Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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At Huffington Post this morning, James Boyce wrote about how good it is to see at least some of our political leaders taking action to stop global warming:

Go West Young Man: And See People Walking The Walk On Global Warming.

Raising awareness on the issue of Global Warming is great, but I, and others, have grown increasingly anxious to see some action.

Kudos to the elected officials in the Western States (and to Governor Bill Richardson especially) for getting their act together and working together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I had the chance to listen in on the conference call announcing this initiative and what struck me was that these leaders are seeing the impact of global warming firsthand. They see the snow melt, the forest fires, they are living through the changes and they are doing something about it... what the Western Climate Initiative proves is that misleading the public is not so easy when the public can see proof you're lying with their own eyes.

A couple more things struck me about the call. Not only was it Western States, but it's two provinces of Canada and, if I understood a comment correctly, soon a province from Mexico was going to join the program.

The other thing that impressed me was the solid work of Bill Richardson here. Now that green is rapidly becoming a favorite color of many politicians, seeing how much work Richardson has actually done on the issue was refreshing. I applaud our leaders in DC for having committee meetings and so forth and setting meetings to have a meeting, but time is running short.

To learn more about the Western Climate Initiative and Governor Richardson's plan for a new energy revolution, click here.

In less than an hour, the first ever presidential candidates forum held on Indian land will begin. According to USA Today's On Politics blog, the Prez on the Rez forum will be taking place at 3:30 PM PDT (6:30 PM EDT) on the Morongo Band of Mission Indians' reservation in Southern California. At the forum will be Native American elected tribal leaders from all around the country. All Democratic candidates were invited to participate in this historic forum, but only three will be showing up to talk about the issues most important to Native American communities everywhere. New Mexico political blogger Heath Haussamen wondered why the rest of the Democratic field "couldn't make time for the first Americans, those who have been stepped on by their government for so long?" He isn't the only one asking this question.

Full Disclosure: I blog at America for Richardson and am an active Bill Richardson supporter. And just because some of the naysayers will ask in the comments, in doing some family history research, at least one of my ancestors was Cherokee.

While the focus in these candidate diaries tends to be on Iraq, health care, energy, education or the environment, tomorrow three of the Democratic candidates will take their campaigns to Indian Country for a first-ever debate.

No, it isn't the co-called frontrunners who are headed to Prez on the Rez in Cabazon, California. Only Bill Richardson, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich care enough about Native American issues to attend this debate. You will likely hear about scheduling conflicts or too many debates from those who can't attend, but the fact is that this event has been planned for months and only Richardson, Gravel and Kucinich have shown the respect necessary to win the Indian vote. And of the three, Bill Richardson has the strongest record on issues that matter most to Native Americans.

Being the sole Democratic candidate for President with executive branch experience, voters can evaluate Bill Richardson from the unique stand point of an actual record of implementing policy on key issues, not merely the speeches he has given.  

On the issue of climate change, Richardson has offered the most aggressive plan of any candidate, proposing to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050.  But will Richardson be true to his word if he's elected President?  Richardson is proving by his actions as Governor of New Mexico on global warming that the answer is yes.

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson


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I like the new site design and have come to enjoy the anticipation of seeing which progressive icon would appear on the upper left hand corner of the screen with the MYDD logo. Just now I was appalled to find the face of Andrew Jackson.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time explaining this; I'll just put it bluntly. Andrew Jackson is to Native Americans as Adolf Hitler is to Jews. Period. "Indian Removal" was the proudest achievement of his presidency.

George Wallace had a lot of progressive policies in the 1960s but I'm guessing I'm never going to see a circa 1963 picture of Wallace  (at the schoolhouse door?) looking down at me from the MYDD home page.

Chris, Jerome, et al.: Please do the right thing and get Andrew Jackson off the masthead!!

Thanks.

Take the poll to choose a replacement. (My apologies if anyone on my list is already there. Also, I'm not familiar with a lot of Native American leaders who are also progressives or I'd have put them down too -- sorry!!)