I was the general manager of Sire Records when k.d. lang released her platinum smash album, Ingénue in 1992. I worked on the amazing video for "Constant Craving," which I wanted to use in this post. But Warner Bros Records, a company long since pillaged by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital and sold off for spare parts to the Russian Mafia, doesn't allow embedding for the clip on YouTube. So... below, the song that inspired the Rolling Stones' "Anybody Seen My Baby" 5 years later-- yes, k.d. gets writing credit on it-- is the live Grammy Awards performance. In fact, the song won the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Aside for my love for k.d. and for her music, why am I bringing this up now? Glad you asked. k.d. is also one of Ed Potosnak's favorite all-time artists and, as you probably know, Blue America has endorsed Ed for the New Jersey congressional seat currently held by anti-health care reactionary Leonard Lance. See that platinum award disc up top? k.d. gave that to me after her album sold a million copies. This week she agreed to personally autograph it, not to me, but to whomever wins our Ed Potosnak contest. She's playing at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, NJ on September 22. So... we'll pick a lucky random winner on September 20 and Ed will personally take the plaque backstage so k.d. can sign it to the winner. So, the obvious question: how do you enter?
That's easy: just donate to Ed's campaign here-- any amount; after all, we're not Republicans-- and one winner will be chosen at random to get this very special Thank You from Blue America. We did a similar kind of contest for a signed Green Day guitar and raised over $5,000 although the winner just gave $10. Make sure you contribute between now and September 20th, either on the linked ActBlue page or by check to Blue America PAC, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027.
But, apart from wanting a memento of k.d.'s incredible career, why donate to Ed's campaign? We've written about him many times before but you can get to know more about him from this guest post he wrote in July. Ed's a science teacher and yesterday he told me that "our future is in today's classrooms. All across our nation great disparities exist between the educational experiences of some students and others. Not only is it not fair, these inequities hurt our future. Republicans have shown their disregard for our future time again by slashing aid to schools, teacher bashing, and cutting support for our colleges. For America to remain economically competitive in the global economy, Congress needs educators like myself to make sure every child is treated fairly and has access to a high quality education." Equality of all kinds is a hallmark of Ed's campaign. He also said that "our nation's diversity is one of our greatest strengths and in Congress I will work every day to ensure every American is treated equally. It is not acceptable to allow discriminatory policies to be on the books. As an openly gay man, I have experienced institutional discrimination and am committed to making sure it ends for all our communities."
Again, you can contribute to a stalwart and dedicated New Jersey progressive, Ed Potosnak, here at the Blue America page, and we'll enter you in the running for the k.d. lang RIAA platinum award for Ingénue. While you think about it, see if you can resist this:
Blue America doesn't usually ask for contributions because of some phony Inside the Beltway "deadline"-- as if a $20 contribution is any more or any less crucial today or tomorrow or the next day. And yesterday we got a wretched plea from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, begging for money for the dreadful and unpopular incumbents whose voting records make it impossible for them to raise contributions from grassroots Democrats. "I need your help. We only have 6 hours left until our August FEC deadline, and we’re still $8,000 short of our goal. Eric Cantor outlined the Republican vision in a recent memo-- they will gut environmental regulations, repeal health care reform and attack workers. If Republicans outraise us and grab momentum, the Senate will be that much harder to defend. Must-win seats may be out of our reach. And this GOP vision could become reality."
He doesn't mention that some of these Democrats he's raising money for vote against the Democrats and with McConnell and DeMint. I mean who in their right mind is going to donate to conservative shills like Ben Nelson, Joe Manchin or Claire McCaskill? During his miserable Senate career Nelson has voted with the Republicans 56% of the time on the crucial votes and Both Machin and McCaskill are barely over 60%. They've alienated Democratic voters... and the lobbyists and Big Business interests they have normally counted on would rather replace them with Republicans. Good riddance!
On the other hand, Blue America is asking for help in sending a loud and clear a message to the DSCC and Beltway Democrats today (or tomorrow-- we don't care) by helping us support Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), two people who have fought long and hard for ordinary American families, not for the banksters and not for the corporate elites.
Unless this is the first time you've been on DWTyou already know Bernie. You probably know Elizabeth Warren too. This is what she told the Boston Globe yesterday: “It’s about being willing to take a good idea and fight for it. It’s being willing to throw your body in front of a bus to block bad ideas... There are some things worth fighting for and right now it’s about fighting for the middle class."
She's running for Ted Kennedy's old seat, which is currently occupied by Wall Street's favorite senator, Scott Brown-- and that's what business-friendly Forbes called him... admiringly. One day Elizabeth may be the tellers' favorite senator, but she'll never be the banksters' or hedge fund managers'!
"I came out of a hard-working middle class family. I lived in an America that created opportunities for kids like me... I now see an America in which our government works for those who already have money and already have power... I would walk out of a senator’s office and the office would be completely jammed with lobbyists who were there to explain why the consumer agency was bad. There was not enough room for them to sit down.’’
Blue America has only endorsed 2 people for the Senate so far this cycle. It's hard to imagine any other incumbents and so far the only other challenger who looks worthwhile is Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, although she hasn't declared yet. So we're asking you to take a look at our Senate page and see if you can give us a hand with Bernie and Elizabeth... even if it is after the DSCC's midnight "deadline."
Looking for the silver lining in the passage of the Boehner debt ceiling bill?
There is none.
Okay, okay. There are some bright spots we can look to amid the current Tea Party madness. That's what Blue America is all about. And one of our brightest glimmers of hope comes from the campaign of Ilya Sheyman, who is running for Congress up in Illinois’ 10th District (Chicago’s northern suburbs)-- the most Democratic district in the country currently held by a Republican.
We’ve written about Ilya before, because he’s a serious progressive with a real chance to kick out Rep. Robert Dold, a Republican freshman who has shown he’s more than willing to put anything, including Grandma’s Medicare, on the chopping block, if his Tea Party so dictates.
In the midst of the House debate around this fabricated debt ceiling "crisis," Ilya was one of only a few Democratic candidates around the country willing to take the potentially risky position against the debt deal, saying, very clearly, he would have voted “no” if he was able.
In the 10th, Ilya was the only candidate with the chutzpah to take the right position. The only other Democratic candidate, a business consultant named Brad Schneider, sided with incumbent Dold and Republican Sen. Mark Kirk in supporting the bill. I should mention that Schneider has also donated big bucks to Kirk over the years. Oh, and, he says he’ll not only be more “bipartispan” but also “pro-business” if elected. Not the kind of Democrat we need in Congress, especially if we hope to win back the Democratic Party for the Big Business special interests.
Ilya, on the other hand, stood with neighboring Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky in opposing the bill, which he called “a bad deal for the American people.”
“It would be irresponsible to support legislation that reduces the deficit on the backs of struggling working families and the most vulnerable” Sheyman said in an article published by the local Patch site yesterday. "By putting at risk Medicare and other core services, this plan will make conditions worse at a time of tremendous economic strain."
So here’s our point of optimism. We can seize this moment and reject the Tea Party politicians who hijacked this process (and the Blue Dogs who proved their willingness to sell out working families once again). Let’s support Ilya and other candidates who actually took the right position, even when it meant standing up to powerful forces within their own party.
Off the topic, we'd like to raise $2,000 for Ilya's campaign in the next 24 hours. I don't expect any one person to contribute that much, of course, but if enough people give $10 and $20 contributions, it's going to mount up fast-- and that will set off the trigger. Trigger? A different kind of trigger from the one in the SatanSandwich bill. You see, I used to run Reprise Records, Green Day's record company, and Ilya mentioned to me that he's a huge Green Day fan. So, when we hit the trigger, someone will be eligible to win an autographed-- like in signed by Billie Joe Armstrong, Trey Cool and Mike Dirnt-- Fender strat that the band gave me around the time they were recording Warning. So who gets the guitar? If we were Republicans, we'd give it to whoever gave the most money. But we're not. So everyone has an equal chance. As soon as we reach $2,000 we start a random drawing. We'll pick one name out of a bowl on Thursday at 6pm (PT). and I'll send you the guitar. Enter here.
Congratulations to Gabby Giffords for making it back to Congress to vote and being the surprise-- except for Wasserman Schultz and Pelosi-- 95th Democratic Party vote for the Republican agenda, tying the 95 actual Democrats who opposed it. As my old pal Susan Klein remarked on Twitter, it was the most dramatic comeback performance since Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall in 1961. Gabby's appearance meant much more to the assembled politicians-- actually, of both parties-- than Judy's did to anyone but the gays. It was a good moment for the nation-- and a great smokescreen for the supposed defenders of working people, like Wasserman Schultz-- who could use it to change the subject when anyone wondered why she had just given John Boehner 98% of what he wanted.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz's vote was never in doubt of course. She's the ultimate political hack and always has been. Rahm didn't pick her for a leadership role at the DCCC and Obama didn't pick her to head the DNC because she's got an independent spirit or a conscience. She's very nice on women's issues, though... more than one can say about many of the Blue Dogs she relentlessly promotes. But at least Debbie never held out hope that she might take the side of working families and reject the Satan Sandwich. How about the duplicitous Democrats who signed the Grijalva-Ellison letter to Pelosi pledging to never vote for any bill that jeopardizes Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which, despite indignant protestations to the contrary by the likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, this bill certainly does? The Caucus itself only lost 15 members in the vote yesterday but some of the non-Caucus signers found Wasserman Schultz's and Obama's arguments to back everything Boehner wanted suddenly very persuasive.
The vast majority of the 87 Democrats who signed the letter were true to their word and voted NO-- against the Satan Sandwich. Who broke their word and betrayed their constituents?
Karen Bass (CA) David Cicciline (RI) William Lacy Clay (MO) Jerry Costello (IL) Mark Critz (PA) Danny Davis (IL) Ted Deutch (FL) Lloyd Doggett (TX) Chaka Fattah (PA) John Garamendi (CA) Luis Gutierrez (IL) Mazie Hirono (HI) Sheila Jackson Lee (TX) Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX) Hank Johnson (GA) Dale Kildee (MI) Jim Langevin (RI) Stephen Lynch (MA) Cedric Richmond (LA) Steve Rothman (NJ) Frederica Wilson (FL) David Wu (OR)
A bigger shock came when three Blue Dogs who rarely take the side of working families over Big Business came over to the progressive side in Monday's night's vote-- Leonard Boswell (IA), Dennis Cardoza (CA) and, most shocking of all, Mike McIntyre (NC).
Even before Kissinger's infamous tweet, Matt Taibbi made the same point in Rolling Stone.
The popular take is that Obama is a weak leader of a weak party who was pushed around by canny right-wing extremists. Observers like pollster Sydney Greenberg portray Obama and the Democrats as a group of politically tone-deaf bureaucrats who fail because the public associates them with a corrupt government that benefits the rich and connected.
The Democrats, Greenberg argues, could change their situation by showing the public that they genuinely represent the interests of ordinary working people... But to a bunch of hired stooges put in office to lend an air of democratic legitimacy to what has essentially become a bureaucratic-oligarchic state, what good does such advice do? Would it have made sense to send the Supreme Soviet under Andropov or Brezhnyev a list of policy ideas for enhancing the civil liberties of Soviet citizens?
The Democrats aren't failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there's political hay to be made moving to the right. They're doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I've said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside. They just play one on television.
For evidence, all you have to do is look at this latest fiasco.
The Republicans in this debt debate fought like wolves or alley thugs, biting and scratching and using blades and rocks and shards of glass and every weapon they could reach.
The Democrats, despite sitting in the White House, the most awesome repository of political power on the planet, didn't fight at all. They made a show of a tussle for a good long time-- as fixed fights go, you don't see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did-- but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive.
We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions? When the final tally comes in for the 2012 presidential race, who among us wouldn't bet that Barack Obama is going to beat his Republican opponent in the fundraising column very handily? At the very least, he won't be out-funded, I can almost guarantee that.
And what does that mean? Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?
It strains the imagination to think that the country's smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by "surrendering" at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?
So let me go back to the Blue America statement penned for us by Alan Grayson:
We who sign this make the following pledge, to the voters of our districts and to all the American People:
We Are Against Any and Every Cut to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Not today, not tomorrow, and not ever. No way, no how. Not on your life, and not on mine, because both your life and my life may depend on it.
N-E-V-E-R.
Every Blue America candidate has either signed this letter or issued their own statement in their own words equally powerful. Blue America won't be endorsing any incumbents who voted for the Satan Sandwich and won't be endorsing any challengers who don't embrace this pledge to the American people. It's the bottom line. I still hope Mazie Hirono beats Ed Case in Hawaii, of course, but as of yesterday, Blue America ceased raising funds for her. Give your donations to Bernie Sanders instead. One of our Blue America-endorsed candidates, Nick Ruiz (D-FL), the first to sign the pledge, went on to explain what's gone wrong the day after the vote:
All of the American people can’t be wrong.
All of their needs can’t be wrong.
What is wrong is the turn down the Republican rabbit hole. Lost, we are. BHO abdicates executive responsibility by refusing to act to the point of inertia. Republican John Boehner (OH-8) and Company acted extremely. All Cuts are therefore “IN.” In accompaniment, HSBC announces they will shed 30,000 jobs in 2011-2012. This is the coming Age of Austerity. What a howler- cut New Deal programs at the very same time that practically every large corporation in America is cutting jobs and hording cash. ‘Satan sandwich’ anyone?
The American people could be celebrating a democratic victory, if there was one to recognize. Instead, we are faced with the nuts and bolts of the reality of being sold-out under the auspices of a short term ceiling hike and a long term hatchet committee with an appetite for New Deal destruction.
How to put it back together again, as they tear it apart? 2012.
The 2012 playbook is very simple: reject any and every candidate that stands in the way of progressive democracy. Reserve your support; however you give it, for those progressive Democratic candidates that would act in your interest.
You’ll have to be savvy-– because the all too corporate party machinery will be out to trick you with the ruse of mechanical candidates and party-line robots. But the power to represent us is yours to take or give. The power is in your vote. It’s in your contributions. It’s in the time you volunteer. It’s in your letters to the editors of newspapers and blogs.
Hope? Change? No, we haven’t. But I promise you-- we will.
Many progressives, though certainly not all, are disappointed with President Obama for acquiescing to right-wing talking points about deficits and Austerity. It got worse yesterday. But it's still a touchy-- and some even say still nuanced-- topic in Democratic circles. But I think what all Democrats-- and hopefully most Americans-- can agree on is that the extremist obsession with delegitimizing Barack Obama, no matter how you feel about what a weak and ineffective president he is and how angry you may be that he caves to the corporate right, and his presidency is destructive to the country. The GOP version of a "debate" over how to handle the debt ceiling is an attempt at a modern day coup d'etat by the far right. Making the country ungovernable, wrecking the economy and threating the well-being of millions of families is standard operating procedure for fascistic movements. And it's a procedure that has been more and more put into action by the Republicans since Obama was elected.
This weekend they have pulled every parliamentary trick out of their black hat to force the country into default-- or force President Obama out of his comfort zone and into acting on his own to protect the country from their nilhilism in a way that will trigger immediate impeachment hearings. It has long been clear that the ONLY solution to this manufactured debt ceiling "crisis" is to pass a clean bill and then go back to fighting over competing agendas without jeopardizing the fiscal life of American families, businesses, the country itself-- and the world economy.
And as for the competing agendas, we've seen what the conservative agenda is: more grossly unfair tax cuts for the rich and lots of "shared" sacrifice of the rest of us. THEY ARE GUNNING FOR MEDICARE IN A BIG WAY. And after that they want to abolish Social Security by privatizing it. If we don't have a president willing to stand up and protect the values and principles behind Medicare and Social Security, it makes all the more crucial that we have Members of Congress who will.
We've been talking to Blue America's endorsed candidates about a statement that sums up where they stand on the competing agendas. In the end, former and future Congressman Alan Grayson wrote it and Ed Potosnak, Nick Ruiz, Ilya Sheyman and Norman Solomon signed onto it. Please read it carefully. Blue America won't be endorsing any candidates this cycle who can't embrace these ideas with heartfelt enthusiasm:
Every one of us either collects Social Security benefits, or hopes one day to do so. Virtually every one of us who works for a living contributes to Social Security, and earns the right to Social Security. For many of us, without Social Security benefits, we would have work until the day we die.
Every one of us either enjoys Medicare coverage, or hopes one day to do so. Virtually every one of us who works for a living contributes to Medicare, and earns the right to Medicare coverage. For many of us, when we are old and sick, Medicare coverage will be the difference between our own life and death.
Any one of us can fall prey to poverty. For some, poverty might come through sickness, injury, disability or medical bills. For others, it might come from a lack of education, or from discrimination and bigotry. Or it may come with unemployment or divorce. Regardless of how it happens, any one of us who is poor and sick, or becomes poor and sick, may need Medicaid coverage to alleviate terrible pain and suffering, and even to stay alive.
A just society is one that shelters the homeless, feeds the hungry, and heals the sick. It is one that honors our fathers and mothers. Our first responsibility as Americans is to meet our own needs, and to take care of ourselves. We are judged by how we treat the least among us, the most vulnerable among us.
Therefore, all we who sign this make the following pledge, to the voters of our districts and to all the American People:
We Are Against Any and Every Cut to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Not today, not tomorrow, and not ever. No way, no how. Not on your life, and not on mine, because both your life and my life may depend on it.
N-E-V-E-R.
Do you approve? Please show your encouragement to Alan Grayson, Ed Potosnak, Nick Ruiz, Ilya Sheyman and Norman Solomon at our Blue America Act Blue page. Actually, showing encouragement is only part of what we're asking. We need to help these guys get elected to Congress so they can put these ideas into practice.
UPDATE: KRUGMAN SAYS IT'S A CATASTROPHE
So while John Conyers is calling for demonstrations at the White House against Obama's deal, Paul Krugman is brutally honest in the Times: "Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels... [M]any commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong."
For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.
Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond.
The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention to those who invoke the confidence fairy, claiming that tough action on the budget will reassure businesses and consumers, leading them to spend more. It doesn’t work that way, a fact confirmed by many studies of the historical record.
Indeed, slashing spending while the economy is depressed won’t even help the budget situation much, and might well make it worse. On one side, interest rates on federal borrowing are currently very low, so spending cuts now will do little to reduce future interest costs. On the other side, making the economy weaker now will also hurt its long-run prospects, which will in turn reduce future revenue. So those demanding spending cuts now are like medieval doctors who treated the sick by bleeding them, and thereby made them even sicker.
And then there are the reported terms of the deal, which amount to an abject surrender on the part of the president. First, there will be big spending cuts, with no increase in revenue. Then a panel will make recommendations for further deficit reduction-- and if these recommendations aren’t accepted, there will be more spending cuts.
Republicans will supposedly have an incentive to make concessions the next time around, because defense spending will be among the areas cut. But the G.O.P. has just demonstrated its willingness to risk financial collapse unless it gets everything its most extreme members want. Why expect it to be more reasonable in the next round?
In fact, Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Mr. Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats. He surrendered last December, extending all the Bush tax cuts; he surrendered in the spring when they threatened to shut down the government; and he has now surrendered on a grand scale to raw extortion over the debt ceiling. Maybe it’s just me, but I see a pattern here.
Did the president have any alternative this time around? Yes.
First of all, he could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn’t, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call.
...It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.
And Krugman's editors agreed with him. They were brutally honest too, calling the SatanSandwich deal "a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists. It will hurt programs for the middle class and poor, and hinder an economic recovery."
Note: Ed is the Blue America endorsed candidate running in New Jersey for the House seat currently held by conservative hack Leonard Lance. If you'd like to contribute to Ed's campaign, you can do it through ActBlue.
More Uncertainty And Spinelessness, Washington’s Inability To Get The Job Done
-by Ed Potosnak
This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a production of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honoree Jerry Herman’s, Hello Dolly! As the lead character, Dolly Levi smartly proclaims, “Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow.”
As true today as it was in 1964, investments in education, research and development, and infrastructure promote future economic growth and prosperity. Unfortunately, Washington hasn’t learned that lesson and are instead succumbing to rightwing extremist pressures to concentrate wealth, give handouts to big oil, proliferate the military-industrial complex, gut medicare and social security, and cut vital programs intended to "help young things grow."
All this is leading to more uncertainty for our families and businesses. Fears of whether they will have a job tomorrow, keep their home, whether their children will be able to afford college and get a good job upon graduation continue to cast doubt in America.
I believe in the United States of America’s ability to meet the challenges of the 21st century and those created by the Bush Recession. I believe the American people are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to grow our economy, create jobs, and ensure full economic recovery.
Congress doesn’t get it; they are putting politics ahead of people. There is a job to do and they are not getting it done. The debt ceiling debate is riddled with talking points, catch phrases, and empty words. Statements like "putting everything on the table"-- which seems to be code for cutting the core programs that working families and seniors in our communities depend on.
What about the bloated military spending? Is that on the table? The spineless leaders in Washington are unwilling to take on this thorny issue for fear of being labeled unpatriotic. Meanwhile our tax dollars are being shipped over seas to protect the world adding trillions to our debt with unfunded wars, military bases across Europe, and countless government defense programs.
More than 60% of our nation's discretionary budget is spent on military. Members of Congress need to come together and work out a solution to America's fiscal challenges and the solution needs to include a reduction in military spending. One missile pays for the education of more than 150 students for one year. It is time we heed Miss Dolly's advice and reprioritize our money to ensure economic stability and global competitiveness.
In Congress I will make it as unpopular to go to war as it is to raise taxes by working to require all military actions (whether authorized by Congress or the Executive branch alone) be paid for. This means the cost to take a military action would need to be recovered through a spending reduction in a non-military area, or through the generation of new income in the form of a War Tax.
It is unacceptable to pass on debt from unfunded wars onto our future generations. The cost of war needs to be shouldered by this generation, not future ones. If we are truly going to get our fiscal house in order, funding for military, defense and national security must be on the table.
I don't believe this Congress is up to the challenge to meet the August 2nd deadline. Please help send more progressives to Congress to fight for our future and encourage "young things to grow."
I've known Alan Grayson for quite a few years and one thing I can say about him is that he is refreshingly consistent. He's been a dedicated fighter for working families-- on a Bernie Sanders/Raúl Grijalva level of dedication. And, as a corollary, he's been very much opposed to aggressive war. I dare say he runs every political decision he makes through a screen that takes into account if it's pro-working family and if it's pro-peace. As you know, Alan is running for Congress again and Blue America has endorsed him. If you'd like to help elect one of the best progressive leaders in contemporary history, please consider making a contribution to his campaign through ActBlue.
This week he made a great case for his own reelection to an as yet undefined Orlando-area House seat. He came up with a way for the government to save two trillion dollars-- and in a way that is completely consistent with his guiding principles and progressive values.
There are 23 million Americans who can’t find full-time work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There are 50 million Americans who can’t see a doctor when they are sick, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
There are more than 15 million American families who owe more on their mortgage than their homes are worth, according to Zillow. That’s almost a third of all the families who own homes.
If I were in Congress right now, these are the problems that I would be trying to solve.
But instead, we see a bizarre preoccupation-- no, really, an obsession-– with cutting federal benefits. Some kind of weird contest to see who can inflict the most pain on the American people. With the proponent of each new sadistic plan announcing proudly, “mine is bigger than yours.”
I’ll be honest-- the federal deficit for the year 2021 is not something that I spend a lot of time thinking about, these days. But let’s assume-- arguendo, as they used to say back in Ancient Rome-– that for some reason, there were some compelling, emergency need to work out how to cut $2 trillion from projected federal budget deficits over the next ten years.
I have an idea about how to do that. It’s a very simple idea. In fact, I can sum it up in one word, with five letters:
PEACE.
Now, I know that peace may not be as popular as it used to be. The polling is very iffy. The focus groups are mixed. But let’s look at the facts.
Last year, we spent $154 billion in appropriated funds on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is in addition to the $549 billion in appropriated funds for the Pentagon-– you know, just to keep the lights on. And the non-appropriated cost of war was even higher-– especially when you include the cost of care for the 15% of all the American troops in Iraq who come home with permanent brain abnormalities. According to Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, the war in Iraq alone is costing us $4 trillion and counting. That’s more than $13,000 for every one of us, and roughly 8% of our entire net worth as a nation.
The cost of war is enormous. So enormous that, as I pointed out in H.R. 5353, The War is Making You Poor Act [see video up top], if we simply funded that cost through the Pentagon’s own budget, rather than through supplemental appropriations, we could eliminate taxes on everyone’s first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for married couples), and still reduce the deficit by more than $10 billion a year.
And that was last year. Since then, the number of wars has gone up by 50%.
This is what Pat Buchanan-– of all people, Pat Buchanan-– said two weeks ago:
"The United States is strategically over-extended, worldwide. What are we doing borrowing money from Japan to defend Japan. Borrow money from Europe to defend Europe. Borrow money from the Persian Gulf to defend the Persian Gulf. This country is over-extended. It is an empire and the empire is coming down."
You say that you want to save $2 trillion in ten years? It’s simple: end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and end whatever it is that they are calling it now in Libya. I’d rather do that than throw Granny from the train.
But that’s just me.
Guns or butter. It’s not a new choice.
I prefer butter.
What about you?
If your choice is butter-- or an appropriate vegan substitute-- help send Alan back to Congress so he can keep up the battle against the cronic overreach of a Military Industrial Complex that has gotten much, much worse since President Eisenhower warned the country about its power.
Early in June Wisconsin state Senator Chris Larson introduced Blue America to progressive Assemblywoman Sandy Pasch. As you can see, 99 of us have contributed to her campaign. Since then she has been steadily gaining on Scott Walker/Paul Ryan zombie Alberta Darling and in the latest polling has even pulled ahead of the longtime incumbent. The GOP threw up an obstacle-- a fake primary where she had to fight off a challenge by Gladys Huber, a longtime official of the Ozaukee County Republican Party, who ran as a "Democrat." Sandy wiped the floor with her, winning 67-33%. But the GOP wasn't counting on winning that one. They were counting on draining Sandy's resources before the real battle next month.
August 9th, Sandy will go head to head with Walker lieutenant Alberta Darling in the race that will decide whether Wisconsin keeps going down Walker's and ALEC's road towards fascism... or not. It's that important.
To keep her momentum going, Pasch needs, desperately needs, to stay on the air with her progressive message between now and August 9th. If you can help, even with $5 or $10, it could make a real difference, not just in Wisconsin's 8th Senatorial District but across America. You can contribute through ActBlue here.
Darling's and Walker's right-wing allies are already inundating the airwaves in the expensive Milwaukee suburbs with negative advertising. A memo from a Democratic strategist in Wisconsin warned, "Past challengers to Darling were doomed precisely because they could not regain their footing, or clear the air of smears, after Darling's preemptive and massive television attack campaign. By smartly choosing to dominate the airwaves early, Pasch was able to eliminate a double-digit gap in the course of less than two months, and establish a beachhead of support. However, this position can ONLY be sustained if Sandy Pasch is able to raise the resources necessary to counter the fury of attack ads that will soon be unleashed by Alberta Darling and her special interest allies."
They come.
Club for Growth, Americans For Prosperity, W.M.C.-- the rogues' gallery of radical conservative special interests understand that Pasch is a direct threat to their agenda, and are, as we speak, plotting to tear down Rep. Pasch in a campaign we have every reason to believe will be conducted through Milwaukee television and will shock the conscience.
That Pasch has been able to come within striking distance of Darling in this District has been a testament to the grassroots fervor that Walker and Darling have spurred, and to the excellence of Pasch's candidacy. But it is also a testament to the effectiveness of Pasch's "strike-first strategy"-- a strategy that has catapulted her into the lead. The resources that have girded the success of Pasch's insurgency, however, have limits. Without immediate assistance a golden opportunity to derail the runaway Scott Walker agenda will be lost.
No less than the majority of the state Senate hangs in the balance. Of all the Republican Senators, Darling is Walker's handmaiden above all others-- removing her from the Senate will be a major victory for us and a crushing blow to Scott Walker. It is our sincere belief that the only hope to sustain the gains achieved by Pasch is an immediate influx of resources.
Sandy Pasch can win. But she needs help to do so. Now.
Like many people I know, I held my nose in 2008 and voted for Barack Obama, a junior senator with a voting record I kept warning people meant we were electing an untrustworthy conservative. No, not a reactionary and not as untrustworthy or even as conservative as John McCain, but, to be charitable, nothing to write home about. Other than the symbolism of electing an African-American and an intellectual. But, like almost everyone I knew, I was aware we would be getting-- at best-- another spineless, status quo drone like Bill Clinton. As you may have been able to discern from my comments Monday on Frank Rich's New York piece, I have no intention of holding my nose and voting for Obama again. If he can't win in California without my vote, he has no shot whatsoever.
Last year it was strongly suggested Blue America endorse Obama and raise money for him. I laughed-- and then made some changes to the PAC in response. If there was no chance of Blue America asking our contributors for money for Obama in 2008, there's even less of a chance that we'd consider anything like that for 2012 now that he's proven all of our worst fears to be completely founded. In 2007 I explained my reluctance over and over again, like here, discussing environmental reform. Obama, I insisted at the time, was certainly no better than Hillary Clinton.
A consistent and craven compromiser on almost every progressive value or principle he's had to confront since being elected to the Senate (from Republican "tort reform" to legalizing credit card usury), Obama's environmental record has clearly been "one of accommodation to big corporate interests" and "his 'new kind of politics'" is nothing more than a charismatically delivered sham: "the old kind of influence peddling, caution, and smallness that most Democrats [at the grassroots level] reject." His environmental record is nothing Bush Republicans need to fear.
He is the Senate's leading Democratic supporter of "coal to liquid," a technology that can make gasoline out of coal. Only problem: it produces double the global warming pollution that regular old dirty oil does. As if that wasn't bad enough, Obama actually voted for George Bush's energy bill despite more than $27 billion in subsidies for the oil, nuclear and coal industries, its weakening of clean air and water laws, and the fact that it gave electric companies the power to charge consumers high rates while doing almost nothing to tackle global warming or increase consumer protections.
Why is Obama so willing to "trim his sails" so often-- despite the consequences to working and middle class Americans and the environment? It's not just that he apparently believes accommodation-- even of right-wing extremists-- can be both right and politically useful. It's something deeper. In his autobiography, The Audacity of Hope, Obama admits he has a hard time feeling a truly pressing sense of urgency about the great issues of the day.
He's not the leader America so desperately needs to clean up after the worst presidential regime in history, no more than Hillary Clinton is. It's not enough to drive Republicans out of government, even if that is a well-deserved and worthwhile first step. It's just as important to find BETTER Democrats.
That's still what Blue America is dedicated to and what we ask our supporters to help with. And, on top of Obama's all too predictable colossal cave-in-- or worse-- to the Republicans this week, that work takes on an even greater urgency.
President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.
At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation’s budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action.
As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.
“Obviously, there will be some Democrats who don’t believe we need to do entitlement reform. But there seems to be some hunger to do something of some significance,” said a Democratic official familiar with the administration’s thinking. “These moments come along at most once a decade. And it would be a real mistake if we let it pass us by.”
Rather than roughly $2 trillion in savings, the White House is now seeking a plan that would slash more than $4 trillion from annual budget deficits over the next decade, stabilize borrowing, and defuse the biggest budgetary time bombs that are set to explode as the cost of health care rises and the nation’s population ages.
As a liberal, I believe that if Obama comes in and implements a bunch of muddled centrist policies, proposing tax cuts to deal with poverty and an expanded military and entitlement reform along with a weird convoluted health care reform, he will fail because basic liberal ideas like accountability, oversight, and integrity in leadership will not be embedded into our institutions. The rich have left us with a massive bill in the form of an intractable trade deficit, national debt, and oil addiction, and someone's going to pay it. If it's the public instead of the people who ran up the country's credit cards (take a look at the nation's billionaires), it's going to make a lot of people much angrier than they are right now.
This anger will go somewhere; right now anger is going against Bush, but he's out of the picture come 2009, though we can kick his corpse for a few years or so if Democrats act smartly (which they won't). If Obama's centrist policies fail, and he is considered a big government liberal or progressive, the public will reject liberalism and progressivism, as it has for the last forty years. But this will not be a result of disliking progressive ideas, but as a result of believing that bad centrist ideas are progressive ideas.
So, as liberals who believe in a different vision for America than Obama, it's important that Obama's centrist policy sympathies are blamed for what goes wrong when he takes over and screws up the country worse than it is right now, which we'll notice after our honeymoon of hoorays some time after the transition.
Dave Johnson was also quick to realize the danger we were putting Social Security-- and wjat's left of the New Deal-- in by electing a weak, vacillating and basically conservative Barack Obama.
Barack Obama is echoing the right's destructive narrative about Social Security being in crisis. The crisis is that Reagan and then Bush took all the money from the Social Security Trust Fund to use for tax cuts for the rich. (Clinton's surpluses were paying it back, Bush reversed that.) And now the Trust Fund is going to need some of that money back.
The right's line is that this means Social Security is in crisis, is "not going to be there" for the next generation, and "tough choices" are required. The audacity-- they took the money, and now they say this is Social Security's problem, and that we have to fix Social Security! They say this to distract the public from asking for the money back, and to get them to support efforts to privatize the program.
And Barack Obama has joined them in this! Recently an Obama ad reinforced the right's bamboozlement that Social Security is running out of money. speaking on Meet the Press:
Now, we've got 78 million baby boomers that are going to be retiring, and every expert that looks at this problem says "There's going to be a gap, and we're going to have more money going out than we have coming in unless we make some adjustments now." ... I want to make sure that it's there not just for this generation, but for next generations. So that means that we're going to have to make some decisions...
Paul Krugman pleads with him to stop. A few years ago the right tried to go after Social Security and there was:
... a determined defense by progressives in the media, on the blogs, and in Congress beat back one spurious argument after another, while the American people made it clear that they really want a program that guarantees a basic retirement income that doesn't depend on the Dow. And Social Security survived.
All of which makes it just incredible that Barack Obama would make obeisance to fashionable but misguided Social Security crisis-mongering a centerpiece of his campaign.
The American people don't want to see cuts to Medicare and Social Security. They want the rich to pay their fair share and they want tax loopholes for Big Oil and other corporate monsters to be closed. But Obama is playing it like his hand is being forced. It isn't. This is just what he wants. He'll have the Republicans backing him, of course, but which Democrats have the courage to stand up to him? Watch this space.
UPDATE: Can Chris Van Hollen Be Trusted... A Little?
Van Hollen was just on CNN with Ali Velshi claiming Democrats won't vote to balance the budget on the backs of Social Security recipients. Van Hollen is a sneaky, untrustworthy character and if he's what's standing between the New Deal and fascism, we're sunk. Here's most of the transcript:
VELSHI: Do you know anything about the reports the President is prepared to talk about Medicare and Social Security with the Republicans in exchange for their support to raise the debt ceiling?
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Ali, I do not know the details on this. I saw the reports and will hear a lot more from the President around eleven o’clock when he meets with bipartisan group at the White House. I do know that the President has been looking for a comprehensive deal that gets about $4 trillion in deficit reduction. That was along the lines of the proposal from the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission. But with respect to the story that appeared this morning on Social Security I do not know what exactly the President is referring to. And I should be clear that Congressional Democrats are not going to support something that seeks to balance the budget on the backs of Social Security beneficiaries. What we have said is that if the President wants to adopt a separate track, just as Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s, to strengthen Social Security, that’s one thing. But to try and balance the budget on the backs of Social Security beneficiaries would be unacceptable and I’m pretty confident that is not what the President is referring to.
VELSHI: Let's set the stage what here with what kinds of things could you, and Congressional Democrats, with respect to Social Security might support. If we support an increase in the age when you get Social Security for people who are younger at this point so it phases in over some time. Is that the kind of thing we could be talking about?
REP. VAN HOLLEN: I think that would meet with a lot of resistance for this reason. It's easy for people who make a living like you and I do; talking, to retire a little bit later. It’s a lot harder for someone who has been doing back-breaking work. What we could do-- this is something part of the design of the existing system-- you don't take away the option to retire early but if you do retire early you do get a lower benefit over a period of time. That is part of the design in the current system. You could build on that. There are other options that we have discussed, for example, lifting the cap on the payroll tax. That would bring in more revenue, so there are ways to strength Social Security. Obviously, an important issue-- but don’t do that as way to balance the rest of the budget.
VELSHI: Part of the reports coming out that the President would agree to or push for $3 to $4 trillion in cuts over the next ten years. Where do Congressional Democrats stand on that?
REP. VAN HOLLEN: Well, the President's proposal that he laid out just a short time ago at George Washington University called for about a $4 trillion in cuts over 12 years. And while I think you'd find people disagreeing with some of the details, the overall architecture of that proposal is something that certainly I could support because it was a balanced approach. It said we got to close a lot of these corporate tax loopholes. We have to ask the folks at the very top to go back to paying what they did under-- during the Clinton administration. But it also called for significant cuts which we are going to have to do on domestic discretionary spending. But the President was clear that while we make cuts on the domestic side of the ledger we have to look at Pentagon spending and some the bipartisan commission also recommends.
VELSHI: Congressman, you're a leader in the Democratic Party. So, at some point, we know that Republicans have dug in about nothing that looks, smells, or walks like a tax increase or an elimination of a credit. You do have to compromise and you will probably tell me that you and Congressional Democrats have, but the bottom line is what can you do to bring hard line fiscal conservatives over who will not get off of that mantra?
REP. VAN HOLLEN: That is exactly the question I think all of us need to ask and I, frankly, do not have a good answer for you. Because what you've got right now is a dynamic in the Republican Party, especially with the Tea Party movement, that says that we're not going to support closing corporate tax loopholes even for the purpose of deficit reduction. And until the Republican Party is more worried about the deficit than they are about Grover Norquist, and that whole part of their coalition, then we’re going to have a real problem. Now maybe the ice is beginning to break a little bit there. I haven't-- you know, there were some signs yesterday although you have to see it to believe it. I need to see an actual proposal.
Keith Ellison, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, may not have the institutional clout Van Hollen does, but he's far more trustworthy and far more a champion of working families. This morning on Morning Joe he defended Social Security in no uncertain terms-- from both sides. He tried to refocus the debate on the central problem that seniors and the poor are being asked to sacrifice greatly while the richest Americans are being protected by congressional Republicans: "Social Security actually is not contributing to the deficit. Social Security loans us money. So at the end of the day, all this discussion about how we’re going to cut Social Security is very distressing to me because Social Security isn’t the problem… This is inequitable and regressive… We’re asking the poorest Americans to sacrifice. When are the wealthiest Americans going to step up and do the patriotic thing, which is to contribute to deal with this budget deficit."
And Elison's co-chairman, Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), was among over a dozen progressive leaders vowing to oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid listed as part of any deficit reduction package combined with a proposal to raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit. They signed a letter to Obama that makes the case that “job creation is the most important issue facing the country-- not deficit reduction... [A]ny cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid should be taken off the table,” the letter said. “Second, revenue increases must be a meaningful part of any agreement.”
Grijalva: “I think we are allowing the conversation to be skewed by the Republican leadership. The demand on these three programs [Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid] is more political than it is fiscal. It’s a political statement they are making. For the president or for the Congress to allow them to make that statement, when there’s no fiscal rationale for it, is something that we can’t support.”
And, over on the Senate side, there's a champion for working families as well, Bernie Sanders: “Let us be clear,” Sanders said. “Social Security has not contributed one nickel to our deficit or our national debt. Social Security is funded by the payroll tax, not the U.S. treasury... I am especially disturbed that the president is considering cuts in Social Security after he campaigned against cuts in 2008." [Obama made his position clear on Sept. 6, 2008, when he said: “John McCain's campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost of living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let me be clear: I will not do either,” Obama said.] “The American people expect the president to keep his word,” Sanders said.
Obama isn't the only Democrat supporting Wall Street's dream to end Social Security and privatize Medicare. Predictably, corporate whores Third Way is backing Obama.
This morning at 11am PT John and Digby are going to be hosting a live chat with Norman Solomon, a movement progressive running for the North San Francisco Bay area House seat being vacated by another progressive, Lynn Woolsey. The live chat will be at Crooks and Liars in the comments section. I hope you can join them... I'm in Asia and it'll be 1am on Wednesday and I'll be fast asleep.
It was with gladness in our hearts that all of us at Blue America celebrated the state of New York legalizing gay marriage this past week-end. It was a welcome reminder that even in this era of Tea Parties and economic malaise, human progress cannot be stopped. Imagine if we had a national government with enough fighters for working families to make progress on all fronts from civil rights to economic justice to ending our useless expensive wars. Imagine if we had more leaders like Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison and Donna Edwards to press for that agenda.
Today, longtime progressive congresswoman Lynn Woolsey just announced her retirement from the Congress after a long and illustrious career. And Blue America endorsee and longtime political activist and author Normon Solomon stands ready and able to carry on the progressive tradition of that district.
“We’re gaining the kind of traction that a grassroots campaign needs in order to win,” Solomon said. “The groundswell of support is very encouraging.”
Indeed it is. We need congressional representatives who understand that we are no longer able to afford open ended military adventures and corrupt political boondoggles and Norman has been fighting to end them his entire life.These issues are no longer matters of abstract ideology-- they are necessary and pragmatic approaches to the problems of our time. We need people like Norman Solomon in congress to lead the way.
Blue America will be hosting Norman in a live chat at Crooks and Liars on Tuesday at 2pm EDT/11 am PDT. Please join us.
The good news is that it looks as though we aren't the only progressives who are enthusiastic about him-- the campaign has managed to collect $100,000 already from small donors. But he is not a corporate funded Democrat and will need our help to compete.
Thanks again for your support. We hope you'll join us on Tuesday for a lively discussion.
We are all in this together.
Yesterday Norman penned a guest Op-Ed for the Marin Independent Journal that presents a lot of insight into what kind of congressman he'd be-- and into why Blue America is so committed to his candidacy. I bet this is what you wish YOUR congressmember and senator-- not to mention our president-- was saying about the dangers of nuclear energy... and what to do about it. But they're not. It's why it's so crucial that we need real leaders like Norman Solomon, not just someone who will probably vote well in the House.
Several decades ago, three expert nuclear engineers told a congressional panel why they decided to quit: "We could no longer justify devoting our life energies to the continued development and expansion of nuclear fission power-- a system we believe to be so dangerous that it now threatens the very existence of life on this planet."
The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy heard that testimony in 1977, when the conventional wisdom was still hailing "the peaceful atom" as a flawless marvel. During the same year, solid information convinced me to move from concern to action against nuclear power.
By the time the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant came close to rendering much of central Pennsylvania uninhabitable, I was nearly two years into full-time anti-nuclear work that included public education, civic activism and nonviolent direct action. Given what was at stake, I didn't mind spending a month in jail for civil disobedience.
More than 30 years later, the ongoing disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant underscores the grim realities of nuclear power, ranging from catastrophic reactor accidents to highly radioactive waste that will remain deadly for many thousands of years.
Such inherent dangers are all too close to home here in California, where the state's two nuclear power plants-- Diablo Canyon at San Luis Obispo and San Onofre farther south-- are both located on major earthquake faults along the coast.
The overall record of Diablo Canyon's owner and operator-- PG&E-- hardly inspires confidence. And recent events in Japan showed that official assurances can become worthless after a big quake and tsunami.
Continuing radioactive leaks from Fukushima are extensive and multifaceted. The authoritative journal Nature reported in late May that "some scientists are simply floating the idea of turning Fukushima into a nuclear graveyard"-- but "given the plant's location on the coast, storing the waste there for millennia may be unrealistic."
Here at home, I fundamentally disagree with the official mantra that California's two nuclear power plants should keep operating while federal agencies conduct "studies" to determine whether those nukes are risky enough to warrant closure.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Energy Department have been avidly promoting nuclear power for decades. Periodic calls for more "studies" have kicked the radioactive can down the road.
I reject the notion that we should wait for such nuclear-enthralled agencies to tell us whether nuclear power is an acceptable risk for Californians.
As the director of the National Citizens Hearings for Radiation Victims in 1980, I learned a lot about patterns of official enabling of the nuclear industry-- with awful results for human health and the environment.
Similar patterns persist in this country.
In contrast, the government of Germany has seen the light. At the end of last month, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a reversal of policy-- moving to shut down nuclear power instead of trying to expand it.
The decision to immediately close eight German nuclear power plants and shut the rest by 2022 came in a country that had been getting 23 percent of its electricity from nukes.
Here in California, we're less reliant on this Faustian technology, getting just 15 percent of our electricity from nuclear power. The state has a lot of excess generating capacity from other sources, but far better choices for the environment are within our grasp.
Effective conservation options are readily available, and widespread use of renewables like solar is in reach. What we need is the political will to fight for serious public investment in sustainable energy and a non-nuclear future.
Please consider helping Norman bring this kind of thinking to Washington by contribution to his campaign through ActBlue. Norman summed his platform up in one powerful sentence today saying is he's elected to Congress, he "will insist that we need to bring our troops and tax dollars home-- that we need healthcare not warfare-- that we must resist corporate power-- that caving in to Wall Street and polluters and enemies of civil liberties is unacceptable." Your kind of guy?
You'd have to be living under a rock not to know there's a battle in Wisconsin that's crucial for the whole progressive movement and for the future of our country. That's why Blue America started a new Wisconsin Recall page and it's why we've invited state Senator Chris Larson and state Senate candidate Sandy Pasch onto Crooks and Liars for a live chat today (2pm, CT, noon, PT).
As you no doubt recall, earlier this year the newly elected extreme Republican governor of the state, Scott Walker, pushed through a radical attack on basic labor rights. His plan to strip workers of the right to bargain collectively for protections against unfair treatment and unsafe worker conditions was one of the greatest assaults on working families in the last half century. And now he's pushing a radical, destructive agenda that guts priorities like education, health care and help for seniors while giving hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to huge corporations. He couldn't have done it with an equally extremist state legislature, which has rubber stamped every single point on his destructive agenda.
The recall elections next month matter far beyond the borders of Wisconsin. The Walker agenda is being duplicated in state after state by the extreme Republicans who swept into power in last November’s elections. This fight for rights and the basic values we all hold dear will reverberate across the nation, impacting elections in every region of the country. With the help of Blue America's most trusted friend in Wisconsin, Sen. Chris Larson, we looked at all progressives running to replace the six Walkerites and we invited Assemblywoman Sandy Pasch to talk with us today about the elections. She and Chris are both open to answering questions about the campaign and about Wisconsin politics.
Sandy's running in the 8th Senate district. Over the course of a few months, more than 30,000 residents signed petitions to recall Walker-ally and friend of special interest, State Senator Alberta Darling. Darling is a 19- year Republican incumbent who has embraced the extreme conservative agenda. From slashing money for women’s health care, to raising taxes on seniors and the working poor while giving tax breaks to big corporations, to gutting money for Wisconsin schools, to making it easier to carry a concealed gun into days cares, malls and bars, Darling is a prime symbol of why we need to win these recall elections. Formerly a kind of mainstream conservative she's devolved into a career politician who puts the extreme, divisive agenda of the party bosses and special interests ahead of her constituents.
Remember, Democrats need just three net victories to take control of the state Senate and create a firewall against the reckless Walker agenda. Winning Darling’s seat will be a critical part of that equation. She's vulnerable. Polling shows she can be beaten, and even her Republican allies in the Senate have said to the press she is in trouble.
Sandy's a dedicated progressive and has over 30 years of experience as a clinical nurse and educator. She is committed to stopping Walker’s assault on Wisconsin’s working families. Darling won her last election by only 1,007 votes and next month Sandy is the right candidate to fix that mistake.
Winning these recalls will not just help protect Wisconsin-- it will send a signal to the entire country that we will stand up to extreme, divisive agendas that hurt our values and threaten the priorities we know are so important. Help her campaign now, and this summer Wisconsin will be the first step in our national efforts to stand for the ideals under threat by the most extreme right wing special interests facing our country since the 1940's. Please don't forget to make your way over to the live forum in the Crooks and Liars comments section at 2pm (Wisconsin time) today.
