Yes, Ned Lamont may be the most important name in 2009 politics. Right now, it may be a more important name than Barack Obama. Let me explain.
The fight for health care reform comes closer than it has ever been before, and the Republican party continues to demonstrate that no compromise, not even tort reform, will draw a single Republican vote. At this point, the last thing standing between us and a strong health care bill is conservative or moderate Democrats. The progressive blogosphere has drawn a line in the sand. And I am reminded of 2006, and the Lieberman vs Lamont primary. I am reminded that when progressives draw a line in the sand on the most important issues to voters, they will follow through on holding politicians accountable.
Ms. Leslie Moriarty, Vice Chairman
Ms. susan Elllis
Ms. Natalie Queen
Mr. Jonathan Cohen
Ms. Nancy Kail
Dear Democratic Board of Education Members of Greenwich,
Newly installed schools superintendent Dr. Sidney Freund has come to the shameful and indefensible decision that our students should not be permitted to view the address to our nation's students by United States President Barack Obama as scheduled on Tuesday, but to indefinitely postpone it. This is not Alabama, or some other ignorant Southern backwater community, but Greenwich, Connecticut. Congressman Jim Himes has called the decision to refuse to show the broadcast to students on Tuesday as a "disservice" to our young people, and state education superintendent Mark McQuillan has also condemned moves by local superintendents to postpone or cancel viewing of the president's broadcast. Dr. Freund mentioned that he thought it was possible that President Obama's address could be politicized. But his decision to censure the address to our nation's students is itself a blatant politicization, and an implicit endorsement of the right-wing campaign to prevent the president of the United States from communicating with our youth, just as previous Republican presidents have done.
It is clear that Dr. Freund's excuses regarding needing time to arrange technical equipment and develop discussion material are simply smoke screens aimed at diverting attention from what is actually his political decision to snub the president of the United States. As quoted in Greenwich Time, he had at least a week to iron out any technical and scheduling difficulties associated with the address, and the school system was able to show President Obama's inauguration live in January with little disruption or technical difficulties.
You have been elected to seats on the Board of Education specifically reserved for Democratic members in order to make sure that Democratic voters and residents have their voices heard on that important body. I harbor no expectation that your Republican counterparts will do the right thing regarding this issue. The question now is whether you will take your responsibilities as Democratic members seriously and stand up against this shameful decision by the superintendent who reports to you.
It's time to make a stand and overrule Dr. Freund who reports to you. You might find doing so distasteful, but permitting this shameful decision to stand would be even worse.
You occupy Democratic seats on the Board of Education. It's up to you to speak out as Democrats and Americans and to act. Doing nothing is not an option.
See below an email those of us on the info@barackobama list just got from President Obama...please note that this email was sponsored by Organizing for America, the organizing arm of the Democratic National Committee:
EMAIL FROM THE PRESIDENT:
Jennifer --
For too long American consumers haven't had many of the protections they need and deserve. And some of the biggest problems have been in the credit card industry.
But today -- thanks to the extraordinary efforts of your senator, Chris Dodd -- I signed a bill that restores a sense of fairness and transparency to the credit card industry.
As Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Dodd was the driving force behind this bill. He's the one who built the bipartisan coalition that passed this crucial reform by a huge margin -- 90 to 5.
Will you take a moment and join me in thanking Senator Dodd for his outstanding work on behalf of families in Connecticut and across the country?
Thank Senator Dodd
At some point, nearly every credit card user has been affected by unfair and abusive practices. That's why I asked Congress to send me a bill that would make sure that families and businesses have access to the credit they need -- and that they have the full weight and protection of the law on their side.
The new legislation does exactly that: it provides strong, reliable protections for consumers and stops lenders from blindsiding ordinary people with unfair rate hikes and confusing fine print.
Millions of American families have already been struggling since the financial downturn last year. They cannot afford to worry about crippling penalties or "any time, any reason" interest rate hikes.
Now they don't have to.
Please join me in thanking Senator Dodd for his exceptional service:
Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee -- 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
VAN SUSTEREN: Again, the whole business about the torture memos being released by the Obama administration -- good idea or bad idea?
LIEBERMAN: I thought release of the memos was a bad idea.
The President of the United States as the commander in chief has the right to decide what kinds of tactics he wants to use with detainees who we believe are associated with terrorism and what kinds he does not want to use. Congress legislated on that. I was a cosponsor with Senator McCain of the anti-torture provisions we put into law.
But once you start to take internal memos that have been designated as top secret --
VAN SUSTEREN: Even if it's -- first of all, is waterboarding torture?
LIEBERMAN: Well, I take a minority position on this. Most people think it's definitely torture. The truth is, it has mostly a psychological impact on people. It's a terrible thing to do.
I have said in the past, and I'll say it again to you, that I want the president of the United States in a given circumstance where we believe somebody we've got in our control may have information that could help us stop an attack, an imminent attack on the United States like 9/11 or, god forbid, worse, we ought to be able to use something like waterboarding.
But, generally speaking, it ought to not be on the table.
Incidentally, I believe General Hayden when he says that not just waterboarding, which he stopped, as I understand it, but a number of the other items on that list that have been published, really did work, did help to give us a lot of information we have about Al Qaeda.
Why do I think it was a mistake to give it out? It wasn't necessary. It just helps our enemies. It doesn't really help us.
Again, the president can decide what tactics he wants the CIA or the military to use on people we capture, suspects of terrorism. But to let our enemies know what we are going to do or not do, that's not a good idea.
Below is my letter to Manchester Journal-Inquirer editorial page editor Keith Burris setting him straight about Ned Lamont after he went after Ned in a bizarre oped recently.
I was, frankly, dismayed by your oped regarding Ned Lamont and his possible run for governor of the state of Connecticut ("Lamont for Governor?"). First, you suggested that Mr. Lamont lost the general election because he wasn't a very good politician and Joe Lieberman was. Furthermore, you went on, Mr. Lamont still isn't a very good politician. Let's take a look at the facts.
To begin, let's keep in mind what actually happened: in August 2006 a guy named Ned Lamont, whom virtually no one in the state had heard of six months before, defeated Joe Lieberman, a three-decade incumbent politician, one of the best-known politicians not only in the Constitution State, but in the entire United States, in the Connecticut Democratic primary that featured an overwhelming turnout. Now a guy just doesn't come out of nowhere to defeat Joe Lieberman if he's not one heckuva politician. Lamont went on to lose the general election to Lieberman, but look what he was up against.
In the general election, Lieberman enjoyed tremendous assistance from 1) the overwhelming support of the Republican Party, including the Republicans' decision not to field a strong candidate and to withhold virtually all financial support from that candidate, 2) close strategic guidance from Karl Rove, who was on the phone with Lieberman virtually on a daily basis, 3) Republican operatives to run his campaign seconded from Mayor Bloomberg to Lieberman's campaign, and 4) massive financial support from Republican donors mobilized by the Republican Party. And Lieberman had the support of not only the up-and-coming Illinois senator Barack Obama, who spoke on his behalf at the party's JJB dinner, but also the most popular Democrat in the country and the state in Bill Clinton, who filmed TV ads for Lieberman near the end of the primary campaign. Last, virtually the entire Democratic establishment either stayed clear of Ned Lamont during the general election campaign, or, as did Jim Amman, defied the primary vote and supported Lieberman.
U.S. President Barack Obama (L) is embraced by U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman after Obama delivered a primetime address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 24, 2009.
President Barack Obama, center, signs the Lilly Ledbetter Bill with Lilly Ledbetter, fourth from the left, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, in the East Room at the White House in Washington.
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama signed an equal pay bill into law Thursday, declaring that it's a family issue, not just a women's issue.
The president picked the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act for the first piece of legislation to sign as president.
He appeared before a packed East Room audience for a ceremony, and Ledbetter stood at his side.
His entrance in the room was met with hearty cheers from the many labor and women's groups represented there. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman speaker in the history of Congress, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were present.
The following is a letter to the editor to Greenwich Post I authored. I am told it has to be cut back sharply to get printed (fewer pages and all). But I think it deserves a full airing on the internet:
On January 8, Greenwich Post columnist Joe Pisani wrote in his column ("Wrong is Wrong") that Americans have "reached the point where we can't tell right from wrong...It's a phenomenon that began back in the 1960's when we institutionalized moral relativism." This is the second time that Pisani has railed against the "Sixties". Last year, on the exact day when Barack Obama made history as the first African-American to accept the nomination for president of a major political party, Pisani wrote that the Sixties gave us nothing but "the sexual revolution, affordable pot, and tie-dyed T-shirts." That's all Pisani believes that the Sixties Generation gave America? Really?
Does Pisani include the Civil Rights Movement as a contributor to "institutional moral relativism"? Indeed, were Pisani's screeds against the Sixties, timed as the first one was to coincide with the nomination of an African-American by the Democratic Party, a thinly veiled Trent Lott-like criticism of integration? Does he believe that the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in 1964 and 1965 distorted our "moral compass", rather than, as most Americans believe, cleansing America of the great shame of institutional racism? Was he criticizing the 1967 Supreme Court decision in Loving v Virginia that struck down laws forbidding inter-racial marriage? At the time he was born President Barack Obama's parents could have been jailed and prosecuted in 37 states, and had those laws not been eliminated this writer and his wife would be considered criminals today.
The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire is reporting that Rep. Rosa DeLauro is a top contender for Labor Secretary:
Rep. Rosa DeLauro is also a top contender in the protracted hunt for a Labor secretary and according to sources familiar with her travels, the Connecticut Democrat has traveled to Chicago.
I don't know much about Rep. DeLauro's record on labor, so I'll leave that up to y'all to discus.
UPDATE: Great catch Ryan...here's a quick rundown of her credentials.
DeLauro has been a congresswoman since 1990 and currently sits on the labor, health and human services, and education subcommittee of the appropriations committee. She's been a leader on health policy and workers' rights, sponsoring legislation to guarantee employees' sick leave and equal pay for men and women. She previously served as the executive director of EMILY's List and is the second-highest ranking woman in the House. Earlier this year, she came to the defense of New Haven labor unions, which were protesting food services giant Aramark's treatment of workers. So, while she may not be a labor insider with strong ties to Michigan and other union hubs, she's reliably progressive on the issues. "You want someone who knows how to work the Hill, and she does more so than Harley," the labor expert added. "I can see [unions] preferring to sitting down with a politician."
Everyone, please feel free to add to the mix.
UPDATE 2 Scarce: The Associated Press is now reporting it's Hilda Solis. A good to excellent choice, imo.
A labor official says Rep. Hilda Solis of California will be nominated as labor secretary by President-elect Barack Obama.
UPDATE 3 CTB: Rep DeLauro issued the following statement:
"I am honored to have been considered by President-elect Obama for Secretary of Labor. I did not seek this position, as my passion is the work I do for people in Connecticut and the changes I can bring in the U.S. Congress."
"I met with President-elect Obama in Chicago this past week for 45 minutes. We had a very serious conversation about restoring protections for employees, the economic crisis and events impacting women. It further affirmed the importance of him succeeding to bring the change the country needs."
"I am delighted with his choice of my friend and colleague, Congresswoman Hilda Solis. She will do an excellent job in an a department where change is sorely needed. I look forward to working with her, President-elect Obama and his entire cabinet to get this country back on track."
Obama's transition team recently started the first of a series of online discussions to get our input on the issues that we face in America. The first discussion is about health care, making it clear that this is a priority for the new President.
Health Care for America Now is commonly abbreviated as HCAN
President-Elect Barack Obama, by starting this conversation on his transition website, has sent a clear message that he wants to hear our thoughts and concerns about the health care system in this country. It's important that he hears a call to fix the broken health care system from all of us, because the insurance and drug company lobbyists are already swarming Congress to protect their profitable business models.
Lieberman lies and lies again. And when Shelly Sindland calls him on the lying, Lieberman just lies some more. But it doesn't matter to him, simply because he's never had to pay any real price for the years of lies and the backstabbing. That's just politics to Joe Lieberman. And not surprising in the slightest is the ass-kissing of Barack Obama. Expect his lips to be firmly planted there for the foreseeable future.
Chris Dodd and a few of his Senate colleagues pulled off an amazing feat of political gamesmanship to help Joe Lieberman keep his Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chairmanship. It was so effective, in fact, that by the time Democratic Senators voted on Lieberman's role in the Party, they no longer had the option to strip Joe of his chairmanship.
[T]he outcome was for all intents and purposes a fait accompli.
Sources on Capitol Hill say there was little to no opportunity for Senators angry at their recalcitrant colleague to fully register their disagreements. Only one resolution -- one that kept Lieberman in his post but took away his position on an environmental and public works committee -- came to the floor, and it clearly had the support to pass. Senators could voice their displeasure or vote nay. But in the end, as one aide says, "the meeting was theater."
Chris Dodd and a handful of leading Senate Democrats apparently worked for days to keep the HS&GA gavel in Lieberman's hands.
"They had more than two and a half weeks to organize around this," said one high-ranking aide who favored Lieberman being stripped of his post. "And the fact of the matter is, Reid basically met with Lieberman 48 hours after the election was over. During that time it seemed like he was leaning towards stripping Lieberman of his committee chairmanship. But once that word came out, the only folks who were organized were the pro-Lieberman supporters."
The problem, the aide reluctantly ceded, was an absence of coordinated progressive leadership. While the pro-Lieberman allies were out in force -- led by Sens. Chris Dodd, Ken Salazar, Tom Carper, and Bill Nelson -- the Senators who wanted a harsher punishment held their cards tightly.
Dodd's efforts began on November 6, when he and Lieberman staged back-to-back press conferences in Washington, D.C. At the first press conference, Lieberman acknowledged meeting Harry Reid and said he would consider the "options" presented to him, which presumably included losing his chairmanship and joining the Republican caucus. At the second presser moments later, Dodd laid claim to the Banking Committee chair, shrugging off suggestions by Joe Biden that he move to Foreign Relations. Dodd and Lieberman also spoke several times that day.
The next day in Hartford, Dodd warned of a "messy fight" with the Obama-Biden administration if Lieberman were stripped of his chairmanship. Considering that it's Harry Reid and the Senate Steering Committee -- not Obama -- who picks the committee seats, it was an odd response. That warning could easily have been taken as a veiled threat to oppose Obama's legislative agenda. Since it only takes a few Democratic Senators to make good on such a threat, and Dodd was in the process of lining up Senators Nelson, Salazar, and others to side with him, the threat had to be taken seriously. Apparently it was. On November 9, Obama said he didn't hold any grudges against Lieberman, that he preferred that Joe caucus with the Dems, and that the Senate work out the details.
The rest was political theater.
It remains to be seen to what degree Dodd helped to salvage or sabotage the Obama administration's plans for change by bringing Lieberman into the fold -- and to what degree Dodd himself is interested in reform. As Banking Chairman, Dodd can lead the effort to revamp the financial services industry, or he can continue to let that industry regulate itself -- to disastrous effects. In fact, much of the credit or blame for what gets accomplished in Washington over the next two years will go to Senate Democrats like Dodd and Lieberman. I wonder if they'll rise to the occasion.
As I listened to President-elect Obama's speech last night I sensed a weight was being lifted off my shoulders and the shoulders of millions of other Americans. It was the weight of despair, frustration and hopelessness that has gripped us over the past eight years as we watched the Bush Administration run roughshod over our political landscape. It seemed it would never end; that our country was losing its very ideological foundation and that we were all going to be trapped in the ruins.
However, last night, I believe we broke free from the ruins. But make no mistake about it, that "freedom" is only the beginning of an even larger effort to lift an even more pernicious weight off of our country. Much damage has been done. The Bush Administration was really just the culmination and logical conclusion to the Reagan revolution's tenets of unregulated free markets and general contempt and hostility for the rule of law, accountability and sound governance which all rested on an unsustainable energy policy, an unsustainable foreign and military policy, and an unsustainable fiscal policy. Is it any wonder that it came tumbling down.
Over the coming months and years we need to ensure that we rebuild the damage done by the Reagan era. Those who cling to its ideology have not gone away. They will continue to seek ways to divide us based on race, religion and sexual orientation in an effort to bring their rancid brand of politics back to dominance. We are on the cusp of something new. Only by remaining vigilant and demanding more from our elected leaders can we ensure that the something new will be something better. The weight may have been lifted, but now we need to walk toward a better tomorrow.
I haven't written here in a while, I'm down in VA and recently started wrighting at RaisingKaine. But I had to share this with you all:
Today I attended the Obama rally at James Madison University in Virginia. Outside one of the buildings that was showing the speech was a tiny McCain rally. I figured that I would drop in decked out in Obama gear and see what was going on. One of the speakers accused Obama of planning to outlaw (literally outlaw, video of that coming soon) the national anthem. At that point I laughed and said, "That's ridiculous." Someone came over and confronted me, as it turns out it was the paid, local Field Organizer for the McCain campaign. Here is the video of our chat:
Chris Shays, Co-Chair of McCain's campaign in Connecticut, has tried to pretend that he somehow is connected to Barack Obama. While this is a classic Shays tactic, Both Ways Shays cannot be allowed to get away with such smoke and mirrors this time. In that vein, I share the following:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama raised more than $150 million in September, a stunning and unprecedented eruption of political giving that has given him a wide spending advantage over rival John McCain.
The Democrat's campaign released the figure Sunday, one day before it must file a detailed report of its monthly finances with the Federal Election Commission.
Obama's money is fueling a vast campaign operation in an expanding field of competitive states. It also has underwritten a wave of both national and targeted video advertising unseen before in a presidential contest.
Campaign manager David Plouffe, in an e-mail to supporters Sunday morning, said the campaign had added 632,000 new donors in September, for a total of 3.1 million contributors to the campaign. He said the average donation was $86.
The Democratic National Committee, moments later, announced that it raised $49.9 million and had $27.5 million in the bank at the start of October. The party has been raising money through joint fundraising events with Obama and can use the money to assist his candidacy.
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