Progress Now Action

I'm with Chris Bowers, OpenLeft.com, if news reports are correct from corporate media that Obama is going to keep Robert Gates on as SecofDef. Bowers states:

This should be an open and shut case. If there was one message that Obama ran on loudly, clearly, and indisputably, it is that he was going to bring "change" to Washington, D.C. If Gates were kept on as Secretary of Defense, it apparently would also mean that all of his top advisors would also stay on, and that it all happened because long-time D.C. operatives said it should. Keeping the same guy and all of his advisors at the behest of old establishment types is about as far from change as possible. Secretary of Defense is the big enchilada. Arguably, due to the vast percentage of federal spending it receives, it is more important than all other cabinet secretaries combined. The President may be Commander in Chief, but it is the Secretary of Defense who is decides how most federal revenue is spent. We need change in the Department of Defense, and keeping Gates along with his entire team of advisors and assistants doesn't fit the bill.

For several years now the evidence of the Alberto Gonzales gang's manipulation of the Federal Civil Service within the Department of Justice has been well publicized. The fact that right-wing political ideologues were being approved for career professional positions based on social issue orthodoxy, rather than competence and qualifications, is yet another blight on the scandalous legacy of the current occupant of the White House.

Today's report in the Washington Post reveals that this practice of burrowing right-wing political operatives into the Civil Service is also in-place in the scientific agencies. Perhaps this is the mis-administration's strategy for making permanent the Republican obsession for combating the truth of science with their twisted political and social priorities.

The Center for Public Integrity is soon to release their "Broken Government" study. The fund-raising teaser release promises 120 specific cases. This kind of investigative effort to hold the Bushies accountable as the mis-administration fades into oblivion is crucial.  Revealing and acting on the depth and breadth of this conspiracy is vital to the success of any reforms and corrects to the offenses of the past eight years.

The Obama-Biden Administration will be stretched and tested to uncover and flush-out these right-wing activists who have burrowed their way into the Civil Service like so many termites. The evidence of these infestations must be met with quick action.

Executive appointees selected for positions above these people must be prepared to take every possible action within the laws and regulations of the Civil Service structure to either get them dismissed, or make it too hard for them to stay and accomplish their nefarious goals. Attention to the selection of the Administrator of the Office of Personnel Management will be a key to success in this area.

Various Executive agency inspectors general must be supported in investigating these political opportunists. IF they are found to be substantially unqualified for the job description that they were hired to fill, then it should be clear grounds for dismissal as an unlawful appointment.

The Obama-Biden appointees who are saddled with these burdens must enforce clear, precise and enforceable performance standards. When confronted with qualitative requirements to enforce and perform based upon laws and regulations that these infiltrators are likely to hold ambitions to undermine and avoid, could more easily force them to resign.

Even in its demise the minions of the current mis-administration are appearing to be increasingly unwilling to follow the current occupant of the White House and the vice out of Washington. This certainly adds to the challenge and urgency of establishing the new administration's executive leadership. Too many months and too many acting, caretaker, leaders in the executive departments will make it all the harder to untangle the tentacles of the Bush parasites.

Failed U.S. health care is a major contributor to our systemic economic crisis. Indeed, the excesses of Wall St. and the subprime mortgage catastrophe mirror U.S. health care policy – both are typified by privatized profit (for investors and insurers), and socialized risk (for taxpayers and consumers). Inflated U.S. health care costs – 16% of GDP and rising – are major contributors to an inflationary economy. Redress of this single aspect of an out-of-control U.S. economy would lift all boats. Comprehensive health care reform would improve the economic status of all, relieving health access concerns of families, individuals and businesses, large and small.

So-called "legacy costs" alone, comprised largely of retiree health and pension benefits, have contributed significantly to General Motor’s negative cash flow, prompting yet another request for government bailout. In 2005, costs of health care coverage to GM amounted to $5.6 billion for 1.1 million employees, retirees and their dependents. In 2005 BusinessWeek reported that legacy costs added $1,600 to the cost of each GM vehicle.

It’s time to confront the crippling economic effects of employment-linked health coverage that reduces competitiveness of businesses in the world marketplace, reduces effective employee take-home pay, and adds to the costs paid by all for goods and services (note above cost added to each U.S. -made car). State and city budgets, too, are depleted by escalating health costs for employees and retirees.

Progressives leaders must do a better job of promoting civic discourse while clearly defining issues, like health care reform. Democrats shoud cease parroting right-wing framing and code words intended to distort the issue, e.g., "government health care" or "socialized medicine," as a couple of recent Colorado candidates have done. We need to refute Republican "free-market" advocacy that treats health care as a commodity to be exploited for maximum profit, with top-skimming of over 25% of health care dollars for private insurance shareholder profits, CEO salaries, excessive administrative costs, marketing, lobbying, etc. "Free-market" health care is as perverse an incentive as free-market police and fire protection would be, leaving everyone vulnerable, at the mercy of the marketplace.

Barack Obama showed promise broaching issues during the campaign. He made a start at explaining the high cost of privatizing Medicare (13% higher than traditional Medicare), and the failure of Medicare prescription drug reform that prohibits negotiation of bulk drug rates, as the VA does to save money. The 2003 reform was a giveaway to insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies, with billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies and inflated costs to benefit their bottom lines. Now is the time to make the case for an improved Medicare for All - a public insurance with true free choice of providers and hospitals. By contrast, for-profit insurance choices are narrowly limited to "in-plan" providers, necessitating change of providers with change of insurance.

Comprehensive health care reform shoud be part of a broad economic remedy. U.S. health costs are almost double those of all other industrialized nations, and growing; yet we still experience worse overall health outcomes. Increasing numbers of underinsured pay escalating costs for decreasing coverage. Taxpayers currently pay for over 60% of health care costs, including 70% of legislators’ health coverage. By many accounts, that is enough to provide single-risk-pool coverage for all.

In fact, single-payer health care is the only model of reform that has demonstrated in over 20 federal and state studies the capacity to save money and provide comprehensive coverage for all.

It is time for reform that benefits the worker as well as the CEO.

First posted on Huffington Post 11-13-08

Aren't there just as qualified people who are not elected officials to fill out Obama's top positions in his administration?

From DailyKos.com today:

SusanG reported earlier, via the Washington Post, that Arizona's Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano is President-elect Obama's pick to serve as the next head of the Department of Homeland Security.

Napolitano is a solid pick on the merits, and should be easily confirmed. For party building, however, the pick is problematic for two reasons.

First, Napolitano is the front-runner for the U.S. Senate race in 2010, for the seat currently held by John McCain. She is probably the only candidate who can beat McCain head-to-head, and he has announced his plans to run for reelection....

It seems to me that Hillary, Bill and Janet are very qualified but do we really want to have to replace them?

If piracy is a major problem, or is becoming one, on the high seas then will it become a necessity to begin convoys of commercial vessels?

From AP today:

NEW DELHI – An Indian naval vessel sank a suspected pirate "mother ship" in the Gulf of Aden and chased two attack boats into the night, officials said Wednesday, yet more violence in the lawless seas where brigands are becoming bolder and more violent.

Yesterday AP had a story about the capture of a Saudi oil supertanker:

"This outrageous act by the pirates, I think, will only reinforce the resolve of the countries of the Red Sea and internationally to fight piracy," he said during a visit to Athens. "Piracy is against everybody. Like terrorism it is a disease that has to be eradicated."

As mariners have known for decades that the Pacific rim of fire has been a fertile ground for piracy, especially for private yachts and smaller commercial vessels.

A solution for larger commerical enterprises would be to begin convoying those vessels.  It would be a U.N. sponsored multinational naval force because no single country's navy could handle it.  The effect would be two fold: Greater cooperation with nations against piracy and insurance rates would go down, which should bring the cost of goods and consumables down too.

This is beyond the pale- Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson, testifying on the House side, defended the administration's handling of the massive $700 billion bailout for the financial industry and said it should remain off-limits for Detroit, no matter how badly the automakers need help.

This is what U.S. auto executives testimony on the Hill said, from AP:

WASHINGTON – Detroit's Big Three automakers pleaded with Congress on Tuesday for a $25 billion lifeline to save the once-proud titans of U.S. industry, warning of a national economic catastrophe should they collapse.

From the NYT:

Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, said he would not support legislation to aid the auto companies and seemed prepared to let one or all of them collapse...

“Spending billions of additional federal tax dollars with no promises to reform the root causes crippling automakers’ competitiveness around the world is neither fair to taxpayers nor sound fiscal policy,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement.

But for the Bush and the Republicans it is all about politics.

I had read about why federal agencies may not be responsive to the incoming administration.  This is why, from TPMmuckraker.com:

In one example of what some Washington veterans call the "headless nail" phenomenon -- in which political appointees quietly move into career jobs ithin their departments, making it hard for the incoming administration to remove them -- David Bernhardt, the top lawyer for the Interior Department, has shifted six of his deputies into senior civil service positions. One of these, Robert Comer, was found by an internal DOI report to have struck an agreement on grazing with a Wyoming rancher "with total disregard for the concerns raised by career field personnel." Another, Matthew McKeown, has attracted criticism from environmentalists for promoting grazing and logging on public lands.

From leaving executive orders and writing new guidelines or redefining laws to allow for greed and avarice by individuals and corporations to plunder the lands of America and to consciously harm the health of Americans this is just another way for Mr. Bush to leave his "legacy".

From Talkingpointsmemo.com:

Source: Dem Leaders Will Propose Slap On The Wrist For Joe Lieberman

At the Senate Democrats' caucus meeting tomorrow, the leadership is likely to propose that Joe Lieberman keep his powerful homeland security committee chairmanship but lose his lesser chairmanship of an environment and public works subcommittee, a source tells TPM.

This is why Reid needs to be replaced.

Who knows how  big Hank Paulson's experiment in letting Lehman Brothers fail will cost?

Efluxmedia wrote:

A legendary US institution, Lehman employs about 25,000 people and reported debts of more than 600 billion dollars as it filed for bankruptcy Monday in a Manhattan court.

Apart from its debts, Lehman was valued at about 637 billion dollars in its bankruptcy filing. Its share price plunged 95 per cent. 

Lehman Brothers was an international player.  Look what just showed up on last Friday via The GuardianUK's report of Lehman's European operation:

Speaking after the first creditors meeting, a team from PriceWaterhouseCoopers said they had identified more than $1tn in assets and liabilities which need to be accounted for.

At the meeting, held behind closed doors in a conference hall at the O2 dome, lead administrator Tony Lomas told hundreds of representatives and lawyers who attended that he had recovered about $5bn out of a potential $550bn of obligations owing to creditors. A further $22.3bn of client assets had been identified, all of which will be returned to their owners.

That's right a 1,000,000,000,000 dollars.  Perhaps Mr. Buffet was presicent in stating that "derivatives were “financial weapons of mass destruction”

Meanwhile the Dow jumps up with the news that CitiGroup will cut 20 percent of it's workforce.  So 53,000 people will lose their jobs from 250,000 CitiGroup employs worldwide.

Bailout Chrysler, GM or Ford?  Read this article that was on the front page of Yahoo.com and see if this is joke.

"It's like nature's law: Only the fit survive," said John Berrotto, 50, a security director in New York who drives a Lexus and said he does not support the idea of a bailout. "Sometimes companies just don't make it," he said.

Or this:

"I'm not sure they (the automakers) can be salvaged. Part of me says that if Honda and Toyota can make better cars in the U.S. with American workers, so be it," said Tom Reiter, who was interviewed in Los Angeles and drives a 2001 Jaguar XJ he said was a "big gas guzzler."

The fact is that millions of jobs are at stake and millions of retirees pensions are at stake.

Republican leaders like House Minority leader John Boehner said:

"Spending billions of additional federal tax dollars with no promises to reform the root causes crippling automakers’ competitiveness around the world is neither fair to taxpayers nor sound fiscal policy..."

Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of workers and million plus retirees Mr. Face of the Republican Party.

The hard numbers of GM and Chrysler, from Boston.com:

Chrysler employs about 49,000 in the United States and has about 125,000 pensioners. GM has 177,000 US workers and around 500,000 people receiving pensions.

The Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., estimates that for each auto manufacturing position, there are 7.5 jobs with parts makers and other companies, meaning the industry accounts for millions of jobs.

What bankruptcy would mean for the Big Three U.S. automakers can be understood with the Delphi Company bankruptcy to study.  From 2005 MSNBC.com reports:

Delphi, a $29 billion industrial giant, has been struggling to make a profit since General Motors spun off its parts subsidiary in 1999. Last year, Delphi lost $4.8 billion; it lost nearly $750 million in the first half of this year...

The most immediate impact will be on Delphi’s 185,000 workers. The company wants to cut wages to less than half of current levels and eliminate a "jobs bank" that gives full pay to 4,000 laid-off workers.

Delphi's retirees face similar cuts if the company follows the lead of steel companies and airlines that have successfully used the bankruptcy courts to offload their pension obligations to the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, an agency set up in 1974 that is funded by contributions from premiums paid by companies. Once the agency takes over a pension plan, workers receive only part of their benefits....

 

From JohnE:

What do we do now?

Actually a few of us are working on mini Netroots Nations.  Tomorrow we have a conference call to start talking about creating an event for Colorado in early February.

I'd also like to have an earlier, less involved discussion of where do we go from here.  If you remember the Obama platform meetings, that was something that got my thought processes going.  However, just before the election wasn't the time for those conversations.  So, I'd like to have a number of policy discussions about the direction for Colorado, and now is the best time to do that.  I suggest a place with lots of beer.  However to enable participation across the state, why not use some bloggy platform for those who can't make it in person.  Hey, I know, why don't we use Squarestate diaries for that.  One for each subject.

See this thread and comment.

MoveOn.org is working too.  From an email:

Dear MoveOn member,

Since last week's historic win, we've been hearing the same clear message from millions of MoveOn members: Don't stop now.

So next Thursday (11/20), we're organizing "Fired Up and Ready to Go" gatherings throughout the country.

The work has begun to make the dream a reality.

Millions of supporters and hundreds of millions of our dollars to support a candidate who actually won the presidential race- Barack Obama!  There is something in the punch bowl however. 

What is happens when someone goes over to the other side and actively supports the other side?  Do you show that individual unconditional love or should it be tough love?  I believe that Lieberman should be shown some tough love (and the wood shed).

As many know it was under his chairmanship that the Senate Homeland Security Committee held no hearings on the government response to Hurricane Katrina.  Thus abdicating congressional responsibility for oversight.  He is derelict in his duty as a representative to the people to hold hearings on how well administrative departments are working.

If Howard Fineman is correct in stating "Obama has now expressed his clear support not only for Joe Lieberman staying in the caucus, but for retaining his Chairmanship of the Department of Homeland Security Committee."  This will be a bitter pill to the people who elected Obama.

This is a clear signal that it will be "business as usual" in Washington, D.C.  

This is not what we, the people, voted for.

Now is the time for the huge social networking that Obama and his team has created to come together.  This is not just a one way street.  Creating a social political movement from the grassroots means that it just cannot be turned into a top down command, control, and communication structure.

If change is to come from the people then it is time to tell the incoming administration from Obama on down the chain of command that we do not like the reporting that is coming out.

Specifically- 1). Lieberman should be shown tough love and stripped of his most important committee chairmanship. 2). Intelligence agencies must comply and conform intelligence activities with U.S. law prohibiting torture and U.S. military field manuals covering interrogation procedures, and 3). No "lame duck" holdovers from a failed administration.

Change should not come "later" but now.

From Wall Street Journal today:

Like the president-elect, Mr. Gates supports deploying more troops to Afghanistan. But the defense secretary strongly opposes a firm timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq, and his appointment could mean that Mr. Obama was effectively shelving his campaign promise to remove most troops from Iraq by mid-2010.  [My emphasis]

This is the reason why Gates should be replaced immediately.

WSJ.com continues:

Still, speculation that Mr. Gates would remain in the job increased over the weekend when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) endorsed the idea in a CNN interview. "Why wouldn't we want to keep him?" Sen. Reid said. "He's never been a registered Republican."

Another Dem speaks, per WSJ.com:

"He's not ideological, he's not partisan, and you could trust him to manage the wars in a competent manner while a new administration gets up to speed," said Nancy Soderberg, a Democrat and onetime U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "It would allow the Obama administration to hit the ground running."

I beg to differ but Mr. Obama can hit the ground running with his own set of advisors.  No more holdovers from a failed and criminal administration.

Remember that Chief of Staff Rahm said that Obama will follow through on his promises...that means a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq by 2010.

The will and majority of Americans want a firm timetable for withdrawl.  This is one of the main reasons why Obama became president.

Stop the killing of Americans and Iraqis.

The Washington Post is floating a trial balloon:  Bernanke, Gates, Mullen and Mueller to stay on.

Three of the four should go immediately: Bernanke, Gates and Mueller.

The WashingtonPost.com reports:

There is reason to think Obama and Bernanke will get along. Although Bernanke is a Republican, his response to the financial crisis has won him plaudits from congressional Democrats who view him as pragmatic and non-ideological. The former Princeton professor has a calm manner, a penchant for building consensus and unquestioned academic expertise, qualities valued by Obama.

This is a laugher because Bernanke has already pulled several changes without the approval of Congress about those changes which have altered tax code and increased the federal debt by hundreds of billions of dollars.

From what I've read both locally and at the national level is that Republicans have not learned about the fact that they lost- big time.  A whipping at the state and national levels.  President-elect Barack Obama wins in a landslide.  The Democratic party picks up about 20 House seats and could win a 59 seat majority in the Senate.

However now is not the time to let up on the gas pedal!  It is time to see to it that the Republicans will be the minority party for the next generation.

This is time for progressive and liberal ideals are shown to be pragmatically superior to the conservative ideology that is based upon either Christian fundamentalist "family values" or Ayn Rand's philosophy as distilled by Barry Goldwater.  What this means is that the Democratic President and Congress must pass legislation and implement effectively that legislation which will measurable improve the livelihood of this nation's peoples.