National

Sen. Edward Kennedy’s appearance in the Senate recently, in the midst of his personal battle against brain cancer, to break a Republican filibuster against a bill to save Medicare will go down in history. Days later, on July 15, as the result of a 383-41 congressional vote to override a Bush veto the progressive measure became law.

Standing next to a large sign blaring “Fox Your Source for Racist Smears, Hip Hop artist Nas along with ColorofChange.org and MoveOn.org delivered over 617,000 signatures gathered in a month demanding Fox News end biased news reporting. Protesters took particular offense a racial slurs directed at Barack and Michelle Obama.

Barack Obama appeared to have scored a major success in projecting “commander-in-chief” ability and foreign policy savvy in his visits to Afghanistan and Iraq last week, and continued that path as he traveled to Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and then on to Western Europe.

“Recession” just doesn’t seem to adequately describe the hits workers are taking today. In the old days “recession” meant an economic downturn, unemployment and scrimping and cutting back until better days returned. The current super-recession is putting us through much more hell than most of the “recessions” anyone can remember.

A new national scorecard issued by the Commonwealth Fund’s Commission on a High Performance Health System gives failing scores to the U.S. health care system. The U.S. scores an average of 65 out of a possible 100 across 37 key indicators in the areas of health outcomes, quality of care, access, efficiency and equity.

Surrounded by an enthusiastic, multi-racial gathering of union and community residents, Senator John Edwards unveiled his Half in Ten campaign at Steel Point in Bridgeport, Connecticut last Thursday in the hot afternoon sun.

Republican John McCain's touting of superior foreign policy credentials over his Democratic opponent foundered Monday as Iraqi officials pointed to a 2010 deadline for troop withdrawal, an almost identical time table favored by Barack Obama. The Arizona Republican has been opposed to setting any deadline even as the Bush administration itself last week offered “time horizons” marking a 180 degree turn from previous positions.

The several thousand strong Netroots Nation conference ended in Austin Texas on Sunday with a rousing presentation by Van Jones of Green for All who endorsing Al Gore's call for a 10 year plan ending US use of non-renewable energy called for a New Deal approach to aggressively achieving it.

“This is about a new direction for the American people,” said Howard Dean at a rally at the Netroots Nations conference in Austin, Texas over weekend. The Netroots Nation conference gathered some 3000 blogger-activists. Dean was among a number of Democrats attending the four-day long meet, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore. Gore received a number of standing ovations and called on the assembled bloggers to aid a campaign to within a decade insure all energy used in the US is based on renewable sources.