What's An Occupy Movement Candidate?

This week, Mother Jones found 10 candidates running for Congress as supporters of the Occupy or 99% Movement. Most of them are Blue America candidates-- Alan Grayson, Ilya Sheyman, Elizabeth Warren, Norman Solomon, Eric Griego, and Tammy Baldwin, who we are daily urging people to support on our ActBlue House page or our ActBlue Senate page. But there are a four on their list we haven't gotten to yet:

Hakeem Jeffries (New York): "Income inequality is worse now that it has been since prior to the Great Depression," the state assemblyman said during a passionate speech at an Occupy rally in Brooklyn this fall. In January, Jeffries announced that he'd run for Congress in New York's Tenth Congressional District against 15-term incumbent Ed Towns, who'd angered labor unions when he cast the deciding vote in 2005 for the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Since then, Jeffries has picked up endorsements in the Brooklyn district from prominent unions such as the Communications Workers of America.

Prospects: Fair. Jeffries' success could hinge on stopping the Tenth District from being redrawn to exclude his state assembly district, where he's popular.

Lori Saldaña (California): "Lori Saldaña has leapt headlong into the Occupy movement," writes the San Diego Union-Tribune. While that may be a bit of an overstatement, the Democratic former assemblywoman certainly caters to the cause with her campaign slogan: "Fighting for America's middle class." In January, she joined a rally organized by Occupy the Courts in protest of Supreme Court rulings that give corporations the rights of people.

Prospects: Good. A recent poll ranks her as the frontrunner in the primary and just six points behind incumbent Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray. But an independent who may enter the fray could strip away some of her supporters.

Wenona Benally Baldenegro (Arizona): Two years after Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick lost her Arizona congressional seat to tea party Republican Paul Gosar, she's campaigning to retake it. But she could lose in the primary to Baldenegro, who blames her for alienating supporters with votes against the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act and for job-killing foreign trade bills. A Harvard Law grad who'd be the nation's first Native American congresswoman if elected, Baldenegro has renounced campaign donations from corporate lobbyists and supports taxing the rich and public financing for elections. In late October, she joined six other progressive House candidates-- including Griego, Sheyman, and Saldaña-- to hand-deliver House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) 35,000 signatures from people who "stand with the 99 percent."

Prospects: Fair. Though Kirkpatrick sports name recognition and support from the Democratic establishment, Baldenegro has the endorsement of progressive Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz). More important, the district's boundaries were redrawn last year to include Navajo strongholds that will back her.

Hansen Clarke (Michigan): Sponsoring legislation to forgive student debt has made the Detroit Congressman a hero to thousands of college kids involved with Occupy. During the movement's March 1 "Occupy Education" protests in Washington, DC, activists relayed a statement from Clarke using the famous people's mic: "Young people in America should be able to pursue higher education to achieve their dreams without worrying that this decision will devastate their financial futures."

Prospects: Good. Though he's running against another incumbent Congressman in a consolidated district, Clarke has an early cash advantage and growing list of union endorsements.

We started covering Wenona back in May and she and Hakeem Jeffries are on the Blue America page we use to send a message to the corrupt Democratic power structure in DC. Ever check that page out? Here's part of the description, which was written in the last cycle but still applies today:

Many of us have been disappointed in the Democratic Party (again) this year-- but electing conservatives in the form of Republicans or Blue Dog Democrats is NOT the answer. People with memories that go back beyond last November, though, probably remember just what 8 years of George W. Bush and a Republican Congress meant for our country. And, stretching out from there a bit, some progressives even remember what happened when we split our votes between Al Gore and Ralph Nader. There is a way to send a message to the Inside the Beltway Democratic Establishment. It's called primaries-- and it works better than blindly empowering crazed, angry, racist teabaggers. When Adam Nagourney, Cokie Roberts or Glenn Beck promote Democratic atomization, they're not pumping for progressive values, as Digby pointed out in the post that inspired this Blue America page. She asks how liberals can exert what power we have and have the results be interpreted the way we want them to be-- as a repudiation of corporatism and conservative governance, not as a repudiation of Democratic governance?

There is a fairly compelling theory in political science that says that after political parties come into power, fulfill some pieces of their agenda, get fat and bloated and are finally removed from office, they then tend to deny the reality of their loss and blame it on everything but themselves until they lose enough elections that they finally realize that their ideology has failed. The current GOP is not there yet by a long shot. They are still in the process of doubling down on their radical agenda at a time when the economy is still in ruins, the effects of globalization are being fully felt, the planet is in peril and about to reach a tipping point, and a radical fundamentalist movement is trying to blow people up. I don't think the world can take any more of the right's prescriptions for these problems right now: Lindsay Graham is considered too liberal and neo-Hooverism is their economic program. Yes, the Democrats are corrupt and inept. But the other side is batshit insane.

However, that doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do but wring our hands about how the system is broken and fret ourselves into inertia. The other way to send messages to the Democratic party is through the unsatisfying and often thankless process of primary challenges. Nobody can have any problem understanding that message, not even Adam Nagourney.

It's hard to find challengers and it's no wonder. It's expensive, time consuming and after all your hard work you will probably lose. It takes real commitment and a desire to not only win a seat in Congress but do it by way of unseating an incumbent of your own party with whom you disagree, an act which is guaranteed to make you an odd man out among the party hierarchy. But if you win, it can send shockwaves through the system.

And guess what? We are in another favorable year for primary challenges in recent memory. The insane teabaggers aren't going to allow any rational Republicans to run and the anti-incumbent fever is going to be as high as it's been since 1994. The Democratic base has an energetic activist faction, the netroots can raise money and there is a burning desire to show the party establishment that they cannot take liberals for granted. It's a perfect environment for successful primary challenges.

Back to the Mother Jones article for a moment. There's a postscript from the author, Josh Harkinson: "Many people have contacted me with the names of other Occupy-friendly candidates. If you have suggestions for other races to check out, leave them in the comments or send them to @JoshHarkinson on Twitter, where I've been RTing them." I doubt there's a more Occupy Movement candidate anywhere than George Martinez in Brooklyn, although I'm not certain if he's made his run official yet.

I didn't write to Josh, but I do want to remind readers of this blog about two Occupy candidates who Blue America endorsed for Congress who are very strongly backing the Occupy Movement. Ken Aden is running against corporate shill Steve Womack in northwest Arkansas. "I am a staunch and proud supporter of the Occupy Wall Street Movement," he told us last May. "In fact, I helped folks here in Arkansas start an Occupy chapter in the Northern part of our state. This is a true grassroots movement made up of young people, veterans, students, and folks from across the middle class just like me who are sick and tired of irresponsible corporations buying politicians of both parties while many in the government stand idly by and give corporate America the keys to the proverbial candy store. It's truly nauseating to know that so many politicians can be so easily bought, and not even loose an ounce of sleep over the fact that they are destroying everything which we hold dear. I  firmly believe that more people need to become involved, and stand up for what is right! Corporate greed is the new pandemic in this country. The ratio of CEO pay to that of the average worker is a prime example of the kind of reckless behavior that corporations in this country are exercising on a daily basis. Just look at how many politicians Koch Industries has bought over the last ten years alone. As the next congressman from Arkansas I would support an amendment to destroy the destructive influence of Citizens United. The last time I checked, corporations are NOT and will never be real people."

And the very first candidate Blue America endorsed this cycle was an independent-minded Orlando-area activist, Nick Ruiz, who has been motivated and animated by the exact same values and objectives that animate and motivate the 99% Movement. I asked him for his perspective on the whole idea of 99% candidates. Worth reading:

"For electoral politics, what the Occupy movement reflects is that the average citizen's feeling of being 'outside' of Washington, DC's insider games, has reached the threshold of what will be tolerated by most people. Citizens know they have to fight to get it back again. Democracy, representation, mutual prosperity. It's what the American Revolution represented for so many Americans living in the 18th century.

"For many decades now, too many people have experienced that their interests were not being adequately represented by their Representatives. It has reached the point where they are ready to do something about it. History and more importantly, progress was made in the 1930s, when a whole lot of people, and personalities, like FDR-- made it happen. And progress happened again, in the 1960s, with a mass of supporters and people like MLK and others. It is set to happen again beginning in 2012.

"And once again, we have the same problems they did, with the same lackluster Democratic response from the top. The Democratic Party infrastructure is not ready for us. And the Republicans, of course, want to crush equality of opportunity and representation, in every form. And so we the people, are again-- consciously competing for representation. Competing with the status quo bureaucracy, and the candidates they favor, who are working to ensure that power remains in the unfair hands of those that would enrich them with titles and business favors.

"But this is our United States of America. It belongs to all us. Not just those that have most of the capital and the power that comes with that capital. And we demand a representative seat and a table where truly democratic policy and law-making take place for the benefit of all Americans."

Not your standard garden variety DCCC kind of candidate, huh? You can help Nick win his House race against whichever corporate shill the GOP puts up against him, by contributing here. Let me leave you with George Martinez' Occupy song and video-- and ask you if you think freshly minted Michigan "Democrat" Joe Schwarz will be singing it in the shower?

Doo-Occupy

Ariel Zevon is Warren's daughter. And she's done a great job in putting the foreclosure crisis to song. The more I watch it, the more I love this video!

Spring is almost here and that means the Occupy Movement will be back in full force. Tomorrow they'll be confronting the Willard Wall Street campaign at the Waldorf Astoria. Keep in touch with what's going on there at the Mr. 1% Facebook page. But Ariel's song was done for the Doo-Occupy! Bail Out America project, which is all about community organizing for eviction protection, student debt relief and the other economic democracy causes motivating the 99% since the banksters and their politician cronies were caught with their hands in the till. Their statement is clear and as enticing as the song:

Our hope is to provide focus and capacity to the emerging populist uprising. We wish to help amplify its power through inspiring movement building campaigns that can are rooted in communities and deliver victories that make a material difference in people's lives.

Through this we will grow our movement from the power we have to the power we need to transform society and establish a new social contract based not on citizenship or property, but on universal human rights.

Doo-Occupy! Bail Out America is an intensive "Learning by Doing" action training that will deliver tools to take home, including stories and lesson from a couple of the hottest actions you'll ever experience. Thanks to all our allies for joining the fun.

If you sign up for the training these are some of the things you can expect to learn:

* Grand strategy & creative tactics for building movement power
* Flash mob design and performance
* Giant banner building
* Projection as protest
* Nonviolent direct action training
* Imagery design and construction
* Eviction protection organizing strategies
* Campus organizing for student debt relief
* Web streaming and internal media
* Swing Dancing!

If you're in NYC tomorrow (Wednesday)... don't forget to show up at the Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue (11am). Romney is celebrating coming in third in both Alabama and Mississippi tonight at his suite in the Waldorf.

Occupy Russia... And Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Holland, England, Poland...

Earlier today we witnessed the largest and most impassioned demonstrations in Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Aside from the big one-- over 50,000 people-- in Moscow, there were over a dozen similar protests around the country. Hundreds of people protesting the rigged vote last week were arrested. Apparently they take rigged voting more seriously than people in Florida and Ohio. The Wall Street Journal, which usually sides with the forces of the status quo, was on the scene:

The huge display of popular anger raised the pressure on the Kremlin, which has so far dismissed the postelection discontent as instigated by the U.S. to undermine the Kremlin. But there was no sign that the authorities were willing to even consider opponents' demands for new elections or a full recount of the disputed Dec. 4 parliamentary vote.

Opposition leaders vowed to keep up the pressure with more demonstrations in a bid to disrupt Mr. Putin's chances in March presidential elections, when he was planning to secure a six-year term in office.

...In the Dec. 4 vote, the ruling United Russia party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin saw its support drop sharply, but still retained a majority in parliament. But local and foreign observers reported widespread stuffing of ballot boxes and other abuses, many of which have been spread by reports and recordings on the Internet. U.S. and other Western governments have raised questions about what they say are suspicions of widespread fraud.

The Russian government hopes to appease the demonstrators by offering up the head of the Russian election commission, Vladimir Churkov, as a sacrificial lamb. But it's the lying and cheating and rigging-- not just of the election but of the whole system that has people so surly and ready to force change. And it isn't just in Russia. Friday we saw how the elites are cooking the books-- in Greece and on Wall Street-- to push their agenda down our throats. Everyday it feels more and more like what I imagine 1848 must have been like.

And I think it feels like that to the Pentagon as well. Americans may be complacent and easy to manipulate but the shit is starting to hit the fan across Europe. The Pentagon's top general in Europe seems to be reporting that we're lucky we didn't withdraw our troops from bases scattered all over the continent. Does he think they'll be needed to hold back pissed off angry Italians, Greeks and Germans?

The top military commander in the US has said that he believes the eurozone is at great risk and warned that any breakup of the bloc could have consequences for the Pentagon, even threatening its top weapons programme.

"The eurozone is at great risk," General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an event hosted by the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

Dempsey suggested part of his concern was that the US military could be exposed to any unravelling of the eurozone.

"I mean [exposed] literally, through contracts and programmatics, but also because of the potential for civil unrest and the breakup of the union that has been forged over there," said the general.

The US military has more than 80,000 troops and 20,000 civilian workers in Europe, many based in Germany.

Dempsey pointed to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon's costliest weapons programme, which the US is developing together with partners including Britain and Italy, which could also be at risk.

A crisis in Europe, if it were serious enough, could force allies to re-allocate spending which had been earmarked for the F-35, he said.

That, in turn, could drive up the cost of individual US aircraft at a time when US defence budgets are squeezed.

"It will clearly put them at risk if all the economic predictions about a potential collapse were to occur - inflation, devaluation," said Dempsey.

They wouldn't dare... would they? I guess if the worldwide showdown between the 1% and the 99% really does explode onto the streets, the billions spent on coersion will come into play. Here at home the "liberal" Democratic mayor of Boston-- liberal but-- had the police clear out his city's Occupy camp. And in NYC today, tens of thousands of Americans marched down Park Avenue to the UN to protest the one percent move in this country against basic democracy and their new GOP-passed laws against allowing citizens to vote. An awful lot of one percenters live on Park Avenue between 61st Street and 47th Street. I wonder if they shut drew their drapes. You didn't know about it? Here's the statement from Common Cause that the corporate media forgot to mention:

With voting rights in the U.S. facing the most aggressive attack in at least a century, Common Cause President Bob Edgar will join other civil rights and good government leaders at the head of a "Stand for Freedom" march and rally on Saturday in the heart of New York City.

"Americans like to think of our elections as a model for the rest of the world, but as we approach 2012, some of our leaders are behaving like dictators," Edgar said. "To advance their political careers and those of their allies, they're trying to exclude large groups of their fellow citizens from participating in our democracy. This march aims to call them out."

Beginning at the mid-Manhattan headquarters of Koch Industries, whose owners have helped finance a national campaign to impose needless restrictions on voter registration and voting, the march down East 61st Street, Park Avenue, and East 47th Street will conclude with a rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, in the shadow of the United Nations headquarters.

"Saturday is United Nations Human Rights Day, so it's particularly appropriate that we march to the UN, which stands for the promotion and preservation of democracy around the world, to defend democracy here in America," Edgar said.

Despite an absence of evidence that voter fraud is a significant problem in U.S. elections, the National Conference of State Legislators reports that lawmakers in 34 states introduced bills this year to impose or tighten requirements that prospective voters provide official documents proving their identity. It is estimated that millions of qualified voters, particularly senior citizens, college students, and people of color, lack the driver's licenses and other government-issued IDs these bills demand and so face the loss of their voting rights.

An out-of-work visitor to Capitol Hill gets a glimpse of how the world looks from inside the conservative mind

Tom Toles, in the Washington Post

"This visit actually opened my eyes to how Congress thinks -- they live in a different reality. I didn’t expect to hear that they think of the unemployed as people just looking for a handout. It was shocking."

-- Janalee Filer, an unemployed worker from Pueblo, CO,
after an encounter with a staffer in her congressman's office

by Ken

Every now and then we get glimpses of what's going on in the minds, such as they are, of right-wingers. You remember the corporate solon who defended 1% privilegedness on the grounds he and his brethren are a class of Steve Jobses. It's possible that he was identifying with the Steve Jobs who eagerly exploited cheap Asian labor and in various other ways ran his business like a garden-variety corporate predator, but I have a feeling not.

IN CASE YOU WERE UNSURE, NO, THE .1% ARE NOT
JOB CREATORS, OR STEVE JOBS-TYPE INNOVATORS

From Paul Krugman's Nov. 25 NYT column, "We Are the 99.9%":

"Don't some of the very rich get that way by producing innovations that are worth far more to the world than the income they receive? Sure, but if you look at who really makes up the 0.1 percent, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that, by and large, the members of the super-elite are overpaid, not underpaid, for what they do.

"For who are the 0.1 percent? Very few of them are Steve Jobs-type innovators; most of them are corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers. One recent analysis found that 43 percent of the super-elite are executives at nonfinancial companies, 18 percent are in finance and another 12 percent are lawyers or in real estate. And these are not, to put it mildly, professions in which there is a clear relationship between someone’s income and his economic contribution."

Or there was that surreal moment when New York City's own personal Mayor Mike actually said out loud that he thinks of the NYPD as "my own army." You'd like to think he had the presence of mind afterward to ask, "Was that out loud?"

Today we get a glimpse into the mind of a Republican congressional staffer, courtesy of Coloradan Janalee Filer, whom I encountered in a post today by our "Suburban Guerrilla" colleague Susie, "Hill staffer explains to the unemployed that they're lazy." Janalee was visiting Washington "with a group of fellow Coloradans to tell our Congressman, Representative Scott Tipton, to create jobs and put Colorado back to work," and had her eyes opened in ways she hadn't imagined.

Of her own situation Janalee explains:

As a construction worker for 26 years, I moved up through the ranks, saw my wages improve over the years and really enjoyed my job. But over the past 10 years my wages steadily declined. In 2008, my wages fell to $10 an hour, that’s $2 less than what I made in 1985!

I decided to leave work and take care of my ailing grandparents for a time, trusting that I’d have a job when I was ready to return. Well, here I am trying to get a construction job now for 2 years without any luck. My unemployment insurance has run out, and I am desperate for a job.

Unfortunately, my story isn’t unique. Pueblo, where I’m from, is experiencing an unemployment rate above 10%. Every family is affected. I believe in extending unemployment insurance for other people who still qualify, who are still struggling just to get by, who are still searching high and low for work.

Which is why, Janalee says, she "marched into Rep. Tipton's office today and demanded a meeting," to try to persuade him to deal with the "crisis in Pueblo -- and across the country." Surprisingly, her group actually got a meeting with the congressman," at least "for a few minutes in the lobby." And then things started to get crazy.

When we asked [Rep. Tipton] if he would vote to extend unemployment insurance, what I heard is that he is “pondering” it. I don’t understand how there is even a question about it!

One of his aides met with us in the lobby as well. When we asked him again about if Rep. Tipton would vote to extend the unemployment insurance, he told us he had to listen to both sides and then he told us a strange story. He heard about a disheveled guy going in for an interview and purposefully not getting hired just to get an unemployment check. We all sat there for a minute in disbelief. When I realized that he was saying that my representative was considering not voting for unemployment insurance because he thinks there are lazy people milking the system, I was compelled to act.

I jumped out of my chair and told the aide that there are a lot more unemployed, hard working, good valued people in Pueblo and across Colorado who are looking for jobs than a handful who may not want work. I said, “I’ve worked for 26 years in road construction and paid into the system. Here I am, without a job for 2 years and my unemployment insurance has run out. I can’t milk the system. I want to work. What will you do for people like me?”

It was so offensive to hear him say he thought the unemployed were largely a lazy group looking for a handout. I am looking for work every day.

This visit actually opened my eyes to how Congress thinks -- they live in a different reality. I didn’t expect to hear that they think of the unemployed as people just looking for a handout. It was shocking.

Shocking indeed, but not really, you know, surprising.

#

How About This Compromise? The 1% Start Paying Their Fair Share But Don't Go To Prison

Today Christine Amanpour had Colin Powell on her ABC-TV show, This Week. He sure used the phrase "the 99%" a lot but wasn't really using it the way that's been current of late. In his Times column on Thursday, We Are the 99.9%, Paul Krugman was, as usual, more in the center of the zeitgeist.

“We are the 99 percent” is a great slogan. It correctly defines the issue as being the middle class versus the elite (as opposed to the middle class versus the poor). And it also gets past the common but wrong establishment notion that rising inequality is mainly about the well educated doing better than the less educated; the big winners in this new Gilded Age have been a handful of very wealthy people, not college graduates in general.

Powell was talking about something else, but not something unrelated: national service-- and not necessarily military service. Powell's ideas are the antithesis of the adolescent Ayn Rand "Selfishness and Greed Are Good" philosophy that has been expropriated by the Republican Party which, ironically, once begged him to run for president on their ticket.

Personally, I always felt that the antiwar protesters of the 60's-- myself included-- were doing another kind of service for the country than the kids who went over to fight for the corporate agenda in Vietnam (like Powell). I would have loved Amanpour to ask him today about the service that the OccupyWallStreet folks are doing for the country. Her mind isn't that nimble.

POWELL: We are able to recruit as many soldiers as we need into the military. So even though it's 1 percent of the population, that satisfies a need for troops in the armed forces and, in fact, we're looking to reduce the size of our armed forces in the months ahead. But the issue here is not the 1 percent that are in the military. It's the 99 percent who are not, and how do we make sure that they find it to be a call to serve.
 
AMANPOUR: So how does one, then?
 
POWELL: Well, there are many things going on in this country. And, you know, it isn't as if the 99 percent are not doing anything. There is a huge, huge commitment to service on the part of the American people. And what we want to do is leverage it, get even more, and then make sure it is directed in ways that, you know, the service is providing a useful outcome for the American nation.

... Amanpour: General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, wrote quite a provocative essay recently. I want to read a little bit from it.
 
POWELL: Yes.
 
AMANPOUR: Saying that, quote, "We have let the concept of service become dangerously narrow, often associated only with the military. And this allows most Americans to avoid the sense of responsibility essential for us to care about our nation and for each other. We expect and demand less of ourselves than we should."
 
What do you make of that? There does seem to be a sort of “we can hide in the corners.”
 
POWELL: I'm sorry. Just I don't fully-- I know the point he's trying to make, but I don't fully agree with him, because in the work I do with the America's Promise Alliance, that I founded at the request of all our presidents, some 14 years ago, we are able to get lots of people involved in service. 
 
We see a lot of ways in which people are stepping forward, to mentor kids in school, to read to kids in school, to give more of their resources to people in need
 
And one of the things we've been doing with the America's Promise Alliance is we made one of the key features of our program service to others among young people. So early as possible in the life of a youngster, you start putting in place that virtue and value are service to country, service to community, service to others. And it'll make a difference as these kids grow up.
 
AMANPOUR: What about this tone in the country right now? It's still very divisive. It's still very sort of brash, some say poisonous. I mean, you can barely get anything done on Capitol Hill, just behind me there. What needs to be done, to actually improve the tone and the ability of people to work together?
 
POWELL: The tone is not-- is not good right now, and our political system here in Washington, particularly up on The Hill-- Congress has become very, very tense in that two sides, Republicans and Democrats, are focusing more and more on their extreme left and extreme right. And we have to come back toward the center in order to compromise.
 
A story I like to tell is our Founding Fathers were able to sit in Philadelphia and make some of the greatest compromises known to man-- tough, tough issues. But they did it. Why? Because they were there to create a country, where we have a Congress now that can't even pass an appropriation bill, and we're running this country on a continuing resolution which is what else are they here for but to pass appropriations bills? 
 
And so we have got to find a way to start coming back together. And let me say this directly. The media has to help us. The media loves this game, where everybody is on the extreme. It makes for great television. It makes for great chatter. It makes for great talk shows all day long with commentators commenting on commentators about the latest little mini-flap up on Capitol Hill. 
 
So what we have to do is sort of take some of the heat out of our political life in terms of the coverage of it, so these folks can get to work quietly.
 
AMANPOUR: I get your point about heat and light, but what about the fact that, in fact, it is one of the political parties, although-- or rather the big political influence, which is the Tea Party, which quotes left and right the Founding Fathers? They say compromise is a dirty word, and they try to point to the Founding Fathers and the Constitution.
 
POWELL: They compromised-- the Founding Fathers compromised on slavery. They had to in order to create a country. They compromised on the composition of the Senate, of the House, of the Supreme Court, of a president-- what are the president's powers? Can you imagine more difficult compromises today? 
 
Compromise is how this country was founded, and unless two people in disagreement with each other don't find a way to reach out to one another and make compromises, you don't get a consensus that allows you to move forward. 
 
But the Tea Party point of view of no compromise whatsoever is not a point of view that will eventually produce a presidential candidate who will win.

Whether it's the corporate media or useful idiots, the problem with the kinds of "compromise" on the table in Washington is that the middle has moved so far to the right, that it's worthless for ordinary working families. That didn't happen by chance. Millions and millions of dollars have been invested in moving the center to the right. Look no further than the conflicted corporate shills that were put on the SuperCommittee. Whose side were they on anyway? Norman Solomon, one of the best of the candidates running for Congress this year (and endorsed by Blue America), has a different kind of compromise he's offering. It would save the souls-- and maybe the lives-- of the Ayn Randians. He sounds a lot like David Korten in offering his Economic Agenda For Main Street.

Create New Green Jobs

• Jobs and sustainability must go hand in hand. As co-chair of the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay, I organized public hearings and heard testimony that repeatedly debunked the false choice between jobs and the environment. By bringing together labor, entrepreneurs and environmental leaders, I saw the potential of good green jobs to provide high-quality employment while safeguarding the environment.

• I support major federal investment to create jobs that expand green technologies such as rooftop solar, well-sited wind and tidal energy production.

• By expanding conservation efforts, we can create jobs programs that directly fund retrofitting and weatherization for homes, schools and other buildings.

• We need large-scale government investment in public transportation-– to create vast numbers of new jobs, reduce greenhouse gases and ease traffic gridlock.

Invest in Our Workers and Communities

• We must reinvest in America’s workers and families, to rebuild our economy and our social fabric. I support robust public investment in economic programs that create living-wage jobs. The government should invest directly in the nation’s infrastructure, and in social services that help stabilize our communities.

• I support policies that strengthen small businesses and protect them from the predatory practices of big box stores and other corporate chains which stifle competition and erode the local tax base. Small businesses are key engines for job creation and a core part of local economies.

• I will defend federal housing programs that help cities and counties invest in new affordable housing, create opportunities for first-time homebuyers, and reduce homelessness at the local level.

• I strongly support H.R. 870-– the Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act-– introduced by Congressman John Conyers, which provides for a federal policy of full employment. With a one-quarter of 1 percent transaction tax on Wall Street, the bill would generate roughly $150 billion per year in revenues, creating millions of new jobs.

Stand Up for Workers-- Not Wall Street

• I will never hesitate to stand up to corporate lobbyists and Wall Street in defense of working Americans, the unemployed and under-employed.

• In the early 1990s, I publicly opposed NAFTA before it was enacted. Widespread evidence shows that NAFTA and other international "free trade" deals have hurt American workers, undermining job security and wages, and should be renegotiated to protect the U.S. economy and the environment.

• I publicly opposed the Wall Street banks bailout before it was enacted in October 2008. Rather than subsidizing big investors and rewarding corporate executives for destroying jobs, the federal government should be creating jobs and protecting homeowners from predatory foreclosures.

• I support passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. This measure is vital to restoring workers’ fundamental rights, and will help improve wages and healthcare for all American workers. I support a national living wage and a worker’s right to collective bargaining. All workers should be treated with dignity and respect.

Protect Social Security and Medicare

• I will fight to protect-- and strengthen-– Social Security for current and future beneficiaries. I support Sen. Bernie Sanders' bill to protect Social Security from the budget ax in the so-called congressional Super Committee.

• We must defend Social Security’s cost-of-living allowance.

• Contrary to myth, Social Security is solvent-– and we must stand firm against cuts and privatization schemes that would “fix” what isn’t broken.

• I will unequivocally oppose all efforts to raise the eligibility age for Medicare.

• I will push for reform of Medicare Part D to reduce the costs of drugs while reining in runaway profits of huge pharmaceutical companies.

Quality Health Care for All

• I support single payer health care, also known as enhanced Medicare for all.

• The fact that the U.S. spends more on health care than most industrialized nations is a reflection of the unhealthy power of the insurance, hospital and pharmaceutical industries. Our current system does not serve Americans equitably; it must be reformed and improved.

• I will fight to protect and bolster Medicare and Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California.

• I support expanded federal funding for Federally Qualified Health Centers.

• I will fight to ensure that every community has access to quality health care services.

This is what a Blue America candidate for Congress sounds like. There is no reason to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. These are the standards to which we should hold our candidates. It's why Blue America never endorsed Barack Obama-- and never will-- and it's why we picked these candidates for the House and the Senate.

Enough With The Millionaires In Congress Already! Just Stop Voting For Them

Word from Capitol Hill is that multimillionaire plutocrat John Kerry (D-MA) is the weakest link among Democrats on the SuperCommittee-- not the strongest group of warriors for the middle class to begin with-- in terms of caving in to the Republicans and their 1%-er priorities. Why should that be a surprise? Kerry is one of them, not one of us. Sure, sometimes-- often in fact-- he takes decent, moderate positions against torture, against corporate wars, for environmental safeguards, etc. But scratch the surface and John Kerry is and will always be one of the richest men to ever sit in the U.S. Senate. And, at his core, he represents his class, not the middle class. He's part of the 1%-- the .001%-- not the 99%. Can we just stop sending these kinds of people to Congress? It muddies the waters between Republicans-- a party 100% dedicated to the interests of the 1%-- and the Democrats, a conflicted mess that barely stands for anything any longer.

Yesterday OpenSecrets released a report showing that almost half the Members of Congress, 47% (249 current Members) are millionaires. That, literally, makes then members of the 1%. And it goes a long way towards explaining why the country is so geared towards the interests of the 1% at the expense-- often devastatingly so-- of the 99%.

"The vast majority of members of Congress are quite comfortable, financially, while many of their own constituents suffer from economic hardships," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

"It's no surprise that so many people grumble about lawmakers being out-of-touch," Krumholz continued. "Few Americans enjoy the same financial cushion maintained by most members of Congress-- or the same access to market-altering information that could yield personal financial gains."

On the whole, elected officials in the country's upper chamber enjoy cushier bank accounts and portfolios than their counterparts in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2010, the year of the most recently released financial data, the estimated median net worth of a current U.S. senator stood at an average of $2.56 million, according to the Center's research.

Despite the global economic meltdown in 2008 and sluggish recovery, that's up about 7.6 percent from an estimated median net worth of about $2.38 million in 2009, according to the Center's analysis. And it's up about 13 percent from a median estimated net worth of $2.27 million in 2008.

Economic well-being knows no partisan loyalty.

Fully 36 Senate Democrats and 30 Senate Republicans reported an average net worth in excess of $1 million in 2010, according to the Center's analysis. The same was true of 110 House Republicans and 73 House Democrats.

The median estimated net worth among Senate Republicans was $2.43 million, and the median net worth among members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate was $2.58 million, by the Center's tally.

Meanwhile, in the House, the median estimated net worth of a GOP House member was $834,250 in 2010, according to the Center's research, compared to a median net worth of $635,500 among House Democrats.

The median estimated net worth among House members, overall, stood at $756,765 in 2010. That's up about 17 percent compared to the median net worth of $645,500 among House members in 2008, but down about 1 percent compared to 2009, when House members posted a median estimated net worth of $765,010, according to the Center's analysis.

...Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) ranks as the wealthiest member of the 112th Congress, according to the Center's analysis of 2010 financial disclosures. Issa's minimum estimated net worth in 2010 was $195 million, while his maximum estimated net worth was more than $700 million. That gives Issa an average net worth of $448 million.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) ranks as the wealthiest House Democrat. Polis, who has spent about $7 million of his own money on his campaigns since 2007, has an average estimated net worth of $143 million.

That's not good enough to rank him as the No. 2 wealthiest member of Congress though. In fact, it only ranks him as No. 5 wealthiest current lawmaker.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) all rank higher.

...The most popular company in which members of Congress were invested in 2010 was General Electric, a company that spent more than $39 million on federal lobbying that year and ranked as the No. 3 top spender on lobbying.

Seventy-five different current members of Congress held stock in GE in 2010, according to the Center's research. Collectively, these holdings were worth at least $3.6 million.

Procter & Gamble and Bank of America ranked No. 2 and No. 3 behind General Electric in terms of the most popular investments, with 62 lawmakers and 57 lawmakers, respectively, holding stocks in each of those companies, according to the Center's analysis.

And, as we've pointed out before, Boehner stuck Michigan plutocrat, Fred Upton, heir to the Whirlpool fortune-- one of the worst job outsourcers in America-- on the SuperCommittee to protect the interests of the 1%, no matter what kind of compromise anyone tries to work out. An extreme right-wing propagandist, columnist Matthew Vadum articulated the 1%-er's view of this democracy thing they all hate so intensely. Explaining the Republican Party jihad against voting rights rather bluntly, Vadum wrote that registering the poor to vote is un-American and “like handing out burglary tools to criminals... It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country-- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote... Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn’t about helping the poor. It’s about helping the poor to help themselves to others’ money. It’s about raw so-called social justice. It’s about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers.”

These are battles that never go away, because the greed and selfishness of the rich never go away. The history of this country has seen progressives win over and over again, only to see the self entitled "owner" class reigniting them whenever they have the opportunity. It's time to strengthen the ranks of blue color progressives with new members like John Waltz, Ken Aden, Eric Griego, Joe Miklosi, Chris Donovan, Nick Ruiz and the rest of the Blue America team. These aren't people who are going to betray their friends and families. They are like us because they are us.

Do You Think Nancy Pelosi Will Help Dave Lutrin Win A House Seat In Florida?

Thursday when the DCCC was introducing candidates to the "realities of life" in the DC bubble and throwing a meet and greet for the new recruits at the headquarters of one of the sleaziest Inside the Beltway DLC-type consulting firms, the Majority Group (founded by defeated, GOP-voting, Blue Dogs Walt Minnick and Rob Ellsworth-- along with "Wall Street attorney" Chris DiAngelo) and while DCCC chairman (and "ex"-Blue Dog) Steve Israel was bragging how the biggest one day haul of grassroots contributions the Blue Dog-funding DCCC had had all year was when they sent out an e-mail cynically claiming a bond with OccupyWallStreet, progressive stalwart Dave Lutrin was back in Palm Beach County announcing his candidacy for Congress (video above).

Dave's reason to run and his plan to win, is far more alien from any DCCC vision than the DCCC vision is from a Republican vision. Think about that. Dave is running as part of the 99% Movement. The DCCC may see the 99% Movement as another interest group-- like banksters, lobbyists, unions-- from whom to solicit contributions for their career goals, but the DCCC is exactly as connected to the 99% movement as the Republican Party is. You'll be hearing lot's more about Dave's campaign here at DWT as the campaign unfolds. But for now, I want to ask you to listen closely to his announcement of candidacy in the video above. And read a post by another Dave in Slate. This vision, like the Republican vision, is the opposite vision that New Deal Democrats and proponents of the 99% Movement share. Instead of hearing what John Boehner, Eric Cantor or Steny Hoyer have to say about it, Dave Weigel gives as a look at what Nancy Pelosi is saying: "It Is Clear We Must Enter an Era of Austerity".

That's the sound of the Democratic Party's leader in the House caving on the argument that motivated Democrats for the past three years; or 80 years, if you want to get smart about it. But that's the statement in support of the Reid Plan: "It is clear we must enter an era of austerity; to reduce the deficit through shared sacrifice."

Has Pelosi gone over to the Dark Side? Been hanging around with Hoyer too much? Spending too much time at The Majority Group? I've known Dave Lutrin a very long time. He'd cut his own throat out before ever saying any such thing ever. Please help elect Dave and Democrats like him. If you can join me, I just contributed $50 to his campaign here at ActBlue.