Joshua Marshall is all over this CAFTA vote thing! Apparently there was yet another "no" vote, which wasn't recorded by the machine. This means that the bill passed by one vote. Shady, shady, shady. I also heard from a friend of mine that "The GOP whip literally stood in front of the remaining 8 GOP votes as the minutes ticked by and physically prevented them from voting until a few of them agreed to do the wrong thing." None of this is exactly shocking, but it is pretty fucking enraging. Seems to me like a shallow victory for Bush, which was the whole point of the vote to begin with, mainly because a) he had to beg and bribe, more than usual, according to some Congressmen, b) because it was only won by one vote in the House, c) because it was the longest any free trade agreement has ever been delayed and the closest vote and d) because in the end, it's only fucking us all over anyway, and will (hopefully!) result in more seats won by Democrats (yes???????). Okay, I admit that pretty much all of those points are kind of specious. It was largely delayed so long and so close because it's the only trade agreement to have passed with such poor countries with so few labor and environmental regulations. Okay, obviously at least some of the people voting for it thought it was a good idea. (Free trade is a wonderful idea, its that damn "reality" thing that gets in the way...) Well, none of this changes the fact that it passed and that we are dealing with a really fucking shady administration. Only one of those things is surprising.

Um, if any of you are grantwriters or have to write grant proposals, here's a helpful hint:
Detailed summary.
If your proposal looks like this:
july 27- we held a meeting, attended by 27 members. We discussed blah, blah, blah.
july 28-anti oppression training. members felt empowered.
july 29-held an action, attended by 1000 members. chanted a lot.

Your program officer (or associate, as the case may be!) will HATE YOU!!!!!!!!! And that's not really a good thing.

This is better:
Outcome #1: Public education. Held 25 rallies, such as blah blah blah, attended by an average of 1000 people each.
Outcome #2: legislation passed (or something else that will have an effect on someone...)

Thank you and good night. I will go back to banging my head against my desk.