Doug Mataconis points out that for all the talk about how money
buys elections, of the 10 candidates for Congress who spent the
most money on their own campaigns this year, only two were
victorious in last week's midterms.
What money does do is help a challenger get his message
out to overcome the massive advantages that come with incumbency.
If voters don't like the message, money doesn't appear to help a
candidate much.
The real threat to democracy is incumbency and the permanent
political class. In the month before the election, public approval
for Congress was somewhere
between 15 and 25 percent. Yet even in an election year rife
with "throw the bums out" sentiment,
87 percent of House incumbents who ran for reelection won last
week. If Lisa Murkowski wins in Alaska, the figure for the Senate
will be 84 percent. Those figures are slightly lower than the
historical average.
It's true that approval ratings for the whole of Congress are
different from voter affection for a particular congressman or
senator. But that's partly the point. With gerrymandering;
entitlement programs that create a need for constituent service;
campaign regulations that make it increasingly difficult to file
and challenge an incumbent, the general celebrity of federal
office; and various other
advantages, Congress is a much-loathed institution that has
nonetheless rigged the game to ensure its members maximum job
security and minimal accountability. Money isn't even partly
responsible for many of these advantages, save for gerrymandering
(which both parties spend money to influence). But money
is necessary to overcome them. (Of course, most incumbents
also have built-in fundraising advantages, which are also
exacerbated by caps on contributions.)
A deep campaign chest is usually a prerequisite to
knocking off an incumbent, but it isn't remotely a guarantee.
Making it more difficult for challengers to raise money only makes
it more difficult for them to overcome the non-monied advantages of
incumbency. The more resrictions we put on fundraising, the more
difficult it is for voters to hold politcians accountable. Which
explains why we keep reelecting the same politicians, in spite of
the fact that we pretty consistently tell pollsters how much we
hate them.
What a truly brutal election. One rare exception was the crushing of Texas Oil's Proposition 23 in California (see CREDO's campaign at stoptexasoil.org), which proves that even unlimited corporate cash can be beaten back -- if it is disclosed and fought by grassroots mobilization.
At CREDO, we fight hard on the issues, but we don't take sides in partisan elections. As someone who cares about progressive issues, there is no doubt that Tuesday's results will make for even harder times for our country. It is crazy making to realize just how extreme and misinformed much of the new Congress will be.
There is little reason to expect any useful legislation from the Tea Party-dominated House or the dysfunctional Senate. Swing votes in the Senate have really troublesome names: Lieberman, Nelson, Manchin, and Pryor. In fact, this Congress will do damage to anything even remotely progressive.
So let's take a look at what happened and what we can do now. The media, unfortunately but not surprisingly, will be of no use in making sense of Tuesday's results, and even less so in helping chart a course for the future.
There is a lot of evidence that the state of the economy, and employment in particular, drive the results of elections -- and this one was no exception. As the saying goes, "If you think the economy is working, ask someone who isn't." We have an economy stuck in a deep ditch, with corporate profits and bank bonuses soaring while long-term unemployment is at near Depression levels.
The Republicans shrunk the first "stimulus" package and filled it with tax breaks, even as corporate Democrats helped them along, blocking any effort to restructure mortgages in bankruptcies, freeze foreclosures or force banks to lend money. The election outcome was partially baked in early 2009, when the White House preemptively conceded on the scale and provisions of the stimulus package and chose to coddle the banks. To watch this unfold was simply maddening.
Making matters worse were other factors. Among the most damaging were the actions of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which seemed energized by the new President, and took the radical step of rehearing a campaign finance case -- now known forever as Citizens United. In ruling 5-4 that corporations have the right to spend unlimited amounts of money for and against candidates, the Court transformed the electoral landscape in a way potentially more profound than its 5-4 ruling that seated George W. Bush as president. As many predicted, the Citizens United ruling unleashed the greatest wave of corporate spending in history, though it's a safe bet to say that their spending in 2012 will make this year's outlay look modest.
In an astonishing turn of events, the right wing was able to kill -- essentially murder in public view -- the organization that registered millions of poor and working class African-American and Hispanic voters in the last six years. I am speaking of ACORN, of course. By editing video completely out of context, and using the right-wing media machine to perfection, Andrew Breitbart was able to convince the mainstream media and eventually Congress, that ACORN was an election-stealing organization that had no qualms giving advice to pimps on how to increase revenues. Fulfilling Karl Rove's wildest dreams, Congress, including most Democrats, voted to block public funding for any of ACORN's laudable and effective housing or tax assistance programs, and ACORN died a quiet death. There would be no millions of new registrants.
Traditions are important in the Senate, but almost always to the detriment of progressive change. The health care reform effort was a victim of Senate conventions. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who chairs the critical Senate Finance Committee solely due to his long tenure, stalled development of a health reform package for many months in order to "negotiate" with Republicans on his committee. They weren't interested in the least, and walked away from the discussions muttering bizarre comments about reforms "killing grandma" and setting up "death panels" because Sarah Palin says so. The behavior of Baucus would be laughable if it were not so utterly destructive.
No matter what one thought of FOX News in the 2008 election, Murdoch's monster went on a rampage over the past two years. Serving as both an instigator and an amplifier for the craziest and most offensive pundits, FOX News misled and misinformed the American people on every issue, and effectively became the public face of the Republican Party. Glenn Beck's show became so toxic and spewed so much venom that one of his devoted fans took it upon himself to plot the execution of key leaders of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, who had figured prominently in Beck's rants. Fortunately, the madman (the fan, not Beck) was stopped before he accomplished his mission.
We could go on, of course, on all the missed opportunities, the cave-ins, the sell outs, and the unpopular and misguided war in Afghanistan.
But the results are in. The House of Representatives is in the hands of the most corrupt Speaker-in-waiting ever, the Tea Party is ascendant, and the U.S. Senate, however dysfunctional it has been, is poised to be much worse.
For those of us who had hopes that the Obama Administration could seize the moment and enact popular progressive changes, this is a bitter pill. And like many, we grieve at the lost opportunities.
But now we need to brush off the dust, suck it up, and plunge back into substantive fights. Politics is not fair -- indeed, U.S. elections are rigged in profound ways! But walking away is not an option at CREDO Action, and we hope you will join us in some of the actions below we think are strategic in the new political landscape:
1. Commit to Taking Down FOX News. So long as FOX News has any credibility within the Beltway, it will be a pipeline for malicious material that will poison our political culture. Join our friends at Color of Change.
2.Tell the Senate to pass the DISCLOSE Act during the lame duck session. We were able to defeat the Texas Oil Initiative, Prop 23 in California, in part because we knew who the enemy was -- having disclosure of corporate contributions brings the enemy out in the open for us to take on and fight. The DISCLOSE Act passed the House and came within a single vote of passing the Senate. One vote. You can join this fight by taking action with Public Citizen at http://citizen.org/disclose-act-action.
3. Keep fighting to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This issue will get resolved during the lame duck session. Take action here.
4. Sign up for the fight for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision by declaring that corporations do not have the legal rights of humans. This may take years, if not decades, but we should start now. Please join Free Speech for People: http://freespeechforpeople.org/.
5. Tell the FCC to use its existing authority to establish and defend net neutrality. Our friends at Free Press are leading this charge: here.
6. Demand that the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service investigate the political organizations set up by Karl Rove to launder millions of dollars in secret cash to change the outcome of elections. Act now at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/investigate_crossroads.
7. Defend the EPA from castration by pro-coal interests in Congress. The EPA accomplished almost nothing during the Clinton years because the Gingrich-led Congress used the budget process to prohibit the agency from doing its work. This battle has already started. The Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign is a great way to join this fight: http://sierraclub.org/coal.
8. Convince the Obama administration to stop appealing progressive court rulings on matters like the Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and the state secrets defense against torture and wiretapping. Urge the Department of Justice to change its approach at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/stop_appealing.
9. Urge Democratic senators to do away with lifetime tenure for committee chairs and open up all chair positions to majority vote elections. This will go a long way towards more progressive legislation. Take action with us here.
10. Demand that the Department of Justice enforce the provisions of the national voter registration law that require state governments to offer to register all voters at departments of public welfare and motor vehicles. Many state governments simply ignore these requirements and this is a cheaper and more inclusive way of registering voters than the campaigns of the now dead ACORN. Urge Attorney General Eric Holder to expand voter registration: http://credoaction.com/campaign/enforce_motor_voter.
I suspect you are angry and exhausted at this point. I know I am. But let us not forget that the values and ideals we fight for are greater than any one election. They still endure, and so must our fight. We have a lot of work to do.
Michael Kieschnick, CEO
CREDO Action
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
eric seiger
Doug Mataconis points out that for all the talk about how money
buys elections, of the 10 candidates for Congress who spent the
most money on their own campaigns this year, only two were
victorious in last week's midterms.
What money does do is help a challenger get his message
out to overcome the massive advantages that come with incumbency.
If voters don't like the message, money doesn't appear to help a
candidate much.
The real threat to democracy is incumbency and the permanent
political class. In the month before the election, public approval
for Congress was somewhere
between 15 and 25 percent. Yet even in an election year rife
with "throw the bums out" sentiment,
87 percent of House incumbents who ran for reelection won last
week. If Lisa Murkowski wins in Alaska, the figure for the Senate
will be 84 percent. Those figures are slightly lower than the
historical average.
It's true that approval ratings for the whole of Congress are
different from voter affection for a particular congressman or
senator. But that's partly the point. With gerrymandering;
entitlement programs that create a need for constituent service;
campaign regulations that make it increasingly difficult to file
and challenge an incumbent, the general celebrity of federal
office; and various other
advantages, Congress is a much-loathed institution that has
nonetheless rigged the game to ensure its members maximum job
security and minimal accountability. Money isn't even partly
responsible for many of these advantages, save for gerrymandering
(which both parties spend money to influence). But money
is necessary to overcome them. (Of course, most incumbents
also have built-in fundraising advantages, which are also
exacerbated by caps on contributions.)
A deep campaign chest is usually a prerequisite to
knocking off an incumbent, but it isn't remotely a guarantee.
Making it more difficult for challengers to raise money only makes
it more difficult for them to overcome the non-monied advantages of
incumbency. The more resrictions we put on fundraising, the more
difficult it is for voters to hold politcians accountable. Which
explains why we keep reelecting the same politicians, in spite of
the fact that we pretty consistently tell pollsters how much we
hate them.
What a truly brutal election. One rare exception was the crushing of Texas Oil's Proposition 23 in California (see CREDO's campaign at stoptexasoil.org), which proves that even unlimited corporate cash can be beaten back -- if it is disclosed and fought by grassroots mobilization.
At CREDO, we fight hard on the issues, but we don't take sides in partisan elections. As someone who cares about progressive issues, there is no doubt that Tuesday's results will make for even harder times for our country. It is crazy making to realize just how extreme and misinformed much of the new Congress will be.
There is little reason to expect any useful legislation from the Tea Party-dominated House or the dysfunctional Senate. Swing votes in the Senate have really troublesome names: Lieberman, Nelson, Manchin, and Pryor. In fact, this Congress will do damage to anything even remotely progressive.
So let's take a look at what happened and what we can do now. The media, unfortunately but not surprisingly, will be of no use in making sense of Tuesday's results, and even less so in helping chart a course for the future.
There is a lot of evidence that the state of the economy, and employment in particular, drive the results of elections -- and this one was no exception. As the saying goes, "If you think the economy is working, ask someone who isn't." We have an economy stuck in a deep ditch, with corporate profits and bank bonuses soaring while long-term unemployment is at near Depression levels.
The Republicans shrunk the first "stimulus" package and filled it with tax breaks, even as corporate Democrats helped them along, blocking any effort to restructure mortgages in bankruptcies, freeze foreclosures or force banks to lend money. The election outcome was partially baked in early 2009, when the White House preemptively conceded on the scale and provisions of the stimulus package and chose to coddle the banks. To watch this unfold was simply maddening.
Making matters worse were other factors. Among the most damaging were the actions of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which seemed energized by the new President, and took the radical step of rehearing a campaign finance case -- now known forever as Citizens United. In ruling 5-4 that corporations have the right to spend unlimited amounts of money for and against candidates, the Court transformed the electoral landscape in a way potentially more profound than its 5-4 ruling that seated George W. Bush as president. As many predicted, the Citizens United ruling unleashed the greatest wave of corporate spending in history, though it's a safe bet to say that their spending in 2012 will make this year's outlay look modest.
In an astonishing turn of events, the right wing was able to kill -- essentially murder in public view -- the organization that registered millions of poor and working class African-American and Hispanic voters in the last six years. I am speaking of ACORN, of course. By editing video completely out of context, and using the right-wing media machine to perfection, Andrew Breitbart was able to convince the mainstream media and eventually Congress, that ACORN was an election-stealing organization that had no qualms giving advice to pimps on how to increase revenues. Fulfilling Karl Rove's wildest dreams, Congress, including most Democrats, voted to block public funding for any of ACORN's laudable and effective housing or tax assistance programs, and ACORN died a quiet death. There would be no millions of new registrants.
Traditions are important in the Senate, but almost always to the detriment of progressive change. The health care reform effort was a victim of Senate conventions. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who chairs the critical Senate Finance Committee solely due to his long tenure, stalled development of a health reform package for many months in order to "negotiate" with Republicans on his committee. They weren't interested in the least, and walked away from the discussions muttering bizarre comments about reforms "killing grandma" and setting up "death panels" because Sarah Palin says so. The behavior of Baucus would be laughable if it were not so utterly destructive.
No matter what one thought of FOX News in the 2008 election, Murdoch's monster went on a rampage over the past two years. Serving as both an instigator and an amplifier for the craziest and most offensive pundits, FOX News misled and misinformed the American people on every issue, and effectively became the public face of the Republican Party. Glenn Beck's show became so toxic and spewed so much venom that one of his devoted fans took it upon himself to plot the execution of key leaders of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, who had figured prominently in Beck's rants. Fortunately, the madman (the fan, not Beck) was stopped before he accomplished his mission.
We could go on, of course, on all the missed opportunities, the cave-ins, the sell outs, and the unpopular and misguided war in Afghanistan.
But the results are in. The House of Representatives is in the hands of the most corrupt Speaker-in-waiting ever, the Tea Party is ascendant, and the U.S. Senate, however dysfunctional it has been, is poised to be much worse.
For those of us who had hopes that the Obama Administration could seize the moment and enact popular progressive changes, this is a bitter pill. And like many, we grieve at the lost opportunities.
But now we need to brush off the dust, suck it up, and plunge back into substantive fights. Politics is not fair -- indeed, U.S. elections are rigged in profound ways! But walking away is not an option at CREDO Action, and we hope you will join us in some of the actions below we think are strategic in the new political landscape:
1. Commit to Taking Down FOX News. So long as FOX News has any credibility within the Beltway, it will be a pipeline for malicious material that will poison our political culture. Join our friends at Color of Change.
2.Tell the Senate to pass the DISCLOSE Act during the lame duck session. We were able to defeat the Texas Oil Initiative, Prop 23 in California, in part because we knew who the enemy was -- having disclosure of corporate contributions brings the enemy out in the open for us to take on and fight. The DISCLOSE Act passed the House and came within a single vote of passing the Senate. One vote. You can join this fight by taking action with Public Citizen at http://citizen.org/disclose-act-action.
3. Keep fighting to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This issue will get resolved during the lame duck session. Take action here.
4. Sign up for the fight for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision by declaring that corporations do not have the legal rights of humans. This may take years, if not decades, but we should start now. Please join Free Speech for People: http://freespeechforpeople.org/.
5. Tell the FCC to use its existing authority to establish and defend net neutrality. Our friends at Free Press are leading this charge: here.
6. Demand that the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service investigate the political organizations set up by Karl Rove to launder millions of dollars in secret cash to change the outcome of elections. Act now at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/investigate_crossroads.
7. Defend the EPA from castration by pro-coal interests in Congress. The EPA accomplished almost nothing during the Clinton years because the Gingrich-led Congress used the budget process to prohibit the agency from doing its work. This battle has already started. The Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign is a great way to join this fight: http://sierraclub.org/coal.
8. Convince the Obama administration to stop appealing progressive court rulings on matters like the Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and the state secrets defense against torture and wiretapping. Urge the Department of Justice to change its approach at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/stop_appealing.
9. Urge Democratic senators to do away with lifetime tenure for committee chairs and open up all chair positions to majority vote elections. This will go a long way towards more progressive legislation. Take action with us here.
10. Demand that the Department of Justice enforce the provisions of the national voter registration law that require state governments to offer to register all voters at departments of public welfare and motor vehicles. Many state governments simply ignore these requirements and this is a cheaper and more inclusive way of registering voters than the campaigns of the now dead ACORN. Urge Attorney General Eric Holder to expand voter registration: http://credoaction.com/campaign/enforce_motor_voter.
I suspect you are angry and exhausted at this point. I know I am. But let us not forget that the values and ideals we fight for are greater than any one election. They still endure, and so must our fight. We have a lot of work to do.
Michael Kieschnick, CEO
CREDO Action
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
eric seiger
Doug Mataconis points out that for all the talk about how money
buys elections, of the 10 candidates for Congress who spent the
most money on their own campaigns this year, only two were
victorious in last week's midterms.
What money does do is help a challenger get his message
out to overcome the massive advantages that come with incumbency.
If voters don't like the message, money doesn't appear to help a
candidate much.
The real threat to democracy is incumbency and the permanent
political class. In the month before the election, public approval
for Congress was somewhere
between 15 and 25 percent. Yet even in an election year rife
with "throw the bums out" sentiment,
87 percent of House incumbents who ran for reelection won last
week. If Lisa Murkowski wins in Alaska, the figure for the Senate
will be 84 percent. Those figures are slightly lower than the
historical average.
It's true that approval ratings for the whole of Congress are
different from voter affection for a particular congressman or
senator. But that's partly the point. With gerrymandering;
entitlement programs that create a need for constituent service;
campaign regulations that make it increasingly difficult to file
and challenge an incumbent, the general celebrity of federal
office; and various other
advantages, Congress is a much-loathed institution that has
nonetheless rigged the game to ensure its members maximum job
security and minimal accountability. Money isn't even partly
responsible for many of these advantages, save for gerrymandering
(which both parties spend money to influence). But money
is necessary to overcome them. (Of course, most incumbents
also have built-in fundraising advantages, which are also
exacerbated by caps on contributions.)
A deep campaign chest is usually a prerequisite to
knocking off an incumbent, but it isn't remotely a guarantee.
Making it more difficult for challengers to raise money only makes
it more difficult for them to overcome the non-monied advantages of
incumbency. The more resrictions we put on fundraising, the more
difficult it is for voters to hold politcians accountable. Which
explains why we keep reelecting the same politicians, in spite of
the fact that we pretty consistently tell pollsters how much we
hate them.
What a truly brutal election. One rare exception was the crushing of Texas Oil's Proposition 23 in California (see CREDO's campaign at stoptexasoil.org), which proves that even unlimited corporate cash can be beaten back -- if it is disclosed and fought by grassroots mobilization.
At CREDO, we fight hard on the issues, but we don't take sides in partisan elections. As someone who cares about progressive issues, there is no doubt that Tuesday's results will make for even harder times for our country. It is crazy making to realize just how extreme and misinformed much of the new Congress will be.
There is little reason to expect any useful legislation from the Tea Party-dominated House or the dysfunctional Senate. Swing votes in the Senate have really troublesome names: Lieberman, Nelson, Manchin, and Pryor. In fact, this Congress will do damage to anything even remotely progressive.
So let's take a look at what happened and what we can do now. The media, unfortunately but not surprisingly, will be of no use in making sense of Tuesday's results, and even less so in helping chart a course for the future.
There is a lot of evidence that the state of the economy, and employment in particular, drive the results of elections -- and this one was no exception. As the saying goes, "If you think the economy is working, ask someone who isn't." We have an economy stuck in a deep ditch, with corporate profits and bank bonuses soaring while long-term unemployment is at near Depression levels.
The Republicans shrunk the first "stimulus" package and filled it with tax breaks, even as corporate Democrats helped them along, blocking any effort to restructure mortgages in bankruptcies, freeze foreclosures or force banks to lend money. The election outcome was partially baked in early 2009, when the White House preemptively conceded on the scale and provisions of the stimulus package and chose to coddle the banks. To watch this unfold was simply maddening.
Making matters worse were other factors. Among the most damaging were the actions of the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which seemed energized by the new President, and took the radical step of rehearing a campaign finance case -- now known forever as Citizens United. In ruling 5-4 that corporations have the right to spend unlimited amounts of money for and against candidates, the Court transformed the electoral landscape in a way potentially more profound than its 5-4 ruling that seated George W. Bush as president. As many predicted, the Citizens United ruling unleashed the greatest wave of corporate spending in history, though it's a safe bet to say that their spending in 2012 will make this year's outlay look modest.
In an astonishing turn of events, the right wing was able to kill -- essentially murder in public view -- the organization that registered millions of poor and working class African-American and Hispanic voters in the last six years. I am speaking of ACORN, of course. By editing video completely out of context, and using the right-wing media machine to perfection, Andrew Breitbart was able to convince the mainstream media and eventually Congress, that ACORN was an election-stealing organization that had no qualms giving advice to pimps on how to increase revenues. Fulfilling Karl Rove's wildest dreams, Congress, including most Democrats, voted to block public funding for any of ACORN's laudable and effective housing or tax assistance programs, and ACORN died a quiet death. There would be no millions of new registrants.
Traditions are important in the Senate, but almost always to the detriment of progressive change. The health care reform effort was a victim of Senate conventions. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who chairs the critical Senate Finance Committee solely due to his long tenure, stalled development of a health reform package for many months in order to "negotiate" with Republicans on his committee. They weren't interested in the least, and walked away from the discussions muttering bizarre comments about reforms "killing grandma" and setting up "death panels" because Sarah Palin says so. The behavior of Baucus would be laughable if it were not so utterly destructive.
No matter what one thought of FOX News in the 2008 election, Murdoch's monster went on a rampage over the past two years. Serving as both an instigator and an amplifier for the craziest and most offensive pundits, FOX News misled and misinformed the American people on every issue, and effectively became the public face of the Republican Party. Glenn Beck's show became so toxic and spewed so much venom that one of his devoted fans took it upon himself to plot the execution of key leaders of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, who had figured prominently in Beck's rants. Fortunately, the madman (the fan, not Beck) was stopped before he accomplished his mission.
We could go on, of course, on all the missed opportunities, the cave-ins, the sell outs, and the unpopular and misguided war in Afghanistan.
But the results are in. The House of Representatives is in the hands of the most corrupt Speaker-in-waiting ever, the Tea Party is ascendant, and the U.S. Senate, however dysfunctional it has been, is poised to be much worse.
For those of us who had hopes that the Obama Administration could seize the moment and enact popular progressive changes, this is a bitter pill. And like many, we grieve at the lost opportunities.
But now we need to brush off the dust, suck it up, and plunge back into substantive fights. Politics is not fair -- indeed, U.S. elections are rigged in profound ways! But walking away is not an option at CREDO Action, and we hope you will join us in some of the actions below we think are strategic in the new political landscape:
1. Commit to Taking Down FOX News. So long as FOX News has any credibility within the Beltway, it will be a pipeline for malicious material that will poison our political culture. Join our friends at Color of Change.
2.Tell the Senate to pass the DISCLOSE Act during the lame duck session. We were able to defeat the Texas Oil Initiative, Prop 23 in California, in part because we knew who the enemy was -- having disclosure of corporate contributions brings the enemy out in the open for us to take on and fight. The DISCLOSE Act passed the House and came within a single vote of passing the Senate. One vote. You can join this fight by taking action with Public Citizen at http://citizen.org/disclose-act-action.
3. Keep fighting to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This issue will get resolved during the lame duck session. Take action here.
4. Sign up for the fight for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision by declaring that corporations do not have the legal rights of humans. This may take years, if not decades, but we should start now. Please join Free Speech for People: http://freespeechforpeople.org/.
5. Tell the FCC to use its existing authority to establish and defend net neutrality. Our friends at Free Press are leading this charge: here.
6. Demand that the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service investigate the political organizations set up by Karl Rove to launder millions of dollars in secret cash to change the outcome of elections. Act now at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/investigate_crossroads.
7. Defend the EPA from castration by pro-coal interests in Congress. The EPA accomplished almost nothing during the Clinton years because the Gingrich-led Congress used the budget process to prohibit the agency from doing its work. This battle has already started. The Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign is a great way to join this fight: http://sierraclub.org/coal.
8. Convince the Obama administration to stop appealing progressive court rulings on matters like the Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and the state secrets defense against torture and wiretapping. Urge the Department of Justice to change its approach at http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/stop_appealing.
9. Urge Democratic senators to do away with lifetime tenure for committee chairs and open up all chair positions to majority vote elections. This will go a long way towards more progressive legislation. Take action with us here.
10. Demand that the Department of Justice enforce the provisions of the national voter registration law that require state governments to offer to register all voters at departments of public welfare and motor vehicles. Many state governments simply ignore these requirements and this is a cheaper and more inclusive way of registering voters than the campaigns of the now dead ACORN. Urge Attorney General Eric Holder to expand voter registration: http://credoaction.com/campaign/enforce_motor_voter.
I suspect you are angry and exhausted at this point. I know I am. But let us not forget that the values and ideals we fight for are greater than any one election. They still endure, and so must our fight. We have a lot of work to do.
Michael Kieschnick, CEO
CREDO Action
eric seiger
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
eric seiger
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
eric seiger eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
A lot of Etsy sellers think it's easy to sell on Etsy - that is, until they list their items and realize nothing is selling. I've been selling artwork on Etsy for more than 2 years. During that time, I've learned a lot about how to actually sell the items I list because it's all very well to list them but, if they don't sell, you're just wasting listing fees. It is possible to make money on Etsy though, in fact some sellers make a lot of money on Etsy. But almost all the sellers who make a lot of money use the same selling strategies. If you too want to make money on Etsy, then follow these quick tips and you'll see the number of items you sell increasing every day.
Make Sure Your Shop Looks Professional - I'm always amazed at the number of Etsy sellers whose shops do not look professional and whose listings have spelling mistakes and incorrect information in them. If your Etsy shop does not look professional, very few people are going to buy from you. A professional shop however makes you look trustworthy and makes you look like you know what you're doing. More customers will buy from a shop like that.
Make Sure Your Photos Are In Focus - One very important thing you must do if you're wondering how to make money on Etsy is to make sure your photos are good. There are thousands of Etsy sellers that have out of focus photographs of items they're selling or even photographs where you can hardly tell what the item is. There isn't a customer alive that's going to order something if they can't see the product properly. So spend some time to figure out how to take decent photographs. This alone will increase your sales quickly.
List At Least One Item Every Day - To make money on Etsy, you need to list at least one item every day. Items get listed so fast that, if you don't list every day, a couple of days after you've listed your items you're already on page 200 of 'Search' so no one will ever find your shop. If you list or relist just one item every day, your shop stays close to the top in the 'Search' feature.
Relist Items Often - If you want to make money with your Etsy shop but you don't have new items to list, make sure you relist an item in your shop at least 2-3 times a week. This may seem like you're spending a lot of money on listing but it really is worth it as I found almost every time I relisted an item I would have a new sale. During months where I hardly list or relist anything I usually have no sales. Relisting, again, keeps your shop at the top of the 'Search' feature so that buyers looking for specific things can find your products.
Spend Time In Etsy Forums - Make sure you go to Etsy forums, read the topics (there's a lot of helpful information there from other sellers), participate in some of the discussions and get to know some of the other Etsy sellers. I've had quite a few sales because I've posted in the forums and someone who has seen my post has visited my shop.
Be Unique, Don't Copy Other Sellers - There are always sellers who open shops on Etsy and copy other more successful sellers. This never works because the successful seller already has an established client base. Make sure your shop looks unique and that the products you sell are not the same as other sellers on Etsy. I changed my whole artwork style recently when I discovered someone else was copying me. My sales improved, hers didn't. I plan on changing my style again in the next few weeks - it makes my shop look unique and gives me new products to sell.
Sell To People Outside the US - Many sellers on Etsy will not sell to customers outside the US. This is a very short sighted way of running a business and, if you notice, almost all the top sellers on Etsy sell to anywhere in the world. Etsy often reports that over 40% of its sales are to people who live outside the US, so if you refuse to sell to them, you're already cutting your sales chances by almost half. It's not difficult to ship things outside the US and if you send them registered mail, you can track them so there's little chance of your package disappearing. I've always sold to anyone who wants to buy from me and, actually, over half of my customers are now people who don't live in the US.
Don't Waste Your Money On Showcasing Your Items - There are several places on Etsy where you can spend extra money for your items to be 'showcased'. This means they are given preferential placing in areas like 'Search'. Most sellers report, and my experience was, that paying the extra money has little or no effect on sales. You would be better spending the money on listing more items and therefore keeping your shop at the top of the 'Search' feature and not wasting it on a tiny little 'Featured Item' slot, which isn't likely to garner you sales.
Read Interviews By Top Etsy Sellers - Etsy often has articles with interviews by top Etsy sellers. They also choose one seller once a week that is a 'Featured Seller' on the front page and they always do an interview with them. These interviews include some of the best tips I've ever seen about how to make money on Etsy as they're by people who really know their stuff. Make a mental note to read as many of these interviews as you possibly can, and make notes about what they're doing to increase their sales and then apply the relevant ones to your Etsy shop.
Many sellers on Etsy wonder how to make money there, but it's really not that difficult. Be a professional seller and have an Etsy shop that looks professional. List or relist one item every day. Go into the Etsy forums, don't copy the products of other sellers but instead choose your own unique style, sell to people outside the US and don't waste your money on showcasing your items. Finally, read as much information as you can from people who already know how to make money on Etsy - you'll learn a lot and see your sales increase quickly. It's not easy to make money on Etsy but if you work hard, you can do it. Anyone can.
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
eric seiger
Great <b>news</b>: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5% « Hot Air
Great news: Jobless rate expected to drop in 2012 to … 8.5%
Meanwhile, also in the <b>news</b>…
This entry was posted in News and tagged alex carlile, david anderson, harrogate council, mike gardner. Bookmark the permalink or use the short url http://ldv.org.uk/22006 for twitter and emails. Follow any comments here with the RSS ...
JLS to appear on X Factor ahead of UK tour | Tixdaq.com Ticket <b>News</b>
JLS will perform on this week's X Factor results show along with Westlife and Take That.
eric seiger
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