FASCISM |
"We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. _________________________________ MOVE to AMEND
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All Entries in the "Progressive Issues" Category
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.
