Help Elizabeth Warren win!

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This deadline matters 1 message

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Mindy Myers, ElizabethWarren.com	Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 10:31 AM
Reply-To: info@elizabethwarren.com
This is the most important deadline we've got.  View Mobile Version Virginia, For most people, a June 30th fundraising deadline doesn't mean a whole lot. But for us, this is the most important deadline we've got. This deadline is about more than sending paperwork to a government office building. It's about planning what the critical next four months of Elizabeth's campaign are going to look like. We truly believe: This race won't be won by a last-minute cash infusion in October. It's going to be won by the person who invests in a ground game now. Your support helps our team hire more organizers, recruit more volunteers, and go door-to-door in every corner of the Commonwealth, talking to people about the choice they have in this election. That's how Elizabeth will win. We can't make those investments without your help. Will you please chip in $15 -- or whatever you can afford -- by our deadline at midnight tonight? We can't kid ourselves: Scott Brown still has a big fundraising advantage right now -- and he's been getting money from Wall Street like a fire hose is aimed in his direction. But Elizabeth's got one thing he doesn't have: You. This deadline matters. Thank you for doing your part. Mindy Myers Campaign Manager Elizabeth for MA   Follow Elizabeth on Facebook   Follow Elizabeth on Twitter

Secretary of State Clinton arrives in Russia (video)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton embodies gravitas as she arrives in Russia. Watch the video:

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare

One cannot begrudge the affirmation of the right of all Americans to health care coverage as provided in the Affordable Health Care Act, upheld this morning by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Washington Post offers complete coverage of the decision and how the provisions of this landmark healthcare act will continue to unfold:

The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s health care law, including the most disputed part: the mandate that virtually all Americans have health insurance or pay a fine. The mandate was upheld under the federal government’s power to levy taxes.

The ruling put some limits on the law’s plan to expand the Medicaid insurance program for the poor, a joint effort of the federal government and states. It says the U.S. government cannot threaten to withhold a state’s entire Medicaid allotment if it doesn’t participate in the expansion.

Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s four liberal justices — Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — to form the 5-4 majority.

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Urging leaders to tell the truth in an era dominated by social media

It’s Sunday morning, and a good question for the day is “What would happen if leaders told their followers the truth?” Tom Friedman at the NY Times concludes that the radical notion of truth telling by our leaders may be the best response to the rise of popularism in the era of Facebook and Twitter. Friedman’s column begins:

TRAVELING in Europe last week, it seemed as if every other conversation ended with some form of this question: Why does it feel like so few leaders are capable of inspiring their people to meet the challenges of our day? There are many explanations for this global leadership deficit, but I’d focus on two: one generational, one technological.

Let’s start with the technological. In 1965, Gordon Moore, the Intel co-founder, posited Moore’s Law, which stipulated that the processing power that could be placed on a single microchip would double every 18 to 24 months. It’s held up quite well since then. Watching European, Arab and U.S. leaders grappling with their respective crises, I’m wondering if there isn’t a political corollary to Moore’s Law: The quality of political leadership declines with every 100 million new users of Facebook and Twitter.

The wiring of the world through social media and Web-enabled cellphones is changing the nature of conversations between leaders and the led everywhere. We’re going from largely one-way conversations — top-down — to overwhelmingly two-way conversations — bottom-up and top-down. This has many upsides: more participation, more innovation and more transparency. But can there be such a thing as too much participation — leaders listening to so many voices all the time and tracking the trends that they become prisoners of them?

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On Sandusky’s conviction: victim’s mother, “Nobody wins. We’ve all lost”

As with the Catholic Church, the trial of Jerry Sandusky has revealed how the reputation of an institution too often takes  precedence over the protection of young children from sexual abuse. (Penn State Logo on right.)

Jerry Sandusky’s conviction and possible life imprisonment does not alleviate the harm his victims have suffered. The mother of Victim 6 knew this when she responded to the guilty verdict concluding Sandusky’s trial: “Nobody wins. We’ve all lost.”

The AP reports:

Jerry Sandusky was convicted Friday of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years, accusations that shattered the Happy Valley image of Penn State football and led to the firing of Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno.

Sandusky showed little emotion as the verdict was read. The judge ordered him to be taken to the county jail to await sentencing in about three months. He faces the possibility of life in prison.

IN PICTURES: Fallout from the Penn State scandal

The judge revoked Sandusky's bail and ordered him jailed. In court, Sandusky half-waved toward family as the sheriff led him away. Outside, he calmly walked to a sheriff's car with his hands cuffed in front of him.

As he was placed in the car, someone yelled at him to "rot in hell." Others hurled insults and he shook his head no in response.

The accuser known in court papers as Victim 6 broke down in tears upon hearing the verdicts in the courtroom. Afterward, a prosecutor embraced him and said, "Did I ever lie to you?"

The man, now 25, testified that Sandusky called himself the "tickle monster" in a shower assault. He declined to comment to a reporter afterward.

His mother said: "Nobody wins. We've all lost."

Almost immediately after the judge adjourned, loud cheers could be heard from a couple hundred people gathered outside the courthouse as word quickly spread that Sandusky had been convicted. The group included victim advocates and local residents with their kids. Many held up their smartphones to take pictures as people filtered out of the building.

Eight young men testified in a central Pennsylvania courtroom about a range of abuse, from kissing and massages to groping, oral sex and anal rape. For two other alleged victims, prosecutors relied on testimony from a university janitor and then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary, whose account of a sexual encounter between Sandusky and a boy of about 10 ultimately led to the Paterno's dismissal and the university president's ouster.

Sandusky did not take the stand in his own defense.

After the verdict was announced, defense attorney Karl Rominger said it was "a tough case" with a lot of charges and that an appeal was certain. He said the defense team "didn't exactly have a lot of time to prepare."

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Hillary celebrates the color purple (video)

This YouTube video shows Hillary Clinton demonstrating her sense of humor while swearing in her Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs, Mike Hammer.Subscribe to the Associated Press: http://bit.ly/APYouTube

(When I watched the video at YouTube, it was preceded by a very toxic ad attacking President Obama. Whatever our politics, we should refrain from such maliciousness. You do have the option of skipping the ad, which I advise.)

The “unspeakably boring election so far”

2008: McCain vs. Obama.

2012: Romney vs. Obama.

Confession: when I read Roger Simon’s post at Politico this morning titled “The ‘meh’-ing of the president,” I had to Google the meaning of  'meh' in the urban dictionary, and I quote: “An interjection used to imply indifference towards a subject; ‘verbal shrug’.

Well, yeah, the 2012 presidential campaign is boring, but not more so, I would argue, than the general election became in 2008 after the Democratic primary ended, and we were subjected to the sparring between Obama and McCain, spiced up occasionally by Biden’s gaffes and Palin’s naïve pizzaz.

Anyway, Simon’s injection of humor into the boring, if not tragically uninspiring, presidential campaign of 2012 between Obama and Romney offers momentary relief and encourages reflection on our choices this November. Simon asks:

Where is the fun? Where is the excitement? Where is the sheer heart-pounding, loin-stirring, thrill-going-up-the-leg tingle that is the hallmark of a U.S. presidential race?

Nowhere. The New York Times Magazine made it official Sunday on its “Meh List,” which each week catalogs those aspects of American life that are unspeakably boring.

And there it was at No. 3: “The election so far.”

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