WALTER ISAACSON: [...] Tom Friedman's column mentioned that you haven't been there supporting the tax breaks that need to be extended for wind and solar. Do you support those breaks, and will you keep pushing for--will you push for it at some point?
JOHN MCCAIN: Yes, and I have, and I have a long record of that support of alternate energy. [...] I've always been for all of those and I have not missed any crucial vote. But my citizens in Arizona know that when I'm running for the President of the United States I have to be out campaigning. But I of course I am for renewable energy
Credit for the research goes to the Sierra Club, which has kindly put together this list foe wider distribution.
Actually I've made it before, but it's now clearer than ever -- in 2009, the Massachusetts attempt to provide universal health insurance coverage to its citizens [sic -- undocumented residents are screwed] is going to blow up like an unarmored humvee hitting a buried artillery shell.
Many times I do not need to look at the substance of an agreement to see that it is a good way to bring a piece of legislation together, I only need to look at who is for and who is against the compromise.
The Gang of 10 bi-partisan compromise for a comprehensive energy bill is far from perfect but it is a great framework to move forward with for a lot of reasons both politically and policy based.
I've been involved in a sort of debate re: Afghanistan policy. Some people think an escalation of the war is a good idea; others not so much. When I posted my contribution to the discussion, a friend asked that I make it public. Here it is:
This is so hard.
I served in the USMC for four years and remember bootcamp well. It wasn't an intensive course in moral philosophy; we were primarily taught to kill and encouraged to enjoy it.
I was young when I joined. Less than 2 months past 17. Most of my peers were within 2 or three years of me.
I remember marching past platoons of WM's (women marines). Our drill instructors would lead our platoon in rhythmic chants about the virtues of hair pie. The service I was a part of was filled with benign racists... Irishman from Boston and good ol' boys from Kentucky and Mississippi. We were integrated by day, but everyone knew that Sunday night was black night at the E-club... And no blacks (or hispanics for that matter) spent a lot of time at our keg parties and bonfires out in the woods.
In 1932, at the rock bottom of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt swept into office with the promise of bold reforms to jump-start the American economy. Although conservative critics of the day cast his ideas as too radical, policies implemented in The New Deal stabilized the banking system within one month, cut skyrocketing unemployment in half and increased our gross domestic product by 50 percent.
Over the past three decades, the pendulum has swung from this New Deal ideology to conservatism. Tax cuts for the rich were supposed to "trickle down" to the masses, spurring job creation and an economic boom. The current economic crisis we are experiencing has shown us that conservatism – tax cuts for the rich and bailing out big businesses – has failed. Tax cuts for the rich have only made the rich richer, the poor poorer... and the middle class isn’t doing all that well either. Instead of the promised job creation, we find more and more of our jobs being shipped overseas while unemployment has skyrocketed to the highest level in a decade.
Where we come down on these issues in the Netroots Platform is still up in the air - but only for the next few hours! Rate the planks we've developed over the past several weeks to make sure the final platform captures our collective views.
I'd like to point out a few crucial facts that will give John McCain a better hand come the general election, unless Barack Obama reverses current energy policies.
I recommend that Barack have my blessing for flip-flopping on these issues.
I am and continue to be an advocate for renewable energy implementation.
You can find the current top planks below. These were developed by the Netroots community - democratically, collaboratively, transparently, and entirely online.
Saturday morning at an Obama rally in Titusville, Florida, I asked the Senator:
"American education policy is being shaped by educational amateurs in Congress, the Business Roundtable, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the publishing industry. If you become President, will you devise a workable system to give professional educators a voice?"
It was obvious from crowd reaction that the question was considered both appropriate and important. He answered at length, affirming his intention to do so.
To my surprise, I was approached afterward by Fox News asking if they could come to my home. I agreed, they set up in my dining room, and interviewed me at considerable length on this and other education-related subjects.
The Tax Policy Center revised their earlier analysis on the two campigns tax and revenue policies to address the criticism that what the candidates say on the stump differs from what the campaign staffs had provided, An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidate's Tax Plans. So how much of a difference in cost?
The difference from what McCain saysd on his speeches versus what his campaign staff claims is his economic policy is a whopping $2.9 trillion more over 10 years, and that is from reducing revenues by $7 trillion versus $4.2 trillion. That is a whopping 65% increase in revenue shortfall.
Obama, on the other hand actually increases revenues by $400 billion from the relatively (relatively being key here) modest $2.8 trillion. The Obama plan, as described in speeches, raises reduces tax revenues by just $2.4 trillion over the 1009-2018 period.
2,000 Watts per person per year (or 17,520 kWh) is what we produce now. It is a baseline for sustainability, at least, this is what the scientists of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology believe. This 2,000 Watts includes all activities - working, eating, traveling, and investment in common infrastructure. Currently, Switzerland is a 5,000 Watt society and most other Western European countries are 6,000 Watt societies. The USA and Canada consume 12,000 Watts per person per year.
"At first glance, the objective of a 2,000-watt society appears unrealistic, but the necessary technology already exists," says Moritz Leuenberger, head of the Swiss Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy, and Communications.
As the McCain campaign shows more and more why they will be completely unable to win this fall, it seems to the Dog that we should try to get our heads around what we might be able to accomplish in the first year of the Obama Administration (gods, I love typing that!) . The Dog knows that most of us have a laundry list of items that we hope a new Democratic congress and President will enact, but sadly we have to throw some cold water on those hopes.
So, once again, we're treated to the Republican's typical complaint: The Media is biased against them.
It's not like McCain's made a million gaffes, and had few of them covered. Or is given donuts by the leader of the newswire service upon whom the economizing media relies for more and more material nowadays. Shall we define why the Republicans need the excuse of bias?
I'm back in Paris, and trying belatedly to organise my thoughts after the last 5 days in Austin. Beyond the obvious pleasure for me to see friends I can meet only once a year, I've been trying to get an general impression of what happened at Netroots Nation. I was much impressed by Hunter's wistful and rather pessimistic musings on Thursday, but came reassured by what transpired throughout, and which, in my view, was eloquently summarised by Van Jones in his keynote speech on Sunday morning (it can be viewed here).
I remember 3 core points from what was a truly inspirational moment:
they had their chance, they messed up, "it's our turn (to clean up)"
consequently, the netroots need to move from a (successful) force of opposition to a force of proposition
energy and climate policy is at the heart of the clean up
Space policy made a pretty decent splash at Netroots Nation. We had an excellent panel on space policy, and an excellent platform meeting. For those of you who don't remember, we had Andrew Hoppin moderating, and Chris Bowers, Lori Garver, Patricia Grace Smith, and George Whitesides all speaking. You can about the panelists here.
He said the average consumer would save a "quarter and a nickel" a day, and only $28 in three months.
McCain told a town-hall audience in Denver: "I want to give the American consumer a little bit of relief just for the summer. Maybe they'll be able to buy an additional textbook for their children when they go back to school this fall."
The Dog has been a proponent of gun control for most of his life. It is not that this was a family position that he sucked up with his mother’s milk, no that would have been a hell of a lot easier. No the Dog’s father, a dyed in the wool liberal, was a big advocate for gun ownership, just as his mother, was staunchly against. But as the Dog grew up he learned to shoot and hunt, learned the high level of damage that mishandled weapons caused and made up his own mind on the issue. Then 9/11, the "War on Terror" and real wars in Afghanistan and Iraq came along. The Dog is nothing if not a pragmatic political policy guy; it was very clear that talking any kind of gun regulation in those circumstances was a total loser politically.
Things have changed now. The recent decision by the Supreme Court affirming that the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms is one devolves to the individual citizen give us an opportunity to make changes in our gun laws that not only heal the breach in the Democratic party on this issue, but will remake the gun ownership issue one that is a winner for Dems. How do we achieve this miraculous feat, follow the Dog below the fold and he will tell you.
**Contrary to the comments, the blog -theseeing.wordpress.com, is run by me. Thank You.
As the 2008 Presidential Election heats up, I think it is time to analyze both candidates, thoughtfully. As most people have already seen John McCain (as an aggressive, hawkish, not-in-sync with the public candidate), which is quite true, I think we should also spend some time analyzing Obama. While everyone regards McCain's foreign policy as hawkish and following the steps of the Bush administration, we should also take a look at Obama's stance on foreign policy.
I recently told an Obama supporter that Obama's foreign policy seemed a little 'weird.' She told me to refer to Samantha Power, a foreign policy adviser to Obama.
*Some of you might remember Power as the lady who humorously referred to Hillary Clinton as a "monster."
Thus, I analyzed Samantha Power, and this is what I found:
