Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 08.20.09

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R   08.20.09

1. Bldg design/energy 8.20 6:30pm
2. Nick Coleman/media 8.20 7pm

3. Danene Provencher - To Klobuchar: no nukes
4. David M Green     - Guess what? He's a terrible president

--------1 of 4--------

From: "Raging Grannie (Wanda B)" <wsb70 [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Bldg design/energy 8.20 6:30pm

August meeting this Thursday, August 20th at The Wilder Foundation, 451
Lexington Parkway North, Saint Paul; 6:30-9 PM

We will hear from Loren E. Abraham, Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of
Architecture, College of Design, University of Minnesota
(<http://www.cala.umn.edu/>http://www.cala.umn.edu/ ). Loren will speak on
"Building Design and Renewable Energy: Passive and Active Solar Strategies
for both New Construction and Remodeling." Loren will discuss such topics
as the context of renewable energy, integrated building design, and
optimizing "current solar income." He will also discuss passive design
strategies, including daylighting, passive heating and cooling, and active
(renewable energy) strategies, such as solar thermal, solar PV, hybrid
solar thermal and PV, and wind. Loren will conclude with integrated design
examples.

The August meeting is from 6:30-9 PM on Thursday, August 20th (always the
third Thursday of the month). We meet at The Wilder Foundation, 451
Lexington Parkway North, Saint Paul (map below). The Foundation is located
at the southwest corner of Lexington and University, just two blocks north
of I-94 between downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. See the attached map at
the bottom of this email, courtesy of our co-director, Spark Burmaster. We
will now meet in Room 2410, the The Merriam Park Room, at the top of the
stairs, through the hallway door and down the hall on your right. (You
will pass the Frogtown Room, #2510, where we have been meeting.)

Important note about parking and the building doors: You can park in the
parking garage to the left (south) as you drive in from Lexington. Walk
across the courtyard to the north to the main entrance (towards
University). The main building entrance faces the courtyard. Register at
the front desk and walk up the stairs to the meeting room, the Frogtown
Room. If you come after 7:30 PM, the doors will be locked, so please come
before 7:30 PM. If you leave the building after 7:30 PM, the doors to the
building will be locked and you will not be able to re-enter (unless you
arrange for one of us to let you back in).

Important: When you leave the meeting, please exit at the south end of the
building past the main auditorium on the first floor, not the main lobby
entrance you entered. Exiting the south door will allow you to be able to
walk to the left into the parking garage to your car. Drive your car to
the closed gate and it will automatically open.

--------2 of 4--------

From: Lydia Howell <lydiahowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Nick Coleman/media 8.20 7pm

The 2009 Speakers Series Presents
Journalism: Back to the Future
Nick Coleman
Thursday, August 20, 2009 @ 7:00 p.m.
St. Joan of Arc Church
4537 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis 55419

Nick Coleman will be joined by Ahndi Fridell, KFAI News Director, and KFAI
Public Affairs Programmers Lynnell Mickelson, Lydia Howell, Don Olson,
Laura Waterman Wittstock, and Jeremy Iggers from TC Daily Planet for a
lively discussion of the changing media landscape and the past and future
of journalism.

$12 at the door.

--------3 of 4--------

From: PRO826 [at] aol.com
Subject: To Klobuchar: no nukes

ACTION ALERT:  Contact Senator Klobuchar's office - Re:  NO  NUKES

The West Metro Global Warming Action Group, Inc.  (_www.wmgwag.org_
(http://www.wmgwag.org/) ), lobbied Senator Klobuchar's office yesterday,
on August 12th regarding the upcoming Climate Change bill to be addressed
by the senate in September after the summer recess.

Ironically, one of WMGWAG board members spotted a St. Paul Pioneer Press
article in her office which was a press release from a newly formed
organization called Sensible Energy Solutions for Minnesota.

_Coalition's goal: to lift ban on new nuclear power plants -
TwinCities.com_
(http://www.twincities.com/ci_13041084?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com)

This organization is pro-nuke and stated at the bottom of their press
release: "Everyone from President Obama to Senator Klobuchar to Governor
Pawlenty agrees that safe, clean nuclear energy should be an option for
the future," Burns said.

Contact Senator Klobuchar's office and let her know that nuclear energy
should not be part of the solution in any legislation on climate change.
Feel free to read more on the wmgwag.org website under the legislative
link (scroll down to the third entry titled:  BILL TO ALLOW NEW NUCLEAR
POWER PLANTS IS DEFEATED to learn more on the hazards and pitfalls of
nuclear energy.) _Legislative updates В» West Metro Global Warming Action
Group, Inc. -_ (http://wmgwag.org/index.php?p=1_5_Legislative-updates)

I spoke with an aide at Klobuchar's DC office this morning and confirmed
her position of being pro-nuke (see more on her website under energy:
_http://klobuchar.senate.gov/energy.cfm_
(http://klobuchar.senate.gov/energy.cfm)  )

Senator Klobuchar's  contact info:

CALL
202-224-3244 (DC  office)
OR
612-727-5220 (MN  office)

OR  WRITE
Honorable Amy  Klobuchar
302 Hart Senate  Office Bldg.
Washington,  DC  20510
OR  EMAIL
_http://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/emailamy.cfm_
(http://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/emailamy.cfm)
(http://www.energysolutionsmn.org/)

Here is a link to the Sensible Energy Solutions for Minnesota press
release:
_http://www.energysolutionsmn.org/sesm_announcement.pdf_
(http://www.energysolutionsmn.org/sesm_announcement.pdf)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, August 13, 2009

POWERFUL COALITION AIMS TO SECURE MINNESOTA'S ENERGY, ENVIRONMENTAL
AND ECONOMIC FUTURE Sensible Energy Solutions for Minnesota (SESM) Pushing
for Repeal of State's Moratorium on Constructing Nuclear Energy
Facilities

(Saint Paul, Minn.) - Sensible Energy Solutions for Minnesota (SESM),
a newly formed nonprofit group advocating repeal of the state's
moratorium on constructing nuclear energy facilities, today named a
distinguished, bipartisan group of labor, business and environmental
leaders to its board of advisors.  Organizers recently filed paperwork
with the Minnesota Secretary of State and the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) to operate as a 501В©(4) non-profit.

The broad-based coalition underscored the safe, clean and reliable nature
of nuclear energy, coupled with its indisputable job-creating potential,
as key reasons for repeal. In calling on the state legislature to reverse
the moratorium, SESM also pointed out that President Obama, Senator
Klobuchar, Governor Pawlenty and many other key leaders consider nuclear
energy to be an important part of the solution in addressing global
climate change and reducing our reliance on foreign oil.

"While states from South Carolina to Maryland are looking forward and
considering 21st century designs and other new nuclear power technologies,
Minnesota is marching steadily toward a shortage of base-load
electricity," said Minnesota Chamber of Commerce President and SESM Board
Member David Olson. "As we look ahead, we must put nuclear power - the
most sensible and carbon-free base-load electricity source in existence -
back on the table as an energy option."

"Currently, there are more than twenty applications with the Department of
Energy for construction of nuclear power plants in the United States,"
said Minnesota Pipe Trades Association President and SESM Board Member
Carl Crimmins.  "These plants would supply carbon-free, low-cost,
base-load power for the energy grid, as well as offer good-paying jobs
during the construction phase and during day-to-day operations. Each plant
would stimulate the local economy and spur economic growth around the
plant in supporting workers, their families, the state and local
municipalities."

A November 2008 national public opinion survey by Bisconti Research, Inc.
found that 69 percent of Americans believe the U.S.  should build more
nuclear power plants. An unscientific poll taken at the 2008 Minnesota
State Fair found that more than 60 percent of respondents believe the
state's ban on new nuclear power facilities should be lifted. "SESM's
mission is simple: To help secure Minnesota's energy, environmental and
economic future by urging repeal of the antiquated moratorium on
constructing nuclear power facilities within the state," said Scott
Melbye, president of Cameco, Inc. and SESM board member. "As the diversity
of our board shows, this issue transcends traditional political divides.
It is not merely a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. It's a
Minnesota issue."

SESM Board of Advisors:
в^Аў Carl Crimmins, president, Minnesota Pipe  Trades Association, Saint Paul,
Minn.
в^Аў Cynthia в^А^ЬCyndiв^А^Э Lesher, retired  president and CEO, Northern States
Power Company
в^Аў Harry Melander, executive  secretary, Saint Paul Building & Construction
Trades Council
в^Аў Scott  Melbye, president, Cameco, Inc.
в^Аў David Olson, president, Minnesota Chamber  of Commerce
в^Аў Richard J. Vetter, Ph.D., Professor of Biophysics
в^Аў Dr. Don  McMillan, president, Minnesota Outdoor Heritage Alliance
в^Аў Dan Puhl,  CPA

Lesher said, "Nuclear power is a safe, proven technology that keeps
energy prices competitive, while protecting our environment for future
generations. This discussion is about good environmental energy policy and
considering viable options, not partisan politics. Now is the time to
remove hurdles standing between our state and a secure energy future. Now
is the time to act."

McMillan said, "Hunters, Fishermen and other outdoor enthusiasts believe
in conserving and protecting our wildlife and environment. We also believe
that nuclear energy is the most environmentally friendly source of energy
on this planet. We encourage the Minnesota Legislature to lift the
moratorium on building nuclear energy plants in Minnesota to help save and
conserve our environment." Vetter said, "Nuclear power does not produce
carbon dioxide emissions, a key greenhouse gas tied to global warming. In
addition, nuclear power is one of the worldв" safest sources of energy,
and it doesn't produce mercury emissions, another harmful pollutant.

Nuclear power needs to be included in our future armamentarium of energy
sources. This requires Minnesota to overturn the moratorium on nuclear
power plant construction, which currently hinders our utilities from
developing options that don't contribute to global warming. SESM expects
to ramp up in the months leading up to the 2010 state legislative session,
conducting an aggressive grassroots campaign to push for the moratorium's
repeal. Minnesotans interested in getting involved are encouraged to visit
SESM online, _www.EnergySolutionsMN.org_
(http://www.energysolutionsmn.org/) . SESM is also on Facebook and
Twitter. ###

NO NUKES!
Danene Provencher, Board Member
West Metro Global Warming Action Group, Inc.

--------4 of 4-------

Guess What? He's a Terrible President
By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN
August 19, 2009
http://www.counterpunch.org/green08192009.html

Both President Obama's health care plan and his presidency are going down
the toilet.

This is well, and right, and just as it should be.

Obama is turning out to be a disastrous president, wholly unsuited for the
times and our national and global challenges, and his job approval ratings
reflect this.

In Obama, we get all the corporate toadying of the last Democratic
president, along with an even greater unwillingness than Clinton - and who
would've thought that was possible - to name names, call out enemies, and
throw a freakin' punch every other year or so. (We're also getting a
continuation of the civil rights and civil liberties policies of Dick
Cheney, as an extra added bonus, but that's another story.) What makes it
even more astonishing this time around, however, is that we've seen this
movie before, and we know how it ends. There is apparently absolutely no
bottom - as the events of recent weeks have reconfirmed - to the pit of
vicious lies, brutal tactics, and democracy-demolishing antics of which
regressives will avail themselves in their practice of contemporary
American politics. In addition to not being prepared for that, Barack
Obama is still seemingly unable to raise his voice a decibel or two
against the very people who are helping him to destroy his own presidency.
Indeed, he is negotiating "bipartisan" (read: total capitulation) deals
with them, even as they relentlessly trash him before a national audience.

Is this president so deluded that he believes there are limitations on
what the right will do not only to the republic, for which Obama seems to
have only passing regard, but also to his presidency, for which we might
imagine he would have at least some concern? Does the Kumbaya Kid think
that regressives won't seek to annihilate him every bit as much as they
did Bill Clinton, even as they are obsessing at this very moment over
harebrained conspiracy stories challenging his very legal right to be
president, his very citizenship? Does this guy who seems to want, more
than anything, for everyone just to be happy and sing along in the same
key, still really believe in bipartisanship, at the very moment when the
very people with whom he is negotiating are reinforcing the most absurd
and inflammatory lies asserting the elder-cide intentions of his
health-care bill?

Sorry. Did I say "his health-care bill"? Problem number one here is that
there's no such thing. As in just about everything else of consequence
this administration has been involved in, he seems quite content to simply
defer to Congress and allow the sausage-making process on the Hill to
generate precisely the policy abomination one might expect, with all the
political liabilities we've come to know and love from such a dispiriting
collection of 535 (minus two or three) moral midgets.

Sorry. Did I say "defer to Congress"? Looks like I goofed again. What this
really means - and this is problem number two - is deferring to a select
group of members of Congress. In particular, conservative Democrats and
supposedly moderate Republicans (you know, like fuel-efficient Hummers).
Right now, for example, probably the two most important actors in America
on the healthcare question are Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley. Both have
received massive campaign contributions from the industries which have
most at stake in this legislation. No doubt, however, that's entirely a
coincidence. What they are doing right now, and what Obama is allowing
them to do, is nothing less than neutering any serious aspects of
healthcare reform. In the end, having succeeded at doing that, and being
the tail that wags the entire dog of this 300 million person country,
Grassley won't even vote for the bill, nor will any Republican. As in the
stimulus bill, Obama continues to allow legislation to be murdered by a
thousand cuts. All in the name of some bipartisanship god he has taken to
worshiping, even though none of the knife-wielders will be around to go
anywhere near the stinking corpse they've created when it's eventually
tossed up on the congressional slab for a vote. Seems pretty nutty to me,
but I guess when you stop and think about it, Obama's definition of
bipartisan participation in the legislative process really does make sense
after all: Republicans murder the bill, then Democrats vote for it.
Everybody gets to play a part. Everybody contributes.

>From what can be gathered so far, the legislation will accomplish very
little in terms of real reform, will diminish existing health-care
programs, will nevertheless still exacerbate the explosion of national
debt, and will not even begin to kick in until 2013. Hey, for all the good
this will do Americans, why not just complete the job and have all the
benefits go to people living in Kuala Lumpur?

Will healthcare be universal in America, bringing this country into line
with the standards of what every other industrialized democracy has
practiced for the better part of a century? No. Will we massively increase
the amount of actual health care we provide while eliminating the
incredible bloat in costs of our predatory, special-interest oriented
system by adopting the obvious no-brainer choice of the single-payer
model? Fat chance. Will a real public option even be created, which might
instantly show up the incredible profiteering and waste in the insurance
industry, while simultaneously giving lie to the endless rhetoric about
private sector efficiency and government bungling? No, there won't (but
President Obama wants you to know he appreciates your asking). The
Capitulation Administration signaled this week that it is giving up on
that as well. Because of Republican opposition, of course. You remember
those guys don't you? The folks who have such small minorities in Congress
that they can't even muster forty percent of Senate votes to block
consideration of legislation by filibuster?

That's who Obama is caving to. That's who's in charge. It seems that we
regular folks are in the process of getting a fresh education about the
way American politics really works. Evidently, there's a new algorithm I
wasn't aware of. It goes like this: When Republicans control Congress and
the White House, they rule. When Democrats control Congress and the White
House... Republicans still rule. Okay. Well at least we know how it works.
And it's not necessarily all bad news, either. No point in fussing with
those messy elections anymore!

Meanwhile, one needn't dig deep into the bowels of the thousands of pages
of legalese contained within the five separate health-care proposals now
making their way through Congress in order to figure out whether they
contain good news or not. You can tell a lot about somebody or something
just by the company they keep. Suffice it to say that both the insurance
and pharmaceutical industries are now spending hundreds of millions of
dollars running ads on television in favor of healthcare "reform". I can
hardly think of a handier or more pure litmus test for determining whether
this is good legislation or not. If those guys are for it, and especially
if they're spending millions to make it happen, it's a very safe bet that
I'm against it. And if those industries are for it, it's a very safe bet
that the deal is they get rich and we get nothing. Except maybe poor. And
sick.

The pharmaceutical ads are especially galling, proving that there really
is nothing immoral enough to be excluded from the discourse of American
politics. These spots feature the two actors who portrayed Harry and
Louise - the very same marionettes who whored themselves back in 1993 and
got a paycheck in exchange for making sure that tens of millions of
Americans would be denied health care in every year since then. Now
they're back, this time advocating for legislation rather than against it,
and sanctimoniously telling us that "it's about time" that "we may finally
get healthcare reform". When "Sally" - slayer of American healthcare for a
few shekels of blood money - righteously intones that, "with a little more
cooperation, a little less politics, and we can get the job done this
time", I want to reach into the television and detach her head from the
rest of her. She certainly isn't making any use of it.  I'd go for the
heart, but that seems to have been removed long ago. Is there some reason
that these people haven't been taken out back and shot? And, failing that,
do they have some sort of new, special, high-tech pillows that allow folks
like this to sleep at night despite a 40,000 ton conscience crushing down
on their skulls?

Now why in the world would the insurance and pharmaceutical industries be
running ads in favor of healthcare reform? I'm just thinking out loud
here, but I wonder if it has anything to do with the deals that a certain
Barack Obama has cut with them behind the scenes, promising to limit to
pathetically minimal amounts any future inhibitions on the trough-gorging
to which they've grown well accustomed. In agreements which the New York
Times has delicately characterized as "potentially at odds with the
president's rhetoric", Obama has bought the support of these industries
for a pittance. At least, that is, a pittance of his capital. The true
costs will continue to fall on tens of millions of Americans with no or
lousy healthcare, including the tens of thousands who die each year
because of that simple fact. In exchange for their political support, our
"socialist" president secretly promised the pharmaceutical and insurance
industries that their costs under any new legislation would be capped at
$80 and $155 billion, respectively, over ten years time. In short -
nickels and dimes.

One might be excused for beginning to get the feeling that what Obama
really wants from healthcare reform is simply to be able to say that he
did it. No matter that there is almost no reform in his healthcare reform
legislation. No matter that he doesn't even have his own proposal, but is
deferring to the worst elements of a legislative body that is a wholly
owned subsidiary of American corporate interests. No matter that whatever
little effect the legislation will have won't even begin to be seen for
another four years, and then will be phased in after that, over yet
another period of several years. And no matter that, even after the law
goes into effect, this country will continue to suffer from all the major
maladies of a system designed principally to provide profits for a few,
rather than healthcare for all.

What continues to astonish me, however, is what passes for political
calculus in the White House these days. I never assumed that Obama would
necessarily be any different from Bill Clinton, in the sense that he might
actually have a set of good progressive politics or that he might actually
give a damn about the American public. No disappointment there (although
did he have to be even worse than that, more like Bush than Clinton?).
However, I always assume that almost all politicians are completely
consumed by the one thing that Clinton was ever truly passionate about:
self-interest.

But, even purely from that narrowest of perspectives, does the Obama team
actually believe that their strategy is helping their guy politically? Do
they really like the way that their failure to articulate a plan, or even
a set of fundamental principles, has worked out in terms of shaping the
debate over healthcare? Is it really their belief that they can go to the
voters in 2012 and win their hearts with a nothingburger healthcare plan,
passed three years prior, and due to fully kick in three years hence? I
hate more than a root canal sans novocaine to sound like one of the
regressives whom I so very much loathe, but if this is the level of
political sophistication to be found in the Obama White House, then, no,
as a matter of fact, I really don't want this clown negotiating with
Vladimir Putin.

Barack Obama has given us the worst of all worlds. Passage of a healthcare
reform bill - even something barely remotely worthy of the name - now
seems like a dubious proposition. If it does pass, it won't be worth
squat. Meanwhile, all the ugliest and most deceitful tactics of regressive
politics have floated to the surface in the cesspool of American political
discourse, weakly countered at best by a White House that could make
SpongeBob SquarePants look like the love child of Genghis Khan and Joseph
Stalin by comparison, and is so lame that it couldn't anticipate and
inoculate against these assaults that any fool who wasn't entirely
comatose over the last three decades could plainly see were coming. Worst
of all, when the smoke finally clears, this debacle will entail a massive
discrediting of so-called liberalism, and a severe imperiling of the
Democratic Party (not that it much matters)  in the next two election
cycles. Think about that for a second. How absolutely, utterly,
magnificently inept does one have to be to have revived the hopes of the
GOP, a mere 200 days after George W. Bush and Dick Cheney left office? Not
just any idiot could pull off a stunt that big, I tell ya. A job like that
requires a world-class moron.

What Obama should have done is simple, and therefore all the more
astonishing that they missed it. First off, he should have formulated a
serious plan (perhaps in faux negotiations with certain key congressional
leaders, to make them feel powerful and included, perhaps not), and stuck
with it. At the very least, he should have articulated three or four
non-negotiable key principles that he demanded from any healthcare
legislation. These should have revolved around ideas that are simple to
grasp and clearly beneficial to non-elite Americans. He should have sold
that plan at big staged events, such as televised addresses to both houses
of Congress - rather than these pathetic press conferences he keeps
giving, where the press can ask any question they want, and where an
unscripted Professor Wonk rambles out ten minute answers, chock full of
pauses and clauses, guaranteed to anesthetize his audience or divert their
attention entirely, to another subject altogether (can you say "Henry
Lewis Gates"?).

He should have named enemies, right from the beginning. He should have
warned Americans about what these people would do in the ensuing weeks and
months. And he should have called them out on it, angrily and by name,
when they in fact did it. When they started lying and frightening senior
citizens in order to protect their legalized scams from reform, he should
have slugged them so hard they were knocked on their fat corporate asses,
never to rise again. He should've called them greedy, selfish, treasonous
traitors who are willing to lie and steal to further enrich their bloated
selves, while tens of thousands of Americans die every year from lack of
medical care.

Above all, what Obama should have done was shown some passion. The
unflappable conciliatory professor act has got to go. Here's a newsflash
(evidently) for the Obama White House: If the president has any desire to
sell his policies, he's got to sell his policies. If he wants to lead, he
has to lead. And if he wants our support, he's got to tell us why this is
important. With juice. Mr. Folksy isn't getting it - not by a long shot.

Finally, Obama should've jammed his plan down the throats of Congress,
where - though you'd never know it - his party commands massive and
filibuster-proof majorities. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't
think the nineteenth century model of the presidency is particularly
appropriate here in the twenty-first. We got Social Security and the rest
of the New Deal programs because Franklin Roosevelt twisted arms on
Capitol Hill. We got Medicare and Medicaid and civil rights because Lyndon
Johnson nearly pulled those arms out of their sockets, jamming his bills
through a reluctant Congress by means of big carrots, bigger sticks, and
razor-sharp strategy.

What did Millard Fillmore get? James Buchanan? If you can't remember,
don't worry - it doesn't mean that you're deficient as a student of
American history. It just means that they didn't get anything worth
remembering. Why is it that, in our time, Ronald Reagan and George W.
Bush get everything they want from Congress, while Bill Clinton and Barack
Obama - even after they've completely sold out to Wall Street, and even
when they have massive majorities in Congress - wind up as if they're the
main source of entertainment for the fellas on Cell Block D?  Neither FDR
nor Harry Truman nor Lyndon Johnson would recognize the Democratic Party
anymore. Unless they inadvertently mistook it for a squashed bug in the
foyer of the GOP's headquarters.

Having lived through the incredibly dismal Clinton era, I'm not exactly
surprised to have another Democratic president whose only real
constituents can be found in corporate boardrooms. I am, however, shocked
to have one who seemingly learned nothing from the experience of the
Clinton years, who appears to be even more conciliatory than the foolish
"Please sir, may I have another?" Clinton himself was, and who apparently
lacks any real instinct even for political self-preservation.

So I have to ask: Hey, Barack. How's this working out for you? In eight
months time you've squandered a massive and historic opportunity. You've
resuscitated a murderously evil political party that, with a little shove
in the right direction, might instead have been buried dead forever.
You've let just about anybody say just about anything regarding you and
your policies, without consequence. People are running around claiming
that you're gonna kill grannies, and millions believe them.  You're
being pilloried for the bogus failures of the British healthcare system,
and your mealy-mouthed-room-temperature-yesterday's-leftover-oatmeal
proposal - such that you even have one - doesn't even bear the
slightest resemblance to the NHS.

You've produced nothing of consequence in your Hundred Days, nor even in
two hundred. Historians will not mention you in the same breath as FDR,
but rather right alongside the wondrous Mr. Fillmore. You've responded to
epic crises with half-measures that have produced quarter-results. In the
short period of your presidency, your job approval ratings have fallen
from the high sixties to the low fifties. In addition to those numbers
beginning to look a lot like the guy with a cane walking onto your stage,
they represent twice the drop an idiot named George W. Bush sustained
during his first eight months in office. Maybe because he accomplished far
more in that time. Far more (horrid though it was), as a matter of fact,
than you are likely to do in four years, at the rate you're going. Far
more, even with a split Congress. How about that, Brother Barack? You're
getting your ass kicked by the worst president in all of American history.

So, dude, how's this working out for you?

For me? Not so good. I was hoping for something else. Know what I mean?

I will say, however, that you seem to be a very, very nice young man.
Yes, yes - very nice indeed. Definitely.

So much so that I give you my word: If I ever want someone for my
president who is so nice that he even lets vicious political savages
tear him to shreds while they're wrecking the country at the same time...

I promise that you'll have my vote.

*David Michael Green* is a professor of political science at Hofstra
University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to
his articles (dmg [at] regressiveantidote.net
<mailto:dmg [at] regressiveantidote.net>), but regrets that time constraints
do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his
website, www.regressiveantidote.net
<http://www.counterpunch.org/www.regressiveantidote.net>.

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Progressive Calendar 08.20.09	<– Date –> <– Thread –>
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:47:31 -0700 (PDT)