All Entries in the "Progressive Issues" Category
Rendell: Obama Could Face Primary Challenge Over Afghanistan (VIDEO)
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell predicted on Tuesday that if the president escalates America’s military involvement in Afghanistan he could very well face a primary challenger in 2012.
In an overlooked “Morning Joe” segment on Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Democrat offered his distinct brand of eccentric, conversation-driving political foresight. He couched his statement about the possibility of a primary challenge by stressing that if Obama sticks to his current plans for Afghanistan — a reduced military presence beginning in July of 2011 — there would not be political insurrection within the party.
But Rendell clearly opened up the conversation as to how much capital Obama is working with when it comes to foreign wars. And for perhaps the first time in the course of the Afghanistan debate, the specter was raised that Democrats will really take the president to task for a military commitment that is too long, too costly, or too heavy.
Full Story: Rendell: Obama Could Face Primary Challenge Over Afghanistan (VIDEO).
“Reclaiming the Democratic Majority” – Progressive Activists Organize to Change Democrats in Congress
Many progressives helped to elect Democratic majorities in Congress in 2006 and 2008 and helped Obama win the presidency. But with the Democrats in power, the feeling now among many grassroots activists is that most Democratic lawmakers have not acted on behalf of their progressive constituencies. We speak with two progressive activists: Ilyse Hogue of MoveOn.Org, and Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.
Transcript and:
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Full Story: “Reclaiming the Democratic Majority” – Progressive Activists Organize to Change Democrats in Congress.
The Case for Elizabeth Warren
Sen. Sanders took part in a Capitol Hill press conference on to call for the appointment of Prof. Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer financial protection bureau.
Obama officially throws Democrats under the bus
Robert Gibbs, Obama’s White House press secretary went on Meet the Press on Sunday and said blithely that ” there is no doubt that Republicans could take control of the House”.
For both Democratic members of the House up for re-election and those charged with raising money for Democratic candidates, if this isn’t the last straw in supporting Obama it should be.
Gibbs statement was not just politically inept,but coming from the spokesman for the president about his own party, undermines everything the Democrats need to do in order to retain control of congress. If they thought they were sounding “honest” a trait sorely missing from Obama’s lifetime political resume, they were mistaken. They just sounded stupid.
Full Story: Tom In Paine: Obama officially throws Democrats under the bus.
Liberals analyze their Obama ‘despair
‘Time of Reckoning’? Liberals Assess ‘Disappointing’ Obama Presidency
For many liberals, this is the summer of their discontent.
Already disappointed with President Barack Obama’s ability to deliver on campaign promises, they now contemplate a slowing economic recovery and a good chance of Republican gains in November — two developments that could make enacting Obama’s agenda even more difficult.
Two recent essays framed the debate raging within the progressive community over why the promise of Obama’s candidacy has not lived up to their expectations — and how liberals should proceed in what they fear will be difficult months ahead.
In a 17,000-plus-word piece published in The Nation on Thursday, journalist Eric Alterman calls the Obama presidency “a big disappointment” for progressives and blames a broken system in Washington that he says allows the minority party to rule with impunity — and special interests and big money to dictate legislative policy.
Full Story: Liberals analyze their Obama ‘despair’ – Abby Phillip – POLITICO.com.
Alan Grayson To The Fed: ‘We’ll Be Back’
The Wall Street reform package currently awaiting the return of Congress from the Fourth of July recess is packed with provisions that will remake the financial landscape. One element, though, which has gotten relatively little attention in the media, is a wild card: the authorization of a far-reaching audit of the Federal Reserve for the first time in the central bank’s history.
The audit measure is retroactive — it requires unprecedented disclosure of the identity of businesses, banks, hedge funds, foreign central banks or any other entity that was on the receiving end of Fed largess, and will reveal how much they got and on what terms. The information is required to be posted online within 30 days of the law’s enactment.
Depending on what the audit turns up, the Fed could find itself back in the public eye and could face growing calls for reform. “I think once people see what the first audit discloses, they’re going to want to see more,” said Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who, along with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), shepherded the audit bill through the House. “We’ll be back.”
Full Story: Alan Grayson To The Fed: ‘We’ll Be Back’.
Time to Give Wall Street the Axe, Say Progressive Groups
As heads of state from the Group of 20 (G20) most developed and economically powerful emerging nations meet in Toronto, Canada this weekend, some activists at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit are urging a more realistic look at the roots of the global economic crisis – and an end to the free-wheeling capitalist model embodied by Wall Street.
While U.S. President Barack Obama travels to Canada Friday to press the G20 to not to scale back on their economic stimulus commitments, activists complain that the bloc excludes the majority of the world's nations from its ranks and decision-making process. Tanya Dawkins, who co-chairs the Social Watch Working Group on Global Finance, Economy and Development, stopped in Canada before heading to Detroit.
“The G20 has advanced the idea that its agenda is narrow and relates exclusively to economics and finance. Yet our experience with the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the IMF and World Bank has taught us that finance and economics touches every aspect of human and community endeavor and therefore determines who in the world will eat, beg, work and have access to life itself, including water, food and shelter,” Dawkins said.
Full Story: Time to Give Wall Street the Axe, Say Progressive Groups – IPS ipsnews.net.
Sanders Bill Restores Estate Tax on Billionaires – Newsroom: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont)
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today introduced legislation to restore the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans. The proposal would bring in at least $264 billion over a decade to help lower the national debt.
“This legislation would ensure that the wealthiest Americans in our country, millionaires and billionaires, pay their fair share while exempting 99.7 percent of Americans from paying any estate tax whatsoever,” Sanders said.
The estate tax was abolished this year as a result of tax law changes signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001. For the first time since 1916, heirs to multi-million and billion dollar fortunes may receive their entire inheritance free of any federal taxes, a giveaway that will cost the U.S. treasury at least $14.8 billion in lost revenue this year alone.
Full Story: Release: Sanders Bill Restores Estate Tax on Billionaires – Newsroom: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont).
Enter, Real Populists
by Jim Hightower :
Few people today call themselves populists, but I think most are. I’m not talking about the recent political outbursts by confused, used and abused tea-bag ranters who’ve been organized by corporate front groups to spread a hatred of government.
Rather, I mean the millions of ordinary Americans in every state who’re battling the real power that’s running roughshod over us: out-of-control corporations. With their oceans of money and their hired armies of lobbyists and lawyers, these self-serving, autocratic entities operate from faraway executives suites and Washington backrooms to rig the economic and governmental rules so that they can capture an ever-bigger share of America’s money and power.
You can yell yourself red-faced at Congress critters you don’t like and demand a government so small that it’d fit in the backroom of Billy Bob’s Bait Shop and Sushi Stand, but you won’t be touching the corporate and financial powers behind the throne. In fact, weak government is the political wet dream of corporate chieftains, which is why they’re so ecstatic to have the tea party out front for them. But the real issue isn’t small government, it’s good government. (Can I get an amen from Gulf Coast fishing families on that!?)
Full Story: Enter, Real Populists by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.
When Congress Becomes a Subsidiary of Corporations, Democracy and the Free Market are Dead and Buried
There is no doubt that the biggest political disappointment this year for BuzzFlash is how a candidate who promised “change” from the corporatist stranglehold over D.C. turned into a President who believes that corporate rule is beneficial to America, even as he presides over the destruction that such corrupt corporate control of our capital leaves in its wake.
Reagan, the two Bushes and Cheney may have planted the booby traps that blew up our nation’s economy, destroyed its environment and mired us in war, but Obama continually looks to those global corporations and financial firms who have caused our catastrophic problems to resolve them. The late David Halberstram wrote about how the “best and the brightest” (Ivy League grads, primarily, but toss in the University of Chicago and Stanford types too) were the ones who steered us into the Vietnam War without an exit plan. Obama appears to believe in the elitist notion that if you are at the head of an immense enterprise, it is because of merit.
But the modern global corporations and financial firms are built on a core of corruption, of buying off D.C. so that there are no legal rules to inhibit their pillaging and gambling — and to ensure that Congress and D.C. cover their backsides with public funds when they screw up.
Full Story: When Congress Becomes a Subsidiary of Corporations, Democracy and the Free Market are Dead and Buried | BuzzFlash.org.
Obama Was Created by Our Failure to Impeach Bush
David Swanson:
I want to save most of the time we have for your questions, so I’ll be brief and I’ll start with a couple of questions for you. And then I want you to think of questions for me, because otherwise I’ll just go on and on about what I want to talk about.
Who can tell me who said this and where they said it?
“I — like any head of state — reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation.” (President Barack Obama, asserting the illegal and unconstitutional power to make war, in a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway.)
What about this one — who and where?
Full Story: Obama Was Created by Our Failure to Impeach Bush | The Smirking Chimp.
Dawn Johnsen Advises Progressives To Stick By Their Principles: ‘I Have No Regrets’
In April, Dawn Johnsen withdrew from consideration to be the next Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). The progressive community had applauded Johnsen as one of President Obama’s best nominees, but Republicans ended up blocking her nomination twice. In a Washington Post op-ed last week, Johnsen suggested that the reason the GOP opposed her was simply that she opposed torture:
There is no simple answer to why my nomination failed. But I have no doubt that the OLC torture memo — and my profoundly negative reaction to it — was a critical factor behind the substantial Republican opposition that sustained a filibuster threat. Paradoxically, prominent Republicans earlier had offered criticisms strikingly similar to my own. A bipartisan acceptance of those criticisms is key to moving forward. The Senate should not confirm anyone who defends that memo as acceptable legal advice.
Speaking to the American Constitution Society’s National Convention yesterday, Johnsen used her first public appearance since her unsuccessful nomination to advise progressives to nevertheless stay true to their principles:
Full Story: Think Progress » Dawn Johnsen Advises Progressives To Stick By Their Principles: ‘I Have No Regrets’.
US Progressives: Time to Make Obama Uncomfortable
Nineteen months after celebrating President Barack Obama’s historic election win, disappointed liberal activists promised on Monday to turn up the political heat on a White House they said is too quick to compromise.
At an annual conference of grassroots progressives, they said the euphoria and high expectations after Obama’s victory had lulled them into a false sense of security, and hopes for his success had sometimes limited their criticism.
That has changed, they said, because of what they called Obama’s go-easy approach on Wall Street, ineffectual efforts to reduce high unemployment, watered-down healthcare and financial regulation reforms and escalation of the Afghanistan war.
“It is not our job to make this president or this administration comfortable. It is our job to make him do the right thing,” said Darcy Burner, head of the Progressive Congress Action Fund.
Full Story: US Progressives: Time to Make Obama Uncomfortable | CommonDreams.org.
For progressives, it’s time to press
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, last seen haplessly offering up conservative nostrums in response to the president’s 2009 State of the Union address, is now begging for the federal government to act. “BP is the responsible party, but we need the federal government to make sure they are held accountable and that they are indeed responsible,” Jindal said after surveying the oil spill impact on the Louisiana coastline last week.
Jindal raised eyebrows by departing from the old Republican text in this way. But actually, what’s surprising is that after the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression, the worst mining disaster in 30 years, and what is now the worst environmental disaster in the nation’s history, more conservatives aren’t revising the gospel about the blessings of deregulation and the horrors of government. Despite what should be obvious failings, deregulation, smaller government and privatization remain central to the dominant Republican message.
Case in point is Newt Gingrich. The former Republican House speaker seems to be pushing the notion that rather than renovate their ideas, conservatives should become more shrill. His new book, To Save America, is a screed against President Obama’s “secular socialist machine,” which poses a “mortal threat” to America as we know it. And he retreads the entire conservative mantra — smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation, strong dollar, free trade, privatization, even the ownership society — as if we hadn’t just pursued those policies over the cliff.
Full Story: For progressives, it’s time to press.
Privatized Government Just isn’t Working for Obama
Thom Hartmann:
It’s Conference Time in Progressive America — Will You Be Attending?
Summer is the season when American progressives gather to assess the political moment and mobilize their troops for the ongoing battle.
pring and summer are when progressives in America come together to assess the political moment, advocate for various campaigns and priorities, show off their rhetorical skills, and carry the flag of movements for social change. Beginning in early June, there will be at least four major gatherings in four U.S. cities.
The gatherings come at a charged political moment. The insurgent Tea Parties, along with their wealthy backers and astroturf organizations, dominate media coverage and manage to kick up controversy at every turn. Of course, as always, the corporate media seems far more enchanted with what is happening in Conservativeland than in Progressiveville, even though the Tea Partiers already have their very own cable news network in Fox. As the media watchdog group FAIR pointed out, the Washington Post assigned a full-time reporter to the Tea Party beat: “That’s a level of attention few progressive citizen groups will ever receive from the corporate press.” (Except of course if you are ACORN, and the media gets taken in by right-wing charlatans out to smear you, and helps to destroy a long-established organization — one of the very few that advocated consistently for poor people.)
Full Story: It’s Conference Time in Progressive America — Will You Be Attending? | | AlterNet.
Capitalism: Big Surprises in Recent Polls
According to the conventional wisdom, the US is a center-Right country. But a new poll by Pew casts doubt on that idea. It shows widespread skepticism about capitalism and hints that support for socialist alternatives is emerging as a majoritarian force in America’s new generation.
Carried out in late April and published May 4, 2010, the Pew poll, arguably by the most respected polling company in the country, asked over 1500 randomly selected Americans to describe their reactions to terms such as “capitalism,” “socialism,” “progressive,” “libertarian” and “militia.” The most striking findings concern “capitalism” and “socialism.” We cannot be sure what people mean by these terms, so the results have to be interpreted cautiously and in the context of more specific attitudes on concrete issues, as discussed later.
Pew summarizes the results in its poll title: “Socialism not so negative; capitalism not so positive.” This turns out to be an understatement of the drama in some of the underlying data.
Yes, “capitalism” is still viewed positively by a majority of Americans. But it is just by a bare majority. Only 52% of all Americans react positively. Thirty-seven percent say they have a negative reaction and the rest aren’t sure.
Full Story: Capitalism: Big Surprises in Recent Polls | CommonDreams.org.
Kagan in Context: Shafting Progressive Values | CommonDreams.org
Norman Solomon
If President Obama has his way, Elena Kagan will replace John Paul Stevens — and the Supreme Court will move rightward. The nomination is very disturbing, especially because it’s part of a pattern.
The White House is in the grip of conventional centrist wisdom. Grim results stretch from Afghanistan to the Gulf of Mexico to communities across the USA.
“It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills,” President Obama said in support of offshore oil drilling, less than three weeks before the April 20 blowout in the Gulf. “They are technologically very advanced.”
On numerous policy fronts, such conformity to a centrist baseline has smothered hopes for moving this country in a progressive direction. Now, the president has taken a step that jeopardizes civil liberties and other basic constitutional principles.
Full Story: Kagan in Context: Shafting Progressive Values | CommonDreams.org.
Kagan in Context: Shafting Progressive Values
Norman Solomon:
If President Obama has his way, Elena Kagan will replace John Paul Stevens — and the Supreme Court will move rightward. The nomination is very disturbing, especially because it’s part of a pattern.
The White House is in the grip of conventional centrist wisdom. Grim results stretch from Afghanistan to the Gulf of Mexico to communities across the USA.
“It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills,” President Obama said in support of offshore oil drilling, less than three weeks before the April 20 blowout in the Gulf. “They are technologically very advanced.”
On numerous policy fronts, such conformity to a centrist baseline has smothered hopes for moving this country in a progressive direction. Now, the president has taken a step that jeopardizes civil liberties and other basic constitutional principles.
Full Story: Kagan in Context: Shafting Progressive Values | CommonDreams.org.
How Liberalism Almost Killed the Chance for Real, Progressive Change
David Sirota
Without progressivism, liberalism turns the Treasury into an unlimited gift card for whichever private interests are being sponsored.
As a progressive, I’m often asked if there is a real difference between progressivism and liberalism, or if progressivism is merely a nicer-sounding term for the less popular L-word.
It’s a fair question, considering that Democratic politicians regularly substitute “progressive” for “liberal” in news releases and speeches. Predictably, Republicans call their opponents’ linguistic shift a craven branding maneuver, and frankly, they’re right: Most Democrats make no distinction between the two words.
However, that doesn’t mean the ideologies are synonymous. In fact, if the last decade of economic policy proves anything, it is that even as the word “progressive” is now ubiquitous, a perverted form of liberalism has almost completely snuffed out genuine progressivism.
Full Story: How Liberalism Almost Killed the Chance for Real, Progressive Change | | AlterNet.
Democrats need stronger response to Republican brick throwers
The last few days have seen incidents where Democratic members of congress have received physical threats,a propane line to their home cut, and had bricks thrown through windows of their offices because of their healthcare vote, ironically revealing just how sick opponents of healthcare really are.
Incidents involving 5 offices of Democratic members of the House and DNC offices where bricks were thrown through windows, threatening calls to Rep. Bart Stupak, and other violence inducing rhetoric from conservatives and Republicans, have evoked responses from Democrats which can only be described as weak.
Steny Hoyer, Democratic majority whip made such hard hitting statements at a press conference to address these attacks as, “it's wrong” and James Clyburn lectured on the need for civility.
Full Story: Democrats need stronger response to Republican brick throwers.
George Lakoff’s 14 Words That Could Fix California
The minority rules in the California Legislature and is responsible for the state’s budget logjam — linguist George Lakoff has an elegant solution to fix it.
Here’s the little-known truth about California: Since 1978, the state has been subject to what is essentially minority rule. Proposition 13 — mostly packaged as a property tax law change — was passed that year, altering the state constitution to read that a two-thirds super-majority is needed in the state legislature to pass any revenue increases. But what this has turned out to really mean is that one-third plus one vote, or 34 percent, of the state legislature can control all legislative decisions.
You thought filibustering on Capitol Hill was bad? This is worse. And California is the only state with such a rule in place, now or ever.
As the state faces a growing budget deficit — now estimated to be $20 billion — the tyranny of the minority has grown more apparent to voters who have hardly noticed the two-thirds requirement all these years, but who now see public programs and schools being shut down or underfunded left and right in order to close the widening budgetary gap.
Full Story: George Lakoff’s 14 Words That Could Fix California | News & Politics | AlterNet.
Senator Sanders on Health Insurance Reform
SENATOR BERNARD SANDERS (I-VT) — When GOP Controlled White House, Senate, and House, Seven Million More Americans Lost Health Insurance and Health Care Costs Soared. Senate floor speech on 3/24/10 (0:43).
Full Story: DPC Video.
Recall petitions hit the street – target Nelson D-NE
Signature-gathering began Monday on an initiative petition drive that organizers say was provoked by Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson’s vote for the health care overhaul.
The petition aims to let Nebraskans recall any elected official, including a member of Congress.
But constitutional questions and financial considerations could put the goal out of reach.
Drive supporters said they were dismayed at Nelson's December vote and at the Medicaid provision that helped secure it.
Full Story: Recall petitions hit the street – Omaha.com.
Obama, Lehman and ‘The Dragon Tattoo’
Frank Rich - What these voters crave are leaders unambiguously on the side of true fairness and accountability, not apologists for “those traitors”…
THE same week that Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008, a Swedish crime novel titled “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” was published in America. The book didn’t receive a ton of hype, not least because the author, a journalist named Stieg Larsson, was unavailable for interviews; he had died in 2004 of a heart attack at the age of 50. The mixed Times review appeared in the back pages of the Sunday Book Review. Many more readers were riveted instead by the Lehman article on that morning’s front page: “A Wall Street Goliath Teeters Amid Fears of a Widening Crisis.”
Larsson’s novel, the first of a “Millennium” trilogy he left behind, would nonetheless soar onto best-seller lists in America, as it has in much of the world. It remains a best seller 18 months later, even as the first of what may be two movie adaptations opens this weekend. In the many dissections of this literary phenomenon, much has been said about Larsson’s striking title character, a brilliant, if antisocial, 24-year-old female computer hacker who bonds with a middle-age male journalist to crack a chain of horrific crimes against Swedish women. Strangely, far less attention has been paid to the equally prominent villains in this novel — whether they literally commit murder or not. They are, without exception, bankers and industrialists. At the time of its American release, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” was far more topical than most anyone could imagine.
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Obama, Lehman and ‘The Dragon Tattoo’ – NYTimes.com.
Democracy NOW!Sanders: Obama Has Tragically Lost The Youth, Antagonized Unions
A trio of the Senate’s leading progressives expressed concern on Wednesday that President Obama has squandered the transformational political coalition that propelled him into office, concluding that he will pay a price for it.
Speaking at a progressive media summit, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called it a “tragic mistake” that the White House fruitlessly chased Republican votes on health care rather than take advantage of the ripe environment to pass legislation.
“What is very sad is we had hopes that [the] election was transformational in the sense of bringing people into the political process who have never been in it before,” Sanders said. “I tried very hard in Vermont to bring young people into the political process. It is very hard to do. Obama did it. But you know where those young people are now? They are not in the political process. They really aren’t. We have lost them. We have antagonized trade unionists. We have not done well with seniors. I don’t think we have done well with women. And I think that was a tragic mistake.”
Full Story: Sanders: Obama Has Tragically Lost The Youth, Antagonized Unions.
Obama’s liberal base ‘disengaged’
Is President Obama losing his base?
Liberal and progressive organizations that helped propel him to the White House are turning on him now, little more than a year after he took office. Their collective discontent, on issues from health care to nuclear energy to the handling of terrorism suspects, could mean bad news for Democrats during this fall’s congressional elections.
Polls show that liberals and blacks still approve of the job Obama’s doing. That approval, however, doesn’t necessarily mean they will make the effort to vote, and many of the activists and groups that worked to get people to the polls in 2008 say they’re not inclined right now to help Democrats in the fall.
“The energized base which transformed the nation and elected our first black president (is) now disengaged,” Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile says. “If this was September, I would hit the panic button.”
Full Story: Obama’s liberal base ‘disengaged’ – USATODAY.com.
The Speech For Which We Have Been Waiting
For nearly two years now we have waited for a speech. We need a simple speech and a direct speech – most of all a political speech – about what exactly happened to our financial system, and therefore to our economy, and what we must do to make sure it can never happen again.
…snip…
On Thursday, Senator Ted Kaufman (D., DE) is due to deliver a strong blow to the overly powerful and unproductively mighty within our financial sector. He will say, according to what is now on his website,
- Excessive deregulation allowed big finance to get out of control from the 1980s – but particularly during and after the 1990s. This led directly to the economic catastrophe in 2007-08.
- We need to modernize and apply the same general principles that were behind the Glass-Steagall, i.e., separating “boring” but essential commercial banking (running payments, offering deposits-with-insurance, etc) from “risky” other forms of financial activity
- We need size caps on the biggest banks in our financial system, preferably as a percent of GDP.
- We should tighten capital requirements substantially.
- And we must regulate derivatives more tightly – on this issue, he likes at least some of the steps being pushed by Gary Gensler at the CFTC.
Full Story: Simon Johnson: The Speech For Which We Have Been Waiting.
President Obama: Replace Rahm With Me
…an open letter from Michael Moore
Dear President Obama,
I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff.
I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement.
I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that's been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp.
And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do. I don't need much, just a cot in the White House basement will do.
Now, don't get too giddy with excitement over my offer, because you and I are going to be up at 5 in the morning, 7 days a week and I am going to get you pumped up for battle every single day (see photo). Each morning you and I will do 100 jumping jacks and you will repeat after me:
Full Story: President Obama: Replace Rahm With Me | CommonDreams.org.
Like Crist-Rubio for GOP, Lincoln-Halter Race Could Define Dems
Conservative Dems to Face Progressive Challengers
John Nichols -
Most major media in the United States has given up on covering politics as if it mattered. From talk radio to talk television to the Washington bureaus of too many of our dying newspapers, the coverage of the 2010 election cycle is framed in one of two ways:
A. A fight between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats.
B. A fight between conservative Republicans and Tea Party Republicans to decide who will get to vanquish the liberal Democrats in November.
What's missing from this calculus is the reality that this is an exceptionally volatile moment economically, socially and politically in the United States — a moment so volatile that both major parties are experiencing unprecedented turbulence within their ranks.
Full Story: Like Crist-Rubio for GOP, Lincoln-Halter Race Could Define Dems.
Robert Reich – The Enthusiasm Gap
The Dem base is lethargic because congressional Democrats continue to compromise on everything the Dem base cares about.
I had dinner the other night with a Democratic pollster who told me Dems are heading toward next fall’s mid-term elections with a serious enthusiasm gap: The Republican base is fired up. The Dem base is packing up.
The Dem base is lethargic because congressional Democrats continue to compromise on everything the Dem base cares about. For a year now it’s been nothing but compromises, watered-down ideas, weakened provisions, wider loopholes, softened regulations. Health care went from what the Dem base wanted — single payer — to a public option, to no public option, to a bunch of ideas that the President tried to explain last week, and it now hangs by a string as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid try to round up conservative Dems and a 51-vote reconciliation package in the Senate. The jobs bill went from what the base wanted — a second stimulus — to $165 billion of extended unemployment benefits and aid to states and locales, then to $15 billion of tax breaks for businesses that make new hires. Financial regulation went from tough new capital requirements, sharp constraints on derivate trading, a consumer protection agency, and a resurrection of the Glass-Steagall Act – all popular with the Dem base — to some limits on derivatives and a consumer-protection agency inside the Treasury Department and a rearrangement of oversight boxes, and it’s now looking like even less. The environment went from the base’s desire for a carbon tax to a cap-and-trade carbon auction then to a cap-and-trade with all sorts of exemptions and offsets for the biggest polluters, and now Senate Dems are talking about trying to do it industry-by-industry.
These waffles and wiggle rooms have drained the Democratic base of all passion. “Why should I care?” are words I hear over and over again from stalwart Democrats who worked their hearts out in the last election.
Full Story: Robert Reich (The Enthusiasm Gap).
Obama Pick for Budget Commission Is a Very Ominous Sign; A Social Security-Medicare Slasher
We should be focusing on the cost of two wars, Bush’s rotten medicare reform and outrageous tax cuts to the wealthy before slashing Social Security.
On Thursday, President Obama signed an executive order creating a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
This commission is based on an idea promoted by two Senators, Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus warned that the Conrad-Gregg legislative version of the deficit commission would have “painted a big red target on Social Security and Medicare. That’s what this commission is all about. It’s a big roll of the dice for Social Security and Medicare.”
President Obama pushed to get the Senate to pass the Conrad-Gregg commission, which would have required the Congress to vote on its budget-cutting recommendations in a “fast-track,” undemocratic up-or-down vote with no amendments and little opportunity for debate. Senate Republicans, some of whom sponsored the legislation, refused to vote for it – so Obama is doing something similar by executive order.
So what should the 60 organizations and many concerned citizens who opposed the Conrad-Gregg version of this commission (because they heeded Sen. Baucus’s warnings) think about the Obama version?
Wake Up, Progressives: The Right Is Ready to Rumble (Our Side, Not So Much)
We need to think differently — to plan for victories that we may not live to see. And we need somebody to buy us a television network — and a commercial publishing house.
It’s easy to miss the threat of someone who’s misinformed, paranoid and more than a little crazy. But when that someone has oodles and oodles of dollars, organizing prowess, and private ownership of a significant book-publishing company and a television network, you’d better watch out.
The fodder for ridicule provided by the weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference gave progressive journalists, including me, the opportunity to have lots of gleeful word fun examining the internecine battles over gay rights and torture, Ron Paul’s victory in the presidential straw poll, Ann Coulter’s tired act, Glenn Beck’s medicine show — and a host of other madness.
But ridicule is not activism. It makes us feel better, assuring us of our superiority while the other side gathers steam for the fight ahead.
Full Story: Wake Up, Progressives: The Right Is Ready to Rumble (Our Side, Not So Much) | News & Politics | AlterNet.
On healthcare reform, Obama is the problem not the solution
Barrack Obama,from the beginning of the healthcare debate has proved that far from being ready to president from day one, he has been not just politically inept, but has shown that he really had no committment to the kind of reform most Democrats and most people in the country were looking for.
The reason is its hard to have the courage of your convictions when you have no courage and no convictions. And Obama has displayed all through the debate that he has neither.
With the public option, what most acknowledge is the centerpeice of healthcare reform, and the one component that polls better than anything else, Obama threw in the towel to the town hall crazies and congressional Republicans who lied through their teeth about it, to get away from the political heat..
Full Story: On healthcare reform, Obama is the problem not the solution.
It’s Time for a Progressive Revolution
Cenk Uygur – TYT
New numbers from a CBS News-New York Times poll indicate that only 8% of Americans want their representative in Congress re-elected. That’s staggering. That’s the American people saying it’s time for a revolution.
This is what a revolution in a democracy looks like, where the voters throw everyone out of office. The number one concern people have is that these politicians represent special interests instead of their constituents. An overwhelming 80% of people think that and only 13% think politicians are representing the voters. And the majority is absolutely right.
So, why are Congressional numbers now lower than they have ever been? My theory is that some people actually believed that the Democrats were going to make a difference. They got sold a bill of goods on hope and change. And when the Democrats sold out to special interests just like the Republicans, there was profound disappointment and hopelessness. That leads to the attitude of they’re all bums, throw them all out.
Full Story It’s Time for a Progressive Revolution | The Smirking Chimp.
OPS: IF this produces low voter turn out – because there are NO DECENT CANDIDATES for which to vote – the Reich still wins….
Paul Weyrich (co-founder of the Heritage Foundation):
“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
and….
“We are different from previous generations of conservatives… We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country.”
Donors Reward Dems Who Pushed Public Option
An online effort has quietly raised nearly $90,000 in the past few days to reward three freshman House Democrats for organizing an effort to put the public health insurance option back into the Senate health care debate.
The three representatives — Chellie Pingree (Maine), Jared Polis (Colo.) and Alan Grayson (Fla.) — have so far received more than $20,000 each, with the rest going to Howard Dean’s Democracy for America group and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which organized the campaign and set up this website. The total itself may be less relevant than the fact that the cash has come in from more than 3,400 small donors, giving those members future access to an expanded fundraising base.
“It was easy to raise money for [the three members] because they did exactly what voters consistently say they want Democrats to do,” said PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor. “They fought for bigger change instead of smaller change, and by fighting for the public option they showed they were willing to directly challenge corporate power on behalf of everyday people.”
Full Story Donors Reward Dems Who Pushed Public Option.
No Defense for This Budget
Katrina vanden Heuvel -
Deficit hysteria has reached new levels yet where is the attention to an out of control defense budget that is now the largest since World War II? While the Obama Admistration’s three-year freeze on discretionary spending is a bad idea, it’s made even worse because unprecedented Pentagon spending is exempted from it.
Who would know from all of the whining about budget deficits that military spending is the largest discretionary item in the federal government? Exempting all security-related expenditures from common sense cuts will have serious consequences for almost everything the government does–from job creation, poverty reduction and alternative energy development, to aid for cash-strapped state and local governments. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute reports that non-security-related discretionary spending is already at near-historic lows as a share of GDP. At a time when foreclosures are still rising, and we face double-digit unemployment, this freeze will make digging out from the Great Recession more difficult.
On Monday, the Obama Administration requested $708 billion for the Defense Department next year–including $549 billion for its base budget and $159 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This doesn’t even include the $33 billion supplement the White House will request for its escalation in Afghanistan this year.
Full Story No Defense for This Budget.
The Committee of Banned Words
Matt Taibbi -
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Emanuel, exasperated upon learning that liberal special-interest groups were planning to run ads against conservative Democrats not supportive of health care reform, blasted the plan as “f—— retarded” over the summer. Naturally, some outrage ensued after Emanuel’s words came to light, with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin taking to her Facebook page to call on President Obama to fire him for what she saw as the equivalent of a racial slur.
Palin, whose son Trig is afflicted with Down syndrome, said she was informed of Emanuel's comment by a fellow parent of a special-needs child and pleaded with the president to “show decency” to the political process by “eliminating” the Chicago native from his inner circle.
In a post titled “Are You Capable of Decency, Rahm Emanuel?,” Palin wrote, “Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the ‘N-word’ or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities — and the people who love them — is unacceptable,” adding, “it’s heartbreaking.”
via Obama chief of staff’s ‘retarded’ insult brings fallout, Palin criticism – Yahoo! News.
One of the more interesting features of modern America is this mania people have for flipping over the usages of certain words. This thing with Rahm Emanuel is a perfect example. His outburst is now going to become a national news story because Sarah Palin took offense at the word “retarded,” as opposed to the reason it should be making news — the notion of Rahm Emanuel, a White House official, telling progressive activist groups not to run ads against Democrats, and those groups actually listening. The latter story is a billion times more shameful and obnoxious, but instead of any furor there, we’re going to have to get another soap opera over somebody using a naughty word.
Full Story The Committee of Banned Words – Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – True/Slant.
‘Peace Prize’ President Submits Largest War Budget Ever
President Barack Obama on Monday asked Congress to approve a record $708 billion in defense spending for fiscal year 2011, including a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon’s base budget and $159 billion to fund U.S. military missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The White House budget request also included $33 billion in additional funding for fiscal 2010 to pay for increasing military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and drawing down U.S. forces in Iraq. That comes on top of $129.6 billion already provided for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30.
The Pentagon’s base budget request of $549 billion is up $18 billion from $531 billion in fiscal 2010, and will pay for continued reforms of defense acquisitions, development of a ballistic missile defense system and care of wounded soldiers.
Full Story ‘Peace Prize’ President Submits Largest War Budget Ever | CommonDreams.org.
Ask Your Politicians Where They Bank
Move Your Politicians -
I talked Sunday about Move Your Money with Guy Raz of NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered (summary; audio from about 3:45). We covered a lot of ground, from what’s in it for individuals to shift towards community banks and credit unions (better service and lower costs, in many cases) to how this could begin to reign in Too Big To Fail financial institutions (slowly, but surely).
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to discuss what comes next — i.e., what happens when the location of political candidates’ own money starts to matter. As early as this fall’s primaries, expect to hear people ask politicians in debates and through various kinds of interactions: (1) where do you, personally, keep and borrow money, and (2), in all relevant cases, where did you put public money when it was up to you?
These questions strike to the heart of democratic responses against overly concentrated financial power throughout US history — a topic we take up in Chapter 1 of 13 Bankers.
Full Story Simon Johnson: Move Your Politicians.
Americans United for Change Goes After Wall Street ‘Pigs’
In a new push to sound a tougher tone with Wall Street, an outside group supportive of the White House is going up with a new television spot urging Congress to pass the president’s plan for financial regulatory reform.
Americans United for Change released the spot on Monday morning. In it, the group makes the same political pitch the White House has made in recent weeks, one that elevates cleaning up Wall Street over health care reform on the legislative agenda.
“When big banks went hog wild on Wall Street they left behind one fine mess on Main Street,” the ad goes. “Their greed and recklessness left the economy stuck in the mud and over seven million Americans without jobs. But the big banks were first in line at the trough for their taxpayer bailout and back to their old piggish ways in no time. Now the Wall Street lobbyists say they will clean up their act. But remember you can put lipstick on a pig. But it is still a pig. Tell Congress it is time to step up and pass President Obama’s plan to hold Wall Street banks accountable.”
Full Story Pro-Obama Group Goes After Wall Street ‘Pigs’.
Progressives vs. the President
This isn’t the first column in which I’ve addressed this dynamic and it won’t be the last. So consider the following an overview or a recap of what I feel is the disconnect between President Obama and some vocal factions within the progressive movement.
Clearly there are progressives, most visibly in the liberal blogosphere, who have ventured well beyond the realms of being disillusioned with the president to being outright antagonistic and, in a broader movement sense, utterly self-defeating. I still believe that this is based upon a misreading of political reality and a misinterpretation of the president’s first year in office. In some cases, I believe this anger is genuine and fair, and many other cases, I believe it’s wholly unfair, misguided and, dare I say, wingnutty.
Stating the obvious by way of a preface, the goal of the progressive movement is to, of course, move government further to the left and thereby achieve progressive policies. The argument right now is about how best to achieve this goal in the context of the current political landscape. I’ve always thought that a successful progressive movement involved three things: an ongoing marginalizing of the far-right; arguing for progressive policies; and promoting and encouraging the careers of politicians and organizations that are best equipped to help pass progressive legislation.
Full Story Bob Cesca: Progressives vs. the President.
