Category: Barack Obama

A hearty and sincere congratulations to Barack Obama and all of his supporters.  The only other thing I have to say about that is to ask you to please reach out to our brothers and sisters in the HRC camp, many of whom have been abused in this process.  We are all Democrats, we are all progressives, and we all have a lot of work to do in fixing our sadly and badly broken country.

Our managing editor forwarded this.  Haven’t laughed so much in months (amidst renewed encouragement for an Obama win against McCain). A quick post to share (in case you haven’t yet seen it):

Enjoy!

“I want to publicly acknowledge Hillary Clinton for the outstanding race that she has run.

“She is a great senator from New York she is an extraordinary leader of the Democratic party and she has made history alongside me over the last 16 months and I’m very proud to have competed against her.”

—Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton

“I know Senator Obama understands what it is at stake here. It has been an honor to contest these primaries with him. It is an honor to call him my friend.”

—Hillary Clinton on Barack Obama

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, two of the ablest politicians in recent memory, have declared an end to hostilities. Understanding that they share the same goals, with some respectful disagreement on how to achieve these goals, they are beginning the process of coming together to form a united front against John McCain in the fall.

As passionate partisans, it is now time for us to follow their lead and start the reconciliation process among the netroots so that our country can turn abruptly away from the edge of the cliff it’s been skating along these past few years of the Bush administration, and start heading in a direction that restores our values and reunites our country.

That’s why I say: Obama Me With Fries!

I like what I’m hearing.  Barack Obama spoke before the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Convention today.  Yesterday, he said this about SEIU’s help for him in the primaries:

“SEIU’s endorsement has made a tremendous impact over the course of this campaign. Their trademark purple has been a presence everywhere-at rallies, at worksites, and most importantly, on the doors and phones, talking to voters about the kind of change we can bring about if we change our politics.”

I have video of the speech below. It’s great. Please watch it if you can. This is how Obama will win the votes of working folks. I hear in Barack Obama a key theme that attracted me to John Edwards:

Change is building an economy that rewards not just wealth but work and the workers who work hard every day

We need a nation that rewards work, not just wealth.  Barack Obama will help make that change, if we all work for it.  

(also on Dkos and MyDD)

“What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President’s unilateral intervention in Iraq?”

– Democratic Presidential Candidate Howard Dean

(March 15, 2003)

“I won’t stand here and pretend that there are many good options left in Iraq, but what’s not an option is leaving our troops in that country for the next hundred years, especially at a time when our military is overstretched, our nation is isolated, and nearly every other threat to America is being ignored.

“We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in, but start leaving we must. It’s time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future. It’s time to rebuild our military and give our veterans the care and the benefits they deserve when they come home.”

– Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama

(June 3, 2008)

On May 1st 2006, millions took to the streets in cities and communities throughout the nation to finally have their voices heard.

Out from the shadows came the forgotten, the marginalized, the nameless, faceless, mass of humanity who toil daily in thankless jobs with little reward or recognition.

Those who had labored invisibly for years as they quietly provided a nation with prosperity of which they could never partake, took to the streets to say “no more”.  We will no longer be marginalized … We will no longer be demonized … We will not be criminalize ….We Are America.

That day, as pundits and politicians tried to grasp the seismic shift taking place, attempting to read the tea leaves of public opinion and formulate positions that would serve them politically, two men had the courage to do not what was safe or politically expedient …but rather, what was right.  

One was an elder statesman, a lion in winter, who had long fought the great battles of his generation, battles for justice, and battles for equality.  ….The other was a young man, just starting his political journey. A young man with a vision of the future based on hopes and dreams for a new America… An America that finally lived up to the principles and precepts on which it was founded. Those two men were Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sen. Barack Obama….The only two sitting Senators to take to the streets in solidarity with those who had too long been invisible.

Now with Executive Summary!

Last night, I began telling the saga of the breakup of the Mapleton School District (Thornton, Colorado), and how Barack Obama’s recent celebration at its flagship “small school” highlights his profoundly erroneous stances vis-à-vis school reform and restructuring.  

Tonight, in Part II, I’ll look at the devastating effects of the sundering of Mapleton on the people who had dedicated their lives and careers in service to the community’s youth.  I’ll also examine some of the money issues involved, which might go a long way toward explaining why hucksters like Neil Bush and political animals like Mapleton Expeditionary School for the Arts Director Michael Johnston have been able to amass fortunes and hoodwink voters into supporting poorly thought-out and badly managed “reform” programs, all the while moaning the mantra, “It’s what’s best for kids.”

I had hoped my first candidate diary would be one of those ones that simply lavish praise upon a presidential hopeful – maybe a nice “Thank You, Barrack, for Today’s Beautiful Sunrise” – but alas, it wasn’t to be.  This is partly my fault (I could’ve written one earlier in the primary season) but it’s also Barrack Obama’s, for his astonishingly poor choice of venue in giving an address on education on Wednesday, May 28.

Even as I write this, the Denver traditional media is tripping over itself with laudatory comments about the Mapleton School District and the school “reform” measures it undertook three years ago.  Regrettably, they’re not going to do much fact-checking beyond the talking point fed to them by District officials, because while it is indeed a fantastic success story that all 44 of this year’s Mapleton Expeditionary School for the Arts’ senior class have been accepted to college, the other numbers, not to mention the seamy history of the reform project itself, paint a far bleaker picture of the effectiveness of “small school reform” measures – and gives at least one voter cause for concern about the educational company Senator Obama is choosing to keep.

I have an idea for a health insurance company, one that is sure to work really well. Here’s the pitch:

You pay me a fee every month-say, between $500 and $1,000-and I pocket the money. In return, in the event you need someone to cover your medical expenses, I’ll tell you in so many words to go fuck yourself, you’re on your own. I’ll use any excuse to deny your claim, and if one of my employees does the unthinkable and puts me in a position of having to shell out money to pay for your freeloading, I’ll send that imbecile to join you on the unemployment line.

I might feel the occasional bout of generosity; I might deign to throw you the occasional bone, just to keep you complacent, and cover some minor thing. But don’t expect me to pay for your heart operation. What were you doing wearing it out by making it beat so much, anyway? Don’t you know that’s a sure-fire way to end up needing surgery at some point? Especially if you don’t take care of yourself by eating right and exercising regularly? And you can forget about that cancer treatment. Drugs and radiation treatments cost money. Pay for it yourself. I’m busy counting.

By the way, you can forget about complaining. Even if you manage to get through the array of computers set up to discourage you from lodging a complaint, any human employee is going to give you the runaround, too. Raise too much of a ruckus, and I’ll just cancel your policy. That’ll show you, you ingrate.

And I won’t stop there. Just in case some uppity customer decides this isn’t legal, or shouldn’t be, I’ll use some of the money you pay me every month to bribe politicians in the form of campaign contributions to pass legislation protecting my right to bilk you for those monthly fees. Oh, sure, you might complain. You might even try to vote out corrupt politicians who accept my bribes, but by the time you get off your lazy ass I’ll have bought pretty much everyone in D.C. and the fifty states who might be capable or inclined to resist. Let’s face it: with campaigns costing more and more money each cycle, politicians listen to those who can fork over a hell of a lot more than that measly ten or twenty dollars you can afford to part with. You’re screwed.

Great idea, right? Well, not for you, but we’re talking about me. You don’t factor into the equation, except as an ever-opening wallet. What’s that? You don’t think it’s so hot a concept? You’re right, it isn’t. But that’s exactly what you buy into whenever you sign up for insurance from companies ranging from Humana to Kaiser Permanente. The only difference between what I pitched to you, and what the health insurance industry tells you, is that I’m being up front about my intentions.

The health insurance industry is the among the biggest and most successful scam operations in the history of the United States. It is set up to get you to pay money in return for almost nothing. And because what little public health care exists is severely underfunded, and qualifications limited only to certain cross-sections of the poor and elderly, this means your options for alternatives are extremely limited. In fact, nearly fifty million Americans have no recourse but to go without insurance, because they cannot afford the premiums (I’m one of them, by the way).

How did all this get started? As Michael Moore pointed out in his excellent documentary, SiCKO (which I blogged about last year), the scam was created when the CEO of Kaiser Permanente at the time had his flunkies meet with then-president Richard Nixon to discuss how the insurance industry could kill three birds with one stone: dismantle what public health care system existed, ensure that it could never return, and become obscenely wealthy in the process. It wasn’t long afterward that Nixon pushed through Congress legislation that would fundamentally alter the health care system of the United States-for the worse.

What Nixon and Kaiser rammed through Congress resulted in the creation of the HMO system we suffer today. It’s the scam outfit that separates you from your money, while denying you coverage for your medical expenses. And you allow it to go on. Why is this? I could write a dissertation about it, but essentially it all boils down to fear and the dominance of the right in the media on issues such as health care. Professor George Lakoff of Berkley University described in 2005 how conservatives have come to shape and control the national discussion, and get Americans to vote against their own interests. The fear element involves scaring you with horror stories of socialism and the loss of freedom, never mind that you’ve already given up your freedom.

The problem is compounded not only by the failure of the Democratic Party to oppose this sort of swindle, but in its embrace of the status quo as a matter of policy. While Barack Obama builds up his illusion of progressivism, his actual history suggests he is not prepared to challenge the status quo at all, but merely is all too willing to continue it. Hillary Clinton joins him in being among the top recipients of bribe money from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The two Democratic rivals for the presidency have even taken millions of dollars in bribe money from so-called health professionals. And we all know where Republican John McCain stands on the issue of health care: more of the same.

This is the scam you pay for with your tax dollars, and the money you pay out of pocket. In my next entry, I’ll tell you how you can do something about it.

Perhaps the most poignant statement of today’s DNC Rules Panel, was offered by Donna Brazile, Superdelegate and Panel Committee Member. Brazile’s comment came as a counter to Governor Blanchard, Hillary Clinton supporter. Blanchard denies the Michigan election was a “flawed primary” as Congressman Bonior and others pointed out:

“You must NOT turn you back on our loyal state,” said Blanchard. The candidates taking their names off the ballot “was a knowing, willing decision. It doesn’t make the election flawed. It makes a flawed strategy.”

Brazile, driving home the obvious, stated that “Changing the rules in the middle of the game is called cheating.”

Donna Brazile: “My Mama Taught Me to Play by the Rules.”

It hardly seems that a day goes by without a new revelation of lobbyists in John McCain’s campaign. Last week I reported that, so far this year, five tainted staffers have had to resign. Still on the McCain wagon are uber-lobbyists Charlie Black and campaign manager Rick Davis. Media Matters has compiled a superb list of even more tainted McCain staffers

Now the Washington Post is reporting another unethical, and perhaps illegal, McCain relationship with a political benefactor: Citizens Against Government Waste. CAGW has a long history with McCain. They have endorsed his candidacy for president, heralded him as a “Taxpayer Hero” and contributed $11,000 to his campaign. The Post article describes an even deeper partnership that potentially violates election law prohibiting coordination between campaigns and independent advocacy groups.