Our Favorite Elected Official, Photobombed

If you missed Taylor’s fantastic presentation about the dysfunction in Albany last night — email Heather to find out how we can bring “Restoring Democracy to NY: A Call to Action By MYD” to you! secretary [at] goMYD [dot] com. It’ll tell you all about why officials like Pedro make life suck for all of us New Yorkers.

Holy !@#$, 8 in 10 Americans Agree On Something

Recall that a few weeks ago, the Supreme Court basically handed our democracy to corporations:

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the high court ruled 5-4 that corporations have the same rights as individuals when it comes to political speech and can therefore use their profits to support or oppose individual candidates. The decision appears to open the door to unlimited spending by corporations, trade groups and unions in the weeks leading up to an election, which has been explicitly banned for decades

This decision has finally given the people of this country something we can pretty much ALL agree on:

Eight in ten poll respondents say they oppose the high court’s Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent “strongly” opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits.

Eight in ten! Is there any other issue that unites us like this? And it’s completely and totally bipartisan:

The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent).

Now…. is anyone in DC listening to the People?

Washington Post Poll

Senator Quits In Face of Congressional Paralysis

U.S. Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, a centrist Dem, announced he will not seek a third term yesterday. On the heels of the loss of the Kennedy seat in Massachusetts, the news sent Dems “reeling” — but the real story is why he’s quitting when he could pretty easily win re-election. His announcement offers a depressing insider’s perspective on just how dysfunctional Congress has become:

“For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should,” Mr. Bayh said. “There is too much partisanship and not enough progress — too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the people’s business is not being done.”

“This is colored by having observed the Senate in my father’s day,” Mr. Bayh said. “It wasn’t perfect; they had politics back then, too. But there was much more friendship across the aisles, and there was a greater willingness to put politics aside for the welfare of the country. I just don’t see that now.”

“In my father’s day, you legislated for four years and campaigned for two; now it’s full time. The politics never stops,” he said. “My bottom line is that there are a lot of really good people trapped in a dysfunctional system desperately in need of reform.”

But to New Yorkers, legislative paralysis is nothing new. Come to our General Meeting tonight to hear our President Taylor Stirek speak about the dysfunction in Albany — and what we as MYDers are going to do about it in 2010.

See you at 461 Park Ave S, New York, New York, NY 10016 @ 7PM! map

Times – Democrats Reel as Senator Says No to 3rd Term

Obama Sends Unambiguous Message Re: Healthcare — PASS IT NOW

YES!

“So just in case there’s any confusion out there, let me be clear. I am not going to walk away from health insurance reform. I’m not going to walk away from the American people. I’m not going to walk away from this challenge. I’m not going to walk away from any challenge. We’re moving forward.”

His voice rising, he added: “We are moving forward!” [snip]

“Yes, we could continue to ignore the growing burden of the runaway cost of healthcare,” said Obama, wearing a suit jacket but no tie. “The easiest thing to do right now would be to just say, ‘Ah, this is too hard. Let’s just regroup and lick our wounds and try to hang on.’

“We’ve had a long and difficult debate on healthcare and there are some, maybe even the majority in this town, who say, perhaps it’s time to walk away,” the president told his party. “But here’s the thing, Democrats. If we walk away we know what will happen. We know that premiums and out-of-pocket expenses will skyrocket this decade and the decade after that, and the decade after that.”

Xpostfactoid via Andrew Sullivan

Demon-Eyed Sheep II

Hat tip: Sean

Demon-Eyed Sheep

I’ve been having a really bad day, but this made it slightly better.

Demon-Eyed Sheep

Someone Get Me A Copy Of That Game

You just can’t make this (#*@ up:

An online video game, designed recently by libertarians in Brooklyn, called “2011: Obama’s Coup Fails” imagines a scenario in which the Democrats lose seventeen of nineteen seats in the Senate and a hundred and seventy-eight in the House during the midterm elections, prompting the President to dissolve the Constitution and implement an emergency North American People’s Union, with help from Mexico’s Felipe Calderón, Canada’s Stephen Harper, and various civilian defense troops with names like the Black Tigers, the International Service Union Empire, and CORNY, or the Congress of Rejected and Neglected Youth. Lou Dobbs has gone missing, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh turn up dead at a FEMA concentration camp, and you, a lone militiaman in a police state where private gun ownership has been outlawed, are charged with defeating the enemies of patriotism, one county at a time.

The Rise of the Tea Party Movement – The New Yorker

Power + Isolation = Brain Damage

Once we become socially isolated, we stop simulating the feelings of other people.* As a result, our inner Machiavelli takes over, and our sense of sympathy is squashed by selfishness. The UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner has found that, in many social situations, people with power act just like patients with severe brain damage. “The experience of power might be thought of as having someone open up your skull and take out that part of your brain so critical to empathy and socially-appropriate behavior,” he writes. “You become very impulsive and insensitive, which is a bad combination.”

Of course, we live in an age when our most powerful people – they tend to also have lots of money – are also the most isolated. They live in gated communities with private drivers. They eat at different restaurants and stay at different resorts. They wear different clothes and skip the security lines at airports, before sitting at the front of the plane. We shouldn’t be surprised that they’re also assholes.

*I think this helps explain the public preference for politicians with ordinary preferences, or why Scott Brown kept on talking about his truck. And it also justifies Obama insistence on not becoming informationally isolated, whether that’s by reading ten letters from constituents every day or following a variety of blogs.

Frontal Cortex, via Andrew Sullivan

Administration Does Not Support 9/11 Health Bill

The Obama administration stunned New York’s delegation Thursday, dropping the bombshell news that it does not support funding the 9/11 health bill.

The state’s two senators and 14 House members met with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just hours before President Obama implored in his speech to the nation for Congress to come together and deliver a government that delivers on its promises to the American people.

So the legislators were floored to learn the Democratic administration does not want to deliver for the tens of thousands of people who sacrificed after 9/11, and the untold numbers now getting sick.

“I was stunned — and very disappointed,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who like most of the other legislators had expected more of a discussion on how to more forward.

“To say the least, I was flabbergasted,” said Staten Island Rep. Mike McMahon.

The 9/11 bill would spend about $11 billion over 30 years to care for the growing numbers of people getting sick from their service at Ground Zero, and to compensate families for their losses.

Daily News

Don’t Let Anybody Take That Away From You

I have yet to digest the SOTU speech from tonight, but as I was clicking around my countless Firefox tabs, I came across a quote I put up on my Facebook profile just about a year ago. Here’s Obama at the OFA Staff Ball, in January 2009, speaking more candidly and openly than I’ve ever seen him speak since then:

When I look out and I see all of you, I think – I’m – Look at you, you’re just kids.

And maybe, maybe its because so many of you are so young, or at least young at heart – that, you could imagine what had not been done before. You didn’t know any better when people said I couldn’t win.

You didn’t understand when folks said, that’s not how it’s done. When people said, well you can’t raise money over the Internet, $25 at a time. You didn’t know, so you went ahead and raised another $25 at a time – “Yes – Yes We Can.”

But people said, well you – you can’t build a grassroots organization in all fifty states and – and have – have people just get on a website and decide, “Well I have hope for Obama and I’m just going to start organizing for him.”

People – you’re not supposed to be able to do that. But you guys just went ahead and did it – you didn’t know any better. You said, “Yes We Can.” [...]

But, but here’s the thing – I guess, that’s most important to me – is that take the spirit, the culture of this campaign, and you keep applying it – not just to campaigns, that you – that – that sense – that sense of possibility that you guys can do anything, that you can reimagine the world, that you can lead, not by trying to manipulate your way – or – or – or push down somebody else to get your way – but, instead lead – you know – through the force of your example, and your discipline, and your creativity. [...]

What an enormous force you’ve got inside yourselves – Don’t put that on the shelf and wait for the next four years – next week, next month, next year, for the rest of your lives – Cling on to that essential thing about you.

What made this campaign special was you.

And don’t let anybody forget – Don’t let anybody take that away from you. [...]

You, together, can change the world.

When he said “Don’t let anybody take that away from you” — did he have the premonition that he, too, would lose that awesome, deity-like hold on his supporters some day? That the trials and decisions of governance would prove an affront to the idealism of the young people who worked so hard to get him elected? I keep wondering whether Obama  knew this would happen–the disillusionment. The imperfection and compromises of government, the lack of ideologically pure approaches to policy-making.

Perhaps the true lesson we should take away from working so hard to get Obama elected is that we can’t rely on “important” people, “powerful” people, to make our lives better anymore. Maybe that’s what he was trying to say. That he wanted our support, but not our reliance upon him, to make this country work better for the average person. For us.

State and local laws impact our lives far more than we give them credit for. We don’t have to move the nation to begin improving the lives of New Yorkers today. Look at Massachusetts — they already have a healthcare plan akin to what we’re desperately trying to pass at the federal level. Change CAN happen locally. And if there is an impasse at the national level because, oh, I don’t know, Democrats in DC don’t have any balls left to do what a near-super-majority elected them to do, then there ARE other avenues for action and activism.

That’s what I’m going to believe in and work towards for 2010.

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