Dean comes in at about 5:15



Howard Dean: Democrats ‘need a spinal transplant’

WASHINGTON -- One year after being swept into the White House and bestowed huge majorities in Congress, Democrats have seen their towering lead over Republicans evaporate. Why? According to previous DNC chairman Howard Dean, they're just not tough enough.

Dean declared Thursday that Democrats "need a spinal transplant" as the party is too quick to succumb to Republican intimidation rather than stand by their convictions and bring their ideas to fruition.

Related: Healthcare by the numbers

Leno’s single payer “Medicare for All” health bill passes Senate

Reply to FDL Statement on Health Care Reform from MA voter

As a Massachusetts voter, I can say that my lack of enthusiasm for yesterday’s election was certainly due to the behind the scenes corporate deal making and bailouts for the banking and insurance industries as well as big pharma and others at the expense of real reform for ordinary Americans.

The Obama administration, with help from Congress, has made the biggest transfer of wealth up from ordinary people to the wealthy and powerful in the history of the planet. This is not the change we hoped for.

What happened to the fierce urgency of now? Or is that only for banksters and insurance executives?

What the country needs now are real solutions to our very real problems. It is beyond frustrating that there are obvious solutions to benefit the vast majority of Americans and my own party refuses to even consider them — apparently because they might anger some corporate donors.

Healthcare reform is a perfect example of this.

Building a Progressive California Democratic Party Platform

The Wellstone Progressive Democrats of Sacramento (PDA) held a meeting on Saturday, Jan. 9th to discuss improvements to the CA Democratic Party (CDP) Platform. All area Progressive Democrats were invited by Wellstone President Tamie Dramer and Political Affairs Chair Chris Niehaus to help shape the Party's Platform. CDP Platform Committee member Christine Thomas started off with a brief overview of the committee. CDP Progressive Caucus Chair (and PDA NorCal co-coordinator) Karen Bernal spoke about the need for Progressives in California to change the Party and how we can use our numbers to improve our platform. The room overflowed with attendees that took on issues such as Health Care, the Environment, Energy, Labor, Economic Justice, Poverty Elimination, Education & Criminal Justice.

I think #7 is the most important

Ten New Year’s Resolutions for a Fiscally Responsible California

I’m a big believer in New Year’s resolutions. I have one list for home, one for work, and a separate list for my favorite hobby. In honor of the new decade, here’s another list: one aimed at setting the state on a fiscally responsible path for the year ahead.

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ACLU: What you should know

On December 31, 2009, three provisions of the Patriot Act will sunset. This is the perfect opportunity for Congress to examine all of our surveillance laws and amend those that have been found unconstitutional or have been abused to collect information on innocent people, including last year's changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Attorney General Guidelines (AGGs).

Get Ready for the Obama/GOP Alliance

Saturday 28 November 2009
by: Jeff Cohen, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

With Obama pushing a huge troop escalation in Afghanistan, history may well repeat itself with a vengeance. And it's not just the apt comparison to LBJ, who destroyed his presidency on the battlefields of Vietnam with an escalation that delivered power to Nixon and the GOP.

There's another frightening parallel: Obama seems to be following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who accomplished perhaps his single biggest legislative "triumph" - NAFTA - thanks to an alliance with Republicans that overcame strong Democratic and grassroots opposition.

It was 16 years ago this month when Clinton assembled his coalition with the GOP to bulldoze public skepticism about the trade treaty and overpower a stop-NAFTA movement led by unions, environmentalists and consumer rights groups. How did Clinton win his majority in Congress? With the votes of almost 80 percent of GOP senators and nearly 70 percent of House Republicans. Democrats in the House voted against NAFTA by more than 3 to 2, with fierce opponents including the Democratic majority leader and majority whip.

A flash from the recent past that is very relevant today...

Bill Moyers on the health care debate, Democrats, and Afghanistan

"These narrow interests win no matter how many Democrats are elected, no matter who controls the levers of power."

Glenn Greenwald

Aug. 29, 2009 |

Bill Moyers was on Bill Maher's show last night and spoke about the core failures of Democratic Party in the context of both the health care debate and the ongoing escalation in Afghanistan.  The whole discussion is really worth watching (at least until HBO intervenes, the entire 30-minute interview can be seen in 3 parts:  here, here and here; HBO is re-running the show throughout the weekend on this schedule), but I want to excerpt several key parts, including his very complimentary featuring of this post I wrote on Thursday regarding Democrats:

On what's really happening in the health care fight:

MOYERS:  I don’t think the problem is the Republicans . . . .The problem is the Democratic Party.  This is a party that has told its progressives -- who are the most outspoken champions of health care reform -- to sit down and shut up.  That’s what Rahm Emanuel, the Chief of Staff at the White House, in effect told progressives who stood up as a unit in Congress and said: "no public insurance option, no health care reform."

And I think the reason for that is -- in the time since I was there, 40 years ago, the Democratic Part has become like the Republican Party, deeply influenced by corporate money.  I think Rahm Emanuel, who is a clever politician, understands that the money for Obama’s re-election will come from the health care industry, from the drug industry, from Wall Street.  And so he’s a corporate Democrat who is determined that there won’t be something in this legislation that will turn off these interests. . . .

Centrist Democrats = Corporate Sellouts
posted by Ari Berman on 10/28/2009 @ 09:45am

 

Every time I hear about Joe Lieberman's latest apostasy, I think, Oy vey! There he goes again. More Joementum.

Remind me why we still call this guy a Democrat? Sure, Lieberman caucuses with Democrats in the Senate--Joe is nothing if not opportunistic and who wants to be part of a lowly Republican minority?--but I think he forfeited his right to call himself one when he almost became John McCain's VP and campaigned stridently against an Obama presidency. Yet somehow he managed to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Gotta love those Senate Democrats--they always find a way to reward someone for stabbing them in the back. See Baucus, Max.