Well, today is the big day - the launch of my new book, THE UPRISING. You can order the book at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Tattered Cover, Powell's or through your local independent bookstore. The book should be in bookstores all over the country starting today.

For a good summary of what the book is about, check out this week's Newsweek, which featured a Q&A about the book in its Periscope section. The book features chapters on (among others) the Netroots/blogosphere, the antiwar movement, new labor organizing efforts, the Minutemen, Lou Dobbs, the Working Families Party and shareholder activism. It includes icons like Sister Pat Daly, Brian Schweitzer, ACORN's Bertha Lewis, Ned Lamont - and yes, OpenLeft's own Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers. The relevance of the book is exemplified by this morning's headlines about the presidential candidates campaigning in the Mountain West and about a powerful shareholder resolution being filed at ExxonMobil's upcoming shareholder meeting. Both of these topics are chapters in the book.

Right now, I'm here in Burlington, Vermont, where tonight U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will join me at the first event of the national book tour (to see the full book tour schedule, go here). This is an appropriate launching point for the book.

It is a dark day in our nation's history. That sounds melodramatic - but it is true. Today America watched a Democratic Party kick them square in the teeth - all in order to continue the most unpopular war in a generation at the request of the most unpopular president in a generation at a time polls show a larger percentage of the public thinks America is going in the wrong direction than ever recorded in polling history.

The numbers are not pretty. First, 216 House Democrats cast the key vote to send a blank check Iraq War funding bill over to the Senate. As I reported at the beginning of the day and as the Associated Press now confirms, the vote on the rule was the vote that made it happen. As the AP said: "In a highly unusual maneuver, House Democratic leaders crafted a procedure that allowed their rank and file to oppose money for the war, then step aside so Republicans could advance it." Nauseating.

In the Senate, we saw lots of promises and tough talk from senators telling us they were going to do everything they could to stop the blank check. Some of them bragged that they were going to vote against the bill - as if that was the ultimate sign of heroics. Then, not a single senator found the backbone to stand up to filibuster the bill a la Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. To quote the Big Lebowski, "These men are cowards," because apparently, Senate club etiquette comes even before the lives of our troops.

The blank check sailed through the upper chamber on a vote of 80-14 with 38 Democrats (the majority of the party) voting yes. In all, at a time when 82 percent of Americans tell pollsters they want Congress to either approve funds for the war with strict conditions or cut off all funding immediately, 90 percent of House and Senate Democrats combined voted to give George W. Bush a blank check.

The worst part of it all was the overt efforts to deceive the public - as if we're all just a bunch of morons.

UPDATE: Since posting this diary early this morning, Democrats have come forward with a plan on Iraq that appears - for the first time - to be binding. This is a solid (though certainly not perfect) step, indeed. Let me add two things: First, in the last week, we've seen how these proposals can get floated and then undercut. Second, when such plans do get undercut, they often get undercut by the same anti-democratic factions outlined in this diary - factions that we as progressives will have to continue to work to pressure if this plan, or any other, is going to pass. Oh, and one final note: To those automatons who are so blinded by partisan rage that they can't see the need to pressure Democrats, I say that this new announcement by Democrats is a vindication for all of us who have tried - like studious movement participants - to hold both parties' feet to the fire.

One of my idiosyncratic little hobbies of late is to keep a tally on statements by Washington politicians and pundits that are express an open hatred for democracy. This hobby is a subset of a bigger collection of quotes I collect that show how Washington politicians are entirely divorced from the political reality they purport to be experts on - a classic example is Sen. Chuck Schumer's hilariously moronic declaration that strengthening the Patriot Act is politically good for red state Democrats (thanks for your helping make the Montana Senate race that much harder, Chuck!). I'm not exactly sure why I focus on this, other than because it is important to always remind ourselves just how different - and hateful - the Beltway is towards the country it purports to represent. Today, we get a beauty from South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D).

In the Washington Post's solid writeup of the debate over Iraq in the House, a faction of Democrats continues to attack the very Election 2006 mandate they were vaulted into office on: opposition to the war. Justifying her opposition to bills that would stop President Bush's military escalation, we get this from South Dakota's lone House member:

"I don't think we should be overreacting to public opinion polls."

I give Herseth credit - her use of "overreacting" deviously implies that there are just a few very recent polls here and there showing negligible opposition to the war, and that Serious People in Congress should never "overreact" to the supposed fleeting whims of the American people. But, of course, the American public has been strongly critical of the Iraq War for almost 4 years now.

It's pretty obvious that progressives and the public are being totally shut out of the Senate, and that they are allowing the war to go on - Matt

If anyone still thinks Democrats are even mildly close to respecting the mandate of the 2006 election and close to getting "serious" on the Iraq War, please see this:

"Democrats are considering cutting President Bush's $142 billion budget request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year by $20 billion, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said Thursday." - AP, morning of 3/1/07

VERSUS

"Just hours after floating the idea of cutting $20 billion from President Bush's $142 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad was overruled by fellow Democrats Thursday. 'Our caucus feels strongly that we should go with the president's numbers' on 2008 war costs, Conrad said." - AP, afternoon of 3/1/07

I repeat my earlier assertion that Democrats are not serious about ending the war, or even trying to slow it down. The only thing they seem to be serious about doing is undermining the serious people like Jack Murtha in their midst, and doing a "kabuki dance" with the progressive movement whereby they pretend to be serious only to keep the progressive movement's resources flowing their way. In the process, they are very grossly embarrassing themselves and the people who worked so hard to deliver them a majority.

Update: The latest poll--from Fox no less--shows that a plurality of Americans are in favor of cutting off funding to end the war. Remarkable how such a politically suicidal position is also the most popular position in the country on Iraq.

Another week, another high-profile success story from the new infrastructure of the progressive movement. This time, it wasn't the Anti-Iraq Escalation Campaign but trade, and the frontlines were right here in Montana - the state whose senior senator is Sen. Max Baucus (D), the new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee that oversees all international trade policy. Baucus has recently come around on the war, and I have congratulated him for his conversion. However, on issues important to K Street like trade, he still seems to be doing a kabuki dance - saying some of the right things, but subtly letting D.C. know that he's still considering doing Big Money's bidding at the end of the day. Specifically, Baucus used the first day of his committee chairmanship to pen an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal declaring that he supports President Bush's request to reauthorize "fast track" trade negotiating authority - the authority that allows presidents to strip all labor, human rights and environmental protections out of trade deals, and prevents Congress from doing anything about it.

Enter State Sen. Jim Elliott (D-Trout Creek), chairman of the Montana Taxation Committee - our little state's equivalent of the Finance Committee. Working closely with national groups like the Progressive States Network and Citizens Trade Campaign and with local groups like the Northern Plains Resource Council and organized labor, Elliott powered a forceful resolution through the Montana Senate demanding Baucus use his power to outright reject Bush's fast track request. The measure passed the closely divided Senate 45 to 5 - a resounding bipartisan statement.

The result, as you will see in the extended entry, has been a bit of a media flurry.

All successful movements understand the use of both the carrot and the stick. Today, the Progressive States Network, the Citizens Trade Campaign, and local labor/environmental/agriculture groups show what an effective stick looks like here in Montana, as they helped the Montana State Senate overwhelmingly pass a resolution demanding Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) use his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee to reject President Bush's request for "fast track" trade authority. The full press release from the Progressive States Network is at the end of this post.

Make no mistake about it: the Senate resolution, authored by fair trade champion Sen. Jim Elliott (D-Trout Creek), is no small accomplishment: Baucus, by virtue of his chairmanship, is the single most powerful lawmaker in Congress when it comes to "free" trade, and "fast track" is the single most important "free" trade policy because it gives presidents the ability to ram lobbyist-written pacts through Congress without any labor, human rights or environmental standards. Additionally, Baucus used the very first day of his chairmanship to author an op-ed on the Wall Street Journal's right-wing editorial page demanding Congress support Bush's request for "fast track" reauthorization - a move that made K Street lobbyists cheer, but should make the rest of us retch.

Again, the full press release is in the extended entry. It will be interesting to see Baucus's reaction. In just the last week his language on trade seems to have changed - but whether that rhetorical shift means a policy shift is anyone's guess. This is, after all, the guy who traveled to India to give a speech trumpeting job outsourcing.

There's some dispute over whether the AP story is accurate, but if it is, then it adds weight to what I wrote a few weeks ago that 'Democratic leaders are not serious about' ending the war. Stay tuned - Matt

The Associated Press today tells the story of how Democrats in Washington clearly do not want to end the Iraq War. This story includes all of the tell-tale signs of both a party that disdains the will of voters and a media unwilling to report even the most basic facts: Nancy Pelosi reading Fox News talking points that claim conditioning funding on American troops' training is supposedly not supporting our troops; Harry Reid nonchalantly saying in the face of mounting casualties that there's no real urgency to do anything on the war because "Iraq is going to be there"; and the AP writer refusing to acknowledge consistent public opinion polls by CNN and the Washington Post that show the public strongly supports Congress cutting off funding for Bush's military escalation and conditioning funding on adequate troop training, respectively.  

Make no mistake about it: The renewed refusal by Democrats to use their majority in even the most basic way to stop the war is a declaration that the new majority is not close to using even the most basic powers afforded to it to stop or slow down the war. In other words, in backing off, the Democrats have just weeks after the 2006 anti-war election mandate effectively declared themselves as supportive of the Bush administration's stay-the-course policy - a truly sickening act of cowardice.

This is all the more reason for folks to head over to the Progressive States Network's Anti-Iraq Escalation Campaign and use our website to demand your state legislature tell Congress that its behavior on Iraq is absolutely unacceptable. Clearly, the folks in Washington are so drunk off power they have decided to ignore the majority of Americans who want an end to the madness in Iraq. They need to hear from our states - and they need to hear from our states right now.

***

Update (Chris): I hate moving into other people's posts, but I feel compelled to jump into this discussion before it goes any further. First, the article never actually quotes Pelosi saying anything against Murtha's plan--it just claims she said that. Attacking her because of words a reporter put into her mouth is unfair, especially considering how often it happens to Democrats. All indications are that Pelosi still backs Murtha 100%.

Second, in the Senate, this isn't an end to the bill that would rewrite Bush's authority, it just decouples it from a different bill about 9/11. Now, not only will the 9/11 bill pass, but did we really want to couple Iraq with 9/11? Connecting Iraq and 9/11 is a wingnut argument anyway. The rewriting of the AUMF is still coming up, just a little bit later. Complain about the delay if you want, but when one considers that Bush has all of the funding he needs to conduct the war until September 30th, 2007, a few weeks does not in fact make any difference.

Yes, the war is the most pressing issue we face, and yes there are Democrats who are not on board that we need to pressure. However, this is a crap article that is utterly unfair to the Democratic leadership that is in fact still pursuing plans to end the war as vigorously as ever. Both the House gradual draw down plan and the Senate rewriting of the AUMF are still in place, and will come up for votes within the next month. Frankly, I would have thought that once we were in power we would not have turned off our bullshit detectors when it came to the obligatory "Democrats divided" articles are regularly coughed up from places like the AP. Attack any Democrat who prevents this war from ending, but do so with fair attacks.

Anyway, I'm going to cut off this episode of point-counterpoint right here, because I am sick and should be in bed sleeping. I just wanted to make sure a different perspective was presented along with this post.

There has been much talk in progressive circles about the need to apply the smartest tactics of conservative movement leader Grover Norquist to the progressive movement. I myself have written about this in the past, saying that while we should of course reject Norquist's political ideology and his legally questionable behavior, we should nonetheless be smart enough to learn from what he has done. One of those lessons is the need to stop focusing exclusively on Congress and view state legislative arenas as a key battleground in building public support for a movement agenda. And as ABC News confirms, that's exactly what the Progressive States Network has been doing, to great success. If you like what you see in the extended entry, I ask that you support our fight right now.