Complexity is really only attractive to nerds. I say this as someone who loves complex systems and way they interact. Given the choice most folks would rather have a description boiled down to the barest of truths and then they go from there in thinking about it. This is part of the problem with the public perception of American Recovery Act, more commonly known as the stimulus bill.
It is widely held by economists and those who don't rely on Faux News and Rush Limbaugh for their information that the stimulus worked very well, for its size. Even as it was being passed 19 months ago many were saying it was too small in its scope to completely fix the hole in the economy that the policies of radical Republicans had caused. This was a win/win situation for the Republicans as they would be able to reap the benefits in their districts and states, but still be able to say that it was bad policy since it did not bring the nation back to full recovery.
John Salazar (D?-Pueblo/Gunnison), brother of Colorado's semi-beloved, former Senator and current Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, has been recently found to be aiding and abetting a land swap deal for one of the Koch Brothers up here in Colorado.
[S]ome staffers at the Bureau of Land Management worry that Koch will be getting land with much higher value because of its potential for energy development. They also complain that there was very little opportunity for public input and scrutiny of the deal. There were no public hearings specifically devoted to gathering public comment, as there are with most proposed government land swaps.
"I'm not very pleased about it. It doesn't look like a very good deal for me or other people in this area," said Tony Prendergast, a former Forest Service ranger.
Do you know what was the second biggest demographic group that voted for Obama, obviously the blacks were the biggest demographic group, but do y'all know what was the second biggest? Unmarried women. 70% of unmarried women voted for Obama and this is because if you kick your husband out, you gotta have Big Brother goverment to be your provider, and they know that! And they've admitted it.
Last election I caucused for Barack Obama. I voted for Barack Obama. I did what I could to help elect a man who ran his campaign not through special interest contributions but by people.
As I watched this video of (now) President Obama attack those who promise to clean up Washington but run their campaigns through DC special interests, I could not help but think of our current Senate race.
I don't have a picture of the new billboard but Maes is what trumps white, used car salesmen rage?
Now it's a Dan Maes billboard.
Who else automagically doubts anything or anyone espoused by a Republican simply because it comes from a Republican pie hole (or billboard pie in the sky)?
Abound Solar Manufacturing ... will manufacture advanced solar panels at two new plants, creating more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs. A Colorado plant is already underway, and an Indiana plant will be built in what's now an empty Chrysler factory. When fully operational, these plants will produce millions of state-of-the-art solar panels each year.
Yesterday, President Obama met with Senators at the White House and pushed them to pass comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation. Still, the skeptics are spinning a monotonous web of negativity regarding what is achievable on this front. And, not surprisingly, the "mainstream media" once again has been asleep at the wheel in setting the record straight. Fortunately, we know that when this President rolls up his sleeves, he gets stuff done and delivers on his promises. One thing’s for sure; President Obama is anything but an underachiever!
Along these lines, President Obama held a press conference following the G-20 summit in Toronto. In response to a reporter’s question regarding how he would achieve his deficit reduction goals, the president responded:
For some reason people keep being surprised when I do what I said I was going to do. So, I say I’m going to reform our [health care system], and people say well gosh that’s not smart politics maybe we should hold off. Or I say we’re going to move forward on [Don’t Ask Don’t Tell] and somehow people say well why are you doing that, I’m not sure that’s good politics. I’m doing it because I said I was going to do it, and I think it’s the right thing to do. And people should learn that lesson about me, because next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficit and debt step up cause I’m calling their bluff.
To that list of accomplishments, we could also add:
Creating or saving 2.2-2.8 million jobs, well on the way to Obama’s February 2009 pledge that he would "create or save 3-and-a-half million jobs over the next two years."
Reforming Wall Street (likely to pass Congress any day now)
(Why aren't Sen. Inhofe's grandchildren building igloos in D.C. this week? Because D.C. is about to wrap up its hottest June on record. Where's the climate/energy bill, Mr. President? - promoted by WeatherDem)
As President Obama prepares for his meeting tomorrow with Senators at the White House to discuss clean energy and climate change legislation, he might want to check with the White House staff on an important matter first. No, not the details of the legislation, although that’s important of course. Instead, what President Obama might want to make absolutely sure about is the non-trivial matter of whether the White House air conditioning is in tip-top shape. I say "non-trivial," but these days it’s more like "life or death." How hot is it in the Washington, DC area? As NBC Washington puts it, "We're Talking Spontaneous Combustion." (UPDATE: it's more likely this is apocryphal than literally true, but it sure feels like plants could catch on fire these days in Washington, DC!)
How hot is it? It's so hot that dead plants are spontaneously combusting in Frederick, Md.
Don't believe it? Just ask Frederick County Fire Marshal Marc McNeal, who told the Frederick News-Post that excessive heat caused a dead plant to catch fire Sunday afternoon in a hanging planter on the rear deck of a townhouse.
The hanging basket fell to the deck and burned some vinyl siding, causing about $3,000 in damages.
It has definitely been hot in the Washington region. Monday will be the 10th day in a row that we've reached 90 degrees or higher, and this will be the 17th day of the month that the thermometer has reached 90.
NBC4 meteorologist Tom Kierein said that when it's all said and done, June 2010 likely will be the hottest June on record in the District.
Dead plants catching on fire in the hottest June on record in the Washington, DC area? Sadly, this may not be an aberration, but a frightening sign of things to come in a global warming world. True, we shouldn’t draw broad conclusions about the earth’s climate from one heat wave in one specific geographic area, as certain climate change deniers dishonestly did during last winter’s "snowpocalypse" blizzards. However, when we see month after month, decade after decade of record-setting heat globally, it starts to get a bit hard to ignore.
That fight to bring Colorado back from the brink of a Republican-induced Armageddon, that seemed to have begun in the obscurity of an Old Chicago drinking room in the Springs, that was egged on by some guy named Ed Perlmutter - who I had never heard of - that made George Bush and Dick Cheney take John Kerry seriously in Colorado, IN COLORADO GOD DAMMIT !!, that forced Ed Rollins to unretire and run interference for that man-child from his Lexus, cannot possibly end like this, though I am deathly afraid it has:
"That's not what we want," Pelosi said, cutting him off. "That doesn't do any of us any good." In the end, Axelrod pointedly declined to say that the president would stop acknowledging the failures of both parties in Washington, but the message was received. In the weeks that followed, Obama intensified his rhetoric about Republicans, playing to his constituencies on the Hill as well as to the audiences he was addressing.
I could write 10,000 words about this, but what good would it do?
There is one disturbing diary up now about Saudi Arabia and here is one more.
It turns out that Saudi Arabia has convinced Qatar and Kuwait to join together to block a U.N. Climate Change study, in an apparent effort to protect their Oil Based Economy.
While there has been an orchestrated effort by Fossil Fuel lobbyists to weaken international Climate Change legislation, this is the first time a state Government has openly blocked reforms.
The immediate losers are the people who are members of A.O.S.I.S. - the Alliance of Small Island States - and what they have to lose by this action.
crossposted at Huffington Post, Square State, and PRAER.org
As we all now know, a second alleged job 'dangle' was made by the White House to a potential Senate Primary candidate - this time it was Andrew Romanoff to prevent his primary challenge to Appointed Senator Michael Bennet.
Republicans like Darrel Issa (who it now seems is less than honest about his military record) are trying to gin up an attack on the President over this non job offer. Is there something there? I doubt it. But the fact that the White House has been meddling in primaries by the clearing the field for Kirsten Gillibrand and by endorsing Conservative Dems like Arlen Specter, Blance Lincoln, and now Michael Bennet for Senate races is both historically unwise and potentially dangerous to Obama.
If you are like me, you can see that there is a distinct difference between the Obama organization on the campaign, and the Obama White House.
I smell a rat, and he is Rahm Emmanuel. If Obama is as smart as I know he is, he will learn from FDR's mistake and change course in regard to Rahm.
But now that I have read the endorsement Rep Alan Grayson (Big D-FL08) just gave it, I want it more than ever.
Rep. Alan Grayson:
At their hugely popular website 'Crooks and Liars,' John Amato and David Neiwert have helped to expose the fact that there is no conservative party in America any more. They show that the right wingers are not conservatives, they are anarchists.
The only law the right wing believes in is the Law of the Jungle. No schools, no hospitals, no job programs, no nothing. Their idea of nirvana is Mogadishu.
See it there, at 'Crooks and Liars,' and read it here."
Only Alan Grayson can put something in perspective quite like that.
You see, all criticism of Obama and his policies/appointees is stupid, and only really helps the Republicans. Holding "Feet to the fire" is stupid too. Instead of Yelling Louder, you should be CLAPPING LOUDER, or Tinkerbell will die and Obama's approval ratings will drop.
CLAP LOUDER today, so Obama and the Democratic party can finally implement the GOP platform of 1994! and isn't that so much better than what would happen if the post 1994 GOP were to come back into power? So who cares about demanding MORE and BETTER from Obama? Whose side are you on anyway?
In 2008 Americans fought and beat Corporate Lobbyist sponsored politicians like John McCain (Drill,baby,drill & Bomb,bomb,Iran) and elected Barack Obama to be the President of the United States.
Just imagine if we could harness small contributions like this all the time to elect politicians who will stand up for people and against the special interests!
Well, the Corporatists can imagine that, and it scares them out of their minds! That is why, with the help of the recent Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court that allows Corporations to flood the American election process with millions and millions of Corporate money to fund Republican politicians and Corporate Democrats.
And their goal is to make sure that no one like Barack Obama ever wins a major election again, but you CAN fight back.
When a person becomes convinced of a conspiracy, it is often impossible, short of total confirmation of the theory, to get them to give up on it. This is due to the nature of conspiracy theories. They are often based on the idea that all the facts are actually facts and are know able. Any trial lawyer will tell you that the facts are not always knowable, that even the most sober of people will edit their memories in the way that is favorable to their point of view. Sadly reality is not as neat and tight as we would like to pretend.
The fact that Hawaii is invoking the Act 100 clause of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) combined with the Republican Governor of that state saying that she has viewed the presidents birth certificate would be enough to kill the beast that is Birtherism. Sadly Birtherism is a hydra, when you cut off one head, two more grow back.
If you have seen or heard of the "I Need A Freaking Job" billboard in Buffalo, NY that small business man Jeff Baker and his brother put up or the "movement" website they have started, you might have taken it for a grassroots movement.
I am greatly saddened to report the following . . .
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says that US forces in Afghanistan are carrying out what he referred to as "battlefield executions" of prisoners.
"One of the great tragedies of my country is that Mr. Obama is looking the other way, because equally horrible things are happening to prisoners, to those we capture in Afghanistan," Hersh said during a discussion at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference last month in Geneva, where he was also the keynote speaker. "They're being executed on the battlefield."
(Written in response to meta at Daily Kos, and published here for your enjoyment ~ Cheers)
That's right! Your belly button, whoever you are or think you may be
With all respect due to the many, many, many diarists who have already touched upon this subject, I felt the need to masturbate, and since my girlfriend is looking right at me (Sorry, Shiz), a meta diary is as close as I can get.
So here is what is wrong with Elena Kagan in a nutshell, your belly button.
I have heard plenty of people on this blog actually try to make the argument that Michael Bennet is the second coming of our nations President. This idea, beyond being completely ridiculous, is also incredibly false. Are there similarities? Absolutely. But when doing some more research I began to see how similar Michael is to someone else rather high up in our government and party. Hillary Rodham Clinton. This got me to thinking; I wonder if there are any similarities between the 2008 Presidential Primary, and the Colorado Senate Primary of 2010?
I found many. Or maybe I'm just crazy?
You tell me.
Before the Primary in 2008/2010 began (and to make things simpler, we will be using 2008/2010 because that is the election year, I am fully aware the primaries started before those dates) both Clinton and Bennet were considered by many to be a "lock," for the Party's nomination. Bennet/Clinton were both in the positions they were in due to connections within the party and government. Now that is not to say that Hillary was in the Senate due to connections (though I don't think it's crazy to say it helped) but a relatively new Senator running for the Presidency would have been considered odd if it had not been Hillary. And we all know how bizarre Michael's appointment was, but his position with Mayor Hickenlooper's office and how close the Governor and Mayor are, makes it not too far-fetched to say this may have had something to do with it.
Now I want to make something clear, I like Hillary Clinton, I in fact like Michael Bennet. Hillary was in my eye, the first Health Reform Superhero in the nineties. I don't agree with some of their tactics and the way that they go about things, but they are FAR better choices than any of the Republicans I have seen run nationally or in Colorado for years.
After talking to many different people in the party, they were upset that Clinton/Bennet had such a lead in the polls and it wasn't looking like anyone else was going to get a chance. There were plenty of people who were quite upset, thinking that it had been expected for so long that Clinton/Bennet would get the nomination that they were frustrated, and many times even used the phrase "anointed" when speaking about either candidate. (In Colorado's case, many people still do.) Anger rose from the position many Dems felt they were in, trapped with a candidate they didn't particularly like. But then, out came this other candidate. He was smart, sharp, funny, charismatic, good looking, and it was very difficult to find people who spoke ill of him.
Many Democrats were thrilled at the prospect of having another viable option, someone else they could turn their "Hope" towards. Obama/Romanoff gave many long time activists renewed energy and excitement. Here was a man that stuck to his convictions, stood up for the little guy, took risks and had an excellent record of bridging the divide of bipartisanship. Here was the guy we had been waiting for.
Sadly though, the Bennet/Clinton camps had a certain arrogance when it came to their primaries, where one (Clinton) considered her popularity and name to be so great that no one could match it, another thought his money would do the job and give people confidence in his campaign. But those theories quickly got thrown out of the window when the other candidates started pulling off rather impressive primary wins. Both Clinton/Bennet campaigns spoke later about how those primaries didn't really matter, that "Bloggers aren't real people," (http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/25/michael-bennet-doesnt-confuse-the-blogosphere-with-real-people-and-real-voters/) and how "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... (Not direct quotes, clearly)
Now of course while all of this is going on there are the issues, those pesky things that some people tend to forget about over the course of an election. Both Romanoff and Obama were initial underdogs who gained many peoples respect and admiration for committing to not taking PAC money for their campaign. Both campaigns were attacked by people saying, "But you can't win without PAC money!" At the time, I agreed with those people, but, seeing as how Barack Obama is now the POTUS, I was clearly wrong.
All four candidates wanted to reform the banking industry but it was a tad difficult for many people to believe Hillary when she had taken millions of dollars from banks over the course of her campaign. According to OpenSecrets.org, Hillary accepted millions from major banking companies. Of her 6 top donors, 4 of them were banks, their combined totals alone reaching, 1,457,711 dollars. And like I said, that's just the top 6, that doesn't even go into the rest of it. Please correct me if I am wrong, http://www.opensecrets.org/pre... Michael Bennett, as member of the banking committee, had taken over 600,000 dollars in campaign contributions from the banking industry alone by the end of 2009. http://www.sott.net/articles/s...
(Frankly, IMHO, I think as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, you should not be able to accept contributions from them by law, but if not by law, at least by your own morals.)
Then we come to labor. As a child of Union Members, Labor has always been incredibly important to me and it definitely has the power to sway my vote on a candidate if they are not pro-labor. All four candidates have run very openly on being pro-labor, but Clinton/Bennet don't exactly have pro-labor track records. As first lady of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton sat on the board of Wal-Mart, one of the most evil corporations on the planet. A January 31, 2008 article from ABC News states, "An ABC News analysis of the videotapes of at least four stockholder meetings where Clinton appeared shows she never once rose to defend the role of American labor unions." Michael, as superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, almost single handedly destroyed the Teachers Union and refused to take a strong stand on the Employee Free Choice Act. It is not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are, and Obama/Romanoff have always voted and acted on their values of fighting for the working class.
As the campaign wore on, minor similarities were noteworthy as well.
When it came to fundraising, Clinton/Bennet thought they just had it. In fact, they both had a popular US President helping them raise campaign dough. Granted, Hillary was married to that popular former President, but still.
Both of them used sympathy cards to try and gain votes when they were getting their tuckus's handed to them at caucus. Michael used his adorable little girls (They were great in that commercial by the way) and Hillary cried.
The Clinton/Bennet campaigns both leaned heavily on the "I've already been in/near this job, so clearly, I must have more experience," strategy. Luckily for us "Obamaniacs," 2008 was a year where people were looking for someone who wasn't "experienced." If judging by all of the "Throw the Bums Out!" bumper stickers I see on my morning commute, 2010 is looking like that kind of year as well. Incumbency is a liability in this election year. Which is sad, and going to make our fights for the good legislators (Perlmutter, Polis, Markey etc.) even harder, but I believe we are up for the fight.
Both Romanoff and Obama travelled the state/country, gathering supporters through their thought provoking speeches, natural charisma and open honesty about the issues at hand. Some people even wanted to change their primary votes to Romanoff/Obama due to the excitement level of their new candidates supporters. I remember one Onion video that came out after the election in 2008, making fun of the "Obama Zombies." Just for laughs, here is the link to the video. http://www.theonion.com/video/... To make something else clear, neither Obama nor Romanoff supporters are mindless, brainwashed, losers in my eyes. (In fact, I was the annoying Obama supporter that my conservative family members didn't want to invite over because I wouldn't STFU.) So before you start going off, just take the video for what it is, FUNNY.
When endorsements came out, the political world was shocked when both Clinton and Bennet did not receive the endorsements of many of the people who had worked with them in the past. Governor Richardson endorsed Obama over Hillary. And I have yet to meet a teacher or worker in DPS who speaks highly of Bennet. Perhaps they are out there, but I don't know them.
Colin Powell even endorsed Barack Obama, and many Republicans have spoken to me and others about how they adore Andrew and all the work he has done for the state. They have all committed to voting for him against any Republican who ends up on the ballot. They can't say the same for Michael, because they don't know him. Well, unless they worked at Anschutz.
When the Primary was finally over, and Hillary did the very classy thing and helped New York deliver the votes to Barack Obama, America still had an election to look towards. We need to remember that. Colorado still has an election coming in November and it should be much more important to the party that our seat remains a "D" then allowing it to become anything else.
OMG remember this? 
If you have seen or heard of the "I Need A Freaking Job" billboard in Buffalo, NY that small business man Jeff Baker and his brother put up or the "movement" website they have started, you might have taken it for a grassroots movement.
