GREAT BEND, Kan. - At the 2000 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, an unknown State Senator from Illinois with a funny name attended the convention, but could not even snare a floor pass to the convention. The State Senator had recently gotten crushed 61% to 30% in a Congressional race in Illinois, and had no discernible future in politics.

Eight years later that unknown State Senator was elected President of the United States. Obama was cocky and foolish to challenge Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) in 2000. But Obama seems to have a habit of trying something audacious, getting crushed, but then making a comeback against all odds.

When Obama, a relative newcomer to the U.S. Senate, challenged Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President, he was written off by many as an overconfident upstart. When he stunned everyone by winning the Iowa caucuses, he got overconfident in New Hampshire a few days later -- and lost.

WICHITA, Kan. - Like many other progressives, I voted for President Obama with the hope that he could facilitate positive change. But, alas, on issue after issue, Obama has been playing a one-note samba titled "Let the corporations have their way." The guy who was elected because he was "from the outside" has put in place a team that seems to be full of insiders.

In regard to our expectation that Obama would rein-in the banking industry, it's frustrating to find out the banking industry is not only fighting rule changes, but virtually the same rules and same people are still in place that led to our economic crisis.

I agree with Thomas Jefferson, who said, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

HAYS, Kan. - Those of you who have followed the stories I've written at EverydayCitizen.com (such as this one) regarding Mabel Rawlinson may remember that finally last summer President Obama signed a bill authorizing the U.S. Congress to award her with a Congressional Gold Medal.

In World War II, over 1,100 women, called the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), were trained to fly for the Air Force. All 1,100 of the WASP will be honorees at the ceremony this week in Washington DC.

Of course, Mabel won't be there. I will go in her place. Mabel died in 1943 in the cockpit of her Air Force bomber. Only 38 of these brave women died in service to the country. My mother's sister, Mabel Rawlinson, was one of those 38 fallen heroes.

Wednesday morning, my heart will be heavy as I enter the United States Capitol building.

ELLIS, Kan. - Two Kansas politicians have been getting the kind of media attention in the last week that should make citizens of this state cringe with embarrassment. One of these Kansas politicians is a sitting U.S. Senator, and the other one wants to be.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Listening to senate subcommittees discuss amendments can serve as wake-up calls for citizens interested in learning about government spending and whether or not their legislators engage in pork barrel spending.

Here is one example that shows how a Republican lawmaker believes in and supports pet projects that cost tax payers millions of dollars.

The following text was taken from such a meeting held Aug. 4 when Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) bucked majority votes and still came out with a victory for his earmarks.

HAYS, Kan. - My, oh my, oh my. Are the talking heads ever having a gabfest over President Barack Obama's proposed new budget. But I look at it this way. It took President George W. Bush eight years to tax-cut and spend us into this giant hole we're in, and it'll take the current President eight years to tax and save us out of it. And he won't win any popularity contests in the process.

GREAT BEND, Kan. - A corporation is not a person. A corporation is a piece of paper filed with the Secretary of State's office. As has been said many times: "A corporation has no body to throw into jail nor soul to throw into hell."

The U.S. Supreme Court, all nine of them, will tell you that the idea that a corporation is a person is a "legal fiction." Although a corporation is not a flesh-and-blood person, the U.S. Courts have ruled for a hundred years that they are "fictional persons" and thus have the same rights as you and I.

Republican economist Milton Friedman, when asked if corporations had any duty other than to make money for stockholders, replied: "No." In other words: "Send American jobs overseas, raid the pension plans of American workers - don't feel guilty corporate officers, because you don't have to have morals."

Politicians from both parties - from Thomas Jefferson to Theodore Roosevelt to Jim Hightower - have railed against the dangers of unfettered corporate power. The Democratic party was always the last line of defense to make sure that "We the People" were never drowned out by big corporations.

And then a terrible thing happened.

UPDATE: Due to technical difficulties, the broadcast of the Howard Dean interview will be postponed until February 11th. Apologies for the change. Since the original files were video, not audio, problems arose in transferring the files. The Nation is sending DVDs which I will use to broadcast.

MANHATTAN, Kan. - The Nation has given permission to Community Bridge to broadcast three seminars from last month's cruise that were reported here on the pages of the Kansas Free Press.

This week on Community Bridge, following my interview with Curt Brungardt on Jana's Campaign to End Domestic Violence, we will broadcast Is there an Obama doctrine in Foreign Policy?

Foreign policy panelThe panel features Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, as moderator, with panelists: Robert Scheer, editor Truthdig.com; Steve Cohen, American scholar of Russian studies and professor of Russian Studies and History at New York University; Gov. Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont and Chair of the Democratic Party; and, William Greider, author of numerous books, including Come Home America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country, contributor to The Nation, former writer for Rolling Stone magazine during the 1980s and 1990s, and has worked as an on-air correspondent for Frontline on PBS.

Christopher E. Renner, host of Community Bridge, thanks The Nation for giving permission to broadcast this conversation so it can be heard by a broader audience.

To listen to the panel presentation, either click the start button on the player panel or click the MP3 File button to down the file to your computer.

Is there an Obama doctrine in Foreign Policy?

MP3 File

A conversation with Howard Dean. Broadcast on Community Bridge on 11 February 2010.

MP3 File

GREAT BEND, Kan. - When President Obama decided to take on the difficult issue of health care reform, former Clinton advisers whom still had scars on their backs from their own failed health care initiative in 1993, advised the President, to wit: "Don't initiate your own detailed health care plan. The opposition and press will pick apart your plan. Instead, let Congress come up with the plan. Then you can step in."

So as Howard Fineman said recently: "Obama took all his political capital and let Max Baucus squander it." Max Baucus, the Democrat Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from Montana, botched it.

Baucus, who could walk through any shopping mall in America (outside the Beltway and Montana) and not be recognized by a single person, held the keys to health care reform. And he had taken so much cash from "Big Medicine" that there was no hope for any bill that would help "We the People."

As someone wrote recently, Baucus' staff is filled with former insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists, and all his former staffers now work as health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists. Baucus is a poster boy for term limits. And he rendered the health care bill so lousy for middle America that not even Zig Ziglar could sell it.