Daily Humor

Al Gore on SNL:

Daily Humor

What's W. up to? Covering "White Lines," by Grandmaster Flash:

President Obama's Weekly Address

Does House passage give Senate momentum?

Hit the Blue Dogs!

From the PCCC:

This week, "Blue Dogs" and other bad Democrats voted to kill health care reform. They betrayed us on this core Democratic issue.

It's payback time.

Can you chip in $25 to help run online ads in the districts of 10 bad Democrats?

Together, we can hold them accountable to Democratic voters back home who trusted them with their time, money, and votes. You can see all 10 targets at the above link.

Poll after poll in "conservative" states shows that voters want health care reform -- and yes, they want the public option. Yet these bad Democrats put their corporate contributors ahead of their constituents.

Here are some of our targets:

Scott Murphy (D-NY). Murphy won a special election in April with ads featuring President Obama in a district Obama won. He told voters "the United States is facing a health care crisis." Yet Murphy voted against Obama's #1 domestic priority: health care.

Heath Shuler (D-NC). In 2006, Democrats spent millions helping Shuler win what is now a safe seat. As chief "whip" for the Blue Dogs, Shuler recruited other Democrats to vote against health care reform.

John Barrow (D-GA). Barrow won his 2008 Democratic primary solely because Obama endorsed him in a highly African-American district -- a district that Obama won by double digits.

Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL). Kosmas represents a district near Rep. Alan Grayson, but is the polar opposite of Grayson. Instead of being bold and having a people-powered campaign, she is corporate-funded and consistently votes against the people.

Mike Ross (D-AR). Ross is a top Blue Dog who Keith Olbermann featured for selling out to his insurance contributors. Our PCCC poll showed that Arkansas voters want a public option by 56% to 37%.

Fortunately, health care reform squeaked by without their votes. But If we don't hold bad Democrats accountable when they betray us on core Democratic issues, they will do it over and over again.

Can you chip in $25 to hold them accountable?

Then, please forward this to others. Thanks for being a bold progressive.

--Aaron Swartz, Stephanie Taylor, Adam Green, Andrew Perez, and the PCCC team

"Poll after poll shows that even voters in conservative areas want health care reform and demand the public option. Blue Dog Democrats like Suzanne Kosmas are wholly owed subsidiaries of corporate America, and they will pay a political price back home for putting their corporate contributors ahead of their constituents who want reform."

-- Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a 250,000 member progressive activist organization dedicated to electing bold progressives to Congress.

Recent polls:
NBC/WSJ Poll Shows 76% Support For Choice Of Public Plan
September New York Times poll: 65% overall, 47% of Republicans, 61% of Independents, 81% of Democrats support public option.
October CNN poll: 61% to 38% support public option.
Arkansas Oct 2009, Research 2000: 56% to 37% support public option.
Indiana Oct 2009, Research 2000: 52% to 42% support public option.
Nebraska Oct 2009, Research 2000: 46% to 44% support public option
Nevada Oct 2009, Research 2000: 54% to 39% support public option
Connecticut Sept 2009, Research 2000: 68% to 21% support public option.
Maine Oct 2009, Research 2000: 61% to 28% support public option.

Getting Back Our Power (From the Tea Party "Patriots")

Just as we have to assert our Sovereignty, I feel we need to take other action to restrict the power of our government.

After the New Year, I will be starting a Ballot Initiative here in the State of Florida, to set Term Limits. I am gearing for this Amendment to be placed on the 2012 ballot - which should be enough time to collect the necessary funds for the petition & collect the required number of signatures.

I recommend that States that have Ballot Initiatives should do the same. Below is a link that gives a list of States that have Ballot Initiatives for State Amendments, to Initiate New Laws, Overturn State Statutes, & Recall Officials.

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/States

I suggest you check this out, as your State may have an Initiative that you are unaware of. You may have more power than you think!

The Ballot Initiative is one of the most powerful tools that "We the People" have, as we are able to circumvent the Legislature. This is solely between the People & the State Division of Elections.

When I contacted the Florida Division of Elections concerning a Ballot Initiative that I was considering, they gave me three links. The first link gave a complete explanation of the procedure for setting up a Ballot Initiative. The second link gave a sample copy of a petition (it must be in a specific form). The third link gave forms that I needed to fill out. I found the Florida office to be very accommodating. One of you, in each State, would need to find out your specific procedures.

If you don't find your State listed under any of the options, you will have a more difficult time getting something like term limits passed. Obviously, your Representatives are not going to be thrilled with passing legislation that will restrict them in any way,

I suggest the best route would be to try to get your State to pass a law allowing Ballot Initiatives. You would have to find a representative who would be willing to submit this to your legislature. More difficult - but not impossible

What is most important is that we take whatever action is necessary to "take back our power". It is a matter of researching & investigating our options.

The best option would be to get a US Constitutional Amendment limiting terms - that would effect all States. At this time, the Federal Government does not allow Ballot Initiatives:

The US has no initiative process at the national level. In order for any federal initiative to be ever put to voters nationwide would require Congress to propose an amendment to the US Constitution which in order to take effect would need to be ratified by three-fourths of all the state legislatures or constitutional conventions because the frames of the US Constitution, in Article I, Section I, bestowed all of the legislative power upon the legislative branch of the federal government , the United States Congress.

So, we have to do it State by State.

Unruly Republicans Disrupt Health Care Debate

Daily Humor

Today's reason to laugh...

Hannity = Dishonesty

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Danish Miracle

National Politics Round-up

This is our regular feature where every day I do a post with the top 5 Florida political blog posts about national stories. They are ranked according to quality, importance of the story and relevance to the present...A round-up of Florida posts on Veterans Day

Incertus - Two Poems for Veterans Day

Dan Gelber - Veterans Day 2009

Pensacola Beach Blog - Celebrating Veterans

Why Now? - Veterans Day

The Reid Report - Veterans Day

Why Now? - Supporting the Troops

Daily Kos - 2,226 Uninsured Vets Died in 2008

Daily Humor

Today's reason to laugh...

Markos schools Tom Tancredo

President Obama on the Texas Shootings

Weekly address:



Memorial speech, part 1:



Memorial speech, part 2:

This Modern World

(Click to enlarge)

Conniving and Sinister

From Shakesville:

Daily Humor

Stewart parodies Becks' paranoid conspiracy charts, Nazi rhetoric:

National Politics Round-up

This is our regular feature where every day I do a post with the top 5 Florida political blog posts about national stories. They are ranked according to quality, importance of the story and relevance to the present.

1. Brian Winfield - Justice for Ryan and Something More: "A jury convicted one of Ryan Skipper’s two killers of first-degree murder just hours ago. It’s all over the evening news. My how times change. Today was the second of two trials, both resulting in a life sentence for each of Ryan’s killers. Three young Florida men whose lives are ended in one way or another. There is no joy, no celebration, no closure, but there was justice and that’s something."

2. Reid Report - Meanwhile, a lesson for Democrats: "Bottom line: the base didn’t come out for the Dems yesterday, in Virginia in part because the candidate, Creigh Deeds, was such an incompetent, he ran away from Barack Obama rather than toward him (Obama has a 52 percent approval rating among those who voted in Virginia according to exit polls, and 57 percent in New Jersey. Sorry, RedState…) In New Jersey, there was simply no rallying the troops for a former Wall Streeter who was as unpopular as he was unpleasant."

3. Blast Off! - Clarence Thomas: oral arguments are pointless: "I guess it's not surprising when a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who hasn't asked a question of a lawyer in oral arguments since 2006 says that he doesn't see a reason even to have oral arguments. But as a lawyer, I find it a little distressing to hear it said so plainly."

4. Pushing Rope - Max Baucus Facing His Public Option Moment: "Sen. Max Baucus has reiterated he supports the public option. In the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus said he voted against Sen. Chuck Schumer's public option amendment because there wasn't enough votes in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid believes there are 60 votes to stop a Republican filibuster of the public option. Reid would only need 51 votes to pass a public option health care bill. ABC News reports Baucus got wind of Reid's plan and went ballistic."

5. Reid Report - Snowe job: is President Obama putting ‘bipartisanship’ before principle?: "It’s not clear whether the 'bipartisanship above all' strategy is coming from Rahm Emanuel, who is essentially on record as wanting something –anything — for the president to sign, regardless of what’s actually in the bill — or whether the fecklessness is coming from higher up the food chain, including from the president himself."

Conniving and Sinister

From Shakesville:

Right-Wing TrollWatch, Part 1

From the comments in my FoxLand post from last week, Rex has this to say:

Logic 1 invalidates nothing. The fact that they can’t do anything with a super-majority is THEIR OWN FAULT. Saying there’s too many moderates and Republicans is simply an excuse.

This one comes out of a very basic misunderstanding that you can only buy into if you ignore all reality. Lots of people operate under the basic belief that Republican = conservative, Democrat = liberal. This is not true. It has never been true. Conservatives have been trying really, really hard to make the first half of that true in the last few years, but no one is really trying to make that happen on the Democratic side. Democrats have a supermajority, liberals do not. The public option (which is the root of this conversation's beginning) is a liberal policy. In the house that is based on democratic principles (direct election of the people based on population), there are more than enough liberals to get the policy passed. In the other house, the one based on states and not based on democratic principles, liberals still have a majority, but they are far from having a supermajority. In a straight up-or-down vote, it would pass. But Republicans, conservative Dems like Joe Lieberman and the Blue Dogs have enough votes to filibuster the bill, that is beat it with a minority. Seems to me it wasn't that long ago that up-or-down votes were a good thing. Now, conservatives hate them. Hypocrisy much?

So, here in the real world, saying that a bill can't be passed because there aren't enough votes for it isn't an excuse. Even if it were an excuse, it'd be a quite legitimate one based on what's really happening. If a public option doesn't pass, it'll be because conservatives, a minority, used a archaic rule to stop it.

Where the Recovery Jobs Are