Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch paper
Democracy for NH
Granite State Progress
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Pickup Patriots
Re-BlueNH
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
New Hampshire Labor News
Chaz Proulx: Right Wing Watch
Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Landrigan
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes
Campaigns, Et Alia.
NH-Gov
- Maggie Hassan
NH-01
- Andrew Hosmer
- Carol Shea-Porter
- Joanne Dowdell
NH-02
- Ann McLane Kuster
ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC
National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo
50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
[Indy Ron Morse] voted for Clinton in the 2008 primary and Obama in the general election but isn't hot on anyone this time and doesn't know what he will do come 2012.
"I switch when it feels right. Right now, I don't feel the president's doing a good job," said Morse, 60, as he had breakfast at a Manchester diner recently when Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour stopped by. "There's nobody so far that I want to vote for." He said he "definitely" wouldn't back Romney. "And definitely not that Alaskan chick," he said, referring to former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin.
It turns out that Barbour doesn't sit well with him either; Morse said he was annoyed that Barbour brushed off his concerns about potential cuts to Medicare and Social Security.
Now listen to the guy in the red shirt for the first 45 seconds of this video:
This should be so easy.
Let's never underestimate, though, our side's capacity to screw it up.
There's a new website and video being launched later tonight by the Strengthen Social Security coalition.
A number of events will be taking place around the country next week, on April 27 and 28. The theme for these events is: Don't Make Us Work Till We Die. Seniors will be dressing up in the uniform of their former occupation to illustrate the folly of raising the retirement age.
Eighty percent of Americans are opposed to cuts in Medicare.
Frank Guinta and Charlie Bass went way beyond cuts - they voted to privatize it, thus abolishing the program and sending insurance sharks to grandma's house to take her voucher.
The GOP, hopelessly out of touch with the concerns of working families, have handed us a huge gift. On behalf of working families, we have an obligation to take full advantage of it.
For example: tomorrow Charlie Bass is holding a town hall in Hillsborough. This is a perfect opportunity to ask your Congressman what he was thinking when he voted to destroy a program eighty percent of Americans don't want cut? Ask him why we don't even get access to a "voucher" until two years later than currently, at sixty-seven? What is he thinking putting those of us under fifty-five at the whim of private insurance hell when we are older and least able to navigate it?
Because scammers don't go after seniors in New Hampshire or anything.
When I say it is up to us, I literally mean - up to us. National Democrats are already fumbling this gift right out of the gate.
Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Dick Durbin are both hinting at cuts to Social Security. Of course they won't do it to grandma today (just as Paul Ryan won't destroy Medicare for grandma today); it'll be those of us who have paid into the system for decades but not yet close to retirement who will watch our earnings get stolen.
Millionaires like Warner and Durbin are getting away with these trial balloons because the President has given them a lot of wiggle room on the topic.
How are 2012 general election voters, especially Generation-X and Millenials, supposed to understand that the Democratic party is out to protect their future Medicare on the one hand, when on the other their future Social Security is being threatened by the Democratic party?
If your view of politics is filtered by a lens marked "Progressive" or "Liberal", there's a pretty good chance that you've been gnashing your teeth and pulling your hair in frustration over the "give away the store, then negotiate" approach professional Democrats have used when facing the challenges from the Tea Party last year, and all that's come after.
Over and over and over people like me have written stories wondering why Democrats, starting with this President, don't get out in a very public way and slam Republican policies, over and over and over-especially when most Americans hate the things Republicans seem to love to support.
Turning over Government to the highest bidder?
Not so popular.
Going back to a heathcare system run by, for, and of the insurance industry?
Again, not so much.
Jacking up taxes and healthcare costs for you and me in order to provide another trillion in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires?
So unpopular pollsters hardly believe it.
But there is another way, and today's story is in two parts: we're going to talk about how hard it is to get Democrats, as a group, to get loud and get aggressive-and then we're going to talk about Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who is out there showing any reluctant Democrat just exactly how you can "grow the brand".
What's going on here? Despite the ferocious opposition he has faced since the day he took office, Mr. Obama is clearly still clinging to his vision of himself as a figure who can transcend America's partisan differences. And his political strategists seem to believe that he can win re-election by positioning himself as being conciliatory and reasonable, by always being willing to compromise.
But if you ask me, I'd say that the nation wants - and more important, the nation needs - a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that's not what
we're seeing.
In Manchester Sunday, he talked about getting beyond "slash-and-burn" politics, getting beyond the us v. them, and bonding together in "hope". So, much as Elwood has suggested on this site, part of Obama's message is Camelot awaits: after a period of vicious partisan fighting, he is ready to lead us to that peace beyond.
This is an acceptable message in itself, and it's similar to what centrists like Bayh are preaching.
But is it the final destination of Obama's thought? Within 30 seconds of stating we have to come together as a nation, he begins to give examples of Americans bonding together in "hope" and overcoming obstacles. And a good number of them are very us v. them: The Revolutionary War, The Civil War, The Women's Suffrage movement, the Civil Rights movement.
There's a very clear rift here which Obama will have to resolve. What he has to decide, in short, is whether we are truly at a Camelot moment, where if we were simply to stop fighting one another we could build America up again, or whether we are at a moment akin to the historical examples he cites. If the latter, the problem is not that we have been fighting. The problem is the right side hasn't won yet.
I continue to watch Obama with much interest, and have faith he will deal with that rift sooner or later. If he is going to be a force in this election, however, I think it's in our interest as Democrats to ask him to deal with it sooner.
At the statehouse level, the radical right-wingers are dismantling the state of New Hampshire and as a result awakening the base - and plenty of casual voters - as never before. On top of their radical policy agenda, the state GOP continues its frightening parade of fringe behavior.
A new poll out today showing that the Granite State has quickly soured on Frank Guinta and Charlie Bass offers up new opportunity that we can win those seats back sooner than later.
Yet at the very top, our Democratic president is trial ballooning another stab at "entitlement" reform. In the face of 8%+ joblessness, and the most obscene concentration of wealth in the hands of the fewest, our Democratic president just might ask those Generation X-ers and Millenials, some of whom have been contributing their earnings to Medicare and Social Security for over twenty-five years, to get less in return.
New Hampshire is fired up and ready to go. But for this train to leave the station we need someone at the top who is fighting for us.
It's all over the news (probably primarily due to the efforts of alert bloggers rather than "journalism", of course) that the pending federal "we demand that you let off the hook for refusing to propose anything other than discretionary budget cuts" government shutdown will result in stopping the wages of military personnel, social security, etc. (Was it including unemployment insurance payments too? Can't remember.) And there's that bill to stop Congressional and Executive Branch wages at the same time.
So I was wondering, do payments to government contractors get stopped too? Or do Blackwater (or "X Factor" or whatever the hell it's called now), etc. get an exception?
There are two great op eds in the Washington Post today. The first one is by Dana Milbank:
"What do you say to nervous Republicans who say that this is a political Kamizake mission?" ABC News's Jonathan Karl asked Ryan at Tuesday's news conference. Had the chairman "just given Democrats a big target that may ultimately cost Republicans your majority?"
"They didn't come here for a political career," Ryan replied. "They came for a cause."
Diligent reporter that I am, I got up yesterday morning to do a bit of fishing for a story, and as so often happens, I've caught something a bit unexpected.
Now what I have for you today starts out as a bit of insider information that came to me on background-but it turns into a chance for those of us who support Social Security to very much get in the faces of our members of Congress, for two whole weeks.
And to make it even better, I'm going to throw out a few direct action ideas "for your consideration" (as they say in Hollywood during Awards Season) that would absolutely make good street actions and YouTube videos, both at the same time...and even more importantly, we'll absolutely make some great Spring Break fun.
So it's been about three weeks since we last had this conversation, but once again we have to take action to try to keep Social Security from being the victim of "deficit fever".
I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, considering the disconnect between Social Security and the deficit-but once again it's "Continuing Resolution" time on Capitol Hill, where some use the threat of an impending shutdown of the Federal Government to extract concessions from the other side...and some on the other side try to make points with the voters by out-conceding their opponents.
So Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, there's a national push on to get voters to call their Senators and remind them to vote for an Amendment that is a big ol' "I'm not willing to cut Social Security just because other people philosophically want to cut Government any way they can" kind of reassurance to the voters, and I'm here to encourage you, once again, to make a couple phone calls and do some pushing of your own.
I've also been storing up a couple somewhat facetious random thoughts which will be the "garnish" for today's dish; you'll see them pop up as we go along.
Nancy Altman, former aide to Alan Greenspan, spoke in Concord, NH last night. From the Concord Monitor:
"I object to the idea of fixing it, because Social Security isn't broken," she told the Monitor, adding that long-term projections show "a manageable but significant shortfall" that is one of the challenges to be addressed.
"We should address them, but not in a climate where young people don't think they're going to get benefits, that people don't think it's affordable. . . . It's a political question," she said.
The Social Security program, created in 1935, is expected to cost more than it takes in from taxes from 2015 onward. In 2037, the program's trustees said last year, its trust funds will be exhausted. At that point, tax revenue is expected to cover only about 78 percent of benefits.
A crisis is when you see a moose running out in front of your car. A crisis isn't something that's over 25 years away. There's plenty of time to tweak Social Security.
In our efforts to form a more perfect Union we look to the Constitution for guidance for how we might shape the form and function of Government; many who seek to interpret that document try to do so by following what they believe is The Original Intent Of The Founders.
Some among us have managed to turn their certainty into something that approaches a reverential calling, and you need look no further than the Supreme Court to find such notables as Cardinals Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia providing "liturgical foundation" to the adherents of the point of view that the Constitution is like The Bible: that it's somehow immutable, set in stone, and, if we would only listen to the right experts, easily interpreted.
But what if that absolutist point of view is absolutely wrong?
What if the Original Intent Of The Founders, that summer in Philadelphia...was simply to get something passed out of the Constitutional Convention, and the only way that could happen was to leave a lot of the really tough decisions to the future?
What if The Real Original Intent...was that we work it out for ourselves as we go along?
For the past couple months I have been talking a lot about "taking it back", and I have two great chances for you to do just that over the next two days.
One of them involves actions that are taking place all over the USA-but the other is a very special and particular event which will be taking place in Vancouver, British Columbia on Wednesday.
This'll be a short story...but by the time we're done, you'll have stuff to do this week.
(Not a specifically New Hampshire focus in this - but since we elected Guinta, Bass, and Ayotte we have a special responsibility to watch the Social Security system they are committed to ending. - promoted by elwood)
There's a lot of ways to be petty and cheap and stupid, and a lot of ways to stick it to a program you don't like, and by extension, the clients of that program...and this week the House Republicans have embarked on an effort to combine the two into one petty, cheap, and stupid way to stick it to the clients of Social Security and the workers who administer the program.
They're going to sell it to you, if they can, as a way to "lower the deficit", or words similar...but what this is really about is making the actual Social Security program work less well-because, after all, if a program is popular today, the best way to make it less so is to apply a bit of "treat 'em like their cars were impounded" to every interaction customers have with the system.
And what better way to make sure that happens...then to aggressively demoralize everyone who works down at the ol' Social Security office?
So it's Day 3 of my fake campaign for Congress, and we've run into our first obstacle
The Fake Campaign, as you may recall, is fake headed for Wisconsin, to show solidarity, and we've fake hitched a ride on a delivery truck headed for Rush Limbaugh's Florida broadcasting studios-but we fake found ourselves caught up in the all-too-real Giant Grip Of Winter that has seized the Midwest over the past week.
We're back on the road now, but we were stuck for darn near a half-day there at Wall...and if you know anything about South Dakota, you know there are really only two things to do in the City of Wall: you can shuffle back and forth between Gold Diggers and the Badlands Bar, partaking of numerous intoxicating liquors along the way...or you can head on into Wall Drug (the same one that's on all those bumper stickers and signs) and partake of the finest display of Giant Jackalopia on the planet.
The Campaign, naturally, chose Jackalopia-and that's why today's Manifesto is all about the fake impromptu 5-cent-coffee-fueled Social Security Town Hall that we held in the Wall Drug Mall for several hours while we waited for I-90 to reopen.
We have spent the past two years watching as insanity has gripped Congress, and even more so with Republicans now running the House.
We have a wavering President, far too many feckless Democrats, and Republicans that have decided to dive headfirst into total "insane mode" in a full-blown effort to destroy this country just as fast as possible.
To give but one example, in my own District, WA-08, we are represented by the absolutely useless Republican Dave Reichert, whose best-known legislative achievement is that he has virtually no record of any legislative achievement whatever.
Now we've had a very interesting relationship, you and I, over these past few years; in my efforts to "bring you the story" I've been a fake political consultant, a fake lobbyist, even a fake historian...and now, I think it's time to try to bring our relationship to a new level.
And that's why, America, I'm announcing my fake candidacy for Congress.
We have seen some amazing days in Egypt, and it's provided a better lesson than anyone could have ever wanted for how taking action, against long odds, can really get something done.
A secret police mechanism has been pushed aside, an Army has chosen not to attack The People, and a President who was backed by the "full faith and credit" of the US Government on Friday was being told by that same US Government on Tuesday that it's time to go.
The People, in fact, spoke so loudly that Mr. Mubarak has informed Egyptians that he's going to "pursue corruption", which, if taken literally, could eventually look like a puppy chasing its own tail.
The People, however, are unhappy with his answer, and they're speaking even louder yet...even to the point of being willing to take beatings, gunfire, and, believe it or not...camel charges...to make their voices heard.
And that got me to thinking about Social Security.
You know, we are facing the potential for a great big Social Security fight for pretty much the entire term of the 112th Congress-and it seems to me that a series of great big "Cairo-style" marches might be the way to make our voices heard, so that this Congress understands that great big benefit cuts are something that we will not tolerate.
We have been talking a lot about Social Security these past few weeks, even to the point where I've missed out on talking about things that I also wanted to bring to the table, particularly the effort to reform Senate rules.
We'll make up for that today with a conversation that bears upon both of those issues, and a lot of others besides, by getting back to one of the fundamentals in a very real way...and today's fundamental involves the question of whether it's a good idea to keep pushing for what you want, even if it seems pointless at the time.
To put it another way: when it comes to this Administration and this Congress and trying to influence policy...if Elvis has already left the building, what's the point?
There have been many unlikely things that have happened this past month or so: some of them appearing as legislation, some of them appearing in the form of Republicans who set new records for running away from the words they used to get elected-and some of them appearing in the markets, where, believe it or not, many Europeans finds themselves wishing for our economic situation right about now.
There are even improbable sports stories: our frequently hapless Seattle Seahawks, the only team to ever make the NFL Playoffs with a losing record, are today preparing to knock the Chicago Bears out of their bid to play in the Super Bowl, having crushed the defending holders of the Lombardi Trophy just last week before the 12th Man in Seattle.
But as improbable as all that is, the one thing I never thought I would see is Barack Obama getting into a political argument with himself over Social Security-and then losing the argument.
Even more improbably, it looks like there's just about a week left for him to come to a decision...and it looks like you're going to have to help him make up his mind.
We have been following the story of Betsie Gallardo lately, she being the woman that, due to a medical decision, was being starved to death in a Florida prison.
She has inoperable cancer, her death is imminent, and her mother was working hard to make it possible for Betsie to die at home with some dignity.
As we reported just a couple days ago, half the battle was already won, as the Florida Department of Corrections had agreed to place her in a hospital so that she could again go back on nutritional support.
On January 5th, the Florida Parole Commission voted to allow her to end her life at home-and that means you spoke out, made a difference, and achieved a complete victory for the effort.
But even as we celebrate that victory, I think we should take a moment to realize that there is a bigger lesson here: the lesson that the fights over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), benefits for 9/11 first responders (the Zadroga Bill), and Betsie Gallardo's imminent release are all actually pointing us to a political strategy that works, over and over, if we are willing to understand the wisdom that's been laid before us.
