DCourage

How to Kill a Green Job

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:29:07 -0500

While the Senate is debating whether or not to give people cash in exchange for buying a Hummer, the State of Virginia could be poised to take significant action to bolster the economy and help the climate by passing an energy efficiency bill introduced by State Senator Donald McEachin. Here's the catch. Doing smart, easy things like energy efficiency that create jobs and prosperity isn't so easy in Virginia, where Dominion Power runs the statehouse. Dominion Power operates several coal-fired power plants in the state and uses the proceeds to hand out campaign donations almost as fast as it hands out asthma attacks. The biggest single recipient of Dominion's largesse? State Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw of Springfield (in the DC suburbs), who received a whopping $85,000 in campaign contributions between 2004 and 2009, more than any other legislator. So what's that money getting Dominion? Seemingly, a whole lot... Read More

Jaguars for Change

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:38:43 -0500

Barack Obama's victory is good news for reversing one of the great environmental and humanitarian crimes of the Bush era: the U.S.-Mexico border wall. The wall, about 280 miles long, is a disaster for the wildlife, landscape, people, and economy of the American southwest. It prevents highly endangered species like jaguars (U.S. population unknown), ocelots (U.S. pop. ~ 80), and Sonoran pronghorn antelope (U.S. pop. ~100) from reaching the breeding populations south of the border they need to survive - threatening the endurance of these great symbols of the Southwest. It also breaks up families that have straddled the border for centuries and threatens the economy of the border region, many parts of which are heavily dependent on birders, naturalists, and other tourists who come to admire the unique fauna. Read More

Mondale's Revenge

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:13:59 -0500

For a generation, Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign was cited as an example of how not to run for the White House as a Democrat: not only did Mondale run on a liberal platform, he even went so far as to promise to raise Americans' taxes, a promise that was widely blamed for his defeat. But Barack Obama's victory shows that after eight years of Republican failure, the rules have changed. For all of Obama's rhetorical efforts to portray himself as a tax-cutting, business-friendly moderate whose highest aspiration was to "bring people together," he ran on a very progressive agenda, was characterized as a closet socialist "Redistributionist-in-Chief" by McCain and Palin, and above all represented a radically different approach from the conservative ideology that has mostly defined the national agenda since 1981. Read More

Daschle for Chief of Staff?

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:25:58 -0500

In an article in today's New York Times by Jackie Calmes and Peter Baker, unnamed Obama advisers float a Tom Daschle trial balloon for Chief of Staff in an Obama administration; he's already been widely mentioned for other senior policy positions. Appointing Daschle, who's pulls in around a million dollars a year as a "Special Policy Advisor" (not a lobbyist) for the law firm Alston and Bird, would be a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of Obama's pledge that lobbyists "will not run my White House" or his administration, one of the hallmarks of his platform and one of the main way he differentiates himself from John McCain's lobbyist-riddled campaign. Read More

The Yalie Who Could Save Us Billions

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:31:19 -0500

As if the Wall Street bailout couldn't get more obscene, Wall Street executives are now lobbying for huge fees from the government to manage some of the assets they're selling to the government; in other words, the taxpayer will take the risk, but Wall Street will get the fees. Read More

What Lieberman Gets That Dems Don't

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:01:42 -0500

You've got to hand it to Joe Lieberman. He has totally absorbed the "How to Be a Republican" training. For one thing, he seems to have learned a core GOP insight of which most Democrats remain ignorant: that for the overwhelming majority of voters, a candidate's character is far more important than their issue stances. And so, he best articulated what will be John McCain's argument heading into the fall.

You may not agree with John McCain on every issue. But you can always count on him to be straight with you about where he stands, and to stand for what he thinks is right regardless of politics.

This was also Bush's core argument in 2004:

"Whether you agree with me or not, you know where I stand, what I believe, and where I am going to lead."

After the 2004 election, Bush Communications Director (and current McCain spokesflack) Nicolle Devenish Wallace cited that single line as "the most important words we uttered in the campaign" in a forum held by the Annenberg School. Read More

Palin's Cruel Streak: Aerial Hunting of Wolves

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:18:03 -0500

Of course, Sarah Palin's no animal lover. She's put extraordinary effort into undoing federal wildlife protections for polar bears, beluga whales, and pretty much any other animal that gets in the way of the oil industry's plans.

But her wolf bounty really takes the cake for animal cruelty. One of Palin's first acts in office was to put a $150 bounty on the heads of her state's wolves, allegedly with the goal of increasing the moose and caribou population. But this was no ordinary hunt: it was meant to incentivize the aerial killing of wolves, in which private hunters take a small plane and chase down wolf packs until they're exhausted and can't move any more, when they either shoot them from the air or land and execute them at point blank range.

Confident, At Last

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:17:20 -0500

I came into tonight knowing Barack Obama could win - but worried he wouldn't. After all, he'd spent the whole summer talking hopes and dreams - and giving in on ours - while John McCain knocked him around like an Olympic boxer. But tonight, he found a bit of spine, found his sense of humor, found his passion, and found who he is again. And we found our next president. Because when Barack Obama comes out swinging, he wins.

Hillary's Adjectives

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:55:05 -0500

Tonight, we heard how great Hillary was, how much she's struggled for women, we heard how important health care is and how important breaking barriers is. But we didn't hear anything about what kind of person Barack Obama is and what kind of president (or Commander in Chief) he will be. Instead, we heard Hillary say more positive things about McCain's character ("served our country with honor and courage") and Joe Biden ("a strong leader, a good man, pragmatic, tough, wise") than we did about Obama, who got no adjectives or character descriptions at all, just a litany of good policies he would implement. Read More

The Veep Hopeful Who Raised Energy Costs

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:41:56 -0500

Virginia governor Tim Kaine had a tough task at his town hall meeting in Manassas in the Washington, DC exurbs this weekend, where he was, in part, trying to prove to Obama that he could be an effective vice presidential candidate. Not only had he just said he favored so-called "right to work" (hat tip Matt Stoller) laws that make it nearly impossible for workers to exercise their rights to form a union, he also recently gave into pressure from Dominion Power to hike electricity rates on Virginians to pay for the construction of a massive, new polluting coal fired power plant. You can just see the GOP attack ads coming: Read More

The Men Who Made Me Love Hillary

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:17:13 -0500

I have the reputation of being something of a Hillary-hater. It's understandable: the PAC I founded, Democratic Courage, ran the first anti-Hillary ad of the primaries. But for all my very public opposition to Hillary's presidential candidacy, the vice presidential picks being floated by Obama are making Hillary - or a Hillary-like candidate - look increasingly attractive for the number two slot. Because for all of Hillary's faults, she has a toughness and a willingness to play offense sorely needed in a campaign in which the man at the top of the ticket has so far responded to attacks on his character, his patriotism, and his policies primarily by whining about the attacks themselves. Read More

It's Time for Obama to Get Tough

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:03:03 -0500

How is it that despite adulatory media coverage, long lines of volunteers at his campaign offices, and Americans deeply unhappy about the direction of the country, Barack Obama is rapidly losing support - and control of the agenda - to John McCain? It's because Obama has reverted to the whiny, wimpy style that nearly allowed Hillary Clinton to wipe him out in September, 2007 - until he found his backbone and actually started to stand up for himself. When McCain launches volley after volley of attack on Obama's policies (with photos of Paris and Brittany thrown in to get the media's attention), what's Obama's response? To ride in on his My Little Pony and cry because McCain is - how low! - criticizing his policies and questioning his capacity to lead in a mildly creative way Read More

Virginia is for Coal Lovers

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:00:02 -0500

Under heavy pressure from lobbyists for Dominion coal, Virginia announced yesterday that it's going to permit the construction of a new coal-fired power plant, even though doing so clearly violates the law. Just days after NASA's James Hansen testified that avoiding climate catastrophe will require immediately stopping construction of new coal fired power plants around the world (and shutting down old ones), and just months after the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, Virginia decided that what the state and the world really need is another coal fired power plant with no controls on release of carbon dioxide -- and gave Dominion power the go ahead to build their "Hybrid Energy Center" in Wise County in Appalachia (hybrid because it will burn two different types of dirty coal). Read More

"I'm Not From Here But I Got HereJust as Soon as I Could"

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:03:34 -0500

As I reported last week, I'm in Appalachia, Virginia to attend a hearing by the Virginia Air Resources Board about whether or not Virginia will permit Dominion Power to build a dirty, coal-fired power plant. It's Eden in the Mountains here - miles and miles of green, forested mountains in every direction.

In Obama's America, Path to Power No Longer Runs Through Law Firms

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:50:41 -0500

There's a massive silver lining to the Obama and McCain campaigns' escalating war to rid each other of staffers and advisors with ties to lobbyists and corporate America: suddenly, slaving away at a big law firm no longer seems like a path to power, but an express off-ramp. When men as well connected as former Obama VP search committee head Jim Johnson and former McCain advisor (and lobbyist for Burma's military junta) Doug Goodyear can be ousted for their lobbying work on behalf of sketchy companies, it sends a powerful message to current law students (and recent college graduates): the revolving door between the corridors of power and the corridors of greed is rapidly closing. Now, lawyers will have to choose: spend your career serving your country, or spend it serving your corporation. Read More