Here is the latest campiagn ad from the Duckworth campaign. This is the final nail in the coffin before Tuesday's election. Watch Congressman Walsh in action and judge for yourself.
Although Social Security was part of the title of BrianG's diary, it wasn't really adressed there. Since this is a topci I've been paying attention to -- after all, I've veen drawing Social Security for 6 years and saw it as a reasonably immediate part of my future for years before that -- I thought I would try to seriously discuss what's going on.
Social Security comes up in two distinct and quite unrelated contexts: The deficit and the fiscal soundness of the system.
This a piece I wrote a few weeks ago. Crossposted at MyFDL.
In the past few weeks as President Obama’s poll numbers have increasingly separated from Mitt Romney’s especially in numerous so called “swing states,” a number of prominent voices in print and he left leaning blogosphere have begun a campaign to prevent President Obama from reducing the benefits from what is already the smallest safety net among advanced industrialized society. Paul Krugman, earlier this week, wrote a piece entitled The Real Referendum, and regular readers of Hullabaloo know of their tireless work since 2009 in documenting Obama’s desire to leave behind a legacy of crafting the bipartisan “solution” of reducing the scale and scope of social security that so many of our elites crave. Our own David Dayen has already produced severalexcellentpieces on this subject this week alone.
This neverending election season has given us more than our share of "dog whistle" politics. For those who aren't aware, those are the messages that fly under the radar of our conscious thought. This season we've had Mitt Romney promising to "Keep America America" which is very similiar to the old Ku Klux Klan slogan from the 1920s which was "Keep America American." See one letter makes all the difference!
Besides the standard bearer for Lincoln's old party, we've had Michelle Bachmann wanting to purge the State Department of all Muslims such as Hillary Clinton's Chief of Staff. Lovable Newt Gingrich called President Obama the "food stamp" president, "elite smart people" were smeared by Santorum, and everyone's favorite Oxycontin addled radio host weighed in with a slut shaming of a Georgetown student who testified in front of Congress in favor of contraception. Since Aaron Schock invented the "Obama as Socialist" meme, Illinois campaigns have been relatively free of "hot button" culture war issues. Than is until Judy Biggert found herself in a tight race and needing the votes of right-wing homophobes. See her comments after the jump.
Tonight, I received my copy of the soon to be infamous Bobby Schilling "Illinois Democrat" mailer. It is the standard Republican dirty tricks mailer that those of us in central Illinois have come to expect. In this mailer, the Tea Party Republican whitewashes his record as an extreme partisan. He touts his "bipartisanship," his days as a union steward, attempts to portray himself as a "can do" bipartisan legislator. As a progressive or liberal democrat, I found all that a bit much to swallow. But good old Bobby saves his best whoppers for Medicare.
The Illinois State Budget Crisis Task Force report was released in Chicago this week, and it says, "Illinois has been doing back flips on a high wire, without a net."
It would be better for Illinois to start on a long-run path to a sustainable budget than to live beyond its means for several more years and then face a sudden, painful reckoning,” the task force said.
Illinois has the lowest credit rating of the 50 states and has America’s second-biggest public debt per capita, $9,624, including state and local borrowing. Only New York State’s debt is bigger, at $13,840 per capita. But Illinois has not been able to use much of the borrowed money to keep its roads, bridges and schools in good working order, because years of shoddy fiscal practices have taken a heavy toll, the report said.
Earlier this week, Tea Party Republican Bobby Schilling sent out a mailer to approximately 75,000 Democratic households. It was entitled "The Illinois Democrat" and Schilling attempts to run away from his record. The newsletter emphasizes his bipartisan record, his past union membership, and his union endorsements. This video is from a September Tea Party Express event Would a Democrat say, "the America that you and I know will dissipate if Barack Obama is re-elected”? Is a Democrat fearful of a Nancy Pelosi Speakership? Are Democrats good friends with Paul Ryan, the man who penned the budget which ends Medicare? Do liberals really hate him for making a couple of bucks on a pizza?
I am really starting to like Mark Cuban. Here is the link to his current diary at Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-cuban/romney-election-2012_b_2020584.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=102612&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief.
Cuban points out that if Romney were running as a Democrat, his personal history would make him a very strong candidate. The two big issues, Cuban says (I agree), are health care and the economy. On health care, Cuban's hypothetical Democratic Romney points out that American business badly needs the stability and certainty of healthcare costs that only Romneycare can provide. This is, of course, what real-life Republicans call "Obamacare," even though it was developed in Massachusetts when Romney was governor.
I must confess I had been lukewarm toward Cheri Bustos. This spring, I thought she was a mediocre candidate at best, and as the field was cleared for her, I wondered if her candidancy was simply an exercise in creating new voters lists for Durbin's re-election bid in 2014. I also fretted that she would run as inept a campaign as her sister Colleen Callahan did against Schock in 2008. I alslo worried about her ability to relate to working families since she was earning over $300,000 in her gig as a public relations person for Iowa Health. I needn't have worried she was disciplined, on message as an economic populist, and clearly won tonight's debate in Peoria.
Amy Goodman, the host of "Democracy Now!" will be appearing at the Bradley University Michel Student Center at 6:00PM on Tuesday, October 30th. She will be appearing with co-author Denis Moynihan in support of their book entitled, The Silenced Majority; Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistence and Hope. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, go here.
At first glance, one might wonder whether there's 90 minutes' worth of disagreement for tonight's debate. Obama could open with the assertion that his foreign policy has been so much the same as the Bush administration's -- "heck, for three years I even kept his Secretary of Defense" -- so what's Romney's issue? Everybody go home. Nothing to see here. But assuming that won't happen and that each candidate wants to use this last big public chance to differentiate himself from the other and give voters -- especially swing voters in swing states -- a reason to go red or blue, here's my tip list, were someone paying me the big bucks.
Peter Frase and Bhaktar Sunkata have written a wonderful manifesto in defense of an expanded welfare state in this age of neoliberal austerity. They argue that since local and state budgets are required to be balanced by law, austerity trumps social welfare. Therefore, they argue for a sweeping federalization of social programs, which just might lead to a majoritarian Left coalition based around anti-austerity politics.
Here is the link to the Sun-Times article: http://www.suntimes.com/news/15840504-418/amtrak-train-reaches-111-mph-in-test-run-of-illinois-high-speed-rail.html.
This only covered a 15-mile stretch. I don't expect to save much time when I go to San Antonio next Labor Day. But maybe by the time I go to (presumably) Kansas City in 2016?
“There’s no such exception as life of the mother,” said Walsh after the debate with Tammy Duckworth. “And as far as health of the mother, same thing. With advances in science and technology, health of the mother has become a tool for abortions any time, under any reason.”
