Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
Senator John Edwards took his presidential campaign to Los Angeles yesterday, speaking to a crowd of about 1,000 at the Southern California Public Service Workers’ headquarters. While Edwards spent the bulk of his nearly 20 minute speech going after special interests, corporations and lobbyists, he also took a few shots, without naming anyone, at his main Democratic challengers:
“You don’t bring about change by shuffling papers, and you don’t bring about change by just giving a speech. We have to actually have some guts, some determination and some fight if we want to bring the change that America so desperately needs.”
Edwards also said that he was the “underdog” and challenged the crowd to start a grassroots movement on his behalf that will spread across the country like a “tidal wave of change.”
Off Topic, Looking for that OPEN THREAD…. where is it?
Could this help Sibel?
http://cryptome.org/fbi010908.htm
Just asking.
I ain’t forgot about her.
To try to stay on topic though.
yeah, removal of the corporate money in elections is absolutely needed.
So sorry I didn’t say what the hell that link was…It ain’t like I am a journalist…I’m not.
10 January 2008
[Federal Register: January 9, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 6)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Page 1493-1495]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr09ja08-2]
—
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
28 CFR Parts 0 and 27
[Docket No. OAG 120; A.G. Order No. 2926-2008]
Technical Amendments to the Regulations Providing Whistleblower
Protection for Federal Bureau of Investigation Employees
AGENCY: Office of the Inspector General and Office of Attorney
Recruitment and Management, Justice.
ACTION: Final rule.
how many of you remember wais? Heh heh heh
I know brad does.
MORE OFF TOPIC
Brad,
It’s time to clean this up. There are six screens of “stay on top” articles. Please group them under a button. They are important, but so is reading the new stuff.
I would like to know about the MI election results that used the same LHS/Diebold machines as NH.
NOW the ACLU is trying to block paper ballots, what’s that about?
Thanks
Sadly, Edwards will not be our next President. Is there really any doubt about that? Nationally, Clinton is only a few points above Giuliani, which is scary because he’s a nutcase and any Dem should be cleaning his clock. But she really only wants incremental changes, and would leave the existing power structure intact. Obama — despite his recent (albeit huge) mistakes — offers the best chance for real change.
But it all depends on when Edwards gets out of the race. If he does it by Super Tuesday, his supporters will go mostly to Obama, and not to Clinton. But Edwards has to get out right after losing South Carolina and Nevada. If he really does prefer Obama to Clinton and values his principles more than his ego, he’ll get out while the getting’s good.
#5 true, but Edwards can give his delegates to whom he wants after…but I think Hitler(y) is the corporatist pick.
Do we even have a choice ?
The worst part about these wonderful speeches is that you can go back and listen to virtually the identical speeches from back in the fifties and sixties and seventies and eighties and nineties…. A lot of people must be pretty damn sick of it always having to be about the same damn heinous problems… that are not actually ever solved. Democrats have been using the same hot air on us for a looooooong time, and even if Edwards means it, we can’t even tell anymore.
He can’t even tell anymore. He gives this fine speech against the corporate greed while his “universal health plan” merely makes it mandatory for everyone to BUY healthcare. I think most of us would already have tried that if it were feasible. He gripes about coverage for lifesaving care being denied, and mentions we should nix “preëxisting conditions” but leaves out about just how the hell he’s going to force insurance companies to pay for stuff they don’t want to. All the remedies for that already exist, and have long since, but they’re not remedying anything, now are they! No. They are not.
Obama is 90% great speeches and 10% almost completely useless senator. Clinton is worse still. But that doesn’t make Edwards the answer by a long shot.
If he were even half as sincere in his advocacy for workers and the poor as he thinks he is, he’d have the balls to call for single-payer universal healthcare.
At least….
Posted on NYT Blog Caucus re Edwards’ TV ad:
I can’t imagine what Edwards has going for him that could possibly explain the overwhelming popular support shown in that Fox video survey?
Oh, oh, oh — maybe its his anti-corporate message.
Could that possibly explain why he is not getting any corporate media coverage?
Yes, but hold your hat and wait until Edwards starts expanding his anti-corporate message into an anti-corporate EMPIRE message and telling people that this corporate Empire is the single cause of not just one but all of their top election issues:
– the war
– the crashing economy
– job loses
– health care crisis
– domestic spying
– destroying their environment
– economic inequality and unfairness
– budget & trade deficit
– medicare funding shortfall
– all the ‘wrong track’ problems that frustrate 80% of the voters
I wonder if that will get Edwards more corporate media coverage?
It won’t matter, because when Edwards rightly blames the corporatist Empire for all the most important voter issues and concerns, a populist / progressive fire will start that will burn right over the corporate media gatekeepers.
— Posted by Alan MacDonald
If Edwards would fight election fraud, I would vote for him. But after the travesty of the N.H. primary election…he isn’t even helping to pay for a recount…lost cause to me. I’ll probably vote for just state politicians. Not gonna’ hold my nose and vote for any other war monger, So I guess Edwards is my favorite war monger. Sad.
I saw Edwards working in the New Orleans wards to help those whose lives were destroyed by Katrina and a levy collapse. And who were largely ignored by the preznit blush regime’s hero Mr. “You are doin a heckuva job Brownie” Brown.
A levy collapse that could have been avoided if the preznit blush regime had listened to the civilian head of the Corp. of Engineers. Instead preznit blush fired him for wanting to fix the levies way before Katrina.
My lingering concern about Edwards is his connection to some horrific hedge fund. Anybody got info on that? I think he would be much more believable with an honest answer about it.
Amy and Juan have a great interview with LA Time’s Drogin on mitt’s financial backround
http://www.democracynow.org/200...pital_profited
What a total korporatist that ass is!
If you’re expecting change after the election of Clinton or Obama, check under the cushions of your sofa.E
Obama got Rev. Caldwell’s endorsement today.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story...e/5469706.html
This, following Obama’s praise of Reagan, seems to indicated that there’s a lot that folks (including me) have believed about him that turns out to be incorrect.
What ‘s wrong with the Democrats?
For the last forty years the Democratic Party has had a very difficult time politically defining it self. Since Richard Nixon was sworn in for the first time, nearly four decades ago, we have had five Republican Presidents. Now why is that?
I believe that too many Democratic voters are inept when it comes to politics. The philosophical foundation of their party is very sensitive to the kind of issues that plague low income families and the middle class. We need the kind of Democratic leadership that can send a strong message to their voters, teaching them that it is their civic responsibility to vote for a presidential nominee, who not only has a plan to deal with these issues, but who also has the best chance to beat the other party’s candidate. As a voter you can’t base your decision just on personality or feelings. You need to base your decision on substance. Democratic voters need to do their home work. They need to look at the issues before them, and see how the candidates plan to address them. An election is not about who has the biggest smile, the most charisma, or gets the greatest amount of sound bites on CNN. How many voters actually study the political demographics of the general electorate? Remember all those red states in the last two races? Who have they been voting for? I sincerely believe. that to be for change, we need to be progressive. However we need to do it methodically and in steps. The only Democrats to occupy the White House since Richard Nixon were James Earl Carter and William Jefferson Clinton. Both of these men were southern Democrats who ran to make a difference. If Democratic voters want a brighter future, they need to define themselves as the party of change, but to achieve change, you not only have to look toward the future, but you also need to look back at the past, or history is just going to repeat itself.
Ian Silberstein
I support John Edwards for President.
Edwards should not drop out ahd I don’t think he will. The people who follow him have no natural affinity to Obama nor Hillary. If you believe that, then I think you are in for a rude awakening. He will not “give” any delegates to anybody with a recommendation. He may release them, but he will not align unless or until either one of them begins moving LEFT, not right.
We need Edwards because we need fighter, not a dreamer, not a mechanic,not an insider, not a Reagan worshiper, and not a Republican—at all.
Molly at #9,
Edwards is not rolling in dough to throw at election fraud. That’s why you don’t see him keying upon it. He is playing the hand dealth and moving on in order to keep pace. I would do the same thing if I were in his position. I don’t confuse Edwards with Kucinich (who is making a principled stand); he is concentrating on changing peoples’ minds about labor and healthcare. He can’t spread too thin in messages if he expects to be visible at all. The time to fight voting machine battles passed before the election cycle began; Edwards was vocal then, but who listened anywhere (outside Brad Blog and Black Box)? It is going to take outright, unadulterated and proven fraud occurring to the front-runners now before anything in voting fairness is addressed. I don’t like that, but I think that is the truth of the matter.