| Ralph Nader

Only a slate of serious candidates can oblige the president to listen to his loyal Democratic base as he runs for re-election

America’s two-party dictatorship – a model unknown in any other western country – keeps reinventing the ways it closes doors not just on third party candidates but on any challenges to their incumbent presidents within the party’s primaries.

Now, it is the turn of the Democrats to make a mockery out of the first amendment rights of others to speak, assemble and petition their government by running inside the upcoming presidential primary season that runs from January to June 2012. After President Obama took his liberal/progressive base for so many one-sided corporatist rides in his administration, he and his allies are very determined to give him a free ride by having him campaign around the country on Air Force One as an unchallenged, one-man primary.

This tedious scenario would have his supporters watch President Obama repeatedly respond, on his omnipresent teleprompter, to the crazed Republicans and their issues – instead of offering a ringing affirmation for his second term of the neglected majoritarian liberal/progressive agendas.

Full Story Here: Obama must face meaningful Democratic primaries | Ralph Nader | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Will Democrats take back Congress? Here are five candidates worth keeping an eye on as we get closer to Election 2012.

Watching the news lately, you’d think that Election 2012 was only between Republican candidates for president, each trying to outflank the next to his or her right.

The Republican primaries may be getting lots of attention, but several progressive candidates around the country are gearing up for races that could swing the Congress and put some control back in the hands of progressives.

It can be easy to despair when audiences at GOP debates cheer executions and boo gay soldiers, but the fight is far from over. With Barack Obama striking a new, more populist tone as election season nears, we should all remember that a lot can happen between now and next November. And attention early on for the good candidates can help ensure their success in primaries and general election campaigns alike.

Full Story Here: 5 Progressive Candidates To Watch As the 2012 Campaign Heats Up | | AlterNet.

“If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. “There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president.”

Full Story Here: Cleaver: If Obama wasn’t president, we would be ‘marching on the White House’ – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

From the debt ceiling fiasco to the recent rescheduling of a jobs speech at the behest of Speaker Boehner, it has not been a good summer for President Obama. Like Chinese water torture, Gallup’s daily tracking poll has shown a steady and unrelenting drip of bad news. He has been in and out of the high 30s for his approval, and in the low to mid-50s for his disapproval.

George W. Bush’s approval rating didn’t drop this low until Katrina hit. And on the economy, 71 percent of Americans disapprove of how Obama is doing his job. Even among reliably Democratic groups — union households, women and young people — he’s now unpopular.

No one, not even the president’s defenders, expect his coming jobs speech to mean anything. When the president spoke during a recent market swoon, the market dropped another 100 points. Democrats may soon have to confront an uncomfortable truth, and ask whether Obama is a suitable choice at the top of the ticket in 2012. They may then have to ask themselves if there’s any way they can push him off the top of the ticket.

Full Story Here: What Democrats can do about Obama – War Room – Salon.com.

Check off the boxes, copy the paragraph from two years ago, mail it in. As an election year approaches, I again face the piles of questionnaires that progressive organizations use to evaluate public officials. Environmentalists, feminists, campaign finance reformers, housing advocates and labor unions have all come to rely on these lists of our positions–often on issues that never even come up for a vote. It should come as no surprise that, for the most part, all we get out of this cumbersome process is a long line of “checklist liberals” who answer correctly but do little to advance the progressive causes that underlie the questionnaires.

I respectfully suggest that if we want to move beyond short- term efforts to slow down the bone-crushing machinery of the contemporary conservative movement and begin to build a meaningful movement of our own, we need to expand the job descriptions of our elected officials. To do this, we must consider the two distinct aspects of our work: transactional politics and transformational politics.

Transactional politics is pretty straightforward. What’s the best deal I can get on a gun-control or immigration-reform bill during this year’s legislative session? What do I have to do to elect a good progressive ally in November? Transactional politics requires us to be pragmatic about current realities and the state of public opinion. It’s all about getting the best result possible given the circumstances here and now.

Full Story Here: Transforming the Liberal Checklist | The Nation.

The move follows measures by states like Wisconsin and Ohio to curb bargaining rights of public workers in fights that are part of a broader national confrontation between Republicans and labor groups that have typically favored Democrats.

AFL-CIO Political Director Michael Podhorzer said the 12.2 million-strong group was creating the political action committee to expand its communications, not to raise unlimited campaign funds for pro-labor candidates.

Full Story Here: Labor power AFL-CIO to form super PAC to engage beyond unions – Yahoo! News.

video at link below

Full Story Here: Jon Stewart Does Obama’s Job for Him | The Nation.

THE NEGATIVE TRENDS in the Nation’s Capital are mostly due to extreme GOP ideologues in Congress. But they’ve been enabled by too many Democrats who keep giving ground while Republican leaders refuse to give an inch.

Many a political truth can be spoken in jest, and that was the case with a mock news item that appeared in The Onion last week.

“A day after signing legislation that raised the government debt ceiling and authorized steep budget cuts,” the satirical magazine reported, “President Obama thanked Democrats as well as Democrats for their willingness to make tough, but necessary, concessions during negotiations.”

The Onion went on: “Obama added that while it may look ugly at times, politics is about Democrats giving up what they want, as well as Democrats giving up what they want, until an agreement can ultimately be reached.”

Full Story Here: Marin Voice: Democrats must push back – Marin Independent Journal.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement that progressive lawmakers and working families “were thrown under the bus” by a deal that “trades peoples’ livelihoods for the votes of a few unappeasable right-wing radicals.” The result, he said, is as bad for the Democratic Party as it is for the country.

“We have given much and received nothing in return,” Grijalva said. “The lesson today is that Republicans can hold their breath long enough to get what they want. While I believe the country will not reward them for this in the long run, the damage has already been done.”

Full Story Here: Liberal Dem lawmaker vows to reject GOP, White House debt deal – TheHill.com.

With a blessing from President Obama and support even from some deficit-hawk Republicans, momentum is building for the ten-year deficit reduction plan announced Tuesday by the “Gang of Six” Democratic and Republican senators. “Can’t We All Just Get Along” commentators like the proposal, while headlines declare: “Bipartisan Support Builds for Gang of Six $3.7 Trillion Deficit-Reduction Plan.”

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is typically grumbly, and Senate Democrats are complaining that they may not have enough time to pull everything together before the August 2 debt ceiling deadline. But the cheerleading for the “Gang of Six” plan is considerable and enthusiastic.

“This is a serious, bipartisan proposal that will help stop Washington from spending money that we don’t have, and I support it,” Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander says of the proposal to reduce the deficit by $3.7 trillion over the next ten years with deep spending cuts while increasing revenues by closing tax loopholes.

Full Story Here: ‘Gang of Six’ Plan? ‘Not So Fast,’ Says Bernie Sanders | The Nation.

“The Republican House budget is the most radical right-wing extremist budget ever passed in the modern history of our country, and the more the American people learn about it the more they are rejecting it,” the independent from Vermont wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed. “The question is, however: Where are the Democrats? Where is President Obama?”

“Will the president remain strong in his demand that any deficit reduction agreement include an end to Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthy? Will he really fight to eliminate corporate tax loopholes?… Or, as he has done within the last year, will he give Republicans almost everything they want at the expense of ordinary Americans.”

Full Story Here: Sanders to Obama: Stop selling out | The Raw Story.

Rep. Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania says his forthcoming American Discoveries – American Jobs Commission Act of 2011 when Congress would seeks to establish a commission to study and recommend improvements to the existing system of federally funded research.

The commission would examine the possibilities for collecting government royalties from research which leads to the commercialization of profitable products in order to further invest in new discoveries. The commission would be further directed to ensure products developed with federal research are manufactured in the United States, guaranteeing broader benefits from initial investments, according to a statement from Fattah’s office.

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Legislation To Call For Products Developed By Federal Research Dollars Be Made in US.

So, after getting no credit for his original $40 billion concession, then the negotiations began at square one. The Republicans claimed in February that they wanted $32 billion in cuts from that point on. About a week ago, the president came out and announced that they had given the Republicans another $33 billion in cuts — a billion more than they originally asked for. And still the Republicans wanted more.

Why not? They’re dealing with the world’s worst negotiator, why not ask for more? After February they came up with a brilliant good cop-bad cop strategy with the Tea Party, where they had the Tea Party force them to go to $61 billion in demands. Which pushed the spectrum out further to the right. They know President Obama will go to the middle of any spectrum, no matter how radical. And then once they had baited Obama out to the $33 billion number, which was past their original goal, they baited him out even further. Finally, they got him to $38.5 billion in cuts an hour before the deadline.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: Progressives Must Stand up to the President.

Also, the United States now is now “bit hostage to what the rebels do” in their campaign to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, says former Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), a former vice admiral in the U.S. Navy.

Obama spoke to the nation from National Defense University in Washington about the action he ordered in Libya more than a week after combat operations began.

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: After Obama’s Libya Speech, It’s ‘Eerie’ Not To See End Of Action In Sight, Sestak Says.

Members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) gave President Obama a rare push on Saturday, adopting a resolution attempting to encourage the administration to move toward a speedier withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The DNC is currently holding its annual winter meeting, where its hundreds of members from all around the country converge in Washington, D.C. to discuss finances, debate resolutions, and of course, figure out how elect (and re-elect) Democrats — including Obama — in 2012.

The resolution adopted Saturday states that “the Democratic Party supports prioritizing job creation and a swift withdrawal of U.S. armed forces and military contractors in Afghanistan which must include a significant and sizable reduction no later than July 2011.”

Full Story Here: DNC Pressures Obama, Passes Resolution Endorsing Swift End To Afghanistan War.

What is the state of the union? You certainly couldn’t tell from that platitudinous hogwash that the president dished out Tuesday evening. I had expected Barack Obama to be his eloquent self, appealing to our better nature, but instead he was mealy-mouthed in avoiding the tough choices that a leader should delineate in a time of trouble. He embraced clean air and a faster Internet while ignoring the depth of our economic pain and the Wall Street scoundrels who were responsible — understandably so, since they so prominently populate the highest reaches of his administration. He had the effrontery to condemn “a parade of lobbyists” for rigging government after he appointed the top Washington representative of JPMorgan Chase to be his new chief of staff.

The speech was a distraction from what seriously ails us: an unabated mortgage crisis, stubbornly high unemployment and a debt that spiraled out of control while the government wasted trillions making the bankers whole. Instead the president conveyed the insular optimism of his fat-cat associates: “We are poised for progress. Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again.” How convenient to ignore the fact that this bubble of prosperity, which has failed the tens of millions losing their homes and jobs, was floated by enormous government indebtedness now forcing deep cuts in social services including state financial aid for those better-educated students the president claims to be so concerned about.

His references to education provided a convenient scapegoat for the failure of the economy, rather than to blame the actions of the Wall Street hustlers to whom Obama is now sucking up. Yes, it is an obvious good to have better-educated students to compete with other economies, but that is hardly the issue of the moment when all of the world’s economies are suffering grievous harm resulting from the irresponsible behavior of the best and the brightest here at home. It wasn’t the students struggling at community colleges who came up with the financial gimmicks that produced the Great Recession, but rather the super-whiz-kid graduates of the top business and law schools.

Full Story Here: Robert Scheer: Hogwash, Mr. President.

A year ago today, the Supreme Court issued its bizarre Citizens United decision, allowing unlimited corporate spending in elections as a form of “free speech” for the corporate “person.” Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the dissent, had the task of recalling the majority to planet earth and basic common sense.

“Corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires,” wrote Stevens. “Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.”

Fortunately, movements are afoot to reverse a century of accumulated powers and protections granted to corporations by wacky judicial decisions.

Full Story Here: Resolution Calling to Amend the Constitution Banning Corporate Personhood Introduced in Vermont | News & Politics | AlterNet.

“Our government is supposed to be of, by and for the people. So are you ready to take it back?” an invitation for the “Uncloaking the Kochs” event asked.

The Sunday, Jan. 30 event thrown by Common Cause, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization, aims to educate attendees in California on the Koch brothers who will be strategizing nearby with their mega-wealthy allies to win the 2012 elections. Afterwards, activists will rally in Rancho Mirage.

“We can’t sit back while a few billionaires destroy the fragile fabric of democracy and the protections that are so necessary for the health of our society,” Jodie Evans of CodePink told Alternet. “It is time for the progressive community to gather together and say no more, and what better place than where the Koch brothers are plotting their next moves.”

Full Story Here: Progressives to ‘uncloak’ the secret financers behind the Tea party | Raw Story.

Liberals, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and labor unions, such as the AFL-CIO, AFSCME and SEIU, have taken a firm stand against cutting Social Security benefits.

They are still reeling over the deal Obama struck with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in December to extend almost all of the Bush tax cuts and chop the Social Security payroll tax for one year by 2 percentage points.

Some worry that the cut to the payroll tax could set a precedent that is difficult to erase. They expect Republicans will campaign vigorously against allowing the rate to reset from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent, characterizing it as a tax increase.

Sanders told The Hill on Friday that a group of Senate Democrats may support raising the retirement age. But he said there is also a faction of the caucus, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), staunchly opposed to benefits cuts.

Full Story Here: Liberals warn of Democratic schism if Obama backs Social Security cut – TheHill.com.

First, Washington squandered our tax dollars enriching the corporate contractors that profiteer upon unnecessary and seemingly endless wars. The cost figure just for the Iraq imbroglio is now far in excess of $3 trillion, according to The Washington Post.

Next, Washington bailed out the big banks and the multinational corporations that got so greedy they wrecked themselves and the U.S. economy. How much dod that cost? In addition to the initial $800 billion shifted their way by President Bush and the Congress in 2008, there’s the little matter of the Federal Reserve’s “backdoor bailout”: low-interest loans and other deals doled out to the largest banks and corporatuions. According to data obtained by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, the 21,000 transactions from December 2007 through July 2010 that totaled more than $3 trillion.

Three trillion here, three trillion there… sooner or later, we’re talking about real money.

And a real big hole in the federal budget.

Full Story Here: An Answer to 2011′s Austerity Arguments: ‘We Won’t Pay For Their Crisis’ | The Nation.

OPS: It should be “we won’t pay for their crimes”

A couple of weeks shy of its 10-year anniversary, the Wikimedia Foundation said it has raised $16 million in donations from more than half a million people around the world to sustain the Wikipedia website.

In his online appeal, the organization’s founder Jimmy Wales wrote that Wikipedia needed the funds to remain ad-free.

The foundation, which is the non-profit parent of Wikipedia, said that more than 500,000 donated in 2010, compared to the 230,000 people who contributed money in 2009.

The average donation was $22.

“This fundraiser had all the ingredients of what we love about Wikimedia projects: people come together, contribute what they have, and together we do something amazing … and the result is that we’re able to sustain and support this joint endeavor for another year,” Wales said in his post. “So now, we’ll celebrate.”

Full Story Here: Wikipedia Raises $16M to Remain Ad-Free – Tech Talk – CBS News.

MOST VALUABLE SENATOR: Bernie Sanders
When Vermont’s Bernie Sanders waged a nearly nine-hour December filibuster against extending tax breaks for the rich, he capped a year of not just taking the right stands but acting in a bolder—and invariably more effective—manner than any other senator. Sanders is an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, but this year the emphasis was on independence. He parted with the White House and Congressional leaders to push harder and smarter on issues ranging from media consolidation and the defense of small farmers to healthcare reform and financial regulation. During the healthcare debate Sanders argued mightily for single-payer and a public option. He got neither, but he did secure a provision doubling the number of Federally Qualified Health Centers, which should increase the number of patients receiving primary care at these centers by at least 18 million during the coming decade. Later in the year he amended the final financial services reform bill to require the Federal Reserve to disclose its secret arrangements to aid the nation’s largest banks. This “lifting the veil of secrecy at the Fed,” as Sanders referred to it, revealed that big banks and multinational corporations collected an estimated $3.3 trillion in “emergency” loans and other assistance even as they refused to restructure mortgages or make loans to small businesses in Vermont and other states.

Principled and populist, yet practical enough to get things done, Sanders points the way for progressives in the next Congress by reminding them they can win if they address the stark reality that “there is a war going on in this country…a war being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful…against the working families of the United States of America, against the disappearing and shrinking middle class.”

Full Story Here: The Progressive Honor Roll of 2010 | The Nation.

Despite some recent victories like repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” many on the American Left are feeling a cumulative disgust toward President Barack Obama, not just for his generally timid policy choices but – even more so – for his failure to articulate and fight for progressive values.

After eight years of getting bullied by President George W. Bush – and even longer by Fox News, talk radio and congressional Republicans – many progressives, including many young voters, wanted a passionate advocate in the mold of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, himself a member of the American elite who treated his class with a knowing disdain. They got instead a silver-tongued conciliator who strives for the elite’s blessings.

So, even as Obama ticks off his legislative accomplishments – from helping women get a fair wage in his administration’s early days to his Wednesday signing of a law repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rules for gays in the U.S. military – the President is not likely to gain much traction with his liberal “base” because he has failed to be what many of them hoped he would be: a battler.

While that estrangement will be difficult for Obama to overcome – especially given this month’s compromise with right-wing Republicans over extending Bush’s tax cuts for the rich – the other question in this troubled marriage between Obama and his angry “base” is whether Obama is entirely at fault.

Full Story Here: Is Barack Obama the Problem?.

The release of the 2010 census figures on Tuesday will bring Iowa an all-but-guaranteed cut from five congressional districts to four. That likely will mean two of the state’s incumbent U.S. House members will be staring at the same chair in a game of political musical chairs.

Iowa’s delegation has steadily lost members over the past 80 years. But this time, another factor will amplify the loss of clout: Iowa has a relatively junior delegation, without the 30-year senior member it has featured in recent decades.

Full Story Here: Iowa poised to lose congressional clout | desmoinesregister.com | The Des Moines Register.

“We are dedicated to exposing the true costs of war and militarism,” explained Mike Ferner, the president of Veterans for Peace, the group organizing Thursday’s Lafayette Square rally and civil disobedience.

“We’ve killed well over a million people. We’ve orphaned and displaced five times that number at least. And here in our own country, we’ve managed to throw millions of people of out work and out of their homes,” Ferner told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. “There is a connection there. That connection is the true cost of war.”

Citing information available for every city and state in America on the Cost of War website, the former Navy hospital corpsman noted that his hometown of Toledo alone has sent almost a billion dollars into the war effort.

Full Story Here: Ellsberg, Other Anti-War Protesters To Chain Themselves To White House Fence.

But instead of getting into any further arguments over rates and exemptions, Democrats would be better off conceding defeat. They should allow Republicans to get rid of the estate tax altogether — but at the same time arrange for inherited wealth to be subject to income tax.

After all, the Democrats have already lost the battle. The president’s proposal is fresh evidence that even Democrats have given up championing the fundamental value that the estate tax was originally intended to promote. This tax, first enacted in 1916, was never intended to be simply a device for raising revenue. Rather, it was meant to address the phenomenon of a small number of Americans controlling large amounts of the country’s wealth — which was considered a national problem.

Full Story Here: Give Up on the Estate Tax – NYTimes.com.

John Nichols, The Nation:

Sanders ‘Filibusters’ Tax Deal for 8.5 Hours, Tells Senate: ‘We Can Come Up With a Better Proposal’

Senator Bernie Sanders, who has promised to do “whatever it takes” to block the deal President Obama cut to extend tax breaks for billionaires and create a sweeping estate-tax exemption for millionaires, began to wage what he said could be called a “filibuster” on the floor of the Senate Friday.

After Sanders took the rostrum at 10:24 a.m. Friday, the Vermont Independent posted a message on his his twitter account that read: “You can call what I am doing today whatever you want, you [can] call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech…”

Sanders spoke for more than eight hours. His bold gesture grabbed the attention of the nation, as Senate video servers were overwhelmed when more than 12,000 people tried to watch the speech online.

Full Story Here: Sanders ‘Filibusters’ Tax Deal for 8.5 Hours, Tells Senate: ‘We Can Come Up With a Better Proposal’ | The Nation.

On CSPAN, six hours after first taking the podium to filibuster against the tax cut deal at around 10:25 Friday morning, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,  is still talking. The CSPAN subtitle is “U.S. Senate: Tax Cuts & Unemployment Benefits,” but for the last few minutes he has been blasting trade polices that disadvantage American workers.

But that’s fine. His epic rant — perhaps one of the most extraordinary critiques of how the American economy has been managed over the last several decades delivered in living memory — is an endless sequence of connecting the dots from one outrage to another. Even as I wrote this paragraph, he segued effortlessly from trade policy to Wall Street.

“But it is not just a disastrous trade policy that has brought us where we are today. The immediate cause of this crisis, and it gets me just sick talking about it … is what the crooks on Wall Street have done to the American people.”

Full Story Here: Bernie Sanders’ epic tax cut filibuster rant – How the World Works – Salon.com.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders was off and running at 10:24 a.m., launching his protest of President Barack Obama’s tax deal with Republicans.

The Vermont independent expects to spend several hours today making his case on the Senate floor.

“You can call what I am doing today whatever you want,” Sanders said. “You can call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech. I’m not here to set any great records or to make a spectacle.

“I am simply here today to take as long as I can to explain to the American people that we have got to do a lot better than this agreement provides.”

The measure calls for a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts for all income brackets, extending jobless benefits for 13 months, reinstating the estate tax and cutting payroll taxes for a year.

Sanders had lengthy prepared remarks and some books on hand – including Robert Frank’s “Richistan” – when he took the floor this morning.

He targeted the plan’s tax breaks for the wealthy and what he considers an overly generous proposal on the estate tax, which would be reinstated at 35 percent for inheritances worth $5 million for an individual and $10 million for a couple.

“This is not a tax on the rich,” he said. “This is a tax on the very, very, very rich.”

Sanders’ extended speech won’t block a vote on the measure. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday night filed a cloture motion, setting the vote to end debate for Monday afternoon.

But Sanders said earlier he would speak at length because Americans want serious discussion about the deal.

Full Story Here: Sanders launches filibuster against Obama tax deal – Newsroom: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont).

OPS: Support Bernie Sanders!

House Democrats gathered in the Capitol Tuesday evening to debate the tax-cut deal President Barack Obama struck with Republicans, but as it turned out, they were already in agreement to an extent rarely seen on the left side of the lower chamber.

Across the board, Democrats who attended the meeting said, Obama’s deal was deemed too costly, too tilted toward the rich and too much of a cave to Republicans.

“The wealthiest few in the country come out like gangbusters,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), a Blue Dog who said he would oppose the deal. Many other Blue Dogs, Pomeroy said, would also vote down the package, on the grounds that it adds heavily to the debt.

Full Story Here: House Democrats Rip Obama’s Tax Cut Deal.

“In my view, it is a moral outrage that at a time when this country has a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and a growing gap between the very rich and everybody else that the Republicans would deny extended unemployment benefits to 2 million workers who are desperately struggling to pay their bills and maintain their dignity. It is also beyond comprehension that the Republicans would hold hostage the entire middle class of this country so that millionaires and billionaires would receive huge tax breaks. In my view, that is not what this country is about and it is not what the American people want to see. Our job is to save the disappearing middle class, not lower taxes for people who are already extraordinarily wealthy and increase the national debt that our children and grandchildren would have to pay.

“The immediate political task in front of us is to rally the American people so that in the next several weeks we can find at least a few Republicans who will join us in saying no to increasing the deficit by giving tax breaks to the wealthy and no to holding the unemployed and the middle class hostage.

“I believe that we have the American people on our side on this issue. My office, and I come from a small state, has received more than 600 calls today, 99 percent of them in opposition to this so-called compromise that the president negotiated with the Republicans.

“I will do everything in my power to stand up for the American middle class and defeat this agreement.”

Full Story Here: Release: Sanders Statement on Tax Cut Deal – Newsroom: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont).

Enough is enough. Sign the petition of support for those members of Congress who are still in the fight and join the rebellion against the deal.

We cannot support the deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires. Thank you, Senator Sanders and Representative Welch, for staying in the fight against any extension of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires. Keep it up!

Sign the Petition (at lhe link below)

Full Story Here: Daily Kos Action.

Can’t tell you how it happened. All I know, it just happened.

Been thinking and reading a lot about President Barack Obama. Lots of news commentaries about his alleged lack of leadership on this or that issue. About his disappointing the Gay and Lesbian and Transgender Community on his election pledge to end the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the armed services. And his disappointment by the anti-war coalition, who supported him because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, only to find that he has escalated the US’s involvement in Afghanistan. Now, after the midterm election victories of the Republicans, he seems willing to compromise on his pledge to end tax breaks for the rich.

In previous blogs, I have tried to contribute to a constructive analysis and dialogue about Obama’s presidential leadership. Several readers accused me of being an “apologist” for Obama. Perhaps, in artfully, but all I was trying to do was to present objectively those major issues confronting this administration, requiring decisive presidential leadership

Few news columnists can match the political erudition of Frank Rich of the New York Times. In the Sunday edition he wrote:

Full Story Here: Clarence B. Jones: Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge To Obama’s Reelection.

With his base deeply disillusioned, many progressives are starting to believe that Obama has little chance of winning reelection unless he enthusiastically embraces a populist agenda and worldview – soon. Yet there is little chance that will happen without a massive public revolt by his constituency that goes beyond rallies, snide remarks from television personalities or indignant op-eds.

Full Story: Michael Lerner – Save Obama’s presidency by challenging him on the left.

On their deadline—Wednesday, Dec. 1—the co-chairs of President Obama’s Fiscal Commission promise to present a plan to reduce annual federal budget deficits and accumulated debt, even though they are delaying a vote of the 18-member, bipartisan, fiscally conservative body until Friday.

But the nation would be better served if Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton, and former Wyoming Republican Sen. Alan Simpson shredded their proposal. Then they should submit instead either one of the two proposals from progressive groups that were unveiled on Monday and Tuesday (or the earlier, less fleshed-out proposal from Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Commission member).

The progressive proposals—from Schakowsky; from a “Citizens’ Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America’s Economic Future” (convened by the Institute for America’s Future); and “Investing in America’s Economy” from Our Fiscal Security (a partnership of three leading think tanks—the Economic Policy Institute, Demos, and the Century Foundation)—all forge a similar path, and all head in a direction different from Bowles and Simpson.

Full Story: Creating Jobs, Trimming Deficits: Progressive Budget Plans Challenge Dems – Working In These Times.

What’s the worst case, and the best case, that we can imagine for the next two years? Let’s look at the economics first.

Republicans and the White House both seem determined to make the recession worse by reducing the budget deficit long before the economy is in recovery. The deficit commission’s two co-chairs have proposed that the cuts begin in October 2011, when unemployment is still expected to be at least nine percent. The economy needs a massive fiscal jolt, and instead is likely to get austerity.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s experiment with buying Treasury bonds in order to keep interest rates low is not working very well. Mainly, the policy seems to be annoying America’s allies. Cheap money by itself won’t fix the prolonged slump.

Full Story: Robert Kuttner: Saving Progressivism From Obama.

Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and an outspoken critic of the White House, said liberal anger has less to do with fears of a Clintonian move to the middle by Obama and more with a misreading of the election results by the administration.

Full Story: Angry left to Obama: Stop caving on agenda – TheHill.com.

It was Sun Tzu, I believe, who first suggested that in order to win the war, you sometimes have to lose the battle. This precept has been on my mind quite a bit since the results of the recent election began rolling in. For instance…

Earlier today one of my political lists was discussing the aftermath of the elections and pondering the future of the progressive movement, such as it is. In response to a couple of thoughtful comments I posed the following question:

In terms of what’s best for the country in the long run, which would be better:

* Obama gets re-elected in 2012? Or,

* Obama gets beaten in 2012, allowing Dems to realign and get started gearing up for 2016 assault on Mt. Mitt?

This is a cynical question, but it is not an insincere one.

Full Story: Scholars and Rogues » It’s time for progressives to forget about winning the battle and start concentrating on winning the war.

Clearly displeased with the initial deficit-reduction recommendations offered by the fiscal commission chairmen, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced on Friday that he will craft and introduce his own proposals as an alternative.

The Vermont Independent said that he will work with members of Congress, labor unions, seniors’ organizations and others to develop alternative suggestions. And while he didn’t get into the weeds, he did offer a few general areas that he hopes to target, including ending Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, chopping off Cold War-era Pentagon programs and eliminating of tax credits for big oil companies.

Of the ideas pushed by the commission co-chairmen — former Sen. Alan K. Simpson and Erskine Bowles, former President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff — Sanders offered the following:

Full Story: Sanders Calls For Progressive Meeting, Alternative To Fiscal Commission.

By DAVE LINDORFF

The Democrats were blown out of the water on Nov. 2.

But it’s not because of the Tea Party, or because of a resurgent Republican majority.

The Democrats deserved to lose because they have long since abandoned whatever principles they had, and more important, they’ve pissed on their most important supporters–the left, real liberals, African Americans, women, unionized workers, and workers in general. So I say hooray, all those groups have struck back!

Barack Obama set this disaster for the party and his presidency in motion before he was even sworn in as president, by choosing Wall Street hacks as his economic advisers in the midst of the worst economic crisis in 75 years, and by choosing as his key political adviser Rahm Emanuel, who famously called progressive critics “fucking retarded,” and who, when warned that the GM bailout plan would hurt the United Autoworkers members who worked there, also famously said “Fuck the UAW!”

Full Story: Dave Lindorff: Take That You Smug Bastards!.

Len Hart,

It is said that insanity is repeating a failed strategy in the expectation of one day getting a different result. Because that never happens, the nation is nuts! Just enough people always vote against their own interests to guarantee that wealth will continue to ‘trickle up’, that wars benefiting ONLY the very wealthy will continue to be waged, that everyone else will suffer declines in education, the environment, living standards, and the plague of fascist law enforcement taser fetishists and/or authoritarian perverts.

Like a vain Dorian Gray, a huge chunk of the U.S. electorate has sold its soul for a temporary feel good. Keep it up! There will be a reckoning. If I were living in a posh suburb and voting GOP, I would be well advised to check on that oil portrait collecting dust, out of sight, down in the basement.

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: Election Postmortem: A Picture of Dorian Gray.

But for generations, conservatives have appealed to fear to protect the privileged and preserve the status quo — fear of immigrants, fear of diversity, fear of big government. For conservatives in 2010, it’s easy:

“Stop.”

“No.”

“Repeal.”

Meanwhile, for more than a century — in churches and temples, in union halls and neighborhood centers, in the streets and at the ballot box — progressives have moved the country forward. Progressives brought us minimum wage and Social Security in the 1930s, civil rights and Medicare in the 1960s, and health care and Wall Street reform in 2010.

…snip…

History tells us that rage on the right should not be confused with populism. The far right attacks government regulation as it feeds Wall Street and the insurance companies. It rails against government spending for the least privileged as it lavishes tax cuts favoring the most privileged.

Full Story: Sherrod Brown on Progressives » Politics Plus.

Florida’s Alan Grayson is one of a handful of House Democrats representing swing districts who is flouting the conventional wisdom that the way to win over such a constituency is to run as a moderate. Instead, he’s running as a strong progressive.

“I’ve been saying for years now, you can’t beat a Republican by being one,” Grayson said in an interview with The Huffington Post, adding that Democracy for America has recognized his bold liberalism by naming him their “top hero.”

Although Grayson is categorized as a moderate Democrat according to GovTrack.us, a site that records legislative voting records, he has not shied away from casting deciding votes that would put him at odds with Blue Dogs. His was a loud voice advocating for a full audit of the Federal Reserve, which Democrats passed over the objection of the Obama administration.

“There’s no ‘enthusiasm gap’ for Democrats who stand up and lead,” said DFA chair Jim Dean in a statement announcing Grayson as one of their top picks.

Full Story: Alan Grayson: ‘You Can’t Beat A Republican By Being One’.

Over 50 House Democrats have now signed on to a letter, first obtained by TPM earlier this month, warning President Obama they’ll oppose any effort on his part, or on the part of his fiscal commission, to cut Social Security benefits or privatize the program.

The letter was spearheaded by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It was originally cosigned by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Dan Maffei (D-NY), Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), and CPC co-chair Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). The advocacy groups Social Security Works, P Street Project (the lobbying arm of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee) and MoveOn helped organize the effort to add signatures.

They will continue to round up signatures through tomorrow, before the letter goes to the White House.

Full Story: 55 Dems Sign Letter To Obama Opposing Social Security Cuts, Privatization | TPMDC.

If you believe there is an “enthusiasm gap” right now between a demoralized progressive base and a mobilized conservative base (and I certainly believe there is), then the logical question is why? This is a source of endless debate between two camps.

One one side are Democratic partisans who insist the gap exists because some progressive activists and media voices (ie. the so-called “Professional Left”) have been too critical of the Obama administration and too insistent that President Obama fulfill – or at least actually try to fulfill – his basic campaign promises. The underlying assumption on this side is that Democratic voters are largely stupid fools who simply follow voting orders from a handful of activists and media voices – and because those activists and media voices aren’t more enthusiastic, those lobotomized voters are reflexively reflecting that lack of enthusiasm.

Full Story: Who Is Responsible for the Progressive “Enthusiasm Gap?” | CommonDreams.org.

The Right is on the march, and they must be cut off at the pass. AlterNet needs your support to keep up our work

The results are in, and they couldn’t be more clear. The Tea Party — whose members embrace crazy ideas like ending Social Security, closing down the Department of Education and pushing women out of the military, to name just a few –won another batch of primaries on Tuesday. Clearly, they are on a roll.

This round is led by Christine O’Donnell, who won Delaware’s GOP nomination for U.S. Senate Tuesday night. O’Donnell is a fringe right-wing ideologue. She has said there is “just as much, if not more, evidence supporting” the idea that “God created the Earth in six days” as there is for evolution. For O’Donnell, teaching creationism as science in public schools is a fine idea. She’s crusaded against masturbation, comparing it to adultery. She has said that taking the Bible out of public schools caused an escalation of school shootings.

With Tea Party victories across the land, we are facing an increasing danger that a score of extremists will enter our government. Even Karl Rove is scared. On the night of O’Donnell’s election victory, Rove slammed the GOP nominee, saying, “She said some nutty things” and “she doesn’t have a chance to win in the general election.” But many fear the self-destructive “screw the system” attitude spreading like wildfire will get these wacky candidates into the Senate. That means big trouble.

Full Story: The Tea Party Strikes Again — Time to Get Very Serious | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet.

President Obama is finally looking for bold, creative and clever ways to change the way the US economy operates — preferably with measures that will take effect by the November midterms and change the tone of the broader political debate. His tax proposals this week have some symbolic value, but in the broader sense all of these fiscal suggestions are tinkering at the margins.

What could he possibly do that would grab people’s attention, mobilize his political base and put his opponents on the defensive? There is an easy answer: Appoint Elizabeth Warren to start running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) immediately.

And the brilliant part of this idea — as explained by Shahien Nasiripour at the Huffington Post (see also David Dayen’s Thursday coverage) — is that the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation allows the person charged with setting up this new agency to be an outright appointment, rather than a nomination subject to Senate confirmation.

Full Story: Republican Nightmare: Putting Elizabeth Warren to Work Now | Economy | AlterNet.

The result this Labor Day is that unions are forging closer alliances with each other as they strategize about how to spend money, deploy staff and determine which races to target.

National AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker will march in the Detroit Labor Day parade today as part of an effort to call for good-paying jobs and to boost get-out-the-vote efforts for the Nov. 2 election.

Full Story: Unions gear up to push agenda at the polls | detnews.com | The Detroit News.

In the next two weeks, Democratic leaders will review new polls and other data that show whether vulnerable incumbents have a path to victory. If not, the party is poised to redirect money to concentrate on trying to protect up to two dozen lawmakers who appear to be in the strongest position to fend off their challengers.

“We are going to have to win these races one by one,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, conceding that the party would ultimately cut loose members who had not gained ground.

Full Story: Democrats Plan Political Triage to Retain House – NYTimes.com.

Chris Coons, a Democrat running for Joe Biden’s vacated Senate seat in Delaware, wants to cut Senate pay 10 percent and to ban former senators from ever becoming lobbyists.

“People are mad, and people really question whether Washington is working for them. Americans are willing to sacrifice, but that’s just not what they’re seeing out of D.C.,” Coons told HuffPost. “There’s a broad concern lobbyists and special interests have too much control over the outcomes.”

When asked how Coons could possibly retire comfortably after a long Senate career if he couldn’t become a lobbyist, the candidate replied, “I’m not planning on being a paid federal lobbyist as a way to fund my retirement.”

Full Story: Chris Coons, Dem Senate Candidate, Wants Lifetime Ban On Senators Becoming Lobbyists.

click to buy now

A simple sit-in at an administration building becomes the catalyst for a surreal, Kafkaesque, hellish fifteen years for Dr. Stuart Jeanne Bramhall in her compelling new book “The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.” Dr. Bramhall, a practicing Seattle-based psychiatrist tells in chilling detail how attending a seemingly innocent meeting to protest racial abuse at a local school triggers a covert government plot to destroy the cause and her life.

Dr. Bramhall’s work confirms the myth of the “Vast right wing conspiracy” that was dismissed by the mainstream media when it was coined by then first Lady Hillary Clinton. It is a country where no person or secret is safe. People who you trust are not to be trusted. Harassment, violence and murder are tools used to subvert the Progressive agenda and the people who advocate it.

Lest you think “The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee” is just tell the story of one woman’s struggle to fight the system, it is much more than that. Dr. Bramhall’s amazing tale also involves the Kennedy assassination, the government’s “War” on AIDS, the plot against single player healthcare, suppression of African Americans and much more. Paranoia is real. Schizophrenia is not just a mental disorder, it’ a weapon.

A psychological thriller of the first order, “The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee” is also a cautionary tale. CIA and FBI operatives are indeed among us. Opposing the agenda of Corporate America is not tolerated. Those that try fight the good fight, but the establishment will stop at nothing to stay in power. Dr. Bramhall’s harrowing tale is testament to that

Review by: Stuart Kreisman

Call me an ’80s junkie, but when I saw the results of this week’s closely watched Colorado election, I immediately thought of “Spaceballs.” In that Mel Brooks masterpiece, a Darth Vader spoof named Dark Helmet says “evil will always triumph because good is dumb.” Make it “dumb and broke,” and you have a powerful explanation for incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet’s narrow primary victory over former state legislator Andrew Romanoff.

In just the 20 months since being appointed to fill the vacated Senate seat of now-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Bennet became one of Congress’ top recipients of corporate cash. A wealthy businessman who had never held elected office before, he ultimately raised and spent almost $6 million on his campaign – more than any primary candidate in the history of Colorado. He was additionally aided by the Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America’s phone-banking, by President Barack Obama’s full-throated endorsement and by the built-in advantages that come with a taxpayer-financed Senate office.

Romanoff, by contrast, swore off special-interest money from the beginning. As a former state House speaker with a deep grassroots network throughout Colorado, he constructed a scrappy campaign on less than $2 million of mostly small-dollar, in-state contributions. In the relatively few ads he was able to afford, he juxtaposed his own progressive economic platform with Bennet’s odious Senate votes to protect the big banks, oil firms and health insurance companies that Americans despise and that financed Bennet’s campaign.

Full Story: Elites’ Democratic days are numbered | OregonLive.com.

In response to Gibbs’s recent comments about “the professional left” and its dissatisfaction with the Obama administration, Grayson called Gibbs “Bozo the Spokesman” and declared he should be fired.

“I don’t think he should resign, I think he should be fired. He’s done a miserable job,” Grayson said. “He’s so far in over his head he’d have to reach up to touch his shoes.”

Grayson went on:

Full Story: Rep. Grayson Unleashes On Gibbs: “Bozo The Spokesman” (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).

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:

Real Video Stream

Real Audio Stream

MP3 Download

Full Story: “Reclaiming the Democratic Majority” – Progressive Activists Organize to Change Democrats in Congress.

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.

‘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.

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’.

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.

“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).

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.

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.

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.

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’.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Full Story: DPC Video.

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.

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.

Part 2

Part 3

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.

Grayson on the Floor attacks the Military Industrial Complex

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.

…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,

1. 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.
2. 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
3. We need size caps on the biggest banks in our financial system, preferably as a percent of GDP.
4. We should tighten capital requirements substantially.
5. 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.

…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.

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.

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).

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?

Full Story: Obama Pick for Budget Commission Is a Very Ominous Sign; A Social Security-Medicare Slasher | News & Politics | AlterNet.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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’.

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.