Progress Now Action

Republican Mike Huckabee responded to an offstage noise during his speech to the National Rifle Association by suggesting it was Barack Obama diving to the floor because someone had aimed a gun at him.

Hearing a loud noise and interrupting his speech, Huckabee said: "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he -- he dove for the floor."

There were only a few murmurs in the crowd after the remark.

What will Mr. Bush leave for the children when families go to our national parks?  Under the radar he is having his EPA rewrite long standing rules that will encourage coal power plants to be constructed much closer to our national parks.

Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post reporter, writes:

The new regulations, which are likely to be finalized this summer, rewrite a provision of the Clean Air Act that applies to "Class 1 areas," federal lands that currently have the highest level of protection under the law. Opponents predict the changes will worsen visibility at many of the nation's most prized tourist destinations, including Virginia's Shenandoah, Colorado's Mesa Verde and North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt national parks...

For 30 years, regulators have measured pollution levels in the parks, over both three-hour and 24-hour increments, to capture the spikes in emissions that occur during periods of peak energy demand. The new rule would average the levels over a year so that spikes in pollution levels would not violate the law...

"It's like if you're pulled over by a cop for going 75 miles per hour in a 55 miles-per-hour zone, and you say, 'If you look at how I've driven all year, I've averaged 55 miles per hour,' " said Mark Wenzler, director of the National Parks Conservation Association's clean-air programs. "It allows you to vastly underestimate the impact of these emissions."

Why is this important to the health impact on our national parks?

Yesterday, the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, issued a report estimating that the rule would ease the way for the construction of 28 new coal-fired power plants within 186 miles of 10 national parks. In each of the next 50 years, the report concludes, the new plants would emit a total of 122 million tons of carbon dioxide, 79,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 52,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 4,000 pounds of toxic mercury into the air over and around the Great Smoky Mountains, Zion and eight other national parks.

I would argue that the most noticeable sign is visible but there are invisible signs that would adversely impact the national parks, including higher levels of fallout of mercury and increased acidity in local water sources which will lead to higher mortality rates of wildlife and vegetation die off.

It is immoral for Mr. Bush and his cohort to only act in their own economic interest because he won't live long enough to see the harm that his policies will do to our children and grandchildren.

So fire up your phones and email and call and write your elected representatives to tell them that they must halt through legislative means this act of betrayal to our children.

Nothing is more infuriating than to see Republicans using the voter fraud meme to steal the right to vote from elderly Americans.  This is the truth of the matter: The efforts of Republicans to have picture I.D. with birth certificates at polling centers is disenfranchising the elderly from their right to vote. 

What is amazing is that the largest senior citizen organization, A.A.R.P., is  doing little to halt this Republican led movement to disenfranchise the elderly at least at the national level. (I will point out that the 2008 Advocacy Agenda by AARP does list voter I.D. as a "burdensome document requirement".)  State A.A.R.P. organizations are more on the ball: 

The A.A.R.P. of Texas, in January of 2008, released this:

AUSTIN, TX – As many as 18 percent of voters age 65 or older could be negatively impacted by efforts to enact stricter voter identification requirements, an AARP Texas official said today in testimony before the House Elections Committee.

Amanda Fredriksen, AARP Texas manager of advocacy, noted there has been little if any evidence of election fraud in Texas to date to justify any such measure, calling voter ID proposals “a solution in search of a problem.”

The Michigan A.A.R.P. has filed an amicus brief in 2006:

AARP has filed a friend of the court brief in the Michigan Supreme Court challenging a state law that would require voters to produce a photo ID in order to cast a ballot at the polls.The case, In re Request for Advisory Opinion Regarding Constitutionality of 2005 PA 71, was initiated by the Court itself, which has called for briefs to be filed on the matter by the state’s Attorney General and other interested parties.Based on these submissions, the Court will issue an “advisory opinion” regarding the 2005 law.

The Indiana A.A.R.P., in 2005, expressed concern:

The head of Indiana's chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons says a new state law requiring Hoosier voters to show an ID at the polls could put a burden on older, ailing Hoosiers who don't have driver's licenses.
State AARP director Nancy Griffin said a recent survey by the group found that 10 percent of registered Indiana voters age 60 and older lack driver's licenses.

In 2002 the A.A.R.P. of Pennsylvania held this position:

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- AARP Pennsylvania opposes Senate Bill 824 which would require Pennsylvanians to produce photo identification in order to vote in the Commonwealth.

Digby has a story:

Perhaps no one knows that as well as 97-year-old Shirley Freeda Preiss. She was born at home in Clinton, Kentucky in 1910, before women had the right to vote, and never had a birth certificate. Shirley has voted in every presidential election since FDR first ran in 1932, and proudly describes herself as a "died-in-the-wool Democrat." After living in Arizona for two years, she was eagerly looking forward to casting her ballot in the February primary for the first major woman candidate for President, Hillary Clinton. But lacking a birth certificate or even elementary school records to prove she's a native-born American citizen, the state of Arizona's bureaucrats determined that this former school-teacher who taught generations of Americans shouldn't be allowed to vote.

"I have a constitutional right to vote, don't I?" she asks with her soft Southern drawl. "I didn't get to vote because of a birth certificate. What am I going to do now?"

Her strong-willed 78-year-old son, Nathan "Joey" Nemnich, a World War II veteran, is infuriated. "I'm pissed. She's an American citizen who worked her whole life and I want her to vote," he says. He went down to the local Motor Vehicle Division to get her an Arizona ID and register her to vote, armed with copies of his mother's three drivers' licenses from her previous home in Texas, along with copies of her Social Security and Medicare cards. All that wasn't good enough for the state of Arizona. "The sons of bitches are taking away our Constitution," Nemnich says.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights states in 2007:

First, no citizen should have to pay to vote. This basic principle, a key inspiration for the Twenty-Fourth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, would be greatly undermined by the McConnell amendment. While it is difficult for most people to imagine living without a photo ID, it is indisputable that many individuals do not have one – and it costs time and money to obtain it...

The right to vote, and to have your vote counted, is the most important civil right that we Americans have. And photo ID requirements are one of the greatest threats to fair and equal voting rights today. Congress should be in the business of encouraging full participation of our citizenry, not developing ways to limit the right to vote.

Schaffer ad goof: Oops, wrong state - The Denver Post

Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer unofficially launched his campaign Wednesday with a biographical spot he was forced to pull almost immediately because the image in the ad of Pikes Peak — where he proposed to his wife — turned out instead to be Mount McKinley in, well, Alaska. Dick Wadhams, Schaffer's campaign manager, said the spot would be re-edited with Colorado peaks and start running again almost immediately, but not before his candidate took a series of hits from liberal bloggers noting that the ad was supposed to underscore Schaffer's deep connection to Colorado. In an era of acid-tongued bloggers, it's the kind of mistake that doesn't go by lightly. "To Schaffer, who came here from Ohio, all mountains probably look the same, but Coloradoans with common sense know better," penned Michael Huttner, director of ProgressActionNow.org, in one of the kinder commentaries. Still, analysts found more significance in the ad than misplaced geography.

They say faith can move mountains. Apparently, so can political campaigns. But when a television ad for Republican Bob Schaffer's campaign for U.S. Senate mistakenly switched Mount McKinley in Alaska for Pikes Peak in Colorado, the consequences can be rugged and steep. "I am very frustrated," said Schaffer campaign manager Dick Wadhams, who admitted the mistake and said a corrected ad was to be on the air by Wednesday night. "What is frustrating about it is that when we saw the rough cut of the ad we asked the media consultant to check that," Wadhams added. But after being reassured that the mountain was a "stock photo" image from Colorado, the ad ran. It didn't take long for some mountaineering Democrats to climb all over the error. The Web site ColoradoPols.com posted the discovery, leading several activists to contend that the error says more about Schaffer than his media consultant. "For Schaffer, who comes from Ohio, to not know the most important mountain in Colorado is just foolish," said Mike Huttner, executive director of the liberal group Progress Now Action.

Colorado may be Bob Schaffer's life, but a refresher course on the state's landmarks couldn't hurt. Pikes Peak, for instance. The Republican U.S. Senate candidate on Wednesday unveiled his first television ad, with the theme "Colorado is my life." "I proposed to my wife, Maureen, on top of Pikes Peak," Schaffer says in the ad, gesturing behind him as the couple's picture appears with a snow-covered mountain in the background. The mountain pictured in the ad, though, isn't Pikes Peak; it's Mount McKinley in Alaska. The Colorado Democratic Party and Progress-NowAction, a liberal advocacy group, were quick to jump on the mistake, sending news releases noting that apparently all mountains look alike to Ohio natives like Schaffer. Both news releases ridiculing Schaffer misspelled Pikes Peak as "Pike's Peak." Schaffer's campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, said Wednesday afternoon that the ad was quickly pulled after it was released on the Internet. Wadhams blamed the embarrassing episode on the campaign's media consultant, who was supposed to verify that the mountain was Pikes Peak.

Schaffer released his first campaign television ad this week, one touting his Colorado background, noting he has a daughter studying at the Air Force Academy and he proposed to his wife, Maureen, at the top of Pikes Peak. All that was intended to be set against a stirring Colorado mountain backdrop. “Oh, I don’t know,” said state Rep. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, Schaffer’s Mesa County campaign chairman, when asked about the mountain backdrop. “Spanish Peaks? Sopris? Mount Vesuvius?” Mount McKinley in Denali National Park in Alaska, it turns out. Schaffer’s media consultant assured him the backdrop was a Colorado scene, campaign manager Dick Wadhams said. “And we took him at his word,” Wadhams said. “I’m not very damn happy right now.” Schaffer’s campaign pulled the ad, remade it with Pikes Peak in the background and now is airing the corrected version in Colorado Springs and Grand Junction media markets. Such mishaps tend to accumulate, said former 3rd Congressional District U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, a Grand Junction Republican. “They can afford this one, but one or two more and that’s all you can absorb,” he said.

Mount McKinley is no Pikes Peak, at least in Colorado political circles. U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer pulled his first television campaign ad after learning that it featured Alaska’s Mount McKinley, also known as Denali. The ad was set to debut Wednesday in Colorado Springs and Grand Junction. Schaffer campaign spokesman Dick Wadhams said his staff was assured by a media consulting firm, DMM Media of Washington, D.C., that a photo used in the ad was a stock Colorado Rocky Mountains photo.

"There can be no doubt that extending the designation of marriage to same-sex couples, rather than denying it to all couples, is the equal protection remedy that is most consistent with our state's general legislative policy and preference," the ruling said.

"Accordingly, in light of the conclusions we reach concerning the constitutional questions brought to us for resolution, we determine that the language of Section 300 [California's Defense of Marriage Act] limiting the designation of marriage to a 'union between a man and a woman' is unconstitutional, and that the remaining statutory language must be understood as making the designation of marriage available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples."

Amy Silverman, Salon.com, from a 1999 report, writes:

...vintage John McCain. His MO is this: Get the story out -- even if it's a negative story. Get it out first, with the spin you want, with the details you want and without the details you don't want...

Candor is the McCain trademark, but what the journalists who slobber over the senator fail to realize is that the candor is premeditated and polished...

And only a handful of people remember the details of Cindy McCain's 1994 "outing" for drug addiction and drug pilfering, and the work of the McCain machine to protect her.

Will the media question the flip flop of McCain on our troops in Iraq?  I doubt it. 

JERUSALEM (CNN) - In a particularly sharp blast from halfway around the world, President Bush suggested Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of "appeasement" of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased Nazis in the run-up to World War II.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

The remarks seemed to be a not-so-subtle attempt to continue to raise doubts about Obama with Jewish-Americans. Those doubts were already stoked by Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, when he recently charged that Obama is the favored candidate of the terror group Hamas.

Obama last week called the Hamas allegation a "smear" and the Democratic presidential frontrunner also quickly lashed out Thursday at Bush's speech in Israel in a prepared statement released to CNN by his campaign.

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," said Obama. "It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel.

We have all been horrified by the scenes of devastation in China from the 7.9 Richter scale quake.  What we are seeing is a massive effort by the Chinese government to come to the rescue of its citizens during this time of national emergency.  With 100,000 troops and police being sent to aid in the rescue efforts in the province of Sichuan there has been extensive coverage by Chinese media.

I am wondering at what will Sichuan province look like in a few years? 

The worst natural disaster to hit an American region was Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  The city of New Orleans is being rebuilt to a very different standard than what pre-Katrina NOLA was in both population demographics and urban planning to meet that demographic.

Why cannot New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward be restored and why cannot undamaged public housing be simply cleaned up and made livable for those who are now refugees?  There is no need to destroy those thousands of units of housing that had sustained minimal damage.  What is the plan except to raze them for housing that will have no tax burden to the City of New Orleans but will generate income for the city?  Even now there is the underground of protest against the destruction of the city that is called the soul of America. 

Will the province of Sichuan go the way of NOLA?  How will the Chinese deal with this great disaster?  Will the cities of Sichuan still be in a state of rubble and inattention like the Lower Ninth Ward of NOLA in three years?  (Because the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward are seeking the right of return to their homes still.)  Will the Chinese government see this as an opportunity to remove "undesirables" like the communities of New Orleans have done?

China should not imitate the dishonor and shame that is now the hallmark of the recovery of our American City of New Orleans. 

How many times have you seen a billboard or bumper sticker and thought you could do better?

Well, here's a chance to use your creativity for a good cause - educating people about John McCain.

Public perception of John McCain is very different than his right-wing record and questionable ethics. The media is giving him a free ride but we can't. It's up to all of us to help our fellow Americans understand who McCain really is.

That's why ProgressNowAction is launching a national contest to find the best description for McCain in five words or less. Click the link below to submit your idea:

http://www.ProgressNowAction.org/Billboards

Ben Smith, Politico.com, writes:

Obama, whose campaign jumped on Robert Novak's suggestion earlier this year of Clinton dirty tricks, mocked Novak's column today that Michelle has nixed Clinton as a vice president, Carrie Budoff Brown reports...

Communications director Robert Gibbs suggested afterward that the article should be set aside "in case of a toilet paper emergency."

LOL

We have read, in the back pages of the paper, that the Army has met it's recruiting goal for FY2007:

All of the active duty branches met or exceeded their recruiting goals for the fiscal year. On the Reserve side, four of the six reserve componants met or exceeded their recruiting goals.

If that is true then why does this happen?  Colby Buzzell writes:

That was a little over five years ago. After serving in Iraq, I elected to use my GI Bill to enroll in a photography course at San Francisco City College. I felt good, and I had a feeling that the days to come were all going to be good as well.

On way out of my building two weeks ago, I checked my mailbox and found a letter from the Department of the Army with "Important Document" printed in all caps on the middle. I immediately felt sick, so I went back to my room, locked the door, grabbed a beer from the fridge and stared out my window for a while...

I'm now going back to Iraq for a second time because people like me - existing service members - are the only people at the Army's disposal.

I've read Colby's book, which was based in part on his blog, My War.  It was an excellent book about the "boots on the ground" life of an infantryman in Iraq, which had little to do with the "grand strategy" but only with the necessities of living and surviving in a war zone.  What I found in reading Colby's book was the vivid retelling of his first firefight and how he was astonished that an Iraqi was still alive after his squad had fired so many rounds at the man and how in the excitement of the andrenaline rush the time elapsed that seemed so long was so short.

[BTW- the only other method is stop-loss by the Army.  The CS Monitor states that in 2006 "currently stop-loss is being used to extend the duty of 12,500 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan".]

I wish Colby Buzzell that he survive his second tour of duty because this war will not end.  (Remember that Rep. Rangel floated the proposal to reinstate the draft and was quickly shot down by Pelosi and Hoyer?)  The only way to end it quickly is what Colby believes:

Many people believe that the draft ended the Vietnam War. I'm convinced that reinstating the draft would definitely end this war. Rich, connected people will always find a way to evade mandatory service, but what about the rest of America? The middle class - people with good jobs and nice lives - would perhaps riot if the government even suggested that it expected from them what the Army expects from veterans.

One of the best outcomes of this election season just may be the "outing" of preachers who spout hate in the name of religion. Not that this is anything new. For thousands of years, religion has been used by the power-hungry to justify horrors inflicted on others and to whip up fervor against "outsiders" and "non-believers." . . .

In an NPR interview, [McCain ally Pastor John] Hagee said that "All Muslims are programmed to kill and we can thus never negotiate with any of them."

Hagee also enlightened us about Hurricane Katrina. "God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and was filled with sexual sin."

Then there's the ever-quotable Rev. Pat Robertson, who takes on women as well as gays, Muslims and other disagreeable groups. "The feminist agenda," he said, "is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

These aren't kooks spewing venom about other human beings and religions. They are preachers who have huge audiences in their churches, radio and television programs, and national speaking tours. They continue to influence American politics despite their claim, as Rev. Dobson made recently, that they are not political.

These "men of God" do us a great disservice by trying to mask their hatred in the garb of religion. Rather than focusing on solving problems, they try to whip up fury among their listeners by savagely attacking those who think, act and believe differently from them.

Rev. Wright is not alone. We need to look just as closely at the words of other ministers who preach contempt and hate. In this election year, maybe America will begin to hold all vicious preachers accountable for their loathsome words.