Tell 'em about the dream, Martin.

There are so many events connected to the Civil Rights March on Washington that occurred 45 years ago this day. John Lewis resisting removing references to revolution and Sherman's March in his speech, Malcolm X ridiculing the march as a Kennedy tool, Kennedy staffers camped out by the sound system ready to pull cables if speeches wandered into unapproved territory, a president discouraging Martin King away from economic solutions. All of those events and many more stand out to me. Those and more:

Mounted in the eagle's eye of the Washington Monument, a CBS television camera showed viewers a thick carpet of people on both sides of the half-mile reflecting pool and all around the base of the Lincoln Memorial. At noon, nearly two hours before the rally began, the police estimated the crowd at more than 200,000 .... [T]he numbers reduced observers to monosyllabic joy. Within the movement, the gathering sea of placards and faces produced the most brain-numbing sight since the first ghost fleet of empty buses chugged through Montgomery.

An ancient man reached halfway across the world to fix the historical moment: W.E.B. Du Bois had died in Ghana .... For those who revered Du Bois, news of his death that very morning came as a shockingly appropriate transition. Gone finally was the father of pan-Africanism, the NAACP, and the Negro intelligentsia ....

King faced ... a giant press corps and listeners as diverse as the most ardent supporters of the movement and the stubborn Congress at the other end of the Mall, where by quorum calls sullen legislators "spread upon the Journal" the names of the ninety-two absent members who might have let the march distract them from their regular business. For all these King delivered his address in his clearest diction and stateliest baritone. Ovations interrupted him in the cracks of infrequent oratorical flourish, and in difficult passages small voices cried, "Yes!" and "Right on!" as though grateful and proud to hear such talk. From the front, a woman could be heard to laugh and shout, "Sho 'nuff!" when King told them about the freedom checks that had bounced ....

The crowd responded to the pulsating emotion transmitted from the prophet Amos, and King could not bring himself to deliver the next line of his prepared text, which by contrast opened its lamest and most pretentious section ....

There was no alternative but to preach. Knowing that he had wandered completely off text, some of those behind him on the platform urged him on, and Mahalia Jackson piped up as though in church, "Tell 'em about the dream, Martin." Whether her words reached him is not known. [Source]

Was Blue Dog Jim Cooper There?

Salon.com's Greenwald has been covering the Democratic Party's Blue Dog honeymoon in Denver with corporate sponsor and patron AT&T, which also happens to have a hub in Middle Tennessee and to be represented by Congressman Jim Cooper, who also happens to be one of the bluest Blue Dogs.

Greenwald watchdogs the Blue Dogs:

It was really the perfect symbol for how the Beltway political system functions -- those who dictate the nation's laws (the largest corporations and their lobbyists) cavorting in total secrecy with those who are elected to write those laws (members of Congress), while completely prohibiting the public from having any access to and knowledge of -- let alone involvement in -- what they are doing. And all of this was arranged by the corporation -- AT&T -- that is paying for a substantial part of the Democratic National Convention with millions upon millions of dollars, which just received an extraordinary gift of retroactive amnesty from the Congress controlled by that party, whose logo is splattered throughout the city wherever the DNC logo appears -- virtually attached to it -- all taking place next to the stadium where the Democratic presidential nominee, claiming he will cleanse the Beltway of corporate and lobbying influences, will accept the nomination on Thursday night.

It is really not hard to believe why this Democratic Congress is one of the most unpopular in history. They are shamelessly more connected to corporate money and unabashedly less responsive to their constituents.

Here's the video footage of the salon.com crew's attempts--hindered by private security and police--to get some surveillance of AT&T wooing Democrats to bed:

Yeah, and wealth shouldn't matter, right?


UPDATE: One American Prospect writer scored a ticket to the Blue Dog affair, and sends a dispatch from inside:

Here's a number I started to tally in my notebook before giving up: the list of sponsors (roughly three dozen) scrolling continuously across the flat-screen TVs above the bar at Mile High Station. Almost every industry had a company or trade association on the roll call: Conoco, Novo Nordisc, Citibank, the National Automobile Dealers Association, and the suddenly embattled National Association of Mortgage Bankers were there, to name a few ....

And it must be noted that, on the eve of a convention about to elect the first majority-party African American candidate in history, "A Blue Night in Denver" was noticeably white. Of course, there is only one African American Blue Dog in Congress -- Georgia's David Scott -- and a mere handful of Latinos, including California's Loretta Sanchez and Colorado's John Salazar ....

If there's not much color in the coalition, neither is there much estrogen -- of the 47-member Blue Dog coalition, only six are women. Of these, two are rookies -- Arizona's Gabrielle Giffords and New York's Kirsten Gillibrand -- and a third who only won her first full term last cycle: South Dakota's Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who won a special election first before being re-elected in 2006. Perhaps the coalition will change in time with the infusion of these newer, younger members and more input from women.

I asked Democratic pollster and women's vote expert Celinda Lake about this as we strolled along downtown Denver's 16th Street pedestrian walkway. "I think that women voters and women Democrats believe in a proper role for government, and the corporate stuff is a bit of a turnoff," said Lake. "Even the women in the coalition have the most progressive voting records for Blue Dogs, by far."

Obama's Challenge: Playing Catch-up to More Progressive America

While Obama's poll numbers have headed south the harder he runs to what his campaign assumes is the partisan center, a DMI study finds that middle class voters are ahead of the curve on which he lags:

Middle-class voters are split on the presidential race (about half leaning toward McCain and half to Obama) but there’s a lot of agreement around public policy with strong support for progressive measures. 75% of middle-class respondents think a universal national health insurance plan is an excellent or good idea. 71% want to see a law requiring employers to provide paid family and medical leave. 78% wish their representative in Congress had voted to expand SCHIP (health coverage for uninsured low- and middle-income kids). 68% say their rep should have voted to make it easier for people to organize labor unions. (the list goes on – check out the poll report itself).

While Democrats and folks planning to vote for Obama tended to support these policies most strongly, all the policies mentioned above get a majority of support from Republicans and McCain supporters as well.

DMI also discovers that Congress is able to vote against many progressive and popular initiatives because the elected representatives fail to communicate effectively with their constituents:

If these policies are so popular, why isn’t the nation moving in a more progressive direction? One problem is that most middle-class Americans don’t know how their members of Congress actually voted on the issues in question. While two-thirds of middle-class adults say they try to follow what Congress is doing at least somewhat closely, most get very few communications from their representatives. 72% cannot name a single piece of legislation passed by Congress in the past two years that has benefited them or their families. In part, this reflects a grim assessment of Congress’ efficacy. But it also says something about the lack of connection between the nation’s legislators and their middle-class constituents. 68% of middle-class adults would like their rep to support taxing hedge fund managers at the same rate as others in their income bracket. But 69% don’t know if that’s how their rep actually cast the vote. It’s hard to hold your representative accountable if you don’t know what they’re up to.

Netroots Dispatch: Clarke Hammers away at Homeland Security Apparatchiks

Richard Clarke tells a conference of lefty bloggers that we should worry over the junta of military intelligence and private defense contractors running this country's homeland security apparatus:

[He had] sharp words for the Department of Homeland Security, which he cited as lacking transparency and oversight from Congress. “Congress has done a horrible job of overseeing Homeland Security,” he said. “And so has the media.” He touched on what he called the ‘industrial intelligence complex” — thousands of private companies that now do the work of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

“There are literally thousands of people in the for profit sector who are doing this work and we don’t know what the contracts are worth and there is no oversight — it’s totally out of control,” he said.

There seems to be rather old-style soviet quality to the growing power of the commissars at the federal level, and the lily-livered Democratic Congress seems loath to check it.  Clarke is one of the most knowledgeable and reputable figures on homeland security.  We ignore him at our own peril.

Unfettered Competition May Just as Easily Lead to Lobbyists as It Does to Excellence

A couple of years ago the University of Chicago lost its exclusive no bid contracts for two famous national labs when the Energy Department decided to open the bidding process to private companies.  Did U. of C. find a way to strive harder to keep the contracts (which had been assured by the fiat of former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert)?  Nope.  They hired a lobbyist to leverage support in the U.S. Congress.  If you've got lobbyists, you don't need to work harder to compete and to produce excellent results.  Lobbyists are to competitive edge what tenure is to job security.

There's Room for Him, Too

There are some liberal bloggers still left who are fighting Congress's attempt to excuse their corporate donors from obeying the law just like everyone else.

Can we add the likeness of Tennessee's Jim Cooper to the bottom of this poster, too?

Democrats Will Sell Their Votes to the Highest Bidder

Further confirmation (via Maplight) that Democrats have no claim on the moral highground:

Comparing Democrats' Votes (March 14th and June 20th votes):

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint gave PAC contributions averaging:

$8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems)
$4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems)

88 percent of the Dems who changed to supporting immunity (83 Dems of the 94) received PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint during the last three years (Jan. 2005-Mar. 2008).

The telecoms are not getting immunity because it is the right thing to do. They are getting immunity because they outspent the ACLU and bought Democratic votes. This is why national elections, like the one coming up in November are generally moot. Little will change, because the PACs have already determined who is going to win: private corporations are going to win because they have more money than anyone else.

Thanks, Michael Silence

In the past 12 hours, I've had around 1,000 visitors because of Michael Silence's link to my blurb on the alleged hacking of Jim Cooper.  I don't think I've ever had 1,000 visitors overnight before.  A lot of them looked connected with local governments and co-ops around the country.  I'm grateful for the Silence.


UPDATE:  Just past 5:00 and I've had over 1,000 visitors since midnight (1,600 pageloads).  That's the biggest one day Enclave visitors total since Valentines Day 2006, when I posted pictures I took of Carrie Underwood (not knowing who she was) shooting a music video Downtown.

Flew the Coop

Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper is [allegedly] under FBI investigation on charges of unauthorized entrance to a cooperative electric trade group's website. That is a rather interesting way of gathering information for congressional hearings.



CLARIFICATION:  I have added above that the investigation is only reported because there is no confirmation from the FBI that they are investigating Jim Cooper.  In a post I wrote today (Friday) referring to this post, I did describe the hack job in question as "alleged," which is more factual.


UPDATE:  Outgoing Scene editor Liz Garrigan chides us to get a grip on Mr. Cooper's squeaky clean reality.

Representing Someone Else

Jim Cooper's aversion to bringing home infrastructure bacon to Metropolitan Davidson County leads him to fight for reform in the Texas Hill Country. I know there were a number of Tennessee volunteers who died at the Alamo, but can't Texans fight their own utilities battles without the help of our member of Congress? When does paying our own Representative to become someone else's Davy Crockett become itself a wasteful federal earmark or a bridge to no where?

Obama Talks Cities with Mayors

Harry Moroz has the dispatch from Barack Obama's speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, an event that John McCain has decided to avoid:

Senator Obama used Senator McCain’s absence from the meeting to draw distinctions between what he called his willingness to partner with cities and Senator McCain’s “other” priorities. He attacked Senator McCain’s criticism of the COPS program and Community Development Block Grant funding, both of which are major priorities for mayors. Later, he cited Senator McCain’s opposition to funding for the Highway Trust Fund (which is quickly being depleted of funds) and took a shot at Senator McCain’s opposition to funding for levies. Both he and Senator McCain were appalled by the devastation from floods in the Midwest, Senator Obama assured us, but McCain would could not truly understand the devastation because of his opposition to such funding.

Obama’s final shot took aim at Senator McCain’s tiresome talk about pork barrel spending. There is a difference, Obama suggested, between pork barrel spending and national priorities.

Obama called for a new vision of cities, one that recognizes the growth of both cities and metro areas (here he cited statistics generated by Brookings and later mentioned the head of the think tank’s Metropolitan Policy Program, Bruce Katz, by name). Strong cities, Senator Obama suggested, are the backbone of regional growth and regional growth the source of national prosperity.

None of the programs that Barack Obama is promising the Mayors to fund is a left-wing, Great Society or New Deal outlier. The Community Develop Block Grant program was created by Republicans as an alternative to domestic welfare-type initiatives. COPS was a product of the Clinton presidency, and thus influenced by conservative leadership wings of the Democratic Party. Republican Presidents Reagan and Bush I raised taxes for the highway trust fund, so it must have been a high priority for them.

We've shifted too far right if such modest programs for our urban areas generate any opposition. They are promises that Obama should be accountable for, but they are not boldly progressive. They are merely an acceptable start.

As for Obama's drawing a distinction between pork barrel spending and national priorities: hopefully Tennessee Congressman and Obama supporter, Jim Cooper (who has sworn off all earmarks in the recent past) is listening to him on that point. It would be a shame if the next President was more of an advocate for programs that support Metro Nashville than our own elected representative.

The "Democratic" Congress Joined the President to Sell Us Down the River

Democrats abdicate and compromise Americans' right to redress grievances and violations through the court system to George W. Bush and Big Telecom. As always, AT&T wins, and I have to assume that our own Blue Dog Congressman Jim Cooper (a "Joe Lieberman" by any other name?) has been promoting this "compromise" for his big-ticket constituents in the Batman Building:

The proposal allows a district judge to examine what are believed to be dozens of written directives given by the Bush administration to the phone companies after the Sept. 11 attacks authorizing them to engage in wiretapping without warrants. If the court finds that such directives were in fact provided to the companies that are being sued, any lawsuits “shall be promptly dismissed,” the proposal says.

Even Democratic officials, who had initially opposed giving legal immunity to the phone companies, conceded there was a high likelihood that the lawsuits would have to be dismissed under the standards set out in the proposal. That possibility infuriated civil liberties groups, which said the cursory review by a district judge would amount to the de facto death of the lawsuits.

Thanks to Congress, Viceroy Chertoff Does Not Have to Face the Appeals Process Over Taking Land for a Border Wall

The question of whether Congress can simply abdicate its oversight (and that of the appellate process) of presidential power is jumping the appeals process and going straight to the Supreme Court. Our U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper (D-Nashville) voted in favor of abdication to George W. Bush in 2005. I wonder if he would vote the same way today?

At least one Supreme Court Justice seems to dissent from Mr. Cooper's position:

“It is no answer, of course, to say that Congress surrendered its authority by its own hand,” he wrote. “Abdication of responsibility is not part of the constitutional design.”

Justice [Anthony] Kennedy made a broader point, too, one perhaps more apt today than it was 10 years ago.

“Separation of powers was designed to implement a fundamental insight,” he wrote. “Concentration of power in the hands of a single branch is a threat to liberty.”

Security Chief Can Put Fence Wherever He Wants and a Tennessee Dem's Vote Helped Give Him That Power

In 2005 the U.S. Congress gave Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff the absolute power to determine where any fence needs to be built without regard to laws, courts, constitutional rights, or environmental hazards. Now comes word that the Sierra Club has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court challenging Chertoff's despotic waiver privilege. He has built controversial fencing in California and Arizona, and now he is aiming at Texas.

Bills abdicating check-and-balancing responsibilities to Chertoff were passed by the House of Representatives on two occasions: one as the Real ID act, which did not make it to the Senate, and the other as a rider on a military spending bill, which was passed into law by all 100 Senators. U.S. Representative Jim Cooper (D-Nashville) voted for both the act and the rider.

Rather Dubious Company

Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper finds himself in league with Marsha Blackburn and Bob Corker. Republicans are singing his praises. And how should Democrats respond? Will we ever see federal money come to local infrastructure again?

Cooper Only Went Half the Way on Middle Class Legislation in 2007

Middleclass.org released its report cards for our federal elected representatives this week on their performance on legislation that is either for or against middle class growth. Since there is no middle ground for Republicans, I expected our Tennessee Senators to fail (and at less than 20% of pro-middle class legislation voted for so far, it looks like Bob Corker is locked in to fail again this year).

However, I would expect better from Democrats like U.S. Representative Jim Cooper. Yet, in 2007, Mr. Cooper only voted for middle class bills half the time (getting himself graded a "C"). A list of issue areas with links to bills and Mr. Cooper's voting record on middle class bills back to 2003 after the jump.