September 10, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In a speech to a packed room at Villanova University, during the university’s three-day celebration of the legacy and work of St. Thomas of Villanova —a celebration that includes scholarly presentations, community gatherings, this keynote address and a day of service in which thousands fan out across the region to do charitable work—, E.J. Dionne called for a politics rooted in conscience and compassion for our fellow human beings. The acclaimed journalist, scholar and Washington Post columnist rooted his talk in Catholic Social Teaching and spoke of an historical drive, in the US, toward comprehensive social justice.
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September 6, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
In his weekly address for Saturday, 4 September 2010, Pres. Barack Obama praises the American worker for contributions to our nation’s history and the building of a robust, free and democratic middle-class society. The president also expresses his view that urgent action is needed to help secure the place of the middle class, and of [...]
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August 16, 2010 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
Republican House minority leader John Boehner, of Ohio, said last Sunday on Meet the Press that, whether or not tax cuts are paid for, Pres. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans must not be allowed to expire. He refused, in increasingly heated and defensive language, to say whether or not tax cuts are paid for. His refusal was as good as an admission that there is no way to pay for the tax cuts and that his party does not, in fact, believe the trickle-down theory behind the Bush tax cuts will actually work.
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August 8, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The spreading notion that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution should be repealed, in order to stop illegal immigration, is a direct assault on all Americans. Most of us became citizens because we were born in this country. We required no special paperwork beyond a recognition of our birth and the giving of a legal name. We were given social security numbers and citizenship, due to our being born on American soil, and our citizenship was not conditioned on our parents’ behavior or origins.
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August 8, 2010 :: Eva Scherson :: Comments Off
John Boehner says the United States should not have any qualities or any conditions of life that might serve as “an incentive for illegal immigrants to come here”. He was commenting specifically on the question of whether the Constitution should grant citizenship to anyone born in the United States, but his reaction suggests that anything of any kind which might be considered a point of attraction for anyone from another country should not be tolerated.
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August 7, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
A federal judge has overruled California’s ban on gay marriage. Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the referendum banning same-sex marriage, an already existing right, violated the Constitution’s due process and equal protection requirements. The ruling has been touted as one of the most thorough and fact-based examinations of the legality of such laws, designed to bar access for some people to a right most others enjoy. Walker found there was no legitimate legal reason to so limit the rights of same-sex couples, that same-sex marriage causes no discernible harm to any party, and that banning it does cause severe harm to same sex couples and their children.
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July 18, 2010 :: staff :: 2 Comments
In his weekly address, Pres. Obama criticizes Republicans in the United States Senate who are obstructing passage of an emergency extension of unemployment and efforts designed to help steer capital to small business. “When storms strike Main Street, we don’t play politics with emergency aid,” he says. “We don’t desert our fellow Americans when they fall on hard times. We come together and do what we can to help. We rebuild stronger and we move forward.”
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July 17, 2010 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
The overhaul of financial regulations that passed Congress yesterday and was signed into law today by Pres. Obama is the most sweeping and significant reform to financial services regulation since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The passage was a major victory for Pres. Obama, who had set significant financial regulatory reform as a top priority since before the 2008 credit crisis hit. It is also shaping up to be a key plank in the Democratic campaign this fall, as Republicans systematically opposed and sought to block the measure, aligning themselves with major banks and financial interests.
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July 2, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
With Democrats and Republicans fighting each other from hardened rhetorical gun turrets, taking for granted the other side’s evil and intransigence, Pres. Obama’s first 18 months in office have been characterized by a near total lack of cooperation from moderates in the opposition.Republicans are talking like radicals and insurgents, but claiming to be traditional conservatives, and Democrats are struggling to remain populist while tasked with actually governing.
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June 12, 2010 :: Riga Listin :: Comments Off
There is no clearer way to say it than that virtually no one in South Carolina Democratic party politics had ever heard of Alvin Greene until his name showed up on the primary ballot as a candidate for the United States Senate. So how did someone with no party ties, no political background, no money, no campaign operation and with there being virtually no evidence of any campaign effort whatsoever, win the Democratic party nomination to challenge Republican incumbent Jim DeMint?
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May 3, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The 1st of May brought massive immigration rights protests across the country, calling for fair treatment, equality before the law, humane reform and the repeal of Arizona’s immigrant-ID law. The wave of protest this year may have swelled due to widespread anger over Arizona’s passage of a draconian anti-immigrant law that establishes a mandate for police to stop anyone whom they have a “reasonable suspicion” that person’s immigration status is not fully up to date, demanding papers.
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April 25, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The governor of Arizona has signed into law a measure that would allow police to demand proof of legal residency in cases where they believe an individual might be an undocumented immigrant. The same law would also require people to carry proof of legal residency. It is unclear how the law would be enforced without racial profiling and whether or not US citizens would be subject to legal penalties if caught not carrying proof of citizenship.
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March 22, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The healthcare reform process has taken a full year of agonizing, sometimes gut-wrenching debate, or something popularly referred to as debate, but not properly qualifying. At times, the consensus of media punditry appeared to be leaning toward the notion that the healthcare reform process had already derailed Barack Obama’s young presidency. Cries of “socialism!” and “kill the bill!” never really died down, and Democratic leaders appeared at a loss for how better to explain the legislation than to explain it as it was and as its aims were.
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March 20, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
The town of Lyndeborough, New Hampshire, voted last weekend to approve a warrant article —a kind of citizen-prompted legislation— banning any method of vote-counting that is not fully conducted within view of citizen election monitors. The vote means that even traditional methods of counting ballots, if conducted in a “blind” way, out of view of people who can assess the physical veracity of the count, will not be considered legitimate within the town.
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February 28, 2010 :: Riga Listin :: Comments Off
The media are exploding with reports that explicitly declare that “the public opposes the current healthcare reform bills” passed by both houses of Congress. In fact, this is patently false, and any of the major polls on the subject bear this out, if one devotes the time necessary to understand the numbers. It is inaccurate to say “the public opposes”, because there is not one uniform majority of Americans opposing a specific set of initiatives in the pending reforms.
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February 28, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Republican House minority whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) said today on Meet the Press that Republicans want healthcare reform, but they favor a “common-sense, modest, incremental approach”. The statement is sly and problematic: Cantor wants to imply that incremental is responsible, playing on the emotional fetish that brings many to conservative politics, but he is simply fudging the facts and reframing an historically irresponsible approach in order to attack the president. Incremental fixes to the pervasive healthcare crisis have so far failed to reverse the trend toward ever-higher costs and ever-less-competent insurers.
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February 27, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Republican party’s Congressional leadership is participating in a bipartisan healthcare reform summit moderated by Pres. Barack Obama, at Blair House near the White House. The “square-table” discussion includes the leading budgetary and health policy partisans from the House and Senate, as well as Pres. Obama, Vice Pres. Biden and Sec. of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. The president invited Republicans to “show me what you got”, and to lay out constructive alternative ideas for healthcare reform, in the interest of building consensus.
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February 12, 2010 :: Eva Scherson :: Comments Off
Let down your guard for five seconds, and you will likely find some emanation of the pseudo-conservative hostility market explaining that Pres. Obama is deliberately plotting the destruction of the United States of America, that his administration is lazy and incompetent, and that terrorists are about to seize control of the homeland. Those propagandists, who expect you will not notice their absurd claims are in fact lies, are the ones who are, very deliberately, trying to ruin America.
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January 30, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Pres. Barack Obama yesterday attended a first-of-its-kind question and answer session, as part of a Republican Congressional caucus conference in Baltimore. The president took some aggressive questions, classed by media analysts as “grandstanding”, from some Republicans who pushed the party line on the refusal of Democrats to deal with them. Obama adroitly and with a [...]
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January 29, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
The Democratic party’s biggest communicational deficit is not about the virtues of its policies, but the nature of its founding ideal: “democrat” means one who favors government of, by, and for the people. The absurd and puerile experiment in linguistic brainwashing in which the Republican party is now uniformly engaged —calling the Democratic party (the party of the Democrats) the “Democrat party” in hopes of making the word sound alien and remote— is nothing more than an attempt to rob ordinary Americans of their access to a government that answers to them: Democrats need to be out there saying so every day.
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January 28, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths and pointing fingers. We can do what’s necessary to keep our poll numbers high, and get through the next election instead of doing what’s best for the next generation. But I also know this: If people had made that decision 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, or 200 years ago, we wouldn’t be here tonight. The only reason we are here is because generations of Americans were unafraid to do what was hard; to do what was needed even when success was uncertain; to do what it took to keep the dream of this nation alive for their children and their grandchildren.
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January 28, 2010 :: Denver Lessing :: 4 Comments
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito last night revealed how deeply unfit he is to serve on the nation’s highest court. When Pres. Obama made the entirely factual statements that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC reversed a century of precedent on campaign finance regulation and would allow foreign corporations to spend money to influence US elections, Alito was seen shaking his head, grimmacing and mouthing something like “simply not true”. While it’s well documented how widely Obama —a Constitutional law scholar— and Alito differ on legal philosophy, Alito crossed a line with his reaction.
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January 28, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
A recent NBC/WSJ poll shows rising frustration among voters with the failure to move major reforms through Congress. But while the media have repeatedly pushed the notion that Pres. Obama may be losing favor, the NBC/WSJ poll shows 48% of people say Republicans in Congress are to blame for the nation’s unsolved problems, for their relentless obstruction of Democratic proposals, while 41% blame the Democrats in Congress, and only 27% blame Pres. Obama.
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January 26, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
Four young men, aged 24 to 25, have been arrested and charged with entering federal property under false pretense, with the purpose of committing a felony. The charges are in connection with an alleged attempt to carry out a plot to wiretap the phones at one of Democratic senator from Louisiana Mary Landrieu’s offices. The charges could result in fines up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison.
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January 26, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
This video is a talk given by Dr. Eugene McCarraher, at Villanova University, on the subject of corporate personhood. He explores the many problems related to the development of the legal principle that corporations can be granted the actual rights that law assigns only to persons. He reveals the stunning historical roots of corporate personhood in the “legal fiction” of the “metaphysical body” of medieval kings.
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January 26, 2010 :: staff :: Comments Off
This video details the CLEAN campaign finance model, a specific set of principles that allows candidates to receive public funding in exchange for raising a set number of small donations from ordinary people and agreeing not to raise private campaign funds, not to spend more than a fixed amount, and not to spend from their own pocket. This standard has revolutionized the political process in both Maine and Arizona, allowing people not tied to special interests to take control of state and local government.
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January 23, 2010 :: Webb Tisch :: One Comment
The Republican party is jubilant about the victory of state Senator Scott Brown, in the race to take over the United States Senate seat held for nearly half a century by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). And they should be jubilant. Kennedy was in many ways the de facto leader of the Democratic party for much of that time, and his untiring defense of liberal principles of social justice and economic fairness were a thorn in the side of Republicans throughout. But the odd thing is that suddenly, the Republicans are arguing that where goes Massachusetts, so goes the nation. Are they kidding?
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January 22, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
The ONLY way to make any argument of the kind that alleges the economic difficulties of 2009 are Obama’s fault is to operate absolutely and without exception on the premise that George W. Bush left Obama with a perfectly healthy, well-oiled functioning economy and zero debt. In fact, not only is that rosy picture not the case; the polar opposite is true: Barack Obama took office while the United States was experiencing its worst economic decline since the Great Depression, including near total paralysis of the banking system, unprecedented government debt, and an ethically deficient backlog of hidden borrowing that would cause deficits to escalate by as much as 1,000% in just one decade.
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January 8, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
There is a fundamental difference between the logic of military tribunals for battlefield captures and the Constitutional order of criminal prosecution and due process: the Constitutional criminal justice system is designed to deal with people who violate laws; military tribunals are meant to be an ad-hoc legal variation of that standard, reserved for representatives of enemy states that violate the laws of war in a battlefield setting. By inveighing against the US criminal justice system’s ability to handle terror prosecutions, the Republican party is not only actively promoting lies, but working to elevate Al Qaeda to the status of a legitimate, sovereign government.
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January 6, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Democratic senators Chris Dodd (CT) and Byron Dorgan (ND) have announced they will not run for re-election after their current term is up, later this year. The Democratic governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter, Jr., has also announced he will not seek a second term, opening up the Democratic field in the race for the party’s 2010 nomination. The lieutenant governor of Michigan, John Cherry, has also withdrawn from the race to replace Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm.
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January 4, 2010 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
En mesa redonda, en el programa 59 segundos de la TVE, un panel de periodistas y analistas políticos debaten los méritos y desafíos del primer año del mandato de Barack Obama, presidente de Estados Unidos. Entre las complicaciones, debaten las expectativas, tal vez más globales y desafiantes que las que encontró ningún otro presidente al llegar al poder, y la agresiva resistencia de sus contrincantes políticos a la ética del diálogo y de la política colaborativa.
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December 31, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The elections of 2010 will not be about the specter of “socialism”, nor about terrorism, taxation, or gay rights: they will be about which party can present the most far-reaching, most credible pragmatic approach to solving the actual problems the nation is facing. They will be about whether or not Pres. Obama deserves support in his historic efforts to bring the nation out of a range of crises he was elected to resolve, or better put: whether or not the nation could benefit from his having that support.
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December 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Republican party is now taking a political position radically opposed to their entire philosophical and strategic posture during the healthcare debate. Upset to learn that Sen. Ben Nelson may have won special funding guarantees to help his state provide funding for Medicaid in an economic climate where the state is facing record budget shortfalls and may have to cut funding, Sen. Lindsey Graham is now demanding full federal funding for his state’s Medicaid program. Republicans have jumped on the bandwagon and are now demanding that Medicaid funding for their states be expanded as well.
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November 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The United States Senate will begin deliberations on comprehensive health insurance reform legislation this week. Already there is intense criticism of the Senate’s health reform bill, from both ends of the ideological spectrum. A number of pro-business conservatives argue it is too costly and will hamper free enterprise and pro-patient progressives argue the bill is already too watered-down and needs a stronger public option, to expand coverage and reduce cost.
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November 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Republican party has developed an increasingly obstructionist, radical ideology, based on fundamental distortions of the process of government and the aims of opponents. Party strategists openly admit there is a calculation that such distortions will “reframe” the Democratic agenda in a light average Americans view as hostile to their interests, and so indirectly, will generate support for the Republican party. But they have failed to produce viable policy proposals that deal with the pressing crises of this historical moment.
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November 9, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
The progressive organizing group MoveOn.org has announced huge success in collecting funds to mount primary challenges to any Democratic senator who acts to block an up-or-down vote on healthcare reform. In just one week, their Health Reform Accountability Pledge campaign collected $3,578,117 in pledges. The organization’s statement about the fundraising success reads: That’s how much [...]
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November 6, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Extreme conservative ideologues, who have openly called for the “purification” of the party, have now declared war on moderates in their own party, whom they call Republicans in name only (RINO). At a rally organized by Rep. Michelle Bachmann —who famously declared her paranoid belief that American children were about to be kidnapped and sent [...]
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October 21, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) is facing questions about his responsibility for wrongfully executing Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of arson for a fire that killed his daughters, despite new expert analysis showing there was in fact zero evidence of arson. An investigation into the execution has already found that Perry was given the new evidence to [...]
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October 15, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
School taxes are soaring, but schools are losing funding. States are going bankrupt and teachers are being threatened with mass layoffs. Property taxes are high, but property values are falling, and banks won’t refinance and won’t make new loans. The federal government is working to foster economic recovery through targeted investment, lending and community-building projects. But states are dealing with the budget crisis by hiking property taxes and shifting more responsibility to municipalities.
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October 14, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign demonstrated an unprecedented level of achievement for organizing new voters and winning donations from lower-income voters, then mobilizing millions of supporters to fan out across the country and disseminate the campaign’s message of positive change. Republican opponents of healthcare reform are engaged in a high-stakes political gamble, banking on the [...]
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September 24, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The legislature of the state of Massachusetts has voted to grant Gov. Deval Patrick (D) the power to appoint an interim replacement for the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D). The move means the Democratic party will see its fragile 60-vote majority in the United States Senate restored, in time for crucial votes on healthcare reform this fall. Today, Gov. Patrick has named Paul Grattan Kirk, Jr. to the interim post.
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September 18, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The most aggressive argument Republicans are now making about healthcare reform is that it would allegedly “gut Medicare and Medicaid”, two government-administered health insurance programs that provide treatment coverage for the elderly and the poor, respectively. The irony that emerges from the incoherent oppose everything Obama wants strategy being used by Republicans, shadowy front groups paid for by individuals linked to the insurance lobby, and conservative PACs, is that they are actually now arguing in favor of ‘socialized medicine’.
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September 10, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
The United States Supreme Court has returned to open session to hear a case in which a corporate-funded film was barred from being aired in the weeks prior to an election, because it was intended to serve as a campaign advertisement against then Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), who now serves as Secretary of State. The Court will decide whether to overturn laws that restrict the way corporations can spend money to influence election outcomes.
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September 9, 2009 :: Denver Lessing :: Comments Off
The Republican party is suffering a period of decline and isolation. Certain elements in its leadership seek an ideological “purification” of the party, ousting anyone who does not agree with a hardline right-wing philosophy of evangelical conservatism — often with a near messianic devotion to militarism or to Machiavellian manipulations as a means to an end.
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September 3, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 6 Comments
With a profound philosophical rift emerging in the nation’s chief opposition party, intolerance and programmatic lack of empathy are becoming the hallmarks of a troubled Republican minority. Party strategists are now worrying that, whatever the benefit might be for “building the base”, a more hard-line, less flexible, less inclusive vision of Republicanism will hurt the party’s chances in national elections.
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August 31, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, has announced he will work with lawmakers to arrange for an interim appointment to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, until the special election, now scheduled for 19 January 2010, allows voters to choose a senator to complete the last three years of his current 6-year term. The announcement paves the way for negotiations with state lawmakers about how to appoint a “caretaker”, and who should get the appointment.
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August 31, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Deval Patrick, the Democratic governor of Massachusetts, is now “coming out strongly in favor of the idea” of naming an interim replacement for the late Sen. Kennedy, at Sen. Kennedy’s request, to avoid leaving his state with a vacancy in the Senate for several months, as reported by the New York Times. After initial skepticism, there are now reports suggesting state lawmakers may be leaning toward supporting such a move.
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August 26, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
This video shows an emotional introduction by Caroline Kennedy, along with a video tribute to the life and work of Sen. Ted Kennedy, followed by a rousing speech by the senator himself, who spoke before an adoring audience of Democratic delegates.
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May 19, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The Republican National Committee is voting this week on whether or not to adopt a fully fantasy-based platform. The party is considering a motion to rebrand the Democratic party, over which they have no authority, the ‘Democrat Socialist party’. The move has been ridiculed by some in the party, as well as by members of the FOX News team, often considered friendly to the Republican party and its agenda.
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April 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The election of 2008 is historic for a variety of reasons: it saw the election of the first African American president, a second consecutive “wave election” —not seen since 1930 and ’32—, saw two women come very close to the most powerful job in the world, mobilized millions of voters and saw record amounts of fundraising from “small donors”. It was, however, also a watershed moment in the fundamental decentralization of the American political process.
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