Rep. Joe Sestak jumped into the PA Senate race yesterday, challenging newly Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter.
I don’t know if he actually intended to announce his candidacy yesterday — after all it was a handwritten letter (below) that was leaked to TalkingPointsMemo.com:
The note says, “I am writing you as especially dear supporters to let you know I intend to run for the U.S. Senate…my candidacy’s credibility will have much to do with my fundraising success by the 30 June FEC filing deadline at the end of this quarter. Would you help me bring the change for the future we Pennsylvanians need[?]”
Despite Obama’s efforts to clear the field in the wake of Senator Specter’s party switch, Representative Sestak still decided to run. This is important — it will foster a real debate and will give primary a voters a choice, possibly forcing Specter to move to the left and come around on EFCA and healthcare reform.
Rep. Sestak said, “We have to ask the question will [Specter] be with the right policies that our president has put out there… There’s too much doubt in my mind not to have the intent right now to get in this race, pending just a little time with my family to make sure we’re all together.”
Rep. Sestak visited us in the Spring of ‘08 and we look forward to hosting both him and Sen. Specter on campus next semester.
Our jaws all dropped at the surprising news: Philadelphia Senator Arlen Specter has switched parties. He is now a Democrat, giving the Democrats 59 seats in the Senate, 1 away from the fillibuster-proof 60. When Al Franken of Minnesota is finally seated, the Dems will be up to 60.
What does this mean for the Denocratic party? Well, first of all, it’s important to note that the significance of the Dems’ 60 seats is only apparent if all senators vote along party lines. However, this news-breaking story of the day could also be seen as a referendum on Obama’s 100 days in office. (Today is his 100th day, and this seems to be an excellent way to celebrate it.) Sen. Specter voted in favor of Obama’s stimulus bill, and was one of only 3 Republicans to do so, leading to questions about whether the party would fully support his re-election.
Dylan Loewe, Democratic political strategist, notes on the Huffington Post that, “Specter’s decisions to switch parties was based, above all else, on survival. Specter will almost assuredly claim the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat in 2010, and should defeat Toomey easily in a general election matchup in a state where Obama won by ten points. But whatever the personal politics, the most significant consequence of his decision will be the events it sets in motion.”
Sen. Specter’s choice also gives him a significant increase in power. He will now be one of the more moderate Democrats in the Senate, and thus party leaders can be expected to seek his vote intently. Though I do not expect him to start voting entirely on his new party’s lines, it seems natural that his upcoming voting record will become slightly more liberal as he is courted by his Democratic collegues.
What does this mean for the Penn Dems? Obviously, we support Democratic candidates in general elections, and occasionally endorse in primaries. While we will not make any decisions about possible endorsements for a while, we are certainly happy to celebrate that the Democratic party has had a wonderful day, and that Arlen Specter’ decision seems to confirm that the GOP is losing it’s support.
Unlike the author of this piece, I feel that Obama’s passion for science is a real plus. I may be biased as the Penn Dems resident director/nerd, but a culture of anti-intellectualism is developing in this country that is going to do serious long term damage. We have spent eight years relying on “gut instinct” and “moral directives” and as a result this country is widely regarded as incompetent and immoral. A little hard evidence would do this country good as it has in generations past. Our strength has never been our gut instincts, but the unrivalled power of our science. We devise technical solutions to problems that baffle other nations. It will be good to put a little more faith in our peerless scientific institutions.
It will be very interesting to see what happens in the near future regarding the torture issue. After the release of previously classified documents detailing brutal interrogation techniques, the uproar in the U.S. (and abroad) has intensified; people are calling for the heads of members of the Bush Administration on a platter. Obama has stated publicly that those who committed acts of torture (with orders from above) should be exempted from prosecution, but the officials who wrote legal documents okaying the use of torture may be prosecuted if Attorney General Holder decides to do so.
I think this makes a lot of sense. People like John Yoo used their positions in the Justice Department to write legal memos that, while clearly against American ideals and mostly illegal, gave dubious guidelines on how to interpret laws. This resulted in the egregious overstepping of humanitarian boundaries that are a core part of the agenda of the U.S. , and now someone has to pay. The interrogators themselves shouldn’t be prosecuted; while their actions were morally bereft and cast a shadow upon their country, they were acting within guidelines sent from above that classified questionable techniques (such as waterboarding) as legal. It is far more important to set an example within the government, discouraging abuses of power like those committed under the Bush Administration.
Only time will tell if justice is done; if it isn’t, then this issue of morality will fall on Obama’s lap, and he will have to share the burden with his predecessor.
The push for a more sustainable America gained more momentum today as President Obama announced plans to lease federal waters to be used to produce energy through wind and currents. I was lucky enough to be at the first middle class task force meeting a few months ago where the focus was on energy independence and green jobs. It has been clear from the start that Obama’s campaign promise of an era of responsibility does not apply just to freeing Washington from the hands of lobbyists but to creating a sustainable country. The new initiative announced today is just the beginning of the president’s call for “a comprehensive energy plan that encourages the development of alternative fuel sources, cuts dependence on foreign oil, addresses climate change, and creates new jobs”. President Obama has brought attention to an issue that has been ignored or discounted by critics who believe that the US will have to decide between the environment and the economy. Through the stimulus bill and Obama’s latest initiative, energy independence and environmental conservation, the president has made it clear that the country does not need to choose.
“There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility.” - Teddy Roosevelt
The greatness of our nation depends on our generation retaining a sense of moral responsibility - to leave our planet and our founding principles intact for the future generations. The arbitrary application of rights supposedly retained by all persons is repugnant and unacceptable.
Notre Dame University recently invited President Barack Obama to give their commencement speech and receive an honorary degree just like George W. Bush and many other presidents before him. After the initial invitation was extended and subseqently accepted by President Obama, Ten Priests from the Holy Cross Religious Order (The order of priests that founded Notre Dame University) spoke out strongly against the invitation and called on the University to withdraw the offer. The president of Notre Dame went on to say in response that they couldn’t simply withdraw an invitation to the President of the United States after he accepted. Although this is an understandable response, he has gotten an unanticipated amount of backlash.
Websites such as www.stopobamanotredame.comand calls from organizations such as the American Life League for withdrawal of Notre Dame from the list of official Catholic Institutions has sent a cold shiver down the necks of many progressive Catholics throughout the country; including those students at Notre Dame. A recent poll of the student body shows that 73% of enrolled students and 97% of graduating seniors approve of the invitation.
This again shows the cultural and generational divide within the catholic faith and the student poll could prove promising for the hopefully progressive future of the catholic religion. This video of Hardball from this last week shows the two sides of the argument when it comes to the political parties and the catholic religion. Pat Buchanan and Lawrence O’Donnell show that Catholics should disagree with aspects of both parties and thus base their party loyalty based upon issues that effect their everyday lives and not wedge issues that the legislature has no power to control.
The importance of electing an experienced, knowledgeable, and progressive DA like Seth Williams has never been so clear to me as it was yesterday as I left prison for the last time. No, I was not myself incarcerated. I am taking Professor Marie Gottschalk’s PSCI 435, a class taught inside the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center (PICC) and in which half students are from Penn students and half are inmates at the jail (for a scratch-the-surface story on the class, see this article from the DP). Yesterday was our last class at PICC. As I said final goodbyes to my fellow classmates who, instead of heading to Spring Fling will be spending the weekend in their cells, I wondered how a college student like me, with no real voice or power, could make any real impact on the philosophy, bureaucracy, and industry of mass incarceration. A small but critical step at the local level, I believe, is electing progressive Democrats committed to reform.
As Seth Williams says, “the criminal justice system is broken,” and it is time for new leadership to make the progressive changes to fight both the moral injustices as well as the detrimental economic and social impacts the American incarceration system has on our society. In a nation with the highest incarceration rate in the world (both per capita as well as in absolute numbers), Philadelphia has the highest incarceration rate of any American city. I could go on and on with alarming statistics about how this negatively affects our economy, our social capital, our conceptions of citizenship and equality, and the individual lives of thousands of Philadelphians. However, a lesson I took from Professor Gottschalk’s extraordinary class is not only that awareness and knowledge are critical to understanding the problem, but also that a solution requires courageous public servants willing to challenge the status quo.
Seth Williams is one such courageous public servant. Seth understands that a multi-dimensional approach is necessary to combat crime justly and effectively. By “assigning a prosecutor to every neighborhood,” Seth will restructure the DA’s office to make it more responsive to community needs and focused on the most violent offenders. In addition, Seth will work to reduce recidivism through programs such as “Back On Track,” an effort started by progressive Democrat and San Francisco DA Kamala Harris, to turn first-time offenders away from a life of crime. Seth also understands the expensive and socially destructive problem of overcrowding in Philadelphia’s prison system. In pursuit of a more efficient and more just approach, Seth will work to identify which offenders it makes sense to keep locked up, and which have committed only minor, nonviolent offenses for which very long sentences make little sense from any perspective.
If you care about having a safe city and a just society, please check out Seth Williams’s plans for Philadelphia: http://www.votesethwilliams.com/where-seth-stands. And on May 19th, be sure to get out and vote for Seth, a progressive with experience, understanding, and a plan for change.
This is a video that outlines the issue pretty effectively. Although it is around 6 years old, the facts and message are accurate.
For 73 years the Social Security System has been a safety net for the senior citizens in this country. They have paid throughout their lives but now their investment is being threatened. There are now more people in the Social Security System than ever before and it is doomed to perish if change isn’t enacted in the near future. All that it will take, though, is a simple restructuring to even the wealthy biased tax code. There is a provision in the Social Security Tax that only income under $102,000 will be taxed and all income earned above that cap is exempt from this tax. Who does this help? It is a provision that provides an advantage to a privileged group of our society that is without need of assistance. President Obama’s proposed policy of a phased lift of this provision of the Social Security Payroll Tax to 2-4% will begin the equalization of our nation’s wealth and make the Social Security system sustainable far into the future.
The gap between the rich and the poor has been steadily increasing and according to The New York Times, the middle class’s real wage has consistently dropped since 1973 while the rich are increasingly gaining the majority of our country’s wealth. 90% or our country’s wealth is now in the hands of 10% of our country’s elite. Warren Buffet, the billionaire Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, pays only 16% of 34 million dollar income in taxes while his secretary pays 35% of her earnings in income taxes. The dichotomy between the rich and the poor is an unnecessary evil in our prosperous country and can only be reversed through small steps toward equality. A partial lift of the cap on the Social Security Payroll Tax is the first step to a fairer and more equal nation.
Along with the wage gap between the rich and the poor, the fact is that the social security system will go bankrupt in the near future without fundamental change. It is reported by Newsweek that the Social Security System will be losing money by 2018 and bankrupt by 2041. It is a pay-as-you-go system that has a trust fund that was paid into throughout the baby boomer era. It would have a surplus of $2.3 trillion but through the power of government, that money is now in the form of Treasury Bonds to the United States government who used the money to pay down the National Debt. This is a social system started during the great depression to help the elderly avoid soup kitchens and homelessness. It is a forced savings system to avoid the pitfalls of an ever corrupt and volatile investment market. By making those with income more than $102,000 pay a little more with a 2-4% increase in the social security payroll tax, President Obama will ensure the survival of the social security system for our generation.
Want to get involved in PennDems? E-mail us anytime this summer to touch base at info@penndems.org. We can tell you about PennDems, how you can join our Board or Deputy Board during your freshman year, or answer questions about classes, professors, etc.
