You won’t hear about it much on the TV news, but today — on Friday December 10, 2010 — Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont began conducting a good old-fashioned Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-style filibuster. An Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, Senator Sanders is outraged by the Obama-GOP tax giveaway to the mega-rich. Sanders is speaking truth to power — and giving us all a history lesson of the past lost decade.
While what Sanders is doing is not a filibuster under the traditional definition – he began speaking at 10:25 am ET – and, of this writing at 5:42 ET – he’s still going strong. Sander’s righteous stand has attracted so much attention today that it temporarily shut down the Senate video server.
We’ll hear about this historic moment on MSNBC, but will ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN give Bernie’s Big Speech much play? I’ll be surprised if they do. You can forget FOX.
Sanders began his marathon with a 2-hour speech against the tax cut deal before handing over the lectern to Sen. Sherrod Brown (my progressive Senator from Ohio) and then Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La., actually acting like one this time).
“How can I get by on one house?” Sanders said. “I need five houses, ten houses! I need three jet planes to take me all over the world! Sorry, American people. We’ve got the money, we’ve got the power, we’ve got the lobbyists here and on Wall Street. Tough luck. That’s the world, get used to it. Rich get richer. Middle class shrinks.”
A Sanders spokesman said that the 69-year-old senator will talk “as long as he can”. He hasn’t taken a break since this morning or had anything but water. “He doesn’t have an end time.”
Here’s to you, Senator Sanders: a true profile in courage.
On Election Day 2010, while much of America was awash in rancid Tea and the GOP, one state was left standing as a progressive firewall: California.
The wise people of my adopted home state rejected millions of dollars of secretly-funded corporate attack ads and the self-funded, ego-driven campaigns of out-sourcing, out-of-touch CEO multi-millionaires. Californians bucked the national trend and elected Democrats to every statewide office — from U.S. Senator to Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Controller, Attorney General, Insurance Commissioner — and on down the ballot.
To celebrate California’s stand for political sanity, I rushed out to buy a series of postcards to send to the rest of America. With love, of course.And for our New York friends, who also came up big for the progressive cause…
With the continuing misadventures of the Tea Party candidates, Election Season 2010 has, despite the efforts of Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, entered the realm of Beyond Satire.
Radical policy positions that would have seemed extreme in any other election year – such as abolishing the Department of Education, ending Social Security, and requiring victims of rape and incest to give birth to their attackers’ progeny – are no longer confined to the far right wing of GOP politics. Given the Tea Party’s success in GOP primaries, it appears that anti-government dogma, anti-immigrant hysteria and Taliban-like anti-female and anti-gay social conservatism may become central planks in the mainstream Republican Party platform in 2012.
Of course, there’s also an undercurrent of creeping fascism — which is really creepy — but let’s stick with the outright crazy stuff for the moment. After all, even the more sane, sophisticated and relatively humorless right wing ideologues and corporate robber barons have to be stunned by the pageant of unskilled, unfettered, uneducated and unhinged campaigning on display in the run up to November 2, 2010.
In many states across the country, political aspirants with scant experience in public service who would have been considered fringe candidates in the past (if not the lunatic fringe) are now making national headlines on the campaign trail, in debates, and on the Sunday talk shows.
You’ve got to laugh to keep from crying.
Here, then, are some of the biggest jokes of the 2010 election. There have been so many wacky (actually quite scary) moments involving today’s kooky crop of candidates that it’s time to round up Mid-Term Madness: The Top Ten.
1. Aqua Buddha
Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul, a Republican darling of the Tea Party movement, had already raised eyebrows with many of his extreme anti-government positions, borne of his passion for novelist Ayn Rand’s everybody-for-themselves Objectivist philosophy. But if wanting to do away with public schools and Social Security didn’t brand Rand Paul a fringe candidate, what would Kentuckians make of accusations that, when he was in college, Rand Paul tied a woman up and forced her to bow down before the “Aqua Buddha”? (Which sounds, to me, a lot like some sort of exotic bong.)
The candidate’s still-anonymous accuser said he “took me out to this creek and made me worship Aqua Buddha.”
She added that the whole thing was so “weird” that she ended relations with Paul and his friends. But will Kentucky voters end their weird relationship with Rand Paul? In 2010, who can say?
2. “I’m Not A Witch”
Christine O’Donnell, Delaware’s Republican nominee and Sarah Palin’s endorsed Tea Party candidate for Joe Biden’s Senate seat, spent a lot of the 1990’s as a chirpy, sexy, conservative talking head on TV shows like Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect. As a result, Mr. Maher had a lot of video clips with which to torture O’Donnell’s candidacy, including her prudish crusade against masturbation and her startling admission that she “dabbled in witchcraft” while in high school.
The facts that O’Donnell has no real qualifications for high office, has lied about her education bona fides (no, she didn’t attend Cambridge) and can’t recall a single Supreme Court decision haven’t dampened her Tea Party support – but the witchcraft thing pricked the deaf ears of even the lowest-information Delaware voters.
As a result, O’Donnell had to spend good money on a statewide television ad to declare, “I’m not a witch.” (President Nixon must have been chuckling in his grave.) But the craziest part of the ad is when O’Donnell says, “I am you.” Oh really, Christine? I don’t think so.
3. The SS Candidate
How to win friends and influence people?
Well, for one thing, don’t go around proudly dressed as in a Nazi uniform.
That’s what Republican Congressional nominee Rich Iott, whose district lies in my home state of Ohio, should have known. But, then again, parading around as a Nazi is such a good time, right?
Mr. Iott is a military history and reenactment buff who likes to parade around in a German Waffen SS uniform. (That’s Rich Iott dressed in Nazi drag in the picture at left. He’s the guy second from right. Far right, that is.) Candidate Iott also likes to participate in Nazi re-enactments. So, what’s wrong with that?
After all, Iott says his interest in Nazi Germany is historical and he doesn’t subscribe to Nazism – and some on the right wing have defended him, arguing that Iott also attends Civil War re-enactments in a Union army uniform.
The problem is that the Waffen SS were a particularly evil bunch of murderous rat bastards.
Unlike the conscripted citizen soldiers of the regular German Army (or Wehrmacht), the Waffen SS were a volunteer arm of the Nazi Party that enthusiastically committed countless war crimes and atrocities, including their prominent role in the slaughter of Jews and other “undesirables.” That should make Rich Iott undesirable as a Congressman from my home state. But will it?
Above is a photo of Rich in his jaunty Nazi cap, third from the right (wing).
4. Mr. Green (Does Not) Go To Washington
No state can outdo South Carolina for crazy. But what happened in the 2010 Democratic primary was absolutely nuts. Somehow, an unemployed 32-year-old Army veteran named Alvin Greene with no campaign funds, no posters and no website defeated a well-funded former judge and state legislator, Vic Rawl, for the right to oppose the incumbent GOP Senator Jim DeMint, another Tea Party darling. The mainstream media ignored the possibility of electronic vote tampering and dirty tricks leading to Greene’s election – but they couldn’t ignore how spectacularly unsuited and unprepared Greene was to campaign for, much less hold, a high office.
And if it wasn’t strange enough that a guy with no political experience, unemployed for nine months, somehow paid a $10,400 filing fee and all his other campaign expenses from his own personal funds – the sad, self-defeating saga of Alvin Greene got more bizarre when a Richland County grand jury indicted him for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity (a felony) as well as a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.
According to prosecutors, Greene approached a female student in a University of South Carolina computer lab, showed her some obscene photos online, then talked about going to her dorm room. When a reporter from a local TV station pressed Greene to elaborate on the indictment, the accidental candidate told the reporter to “leave [his] property” and “go away.” Unlike Jim DeMint, I wish this whole sorry example of political dysfunction (and dog whistle race baiting) would go away.
5. Headless Bodies in the Arizona Desert
Batty, blustering Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s erratic reelection campaign has earned her two spots on this list. Brewer’s relentless demagoguery on the immigration issue and her support for Arizona Senate Bill 1070 (the “show me your papers” law) have made her a darling of the right in that troubled border state, despite the fact that she’s several bricks shy of a load. In fact, in her zeal to portray the threat from illegal immigration in as dire a light as possible, Brewer finally lost her head.
As Dana Milbank wrote in the July 11th edition of The Washington Post, “The Arizona governor, seemingly determined to repel every last tourist dollar from her pariah state, has sounded a new alarm about border violence. ‘Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded.’” She also mentioned “beheadings” on Fox News. (One can only imagine the cutting, incisive follow up questions from her Fox interlocutor.) Two months later, with no evidence of any headless bodies littering the Arizona desert, and no law enforcement officials willing to back her claims, Governor Brewer conceded she “misspoke” when she claimed that headless bodies were found in her state’s desert. But her half-hearted semi-apologia came only after her Democratic opponent decapitated Brewer over her headless nonsense in their gubernatorial debate. And how did she handle the issue with the press immediately after the debate? You gotta see it to believe it.
6. Jan Brewer’s (Very) Long Pause
Jan Brewers absolutely stunning (actually, stunned) opening statement in the Arizona Gubernatorial Debate on September 1st must also be seen to be believed.
Only in wacky, way-out Elections Season 2010 could a politician possibly survive turning in a performance like this on a televised debate.
7. Carl Paladino
The New York Republican Party had planned to run former U.S. Representative Rick Lazio to become the Republican candidate for New York governor in the race against Democrat Andrew Cuomo, the son of the revered former Governor Mario Cuomo. Instead, thanks to the Tea Party’s clout in the NY primary, they got little-known businessman Carl Paladino. According to Dick Brennan in The Queens Courier, “Paladino has been dubbed by some as ‘Crazy Carl,’ but the reality is that Paladino is crazy like a fox. Nobody can figure out his strategy, so why not just call him a nut? In fact, the multimillionaire from Buffalo is following a plan, and sticking to it with great discipline.It’s easy to see the first part of his program: hit and run politics, guerilla war, throw your bombs and run for cover. By bombs we mean politically incorrect statements, the more outrageous the better.”
Among the rhetorical bombs tossed by Paladino are his claims that students are being “brainwashed” into believing that the gay lifestyle is a valid option. (This from a guy whose son is the landlord for two gay bars.) Out of the blue, Paladino criticized the media for not asking completely unfounded questions about Cuomo’s marital fidelity. (Crazy Carl claimed to have evidence, but revealed none.) And then there’s Paladino’s penchant for off-color e-mails, like the video he sent to friends of Africans dancing in traditional dress that was titled “Obama Inauguration Rehearsal” – and the video he forwarded of a woman having sex with a horse. The Tea Party doesn’t seem to have the most vigorous vetting process, does it?
8. Sharron Angle
Did I mention that The Tea Party doesn’t seem to have the most vigorous vetting process?
Of all the Senate Democrats in trouble this election season, Harry Reid of Nevada looked like a soft target for the GOP this fall. Nevada’s economy has been devastated by the housing crisis and Harry Reid is, well, Harry Reid. A decent, stalwart, western Democrat – but not the most charismatic or inspirational politician one could hope for. (As a Californian, I see Harry as the Gray Davis of Nevada.) But, once again, The Tea Party insurgents blew up the GOP’s hope for an easy victory by nominating the most spectacularly unqualified, un-muzzled, and unbelievably obtuse candidate to contend against Reid: Sharron Angle, an ultra-right former member of the Nevada state legislature.
Daniel Kurtzman has listed “The 10 Most Ridiculous Sharron Angle Quotes (So Far)” at About.com (and you should check them all out.) They don’t even include her recent suggestion that many of the Hispanic high school kids she was speaking to looked Asian to her. But here’s just a few…
“People ask me, ‘What are you going to do to develop jobs in your state?’ Well, that’s not my job as a U.S. senator.”
“The Federal Department of Education should be eliminated. The Department of Education is unconstitutional and should not be involved in education, at any level.”
And she said this to explain why she opposes abortion — even in cases of rape or incest. “I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.” Only amid the madness of Mid-Terms 2010 could such a fringe nutcase become Nevada’s junior Senator.
9. Joe Miller or Joe Stalin?
Ah, Alaska! The state the just keeps giving to satirists, cynics and those awaiting signs that the end of the world is upon us. Now the Tea Party voters of Alaska, with the endorsement of no less an authority on wacko, vacuous, right wing politics than Sarah Palin, have given us Joe Miller: he of the permanent five o’clock shadow – and shadowy ideas about how to govern our country. But you’d think that a candidate representing the party of St. Ronald Reagan, who famously stood before the Berlin Wall and uttered the words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” would be loathe to show admiration for Joe Stalin’s infamous Cold War barrier to freedom. Alas, in 2010, any strange thing is possible.
In fact, at a town hall meeting, GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller praised East Germany as a model for how the U.S. might defend its borders. According to Joe (that’s Miller, not Stalin, though I can understand the confusion), “East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow,” of cross-border traffic. “Now, obviously, other things there were involved,” Miller conceded, but… “We have the capacity, as a great nation, obviously, to secure our border. If East Germany could, we could.”
Of course, awful visions of barbed wire, machine guns and Checkpoint Charlie aside, Joe Miller fails to understand that the Berlin Wall was built to keep East Germans in – not to keep illegal immigrants out.
Can being such a wacko keep Joe Miller out of the Senate?
Let’s hope so.
A guy like Miller almost makes me want to write in M..u..r..k..o..w..s..k..i. Then again, now that this is a three-way race, the Democrat, former Sitka mayor Scott McAdams, just might sneak in. Provided Joe doesn’t build that wall to keep him out.
10. Sarah Palin as Tea Party Kingmaker
That’s all you need to know about the lunacy of Election 2010. A know-nothing former pageant princess, ex-mayor of a tiny town, failed Governor, failed Vice Presidential candidate and a woman who quit her job working for the people of Alaska to line her pockets at Fox News, TLC and anywhere they’ll pay her big bucks to speak – is somehow a Tea Party kingmaker, capable up upsetting the mainstream GOP applecart. It’s actually fun to watch. Just imagine how the relationship between Mitch McConnell and John McCain is going lately.
Thanks, Senator McCain. If you hadn’t chosen Sarah Palin as your running mate, the GOP might have had a good chance of taking the Senate in 2010. So you could say all this mid-term madness started with McCain.
No nutty deed goes unpunished. Especially in this election season.
And now, the dream GOP/Teas Party ticket for 2012…
Now, that would be truly beyond satire. (Oh, but we’d have to try, wouldn’t we?)
In 1860, as our Nation neared another Great Crisis in its history, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a stirring poem immortalizing the exploits of the Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere during our country’s first Hour of Great Crisis. Now, as a Lesser but Sill Great Crisis looms, allow me, with all apologies, to paraphrase that great American poet with the following ballot box ballad.
Listen, fellow voters, and hear the call
Of the midnight post of Progressive Paul
On the eighth of October, Two Thousand Ten;
Hardly a man must be reminded again
That Election Day looms twenty-six days in all.
In Delaware, Illinois, and up in Wisconsin,
Our foemen are gathered from out of the loony bin.
In Kentucky, Alaska and Harry’s Nevada,
The Tea Party GOP with ideas nada,
Are nonetheless poised for a hostile invasion
To turn backward the Progress of our Hopeful nation.
And Carly and Meg from their coffers untold,
Spend fortunes to see if my State can be sold.
In headlines, on TV, it’s easy to laugh
At the witch-dabbling jokes writ by Letterman’s staff
But the serious Consequence of all this madness,
Could add up this November to electoral sadness
And those who are safe and asleep in their bed
When a new morning breaks on that Day of Decision,
Must rise up and march to the polls with firm tread,
And join in the ranks of their Liberal kinsmen.
You know what can happen. In the books you have read,
How our previous enemies fired and fled,
How our Patriot heroes gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall.
Yet this time the Redcoats are deep in disguise,
With faux populist flags waving, stars in their eyes,
With pockets full-laden with Corporate gold,
Their secretly funded Ads, they fire and load.
So through this dark night writes Progressive Paul;
And so through the night goes his cry of “Awake”!
To every American city and state,
A cry of defiance – a rallying call,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a blog post that shall echo forevermore!
(Or at least for the next 26 days…)
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the days of darkness and peril and fog,
Lefties and Democrats rise to the call
Of the tapping computer keys of his blog,
And the midnight post of Progressive Paul.
Get out and Vote on November 2, folks! Hope & Change is up to Us.
Here in the United States of America — the Land of the Free and the Brave — our national mid-term elections are just 12 weeks away. And don’t fool yourself: the stakes are as high as they’ve ever been. Sometimes, it seems like we’re right on the brink of countrywide crazy.
With the NFL pre-season getting underway, let me put the situation in a context that those who watch more ESPN than MSNBC can appreciate…
The election of President Barack Obama two years ago was not a Super Bowl-winning touchdown spiked in the end zone. Democrats and progressives who suffered for eight years while George Bush ran amok, simply got the football back, first and ten, on our own five-yard line – with 95 yards to go for a score. It was lousy field position to start with, and little room to operate.
When Obama dropped back deep to look for a long yardage play upfield (Health Reform with a public option), he was nearly sacked in the end zone for a safety. So he rolled to his right and threw an outlet pass for 10 yards and a first down to his halfback rolling out of the backfield. We didn’t get the public option most of us wanted, but we got some measure of Health Care Reform. We moved the chains.
The chains continued to move as President Obama kept his opponents off balance with a flurry of short yardage plays like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Credit CARD Act (which reformed the way credit card companies do business), increased funding for veteran’s health care, and the naming of the Steve Goodman Post Office Building in Chicago, Illinois, signed on August 3, 2010.
Oh yeah, and there was that Stimulus Bill, too. The crazy things is that even before we got the football to start our drive, we were already facing third down and unfathomably long yardage after eight years of GOP economic malpractice. Obama did what he had to do to move the chains again – but there were a lot of injuries on that play.
When Obama dropped back to go long on Financial Reform, guys on his own team (like Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska) simply fell down on the play. Obama tossed the ball to Senator Chris Dodd — but Dodd, who’s playing out his contract before retiring, hauled in the pass but never turned on the jets. He settled for another first down — when everyone in the stands was looking for a touchdown. All Elizabeth Warren could do was watch from the sidelines and hope she could get in the game and truly advance the ball as the head of the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
Naming Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court were two solid plays that gained ground against relatively little resistance – but a Climate Control bill never made it out of the huddle.
For most of the game, it’s been three yards and a cloud of dust. It hasn’t always been thrilling – certainly not when you compare it to the pre-game show with a sea of flag-waving Obama supporters in Washington and a 70% approval rating after his inauguration. But Obama has kept us in the game, moving us down the field against a doomsday defense unwilling to yield an inch of common ground without holding, tripping, clawing, scratching and biting.
So, if we look at the mid term elections as Half Time in America – it’s clear that, in order to keep moving forward, progressives must stay unified as a team, elect more teammates in the House and Senate that are willing to play hard — and get President Obama as many snaps as he can get between now and 2012. You can’t score many points if you don’t have the ball.
The chalk talk is over. Here’s the bottom line.
On November 2, 2010, the citizens of this stressed and agitated nation will go to the polls to decide who we want to be our Congressmen, Senators, Governors, and local officials. On a national level, the balance of power on Capitol Hill hangs in the balance. This is not an abstract concern for millions of blue collar working people and Americans of all economic classes worried about the future of our democracy. We can either vote to go backward on Election Day 2010 – or elect to continue our 234-year struggle toward a more perfect union.
For the most part, we’ll be deciding between Democrats and Republicans. For the most progressive among us, the choice between the Donkey and Elephant won’t be very inspirational.
But it will be critical.
Make no mistake. We cannot afford to allow the Democrats to lose their majorities in either the Senate or the House of Representatives.
I can understand my progressive friends who feel that President Obama’s administration hasn’t moved fast enough on an array of important agenda items. (I’m not Press Secretary Gibbs.) But while I’m just as tired as anyone of hearing, “Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good” – the fact is, we’ve got to keep that bromide in mind this Election Day.
Now, we’ve got less that three months before the kick-off on November 2. It’s time to button up our bonnets, dig down, play hard – and stay focused on the end zone. Without a big push from progressives, President Obama could lose possession of the football. And if that prospect doesn’t scare you, I have five words for you…
I’m not as good a student of the American Revolution as I’d like to be, but what I do know about the founding of our nation — the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the Federalist Papers, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and, yes, the Boston Tea Party — makes it all the more infuriating when I hear the intellectually bankrupt, morally confused, and hopelessly misinformed, misguided, and myopic blather of today’s self-styled Tea Party activists.
Bankrolled by right wing think tanks aligned with corporate interests, former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey’s fabricated Tea Party pretends to be a grass roots movement – and the mainstream media (also controlled by multinational corporate masters) plays right along. Good-looking empty-headed figureheads like quit-term Governor Sarah Palin and GOP Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann help gin up anti-Washington fervor among an eclectic collection of the frustrated, frightened, and fanatical. (And more than a few racists who just don’t cotton to a black man in the White House.)
These new Tea Party “patriots” appropriate American Revolutionary iconography and add their own individual touches of Libertarian orthodoxy, anti-tax “drown government in the bathtub” zealotry, neo-Know Nothing nativism, New World Order conspiracy theory, and a gun-worshipping, survivalist militia mentality. It’s a toxic and combustible mix, stirred up by those who seek to divide the American body politic into opposing camps – and enlist struggling working people in a righteous war against their own best interests.
As we approach the critical mid-term elections of 2010, these are once again “times that try men’s souls”. Where is Thomas Paine when we need him?
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated…” Thomas Paine
If Paine, the influential Revolutionary patriot and pamphleteer, were living today he would, no doubt, be a blogger. After all, there aren’t that many time slots available on MSNBC. (Though I’m sure Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would have Tom on as a guest.) If he were alive in this moment of crisis, Paine would certainly be rallying his fellow citizens to battle against the real enemy they face: the steady, stealthy loss of their 234-year old democracy to the selfish, greedy, power-grabbing interests of multinational corporations.
Paine would tell these misguided Tea Party tools that their elected government isn’t their enemy. Our representative government is what stands between us and the rapacious depredations of a corporate oligarchy that’s been amassing money and power at a clip not seen since the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons. Our common fight isn’t against Big Government, which protects our water, food and air — and provides a host of other services and protections that individual Americans cannot provide on their own. Rather, we must be vigilant about the rise of corporate personhood and power. The man who wrote “Common Sense” would tell us to be wary of big money. It’s time for “Common Cents”.
In his classic 1776 pamphlet, “Common Sense”, Tom Paine made the patriot’s case against the authority of a royal monarchy. Today, an elite royal monarchy rules from the boardrooms of mega-corporations solely devoted to profit as they offshore American jobs, lend money to hard-pressed wage earners at usurious rates, gamble our pensions away on risky market speculation in the hope of a fat bonus, and continue to pollute our environment — unless they get caught by those pesky government people and their “anti-business” regulations. Educated and aroused by the plain, inspiring language of Thomas Paine, a new generation of American patriots might finally hear the alarm that should have been sounded from sea to shining sea on that fateful day, January 21, 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case.
In their landmark 5-4 decision in the case of Citizens United v The Federal Election Commission, the right-leaning Supreme Court led by Chief Justice and corporate shill, John Roberts, held that the First Amendment protects the right of corporations to plow unlimited funds into independent political broadcasts during candidate elections. Thus, the sluice gates were opened to a torrent of dirty money to flood the airwaves with attack ads, sponsored by big money interests.
Do you think your $5 and $10 contributions to your favorite Congressional candidate can compete with the millions that Target or BP can spend to slime your candidate if he opposes building a shopping mall on your local forest preserve — or if he’s fighting against Big Oil’s right to pollute your shoreline with minimal environmental protections?
In deciding that corporations have the same free speech rights as human individuals – that corporations are, in essence, persons with the same inalienable rights as you and me – the five “conservative” Justices conveniently overlooked the fact that corporations are granted their existence by We the People through licenses issued by our government. As Bill Cosby used to tell his kids on TV, “I brought you in – and I can take you out!” Corporations aren’t persons. We the People grant them license to do business – and we can limit what they’re allowed to do under that license. That’s what the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act attempted to codify in the area of corporate contributions to political campaigns. Alas, the Citizens United decision blew McCain-Feingold to smithereens.
Siding with the corporate elite against the interests of average American people, the Roberts Court has paved the way for Big Money to buy our elections. You’ll hear a lot of screaming on Faux News and in the Right Wing echo chamber about how the Supremes have also allowed those dreaded labor unions to buy elections. But seriously folks, who’s got more money to spend — Citibank, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs — or a labor union? It’s not even close…
And our faux populist friends in the GOP, Faux News and Right Wing Talk Radio – the same blowhards who pretend to support the interests of hard-working, pro-American Tea Party members – don’t even care if foreign companies can buy our elections. Explain to me, my “conservative” friends, why wax-figure Mitch McConnell and teary-eyed, tanning bed addict John Boehner are opposing legislation that would prevent foreign companies from pumping money into U.S. elections? And why would these same GOP leaders be against public disclosure of who is paying how much for all these campaign ads? Don’t We the People have an inalienable right to know who’s behind these million-dollar ad buys?
Tom Paine would have these companies’ names posted on the commons for all true patriots to see.
I’ll end with a final word on the pernicious doctrine of Corporate Personhood: this dubious notion that a corporation is a person entitled to basic human rights. The fact is – corporations are entities created by government (AKA We the People), and thus, can be limited by government (AKA We the People). So, given that the John Roberts-led Supreme Court is so confused (read “bought and paid for”), perhaps we must amend the U.S. Constitution to make it clear that only human beings (We the People) are “persons” with constitutional rights.
It’s We the People vs. Big Money. That’s the battle that is going on right now. And whether or not you’re disappointed that the Obama administration has been progressive enough, try to imagine if McConnell and Boehner crawl back into power. Try to imagine if Dick Armey’s absurd, unenlightened Tea Party is able to set the political agenda for the next six years. Are you ready for the ascendancy of Queen Sarah and her corporate overlords? (Okay, maybe I exaggerate. Maybe.)
Get out the vote this November.
And when your “conservative” friends say something snarky about President Obama or Senator Al Franken or our progressive agenda — smack them down with inarguable facts and the force of your well-reasoned opinion.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman…What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated…”
Let me begin by setting the record straight. The mainstream media would have you believe that President Obama is in desperate straits and his support among the American people has plummeted. However, in the 2008 Presidential election, Obama won with 52.9 percent of the vote – and the same pundits and Washington wise men proclaimed this a sweeping victory. This week, the latest Associated Press-GfK poll put public approval of President Obama’s job performance at 53 percent. Virtually unchanged since his “sweeping” win on Election Day.
So, while President Obama experienced a nearly unprecedented spike is his approval rating right after his inauguration, and while he’s endured a bruising first year in office confronting the disastrous condition of American economic and foreign policy in the wake of the long Bush-Cheney nightmare, and even though he’s disappointed a lot of progressives like me in various ways – Obama’s managed to retain essentially the same level of public support he had on the day he was elevated to the Presidency.
But Americans don’t feel the same way about Congress. According to the same AP-GfK poll, fewer people approve of Congress now than at any point in Obama’s presidency. In fact, the job approval rating for Congress is an anemic 22 percent. That’s pretty much what George Bush’s ratings were when Obama was elected.
Congressional Republicans get lower ratings than their Democratic colleagues – but not by a very comfortable margin. And that’s as it should be, because Congressional Democrats, especially in the Senate, have managed to squander their majority. GOP filibuster threats become de facto filibusters. Somehow, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe and Independent turncoat-gasbag Joe Lieberman are allowed to become power players. And small state “Conservadem” Senators like Max Baucus of Montana are allowed to write critical Health Reform legislation with the help of insurance industry lobbyists and GOP obstructionists like Iowa’s Chuck Grassley who were never going to allow Obama a legislative victory on anything – let alone an epochal Health Care reform bill.
Weren’t Congressional Democrats listening when Republican Senator Jim DeMint said a defeat on health care would be Obama’s “Waterloo”? Jeez! If an NFL quarterback telegraphs his intentions that obviously he usually gets intercepted.
So, there are plenty of valid reasons to be fed up with Congress. And after shuffling my deck of Congressional playing cards, I dealt myself five Jokers right of the top. Alas, I know there are a lot more in the deck…
Note: All italicized language in quotes is taken from the official websites of the legislators in question.
Joker #1: Senator James Inhofe (R, Oklahoma)
Oklahoma’s senior U.S. Senator, Inhofe is one of the biggest tools in Washington. “Simply put, no one consistently represents common sense, conservative Oklahoma values more than Jim.” Of course, that means the guy loves oil, oil, guns, oil, homophobia, and oil.
“Jim has been a strong advocate for the principles of limited government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility.” Senator Inhofe may be into personal responsibility – but corporate responsibility not so much. He’s the leading climate change denier on Capitol Hill, and a sure vote against financial regulatory reform.
Here’s all you really need to know about Inhofe. He won the “Lifetime Service Award” from the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “Spirit of Enterprise” Award, and an “A+” rating from the National Rifle Association.
Joker #2: Senator Mitch McConnell (R, Kentucky)
First elected to the Senate in 1984, Mitch McConnell is the longest-serving U.S. Senator in Kentucky history. He’s also made entirely of wax. For many years, Senator McConnell was on exhibit at Madame Tussaud’s in Hollywood, but the election of Barak Obama inspired him to return to Washington and do whatever he could to block the new President’s agenda.
McConnell is the Senate Minority Leader, which means he gets up every morning ready to say “no” to everything Obama and the Democrats propose. In McConnell’s caucus, such unrelenting negativity is called “bipartisanship”.
When McConnell was reelected to the Senate in 2008, he won nearly a million votes, the most ever received by a Kentuckian in a statewide race. Gee whiz, nearly a million votes statewide? Big deal. There are 1,596,165 registered voters in the city of Los Angeles alone. Barbara Boxer needed nearly 7 million votes to win her California Senate seat. Hell, her opponent, Bill Jones, lost with more than 4.5 million votes! And this wax puppet McConnell gets to sit high and mighty in the Senate, working to deny the Public Health Insurance Option that millions of California voters are demanding?
Joker #3: Representative John Boehner (R, OH-8)
House Minority Leader and tanning bed addict, John Boehner was elected to a 10th term in November 2008. And this is a guy who likes to talk about term limits! He’s “a national leader in the fight for a smaller, more accountable government.” Unless, of course, there’s a Republican in the White House – in which case Congressman Boehner is just fine with turning a Democratic administration’s budget surplus into a multi-trillion dollar deficit.
“Throughout his time as a small businessman, state legislator, and Member of Congress, John has been a straight-shooting and relentless advocate for freedom and security.” Unless, of course, a lying, obfuscating Republican Presidential Administration wants to hype false charges of Iraqi WMD to justify a war in Iraq that took our eye off Bin Laden in Afghanistan, handed Iran a potential satellite state in Iraq, and inflamed anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East. Feeling more free and secure now? Thanks, John. Your tan is fading almost as fast as your credibility.
“John is fighting to eliminate wasteful spending, create jobs, and balance the federal budget without raising taxes. He has challenged Republicans in the 111th Congress to be not just the party of “opposition,” but the party of better solutions to the challenges facing the American people.” Oh man, where to start? My head hurts. Oh, wait, I get it now. His website must be written for laughs – you can’t say Boehner has challenged his caucus “to be not just the party of opposition” unless you’re kidding. See? I told you Boehner was a Joker.
And now in the true spirit of bipartisanship…
Joker #4: Senator Blanche Lincoln (D, Arkansas)
Blanche Lincoln made history in 1998 when she became the youngest woman ever elected to the United States Senate at the age of 38. Good for you, Blanche. But what have you done for us lately?
Lately, Blanche Lincoln has proven herself to be aptly named – because so many things she’s done have made me blanch. If she wasn’t so deep in the pocket of corporate interests, and the health insurance industry in particular, she might be a useful player in the Senate Democratic caucus, but instead, she’s been a thorn in the side of progressive reform efforts since Obama’s election. And she’s been a total drag on Health Reform. Conservative Democrats like Blanche Lincoln are the best argument for legislating by reconciliation. She makes a mere 51 votes look real, real good.
“Senator Lincoln is at the forefront of efforts in Congress to end partisan bickering and get results for the American people. She helped form the Moderate Dems Working Group, a new coalition of moderate Senate Democrats who work with Senate leadership and the new administration to craft common-sense solutions to our nation’s most-pressing priorities. In addition, she co-founded and currently co-chairs “The Third Way,” an organization dedicated to crafting practical and creative solutions to old problems.” In other words, she’s an obstacle to progress: the queen of watering down truly progressive initiatives to mollify conservative voters in her home state. She’s not a Democratic party leader, she’s a timid, frightened, ambitious, bought-and-paid-for small state pol. If she’s not, she’ll have plenty of chances to prove otherwise. I won’t be holding my breath.
Joker #5: Representative Bart Stupak (D, MI-1)
Bart Stupak was first elected in 1992 – but nobody outside of his Michigan district ever heard of the guy until he hijacked Health Reform legislation this year, holding it hostage to his self-serving, caucus-splitting, hot potato abortion amendment. It didn’t matter to Congressman Stupak that the Health Reform bill the House was ready to pass did NOT provide federal funds for abortion – it was too good an opportunity to grandstand for his pro-life constituents and grab his share of the headlines at the expense of reforms that could save the lives of the nearly 45,000 people who have already been born – that die every year for lack of health insurance. What’s pro-life about that?
Ironically, Stupak was named the 2007 National Rural Health Association’s “Rural Health Champion” His website says that, “In his 14 years serving the 1st District of Michigan, Representative Bart Stupak has been a tireless advocate for his rural constituents, rural health care providers and the patients they serve.” Unless, of course, Bart has the chance to scuttle better health care for his rural constituents – and everyone else – as he gins up the culture wars by exploiting one of the most divisive issues in America.
If Bart is truly interested in promoting rural health, what’s he done with his infamous Stupak Amendment is, well, stupid. Or maybe just Stupak.
So there you go, 5 Congressional Jokers. It’s a flush worthy of flushing.
You won’t hear about it much on the TV news, but today — on Friday December 10, 2010 — Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont began conducting a good old-fashioned Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-style filibuster. An Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, Senator Sanders is outraged by the Obama-GOP tax giveaway to the mega-rich. Sanders is speaking truth to power — and giving us all a history lesson of the past lost decade.
While what Sanders is doing is not a filibuster under the traditional definition – he began speaking at 10:25 am ET – and, of this writing at 5:42 ET – he’s still going strong. Sander’s righteous stand has attracted so much attention today that it temporarily shut down the Senate video server.
“How can I get by on one house?” Sanders said. “I need five houses, ten houses! I need three jet planes to take me all over the world! Sorry, American people. We’ve got the money, we’ve got the power, we’ve got the lobbyists here and on Wall Street. Tough luck. That’s the world, get used to it. Rich get richer. Middle class shrinks.”
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 