Category: Barack Obama

So, Iowans has gone to their meetings and the results are in.  With all of the analysis that’s going on, I thought I’d throw my 2 cents worth in.

 

More unfortunate climate change news for us and the candidates – this time from the boreal forests. The Guardian and others are reporting on a new study that finds trees are absorbing less CO2 as the world warms.

The ability of forests to soak up man-made carbon dioxide is weakening, according to an analysis of two decades of data from more than 30 sites in the frozen north.

The finding published today is crucial, because it means that more of the CO2 we release will end up affecting the climate in the atmosphere rather than being safely locked away in trees or soil.

The results may partly explain recent studies suggesting that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected. If higher temperatures mean less carbon is soaked up by plants and microbes, global warming will accelerate.

Worldwide, only tropical rainforests are larger then boreal or northern forests. They cover Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia.  

photo courtesy of SEIU International on Flickr used under this Creative Commons license.

So far I have wrote about Barack Obama’s strong stands on public financing of elections and media reform. Today I am going to talk about his work making government more transparent and more ethical. These are area’s were he has gotten the most bills passed into law so hopefully this should be a interesting post.  

How do you  go about choosing a candidate to support? Is it an entirely rational process? Do you decide what the most important issues are for you and then compare each candidate’s proposed policies on them point by point to make your selection? Or do you go by your “feel” for the integrity and character qualities of the individual candidates? When the candidates are in broad agreement on the major issues (such as ending the Iraq occupation, providing healthcare for all Americans, restoring constitutional limits on executive power, etc.) and they only differ in some specifics of how they would get to those goals, questions of character begin to take on more weight, even among those who are most wonkishly informed and passionate on the issues.

Political psychologist Aubrey Immelman, research director and founder of the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics at Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict in Collegeville and St. Joseph, Minnesota, specializes in developing personality profiles of prominent political figures (as well as criminals – heh).

Yesterday I wrote about the need for systematic change in this country and why Barack Obama had the best plan and record to accomplish that of any of the candidates running. In that diary I talked about his support for public financing of elections and the bills he had introduced to make that a reality with progressive champion Russ Feingold. Since I wrote that I have found out he introduced a bill to publicly finance elections in the Illinois State Senate too. Hard to still make the claim that he is only doing this to win votes.

There is a old saying in the media reform movement “if media is not your number one issue, it has to be your second issue.” In this post I am going to focus on my second issue, media reform.  

I have been interested in politics for two years at most. I have only become a political geek as of the last few months. Over that time I have become convinced that we need real progressive change to lift up this country and make it great again. I have also become convinced that to do that we need real, systematic change. That can mean a lot of things but in this case I am talking about changing the way the political process works. To make a progressive America we need full public financing of elections for all elections. We need media reform that will restore balance and reason to the political debate in our country. We need a transparent government so the people can hold the politicians accountable. We need election reform to insure all political voices have a say and that everyone who wants to vote can vote. We need to reign in the power of corporate lobbyists.

In short we need to close all the loopholes that allow the rich and powerful in this country to have a larger say in democracy then average people.  I believe that out of all the candidates running Barack Obama is the one who will do the most to implement these systematic reforms.

Senator Barack Obama’s top campaign strategist today implied that Senator Hillary Clinton is somehow partially to blame for the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. From Time:

Bhutto’s death will “call into issue the judgment: who’s made the right judgments,” Axelrod said. “Obviously, one of the reasons that Pakistan is in the distress that it’s in is because al-Qaeda is resurgent, has become more powerful within that country and that’s a consequence of us taking the eye off the ball and making the wrong judgment in going into Iraq. That’s a serious difference between these candidates and I’m sure that people will take that into consideration.”

And he points specifically to Senator Clinton.

“She was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit, was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda, who may have been players in this event today, so that’s a judgment she’ll have to defend,” Axelrod said.

Big Tent Democrat wonders where Sen. Obama has been on funding Iraq and Afghanistan. Here’s the answer, Big Tent, from Talking Points Memo:

Yesterday LithiumCola wrote about the Boston Globe’s questionnaire about Executive Power. S/he wrote about the strong answers Senator Obama gave. We’ll I thought I’d focus a diary just on his answers and not just on the two questions LC highlighted. The questionnaire is quite informative and gives you a good look at were the canidates stand. All except Fred Thomson who was asleep and Rudy Giuliani who was day dreaming about 9/11.  

Cross posted at KOS

How can we demand courage from our leader when we have so little?

How can we continue to support candidates who do not support us NOW?

How can we uphold the Constitution when we allow others to abrogate our most important responsibility, our vote?

How can we beg for change when we cannot face change?

How can we save the planet when we cannot save ourselves?

Follow me below the fold and I will give you my take on why who and what we are can be another recipe for a continuing disaster.

When you hear “we need to increase military spending to support the troops” what do you think of?

Money going for body armor, armored vehicles, assault rifles and sidearms, helicopters, uniforms, various forms of advanced training?

All of us want to make sure our men and women in uniform have the tools they need to protect themselves and succeed in the missions they’re sent on. But what about when hundreds of billions of our hard-earned tax dollars go to something like Future Combat Systems?:

The Army’s mammoth Future Combat Systems push is “arguably the most complex” modernization project the Defense Department has ever pursued, according to the Government Accountability Office’s Paul Francis.  

So complex, in fact, that the Army figured it couldn’t pull off FCS by itself.  The service just didn’t have the know-how to manage something as big, as ambitious as remaking just about everything in its inventory — tanks, artillery, drones, you name it — and then building a brand new, absolutely titanic operating system and set of wireless networks, to tie it all together.  Forget a traditional defense contract; the Army needed an industrial partner, instead — some company that could watch over the zillions of moving parts needed to make FCS work. Eventually, the service settled on Boeing as that partner, or “Lead Systems Integrator,” in Pentagonese.

At first, it sounded like a good idea.  But the result was that the contractor basically wound up policing itself, and the military wound up spending lots of its time playing nice with its new partner – rather than cracking the whip.

The outcome has been less than impressive.  In 2003, when the LSI contract officially kicked off, Future Combat was meant to be a $92 billion effort; today, that figures stands at $200 billion, minimum — and maybe more than $230..

The idea was to modernize the Army – to create a new, faster, lighter, more high-tech fighting force for the 21st century. But that’s not how it’s turned out:

like no other Democrat, feigned or real.

http://www.alternet.org/story/…

Edwards makes no attempt to be more Republican than the Republicans like Clinton.  He doesn’t seek to get along like Obama.  

Edwards is not appealing to the mythical middle class of the DLC.  He is talking to the people.  People don’t count for much these days.

Edwards is not the plutocratic candidate with money to burn.  He doesn’t have the glamor and the backing of the two that occupy the front of the stage.  Most polls don’t even bother to record the horrendous drubbing Edwards would deal the Republicans.

Thought someone here might like to know before Edwards is banished forever from the scene.

Best,  Terry  

Today is a very important holiday. The congress did not nearly unanimously pass a resolution recognizing it’s importance. But it’s pretty damn important in my mind, I am speaking of course of the Bill Of Rights day. How am I celebrating Bill of Rights day? I’ve already drunk some tea from my disappearing civil liberties cup as shown above and watch our bill of rights disappear (Thanks Patriot Act!) Now I’m mad enough to do something about it. But first I recommend you get a similar cup. Only 11 dollars on Amazon. Now on to the real topic of the diary, why I believe former Professor (He was actually a Senior Lecturer in Law but professor sounds better) Obama will restore our constitution and our Bill of Rights. And a little call to action.