Don’t believe the hype from the politicians, the bailout is all about politics. Congressional politics, Senatorial politics and most importantly Presidential politics. Two huge aspects of politics that often go unspoken are taking credit and assigning blame. Indeed many of the key policy positions of political parties in the United States and democracies around the world arose from their ability to either take credit or assign blame for actions on issues related to those positions. This bailout is no different, and the way it’s played by both political parties and their respective candidates has the potential to redraw the political map as we know it in this country for a generation to come, if not more, should one side take a bold action.

The current bailout plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has elicited a deep measure of skepticism in the electorate for a number of very poignant reasons. True conservatives absolutely detest spending taxpayer money to bailout anything, with many considering the current plan “financial socialism” as Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning termed it. Liberals aren’t so much turned off by the socialism than by the fact that it’s intended to go to the people in this country who need it the absolute least: Wall Street investment firms. Finally people from across the political spectrum can all think of much, much better things to do with their hard earned $700 Billion than to go and gamble it on a financial industry that has already had a number of bailouts and is still falling apart.

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One of the tamer results...

While writing a post on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s firm position on offshore drilling I ran across something downright disgusting.  Following my usual method, I did a Google Images search using the sole term “Pelosi” to find a photo for the post.  The results were, without mincing words, about sexist as hell, featuring a high ranking official in the United States in a seemingly endless parade of demeaning photoshopped poses and unflattering snapshots.  I was under the mistaken impression it would be easy to find a simple, dignified photograph of the Speaker of the House of the United States to plug into a blog entry, however I was unpleasantly surprised by the sheer vitriol and subject matter in so many of the search results I found.  What made matters worse was that the majority of the sexist photoshopped images were found on right leaning websites.  Sites which since the introduction of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee have surprisingly found their inner feminist, and are suddenly authorities on sexism themselves.  I guess it takes one to know one.

As a male in this society it is easy - too easy - to forget that sexism is still a very real part of life for women in both personal and professional settings.  This photo survey however on the most widely used search tool in the world provided a grim reminder of the backwards, immature, piggish attitudes too many people exhibit toward a highly successful woman in a position of power - and particularly one championing policies running counter to the conservative movement.  So here’s a tour of what’s out there - and trust me when I say it will be offensive…

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Now that the Democrats in the House have changed their minds in the face of what Nancy Pelosi called “the political climate,” they’ve passed a bill that allows drilling 50 miles offshore, which will now make its way to the Senate.

It was only a few weeks ago that “Ms. Pelosi was adamant that she would not clear the way for a House vote on new coastal exploration,” however increased Republican pressure and the whole expensive gas thing has made many Democrats, Pelosi included, attempt to reach a compromise.  As Pelosi said, “if we don’t have something in the bill, it’s drilling three miles offshore.”  The issue of offshore drilling is, says The New York Times, “an issue that has been a Democratic environmental touchstone since the 1980s.”

The bill passed the House 236-189, and allows drilling if states adjacent to the water approve of it.  Now it comes to the Senate, which, according to the Associated Press, “has no intention of going as far as the House in expanding offshore oil and gas drilling beyond the western Gulf of Mexico.”  The Senate may open drilling in the Southern Atlantic (Virginia, Georgia, the like), but seem disinclined to go to the Pacific or Alaska.

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It’s September in Leap Year and that means we’re in the midst of yet another closely contested Presidential campaign in these United States. So here at TakePart we thought it might be a good time to take a look back through the years to the most pivotal and memorable campaign moments to grace the small screen since the inception of television as a mass medium.

They’re not all deep, indeed some of them are downright petty. Some highlight an age in American politics where a quick dig, an easily accessible narrative or simply the impression conveyed by bits of picture and audio substituted for an honest dialogue with the public about the governmental and economic forces which shape their lives. Others show truly thought provoking moments that blend medium and message seamlessly without degrading either.  So here they are…for better or worse…your TakePart Top 10 Presidential Campaign Moment of the Television Age!

10. 1980 Jimmy Carter - Ronald Reagan Debate - “There you go again…”

The 1980 Presidential race between incumbent Jimmy Carter and California Governor Ronald Reagan marked a turning point in politics in this country. It also bears many similarities to the race now at hand between Barack Obama and John McCain in terms of the issues at play, notably energy, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and healthcare. In this moment, Reagan gave a glimpse of the next 28 years of medical care following his election in his dismissive, waving off “There you go again” response to Jimmy Carter bringing up the issue of health coverage for American citizens. An issue that has only gotten progressively worse to this day.

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Change for a dollar doesn’t seem like a particularly profound concept, until you realize that you can create change with that one dollar.  That’s the concept behind million4obama.com and million4mccain.com - just one dollar can go a long way towards making a difference.  How about a little video to show you what I mean:

The goal of the campaign (which, full disclosure, I’m helping with) is to show that with minimal effort - just one measly dollar and one quick vote - we all can have a hand in changing the face of politics.

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The light at the end of a very dark tunnel this year for Republicans has been their call to lift the offshore drilling ban.  Mired in the most unpopular Presidential administration in modern history and dogged by outright failures of leadership including the Iraq War, the sinking economy, Katrina, Guantanamo etc. etc. prospects for the GOP looked very, very dim this year unless they found some way, somehow to reinvent themselves.  As luck would have it, that way turned out to be not much of a stretch at all, as Congressional Republicans took back to their familiar tactic of misleading rather than leading the American public over the need to lift the offshore oil drilling ban currently in place in light of record gas prices.

The facts are the facts, despite the spin and bluster that has been floating around.  As noted by Robert Kauffman of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University in a recent interview with National Public Radio, nobody knows how much oil is available in the portions of the continental shelf covered by the drilling ban until they start drilling but the optimistic projections have the number at 19 billion barrels, or slightly over two years worth at present domestic consumption rates.  What we do know for certain however is that in the best of all possible worlds - if drilling started today - not a drop of oil would come out of these areas until at least five years and it would take a decade for full production to come online.

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I didn’t expect the Republicans to be nice last night, they needed to energize their base and make a strong case against Obama and while they veered farther to the right than I thought they would, what surprised me and actually really angered me was when Rudy Giuliani mentioned that Barack Obama was a community organizer and following which, the crowd and Giuliani both laughed. And after that, Sarah Palin also dogged on Barack’s community organizing..

A group of young Obama supporters. Photo by Barack Obama (Creative Commons)

This I thought was pretty disgusting. Community organizing isn’t easy work, it doesn’t pay well and often yields small results, meaning the person doing the work has to find motivation somewhere other than instant success and change. They have to find motivation in the people they are meeting and truly believe in the grassroots work they are doing. And even if you can’t usually pinpoint it’s success, community organizing is vital to understanding how communities work and what the needs of working people, and low-income people are. And this it seems to me would be an important thing to understand as the President of our country.

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Looking towards the next administration, a large consortium of scientists is urging the next president - whomever it may be - to invest in more research to combat climate change’s effects on the economy. These scientists believe that storms, floods, and droughts could cost the United States $2 trillion if we don’t do something to protect ourselves. Reuters has the story:

The groups, including the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society, urged Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain to support $9 billion in investments between 2010 and 2014 to help protect the country from extreme weather, which would nearly double the current U.S. budget for the area.

Already, things like hurricanes and storms cost the United States billions of dollars a year, so it seems like spending the same amount of money on investment over the course of five years wouldn’t hurt too much. So far, neither campaign has responded to the request.
takepart here to visit We Can Solve It, your first stop on the internet for fighting climate change.

In an update to our post about Stephanie Tubbs Jones, I am sad to announce that the Congreewoman passed away yesterday at the age of 58.

She’s had career to proud of, here are some of the highlights:

• Ms. Tubbs Jones co-sponsored legislative efforts to expand health care coverage for low- and middle-income people and of programs supporting the re-entry of convicts into their communities
• She was the author of legislation requiring certification for mortgage brokers and stiffer penalties for predatory loans.
• In January 2005, Ms. Tubbs Jones joined Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, in initiating a challenge (quite rare) to Congress’ ratification of George W. Bush’s re-election. They objected to accepting Ohio’s 20 electoral votes for Mr. Bush and cited voting irregularities
• Ms. Tubbs Jones voted against emergency supplemental financing for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her reason is stated after the jump.

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U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and lots of white male politicians.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first African-American woman to represent Ohio in Congress, is in critical condition after suffering an aneurysm last night.” She is said to have limited brain function.

Tubbs Jones has long been one of the region’s most recognizable politicians. Often clad in red — the color of her sorority Delta Sigma Theta — she is a regular at parades, senior centers and schools. Her annual Labor Day picnic at Luke Easter Park is a must-stop for any serious Democratic candidate running in the city, county or state. [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

Tubbs Jones is 58 and has served five terms in Congress.

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