Progressive Media Advocates
Brent Budowsky: If a Democratic House and Senate are elected in 2014, it would re-empower Obama for one of the strongest closing two years of an eight-year presidency in modern history, which could avoid lame-duck status almost entirely with what historians would ultimately describe as “Obama’s third term.”
Brent Budowsky: Many of those who worked their hearts out and won the last election are increasingly concerned today, a concern that would be ignored at great political peril..
Clifford “Felonius Ax” Tasner: “Corporatist” Dems pander to the same socially liberal causes as their fellow Dems, but when the time comes, they vote on our behalf to deregulate and privatize and outsource and downsize.
Brent Budowsky: An Obama-Clinton ticket would increase the president’s popular and electoral votes. It would increase voter turnout for Democrats and elect more Democrats to the House and Senate.
Randy Shaw: Barack Obama’s campaign has lots of money, but there is no way it could match Romney’s success at getting this base to align with the President.
Robert Reich: Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.
Brent Budowsky: There are smiles today throughout the Democratic base because the fighting spirit is back for the Dems.
Robert Reich: Occupiers and others have had enough.
Yet paradoxically the presidential race that officially begins a few months from now is likely to be as passionless as they come.
Brent Budowsky: When the full truth is told about the secret deals that will define the fiscal future of America and the fate of programs at the heart of the Democratic Party heritage, it will be clear that Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is the most important leader in Washington carrying the torch, against great odds, for what true Democrats stand for.
Robert Reich: It’s no accident that President Obama appears to be following the Clinton script. After all, it worked.
Brent Budowsky: Reid is now effectively playing the role of prime minister, trying to enact the programs of a Democratic president facing a strongly partisan and ideological Republican House and a narrow and tentative Democratic majority in the Senate.
Brent Budowsky: Obama is making a riverboat gamble that by doubling down on courting big business he will unleash a surge of jobs and lead resurgent Democrats to a triumph in 2012. Whether this strategy works will determine whether the 2012 campaign resembles the Reagan reelection of 1984 or the chaotic election of 1968.
Randy Shaw: Why did California progressives do so well in the midterm elections, in contrast to conservatives’ success nationally? A major reason is that the state’s activists pushed progressive policies without seeking approval from politicians.
Randy Shaw: Obama’s early and steadfast refusal to attack Republicans in fiercely partisan terms allowed the GOP to blame Democrats for the ongoing economic crisis, and by the time Obama hit the campaign trail it was too little too late to change the public mood.
Brent Budowsky: Every time a Republican predicts the GOP will win the Senate and 70 seats in the House, more Democrats become scared stiff and decide to vote, and more moderates worry about partisan gridlock and the arrogance of Republican power.
Randy Shaw: Recently polls shows Latinos’ positive perceptions of Democrats sharply rising in the wake of the Party’s unsuccessful effort to enact the DREAM act last week.
Obama can narrow the enthusiasm gap by aggressively campaigning, but it will be up to labor and environmental groups to rouse their disaffected supporters to the polls.
Brent Budowsky: Make no mistake, the party of Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy is planning a new era of Nixonian and McCarthyite abuses to repeat the politics of persecution it attempted against the Clintons when Republicans had control of Congress.
Robert Reich: Average Americans are hurting. But their pain isn’t coming from government. It’s coming from an economy whose benefits are concentrating ever more at the top, whose giant corporations are controlling ever more of our democratic process, and whose costs and risks are becoming ever more burdensome for the middle class and the poor
Randy Shaw: Holding self-identified “progressive” politicians like Barack Obama accountable for fulfilling campaign commitments actually improves the chances for progressive election victories, as it pressures Democrats to satisfy their base. And as the critical midterm elections approach, ensuring this grassroots base is motivated and mobilizable by holding Obama and Congressional Democrats accountable is even more imperative.
Mario Solis-Marich: As the pressure mounts around the country on the police state known as Arizona, eyes turn to Washington for comprehensive immigration reform. Top Senate aides informed me this morning that despite news stories to the contrary, Majority Leader Harry Reid has not backed off of the idea of pursing an immigration bill as the next order of Senate business. The clarification is one that may be too nuanced for some but is an indication of the balancing act the Leader feels he must make to hold the Democratic caucus together while trying to pursue legislative remedies to the huge problems left to fester during the days of the past Republican majority. The clarification however will probably not satisfy the Latino community as the disrespectful sting of the slap in the face delivered by Arizona lingers.
Berry Craig: My guess is the Tea Bagger-tilting, neo-Confederate GOP is disturbing the eternal rest of some other Republicans. I remember Republicans whose politics were considerably to the left of Dixie Democrats. Some were even liberals to one extent or another.
Robert Reich: Including all those who have entered the job market since the bottom fell out, the nation is about 11 million jobs short. The President ought to use his second honeymoon to get a jobs bill that will make a difference.
Robert Reich: The Dem base is lethargic because congressional Democrats continue to compromise on everything the Dem base cares about. For a year now it’s been nothing but compromises, watered-down ideas, weakened provisions, wider loopholes, softened regulations.
Dan Bacher: Despite intense political pressure by the oil industry, the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on April 29 approved three bills proposing to halt fracking, a controversial method of oil and natural gas extraction, in California.
Benjamin called on the President to use his power as Commander-In-Chief to close Guantanamo prison, release the 86 Guantanamo prisoners who have been cleared for release, and stop the killer drone program
Angola 3 News: Hidden behind the walls, huge numbers of human beings have their spirits broken daily. Secretly, many suffer false disciplinary reports, illegitimate confiscation or destruction of personal property, physical beatings, rape, and sometimes fraudulent criminal penalties.
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Why Liberals Don’t Stand a Chance in the Corporate Media
Joseph Palermo: Our political spectrum, as refracted through the lens of corporate media, runs from center-right to far-right. No wonder the conventional wisdom in Washington holds, without evidence, that the United States is a “center-right” country. Those making that argument might not be real, informed commentators — but they play them on TV.