Just WHO Are They Listening To?

According to a very recent Pew poll, people are madder at the government than ever, but if you ask me, dissatisfaction has never been a rare phenomenon. What I did find very interesting was this fact:

“While the public is wary of too much government involvement with the economy,” the Pew study says, “it suspends that concern when it comes to stricter regulation of major financial companies. A clear majority (61%) says it is a good idea for the government to more strictly regulate the way major financial companies do business….”

That’s good news. It means that a common sense approach to Wall Street regulatory reform should sail through the Congress. Now that’s getting something accomplished the American way! But wait…

Why have 41 Republican Senators already written a letter stating opposition to the Wall Street Regulation bill? Doesn’t sound like they are listing to their constituents, does it? Or maybe it’s their corporate constituents, the ones that finance their huge campaign war chests, which have their ear. Maybe it’s the influence of banking industry lobbyists who greatly outnumber our elected representatives who are drowning out the voice of We the People.

I know this; it's time to hold these big banks accountable. Accountable to the nation whose strength allows them to prosper, and to the people whose character and hard work create the strength of this nation. We must establish the strongest consumer protections in this country's history, ensuring that taxpayers will never have their arms twisted like this again; forced to bail out irresponsible tycoons and fraudsters living lives of unconscionable waste at the expense of everyone else. We can no longer afford to pay tribute to the few who sap our country’s strength for their own narrow special interests.

I stand with President Obama to:

• Create the strongest consumer protections in history so that Americans always get the information they need to make smart financial decisions; and

• Rein in Wall Street abuses, hold the big banks accountable, and ensure that taxpayers never again have to bail them out; and

• Prevent lobbyist loopholes or exemptions from weakening reform.

Take action today to speak out about Wall Street Reform, demand it.

The President puts it best and I will close with his words and a call to action:

“It has now been well over a year since the near collapse of our entire financial system that cost the nation more than 8 million jobs. To this day, hard-working families struggle to make ends meet.

We've made strides -- businesses are starting to hire, Americans are finding jobs, and neighbors who had given up looking are returning to the job market with new hope. But the flaws in our financial system that led to this crisis remain unresolved.

Wall Street titans still recklessly speculate with borrowed money. Big banks and credit card companies stack the deck to earn millions while far too many middle-class families, who have done everything right, can barely pay their bills or save for a better future.

We cannot delay action any longer. It is time to hold the big banks accountable to the people they serve, establish the strongest consumer protections in our nation's history -- and ensure that taxpayers will never again be forced to bail out big banks because they are "too big to fail."

That is what Wall Street reform will achieve, why I am so committed to making it happen, and why I'm asking for your help today.

Please stand with me to show your support for Wall Street reform.

We know that without enforceable, commonsense rules to check abuse and protect families, markets are not truly free. Wall Street reform will foster a strong and vibrant financial sector so that businesses can get loans; families can afford mortgages; entrepreneurs can find the capital to start a new company, sell a new product, or offer a new service.

Consumer financial protections are currently spread across seven different government agencies. Wall Street reform will create one single Consumer Financial Protection Agency -- tasked with preventing predatory practices and making sure you get the clear information, not fine print, needed to avoid ballooning mortgage payments or credit card rate hikes.

Reform will provide crucial new oversight, give shareholders a say on salaries and bonuses, and create new tools to break up failing financial firms so that taxpayers aren't forced into another unfair bailout. And reform will keep our economy secure by ensuring that no single firm can bring down the whole financial system.

With so much at stake, it is not surprising that allies of the big banks and Wall Street lenders have already launched a multi-million-dollar ad campaign to fight these changes. Arm-twisting lobbyists are already storming Capitol Hill, seeking to undermine the strong bipartisan foundation of reform with loopholes and exemptions for the most egregious abusers of consumers.

I won't accept anything short of the full protection that our citizens deserve and our economy needs. It's a fight worth having, and it is a fight we can win -- if we stand up and speak out together.

So I'm asking you to join me, starting today, by adding your name as a strong supporter of Wall Street reform:

http://my.barackobama.com/StandForWallStreetReform

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Defenders of Liberty Declare Tolerance Will Not Be Tolerated

When the Tea Party protests began last year, I’ll buy the idea that they grew spontaneously and naturally, their dissenting nature drawing them to the institutions of government. Namely, the parking lot in front of Hendersonville City Hall (long known as a hotbed of communist sympathizers and baby-killing Nazis, right?) where hundreds of disgruntled Republicans, disappointed in their Nov 2008 tromping at the polls gathered to stretch their First Amendment rights to complain at their government on April 15th 2009.

But wait, fast-forward to 2010. The spontaneous Tea Party movement in Sumner County has become the SURG, a highly organized, well nourished group whose main diet consists of John Birch newsletters, old Ron Paul Revolution signs, a sprinkling of kerosene to taste (just in case anyone feels an itch to burn something), and a high gloss frosting of pig’s lipstick. As advertised, the Tax Day Tea Party of 2010 includes fun booths for the kiddies, an essay contest for High Schoolers, restaurant sponsors hawking food, and supposedly, sound stages fit for a music super-star. Great I say. Hendersonville has no lack of municipal parks that anyone can reserve, provided they are sufficiently organized to safely adhere to the City’s regulations for use of public facilities.

But after being offered numerous parks locations and rejecting them because of their lack of proximity to Main Street, the SURG brain trust decided to have their event (I’m sure out of deep nostalgia) in the same City Hall Parking lot as last year. And when they requested a permit for the parking lot, law abiding and upstanding that they are, did they get one? No. Parking lots are public property, but not event facilities. To the extent that anyone can gather on public property, they are of course exercising their multitude of First Amendment rights : the right to freedom of speech, the right peaceably to assemble, and the right, perhaps most precious, to petition the government for redress of grievances. (Though what Hendersonville City Hall can do to repeal Health Care or stop the Bail Out, with their stimulus-money-air-conditioners sitting on the roof, I know not. But I get it: symbolism. Check.)

But to the extent that they gather on public property without a permit, they are beholden to the same laws as anyone else. And here is where it gets Rich, as in John Rich, the show-stopping music-star-cum-political-scion extraordinaire head-lining the infotainment portion of the program. How do you suppose the city and its citizens would look on it if you & I decided to show up some evening, set up a sound system and start blasting music, speeches, and so on? How about if we opened up a little food stand selling Barbeque in the median of a busy street, or on any grassy knoll the city mows? How about if we invite a few thousand people, Woodstock style, to an “impromptu” gathering? Well, you answer, we’d be shut down, asked to move on, fined, at the very least.

But you know what? Who cares, right? This is a movement! A liberty loving, all American, red-blooded, constitutionally approved event! And, card carrying Civil Liberties lover that I am, who am I to stand in the way of the First Amendment rights of any member of We the People? Agree or disagree, I will defend your right to say what you think hands down, no holds barred. And hey, I’m key instigator of my own event anyway, the Sumner County Democratic Party Civility Dinner (ya’ll come! Course we are having it at a privately owned community center that we have properly attained permission to use, but that’s beside the point.) So far be it for me to hypocritically criticize or mock the size, scope, purpose, or process of another political group’s event. So party on, Tea People!

Except then, there’s this in the paper from Tea Party marketer Matt Moynihan:

Just try and crash us
A group called CrashtheTea Party.org is the latest group of liberals doing its best to take down our movement. They claim to represent "a nationwide network of Democrats, Republicans and Independents who are all sick and tired of that loose affiliation of racists, homophobes and morons; who constitute the fake grassroots movement, which calls itself 'the Tea Party.'"
Their plan is to infiltrate Tea Party protests to create the false impression that protesters are racists by… being racists. Yes, they will bring with them offensive and misspelled signs and try to give wildly offensive interviews to reporters, all with the intention of smearing a movement that would never bring those signs or give those interviews themselves. We’ve seen them before. If you are there tomorrow night, you will not be tolerated and you will be called out on the spot and asked to leave.

So, true to their mob rule mentality, not only is the Tea Party in Sumner County bluntly stating that dissenting voices will not be tolerated, they’re also attempting to erect a defense around the indefensible. So if anyone sees anything remotely stupid, offensive, or malign it isn’t the Tea Party doing it, oh no! It’s the 6 foot invisible rabbit in their midst, or maybe it’s aliens, no that’s silly! Wait, I got it: of course, it’s the Liberals did it! (In true Tea Party style let me simply ask, how do WE know THEY didn’t make that web site up themselves, hmmmm???)

Tea Party, please. You just ask all the racists and all the people holding misspelled signs to leave, and keep your group nice and pure, just the real Americans, just the real patriots. Stay nourished by the bile of your incendiary, hate-filled leaders, while the rest of America shakes their head in disgust and tries to remember the country their parents and grand-parents taught them to be proud of. But Hendersonville, when you are slogging your way home from work tonight or if you are trying to get to the Post Office on time to mail those taxes, just remember: if the traffic is at a stand-still and the grid-lock is making you pull your hair out, the Tea Party did it.

There is Only an American Problem

“And there's something 'bout the Southland in the springtime
Where the waters flow with confidence and reason
Though I miss her when I'm gone it won't ever be too long
Till I'm home again to spend my favorite season
When God made me born a yankee he was teasin'
There's no place like home and none more pleasin'
Than the Southland in the springtime”
-the Indigo Girls

I’ve lived in Tennessee longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, almost longer than I’ve lived everywhere else combined. (Oh how time does fly!) This is my home, where I’ve always been made welcome. This is the place where I’ve chosen as an adult to build my life, grow my family, and contribute to my community. And I’m proud to be here. Proud of this land, these people, and the heritage that I have immersed myself in; I know that this beautiful, rich, diverse part of the country is a jewel, a treasure that we share.

I’ve never cared for the scape-goating that Southerners get in the national culture. Especially in politics. It just isn’t true that the South is a lost cause to Democrats, or that Tennessee has become a Red State because of the so-called social issues. The “God, Guns, and Gays” trope is so often quoted by the media that it becomes common wisdom. But I know so many wonderful Christians who would never agree with Glen Beck’s twisted version of the Gospels, and so many Democrats who have gun carry permits, and so many Republicans who welcome their LGBT family members, that I just don’t think we are as divided as the political power brokers would have us believe.

It’s too bad that old stereotypes and out-dated divisions get in the way of the progress that I know myself and my neighbors want to share in: prosperity, education, healthcare, security, and the promise of all that for our children’s children, not just our selves. It’s a deep-shame that what threatens our children’s inheritance of Democracy and keeps us bound in knots of dissent is political expedience. A people who are fighting among themselves are weakened and kept at the fringes, while those who are represented by ideas, compromise, and the common rule of law are empowered and made the center piece of their own governance. This is the beauty of what the founders built into our Nation’s core: We the People.

On March 16th, 1965, during a time more brutal and incendiary than today, a Southern politician moved us into a new political era, choosing to forego the political expediency of dividing the people of this great country and instead asking us all to unite in moral and Constitutional righteousness. His words will give us courage again, and much wisdom to ponder:

“There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans -- not as Democrats or Republicans. We are met here as Americans to solve that problem.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created equal," "government by consent of the governed," "give me liberty or give me death." Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.

Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being. To apply any other test -- to deny a man his hopes because of his color, or race, or his religion, or the place of his birth is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.”

-President Lyndon Johnson

A Special Invitation for You

This week I’m going to do something special. There’s an event coming up that I don’t want you to miss just because you didn’t hear about it. It’s going to be your chance to show, in the simplest of terms, what being a proud Tennessean is all about. You see, it won’t matter how many hundreds of people are there, or what super duper music star shows up. It won’t matter what grand-standing VIPs queue up to the microphone or how many TV-cult philosophies are spouted. We’re going to keep it simple. This year on tax day, while the Tea Party in Hendersonville swarms over City Hall spreading their doom and gloom about our great country, the Sumner County Democratic Party will be doing something a little different. We’ll be welcoming you and your neighbors to an old-fashioned covered dish dinner. We’ll bring the BBQ and sweet tea, you bring the fixings.

Why should we get together? Because our county is full of good communities and friendly people who believe America is a fair and upstanding place. That’s what Democrats have always believed in: helping their neighbors and standing strong for their Country. Common sense folks are done with the anger and fear that's trading on old wounds, fanning the flames of hatred, and endangering our beautiful land of the free. And in this Land of the Free, we must not be afraid to peaceably assemble. We must come out of our houses and gather to discuss our problems and find the way to our solutions. Because America has never been short on solutions. Time after time we have risen to our Nation’s call to duty: to defend our Constitution, to gather our community’s strengths and help those in need, and to promote greater prosperity and a secure future for our children. All accomplished through the rule of law, created by We the People.

The problem isn’t that we can’t solve our problems. The problem is that Democracy isn’t being allowed to work. How can we find solutions when the market place of ideas is constantly shut down by a monopoly of anger, disinformation, and threats of violence? By any definition, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” from our Bill of Rights does not include violence. When corporate-controlled Republicans whip up the roaring crowds, suggesting that they should “reload and take aim,” it is nothing short of un-American. The purpose of intimidation is clear. Keep folks like you and me from getting involved, diminish participation to the loudest few, and stop We the People from working together. My question is: will it work? Remember that in a recent poll, only 28% of Americans identified themselves as sympathetic with the Tea Party. Will the vast majority of Americans allow themselves to be cowed by the threats of an ill-informed, easily mislead group that resemble nothing so much as a school yard bully? A sore loser whose threats run the gamut from plain old lying and cheating to flipping over the game board? I don’t think so. We see that the Tea party is simply a back-lash. A well funded Republican media gauntlet aimed at distracting and beguiling a small number of Americans into outrageous actions. My heart fills with compassion for them, for I fear they know not what they do, or what corporate masters they serve.

So we’re hosting the Civility Dinner at the Salem Community Center. Let’s get together and just do right by each other and our country. Tell the crowds to put away the bullhorns and lay down the ugliness, you don’t have to shout to be heard. Because this year on April 15th we are going to reclaim the honor in Middle Tennessee. We’re going to feed folks, and we ask you to bring what you can. Whether you bring your best covered dish or a bag of chips, you’ll be welcomed! We’re going to talk about what we need: jobs, fairness, and honor. And we’re going to pitch in to help make it happen, here in Sumner County and all over Tennessee. Come and visit at the Civility Dinner, because civility is what makes America special.