A Great Week for America

Thanks to President Obama and the Democrats in Congress this has been a great week for our country, despite Republicans and the Right. After years of the utter destruction of all regulations that protect Americans and our Economy from reckless banking and investment practices leading to a near depression, the President and the Democrats in Congress passed sweeping financial reform regulation to actually solve the problems.

While millions of Americans remain unemployed from the Bush recession, Democrats passed and the President signed a bill restoring unemployment benefits. This not only helps the unemployed but immediately puts more money actively into the economy to continue the Obama recovery.

Also last weekend the oil gushing into the gulf that was caused by lack of any enforcement of regulation during the Big Oil Presidency of the last 8 years, was with the oversight of the President's Man Admiral Than Allen finally brought to a stop.

Meanwhile what have the Republicans and the right been doing? They have clearly with malice and forethought attempted to block any legislation that will help our economy and prevent future economic disasters. Why? Because the worse the economy stays by November, the more votes they think they will get.

They have blocked helping millions of American families keep their unemployment benefits, while making statements blaming these middle class families for their own fate, calling them lazy, dead beats and worse. They claim they only wanted to pay for these benefits, yet they never said a word when they gave tax breaks to the rich that weren't paid for a big part of what lead us into the deficit slide.

In addition they criticized the President's Moratorium on deep water oil drilling as "job killing." Yet clearly the job's killed by the clearly unsafe, unprepared practices of the oil companies in this one incident have killed thousands of jobs not to mention the environment of the area. The Obama Administration has as its responsibility to protect America. Any thing less then attempting to prevent another similar disaster would be negligence.

So yes a very successful week for America, Democrats and President Obama. A week which reminds people why they voted for them. Competence, action, hope, and change. How has the right wing attempted to distract from such success. By trying to divide the country by race baiting, creating white fear, and fanning fires of racism.

Never has it been so clear, who is for action, solutions and change, and who is for greed, political games, and dividing America.

Has the Political Media Lost Their Minds?

A few months ago no matter what political reporter you listened to or read the underlying theme was the impending death of the Republican Party. Now these same people on Politico, MSNBC and others are talking about the sinking ship of the Democratic Party.

They do this with a Democratic President who has succeeded in delivering or working toward the vast majority of his campaign promises. They do this as a Health Care Bill is about to be passed, something that no President or Congress has been able to do over decades. They do this as the there are continuing signs every day that the economy is recovering further validating the job the President and Congress has done. They seem not to notice that the group with the lowest popularity rating in the polls are Congressional Republicans. They poll significantly lower then Democrats and way lower then the President.

They seem to have forgotten the taking over of the Republican Party by the Glenn Becks, the Rush Limbaughs, the Sarah Palins and the Tea Baggers. They forget that in the last actual election of a congressional seat, the republican was defeated despite the fact that seat had been in GOP hands for over a century.

This up and down story line has proven to me these poltical "experts" can be believed as much as the local weatherman can be in his long range forecasts.

The next congressional election is 10 months away. In that time President Obama and the democrats will have more successes regardless of how many hurdles the GOP tries to put in front of them. The Tea Baggers and the Right wing wackos will continue to scare off moderates, and Sarah Palin will continue to open her mouth and confirm to even more people her lack of intelligence. That and with continued economic recovery and thus better unemployment numbers, things look quite good for the next 10 months.

Though the Republicans will try to deny each and every success of the Democrats, the facts will be there. As long as we on the left continue to get the facts out in every way we can, we will do just fine in November 2010.

The Real Battle in the Democratic Party

On the surface the battle appears to be one between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But that is just the surface battle. The real battle is much deeper much more entrenched and has gone on for decades.

The Democratic Party has not been an organization run by the rank and file voter for decades if ever. It is a party of the powerful elite who in many cases pre determine who the candidates will be all the way from city councils to President. It is a party of the Democratic Leadership Council that include people like Hillary Clinton who decide for the voters the direction of the party and the candidates that will be supported.

The candidates that are chosen get the money, the support, and the favors and are expected to return the favors. The ones on the outside have to fight scratch and try to raise money on their own and most often fail. To be chosen by the elite to run for an office, you tow the line, suck up to the power brokers to do their bidding. They tell the candidates when and if its their turn to run for an office and what office they can run for.

A great example of this was Paul Hackett’s attempt to run for Senate. Paul, a party outsider suddenly rose from nowhere on the scene. He got massive support. He became very popular not only among voters but in the national media. One problem, the party had decided it was Sherrod Brown’s turn to run for Senate. So did the voters get to choose our nominee, no. The party elite went to the money donors and got them to cut Hackett off. No money, no campaign. Suddenly Sherrod Brown is running unopposed.

Since the 80’s when the Clinton group took power, this control of the party has only increased. They have led this party from totally controlling the government to losing the House and the Senate. The numbers of registered Democrats continued to go lower and lower as they became less happy with the same poor choices in candidates year after year. The number of voters who considered themselves democrats but were dissatisfied grew and often defected to vote for Republicans. The only good news has been George W. Bush, who’s total incompetence along with the rabid criminal behavior by Republican officials in places like Ohio, led to some gains of what the party lost in seats and offices.

Now today the party is at a new place. The elite, the Democratic Leadership council and the big donors ordained Hillary Clinton as their candidate. She had paid her dues to the party, given the favors and the support. Thus it was her turn to be the Presidential nominee.

Something unexpected happened, Barack Obama. All those democrats disgruntled with the party returned. 10’s of thousands of new Democrats became active in politics and the party for the first time. The most amazing thing of all, they opened their checkbooks and built up the campaign war chest of Obama to dwarf the one the big money elite had and was building for Hillary.

“How rude of these new democrats how dare they not follow the chosen one” they think. They now see their power being diminished. They are circling the wagons, calling in favors, threatening party leaders who dare to defect from their side and twisting arms of super delegates. They fight to use their control to change the rules so that they can prevail over these rude upstarts.

What they have failed to see is that it is too late. They have lost the liberal media. People like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz have joined the upstarts. Congressmen, Senators, Governors and Mayors are ignoring the threats and intimidation of the elite and are joining the groundswell of change. The most amazing thing of all is the big money donors are being outspent badly by the rank and file democrats making their power more of a nostalgic memory then current reality.

All that remain on the other side are the Clintons, the DLC, the party hacks who are the only group of Super Delegates still giving Clinton the lead among them. Half of the elected officials that are Super Delegates and have committed, have already gone to Obama.

They will not give up their control easily as has been evidenced by their threats to Nancy Pelosi. But they cannot win without destroying this party. It is time for them to realize they have lost the party and a new generation of Democrats has taken over.

If you want to send a message to the party elite that the voters control this party, sign this petition