Sen. Mike Gravel will speak at the 6th Annual DemocracyFest, a political festival for liberal/progressive activists, July 17-19 in Burlington, VT.

Sen. Gravel served as the Democratic US Senate for 12 years during the Vietnam War Era from the state of Alaska, during which time he took a strong anti-war stand and released the Pentagon Papers into public record. Sen. Gravel ran in the 2008 Democratic Primary for President, raising much debate about the influence of media on the Primary process when he was excluded from MSM sponsored debates.

Sen. Gravel continues his work as an author and lecturer promoting Direct Democracy. He will be joined at DemocracyFest by Gov. Howard Dean and Rep. David Zuckerman, as well as other interesting speakers and entertainers.  For more information about the event, please go to http://www.DemocracyFest.net

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With Prop 8 passing in California and various other civil rights-restricting ballot initiatives passing elsewhere, direct democracy has been receiving a strong rejection by the gay community nationwide this year.  But someone who could potentially be one of their greatest allies in all of politics not only accepts direct democracy, but is urging its expansion to the rest of the nation (currently, some form of direct democracy, whether it is initiative and referenda or something similar, exists in about half of the states in the US).

The man I am talking about is Jared Polis, the Democratic Congressman-elect from Boulder, Colorado.  Voted into office this November 4th, he is the first openly homosexual man non-incumbent elected to Congress.  And yet he still believes that expanding ballot initiatives to the national level would make American government better.

This would be more than just a website's name - it would be real direct democracy in the United States.

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"I want to publicly acknowledge Hillary Clinton for the outstanding race that she has run.

"She is a great senator from New York she is an extraordinary leader of the Democratic party and she has made history alongside me over the last 16 months and I'm very proud to have competed against her."

--Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton

"I know Senator Obama understands what it is at stake here. It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him. It is an honor to call him my friend."

--Hillary Clinton on Barack Obama

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, two of the ablest politicians in recent memory, have declared an end to hostilities. Understanding that they share the same goals, with some respectful disagreement on how to achieve these goals, they are beginning the process of coming together to form a united front against John McCain in the fall.

As passionate partisans, it is now time for us to follow their lead and start the reconciliation process among the netroots so that our country can turn abruptly away from the edge of the cliff it's been skating along these past few years of the Bush administration, and start heading in a direction that restores our values and reunites our country.

That's why I say: Obama Me With Fries!

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I think there is a seriously important thing to keep in mind about Michigan.  Even though the Democratic race was not contested (and might not even count), the number of Democrats who voted was not so far behind the number of Republicans who voted a seriously contested event that does indeed count.

Now, let me suggest why I believe this is really, really important, Hillary received almost as many votes in her non-contest (328,151) as Mitt received in his real contest (337,847).  That is good news for Democrats.  We don't even have to throw a "real event," and people are showing up in numbers on a par with the Republicans.

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Like Allen Ginsberg back from the dead.

Mike...

...meet Allen.