Congressman Steny Hoyer at Grow the Hope's Economic Empowerment Meeting

Congressman Steny Hoyer, the House Majority Leader, joined Grow the Hope at a meeting to discuss economic empowerment on February 27th, 2010.

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Fight Condescension With Empowerment

Politico is reporting on fallout from the leaked RNC presentation that ridiculed donors and encouraged everything American's have come to hate about politics.

Mark DeMoss, who heads a major Christian public relations firm in Atlanta and served as a liaison to the Evangelical community for Mitt Romney in 2008, wrote Chairman Michael Steele yesterday that he was "ashamed" of the presentation, calling depictions of Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Majority Leader Harry Reid "shameful, immature and uncivil, at best."

The timing of this just happened to coincide with something I have been meaning to write about for a week now: the Maryland Democratic Party's efforts to empower their supporters. At a time when Republican contempt for voters could not be more clear, the MD Dems just happen to be demonstrating the exact opposite.

It started at the beginning of March, when I received a forwarded email from my dear friend, Yvette Lewis:

We are looking to expand the circle to whom we send talking points on important issues, so please feel free to send these talking points to your activists, members, and elected officials. Thanks.

I wrote back to her, immediately:

I'm impressed: "feel free to send these talking points to your activists, members, and elected officials."

Wait what? Some transparency? Putting some power in the hands of activists and members? Who are these people and what have they done with our establishment Democratic party?

It was literally the next day that the RNC presentation was leaked.

And just yesterday, I received another email from Yvette, again with talking points and a note that we should "Feel free to distribute far and wide." (In case folks are curious, here is the most recent talking points <----pdf link)

The MD Dems could not have timed this more perfectly. I was excited enough at the seeming change of policy (most campaigns tend to keep talking points just for staff which always bothered me since your supporters will talk for you whether you give them the proper ammo or not). It may seem innocuous at a glance, but the act of sharing talking points with "activists and members," "far and wide," in contrast to the condescension coming out of the other camp, is far from innocuous indeed.

Health Care and Abortion

I really hate having to come back to this over and over again. Let's get our abortion-and-health-care basics down folks. The Senate bill does nothing to change the standard we have lived by that no federal funding shall be used for abortion.

First off, read the language of the bill. You can check out Huffington Post's brief summary, but seriously, read the abortion language in the bill.

Are we clear? It says, very specifically that there is to be no funding for abortion under the exact same standards we have lived by for decades. The Health and Human Services Secretary can audit the plan to ensure that no federal funding goes to abortion under the exact same standards we have lived by for decades.

If that is true, you ask, why on earth would anti-choice folks lie and spread the falsehood that the bill funds abortion? Because it allows them to push to for provisions that would place radically new restrictions on the right to purchase coverage for abortion with private money. Anti-choice folks have demonstrated, over and over again, their willingness to employ any means to stop abortions. Imagining them having trouble lying, is like imagining a bank robber having a problem with trespassing.

So what should you do when you confront someone who believes the lie? Ask them to prove it. Ask them what in the Senate bill funds abortion. We asked that of the President of Operation Rescue, Troy Newman just before the March for Life in January:



Keep in mind, that is Operation Rescue's President. He is one of the folks leading the anti-choice tantrum against health care. He is not just any old anti-choicer. He is the one telling the everyday anti-choicer that the Senate bill funds abortion, so if anyone should be able to explain how, it's him.

But the everyday anti-choicers can think for themselves, right? I mean, these folks will take the time to check the language themselves before taking Troy Newman's word for it, right?

Sure (this next video is from the day after we spoke with Troy Newman):


As I said, the anti-choice base of the conservative movement has no problem lying to get results. It would be nice if folks in the main stream media would ask these folks to explain how the Senate bill funds abortion. This is not an opinion that the bill does not fund abortion, it is a fact. Our main stream media, so focused on being "fair and balanced," treats this as just another side of the argument, that deserves equal respect. It is not and does not.

ACORN Calls For Retractions

ACORN, the community organization that became the target of conservative hit-man James O'Keefe, is calling on retractions from major news outlets that ran with the story unchallenged.

By now everybody knows that James O'Keefe, the anti-ACORN video stinger, is willing to lie, manipulate, and apparently break the law, in pursuit of his extremist agenda.

They cite quotes from the Brooklyn prosecutors, the first folks outside of the O'Keefe network to view unedited footage, claiming that "They edited the tape to meet their agenda." They go on to chastise the New York times for continuing to report patently false aspects of O'Keefe's account:

As Media Matters columnist Eric Bohlert writes, "the '70s-era, blacksploitation pimp costume was a propaganda tool used to later deceive the public about the undercover operation."[3] If you watched the videos you probably thought he wore that suit inside our offices. He didn't. He dressed as a professional and presented himself as a boyfriend trying to help his girlfriend escape from an abusive pimp, something also noted in former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger's December 2009 investigation of ACORN.[4]

So why, then, does America's newspaper of record, the New York Times, insist in report after report -- as recently as March 1st -- that he presented himself as a pimp in our offices?

And all the while, Hannah Giles is looking for funders to help her fight a multi-million dollar lawsuit aimed at her because of involvement in the stunt.

Green Thoughts: Your Home Ventilation Strategies and ERV Installation [VIDEO]

So for that last few Green Thoughts posts, we've been discussing the importance of sealing down your building shell to ensure that you are keeping and breathing your clean conditioned air inside your home and blocking the dirty, unconditioned air from entering. But that is only the first step and there are other issues that can arise from sealing up all those gaps. Closing your building shell, though vitally important, can actually create other problems in your home that will need fixing. Sealing up all the leaks in your home is great for preventing your the inside conditioned air from mixing with the dirty outside air, but it can prevent air from properly cycling through the home.

You want the air in your home to change several times a day, otherwise you are stuck living in the same stale air all day. When you're in a leaky home, this is going to happen easily, since air is leaking in and out of the house all day. But in a closed down home, the building shell can actually become 'too tight' and prevent the air from cycling enough times everyday. In this video, Jason from Edge Energy discusses ways to ensure that this does not happen to your home. There are several different things you can do, but in this video, Jason will especially mention an ERV, also known as an Energy (or Enthalpy) Recovery Ventilator. An ERV changes the air in your home at a constant level while transferring the heat and energy of the exiting air to the incoming air. This way you can maintain a constant flow of air without overworking and overusing your HVAC system.

To see more Green Thoughts on Thursday posts, please go to www.SumofChange.com/greenthoughts

Full Disclosure: EDGE Energy hired us, as Sum of Change not individuals, to produce several videos for them including the ones in this post. We have not been hired to distribute, recommend, or advertise for EDGE Energy, rather we are using these videos to explain a vital service and we appreciate them letting us do so.

To learn more about the energy audit from Edge and see more of our videos, please go to www.edge-gogreen.com and see Edge's youtube page

Uninsured Medically and in the Faith of our Government

Just watch this video of Tammy Rostov, the owner of Rostov's Coffee and Tea, speaking about the impact of health care on her small business:

A Funny Or Die Economy

You gotta hand it to the folk at Funny or Die for this one. It isn't easy making the economy funny right now.