ProgressOhio

Published on Friday, March 19, 2010 by Creators Syndicate
What's the Matter with Demorcrats?
by David Sirota

Ever since Thomas Frank published his book "What's the Matter With Kansas?" Democrats have sought a political strategy to match the GOP's. The health care bill proves they've found one.

Whereas Frank highlighted Republicans' sleight-of-hand success portraying millionaire tax cuts as gifts to the working class, Democrats are now preposterously selling giveaways to insurance and pharmaceutical executives as a middle-class agenda. Same formula, same fat cat beneficiaries, same bleating sheeple herded to the slaughterhouse. The only difference is the Rube Goldberg contraption that Democrats are using to tend the flock.

First, their leaders campaign on pledges to create a government insurer (a "public option") that will compete with private health corporations. Once elected, though, Democrats propose simply subsidizing those corporations, which are (not coincidentally) filling Democratic coffers. Justifying the reversal, Democrats claim the subsidies will at least help some citizens try to afford the private insurance they'll be forced to buy - all while insisting Congress suddenly lacks the votes for a public option.

Despite lawmakers' refusal to hold votes verifying that assertion, liberal groups obediently follow orders to back the bill, their obsequious leaders fearing scorn from Democratic insiders and moneymen. Specifically, MoveOn, unions and "progressive" non-profits threaten retribution against lawmakers who consider voting against the bill because it doesn't include a public option. The threats fly even though these congresspeople would be respecting their previous public-option ultimatums - ultimatums originally supported by many of the same groups now demanding retreat.

rest here:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/19-5

Contact the Franklin County Commissioners if you share some of my concerns:

Commissioner John O'Grady
614.462.5589
skkeels(ATSIGN)franklincountyohio.gov

Commissioner Paula Brooks
614.462.5729
wesecres(ATSIGN)franklincountyohio.gov

Commissioner Marilyn Brown
614-462-3461
ljstehle(ATSIGN)franklincountyohio.gov

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/02/05/Blue_Jackets.ART_ART_02-05-10_A1_9TGGN10.html

I have many questions and concerns regarding the Dispatch's coverage of proposals to bailout Nationwide Arena and the Columbus Blue Jackets:

1. What percentage of Franklin County residents attend Blue Jacket games? Why should the rest of us subsidize the leisure activities of an affluent few?

2. Nationwide chose to build a 20,000 seat arena 3 miles away from another 20,000 seat arena. Shouldn't the free market be allowed to work? Why should the business plans of Nationwide and the Blue Jackets be rescued at a time that so many other businesses are struggling?

3. Several Recreation Centers in Columbus have been closed. Federal, state and local governments are cutting programs and enacting spending freezes. Unemployment is high and wages are declining. What a time for a hockey bailout.

4. Many economic studies show that professional sports do little for a local economy and that money spent for pro sports would instead be spent to go bowling or going to the movies. Why should the government pick winners and losers in the economy?

5. Forward Together seems like an astro-turf organization rather than grass-roots. The red sign in the photo does not look home made. Anyone can start a group and say we'll meet at a bar and claim that everyone there is part of my organization. I've been part of many grassroots organizations that never get coverage in the Dispatch. CEOs should be made front and center in the bailout campaign not hockey fans hanging out in a bar. psst...if the Blue Jackets had so many fans they wouldn't need a bailout.

6. There are more than a dozen NHL teams in deep financial trouble. The NHL over- expanded. Shouldn't NHL owners offer players $250,000/year contracts rather than multi-million dollar salaries?

7. What's the difference between the tactics of a hostage taker and the tactics of CBJ/Nationwide? Our community seems to being told, "Give us taxpayer money or else we'll ruin the Arena District." It's just like the Wall Street Bank bailout all over again.

8. Proposals to reform healthcare/health insurance get reported in the Dispatch with opponents claiming that it's "socialism" or "communism." (Isn't all insurance socialist?) Beyond the naked self-interest of business holdings of the Wolfe family, why should a hockey bailout get framed so positively? (The Wolfe Family owns the Dispatch and partly owns Nationwide Arena and the Columbus Blue Jackets).

Maybe this revolutionary vote will give Governor Strickland and the Washington wimps something to think about. Let's face it---Ohio must roll-back the Taft tax cuts for the rich, sooner better than later.

Voters in Oregon OK tax hikes for some
Corporations and wealthy families are targeted to help ease the state's budget crisis.
By Kim Murphy - LA Times
January 27, 2010


Facing a budget crunch that threatened to close schools early, lay off teachers and slash healthcare benefits, Oregon voters ended two decades of tax scrimping Tuesday by approving higher taxes on corporations and wealthy families.

The two ballot measures passed handily in a referendum watched closely around the country as a signal of whether voters are ready to approve targeted tax hikes to bail out cash-starved state treasuries.

Oregon voters since 1990 have limited property taxes, rejected sales taxes and vetoed across-the-board income taxes. But with 87% of the ballots counted, the measure to raise income taxes on households earning more than $250,000 a year, and individuals earning more than $125,000, was winning with 54.1%. A second measure to raise the state's corporate income tax was ahead with 53.6%.

Business leaders had fought the measures, arguing that they would drive away entrepreneurs and force struggling businesses to slash jobs.

The two measures would raise more than $700 million to help close a gap in the state budget that at one point reached $4 billion.

Kevin Looper, who ran the campaign to pass the measures, said the vote was a signal that predictions of a general conservative retrenchment following the Republican victory in this month's Senate race in Massachusetts were premature.

"I think this is firmly a progressive, populist moment. It just takes leaders to stand up and say what we're about, and make sure things are clear to voters," he said. "Because when the choice gets made clear like that, voters will almost always make the right decision."

Looper said the credit goes to Democratic leaders in the Legislature, who passed the tax increases against nearly unanimous Republican opposition.

"It was an amazingly courageous thing for the Legislature to say, 'We're going to both protect schools and make a case for tax fairness by keeping the burden off middle-class families,' " he said.

Opponents gathered signatures to force the referendum.

Supporters, backed by public employee unions, raised $6.8 million, compared with $4.6 million by opponents who relied on the banking industry and business groups. Final financial reports have yet to be filed.

"The biggest issue is we were substantially outspent by the public employee unions. They were able to double, and more than that, the money we were spending on the broadcast media, and were able to get that much more of their message out," said Pat McCormick, spokesman for Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-oregon-tax27-2010jan27,0,3341290.story

Governor Strickland should make a pledge not to make any additional budget cuts. Or at least promise to repeal the Taft tax cuts for the rich before making any future budget cuts.

This would motivate people to get to the polls to support the Democratic ticket considering that John Kasich is proposing to eliminate income and estate taxes which would necessitate taking a hatchet to the state budget.

Trickle-downer Grover Norquist is famous for pressuring politicians to take a "no new taxes" pledge.

Democrats would be wise to take a "no further budget cuts" pledge. The social safety net is already dangerously thin as it is.

The Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens' United case allows corporations to buy, blackmail or destroy politicians and elected judges with bombs of campaign advertisements. Even foreign-owned corporations can meddle in our elections.

Here's a way to demonstrate how far-reaching the ruling is. Some citizens should start a new political party. Call it the Sell-Out Party, for example. Then publicly encourage foreign-owned companies to contribute to Sell-Out candidates. Citgo is wholely-owned by Hugo Chavez' Venezuelean government. Solicit Fidel Castro to buy ads for the Sell Outs.

The Republican Party and corporate Dems are going to be benefit from paid advertisements from foreign companies. That's guaranteed. Right now, they are arranging to benefit from corporate funded advertisements for their next campaign. And, oil sheiks and bureaucrats of companies owned by the Chinese government are welcome to meddle in our elections according to the Roberts' court.

I noticed the following LTTE in the Columbus Dispatch's web-only letters for Jan. 22, 2010.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2010/01/22/web-only-letters-to-the-editor.html?sid=101

Right to vote

In a 1967 address, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. noted,

"Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change."

This month we celebrate Dr. King's birthday and remember him as one of the 20th century's greatest architects of American civil rights. Dr. King understood that power begins with equal and full voting rights. Voting is one way to empower us, as Mahatma Gandhi said, to be the change we want to see. Voting is the ultimate expression of nonviolent protest, expressed by Dr. King as:

1. Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.

2. Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.

3. Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.

4. Nonviolence holds that suffering for a cause can educate and transform.

5. Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.

6. Nonviolence holds that the universe is on the side of justice and that right will eventually prevail.

The Voting Rights Institute (VRI) in the Ohio Secretary of State's office is devoted to enfranchising all eligible Ohioans and protecting their voting rights. Ohio's VRI offers guidance to individuals, committees, nonprofit and faith-based organizations and others to fully engage their constituencies to exercise their rights to vote without barriers.

With the 2010 primary election approaching on May 4th we can honor Dr. King's legacy by empowering our constituencies to participate in democracy. If you or someone you know is not currently registered to vote, there is still time to register by the April 5th deadline. To find out how, please visit our Web site: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/voter/RegisteringToVote.aspx

As you think of Dr. King during this day of commemoration and throughout the year, please pay tribute to his life and principles by using your voice in the way he helped make possible for so many-please vote.

Jennifer Brunner

Ohio Secretary of State

An indictment of ObamaCare is that it is very similar RomneyCare in Massachusetts.

And get this, it's also very similar to health reform that Ken Blackwell campaigned for in his failed bid to be Ohio governor which he called "Buckeye Health Connection." Sounds like a dating club for medical practioners, but I digress.

What ObamaCare, RomneyCare and BlackwellCare all have in common is that they use the force of government to mandate that people buy private, for-profit health insurance.

Credit Senator Bernie Sanders for improving ObamaCare by increasing funding for community health clinics. But reform championed by right-winger Ken Blackwell is supposed to be Change We Can Believe In?!


http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060908/NEWS01/609080389

From Raw Story:

"Plans to keep an invasive fish species, the Asian carp, out of the Great Lakes by closing two locks on a canal running to the Mississippi River have run into opposition from the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbying groups.

Michigan's attorney general has filed suit to close off the connection in an attempt to prevent the spread of the voracious carp. Minnesota and Ohio are also backing the suit, and this week the attorneys general of Wisconsin and Indiana filed briefs in support as well.

The states fear that the carp could cause "an ecological and economic disaster" by devastating the ecosystem of the lakes and the fishing and tourism which depend on them and believe that urgent action must be taken until more long-term solutions are worked out. The suit, which requires the setting aside of a century-old legal decision, is due to be heard next week by the US Supreme Court."

Read the rest here:

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/chamber-commerce-opposes-closing-locks-carp/

CAUTION---be careful relying on Public Broadcasting for your news information. WOSU TV show "Columbus on the Record" recently aired an episode about "the future of manufacturing in Ohio."

Two of the panelists were newspaper business reporters, one an OSU business school professor and the fourth panelist works for the Ohio Department of Development. They were all in agreement that the Milton/Tom Friedman trade policies should be kept in place. Host Mike Thompson did not present a guest with a differing view about how to revive Ohio's manufacturing base.

Apparently, Public Broadcasting is too beholden to funding from corporations to allow a representative of organized labor or a liberal economist to have a seat at the table.

So there was no discussion that the U.S. was the largest creditor nation and largest importer of raw materials in 1980 and now we are the largest debtor nation and largest exporter of raw materials. There was no discussion how Rob Portman and Bill Clinton negotiated or signed trade agreements that flattened tariffs on products imported to the U.S. from countries that still maintain high tariffs on American made exports.

The little guy with the big ears was right. Ross Perot got 20% of the vote in 1992 and there sure has been a large sucking sound of jobs leaving America. The U.S. had a tariff-based trade policy for its first 200 years which built a large middle class. The Free Trade experiment initiated by President Reagan has been a complete failure.

The owners of the Columbus Blue Jackets and Nationwide Arena are next in line for a bailout. Apparently, these titans of capitalism believe that applying socialism is acceptable to guarantee the profitability of a hockey team. God forbid we do the same to ensure the access and affordability of healthcare.

Has it occurred to anyone else that the Blue Jackets and Nationwide Arena are losing money because they had a bad business plan? Why should their losses now be socialized?

Columbus voters rejected a publicly funded hockey arena in 1997. Most people don't care about hockey. Why should everyone be expected to subsidize high-priced entertainment? It's not my problem that the NHL overpays guys from the tundra to skate.

Columbus would survive if the Blue Jackets go kaput and the minor league Columbus Chill returns. People would just spend their leisure budget on other things. Seattle lost the Supersonics and they seem to be getting along o.k.

http://dispatch.com/live/content/sports/stories/2009/11/05/jackets_study.ART_ART_11-05-09_A1_B1FJ0I3.html?sid=101

The economy is a mess now that the Republicans have brought Survivor Island to the mainland. Yet the banksters are getting huge bonuses soon after the bailouts.

Tea-bagger and Columbus city council candidate Matt Ferris came only 1,300 votes short of winning.

Democrats and progressives are mistaken to ridicule the tea baggers. The tea baggers actually tell some truths such as the fact that the middle class is getting shafted. The tea baggers just don't understand that corporate power is the cause or our economic woes and that government is the only institution that can counter-balance the transnational corporations.

The cuts to the social safety net have come with Dems as mayor and governor in Columbus. This does not bode well getting the Democratic base out on Election Day in 2010 and 2012. It also doesn't bode well with Democratic Party identification with the working class. I meet a lot of poor people who vote Republican.

Democrats better get their populist mojo and fast. There needs to be fundamental, structural change at the local, state and national levels.

For example, Columbus taxpayers pay over $100 million each year for health insurance premiums for city employees. Democrats at the state and local level would be wise to pound podiums during future elections that Medicare for All would save local budgets untold millions by getting public employees into a single-payer system.

Republicans won the governor's seat in Virginia and New Jersey. The lesson of last night's election should be that Dems would be wise to begin channelling Franklin Roosevelt.

The Nov. 1 edition of the Columbus Dispatch had a major article under the headline: "Was Kasich a Wall Street Titan" by Jonathan Riskind, Joe Hallett and Mark Niquette. The article implied that John Kasich's job with the bankrupt Wall Street financial firm Lehman Brothers was minor.

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/insight/stories/2009/11/01/copy/Kasichlehman.ART_ART_11-01-09_G1_S1FH1PT.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

The article left me wondering two things:

1. Would have the Dispatch run a major article that Kasich's role with Lehman Brothers was minimal had the Wall Street financial meltdown NOT happened?

2. The article seemed to imply that Kasich was hired by Lehman for his political and governmental connections. Where was the critical reporting about a former politician taking a multi-million dollar salary from a corporation just because of his connections in government? Don't the Dispatch reporters think that voters are turned off by politicians who cash in with corporations and then attempt to go through the revolving door back into political office?

Lehman must have highly valued Kashich's connections or else it wouldn't have paid him a multi-million dollar salary. Sure, Kasich wasn't in CEO Richard Fuld's inner circle but his role with Lehman was $ubstantial.

Conservatives have claimed a liberal media bias for years. The George W. Bush White House routinely bashed the New York Times and NBC when it was convenient for them.

But now, conservatives are unhinged that the Obama White House is taking a page out of their playbook. For example, Dispatch Editorial Page Editor Glenn Sheller has a column today under the headline: "War on Fox Will Wound White House."
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2009/10/23/sheller.ART_ART_10-23-09_A17_DVFEUK4.html?sid=101

Here are some reasons that the White House should continue bashing Fox News when it's warranted:

1. In all forms of fiction, every hero is as great as its nemesis is dastardly. What would Batman be without the Joker? What about Superman without Lex Luther?

Karl Rove understands this. It's probably why bin Laden wasn't captured or publicly declared to be dead. The Bushies needed OBL out there.

Fox is the perfect target for President Obama. He can't take on the "economic royalists" like FDR did because unfortunately money plays a much bigger role in politics today. And you always want to shoot down, so why get into a pissing match with Boehner or Steele or McConnell?

2. Fox News is not a legitimate news organization. Almost all Fox shows are opinion shows. MSNBC does not market itself as a news network---it calls itself "the place for politics." And, MSNBC has conservative hosts and regular panelists such as Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan. Name a liberal host at Fox.

3. Fox News heavily promoted the anti-Obama 9/12 and tea bag rallies. A Fox News producer was caught on tape rallying the 9/12 crowd which demonstrates that Fox News is an activist propaganda arm of the Republican Party. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPYbPsvOnX8 Can you imagine the conservative outrage if a NYT reporter or CNN producer was caught cheering on a progressive rally?

4. So what if the White House's criticisms of Fox News cause more people to watch it? Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are partially responsible for only 20% of people identifying themselves as Republican. Glenn Sheller and other conservatives should join the White House critiquing the right-wing noise machine to save the Republican Party and true conservatism.

And in the future, Glenn Sheller, don't pretend to be an advocate for President Obama's political interests. It's really quite condescending.

Ohio's woes have come to this.

Governor Strickland's support for Issue 2, the attempted corporate hi-jacking of the state Constitution by agri-business, leads me to call upon Jerry Springer to challenge Governor Strickland for the Democratic nomination for governor.

Governor Strickland has regularly dissed his left flank since taking office.

He has drastically cut the social safety net. He has forsaken renewable energy sources and supported dirty coal, oil and nuke power instead. He has been silent about single-payer, Medicare for All which would save the state and local levels of government billions of dollars each year by reducing the taxpayers' cost of health insurance for public employees. Governor Strickland helped to unlawfully and unethically rob Attorney General Marc Dann of his elected office. He continues to support the death penalty. Drug decriminalization and hemp legalization, not even on the horizon. And, he appointed Taft/Bush acolytes throughout state government.

Ohio continues to be on the wrong track. Strickland's trickle-down, Reaganomic policies will not bring back our manufacturing and innovative base.

The people of Ohio decisiviely voted for real change in 2006 and 2008. Governor Strickland deserves a Democratic primary challenge from someone who will not be beholden to corporate and tycoon campaign contributors.

Jerry you've made enough money, c'mon home. Springer for Governor in 2010!

Let Jerry know that Ohio needs him. Here's a link to his Facebook page:

www.facebook.com/pages/Jerry-Springer/19144538776

Tip of the hat to reporter Elizabeth Gibson whose article appeared Tues, Oct. 13 under the headline: "Two Sides to Columbus: Holiday no longer a time to honor explorer, but also to discuss his failings."

http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/10/13/CBUS_DAY.ART_ART_10-13-09_B3_TCFBUB8.html?sid=101

The Dispatch had two front-page photos of the Indigenous Peoples' Day March and of the ceremonies to honor Christopher Columbus and Gibson's article appeared in the Metro section.

Here's an another article from Common Dreams by Thom Hartmann that tells the truth about Columbus and his legacy that lives on even today:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/12-1

Remember back in the early part of the Clinton Presidency?

Bill Clinton signed the passage of modest tax increases and Newt Gingrich and John Kasich said the sky would fall and the U.S. economy would soon plunge into a Depression.

Instead, the U.S. economy boomed and Clinton handed off budget surplusses to George W. Bush.

Don't believe the Republican trickle-down talking points about taxes. I commend Gov. Strickland for proposing a tax freeze to balance the budget.

Larry Beinhart has two great essays about taxes:

Why the Economy Grows Like Crazy Amid High Taxes
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106979/why_the_economy_grows_like_crazy_amid_high_taxes/

Tax Cuts: The B.S. and the Facts
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/106410/tax_cuts:_the_b.s._and_the_facts/?comments=view&cID=1055542&pID=1055464

Now Governor Strickland please start pounding the podium in support of getting government employees into a Medicare for All system which would save the state tens of million$ every year.

Our tax dollars pay for costly private health insurance for public employees. Columbus has about 8,000 employees and the city’s contribution for health insurance premiums was about $95,000,000 in 2008, according to a city hall employee. That’s a sizable portion of the city budget(about 6.5%).

The state of Ohio has about 60,000 employees. State government is byzantine and I haven’t been able to determine the state’s contributions for health insurance but it must be in the neighborhood of $500 to $600 million (any state workers out there know?)

btw, I am not opposed to government employees getting health insurance. Health care is a human right, you know, the right to life, liberty, ….. But, taxpayers shouldn’t have to over-pay for it so health insurance CEOs make $100 million a year.

The point is that Governor Strickland and Mayor Coleman and other government chief executives should be pounding podiums across the nation demanding single-payer (Medicare for All). Getting public employees into Medicare for All would save government at all levels (and school districts) hundreds of billions of dollars per year nationwide. Some of the savings could be used to make sure every American is insured.

These are outdated statistics but demonstrate how the U.S. overpays for health care. Spending, per capita, for healthcare in the U.S. is $6,714, which is expected to double in the next 7 to 10 years if nothing is done.

Health care spending, per capita, in Canada is $3,698 (Medicare for all)

Health care spending, per capita, in the U.K. is $2,760 (socialist medical system).

The cost savings of single-payer (Medicare for all) for public employees would be in the 40% range. That would mean a wind-fall of about $40 million for the city of Columbus alone. Which would make the recent sales tax increase unnecessary.

This is all very relevent because Rep. Dennis Kucinich sponsored an admendment that was approved in the House Committee on Education and Labor to the House’s health-care reform bill allowing states to create single-payer health care systems if they so choose.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/452493

Our local corporate media has for some reason not reported how single-payer, (Medicare for All) would save Ohio taxpayers billions of dollars by removing the middle-man, the for-profit insurance companies, between doctors and patients.

I think President Obama foolishly took a national Medicare for all off the table right from the start. He should have instructed Democratic poo-bahs to hold rallies for it. At least then, the so-called public option would have been viewed as a middle-ground, compromise position.

There is still no excuse for governors, mayors, county commissioners and school board members not to be advocating strongly for getting public employees into a Medicare for all system to conserve taxpayer dollars.

President Obama is currently getting pressure from the military-industrial-congressional-media complex to deploy more troops to Afghanistan. Now is the time to let your voice be heard.

The Dispatch surveyed Ohio lawmakers in Sunday's paper. Ohio's Democratic Congressional delegation is split on whether to escalate troops and whether Afghanistan should be an open-ended war. The war in Afghanistan has already lasted more than twice as long as World War II.

Senator Brown, Rep. Kucinich, Rep. Fudge, and Rep. Kaptur expresed views in opposition to an escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

If you feel like it, call them and thank them at one of these toll-free numbers:

1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

Senator Voinovich, Rep. Boehner, Rep. Kilroy, Rep. Tiberi, Rep. Austria, Rep. Boccieri, Rep. Driehaus, Rep. Jordan, Rep. LaTourette, Rep. Latta, Rep. Ryan, Rep. Schmidt, Rep. Space, Rep. Turner and Rep. Wilson support escalating the war or gave vague responses or passed the buck to the president. Please call Ohio's Senators and your U.S. Rep. and voice opposition to more troops.

I found Rep. Dennis Kucinich's response to be very insightful:

"Congress and the American public simply will not tolerate an open-ended commitment of money and troops while, back home, millions are losing their health care, their homes, their jobs, their pensions, their investments. Twenty years ago, a once-100,000-strong Soviet force departed Afghanistan, defeated after a nine-year war in which 1 million Afghans and 15,000 Soviet troops were killed, at a cost of billions of dollars. Now, U.S. troop levels could approximate the number of troops in Iraq. The new leader of the British army recently predicted a 30- to 40-year war in Afghanistan. The annual cost of the war in Afghanistan is exceeding that of Iraq. An escalation will also expand conflicts into Pakistan and Iran. The United States is broke. How are we going to pay for this?

Sooner or later the public will ask: Are we protecting the American way of life, or has government been turned into a machine to fund war profiteers?"

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/insight/stories/2009/09/20/afghansurvey.ART_ART_09-20-09_G1_N3F402M.html?sid=101

The net-roots and liberal activist groups pushed hard to de-escalate the wars when President Bush was in office. It's shameful how silent many groups including Progress Ohio have been regarding bringing troops home with President Obama now in office.

Romell Broom and the Barbarism of the Death Penalty
by Matthew Rothschild

You want to know how barbaric the death penalty is?

Ask Romell Broom.

The convicted rapist and murderer was brought into the execution chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility on Tuesday.

But the executioners could not manage, over the course of two hours, to get the IVs in right so the lethal injections could do their dirty work.

They tried finding a vein in his arms. They tried finding a vein in his legs.

Broom himself assisted the executioners by sliding rubber tubing up his arm and flexing his hands.

To no avail.....

They eventually found a vein they thought was suitable to the morbid task but it collapsed when the techies tried to insert some fluid.

That brought Broom to tears.

Finally, the prison director called off the botched murder attempt and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland gave Broom a one-week reprieve.

How ’bout commuting the sentence to life in prison without parole?

Broom has suffered enough already.

Dostoevsky once wrote that being sent to your execution but then surviving is one of the most hideous experiences you can have.

Yeah, being raped and murdered is more hideous. Much more.

But the state should not be in a sadism contest. And that’s what the death penalty is.

Read the rest here:

www.progressive.org/wx091709.html

Progressive Activists,

How many appeals from activist groups have you gotten that read, "Will you help us support President Obama or Governor Strickland on (insert issue)?"

This is not how right-wing groups operate. They make demands to Republican politicians and hold their feet to the fire.

President Obama and Governor Strickland are centrist politicians. They negotiate with Republicans who are on the far right and the result is right of center policy. The health insurance issue is a good example. From the start, the president took single-payer (Medicare for all) off the table and has included Big Pharma and Big Insurance in negotiations.

MoveOn.org and many other liberal groups are operating as cheerleaders for President Obama rather than pushing him hard. Yeah, the MoveOn leaders are getting access to White House meetings but so what for us in the grassroots?

What we need are MOVEMENTS TO CREATE REAL CHANGE.

President Obama recently went to Wall Street to ask the banksters to support his plan for financial reform. Reform that gets the approval of the banksters is going to be impotent.

I encourage people to get involved with Progressive Democrats of America. PDA is still out there pushing hard for single-payer and to get out of Afganistan and Iraq. www.pdamerica.org