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The Progress Report

Could This be Where It All Begins?

May 14th, 2010
by Tom.
1 comment

The Progress Report wrote:

BP Oil Disaster

BP Oil Platform Collapses in Gulf of Mexico

Beyond Petroleum

From: The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 9:40 AM
To: tom@tomchambless.com
Subject: Beyond Petroleum

FIGHTING THE OIL ADDICTION: The BP blowout is changing the politics of oil in this
 country, with polls finding that “Americans have turned far less supportive of increased drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coastline.” Although Louisiana’s senators, Mary Landrieu (D) and David Vitter (R) continue to defend BP and our nation’s addiction to oil, some Florida politicians who supported the “Drill Baby Drill” efforts have strongly pulled back, while Mississippi and Alabama politicians have gotten queasy about their former support for drilling. Obama has halted his drive to promote offshore drilling as safe energy, and today sent Congress a legislative package to deal with the immediate crisis.

Could this be where it all begins? President Obama said in Chicago after his triumphant victory that this is the time where it all begins, where generations from now will look back and point to this time as where we started to heal. Could this be a new beginning for American politics – one that swells the ranks of those who think that we must wean ourselves from oil. It could be. It could happen with the right circumstances. All that needs to happen now is for a voice to come forth with strength and enough forcefulness to keep the momentum alive.

Today, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) are unveiling the American Power Act to tackle this generational challenge. The American Power Act includes provisions that limit Obama’s offshore drilling plans and grant a veto over drilling to any state that could be affected by a spill. The legislation invests billions in green transportation initiatives, public transit, and natural gas trucks and buses to reduce demand for oil. It also critically caps fossil fuel pollution, which would finally address the ongoing climate disasters like those that devastated New Orleans and Nashville while weaning our nation off its addiction to oil.

Could these men be that voice? Can the Democratic Party candidate for president in 2004, John Kerry, and the Democratic Party vice-presidential candidate in 2000, Joe Lieberman, have the gravitas to not only rally the base but gain enough momentum with all Americans to build a strong national sentiment toward finally ridding ourselves of oil? Could the introduction of this bill, The American Power Act, one that could really mean something toward a clean future for our grand kids, and one that is introduced at a time of decreased interest in off-shore drilling, be the greatest timing ever?

The disaster in slow motion that is happening now off the coast of New Orleans may be the shock that we need as a nation to move the country in the right direction – toward capping CO2 emissions and toward renewable power. It has never been a question of “if” we move toward renewable power and end our addiction to coal and oil, but a question of “when”. That when could be and must be, now.

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From the eMail Bag: Fixing the Filibuster, Part 3

Jan 26th, 2010
by Tom.
1 comment

The Progress Report wrote:

Democracy Subverted


From: The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]
Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 10:10 AM
To: tom
Subject: Democracy Subverted

Follow Up Flag: Follow up
Flag Status: Red
CONGRESS

Democracy Subverted

Right-wing Subverts our Government

While it is now taken for granted than any major piece of legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate, this has not always been the case. Use of the filibuster– the minority’s tactic to halt action on a bill through endless debate –has skyrocketed in the past two decades, creating a de facto need for 60 votes to get anything done. It only requires 51 votes to pass any bill, but it takes 60 votes to invoke cloture to end debate and pass the bill. There are now double the number of cloture votes as there were a decade ago, and triple the numbers of 20 years ago As evidenced by the ongoing health care reform debate, the filibuster cripples the Senate’s ability to make progress. The filibuster also gives an undue amount of power to individual senators and allows them to exploit the process for their narrow interests, dictating policy outcomes. For instance, Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) threat to filibuster health care reform forced the removal of the public option and the Medicare buy-in, despite their tremendous popularity. Moreover, as Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) noted, the filibuster removes electoral accountability by giving the losing party the ability to obstruct the winning party’s agenda. “It’s a system in which the minority benefits if the government fails, and the minority has the power to ensure failure,” Center for American Progress Action Fund fellow Matt Yglesias noted. Under President Obama, the Republican minority has repeatedly used and abused the practice of filibusters to obstruct the progressive agenda. The House was able to pass a health care reform bill with a robust public option, a clean energy and greenhouse gas pollution reduction bill to fight climate change, and acomprehensive financial regulatory reform bill with majority votes. However, because of the filibuster, each bill has languished in the Senate.

The Senate minority has the power to ensure the failure of our government. Never before in the history of the United States has a major political party set out to purposefully ensure the failure of the government. The right-wing nut jobs are forcing every bill in Congress to a 60 vote margin, and impossible bar to reach, and are using this tool to bring down the President.

This unprecedented use of the filibuster is obvious in its intent. The Republicans find themselves, as a result of the horrible abuses of power by President George Bush, in the smallest minority they have seen in several generations. They are striking back with everything they can throw at the Democrats from the filibuster, to heckling at town hall meetings, to employing their own cable television network (Fox) to propel their talking points and other proapganda. It is time that the Democratic majority fights back.

I have emailed my Senators urging them to convince the Democratic majority to employ the “Nuclear Option”, a parlimentary proceedure that is not a Senate rule, but has been used in the past to overcome filibusters. It is time to act. Here is my email to my two Senators.

The Senate Republicans are abusing the use of the filibuster. When they use the filibuster they are not honestly debating issues, instead they are obstinately refusing to listen to our side and voting “no” on any legislation no matter what concessions have been made to them. The result is that a small minority is holding Congress hostage until they get every single thing they want and that is not the way it is supposed to work.

It is time that Senate Democrats stood up to the right-wings insistence on a 60 vote supermajority and take direct aim at the abuse of the filibuster. To do this, I recommend the use of the so called “Nuclear Option”. If you can get a simple majority to vote on a point of order challenging the constitutionality of the filibuster, then the filibuster can be defeated. I strongly recommend this action. The Republican minority must realize that elections matter, and that they cannot suffer the Senate to abide by a minority that could conceivably be as small as one Senator. Please stop this abuse, convince the Democratic Senators to use the nuclear option.

Please do something, call or write your Senators.

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From the eMail Bag: America’s Biggest Fool

Jan 11th, 2010
by Tom.
No comments yet

The Progress Report wrote:

Nerves Of Steele

Michael Steele: "It's all about me"

From: The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2010 7:54 AM
To: Tom
Subject: Nerves Of Steele
 
Almost one year ago, on Jan. 30, 2008, the Republican National Committee (RNC) made history and elected its first African-American chairman, signaling that it was ready to move
in a new direction and tackle its problems in reaching out to young and minority voters. The contentious race for the chairmanship between five candidates came down to a choice between Michael Steele and Katon Dawson, who was best-known for once belonging to a whites-only country club. After six rounds of balloting, Steele won. “We have been misdefined as a party that doesn’t care, a party that’s insensitive, a party that is unconcerned about minorities, a party that is unconcerned about the lives and the expectations and dreams of average Americans,” Steele said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.” But now, many Republicans are suffering a case of buyer’s remorse. Steele’s “urban-suburban hip-hop” strategy has engendered more ridicule than admiration, more headaches than positive press. The disarray in the conservative movement has intensified, and leaders are still struggling to come up with solutions to the country’s problems. “I’m disappointed because what I saw very frequently during the chairman’s election was an articulate spokesman for our candidates and the conservative cause,” a state GOP chairman told Politico. “What I’ve seen since then is, well, I’m disappointed and surprised at the number of gaffes.”

DIVIDING THE RIGHT: The Republican Party is increasingly being split between “big tent” moderates and Tea Party conservatives, with no clear leader directing the whole show. Stuck in the middle of this fight is Steele, who is trying to be that person but has been angering all sides. Last week he told Fox News, “As I like to tell people — long before there was this big push on tea parties — if I wasn’t doing this job, I’d be out there with the tea partiers.” But during the summer, he tried to distance himself from some of the protests and his credentials on far-right priorities have been called into question. Not surprisingly, the Tea Partiers aren’t exactly embracing him with open arms. An Illinois Tea Party organizer has said that Steele isn’t welcome in their movement, and right-wing activist Dana Loesch eviscerated Steele when he backed out of an interview on her radio show at the last minute. Part of their frustration stems from the Republican Party’s involvement in the NY-23 special election. The RNC endorsed Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava over Conservative Party candidate and far-right favorite Doug Hoffman. In response to low polling numbers, Scozzafava backed out at the last minute, but Hoffman ended up losing the traditionally Republican seat to Democrat Bill Owens. Steele’s uncomfortable relationship with the far right was best exemplified by his flip-flopping on how to deal with hate radio host Rush Limbaugh. More recently, Steele angered the traditional GOP establishment by saying that he wasn’t sure whether Republicans were “ready” to win back power in Congress and lead. “Steele is setting us far back with his comments and it needs to stop,” one GOP congressional aide complained on a conference call last week.

As far as I’m concerned the right can just go ahead and split itself to the core. They will weaken an already small and geographical base through division and in-party fighting. If they want to turn the conservatives against the moderates, this is alright with me. And, if the guy who is supposed to be most focused on the mid-terms seems to be focused on himself, this is alright with me, too. The Republican Party has turned itself into a fractured, ideological mess and they continue to re-define their party with every Tea Bag protest that they endorse.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: While Republicans may have been excited that Steele could be a charismatic media figure for the Party, many of them are now trying to get the chairman off the air, bracing themselves for “cringeworthy quote[s]” whenever he goes on. This frustration with Steele has been compounded in recent days as the chairman has embarked on his personal tour for his book, “Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda.” Republican congressional leaders were caught off-guard by the book, saying they had no input on the blueprint and “first learned of the book by watching Steele’s television appearances.” Moreover, the Washington Times recently reported revealing that Steele has been “using his title to market himself for paid appearances nationwide, personally profiting from speeches with fees of up to $20,000,” a move sharply criticized by former RNC chairs. Last year, Steele angered Republicans for using the Party’s limited resources to redecorate his office, and more recently, “transferred $20K to the Northern Mariana Islands in the past 2 months…in what could be support for local candidates or, RNC critics say, political payback.” 

Michael Steele has humiliated the office he was elected to serve and has seemingly forgotten what service to the party is all about. Instead he shines any kind of light on himself that he can find, never mind the gaffes, never mind the flip-flops, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Steele has turned his position into a three ring media circus putting himself in the center ring instead of party candidates. His position as chair of the RNC is to raise money, recruit candidates, and win elections.

He has failed at all three.

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