June 29, 2009 10:36 AM

Come On, President Obama

Friday afternoon the House passed, quite narrowly, a deeply flawed climate change bill. This weekend, Mr. Obama, who is an enthusiastic supporter of the legislation even though it gutted many provisions on which he campaigned in an effort to woo coal legislators, had only a single complaints - that the legislation imposes a tariff, in 2020, on countries who are without a system for limiting CO2 emissions.

That is it? I have to say that this bodes very badly for improving the House bill as climate change legislation is considered in the Senate. If the public does not know what needs to be improved, it will only be weakened further.

June 25, 2009 9:43 AM

I Want a Different Apology from Ensign and Sanford

I want these two hypocrites to apologize to all of my gay and lesbian friends who want to be able to marry the one they love, rather than being scapegoated as threatening traditional marriage. Seriously.

Both Sanford and Ensign are vocal opponents of gay marriage. Both ask for forgiveness. I like forgiveness. But I like justice even more.

June 24, 2009 12:29 PM

Ok, So Who Really Blames Gays for all These Affairs?

It is hard to know what to say about Gov. Mark Sanford's extraordinary tale of an affair. I don't personally approving of affairs, but that is just my opinion. More importantly, it really steams me that all of these elected officials and wanna be elected officials are against gay marriage on the grounds that it threatens traditional marriage yet their own marriages are already a mess (and to be super clear, I include John Edwards along with lots of Republican officials like Sanford, Ensign, and Vitter - lots of company to go around on this one).

Wouldn't it be just great if even one of these guys apologized to gays and lesbians everywhere for their hateful remarks about people who actually do love each other and want to be together? Just one of them!

June 23, 2009 12:55 PM

Darcy Burner Getting It Done

Darcy Burner, who lost twice running for Congress but in so doing wrote and organized around a responsible plan for withdrawal from Iraq, is now running the American Progressive Policy Caucus Foundation - the nonprofit arm of the progressive caucus in the House of Representatives. Historically, the caucus has been an extremely disappointing, easily marginalized group of representatives who are individually inspiring but collectively almost always lose.

There is some real change happening now, and I think it is about time. One little change is opening up the caucus and its members to public feedback. The current question is on the importance of the public option in health care reform. You can participate here.

June 22, 2009 9:19 AM

PAC Cash and The Public Option in Health Reform

I have previously argued that passing health reform with a strong public option is the single most important initiative for Obama from an electoral perspective.

Now that Max Baucus, a virtual representative of the insurance industry, has released the Senate Finance Committee plan without a public option, it must be said that reform is at critical risk, even though highly popular with the public.

Nate Silver, over at the indispensable FiveThirtyEight.com, does a little statistical work to show why the plan is in trouble. I suggesting reading every single word.

June 19, 2009 10:10 AM

Take Action to Free the iPhone

Actually, to free all phones. Our friends at FreePress have launched a multi-part campaign to free consumers from many of the unnecessary restrictions on the current US cellular market.

Check it out today!

http://www.freepress.net/FreeMyPhone

June 18, 2009 3:28 PM

Just How Corrupt are the Military Appropriators?

It is hard to believe that Congress wants to keep spending billions of dollars on the F-22 Raptor, a fighter jet even the Pentagon does not want. But they do. It is beyond immoral that they would take the money to pay for it from a fund for environmental cleanup.

Read the story here. But dont' just weep. Call or write your member of Congress and tell them that you have very different priorities.

June 17, 2009 5:41 PM

Where are Your Senators on Health Care Reform?

I suspect that most readers don't really know where their senators stand on serious reform of health care - most importantly including a strong public health insurance option.

The innovative activist Chris Bowers is promoting an easy way for you to find out and report to the rest of us. It is a great idea - everyone should participate unless you live in Massachusetts!

http://www.openleft.com/diary/13807/action-put-an-end-to-backroom-health-care-deals

June 16, 2009 8:51 AM

Media Matters Fights Back

Last night CREDO hosted a great panel discussion on the media with David Brock, founder of Media Matters, Joan Walsh, editor in chief of Salon.com, and Eric Boehlert, author of the brand new book Bloggers on the Bus.

Media Matters is on the CREDO/Working Assets donations ballot this year - you can vote for them and up to 49 other fine progressive groups at www.workingassets.com/recipients - but you can also follow media disinformation campaigns at their website and take action on the many campaigns currently underway.

June 15, 2009 9:29 AM

Three Quick Thoughts

The gloves are off - the Chamber of Commerce announced it was spending $100 million to defeat Obama's health care and global warming reforms. For the Chamber, this is truly cheap at the price. Any sense of Obama honeymoon is now gone - I continue to feel that defeat of the public insurance option would almost doom any possibilities for moving serious reform through Congress before the 2010 elections.

I think that the Iranian elite stole this election a little too obviously. The millions who came out, stood in long lines, and wore green know the election was stolen. I have no insight that would let me predict that the current reaction to the theft will overturn the results. But I am confident that the legitimacy of the ruling elites is seriously damaged.

Finally, how will Mr. Obama react to Netanyahu's utter rejection of placing limits on Israeli settlement expansion? I hope he reacts swiftly and without any equivocation - the settlements are illegal and must stop growing immediately. Period.

June 12, 2009 8:53 AM

Progressives and War Funding

There is a really interesting struggle going on in the House, where the leadership is attempting to gather the votes to provide almost $90 billion in yet another supplemental appropriation to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The funding for Afghanistan is almost entirely for military options - the newest version of the surge - and very little for the humanitarian and civil society efforts that have been neglected for years.

All progressives need to do to block this unbalanced and unwinnable approach is to vote No. That alone will force the Administration to enter into a discussion with progressives about a better path. After all, this is what progressive members of the House were elected to do!

If you live in a district with a progressive representative, today would be a critical day to call or email them in both D.C. and their district office and ask them to vote no until they are satisfied both with an exit strategy and a change in the mix of humanitarian and military spending.

June 11, 2009 9:06 AM

AT&T, GM, and Exxon

Hmmm. The news that Ed Whitacre is the new chairman of General Motors is at best perplexing and more likely really bad news. Mr. Whitacre is pretty well known. He was the chairman and CEO of AT&T during the time that it was alleged to have cooperated with the Bush Administration in violating the privacy rights of its customers. Mr. Bush felt so strongly about the matter that he insisted on Congress providing AT&T with retroactive immunity! No wonder that he was a so-called Ranger, raising over $100K for the Bush/Cheney election campaigns. At the same time, Mr. Whitacre was national chairman of the Boy Scouts, which was actively kicking out any gay leaders or scouts that it could uncover.

Mr. Whitacre had retired from AT&T, but remained on the board of Exxon Mobile, the well known funded of those who deny climate change is real. Linking GM and Exxon made perfect sense when GM was privately owned and made all of its money from the worst gas guzzlers on the planet (think Hummer and Escalade), but now it is publicly owned and is running television ads about reinventing it self as a green company.

This appointment is wrong. He should step aside immediately.