March on Washington for healthcare reform on Sept. 13th. Pass it along. The people united cannot be defeated.

For Bluetoe2 @ 1

Is there really a plan in the works?

To me it seems to rest on removing from the artificial person that is the corporation, its unrestricted right to “free speech” to at least restrict it in the political arena.

But of course the Supreme Court seems to be of another opinion. How does that get changed? Without it being rectified, nothing changes.

I think the plan is to present Obama with a brick wall that says “No public option, no bill.” And since he wants to pass healthcare reform at any cost, it (hopefully) forces him into twisting Blue Dog/conservadem arms and using the bully pulpit build demand for the public option.

Of course, it’s more likely that he’ll go after the progressives, but I’m really hoping they’ll stand firm.

hey, vote here on the public option.
LATIMES needs some help and we need to put a few turns on the poll that is up David Lazurus’ rear.
he just went on for 1500 words about how the public option is superfluous.

just 84 reponses. we can turn this into 98% want public option, in no time.
please do.
http://www.latimes.com/busines…..,post.poll

The approach to public financing is designed specifically to sidestep that particular hurdle. The public financing orgs like Change Congress and Public Campaign aren’t actually seeking restrictions on corporate donations – because they know the Supreme Court won’t allow it – they’re just trying to secure adequate public funding to make it completely possible to win without a dime of corporate money.

Voted – thanks

come on….
just 64% say the public option is crucial.
david lazurus is the second coming of jonah goldberg.

There is a sort of fundamental logic to it. Government inertia tends to favor an undeviating trajectory (the status quo). Any significant alteration in course can only occur as the result of an outside force.

That’s what I think too, as regards “artificial person.”

If you never die, (and we have corporations over 100 years old, ahem, mostly on Wall Street) you can’t have the same speech rights (read money) as people who actually do die, because the artificial person literally has no “skin” in the game. Just money interests.

I would wish for campaign finance but I don’t believe in fairys and pixies and unicorns, yes we need it, but we can not even convience the common american that we need healthcare reform, they will spin campaign finance like the communist party taking over to control the elections, how many more americans of small minds and big guns will show up to put a stop to it. not to mention corporate america owns washington and they are never going to let go until of course washington is underwater in 70 years and florida has been completly abandoned and washed away, then the middle of the road american who pays more attention to american idol will ask what went wrong and we can all say in a collective voice, YOU ARE WHAT WENT WRONG WITH AMERICA, YOU INTELLECTUALLY LAZY PERSON MORE INTERESTED IN YOUR ENTERTAINMENT THAN WHAT IS HAPPENING IN YOU CAPITOL!

The progressives have to be the path of most resistance.

Will there be video posted of Jane’s appearance tonight?

freep the poll:

http://www.latimes.com/busines…..umn?page=2

Damn Eli, that’s quite apt !

There must be a clause in the Constitution that says legislation can only be passed with the advice and consent of the biggest corporations. I haven’t found it yet, but it’s got to be in there somewhere.

OK…
For the record, Bill Maher is an ass.
Yet another damn villager.

Hi, Eli!

FunnyWheelieDiva

Here’s the video of Jane’s Appearance.

See the update above

I actually wanted to talk about the strategies, but there was no way to fit them in gracefully. It has four major prongs:

1) Donor Strike. They sign people up to promise never to donate money to anyone who does not pledge to support public financing. Sounds good, but it would probably make it a lot harder to reward good behavior like yesterday’s letter, and besides it just increases the percentage of money donated by corporations.

2) Remind congresscritters how much they really really hate spending all their time (Lessig says 30-70%) fundraising. Question is whether they hate fundraising more than they love job security.

3) Expose the congresscritters suckling at the corporate teat, like the ad campaign they ran about all the insurance company donations Ben Nelson took. Question is whether their constituents care enough about that to vote them out.

4) Support public financing initiatives at the state and local level. This will take a long time to bear fruit, but I think it’s actually the most promising strategy of all. Today’s state legislators are tomorrow’s reps and senators, and if we build up a bench of public financing supporters who wouldn’t be where they are without it, only then will reform have a fighting chance. But it would probably take 5-10 years to build critical mass at the state level, and another 5-15 (10-20?) for those state legislators to reach the big leagues.

I suppose the mistake (previously) was in waiting for Obama to lead the charge. He hinted pretty openly during the campaign that for any real reform to happen the American people would have to force him and the folks on the Hill to do it.

Hi Diva!

JINX!

70.4% say nay … keep this going folks !

And Valerie Jarrett at Netroots Nation, presumably speaking for him, explicitly said that the White House would not pressure the Blue Dogs *at all*, and they were looking to us to do it.

Which of course means that if we end up with shitty reform that everyone hates, it’s *our* fault for not bringing the Blue Dogs to heel.

Hmmm, if we call every BlueDog 17,000 times before September, that will unnerve them …

This past June, UCLA hosted William K. Black in their ongoing Hammer series. A brief write up is below as well as the link to watch the speech he gave. It is past time for the populace to wake up.

The Great American Bank Robbery

William K. Black, the former litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board who investigated the Savings and Loan disaster of the 1980s, discusses the latest scandal in which a single bank, IndyMac, lost more money than was lost during the entire Savings and Loan crisis. He will examine the political failure behind this economic disaster, in which not only massive fraud has taken place, but a vast transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class continues as the federal government bails out the seemingly reckless, if not the criminal. Black teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One.

http://hammer.ucla.edu/program…..ram_id/222

So the WH won’t pressure Blue Dogs—looks like they have all the time to pontificate about their good intentions but when time comes to deliver on a tough issue they bail out. Sounds like Profiles in Cowardice to me.

Jane is amazing, a progressive treasure!

Change Congress seems to be about withholding funds to offenders, no? Doesn’t that act just like term limits in getting rid of the obstacles to lobbyists?

Public Campaign – I don’t know about – their site is misbehaving. But what torrent of money offsets the individual corporate money and the combined industry association money?

Hah! I don’t get MSNBC in my basic cable package, so I track the madness through CNN. Right now on Anderson Cooper, they’re all breathless and agog with a “BREAKING NEWS” chyron that:

SOURCES: Dems consider pushing through health care reform without GOP support

Read: ZOMG, no BIPARTISANSHIP!

About god damned time!

I want my America back
I will fight to defend what is right
“Government’s first duty is to protect the people”
Healthcare’s only duty is to protect the people
I refuse to accept the death of America by natural causes
just as I refuse death by war and terror
My intent will not be blunted by fear

“There are no easy answers, there are only simple ones.”

Spread the word, keep up the fight. Do.

Damn I know the 17000 Unknown Callers I get every day unnerves me.

foothillsmike, Elliott, Eli:

Thanks so much!

Jane,

THANK YOU!

Aymen, sistah! I watched Rachel and Jane but I turned it off as soon as she showed Bill Maher’s ugly mug. I said “thanks for the warning” and turned back to watch the Tigers beat the Mariners. Yeah Tigers!!!!!

hey, come on.
freep this poll!

http://www.latimes.com/busines…..umn?page=2

My apologies if this has already been noted in the blogosphere, but I realized recently that another term for the system of campaign finance for our esteemed *cough* Members of Congress is

“Cash for Clunkers.”

it is a little thing…but this is an LA paper.
and Lazurus is a douche bag.

I see traces of cocaine on Alexander Hamilton’s Andrew Jackson’s mug.

Freeped!

@foothillsmike: EPUd from thread below; email me at kelly1_canfield [at] yahoo [dot] com and we’ll start figuting out how to do local Denver meetups.

@petro: PETRO!

Which is complete HORSE HOCKEY, of course. That’s de facto supporting the Blew Dawgz. Period.

HE wanted to be President…time he started actually doin’ the job.

FWDiva

LOL … what a country !

Kelly !

See ya at Late Nite.

Thanks,
But why’d ya gotta go hatin’ on my home team?

Kidding. They’re so good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, they should be the Official Team of the Democratic Party. Or the Dems should be The Official Party of the Seattle Mariners. Take yer pick.

FWDiva

I see stoned people. :)

Any meetups or rallies in NJ/NYC? (Gotta be, right?)

What more can you say, we give the wrong insentives – just look at Bush (I mean come one people loving that guy and thinking he is religious).

I know it aint your name, but the whole thing is beyond obvious – its egregious.

First step is total reform for elected officials.

Yeah? Ya think they’re sharing tonight?!

FWDiva

You think some day the “60 people” could be in the Senate rather than in the House? What would it take?

I was responding to foothillsmike from an earlier thread (EPU’d or Evil Parallel Universe’d) about an idea; that the FDL Event Widget (look top left of the page) could be cloned and modified so local progressives, despite their blog affiliation, could meet up for local support of each other and the issues.

That is not a reality at this time; I was just telling mike to email me for our own localaity. But hopefully NJ/NYC pups will heed your call. :)

Well, Pups
Gotta go buy some groceries. BBL.
Thanks for the company so far!

FWDiva

I must have missed this earlier…

WASHINGTON – ‘Political columnist Robert Novak, a conservative, pugilistic debater and proud owner of the “Prince of Darkness” moniker, died Tuesday after a battle with brain cancer that was diagnosed in July 2008. He was 78.’
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..obit_novak

I shoulda said “I see AMPED people.”

There was that article today about how 90% of the cash in the US has traces of coke on it. (bleh)

Stonewall Jackson was an entirely different person. Quite the looker, judging from the portrait he had taken in Spotsylvania, home of the measly vampires.

Hopefully, if given the choice between Blue Dogs and conservadems refusing to pass the public option and progressives refusing to pass anything else, the WH would opt to choose the pressure the ones who are in the wrong, but I can’t say I’m completely sure that will happen.

The other thing I worry about is that they decide to make the bill *so* shitty that some Republicans will start signing on to it.

1) I’m really not all that sold on the donor strike idea. I’m in favor of withholding support from bad congresscritters, I’m just not sure that’s the only dimension I would measure. Although, as I said, if we got public financing a lot of other stuff would fall into place.

2) Again, they have to work within the structure of what the Roberts Supreme Court will allow, and said court is probably about to use the Citizens United case to make it even *easier* for corporations to throw their weight around. The plan is to set the public financing cap at a level where a competently run campaign wouldn’t be totally drowned out by corporate money. I would prefer something that actually *matched* the corporate money, thus neutralizing it without infringing on it.

Admittedly, that would be expensive, but democracy is worth it – and it pales in comparison to what we spend on, say, Wall Street bailouts or interest on the national debt.

yep. Real unemployment at around 15%, 3.2 million homes foreclosed upon by the end of this year displacing 10 million people, 49 million without healthcare, government irredeemably corrupt, theocons plotting some type of coup, and everybody is jacked up on cocaine. I love my country.

This depends who he has more influence over…and unfortunately the Blue Dogs couldn’t care less what the President says. They get political points at home for opposing him.

Our politics is about personality, not issues, they win votes opposing Obama, doesn’t matter the issue.

I don’t think the progressives would score a whole lot of points in their blue districts by caving on the public option either.

I did a little light crunching on Jane’s PVI chart, and as long as everyone from a district with a PVI of +15 or higher holds the line, that’s a little more than the 40 votes needed to block a bad bill.

Given how the Obama and the Democrats are performing, doing the bidding of corporations and not people, we should be thinking of a good government movement, running candidates either inside or outside the Democratic party but with their allegiances to progressives and not Democrats.

There are a number of issues in this, and none of them are easy. The short-term one is continuing to whip votes in Congress to make sure that Congress does what it promised to do on all of the signature agenda items from the last campaign.

The medium term one we are beginning to address with the use of BlueAmerican, that is to buy our country back from the corporations. What is striking is how cheaply members of Congress sell out. We can raise the cost of buying a member of Congress just by our own fundraising on behalf of their district. A second thing we need to start doing is calling out job extortion for what it is – extortion. If you do or if you don’t do …then that will lose jobs has been the trump card for corporations deaing with local, state, and the federal government. It’s time to say “Enough”.

The long term one probably takes a constitutional amendment to explicitly define in the Constitution the legal standing of corporations and the rights of individuals vis-a-vis corporations. The current argument seems to be that corporations are covered by the freedom to associate and that some how the state privilege of incorporation makes them a legal person wit all the rights and privileges of the human beings who are also legal persons. The contradiction is that the limitation on liability makes prosecution of those who act in the name of the corporation as individuals more difficult, which defeats accountability. And the death penalty for a corporation means nothing; owners routinely commit corporation suicide just to escape legal consequences.

The legal problem with a constitutional amendment is to draft it general enough to serve well without future amendment but specific enough to avoid unintended cosequences that might turn its meaning inside out. Just like what happened to the Fifth Amendment, whose “taking” clause is routinely used to frustrate common-sense regulation.

Note; this is not a reply to 39; just hit the reply link instead of the preview one. This goes with the main thread.

Hmmm this is sounding like health reform without the public option. I mean if all that is left in that argument is an employer mandate, all you are doing is giving money to insurance companies.

If all you do is raise the public cap, all you are doing is giving money to the various media outlets. And my initial observation still holds, they have a hell of of a lot more money then we will ever have – especially when de-regulators have sway in Congress.

A second thing we need to start doing is calling out job extortion for what it is – extortion. If you do or if you don’t do …then that will lose jobs has been the trump card for corporations deaing with local, state, and the federal government. It’s time to say “Enough”.

One of the Republicans’ slickest tricks was when they reframed “profit” as “jobs”.

Getting them to do what is right and what they were elected to do shouldn’t come down to a f&*king bidding war.

Well, Armey has one. Only It’s 9/12/09.

I don’t think 9/13 will be worth much if 9/12 goes unchallenged, ya know?

I don’t think that would happen, though. What’s the point of pouring corporate money into a campaign when you know your opponent can match it without breaking a sweat? I think a matching funds provision like that would actually discourage candidates and incumbents from seeking massive corporate money, because they would be expending more time and effort – time and effort that could be spent campaigning and meeting constituents – for no net advantage.

Therein lies the danger.

Great post, Eli. Thanks.

And thanks to the blogmistress for her continued wonderful appearances on cable teevee. Tonight’s was particularly spectacular, with just the right amount of emotion, I thought.

Exactly. It’s great that we’ve managed to get to this point where some kind of crappy mandate-without-a-public-option “reform” no longer has the look of inevitability, but it shouldn’t be something that takes a full-court press to barely fend off.

Just voted, it’s 78% now. Relax.

Absolutely. Plain as phreakin day.
Spot on. *thumbsup*

We need more people on the television machine reminding those who defend the Status Quo that the public option was the compromise.

My argument then becomes one of how do you make it self sustaining? Without inherent Constitutional backing (recall the legal person that this started with) it becomes what? a checkbox on a tax return? (I am trivializing it) but without institutional support – an agency or something that MUST be dismantled to get rid of – it is just a tangle of regulation that can be red-lined in a budget. Not that an agency couldn’t be red-lined but it’s at least I think it requires more exertion.

I really liked the tone of the Hamsher-Maddow piece tonight.
It was as if Rachel were saying, “Look what you did.”

Dick Armey leading his dick army…

Doesn’t matter.

We know the score, we know the deal.

We were told during the campaign.

And since, repeatedly.

“MAKE ME DO IT.”

At our own peril alone do we fail to acknowledge the phreakin obvious set in front of us.

Do we want it, or not?

If we want it, we need to force them to GIVE it to us.

Pressure, of all kinds, on all of them.

Nothing less.

Bodies in the streets would be the best way. Millions.

But so far . . . *crickets*

NOW what bug up FunnyD? You just aren’t funny today . . .

Maher is a treasure. How’d he piss you off?

Sure am glad I got clothes on.

90% of his mugs, if ya believe the nooze . . .

[stands up, applauds]

heh.

Health care debate recap:

http://www.salon.com/comics/to…..index.html

Okay, let’s see how much money we’re talking about. These figures are probably pretty out-of-date, but I bet they’re at least in the right ballpark:

In 1976, winning candidates for the House spent an average of $87,000 on their campaigns. In 2004, they spent an average of $1 million. For Senate candidates, the average cost of winning jumped from $609,000 in 1976 to $7 million in 2004. The Center for Public Integrity’s study was sponsored by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

So for 435 congressional seats, we’re probably talking about an average of $870 million… every two years. That’s barely a rounding error.

For 100 Senate seats, if we round that up to $10 million for the winning candidate and double that, we’re looking at about $2 billion… spread out over six years. Even if you double both those totals to take primaries into account, we’re still looking at very manageable numbers, something like $1.5 billion a year. That could be funded with a very small tax, or carved out of an existing government agency (FEC? GSA? GAO?).

Glenn Beck is scheduled to be interviewed on WMNF Tampa tomorrow sometime between 1-2 ET. I don’t know if it’s live or recorded. Interview by Rob Lorei, News Director and co-founder of the station. I know Rob quite well and this should be interesting.

DOD.

They could fund it out of petty cash, but I would rather it were an agency concerned with elections, nuts & bolts, or good government. There are probably better choices, but those were the first to come to mind.

*Not* DHS.

*Not* D(F)HS.

Hmmm

Not to be a nudge but the Marx Brothers (is there a Hitler clause equivalent when invoking the Marx brothers in an argument?) in some movie about buying worthless land in Florida. Chico is charged with bidding the price up on pieces of swamp land. It isn’t his money you see, so he bids something like : “you say 100 I say 200 you say 300 hundred I say 400. What do I care?”

My point: igniting (or more accurately furthering) the price war that is advertising for political campaigns.

If there was a mandate for free advertising none of this would be an issue I suppose or better and more directly if corporate entities couldn’t do politics. But we can’t have that.

So once again (why does health care keep being relevant?) like employer based health care, instead of solving the underlying problem we are dealing with the symptoms of the disease created by the problem.

While I do consider the media’s role as conservative propaganda outlets to be almost as damaging as the corporate money in our elections, I don’t consider the money the media gets from political campaigns to be an “underlying problem” in itself.

The underlying problem is that a majority of politicians rely on corporate money to win elections, and therefore consistently make decisions based on what’s good for their corporate benefactors and not what’s good for America or their constituents. And I don’t think the amount of money the media companies make off of campaigns has any effect on that, nor do I think it has any effect on how much they corrupt our discourse – especially since they’re owned by giant conglomerates that benefit more from the policies the media facilitates than they do from the media’s revenue.

But if public financing reform includes campaign advertising reform and requires the media to provide free or discounted ad slots, I think that would be a fine thing. I’m just not sure where the political pressure or leverage for it would come from. Ironically, it would probably be a lot easier to pass *after* public financing. Although the media might be able to use their ability to make in-kind contributions of favorable coverage (and the threat of unfavorable coverage) as leverage to prevent that from happening.

I actually think media reform is an even tougher nut to crack than campaign finance. Sure, you can deconsolidate the media, but at the end of the day, they’re *still* owned by corporations.

crackpot realism.

why not dare to address running grassroots Independent or 3rd party candidates who are not beholden to corporate money?

serious health care reform = bad for the insurance cartel, but progressives will consider it. . .
serious reform and regulation of the financial sector = bad for Goldman Sachs & such, but progressives will consider it . . .
serious reform to slow CO2 buildup that could tip the climate over = bad for the oil industry but progressives will consider it….
serious opposition to Bush/Obama failed, missionless wars = bad for the MIC but progressives will consider it . . .

serious reform of the corrupt, broken two-party duopoly = bad for the Democratic Party so progressives will not consider it!!!

er, seriously, none of the other things will be addressed until you dare to address the futility of trying to get the corporate controlled Democratic Party to do the right thing . . . it is not in the Donkey’s nature, and it gets rewarded richly for doing the bidding of your opponents!

Public financing would actually make it a lot easier for a third-party candidate to mount a viable campaign…

indeed, but I was a little irate because you omitted it from your list in post 20, meanwhile including a 15yr timeline of weaning state legislators off of corporate bribes.

and, for those who pine for a Democratic party that does the right thing occasionally, a 3rd party to its left is just what the Dr. orders . . ..

I consider it to be more of a problem with the playing field than with the players. As long as corporate money trumps all else, and with no party establishment to provide additional money and resources, progressive third-party candidates will have a very hard time winning at the federal level, even *with* netroots support.

The best way to get third party candidates elected is to level the playing field for them. But I suspect that the Democrats would be a lot more progressive (or perhaps attract more progressive candidates) if they didn’t have to chase corporate money. They would have both the need and the ability to be more responsive to their constituents’ needs, which is what their job is supposed to be all about.

but, barring a meteor impact or the return of Jesus himself, corporate money will continue to trump all else with the (R)’s and the (D)’s – it is all they know.

asking them to level the playing field would be like asking them to remove their throwing arm with something rusty, and toothy.

netroots is still a baby, very young – showed some skill in 2004, catalyzed authentically by Howard Dean. 2006, netroots power contributed to booting loathsome Lieberman.

2008, Obama dazzled everybody with shiny objects – winning AdAge’s Marketer of the Year campaign as well as the Presidency:

http://adage.com/moy2008/article?article_id=131810

my point is – and end run around the maginot line of corporate money/2 Party duopoly should not be ‘left off the table’ as the saying goes.

netroots strength has not really been tested yet, and it needs to release the apron strings that tether it to the Democratic Party before it can have any idea what it is capable of.

I agree that the main obstacle to public financing is the fact that incumbents are the ones doing the voting. Again, do they hate fundraising more than they love their job security? For the most part, I think the answer is still hell no. The best bet is to gradually populate Congress with public financing supporters by reforming that state-level feeder system.

I still have trouble envisioning very many scenarios where an independent candidate would do anything other than sabotage the election of a Blue Dog. Which I’m increasingly in favor of, but it could probably be accomplished just as well by simply sitting the race out, which is a lot cheaper and easier.

I believe FDL actually *did* host a Green candidate on Blue America once, so it is a possibility, but it has to be someone who looks like a strong enough candidate to win without any party backing at all, and those are few and far between (and that’s not a slight against independents – most Democrats & Republicans couldn’t win without any party backing either).

I guess what it comes down to is, if it doesn’t look like a third-party candidate is able to get elected, then it’s hard to see what we gain by supporting them. Again, if we just want to scare or get rid of Blue Dogs, we can just stand by and watch them go down, or support a primary challenger.

I guess what it comes down to is, if it doesn’t look like a third-party candidate is able to get elected, then it’s hard to see what we gain by supporting them. Again, if we just want to scare or get rid of Blue Dogs, we can just stand by and watch them go down, or support a primary challenger.

thanks for engaging with me on this.

this electability crux we have here is another chicken & egg dilemma, like true Single Payer, where ‘pragmatists’ cannot fight for it because it is regarded as politically impossible, yet it will remain politically impossible as long as such a broad swathe of people who care about such things won’t fight for it.

I use ‘chicken & egg dilemma’ to refer to a real dilemma, without a clear right/wrong.

I’m just holding up my side, which, I guess, is don’t try to mutate the chicken, that (D) hen is ornery, mutate the egg.

I think a large part of where we disagree is that you believe the Democrats would continue to be corrupt even if they were taking public money rather than corporate money, and I think they wouldn’t. Or perhaps the right word would be *couldn’t*. They would be far less insulated from their constituents, and have a lot more motivation not to piss them off.

One thing which I did not see addressed in Public Campaign’s list of strategies was a remedy for the congress/lobbyist revolving door. I think that two-year waiting period is still way too short. Maybe 10 or 15 years would be okay – let them earn an honest living for a while before they make a fortune on K Street.

78.5% at 2:54 am. Hooray for our side.

RE: campaign finance issues
It would be interesting to rate all the Repubs and Dems on where their campaign funds are coming from.
See http://www.opensecrets.org/pol…..cycle=2008 for where Conrad’s money is coming from. Someone could do an analysis from opensecrets data for that kind of task.

BLessings to all,

March on Washington September 13 for meaningful healthcare reform. Pass it on.