Bio:
I live in Northeast Ohio, in the city, but I am a progressive and of the mind that rural concerns are as much mine as city concerns are for rural inhabitants. We're all in this together, and we'll never change a damned thing if we don't act like it.
Being from Ohio, elections here are especially important to me as they have a more direct impact on the Buckeye State than do federal elections. So it was heartening to read at USelections.com that there is an independent candidate from the left who is running for governor and who isn't culled from the pools of Big Business. His name is Dennis Spisak, and he is running for governor this year. You can check out his web site by clicking this LINK.
Other candidates for governor are incumbent and Democrat Ted Strickland, Republican and businessboy John Kasich, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for U.S. president in 2000, and building contractor Ken Matesz on the Libertarian Party ticket.
(Some great food for thought. - promoted by RDemocrat)
Lately there has been a spate of diaries at such web sites as FireDogLake and "Open" Left wherein lay members - typically under attack from site moderators, who act as Democratic Party hacks and gatekeepers - have sought ways to bring back the Progressive Party, or join the Greens, or build up some other institution, that will allow progressives to act together as a cohesive political unit. (I posted an entry there myself, only to end up being attacked by site moderators, threatened with banishment, and ultimately banned when I refused to back down against their incessant bullying.)
(It may have come to that. Great diary!! - promoted by RDemocrat)
At what point do progressives stop being Democrats' whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people? David Sirota wrote today about Obama's latest call to increase war spending beyond its already ludicrous proportions.
How many of the extreme right-wing and criminal policies of Bush-Cheney has Obama adopted? How many of those extreme right-wing policies has he exceeded? Last month, knowledge that Obama has gone a step further than Bush, authorizing the executive branch to murder American citizens on the flimsiest of rationales. This sh__ has GOT to end.
Jon Walker over at Fire Dog Lake makes a very effective argument about why learning the wrong lesson from the defeat of Martha Coakley in yesterday's Massachusetts Senate race will lead to disaster.
Not only will Democrats lose badly if they adopt this strategy, but they will be laughed at. Republicans never had 59 Senate seats, and that did not stop them from passing the legislation they wanted. Trying to explain to the American people how, despite controlling everything, Democrats cannot do anything, because a mean minority of 41 Republican senators won't let them, is a message that will go over like a lead balloon. If you try to use that excuse, people will think elected Democrats are liars, wimps, idiots, or an ineffectual combination of all three.
I see that another Bowers-instigated flame battle is going on over at Closed Left. I lurk the site from time to time to see just how much progressive issues are being censored in favor of the Chris Matthews-type drivel Bowers favors, and I saw this posted on the front page:
It turns out that if I delete content from a website that I--quite literally--own, then I am engaging in censorship. I don't remember the part of the first amendment that declares everyone is allowed to use everyone else's printing press.
The latest mess appears to have begun when someone posted a quick hit to call Obama an ass clown. Okay, nothing controversial about that since Obama is, in fact, an ass clown. But the site administrator didn't like it, so the QH was deleted. After the fact, the justification was fabricated that the term "ass clown" is somehow homophobic, even though there is no evidence to suggest that it has ever been used in such a derogatory manner. The comments are divided along the usual lines, with Bowers and his sniveling, lying little sycophants defending the action and others crying censorship.
This isn't surprising at all, seeing as how Bowers routinely violates his own site's rules only to turn around and chastise others for committing far lesser offenses. For example, a while back the owner of Closed Left posted a snarkfest taking others to task for using the Quick Hits feature to call other people out. Later, Bowers proceeded to use the quick hits section to call out another poster, whom he banned for voicing criticism against him.
When I posted about this glaring act of hypocrisy in both a diary and a quick hit, I was banned from posting. The rules that apply to everyone else at Closed Left do not apply to the site owner, who is free to act like a child while treating grown adults like children. The result? More of the same bullshit that goes on at the Mediocre Orange Hype: scolding lefties to sit down, shut up, and drink the Democratic party Kool-Aid while pretending to be outsiders crashing the gates. The left deserves better from its self-appointed "leaders."
Bernie Sanders has used a bit of Senate finesse to block the renomination of Ben Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve. Chris Bowers over at Closed Left explains what's happening, but what it all boils down to is that Sanders has managed to hold up the renomination of one of Bush's creatures to a hugely important office. Obama and Wall Street want Bernanke to stay and keep fucking up the economy. Sanders is looking like one of the only senators willing to go on record and try to stop this from happening.
So please click the link above and thank Bernie for looking out for us. And while you're at it, use the Senate phone directory to call your own senator and demand a filibuster of Bernanke's renomination. We need someone in there who will actually represent the public interest.
Breaking the bills down, this is effectively what we'll get if either bill passes, or some combination from conference committee: unaffordable mandates to buy junk insurance, only a fraction of people covered, restrictions on access to abortions, unacceptably high costs, no bargaining power for the government, nothing kicking in until 2013 or 2014 -- more than enough time for the final bill to be used as an excuse to prevent any fixes further down the road. There's more, but you can read all that in the link above.
Call your Representatives and your Senators and tell them to kill these bills. If either of these bills pass, or some combination of them passes, we will not get another shot at true health care reform for years -- maybe never again. Thousands, indeed millions, of Americans will be dead before another chance comes. Don't let them down by refusing to kill this pretense at reform.
It's easier than you think. Every Representative and about a third of Senators are up for re-election next year. In order not to risk losing voters, they'll be nervous about doing anything they think will upset them too much. We've got them by the gonads. So all we have to do is tell the politicians who are up for re-election that they can either kill the bill and work to pass HR 676, or they can forget about money and votes. We'll support primary challengers from the left and independent challengers from the left in the general election (unless the primary challengers win, in which case we'll support them). Then we make stick to our word.
I know some of you think this is suicide, but why? The GOP is going to win precisely because voters are so sick of Democrats behaving like Republicans that they're likely to stay home in droves and not vote. They're not buying the Dems-better-than-Repubs argument anymore because Dems have spent every day since taking back power proving that to be a bald faced lie. Like it or not, we are in an ideological war that was waged by the conservative movement against the left (and the rest of America). We have to win this war, and we have to either purge the conservatives or tell them who's boss in the Democratic Party. We're not going to win it by allowing the enemy to always compromise our ranks with their moles. If we lose, so does the rest of America.
(I think we all agree these bills are far from perfect. - promoted by RDemocrat)
Robert Reich gave a stunningly accurate assessment of the massive giveaway to Big Insurance and Big Pharma that is the Democrats' health insurance bill, which you can read by joining me below the fold.
According to a post on Pennsylvania blog, House speaker Nancy Pelosi will allow a mere twenty minutes of debate on single-payer, albeit indirectly.
The debate will actually be on an amendment put forth by Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York's 9th District, which would effectively transform the corporate giveaway that is HR 3200 into something very close to the single-payer form offered by Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers's HR 676. According to David Swanson, the debate on the Weiner amendment is being used as cover for dropping Kucinich's amendment, which would allow states to create their own single-payer health insurance systems.
This is probably our last, best chance to improve what is shaping up to be a disastrously bad bill that will force Americans into buying unaffordable insurance. Click on the House Telephone Directory link, call as many representatives as you can, and demand that they pass the Weiner amendment. This may be our only shot at getting something that will work for all Americans, instead of simply further enriching Big Insurance.
Today I saw a video that sums up what the pretend reform bills now being floated by right-wing Democrats really do and why we must see that they do not pass (hats off to FreeSociety for posting it at Docudharma.
Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich weighed in on the gutted legislation now being considered. Here's a video clip from The Ed Show that's worth watching (courtesy of tahoebasha3, obtained it from the RAW Story link).
It's imperative that we on the left kill this shoddy pretense at reform. If we don't, genuine reform will be sent to the bench for another generation. You can look up contact information for your representatives in the House at this location. To find contact information for your senator, go here. (Of course, senators don't often respond to letters and e-mails, so here's the Senate phone list.)
I don't agree with Cornette's glowing assessment of Obama, because it's obvious that the Democrat is George W. Bush's third term. But I do share his frustration and anger with the right-wingers.
As of today, the polling company shows that Obama has a mere fifty-nine percent approval rating overall (source), a significant contrast to the Mediocre Orange Hype's polls showing Obama at sixty-seven percent.
I was reading Paul Krugman's column the other day and was dismayed by his argument. According to the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, a half-ass, half-hearted measure on curbing carbon emissions is better than doing nothing, but I'm unconvinced. As written in The Washington Post:
On paper, the Waxman-Markey bill puts a cost on carbon dioxide by imposing a ceiling, or cap, on greenhouse gas emissions and then setting up a market for regulated industries -- such as the electric power sector -- to buy and sell allowances to pollute under that cap. As the cap is reduced each year, market participants will exchange allowances in a complex auction market.
If you liked what credit default swaps did to our economy, you're going to love cap-and-trade. Just read Title VIII of the bill, which lets investment banks, hedge funds and other speculators participate in the cap-and-trade market. They don't have emissions to cut; they have commissions to make.
The real hidden catch of the cap-and-trade system, though, is that it will require consumers to pay twice: first for emission allowances and then for the construction of new low- and zero-carbon power plants.
That doesn't sound very good, and the bad news gets progressively worse.
Contrary to assurances from the bill's sponsors that utility customers wouldn't have to pay these costs for the first decade, some coal-dependent utilities would be forced to purchase more than half of their allowances when the program is scheduled to begin in 2012. Would these allowances reduce our greenhouse gas emissions? No; that would come when consumers footed a second bill - for the cost of their utilities either to retrofit coal and gas plants to capture carbon - something that cannot be done today on a commercial scale - or to shut them down and build non-carbon-producing nuclear plants and wind farms instead.
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures released by an internationally regarded measuring station in the Arctic.
The measurements suggest that the main greenhouse gas is continuing to increase in the atmosphere at an alarming rate despite the downturn in dip in the rate of increase of the global economy.
Levels of the gas at the Zeppelin research station on Svalbard, northern Norway, last week peaked at over 397 parts per million (ppm), an increase of more than 2.5ppm on 2008. They have since begun to reduce and today stand at 393.7ppm. Prior to the industrial revolution, CO2 levels were around 280ppm.
And the second:
The thickness of sea ice in the Arctic dramatically declined last winter for the first time since records began in the early 1990s. The research by British scientists shows a significant loss in the thickness of the northern ice cap after the record loss of ice in the summer of 2007, although the weather was not abnormally warm.
The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, raise the possibility that the loss of the Arctic sea ice could accelerate, because as the ice recedes the water temperature rises. This summer the sea ice recorded its second-lowest extent after the record low of 2007, again despite relatively cool air temperatures.
In a report by Editor and Publisher via the Associated Press, talks to keep the Boston Globe newspaper operating while extorting concessions from union employees are being extended.
Deadline on Talks for 'Boston Globe' Cuts Extended
Published: May 02, 2009 11:00 AM ET
BOSTON Negotiations between unions at The Boston Globe and its owner, The New York Times Co., will continue after the company agreed to extend its midnight deadline for the newspapers' employees to make $20 million in concessions.
"Because there has been progress on reaching needed cost savings, The Boston Globe will extend the deadline for reaching complete agreements with its unions until midnight Sunday May 3," Globe spokesman Robert Powers said in a statement.
Leaders of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the Globe's largest union, asked for an extension of Friday's deadline after discovering what they called a $4.5 million accounting error. The Guild, which has been asked to come up with $10 million of the $20 million in concessions, said ownership mistakenly was counting the salaries and benefits of 80 people who have left their jobs at the Globe since the beginning of the year.
"We have given the New York Times Co. and Globe management proposals for deep cuts in our members' pay and benefits that we believe will save The Boston Globe," Daniel Totten, Guild president, said in a statement. "We are awaiting the company's response."
The concessions sought by the Times Co. could include pay cuts, a reduction in pension contributions and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees for some senior employees. Those guarantees state that the staffers cannot be let go without cause.
The Globe, like many newspapers, is struggling with declines in circulation and advertising. The Globe's operations lost $50 million last year and are projected to lose $85 million this year.
The Times Co. announced in April that it would close the Globe unless the concessions were met.
Paul Krugman says that prosecuting the previous regime for war crimes is about recovering America's soul, and as usual he's absolutely right.
the only way we can regain our moral compass, not just for the sake of our position in the world, but for the sake of our own national conscience, is to investigate how that happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible.
What about the argument that investigating the Bush administration's abuses will impede efforts to deal with the crises of today? Even if that were true - even if truth and justice came at a high price - that would arguably be a price we must pay: laws aren't supposed to be enforced only when convenient. But is there any real reason to believe that the nation would pay a high price for accountability?
For example, would investigating the crimes of the Bush era really divert time and energy needed elsewhere? Let's be concrete: whose time and energy are we talking about?
Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, wouldn't be called away from his efforts to rescue the economy. Peter Orszag, the budget director, wouldn't be called away from his efforts to reform health care. Steven Chu, the energy secretary, wouldn't be called away from his efforts to limit climate change. Even the president needn't, and indeed shouldn't, be involved. All he would have to do is let the Justice Department do its job - which he's supposed to do in any case - and not get in the way of any Congressional investigations.
I don't know about you, but I think America is capable of uncovering the truth and enforcing the law even while it goes about its other business.
Still, you might argue - and many do - that revisiting the abuses of the Bush years would undermine the political consensus the president needs to pursue his agenda.
But the answer to that is, what political consensus? There are still, alas, a significant number of people in our political life who stand on the side of the torturers. But these are the same people who have been relentless in their efforts to block President Obama's attempt to deal with our economic crisis and will be equally relentless in their opposition when he endeavors to deal with health care and climate change. The president cannot lose their good will, because they never offered any.
A court of appeals claims that prisoners held at Gitmo are not people, and therefore have no rights - much less the right to sue their torturers, according to the following article from the Center for Constitutional Rights.
I was perusing a certain kind of ideological web site when I came upon the following article by Nicole Colson.
ONE AFTER another over the last month, the reports of terrible incidents of violence kept coming:
-- A Vietnamese immigrant in Binghamton, N.Y., increasingly paranoid about police and upset after losing his job, kills 13 people at a center for immigrants before committing suicide.
-- An Alabama man who had struggled to keep a job kills 10 people in a shooting spree before committing suicide.
-- A Pittsburgh man, recently unemployed and afraid that the government would ban guns, opens fire on police responding to a domestic disturbance call, killing three.
These are just some of the recent eruptions of violence to make the headlines in U.S. newspapers. In the 30-day period between March 10 and April 10, there were at least nine multiple shootings across the U.S., claiming the lives of at least 58 people.
The individual motives and stories differ widely, but there's a common thread among these incidents--the worsening economic crisis is becoming a factor in pushing some people who are already on the edge over it.
It seems nearly everyone is concerned with the ever-shrinking middle class, but almost no one is willing to discuss the social class those middlings are being tossed into: the POOR. The platform, speaking for the poor, that John Edwards ran on during last year's presidential election primaries resulted in his marginalization and eventual banishment from the public discourse as the elite weeded out those candidates who dare point out the disease of poverty. But just because the messengers were silenced does not mean the larger problem went away; it continues to fester, with disastrous social consequences.
U.S. Dictator Barack Obama once again made it clear that officials who tortured prisoners in violation of national and international law will go unpunished and are above the law, according to a Reuters news article posted today.
That's a link to a thread on my IPB forum that began as a discussion of one person's progressive platform and degenerated quickly into a Nader-Nader voter bash fest.
Take a look through that thread and tell me the Nader-haters aren't completely unhinged by their irrational, sour grapes hatred of the man. Never mind the nine million registered Democrats who consciously voted for the shrub and his gargoyle in 2000 (200,000-250,000 of whom cast their ballots in Florida that year), the vote fraud perpetuated by the GOP, the illegal Supreme Court ruling that stopped the counting of votes in violation of the Constitution, the piss-poor campaigning of Gore - which failed to distinguish him from his opponent enough to make more people want to vote for him (the guy couldn't even win his home state). No, all that doesn't matter to the Nader-haters because in the end all they can do is bleat on and on about a non-factor in a stolen election fueled by their unearned sense of entitlement to votes that don't go to Republicans.
Why is this? I have some ideas about that, and maybe you'll agree and maybe you'll disagree. Follow me below the fold and I'll explain my thoughts on the matter.
