Truth in labeling for the former half term governor…

( – promoted by Clark)

I’m sitting in the lunch session on Civil Rights in the Modern Era.  The opening speaker made the very, very important point that those of us who have a particular issue must unite to succeed for that issue.  

This is exactly the point that Kos made in his first book: Storming the Gates.

This is the third Netroots Nation I have been to: Chicago 2007, Pittsburgh 2009, and now Las Vegas 2010. All three seemed to have distinct themes.

Some thoughts on that after the fold.

I have no idea what the first gathering was like in Vegas, but Chicago in 2007 was exciting.  

Those in Chicago were excited.  The candidates for President were coming here and NOT to the DLC.  We knew, after 2006, we were going to win in 2008 if we worked.

Pittsburgh was in the summer of Obama’s first year. Valerie Jarret came and the vibe, it seemed to me, was what to expect from the Obama administration and the Congress.  There were fights ahead, but the question was about what could we expect to do.

This year the theme is clear: why are we on the defensive when we won?  That was the underlying theme in the Social Security session I reported on yesterday.  This morning I was on a panel about the Kagan nomination.  A number of panelist lamented the fact that we have no liberals on the Court. There is an 11% vacancy rate on the Federal bench and the rate of confirmations of Obama nominees is significantly behind the rate of confirmations when Bush took power.

Last night Ed Shultz cried out his frustration over the pace of change and the compromises that have been made.

I have no talked about the memorable speeches.

Governor Brian Schweitzer (D-Montana) was incredible.  I have heard no politician in Missouri who can talk about progressive policies in such a folksy manner.  Kos talked about him as the obvious challenger to Baucus in 2012.

This morning it was Van Jones.  There is a reason why the Right smeared him.  For me, Jones had the best line of his convention: Remember Obama volunteered to captain the Titanic AFTER it had hit the iceberg.

I like it but as someone noted to me, “yeah but we expected more.”  

There will be no reports on the gambling front.  I can still pay next month’s mortgage.  

 

I have the good fortune of being able to afford, both in money and time, to go to Netroots Nation.

This is my third one.  I’m now in my fourth session.

I have attended one from Rich Mellman’s polling on the concern people have that we are no longer a manufacturing country, health care reform, social security, and the fights in education standards over evolution in Texas and Kansas.

The one on Social Security is the scariest.  I will talk about it below.  

The fear, the panelist reported on, is the commission that Obama put together will be reporting in December.  With such deficit hawks on the committee, the great fear is that there will be a strong move to reduce benefits for younger workers.

The coalition gearing up to fight any proposals to do that has the cry: “Strengthen Social Security, but Don’t Cut Benefits.”

The group is organizing at strengthensocialsecurity.org.

The message was clear: by changing the cap on the system will survive for 75 more years.

We have to make sure that McCaskill understands that.  

Yet think about what happened in the special session. The General Assembly funded a tax incentive program by reducing the retirement benefits for new state workers.  That shows how strong the notion is that retirees are too well-off.

More reports coming.  The fight will never end and we have to remember that.

You’ve probably heard that looney-tunes Rep. Michelle Bachmann has decided that what the Congress really needs is a Tea Party Caucus, as if almost the entire GOP, with a few brave exceptions, wasn’t busy pandering to what is, after all, their traditional base plus a few extra fringe crazies that have crawled out of the woodwork. Yesterday the caucus was officially recognized, and today Bachmann has released the list of the first 29 members. The only member from Missouri – drum roll here – Todd Akin.  

Okay, no big surprise there, birds of a feather and all, but what I’m interested in is where’s the rest of the Missouri GOP pols?  None of them seem to want to repudiate the Tea Party, but have, on the contrary, been more than willing to fall all over themselves in their haste to prove themselves Tea Party friendly. The big question is whether or not any more of them will be willing to cross over into overt Nuttopia. Or are they maybe a little worried that the Tea Party label is just a bit too compromised by dumb and crazy for ultimate respectability? It might be fun to watch our suddenly squeamish GOPers dance around this great new option with they have been presented.

Update:  Maybe the announcement of Akin’s leap into the Tea was premature? Or not.

Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones, writing abut the diminishing chances for meaningful climate legislation, has this to say about Claire McCaskill’s leadership or lack thereof on the issue:

Other senators are just getting testy about the issue. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), one of the few Democrats still considered “on the fence” when it comes to including climate provisions, flatly refused to discuss the issue with reporters. “I’m not going to talk about energy. I got burned twice last week,” said McCaskill, indicating that some unnamed reporter had misquoted. McCaskill is one of the Democrats folks are watching most closely on this issue, since she has yet to weigh in publicly one way or another. I have no idea what quote she is referring to as having been wrong.

She claims she was misquoted so now she’ll say nothing?  Typical McCaskill. I wonder if this Politico article might be what’s got McCaskill clamming up?  The author makes the argument that McCaskill’s allies, the so-called “brown dogs,” are the reason we’ll get a safely neutered climate bill if we get anything at all:

… despite months of legwork by the president’s Senate allies, few of these so-called Brown Dogs are biting.

He continues, quoting McCaskill:

I think it’s still a work in progress,” said Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who worries that a cap would be a loser for Democrats in November. “You know, it took 50 years on health care.”

…

The party that has moderates is the party that governs,” McCaskill said. “If we don’t have moderates, we’re the minority.

This quote is These quotes are certainly outrageous enough to leave McCaskill feeling burned if she was misquoted. But if she was truly misquoted, why doesn’t she just put the record straight instead of equivocating? All I can say is that if she is not trying to play both sides against the middle, she had better get hustling to do just that – because if this quote is not a misrepresentation of her beliefs, she deserves whatever grief she gets.  

And if this putative statement is an accurate representation of what McCaskill said, she may have inadvertently put her finger on exactly what is wrong with Washington D.C – anyone who thinks that we’ve got fifty years to “fix” the climate problem, or that a party of impotent “moderates” gets points for governing without doing anything of substance in the face of a genuine crisis is right there at the heart of the problem. There is no reason that I can think of  to send folks to Washington to sit on their hands and make mealy-mouth sounds while the crap piles up – or even, as is closer to McCaskill’s case, to make a few prissy gestures about cleaning up around the edges of the mess while shuddering with genteel horror at the thought of tackling the biggest piles.

Proud?

Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (r) via Twitter yesterday:

Tell him how proud we are of him! RT @DLoesch: . @andrewbreitbart on today’s show 2pm cdt #dlrs #STL #tcot #pdk     about 18 hours ago  via UberTwitter  

None. This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.

Wurlitzer, the Mighty, or Wingnut Welfare Wurlitzer – Professional media outlets dedicated specifically to promulgating right-wing propaganda, such as Regnery Press or Fox News. In the modern era of media consolidation, it may be difficult to separate the deliberate organs of misinformation from the incessant general tinkle of infotainment. The term ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’ itself is pre-Internet, said to have been coined by an early CIA operative in reference to Cold War propaganda efforts.

July 20, 2010 5:37 PM

Shirley Sherrod Helped Keep Us Out of Bankruptcy, Farmer’s Wife Says

Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign from the Department of Agriculture because of recent remarks she made that, taken out of context, suggested she discriminated against a white farmer. That farmer’s wife, however, is saying Sherrod is a “friend for life” who saved their family farm from foreclosure….

At Digby:

….Breitbart had edited the video, of course, and he refuses to release the whole thing, naturally. But that didn’t matter in this case any more than it mattered in the ACORN case….

….But I also have to wonder if they know what the optics of this are. If two-bit sociopathic wingnuts can scare them to this extent with obviously doctored videos, what happens when they see a real threat? Are they going to flap their arms like penguins and run around in circles screaming “they’re coming to get us, run for your lives!!?” At this point, that doesn’t seem entirely ridiculous.

Seriously, this shows tremendous weakness. Andrew Brietbart is a con artist and and right wing entertainer whose antics should always be met with a cynical laugh and a shake of the head. To fall for his schtick more than once is political malpractice….

Well, at least the NAACP corrected the record:

NAACP Statement on the Resignation of Shirley Sherrod

July 20, 2010

(BALTIMORE, MD) – NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous issued the following statement today after a careful investigation into the presentation of former USDA Official Shirley Sherrod.

“The NAACP has a zero tolerance policy against racial discrimination, whether practiced by blacks, whites, or any other group.

The NAACP also has long championed and embraced transformation by people who have moved beyond racial bias. Most notably, we have done so for late Alabama Governor George Wallace and late US Senator Robert Byrd — each a man who had associated with and supported white supremacists and their cause before embracing civil rights for all.  

With regard to the initial media coverage of the resignation of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod, we have come to the conclusion we were snookered by Fox News and Tea Party Activist Andrew Breitbart into believing she had harmed white farmers because of racial bias.

Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans.  

The fact is Ms. Sherrod did help the white farmers mentioned in her speech.  They personally credit her with helping to save their family farm.

Moreover, this incident and the lesson it prompted occurred more that 20 years before she went to work for USDA.

Finally, she was sharing this account as part of a story of transformation and redemption. In the full video, Ms.Sherrod says she realized that the dislocation of farmers is about “haves and have nots.”  “It’s not just about black people, it’s about poor people,” says Sherrod in the speech. “We have to get to the point where race exists but it doesn’t matter.”

This is a teachable moment, for activists and for journalists.

Most Americans agree that racism has no place in American Society.  We also believe that civil and human rights have to be measured by a single yardstick.

The NAACP has demonstrated its commitment to live by that standard.

The Tea Party Federation took a step in that direction when it expelled the Tea Party Express over the weekend. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear from other leaders in the Tea Party movement like Dick Armey and Sarah Palin, who have been virtually silent on the “internal bigotry” issue.

Next time we are confronted by a racial controversy broken by Fox News or their allies in the Tea Party like Mr. Breitbart, we will consider the source and be more deliberate in responding.  The tape of Ms. Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP banquet was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias, and to create a controversy where none existed.  This just shows the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition.

According to the USDA, Sherrod’s statements prompted her dismissal. While we understand why Secretary Vilsack believes this false controversy will impede her ability to function in the role, we urge him to reconsider.

Finally, we hope this incident will heighten Congress’s urgency in dealing with the well documented findings of discrimination toward black, Latino, Asian American and Native American farmers, as well as female farmers of all races.”

###

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conduc

As if the Faux News Channel and their evil mighty wurlitzer minions have ever been credible.