Last night the last of our combat troops pulled out of Iraq after over seven years of fighting.  We would like to thank all the brave men and women who are sisters, brother, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmothers, grandfathers, and friends who fought heroically and in some cases lost their lives in Iraq since 2003.  Last night marked the end of Iraqi Freedom.  Though fifty thousand troops will remain in Iraq they will be acting more as consultants to the Iraq police force and defense and not engaging in combat. 

Final U.S. combat brigade pulls out of Iraq

Lt. Col. Mark Beiger huddled his infantrymen in a darkened parking lot minutes before they were to depart Baghdad for the last time.

“This is a historic mission!” he bellowed, struggling to be heard over the zoom of fighter jets and unmanned drones deployed to watch over the brigade’s convoy to Kuwait. “A truly historic end to seven years of war.”

…

By the end of this month, the United States will have six brigades in Iraq, by far its smallest footprint since the 2003 invasion. Those that remain are conventional combat brigades reconfigured slightly and rebranded “advise and assist brigades.” The primary mission of those units and the roughly 4,500 U.S. special operations forces that will stay behind will be to train Iraqi troops. Under a bilateral agreement, all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

Wow..its a good day.  One war down, one more to go.

US ends combat operations in Iraq
The last brigade of US combat has been withdrawn from Iraq, bringing combat operation to an end in a war that has lasted more than seven years and claimed the lives of more than 4,000 US troops.

Over the course the week soldiers from the 4th Stryker brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, have driven hundreds of vehicles from Camp Victory near Baghdad airport to Camp Virginia in Kuwait.

…

Campaign promise

Obama had made ending the Iraq war a central policy of his presidential campaign, and after taking office he immediately announced plans to bring combat troops home by the end of August this year.

He inherited around 144,000 troops in Iraq, 30,000 fewer than the peak levels of 2007, when the Bush administration ordered a soc-called surge in an effort to improve Iraq’s atrocious security situation.
Aljazeera

Thank you Mr. President for keeping another one of your campaign promises.

Thank you to all our troops. We appreciate your sacrifice.

NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

This is great news for anyone who has paid $40 for a cup of coffee.  It looks as if the courts are preempting the Wall Street Reform bill when it comes to “unfair and deceptive” practices of banks.

NEW YORK (AP, Eileen Aj Connelly) — A federal judge in California ordered Wells Fargo & Co. to change what he called “unfair and deceptive business practices” that led customers into paying multiple overdraft fees, and to pay $203 million back to customers.

In a decision handed down late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup accused Wells Fargo of “profiteering” by changing its policies to process checks, debit card transactions and bill payments from the highest dollar amount to the lowest, rather than in the order the transactions took place. That helped drain customer bank accounts faster and drive up overdraft fees, a policy Alsup referred to as “gouging and profiteering.”

The ruling detailed the experiences of two Wells Fargo customers who used their debit cards for multiple small purchases, and were then charged hundreds in overdraft fees because the order the purchases were cleared by the bank depended on the amounts. The judge found the customers, who were part of a class action, were not properly informed of the bank’s policies on processing payments and were unaware the bank would allow debit purchases to go through when their accounts were overdrawn.

“Internal bank memos and e-mails leave no doubt that, overdraft revenue being a big profit center, the bank’s dominant, indeed sole, motive was to maximize the number of overdrafts,” Alsup wrote. That policy would “squeeze as much as possible” from customers with overdrafts, in particular from the 4 percent of customers who paid what he called “a whopping 40 percent of its total overdraft and returned-item revenue.”

The judge dismissed Wells Fargo’s arguments that customers wanted and benefited from the policies, and detailed evidence he said showed efforts to obscure the practices in statements and other materials. Wells Fargo’s online banking system, for example, would display pending purchases in chronological order, “leading customers to believe that the processing would take place in that order.”

“The supposed net benefit of high-to-low resequencing is utterly speculative,” he wrote. “Its bone-crushing multiplication of additional overdraft penalties, however, is categorically assured.”

Alsup also criticized the bank for allowing overdraft purchases after accounts had been drained by offering a “shadow line of credit” that customers were unaware existed.

The decision noted that the Federal Reserve has outlawed some of the practices detailed in the case, most notably debit card overdrafts permitted without customers agreeing to accept overdraft protection.

Judge Alsup ordered Wells Fargo to stop posting transactions in high-to-low order by Nov. 30 and to reverse overdraft fees charged to customers from Nov. 15, 2004, to June 30, 2008, as a result of the policy. A study cited in the decision by a Wells Fargo witness put the restitution at “close to $203 million.”

Wells Fargo spokeswoman Rochele Messick said the bank is “disappointed” with the ruling. “We don’t believe the ruling is in line with the facts of this case and we plan to appeal,” she said.

Messick noted that Wells Fargo changed its policies earlier this year, and customers can no longer incur more than four overdraft charges in one day.

Wells Fargo shares closed Wednesday trading down $1.47, or 5.3 percent, at $26.30, as the broader markets dropped sharply on economic concerns, with banks being particularly hard hit.

The case, heard in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, is Gutierrez vs. Wells Fargo.

NOTE:Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

Four different polls released recently showed that American voters say that helping the unemployed is more important than reducing the deficit.

Two national polls released Tuesday revealed that registered voters think it’s more important to help the unemployed than to reduce the deficit.

Voters are generally wary of government spending to boost the economy, but they nevertheless told ABC News and CBS News that the deficit is no reason not to help the unemployed.

Fifty-two percent of voters told CBS that Congress should extend unemployment benefits “even if it means increasing the budget deficit,” including 35 percent of Republicans. Sixty-two percent of registered voters told ABC Congress should extend benefits despite concerns that doing so “adds too much to the federal budget deficit.”

In a Bloomberg survey, 70 percent of voters said reducing unemployment is more important than reducing the deficit. But only 47 percent said Congress should reauthorize extended benefits, which in some states provided the unemployed with up to 99 weeks of checks.

A poll commissioned by the National Employment Law Project in June found that 74 percent of voters think helping the unemployed is more important than reducing the deficit.

Senator Robert Byrd has died.  The longest serving Senator in United States history died at 3am this morning at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., according to the statement released.

Robert Carlyle Byrd, the longest-serving member of Congress in United States history, who spent much of his career as a conservative Democrat and ended it by fiercely opposing the war in Iraq and challenging the state’s powerful coal industry, died over the weekend. He was 92.

Byrd was hospitalized late last week with what was thought to be heat exhaustion and severe dehydration, according to his staff, which did not announce his hospitalization until Sunday afternoon. At that time, doctors described him as “seriously ill.”

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

We direct this post to the President but it is about a statement recently made by a senior White House official about the Arkansas senate runoff.  Politico reported that a member of the President’s senior staff made the following statement about organized labor’s support of Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s primary challenger Bill Halter, “[o]rganized labor just flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toilet.”

When asked about the statement press secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed the sentiment by saying the following:

“[W]hile the president might not have agreed with the exact characterization, I think that whether or not that money might have been better spent in the fall on closer elections between somebody — between people who cared about an agenda that benefited working families and those that didn’t, that money might come in more — more handy then,”

Seriously Mr. President?  The Executive Office is suppose to be the grown up or at least more politically astute.  Was this comment about organized labor really necessary?  Labor is one of your biggest and loyal supporters do you really want to piss them off?  Secondly, it’s a bit premature to start popping the champagne corks when Lincoln has not won the general election.  Many of the polls show that Bill Halter had a better chance of beating the GOP in the fall making Lincoln’s win a mere temporary reprieve with the death knell to be delivered in November.  Such comments were not only premature but they don’t mean anything.  If Blanche Lincoln loses in the fall does that mean that the White House backed the wrong candidate causing Democrats to lose the Arkansas senate seat?

In addition and most importantly, the statements have simply exacerbated an open womb and forced organized labor to come out and make strong and definitive declarations of  non support  not only for Blanche Lincoln but for ALL blue dog Democrats in the general election. 

“If that’s their take on this, then they severely misread how the electorate feels and how we’re running our political program. When we say we’re only going to support elected officials who support our issues,” said AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale. “When they say we should have targeted our money among some key house races among Blue Dog Democrats — that ain’t happening.”

“Labor isn’t an arm of the Democratic Party,” Vale said. “It exists to support working families. And that’s what we said tonight, and that’s what we’re gong to keep saying.”

So one of the most loyal and lucrative supporters of Democrats has come out and said that it will not be supporting blue dogs in an undesirable, to put it mildly, election year for Democrats.  Lets take a quiz…will that decrease or increase Lincoln’s and blue dogs chances of winning in the fall?  This fight could have ended last night in Arkansas but because of  the self-serving comments of WH staff it has been extended to Lincoln’s general and all blue dog campaigns around the country.  Not to mention a repeated negative media meme for very lazy pundits every time labor comes out against a blue dog incumbent.  Not very disciplined and not smart politically. 

Finally, chances are that the comments and confirmation have pushed Arkansan progressives further into their corners of nonsupport for Lincoln because now they have a vested interest in being right and proving the White House wrong.  Let’s see…..pushing Arkansan progressives into a contest where they are competing to be right about Lincoln or cozy up to them after a hard fought and divisive campaign to try and unify the party.  Which approach is likely to increase the chances of a Lincoln victory in the fall? 

“I told you so” comments like those made merely push progressives and labor into a position of ensuring that Blanche Lincoln loses in the fall.  Is that where we want to be?  Better yet…was the two seconds of satisfaction worth it?

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

Today there are Democratic and Republican primaries in the 12 states of ARKANSAS, Nevada, California, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, and Maine.  Please make sure that if a primary, Republican or Democratic,  is being held today in your state.

We have a special plea for those of you in Arkansas.  This is an opportunity for Democrats in Arkansas to hit back at corporate America and demand that politicians listen to the voters first.   The Democratic runoff is between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter and every vote will count.  Please make sure yours does.

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

Bill Halter is currently leading in his primary challenge to Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Alabama.  Thus, in rides Lincoln’s savior, Bill Clinton, trying to save the embattled Senator from her very competitive opponent Halter. My question is that Pennsylvania was not that long ago has Bill Clinton forgotten what happened there?  Democrats do not like former or current presidents telling them how to vote….hence Joe Sestak, not Obama endorsed Arlen Specter, is the Democratic senate nominee for Pennsylvania.

Democrats have a long memory even though with the Internet they don’t need one.  Progressives, and other types of Democrats,  remember Blanche Lincoln threatening to filibuster healthcare reform if it contained a public option as well as her speaking out against the Employee Free Choice Act.  Thus, a former President riding in proclaiming his support for dear Blanche will not erase her track record of putting up road blocks circumventing the Democratic agenda in favor of the corporatocracy.  Not even smooth talking, “I feel your pain,” southern drall accented, Bill Clinton.

This primary is Tuesday June 8th.  If you live in Alabama make sure you go out to the polls and show Blanche how you feel about her representation.

Artur Davis

Now lets move on to Artur Davis who recently lost his bid to be the Democratic nominee in Alabama’s gubernatorial race.  Okay, so Davis, who is currently a Congressman, lost to his fellow Democratic opponent by over twenty points even though Davis was up by double digits a couple of months prior.  The Congressman lost his own majority African-American district that he represents in the House.  Why you ask?  Because he decided to become a Republican in a Democratic primary.  This guy voted against the President’s number one domestic legislative priority, health care reform, while his caucasian opponent, Ron Sparks, came out strongly in favor of HCR.  First mistake.  Take a look at a direct quote from Davis that came right out of GOP talking points:

Health care reform could be accomplished “at half the cost without a 3,000-page, near trillion-dollar overhaul of the system.” Without offering any alternative, Davis said that he voted the way he did because “we can’t just keep throwing a trillion dollars toward the problem.” 

Davis’ second mistake was taking black folks for granted. Davis has been reported not to have courted the African-American vote at all.  African-Americans make up 60 percent of the Alabama Democratic primary electorate!!!!!!!  Not to mention that by making the above statements he threw his current constituents under the bus and backed it up a couple of times.  We guess he just bought into the tea partiers rhetoric and assumed that all black people would vote for him just because he’s black.  Not so much bruh.  Davis lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary by an embarassing 24 points!  You are not entitled to the vote of black folks simply because you are black!  Did Clarence Thomas teach you nothing?  Authenticity and character mean something when it comes to all Democrats not just African-Americans.  We are a “thinking bunch.”

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

We feel so bad for the poor billion dollar CEO of BP who because of cutting corners and not taking proper safety precautions his company has devastated our ocean, our shores, and marine life.  That’s right, in order to save $500,000, the cost of a shutoff valve, eleven people are dead and the livelihoods of thousands of small businesses are devastated.  But Mr. Hayward is having a bad day.  This self-absorbed, insensitive, git had the gall to tell reporters ”I’d like my life back.”  Apparently him having to clean up his mess is inconveniencing his lifestyle.  Guess what Mr. Perkins?  Those eleven workers who lost their lives manning your oil rig would like their FREAKIN LIVES BACK ALSO!!!!!!!  Un-FREAKIN-Believable!!!  Arrogant git!  Someone should ask Mr. Hayward does he think returning to his lifestyle is more important than the lives and livelihoods of the United States citizens who are tragically affected by HIS man-made disaster?

Hayward went on to say that the illnesses (nausea, headaches, dizziness, hospital visits) currently being suffered by folks helping to clean up BP’s mess have nothing to do with the chemical dispersants and millions of gallons of oil that these workers are being exposed to everyday.  Hayward chalks such illnesses up to food poisoning!!  FYI Mr. Hayward, being exposed to such toxins like benzene (a cancer causing agent) can cause FREAKIN leukemia!

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

Sometimes it amazes me how clueless the main stream media pretends to be or maybe it really is clueless.  The MSM tried to make a huge story out of the whole Joe Sestak job offer.  Apparently, the White House offered Joe Sestak a position to drop a potential primary challenge the he was considering waging against Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania.  Though the media knew that there was no there there it continued to demand that the White House disclose exactly what took place during the exchange.  Why…slow news week?  It turns out that Pres. Bill Clinton was the intermediary who presented the offer of an advisory, VOLUNTEER,  position to Sestak.  End of story.  No smoking gun, nope, nothing, nada.  Politics as usual…you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours.  Anyone who claims this does not happen throughout Capitol Hill is definitely smoking something.  DC runs on the what can you do for me mentality.  Where was all the uproar from Darrell Issa (R-CA) when Judd Gregg (R-NH) secured a promise from the White House that the Governor of New Hampshire appoint a Republican to replace Gregg in the Senate if Gregg took the Secretary of Commerce job offered to him by the Obama Administration?  Issa was strangely silent at the time.  FDR offered the vice presidency to John Garner for garnering Texas support.  Dwight Eisenhower offered Earl Warren the Supreme Court for securing Republican delegates in California.  President George W. Bush offered Rep. Benjamin Gillman (R-NY) a job with the United Nations in exchange for him not running for re-election. 

So what does Chris Matthews of MSNBC do upon learning that there was no there there upon release of Bob Bauer’s,  White House Counsel, memo about the incident?  He rants against the White House for not offering Sestak more meat on the bone.  First he accuses the WH of impropriety then gets ticked off when it turns out to be perfectly legal.   Seriously!!  So are you upset that the White House failed to supply you with an actual story by way of breaking the law and offering a measurable and monetary bribe to a public official?  Matthews went on and on missing the point and completely embarrassing himself as a pundit.  Then David “stretch” Gregory, being the astute, seasoned, and hard hitting, journalist that he is (NOT), chimed in saying that the White House didn’t get what they wanted out of this.  Completely clueless.  We will attempt to break it down for them.  How about the following possibility?  Is it possible that  the reason the White House did not offer Sestak a position of real substance is first because it would be illegal and it is a bit smarter than that and second because they didn’t care whether Sestak challenged Specter because Specter is a loose cannon and would not be considered a reliable Democratic vote.  Lets see, you have Sestak who is a reliable vote for the Democrats and you have a a former Republican of forty years who decided to switch to the Democratic  party ONLY because he was being challenged in the Republican primary and had zero chance of beating his fellow Republican opponent.  If you were the White House who would you be rooting for despite the fact that you promised the Republican turned Democrat that you would support him if he supported your legislative agenda?…..hmmm tough one.   There is something called keeping up appearances and that is exactly what the WH did when it offered Sestak that pittance of a role to deter him from challenging Specter.  The WH was merely making a surface gesture so as to appear that it was keeping its deal with Specter. 

And if the MSM were not pushing its own agenda it would mention the possibility.

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg had a few words to critics of BP’s handling of the worst oil spill disaster in the history of the United States.  We are doing all we can so lay off.  His exact quote was the following:

“The US is a big and important market for BP, and BP is also a big and important company for the US, with its contribution to drilling and oil and gas production.

Really Mr. Chairman?  You are equating your oil company to the United States of America…really?  This is an issue if this guy believes that he carries the same weight as the U.S. government.  Perhaps it is this mindset that enabled the company to think that it can drain America’s resources without providing backup measures for the inevitability of something going wrong.  Futher, such mindset probably contributed to the lies by BP as to the magnitude of the spill.  BP and its Chairman seems to have the same disease that many members of Congress is inflicted with…….entitlement.

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com.

Republican state senate candidate in Idaho’s 1st District Vaughn Ward has lifted Senate candidate Barack Obama’s 2004 Democratic Convention speech that propelled a then unknown Obama to the world stage. It is blatant….tsk….tsk…tsk.

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination – even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin. 

-Rand Paul in a letter to Bowling Green Daily News written in protest to the Fair Housing Act.

The really sad part about this is that this was brought up in April of this year during the Republican primary in Kentucky and Rand’s opponent never made it an issue.  But I digress.  Though the media  is running towards the low hanging fruit regarding Dr. Rand Paul’s, the Kentucky Republican Senate nominee,  comments concerning private businesses being allowed to freely discriminate we do not believe that is the issue.   Instead pundits really should address the meat of Rand Paul’s philosophy rather than immediately jumping to the racism card.  Paul is a Libertarian and believes in a totally free society with minimal government involvement in the private lives of its citizens.  He believes in repealing the American Disabilities Act and allowing  private enterprises to freely discriminate against minorities because the Civil Rights Act and the ADA  is excessive government intrusion in private businesses.  Paul, like his father Ron, believes that left to its own device private industry will do the right thing mainly because it is bad business to discriminate.  The Kentucky Senate candidate further believes that Americans are basically good and will not tolerate private businesses discriminating against any minority or the disabled.  Therefore, Paul’s logic is that because private businesses would lose revenue by engaging in discriminatory practices towards minorities, women, or the disabled, that they will not do so. 

We would like to introduce Dr. Paul to the Civil Rights Movement circa 1955-1975 where this very argument was made by segregationist and other opponents of the Civil Right Movement.  A business owner was not incentivized by loss of revenue when he/she refused to serve African-Americans at the Woolworths counter.  Businesses were not motivated to do the right thing in allowing African-Americans to attend private schools with Caucasian-Americans.  The government had to pass laws and make businesses, via force, comply with such laws.  Many African-Americans were killed trying to gain the freedom, respect, dignity, and economic and social equality that Caucasian-Americans enjoyed.  Is that okay Dr. Paul?  Or is that merely the collateral damage that must be endured in order to achieve your truly free society?  How many lives should be lost in order to protect the rights of private businesses to do as they please with no government intervention?  Can a private business also sell sub-standard food to its African-American and other minority patrons to save money thereby causing illness or death?  Can a restaurant refuse to serve Jewish people or allow them in their establishment?  Exactly how much collateral damage is too much to achieve your Utopian society?  Should big oil companies be allowed to spill oil into the ocean destroying the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who own small businesses as well as causing irreparable harm to the environment?  Should liquor stores be able to sell alcohol and cigarettes to children?  Should private businesses be allowed to pay less than a minimum wage?  Should a business be allowed to pay women less than men for doing the same job?  Explain your completely free society and what is the cost, in terms of human life, dignity, freedom, equality, etc., . What about when your freedoms impinge on mine…is there a problem?

Over 24,000 discrimination suits are filed every year under the Civil Rights Act.  Two recent high-profile ones involved Denny’s and Texaco just a few years ago.  Last year a Pennsylvania pool was sued under the Act because it refused to allow African-American children to swim in it’s pool.   Businesses are not incentivized by loss of revenue to do the right thing.  As a matter of fact, firing someone because you don’t like the color of their skin or their disability may increase revenue and can be used as an easy way out if all of sudden a company has to downsize.

Finally, in case you haven’t looked at a history book lately this argument was made by opponents of the Civil Rights Act.  The  Supreme Court has ruled and it is now settled law.  In the CONSTITUTION, the Supreme Court is granted the power to determine the constitutionality of all laws. Is the Supreme Court of United States necessary in your totally free society?  It seems to me that if a Senate candidate does not believe in the constraints within the Constitution what is his basis for running for Senate?

Welcome to the jungle Dr. Paul.

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

The pundits keep saying that Tuesday’s election was about jobs and incumbents…well here’s a news flash, it was not.  Party loyals vote in special elections and primaries.  Therefore, the elections that took place on Tuesday were a referendum on politicians who go to Washington, DC and forget who sent them there…..voters.  More specifically in terms of Democrats,  progressives.  It is progressives who are out there knocking on doors, making phone calls, and getting out the vote.  So when Democrats like Blanche Lincoln go to DC and start working for corporate interests, progressives stop working for Blanche Lincoln.  They work for Bill Halter instead.  When Specter changes parties to get “re-elected,” progressives back Joe Sestak who appears to be a reliable Democrat.  What that means is that in terms of get out the vote efforts progressives are motivated to work for a politician who remembers who put them in office in the first place.

Further, as a voter, I resent being told how to vote regardless of who is doing the telling.  Politicians thinking that they can do this insults the intelligence of the electorate.

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

The sooner folks figure this out the better we will all be.  Just because President Obama ask Democrats to support a candidate does not mean that Democrats are going to support that candidate.  Democrats, and it appears Republicans if you take a look at Rand Paul in Kentucky, are making up their own minds regarding a candidate regardless of who supports that candidate.  It an insult to to the intelligence of voters to think that they will just follow along like mindless robots because an individual politician asks them to support a particular politician.  The President won his primary because Democrats went against the party establishment and de facto incumbent Hillary Clinton.  Perhaps he has forgotten that.  Though he is a pretty smart guy so that is doubtful.  Chances are he made a deal with Blanche Lincoln (AR) and Arlen Specter (PA) to secure their votes legislatively fully aware that Democrats will vote for who they feel represent them best and Lincoln demonstrated during the past year and half that she cannot be relied on to support the Democratic agenda given her votes on healthcare, etc.  The days are gone where voters forget now we mobilize, remove, and replace with someone who will respond to the needs of the people and not the oil and insurance companies.  Further, Specter’s comment about switching parties so that he could be “re-elected”  shows how comfortable he was in his incumbency.  Given Specter’s history, why would Democrats put a pseudo Democrat in office when we could put a real Democrat in office. 

It goes back to politicians feeling that they are entitled to their position and only being accountable to themselves.

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

This has got to be one of the better quotes that the President has made about Republicans having sent  the country into the Great Recession and now that the Democrats have brought it back from the brink in spite of the GOP obstructing every step of the way they want to take over again.

 ”After they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want the keys back. No. You can’t drive. We don’t want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.”

The President also used his old mopping metaphor, saying that Democrats were busy cleaning up the GOP’s mess, only to have Republicans criticize: “Hold the broom better. That’s not how you mop.”

“Don’t tell me how to mop,” Obama said.

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

This is not good news for conservatives and the Tea Party who have been complaining to the high heavens about high taxes.  The reality is that Americans are paying a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than they have since the 1950s.  Under the Obama administration the average tax rate has fallen on average 26 percent for households rich and poor.  That is an average of $3,400 per household earning $102,000 annually.

Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman’s presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.Some conservative political movements such as the “Tea Party” have criticized federal spending as being out of control. While spending is up, taxes have fallen to exceptionally low levels.

Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.

Attorney barred in the District of Columbia and California currently looking for opportunities in the private and government sectors.  Specializes in ediscovery/litigation efficiency project management but can do straight litigation or litigation management.  Feel free to contact me with opportunities at progress@progresspolitics.com

In a new New York Times/CBS poll the President’s job approval on healthcare is up from February 2009.  In February, the President’s aproval rating for healthcare was 31%.  In the recent NYT/CBS poll however, the President’s approval rating has moved up to 40%.  A jump of nine points.  And as for President Obama’s handling of the economy? 

Forty-one percent said the economy was getting better, up from 33 percent about a month ago, while 15 percent described the economy as deteriorating.Of that 41 percent, 75 percent approve of Mr. Obama’s handling of the economy.

One other great piece of news for the President is that his approval rating amongst independents has risen from 44% in February 2009 to 48% in the recent NYT/CBS poll.  See poll results here.

Keep up the pace Mr. President.

Yesterday former FEMA (Katrina) director Michael Brown may some outrageous allegations against the current administration.  Take a look at his appearance on the Chris Matthews show:

White House Communications Director Robert Gibbs also responded to Brown:

Fox News’ Wendell Goler asked during the press briefing about whether the oil spill was “President Obama’s Katrina.”

Gibbs pounced, and seized on the Brown interview.

“Fox had the very special, unique interview with Michael Brown — you opened it and I had to do it,” Gibbs said. “Who for those who weren’t let in on the big secret, Mr. Brown, FEMA director Brown under Katrina, intimated on Fox — and it wasn’t, I will editorially say, didn’t appear to be pushed back on real hard — that this spill was leaked on purpose in order for us to walk back our environmental and drilling decisions, and that the leak that we did on purpose got out of control and now is too big to contain.”

Gibbs went further:

I’m not entirely sure that a factual answer that I might give to any one of your questions is gonna change the notion that your network put out the former FEMA director to make an accusation that the well had been purposefully set off in order to change an offshore drilling decision.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

FAIR was founded in 1979 by John Tanton, who’s still listed as a member of FAIR’s board of directors. Seven years after he started FAIR, Tanton wrote this, “To govern is to populate. Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night or will there be an explosion?”

For nine of the first years of FAIR’s existence, the group reportedly received more than $1 million in funding from something called the Pioneer Fund. The Pioneer Fund describes itself as based “in the Darwinian-Galtonian evolutionary tradition and eugenics movement.” For the last 70 years, the Pioneer Fund has funded controversial research about race and intelligence, essentially aimed at proving the racial superiority of white people. The group’s original mandate was to promote the genes of those “deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original 13 states prior to the adoption of the Constitution.”

We believe that the Washington Post said it best about the passing of one of the premier civil rights leaders of our time.

Dorothy I. Height, 98, a founding matriarch of the American civil rights movement whose crusade for racial justice and gender equality spanned more than six decades, died early Tuesday morning of natural causes, a spokesperson for the National Council of Negro Women said.

Ms. Height was among the coalition of African American leaders who pushed civil rights to the center of the American political stage after World War II, and she was a key figure in the struggles for school desegregation, voting rights, employment opportunities and public accommodations in the 1950s and 1960s.

She died at 3:41 a.m. at Howard University Hospital, a spokesman there said.

Dr. Height has gone home after a lifetime of breaking down barriers and fighting so that I can vote, learn, and work.  Thank you Dr. Height and may you rest in everlasting peace.

No public option in the health care reform bill even after overwhelming support by the populace

plus:   Nelson Nebraska Medicaid deal

plus:   no repeal of the antitrust exemption enjoyed by the insurance industry

plus:   potential scrapping of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (according to Dodd)

plus:   a 29.9 percent APR for credit cards that could have been prevented had Congress set an immediate start date for the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights instead of allowing the banks, after being bailed out by the taxpayers, to game the system and gouge the very taxpayers responsible for their continued existence.

plus:  the refusal of banks to negotiate with homeowners regarding their mortgages thereby forcing them into bankruptcy even after receiving stimulus dollars.

plus:   Pharma deal

plus:   10 percent unemployment rate

plus:   a state that already has universal health care therefore does not want to pay for subsidizing other states sweetheart deals negotiated behind closed doors.

plus:  a poor Democratic candidate (qualified and very capable potential Senator but a bad campaigner)

EQUALS:   Politics as usual with a Big Insurance and corporate controlled Congress that is tone-deaf to the populace resulting in a hostile vote against the Democratic majority in a liberal stronghold.