Hmmmm......I guess that would be like Kay (Plastic hair) Bailey-Hutchinson
writing an
anti-Hillary commentary. They have been saying that this scary bimbo would be
McCain's running mate.
Bailey-Hutchinson only made it to the Senate because she hired a "Liberal"
attorney named Dick DeGeurrin to get her aquitted from using Texas state
employees (on the clock of course) to do her mailings for the Senate while she
was a state employee. She also used her state franking privaleges to mail them.
We the tax payers got to foot the bill for her campaign mailing which is
against the law here.
She was busted and a local Austin DA ran in (with warrants that were thanks
to Dickie boy- TOSSED out!) and then she took her seat. They waited to let her
be sworn in until after they cleared her. I saw her on Bill Maher's HBO sjhow
and I was embarrassed to hear how stupid she sounded. Hopefully, Obama will
pick Edwards or Richardson to be his runninjg mate. Either of them could make
this former prep-school Stepford Senate member look like the jerk that she is.
Of COURSE he would say that he wasn''t an Obama supporter.
He's working for another person who is running.
Richard <rsierra12@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
SF Progressive Matt Gonzalez is running as Nader?s veep
candidate. /R
---------------------------------
From: change-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:change-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Cort Greene
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 10:23 AM
To: nwopc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; ohioleft@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
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Subject: [change-links] The Obama Craze: Count Me Out
From Beyond Chron, the Voice of the Rest. We provide coverage of political
and cultural issues often distorted or ignored by the Bay Area's largest
newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle.
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=5413#more
The Obama Craze: Count Me Out by Matt Gonzalez, 2008-02-27
Part of me shares the enthusiasm for Barack Obama. After all, how could
someone calling themself a progressive not sense the importance of what it
means to have an African-American so close to the presidency? But as his
campaign has unfolded, and I heard that we are not red states or blue states
for the 6th or 7th time, I realized I knew virtually nothing about him.
Like most, I know he gave a stirring speech at the Democratic National
Convention in 2004. I know he defeated Alan Keyes in the Illinois Senate race;
although it wasn't much of a contest (Keyes was living in Maryland when he
announced). Recently, I started looking into Obama's voting record, and I'm
afraid to say I'm not just uninspired: I'm downright fearful. Here's why:
This is a candidate who says he's going to usher in change; that he is a
different kind of politician who has the skills to get things done. He reminds
us again and again that he had the foresight to oppose the war in Iraq. And he
seems to have a genuine interest in lifting up the poor.
But his record suggests that he is incapable of ushering in any kind of change
I'd like to see. It is one of accommodation and concession to the very
political powers that we need to reign in and oppose if we are to make truly
lasting advances.
THE WAR IN IRAQ
Let's start with his signature position against the Iraq war. Obama has sent
mixed messages at best.
First, he opposed the war in Iraq while in the Illinois state legislature. Once
he was running for US Senate though, when public opinion and support for the
war was at its highest, he was quoted in the July 27, 2004 Chicago Tribune as
saying, "There's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's
position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to
execute." The Tribune went on to say that Obama, "now believes US forces must
remain to stabilize the war-ravaged nation ? a policy not dissimilar to the
current approach of the Bush administration."
Obama's campaign says he was referring to the ongoing occupation and how best
to stabilize the region. But why wouldn't he have taken the opportunity to urge
withdrawal if he truly opposed the war? Was he trying to signal to conservative
voters that he would subjugate his anti-war position if elected to the US
Senate and perhaps support a lengthy occupation? Well as it turns out, he's
done just that.
Since taking office in January 2005 he has voted to approve every war
appropriation the Republicans have put forward, totaling over $300 billion. He
also voted to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State despite her
complicity in the Bush Administration's various false justifications for going
to war in Iraq. Why would he vote to make one of the architects of "Operation
Iraqi Liberation" the head of US foreign policy? Curiously, he lacked the
courage of 13 of his colleagues who voted against her confirmation.
And though he often cites his background as a civil rights lawyer, Obama voted
to reauthorize the Patriot Act in July 2005, easily the worse attack on civil
liberties in the last half-century. It allows for wholesale eavesdropping on
American citizens under the guise of anti-terrorism efforts.
And in March 2006, Obama went out of his way to travel to Connecticut to
campaign for Senator Joseph Lieberman who faced a tough challenge by anti-war
candidate Ned Lamont. At a Democratic Party dinner attended by Lamont, Obama
called Lieberman "his mentor" and urged those in attendance to vote and give
financial contributions to him. This is the same Lieberman who Alexander
Cockburn called "Bush's closest Democratic ally on the Iraq War." Why would
Obama have done that if he was truly against the war?
Recently, with anti-war sentiment on the rise, Obama declared he will get our
combat troops out of Iraq in 2009. But Obama isn't actually saying he wants to
get all of our troops out of Iraq. At a September 2007 debate before the New
Hampshire primary, moderated by Tim Russert, Obama refused to commit to getting
our troops out of Iraq by January 2013 and, on the campaign trail, he has
repeatedly stated his desire to add 100,000 combat troops to the military.
At the same event, Obama committed to keeping enough soldiers in Iraq to "carry
out our counter-terrorism activities there" which includes "striking at al
Qaeda in Iraq." What he didn't say is this continued warfare will require an
estimated 60,000 troops to remain in Iraq according to a May 2006 report
prepared by the Center for American Progress. Moreover, it appears he intends
to "redeploy" the troops he takes out of the unpopular war in Iraq and send
them to Afghanistan. So it appears that under Obama's plan the US will remain
heavily engaged in war.
This is hardly a position to get excited about.
CLASS ACTION REFORM:
In 2005, Obama joined Republicans in passing a law dubiously called the Class
Action Fairness Act (CAFA) that would shut down state courts as a venue to hear
many class action lawsuits. Long a desired objective of large corporations and
President George Bush, Obama in effect voted to deny redress in many of the
courts where these kinds of cases have the best chance of surviving corporate
legal challenges. Instead, it forces them into the backlogged Republican-judge
dominated federal courts.
By contrast, Senators Clinton, Edwards and Kerry joined 23 others to vote
against CAFA, noting the "reform" was a thinly-veiled "special interest
extravaganza" that favored banking, creditors and other corporate interests.
David Sirota, the former spokesman for Democrats on the House Appropriations
Committee, commented on CAFA in the June 26, 2006 issue of The Nation, "Opposed
by most major civil rights and consumer watchdog groups, this Big
Business-backed legislation was sold to the public as a way to stop "frivolous"
lawsuits. But everyone in Washington knew the bill's real objective was to
protect corporate abusers."
Nation contributor Dan Zegart noted further: "On its face, the class-action
bill is mere procedural tinkering, transferring from state to federal court
actions involving more than $5 million where any plaintiff is from a different
state from the defendant company. But federal courts are much more hostile to
class actions than their state counterparts; such cases tend to be rooted in
the finer points of state law, in which federal judges are reluctant to dabble.
And even if federal judges do take on these suits, with only 678 of them on the
bench (compared with 9,200 state judges), already overburdened dockets will
grow. Thus, the bill will make class actions ? most of which involve
discrimination, consumer fraud and wage-and-hour violations ? all but
impossible. One example: After forty lawsuits were filed against Wal-Mart for
allegedly forcing employees to work "off the clock," four state courts
certified these suits as class actions. Not a single federal court did so,
although the practice probably involves hundreds of thousands of employees
nationwide."
Why would a civil rights lawyer knowingly make it harder for working-class
people to have their day in court, in effect shutting off avenues of redress?
CREDIT CARD INTEREST RATES:
Obama has a way of ducking hard votes or explaining away his bad votes by
trying to blame poorly-written statutes. Case in point: an amendment he voted
on as part of a recent bankruptcy bill before the US Senate would have capped
credit card interest rates at 30 percent. Inexplicably, Obama voted against it,
although it would have been the beginning of setting these predatory lending
rates under federal control. Even Senator Hillary Clinton supported it.
Now Obama explains his vote by saying the amendment was poorly written or set
the ceiling too high. His explanation isn't credible as Obama offered no lower
number as an alternative, and didn't put forward his own amendment clarifying
whatever language he found objectionable.
Why wouldn't Obama have voted to create the first federal ceiling on predatory
credit card interest rates, particularly as he calls himself a champion of the
poor and middle classes? Perhaps he was signaling to the corporate
establishment that they need not fear him. For all of his dynamic rhetoric
about lifting up the masses, it seems Obama has little intention of doing
anything concrete to reverse the cycle of poverty many struggle to overcome.
LIMITING NON-ECONOMIC DAMAGES:
These seemingly unusual votes wherein Obama aligns himself with Republican
Party interests aren't new. While in the Illinois Senate, Obama voted to limit
the recovery that victims of medical malpractice could obtain through the
courts. Capping non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases means a
victim cannot fully recover for pain and suffering or for punitive damages.
Moreover, it ignored that courts were already empowered to adjust awards when
appropriate, and that the Illinois Supreme Court had previously ruled such
limits on tort reform violated the state constitution.
In the US Senate, Obama continued interfering with patients' full recovery for
tortious conduct. He was a sponsor of the National Medical Error Disclosure and
Compensation Act of 2005. The bill requires hospitals to disclose errors to
patients and has a mechanism whereby disclosure, coupled with apologies, is
rewarded by limiting patients' economic recovery. Rather than simply mandating
disclosure, Obama's solution is to trade what should be mandated for something
that should never be given away: namely, full recovery for the injured patient.
MINING LAW OF 1872:
In November 2007, Obama came out against a bill that would have reformed the
notorious Mining Law of 1872. The current statute, signed into law by Ulysses
Grant, allows mining companies to pay a nominal fee, as little as $2.50 an
acre, to mine for hardrock minerals like gold, silver, and copper without
paying royalties. Yearly profits for mining hardrock on public lands is
estimated to be in excess of $1 billion a year according to Earthworks, a group
that monitors the industry. Not surprisingly, the industry spends freely when
it comes to lobbying: an estimated $60 million between 1998-2004 according to
The Center on Public Integrity. And it appears to be paying off, yet again.
The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2007 would have finally overhauled
the law and allowed American taxpayers to reap part of the royalties (4 percent
of gross revenue on existing mining operations and 8 percent on new ones). The
bill provided a revenue source to cleanup abandoned hardrock mines, which is
likely to cost taxpayers over $50 million, and addressed health and safety
concerns in the 11 affected western states.
Later it came to light that one of Obama's key advisors in Nevada is a
Nevada-based lobbyist in the employ of various mining companies (CBS News
"Obama's Position On Mining Law Questioned. Democrat Shares Position with
Mining Executives Who Employ Lobbyist Advising Him," November 14, 2007).
REGULATING NUCLEAR INDUSTRY:
The New York Times reported that, while campaigning in Iowa in December 2007,
Obama boasted that he had passed a bill requiring nuclear plants to promptly
report radioactive leaks. This came after residents of his home state of
Illinois complained they were not told of leaks that occurred at a nuclear
plant operated by Exelon Corporation.
The truth, however, was that Obama allowed the bill to be amended in Committee
by Senate Republicans, replacing language mandating reporting with verbiage
that merely offered guidance to regulators on how to address unreported leaks.
The story noted that even this version of Obama's bill failed to pass the
Senate, so it was unclear why Obama was claiming to have passed the
legislation. The February 3, 2008 The New York Times article titled "Nuclear
Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate" by Mike McIntire also noted the
opinion of one of Obama's constituents, which was hardly enthusiastic about
Obama's legislative efforts:
"Senator Obama's staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we
could see it weakening with each successive draft," said Joe Cosgrove, a park
district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had
turned up in groundwater. "The teeth were just taken out of it."
As it turns out, the New York Times story noted: "Since 2003, executives and
employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least
$227,000 to Mr. Obama's campaigns for the United States Senate and for
president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president,
and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers."
ENERGY POLICY:
On energy policy, it turns out Obama is a big supporter of corn-based ethanol
which is well known for being an energy-intensive crop to grow. It is estimated
that seven barrels of oil are required to produce eight barrels of corn
ethanol, according to research by the Cato Institute. Ethanol's impact on
climate change is nominal and isn't "green" according to Alisa Gravitz, Co-op
America executive director. "It simply isn't a major improvement over gasoline
when it comes to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions." A 2006 University of
Minnesota study by Jason Hill and David Tilman, and an earlier study published
in BioScience in 2005, concur. (There's even concern that a reliance on
corn-based ethanol would lead to higher food prices.)
So why would Obama be touting this as a solution to our oil dependency? Could
it have something to do with the fact that the first presidential primary is
located in Iowa, corn capitol of the country? In legislative terms this means
Obama voted in favor of $8 billion worth of corn subsidies in 2006 alone, when
most of that money should have been committed to alternative energy sources
such as solar, tidal and wind.
SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE:
Obama opposed single-payer bill HR676, sponsored by Congressmen Dennis Kucinich
and John Conyers in 2006, although at least 75 members of Congress supported
it. Single-payer works by trying to diminish the administrative costs that
comprise somewhere around one-third of every health care dollar spent, by
eliminating the duplicative nature of these services. The expected $300 billion
in annual savings such a system would produce would go directly to cover the
uninsured and expand coverage to those who already have insurance, according to
Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard
Medical School and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.
Obama's own plan has been widely criticized for leaving health care industry
administrative costs in place and for allowing millions of people to remain
uninsured. "Sicko" filmmaker Michael Moore ridiculed it saying, "Obama wants
the insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan-the same
companies who have created the mess in the first place."
NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT:
Regarding the North American Free Trade Agreement, Obama recently boasted, "I
don't think NAFTA has been good for Americans, and I never have." Yet, Calvin
Woodward reviewed Obama's record on NAFTA in a February 26, 2008 Associated
Press article and found that comment to be misleading: "In his 2004 Senate
campaign, Obama said the US should pursue more deals such as NAFTA, and argued
more broadly that his opponent's call for tariffs would spark a trade war. AP
reported then that the Illinois senator had spoken of enormous benefits having
accrued to his state from NAFTA, while adding that he also called for more
aggressive trade protections for US workers."
Putting aside campaign rhetoric, when actually given an opportunity to protect
workers from unfair trade agreements, Obama cast the deciding vote against an
amendment to a September 2005 Commerce Appropriations Bill, proposed by North
Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, that would have prohibited US trade negotiators
from weakening US laws that provide safeguards from unfair foreign trade
practices. The bill would have been a vital tool to combat the outsourcing of
jobs to foreign workers and would have ended a common corporate practice known
as "pole-vaulting" over regulations, which allows companies doing foreign
business to avoid "right to organize," "minimum wage," and other worker
protections.
SOME FINAL EXAMPLES:
On March 2, 2007 Obama gave a speech at AIPAC, America's pro-Israeli government
lobby, wherein he disavowed his previous support for the plight of the
Palestinians. In what appears to be a troubling pattern, Obama told his
audience what they wanted to hear. He recounted a one-sided history of the
region and called for continued military support for Israel, rather than taking
the opportunity to promote the various peace movements in and outside of
Israel.
Why should we believe Obama has courage to bring about change? He wouldn't have
his picture taken with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom when visiting San
Francisco for a fundraiser in his honor because Obama was scared voters might
think he supports gay marriage (Newsom acknowledged this to Reuters on January
26, 2007 and former Mayor Willie Brown admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle
on February 5, 2008 that Obama told him he wanted to avoid Newsom for that
reason.)
Obama acknowledges the disproportionate impact the death penalty has on blacks,
but still supports it, while other politicians are fighting to stop it. (On
December 17, 2007 New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine signed a bill banning the
death penalty after it was passed by the New Jersey Assembly.)
On September 29, 2006, Obama joined Republicans in voting to build 700 miles of
double fencing on the Mexican border (The Secure Fence Act of 2006), abandoning
19 of his colleagues who had the courage to oppose it. But now that he's
campaigning in Texas and eager to win over Mexican-American voters, he says
he'd employ a different border solution.
It is shocking how frequently and consistently Obama is willing to subjugate
good decision making for his personal and political benefit.
Obama aggressively opposed initiating impeachment proceedings against the
president ("Obama: Impeachment is not acceptable," USA Today, June 28, 2007)
and he wouldn't even support Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold's effort to
censure the Bush administration for illegally wiretapping American citizens in
violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In Feingold's
words "I'm amazed at Democrats ? cowering with this president's number's so
low." Once again, it's troubling that Obama would take these positions and miss
the opportunity to document the abuses of the Bush regime.
CONCLUSION:
Once I started looking at the votes Obama actually cast, I began to hear his
rhetoric differently. The principal conclusion I draw about "change" and Barack
Obama is that Obama needs to change his voting habits and stop pandering to win
votes. If he does this he might someday make a decent candidate who could earn
my support. For now Obama has fallen into a dangerous pattern of capitulation
that he cannot reconcile with his growing popularity as an agent of change.
I remain impressed by the enthusiasm generated by Obama's style and skill as an
orator. But I remain more loyal to my values, and I'm glad to say that I want
no part in the Obama craze sweeping our country.
Matt Gonzalez is a former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
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