Opinions and Letters

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What Democrats Did In 21 Months (Policy over Politics)

Adapted and excerpted from the CFAF Newsletter of Nov 2, 2010

Rachel Maddow analyzes the Democratic record being judged on Election Day: "A lot of hard stuff done on hard problems in a short amount of time.": "The legislative agenda of the last 21 months was policy, not politics. It was designed to get stuff done for the country and in that sense, it's an investment in long-term political reward, not short-term political reward ... Hard votes with long-time horizons that don't translate into killing the other party in the next election."

Rachel Maddow analyzes the Democratic record being judged on Election Day: "A lot of hard stuff done on hard problems in a short amount of time.": "The legislative agenda of the last 21 months was policy, not politics. It was designed to get stuff done for the country and in that sense, it's an investment in long-term political reward, not short-term political reward ... Hard votes with long-time horizons that don't translate into killing the other party in the next election." Health reform already working, as small businesses expand coverage thanks to tax incentives. WSJ: "The number of small businesses offering health insurance to workers is projected to increase sharply this year, recent data show, a shift that researchers attribute to a tax credit in the health law ... According to a report by Bernstein Research in New York, the percentage of employers with between three and nine workers and which are offering insurance has increased to 59% this year, up from 46% last year." GM ready to gradually reduce government stake, as Treasury forces plan to maximize taxpayer investment. NYT: "The automaker is planning a three-for-one stock split that will bring its total outstanding shares to about 1.5 billion ... Through the offering, the Treasury Department, which gained a 61 percent stake in G.M. as part of its $50 billion bailout of the company last year, will sell about $7 billion worth of shares. That will cut its holdings in the company to just more than 43 percent ... Treasury intends to further reduce its holdings with subsequent stock sales over several years ... The company’s former government-appointed chief executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., had expressed a desire to sell the Treasury Department’s stake all at once if possible. But Treasury pushed back, seeking to maximize the price it fetched for its shares." Who turns out will make the difference. W. Post's E. J. Dionne: "Perhaps the likely voter screens are wrong and young voters will surprise the pollsters. Or the Democrats will have to go back and ask themselves if there was more they could have done to keep younger voters engaged. And the country will have to ask if it should be drawing excessively broad conclusions about the entire country from a midterm election in which older voters are vastly overrepresented compared with members of the rising generation." Third Way seeks to expand influence with Dems, attack "left-wing economic populism." Politico: "With cap and trade effectively dead in a Republican House, Third Way will release a 'Plan B”' for energy reform. On Dec. 7, it’s hosting a summit on nuclear energy — one of the group’s big causes — with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Obama energy czar Carol Browner. It will come out with a paper on the need for changes that could save Social Security, which it presents as a direct challenge to economist Paul Krugman."

Health reform already working, as small businesses expand coverage thanks to tax incentives. WSJ: "The number of small businesses offering health insurance to workers is projected to increase sharply this year, recent data show, a shift that researchers attribute to a tax credit in the health law ... According to a report by Bernstein Research in New York, the percentage of employers with between three and nine workers and which are offering insurance has increased to 59% this year, up from 46% last year."

GM ready to gradually reduce government stake, as Treasury forces plan to maximize taxpayer investment. NYT: "The automaker is planning a three-for-one stock split that will bring its total outstanding shares to about 1.5 billion ... Through the offering, the Treasury Department, which gained a 61 percent stake in G.M. as part of its $50 billion bailout of the company last year, will sell about $7 billion worth of shares. That will cut its holdings in the company to just more than 43 percent ... Treasury intends to further reduce its holdings with subsequent stock sales over several years ... The company’s former government-appointed chief executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., had expressed a desire to sell the Treasury Department’s stake all at once if possible. But Treasury pushed back, seeking to maximize the price it fetched for its shares."

Who turns out will make the difference. W. Post's E. J. Dionne: "Perhaps the likely voter screens are wrong and young voters will surprise the pollsters. Or the Democrats will have to go back and ask themselves if there was more they could have done to keep younger voters engaged. And the country will have to ask if it should be drawing excessively broad conclusions about the entire country from a midterm election in which older voters are vastly overrepresented compared with members of the rising generation."

Third Way seeks to expand influence with Dems, attack "left-wing economic populism." Politico: "With cap and trade effectively dead in a Republican House, Third Way will release a 'Plan B”' for energy reform. On Dec. 7, it’s hosting a summit on nuclear energy — one of the group’s big causes — with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Obama energy czar Carol Browner. It will come out with a paper on the need for changes that could save Social Security, which it presents as a direct challenge to economist Paul Krugman."

 



One and the Same: Great new DNC web ad.

Special session on oil drilling: People deserve to vote on ban

With a few exceptions, the Republican members of the Legislature have completely lost sight of why they are in their positions. They are so immersed in a "tiff" with the governor (who left the Republican Party to get elected to the U.S. Senate), that they have forgotten that they represent the people of Florida, not their own selfish interests.

The "take their ball and go home" childishness of the Republicans is an embarrassment to the people of Florida. The fact is that these legislators were sent to Tallahassee to represent their constituents. Instead, they allow their childishness to keep the people of Florida from deciding the future of the state. These small-minded bullies are uninterested in the serious problems facing the state. They only want to keep Charlie Crist from success.

As a Democrat, I don't want Crist to succeed either, and I am very dubious of his supposed change of heart. However, in this case, his flip-flopping has resulted in a call for an extra session to give the people a chance to save Florida's waters by deciding on a constitutional amendment to ban drilling off our coasts. In this instance, it does not matter that Crist cares only about himself. These bullies have no right to deny this opportunity to the people because they are mad at Crist.

I call on all the people represented by Republicans to call the offices of their representatives and senators, and tell them that the people should be allowed to make this decision.

Mary Lou Ambrose, Belleair Bluffs  (Club member)

Published as feature letter in the St. Pete Times July 20, 2010

Rep Markey: .... Foreign oil ... keeps US troops in harm's way. (video)

Rep Markey " The BP oil spill highlights our need to move to clean energy alternatives to oil, but it is not our only oil problem. Foreign oil continues to account for 1/2 our trade deficit and keeps US troops in harm's way. "

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: "America . . must never be on it's knees before Corporate Power!" (C-SPAN video)

This is a very powerful speech.  This sums up the damage done by decades of deregulation and worshiping at the altar of greed and profit.  I have always been impressed by Sen. Whitehouse, but this..... wow.   This says it all. 

Mr. President, we have watched with horror the unfolding disaster in the Gulf. We have seen precious lives lost; hard-earned livelihoods hammered; treasured ways of life imperiled. We have seen the largest deployment of resources ever against an environmental disaster. We have seen astonishing corporate negligence. But we have seen something else too-something that ought to be a lasting lesson from this catastrophe: we have seen the revolting specter of an agency of government subservient to - captive to - the industry it is supposed to regulate. ... ...What lesson of history, if left unlearned after this disaster, are we condemned to repeat? I hope that the lesson we learn is this one: that we can never, never, never again let agencies of the government of the United States of America fall so far under the influence of the corporations they are supposed to regulate.... ...This American government of ours should never, never be on its knees before corporate power, no matter how strong. It should never be in the thrall of corporate wealth no matter how vast. This American government of ours should never give the American citizen reason to question whose interests are being served. Never.... ...We must act in defense of the integrity of this great government of ours, which has brought such light to the world, such freedom and equality to our country. We cannot allow this government - that is a model around the world, that inspires people to risk their lives and fortunes to come to our shores - we cannot allow any element of this government to become the tool of corporate power, the avenue of corporate influence, the puppet of corporate tentacles.

Please make the time to watch the entire video (click below).   The transcript is also <<here>> with commentary added by MinistryOfTruth.

The Raging Grannies

I agree!  

posted by Wanda Schwerer

Obama Taps Former Senator Graham to Co-Chair Commission Probing BP Oil Spill

Published by truthout on  Saturday 22 May 2010 by: Shashank Bengali, Renee Schoof and Lesley Clark  |  McClatchy Newspapers 

Facing a growing furor over the monthlong Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the White House Friday named two environmentalists to lead a presidential commission investigating the disaster.... ...the Obama administration also appeared to be distancing itself from BP, forming a task force this week to measure the spilled crude that includes an engineering professor who's told Congress that he thinks the spill is far larger than originally thought, but not a representative from BP.... ... Graham, a longtime Florida senator who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, positioned himself during his campaign as an opponent of offshore drilling and frequently spoke about the need to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Reilly is a past president of the World Wildlife Fund and The Conservation Foundation. He also is a founding partner of a private equity fund, Aqua International Partners, which invests in water and renewable energy.

Read more

Submitted by Katleen Jamison, Member

Sylvia Earle Speaks for the Ocean and She Speaks for Me - Congressional Testimony

Sylvia Earle Speaks for the Ocean and She Speaks for Me - Congressional Testimony

This outstanding diary entry at dailyKos quotes, in full, the recent testimony before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the US House of Representatives on May 19.  Ellinoreianne adds her own commentary and pictures that add power to Dr. Earle's words.  I highly recommend it.

National Geographic also covered the testimony, since Dr. Earle is their "Explorer in Residence.  The NatGeo Newswatch report is also worth reading.  

Introducing Earle to the hearing, Committee Chairman James L. Oberstar, Democrat-Minnesota, said he had read her testimony (published in full below) and found it to be "positively lyrical" and reminiscent of Lord Byron's poetry about the ocean. "I am enthralled by your love of the ocean," he said.  "I really come to speak for the ocean," Earle said at the start of her remarks. "You are the only voice for the ocean that we will hear," Oberstar said when she had read her statement, adding that her testimony was "moving and compelling.

This disaster is huge, and growing. We can't tell, today, what the eventual extent of environmental and economic destruction may be.  Dr. Earle's testimony gives a hint of the cost we are paying in the pursuit of cheaper gasoline.

"The Gulf of Mexico is not, as some believe, an industrial wasteland, valuable primarily as a source of petrochemicals and a few species of ocean wildlife that humans exploit for food, commodities, and recreational fishing. These are assets worth protecting as if our lives depend on them, because in no small measure, they do," Earle said. "The Gulf of Mexico is a living laboratory, America's Mediterranean, a tri-national treasure better known for yielding hurricanes, petrochemicals, shrimp and, in recent years, notorious 'dead zones,' than for its vital role in generating oxygen, taking and holding carbon, distributing nutrients, stabilizing temperature, yielding freshwater to the skies that returns as rain--contributing to the ocean's planetary role as Earth's life support system," Earle added

I urge you to read Dr. Earle's full testimony.  I'll post video if I can locate it.

Link to C-SPAN coverage of the hearing

Wanda Schwerer

 

Florida Hometown Democracy (Amendment 4) 2010 Ballot Initiative

Our speakers at the March and April meetings spoke about Amendment 4.  In March George Niermann spoke in favor of the Amendment; in April Stephanie Oddo spoke against it.    The attendees found that, in the end, we wanted more.  MORE DETAILS!  MOEW ANSWERS! More explanation of the potential impact.

So, we asked members to do some research, since the Internet has over 4,000,000 references to "Florida Amendment 4 2010", there had to be SOMETHING that would address our questions. 

This post is more of a "reference" post -- links to other sites, quotes, documents.  It doesn't present any conclusions about "for" or "against".  Avail yourself of the information and post a comment on your take on the Amendment.  

So follow the link to the full posts.  PLEASE POST ADDITIONAL REFERENCE MATERIALS IN THE COMMENTS.   and... PLEASE Comment -- we need a healthy debate on this topic.    We all hope that before November we feel well informed enough to cast our votes either FOR or AGAINST and feel that we did the right thing for our communities and our state.