Can this be true? Specter to switch? BREAKING NEWS

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/28/specter.party.switch/index.html

MoveOn Torture Petition

In case you want to sign the petition demanding investigation of alleged torture.

Check out this powerful video about the campaign, and sign the petition, at this link: http://pol.moveon.org/investigate

Pretty Coherent Summing up of Tea Party 09

Devil's Tower says it much better than I could.

The teabaggers were mostly the next iteration of the off-the-reservation and pissed at someone voters who propelled Ross Perot in 1992. Link.

TEA Day protester saved by hand she is biting

Jim Buck gets all the credit:

Woman okay after falling into Susquehanna River
A quiet, solo protest against massive federal government spending ended in a city woman being rescued from the cold waters of the Susquehanna River on Wednesday morning.
Joanne Millard, 68, a resident at Riverfront Apartments, slipped on a rock and then fell into the water while dumping tea leaves from a plastic bag into the river to protest the recent trillions of dollars in government spending.


The sender says:
Jordi,
Tax protester falls in river and must be rescued by govt. she doesn't want to pay for. Thought you might want to post this at Daily Kos or something :)

Well, I got as far as this blog.

Democratic Underground already found it.

Tax Day Tea Parties Nearby?

Hey-

Here is Huntington Post on Tax Day Tea Party antics.

Here is the anti-tax organizing site.

Here is where you can sign up to be a citizen journalist.

I wonder if there are any of these around here?

Is this a model of media activism we like? Want to implement? Does it also give progressives a chance to interact with our likely adversaries?

Reasons for Hope

A new NYT/CBS News poll finds some signs of hope:

Poll Finds New Optimism on Economy Since Inauguration

Financial update: Big mess

Here's a bit of recommended reading that was mentioned at last Thursday's meetup:

Matt Taibbi, The Big Takeover

It's from Rolling Stone so there's profanity in the first sentence, but it seems appropriate to the situation, doesn't it?

Here's what I got as the takehome message from Dave K-G's answers to our questions about the financial crisis:

1) Banks and financial services will need to be reregulated. Separating deposit banks from investment banks again would be a good start.

2) New laws should provide for regulation of any new financial products. Any weak spot will eventually be exploited. An unregulated financial system is prone to crisis (and that's not a good thing for must of us).