If the Tea Party has done one thing positive for the country, it is to reveal the true conservative agenda.
The DNC is going on the offensive with a new site, RepublicanTeaPartyContract.com, to tie the Tea Party and the Republican Party together and outline their real agenda.
Take it from me, former active Republican, this is what they really believe, even though they may not always say it. The site provides citations for all ten of the positions below.
Repeal the Affordable Care Act (Health Insurance Reform)
Put insurance companies back in charge, repeal tax credits for small businesses, allow insurance companies to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions and to drop coverage when a person gets too sick and make prescription drugs for seniors less affordable.
Privatize Social Security or phase it out altogether
Turn the guaranteed retirement benefits of America’s seniors over to Wall Street CEOs by putting Social Security at risk in the stock market or, as some Republicans have called for, phase out Social Security altogether and end a program millions of American seniors rely on for their survival.
End Medicare as it presently exists
Phase out and end Medicare as it presently exists for future generations of seniors — ending Medicare’s guaranteed healthcare benefits for more than 40 million American seniors — and replace it with a voucher system which will result in higher premiums and fewer services for seniors.
Extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy and big oil
At a cost of nearly $700 billion, extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and big oil, which are set to expire and which have and will continue to explode the federal budget deficit.
Repeal Wall Street Reform
Roll back the toughest consumer protections ever enacted, allow banks to continue to grow too big to fail, and ensure that predatory lenders continue to utilize their most abusive practices.
Protect those responsible for the oil spill and future environmental catastrophes
Cap liabilities for those responsible for environmental disasters like the Gulf oil spill and let companies like BP decide which victims deserve compensation for the disaster and what the timeline for relief should be.
Abolish the Department of Education
Put the big banks back in charge of student loans and put an end to federal assistance for public schools.
Abolish the Department of Energy
End America’s investments in a clean-energy future and disband the organization responsible for oversight of nuclear materials.
Abolish the Environmental Protection Agency
Gut the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act — which together protect our kids from air pollution and keep drinking water safe — and disband the watchdog that holds polluters accountable.
Repeal the 17th Amendment
Take away your right to pick your U.S. Senator.
There has been a “Vote for Romanoff” avatar floating around that is being used as a profile picture on Facebook. This is a great idea and is a nice balance against the same “Vote Bennet” avatar being used.
Note that the avatar still displays full text.
One thing I have noticed, however, is that the color scheme isn’t consistent with the official campaign graphic and the fonts aren’t balanced. I created and am offering the following alternate graphic. I just feel this looks sharper.
Click the image below to open the full size image and then save it to you computer. You can then upload it to your Facebook profile.
I also created the graphic below for my Twitter profile. Again, click the image to open full size and then save to your computer.
Oh, and while your at it, follow me on Twitter @jamesreyes.
Well last night we wrapped up the show. We ended with a keynote address by Linda Chavez-Thompson, whom I discussed yesterday. She is an amazing and moving orator and a proven effective organizer. You need to check out her site and give her scrill. Texas can really make a change this year. It’s within reach, but we progressives need to step up and make it happen. Go to TexansForLinda.com and get it done. Let’s show up these right-wing swine who have been destroying Texas.
The final keynote address was by the ever brilliant and humorous Senator Al Franken. Franken’s overriding message was the need for progressives to keep fighting on. Too much complacency, likely fueled by impatience at a perceived lack of policy change, has been growing among the progressive netroots and in the broader progressive movement. He reminded progressives about the out-of-power passion they had felt in 2006 that swept the Democrats to a majority and that this is the same kind of passion the right-wing clowns are feeling today. Franken also announced the location for next years’ Netroots Nation which will be in Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 16 – 19, 2011. I can’t wait!
Following that I didn’t attend the official Netroots Nation party but instead went to a party hosted by Mike Rogers, the guy who does the good and necessary work of outing anti-gay closeted gay hypocritical politicians, star of the documentary film Outrage. A very sweet man, it was an honor to hang out with him.
A group of undocumented students held a symbolic and silent protest in front of the Netroots Nation stage, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was speaking about Immigration Reform, during the last day of the progressive conference held in Las Vegas.
Senator Harry Reid didn’t acknowledge the students protesting, not even mentioned them. This was taken as “one of many signs that shows how [Reid] has approached Immigration Reform” said one of the students. The protest was well received by the attendees.
I also failed to mentioned that during Friday’s talk on immigration reform, there were mock Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) guards asking for ID of all non-brown looking people designed to make the point about the effects of SB1070. There were some drama eruptions.
Maybe I’ll write on that further later this week. I could end up doing a follow-up piece.
Last night was an impromptu informal Tequila Caucus hosted in the room of my friend Nezua a.k.a. The Unapologetic Mexican and then in my room. Lots of tequila at night and then lots of recovering needed in the morning. I still feel it.
This led to a late start. I got to hear Alan Grayson, the Congressman from Disney World while I ate my chicken sandwich box lunch. Still struggling to move about, I headed up to a mixer with Texas Liutenent Governor candidate Linda Chavez-Thompson. I like to call her the Latina Ann Richards. She is a powerful force to be reckoned with.
I then caught the end of a panel discussion on new web technologies for the progressive movement. We then gathered in the big room to hear Senator Harry Reid. There was a very peaceful and quiet demonstration by a group of DREAM kids to push for the passage of the DRAM Act. Otherwise, Reid’s presentation was incident free. After this I had the great honor of meeting one of my heroes Lt. Dan Choi.
Now I’m headed to the pool and later I’ll go to the closing keynote to hear Senator Al Franken.
The second panel was “Marriage Equality: Building a Movement Online” which went a great deal into contrasting the campaign to defeat Prop 1 in Maine in 2009 with Prop 8 in California in 2008. I learned about Friendfactor, a social networking site aimed at mobilizing the LGBT community and their straight friends to stand up for marriage equality. Check it out and sign up to be updated as they near launch. The panel also discussed the important of coalition building, especially with communities of faith, which unfortunately tend to be ignored by LGBT activists. DC Equality, for example, was able to get over 200 religious leaders in the area to stand with them for marriage equality. This sort of coalition building can be done everywhere.
Next, I attended the “Immigration Reform’s Strange Bedfellows: The Surprising Consensus that Reform Will Improve American Jobs and Bolster Our Economy” panel which was focused on the consensus among different progressive interest groups for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) such as the NAACP and how the right-wing tries to place wedges between progressive groups through nativist front-groups like You Don’t Speak for Me, Coalition for the American worker and Progressives for Immigration Reform and the Center for Immigration Studies, both by Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) founder and white nationalist John Tanton.
Immigration reform is extremely popular but because of the frustration in the public for something, initiatives like Arizona’s SB 1070 gains traction and apparent popularity which in turn creates terror in Latino communities and erodes trust between law enforcement and the community. There was also discussion on the ongoing debate over weather the DREAM Act should be included in CIR or not. The argument for separating the two is that the popular DREAM Act would be much easier to pass, however separating it would make CIR less likely to pass.
After the panels, I was on the Mario Solis-March Show to discuss the day’s activities during the 5:30 MT. Head over to his site and listen to the podcast.
That night at the dinner keynote Ed Schultz came to speak. He delivered a rousing speech, but to the dismay of the LGBT netroots he failed to mention us when listing different progressive groups. Finally the actual keynote speaker for the night was Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer who enjoys a 60% approval rating and is one of the most effective governors in the country. This is what happens when Democrats are Democrats. Governor Schweitzer also shared an interesting story about his Irish emigre grandmother who came to America in 1909 at the age of 17 and homesteaded 320 acres alone, but since she exceeded the Catholic and Irish immigration quota at the time, she ended up being an illegal immigrant, but was able to get that issue legally resolved since she had established herself here. I guess the right-wing would say she was “rewarded for breaking the law.”
Day 2
I decided to sleep-in Friday and didn’t attend the opening talk by Van Jones. My first panel was something right up my career alley, “Advertising Online for Progressive Causes and Campaigns which included Andrew Roos from Google who is an Adwords account executive on elections and issue advocacy.
Next, I attended the LGBT caucus. It was more of a workshop where we broke into groups to identify different organizational and issue-related action items.
For lunch we had several speakers and a panel on civil rights in the modern era with labor organizer Eliseo Medina and LGBT activist Kate Kendell and the Reverend Lennox Yearwood. This afternoon I attended a presentation about Presente.org‘s successful campaign to get Lou Dobbs off CNN which included their Basta Dobbs microsite and coordination between offline and online efforts. They successfully exploited CNN’s apparent discrepancy with having Latino journalists like Rich Sanchez and Soledad O’Brien and O’Brien’s CNN special Latino in America along with xenophobes and proud Minuteman supporter Lou Dobbs. Presente.org also felt that it was important to get Dobbs off the air before we entered a full-fledged debate on CIR. Presente.org’s next efforts will focus on getting the DREAM Act passed.
It’s Day 2 at Netroots Nation 2010 at the Rio Las Vegas. Other than really bad Internet connectivity, it has been a really good gathering. I’ve met a good number of interesting folks.
Here is a part of how Day 1 has gone.
Yesterday morning I started with a forum on why Democratic primaries matter to the progressive movement. The panelists included Markos Moulitsas and Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter whom I had the privilege of meeting after the panel. Markos emphasized that we as progressives, who don’t have the “billions and billions” (HT CS) of dollars of the big multi-national corporations to buy Congress, must use primaries to put up credible progressive candidates for office.
The key thing, however, is that we do put up serious electable candidates and not fall into the loosing teabagger “strategy” of nominating looney Sharon Angle or the Rand Paul-types who would only serve to erode our credibility. Bill Halter serves as a good case study. Although he lost, by a slim margin, to Senator Blanche Lincoln in the recent Arkansas primary, he clearly would have been a better general election candidate. He already serves as Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas which is clear evidence that he is an electable state-wide in Arkansas. Further, his populist message was resonating with general election voters. There were a number of examples provided which show that progressive ideas to sell and that the timidity of the President and the Democrats in Congress is actually diminishing their chances of holding on to office. The electorate like fighting populists.
…a political convention for American progressive political activists, originally organized by readers and writers of Daily Kos, a liberal political blog. It was previously called YearlyKos. The 5th Annual Netroots Nation conference will be in Las Vegas at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino from July 22-25, 2010.
Follow me on Twitter @jamesreyes for even more fun and frivolity. Follow the hashtag #nn10 for even more.
On Thursday I went to my local T-Mobile store and picked up the new Samsung Galaxy S to replace my damaged Google Nexus One. I am usually reluctant to early adopt any new gadget, preferring to wait at least a few weeks to read about any issues or complaints other users might have. Being eager to replace my Nexus One with an Android-powered device that wouldn’t suffer obsolescence in six months, I went ahead and took the plunge.
I was thrilled with the brillant Active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display. The T-Mobile version of this handheld is called the Vibrant and the image quality is just that. The device included a copy of the movie Avatar and it looks amazing. I also liked the thinness and light weight of the device. The device is also fast.
Given all my excitement, I soon found myself crashing into a brick wall of disappointment. The GPS utterly sucked. It took seemingly forever to get a GPS lock if I was lucky. Often I couldn’t get a lock at all, inside or outside. My buyer’s remorse intensified. This was a big deal. Using my previous two phones, the HTC Dream and the Nexus One, I found GPS to have become indispensable, especially when navigating in the car or geeking out with augmented reality apps, not to mention foursquare or Google Sky Maps.
Frustrated, I started Googling to see if this specific unit was just a dud off the factory line or if other users were experiencing the same thing. Sure enough, others were complaining and I came to regret my early adoption. I stumbled across across rumors that Samsung was preparing to release a firmware fix for the issue. This gave me the hope that the hardware itself was fine. I can deal with a fixable software problem.
It turns out it is just software that can be corrected with a small firmware change anybody could do themselves. I found this fix on XDA Developers forum. So far it seems to have done the trick.
Turn Flight Mode on
Dial *#*#1472365#*#* which brings up the firmware menu
Under Application Settings change Operation Mode to MS Based
Under SUPL/CP Settings change the Server & Port to supl.google.com (no “www”) and 7276 respectively
Reboot
Turn Flight Mode off
Ahh! My buyers remorse has vanished and I love this phone again.
In case you need to restore the default settings, they are:
On Thursday I went to my local T-Mobile store and picked up the new Samsung Galaxy S to replace my damaged Google Nexus One. I am usually reluctant to early adopt any new gadget, preferring to wait at least a few weeks to read about any issues or complaints other users might have. Being eager to replace my Nexus One with an Android-powered device that wouldn’t suffer obsolescence in six months, I went ahead and took the plunge.
