Tag Archives: mid term elections
Reject Trump This Tuesday!
Donald Trump is a proven serial liar. He has no business being the President of the United States.
We’ve simply got to check Trump’s power on November 6th!
Young voters! This will be your world long after I’m gone – and your future will be far better if you VOTE this coming Tuesday for Democrats.
I believe Wednesday morning, November 7th, will bring good news. Let’s make sure of it!
VOTE!
Filed under History, Politics, Truth, Uncategorized
A Mid-Term Message to Young Voters
We hear it over and over from the pundit class: Democrats have a chance to take over the House (and maybe the Senate) this year — but younger voters can’t be relied upon to turn out on Election Day.
In fact, many older Democrats that I know agree with the pundits. They don’t think you’ll turn out and vote on November 6th.
They don’t think you’ll vote in big numbers because that’s what history tells them. Statistically, older voters are more likely to vote.
Some older Democrats think that younger voters are not realistic, or too impatient, or too easily swayed by fringe candidates on the extreme left…
But I have three bright daughters between the ages of 38 and 23 – and I know that all of you young people are going to vote this Election Day.
I know you’re going to vote because Donald Trump must be stopped.
I know you’re going to vote because Climate Change is real.
I know you’re going to vote because the Parkland students have inspired us all to fight for sane gun laws.
I know you’re going to vote because GOP white supremacy and misogyny is off the charts.
I know you’re going to vote because GOP state officials are always coming up with legislative schemes to keep college voters and people of color from casting their votes – and that should piss you off!
I know you’re going to vote because Brett Kavanaugh is an embarrassment to the Supreme Court.
I know you’re going to vote because our future depends on it.
And you have a lot more future ahead of you than we do.
So, prove the old farts wrong. Show up at the polls on November 6th– and vote for a better future for America by kicking Republicans out of office. There are lots of exciting, progressive Democratic candidates to support. They need your votes.
But it’s not enough to vote. I know you’re going to vote. But you’ve also got to volunteer – and help get the vote out.
To volunteer, go to: https://multiplyyourvote2018.paperform.co
See you at the polls!
Filed under History, Politics, Uncategorized
Countering GOP Bullsh@t with a Song…
This young woman’s song deserves to be heard — over and over — until Election Day, November 6th!
Filed under Music, Politics, Uncategorized
Don’t Just Vote. Volunteer!
I had the privilege of producing this PSA along with my good friend, Brad Hall. It’s part of a social media campaign to encourage folks to volunteer to work for Democratic victory in the midterm elections on November 6th. Progressives must mobilize for these midterms like never before. Every vote counts. Give Democrats the gavels in those House committees and we’ll have a real check on the Mango Mussolini and his enabling GOP cohort in Congress.
Filed under Comedy, Politics, Uncategorized
President Obama Shreds the Pundits.
President Obama made the following remarks at a recent fundraiser, calling out the false equivalency narratives spun by the insufferable, Beltway-blinkered poobahs of the pundit class. He should continue to say these things publicly and emphatically – just like Harry Truman would have – all the way up to the mid-term elections.
“You’ll hear if you watch the nightly news or you read the newspapers that, well, there’s gridlock, Congress is broken, approval ratings for Congress are terrible. And there’s a tendency to say, a plague on both your houses.
“But the truth of the matter is that the problem in Congress is very specific.
“We have a group of folks in the Republican Party who have taken over who are so ideologically rigid, who are so committed to an economic theory that says if folks at the top do very well then everybody else is somehow going to do well; who deny the science of climate change; who don’t think making investments in early childhood education makes sense; who have repeatedly blocked raising a minimum wage so if you work full-time in this country you’re not living in poverty; who scoff at the notion that we might have a problem with women not getting paid for doing the same work that men are doing.
“They, so far, at least, have refused to budge on bipartisan legislation to fix our immigration system, despite the fact that every economist who’s looked at it says it’s going to improve our economy, cut our deficits, help spawn entrepreneurship, and alleviate great pain from millions of families all across the country.
“So the problem…is not that the Democrats are overly ideological — because the truth of the matter is, is that the Democrats in Congress have consistently been willing to compromise and reach out to the other side.
“There are no radical proposals coming out from the left. When we talk about climate change, we talk about how do we incentivize through the market greater investment in clean energy. When we talk about immigration reform there’s no wild-eyed romanticism. We say we’re going to be tough on the borders, but let’s also make sure that the system works to allow families to stay together…
“When we talk about taxes we don’t say we’re going to have rates in the 70 percent or 90 percent when it comes to income like existed here 50, 60 years ago. We say let’s just make sure that those of us who have been incredibly blessed by this country are giving back to kids so that they’re getting a good start in life, so that they get early childhood education…
“Health care — we didn’t suddenly impose some wild, crazy system. All we said was let’s make sure everybody has insurance. And this made the other side go nuts — the simple idea that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, nobody should go bankrupt because somebody in their family gets sick, working within a private system.
“So when you hear a false equivalence that somehow, well, Congress is just broken, it’s not true. What’s broken right now is a Republican Party that repeatedly says no to proven, time-tested strategies to grow the economy, create more jobs, ensure fairness, open up opportunity to all people.”
Now, I wish the mainstream Democratic Party position on climate change was more radical – and I don’t like hearing President Obama extolling an “all of the above” strategy, especially if that means we all get “fracked” in the process.
But, let there be no doubt. Progressives must get out the vote this fall. The only answer to our broken Congress is a Senate controlled by Democrats – and a House of Representatives in which Nancy Pelosi once again holds the gavel. Important issues like climate change, immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, Wall Street reform and income inequality will never be addressed while Republicans are in a position to obstruct positive change.
Then, in 2016, we must work to keep a Democrat in the White House – because our endangered democracy can’t afford another religiously biased, corporate stooge conservative on The Supreme Court.
But first – we’ve got to get that oversized gavel out of John Boehner’s hands.
Postcards from California
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…
Our National Half Time
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…
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
And here’s six more…
Speaker of the House John Boehner
Okay, on three, set…
Hut! Hut! Hike!
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 