Moving notice: Over to Wordpress

This blog address will go quiet now, and this post is your notice that we're now to be found over on the Wordpress platform. Was it the Kinks who told us of a "dedicated follower of fashion?" Here we go to www.MiamiDadeDems.wordpress.com

See you there!

Julia Tuttle Unveiled

Musta been looking the other way when Maria posted this fine essay on our city, weeks ago now. Very glad to see it as a winner of Post of the Month on South Florida Daily Blog.

sex and the beach: Julia Tuttle Unveiled!

Wise blogger tries to capture the decade

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/12/from-september-2001-to-june-2009.html

Sent from my iPhone 3GS
Blogging at Miami-Dade-Dems.blogspot.com

Top 5 on-line journalism stories of the year, and Florida is in the mix

Here's one view of the top five on-line news accomplishments of 2009.



Check out the third entry, which includes a Tampa event in the string of tea parties that right-wing actors performed in.

Read about the list on Daily Kos.

A challenge to Florida Democrats from a blogger

Is this a gauntlet thrown down, or what? Over at the best local blog, Eye on Miami, gimleteye is challenging us to distinguish ourselves from the Republicans. Read it and gnash your teeth.

A sample:

If the Rubio forces have their way, the Florida Department of Community Affairs will be history in the upcoming session of the legislature. And Democrats still can't tell what is happening. They are somewhere down the other side of the field, picking dandelions while the G.O.P. has driven the ball into the corner at the other end of the field, in a corner kicking each other's shins and ankles.

I agree with the New America Foundation and its assessment that in November 2010, the ballot referendum "Florida Hometown Democracy" will be the most important in the nation. It is a measure that strikes fear at the heart of the Florida G.O.P. But even on this clearest issue, Florida Democrats can't find a voice. Alex Sink, the Florida candidate for governor, won't even pick up a phone to discuss the issue. And so it goes as 2009 and a bad decade for Florida comes to a close.

There are a lot of good points. Any thoughts?

One that occurs to me is that some developers are Democrats, and they stand out by distinguishing themselves from those who get rich by over-development. If they were to take lead positions in debate on the issue of over-development, the public might decide to vote Democratic more often.

Miami bloggers, some anonymously, get together

We weren't all there. One of the best of the Miami bloggers, South Florida Daily Blog, declared himself a family man with other obligations on Saturday afternoon, and was absent. Somehow his family obligations apparently included a tremendous amount of work putting up videos on Glenn Beck's crazy appearance in Central Florida. Well, that was up on Sunday. Anyway, otherwise it was a diverse, chatty, sometimes shy group that came together in a blogup that hadn't happened for a couple years.

Who was shy? One was Eye on Miami, who cherishes anonymity to keep doing a great job of investigating. Eye also was chatty. Nice to meet you, Eye. You won't see Eye, except for a name tag, in this exemplar of my usual crude videos:



Others in the video were the MiamiBeach411 couple, Gus and Michelle, Carlos Miller of fearless defense of the First Amendment, the very tall Michael Froomkin of discourse.net, Annette Peikert of SoulofMiami.org and lifeisartfest.org, our Twitter friend Maria de los Angeles of Sex and the Beach, and about 30 others whose cards I didn't get. If I get a list I'll certainly update with it.

UPDATE: Shame on me for leaving out Mustang Bobby, who's Bark Bark Woof Woof in the blogosphere, And we drive the same kinda car.

More to come, I'm sure.

Daily Kos speculates on Crist turning Democrat

With tongue perhaps in cheek, the mighty Kos blogged yesterday that Charlie Crist might as well switch to the Democratic Party in his quest for a seat in the US Senate.

Almost more interesting to me was the Daily Kos polling on the opinions behind the Republicans who favor the outgoing governor Crist or the former Florida House speaker, Marco Rubio, to be nominee for Senate. Turns out – surprise! – a lot of Rubio’s backers don’t think Barack Obama is a US citizen. That has been a quiet front lately. But the birthers are still lurking around the corner from all our polling places, and Rubio bids to be the one to set them loose.  What a strange state we inhabit. We can be certain that the nation and the world will be watching Florida closely through the 2012 election. We started this in 2000.

ASIDE: My first shot at posting this news of the Kos poll didn’t quite come off. It may be nuts for a blogger to confess this, but I was not even to the state of blogging while wearing pajamas at my computer; I was flat in bed browsing news through Google Reader on my iPhone, and tried to post with an email to the magic Blogger address that makes it all happen. But NOW I’m blogging while wearing pajamas at my computer …

For the record, all that was posted on the first attempt was this URL which sort of takes one on a loop to Google Reader and not much further into knowledge of the wider world.

http://www.google.com/reader/i/#stream/user%2F14525197483831170873%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Freading-list

Thinking of lunch?

This will get your juices flowing. Go to this item at the NY Times freakonomics blog and click on the photo flowchart.

Yum.

Vote for the Netroots awards

Have you? The link is right here. This blog, you'll see, is among the nominees.

Subscribe to this: Health News Florida

We are asking how to help pass good health care legislation. One way is to be better informed. Subscribe to this and you're going in the right direction:

Health News Florida

Meanwhile, your blogger has been on vacation for a week or so but hopes occasionally to post from remote locations at the end of the world. Back soon after Labor Day.

Test run: Widget to find Democratic town halls

At the top of the right column is a new element: a widget to let readers find town halls or other events being held by Democratic officials. Why? Maybe the event needs extra friendly attendees to keep the unfriendlies from appearing to be the majority.

This was invented, I gather, by the brilliant people at Fire Dog Lake. I heard about it via an email.

My suspicious mind can imagine ways to misuse this widget, so let's consider this a test run.

They keep your content more or less indefinitely

Happened to stumble upon (hint?) news that Facebook's guru had sort of explained a revision of their terms of service. Since many of us blog-readers also prowl Facebook, I thought you'd like to read about it here. Click away.

A day later, an UPDATE: This turned out to be pretty controversial, and now there's talk of rescinding Facebook's new terms of service. A link to the Huffington Post writeup.

Who else went to the Inauguration?

Anyone who went to Washington for the Inauguration is encouraged to put their thoughts up on this blog. You can do it two ways:

1. Post a comment to my post below about my experiences in DC.
2. Send me an email and I'll put it in a separate post naming you as the author. The email address is in the right-hand column, below the entry for Tips.

Enjoy! And don't forget that anyone can post a comment -- you don't have to have gone to the Inauguration.

Larry Thorson

DailyKos takes up donation drive for Joe Garcia and Annette Taddeo

George W. Bush is such a recruiter for Democratic victory. He's coming to Miami today to raise money for his rubber-stamp party, and this inspires the blogosphere to start opening their wallets for two of our superb congressional candidates, Annette Taddeo in FL-18 and Joe Garcia in FL-25.

Here's the post on DailyKos, by Kos himself, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, with its special link to the ActBlue donation site.


These two fine candidates are no strangers to Markos, as they attended the Netroots Nation convention in Austin back in mid-July and were repeated stars of the national progressive crowd there.

If you've been waiting for an excuse to donate again -- surely you've donated repeatedly to them, right? -- this is a great moment to reply to W and help Garcia and Taddeo.

Last night I was at an Obama fundraiser on Miami Beach, where one of the guests said that Barack Obama should say at his inauguration in January that he owes his election to one man. Who. I wondered? "President Bush," was the answer.

Be a Bold Progressive. Take the pledge

I did it. I'm going to pass it around, too. The prospect of having a pretty good president come November but a Congress full of Liebermans and Hoyers is keeping me awake at night.

Along comes Matt Stoller on his blog, Open Left, with a timely idea to help me sleep better. And he has allies in the blogosphere.

The idea is to have lots of people sign a pledge to demand bold progressive policies from the next U.S. government. Here's the link to the pledge.

This is the link to the Open Left post on this project.

I'm going to pop this up on the Florida Progressive Coalition blog, too, if it's not up already, and maneuver it onto Facebook, as suggested on Open Left.

There's a little box at the bottom of the pledge-signing form that asks the signer to say what progressive means. My comment was that it would probably mean fighting Obama over Afghanistan. Which is fit to become another occupation.

The GOP Doesn’t Want the White House

By guest blogger David Cooper

Because of the last twenty-six years of insane economic policy, rightfully known as Reaganomics, the worst crisis in the financial markets since the Great Depression is now upon us. The Bush plan, as expressed by the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, seemed to be the knee-jerk reaction of an administration now wholly owned by corporate interest; give $700 billion of taxpayer dollars, (borrowed money of course) to the billionaire Wall Street fat cats with no congressional oversight, and do it now. Surprisingly, it appears that the Republicans in Congress were as disturbed as the Democrats were by this proposal, resulting in what seems to be a bipartisan consensus. Both sides apparently agree that any transfer of the people’s money to Wall Street should include stringent oversight and should include middle class America. However, any bailout, if indeed one is actually necessary (an argument not discussed here), should not just include Middle America, it should heavily favor middle class working Americans. As of yet, it does not appear that either side has gone far enough in demanding protection for average Americans who are also in crisis. The justification for a bailout of the American Middle Class over that of the corporatists on Wall Street can be found in history.

In an October 8, 1931 article in the New York Times, titled “Real Estate Men on Hoover Plan,” the proposal to bail out the markets and to “liquidate frozen bank assets” was discussed. Real estate investor Joseph P. Day, while cheerleading for the Hoover plan, said, “President Hoover’s financial plan is a step in the right direction towards making real estate investment more liquid.” These are the exact arguments made by Paulson last week when he said, “The credit and capital markets are frozen up,” and, “the market’s liquidity is all clogged up.” Hoover also said, “The fundamentals of the economy are strong.” Sound familiar? Hoover’s bailout of Wall Street did not work. Banks continued to fail as the mega-wealthy of the day, largely responsible for the crisis, walked away unscathed.

We saw a bailout of commercial banks in the early 1980’s that was a result of banks, awash in petro-dollar revenues, packaging those revenues into often risky loans to emerging economies in Latin America. With inflation and interest rates of the period on the rise, borrowers began to default creating a crisis.[1]

On October 19, 1987, Alan Greenspan had to inject huge amounts of cash, (liquidity) into the Stock Market to prevent a crash.[2]

Then there was the Savings and Loan crisis in the 80’s that was the result of the deregulation and merger madness at the beginning of the “Reagan Revolution.” The cost was $250 billion.

In 1991, Citibank was in crisis, again because of the deregulation allowing banks to get into the “gambling” business on Wall Street, this time speculating in junk bonds. With the stock hovering at $2 a share, Greenspan eventually arranged a deal with Saudi billionaires to keep Citibank liquid because “they were too big to fail.” As a result, the Saudi’s ended up owning almost 10% of this American institution.[3]

In 1995, there was the bailout of the Mexican Peso to backstop US bond holders who bought Mexican high-yield debt after Mexico deregulated their financial system when they signed on to NAFTA. Once again, Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin would arrange a bailout with $50 billion in treasury funds.[4]

In 1998, it was the Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) bailout to prevent the collapse of the hedge fund, a favorite investment vehicle for the mega-wealthy.[5] The bailout bought the wealthy, connected, investors the time needed to get out with favorable terms.

The common denominator of all these bailouts, and the reason they are temporary fixes, is that there is nothing structural, legislatively, that changes the behavior of these financial institutions, and nothing in it for the most adversely affected; the middle class. This is a demonstration of the political power these corporations hold over our government that has created an entitlement mentality on Wall Street. They want deregulated free-for-all capitalism while they are looting our treasury, and corporate welfare when they collapse, at the same time denying average Americans any protections or help that they routinely get, calling that Socialism. It’s the reason that these corporate bailouts will continually fail. We have seen a dozen bailouts of Wall Street corporations in the last twenty years alone. Until regulation such as the Glass-Stiegel Act (that was dismantled by John McCain’s chief financial advisor, Phil Gramm, when he was in the Senate)[6], is reinstated these bailouts will continue, and become more and more costly. Glass-Stiegel provided a wall between commercial banks and Wall Street and was enacted because of the horrors of the Great Depression.

Two very good plans on structural changes in regulation that should be included in the bailout bill, which would prevent perpetual bailouts in the future, have been put forth by:

Economist, Dr. Dean Baker, “Progressive Conditions for a Bailout,”[7] and

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, “What Wall Street Should Be Required to Do, to Get A Blank Check From Taxpayers.”[8]

The Political Calculus for 08

Since the American memory span is a short one, at least politically, the current financial crisis will dominate the remaining five weeks of the presidential race at the near total exclusion of the disastrous prior eight years. It is looking like the GOP does not want the White House and are in fact willing to give it to Barack Obama. This is not a prediction, but rather an observation of what their current thinking may be, based on current events. The Wall Street bailout plan, at least in its original form as it was rolled out last week, seems to be an attempt by the Bush administration to simply “buy” six weeks of time. They have to know that even if it works, which is unlikely based on history, the cost will take a terrible toll on the economy for the foreseeable future. In addition, they certainly do not want the house of cards that is our current economy, which they created over the past two decades, to completely unravel in the last couple of months of a two-term Republican president. Since this is going to be a massive problem for the next president, they are undoubtedly asking themselves if putting a Democrat in the White House is the worst thing that could happen for them. I submit that they are concluding it is not.

Also consider that if they can keep the Democratic advantage in Congress within a reasonable number, they can continue to thwart any meaningful change the Democrats attempt. Since the Democrats took control in January of 2007, after 14 years of Republican control, we have seen the Republicans in the 110^th Congress filibuster more legislation in the Senate than any other session in modern history. To get legislation to the floor, if a senator filibusters, requires 60 votes to end a filibuster; therefore, the Republicans only need 41 votes in the Senate to block legislation. As the economy continues to go south, and if they can attach the Democrats to a bailout that turns out to be nothing more than a band-aid, they can run in 2010, and 2012, against the “Democrat Great Depression of 09,” or at the very least, a poor economic outlook blamed on the Democrats.

There is also a better than even chance that tin here will be a push to return Jeb Bush to Florida politics in 2010, setting up a presidential run 2012. (As De Niro said in “Goodfellas,” “I heard some things,” and I’ll leave it at that). This is all just speculation of course. Anything can happen between now and November, and trying to predict 2010, or 2012 is next to impossible. Having said that, I am of the belief that the GOP does not want the presidency this time because they expect that the economy, as bad as its been the last eight years, is entering into an extreme downward spiral, which may be unstoppable, and will accelerate throughout 2009, and they may very well be right. Especially if this bailout of Wall Street is nothing more than a temporary placebo as was the case in 1931, as well as the other bailouts discussed above. For that reason the fight will not end when Obama is sworn in on January 20^th; the real fight will be just beginning.

David Cooper

September 27, 2008

Sources:

---

[1] http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/19/news/ROILMONEY.php

[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/blackm/plunge.htm

[3] http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/turk/2008/0317.html

[4] http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEEDE1F3AF936A25754C0A963958260

[5] http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-052es.html

[6] See the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999.

[7] http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/cms/2008/09/22/progressive-conditions-for-a-bailout/

[8] http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-wall-street-should-be-required-to.html

David Cooper is the author of “Absolute Despotism: How the Bush Administration’s False Realities Led to the Dismantling of Civil Liberties, the Destruction of Democracy, and Perpetual War.” Now available at: www.AbsoluteDespotism.com Contact at: AbsoluteDespotism@bellsouth.net

Babies for Obama

Charmed by cute babies? Click on this link and see Barack Obama enjoy one of the good things about campaigning -- kissing babies.

And it happened right here in Miami-Dade.

Thanks to South Florida Daily Blog for pointing out this gem on DJ Frustration Photo blog.

Guest blogger: What happens to nice guys?

Here's John Dodley with a dire view of the campaign. He may be right.

By John Dudley

The old cliché is that 'Nice guys finish last'. Senator Barack Obama is really a nice guy. I think Republicans would agree that he is a really nice guy. Republicans also believe that 'nice guys finish last'.

I don't think Barack gets it. Republicans do not believe that we can have a nice guy for President and they are going out of their way to prove it. Even Republicans are amazed that they can hurl the most undeserving insults and lies at Obama and he refuses to counterattack.

Republicans are in the fear campaign. With the fear campaign, you need a President that has no fear. He (John McCain) or she (Sarah Palin) will not hesitate to strike or attack even if America is unprovoked. Republicans are convincing Americans that we need an aggressive leader in a terrorist tyrant infested world. Why else would George Bush Jr. get a second term as President? America can trust that he is dumb enough to pull the trigger to protect us even if we aren't in harms way. It's better to be safe than sorry.

The campaign strategy that beat Hillary Clinton is not the same strategy that Obama can use to beat John McCain. This is Obama's pitfall. Saying a bunch of nice things about John McCain and Sarah Palin only reinforces the Republicans position. Every time Barack compliments his Republican opposition, it sways those undecided voters to their side. Republicans can say that even Barack thinks those who sided with George Bush can be President and even Barack thinks being a small town Mayor is an important job.

Surely, if Obama can't firmly, strongly, repudiate these erroneous barbs of the Republican Party, how can he defend us in the free world? Democrats are concerned. The party is getting restless. With everything that is going wrong with this country, this race shouldn't even be close. With that being said, Obama is the perfect person to run this country during this crisis. However, he is not the best person to run against the Republican Party.

Just like in sports, the best team doesn't always win. However, we cannot afford to lose. I saw some of his interview last night at the Presidential Forum and I just don't think he gets it. America welcomes his point of view. The world welcomes his views. Republicans and Independents don't. They only disagree with him because they don't respect him.

Joe Biden told a great story about his mother. The jest of the story is that when he was a kid he came home crying about someone picking on him in the neighborhood. Joe's mother told Biden to go out and bloody the nose of the other kid so that he can walk down the street with pride the next day. We need to see this kind of firmness from Obama.

Obama is a nice guy. I can't think of any nice guys that have won Presidential Elections. The fact that Republicans hate Bill Clinton is really a compliment. You know what I mean?

Walk for Annette Taddeo: Red to Blue winner in FL-18

Terrific news for Annette Taddeo, our brilliant challenger against a Bush rubber-stamp in Washington. Taddeo now has full backing of the Democratic Party establishment’s Red to Blue program. It was leaked out today on The Politico and the Down with Tyranny blogs. This will mean more funding for her campaign against Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and equal footing with the other Democratic challengers in South Florida, Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez, who have been on the Red to Blue list for some time.

We all can help build momentum in this important race by canvassing for Annette Taddeo, who’s a multiple winner this week – certified also after winning a national contest among progressives to show whose backers would work the hardest.

First, the canvassing details. This event is primarily backed by the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida but everyone’s welcome to join.

·         When:  1:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday Sept. 14

·         Where: Little Havana, at the Ayesteran restaurant, 706 SW 27^th Ave.

·         Who: Millie Herrera 305 972-4162

Thanks to the readers of this blog and those receiving Democracy For America-Miami-Dade newsletters and others who boosted Taddeo in the Blue America contest among nine progressive candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.  

This is also a chance to introduce you to some nationally known blogs that were sponsors of the contest:  Down With Tyranny, Crooks and Liars, Firedoglake and Digby.

 The idea in the contest was to register an individual’s support for one of the nine candidates by making a donation of as little as $1 to that candidate. Taddeo, who made calls herself to backers asking for a buck (I know, I got one of her calls), came out ahead in this national contest and will receive over $15,000 including a $5,000 matching check from Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The DCCC now also has promoted Annette Taddeo from the category of “Emerging Races” to the fully emerged status of the Red to Blue program. This will call for the long-reluctant Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, FL-20, to become a full backer of Taddeo’s campaign to unseat Ros-Lehtinen, whom Wasserman Schultz has been reluctant to oppose. 

This blog has been writing about this conflict for almost six months, and it will be a great relief to put this chapter behind us and step into a more unified final eight weeks of campaigning.

Here’s a link to the Taddeo campaign site with news of the Blue America win – nothing official yet on the DCCC Red to Blue program – and you can click on the Contribute button and do the right thing.

And a Florida footnote: also among those promoted from “emerging” to Red to Blue” is Alan Grayson, the Democratic challenger in FL-08. The incumbent is Rick Keller, who must now think his 53-47 margin in 2006 is looking pretty skimpy. The district is in central Florida including part of Orlando.

"Experience" and Barack Obama

After watching Sarah Palin’s sarcastic speech I needed an antidote, and there in my inbox was a submission by John Dudley, a fellow member of the Miami Beach Democratic Club. Thanks, John, for your artful reminder of all the wisdom that Barack Obama represents. Such a contrast to Republicans with their complete experience doing the wrong thing.

Subject: Experience and Barack Obama

By John Dudley

1377, from O.Fr. Experience, from L. experientia "knowledge gained by repeated trials," from experientem (nom. experiens), knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone: a man of experience: active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill.

Much has been said about Barack Obama's inexperience. This is somewhat true.

• Barack has no experience in lying our Country into war. Barack has no experience in making military decisions where our brave soldiers have died or have been wounded as a result of misinformation.
• Barack has no experience in the failed economic policies that delivered the worst June U.S. Stock index decline since the Great Depression of 1930.
• Barack has no experience in presiding over a housing crisis with record foreclosures causing millions of Americans to lose their homes.
• Mr. Obama has no experience in supporting an administration that issues higher inflation for gasoline and food which are the staples for American working families.
• He has no experience presiding over an unacceptable high school dropout rate and still no healthcare coverage for millions of Americans.
• Barack Obama has no experience with supporting the failed governmental policies of the Republicans and the Bush/McCain Administration.

This 'experience' of the last eight years of our government should never be repeated. This 'experience' of a completely disastrous, inept, divisive Republican Administration is NOT what this country needs. It is because Barack Obama has no experience in these failures that he should be the next President of the United States.