TBA2008 -- Opening Plenary

10:45: Okay, I'm not even sure where to begin with this conference. I guess I could direct you to the agenda here. It's hard to figure out which of the many sessions and events to attend, but I'll try. The opening speech is being given by Robert Borosage of the Institute for America's future.



10:48: The conference is going to focus on Iraq, energy, health care and two other key issues.

10:50: The plan is to announce the launch of the largest effort in memory to register and educate voters.

10:55: The next speaker is Diane Archer of the Health Care for All Project. We rank 37th in the world in terms of health care and our health care insurance system is broken. A coalition of health care organizations is organizing Health Care of America Now in order to improve America's health care system and move toward a more fair and equitable health care system.



11:01: They back a program that backs a private-insurance system for those who like it, but also creates an expanded form of Medicare that is a public system for those who don't like the private system or can't afford it. This would drive $80 billion in annual savings on health care.

11:06: The next speaker is Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Color of Change.org. If we do not have a WWII-level mobilization to change our energy infrastructure, then we might not have a future. We have to beat the polluters, push back against Big Coal and forge a new energy future.



11:10: The government is on the side of the problem-makers -- the polluters, those who oppose new energy -- and we need to get the government on the side of the problem-solvers.

11:11: The movement towards creating a positive and progressive energy movement in the U.S., it will create thousands of contracts and millions of jobs. We can beat global warming, decrease poverty and eliminate the need to ever have a war for oil again.

11:13: Martin Luther King Jr. was killed not because he stuck up for African-Americans, but because he linked issues like race, poverty, war and others in a way that endangered the power of entrenched interests.

11:16: We do not believe in sink-or-swim politics. We are all in this together.

11:17: We are becoming the people who offer solutions not problems. We can build a movement that can say we are strong enough and innovative enough not just to take America back, but to take it forward.

11:18: The next speaker is Donna Edwards, Democratic nominee for Maryland's Fourth Congressional District.



11:21: She lost to Al Wynn in 2006, but that loss was a win that served as a springboard to her victory this year. She says a loss can build the groundwork for future success. The victory was based on a movement that was a coming together of groups like MoveOn, DFA, PDA and others.

11:24: In 2008, the voters get it on the Iraq war, Congress needs to get it, too. We need to invest in peace and progress, not war.

11:28: The media needs to return to talking about the war and putting stories about the war and the soldiers who are dying there back on the front pages of the newspapers. We need to contact our newspapers and get them to cover the stories again.

11:29: Edwards is signed on with the plan to end the war proposed by Darcy Burner and others (including Floridian Larry Byrnes, who appeared on Florida Progressive Radio yesterday).

Neal Boortz is Crazy

We get Boortz's show here in Tallahassee and I happened to catch a bit of it the other day. My mp3 player was in my wife's car, Click and Clack were on NPR and I can't stand listening to "music" stations owned by Clear Channel or Cumulus, so I figured I'd catch a few minutes of what the other side had to say.

Boortz was on. It didn't take him 10 seconds to launch into a lie. He claimed that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were pursuing nationalized health care, something that both of their plans explicitly avoid. This is why so many liberals have complained about their plans, they aren't particularly liberal plans. That didn't stop Boortz from going crazy and talking about how health care in Canada sucks so bad.



The biggest problem with this is that Canada is not nationalized. It is mostly private care which about 70% of is paid for with public funds. "Nationalized" health care is a program owned wholly by the government. That isn't what Canada has and isn't what Clinton or Obama or any pretty much any other major Democrat is pursuing, either. Some are pursuing single-payer health care, but not nationalized. Also, Canada does better than the U.S. on pretty much every health statistic possible. Sure, they have some problems, but not nearly as many as we do and they pay a lot less per person for health care (as a percent of GDP) while getting significantly better results. For clarification, the countries that have nationalized health care, for the most part, beat both Canada and the U.S. in health statistics.

He claimed to know of a doctor who makes a living off of Canadian citizens who come to Florida for treatment because the treatment is so bad up north. This sounds like complete nonsense for several reasons (like a Reagan "welfare queen"), but most importantly is that my father is actually Canadian and he recently moved back to Canada because the care was better and cheaper than here in the U.S.

Boortz went nonpolitical for a while and let a guest (who was sane) talk for a while, then he went to commercial and I mercifully didn't have to listen any further, since I had arrived home. I did happen to catch Boortz air a commercial where he claimed credit ("That's the kind of guy I am!") for a promotional discount that I heard about two years ago on the Al Franken show. It's a discount the company offers on all kinds of shows, but Boortz claimed that it was his doing. He can't even be honest in commercials.