Democratic Congressman To Save Cancer Victim’s Home From Foreclosure by Union Bank

Despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, not every Democratic member of Congress is a spineless quivering blob. Note to Bluedogs worried about getting reelected: this is how to do it. Fight like a pit bull for your constituents instead shivering like a fear-maddened cur at the feet of your corporate overlords.
[The] progressive vision was on full display yesterday during a vigil led by Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) that halted, for now, the foreclosure of a cancer victim’s home. For months, Bonita, California resident Luz Maria Villanueva had been facing impending foreclosure on her home by Union Bank. Villanueva’s situation was especially dire due to the fact that her son has a kidney disease as well as cancer. As medical bills began to pile up, Villanueva had to choose between the life of her son and her home, and she chose her son....Comparing the struggle of families trying to keep their homes to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s which landed him in a Mississippi jail for two months, Filner announced that he’d be holding a community vigil on the steps of Villanueva’s house on the day a local sheriff was scheduled to come foreclose on her. He warned that doing so “may result” in his arrest, but that he was willing to risk it to help her save her home. Thanks to the publicity Filner and the surrounding community brought to the case, Union Bank decided to call off the foreclosure, for now.

The rest of the story: Bob Filner Risks Arrest To Save Cancer Victim’s Home From Foreclosure By Zaid Jilani on Sep 14th, 2010 at 2:09 p

Change Watch: In 2008, the Left sized up Barack Obama with all the critical acumen of prepubescent girls at a Justin Bieber concert

Is this the end of the affair?

During the late presidential campaign, if you asked progressive promoters of Barack Obama's ambitions did they favor maintaining the occupation of Iraq or expanding the war in Afghanistan or tossing missiles at Iran, the invariable answer was no. When it was pointed out that these positions were those of their candidate, the reply was always the same: some variation of, he's just saying that to get elected.

Do you support the death penalty? No. Your candidate does. He's just saying that to get elected. Do you think the wording of the second amendment invites everyone to pack a gun? No. Your candidate does. He's just saying that to get elected. Do you believe that affordable, universal health care -- single payer, Medicare For All, whatever you want to call it -- should be "off the table?" No. Your candidate does. Nah. He's just saying that to get elected.

The Obama campaign was remarkably light on specifics; instead empty slogans about "hope" and "change" offered thin soup to a populace that was starving for real change after enduring four decades of national decline. But Obama needed to keep things vague if he had a prayer of getting elected. Or so said progressive converts to the Church of Hope.

Having made an act of faith in Obama, the Left demanded nothing of Him in return, no firm plans to demilitarize, no programs advancing social and economic justice, no specifics about affordable universal health care, no loaves, no fishes. Missing was even a shred of the agnosticism that in 1964 prevented the New Left from going more than "Part of the Way with LBJ." In 2008, disorganized, demoralized, powerless, progressives fell on their knees before what they hoped was the messiah, really only a political televangelist with a promise we would all ride to Washington in a gold Cadillac if we'd just send him our money and take communion on election day.

Though some on the left are still ready to drink the KoolAid, a growing number of liberals have come to understand that the Obama administration is not the Second Coming of the New Deal. Shock and disappointment over Obama's performance as president has begun to give way to a realization that Obama is no more nor less than a professional politician, a breed that will dance to the playlist of whoever hires the dj. It's our job to turn the hoses on Obama just as we would on any errant politician (imagine the hoo-ha if it were President McCain destroying Afghanistan or giving away the store to Wall Street). "People," Ian Welsh wrote heatedly the other day (so heatedly, I felt obliged to clean up a few typos),
Obama is not and never has been a left winger. Nor is he a Nixonian or Eisenhower Republican; that would put him massively to the left of where he is and to the left of the majority of the Democratic party. Instead he is a Reaganite, something he told people repeatedly.

Until folks get it through their skulls that Obama is not and never was a liberal, a progressive or left wing in any way, shape or form they are going to continue misdiagnosing the problem. That isn’t to say Obama may or may not be a wimp, but he always compromises right, never left, and his compromises are minor. He always wanted tax cuts. He gave away the public option in private negotiations near the beginning of the HCR fight, not the end. He never even proposed an adequate stimulus bill. He bent arms, hard, to get TARP through.

He’s a Reaganite. It’s what he believes in, genuinely. Moreover, he despises left wingers, likes kicking gays and women whenever he gets a chance, and believes deeply and truly in the security state (you did notice that Obama administration told everyone to take their objections to backscatter scanners and groping and shove them where the sun don’t shine, then told you they’re thinking of extending TSA police state activities to other public transit?).

Let me put it even more baldly. Obama is, actually, a bad man. He didn’t do the right thing when he had a majority, and now that he has the excuse of a Republican House, he’s going to let them do bad thing after bad thing. This isn’t about “compromise," this is about doing what he wants to do anyway, like slashing social security. The Senate, you remember, voted down the catfood commission. Obama reinstituted it by executive fiat.

If the left doesn’t stand against Obama and doesn’t primary him, it stands for nothing and for nobody (Obama isn’t about compromise by Ian Welsh 2010-12-03).
It hardly matters, though, whether Obama is a good man or not. In politics, results are the bottom line; actions matter more than professed intentions. The president can get away with pursuing policies that are good for the oligarchs and bad for the majority, that hurt average Americans, that jeopardize the future of the country, because there are no effective counterweights to the power of the militarists and the corporations. The end of Don't Ask Don't Tell showed that organized action still can be effective, especially if the monetary stakes aren't high, but taking on the security state and the corporations is going to require a revolutionary change in our politics. Where possible, this will involve taking control of state and local Democratic Party structures. It will require adding muscle to existing organizations, like unions and progressive research and action groups, and building new ones, including a progressive political party unbeholden to corporate power. Coalition-building on a grand scale will be needed to maximize the strength of a very fragmented opposition. Small-scale, local political reforms -- publicly financed campaigns, instant runoffs, weekend voting, proportional representation -- will be essential to making political institutions more responsive.

Yes, the left must stand against Obama and "primary him" (there's a coinage for you). Someone with stature and credibility will have to make a career sacrifice in the primaries if the president is to be forced into issuing firm promises in exchange for votes (Howard Dean probably won't do it, though he has to be outraged by the administration's conservatism; Russ Feingold's idealism seems highly selective; but Dennis Kucinich might be willing to take on the apostate's role, especially if he is redistricted out of his seat in Congress -- it's not as though there'll be a job waiting for him in this administration's apolitical and corporatist cabinet).

But a primary challenge, though politically vital, is a loser (think Ted Kennedy vs  Jimmy Carter). The really difficult and really crucial challenge will come in the general election. The progressive majority in this country has to stop looking to the Democratic Party to get the country back on the track -- stretching from the Bill of Rights to the Great Society -- to expanding freedom, equality and economic justice. This is not your grandfather's Democratic Party, or your father's; it is fatally compromised, in the thrall of  a moneyed class that cares only to increase its dominion. To succeed, a progressive party would require sacrifice, dedication and long-term thinking. It might not win tomorrow (think John Fremont, although he did come in second*), but it is not hard to imagine that in crisis, and we are in crisis, it could transform our political landscape (think Abraham Lincoln). Even in the short run, as is demonstrated by the history of political organizations as diverse as the Socialist Party and New York's Liberals, the existence of a progressive alternative to business-as-usual would have a positive effect on our politics.  Barring a third party run by moneybags Michael Bloomberg, a candidate fronting a new progressive party would be a loser, too; but in the longer term, if our politics don't get more ideological (as distinct from partisan), our slow decline as a nation will not be reversed.

* And picture this: During the 1856 presidential campaign, Republican Fremont refused to answer charges that he was a Roman Catholic -- he wasn't -- because he did not wish to advance the cause of prejudice.

See, also:
Where Do Obama and Progressives Go From Here: Year-End Report by Mike Lux (Open Left 2010-12-22)
Barack Obama is NOT your boyfriend. Ergo, he didn't dump you. by Paul Rosenberg (Open Left 2010-12-06)
The Great Success of Partisan “Overreach” by Jon Walker (Fire Dog Lake 2010-12-24)
Real Family Values: Nine Progressive Policies to Support Our Families by Sarah van Gelder (YES! Magazine 2010-11-25)
Action, Hope, 2011 by Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation 2010-12-23)

Change Watch: The lame-duck session is about as good as it's going to get

With all appreciation due for the passage of START (thanks Sen. Kerry and Sen. Lugar),  the end of the cruel and ridiculous DADT policy (you, too, Sen. Reid and Sen. Lieberman), improved food safety, and watered-down health care for 9/11 responders, the extension of the Bush tax cuts makes clear that Congress is not ready to make the really tough decisions that would get the country moving again. As Kevin Drum wrote last month in Mother Jones (Willful Self Destruction 2010-11-30), "We need:
A big stimulus now aimed at infrastructure development. A credible plan to close the long-term deficit that acknowledges the need for tax increases to be part of the solution. A serious and sustained effort at reining in healthcare costs and broadening access. A collective decision to cut out the culture war nonsense and figure out how to improve our educational system with no more than modest spending increases. Real financial reform, not the weak tea of Dodd-Frank. Less spending on empire building and much, much more spending on real sustainable energy development and engineering.
Little to none of this will happen -- we'll be lucky to emerge from the next congress with Social Security and Medicare intact -- unless there is a revolutionary change in the way we conduct our political business. With Nancy Pelosi reduced to minority leader and the White House and the Senate dominated by conservatives and bogus pragmatists standing in the way of change, there is little hope of reversing our long, slow economic decline.

Decline of the Empire: Bemused, bothered and bewildered by the American security state

A Canadian writer's take on the U.S.'s current level of dysfunction:
The tech sector is the only thing America has going for it these days. (Unless you count crumbling infrastructure, runaway debt, paralyzed government, or a trillion-dollar military bogged down in pointless faraway non-wars.) Unfortunately, the American government seems too dumb to realize this: so they maintain stupid visa laws, while ignoring smart alternatives; keep playing fast-and-loose, at best, with net neutrality; and, oh yes, plan to wiretap (and—thanks to Wikileaks—censor) the entire Internet, at great cost, apparently in the hope that bad guys will never discover the magic of public-key encryption.
The rest of the story: Letter From Canada: Why Is America So Furious About Wikileaks? by Jon Evans (TechCrunch 2010-12-11).

Politics: The Obama-McConnell tax plan

"The tax cut deal rewards Republican obstructionism by giving the wealthy the tax breaks they demanded. It throws away precious resources needed for investments in jobs and our economy on upper income tax cuts that will do very little to propel economic growth—setting up excuses for the deficit hypocrites to argue for even more cuts to programs serving working families. It lards the tax cuts for the top 2 percent with an indefensible cut in the estate tax – giving yet another bonus to the super-rich. Taken together, this package locks in the growing income inequality that has plagued our country for at least another two years – and quite possibly much longer.

"It is unconscionable that the price of support for struggling middle class families and workers who have been unable to find jobs for months and months and months is yet more giveaways for our country’s wealthiest families. Millions of jobless workers have lived in fear for months while Senate Republicans had the gall to use their hardships as political leverage for the benefit of the rich.

"The gains for the middle class and jobless workers in the deal come at too high a price." -- AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

Busting the Filibuster: The Democrats should call the GOP's bluff

The Democrats are still letting the minority Republicans control the U.S. Senate.

In two votes this week, a majority of senators -- 53 -- voted to advance the Democratic agenda on revenue. The first would have let expire the so-called Bush tax cuts for individuals with incomes above $200,000 (and for couples filing jointly and earning more than $250,000 a year). The second, even though, ridiculously, it would have extended the middle class tax cuts to those making up to $1 million a year, also fell 7 votes short of 60. Because neither bill achieved the magic number needed to stop a filibuster should there be one, they were considered unpassable.

Apparently, the Senate leadership never even considered forcing the GOP to put up or shut up. Would the Republicans really bring their thermoses and sleeping bags into the upper chamber to fight for tax breaks for the super-rich and against tax relief for the middle class? Maybe. But even if they did, it's hard to envision how it could hurt the Democrats. Anymore than it is hard to see how the Democratic Party would suffer if Pres. Obama were to announce today that he will veto any tax bill that includes extending the giveaways to the rich.

In a better world, the Senate would adopt the House bill providing tax cuts for middle and working class Americans, filibuster be damned.

(Update: Sam Stein thinks "that the president is not only done ceding any more policy turf to the GOP with respect to tax cut negotiations but willing to let rates expire if Republican don't temper their demands" (Obama Tells Dems He'll Oppose Tax Cut Deal Without Unemployment Benefits, Other Relief -- Huffington Post 2010-12-04). Let's hope the president does get tough finally, but I'm glad not to have any money riding on it.)

Decline of The Empire: Wikileaks hounded?

Here's a statement on the vilification of Wikileaks from Reporters Without Borders that one might have liked to have seen -- might once upon a time reasonably have expected to see -- on the editorial page of the New York Times or in a statement from the news networks:
Reporters Without Borders condemns the blocking, cyber-attacks and political pressure being directed at cablegate.wikileaks.org, the website dedicated to the US diplomatic cables. The organization is also concerned by some of the extreme comments made by American authorities concerning WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.

Earlier this week, after the publishing several hundred of the 250.000 cables it says it has in its possession, WikiLeaks had to move its site from its servers in Sweden to servers in the United States controlled by online retailer Amazon. Amazon quickly came under pressure to stop hosting WikiLeaks from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and its chairman, Sen. Joe Lieberman, in particular.

After being ousted from Amazon, WikiLeaks found a refuge for part of its content with the French Internet company OVH. But French digital economy minister Eric Besson today said the French government was looking at ways to ban hosting of the site. WikiLeaks was also recently dropped by its domain name provider EveryDNS. Meanwhile, several countries well known for for their disregard of freedom of expression and information, including Thailand and China, have blocked access to cablegate.wikileaks.org.

This is the first time we have seen an attempt at the international community level to censor a website dedicated to the principle of transparency. We are shocked to find countries such as France and the United States suddenly bringing their policies on freedom of expression into line with those of China. We point out that in France and the United States, it is up to the courts, not politicians, to decide whether or not a website should be closed.

Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Ensign and Scott Brown, and an independent Lieberman, have introduced a bill that would make it illegal to publish the names of U.S. military and intelligence agency informants. This could facilitate future prosecutions against WikiLeaks and its founder. But a criminal investigation is already under way and many U.S. politicians are calling vociferously for Assange’s arrest.

Reporters Without Borders can only condemn this determination to hound Assange and reiterates its conviction that WikiLeaks has a right under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment to publish these documents and is even playing a useful role by making them available to journalists and the greater public.

We stress that any restriction on the freedom to disseminate this body of documents will affect the entire press, which has given detailed coverage to the information made available by WikiLeaks, with five leading international newspapers actively cooperating in preparing it for publication.

Reporters Without Borders would also like to stress that it has always defended online freedom and the principle of “Net neutrality,” according to which Internet Service Providers and hosting companies should play no role in choosing the content that is placed online.
For other aspects of the Wikileaks story:
Full coverage of The US embassy cables on the guardian.co.uk site;
BBC News' Wikileaks revelations;
WikiLeaked: Inside the State Department's Secret CablesCredit MacLeod Cartoons http://macleodcartoons.blogspot.com/ at Foreign Policy's blog;
Wiki Leaks on Democracy Now!;
One Analyst, So Many Documents: How could Bradley Manning alone have leaked so much classified material? by Marc Ambinder;
US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment by Simon Jenkins;
The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange by David Samuels;
Wikileaks Evolves by Raffi Khatchadourian;
WikiLeaks reveals more than just government secrets, The moral standards of WikiLeaks critics and other Salon posts by Glenn Greenwald;
WikiLeaks vs. The Empire by Tom Hayden;
Hillary Clinton Gets Wiki-Served by Robert Scheer;
The (Not So) Secret (Anymore) US War in Pakistan by Jeremy Scahill;
Greg Mitchell's Blogging the Wikileaks;
WL Central: An unofficial WikiLeaks information resource.


Visit MacLeod Cartoons.

Economy: Does renewing Bush tax breaks for the richest Americans make sense?

Not so much.

Since the 1970s, the rich have gotten vastly richer, the poor have become more numerous, and the middle class has shrunk in size and net worth. At the same time, Americans of all classes, hypnotized by propaganda about the "greatest country in the world," continue to misjudge wildly how inequitably wealth is distributed in this country. And when you ask how wealth should be allocated, Americans come up with something that looks a lot more like western Europe than the United States.
The gap between what we believe and what is
[The top row depicts actual U.S. wealth distribution. The middle row shows what we imagine wealth distribution is. And the bottom row reflects what we think wealth distribution ought properly to be. On the first line, by the way, the .3% of the nation's wealth that is in the hands of the bottom 40% of the population is too insignificant to be represented on the chart. Source: Building a Better America – One Wealth Quintile at a Time by Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely.]

"There Is a War Being Waged Against the Working Families of America"
Absent a realistic understanding of how our nation's wealth is distributed, it isn't entirely surprising that we continue to vote in to office politicians who fail to represent our interests, who in fact for decades have pursued policies that have made the situation worse. How badly most of us are represented was made apparent the other day when Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist from Vermont, rose to address the U.S. Senate:


See, also: Anti-poverty effort good for everybody by David DeWitt (The Athens News 2010-11-11).

Economy: In the middle of the worst economic decline in over 80 years, we need fiscal stimuli, not fiscal austerity

In the political current climate, mainstream Keynesianism, as espoused by economists such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, has come to seem almost left-wing. Is the Keynesian critique of austerity correct, and is a return to Keynesianism what we need?
Keynesianism only seems left-wing because the center has caved rightward. First, even a Nobel Prize does not protect one from ostracism by the mainstream of the economics profession today if you persist in dispensing Keynesian wisdom and challenge the assumption that unfettered markets always know best. As hard as this may be for non-economists to believe, Stiglitiz and Krugman are now persona non grata within the economics profession. Second, in the 1950s and 60s even Tories and Republicans had to begrudgingly accede to the wisdom of financial regulation and Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies. But that day is long past. Now even Labour and Democrats buy into the myth that markets, including financial markets, can be relied on to self-regulate, and governments must engage in fiscal austerity when recessions create temporary budget deficits. When the center caves right, center left appears to be left.

There are two important lessons to be drawn. (1) While socialists should not have to lead the charge for Keynesian policies to ameliorate capitalist crises, unfortunately that is the position we find ourselves in. Right now we must not only do our own work – explaining why all versions of capitalism are far less desirable than participatory, democratic socialism – but do the work of Keynesian reformers as well who have lost influence in all major political parties. (2) There is no point in trying to explain to Tories and Republicans why their policies are flawed. They have chosen to embrace ill-advised, discredited, nineteenth century economic policies because these policies serve their most important purpose – further pressing the class war they have been winning for more than three decades. Their first instinct when a crisis hits is not to search for policies that would actually solve the crisis. Instead they search their “wish list” for ways to take advantage of the crisis to press for changes that serve their class interests – further cuts in social spending, further concessions regarding wages, benefits, and working conditions, more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, and of course more corporate welfare like the bailouts doled out to the financial industry. The fact that every one of these policies will only deepen the current crisis is of no concern to them.

When capitalism proves completely incapable of putting our productive potential to good use what is called for is replacing capitalism with socialism. A return to Keynesianism would be to settle for only part of a loaf, and leave us vulnerable to another counter revolutionary roll back of hard won gains, like the one we have been living through. However, unless I am pleasantly surprised, and leftists can win the loyalty and support of a majority of the population for replacing capitalism with socialism much sooner than I foresee, there is no road to participatory, democratic socialism that does not run through many successful reform campaigns to bring Keynesian policies back in vogue.
The rest of the story: Digging In A Hole -- Robin Hahnel, economics professor at American University and author of Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation and, with Michael Albert, of The Political Economy of Participatory Economics, discusses the continuing mismanagement of the economic crisis in the UK, Ireland and the US with Alex Doherty of New Left Project.

Must read: Freezing Out Hope by Paul Krugman -- After the pummeling in the midterm elections, has President Obama suffered a moral collapse?

quote unquote: Eisenhower on militarism



"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." -- Dwight David Eisenhower

TSA Excesses: Sometimes you just gotta laugh

The Long War: Without lies, could ruling elites justify their wars?

The Real News interviews David Swanson on his new book War Is A Lie, a much-needed counterweight to the mass of disinformation that distorts our understanding of American politics and history. For the United States, war is an economic enterprise, enormously profitable for those engaged in it, crushingly expensive for the rest of us. We didn't listen when Eisenhower warned us about the danger we faced from military-industrial power. It will be interesting to see if, after 40 years of increasing control over American life, corporate power can be arrested now.
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A coalition of antiwar groups has proposed a major action for April 9, 2011.

Media: The Maddow/Stewart Interview Uncut

Rachel Maddow and John Stewart had a conversation Thursday night that was comparable to the sort of intelligent, respectful, uncontentious dialogue that was the staple of Bill Moyers's Journal (it wouldn't be a bad thing if the too-often-smug Maddow morphed into a philosopher-journalist along the lines of the greatly missed Moyers). For his part though, Stewart still doesn't get why the Left objected to his characterization at the Can't We All Just Get Along Rally of conservative and liberal as opposite sides of the same coin. He's probably right that it may be more effective rhetoric to describe George W. Bush, say, as engaging in criminal acts than it is to call him a criminal. But if Stewart's intention was, as he says, to turn down the heat of partisan debate in the media, he didn't get the job done.

This may be a product of bad analysis. Stewart misreads Fox News, for example, when he argues that the network isn’t a partisan organization. In fact, Fox is the marketing division of the Republican Party, speaking in the same voice as the Party of No in its opposition to anything proposed by the White House or the Democratic leadership in Congress no matter how closely those proposals hew to free market or other traditionally conservative ideological positions. There are interesting conservative arguments to be made in favor of communitarian approaches to issues like taxes, the environment, foreign policy, military spending, and so on, but you won't hear them articulated on Fox. A news network with a conservative ideological bent would find much to like in Barack Obama's pro-corporate approach to governing, for example, but not Fox (in 2008, you couldn't go to a Democratic rally without tripping over conservatives for Obama); Fox isn't interested in ideology, just politics, specifically in advancing the fortunes of the Republican Party.

In any event, the thoughtful and, more unusually, civil exchange between Maddow and Stewart was a pleasure to watch. Stewart may even be correct that Maddow's use of comedy to illustrate points on her show may be counter-productive. If last night's conversation is any example, her pleasant personality may be enough to get the audience to sit still for explications of complex or controversial ideas. She doesn't need schtick.

No Comment Department: Safe Streets

From the BicycleLaw.com blog:
In the Netherlands, the law imposes a rebuttable presumption of liability on drivers -- if a motorist is involved in a crash with a cyclist, the law presumes that the motorist is liable for the crash, unless the motorist can rebut that presumption with evidence to the contrary. The reason for this shift is that the Dutch recognized that the cyclist will virtually always be the injured party in a collision with an automobile, and by putting the onus of fault on the driver, have provided motorists with a powerful legal incentive to pay more attention to the presence of cyclists.

It needed to be said: The Rally to Restore Sanity was about nothing

As the absurd Keith Olbermann contretemps underscored, the idea of Left-Right equivalency is a fantasy, a right wing myth deliberately fabricated by the same conservative disinformation machine that has driven our politics increasingly fringeward. As Jon Stewart surely knows, there is no Liberal media conspiracy, no death panels, no $200M-a-day trips to the Taj Mahal, no Socialist in the White House, blah blah & blah. For Stewart to position himself equidistant between the Left and Right is to do a disservice to the very political sanity he was nominally attempting to revive. As Bill Maher put it on his show the other night:
The message of the rally, as I heard it, was that if the media stopped giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side forgetting that Obama tried that and found out...there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said the national conversation was dominated by people on the Right who believe Obama's a Socialist and people on the Left who believe 9/11's an inside job, but I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11's an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's a Socialist? All of them.
Here's the full clip:

The rest of the story: The Left vs. Jon Stewart? by Nick Baumann (Mother Jones 2010-11-08).

Activism: The United States is at the crossroads.

We will come out of the next two years a very different country, one way or the other. If we continue on as we have since the early 1970s, the forces of reaction will complete the incrementally paced revolution that has enabled the corporate elite and the super-rich to appropriate an ever greater share of public wealth and power. Or they will be stopped, and the nation will get back on the path to expanded freedom, justice, and equality that leads from the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights through Emancipation and universal suffrage to Social Security and Medicare.

The corporations relied on fear and ignorance to win the latest round. The next round could be the last.

Although some members of Congress are wholeheartedly committed to the struggle for political and economic reform, most elected officials in both parties are too compromised or too timid to be counted on as allies in this struggle.

Alternative organizations are needed to develop new leaders, to formulate new solutions, and to fight fear and ignorance. Many progressive institutions already exist, of course, from foundations, research centers, academic journals, magazines, newspapers and websites, to activist groups organized around action against war or poverty or in favor of affordable universal health care or equal rights -- People for the American Way, the makers of this video, is one, and there are many others on the links section to the left of this page -- but all their efforts together have not added up to nearly enough. We may need to develop new organizations. We may need to merge existing outfits into bigger entities. We may need umbrella groups to help existing institutions better work together. We may need to form a progressive political party. But, for sure, more people must participate if the resistance to corporate power is to succeed. This means you -- joining, funding and actively spreading the word about the fight for progressive values.

Economic Policy: Foreclosuregate in 30 seconds

At Mother Jones, Andy Kroll neatly summarizes the complex mess otherwise known as "Foreclosuregate:"
You've got "robo signers," the mortgage servicing employees who scrawled their signatures on hundreds of thousands of crucial legal filings without knowing what they said (violating federal rules), and "foreclosure mills," the full-steam-ahead law firms that cut corners and allegedly broke the law in foreclosing on homeowners quick and dirty (and are now facing multiple investigations). There's trusts and mortgage-backed securities and securitization itself. The list goes on and on.
Or, he says, you can cut to the heart of the problem as Damon Silvers, policy director at the AFL-CIO and member of the bailout watchdog Congressional Oversight Panel, did in recent  testimony:

The Right's disinformation machine: "It must be true. I read it on the Internets"

If the truth will set you free, what will lies do for you?

2010: A mind-clearing exercise for an election day morning

Ralph Nader discusses what's at stake in the midterm elections in an interview on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.

Democracy Now! election results live tonight at 8pm (eastern): http://ow.ly/337rp
Twitter: follow #FSvote.

2010: Friends don't let friends vote Republican

Vote. By all means, vote. Just don't vote for Republicans.

California: 2010

Since the Ballot Initiative to End Ballot Initiatives is not on the ballot again this year, here's what we're left with:
Propositions
(summarized here by the California Voter Guide):

Prop 19
would legalize and permit the taxation of marijuana. Pot should never have been criminalized in the first place, and you'd have to be stoned not to be outraged at how racist has been the prohibition's application. In addition to being worthwhile on its merits, adoption of Prop 19 might help to bring about a cessation of the failed War on Drugs. Though it was initially very popular, a lot of money has been spent by the Right and the political establishment to defeat Prop 19; we'll see on Tuesday whether George Soros' last minute $1M donation to the proponents of legalization funded a push back in the last week big enough to stem the tide of misrepresentation, misinformation and fear. YES.

Prop 20, written by a right wing multi-millionaire activist with the intent of further reducing democratic control over redistricting (in California that means, in effect, weakening Democratic control over redistricting), would give the power to draw the boundaries of the state's electoral districts to a panel of 14 randomly selected volunteers who, bizarrely, must, by law, have no experience in government or real-life redistricting. Not that California shouldn't end gerrymandering, but this is just nuts. NO.

Prop 21 is a holding action to save the state's long-neglected parks, which are in danger of being shut down if the measure fails. Public goods like libraries and parks should be paid for out of general revenues, but until we have fair and responsible taxing in California, we need to keep public services going. Prop 21 would establish stable funding for the park system, improve bicycle access and, for most vehicles, provide free admission to the state's 248 parks by introducing a new and unfortunately regressive tax in the form of an $18 registration surcharge on most vehicle registrations. If this proposition fails, you will see plans to privatize park administration or to divest parkland entirely. This is a reluctant but crucially important YES.

Prop 22 is ridiculous; as the LATimes says, it asks voters to referee a dispute between local and state politicians: go do your jobs, people. The measure would bar California from delaying payments to local agencies for transit, public services and redevelopment, the kinds of projects so dear to local pols; but it is being opposed by professional firefighters, the California Teachers Assn. and other worthies because they fear its passage would also result in further cuts to education and public safety. So, NO.

Prop 23. Let's see. Big Texas oil firms, Valero and Tesoro, put this on the ballot and are shelling out millions of dollars in deceptive advertising in an effort to repeal California's landmark global warming legislation and wreck the state's burgeoning clean energy economy. A job killer and a boon to polluters. Um, NO.

Prop 24 "Repeals Recent Legislation That Would Allow Businesses to Carry Back Losses, Share Tax Credits, and Use a Sales-Based Income Calculation to Lower Taxable Income." In other words, Prop 24 jettisons some ill-considered and unnecessary tax breaks affecting a minority of businesses and returns $1.3 billion a year to the state coffers for the next three years, so it seems like a no-brainer. But this is the just the sort of policy-making that should never be the subject of a ballot measure. Only the Legislature can fully assess the pros and cons of budget and tax proposals and weigh the outcome of one set of policy variables against others. This initiative uses a battle mace for an operation that requires a scalpel. If the proposal fails, the Ledge still has time to do what it should have done in the first place: consider these taxes deliberately in open hearings. A reluctant No.

Prop 25, establishing majority rule over the state budget, is long overdue. It would eliminate the requirement of a 2/3 super-majority in the Legislature to pass the annual state budget. Unfortunately, it will leave intact the 2/3 requirement for raising taxes, meaning the crazy right wing minority in the Ledge will still be able to stymie rational budgeting. What good is it to tell legislators they must pass a budget, then not give them the tools to do it responsibly? All the good government types (League of Women Voters, et al) support this proposal. Both fair-tax advocates and anti-tax cranks say that Prop 25 is a doorway reform that will result ultimately in a recalibration of property tax laws to correct the unfair advantage given to corporations by Prop 13. This would be a swell outcome, but unlikely; if 25  passes, it will make it even easier to defend Prop 13's inequities with emotional appeals to "no new taxes." If 25 is defeated, the reform movement will be forced to come back next time with a proposal that restores democracy to both budgeting and taxing; linked as it should be to budget reform, the democratization of the revenue side of state financing would have a much better chance of passing. Without democratic taxing, rational budgeting will still be all but impossible. So I'm casting a very reluctant NO, but acknowledge that the argument that a small step is better than none is not without merit.

Prop 26 is another right-wing special interest play, this time with the goal of shielding environmental criminals from legal remedies by subjecting certain fees and penalties to the 2/3 rule. If you don't like Prop 23, you're really going to hate 26.  It's a wrong answer to the perennial question of who pays for environmental clean-ups, taxpayers or polluters. The corporate swineherds have found that it is much cheaper to stick us with their bills by spending a few tens of millions of dollars on ballot initiatives than it is to clean up their messes themselves. Privatize profits, socialize problems: it's the American Way. A lot of out-of-state oil money is being spent on this one, too. NO.

Prop 27 would eliminate the "nonpolitical" redistricting commission, a dubious reform adopted by the voters two years ago that would in effect empower shadowy experts and power brokers, and instead restore redistricting to the hands of democratically elected representatives. Prop 27 has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party, the California Labor Federation, the teachers' union, the state's biggest conservation group and other trustworthy folks. 27 will cost less than the commission to administer, provides voters with the authority to reject proposed district boundary maps, and requires populations of all districts for the same office to be the same size. As an added bonus, if it gets more votes than Prop 20 it also renders that odious contraption moot. YES.

Governor: Jerry Brown
: He has his limitations, but he is the best choice by far.

Senator: Although Barbara Boxer is infinitely superior to Carly Fiorina, the truth is that the incumbent senator has been an uninspiring backbencher rather than a leader. I plan on voting for Marsha Feinland, the Peace & Freedom Party candidate. Aside from being the better choice on issues, a vote for her will help keep the Peace & Freedom Party on the ballot. Plus, in the astronomically unlikely event that she won, Bernie Sanders would be less lonely and the upper house could sport a Socialist Caucus.

Congress: As John Nichols writes in The Nation, there is one race in California, between Speaker Nancy Pelosi and John Dennis, a Libertarian running on the GOP line, where reform-minded voters could have a real impact.  Dennis' Randian economic casuistries would be irksome if they weren't so wildly impractical and, well, radical. But his unrealizable ambitions for the economy are insignificant when weighed against the very real excesses of the Democrats' foreign military adventurism and domestic assaults of civil liberties. My guess is the political beliefs of a majority of the district's inhabitants are better represented by Dennis (he endorses Prop 19, for example) than Pelosi.

On military policy, Dennis favors "ending both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and withdrawing our troops as safely and quickly as possible....I do not believe that our troops should be forced to be policemen of the world. Our troops, first and foremost, should protect Americans where they live—in America."
Ironically, given that he is running against the legislator-in-chief, Dennis's stance would serve to strengthen the power of the legislature vis-à-vis the executive: "The Constitution is clear on who bears the responsibility of the power to declare war, i.e., the Congress. I am strongly opposed to Congress passing resolutions granting the president the authority to use force. Unless there is an imminent attack, the Congress should never disregard its constitutional obligation over the war power. A decision to declare war requires debate, a process that clarifies the country’s situation and leaves a clear conscience whatever is decided."

Progressives like former San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Matt Gonzalez, and Cindy Sheehan who challenged Pelosi in 2008 and could have usefully run again this year, are speaking favorably of Dennis who is, as the San Francisco Chronicle put it, "running to the left" of Pelosi. On matters of militarism and civil liberties, he certainly is: "The Constitution was written to restrict the actions of the government, not individuals. That is why we call ours a limited government. Unfortunately, American political vocabulary is filled with a lexicon of different types of liberty: civil liberty, economic liberty, sexual liberty, financial liberty, etc. Yet, in the end, there is only liberty. And if we support some types of liberty but not others, ultimately we will be left without liberty at all." This would just be so much rhetoric, though, if it wasn't reduced to specifics: Dennis opposes "warrantless wiretaps," "the creation of extra-judicial systems to deal with enemy combatants," "waterboarding and other forms of torture," and calls for respecting "the 800-year foundation of the law embodied in the principle of habeas corpus."

Closer to home, in the 30th CD where Henry Waxman is unbeatable, a vote for his opponent offers an opportunity for progressives who don't want to risk losing a seat to the Party of No to still cast their ballot for a peace candidate, Peace & Freedom's Richard Castaldo, who as a bonus is also critical of Waxman's sellout of Medicare for All. There is no palatable alternative to imperialist warmonger Jane Harman in the 35th, although the Libertarian entrant, Herb Peters, does include "Bring Home Troops; End Treacherous Wars" in his platform (I'm assuming what seems to be a promise to "out" the U.S. Constitution is a typo).

Many progressives are mad at the Democrats and at Barack Obama for not aggressively pursuing a more liberal agenda. In his campaign for president, though, Obama never -- well, except for the implications of that whole "change" business, Obama never promised to be anything more than the centrist he has governed as. And by now, after 40 years of feckless leadership, unless you live politics like Bill Murray lives "Ground Hog Day" starting out fresh every other November as if it was a new beginning, you know that the Democrats are not going to challenge the corporate oligarchy any more strenuously than the GOP will. If you expected more of the Democrats than they've delivered, it's probably more realistic to blame your own naivete. Real change will come only when people -- collectively -- demand it. That means building a movement that can't be ignored, that can't be defeated, that can fight with a reasonable possibility of victory. Don't get mad, as Joe Hill didn't say. Organize!

Where possible in races for Congress and local offices, it seems to me in our best long-term interest to give support to third parties. With the country increasingly militarized, the infrastructure suffering forty years of neglect, education and other public services falling apart or closing down, the economy in decline, the Bill of Rights under attack, and economic justice ever further out of reach, it's hard to buy the argument that we owe any particular allegiance to the Democrats, beyond thanks for programs, like Social Security and Medicare, now generations old. A vote for a Green, P&Fer or independent is a reminder to the Democratic Party that there is a constituency for change that it needs to court if it expects to win close contests. In addition, local offices are terrific venues for political experimentation and training, and third party office holders can be counted on to support campaign finance and electoral reform (instant run-offs, proportional representation, etc.). In the event that there is an opportunity for radical political change in the future, the existence of third party lines on the ballot could be vital.

quote unquote: more Lincoln on political virtue

"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have." - Abraham Lincoln

Change Watch: Excuses, excuses.

President Obama's defenders claim that his administration's failure to turn his campaign promises into policy should be laid at the door of  an obstructionist legislature and "the party of no." Jane Hamsher has been asking what actions Obama can and should take now as chief executive that require no action by Congress. Responses: Glenn Greenwald here; Alan Grayson here; James Galbraith here; Bill Black here.

2010: Barbara Boxer is lucky in her opponent

It's beginning to look like California may be the only parish to dodge the teabagger onslaught on Nov 2:

Well, okay, and maybe New York.

2010: Triangulation -- third way, bipartisanship -- was a mistake.

How different this election season would have been if two years ago the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership had come out with guns blazing. Affordable, universal health care -- Medicare for all. Meaningful financial regulation. A stimulus program built around job creation, infrastructure spending, and protection of state and local governments. These are the specifics of "hope" and "change."
What I hear on the ground is, people didn't say you went too far on health care. They say "You didn't do enough. You should have had a public option. You should have had this; you should have had that. You didn't go too far on job creation, you should have created more jobs." No one has said to me, "You know, Rich, you guys went too far in regulating Wall Street." Most people want to tar and feather them for what they have done. -- AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka
The rest of the story: Trumka: Primarying Lincoln Was 'Priceless', Dems Will Realize Their Timidity by Sam Stein (Huffinton Post 2010-10-05).

Politics: Those Wacky Republicans - a series

Here's an Alabama Republican state senate candidate with the least-needed policy proposal ever: Castrate Democrats.

YouTube

Politics: The End of Democracy?

Since the sixties, one party -- systematically and untiringly -- has sought to delegitimize democracy. Have we reached the tipping point?:
As a result of a twenty-eight-year-long deregulatory spree, we've reached the point where it's painfully difficult for government to undo the damage done to our economic infrastructure by a few thousand millionaires and billionaires playing Monopoly.

And the destructive shift of power in this shift in cultural assumptions isn't just limited to the economy. We have reached the point in the United States where corporatism has nearly triumphed over democracy. If events continue on their current trajectory, the ability of our government to respond to the needs and desires of humans -- things like fresh water, clean air, uncontaminated food, independent local media, secure retirement, and accessible medical care -- may vanish forever, effectively ending the world's second experiment with democracy. We will have gone too far down Mussolini's road, and most likely will encounter similar consequences, elements of which we have already experienced: a militarized police state, a government unresponsive to its citizens and obsessed with secrecy, a ruling elite drawn from the senior ranks of the nations largest corporations, and war.
From Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture (2009) by Thom Hartman.
It ought to be shocking to anyone that in the wake of the recession the number of Americans living in poverty has jumped to 44 million -- one in seven citizens is now living below the poverty line, more than at any time in the past 50 years. More specifically, one in five American children, more than a quarter of African Americans and Latinos, and over 51% of female-headed families with children under 6 is impoverished. According to poverty expert Peter Edelman, 19 million people are now living in "extreme poverty," defined as under 50 percent of the poverty line, or $11,000 for a family of four. "That means over 43 percent of the poor are extremely poor."

But Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, argues there are ways to attack the problem:
Half in Ten, a coalition working to cut poverty by half in 10 years, is pushing Congress to renew the TANF Emergency Fund, which is set to expire on Thursday. Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have used the program to provide 250,000 low-income and long-term unemployed workers with subsidized jobs. The coalition is also pushing to make the Obama administration's Recovery Act reforms to the child tax credit and the earned-income tax credit permanent. These progressive policies keep families from falling into poverty and reduce long-term costs such as crime, public benefits and lost consumption. Estimates of costs associated with childhood poverty run at $500 billion annually, or 4 percent of gross domestic product.
The rest of the story: As 44 million Americans live in poverty, a crisis grows by Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Washington Post 2010-09-28).

Politics: There'll be no hope of "change" until we change the system

Historian Paul Street is interviewed by Truthout's Mickey Z.

Independent policy researcher, historian, journalist, activist, political commentator and speaker Paul Street harks back to the day of the public intellectual, a quaint time when facts and reasoned analysis were essential components of our political life.
Mickey Z.: So much of the American experience is based on myths like the two-party system, "land of opportunity," and more. How do you offer a more nuanced view of US history in your work?

Paul Street: I agree on the power of those great American myths and would add some other and related ones: the notion that the United States is a benevolent force for democracy and good in the world; the idea that that the profits system is a form of freedom and democracy; the myth that we can achieve significant democratic change simply by voting in quadrennial corporate-crafted and candidate-centered elections; the notion that we live in a "post-racial" era wherein racism has been mostly defeated; the myth of an independent and objective media. What I try to do to explode these and other key national legends is fairly similar to what you and other American dissidents like Bill Blum and Noam Chomsky and the late Howard Zinn do. I try to rescue from what E.P. Thompson called "the enormous condescension of posterity" (and from what George Orwell termed "the memory hole") some of the many inconvenient facts that do not fit the official narrative imposed by the dominant fables. And I try to fit the doctrinally inappropriate alternative facts into a compelling, accurate counter-narrative that links past to present and vice versa.
Read Obama, Democracy and the "Drum Major Instinct": Interview With Author Paul Street by Mickey Z. (Truthout 2010-09-28).

Books b Paul Street:
The Empire's New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (2010); Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (2008); Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History (2007); Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in Post-Civil Rights America (2005); Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Cultural Politics & the Promise of Democracy) (2004).

The Long War: Just end it.

Bob Woodward reports that Pres. Obama made the political decision to announce a date certain for withdrawal from Afghanistan out of fear of angering the base if he left the impression that the adventure is open ended. This is being taken in some quarters as evidence of the left's influence on policy. But there is nothing to suggest that the pledge to withdraw is anything more than dressing up as Gandhi for Halloween: the loose costume leaves plenty of wiggle room.

If the left really wants to influence the Democratic Party, there are ways. 1. Contribute and work for members of Congress who have a record of opposing the war. And only them. Do not work for or contribute to any candidate who actively supports militarism. 2. Contribute to and work for -- and field -- primary challengers to Blue Dogs and other Democrats representing the Pentagon and the security state. 3. When no antiwar Democrat is available, support libertarians like Ron Paul who are willing take on military spending, no matter what party colors they sport. 4. Support -- and vote for -- third party candidates who make opposition to the war machine central to their campaign. In California, for example, the Peace & Freedom Party offers to disgruntled Democrats third party candidates for Congress who are not only antiwar, but as a bonus also favor policies promoting economic justice.

2010: Bye Bye Boehner?

It could happen.


Even though the Democrats apparently have settled on running against "Speaker Boehner" as their principle strategy for November, the national party has offered no help to its candidate in Ohio's 8th district. Justin Coussoule has been forced to rely almost entirely on small contributions from rank & file Democrats, but, as blogger Howie Klein reported, the returns
are minuscule compared to the $4,504,493 Boehner’s campaign has collected so far this year. And we’ve begged the DCCC and the DNC for help. We could have been begging the NRCC and the RNC. They flatly refused every time. Even apart from the serious problem sleazy sugar industry shill and DCCC power-behind-the-throne Debbie Wasserman Schultz has with veterans and with progressives, the DCCC is determined to spend all the money they suck out of concerned Democrats on the actual Blue Dogs who have voted most frequently against the Democratic agenda and crossed the aisle to vote with Boehner– reprehensible anti-Choice, antigay, anti-reform, anti-healthcare conservatives like Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD), Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL), Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID), Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS), Mark Critz (Blue Dog-PA), Harry Mitchell (Blue Dog-AZ), and Chris Carney (Blue Dog-PA). Financial help for Alan Grayson? Not. One. Dime. Financial help for Justin Coussoule? Well, they don’t even invite him to Democratic events down the road from his own home.

Thank God for independent-minded Members of Congress like Alan Grayson, Barney Frank, Raul Grijalva, Henry Waxman, Bob Filner, Earl Blumenauer, Mary Jo Kilroy and Betty Sutton and for organizations like the AFL-CIO, DFA, Vet-PAC and People For the American Way, who have endorsed Justin and have been trying to help him get his message across.
The Clinton HRC Legacy PAC has given him its endorsement and is working on his behalf.

Justin Coussoule has a real chance to defeat John Boehner. Click on the banner if you'd like to help:
boehner

Change Watch: Forget "hope." Get mad as hell -- and do something about it.

Change, as we may have finally learned for good in 2008, is more than a matter of electing sweet-talking liberals. Bringing permanent change to this nation, in the form of economic and social justice, will take a lot of dedicated effort by many thousands of ordinary people. Jamie Court's new book, "The Progressive's Guide to Raising Hell," shows how. Using examples of actions that have succeeded in the past, Court has created a handbook for citizen activists to use at every level of government. When he was president, Franklin Roosevelt once met with a group of activists who pressed him to adopt a variety of reforms. "I agree with you, I want to do it," FDR said, "now make me do it." Court shows how to lead the way. The "leaders" will follow.

Buy The Progressive's Guide to Raising Hell: How to Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws, and Get the Change We Voted For -- A Direct Democracy Toolkit by Jamie Court.

Reproductive Health: Programs and policies that could actually lessen the need for abortion.

Here, from an article on RH Reality Check, are a few simple actions that if taken would be guaranteed to result in fewer untimely pregnancies, and hence fewer abortions:
1. Make long-acting, effective reversible birth control methods like IUDs available free of charge to any women who want them. These birth control methods are effective for 5 to 10 years and don’t require a woman to remember to do anything in order to be protected from pregnancy. They can be used by women of any age. If a woman wants to get pregnant, she simply has the IUD removed and her normal fertility returns. This birth control method is widely used in Europe, but quite expensive and less frequently used in this country.

2. Cover all reproductive health care including all methods of birth control, infertility, tubal ligation, and vasectomy, under affordable health insurance.

3. Create excellent and affordable childcare so that women who want to have children can also make a living to support them.

4. Make sure young people learn how to create successful relationships as well as how to be responsible with their sexuality. That will give them the tools to create healthy families and be good parents with enough resources to care for their kids when the time is right.

5. Promote vasectomy as a very safe and inexpensive method of permanent birth control for men. This would be especially helpful for couples who have completed their families so that a late and unexpected pregnancy doesn’t throw everyone into emotional turmoil.

6. Increase research into developing safer, more effective and long lasting methods of birth control.

7. Make sure the Morning After Treatment is easily available, inexpensive, and covered by health care insurance.

8. Require by law that all pharmacies either fill prescriptions for birth control and Morning After Treatment, or else inform over the phone, in advertisements, and by posted signs that they are Anti Choice Pharmacies, and the location of the nearest pharmacy that respect a woman’s choices.
These sensible proposals have little chance of becoming policy because so many  anti-abortion leaders are more interested in imposing their crabbed moral vision on the society at large than they are on helping unwed mothers and unwanted children. As Barney Frank once said, the anti-abortion movement's concern for "life" begins at conception and ends at birth.

The  rest of the story: The Anti-Choice Hoax of the Century by Charlotte Taft (RH Reality Check 2010-09-15).

Politics: Bluedog Day Afternoon

Here are some of the Democratic voices plumping for continuing the Bush tax giveaway to the richest 2% of Americans. If you want to know why the base is alienated from the party, give a listen. Many of these folks are running for reelection. Don't help them; there are plenty of progressive Democrats in tough races who need your money and time.

Letter from Reps. James Matheson (D-UT), Melissa Bean (D-IL), Glenn Nye (D-VA) and Gary Peters (D-MI) to Speaker Pelosi: "In recent weeks, we have heard from a diverse spectrum of economists, small business owners, and families who have voiced concerns that raising any taxes right now could negatively impact economic growth. Given the continued fragility of our economy and slow pace of recovery, we share their concerns."

Rep. Ron Klein (D-FL): “Every day, I hear from families that are still struggling with bills and people who can’t find a job no matter how hard they try, so I believe right now, our top economic priority has to be job creation. In order to achieve that, we need tax credits for small businesses that will help create new American jobs, while also promoting investment and growth. As we work to rebuild the economy, I support a one-year extension of the so-called Bush tax cuts.”

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT): "The economy has by no means fully recovered, so my bias is that those high-end tax cuts should be extended."

Rep. Bobby Bright (D-AL): “I don’t care if it’s the wealthiest of the wealthy, you don’t raise their taxes,” he said. “In a recession, you don’t tax, burden and restrict. The economy is like a ship, and if you sink the ship, all the good you might do goes down with it.”

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): “We are managing a very fragile recovery, and now is not the time to raise taxes on anyone. The timing is wrong and we should not do anything at this juncture that could jeopardize or slow the nation’s economic growth.”

Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI):Extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for all earners is the right thing to do as anything less jeopardizes economic recovery.”

Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ):I strongly believe that this is the wrong time to let key tax cuts expire.  We need to encourage investment, not discourage it by letting these cuts expire. Extending these cuts would bring some much needed certainty and predictability to our tax code."

Rep. Michael McMahon (D-NY): "We're not creating jobs, and raising taxes now would not be a great idea."

Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN): "I think in this fragile economy, now is not the time to send that message to business owners and those who are fortunate to have the wealth in this country, because indeed they are the ones that make investments, that start businesses investing in companies."

And we shouldn’t forget the Senate Democrat opposition:

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND): "The general rule of thumb is that you do not raise taxes or cut spending during an economic downturn. That would be counterproductive."

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA): "I don't think they ought to be drawing a distinction at $250k.”

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE):I support extending all of the expiring tax cuts until Nebraska’s and the nation’s economy is in better shape, and perhaps longer, because raising taxes in a weak economy could impair recovery.”

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN): “The economy is very weak right now. Raising taxes will lower consumer demand at a time when we want people putting more money into the economy.”

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT):I don't think it makes sense to raise any federal taxes during the uncertain economy we are struggling through.”

You'll find progressive candidates who need your help at ActBlue.

Democratic Congressman Fights To Save Cancer Victim’s Home From Foreclosure by Union Bank

Despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, not every Democratic member of Congress is a spineless quivering blob.
[The] progressive vision was on full display yesterday during a vigil led by Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) that halted, for now, the foreclosure of a cancer victim’s home. For months, Bonita, California resident Luz Maria Villanueva had been facing impending foreclosure on her home by Union Bank. Villanueva’s situation was especially dire due to the fact that her son has a kidney disease as well as cancer. As medical bills began to pile up, Villanueva had to choose between the life of her son and her home, and she chose her son....Comparing the struggle of families trying to keep their homes to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s which landed him in a Mississippi jail for two months, Filner announced that he’d be holding a community vigil on the steps of Villanueva’s house on the day a local sheriff was scheduled to come foreclose on her. He warned that doing so “may result” in his arrest, but that he was willing to risk it to help her save her home. Thanks to the publicity Filner and the surrounding community brought to the case, Union Bank decided to call off the foreclosure, for now.
Note to Bluedogs and other lily-livered Donkeys terrified of angry voters: here's how to get reelected. Fight like a pit bull for your constituents; stop shivering like a fear-maddened cur at every bleat from Fox News and the Chamber of Commerce.

The rest of the story: Bob Filner Risks Arrest To Save Cancer Victim’s Home From Foreclosure By Zaid Jilani (Think Progress 2010-09-14).

Action: Jobs Emergency National Day of Action Tomorrow

Protest Senators (and their corporate backers) who are blocking good jobs and a real recovery.
We will not accept a “Jobless Recovery”!

We demand:
  • Full and Fair Employment. Congress must recognize the jobs emergency. Pass legislation like the Local Jobs for America Act, extend the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families emergency fund jobs subsidies program, extend unemployment insurance, heed President Obama’s call to renew the countries’ infrastructure and create a national infrastructure bank, and other bills that will create jobs, protect public services, and help get our economy going again.
  • Wall Street must pay their fair share for the crisis they created. A tax on financial speculation could raise $200-$500 billion every year.

The Jobs Emergency:
  • Fifteen million workers – about 10% – are unemployed
  • There is only one job opening for every 5 people seeking work
  • Cuts to vital public services that will put another half million+ people out of work are looming
  • Without a major Federal investment, jobless rates will be 8-13% into the next decade
  • This jobs deficit is deeper and longer-lasting than any post WWII recession.
We need government intervention
to lift this country out of deep joblessness.
While the Corporate agenda is creating hysteria about the federal budget deficit, Congress – particularly the Senate - is doing nothing to help the REAL crisis: the JOBS DEFICIT. When Wall Street was in crisis, Congress found hundreds of billions of dollars to bail them out. We need to respond to the jobs crisis with the same urgency. The best way to get our economy going again is to put people back to work.

Over the next 3 months, JwJ coalitions are mobilizing in multiple important ways to redefine what’s possible and make job creation a federal priority, including:
Take The Pledge: I'LL BE THERE TO DEMAND JOBS WITH JUSTICE

Learn more about our campaign to win Full & Fair Employment and an economy that works for everyone.

September 15 Jobs Emergency Day of Action is organized by Jobs with Justice. National endorsing organizations include:

American Federation of Government Employees
Americans for Democratic Action
BanksterUSA.org
Center for Media and Democracy
Communications Workers of America
DefendEducation.org
Grassroots Global Justice
National Domestic Workers Alliance
National Employment Law Project
Progressive Democrats of America
Right to the City
Service Employees International Union
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America
United Food & Commercial Workers
US Action
US Student Association

Environment: Never has greenwashing been quite so moving

Afghanistan on Life Support

I'll consider our occupation of Afghanistan a success if we avoid having to airlift the last Americans off the roof of the U.S. embassy.

"Almost 10 years of U.S. and allied occupation, development, mentoring, reconstruction aid, and assistance has taken the country from unbearably dismal to something markedly poorer. And yet even worse is still possible for the long-suffering men, women, and children of Afghanistan. As the U.S. war and occupation drags on without serious debate about withdrawal on the Washington agenda, questions need to be asked about the fate of Afghan civilians. Chief among them: How many more years of 'progress' can they endure, and if the U.S. stays, how much more 'success' can they stand?" -- How Much “Success” Can Afghans Stand?: The American War and Afghanistan’s Civilians by Nick Turse (Tom Dispatch 2010-09-12).

The Long War: A decade of war has intensified the militarization of American society

Veteran military correspondent David Wood reports in Politics Daily that in 10 years of continuous fighting since 9/11 the United States has created a class of professional warriors separate from and in many ways alienated from their fellow citizens.
This is an Army that, under the pressure of combat, has turned inward, leaving civilian America behind, reduced to the role of a well-wishing but impatient spectator. A decade of fighting has hardened soldiers in ways that civilians can't share. America respects its warriors, but from a distance.
The consequences are many: the rise of a new warrior class; a sharp decline in the number of Americans in public life with the sobering experience of war; a fading respect for civil authority; the declining ideal of public service as a civic responsibility; a perilous shrinking of the common ground of shared values that have shaped the way Americans think about war.

The rest of the story: In the 10th Year of War, a Harder Army, a More Distant America by David Wood (Politics Daily 2010-09-11).
 
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