So the pressure we brought to bear on Harry Reid's office over the weekend did have some effect. The bill does have a public option, despite mutterings from unnamed sources that the mythic and coveted 60 votes would be a whole lot easier without the public option. But we're not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.

Now we get to see the Republicans really ramp up the scare tactics--telling the gullible and easily frightened that this is just one step behind the evil Soviet Empire that St. Ronnie slayed, with its government-run health care, all evidence to the contrary. Up until this point, Obama has kept the Senate dealings at arm's length, a political calculus that made some sense, looking at what happened to Clinton's attempt to get health care passed. But it's going to take some seriously strong political leadership now to make it untenable for any member of the Senate to vote against health care reform. As Mike Lux says, "Game On":

We don't yet know whether we will get the best version of the public option in the House bill, and the Senate version is not as strong as progressives have been pushing for. But strengthening the form of the public option can be negotiated over in conference committee, once we get there.

For now, we can thank Harry Reid (HCAN has a page here) and Nancy Pelosi for their gutsy leadership, and fight like hungry dogs to win the floor fight and deliver on this hope. In the coming weeks we will have an all-hands-on-deck, all out public war with the insurance industry over whether we finally pass comprehensive health care reform or once again fall short at the bitter end after coming so far.

Here's where things are as we head into the floor fight:

1. White House staffers confirmed for me this afternoon that they are backing Harry Reid's decision "100 percent." Now that's not to say they aren't a little nervous about it. I suspect that there are still some feelings by some people working in that building that progressives should have given up and rolled over, and let them cut a deal with Olympia Snowe on her trigger-written-never-to-trigger. That would have been easier than sweating what will undoubtedly be a very tough battle to get all 60 Democrats to go along with the rest of the party. But us irritating progressive folk got in the way of doing that, and now Obama knows it's time to stand and deliver. I believe my friends at the White House when they say they will do an all-out fight for this bill. They know that starting down this path, and not being able to pull it off, would be a huge embarrassment and destroy all the momentum we've built by making it this far. They are all-in, and know how much is at stake. Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina are famous for twisting arms and doing everything in their power to get the votes that are needed, and now is their time to deliver.

That's where you come in. Progressive Change has a petition for you to sign to ask President Obama to stand firm and fight:

"Every day, insurance companies deny care and let people die. Getting one Republican senator's vote is not worth delaying reform -- too many real lives are at stake. We need you to fight and state clearly that anything less than a strong public option is not change we can believe in."

Go. Sign. Make phone calls. Let your voice be heard.

I've been a little down lately, because it seems too many people are in a state of learned helplessness and don't want to participate in our democracy if it involves stepping away from the computer.

But then I saw this letter from Michael Moore and I felt a lot better. Because it's still our country, and we can still make a difference:

Friends,

It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so NOW what can I DO?!"

You want something to do? Well, you've come to the right place! 'Cause I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to fix this very broken system.

Here they are:

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.

2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises allowed.

3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.

4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)

5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!

FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:

1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. Let them know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent -- or even a candidate from another party -- if they don't do our bidding. Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email. And if you really want to drop an anvil on them, send them a snail mail letter!

Continue reading »

Sen. "I need 60 votes to do anything" Reid has lost the confidence of enough of us over his weak leadership that Progressive Change has decided to run ads letting Harry know that he better show some spine, or be prepared to be voted out. From the email going out to PCCC's membership:

Senate Majority Leader Reid is brokering a health care bill this week. But he seems ready to cave to a few corporate Democrats who want to kill a public health insurance option. We can't let that happen.

Our ad features one of Harry Reid's constituents, Nevada nurse Lee Slaughter. She has seen insurance companies cut off care to patients in need -- and says that in 2010, she will vote on only one issue: "I'm watching to see if Harry Reid is strong and effective enough as a leader to pass a public option into law."

We know that Sen. Reid is concerned about his election next year. Polls show him trailing Republicans, and he's already running campaign ads. Our ad will remind him that for many voters back home, the public option is a make-or-break issue. Voters want Reid to fight for the public option and win -- not cave.

Keith Olbermann reports that Reid is "pushing back against progressives" and "setting expectations low." That's unacceptable. The public overwhelmingly wants the public option. Democrats control the government, with a huge 60-seat Senate majority.

This week is critical. We need Harry Reid to be a strong and effective leader right now. It has never been more important.

If you can, please help PCCC raise the funds to put this ad on the air.

C&L is honored to have proud progressives Congressman Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, and 2006 Democratic nominee for US Senate from Connecticut Ned Lamont, joining us for a live chat at 3 pm Pacific / 6 pm Eastern. The conversation will be wide-ranging, from health care and the economy to the upcoming 2010 mid-term elections. Ned Lamont endorsed Joe Sestak in the Pennsylvania Senate race earlier today.

Everyone is invited; if you haven't registered as a commenter here you will need to do that at this link in order to participate.

So Verizon Wireless is one of sponsors of the Friends of America Rally this Labor Day weekend, an anti-environment, pro-coal event. Most of the other sponsors are in the coal industry and there is even a link to the National Mining Association’s anti-Waxman-Markey petition on the home page.

Credo Action wanted to know why Verizon would sponsor such a reactionary event with such polarizing figures--especially ones that have gone out of their way to foment violence. From their email:

Before we launched our campaign, CREDO Action reached out to Verizon Wireless to confirm its sponsorship of the pro-coal "Friends of America" rally. Becky Bond, our Political Director, then sent a cordial follow-up to give Verizon Wireless a heads-up that our campaign had launched. Verizon replied as follows:

"This is how our response is going over with the activists. Becky once lived in a tree for a while. At least now I know where the emails are coming from."
— James Gerace, VP of Corporate Communications at Verizon Wireless

You got that?

If you don't think that Verizon Wireless should support global warming deniers and practitioners of mountaintop removal mining, then Verizon Wireless thinks it's okay to dismiss your concerns because you must have "lived in a tree for a while."

If they're going to try to mock us for opposing right wing demagoguery, then we'll just have to make more noise.

So please take a minute to ask your friends and family to join this campaign, especially if they are Verizon Wireless customers.

Let's remember how this campaign started. Verizon Wireless apparently sees nothing wrong with co-sponsoring a rally put on by Massey Energy, the biggest violator of the Clean Water Act in history; sees nothing wrong with giving a platform to people who deny global warming; sees nothing wrong with giving the emcee microphone to Ted Nugent who famously said:

Obama, he's a piece of sh — . I told him to suck on my machine gun...Hey Hillary [Clinton] you might want to ride one of these [machine guns] into the sunset, you worthless b — ch.

Apparently these are the values and sentiments Verizon Wireless feels comfortable associating itself with. You can violate the law, pillage the Earth and publicly insult Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the most vulgar way. Verizon Wireless is fine with that. But when we express common sense concerns about environmental stewardship, Verizon Wireless thinks we're tree-hugging nuts.

You know you want to give Verizon a piece of your mind. Remember, be polite. Show more class than they have.

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I spent all day traveling yesterday, so I wasn't able to get this up, bu Darcy Burner's keynote speech at Netroots Nation on Saturday night was classic Darcy: concise, but compelling. Especially the heart of the speech:

So President Clinton -- how many of you were here for President Clinton's speech the other night? -- President Clinton did something very interesting in his speech. He delivered two fundamentally contradictory messages. He said, support the health-care legislation no matter what it is. That was one message he sent that he delivered quite clearly. But the other message that he delivered was that "Don't ask, don't tell" became policy even though he knew it was the wrong thing, because, he said, we didn't support him and make him do the right thing. That second message, that we have to make our leaders do the right thing was raw and true.

We can't rely on people in authority to make everything right. We have got to do the hard work of governing. It's our job as Americans. It's our obligation. And to be perfectly blunt, I consider it my obligation for Henry.

The vehicle we have for change is the people we have elected, and we have done, collectively, a tremendous job of electing people to office in this country. We have taken back the House, we have taken back the Senate, we have taken the presidency of the United States.

But that is just the beginning of the battle. There are a lot of people -- mostly not the people in this room, but a lot of people who thought that was sufficient and have stopped. We have to help the people that we have elected. And to be perfectly blunt, we have been asked to.

I have been working for the past several months with the Congressional Progressive Caucus -- eighty-three of the most progressive members of the United States House and the United States Senate -- and the message that I get from them consistently is: "We are doing everything in our power to make a difference. But we have to have the support of the grassroots. We need the grassroots helping to frame the message, we need the grassroots applying pressure."

In the health-care debate that's going down right now, the Congressional Progressive Caucus did something absolutely revolutionary in March -- which is that in March Congressman Raul Grijalva, the newly elected co-chair of the caucus, whipped the progressive members of the caucus and got enough of the members to say, "We will not support any piece of health-care legislation that doesn't include a public option."

That the progressives were able to then send a letter to President Obama and to Nancy Pelosi and to Steny Hoyer saying, "Guess what? You want health-care legislation? It isn't the Blue Dogs you need to be worrying about. You need to talk to progressives, because we are drawing the line, and we are not going to back down."

The next day I heard it being bandied about that Darcy suggested caving on the public option. As I told my friends, that wasn't what I heard. And if you watch the video, I don't think it's what you'll hear either.

[Video from Sum of Change. Mine sucked.]

There are just a few days left in the PCCC / DFA campaign to Add Your Name to an ad demanding a strong public option and select the next Senator(s) to target. So far, it looks like it's Max Baucus by a good margin, with Kerry second, Feinstein third and Lieberman fourth.

Personally, as much as I loathe my Senator Feinstein's attitude, I think it's time to amp up the pressure on Lieberman, who is trying to slow down the process in order to hobble it.

Go here and place your vote for who to target. Voting ends Monday morning.

Remember this ad to which you could add your name?

Well, it's aired in Sen. Blanche Lincoln's (D-AR) and Sen. Kay Hagan's (D-NC) districts with happy success. From a PCCC email:

In the last 72 hours, two senators named in our TV ad -- Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Kay Hagan (D-NC) -- announced support for the public option!

The big lesson? Pressure works. TV ads work. Now it's our job to keep the momentum high. So we'll be running versions of our hard-hitting ad in targeted states -- pressuring individual Senate Democrats back home where it hurts most. We just need you to help us decide where.

Click here to cast your vote!

On the voting page, you'll see profiles of eight senators -- including how much money they've taken from the health and insurance interests, whether they sit on important committees, and their statements on the public option. Each version of the ad will feature the names of a senator's local constituents who "signed" our ad -- representing the 76% of Americans who demand a public option. It will also display the senator's big contributors.

We know that these ads are working. Not only have our ads been featured in the New York Times and Washington Post (which said we're rattling Democratic senators), but MoveOn and Blue America have been running ads in Sen. Hagan and Sen. Lincoln's home states. And the result? They are coming around. Two down, eight to go.

Now before any of you start dismissing the campaign because it's not single payer--please keep in mind that single payer is not on the table, nor is it likely to be on this go-round of health care reform. Obama has said that it would be too "disruptive" to the existing system. Our goal--and I speak for Blue America's campaign and presumably PCCC as well--is to fight for the most vibrant public option possible currently and then to keep incrementally fighting for something closer and more akin to a single payer.

I believe strongly that we will eventually come around on single payer in this country. But we need to work for it tactically and intelligently, or we risk having the whole thing blow up in our faces as it did in 1993.

In case you haven't heard, the Million Can March is a counter protest to the teabagging protest redux scheduled for the Fourth of July. Good luck wi dat, teabaggers.

Since the news cycle is spinning the Missouri legislator who thinks summer nutrition programs for kids de-motivates them, the Million Can March is all the more timely. And should we remind the leading Tea Party advocate in the Senate, David Vitter, that food banks also need donations of disposable diapers?

But seriously, I'm already in the process of cleaning out my pantry and getting some food over to the local food bank.

The idea is to do something positive in response to the Teabagger business. The instigator of this project, Rev. Phat of Les Enrages, points out:

This all started with a vague notion that we should do something more than just have a good laugh at the next round of tea parties scheduled for July 4th. I thought that if teabaggers are so afraid of socialism, maybe we could show 'em socialism on a national scale. And what is more socialistic than sharing our food with others.

And in the spirit of forgiveness, Rev. Phat invites conservatives to provide the drinks: dry packaged drink mixes and other non-perishable beverages are welcome at food banks, too.

For bloggers/webmasters the flash image above is free to copy here, and there's a free-use set of non-flash images on Flickr courtesy of Tengrain. There's also a Facebook group (login req.) for those wanting to promote the activism.

Donate a can or two to your local food bank this week. Feeding America has a food bank locator if you need help finding one in your area. Thank you.

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I've spent the past three days participating in the Reform Immigration for America summit in Washington, D.C. I've experienced more than my share of disappointments over the past few years in watching advocates come up short in the fight to bring sanity to the nation's misbegotten immigration laws.

Many of those wounds have been somewhat self-inflicted, largely because of the disparate nature of the many different organizations and interests who have made up the coalition of interests seeking comprehensive immigration reform.

And what was so encouraging about this summit is that it was clear that they are all coming together with a remarkable focus and ferocity. They will need it for the fight ahead.

The summit preceded President Obama's meeting 10 days hence with members of Congress on how to proceed on immigration. So the attendees fanned out after a rally Thursday to speak with their congressional delegations.

Eric Ward at Imagine 2050 has a terrific rundown:

Among cheers of “Sí se puede!” and “Time is now!” hundreds packed into the Church of the Reformation for a National Town Hall meeting on Capitol Hill. Their calls were clear - we can’t wait, we need comprehensive immigration reform now.

... Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) said 80,000 faxes were sent to Congress in the last 24 hours, and freshman representatives from swing districts are willing to put their seats on the line for comprehensive immigration reform. Let’s hope many more members of congress are willing to go out on a limb for the millions of people suffering in limbo.

There's plenty of reason to feel optimistic this time out as well. America's Voice has done some recent polling (details in the PDF here) showing that the public, by a large margin, favors fixing the mess that is our current set of laws:

Continue reading »

Our friends at Democracy for America/Netroots Nation want you to know: there are 30 scholarships available for activists to attend Netroots Nation this August in Pittsburgh. (And don't dis Pittsburgh--my artist parents live on the North Side. These days it's as artsy as Austin and until now is an undiscovered gem of a city.)

Details from DFA:

...there's no better place to discuss our priorities and plan how to make them a reality than at Netroots Nation.

To help people get there, we're thrilled to partner with Democracy for America again to offer scholarships to bring activists like you to Pittsburgh to network with fellow leaders from across the country.

Click here to apply for your scholarship now.

This competition is your chance to show off what you've done to move the progressive agenda forward. And it's our chance to ensure that activists of every age, background and economic bracket, representing numerous points of view and all 50 states are able to attend Netroots Nation and make it the richest experience yet.

It's also a great way to help make sure you have the resources to attend. Over the next couple of months, progressives nationwide will have a chance to voice their support for you and help you earn your scholarship.

The award covers the cost of registration and lodging for at least 30 winners— all you have to do is apply.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee asked a few New York comedians, including bloggers Lee Camp and Baratunde Thurston, to deliver to CNBC headquarters a petition with 20,000 signatures asking them to clean up their act and actually try to hold Wall Street accountable, instead of acting as the delivery system for their own public relations efforts.

HuffPo's Sam Stein:

Since the launch of FixCNBC.com, the network has, in fact, made several programming changes. Former DNC Chair Howard Dean was brought on as a regular commentator, and Huffington Post editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington guest hosted CNBC's morning show Squawk Box last week.

"Too often, groups put up online 'petitions' that aren't tied to any larger campaign," Green said of the FixCNBC.com letter. "We wanted to make sure CNBC truly received the message that people want them to do journalism that holds Wall Street accountable. And now we'll focus the energy of over 20,000 people on electing bold progressives to Congress -- candidates who will hold Wall Street accountable."

FixCNBC.com is still accepting signatures...if you haven't signed it yet, please join our campaign. And if you're able in this troubled economy, ActBlue is taking donations to make sure that CNBC hears our voices.

Glenn Greenwald wrote a very fine piece earlier this week about a major difference between liberals and conservatives outside of policy.

Whenever I would speak at events over the last couple of years and criticize the Bush administration’s expansions of government power, extreme secrecy and other forms of corruption, one of the most frequent questions I would be asked was whether "the Left" -- meaning liberals and progressives -- would continue to embrace these principles with a Democrat in the White House, or whether they would instead replicate the behavior of the Right and uncritically support whatever the Democratic President decided. Though I could only speculate, I always answered -- because I believed -- that the events of the last eight years had so powerfully demonstrated and ingrained the dangers of uncritical support for political leaders that most liberals would be critical of and oppositional to a Democratic President when that President undertook actions in tension with progressive views.

Two months into Obama’s presidency, one can clearly conclude that this is true. Even though Obama unsurprisingly and understandably remains generally popular with Democrats and liberals alike, there is ample progressive criticism of Obama in a way that is quite healthy and that reflects a meaningful difference between the “conservative movement” and many progressives...read on

Glenn provides plenty of examples of right-wing Bush worship that is hard to refute. In Obama's short time in office, many progressives (including this blog) have written about many of the differences we have had with the Obama administration up to this point, and to me that's not surprising. That's kind of the point, and that's something that we can do quite well. Keeping our eye on what I feel should be the agenda moving forward is not something C&L takes likely and neither does the rest of the left-wing blogosphere, but what I find fascinating is that if we do break from the Obama administration, the media act like it's a major source of news.

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous –- and some just flat-out angry -– that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices

And this one: Liberals Angry at Obama for Rick Warren Pick

And this one: Liberals Angry Obama Isn't Moving Further Left

I've found that if a blogger writes a negative post about something President Obama has done they almost immediately get an invite to go on TV or be quoted in print. We saw that quickly with his Cabinet choices. How shocking it must be to them that we would ever question the will of our leader.

It appears that the media has been so beaten down by the right wing kool-aid drinking whiners who have targeted the "librul press" for about three decades that they now instinctively believe we would repeat the same behavior that conservatives engaged in and who were slavishly enthralled with the Bush administration and all their decisions. If a terrorist attack occurs, start profiling middle easterners and round up all the brown people and send them where they came from, with or without their kids. Torture is good because they are now Luntzified and named "enemy combatants." Wiretapping our transmissions is wonderful because although Bush promoted "freedom for all" as his foreign policy center piece, giving up some of ours is for the greater good.

Don't like a law enacted by Congress, then the president can issue hundreds of signing statements to ignore them and that's fine too. Want some legal cover for excessive power, just fill the OLC with your flunkies to give their stamp of approval.

Need to fill job vacancies in government? Hire as many Regent/Pat Robertson University religious ideologues as you can without qualifications.

Need people to go overseas to rebuild a country that we invaded, staff them up with loyalty-oath babies. The major requirement is that you have never voted Democratic.

Lose 9 billion dollars in that country and who cares? What's a billion here and a billion there? They were nice new bills, by the way.

If the economy tanks with conservatives in charge, well, you know. Stuff happens.

This has been the mentality of the right since 2000 because they need their man in charge. Purity rings are preferable more than responsible criticism. After Paul Krugman disagreed with Tim Geithner's banking plan, Chuck Todd told us that he's always hated Obama. Now, I met Paul when he came into LA for a speaking engagement and we chatted about Obama during the general election. We talked about the differences of opinion Paul had with Obama's health-care plan. If I were a Villager I would have thought Krugman would have been depressed that Obama was the Democratic nominee, but Paul thought that Obama could accomplish great things and was very optimistic. Wow, who knew.

So here's a memo to the press: We ain't the right. We think for ourselves, but know that this country is better off with adults in charge instead of Jesus-worshipping, traitor-calling, fearmongering conservatives, but will still be a vital voice of what we feel should be done. Oh, by the way: I kinda like Jesus.

Most Americans outside Los Angelenos who follow local politics have probably never heard of Eric Garcetti. 8 years ago at age 30, Eric was elected to the 13th city council district. He ran the race like the community organizer that he is-- as he puts it, he bought a pair of shoes and walked door to door in his district until there were literally holes in them-- and ended up winning a June run-off by 4%. Four years later Eric was re-elected without any opposition and then in 2006 became President of the LA City Council. This past Tuesday, he was just re-elected to his third and final term as Councilman with 72% of the vote. He's the most progressive member of the City Council, many think the most progressive politician in Los Angeles-- and not in a knee jerk way. A startlingly brilliant guy, Eric manages to look at problems that need to be solved and gets busy working on real-life solutions.

As councilman he's tripled the number of parks in his district; crime is down, graffiti has been reduced by 50% and Hollywood is back. He's also trained 1500 future leaders at his Neighborhood Leadership Academy and has made government more accessible and relevant to average citizens through his Government 101 workshops. Last year, Eric served as a California co-chair of the Obama campaign. As head of the LA City Council he's been a real champion for Los Angeles around the country and the world but is also a champion of cities as a crucial economic driver and progressive hub of our nation. He believes that with the right management and the right amount of local control, the stimulus money can be a boon not only for our cities but also for the progressive movement because it has the potential to radically change how people perceive government. This is the opportunity to really show people that government works and the only way to do that is to make sure this stimulus money is not wasted and works at the most local level.

Eric has been a passionate advocate for marriage equality, a champion of greening L.A. and encouraging alternate modes of transportation other than your car and has worked tirelessly to keep people in their homes through this devastating foreclosure crisis. John and I have been eager to introduce everyone to Eric and if you join us in "Comments" between 3 and 4 you'll have a chance to chat with Eric live, someone we think will eventually be deciding if he'd rather run for governor or senator.

California finally passed a budget last night. The budget is devastating and will hurt just about every single Californian. It is the consequence of two things 1) the recession put California in a deep hole 2) the structural way that California's legislature operates on taxes and the budget mean that a conservative budget is the only one that is able to be passed.

Dave has more details on the budget and the aftermath over at Calitics, but the fact still remains...

California's government is hopelessly broken. Republicans turned the budget negotiations into a hostage crisis by exploiting the rule requiring a 2/3rds vote of the legislature to pass a budget. Senator Abel Maldonado blackmailed the Senate into accepting even more spending cuts and an open primary that threatens progressive power as the cost of his vote for the budget deal.

California Republicans are an extreme minority. A party in exile. Rejected by Californians at the ballot box, Republicans have decided to take revenge by using the budget crisis to achieve their radical goals, no matter the cost.

Only TWO other states -- the small states of Rhode Island and Arkansas -- require a 2/3rds supermajority to pass a budget. But, ironically, it requires a 2/3 vote of the legislature to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to repeal the 2/3rds rule.

Since Republicans in the legislature will try to block that too, it is up to we, the people, to restore democracy to California and finally end the Republicans' obstruction. And the only way we can stop them is to repeal the 2/3rds rule by ballot initiative.

This is insanity. And it's made possible by the 2/3rds rule, which allows a small cabal of extremist Republicans to hold the state hostage to their demands, as they have done year after year.

We have to stop the insanity. The only way this madness will end is if we eliminate the 2/3rds rule. Please join the Courage Campaign and CREDO and take the pledge to support a repeal of the 2/3rds rule.

(full-disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

John Amato:

I don't understand why we don't have a gas tax in CA either. With the prices so low, people will not complain about it because they understand how bad conditions are and it would raise a ton of money. If oil goes through the roof again, then the tax gets rescinded. Rachel Maddow in the above video also points out the absurd problem that exists because property taxes are capped in California.

MADDOW: The GOP is also in exile in the great state of California, where Democrats have big majorities in both Houses of the legislature. However, California is turning out to be a test lab for what happens when the party in exile, the “party of no” can‘t get overruled. Legislative rules in California require a 2/3 vote on certain legislation, which means a few minority Republican votes are needed to pass the Golden State‘s horrible new budget.Why is it horrible?

Well, because California capped property taxes when I was five. I remember because that shut down my town‘s library for most of the week, not that I‘m bitter.With no real property tax base, California is instead really dependent on income taxes, and since people‘s income goes up and down with a lot of volatility depending on the state of the economy, California‘s state budget has ended up being really sensitive to economic downturns. And in case you hadn‘t noticed, this is to economic downturns what a buffalo is to a buffalo wing.