Douglas Drenkow Research & Communications: Progressive Political Blogging and E-Mailing

Pres. Obama’s Mentor & Role Model & Hope for America

2010-12-09T11:33:00-08:00

I now sincerely believe that — no matter how you or I may see him — Pres. Obama sees himself as carrying on the mantle of his late “friend, colleague, and counsellor” Ted Kennedy, as the leader of, let’s say, “pragmatic progressive” Democrats — not really “centrist,” like outgoing-Sen. Evan Bayh, but also not really “liberal,” like Sen. Barbara Boxer. Read more »

****!

2010-11-11T12:18:00-08:00

The swing voters indeed had a choice. They chose wrong. Dead wrong. The correct — obvious — answer to the question of, Where do we go from here? wasn’t to turn the country to the Right, but to the Left — make Congress more progressive, not less. Invest more in infrastructure and green technology, not less. Make the wealth more equitably distributed, not less. Look out more for middle class and working class households, not less. Read more »

Election 2010: National Choices, CA Candidates and Props

2010-10-29T17:28:00-07:00

News flash! Despite what a lot of the pundits might lead you to believe, the election of 2010 has not yet been decided. Until Tuesday morning, it has not yet even begun! (Except, of course, for mail-in ballots, which — again despite what some pundits had led us to expect — are running decidedly in favor of Democrats)

Do we want less regulation of the very companies that crashed our economy? Do we want greater inequality of wealth in our country? Do we want to increase our national debt by lowering taxes on the rich?

Or do we want to invest in infrastructure and green energy and other pressing needs in the short run, to increase demand and bring down unemployment — by the way, the only way to pay off our debts — in the long run? Read more »

Vote for Job Creation Not GOP Extortion!

2010-09-21T12:24:00-07:00

Let me get this straight. The GOP, under Geo. W. Bush (Remember him? Trillions for the rich. Diddly squat for the rest of us), crashed and trashed the U.S. and world economy, threw millions of Americans out of their jobs — those jobs not already sent overseas — gambled away trillions of hard-earned life-savings, and sank millions of home mortgages underwater. Ever since then, in almost perfect lockstep, the Republicans in Congress have threatened, delayed, filibustered, and in every other way they could think of obstructed every single piece of legislation that offered help in any way, shape, or form to those millions thrown out of work, those millions more far-underemployed, teachers and nurses and firefighters and police facing layoffs by state and local governments in crisis, and all the rest of us everyday Americans wanting nothing more than to provide for our families and to make a worthwhile contribution to our nation but threatened with abject ruin at every turn. Read more »

Say No to the Party of No! DailyKos is leading the way!

2010-08-27T12:03:00-07:00

If you haven’t already, add your name to the 20,000 that DailyKos has already amassed to end the filibuster! Because of all that support, they’ve already got meetings with senators next week. Read more »

Dems Will be Dems ... so End the Filibuster!

2010-08-10T11:32:00-07:00

Below is my comment to a current HuffPost article by respected progressive activist Robert Borosage responding to published comments by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, criticizing the dissatisfaction by the “professional left” with the president’s many accomplishments:

Or as Will Rogers (“The Poet Lariat”) said, so many years ago: “Democrats never agree on anything; that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans!” Read more »

YouTube — Strengthen Social Security ... Don’t Cut It

2010-07-21T11:32:00-07:00

Check it out ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH1owE08Q8s ... a brief and entertaining, yet absolutely terrific summary of how strong Social Security really is, how the “banksters” who crashed the economy want to get their grubby hands on the surplus (to fix a deficit caused mainly by their tax cuts, bailouts, etc.), and how little it will take to keep Social Security solvent beyond the 25 years it is already pre-paid (with all workers’ money). Read more »

American Independence c/o “Common” Americans

2010-07-04T13:07:00-07:00

On this, America’s 234th birthday, let us celebrate not only our great leaders — who led us so gallantly, boldly, and wisely in affairs of war and peace, poverty and prosperity, and injustice and civil rights — but also our great masses of “common” Americans — who did most of the fighting and dying, working and taxpaying, and sacrificing and striving that made our nation great. Read more »

See no oil. Hear no oil. Speak no oil.

2010-05-29T17:50:00-07:00

Even though Pres. Obama has promised that oil company reps would no longer be — literally as well as figuratively — in bed with government regulators, it seems now as if another arm of the federal government has too “cosy” a relationship with BP ... Read more »

Tea Party Libertarians by any other name are ...

2010-05-24T01:16:00-07:00

So let me get this straight. Tea Party darling and Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul says that even though the government should not discriminate on the basis of race in public accommodations, it’s “unconstitutional” for the government to stop business from discriminating on the basis of race (etc.) in its private business dealings. I have just one question: Did President Lincoln step out of constitutional bounds with the Emancipation Proclamation? Read more »

A Few Words from “The Father of Earth Day”

2010-04-22T15:34:00-07:00

“All economic activity is dependent upon that environment and its underlying resource base of forests, water, air, soil, and minerals. When the environment is finally forced to file for bankruptcy because its resource base has been polluted, degraded, dissipated, and irretrievably compromised, the economy goes into bankruptcy with it.” — Sen. Gaylord Nelson, Democrat of Wisconsin (1916 – 2005) Read more »

Threats vs. Health Care Reformers ... including me

2010-03-24T11:50:00-07:00

In case you missed the in-depth investigation by Rachel Maddow last night about the ongoing violence and threats vs. supporters of health care reform — everything from bricks (sometimes with explicit death threats) being thrown through the windows of Democratic offices in several states, to Sarah Palin’s putting Democratic congressmen in “crosshairs” on her Facebook page, and the display of guns and the threats of violence at public rallies, including the upcoming event near Washington on April 19th, the anniversary of Waco (a “high holy day” for militia wackos, like the late–domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh) — take a look at Maddow’s unflinching investigation into “Intimination” ... Read more »

Make history? Yes, we can. And did. Again.

2010-03-23T15:59:00-07:00

From Teddy Roosevelt to Teddy Kennedy, some of the best and brightest American leaders have fought for the now–45,000 Americans who die each year because they have no health insurance, and the nearly one million who go bankrupt each year because of medical expenses, even though most of those Americans had health insurance when they first got sick.

But today, March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama has just signed into law the historic, sweeping reforms of our health care system — indeed, as the unmoved and unmovable Republican opposition stated, one-sixth of the entire American economy — after their passage by the U.S. House, under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the U.S. Senate, under the likewise heroic leadership of Majority Leader Harry Reid. Read more »

Celebrate Women’s Month by Stopping Genocide. Watch SVU Tonight!

2010-03-17T16:10:00-07:00

I didn’t know the best way to celebrate March as International Women’s Month until now. Please take a moment to read this concise article in today’s Huffington Post by Mariska Hargitay, star of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and John Prendergast, of the Enough Project. Read more »

The President Calls the GOP Bluff.

2010-02-26T16:59:00-08:00

In his dramatic, historic, seven-plus-hour summit yesterday with both Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate — televised for all the world to see — President Obama remained true to his reputation and convictions, and thus our cause: better, more affordable health care for more Americans. Read more »

Closing the Deal on Health Reform, With or Without the GOP

2010-02-09T16:38:00-08:00

Any ideas will be considered in the health care summit; but most Democrats are confident that after public debate, with input from recognized health care experts, any reasonable observers will conclude that the GOP proposals, as we’ve heard before, will not be better than the (probably-by-then-reconciled) House/Senate plan for making health care insurance more available, dependable, and affordable (let alone helping to reduce the federal deficit). Read more »

Pres. Obama Tells It Like It Is / L.A. Co. Dems’ Great New Video!

2010-01-28T10:34:00-08:00

Particularly in the wake of Pres. Obama’s “tell it like it is” State of the Union Address last night — The people at home could clearly see who is fighting for them and who is fighting against their best interests — I cannot encourage you enough to watch — and share — this great new video by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. Read more »

FW: A Wake-Up Call

2010-01-21T13:26:00-08:00

As usual, the Labor Movement “gets it.” And if push comes to shove in the Senate — and you know it will — how could any jobs bill not have an impact on the federal budget? In other words, any employment legislation passed by the House should be able to satisfy “The Byrd Rule” and pass the Senate by simple majority vote in “budget reconciliation,” without filibuster. Let the GOP call such majority rule “undemocratic” (even though they used reconciliation plenty of times, as to pass Bush tax cuts for the wealthy) and let them try to kill jobs for American working families. Just let them. Voter anger can cut both ways. Read more »

Podesta’s Top Ten Reasons for Progressives to Support the Health Reform Bill

2009-12-17T12:05:00-08:00

To those who say this stripped down bill is worse than nothing — true progressives like Howard Dean, whom I sincerely respect and whose reasoning is not unreasonable — Center for American Progress president John Podesta replies with his top ten reasons progressives — like Sens. Sherrod Brown, Tom Harkin, and Jay Rockefeller — can support this health reform legislation (as we currently know it): Read more »

Use Reconciliation vs. ‘President Lieberman’

2009-12-15T05:59:00-08:00

If Geo. W. Bush had not been handed the presidency by the Right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme court back in 2000, Al Gore would have become president; and Joe Lieberman, vice president. Reading articles such as this in the New York Times — telling us of how smug and happy Sen. Lieberman is as “point man” and spoiler, dictating terms of legislation — I cannot help but feel that Mr. Lieberman is playing out a fantasy of his envisioning himself as by now being “President Lieberman.” Read more »

The Least Bad Option in Afghanistan

2009-12-02T11:53:00-08:00

After eight years of mismanagement of the Afghan War under Pres. Bush — as if the incompetence and corruption of the government in Kabul, let alone the medieval madness of the Taliban and the murderous plots of Al Qaeda, weren’t difficulties enough — there are no good options left in Afghanistan, only less bad ones. Whether you agree with him or not, it is obvious from listening to Pres. Obama’s speech last night that ... Pres. Obama has done his best to balance the military and political realities, both here and abroad, to arrive at his strategy. His earnest, sober reasoning — in stark contrast to the “shoot from the hip” leadership of Bush — should be respected, even if one disagrees with his ultimate decision: what I agree is the least bad option. Read more »

Thankful for a President of Reason

2009-11-26T10:25:00-08:00

This Thanksgiving, for the first time in years, I am thankful to have a president who doesn’t “shoot from the hip” and then stubbornly “stays the course” even if things go terribly wrong, but instead one who uses his head and doesn’t view “course correction” as weakness. As Pres. Obama recently stated in an interview with U.S. News & World Report (republished in the Washington Post): Read more »

Election Lesson: It’s Right — not Right — to be Democrats.

2009-11-06T12:18:00-08:00

Given the mixed results in this off-off-year election — Republicans win governorships in traditionally Democratic New Jersey as well as in traditionally Republican Virginia; Democrats win House seats in a traditionally Republican New York district as well as in a traditionally Democratic California district — there is more spin being spun by pundits on the Left and the Right than by Kobe Bryant goin’ to the hoop. So what’s the real deal? Read more »

The Insurance Companies’ “License to Kill”: ERISA

2009-10-27T18:39:00-07:00

The fact is, health insurance companies administering employer-based health plans — the very private insurance plans covering most Americans, even under the health reform bills being considered by Congress — have that “license to kill”: It is contained in Section 514 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, ERISA — little known to most Americans but very profitably exploited by health insurance companies, costing many people their life savings or even their lives (and shifting the costs of caring for those injured and abandoned by their plans onto state Medicaid rolls). Read more »

Health Care Reform: A Matter of Life and Death

2009-10-19T22:14:00-07:00

Organizing for America — the Democratic National Committee group calling upon the 13 million Americans who supported Barack Obama for president — sponsored a “Health Reform Video Challenge.” The top 20 submissions were voted on by the public and a panel of experts, with the winning ad aired on national television. Promoting the president’s plan in just half a minute was indeed a — worthy — challenge. So I wrote a script, structured around these three themes: making health insurance “available, dependable, and affordable.” Read more »

Pres. Obama: An Inspired and Inspiring Choice for Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T12:15:00-07:00

As Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said of Pres. Obama’s award: “He got the prize because he has been able to change the international climate. ... Some people say, and I understand it, isn’t it premature? Too early? Well, I’d say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now. It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us.” It is obvious that Pres. Obama represents a new face, ethnically and figuratively, of America — the most powerful nation — to the world: a vision of hope through working together with, not against, one another. Read more »

Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise: The Public Option as the Best Insurance of Health Care Coverage and Cost Control — research report for progressive activists

2009-10-07T19:34:00-07:00

In order to assist other progressive activists in moving health care reform — including a public option — forward, I have prepared a report entitled Healthy, Wealthy, & Wise: The Public Option as the Best Insurance of Health Care Coverage and Cost Control. As indicated by its Executive Summary (in text of post), this report includes comprehensive (searchable) content, commentary, and hyperlinked references. You may download it in Microsoft Word format here ... Read more »

When is a Public Option Not a Public Option?

2009-09-14T14:43:00-07:00

If a new public option will indeed be “off the table,” then the existing public insurance plans, of Medicare and Medicaid, must “fill the gap” not only in terms of coverage — reforming Medicaid to be more like Medicare — but also in terms of competitiveness — with freedom of choice for a significant number of Americans between private plans and these public plans and with subsidies paid in large part by employers who choose to not insure their employees. ... In short, we need real health care reform, not “No Patient Left Behind.” Read more »

Media in States of Centrist Senators — research report for action

2009-09-11T13:57:00-07:00

In the wake of President Barack Obama’s stirring and historic speech this week to a joint session of Congress, I have prepared a research paper to aid those who want to help the health care reform effort by grassroots action; namely, contacting the media in the states (or commonwealths) of those “centrist” Democratic and Republican senators whose votes will most likely be decisive, given the partisan divide on the issue in the Senate and the large Democratic majority in the House in favor of reform. Read more »

Personal Tragedies Show Need for Health Care Reform: Video of “Congressional Send-Off Rally” in L.A.

2009-09-09T09:03:00-07:00

On Thursday, September 3, Organizing for America, the Democratic National Committee group calling upon the 13 million Americans who supported Barack Obama for president, and Health Care for America NOW!, the national grassroots advocacy group, organized “Congressional Send-Off Rallies” nationwide, including in historic “Cornfield Park,” in downtown Los Angeles, where reporting for OpEdNews, I videotaped the event. I have edited and posted video clips at YouTube. Read more »

Taking Health Care to the Belly of the Beast!

2009-09-01T16:08:00-07:00

On Monday, a passionate, yet orderly — grassroots, not astroturf — group of hundreds of men, women, and children braved the heat and, in the words of a woman who nearly went broke when her husband got cancer, “took it to the belly of the beast”: The Orange County March for the Public Option (http://www.ochealthmarch.com) paraded around the staunchly Republican Newport Beach, California, office of Rep. John Campbell — naturally “unavailable” to meet with them — and delivered to his staff thousands of signatures on petitions and over 150 handwritten letters in support of the public option and health care reform in general. Read more »

Sen. Kennedy’s Real Stand on Health Care Reform

2009-08-29T15:28:00-07:00

To set the record straight — on this historic legislation, the “cause of my life” for the late Sen. Kennedy (even though he and his family would never want for quality health care) — you may read for yourself the complete summary of the Senate HELP Committee bill here — http://help.senate.gov/Maj_press/2009_07_15_b.pdf — with statements from all the Democratic members of the Committee, including Sen. Kennedy himself. Read more »

Kennedy’s Greatness: Not Who He Was But What He Did

2009-08-26T13:14:00-07:00

Love him or loathe him, Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy was an undeniably great public figure. But his greatness did not spring from who he was — the surviving one of four, larger-than-life brothers of a powerful American family — but from what he did — champion the rights of all Americans, including those not born to such wealth and privilege. Read more »

Making Heroes of Armed Men at Town Halls

2009-08-18T15:25:00-07:00

OMG [in reference to a particularly disturbing e-mail I received, and copied below my signature, about “Wearing Their Rights on Their Hips” — having produced a progressive talk radio show, I typically receive dozens of guest-requests every day, including from representatives of “Right wingnuts,” like these] Read more »

Co-ops Lack Leverage Unless Very Big

2009-08-18T11:13:00-07:00

1) The principal advantage that current co-ops offer to small employers is not lower premiums but the opportunity for individual employees to select different health plans from the variety the co-op offers. 2) In the future, co-ops might be able to offer more attractive prices, but that would depend on reaching “critical mass” size. 3) Achieving critical mass size is difficult. Read more »

Opponents Armed at Town Hall Meetings

2009-08-17T17:04:00-07:00

I’m glad these guys weren’t at the Schiff town hall: Men tote assault rifles at Obama event. What are they afraid of? Having their “freedom” to go broke because they get sick taken away? Read more »

Video I Shot at the Recent Town Hall Meeting

2009-08-17T11:13:00-07:00

Last Tuesday, a local congressman, Rep. Adam Schiff (for whom I had put up countless yard signs during his first congressional campaign), held a town hall meeting on health care reform, in the Alhambra Civic Center, just up the road. So getting the OK from the congressman’s press rep (It helped to have produced that talk show for Barry, whom he knew) and from Rob Kall, the executive editor of OpEdNews, I used my “press credentials” to set up our video camera on the press stand, right next to Fox News and a lot of the other local to national media, and videotape the event. Read more »

Actions to Take to Support Health Care Reform Under Fire

2009-08-09T16:57:00-07:00

I’m happy to report that I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback from the e-mail I sent out yesterday, about the “would-be Town Hall Putsches.” In particular, I’ve been asked to post the article in OpEdNews.com, which I just did, and to share with all of you — and ask you to share with everyone you know, and so on and so forth — the following concrete actions you can take: Read more »

The Would-Be Town Hall Putsches

2009-08-08T13:22:00-07:00

The well-organized thugs who are disrupting the grassroots democracy at town hall meetings, to discuss the vital issue of health care reform, have the audacity to compare President Obama with Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators: They say that “Obama care” will produce “death warrants” for seniors and millions of others, by the denial of life-saving care or even by euthanasia. Read more »

Fact Check in the Health Care Debate

2009-08-02T13:16:00-07:00

I think it unconscionable that the Right is purposefully misleading people — including scaring seniors into believing that Obama and the Democrats in Congress want to “euthanize” them! How low will the Right go? And how stupid they are: Don’t they realize that however healthy or well-insured or wealthy they are now, all that can come to a bitter end with one major illness? Health care expenses are still the number one cause of personal bankruptcies, and most of those people had health insurance when they first got sick. Read more »

The Bottom Lines on Health Care Reform

2009-07-27T10:09:00-07:00

In yesterday’s NYTimes online there was an excellent summary of what the various aspects of health care reform would mean to everyone: The “bottom line” on the proposed legislation. As we apparently head into a summer of continuing intense debate over this issue — as the Senate will apparently recess without passing a bill — we will undoubtedly be bombarded with misinformation from the Right (I’ve already received dozens or hundreds of “facts” about how “Obama will ration health care” or “the Democrats will take away your insurance or doctor”). Read more »

A Brief Framing of the Health Care Debate

2009-07-22T08:59:00-07:00

I just heard that the administration is saying that those who are attacking health care reform so that it will hurt Obama politically are “putting politics ahead of policy.” While I agree 100% with that, I would add, those obstructionists are putting their politics ahead of your health! Read more »

Who Pays for Health Care?

2009-07-15T09:46:00-07:00

The Democratically controlled House of Representatives has just put forth their version of a health care bill — doing away with exclusions for pre-existing conditions, protecting free choice of physicians by patients, and presenting a public option in “healthy competition” with the private plans (which shudder to think how they’ll manage to compete against government-run health plans, whose administrative costs are, as in Medicare and Veterans programs, just a fraction of those of for-profit plans). And in keeping with President Obama’s call that the program must be paid for, revenue-neutral, the Democrats are proposing to cover most of the cost with a tax surcharge on the wealthiest Americans — families making over a half million a year, about the richest one percent of all American households. Read more »

Re: Silent Partners: The Other Victims of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell [An Article Shared by the Democratic News Group]

2009-07-07T08:57:00-07:00

Despite the recent setbacks in California, nationwide the tide is turning in the right direction (the direction of human rights, not the direction of the Right). I believe that history will consider the DADT policy like much else of the Clinton Era: a time of transition and “compromise,” from the ignorance of the Reagan Era to the enlightenment of a new Progressive Era, as during the turn of the previous century. Read more »

Our Golden Opportunity for Real Health Care Reform

2009-06-11T10:23:00-07:00

“Of all our national resources, none is of more basic value than the health of our people.” With that bold, undeniable statement, President Harry Truman set the stage for the national debate on health care reform, back in his State of the Union Address in 1947. ... Now, over 60 years later, the debate continues, with even greater urgency. As a nation, we spend twice as much per capita on health care as other industrialized nations, yet our health care outcomes — measured by such life-and-death issues as infant mortality rates and life expectancies as well as by the “morbidities” of chronic, life-crippling conditions — lag far behind. We’re paying too much and not even getting our money’s worth! Read more »

Women Defending Themselves

2009-06-02T10:13:00-07:00

Ellen Snortland — who was such a great contributor to Barry Gordon’s Left Field radio show, in addition to her being an accomplished author, actor, and progressive activist — is now a contributor, with author Gavin de Becker, to the Huffington Post! Having long encouraged women to learn self-defense — as with her book and film Beauty Bites Beast (See http://snortland.com) — Ellen has now in this very influential forum made a great case for schools and other community organizations teaching our young women these most basic, yet all-too-often overlooked skills. Take a look at this very thought-provoking post: Read more »

Re: Krugman: Blue Double Cross [An Op-Ed Piece in the New York Times]

2009-05-23T13:59:00-07:00

What is most remarkable to me, though, is not the lockstep messaging but the opposition to something that affects everyone, across the political spectrum: the failure of our existing health “care” system to deliver adequate care to millions, including those going bankrupt from medical expenses (Most personal bankruptcies are due to medical expenses, and in most of those cases the person going bankrupt had health insurance when he or she first got sick: Get sick, lose job, go broke — everyone I’ve talked to acknowledges that as a very real, very big problem). Read more »

Extraordinary Photos of President’s First 100 Days

2009-04-29T06:58:00-07:00

“Pete Souza and the White House Photo Office bring us an exclusive, massive, unique look at the President’s term so far. Take a few minutes to get a different perspective from the images on television every day.” Read more »

The Specter of Hope, as the GOP Implodes

2009-04-28T18:24:00-07:00

If I had any doubts, I don’t anymore: The (political) ground just shifted under our feet. The best comment I heard this morning was on MSNBC: David Shuster said that Arlen Specter didn’t leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left Arlen Specter ... and a whole lot of other moderates, in Pennsylvania and nationwide. Read more »

Happy Cesar Chavez Day: Sí, Se Puede

2009-03-31T08:39:00-07:00

Happy Cesar Chavez Day! Remember the legacy: justice, equality, and environmental sustainability (That includes safeguarding all living creatures, including the farm workers and us consumers of produce). This year’s theme: Sí, se puede — yes, we can! (Sounds vaguely familiar ;) Read more »

Speaking of Organic ...

2009-03-23T12:44:00-07:00

P.S. I received more feedback, all positive, about that article on the “Organic Obamas” than any other article I’ve cited! That’s a very reassuring commentary on the American public (I thought we were all in love with junk food!). Along those lines, here’s one of the nice notes I received, with a link to a wonderful article by none other than our good ol’ Left Field friend Ellen Snortland ... Read more »

The Organic Obamas!

2009-03-20T06:37:00-07:00

Finally ... [link to New York Times article] some good news! As a longtime organic vegetable gardener (Frances and I are looking forward to some heirloom tomatoes later this year) and as someone trained in biology and thus appreciative of the value of good nutrition and sustainable growing practices, I am extremely impressed by our First Lady’s new hobby and her reasons for undertaking it, particularly in setting a good example for children, and thus families and communities, nationwide: At a time when trillions are flashing before our eyes, this is $200 well spent! Read more »

Right-Thinking Among Righteous Anger

2009-03-16T11:30:00-07:00

After reading about the dangers of righteous anger in the current economic crisis — http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/us/politics/16assess.html?_r=1&th&emc=th — I asked myself a few questions. If the economy is to recover, do we need to put the banking and financial system on a new, sound footing? Absolutely. No economy can function without a functioning financial sector. Since the taxpayers have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in AIG and other financial companies because they are “too big to fail” — that is, they’d take the rest of us down with them — doesn’t that entitle the taxpayers to some say in how that money is spent? And entitle the taxpayers to some rewards, down the road, for covering the risks? Of course. Read more »

Right-Wing Hangover

2009-03-12T22:21:00-07:00

The Right complaining about all the time, effort, and expense that will be required to clean up the mess left behind by eight years of their policies under the Bush administration is like a bunch of spoiled frat boys with hangovers complaining about all the noise from the cleaning crew and all the bills for the breakage left in the wake of one of their drunken bashes. A little less complaining and a lot more help would be sorely appreciated. Read more »

International Women’s Day

2009-03-11T15:01:00-07:00

Swanee Hunt, the former ambassador to Austria and one of our best guests ever on Barry Gordon’s radio show, has written a simply wonderful piece in The Huffington Post (linked below) about the recent gathering for International Women’s Day (This is Women’s Month, you know), hosted in of all places one of the world’s most troubled nations, Liberia, in West Africa. It is truly awe-inspiring to read of what some of these brave women have endured, and yet have not become demoralized by: It is testimony to the human spirit, male or female. Read more »

My Mistake

2009-03-04T15:59:00-08:00

While eating my lunch, I just heard on MSNBC part of an interview with the CEO of a major bank (which shall go nameless, although not penniless when taking tens of billions from the American taxpayer) in which he defended the huge salaries (in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year) and even bigger bonuses (in the tens of millions of dollars a year) that the executives at big banks and financial institutions got, even as they were running them into the ground: He said that when you get up into the top 20 earners at one of these companies (not coincidentally including himself) they are the “top producers” and are worth that much to the company. Read more »

FW: “A Threat to the Status Quo”

2009-03-01T14:24:00-08:00

Well, MoveOn asked those of us who received this message to forward it to our e-mail networks, so here goes ... Doug (Can you imagine Bush or McCain calling for anything even remotely like these truly progressive actions?) Read more »

FW: Right-Wing Tax and Budget Myths

2009-02-28T11:36:00-08:00

So the next time you hear any of the myths and lies from the Right — or misperceptions from anyone — you have the facts ... FROM: The Progress Report [mailto:progress@americanprogressaction.org] [Text of The Progress Report, as posted here] Read more »

The Obama Budget: A Return to Equality

2009-02-27T08:15:00-08:00

Stoked by the changes going on in DC, I just had to share with you, below, a few excerpts from today’s most-e-mailed article in the New York Times online. And remember: This isn’t about “class warfare” — even though that is what you’ll continue to hear from those on the Right who, as the article reports, for some 30 years have been effectively looting the national treasury and all the other wealth created by the hard-working, anything-but-rich people of this great nation. No, this is simply about restoring fairness and wisdom to our economic policies. Read more »

MLK Day Image and True Story

2009-01-19T10:57:00-08:00

For Martin Luther King day, and my act of service (as President-Elect Obama has so characteristically statesmanly asked of us), I’d like to share the image of this button and the rather incredible but true story behind it ...

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Born-Again American

2009-01-15T11:35:00-08:00

This is one of the most moving things I have seen and heard in a long time: http://www.bornagainamerican.org/index.html. Thanks to my friend Harvey Kaye, a professor at the Univ. of Wisconsin – Green Bay, for sharing this with me. Please share it with others you know, too! Read more »

Obama & Vilsack will secure clean, green food & energy supplies.

2008-12-23T13:39:00-08:00

I just received a couple very interesting articles from my cousin Larry, a corn and soybean farmer back in Iowa — the homestate of Obama’s pick for Secretary of Agriculture, Ex-Gov. Tom Vilsack. While most of us don’t live on farms — we can thank the farmers for feeding us citydwellers so well — agricultural issues today are vital to not only our supplies of food but also to our supplies of energy and, thus, the security of our nation and the health of our planet. Keeping that and some recent controversies in mind, I’ve excerpted below some very interesting passages. Read more »

FW: [DemocraticNewsGroup] What the UAW Made

2008-12-22T07:34:00-08:00

One of the very best articles I’ve read during this economic crisis (and I’ve read a lot) ... From: DemocraticNewsGroup@yahoogroups.com ... Subject: [DemocraticNewsGroup] What the UAW Made http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/21/102445/57/589/675734 ... by Trapper John Read more »

Auto Bailout

2008-12-12T10:48:00-08:00

From the lead story in today’s New York Times: “Senate Abandons Auto Bailout Bid: Senate Republicans refused to support a bill endorsed by the White House and Congressional Democrats.” My question: Just how much stock in Toyota do those Senate Republicans own? Read more »

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

2008-12-10T11:54:00-08:00

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/bush_tours_america_to_survey ;) Read more »

FW: Tomorrow is the 60th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights!

2008-12-10T00:32:00-08:00

The following is from Ellen Snortland (who by the way celebrates the letter and spirit of the Declaration in her acclaimed one-woman show, “Now That She’s Gone,” http://www.nowthatshesgone.org/). Read more »

FW: [DemocraticNewsGroup] Uhm ... this simply cannot be a good sign

2008-12-10T00:26:00-08:00

From: DemocraticNewsGroup@yahoogroups.com ... Subject: FW: [DemocraticNewsGroup] Uhm ... this simply cannot be a good sign: Investors buy negative yield and zero interest Treasury bills; i.e., they’re intentionally taking a loss because it’s better than risking the market! Read more »

The Wisdom of the Obama Economic Brain Trust

2008-11-24T09:48:00-08:00

I am very reassured to read in the New York Times online today (What a birthday present!) that Obama’s economic team is in line with that philosophy and those policy prescriptions [noted in this e-mail], including those who were once more “centrist” in their thinking: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/politics/24rubin.html?_r=1&th&emc=th Read more »

FW: “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!”

2008-11-17T12:29:00-08:00

Forward from Anonymous: http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=35 “Keeping his promise to meet with unstable world leaders without pre-conditions, President-Elect Obama met with President Bush this week.” Read more »

RE: [DemocraticNewsGroup] ‘Too Big To Fail’ Has an Easy Answer: Anti-Trust or Public Control

2008-11-14T13:22:00-08:00

This article is absolutely correct: As with the banking bailout, if the U.S. taxpayers are saving an industry by putting money at risk, then the U.S. taxpayers deserve a big say in how that money is used. However, there is an insidious angle to this. The Right is salivating at an opportunity to break the UAW; their strategy is nothing more or less than extortion: holding perhaps millions of jobs at risk, throughout the economy, in exchange for concessions the auto industry management could never win at the bargaining table. Read more »

The Right-wing fiddles while America burns!

2008-11-14T01:25:00-08:00

The Right-wing fiddles — and obstructs — while America burns (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/business/14auto.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin): “The prospects of a government rescue for the foundering American automakers dwindled Thursday as Democratic Congressional leaders conceded that they would face potentially insurmountable Republican opposition during a lame-duck session next week.” Read more »

FW: Wonderful: Reactions Around The World

2008-11-14T01:01:00-08:00

“There has never been such a reaction around the world to a presidential election.” [Photos of people and newspapers around the world celebrating the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States] Read more »

FW: An Historical Night

2008-11-13T22:56:00-08:00

“These are great photos, and I think that you will enjoy them! ... This is real HISTORY ... and we are part of it.” http://flickr.com/photos/barackobamadotcom/sets/72157608716313371/show/ Read more »

FW: IT’S A NEW DAY

2008-11-08T23:29:00-08:00

“Political cartoons that appeared in newspapers on 11-5-08.” [Numerous political cartoons about the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States] Read more »

Palin

2008-11-06T12:50:00-08:00

I was a bit wrong about the Palin situation: If Stevens wins but is then expelled from the Senate, then there will be a special election, in which Palin would probably run and then win; I’d heard that she could just appoint herself to the seat — that might be how the seat would be filled until the special election. In any case, we may not have seen the last of her. Could she be an albatross around the GOP’s neck, like Bush has been? You betcha! Read more »

This headline says it all ;)

2008-11-05T11:36:00-08:00

Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job (http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/black_man_given_nations) WASHINGTON — African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. Read more »

GOD BLESS AMERICA

2008-11-04T20:46:00-08:00

God bless America. We’ve got a lot of hard work to do. But we’re going to do it together. We’re putting the old divisions behind us. History will be kind to us for this. Read more »

Cautiously optimistic still requires action!

2008-11-04T13:03:00-08:00

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback already about the CNN (and MSNBC) maps looking like Obama’s got it wrapped up. All of us know that this thing is completely up in the air. ... We’re continuing to impress upon people how historic this election is — how vital it is to pull together to confront the enormous challenges before us. We can do it. We’re doing it! Read more »

Quick Note: Has CNN already given it to Obama?

2008-11-04T10:30:00-08:00

Look at the CNN presidential election map, before even one vote comes in: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/. Even if McCain were to defy the polls and sweep what they’ve indicated are the “battleground states” (MT, ND, MO, IN, OH, NC, & FL) that would still leave Obama with 291 electoral votes — 21 more than needed to win! Cautiously optimistic ... Read more »

Swing the pendulum. Make history. Vote.

2008-11-04T09:33:00-08:00

This is indeed a historic election, and for reasons more significant than its being the longest and costliest in U.S. history. Underlying it all is the almost palpable sense that after decades of abuse, we — the people of the United States — are reasserting our fundamental right to power. The pendulum, which swung to the Right — and shifted the balance of wealth and power to the top — with the election of Ronald Reagan, has begun to swing in a more liberating direction. Read more »