It really befuddles me how so called progressives “can stand by their man” when he broke with progressive Democrats to support this anti-consumer, anti federalist, anti-worker bill. I am sure this was partly “payback” for his Senate seat, but that leaves the question that if by some miracle he becomes the next president what will the payback be to corporate America .
Maybe, he was not paying attention, or simply made a mistake because he was green. No, as recently as last Sunday he bragged about it to Chris Wallace.
I would point out, though, for example, that when I voted for a tort reform measure that was
http://proletariat.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/obama-and-the-class-action-fairness-act/
Also see:
http://www.themiddleclass.org/node/3/votes/senate
Rocky Mountain News - Sara Burnett, June 17, 2008
Denver police are stocking up on guns that fire a pepper spray-like substance instead of bullets - a less-lethal weapon used to disperse crowds - in advance of the Democratic National Convention.
The department recently ordered 88 Mark IV launchers and projectiles at a cost "in the low six figures," the company that makes the weapons stated in a news release Monday.
The request was for delivery in advance of the DNC, according to Louisville- based Security With Advanced Technology Inc.
The convention, scheduled for Aug. 25 to 28 at the Pepsi Center, is expected to draw thousands of protesters to sites throughout Denver.
The city received a $50 million federal grant for security. A senior adviser to Mayor John Hickenlooper has said the city plans to spend up to half that amount on equipment, with the rest going to pay officers.
But the city has refused to disclose how it is spending the money, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union last month to file a civil lawsuit.
The court filing alleges the city is violating the Colorado Open Records Act.
City officials say releasing the information is "contrary to the public interest" because it could disclose important tactical information, potentially jeopardizing security.
A city spokesperson could not be reached for comment Monday. Meanwhile, speculation about what the city is buying has run rampant.
Some organizers of protest groups believe police are buying extended-range Tasers and weapons that incapacitate people with high-intensity sound.
The Mark IV weapons the city ordered recently fire plastic balls filled with powder that's "like a combination of cayenne pepper and baby powder," the manufacturer said.
It can be fired from up to 100 feet away, said Ben Cook, director of Veritas, a subsidiary of Security With Advanced Technology.
The balls burst open on impact. While the powder will incapacitate a person like pepper spray, it doesn't cause some of the more severe reactions, Cook said.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jun/17/denver-stocks-up-on-pepper-weapon/
NYT - June 20, 2008 by David Brooks
God, Republicans are saps. They think that they're running against some academic liberal who wouldn't wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn't proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they're running against some naive university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson. [an insult to Adlai, if you ask me].
But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there's Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who'd throw you under the truck for votes. This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator.
Good luck new coalition.
BRD
The commissioners sought public comment to determine whether they should allow corporations to dictate the terms of web traffic or to keep it an open system in which, for instance, a company can't buy the right to have its website load faster than yours or its email expedited.
The problem? Comcast acknowledged it had paid people to fill seats for 90 minutes before the meeting, making many concerned citizens from attending.
Sorry, no link:
Source: Playboy Magazine, July 2008
So said Obama on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. Got some laughs. What I find funny is how Obama supporters are quick to come to his defense about making the lame joke.
My guess is that if Hillary or a Republican or, for that matter, a person of any race other than Obama's...had made the joke, these people would be demonized severely.
An example of a blog that touched on the topic:
http://cincymoms.cincinnati.com/f/ShowThread.aspx?tid=54684&cid=15&fid=129
Some Cuban Americans are planning to protest Democrat Barack Obama's visit to Miami on Saturday.
Posted on Fri, Jun. 20, 2008
By BETH REINHARDMARISOL RUIZ ZOTO/AP
Elian Gonzalez, right, smiles as he attends an event marking the 80th anniversary of the birth of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Havana, Cuba, June 14, 2008.Summoning a time of political upheaval in Miami, a great-uncle of Elián González plans Friday to publicly denounce two Barack Obama campaign advisors who helped send the boy back to his father in Cuba eight years ago.
One day before the expected Democratic nominee addresses a conference of mayors in Miami, Delfín González will hold a 1 p.m. news conference outside the Little Havana home where Elián lived with relatives for several months in 2000.
Earlier this week, CNN reported that Elián, now 14 years old, has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union. Obama was an Illinois lawmaker during the 2000 dispute and did not take a public position.
At issue are foreign-policy advisor Greg Craig, who represented Elián's father in the custody battle with the Miami relatives, and legal advisor Eric Holder, a member of Obama's vice-presidential search committee who was deputy attorney general when the 6-year-old boy was seized by federal agents and returned to Cuba.
In a stunning announcement Friday, the Pentagon skipped over Boeing and awarded a massive $40 billion contract for a new fleet of refueling tankers to a Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautics Defense and Space (EADS). While Air Force officials claimed the choice of the KC-45 tankers jointly developed by Grumman and Airbus' parent company was based on its superior design, politicians in both parties are howling about the devastating economic impact on U.S.-based Boeing. And they might just have John McCain to thank for it.
Back in 2004, McCain launched a one-man to crusade to undo the scandal ridden lease for Boeing aerial refueling tankers based on the 767 design. Subsequent congressional investigations showed a systematic failure of the Air Force's procurement process in opting for a lease of the Boeing aircraft that would be more expensive that purchasing the tankers outright. While Air Force officials blamed one Pentagon official about to start a her new career at Boeing as responsible for swinging the deal to hr new employer, Senator McCain was having none of it. As the Washington Post reported in November 2004:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has conducted an equally vigorous campaign against the lease, said in releasing the internal Pentagon communications in a speech on the Senate floor that the missives reflect a "systemic Air Force failure in procurement oversight, willful blindness or rank corruption."McCain said top Air Force officials have recently been trying to "delude the American people" into believing that a single person is responsible for misconduct in the $30 billion leasing plan -- namely, Darleen A. Druyun, the Air Force contracting official who pleaded guilty two months ago to overpricing the tankers as a "parting gift" to Boeing before she became one of the firm's executives.
"I simply cannot believe that one person, acting alone, can rip off taxpayers out of billions of dollars," said McCain, who said he will keep pursuing internal Defense Department and Bush administration communications until "all the stewards of taxpayers' funds who committed wrongdoing are held accountable."
In the fallout from the reversal of the Boeing lease, Air Force Secretary James G. Roche and Marvin R. Sambur, the Air Force's top acquisitions manager, resigned several days before McCain's speech. (As the Post noted, emails revealed that "Roche asked a lobbyist for Boeing Co. to use the company's Washington contacts to 'quash' a deputy undersecretary of defense and make him "pay an appropriate price.")
For his part, John McCain has made his role in unearthing the Boeing scandal and billions of dollars the lease would have wasted a centerpiece of his campaign for the White House. In October 2007, the McCain web site proclaimed that "in one successful effort, John McCain eliminated up to $2 billion in wasteful and corrupt spending in the Boeing tanker deal" and boasted of his being named a "Taxpayer Hero" by Citizens Against Government Waste. During the November 28, 2007 CNN/YouTube GOP presidential debate, McCain championed his efforts to scuttle the Boeing deal:
"I have the record of fighting against wasteful spending. I have a clear record of winning. I saved the taxpayers $2-billion on a bogus Air Force Boeing tanker deal where people went to jail."None of which is to suggest that McCain's actions were improper. Far from it, the original Boeing lease deal was shockingly corrupt. It is with good reason that Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense concluded, "It was probably the best example of oversight in the 108th Congress."
Incidently, Lou Dobbs thought this export idea was ludicrous.
Obama wrote: "In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce...
Second time Obama lied: June 19, 2008
Obama says "We've made the decision not to participate in the public financing blaming it on the need to combat Republicans, saying "we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we've already seen that he's not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations."
Things would be different naturally if Obama was running a campaign on a shoe-string. But he thinks he can play old style politics before he can promise to change the way Wasington works once elected.
Dear American Tanker Supporter,
The American tanker fight has been vindicated! Yesterday the Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirmed what we have known since the Air Force made the terrible decision to choose a French tanker over an American tanker – that the Air Force threw the competition to the French.
Today is a huge victory for American workers and the men and women of our Armed Forces who deserve the best tanker.
We have fought the fight. It is up to the Air Force to now make things right. The GAO fully agrees with us that the tanker contract should be rebid. And as I have said all along, when American workers are given a level playing field they will win.
I congratulate the workers of Boeing who have never given up hope.
What does this mean?
The fight is not over yet. The GAO concluded that the Air Force had made a number of "significant errors that could have affected the outcome" and therefore recommends the Air Force reopen discussion with the bidders and ultimately re-compete the contract.
The Air Force now has 60 days to respond to the recommendations by the GAO. I hope the AF responds quickly and does not delay awarding the contract to Boeing, the American tanker and the best tanker for the Air Force.
To read the entire statement from the GAO regarding their complete review of the bid process, click here.
Tanker Blog
As always, please continue checking the tanker blog for all the latest happenings with the tanker contract.
Again, thank you for joining me in this fight to have an American Tanker built by American workers
Best,
Congressman Todd Tiahrt
swalters@journalsentinel.comPosted: June 14, 2008
Stevens Point - Stevens Point — Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) told Wisconsin Democrats not to assume that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will win the state in the November election.
"Don’t take (Republican nominee John McCain) for granted, particularly in Wisconsin," Feingold told the Democratic Party’s state convention.
Even though the latest statewide poll gave Obama a 13 percentage point lead -- 50% to 37% -- over McCain, Feingold said, "This race is going to go up and down."
Feingold pointed out that the party's 2004 presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), won in Wisconsin by the smallest margin -- 0.38% -- in the nation.
"If Barack Obama loses Wisconsin, he’s not going to be president," Feingold said.
Feingold said he waited to officially endorse Obama, although he voted for him in the state’s February presidential primary, until the nomination fight was over. In that “hard-fought” contest, he said, Obama proved that he is capable of being president.
Nod to ClintonHillary Rodham Clinton would have made a great presidential nominee, and president, Feingold added.
If Obama wins the election, he will propose worldwide trade pacts that protect companies such as Harley-Davidson Inc., push a balanced energy policy through Congress that would lessen reliance on foreign oil, withdraw troops from Iraq and end the excessive claims of executive privilege, Feingold said.
"There is so much at stake, you can almost grasp this new era," Feingold said. "Let’s get it done."
But Feingold asked that Obama modify his health care plan -- "turn it up a notch," he said -- to guarantee health care for everyone.
Feingold also said Wisconsin’s political leaders will fight to keep the General Motors plant open in Janesville. General Motors "should keep that plant open," he said.
Other Democratic members of Congress also called on Democrats to do all they can to elect Obama.
"We should be terrified of the chances of staying in Iraq forever, and 'the Mac' stepping foot in the Oval Office," said Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), referring to McCain.
In his keynote speech late Friday, Gov. Jim Doyle said the November election of Obama will "turn the page" and empower a new generation of Americans. Obama will be a president "who worries what will happen to" General Motors workers in Janesville who would lose their jobs if the company’s oldest plant closes, Doyle added.
Earlier Friday, party leaders accepted the recommendation of party Chairman Joe Wineke to add two convention delegates, former party Chairman Linda Honold and former Assembly Speaker Walter Kunicki. Both are from Milwaukee County.
Wineke recommended Honold, who had supported Hillary Clinton for president, in a move to promote party unity.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=762130&format=print
cgilbert@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 14, 2008
Washington - As an avid supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Debra Bartoshevich is not alone in her frustration over Clinton's defeat.
She�s not alone in refusing to support Barack Obama.
And she�s not entirely alone in saying she�ll vote this fall for Republican John McCain instead.
But what makes her unusual is that she holds these views as an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this summer.
�I�m sure people are going to be upset with me,� said Bartoshevich, a 41-year-old emergency room nurse from Waterford in Racine County, and convention delegate pledged to Clinton.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=762052
Clinton Asks Pledged Delegates To Support Obama (Updated)
10 Jun 2008 12:25 pm
Multiple Democratic sources say that Sen. Hillary Clinton, in a series of private conversations and conference calls, continues to urge her pledged delegates to vote for Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention. Clinton plans a series of calls with superdelegates, interest groups and state delegations over the next few days. (One of them took place last night, according to this report from Iowa's Quad Cities-Globe-Gazette.)
“She’s doing calls with supports and delegates and various other groups of supporters,” said Mo Elliethee, a spokesperson. “What she did was reiterate what she said on Saturday. She thanked them for their hard work and their dedication and all that they did for her and celebrated some of the accomplishments of her campaign…. And she urged them to get behind Sen. Obama and to work just as hard to elect him president.”
A Clinton spokesman said that Clinton is not technically releasing her delegates -- doing so would cause many of them to be dropped from the slate -- but noted that both Bill Bradley and Howard Dean did not formally release their slates until their conventions.
Still, Clinton's moves this week suggest that she opposes grassroots efforts by some of her supporters to hang on until the convention and submit Clinton's name for president or vice president. It also suggests that her campaign does not intend to challenge the DNC rules and bylaws committee decision to award Obama some of Clinton's delegates from Michigan. Pledged delegates and superdelegates can vote for whomever they want, but a split convention -- even if the split was lopsided -- would no doubt embarrass Obama.
Clinton Fundraisers Ready To Aid obama, Party
USA Today - June 14, 2008
...But in a sign of the urgency to raise campaign cash, Rendell said Obama didn't want to reschedule tonight's fundraiser, even though the governor warned him that many Philadelphia donors were headed to the New Jersey shore for the weekend. Rendell said Obama told him: "We don't need the people. We just need the checks." ...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-06-12-fundraisers_N.htm
13/06/08 "The Nation" -- - Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC, "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market."
Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed 37-year-old Jason Furman to head his economic policy team. Furman is one of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders, anointing the company a "progressive success story." On the campaign trail, Obama blasted Clinton for sitting on the Wal-Mart board and pledged, "I won't shop there." For Furman, however, it's Wal-Mart's critics who are the real threat: the "efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits" are creating "collateral damage" that is "way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy more broadly for me to sit by idly and sing 'Kum-Ba-Ya' in the interests of progressive harmony."Obama's love of markets and his desire for "change" are not inherently incompatible. "The market has gotten out of balance," he says, and it most certainly has. Many trace this profound imbalance back to the ideas of Milton Friedman, who launched a counterrevolution against the New Deal from his perch at the University of Chicago economics department. And here there are more problems, because Obama--who taught law at the University of Chicago for a decade--is thoroughly embedded in the mind-set known as the Chicago School.
He chose as his chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist on the left side of a spectrum that stops at the center-right. Goolsbee, unlike his more Friedmanite colleagues, sees inequality as a problem. His primary solution, however, is more education--a line you can also get from Alan Greenspan. In their hometown, Goolsbee has been eager to link Obama to the Chicago School. "If you look at his platform, at his advisers, at his temperament, the guy's got a healthy respect for markets," he told Chicago magazine. "It's in the ethos of the [University of Chicago], which is something different from saying he is laissez-faire."
Although this email came from (R) Congressman Todd Tiahrt, this issue is a bi-partisan effort with (D) Sen. Patty Murray and other representatives from both sides of the isle.
Dear American Tanker Supporter,
Today the U.S. Air Force has admitted to errors in calculating the life cycle costs of the competing aerial refueling tanker contract bids between Boeing and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) as reported by Reuters.
I am glad the Air Force is finally taking responsibility for the mistakes in this contract. This comes as no surprise— we have been saying for months now that errors had to be present in this contract award. This is strong evidence that the tanker contract should be re-competed under a fair acquisition process that gives American workers a fair opportunity.
The $34 million mistake that the Air Force now admits could be as large as a $30 billion discrepancy, making the American tanker significantly less costly and the obvious choice for the Air Force.
This process is flawed and the analysis does not pass the common-sense test. Americans were outraged at outsourcing our national security, now we have an opportunity to correct this injustice by re-competing the contract on a level playing field. Many more questions still exist and Americans want and deserve answers.
To read the full story from Reuters, click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7581555
For other Tanker contract news, do not forget to check out my Tanker Blog. In addition, if you would like to call the White House to voice your opinion about the Air Force tanker decision the number is 202-456-1111.
Again, thank you for joining me in this fight to have an American Tanker built by American workers.
Thankls for your support, Todd
Editorial of The New York Sun
May 27, 2008
(Before you get your hackles up, I voted for the LA Democrat)
Much is being made this season of the fact that Democrats are winning special elections in districts normally held by Republicans. This happened once in March and twice earlier this month in special elections for Congress. All three elections were in districts that Republicans had controlled for decades, and yet Democratic candidates managed to win all three, prompting members of both parties to predict a Democratic landslide in November. Timothy Russert declared that a seismic shift is afoot, and Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia wrote that House Republicans face the worst political atmosphere since Watergate.
But feature this fact. Of the three Democratic candidates to win seats, only Bill Foster, who won the seat in Illinois vacated by the former speaker, Dennis Hastert, seems in tune with his party's national leaders. Mr. Foster's success owes more to circumstances particular to that campaign than to any seismic shift in American politics. It no doubt helped, for instance, that Mr. Foster's Republican opponent, James Oberweis, had failed to win his last three campaigns. The rise of the junior senator from Illinois to national preeminence has to be a boon to Democrats throughout his home state.
The other two Democratic congressional victories took place in the Deep South. Donald Cazayoux won Louisiana's sixth district, and Travis Childers won Mississippi's first. What auguries are Democrats — or, for that matter, Republicans — to take from these victories? In his campaign advertising, Mr. Childers managed to say that he is a fiscal conservative, pro-gun, and pro-life. Mr. Cazayoux's politics are identical on these three issues, and like Mr. Childers, he emphasized these conservative positions throughout his campaign. Is this the winning formula for the Democrats in 2008?
Then there's one of the most unlikely political scandals of the season. It involves Democrat Mr. Childers getting caught falsely denying that he received support from his party's likely standard bearer, Mr. Obama. "Taking Obama's support is wrong," said a sinister voice in a negative ad against Mr. Childers. "Lying about it is even worse." Asked the interviewer in a local news segment: "Would you accept Mr. Obama's endorsement?" Mr. Childers visibly grimaced, as though he'd been given a particularly difficult math problem, and then answered a question no one had asked.
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 12, 2008
A well-connected Democratic lawyer vetting possible vice presidential candidates for Senator Obama, James Johnson, is quitting after a series of critical news reports about his financial and business dealings threatened to undermine the reform message of Mr. Obama's presidential campaign.
Susan Walsh/AP
Jim Johnson, who resigned today from Senator Obama's vice presidential nominee search committee, on Capitol Hill at Washington on June 9.
"Jim did not want to distract in any way from the very important task of gathering information about my vice presidential nominee, so he has made a decision to step aside that I accept," Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said in an e-mail message sent to reporters yesterday. "We have a very good selection process under way, and I am confident that it will produce a number of highly qualified candidates for me to choose from. ... I remain grateful to Jim for his service and his efforts."
Mr. Johnson was a member of a three-person vetting team that included a former Justice Department official, Eric Holder, and the daughter of President Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy. No replacement for Mr. Johnson was announced yesterday.
The troubles for Mr. Johnson and the Obama campaign began on Saturday when the Wall Street Journal reported that he had taken more than $7 million in loans and lines of credit from a lender blamed for part of the subprime mortgage crisis, Countrywide Financial Corp. Mr. Johnson was part of a group of borrowers referred to in company documents as "friends of Angelo," namely, Angelo Mozilo, the company's CEO and chairman, the paper said.
http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-vice-president-vetter-steps-aside/79866/
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 6, 2008
EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty
Senator Obama with a member of his vice presidential search team, Caroline Kennedy, at East Rutherford, N.J. in February 2008.
To oversee the vice presidential search, Mr. Obama has tapped a former chairman and CEO of the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, James Johnson; a Washington lawyer who was second in command at the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, Eric Holder, and the only surviving child of President Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy.
"Two of them, Johnson and Holder, are definitely establishment figures," a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, Larry Sabato, said. "Caroline has an establishment name, but she really hasn't been that involved in Democratic politics since her Uncle Teddy's campaign for the presidency."
On liberal Web sites, some embraced the choices, particularly that of Ms. Kennedy, as an effort to head off a drive by supporters of Mrs. Clinton to encourage her selection for the vice presidential slot.
"Great countermove," one comment posted on the DailyKos site said.
Others were less receptive. "That is a pretty sucky bunch if one is hoping for a progressive approach," another poster on the Kos site said.
Mr. Johnson, who vetted vice presidential nominees for Senator Kerry in 2004 and played a similar role for Vice President Mondale in 1984, seemed to draw the most vitriol and concern.
http://www.nysun.com/national/great-countermove-seen-in-obamas-search-team/79464/
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