Community colleges can be the core of the next great American recovery. They're in communities (!) where people live, they are affordable, they provide flexibility for working and other nontraditional students, and they can adapt to meet the vocational and general educational needs of their students.
President Obama has it exactly right when he talks about the importance of community colleges to the new American century.
Once again, although negotiating from a position of strength, Obama was just about to sign onto a deal to give the Republicans what they wanted while holding out for what, exactly? Pretty much nothing. The terms of the deal were vague, but they clearly included slashing Social Security and other expenditures in exchange for some vague promise to raise revenues in the future. Like in the middle of campaign season next year, right when the R's were going to need to prove to their base that they held firm on no tax increases, ever.
And remember, there was no reason for Obama to agree to this. The polls show us that Obama was winning this issue with the American people: they realized that the Republicans were to blame for the crisis, so Obama should have had the upper hand.
And still he wanted to cave.
But then John Boehner rides to the rescue. With his "fuck you" letter to Obama, Boehner rescued Obama from himself.
Because nothing is enough for the Republicans.
So instead of cursing yet another capitulation by the Democrat we worked to elect, we are cursing the Republicans, and thanking them for their loyalty to their wealthy patrons above all else.
New DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) made remarks today at the Netroots Nation gathering praising Howard Dean’s tenure as DNC Chairman.
“Over the past few years, we’ve maintained a strong democratic organization staffed in all 50 states thanks to the 50-state strategy put in place by Howard Dean,” Wasserman Schultz said. “And I can tell you that I am looking forward to sitting down with Chairman Dean next week so I can pick his brains clean on what he thinks that we should be doing to continue the fight to make sure that we can elect progressives all across the country.”
I would bet Howard’s brain, if requested has been available for picking for the past two years or more. Better late than never but wonder if this isn’t an effort at getting all the ducks in a row. I understand there is an election coming up.
We know now that President Obama has decided not to release the photographs of Osama bin Laden, and I think he made the right decision.
It's tempting to say that it's the right decision just because former half-term Alsaka governor Sarah Palin thinks it isn't, but there are better reasons than that.
My thoughts: 1. People already know we've killed him. Showing the pictures will make him more of a martyr than they already consider him.
2. Releasing the photos won't convince anybody. The people who don't believe bin Laden was killed Sunday are the same ones who have looked at a million copies of Obama's official birth certificate and decided it was a fake, while concluding that an obvious forgery was his actual birth certificate from Kenya. What are the odds they won't claim that any bin Laden death photos aren't faked?
3. This isn't like Abu Ghraib; the disclosure of those photos was needed to tell the truth to the American people and the world. Here there is no good-faith question of what happened, nothing to prove.
4. We're better than that. Civilized people are rightly repelled by the barbaric display of the heads of vanquished enemies. We have the opportunity to rise above the baser voices calling for a bloodthirsty display of the corpse of a man who amply deserved his fate. We don't display body trophies.
It must be pleasant to be a conservative. Never let the facts confuse you, never worry about what to do when your precious ideology crashes into reality--just ignore the facts!
So tonight, in honor of the death of Osama bin Laden, we present to youa list of things that Conservatives know Bush had nothing to do with.
1. Failing to prevent the 2001 terrorist attacks. Bush had nothing to do with it. And he especially never told the guy who briefed him, "All right. You've covered your ass, now."
2. Letting Osama bin Laden escape from the mountains of Tora Bora.
He was strong on defense, a decisive leader. He would never do anything like this:
3. Abu Ghraib torture. He was the Commander in Chief, but conservatives know for sure that he had nothing to do with this. We should ignore the fact that he was President: after all, he wasn't down there applying the electrodes himself, was he?
4. Lying about yellowcake from Niger. Sure it was in a speech that Bush gave, and his own people tried to take it out, but he had nothing to do with it. It came from the English or somebody. Definitely not Bush's fault.
5. Blowing Valerie Plame's cover when Joe Wilson exposed Bush's lies. Definitely not Bush's fault. Nothing to do with it. There is no way you can hold the guy at the top for every little thing that happens on his watch.
6. Deficit spending. Get this straight. Republicans are fiscally responsible, Democrats are spendthrifts. That's the way it is. Just ask any conservative.
So if there were deficits that just happened to be during Bush's term in office, he had nothing to do with them, and they were good for the economy anyway.
7. Failing to respond to Hurricane Katrina. Bush has a special affinity for the common man. Just look at all that time he spends in his pickup or on his Segway. Only a regular guy would do that. So you can be sure he did everything humanly possible to prevent any harm to New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Because that's what conservatives do. And we know that Brownie did a heckuva a job, and since he was working for Bush, that means Bush did a heckuva a job too, right?
And I guess that's about it . . .
No, wait, they're telling me I have time for one more.
Here's one thing that conservatives are absolutely positive Barack Obama had nothing to do with:
This is what you're hearing conservatives say a lot,
Posted by a friend on Facebook:
OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American soldier, who Obama just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found OBL and took him out.
A sampling of conservatives on a discussion board I frequent:
Sorry but thanks to the MILITARY.
President Obama deserves no credit.
Obama hasn't done sh*t. Bush started this War.
I am not a Bush fan but Obama deserves no credit.
God bless David Petreus Although the big earred dope will take credit for it
So Obama got him personally?
Wow that is amazing.
So if you're keeping score at home:
Anything bad that happened while Bush was president? Nothing to do with Bush.
Anything good that happened while Obama was President? Nothing to do with Obama.
Obama's budget deficit speech will be a huge topic of conversation over the next few days. Most progressives, not just those here in Vermont, will be curious to know how Bernie Sanders responds, so I'm posting his official statement verbatim:
"The very serious deficit crisis that we are in today is the result of the severe recession caused by Wall Street greed, two unpaid-for wars, huge tax breaks for the rich, the bailout of giant banks, and an unfunded Medicare Part D prescription drug program written by the insurance and drug companies.
"Meanwhile, while the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations are doing extremely well, the Republicans want more giant tax breaks for the very rich as they move to balance the budget on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the children and by cutting environmental protection and infrastructure. This is morally unacceptable and very bad economics.
"President Obama is right in suggesting that any serious effort toward deficit reduction should require shared sacrifice and that the pain should not simply be felt by working families and the most vulnerable people in our society.
"During the coming weeks I will be working with members of the Senate and the House on a deficit reduction proposal which cuts spending in those areas of government which are wasteful and unnecessary, while at the same time asking the wealthiest people in this country and the most profitable corporations to start paying their fair share of taxes. I am especially interested in ending those loopholes which allow corporations and the wealthy to shelter income in tax havens overseas, costing the U.S. Treasury an estimated $100 billion a year in revenue."
For questions, you can contact: Michael Briggs or Will Wiquist (202) 224-5141
According to the New York Times, White House staff members describe a happier workplace since consolidating responsibilities and smoothing lines of communication under new chief of staff, William Daley. This follows the departure of Rahm Emanuel, the “idea-a-minute dynamo”, whom they say engineered Obama’s brilliant last minute lame duck session rescue of the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts. Thanks Rahm.
Focusing on long-term strategic goals and being less personality driven is the new order of the day for the Obama White House.
With Mr. Daley taking the lead, there is more outreach to Republicans and business groups.
Other changes include eliminating the White House health care office and moving the energy czar’s responsibilities to the Domestic Policy Council. The new strategy includes not weighing in as often on day to day news events but only “…at a moment of his choosing when the public is paying attention, it will be more influential.” as White House communication director said.
Here is what this looks like in practice
…the White House mostly has sought to stay out of the fray in Madison, Wis., and other state capitals where Republican governors are battling public employee unions and Democratic lawmakers over collective bargaining rights. When West Wing officials discovered that the Democratic National Committee had mobilized Mr. Obama’s national network to support the protests, they angrily reined in the staff at the party headquarters.
After last fall’s Election Day shellacking, an "enthusiasm gap" or "turn-out gap" was blamed for Democratic losses in the house. This gap existed most heavily in swing states that Obama needs for the 2012 election. States like Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana are now the frontlines in the Republican attack on organized labor. This gap may be in the process of correcting itself at the grass roots level as some polls show Republican Governor of Wisconsin Walker with a 57% disapproval rating due to his anti-labor machinations. Ever careful Obama may not want to take risks on this issue that he sees as jeopardizing his relations with big business or stress his ongoing battle of budget cutting with the Congress. His involvement might also energize the Tea Baggers. He and his team may figure, why go out on a limb for labor if it's not "a moment of his choosing"?
Sadly right now Obama is perceived as sitting out what might be a major pivot point in organized labor’s recent fortunes.
No one could argue that as President he isn’t a long careful distance from this campaign pledge
“If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain,” Obama said. “When I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America, because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.”
A lot of what Obama has done has been a big disappointment, to me no less than to other liberals. I constantly hear people saying that Obama is no different from Bush, or from what McCain would have been if he'd been elected.
Today we have more proof that these claims are just wrong.
As of today, the Justice Department will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.
Well, look at that; the Republicans squeak into control of the House, largely by exploiting the complete ignorance of much of the country with regard to the Healthcare Act; and immediately they set to work trying to find the most harmful way in which to use their "mandate" in order to ensure that the dysfunction of the Bush years be fully reinstated and even exceeded.
Ever since we learned, courtesy of a 2008 presidential debate, that the most influential Republicans do not even believe in evolution, we knew this day was coming. Cocooned in their own little fiefdom of faulty science, the new Republican brain-trust calls itself "conservative," but indulges in revisionist fantasies that are anything but. Throwing caution to the wind they have embraced, with gusto, the opposite of what the rest of the world considers to be settled science with regard to climate change and the need to "conserve" both our exploitable resources and the finite environment of the planet.
These so-called "conservatives" have allowed the superstitions of their fringe to seize control of the agenda, so that policy is being driven by people who believe that a supreme being gave them permission to use-up the planet's resources and atmosphere in a single lifetime after which he will deliver them, magically and without consequence, to Valhalla. If I saw this plot in a movie I wouldn't believe it.
What worries me most is that our president, elected in 2008 by an overwhelming majority to move this country forward in so many ways, has lately been showing signs of handing the whole operation back to the same corrupt forces who brought us to this unfortunate juncture in our democracy. Two days ago he was schmoozing those arch-enemies of environmental and social responsibility, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who have recently gained even more power to influence elections, courtesy of the Supreme Court decision on campaign finance. Yesterday, we were treated to the news that he proposes to slash heating aid for the poor, a sure-hit with Dickensian partisans on the right. One has to wonder what sort of bouquet of "compromise" he plans to offer the Climate Change deniers.
Thursday, 10 February 2011 17:06
The Vermont congressional delegation - Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) - will hold a press conference in Burlington on Monday when President Obama will send Congress a budget which reportedly will propose to cut in half federal funding for home heating assistance.
The delegation led an effort in Congress that doubled funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program to $5.1 billion a year since 2008. The program provides critical heating assistance for senior citizens, persons with disabilities, and low-income families with children. In December, the Vermont delegation also successfully fought efforts in Congress to cut LIHEAP.
UPDATE: Bernie Sanders was on Vermont Edition today and in a response to a question from GMD, confirmed that the Vermont delegation will be fighting to maintain support for Fuel Assistance.
You can hear the broadcast at 7:00 p.m., or listen to it here:
http://vpr.net/episode/50484/
Interesting juxtaposition today.
First, the Shriver Center on Poverty Law (what used to be called Clearinghouse, and which publishes Clearinghouse Review, the indispensable journal of poverty law, published its Poverty Scorecard.
Vermont's delegation did pretty well: A's across the board. Not A+, but A is pretty good.
President Obama's proposed 2012 budget will cut several billion dollars from the government's energy assistance fund for poor people, officials briefed on the subject told National Journal.
It's the biggest domestic spending cut disclosed so far, and one that will likely generate the most heat from the president's traditional political allies. Such complaints might satisfy the White House, which has a vested interest in convincing Americans that it is serious about budget discipline.
That's more than ten times what the Republicans want to cut the program, and their cuts would come out of the no less vital contingency fund.
Members of Congress from the Northeast are already calling for full funding of the program, and demanding that the administration retract the proposed cuts.
We can expect our delegation to come out strong in support of LIHEAP. They're all good on poverty, and Senator Leahy visited at least one meeting of the state's Fuel Program Advisory Committee while I was a member. I've seen speculation that this is no more than political kabuki to boost the administration's budget-cutting cred, but still, cut vital heating assistance to low-income families?
(Actually, I didn't know about the wily procedural maneuver, but for a long time I've been saying that they should just go ahead and pass the cuts for incomes up to $250,000 and just let the R's do whatever they're going to do, but the principle's the same.)
They really put the Republicans in a box: vote for something they didn't like, or vote against tax cuts for people who make less than a quarter of a million a year. They chose the second option.
They can come back later in the lame duck session, or next year, and tell the American people that it wasn't good enough to cut taxes for 98% of us, they also want to cut taxes for the top 2%. Let them fight on that issue.
This is another major success for Nancy Pelosi. It also takes some of the pressure off Obama to make a deal with the R's on the other stuff.
What's the down side? The Republicans stop being accommodating?
When Obama was running for president there were people saying that he needed to stand up to his attackers. Others, like my friend, fellow blogger, and state Senate candidate Phillip Baruth, said that he knew what he was doing, he'd lived in the country and dealt with racism all his life, and that we should have confidence in him.I wasn't necessarily sold, but it seemed to be working for him so I didn't complain too much.
The basic outlines of the story are clear: Serial liar and right-wing scaremonger Andrew Breitbart published a heavily edited video of two minutes of a speech by Shirley Sherrod, an official at the US Department of Agriculture. Breitbart's claim was that Sherrod is a racist and that she is using her position with the USDA to screw white people. Within seconds the Obama administration leapt into action and fired her without even finding out the truth of the story.
Things have been changing so fast that when I walked out to the end of my driveway this morning the headline on the front page was that Thomas Vilsack was sticking to her firing, even though by now it was clear that the whole thing was built on a lie, but by the time I got back to the house and turned on the radio the same Secretary of Agriculture was considering reconsidering his decision. You can almost picture people running up and down the halls at the White House, bumping into each other, throwing files in the air, and tripping over their own ties.
By the end of the day the White House and Vilsack were apologizing to her, practically begging her to take her job back, and that might happen. Even Breitbart, that lying sack of shit, was pretending to feel sorry for her.
So why is the Obama administration rolling over for a lying, right-wing hit man like Breitbart? What is he really afraid of? There were a lot of people who didn't like it when Obama appointed Rahm Emmanuel his chief of staff, but I kind of liked it because he is a fighter. The problem is, there's no fighting. Just when is this administration going to decide that it's not going to play dead for every right-wing attack?
What's next? Is Obama going to invite Sherrod and Breitbart to the White House for another beer fucking summit?
After his speech this week President Obama's been taking some hits from Vermont Dems. Not just the left fringe of the party, ably represented here, but even the mainstream Democrats:
BTW--I took my Barack Obama poster off the wall today. There is only so much that I can forgive.
Did candidate Obama promise 2 have more troops in Afghanistan than the Soviets did during their occupation? Well, he's topped them now. Sad.
Obama, at a jobs summit: "our resources are limited." Not so limited, however, to stop us from waging a pointless war in Vietghanistan.
I thought we had to invade Afghanistan when we did. I really think we had to under the circumstances. Still, at this point it's hard to see the justification for staying. Rik Hertzberg points out in last week's New Yorker that most of the justifications, like needing to go to stamp out al Qaeda, just no longer apply: they are operating without much difficulty in plenty of other places, including Pakistan, which is much, much scarier than Afghanistan.
Three big elections today. The governor's race in New Jersey. The governor's race in Virginia. A special election for House across the lake in New York. If you've been reading the press reports, you know what these elections mean, right?
Exactly. If the Democrats lose these elections it means that Obama is all washed up, the Democratic Party might as well close down and surrender, and the Republican Party is now on top again, probably permanently.
All from three data points.
This is obviously nonsense. We are looking at three different elections, with three different sets of issues and personalities, and at least three different sets of reasons for whoever wins winning.
Let's take Virginia first, since we already know that the Republican won there. Virginia is a traditionally Republican state, and last year was the first time a Democrat won the presidential vote there since 1964. Although he was looking to succeed a Democratic governor, Creigh Deeds apparently ran a weak campaign, and wasn't able to generate the kind of turnout that Obama generated just a year ago.
Finally, in the NY-23 House race, a three-person race has been reduced to a two-person race, with Republican Dede Scozzafava dropping out and throwing her support to Democrat Bill Owens, leaving the conservative field to Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. This is a district that never elects Democrats, and might not elect one this time. What we see here in microcosm, though, is the meltdown of the Republican Party, and Dede Scozzafava the latest victim of the purge of the Republican Party by the right wing extremists. Whatever happens, it doesn't look like bad news for the Democrats.
One final note about what this means for Obama. Exit surveys have asked voters what they think of Obama's performance so far. In Virginia, 50% of the voters say they disapprove of Obama's performance and 49% saying they approve, so he's basically breaking even there. In New Jersey, underscoring the impression that the election is being decided on personalities, 58% of the voters say they approve of Obama's performance, and even 25% of them are voting against the Democratic incumbent.
So are today's elections a referendum on Obama's performance? Like other myths that have been retailed as conventional wisdom lately (read: the public has rejected the public option) this clearly appears to be false. Instead, what we see is that neither Creigh Deeds nor Jon Corzine had the unprecedented combination of personal appeal, campaign organization, and a historic move for change that Obama was able to generate to put them over the top.
Maybe it's premature to measure Obama for his coffin.
Being a member of the reality-based community, I admit that sometimes I don't cotton onto some of the more bizarre currents of what passes for the intellectual life of the country. This time, however, now that I have caught up with it, really just has to leave you shaking your head in wonder.
I don't think this is all about race. Of course, the birther controversy was. There is no chance that the idea would have gotten any traction if his name were O'Hara instead of Obama. Still, it goes beyond Obama's race, and we know that because we saw it with Clinton, too. We have come to the point where the right wing in America simply denies the legitimacy of any election in which the Democratic candidate wins. When Clinton was elected, Limbaugh started his broadcasts with "America held hostage", and when Clinton was going to speak at an Army base the wingers speculated about whether he could be protected against the real Americans who did not recognize him as their commander-in-chief. Now, extremists show up at presidential speeches carrying guns and making veiled threats to kill the president.
In short, the American right has decided that constitutional government is not for them, and that they will use any means necessary to ensure that we will have a permanent conservative government.
I'm sure that most readers of this site will find this utterly unacceptable. President Obama ran on a platfom of delivering health care reform, and the fraudulent package he is apparently willing to accept is a betrayal of all of us who worked so hard to put him in office.
If you agree that health care "reform" without even the watered-down public option is no reform at all, please contact your congressional delegation and ask them to oppose any health care package that does not include the public option.
As you all know, I have the honor of being one of Vermont's three Electors, and since Obama won the state, I get to cast one of those three votes on December 15 in Montpelier.
I just received via certified mail a small packet of information purportedly sent by one "Terri Storm" of Bessemer, Alabama. It was addressed to me by name as an Elector. The gist of the message is that some group plans to mount an Electoral College "challenge" to Barack Obama's qualification for President based on their suggestion that he is not a "natural born citizen" of the United States.
This group charges that
Despite much public demand, Mr. Obama has not provided access to a classic Birth Certificate that proves the actual place of birth (Web site "short form" version simply does not address this question -- He [sic] must deliver the certified long form ...
I began yesterday morning with a Democratic Brunch at the Ethan Allen Homestead in Burlington's New North End with Democratic Candidate for Governor Gaye Symington and ended it listening to Senator Bernie Sanders speak to constituents on a boat-ride on Lake Champlain.
Senator Sanders, always concerned with Veterans affairs, shared news of the new GI Bill (http://sanders.senate.gov/) while pointing out new key issues facing his Vermont constituents.
In these two very different events, both Sanders and Symington urged voters to create change with Obama. Sanders spoke about serving on several committees with Obama, and his belief that Obama is the instrument of change we are seeking. He stressed the fact that Obama would need to hear from Voters immediately following the election and continuously after his inauguration in order to fight the entrenched wealthy special interest groups that will be vying for a voice in Obama's administration.
Symington urged Vermont voters to give "President" Obama the support to institute change by voting for candidates that will work with Obama here in Vermont to create change. Her speech was fresh, energized, right on point, and not the worn-out stump speech candidates often fall back on at summer's end. No softballs were thrown here, and as, one observer said, "Gaye has finally found her song".
Symington also spent time sitting down with prospective voters to answer questions and listen to concerns. I sat with Greg Jenkins who drives one of those new mini all-electric cars. Greg's car costs a penny a mile in electricity to run and of course releases no pollutants to foul our air. At our table, Symington began with a conversation about Greg's car, moved on to energy planning issues and also spoke us about the challenges faced by friends, neighbors, and/or clients during these terribly trying economic times.
Symington listened, and unlike many politicians, understood the questions. Most importantly, after reviewing her record in the legislature, it is clear to me that Symington is capable of doing the hard work and planning necessary to rebuild Vermont's economy and create a secure energy future.
I believe I am doing my part to respond to Senator Sanders and Speaker Symington's messages. I support Gaye Symington as Vermont's next Governor, and tomorrow in order to send committed, energetic, and solution-driven candidates to the Vermont Statehouse, I will also vote for Chittenden County Senate candidates Tim Palmer and Tim Ashe . You may read my posts on Palmer and Ashe later today. And, please vote in tomorrow's primary.
There will be something like 600-plus delegates pledged to Obama at the Vermont Democratic Party's State Convention in Barre on May 24. Of those, 110 are declared candidates for the six open district-level slots to represent Vermont's Obama voters at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. If every candidate gets two minutes of air time, that's three-plus hours of listening to impassioned people say, "I'm just so fired up, and I've worked so hard to get here."
So I heard an interesting take this evening at our County Committee meeting. A young woman who worked the phones, stood in the cold at the honk & waves, and brought the signs to the Maple Fest Parade, told us why she wanted to go to Denver to help nominate Barack Obama. She's biracial, moved here despite her family's concern that she would be terribly isolated in the whitest state in the US, and she wants to show the rest of the country that there's more to Vermont than skiing, ice cream, and being the whitest state in the country.
250-1
55-1
According to the 
