DemocracyUpsideDown

It's a New Day

The Awesome Landscape: Reflections


Follow the link over to RaisingKaine.com here.

From One Friend's Porch: Re-birthing Grassroots Democracy

Read about it [here http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=17064].

Here We Go...To the Finish Line

Virginians for (Real) Change

A Letter To My Fellow Citizens

We stand at a pivotal moment in history. How will future Americans judge what we do this Tuesday? Will our children and grandchildren know we tried to help America change course? Will we choose unity rather than division, hope rather than fear, positive ideas or failed policies of the past, good stewardship of America's resources or massive giveaways to crony donors? Our choice has never been clearer. At this most challenging time, only Barack Obama has courage of his convictions, constructiveness of approach, steadiness under pressure, the energy, ideas, intellect and proposals for real change to lead our country. On November 4th, our nation needs your vote for Barack Obama for president.

Overwhelmingly, Americans believe we are on the wrong path. We desperately need real change. As Barack Obama reminds us, real change isn't the same party doing the same things that have wrecked our nation's economy. It's not pretend reformers who say one thing and do another. We've lived for most of the past six decades with Republicans in charge, when our problems have mounted, corruption increased, deficits grown, and size of government expanded.

"Trickle-down economics" failed. Excessive de-regulation imperiled us all. Our beloved nation's economy has been jeopardized by this administration and its irresponsible supporters like John McCain, who voted with Bush over 90% of the time. John McCain has no plan to leave Iraq and is clueless of its economic impact here at home. As costs of the Bush-McCain war without end weigh down our economy, McCain's economic plan coddles the very companies causing the problems we face.

Meanwhile, the poor and middle class suffer the consequences of Bush-McCain incompetence. Americans do better under Democratic presidents. It is our holy responsibility and sacred trust to provide good stewardship.

How does John McCain acknowledge and handle this responsibility? He admits he has no grasp of economics. His own chief economic adviser, Phil Gramm, is part of the problem. Gramm's massive energy and banking deregulation paved the way for both the terrible Enron collapse and the current banking and mortgage crises. John McCain's campaign manager is Freddie Mac lobbyist, Rick Davis, who tried to prevent regulations that could have prevented the current crisis. No-reformer McCain has 177 lobbyists working on his campaign, including 83 from the banking and mortgage industries alone.

Bush-McCain Republicans have gone too far. But John McCain plans even more reckless deregulation and more tax cuts for the rich, both of which will only make our situation worse. And just this week we learned that, in his waning days in office, George W. Bush is ramming through more deregulation without Congressional approval.

Barack Obama will right the mistakes of George Bush, not continue them, as John McCain would do. John McCain has no economic plan and no ideas, so he misrepresents the facts about Barack Obama. Barack Obama will re-introduce reasonable, but necessary banking regulation to protect Americans. Any economic stimulus Obama proposes is "paid for" by cuts to other programs, or increasing taxes upon the wealthy (who've benefited disproportionately even as the rest of us have seen our dreams go up in smoke). Unless you fall within the top 5% of Americans, your taxes won't go up.

The majority of small businesses won't have their taxes go up either. Barack Obama will remove incentives for companies which export our jobs and reward those who grow US jobs. Read more about it at www.BarackObama.com.

The Wall St. Journal reported that John McCain plans to cut 1.3 trillion dollars from Medicare and Medicaid, much-needed programs which are already hurting. Seniors shouldn't have to worry if crucial programs will be there for them. Few seniors can afford the draconian cuts McCain plans.

McCain also plans to privatize Social Security. He won't call it that, but it's privatization just the same. His plan for "personal accounts" is a scheme to defund Social Security system and divert funds to private accounts for the young. But, McCain's plan, by design, will ultimately cause the system to run out of money. All generations will be up the creek and out of luck. The current Wall Street volatility shows how risky market-driven Social Security would be. Barack Obama will oppose any effort to privatize Social Security and he'll restore its financial position so it's there for current and future retirees.

Barack Obama will protect the work-related pensions of Americans. I can tell you that, without a president who cared about such matters (as Bill Clinton did), my own parents would have lost their pension due to a corporation trying to skip out on its pensioners. If you care about pension protection, it matters which party is in office.

For those not on Medicare or Medicaid, Obama's health care plan will expand access to health insurance and make it more affordable. It is not, as McCain falsely claims, government-run medical care. It's just common sense approaches to make the system we have work better for all of us. John McCain's plan is really noninsurance. All McCain offers is a tax credit of $2,500 ($5,000 per couple) after you buy coverage on your own. Unlike Barack Obama's plan, McCain's non-plan offers no help for those who are priced out of insurance, have preexisting conditions, or have been canceled. McCain would tax health insurance benefits offered by employers, which could undermine the employer provided insurance most Americans have. Without the purchasing power of groups, insurance costs would escalate under McCain. So, under McCain noninsurance, more people would go bankrupt due to medical expenses.

In contrast, Barack Obama's plan offers you the option of keeping your current plan or having access to the same insurance plan Congress has. In other words, you'd be able to buy a policy like your member of Congress has. Remember, this is not government-run health care.

Unlike John McCain, Barack Obama sees education as the cornerstone in our democracy. We need informed citizens (and leaders) so we can navigate the complex world we live in. Sarah Palin is the most ill-informed VP candidate in history. John McCain hasn't even entered the digital age (he doesn't know how to use a computer or email). John McCain is just out of touch. Barack Obama role models learning, not only in his own education, curiosity, and idea exploration. He fosters the same in his children. But he knows parents can only do so much on their own. We must see the education of our young and better public schools a compact we make with the young. Schools don't need more unfunded mandates which drag them down.

Barack Obama also will open up college doors to more students and ease the burden of debt saddling graduates by allowing more of them to give public service in exchange for tuition. For those who don't choose college, he supports better technical training program options.

Ironically, while the Bush administration has expanded government and has led the most intrusive efforts against US citizens ever launched in America, McCain-Palin assert that Democrats are the party of big government! Americans worry about the Constitutional over-reaching by the Bush administration, for example, by operating under the flawed notion of the "unitary executive." Bush believes the president can do whatever he wants, regardless of the law or other two branches of government. But McCain-Palin aren't satisfied. Recently, Palin went so far as to say she'd expand the power of the Vice Presidency even more.

The Bush doctrine of preemptive war has violated our own and international law. Now, even US citizens can be imprisoned, held for no reason-- if the president says so. McCain claimed to oppose Bush on the elimination of habeas corpus, NSA spying against Americans, and torture. Then he caved and supported the Bush agenda. In a tantrum last September, McCain called for three million members of the centrist political action group Moveon.org (which supported Bill Clinton against impeachment and Al Gore for president) to be kicked out of America!

Political vendettas are not the change we need. The pendulum has swung too far and must be brought back nearer the center. What will we tell our grandchildren about taking a stand in defense of our Constitution?

Barack Obama believes there is a role for government on our behalf, not by intruding itself into our private lives, or doing what we can do for ourselves, but rather by doing what individuals cannot do for themselves: civil and national defense; education; infrastructure; oversight; consumer protection; sound environmental and economic stewardship; diplomacy; and national and international conflict management.

But when the chips are down, when all else has failed, we know that we are our brother's keeper. We honor the humanity of even, and especially, the least well off among us. We strive to build something better for our country-it's our shared purpose, our legacy.
Barack Obama has worked tirelessly on real ethics reform, which he passed by reaching across the aisle in a real bipartisanship.

Barack Obama worked with Dick Lugar to secure the world's nuclear stockpiles and make us safer, while his opponent has been AWOL. John McCain's record shows he's better at grandstanding than actually reforming anything. When McCain pretends to reform a program or government process, he then reverses his support, guts the bill, or votes against it (even bills with his name on them). He even gutted McCain Feingold. McCain feigns care about veterans and then votes against Sen. Jim Webb's GI bill of rights. Then he claims he's a "reformer."

Barack Obama will make the federal government work for citizens again, be more transparent, and more accessible. Obama has spent his whole life working to make his community, state and nation better.

The ten-billion-dollars-a-month Iraq War drags on with no end in sight. We must be tough on terrorism, but the Iraq war is making that harder. Barack Obama will end our commitment there, a country which has asked us to leave. He'll keep us safe, but he understands that staying in Iraq makes us less so. He had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning. He warned that, in fighting the war in Iraq, we'd became diverted from the task of finding and punishing those who actually threaten us. And, we have.

Barack Obama will never hesitate to protect and defend us, but he'll wage war only when necessary. And he'll tell us the truth about it. And John McCain dangerously guarantees us "there will be more wars" and an even more belligerent agenda than George W. Bush had. But worse, John McCain doesn't understand, much less practice, diplomacy. His statements and press conferences reveal ignorance of international relations, geography, and history. He confuses countries, which country borders on which, or which Iraqi sects are which, which ones are "for us" and which are "against us." Recently, he mistakenly thought that the president of Spain was not an ally of the US.

Coupled with a VP nominee who knows nothing whatsoever about foreign affairs, the Republican ticket would be disastrous for America. It's about time we reject absurd notion that our nation's CEO can take pride in ignorance. Our nation and its destiny are too important.

In addition to moral considerations (war should be a last, not a first resort), we must acknowledge that waging war without end and/or wars on multiple fronts is not sustainable. Barack Obama will re-engage real diplomacy on our behalf and restore American leadership around the world, which comes not at the point of a gun, but rather in the strength of our ideas and ideals. It comes from our credibility, which under this Republican regime, is sorely lacking.

I am so proud that Barack Obama is running for president. We need his ideas; energy; strength; and calm, steady leadership to weather this economic storm. We need Barack Obama to bring us government of, for and by the people again. Barack Obama is a leader for our time, a once-in-a-lifetime leader. He's done everything he can to earn our vote. Now it's up to us to make it happen.

Democrats, Independents, and many Republicans join with us in a new national unity to change course. In greater numbers than ever before, we'll go to the polls. We'll wait in line and put up with any inconvenience (as long as it takes). With hope in the future, faith in ourselves and in our candidate, we stand proud. We are ready for the national healing our choice portends and the responsibility it connotes. Moving forward, we pledge our continued commitment to engaged citizenship.

It is the least we can do for the country we love.

(Cross-posted at RaisingKaine.com)

Remember Who We Are (From OurFuture.org)

Here's the ad Ourfuture.org ran in the NYT:

McSame in His Own Words

Olbermann Takes on Sarah Palin's Extremism

What Joe Biden Really Said: Barack Obama "Has Got Steel in His Spine"

The lying sliming morally bankrupt McCain campaign takes everything out of context and generally misrepresents or lies about everything. Last Friday, he said Obama would "invite testing." Previously, McCain said he himself would invite testing. But never mind...

However, the most pathetic aspect to this fear-mongering claim is that they have totally misrepresented what Biden actually said.

Then they lied that Madelyn Albright thinks Barack Obama is totally unprepared to be president. Madelyn herself tonight said that's totally untrue. Tonight she said "he's the best of all possible people to lead us" at this time, "because of the way he approaches things." She also said "we need a candidate who can multi-task and not panic." But panic and show an incapacity to multi-task is just what we saw from John McCain in the beginning of this economic crisis.

But it's just another lying, scheming day on the McCain-Palin campaign trail.

Barack Obama’s New Hampshire Primary Speech

You can tell a lot about someone by how they react when they are down. Here's the most beautiful speech I've heard in a long time. It's almost lyrical, especially in the last third or so. The following is a transcript of Senator Barack Obama's speech to supporters after the New Hampshire primary.

BARACK OBAMA: Thank you, New Hampshire. I love you back. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, thank you so much. I am still fired up and ready to go. (APPLAUSE)

Thank you. Thank you.

Well, first of all, I want to congratulate Senator Clinton on a hard-fought victory here in New Hampshire. She did an outstanding job. Give her a big round of applause.

(APPLAUSE)

You know, a few weeks ago, no one imagined that we'd have accomplished what we did here tonight in New Hampshire. No one could have imagined it.

For most of this campaign, we were far behind. We always knew our climb would be steep. But in record numbers, you came out, and you spoke up for change.

And with your voices and your votes, you made it clear that at this moment, in this election, there is something happening in America.

(APPLAUSE)

There is something happening when men and women in Des Moines and Davenport, in Lebanon and Concord, come out in the snows of January to wait in lines that stretch block after block because they believe in what this country can be.

There is something happening. There's something happening when Americans who are young in age and in spirit, who've never participated in politics before, turn out in numbers we have never seen because they know in their hearts that this time must be different.

There's something happening when people vote not just for party that they belong to, but the hopes that they hold in common.

And whether we are rich or poor, black or white, Latino or Asian, whether we hail from Iowa or New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina, we are ready to take this country in a fundamentally new direction.

That's what's happening in America right now; change is what's happening in America.

You, all of you who are here tonight, all who put so much heart and soul and work into this campaign, you can be the new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness.

Democrats, independents and Republicans who are tired of the division and distraction that has clouded Washington, who know that we can disagree without being disagreeable, who understand that, if we mobilize our voices to challenge the money and influence that stood in our way and challenge ourselves to reach for something better, there is no problem we cannot solve, there is no destiny that we cannot fulfill. Our new American majority can end the outrage of unaffordable, unavailable health care in our time. We can bring doctors and patients, workers and businesses, Democrats and Republicans together, and we can tell the drug and insurance industry that, while they get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair, not this time, not now.

(APPLAUSE)

Our new majority can end the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas and put a middle-class tax cut in the pockets of working Americans who deserve it.

We can stop sending our children to schools with corridors of shame and start putting them on a pathway to success.

We can stop talking about how great teachers are and start rewarding them for their greatness by giving them more pay and more support. We can do this with our new majority.

We can harness the ingenuity of farmers and scientists, citizens and entrepreneurs to free this nation from the tyranny of oil and save our planet from a point of no return.

And when I am president of the United States, we will end this war in Iraq and bring our troops home.

(APPLAUSE)

We will end this war in Iraq. We will bring our troops home. We will finish the job -- we will finish the job against Al Qaida in Afghanistan. We will care for our veterans. We will restore our moral standing in the world.

And we will never use 9/11 as a way to scare up votes, because it is not a tactic to win an election. It is a challenge that should unite America and the world against the common threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear weapons, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease.

All of the candidates in this race share these goals. All of the candidates in this race have good ideas and all are patriots who serve this country honorably.

(APPLAUSE)

But the reason our campaign has always been different, the reason we began this improbable journey almost a year ago is because it's not just about what I will do as president. It is also about what you, the people who love this country, the citizens of the United States of America, can do to change it.

That's what this election is all about.

That's why tonight belongs to you. It belongs to the organizers, and the volunteers, and the staff who believed in this journey and rallied so many others to join the cause.

We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come.

We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

(APPLAUSE)

For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.

It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.

Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.

And so, tomorrow, as we take the campaign south and west, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas, that the hopes of the little girl who goes to the crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A., we will remember that there is something happening in America, that we are not as divided as our politics suggest, that we are one people, we are one nation.

And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can.

Thank you, New Hampshire. Thank you. Thank you.

Barack Obama's Closing Arguments

McCain/Palin's Phony Reform claims vs Palin's "Real America" Nieman Marcus Trips

The bankrupt, drained and empty McCain platform takes another nosedive in the revelation that Sarah Palin's stylist was paid more than McCain's top foreign policy adviser. Contrary to the phony media myth and puffery, John McCain's understanding of foreign policy and his judgment about same pales in comparison to what we need by way of foreign policy. And truth be told, his adviser Randy Scheunemann is pretty off base and very cold war retro. He is part of the problem. And so I am not sure how much his time is worth. But still... where are McCain's priorities?



Here's the article. By the way, unlike Sarah Palin, who bills the Republican donors for her extravagent shopping sprees, the Obamas pay for their own clothing. Palin's bills included clothes for a two year old, which she doesn't have. Is she buying for the future and billing donors?

John McCain: Bush, But Worse

My favorite ad--for now. There will certainly be more ads between now and election day.

Colin Powell on Why He Supports Barack Obama

More Sarah Palin Idiocy

Earlier in this campaign, Sarah Palin asked, "what does a VP do anyway?" Then she said she wants to expand the role of the Vice President (as if Dick Cheney hasn't done enough of that!). But Sarah Palin still doesn't understand what a Vice President does. Now she thinks she would be in charge of the Senate. She doesn't get that she is a tie breaker. Though the VP sits there at Senate proceedings, he or she is not in charge of the Senate. That would be the majority leader. My, my...

Incompetence and, Worse, Inexcusable Dirty Campaigns on Behalf of Palin and McCain

GOP Spokespersons Diss John McCain

A Video All Americans Should See: John McCain Not The Leader We Need

Hat's Off to Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Winner for Economics



Paul Krugman, the renown Princeton economist, whose Conscience of Liberal sat high on the best seller list last year, and whose on-air commentaries are exemplary and spot-on as commentaries can be, was won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Krugman had achieved nearly everything an academic can. And now, this: His life's work is given the highest worldwide honor. Bravo!

Read about it here. I saw Prof Krugman in person last June (2007) when he presented a talk about the economics of health care. His talk was as timely then as now, for even as I write, John McCain proposes a so-called "health care" plan that will disrupt individuals' ability to even get coverage and lead ultimately to on-your-ownership.

Krugman also often appears on cable news, including Countdown and the new The Rachel Maddow Show. On other cable outlets, he is a fearless debater; a respectful yet strong counterpoint to (failed) fanatical "right-wing" KoolAid drinkers; and the best possible spokesperson for a more enlightened and humane economic policy.

Thanks for all you do, Professor Krugman! You are a hero.