that finds many African American people being interviewed on television, as is the case today. Your average American is not going to bring information to this picture that will make her conclude that the Republicans are the party to handle this. She will think, without even really knowing that she's thinking it, that this is a matter for the Democrats to take care of – that the Democrats will handle this situation with more empathy and, post-Katrina, more competence. CLICK HERE TO READ TOMASKY'S 'GUSTAV AND THE HARD-WIRED MIND'

http://digg.com/world_news/Police_gasssing_protestors_in_St_Paul_h2o_hoses_horses UPDATE: Joe Johns of CNN said the police were responding to a small group that broke away from the main protest in order to break windows and "generally make a nuisance of themselves."

This is a problem for everyone in Lousiana, since Baton Rouge is the staging area for first response elsewhere in the state. Accoring to CNN, the FEMA command center lost power temporarily, and may now be running on emergency generators. Your blogstress was in Baton Rouge less than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, and it's hard to overstate the role of the Red Stick in managing such a crisis. UPDATE: Turns out, according to CNN, that a transformer was blown, and the power company was able to reroute power to the command center.

Over at Democracy Arsenal, Moira Whelan asks why the military appears to be in charge of the management of the areas expected to be slammed by Hurricane Gustav. After all, this is supposed to be a matter for FEMA and the governor of the affected state: I just noticed that the daily brief customarily done in advance of a hurricane is happening because Gustov is bearing down on the Gulf Coast…but a big shift here: the briefing is being given by NORTHCOM. So what does this tell us and why does it matter? It tells us that things are as broken as they were before Katrina. The military, like EPA, Commerce, or anyone else, is only involved in emergency management to the point that they are requested to do so by the governor or the FEMA director (who acts on behalf of the President). CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF 'WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS HURRICANE?'

Calm yourselves, mes amis ! Yes, yes, I understand how exciting all this veep stuff is, and how thrilling it would be to see the religious right wing beside itself with the selection of a pro-choice vice presidential candidate by John McCain, the Republican heir apparent. I so hate to bust up this party, but do listen up: It ain't gonna happen. No way, no how. And you diligent righties out there, doing your oppo, reading the HuffPo: Guess what? This is not about you. Hard to believe, I know; but it's really not. It's about that handful of Hillary Clinton supporters who are having a hard time bringing themselves to vote for the black guy. Really. It was only eight years ago that this game was tried by a guy named George W. Bush , who had vanquished, in a dirty-tricks primary, a guy named John McCain , who was said to be on Bush's short list as a possible vice presidential pick. But the name that had everybody really excited was that of Tom Ridge , the former...

This is not just a mean ad put out by the McCain campaign, though that it is. This is not simply a dishonest ad, though it's truly that, too. This is an evil ad. It makes a mockery of people's beliefs and presents Barack Obama as a false messiah. (That's anti-Christ to you, Bub. "So what?" asks Bub. "Oh, and that's Beëlzebub to you, missy.") Two artfully clipped comments from Barack Obama appear here. The one in which Obama's says he's become a symbol omits the humble part of Obama's statement -- the part where he says it's not about him. When asked why he received such an enthusiastic reception in Germany, Obama replied that the crowds weren't applauding for him, they were applauding what his candidacy symbolized: "America returning to its best traditions." McFaustus cuts the quote to make it look like Obama is aggrandizing himself. Later, the ad presents Obama's joking characterization of how Hillary Cl...

It may be tempting to think that your blogstress has simply abandoned her cause for the bohemian lifestyle of which she dreams, but temptation disappoints. Non, mes amis , your blogstress continues to spend her days consuming bon-bons in her dressing-gown while watching C-SPAN. These days, however, the results of her research are more often reported on the blog she now has at The Huffington Post: www.huffingtonpost.com/adele-stan Do tune in. Most recently your cybertrix broke the news of the apparent endorsement of Barack Obama's Afghanistan plan by the Afghan ambassador to the U.S.

This morning came word that your blogstress's colleague and friend, Brian Beutler , that gifted young reporter, blogger and crypto-crooner, had taken three bullets in his mass, thanks to a botched robbery on a Washington, D.C., street. And he lives. And cracks wise . And, miraculously, is expected to make a full recovery. For the record, Beutler has done some of the best reporting on the Bush administration's flouting of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that she has read anywhere. And she would say that even if she wasn't his editor.

Your blogstress last week lost her good friend, the composer Scott Upright, to his defeat by a longstanding illness. Scott was an artist of a most unusual sort; his gifts seemed unlimited to any one medium or discipline. He was an accomplished singer, composer, choreographer and designer. And cook. And human. And, above all, friend. Your cybertrix is bereft.

With so much going on in the world outside your blogstress's mien, she has be slow to apply the cursor to her own breakaway republic. Do forgive, mes amis .

Check out HuffPo's Nico Pitney on the Democrats' congressional Chicago strongman and his role in the presidential contest. Don't worry, he effectively tells Pitney; those who have not endorsed will come along soon. CLICK HERE TO READ PITNEY'S 'DEMS NOT BACKING OBAMA? RAHM WILL DEAL WITH IT'

Word of the passing of Tim Russert , NBC News Washington bureau chief and host of "Meet the Press" is sad indeed. Sad because Russert appeared to so enjoy the twists and turns of this year's presidential contest, a contest whose end he will not get to enjoy from this earthly plane. Your blogstress didn't know Tim Russert, but on the night of the New Hampshire primary, she enjoyed a rather charmed encounter with him. In the bar of the Radisson in Manchester, where tout le monde was eating dinner that night, I was standing at the bar awaiting takeout when Russert walked in with Mike Barnicle. The days and hours leading up to polling day had been quite the ride. Hillary was inevitable, then was destined to lose, according to pundits and pollsters. By the day of the primary, word began circulating that she might pull it off. Making small talk, I asked Russert how it was looking to him. (The polls had yet to close.) Standing next to me, he unrolled a handful of pap...

Forgive your blogstress, mes amis , for having neglected you for so long. Your cybertrix, of course, was off doing worthy things, such as attending the National Conference on Media Reform (thanks to a scholarship from the outstanding organization, Free Press, Inc.), getting marooned in the Atlanta airport for a day on her way back to DC from Minneapolis, and then doing a lot of sweating in her 100-plus-degree oppo factory, which happened to lose its air conditioning on the hottest day of the year. But now -- rejoice -- your Webwench returns with a new collaboration in The Huffington Post. In answer to Linda Hirshman's instruction to the feminist movement (something of a white woman's manifesto) that ran in the Outlook section of Sunday's Washington Post , Shireen Mitchell and your ecrivaine today responded with our defense of what has become known as "intersectionality." (Kinda sexy, non ?) To find out what that means, check us out in HuffPo: CLICK HERE TO RE...

Check out your blogstress's debut on The Huffington Post as a featured blogger commenting on why it would be such a bad idea for Barack Obama to name Hillary Clinton as his running mate -- especially bad for women. CLICK HERE TO READ "HILLARY AS VEEP A BAD MOVE FOR WOMEN"

It may have taken place last month, but this discussion on GritTV about the phenomenon that is Barack Obama and the movement he leads is particulary timely now, the day after Barack clinches the nomination. This segment features the force of nature that is Laura Flanders moderating a roundtable featuring three of your blogstress's favorite men: The New Yorker 's Hendrik Hertzberg , Afro-Netizen founder Chris Rabb and the brilliant novelist Walter Mosely . CLICK HERE TO WATCH FLANDERS WITH RABB, HERTZBERG & MOSELY

And so Barack Obama continues his Taoist path to the presidency, delivering a speech tonight that failed to note the obvious: for the first time, an African-American has clinched a major-party nomination. After Hillary Clinton refused to graciously concede -- delivering a speech that sought to hang her 18 million voters as a sword over the head of Barack -- Obama could, perhaps, be forgiven for beginning his valedictory with a sourpuss. Nonetheless, his response of praise for the former first lady only advanced his own cause. I do think that all the hysteria among pundits and journalists about the fact that she did not concede tonight is just that: hysteria. They're all frantic over the fact that she used that opportunity to ask her supporters to write to her via her Web site to tell her whether or not to quit. Oh, come on, people. What do campaign Web sites primarily exist for? The collection of dough. Her campaign is in debt. She needs more, and luring in her most dedicat...

Watching John McCain speak tonight from Louisiana, throwing down a gauntlet to Barack Obama , it became apparent that McCain's election theme will be that Obama refuses to go to Iraq to meet with Gen. Petraeus to see the good work our troops have done there, even as he promises to negotiate with bad guys like Iran's President Ahmadinejad . Obama needs to go to Afghanistan and challenge McCain to do the same. There, he should meet with the under-resourced troops who pool their won dollars to help get stuff done for Afghans -- sort of like inner city schoolteachers here.

With Barack Obama poised to declare victory tonight as the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, conversations among liberals and progressives now turn to the veepstakes. Suddenly, I feel the nervousness of liberal white guys, many of whom have convinced themselves that the only choice Obama should make is of a white man with a military background. Is all about the pragmatic goals of winning, they tell me. Gotta get those white, male votes. As if the white female voters who followed Hillary Clinton are chopped liver. News for yas, fellas: The ladies' are the votes you need. The white guys who love the war are not going to vote for Obama, even if he has an antiwar general on his ticket. Pick an outright sexist like Jim Webb -- whose reasoning during the Tailhook scandal would have one believe that today's generals bear no responsibility for the rampant sexual harassment and assault of female soldiers by their male counterparts in today's Army -...