by DFA Staff [courtesy of Blog for America]

McClatchy hosted an online Q&A with the authors of "The Three Trillion Dollar War" to dicuss the costs of the War in Iraq:

When the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Americans were told Iraqi oil would cover the costs of the war and rebuilding. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld scoffed at estimates of $100 billion.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Harvard University professor Linda Bilmes raised a stir in 2006 by estimating the real cost of the war to be $1 trillion. That estimate has been tripled and the title of their new book is "The Three Trillion Dollar War."

Click here to read the session.

Danny
Communications Director

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

Senator Carole Migden has introduced a bill that would allow heterosexual couples to register as domestic partners. Naturally, so-called family groups object that this, too, will weaken the fragile and endangered institution of marriage.

Many homeowners are simply walking away from their mortgages, according to the Sacramento Bee. Meanwhile, realtors urge homeowners to wait out the housing downturn.

If you need to put California's $16 billion deficit in perspective, that's about 40 days in Iraq, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz.

 There's more...

Image courtesy of Sacbee.com

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Mary Lyon

Pardon my cackling. I'm savoring my win.

The man from whom the highest American honor imaginable was stolen at the end of 2000 has now been awarded the highest honor the world community has to offer. And. I. Am. Loving. It.

Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize is richly-deserved. By all rights he should be accepting it in Oslo at the end of this year as a magnificent bookend near the conclusion of his second term as the forty-third President of the United States, at the opposite end of his triumph over George W. Bush seven years ago. Perhaps he wouldn't have had the time to develop public awareness about the crisis of global warming if he'd had the kind of load on his shoulders that any competent president has to carry. Or maybe, with the clout, luster, and bully-pulpit of the White House at his command, he could have put that much more “oomph” into this cause. We would at least have been much farther along toward solving this crisis after almost seven years. Who can say? Nevertheless, this latest and most magnificent accolade is all the sweeter because it's OUR win, as well.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

Thunderous applause and standing ovation at Barbara Boxer fundraiser--Before the Nobel Prize

Petitions on the street to place him on the California ballot

By Frank D. Russo

At last night's Barbara Boxer fundraiser in San Francisco, the St. Francis Hotel was thick as thieves with reporters. Before Boxer arrived to hold an impromptu press conference with these reporters, the questions being bandied about amongst the press were all about Al Gore. Would he run for President? Would the Nobel Peace Prize, if he won it, give him a boost to run for President? And could he win by getting in at such a late date.

I joined in and made a few comments about the pros and cons to some of the news folks I knew and before I knew it, the cameras lit up and I was being asked these questions by two TV news reporters and another political writer for a newspaper.

by Sheri Divers [courtesy of Blog for America]

Congratulations Vice President Gore!

You make us proud to be Democrats

and citizens of the World.