New Democratic Agenda

MEGA-BAILOUT BILL ADVICE FOR CONGRESS FROM ROBERT REICH

2008-09-21T15:36:00.001-04:00

Former Labor Secretary (under Clinton) Robert Reich has posted 3 excellent posts on his blog providing key perspective and suggestions for responding to the current crisis:

We tell poor nations they have to make their financial markets transparent before capital will flow to them. Now it's our turn. Lacking adequate regulation or oversight, our financial markets have become a snare and a delusion. Government only has two choices now: Either continue to bail them out, or regulate them in order to keep them honest. I vote for the latter.

Especially valuable right now--as our Congressional leaders rush like a flock of lemmings to embrace in fear whatever the Republican administration hands them, in a new application of the Shock Doctrine to our entire nation--are Reich's recommendations for the basic principles that should be incorporated into the coming Congressional "Bailout of All Bailout" Bills:

1. The government (i.e. taxpayers) gets an equity stake in every Wall Street financial company proportional to the amount of bad debt that company shoves onto the public. So when and if Wall Street shares rise, taxpayers are rewarded for accepting so much risk.

2. Wall Street executives and directors of Wall Street firms relinquish their current stock options and this year’s other forms of compensation, and agree to future compensation linked to a rolling five-year average of firm profitability...

3. All Wall Street executives immediately cease making campaign contributions to any candidate for public office in this election cycle or next, all Wall Street PACs be closed, and Wall Street lobbyists curtail their activities unless specifically asked for information by policymakers...

4. Wall Street firms agree to comply with new regulations over disclosure, capital requirements, conflicts of interest, and market manipulation. The regulations will emerge in ninety days from a bi-partisan working group, to be convened immediately. After all, inadequate regulation and lack of oversight got us into this mess.

5. Wall Street agrees to give bankruptcy judges the authority to modify the terms of primary mortgages, so homeowners have a fighting chance to keep their homes. Why should distressed homeowners lose their homes when Wall Streeters receive taxpayer money that helps them keep their fancy ones?

If Congress is truly interested in being responsible to their primary obligations to the American people, instead of doing (as usual) whatever is quickest and easiest so they can get out of Washington according to schedule for their long election vacation, they will avoid passing any Blank Check Mega-Bailout Bill that does not incorporate Reich's key principles.

Indeed, if the Republican administration balks at a bill that adds these provisions, then the Democratic Congress should be committed to keeping Congress in session as long as it takes-- right up to the election, if necessary--to keep this most important of all issues front and center before all the American people for discussion as people consider who they will be voting for in this election.

In this "once-in-a-century" crisis (according to Greenspan), the future of the nation and the world depends on the details of the Mega-Bailout Bill that Congress hands to the American people and the world in the coming days. So we all should not only hope but call our Congresspeople and demand that this time our Congressional representatives put the destiny of the nation and world in front of its own petty interest in getting out of Washington as quickly as possible for another long vacation, while the world's financial system collapses around us.

Call to All Americans: RISE UP & DEMAND "a New Politics for a New Time"

2008-08-29T16:03:00.002-04:00

From URGENCY OF NOW:

"All across America something is stirring -- Change happens because the American people demand it, because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time." (Barack Obama's Nomination Acceptance Speech, August 28, 2008)

While the pundits are for the most part missing this central call to action in Obama's speech, and Juan Williams on NPR today referred to the speech as one that will NOT be memorable (I suspect pundits said the same thing after FDR's early speeches), all Americans who are suffering and desiring a change from the failed Republican policies of the last eight years will beg to differ!

Unlike those media pundits and Republican operatives who are detached from the real sufferings of many Americans, Obama understands the roots of the demand for fundamental change, and in last night's speech finally addressed the call of many to spell out the details of the kind of change he will bring to Washington.

But, as he noted, he can't do this alone. Bringing change to Washington first requires that we make sure he is elected, and will then require that we all dig in to do the work of change, since even if Obama is elected, he will not be able to bring the change we need without the constant and firm pressure of all of us working to push progressive initiatives forward.

So its time for all of us to dig in and get to work. Obama last night provided a stirring call to action. Now we must all rise up to do the work required to get him elected, turn back all the efforts the Republicans will exert to prevent Obama's election--including lies, distortions, and interference with a fair voting process--and then get to work to transform the policy priorities of the nation. For we need not only a new politics, but also new policy for a new time....

Thank you, Barack Obama, for preserving the spirit of ML King's glorious speech 45 years ago, and for calling Americans to action in that spirit. I hope Americans will now prove themselves worthy of your faith and trust.

*****

Text of Barack Obama's Democratic Nomination Acceptance Speech

"The American Promise"
Democratic Convention
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
Denver, Colorado

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation;

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest - a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours -- Hillary Rodham Clinton. To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

To the love of my life, our next First Lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia - I love you so much, and I'm so proud of all of you.

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story - of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren't well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.

It is that promise that has always set this country apart - that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.

That's why I stand here tonight. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors -- found the courage to keep it alive.

We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit card bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach.

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.

This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land:

ENOUGH!

This moment - this election - is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough."

Now let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and respect. And next week, we'll also hear about those occasions when he's broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change.

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives - on health care and education and the economy - Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."

A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.

Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America.

You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.

We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma. We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was President - when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush.

We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job - an economy that honors the dignity of work.

The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great - a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.

Because in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's Army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She's the one who taught me about hard work. She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.

What is that promise?

It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now.

*****
So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am President.

Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last thirty years, and John McCain has been there for twenty-six of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.

Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced.

America, now is not the time for small plans.

Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance. I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American - if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent.

Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses; and the time to protect Social Security for future generations.

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.

Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I've laid out how I'll pay for every dime - by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don't help America grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less - because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy.

And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America's promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F. Kennedy called our "intellectual and moral strength." Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can't replace parents; that government can't turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing the love and guidance their children need.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility - that's the essence of America's promise.

And just as we keep our keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face. When John McCain said we could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.

And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we're wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That's not the judgment we need. That won't keep America safe. We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

You don't defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq. You don't protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice - but it is not the change we need.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans -- Democrats and Republicans - have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.

But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.

So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits.

What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose - our sense of higher purpose. And that's what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.

This too is part of America's promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.

And you know what - it's worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn't work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it's best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past.

You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.

Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming. Because I've seen it. Because I've lived it. I've seen it in Illinois, when we provided health care to more children and moved more families from welfare to work. I've seen it in Washington, when we worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more accountable, to give better care for our veterans and keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.

And I've seen it in this campaign. In the young people who voted for the first time, and in those who got involved again after a very long time. In the Republicans who never thought they'd pick up a Democratic ballot, but did. I've seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours - a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.

The Progressive View of the Democratic Convention

2008-08-25T12:20:00.003-04:00

Streaming Live, During the Day, from the Democratic Convention [See schedule of events below; If embed is not working, you may access the web broadcast directly by clicking on this link:

Event Schedule from Progressive Central, at the
Central Presbyterian Church
1660 Sherman St.
Denver, CO 80203

PROGRAM SCHEDULE (all times listed are Mountain time)

SUNDAY NIGHT, AUGUST 24: PDAs "Progressive Welcome to Denver"

8:00 - 10:00 PM: Community, speeches, and music. Hosted by Mimi Kennedy, PDA Advisory Board Chair. Featuring Rep. Barbara Lee (CA), Co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and PDA Advisory Board member; John Nichols, Washington correspondent, The Nation; Tom Hayden, author, activist; Jim Zogby, Arab American Institute and DNC member; Jim Hightower, journalist and PDA Advisory Board member: PDA-endorsed Healthcare NOT Warfare candidate Joan Fitz-Gerald. Music by Dan Reed.

MONDAY AUGUST 25: HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE

--MORNING SCHEDULE

9:00 - 11:00 AM: Tabling and networking
9:40 - 9:50 PM: Jared Polis, Colorado 2nd Congressional District Congressional Candidate
9:50 - 10:00 AM: Bill Moyer, Backbone Campaign and friends.
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Stephen Zunes, Middle Eastern scholar and journalist.
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM: The Nation Conversations Series-- Healthcare, Aids, and Africa
Moderated by author and The Nation journalist John Nichols with Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. John Conyers, House Judiciary Committee Chair, and Richard Kim.

AFTERNOON SCHEDULE

12:30 - 1:00 PM: Lunch
1:00 - 3:45 PM: PDA Panels--Healthcare NOT Warfare
Moderated by John Nichols.
1:00 - 2:05 PM: Healthcare Panel:
Rep. John Conyers, sponsor HR 676; Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign co-chairs Norman Solomon, author and PDA Advisory Board member and Donna Smith, star of SiCKO and founder of American Patients United; Dr. Rocky White, single payer Denver healthcare advocate, Geri Jenkins, RN, CNA/NNOC, Jim Hightower.
2:10 - 3:15 PM: NOT Warfare Panel:
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, Co-chair CPC and PDA Advisory Board member; Norman Solomon; Kathleen Snyder, Gold Star Mom; Ann Wright, retired United States Army colonel and retired official of the U.S. State Department; and a representative from Iraq Veterans Against the War.
3:15 - 3:45: Q & A
3:45 - 4:00: Housekeeping and Closing Comments: Tim Carpenter
4:15 - 5:15 PM: Community Conversation on healthcare, moderated by "Be the Change."

TUESDAY, AUGUST 26: MEDIA REFORM AND CLEAN, FAIR, TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS

MORNING SCHEDULE

9:00 - 11:00 AM: Tabling and networking
9:45 - 9:55 AM: Governor Don Siegelman
10:00 - 10:30 AM: STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE with Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM: The Nation Conversations Series - Out of Iraq
Moderated by John Nichols with Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA), Co-chair Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Jim McDermott, (WA), and Tom Hayden.

AFTERNOON SCHEDULE

12:30 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 2:15 PM: PDA Panel--Media Reform:
Moderated by Jeff Cohen, author, and founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting; with John Nichols; Laura Flanders, journalist, Nation Radio and Grit TV; Shireen Mitchell, Digital Sistas; Maeve Conran, Associate News Dir. KGNU Community Radio Denver/Boulder, Chris Rabb, Afro-Netizen.
2:30 - 3:45 PM: PDA Panel--Clean, Fair, Transparent Elections:
Mimi Kennedy, moderator; with Steve Rosenfeld author and election integrity activist; John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action, founder of the National Voting Rights
Institute, and PDA Advisory Board member; Bob Edgar, Common Cause; Harvie Branscomb, Colorado election protection advocate; Brad Friedman, Bradblog.
3:45 - 4:00 PM: Housekeeping and Closing comments: Tim Carpenter

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27: ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND GLOBAL WARMING

MORNING SCHEDULE

9:00 - 11:00 AM: Tabling and networking
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM: The Nation Conversations Series-- Immigration Reform and Economic Justice
John Nichols, Moderator; with Rep. Jim McGovern (MA), PDA Advisory Board member; and Bob Moser, contributing writer to The Nation.

AFTERNOON SCHEDULE

12:30 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 2:15 PM: PDA Panel--Economic Justice/Ending Poverty:
John Nichols, Moderator; Rep. Barbara Lee; Rep. Jim McGovern; David Sirota, author, journalist; Lori Wallach, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch; Carmen Rhodes, Executive Director of the Front Range Economic Strategy Center.
2:30 - 3:45 PM: PDA Panel--Global Warming:
Norman Solomon, Moderator; with Medea Benjamin Founding Director Global Exchange, Founder of Code Pink and PDA Advisory Board member; Nancy La Placa, Energy Consultant with Bardwell Consulting Ltd.: Majora Carter, Sustainable South Bronx Director; Dr. Trenberth, IPCC Scientist:
3:45 - 4:00: Housekeeping and Closing Comments: Tim Carpenter

THURSDAY, AUGUST 28: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW & CONGRESS AND PDA ONWARD FROM DENVER

MORNING SCHEDULE

9:00 - 11:00 AM: Tabling and networking
10:00 - 10:30 AM: Vincent Bugliosi, author of "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder"
10:35 -10:50 AM: Leslie Cagan and Judith LeBlanc, United for Peace and Justice
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM: The Nation Conversations Series - Restoring and Maintaining our Constitutional Rights
Moderated by John Nichols with Rep. Robert Wexler (FL), Rep. Keith Ellison and Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation.

AFTERNOON SCHEDULE

12:30 - 1:00 PM Lunch
1:00 - 2:15 PM: PDA Panel--Constitutional Law and Congress: John Nichols moderator; with Rep. Keith Ellison, Steve Cobble, Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and PDA Advisory board member; Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator United for Peace and Justice; Jamie Raskin, Maryland State Senator, Law Professor at American University, and author.
2:45 - 3:45: PDA Panel--PDA Onward from Denver, Building the Progressive Movement, Working the Inside/Outside Strategy:
Mimi Kennedy, moderator; Steve Cobble; Tim Carpenter PDA National Director; Laura Bonham, PDA Communications Coordinator; Jodie Evans, CodePink founder and PDA Advisory Board member.
3:45 - 4:00: Housekeeping and Concluding Remarks: Tim Carpenter

Lamont Victory Just the Beginning of Strong Progressive Electoral Movement

2006-08-10T12:13:00.000-04:00

Republicans (and Republican fellow travellers, such as Lieberman has become) immediately sought to salve their fears about the rising tide of progressive democratic politics symbolized by the Lamont victory in Connecticut by resorting to Orwellian doublespeak that sought to turn new democratic signs of strength into weakness.

Instead of recognizing what the Lamont victory clearly represents--the growing strength of a progressive democratic resurgence in this country that has clear ideas about how to build a strong America by taking our government back from the corporate sycophants in Congress who have been systematically destroying and continually weakening our country, the Republicans would like to deflect attention from their own terrible weakness and failures of policy by Orwellian games of language that deny the reality of democratic strength.

Too bad for them. Because the more Republicans ignore reality and retreat into their Orwellian logic of doublethink--which does nothing to change the realities on the ground--the more disastrous will be the consequences of their policy failures for families in this country and around the globe who seek to live in stable and prosperous communities.

Because progressive democrats champion policies that build an environment for strong, stable, and prosperous communities, it is democrats who now represent the party of strength and true security for American citizens and families. Meanwhile, the Republicans continue to defend and retreat into an Orwellian fantasy-world that seems to celebrate ever-growing levels of counter-violence and destabilization in the name of a so-called "war on terror" where anything seems to be permissable in the name of the weird language and fantasies of "Homeland Security" (even while the real victims of Katrina, of poor health care, of uninsurance, and of poverty and disease, continue to suffer from tremendous ongoing failures of on-the-ground response within our own country).

And this ongoing disaster is what Republicans now seem to call strength and "staying the course." Unfortunately, reality on the ground declares otherwise. As we are seeing more and more vividly, at the price of an ever-growing toll of death and destruction: "Staying the course" of a failed policy vision and strategy is staying the course to disaster.

So if we want a definition of strength and strong policy that will lead us to somewhere other than disaster, we now need to look elsewhere, and demand that every person we put into office this November will represent our public interests--and demonstrate clearly that they have the ability and the commitment to understanding strength in ways that will benefit rather than harm the public interests of the people of this country and the rest of the world.

As Robert Borosage, of the Campaign for America's Future, has written:

[Lamont's] victory represents a growing voter revolt against the failed policies and politics of the Bush administration and its congressional enablers, particularly the debacle in Iraq. Until a few weeks ago, Lieberman prided himself on being the president's leading Democratic ally in touting the war. After his defeat, Democrats will show more backbone in challenging the current disastrous course and more Republicans will look for ways to distance themselves from the president.

Lamont's victory was propelled by a rising tide of progressive energy—activists who are tired of losing elections to the right and disgusted with cautious politicians who duck and cover rather than stand and fight. Until a few weeks ago, Lieberman exemplified those Democrats who establish their "independence" by pushing off the causes of their own party and embracing the right's agenda. His voters didn't abandon him; he abandoned them long ago. After his defeat, incumbents in both parties may begin to listen more closely to their voters and less avidly to their donors.

(To read more from Borosage, click here)

In an increasingly insecure and violent world, as represented by today's disrupted terror plot, we need political leaders and representatives who will fight for the interests of everyday citizens and families. We need politicians who will not allow corporate money and influence, and the seductions of war profiteering, to distract them from the primary responsibility of promoting policies that immediately begin to build stable and sustainable communities. In a turbulent world, such policy-building will require strong democratic policy vision and the commitment to fight for the common democratic interests of all citizens against the profiteering and exploitation of the many by the few.

It's time for a new progressive democratic politics, and new progressive policymaking vision in this country, and the Lamont primary victory is a clear sign the citizens of this country are organizing to take their government and their country back from those who have been exploiting both for their own narrow profits--to the harm of democracy everywhere.

So to all who would resort to Orwellian doublethink to twist the Lamont victory into a sign of democratic weakness or leftist extremism, we have this to say in return: It's time to wake up from your delusion and face reality. Progressive democracy is the new center of strength for a secure and sustainable future for all, and it is organizing today to win the future back from those who seek to exploit the many and weaken democracy everywhere for the profit of the few.

Wealth spent in the struggle to strengthen the public good and secure the advantages of true participatory democracy for all is wealth well-spent. But wealth spent in the pursuit of making the wealthy more wealthy and powerful while everyone else is allowed to suffer the consequences of this betrayal of the commonwealth, is also a fundamental betrayal of democracy here at home and abroad.

If Lamont's victory is a sign of how progressive citizens across this country, from the poorest to the wealthiest, are learning to invest and organize their resources to take back their government from those who would use wealth and power irresponsibly to betray the public interest, then this victory is a tremendous and hopeful sign of the growing strength and vitality of progressive vision and politics in this country. Because we are the people, and we are the democratic many, we do not need to remain the victims of those who would exploit our tax dollars, our soldiers' lives, and our environmental futures, for private profit. Through organizing our public power, we can take our government back for the good of democracy everywhere.

Because Lamont's primary victory is only a first step, however, and by no means guarantees a progressive Senate victory in November (since Lieberman has declared he will fight Lamont all the way to election day), we need to continue to organize our wealth of resources--financial, but especially our intellectual and imaginative resources--to create a new politics and a new policymaking vision for this country. Such vision and political power will be necessary not only to support the victory of a progressive Connecticut senator, but to make sure that Senator Lamont will have many other progressive colleagues to work with him in the halls of Congress, and that outside these halls each progressive Senator or Representative will know they have a strong network of public support and vibrant energy to back up their struggles to create and implement progressive policies in the halls of Congress in the years ahead.

Getting progressive candidates elected is a necessary first step, but then we need to make sure we give them the tools and the power they need to create and implement the new progessive policies that are so desperately needed to address the tremendous challenges of global warming, poverty, disease, and growing violence that now (thanks in part to the tragically misdefined understanding of "strength" that has defined Republican policy) face all of us in the twenty-first century.

Onward--

Senator Specter Preparing Bill that will Allow Congress to Sue President over his Misuse of Presidential Signing Statements

2006-07-25T16:43:00.000-04:00

Senator Specter Readies Bill to Sue Bush
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer, Jul 25

WASHINGTON - A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush's signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court.

"We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor.

Specter's announcement came the same day that an American Bar Association task force concluded that by attaching conditions to legislation, the president has sidestepped his constitutional duty to either sign a bill, veto it, or take no action.

Bush has issued at least 750 signing statements during his presidency, reserving the right to revise, interpret or disregard laws on national security and constitutional grounds.

To read more of this article, click here.

US News and World Report Article, "Bar association task force urges Congress to push for judicial review of Bush signing statements" (7/21/06)

ABA Recommendation of TASK FORCE ON PRESIDENTIAL SIGNING STATEMENTS AND THE SEPARATION OF POWERS DOCTRINE

More information from the ABA on the Task Force on Presidential Signing Statements and the Separation of Powers Doctrine

FIASCO: How the Bush Administration Has Gotten Us into a "War" We Cannot "Win"

2006-07-25T14:18:00.000-04:00

For extensive documentation of the "fiasco" of the Bush administration policy in Iraq, see the newly published book by Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks, FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.

From July 23 Washington Post article, by Ricks, "In Iraq, Military Forgot Lessons of Vietnam: Early Missteps by U.S. Left Troops Unprepared for Guerrilla Warfare":

The real war in Iraq -- the one to determine the future of the country -- began on Aug. 7, 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy, killing 11 and wounding more than 50.

That bombing came almost exactly four months after the U.S. military thought it had prevailed in Iraq, and it launched the insurgency, the bloody and protracted struggle with guerrilla fighters that has tied the United States down to this day.

***
But there is also strong evidence, based on a review of thousands of military documents and hundreds of interviews with military personnel, that the U.S. approach to pacifying Iraq in the months after the collapse of Hussein helped spur the insurgency and made it bigger and stronger than it might have been.

The very setup of the U.S. presence in Iraq undercut the mission. The chain of command was hazy, with no one individual in charge of the overall American effort in Iraq, a structure that led to frequent clashes between military and civilian officials.

Read more of this article here--

This is the first of two articles adapted from the book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" by Thomas E. Ricks. Penguin Press, New York, © 2006.

Bush Administration Policy of STAY and BLEED in Iraq is Losing the so-called "War on Terrorism": Overwhelming Majority of Policy Experts Agree

2006-07-21T14:23:00.000-04:00

According to the overwhelming majority (84 percent) of top foreign policy experts surveyed by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for American Progress, we are losing the war on terrorism.

For further documentation of this point, see the newly published book by Washington Post war correspondent Thomas Ricks, FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.

So now the only question for the Democratic Party is: When will it stop allowing Republican rhetoric about "cutting and running" to continue to cow Democrats in Congress into a defensive strategy? When will the Democrats turn this deceptive rhetoric around and put the emphasis where it should be: ON the fact that the Republican Strategy is one of keeping American Soldiers in Iraq to "stay and bleed" while the Bush administration continues to act without any clear policy whatsoever for decreasing the violence in the Middle-East?

When will the Democrats in Congress go on the offensive and label the Republican strategy what it is: a "stay and bleed" strategy of doing nothing while soldiers continue to die for the completely failed and inadequate policy agenda of the Bush administration?!!

To repeat (in case it's not clear yet!): It's time the Democrats start to speak out more boldly and clearly about the "stay and bleed" policy of the Republican administration and their Congressional lackeys. Until they do, and until our Congressional representatives of both parites get to work to produce a strategy that will either decrease the violence or get our soldiers out of it, US soldiers will continue to die in an ill-concieved, deceptive, and profiteering war created by an administration without vision or concern for the real suffering of American or Iraqi families, and for the increasing levels of violence this failed policy has been producing throughout the Middle-East.

It's time for a big change, and if our current members of Congress are not willing to make that change happen, the people of the United States must put into Congress people who will make that change.

Toward a New Democratic Vision: Common Sense for a Time of Crisis

2006-07-19T19:41:00.000-04:00

For a new Vision and Framing of a Democratic Policy Agenda, check out this new version of "Common Sense," published on July 4, 2006: Common Sense for a Time of Crisis, by TomPaine06--

This Framing of a Democratic Policy Vision begins by reminding us of the vision of Franklin D. Roosevelt who--after a Republican policy agenda of tax cuts for the wealthy and do-nothing government had driven the country into the depths of the Great Depression--understood that control of the government of the country needed to be taken back from the corporations and placed into the hands of the people.

Demand Leadership to End Global Warming Now!

2006-07-13T13:09:00.000-04:00

Remember when people argued that global warming doesn't exist? (Exxon/Mobil, of course, still does, but we know why they want to obfuscate the truth.)

As we move into another summer of chronic wildfires and drought in western states, and melting icecaps and glaciers, it's hard to ignore evidence of global warming's devastating consequences. And all the while, energy prices continue to rise, along with the oil industry's profits.

But for all the dire predictions, there are also sensible solutions. America has the technological know-how to reduce our reliance on oil and other fossil fuels, reduce wasteful emissions which are causing global warming, and make our economy more energy efficient. We as citizens must demand that elected officials act now to develop policies to stop global warming before our environment is irreparably harmed.

Today I participated in the League of Conservation Voters' new summer campaign - The Heat is On! Demand Global Warming Leadership Now! - to raise awareness about global warming. Please join me in calling on Congress, the President, and both political parties to make global warming a central issue in the upcoming elections in November. Just click here.

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Demand Global Warming Leadership Now!

Sign the Global Warming Leadership Petition. Send a message to political leaders, and those running for re-election in November, that Americans want energy leadership from their government. We have the technological know-how to turn the tide on global warming and the energy crisis. We as citizens must demand that elected officials act now to develop policies to stop global warming before our environment is irreparably harmed.

Sensible solutions to global warming and our energy problems already exist - we can own our energy future and reinvigorate our economy. Sign the petition and demand that politicians and candidates for office make global warming and clean energy a priority in the 2006 elections. Just fill out the form.
Send this petition to:

* President George W. Bush
* Democratic National Committee
* Republican National Committee
* Your Congressperson
* Your Senators

I am concerned about the disastrous effects of global warming and our continued reliance on oil, therefore I strongly urge you to make these issues a priority in the coming 2006 elections.

Make global warming and energy security issues during the election -- in speeches, at town hall meetings, on your web site, at campaign events, in advertisements and flyers. Let voters know which global warming solutions you support. And encourage your colleagues in Washington to do the same.

Future leaders hold the key to solving our epic energy problems, and the 2006 elections is the starting point.

Join the Campaign against global warming now, before it is too late!

REAL QUESTIONS to Ask the President, if Journalists Wish to Avoid Larry King-style Lovefests While This Country Burns

2006-07-07T18:34:00.000-04:00

From Policybusters:

As many commentators have noted, this country is facing a perfect storm of mounting crises of national and global significance. Yet members of the Press, like Larry King, who have rare opportunities to seriously interview or question the President, continue to fiddle with the President and members of Congress, and to offer us lovefests rather than serious interviews, while the country burns (perhaps this was a condition of permitting Larry to do the interview: Did you have to sign a prior restraint agreement, Larry, promising to ask only lovefest questions? If not, all the more reason you should be ashamed of yourself for not fulfilling your obligations as a journalist to your fellow citizens--)

We don't need to wait for terrorists to attack to have a crisis or disaster of national proportions, as Katrina proved. And this disaster, which is already here, is growing worse every day, as the President, Congress, and the national Press seem to do little more than help each other to avoid addressing the real issues inflicting pain and suffering on the lives of American citizens every day: inadequate health care, poverty, lack of effective and adequate disaster relief aid, global warming, non-existent energy policy....

There is a growing constitutional crisis over the Executive Administration's deliberate defiance of Congressionally-mandated laws like FISA, as well as multiple international crises (the worsening wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the missile crisis in N. Korea), and growing domestic crises related to rising poverty rates, terrible health care, a non-existent energy policy, and global warming.

Meanwhile, the President and Congress are fiddling while the country is burning (in some places literally: witness the many fires burning in the West, which a recent scientific study has attributed to global warming)-- the President and Congress would rather spend tax-payer money advocating flag-burning amendments and anti-gay constitutional initiatives and discriminatory legislation, than address the real life-or-death crises facing the citizens of this country.

And what is the Press doing, when it has a chance to ask the President direct questions? Larry King's birthday lovefest with the President yesterday still seems to be all too typical of the way the people of the Press (& especially those in Washington who are privileged with the power and access to challenge political leaders to get off their butts and do something real) are continually failing to fulfill their responsibility to US citizens.

Larry King had a whole hour with the President in the White House yesterday, and yet not one tough question was asked. The whole interview amounted to little more than a publicity event for the President. Thank you, Larry King, for helping the President once again to avoid addressing any serious questions. Once again I naively hoped that at least one solid and real question would be asked of the President, but alas--how foolish I was to hope....

I once believed the members of the National Press were supposed to be concerned about more than simply providing politicians free opportunities to bloviate and obscure all that they are not doing to address this country's pressing problems. But except for the rare instances when a newspaper like the New York Times actually has the courage to challenge the status quo, the national Press seems to be failing to ask the hard questions of our political leaders that need to be asked, if our democratic system of government is to be preserved in this century.

So for all journalists who might have an opportunity to ask the President or others in the Administration a real question or two about what is really happening in this country, here are a few sample questions you might ask, to begin to put some real pressure on politicians for real answers:

(For background reading on basis for some of these questions, check out two great articles by New Yorker investigative reporter Jane Mayer:

THE HIDDEN POWER: The legal mind behind the White House’s war on terror

THE MEMO: How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted

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Real Questions for the President:

Mr. President, in a recent profile of the Vice-President's Chief of Staff David Addington for the New Yorker (by Jane Mayer), Addington is said to have asserted that he and Dick Cheney were interested in "merging the VP's office with the President's office into a single Exec. Office." Any comment?

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In accepting the Office of President of the United States, you swore to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States"

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution reads:

"The Congress shall have power to …provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; [The explicit stated powers of Congress include]:
"To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
"To declare war, …and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
"To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces"--

Do you believe that during time of war the President has the authority to ignore any of these congressional powers in the name of national security?

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Your administration obviously believes in a strong and robust executive authority in relation to Congress. Do you believe that your authority as commander in chief during time of war extends to ignoring or circumventing Congressional authority to oversee and limit the power of the president in accord with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, or to set aside congressional statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance, as in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act?

Example: The US War Crimes Act passed into law by Congress, forbids the violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions, which bars cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, as well as outrages against human dignity. By not accepting the relevance of Common Article 3 in your conduct of the war on terror, and the establishment of detention centers at Guantanamo and elsewhere, are you not ignoring or contravening laws established by Congress?

*****
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has stated that a state of war does not give any President a blank check to ignore constitutional limitations on presidential power. Do you disagree with Justice O'Connor?

*****

Do you believe that in the name of national security you have the authority to ignore or defy congressional oversight laws such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or to set aside congressional statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance?

*****

If the American people, through a majority of their elected representatives in Congress, pass a law that says the President cannot do such and such a thing, as happened after Watergate in response to Nixon's abuse of executive powers when Congress enacted the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] law to protect civil liberties and keep future Presidents from abusing their authority-- do you believe the President has the right to ignore or defy that Congressional legislation?

*****

The famous presidential historian Arthur Schlesinger has stated that this administration has turned historical aberrations of executive overreach, such as Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus rights during the Civil War, into a regular policy of government? Any response?

*****

Your administration's interpretation of law has been challenged on several major issues, including your conduct of surveillance in seeming defiance of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and your appointment of military commissions, along with your very liberal use of signing statements (over 750 so far)—

This has suggested to some that the policy strategies being employed by your administration amount not only to defying Constitutional law, which gives Congress significant responsibilities of oversight, but to setting your office in defiance of basic constitutional doctrine of checks and balances. Any comment?

*****
On Signing Statements:

The American Bar Association has recently started an investigation into your use of signing statements as a potentially unconstitutional method for simply ignoring the laws passed by Congress. Instead of being accountable to the public by openly vetoing the law or committing yourself to following it, you seem to be reserving the right to ignore Congressional legislation as you wish.

Bruce Fein, a lawyer and former deputy attorney general in the Reagan admin, and someone who voted for you in both elections, argues that Addington’s signing statements are “unconstitutional as a strategy,” because the Founding Fathers wanted Presidents to veto congressional legislation openly, as part of the balancing process, if they thought the bills were unconstitutional, and that this was a way of keeping both the President and Congress accountable to the American people for their actions. Fein has also stated the Founding Fathers would be shocked by what you have done…. Why are you using signing statements in a way that seems to make you unaccountable to both Congress and the American people?

On Military Commissions:

David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, has been directly involved in the creation of the military commissions that the Supreme Court recently declared unconstitutional, even as other senior cabinet officials, including Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, were left out of the process of decision-making related to the creation of those commissions--

Since there has been so little positive progress on this issue, and now that the Supreme Court decision has declared these commissions to be unconstitutional (as you were warned they would), do you have any regrets about the form of decision-making within your administration, which seems to have handed over to one person in the VP's office unprecedented latitude to define the policy of your administration on such important issues as this? Have you learned any lessons about the positive value of involving a much wider number of senior cabinet officials, such as the secretary of state, in key decisions such as this?

Any thoughts of taking responsibility for these mistakes of overreach by asking David Addington (who is also involved in the signing statements and in articulating the administration's position on surveillance issues) to resign?

On FISA:

Fourteen prominent constitutional scholars have written an open letter to Congress arguing that the N.S.A. surveillance program violates constitutional law, because your administration has not amended the FISA law, but has chosen simply to ignore it--

After the abuses of executive power by President Nixon that led to Watergate, Congress passed laws designed to protect civil liberties and curb abuses of executive power in order to protect civil liberties and try to insure that no President would repeat Nixon's abuses. Yet it is a matter of record that within your administration head legal advisors, such as David Addington, Cheney's Chief of Staff, and Cheney himself, believe these laws are not legitimate because they put too much restraint on the president's power. Do you agree with Cheney and Addington in thinking that the legal restrictions placed on presidential power after Watergate ought to be abandoned?

*****

All of these questions address real and serious crises that need immediate attention and strategic action NOW, not 2 or 4 years from now. Yet none of these crises are being meaningfully addressed by the President or Congress or the Press in a sustained way, even as much energy is focused on debating symbolic issues like flag burning, and on depriving gay people of the right to marriage and a family, all in the name of so-called "family values." (Presumably, this is why the anti-gay crowd would rather have foster children needing adoption remain in foster homes, rather than have them adopted by loving gay parents!)

Apparently, what these anti-gay values people "value" is more about discriminating against gays, than it is about offering as many people as possible in this country the opportunity to participate in the institutions of married and family life. For those who subscribe to the "Heterosexuals Only" Family Policy, "family" is only what homophobic heterosexuals define it to be. If you're not heterosexual, or if you're a child looking for loving parents, who might happen to be gay, too bad for you!

This country's "Heterosexuals Only" Family policy would rather keep kids in foster homes or send them and their potential gay adoptive parents to hell than allow them to participate in the very institution these anti-gay heterosexuals say is the bedrock of a "decent" moral society. How wonderfully "decent" and hypocritical it is for the laws of this country to deprive an entire class of persons in our society the right to equal participation in the very institutions of marriage and family so-called pro-family advocates say they value as the bedrock of our civilization.

But so it goes in this country that seems to have lost its mind, along with its heart and soul, as decisions are made, like those in New York and Georgia this week.

And meanwhile, the forests of this country--which help to absorb carbon dioxide and keep global warming from worsening--are burning. This is an issue that should be of REAL and immediate concern to pro-family advocates, since all families will suffer from the effects of global warming --including those loving gay families that will continue to exist in spite of all efforts to discriminate and legislate against them.

And to the extent that this country continues to invest its time, energy, and political focus on passing laws to discriminate against gay families, rather than to address the serious policy issues of energy, global warming, and the preservation of our democratic constitutional order, well--what can we say about such insanity, other than--For Shame!

--What a tragic shame, for all Americans, our children, and the people of the rest of the world--

The North Pole Ice Is Breaking Up While ExxonMobil Continues to Oppose Action on Global Warming

2006-07-05T14:05:00.000-04:00

Eric Larsen and Lonnie Dupre, of Greenpeace, who began their trek to the North Pole on May 1, reached their destination over the holiday weekend, and they report their own shock at the degree to which the ice is breaking up due to the effects of global warming:

Over the last 60 days, we have seen many signs of global warming, and the ice conditions have been much worse than we ever anticipated. The closer we got to our destination, the more the ice broke up. We spent more and more time in our canoes, and we really believe that we may be the first and last people on Earth who will ever reach the North Pole in summer by foot. Unless we all do something now to combat global warming, those who follow in our footsteps may not be walking at all, but may arrive here by sailboat instead. The scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who have helped guide our progress during this expedition, tell us this summer could be a record breaking year for melting ice in the Arctic.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil continues to use the power of its money and lobbying to combat the attempts of citizens across the globe to take action to reduce global warming. Until ExxonMobil joins with us to battle against global warming, rather than battle against us, we must turn their own battle against the citizens and enviroment of the world against them, and "mobilize against Exxon."

From Greenpeace, here are 5 reasons why ExxonMobil is even worse than other oil companies:

1. ExxonMobil tries to convince the public that global warming isn't happening even though ExxonMobil is one of its main causes. It spends millions of dollars on misleading propaganda every year.

2. ExxonMobil has played a leading role in sabotaging international attempts to stop global warming. It would rather sell more gasoline than protect future generations.

3. ExxonMobil doesn't believe renewable energy has a future. "With no readily available economic alternatives on the horizon, fossil fuels will continue to supply most of the world's energy needs for the foreseeable future." --Lee Raymond, ExxonMobil CEO, 1997

4. ExxonMobil is the biggest oil company in the world - its profits totalled more than US$12 billion in 2000. If anyone can afford to help stop global warming it's ExxonMobil.

5. ExxonMobil was one of the main financial contributors to George Bush's election campaign. As soon as George Bush became president, he announced that the U.S. would pull out of international agreements to stop global warming - exactly the position that ExxonMobil was promoting.

Paying Taxes Is One of the Best Ways for the Wealthy to Be Philanthropic

2006-06-30T19:33:00.000-04:00

In face of the deafening media silence this week in response to Warren Buffett's criticism (on Monday) of the Republican plan to repeal the estate tax (I didn't hear about this critique until some fellow bloggers informed me of it today on DailyKos), I’m glad to hear that someone like Mark Kramer is pointing out the limitations of even a large private philanthropic donation like Buffett’s $31 billion to the Gates Foundation. [See here for Kramer's recent Opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy (excerpted below).]

Ever since I heard about the announcement of Buffett's donation at the beginning of this week, and watched the media blitz, and listened to the interview of Buffett and Gates on the Charlie Rose show (none of which mentioned Buffett's statements in support of the estate tax), the old question I've long had about philanthropy was bugging me: If wealthy philanthropists like Gates and Buffett truly desire to do the most good for the poor of the world, why do they not use the power (of their great status, wealth, and public voice) to focus public criticism on the tax-cutting policies that are reducing this country to ruin?--policies that, in their combined impact, will probably do much more harm than can ever be repaired by many Buffett-size philanthropic gifts?

Wouldn't the greatest philanthropy of wealthy people be for them first and primarily to insist on, and speak out about, the importance of paying taxes--instead of allowing the Bush administration and the Republican Congress to give the wealthy ever greater tax breaks?!!

Here is a brief excerpt from Mark Kramer's piece:

Don't Confuse Generosity With Impact on Society

With the stroke of a pen, Warren Buffett has committed more money to charity in a single transaction than anyone in history.

In current dollars, his $31-billion gift is double the total lifetime philanthropic contributions of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller combined. Yet this noble gift also casts light on one of the most central dilemmas of philanthropy — the inadvertent sleight of hand that confuses the generosity of the gift with the impact on society. . . . All the attention to the gift has focused on the magnitude of the pledge and the character of the donor — so much so that the much tougher challenge of turning money into a solution for social problems gets overlooked.

The pen stroke that committed these funds to charity does not itself improve anyone's lot... No medical research has yet been financed, no social services subsidized, no schools improved. The money has entered a twilight zone from which social impact will, at best, slowly emerge over many decades.... More and more money is donated to charity every year, yet America's schools continue to fail, poverty continues to rise, and our environment seems ever more precarious. We would like to think that our contributions make a difference — and large contributions make a large difference — but there is surprisingly little evidence that this is so.

The publicity that attends gifts such as this deludes us into thinking that if only more people were more generous, the world's problems would be solved. But the $1.5-billion that Mr. Buffett will contribute each year over the coming decades is only a small addition to the total contributions from the rest of us. In fact, it is just about one-half of 1 percent of the $260-billion that Americans gave to charity last year. The knowledge of how to use charitable dollars effectively turns out to be a much rarer commodity than the dollars themselves.

Mark Kramer is a co-founder and managing director of FSG Social Impact Advisors, a nonprofit consulting firm, a senior fellow at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a co-founder of the Center for Effective Philanthropy. He can be reached at Mark.Kramer@FSG-impact.org

To read more, click here.

What I did not learn from any of the media coverage I heard or saw this week, including the hour-long interview with Charlie Rose on Monday night, was that after signing his large check to the Gates foundation on Monday, according to Reuters, Buffett called for Congress to retain the estate tax:

"I would hate to see the estate tax gutted," Buffett said.... "It's a very equitable tax"... It's in keeping with the idea of equality of opportunity in this country, not giving incredible head starts to certain people who were very selective about the womb from which they emerged."

So, for the record, I want to cite some of the few additional media sources that have documented the opinions of Buffett and Gates, Sr., in support of the estate tax, and in criticism of the tax-cutting policies currently being pursued by Congress. (Perhaps if enough bloggers mention these details, the dominant media will eventually be forced to give them more attention.)

One of the few sources that cited Buffett's critique of tax-cutting policies in some detail this week was a CNN Money interview posted last Sunday. In this interview, Buffett explains how both he and his wife Susie

agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society. In my case, the ability to allocate capital would have had little utility unless I lived in a rich, populous country in which enormous quantities of marketable securities were traded and were sometimes ridiculously mispriced. And fortunately for me, that describes the U.S. in the second half of the last century.

Certainly neither Susie nor I ever thought we should pass huge amounts of money along to our children. Our kids are great. But I would argue that when your kids have all the advantages anyway, in terms of how they grow up and the opportunities they have for education, including what they learn at home - I would say it's neither right nor rational to be flooding them with money.

In effect, they've had a gigantic headstart in a society that aspires to be a meritocracy. Dynastic mega-wealth would further tilt the playing field that we ought to be trying instead to level.

Indeed, Buffett and William Gates, Sr., have been working together with some other wealthy Americans to oppose cuts in the estate tax ever since 2001. As a February 2001 New York Times article detailed, in 2001 some 120 wealthy Americans including Buffett, Gates, Sr., and George Soros joined together to urge Congress not to repeal taxes on estates and gifts. Gates Sr. even organized a petition drive, arguing that "repealing the estate tax would enrich the heirs of America's millionaires and billionaires while hurting families who struggle to make ends meet." Gates worked together with United for a Fair Economy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization in Boston that wants to narrow the gap between rich and poor.

The elder Mr. Gates said the money that Mr. Bush wanted to devote to repeal of the estate and gift taxes could be put to better use "to reduce other taxes, which affect the other end of the economic spectrum."

"Ever since I heard that somebody was trying to repeal the estate tax, I have been angry," Mr. Gates said, adding that if it were not for his full-time job, he would organize a group called Millionaires for the Estate Tax.

This New York Times article also quotes Buffett as saying:

"Without the estate tax, you in effect will have an aristocracy of wealth, which means you pass down the ability to command the resources of the nation based on heredity rather than merit."

Another article at Bloomberg.com has noted that

The elder Gates said the estate tax is fair because more than half the assets the wealthy pass on to their heirs has never been taxed. In addition, he said, revenue from other taxes probably helped create the economic conditions and innovation that allowed the richest to build their fortunes.

As USA Today noted in early 2003, Gates, Sr. understands that the wealth achieved by rich Americans would not have been possible without the benefits provided by American society and government: "Most of the things that have generated the enormous advances in our economy are things that started on some campus or in some laboratory," and these things were possible because the government helped to finance them.

Meanwhile, even as some enlightened souls like Buffett and William Gates, Sr., the father of Bill Gates, support the estate tax, many wealthy families (such as the Walton, Mars, and Nordstrom families) are behind the Congressional drive to eliminate it, as this article and the work of Public Citizen suggests. And it is perhaps these efforts, combined with the silence of the majority of wealthy families--in the face of tax policies that will allow wealth to become even more concentrated among the few, while the many get poorer--that explains why the dominant media, which is now owned by increasingly concentrated and wealthy ownership, largely smothered Buffett's brief critique of the estate tax earlier this week.

You can read more of what Gates, Sr., has to say on these issues in his book, Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes.

And you can find more details on Warren Buffett's views on tax policy here.

Declare Energy Independence This July 4th!

2006-06-30T11:39:00.000-04:00

A July 4th Message from Robert Borosage, of the Campaign for America's Future, and Jerome Ringo, of the Apollo Alliance:

Earlier this month at Take Back America 2006, the Campaign for America's Future and the Apollo Alliance unveiled the Apollo Challenge, asking your help to challenge our nation's leaders to achieve energy independence within the decade.

The 4th of July is a celebration of our nation's independence, our spirit of hope, and our ability to realize audacious dreams. That's why we're asking you to join in signing the "Apollo Challenge" to build a national citizens' movement for clean, homegrown energy and good jobs. We've set a goal of signing up 50,000 Americans over the holiday weekend. Join us in this call for energy independence today!

We all know that our nation is facing a growing addiction to oil. And the folks who decide things in Washington aren't about to solve our oil problem. They owe too much to Big Oil.

It's become obvious that America's oil addiction hurts our security, our economy and our environment. Our troops are bogged down in two ugly wars in the Middle East. Working families are having a tougher time making ends meet because of $3 gasoline. We're running a $1 trillion deficit with the rest of the world, about one-fourth of it in oil imports alone. And as the world's biggest consumers of oil, we contribute the most to the global warming that threatens the future we'll leave our children.

Those who say we can't meet these challenges are simply wrong. If we commit ourselves, we can move to energy independence while generating new jobs and new opportunities for our country.

We must launch a concerted drive for energy independence -- a national Apollo Program to invest in clean, homegrown fuels, renewable power, and efficiency. We can slash oil imports by 50 percent and create up to 3 million good jobs in ten years. Brazil managed to replace enough oil with homegrown ethanol that it has virtually stopped importing oil. If Brazil can do it, America can too.

President Kennedy lifted our nation's sights by challenging us to send a man to the moon. Today we do not have that kind of leadership in the White House. So it will require citizen-leaders to issue the modern day Apollo Challenge, challenging our nation's leaders to create a new Apollo Program to invest in clean energy and good jobs.

This Fourth of July, join this movement by taking the Apollo Challenge now! Together, we can build a grassroots citizens' movement that will challenge our nation's leaders to create new energy, new jobs and declare a new independence for America!

Sign the "Apollo Challenge" now and join us in making this 4th of July a day of hope and "independence."

For more information on the Apollo Challenge, please also check out the Apollo Alliance's "New Energy for America" Job Report, and the Ten-Point Plan for Good Jobs and Energy Independence:

1. Promote Advanced Technology & Hybrid Cars

2. Invest In More Efficient Factories

3. Encourage High Performance Building

4. Increase Use of Energy Efficient Appliances

5. Modernize Electrical Infrastructure

6. Expand Renewable Energy Development

7. Improve Transportation Options

8. Reinvest In Smart Urban Growth

9. Plan For A Hydrogen Future

10. Preserve Regulatory Protections

New Democratic Agenda

The "Free Press" Under Attack--Remember History, Anyone?

2006-06-28T13:47:00.000-04:00

As today's Daily Progress Report of the Center for American Progress has noted:

"The New York Times--which earlier broke the story on President Bush's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program--has been the main target of attacks by the right wing and the administration" for its recent reporting on the Bush administration's not-so-secret program to track international banking transactions." Rep. Peter King (R-NY) argued that the paper's reporters, editors, and publishers responsible for the story should be charged under the Espionage Act, punishable by up to 20 years in prison."

As the CFAP Progress Report argues, however, "While journalists do need to weigh whether reporting classified information will jeopardize national security, the administration's argument jeopardizes the 'aggressive, independent press' that is an 'essential ingredient for self-government.'"

In fact, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller provided an eloquent defense of the New York Times decision to publish this story in a response to readers. Here is a one paragraph excerpt from his response, which you can read in full here:

It's an unusual and powerful thing, this freedom that our founders gave to the press. Who are the editors of The New York Times (or the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and other publications that also ran the banking story) to disregard the wishes of the President and his appointees? And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish. [emphasis added]

The Progress Report continues:

Not only did [Rep. Peter] King call the New York Times journalists "treasonous," but he also said the paper is "putting its own arrogant, elitist, left-wing agenda before the interests of the American people." Yesterday on Fox News, he likened the journalists' actions to "handing over confidential documents to Osama bin Laden." Talk show host Melanie Morgan backed up King's argument that the New York Times editor is guilty of treason and right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin told the New York Times and Los Angeles Times to "learn when to shut up." The conservative House leadership has introduced a measure to criticize the New York Times for its SWIFT reporting, which the House will vote upon either today or tomorrow. The resolution is being drafted under the leadership of Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner's (R-OH) office.

Of course, it is not only some radical right Republicans in Congress who are leading this crusade against the free press. Rather, this anti-free press crusade is being egged on by the White House:

Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney came out strongly against the journalists who published the story. On Monday, Bush said that for "people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America." Cheney singled out the New York Times in his criticisms: "Some of the press, in particular the New York Times, have made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult by insisting on publishing detailed information about vital national security programs." Snow went even further on Monday, suggesting the New York Times had undermined Americans' "right to live."

[To read more from the CFAP Progress Report, click here.]

For someone like Snow, who represents the White House, to be suggesting that the publication decisions of the editors of the New York Times in this case are undermining our security, safety, and even our "right to live," can--in the context of the right-wing accusations of treason mentioned above--only be read as a deliberate and calculated campaign of attack on the freedom of the press.

Of course, such attacks are not new to history. Tyrannies of the past, and power-grabs by previous presidents in our own history, have often used the same kinds of attacks on the press as we are now seeing directed against the New York Times, to intimidate and silence. Remember Watergate, anyone?

Ask Ben Bradlee--the Washington Post editor who oversaw the publication of the news stories by Woodward and Bernstein that exposed the Watergate cover-up, and who supported the publication of the Pentagon Papers--about the ways the Nixon administration tried to silence the press by accusing the Washington Post and others on his "enemies list" of undermining the security of the country.

As Bradlee noted in a recently broadcast interview with Jim Lehrer on PBS:

National security is a really big problem for journalists, because no journalist worth his salt wants to endanger the national security, but the law talks about anyone who endangers the security of the United States is going to go to jail. So, here you are, especially in the Pentagon. Some guy tells you something. He says that's a national security matter. Well, you're supposed to tremble and get scared and it never, almost never means the security of the national government.

[It's] more likely to mean the security or the personal happiness of the guy who is telling you something... Because, you know, if he gets caught, why, he may not be so secure. He may be out on his tail.

And, in the end, Nixon's attacks on Bradlee at the Washington Post, and on others in the Press, actually had the effect of strengthening the freedom of the Press as the country and the Supreme Court rallied to support the institution of the free press in the 1970s.

As Bradlee quipped in a 1995 speech at Johns Hopkins, "I want to thank Richard Nixon for his help in furthering my career... It really is ironic, isn't it, that Nixon, who hated journalists and hated The Washington Post in particular, did so much for our current health?"

Bradlee could joke about Nixon, and was able to support Woodward and Bernstein the way he did during the Watergate investigation in the 1970s, largely because of what has been called one of the most important Supreme Court decisions ever on the freedom of the press: the June 30, 1971 decision in New York Times v. the United States, which supported the publication of the Pentagon Papers by the New York Times and the Washington Post.

In its petition to the court [in this case], the executive branch of the government asserted that it should be the sole judge of national security needs and should be granted a court order to enforce that viewpoint. The [New York Times] newspaper countered that this would violate First Amendment press freedoms provided for under the U.S. Constitution. It also argued that the real government motive was political censorship rather than protection of national security.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York Times, arguing that the Constitution has a "heavy presumption" in favor of press freedom. As James C. Goodale, who served as general counsel to the New York Times when the U.S. Supreme Court supported the publication of the classified Pentagon Papers, has written:

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom...of the press." Although the First Amendment specifically mentions only the federal Congress, this provision now protects the press from all government, whether local, state or federal.

The founders of the United States enacted the First Amendment to distinguish their new government from that of England, which had long censored the press and prosecuted persons who dared to criticize the British Crown. As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart explained in a 1974 speech, the "primary purpose" of the First Amendment was "to create a fourth institution outside the government as an additional check on the three official branches" (the executive branch, the legislature and the judiciary).

Of course, the Nixon administration was by no means the first to try to protect itself against public scrutiny by silencing the press. As Justice Potter recognized in his 1974 gloss on the importance of the free press as a "fourth institution" to provide a check on the abuses of governmental power, the first amendment was important from the beginning of our nation's history as a bullwark for protecting press freedom.

But earlier in our history the first amendment by itself did not keep the press from being persecuted and silenced. During the 1790s, Jeffersonian critics of the Adams administration who published their views in the press were accused of being treasonous, and were prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition laws of that time.

Apparently, contemporary critics of the New York Times, like talk show host Melanie Morgan and right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin (mentioned above), as well as this White House, would like to take us back to the 1790s. Fortunately for us today, Supreme Court decisions like the one regarding the Pentagon Papers provide US citizens and our free press a few more protections than existed in the 1790s.

But such freedoms and protections are never completely secure from being undermined by concerted attack.

Let us all struggle to make sure that the current campaign of attacks on the free press, by the White House and others, are not successful in undermining these protections, which are crucial to securing meaningful democracy for all US citizens.
New Democratic Agenda

Democratic Rights to Vote Under Assault by "Real ID" Legislation Across the Nation

2006-06-28T13:11:00.000-04:00

From "Democracy Dispatches," a DEMOS EJournal:

Impending "Realness:" Transgender Communities Dealt a Blow By REAL ID
by Cole Krawitz
06/27/2006

Recently election reformers have focused a great deal of attention on the real potential for a rollback in voting rights with the flurry of highly restrictive photo ID laws moving across state legislatures. Adding to an already layered system, there have been serious restrictions tacked on the franchise in states like Georgia and Indiana, while Wisconsin's Governor Doyle keeps the disastrous effects of a five-time proposed photo ID bill at bay with his veto pen.

Let's hope he has enough ink.

Rather than protecting, it is estimated that photo ID requirements at the polls will cost millions of eligible voters their vote, most of them elderly, people of color, low-income or recently relocated. The people with the most to say this election season may well lose their vote -- if they haven't already -- in the next presidential election, thanks to their public servants in the U.S. House and Senate.

After the passage of the REAL ID Act -- a dangerous add-on to an $82 billion military spending bill in 2005 -- the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform recommended using REAL ID for voter identification at the polls. Election reformers and civil rights advocates responded with a swift outcry. They did so again a few weeks ago, when Senator Mitch McConnell tried to attach a REAL ID requirement for voters to the immigration bill. The challenge continues as photo ID bills sweep state legislatures, and as states move to implement REAL ID legislation by 2008. Hurricane survivors, African Americans, Latinos, grandmas and grandpas, young people -- you might have to kiss even more of your rights goodbye. That should scare you.

To read more of this article by Cole Krawitz, click here.

New Democratic Agenda

ACT NOW to Keep Democracy from Being Undermined in Ohio

2006-06-23T12:15:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends,

I just learned from ColorOfChange.org that Kenneth Blackwell--Ohio's Secretary of State--is once again trying to manipulate the election in favor of the Republican party by creating ridiculous new rules that will suppress the vote in Black and low-income communities. Please join me in fighting this attack on minority voting rights by sending your message here:

In the 2000 and 2004 elections, Republicans relentlessly attacked the voting rights of Black people. Their dirty politics undermined one of our most precious and hard-won rights, but they also helped the Republicans win the White House--twice--so we know they won't stop suppressing our votes without a fight.

Now, the fight's on in Ohio, where Kenneth Blackwell has created ridiculous new voter registration rules that make it virtually impossible for non-profit and faith-based groups to register voters.

What's unfolding in Ohio is not a localized case of a policy that happens to be bad for Black and poor voters. It's part of a coordinated, nation-wide strategy by Republicans to keep people from exercising their right to vote. If Blackwell gets his way, Ohio will suppress the votes of tens of thousands of Black and low-income voters and set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the country.

On June 26th--this coming Monday--the Ohio Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) will consider Blackwell's new rules, and it has the opportunity to reject them. Please join us in calling on JCARR to stop this anti-democratic scheme in its tracks.

A Beginning: Dem Leader Pelosi Recognizes What the Fundamental Starting Point Must Be to Establish Effective Democratic Politics for the 21st Century

2006-06-22T14:43:00.000-04:00

“Ours must be a government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people.' That means all of the American people. Republicans have made it a government of, by, and for a few of the people. America can do better. We can and we will. With this agenda, Democrats will create the most open and honest government in history, and put power back where it belongs – in the hands of all the people.”

--Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi

Yes, America (and the Democratic Party) can do better!--

Unfortunately, while the so-called "New Direction for America" Agenda announced last week by the Democratic Party leadership is certainly better than the prevaling Republican agenda, this so-called "New"Agenda is still far too thin on both new direction and imagination to provide the inspiration and confidence many voters desire in 2006.

The main problem for Democrats, if they want to win back control of Congress this November, is to reignite the political imagination of the American people, and then provide the kind of political vision and policy framework that can convince voters that the Democratic Party actually understands what it means to offer a new political direction for the country.

An authentic "new direction" for the country must involve at least as much of a change in political vision and policy approach as that embodied by Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" in the 1930s. As the election of 2004 so terribly proved, it is not enough to criticize and point out how wrong and harmful to the country the dominant Republican Agenda has been--

The Republican Party achieved its current political position by capturing the political vision of many voters, and by convincing voters that Republicans offered a specific strategy for bringing that vision to fruition in political reality. Sadly, Republicans have been largely successful in doing exactly that, and we have witnessed the tragic consequences of this success. But realizing and denouncing what is wrong with the Republican Agenda is not enough to change the country's direction.

It is also not enough to offer a piecemeal list of Democratic policy positions, and call it a "New Direction." While the specific points listed in last week's Agenda are ok, such a laundry list cannot by itself constitute a "New Direction."

"Without Vision, the People Perish." As this great democratic proverb suggests, and history demonstrates, no democratic political movement can be successful without a clear vision to inspire and guide the creative and collective action of political engagement and policymaking.

If the Democratic Party wants to regain political initiative in this country, and win back to its side this November the kind of democratic majority necessary to begin to govern for the common good, and oppose the destructive course of the Republican Party, it must demonstrate to the American People in the coming months that it has an inspiring vision to offer--a vision of governance and the common good that will convince Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters that their own best interests, as well as the future of this country, depend on their coming out to vote this year for an authentic and clear new political direction.

Short of offering new vision and inspiration, the Democrats may begin to win back some Congressional seats this fall, but they will not be able to renew the political power and confidence of the American people, which is now so desperately needed to allow the people of this country to counter and reverse the destructive direction in which the Republican elite have taken the country.

As a foundation for recreating an inspiring and progressive democratic vision for the country, Pelosi's invocation of the ideal of democratic government begins to strike the right chords:

“Ours must be a government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people.' That means all of the American people. Republicans have made it a government of, by, and for a few of the people. America can do better... With this agenda, Democrats will... put power back where it belongs – in the hands of all the people.”

But if we are to build a truly inspiring democratic political agenda for the future on the firm foundation provided by these opening chords, Democrats must begin to think much more deeply about what it will take to "put power back where it belongs." After the several decades during which the elite of both parties have benefited from allowing power to consolidate itself at the top of the economic spectrum--instead of protecting the democratic interests of the country and of working people--it is no simple or easy task to create a political agenda that will "put power back where it belongs."

If Democratic politicians want to understand what it will take, and what it means, to put power back in the hands of all the people, they will need to begin to listen much more carefully and deeply to what the many community-based social justice and public advocacy organizations created by their constituents have been trying to tell them. They need to begin to listen much more actively to these organized grassroots, rather than to the political consultants and corporations that dominate the Washington DC political sphere. And they need to learn from these grassroots, and begin to think much more creatively about the need to frame a visionary Democratic Agenda for the 21st century that responds to the aspirations and ideas of these grassroots.

Whether or not the Democratic Party is able to rise to the democratic political challenge of this moment in history will depend on whether it can envision and construct an inspiring Democratic Agenda for 2006 and the years to come.

"Without Vision, the People Perish." And as the People perish, so will the country and what remains of the Democratic Party.

As Pelosi said, "America can do better." Indeed, we can and we must....

New Democratic Agenda

How Big Money Has Corrupted Our Government and Our Democracy

2006-06-19T15:30:00.000-04:00

Trivializing Corruption
By David Sirota

David Sirota is the author of the new book "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government -- And How We Take It Back" (Crown Publishers, May 2006)

As Sirota wrote in a recent essay related to his appearance this weekend on PBS's NOW show "Crude Awakening" on the corrupting influence of the oil industry lobby:

Today, the lifeblood of American politics is money. Candidates must raise enormous sums of private cash to run for office -- sums that the wealthy and corporate interests are only too happy to provide in exchange for legislative favors. We are told by politicians that this system is "the greatest democracy in the world" when, in fact, it is very clearly the same form of bribery that has marked every corrupt regime looked down on by history books.

Money, of course, does not just buy favors -- it makes sure that the concept of corruption is only presented to the public by political leaders as anecdotes about a few bad apples, not a narrative about a broken system. Why? Because an indictment of the pay-to-play system that produced the bad apples could mean structural campaign finance reforms that challenge the power of the Big Money interests that underwrite our politicians. Thus, in the aftermath of recent congressional scandals, all we get is a pathetical discussion about weak lobbying "reform" proposals and even weaker sanctions against individual lawmakers.

Such narrowing of our political discourse is the most nefarious form of corruption of all. It shows how we now live in a country where the very boundaries of public policy debates are designed to ensure outcomes that never challenge Big Money interests. The truly corrupt interests that own American politics long ago realized that they do not have to pervasively violate our weak anti-corruption laws to get what they want. All they have to do is shower cash on as many lawmakers as possible. These lawmakers, uninterested in biting the hand that feeds them, consequently make sure the overall debate is rigged.

To read more from David Sirota, click here.

AutoWorkers Unite! We have Everything to Lose If We Don't (Our Jobs, Our Environment, Our Future)

2006-06-16T17:25:00.000-04:00

From PolicyBusters!:

It is ironic that the UAW has this week decided more or less meekly to cooperate with the US car industry's plans to put hundreds of thousands of auto workers out of jobs, without demanding anything substantial in return for this downward spiral of continual sacrifice from auto workers. The UAW seems unwilling to challenge the fundamental logic governing the decline of the American auto industry. In fact, it seems content, while its workers suffer, to leave in place the very governing structure and policies that are driving the American car industry into extinction.

Workers are literally being "bought out" of their jobs, so that the failed industry leadership that has brought about this bankrupt situation can remain in place. Under this failed management, with its strategy of resistance to true innovation and its continuing addiction to an oil-based economy, there may be no US-owned auto industry surviving by 2020.

While Toyota and Honda continue to take over more market share from US auto companies, the US auto industry and governmental policymakers seem largely incapable of learning from the terrible mistakes of the last decade, and instead persist in defending energy-inefficient and environmentally-destructive technologies, at the cost of the loss of hundreds of thousands of the best industrial jobs in the United States. While the workers continue to lose from this strategy, and are asked to sacrifice even more, what are they getting in return for their sacrifice?

Meanwhile, the new film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" reveals the extent to which the auto industry, and GM in particular, has been guilty of destroying alternative technology cars that over the last decade could have have made the US car industry the world leader in fuel-efficient and clean energy technologies. Instead of moving in this direction, which was the path to growth, innovation, and leadership in environmentally conscious and energy-efficient transportation technologies in the 1990s, GM and the entire automobile industry collaborated in destroying its own investment in electric technologies, and decided to invest in Hummers and SUVs!

As the film's informative website timeline notes, by 2000 GM had finalized its purchase of the Hummer brand name, and in 2001 began to lay off its electric vehicle (EV1) sales team, "starting with its most successful sales specialists." So much for rewarding success!

Far from rewarding successful innovation, GM could not have indicated any more clearly that its strategy for the early years of the 21st century was to betray innovation in order to preserve a commitment to gas-guzzling and inefficient vehicles (the bigger the better)--all in the name of simply following "consumer demand."

Question: How can GM claim to follow consumer demand, when it kills off alternative technology vehicles even as consumers are beginning to demand them? This is the fundamental challenge all consumers and employees of the American car industry should now be asking the heads of the Big 3.

Recent sales figures have made clear that US auto companies are continuing to lose market share to Toyota and Honda because both these companies have been much better at responding to (and honoring) consumer demand by developing much more fuel-efficient hybrid cars (that already yield up to 50-60 mpg). GM could by now have been offering much better than this, but instead it chose to deliberately destroy its entire electric car fleet over the last 5 years. Did the GM workers now being put out of their jobs have any say in these decisions? Shouldn't the people who did have a say in these decisions be the ones losing their jobs?

While it may be too late for the many workers losing their jobs because of the terribly shortsighted thinking that dominates the US car industry, those workers who remain should now (in honor of their departing colleagues, as well as to protect their own jobs) begin to demand something more substantial from their employers and managers. Since the management of the industry has proven that it lacks the kind of vision that can nurture the future growth of the US auto industry, the workers should demand, in return for their many wage concessions, that they now be made a fundamental part of the decision-making process about the future direction of the industry.

If workers are going to be made to suffer for the terrible failures of management and leadership over the last decade, they should now at minimum be allowed to participate more directly in this leadership in order to change its direction. And then they should use their leadership power to demand that the industry immediately transform its strategy, and reinvest in the development of the kind of fuel efficient and technologically innovative automobiles that will lead the industry into the future.

If the US auto manufacturers do not quickly transform themselves to offer the fuel-efficient and innovative technologies consumers will be ever more aggressively demanding in the next decade, Toyota and Honda will continue to win dominance over the auto market, and the next decade may witness the virtual extinction of US automobile manufacturers. Like the dinosaurs that could not adjust quickly enough to a new environment, the US auto industry may not have the vision or managing intelligence needed to survive into the mid-twenty-first century.

If the remaining US auto employees are going to be forced to yield all kinds of concessions in order to hang on to their jobs, they should at least get something substantial in return for those concessions: more direct power and voice in the governance of the corporations for which they are being asked to sacrifice. Since the managers of the last decade have proven themselves perpetually incapable of investing in a strategy that would have saved these jobs, the future of the US car industry will depend on the workers taking more direct control of this industry, and substituting their strategic vision, tied to the future, for the vision of the failed management still tied to the oil-addicted past.

Now, especially, the remaining employees of the Big 3 ought to begin demanding that their employers adopt more visionary leadership in developing and bringing back on line the innovative alternative technologies that they deliberately "deep-sixed," at the terrible cost of the loss of industry leadership and of so many American jobs over the last decade.

When will the UAW's leadership, and the Auto industry's managers, wake up to and admit the serious failures of policy and leadership within the industry over the last decade, and begin to learn from the terrible mistakes of the past? When will the industry's workers stop trusting in this failed leadership, and begin to demand a new kind of leadership and investment in the US car industry that will grow, rather than continue to sacrifice, workers' jobs?

Right now the only people paying for the failures of industry leadership are American auto workers. It is time for the auto workers themselves to unite to demand that the US auto industry take up a new vision, and pursue a new energy-efficient and innovative course into the future, such as that suggested by the Apollo Alliance, our nation's real Apollo Project for the next decade.

Whether or not there is any US car industry left by 2020 will depend on whether the industry's workers, along with all the citizen-consumers of the nation, can unite to demand that the industry reject the failed policies and leadership of the past, and take up new leadership to grow the automobile jobs of the future. Now more than ever it is time for the auto workers of the world to unite to demand such change, since we have everything to lose (our jobs, the environment, a sustainable future) if we fail to bring about such change.

New Democratic Agenda

A Progressive Policy Agenda for America's Future

2006-06-15T13:04:00.000-04:00

I am just back from this Week's "Take Back America" Conference, organized by the Campaign for America's Future in Washington, D.C. The Progressive political agenda on the table at this Conference now offers this country a practical framework and new leadership to meet the common needs of the American people, on the basis of a renewed vision of the democratic "Common Good."

Rather than continuing to follow the path of the least common denominator and corporation-first politics of the dominant leadership of both political parties, this Progressive Agenda charts a new course that puts people first, and offers strategic leadership to move this country out of the mess into which the regressive and short-sighted politics of the last generation of political leaders (of both parties) has delivered us--

I will be highlighting and commenting on key aspects of this Progressive Agenda in future posts, as my limited time permits. (Unlike some elite bloggers, I have a regular day job that does not allow me to spend much time in the blogosphere.) But for now everyone should check out the Summary and Talking Points related to this Agenda, which have just recently been posted here by the Campaign for America's Future--

I hope All Americans will give careful consideration to this Progressive Policy agenda, since it offers the best basis for developing the kind of new political and policy leadership needed to move this country out of its current disastrous course--

More to come.....

The Many "Inconvenient Truths" Neither Our President Nor Congress Seem Willing to Confront

2006-06-02T12:25:00.000-04:00

In addition to the INCONVENIENT TRUTHs about Climate Change Al Gore is trying to bring to the attention of Americans who continue to buy large gas-guzzling automobiles that produce a large percentage of global warming gasses, there are many other inconvenient truths that our elected representatives in Washington DC and our state capitols continue to ignore.

And our politicians will continue to ignore these truths until the citizens of the United States make it clear that they will lose their jobs representing us if they do not begin to face these truths and create effective policies to address them.

As Policybusters posted today:

While the U.S. and the World Burn for Dramatic Policy Change in Washington on crisis issues such as Global Warming, the Conduct of the War in Iraq, increased Fuel Economy Standards, Human Rights, and Equality in Health, our Congress is playing around with the idea of writing discrimination into the US Constitution, which would incoporate discriminatory principles--destructive of human rights and health--into the fundamental structures of US law for decades to come.

While Europe moves forward, will the United States become the symbol of regression and backwardness on all the major issues of human justice, rights, and health in the twenty-first century--a symbol of shame when the history of the twenty-first century is written?

Instead of defending progress in human rights, environmental protection, real human security, and human health, policymaking in the United States has become an example of some of the most retrograde, backwards, and shortsighted lawmaking in the world.

What will it take to change this reality and lack of policy vision on the ground of Washington DC?

We need a revolution in citizen involvement in policy activism to make sure the November 2006 election does not merely change the dominant party in Congress, but begins to achieve fundamental changes in the policy that governs this nation and determines how it behaves in the world, no matter what party rules in Washington.

If the people of the United States want to make sure their government behaves in ways we can be proud of in the world, we need to make sure the November election puts into place people who are going to fight for policies that will represent the interests of all the people of the United States, and not merely of the wealthy and discrimanotory minorities that continue to speak in our name while betraying all the best values that the people of the United States once represented to the rest of the world.

Every Day, from now to the November Elections, ACT FOR CHANGE in the Policies, not just the politicians, that govern this nation--

From ActForChange.Com:

We haven't seen such a misplaced set of priorities in a very long time. Civil war rages in Iraq. The national debt continues to skyrocket. Tens of millions of Americans lack health care, and good jobs are disappearing every day. But conservatives in the Senate think it's urgent to...write discrimination into our constitution, and hand another gigantic tax break over to the wealthiest Americans.
What in the world are they thinking? Tell your elected representatives in Congress to begin thinking, and to:

1. Stop The Trillion-Dollar Tax Giveaway to the Rich

As if previous tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthy weren't enough, conservatives in the Senate are pushing to permanently repeal the estate tax -- a move that will cost $1 trillion over ten years, and benefit only the top one-half of one percent. The national birth tax is now at $28,000 per baby; do the rich really need another huge tax break right now?
Take action -- tell the Senate to reject any changes to the estate tax. Click here

2. Don't Write Discrimination Into Our Constitution

The "Federal Marriage Amendment" would make gays and lesbians second-class citizens by forever banning marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships between same-sex couples. They know they don't have the votes to pass it. But Senator Frist still needs to throw some red meat to his conservative base in this election year. Even First Lady Laura Bush said, "I don't think [the Federal Marriage Amendment] should be used as a campaign tool, obviously."

While the religious right might wish otherwise, our society is in fact founded upon the principle of equal rights for all people -- not just heterosexual ones.
Take action -- tell the Senate to toss this bill on the trash heap of history where it belongs. Click here

We Need Real (not Con-Man) Political Leadership to Increase Fuel Economy Standards

2006-06-01T12:48:00.000-04:00

The single best way to immediately begin to save the U.S. millions of barrels of oil each day is to significantly increase national fuel economy (CAFE) standards in automobiles. Yet most of the media and political hype over "kicking the oil habit" and Congressional policy change to achieve energy security seems to be constructed to divert attention from this single most important point. An excellent 2005 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists labeled this kind of deceptive hype the "Fuel Economy Fraud."

The high price of gasoline has recently spawned lots of deceptive campaigns and news hype (see previous posts on this blog) about "alternatives" to deliver future energy security to the nation. But any such "campaign" that does not make achieving dramatic improvements in overall fuel economy standards (to 40 mpg over the next decade) is shortsighted and dumb, at best, and an intentionally deceptive "alternative," at worst.

As the Union of Concerned Scientists pointed out over a month ago, the President's recent "call" for "Fuel Economy Reform" demonstrates how deceptive play with words is being substituted for real policy reform to achieve significant improvements in fuel economy standards for the nation.

April 28, 2006
President’s Call for Fuel Economy Reform Merits a Barrel of Skepticism
Statement by David Friedman, Research Director, Clean Vehicles Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

"After 9/11, two devastating hurricanes and record gasoline prices, we should expect real political leadership on fuel economy. Unfortunately, this just seems like an attempt to play pre-election politics with gasoline prices.
"Real leadership from the president and Congress would be to increase the fuel economy of all cars and light trucks to 40 miles per gallon over the next decade. This would be the equivalent of offering a $600 annual tax break from reduced fuel costs.
"Unfortunately, the president's plan would change the fuel economy system from having one standard for all cars to having lower standards for bigger vehicles, creating a loophole that will encourage manufacturers to produce bigger, less efficient cars. The drop in the bucket savings from the fuel economy increase would drain right through the loophole."

Meanwhile, even the usually progressive Center for American Progress has launched a "KicktheOilHabit" campaign that fails to emphasize the primary importance of demanding that Congress act to require greater fuel economy standards.

If citizens demand that both the media and politicians pay notice to the basic points about fuel economy standards clearly explained by the State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), perhaps we will finally begin to make some progress toward real (rather than the facade of) energy security, and toward real political leadership on energy policy.

For great clarification of what is at stake in debate over Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards,
see Fuel Economy Standards: Myth And Fact

Corn-Based Ethanol Fuels, Without increased Auto Fuel Efficiency Standards, Are a False Policy Alternative

2006-05-25T13:17:00.000-04:00

In this morning's Diane Rehm show, Daniel Sperling--the Director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC-Davis--provided great insight into all that is wrong with any corn ethanol-based alternative fuel campaign that does not also emphasize dramatic increases in automobile fuel efficiency standards.

As Sperling clarified, current corn ethanol production in the US does not help the environment, since it yields global warming gasses equivalent to that produced by traditional oil-based fuels. While cellulose-based ethanol production could yield significant environmental benefits, this technology for producing ethanol will not become available for many years.

Current Flex-fuel vehicles on the US market yield only 20 mpg on average, while the best hybrids yield 50-70 mpg! Until the car industry wakes up and begins manufacturing flex-fuel vehicles that provide 40 mpg or more, they are selling bad products that are more expensive, continue to contribute to global warming, and yield little benefit to the environment.

On top of this, to sell 20 mpg flex-fuel vehicles as a "green" transportation alternative, is to treat consumers as fools. This is the equivalent to selling "natural" cigarettes as a "green" alternative to traditional cigarettes. It is a strategy for selling ignorance and deception to consumers in the name of environmental and energy consciousness.

The only currently-available strategy for producing significant reductions in the production of global warming gasses are those already available strategies that yield much more fuel-efficient automobiles. Hybrids are already yielding 60-70 mpg, and the technology for producing even regular gasoline cars like the GEO Metro that could achieve 45 mpg was already available in the 1990s. Why are there not more fuel-efficient cars like the GEO Metro on the market? Instead of producing more cars like this, the Chevy GEO Metro was taken out of production several years ago.

What is the best action for the environment you can take if you are choosing an automobile? Auto consumers/users should refuse to buy or drive any car, whether it is flex-fuel or gasoline-powered, that does not yield at least 40 mpg--

This is the best way for any car buyer in the US to make a clear statement to car manufacturers and the oil industry, and begin to create an irresistable public demand for greatly improved fuel efficiency standards in the US car industry.

The choice to buy a flex-fuel car that continues to yield only 20 mpg is a fool's choice in support of continued inefficiency sustained by the powerful corn ethanol lobby in the US, which is not currently any better for the environment than the oil lobby.

'Nuestro Himno' is Beautiful Tribute to the Spirit of America

2006-05-24T15:27:00.000-04:00

A Plea to All Americans:

Please LISTEN to Nuestro Himno/Our Anthem before criticizing it--

This Latino rendition of the US national anthem is one of the most moving renditions of the Anthem I have ever heard. If people bothered to listen to this artistic tribute to the United States and its history as a nation of immigrants before jumping on the bandwagon to criticize it, perhaps something important for the future of this nation could be learned by all Americans.

Nuestro Himno features artists who have together produced an amazingly beautiful and inspiring bilingual tribute to the US Anthem. According to the Latino-oriented record label Urban Box Office (UBO), which has released the recording,

"Nuestro Himno" or "Our Anthem," is set to "urban Latino rhythms" but respects the song's traditional structure.

Indeed, what much of the reactionary off-the-cuff commentary on this rendition of the Anthem seems to be missing is this simple point: As a work of art, Nuestro Himno is not intended to replace the traditional English version, or to suggest that all Americans should begin singing the Anthem in Spanish.

Rather, in the best creative tradition of this nation, this song pays tribute to the heroic spirit of the Anthem and gives its history renewed meaning and life for a new generation of Americans in the twenty-first century.

Yet, without pausing to consider the possibility that there might be something profound and beautiful for all Americans to learn from this artistic tribute to the US national Anthem--something that might help to draw all Americans closer together, and give them wisdom to solve some of the problems of immigration they are currently confronting--when asked about this Latino version of the Anthem at his April 28 news conference, the President responded dismissively by saying that the Anthem should only be sung in English.

This kind of dismissive response, which seems to be in line with so much of the unfortunate reactionary tone of the rhetoric about immigration today, does not allow a question central to the resolution of the current debate over immigration to be considered: What can we learn from past and present traditions of art and creativity, to deepen our understanding of the kind of future Americans can build together?

Nuestro Himno has much to teach all Americans, if we will only pause for a moment to listen, and to think about what is has to say about the deep wisdom and beauty that resides in the traditions of immigrant solidarity that have made this country as richly diverse and creatively vibrant as it is today.

So I hope, before you jump without thinking on the bandwagon to say, like the President, that the National Anthem should only be sung in English (as if translating the language of our most important national songs or literature has suddenly become unpatriotic), I hope you will take a few minutes to listen to this music, and to ask whether all Americans might not be able to learn much from what it has to teach us about how we can continue to build a future for all Americans out of the rich traditions of this country's immigrant past and present--

*****
President Bush also said at his news conference on April 28,

"One of the things that's very important is, when we debate this issue, that we not lose our national soul. One of the great things about America is that we've been able to take people from all walks of life bound as one nation under God. And that's the challenge ahead of us."

This is indeed the challenge ahead of us! And this is a challenge we will surely fail to meet if we react to the challenges of immigration without first pausing to listen to the lessons of history and art, and to think creatively about new forms of policy that are needed to respond to the challenges of the present.

If the President and US citizens can voice such sentiments about our "national soul" and yet, without pause, argue that the National Anthem can only--everywhere and always--be sung in English, I'm afraid such reactions may indicate that much is already missing, or in danger of being lost, from our "national soul."

If Americans cannot come to see how a beautiful song like Nuestro Himno offers much to enrich our national soul, I fear we are very much in danger of losing it.

And in any case, the immediate rejection of this possibility seems to be the basis on which the current unthinking backlash is developing. This backlash is itself unpatriotic, since it would suggest that Americans are too narrow-minded and fearful to appreciate and value the tribute paid to their anthem by Nuestro Himno.

Why can a Latino version of the National Anthem not be viewed as a patriotic expression of solidarity with the history of the US as an immigrant nation? If we cannot learn from our own history how it was that previous immigrant cultures enriched our national history and made possible what is best in it today, I fear we may be losing touch with the best part of what the President called our "national soul"....

For historical background on the US National Anthem, see the Smithsonian's website on the Star-Spangled Banner.

A Real Campaign Alternative for an Independent Energy Future

2006-05-19T12:49:00.000-04:00

SET AMERICA FREE
Cut dependence on foreign oil. Secure America.

If we want a real Progressive campaign alternative for Energy Independence, we need more than a glitzy media campaign focused narrowly on still grossly inefficient 20 mpg flex-fuel vehicles, even if such a campaign is sponsored by Robert Redford.

(Dear Robert, have you checked the MPG ratings for flex-fuel vehicles currently on the market? They seem to average a terrible 20 mpg, while a 1996 GEO Metro was able to achieve 45 mpg 10 years ago! Today, if you were looking to buy something equivalent to the GEO Metro, you would not be able to find it without switching to a much more expensive Toyota or Honda hybrid. Why is this the case, you might well ask? While Toyota and Honda have been moving ahead in developing their hybrid cars that can NOW already deliver from 50 to 60 mpg, our US car manufacturers could not even maintain in the 21st century the few models like the GEO/Chevy Metro that delivered more than 40 mpg. This illustrates that any emphasis on flex fuel without a coinciding demand that American car manufacturers get with it and manufacture dramatically more fuel efficient vehicles, will dramatically fail to meet our environmental, transportation, and security needs.)

Because of this, we desperately need many more campaigns like the DetroitProject campaign launched by Americans for Fuel Efficient Cars and the Apollo Alliance back in 2003.

We need campaigns based on strategies like the Apollo Alliance's "Ten Point Plan for Good Jobs and Energy Independence," which lists as its Number One goal:

1. Promote Advanced Technology & Hybrid Cars: Begin today to provide incentives for converting domestic assembly lines to manufacture highly efficient cars, transitioning the fleet to American made advanced technology vehicles, increasing consumer choice and strengthening the US auto industry.

And If we want a real Progressive campaign alternative for Energy Independence, we need to be able to develop a specific policy alternative and strategy at least as good as that developed by the so-called "Set America Free Coalition," which has been able to sponsor significant legislative proposals in Congress.

The Democratic Party has this week proposed its CleanEdge Act 2006, as part of its Energy Independence 2020 campaign, whic was initiated last Fall. This CleanEdge Act does manage to note that its aim is to "accelerate and extend incentives to purchase and manufacture vehicles that rely on advanced fuel efficiency technologies." But why is this not the first and primary focus of this legislation, since placing an emphasis on flex-fuel cars that continue to yield only 20 mpg will do little to decrease our energy needs or dependence on oil. Only in combination with much more efficient use of fuel, with technologies that were already available ten years ago, will we be able to dramatically reduce the environmental, political, and economic burden of our reliance on fossil fuels.

As noted in the recent Set America Free Coalition’s Blueprint for Energy security:

If by 2025, all cars on the road are hybrids and half are plug-in hybrid vehicles, U.S. oil imports would drop by 8 million barrels per day (mbd). Today, the United States imports 10 mbd and it is projected to import almost 20 mbd by 2025. If all of these cars were also flexible fuel vehicles, U.S. oil imports would drop by as much as 12 mbd.

Here are some of the details on the currently proposed legislation, based on the Set America Free Blueprint--

Landmark Vehicle and Fuel Choices Legislation: Setting America Free

The bipartisan Senate bill (S. 2025) sponsored by Senators Bayh (D-IN), Brownback (R-KS), Coleman (R-MN), Graham (R-SC), Lieberman (D-CT), Lugar (R-IN), Obama (D-IL) and Salazar (D-CO) and the companion bipartisan House bill (H.R. 4409) sponsored by Vice Chair of the Republican Leadership Conference Rep. Kingston (R-GA), Rep. Saxton (R-NJ), and Rep. Engel (D-NY) and 22 other cosponsors aim to put the nation on the path to independence from foreign oil.

The bills blaze this trail by requiring a real plan to boost efficient use of oil in our transportation sector, offer consumers non-petroleum fuel choices, and encourage the use of fuels produced from domestic resources. The bills are based on the Set America Free Coalition’s Blueprint for Energy security.

Focus on 21st Century Vehicles – Renew Detroit

While the plan addresses all sectors of the economy, transportation is responsible for 70 percent of our oil consumption and it is currently 97% reliant on oil. The legislation creates some new authorities and research programs to help achieve the oil savings from our cars, trucks and buses, including:

· Providing a tax credit, loan guarantees, and grants to auto manufacturers and suppliers who decide to retool factories to build more efficient vehicles, including especially hybrids and advanced diesels, and associated components;
· Removing the cap on the number of eligible consumer tax credits for advanced vehicles;
· Closing the gas guzzler tax loophole that encourages businesses to purchase very large SUVs but maintaining an exemption for farm vehicles;
· Establishing new requirements for oil savings and advanced vehicle usage for federal fleets and new incentives for private fleets that purchase more efficient vehicles; and
· Funding for research, development and deployment to speed commercialization of both near-term vehicle technologies, such as plug-in hybrids, and advanced vehicles technologies, such as light-weight materials.

Both the proposed Senate and House bills include four major components:

· An national oil savings requirement starting at 2.5 million barrels of oil per day within ten years and increasing over time, achieved through a menu of existing and new authorities and incentives;
· Federal manufacturer retooling incentives for production of efficient vehicles and authority to set efficiency standards for tires and heavy duty trucks;
· Programs that increase fuel choice in the transportation sector; and
· A national energy security media campaign to educate the public about oil dependence.