I noticed a recent comment on this and I really wasn’t sure what to say if anything about it before. In hindsight I probably should have at least said something about it. I’m sorry for the confusion…

Glock removed his own posts and requested to be removed entirely from the site, in both comments and contributor status. I’m not sure what was going on but he even took his own blog down for a few days. I would have preferred that he had just removed the content without deleting the threads entirely though as there were many comments of others that got lost. Unfortunately that was already done by the time I got the additional e-mail request to remove the rest of his comments and status.

I’d like to assure everyone that this wasn’t an act of censorship but rather an act of a contributor attempting to remove his own content that unfortunately removed others’ comments as well. I tried to find a way to restore the comments of others but they appear lost in cyberspace. I didn’t get the impression there was any malicious intent on his part either and he apologized once I let him know about the problem with others’ comments.

I have been away most of the week.  But there’s been some great comments and posts since I have been gone.

All sorts of interesting stuff this week:

Republican Debates (if anybody could stand watching it)

Tancredo gets the Hysterical Idiot of the Week Award (The last half of this post notes that Obama is getting a great deal of flak for something Bush started.  Pretty interesting.)      

Congressional infighting before the August Break

And Bush got a six month pass on warrant-less surveillance.

And more…

The Champaign County Democrats Website had this up today:

Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois favorite son Barack Obama will be in Champaign on Monday July 30th for a fundraiser at the Great Impasta. The event starts at 9:00am. The minimum donation is $100, but you can get in for $50 if that is all you can afford. For more info please call Zach Koutsky at (312) 550-6758.

Consider this an open thread on the Democratic Debates last night or the 2008 election in general.

I was actually quite surprised and happy with the YouTube debate format.  The questions appeared far more honest and humorous.  I wish they would have taken the time to allow more of the candidates to respond to the questions though.  Some people took offense to Biden’s answer on gun control but I’d consider it fairly typical given his views on assault weapons and the way the question was asked.  I agree with Glock’s post in that I wish they would have gotten answers from more candidates, especially the front runners on the issue (though I disagree that Biden’s answer was as threatening as he makes out).

On an unrelated note I did add some more categories for posts.  I’ll probably add more as the site grows.

As noted earlier I’m on the look out for local liberals who want to contribute articles to this blog.  This week I’m going to work on a little outreach to recruit contributors and also put out the blog e-mail so people can request to be added.

Here’s the e-mail address (in anti-spam format):  culiberal at gmail dot com

You can be anonymous or non-anonymous.   I think it’d help if you already blog so include a link if you’ve already got a blog.  If you don’t have a blog that’s okay, especially if you’re involved with local politics or the community somehow (even if the details are kept general for privacy’s sake).  If none of the above applies then just send me a sample of writing, a rant, or something of that nature.

The way wordpress works you’d have to set up a wordpress user  account with a valid e-mail address and then I can add you.

Lots of stuff in the news from North Korea shutting down its Nuclear reactor, to al Qaeda’s regaining strength possibly due to safe have in Pakistan, and Iraq’s PM telling us that they can handle security if international forces leave at anytime.

There’s a lot of different points of view on the Iraq War among liberals, even among Democrats in Congress at the moment over what is the proper course of action to take on the Iraq mess.

1. Some are advocating that there’s nothing we can do to improve the situation and an immediate pull out is the best option.
2. Some are advocating that we can’t pull out right away because that’d cause a power vacuum but we still need to get out as soon as possible because there’s nothing more we can do to improve the situation.  They recommend a phased withdrawal starting relatively soon if not immediately.
3. Some are saying that as much as believe we shouldn’t have gone in we’re stuck until we can ensure the government and security situation is stable before we can withdraw.

There’s even some arguments and divisions within those groups over specifics.  What’s the right path?  I think we all probably wish the third option seemed feasible and soon as that would be in the best interests of the Iraqis as well as the U.S.  But it’s hard to find too many people who believe it is feasible, let alone any time soon, except among some absurdly optimistic folks.

The first option just seems too naive.  Am I wrong?  There was an article in the New York Times not to long ago talking about the disasters every time U.S. forces pulled back and left Iraqi security forces in charge.  It seems doing this on a massive scale could cause a huge bloody mess that would make the current problems seem tame and possibly turn the public against the idea or at least against the people who pushed the idea afterwards.

The second option may be the only feasible one, but even that is a tough pill to swallow.  I know some conservatives think liberals take bliss in the idea of pulling out of Iraq but there are obvious consequences to our military’s image, our nation’s image, and a great uncertainty about the fate of the Iraqi people that doesn’t make it an easy decision.  Ideally we wouldn’t be in this position… either by not being there in the first place or by Bush managing the post-war situation better so the security sitution would have allowed for a phased withdrawal to have already begun.

I’m torn on the issue myself between group two and three.  They both have me convinced and yet the downsides to both are just too much.

Just to get the ball rolling with a few topics…

The recent Supreme Court decision blocking two integration plans might end up having an effect on Unit 4 schools though the odds may be small as the Consent Decree situation here is not exactly the same situation as the cases before the Court.  The school board is reporting some positive gains since the consent decree went into effect but there are still disparities along racial lines.  Is the cosent decree enough, do we need to do more?  Or is it working just slowly but surely?

On a related note it seems that the consent decree may have shifted “white flight” from being a move of address to moving students from public to private schooling.  I don’t know if there’s a good way to reverse this trend of further self-segregation.  Thoughts?

Welcome to C-U Liberal. I’m just getting started but here’s the basic idea behind starting this blog:

Locally in Champaign-Urbana there are a lot of bloggers. A lot of liberal and Democrat bloggers. But the most open blog forum is run by local conservatives at Illini Pundit. It is open to dissent and you’ll find liberals on there too. It’s a great blog but even some of the conservative posters have noted that there really isn’t a similar forum where liberals can post without always being the minority, which is just silly in such a purple county such as ours.

Some people might argue that the UC IMC forum provides this space but they are highly against running their site as an open blog style forum. That’s their choice and as much as many disagree with it I’m going to stay out of it.

So in the interests of having an open dialogue among liberal bloggers especially on local issues and politics I’m hoping to grow this site and add lots of local contributors. I also want there to be plenty of free room for dissent so the place doesn’t turn into an “ideological echo chamber” (sorry had to steal that phrase) and ideas don’t go totally unchallenged. How boring would that get anyways?

Overwhelmingly I’d like to keep the whole thing extremely open and tolerant of even the most oddball dissent that might pop up. I don’t have a definite set a rules in mind yet beyond obvious things like threats, malicious personal attacks on users, illegal stuff, pornography, etc. Hopefully it’ll stay fairly civil.

The big task ahead will be recruiting contributors and seeing if there’s enough interest to keep the idea alive. I think there is.

Feel free to offer comment, suggestions, etc. I’m all ears.