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WASHINGTON -- They might have the WH and Congress, but progressives - gathered this week for a four-day conference billed as "America's Future Now!" - aren't universally pleased with the Obama administration.

As a coalition of liberal groups announced their union today behind an unprecedented $82M grassroots and advertising campaign to push for health care reform, some consternation remains in the Democratic base about if Pres. Obama is pursuing a sweeping enough package. Others expressed dismay with his decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

During the question and answer portion of a panel about "The progressive movement in the Age of Obama," held at the Omni Shoreham and featuring Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart and Change to Win chair Anna Burger, among others, Burger was interrupted by a female audience member who barked from the darkened ballroom: "Why not single-payer?"

"It would be great to have single-payer, but I don't think that's going to happen this year," she said, adding that whatever plan is ultimately adopted, Democrats seem to be moving toward a public option plan that allows people to opt out of the system, will make a difference in people's lives.

A few minutes later, Deepak Bhargava, with the Center for Community Change, interjected, "I think many of us think the single payer system would be the best system," he said, drawing enthusiastic applause from many activists in the room.

But then he pivoted. "It is a step on the path," he said.

A step isn't enough for everyone. After eight years of assailing Pres. Bush's leadership, progressives are regrouping in an effort to leverage their newfound fortune - a WH in Dem hands and a Senate just one-vote shy of a filibuster-proof majority. They even had to change the past name of the annual confab from "Take Back America."

Some today sounded a broad caution that progressives shouldn't quiet their call for change just because Obama is at the helm or Congress is dominated by members of the president's party.

The best gift the left can give Obama, said MoveOn.org's Ilyse Hogue, is a "vibrant, vocal progressive movement."

While Roger Hickey of Campaign for America's future suggested that an "inside and outside strategy" modeled on the civil rights era efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Pres. Johnson in the 60s, will help the Democrats shepherd their policy plans through Congress, Hogue suggested the entire movement shouldn't fall in line behind consensus proposals if they don't go far enough or Democrats just because they're Democrats. She named Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), in particular, as one whose stance on the Employee Free Choice Act remains in question.

"With all respect to Roger, I think our job is not to be inside or outside," she said. "It's to take the doors off the hinges and smash the walls down."

Progressives have reason so far to be pleased with Obama. From his public support for "card check," as EFCA is called, to his signature of a new equal pay law, he is making good on several campaign promises. But health care - and the shape of the plan he ultimately endorses - could create a fault line in the movement of people who worked so intensely to elect a one-term junior senator from IL.

Much of the focus of this week's conference seems to be creating unanimity behind shared goals - even if not all can be achieved. A video of Obama addressing the group in '06 and '07 was played for the crowd.

"It's going to be because of you that we take our country back," he said, at a past conference. The clip was set to upbeat music.

And several participants mentioned Obama's background as a community organizer. The message to attendees, of course, was that he knows what you do, he's done it himself, and he knows how critical it is to getting approval for his agenda.

But during that same question and answer session, a male audience member yelled, "Afghanistan!" apropos of nothing being discussed.

So for some on the left, the president isn't fulfilling all of his campaign promises and is starting to disappoint. Others suggest any divide is overstated. Hogue, for one, said that the media loves to fan the flames of "hot Dem on Dem action," as she called it.

"The famous firing squad in a circle, I don't think we're anywhere near that," said Helen Brunner, a DC resident attending the conference.

Change to Win's Burger put it differently. "Are there days when I wake up and think, could he have done more or could he be further out there? Absolutely." She said there will be more days like that, but noted still that Obama is a "transformational" president.

"We have to make him successful," she said. "We have to make him the best that he can be."

As for that massive push for health care reform, the groups supporting the effort include Health Care for America Now, the AFL-CIO and Change To Win, the Children's Defense Fund, MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change, Rock the Vote, National Women's Law Center, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Democracy for America. The money will be used for grassroots organizing (troops are already on the ground in 46 states) and a sizeable advertising campaign.

During a lunchtime press conference, Howard Dean, recent past chair of the DNC and a doctor, said that it's more important to have a public plan than a bipartisan plan. "Bipartisan," he said, "is not an end in and of itself."

He said that Republicans haven't helped Obama with the stimulus package nor do they seem poised to offer an assist with approving his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court.

"If they're in there to shill for the insurance companies, I think we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said, suggesting that it be accomplished via budget reconciliation.

Dean added: "The American people voted for real change. They knew exactly what he was proposing when he was on the campaign trail."

(JENNIFER SKALKA)

by Mark Silva

As President Barack Obama prepares to depart Tuesday for a trip that will carry him from Saudi Arabia to France -- with an address to the Muslim world from Cairo in the middle of the journey -- he is starting to aim his megaphone at a global audience.

In an interview with the BBC on the eve of the trip, the president was asked about delivering his appeal for peace to the Muslim world from a city, Cairo, where many political prisoners are being held, and how he can reconcile the two.

"The message I hope to deliver is that democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion those are not simply principles of the West to be hoisted on these countries, but rather what I believe to be universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as part of their national identity,'' Obama said in an interview airing this evening.

"Now, the danger, I think, is when the United States or any country thinks that we can simply can impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture .. our job,'' Obama tells BBC interviewer Justin Webb.

"Absolutely we'll be encouraging ......and I think the thing that we can do most importantly is to serve as a role model, and that's why, for example, closing Guantanamo from my perspective -- as difficult as it is -- is important, because part of what we want to affirm to the world is that these are values that are important even when it's hard, maybe especially when it's hard -- and not just when it's easy."

Part of the interivew will be broadcast on BBC World News and BBC World Service radio at 9 pm United Kingdom time, and the full interview will air on Tuesday a 04:30 am UK time. The BBC Obama interview also will be shown online.

The president leaves Tuesday evening for Saudi Arabia, where he will hold private meetings with the king before traveling to Cairo for his public address on Thursday, and then on to Dresden, Germany, for a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and finally to Paris for commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the Normandy landing.

On Friday's Special Report with Bret Baier, FNC host Baier informed viewers that the Justice Department had dropped charges against New Black Panther members who engaged in blatant voter intimidation in Philadelphia last November. As previously documented by Newsbuster Noel Sheppard, last November Fox News ran a report by Rick Leventhal detailing the activity which was ignored by the mainstream media. On Friday's Special Report, Baier quoted a former 1960s civil rights lawyer: "The most blatant form of voter intimidation. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters."

Below is a transcript of the report from the Friday, May 29, Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC, which aired during the show's "Political Grapevine" segment:

BRET BAIER: A lawsuit brought by the Bush administrationNew Black Panther Party has been dropped by the Obama Justice Department. The move comes despite an eye witness account of a You Tube video of the men seemingly attempting to scare away would-be voters on Election Day, an apparent violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The civil complaint accused the men of coercion, making threats, intimidation, and hurling racial slurs while at a Philadelphia polling station on November 4. Prosecutors say one of the men brandished a night stick, which they called a deadly weapon.

A former 1960's civil rights lawyer said in an affidavit that it was, quote, "The most blatant form of voter intimidation. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters." A Justice Department spokesman said officials obtained "an injunction that prohibits the defendant, who brandished the weapon, from doing so again. Claims were dismissed from the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."

Just last week, Denver Post and Reason.com columnist David Harsanyi asked, "Is The Abortion Debate Changing?" Based on a recent Gallup Poll, which found that a majority of Americans considered themselves "pro-life" for the first time since the question started being asked in 1995, Harsanyi suggested "that Americans are getting past the politics and into the morality of the issue" after decades of legalized abortion. And, he argued, the morality of abortion is a lot more complicated than most pro- or anti-abortion slogans let on.

Earlier today, in response to killing of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller, Jacob Sullum asked why anti-abortion activists rushed to condemn the death of a man who by their own accounts was slaughtering innocents. Jacob understands why the activists might say that, but argues that it's really a tactical response: That they need to distance themselves from murderous extremists.

So what do Reason readers think? Will the killing of George Tiller push more Americans to identify as pro-life? Or will it push voters in the other direction? Does it matter that Tiller was known for doing late-term abortions, which are statistically rare but gruesome?

You go back to that Gallup Poll and one thing sticks out on the basic question of whether abortion should be legal under some circumstances: Since 1976, the percentage answering yes has been around 50 percent or higher (there are a few years where it dipped into the high 40s). That is, it's been pretty stable at or around a majority number.

And the percentage of people saying abortion should be illegal under all circumstances has rarely cracked the 20 percent figure (though it has again in recent years). Similarly, the percentage saying abortion should be legal under all circumstances, which peaked at 34 percent in the early 1990s, has always been a minority position (which currently stands at 22 percent and has been dropping lately).

I suspect that as abortion becomes rarer (as Reason's Ron Bailey pointed out in 2006, abortion has been getting rarer since the 1990s and also occurs earlier in pregnancies than before), it's quite possible that the either/or positions might change, but that their movement will have little effect on the middle position of abortion staying legal under some circumstances. Even those, such as Harsanyi, who is plainly troubled by the logic of abortion, generally concede that prohibition would cause more problems than it would fix ("I also believe a government ban on abortion would only criminalize the procedure and do little to mitigate the number of abortions.").

Back in 2003, on the occasion of Roe v. Wade's 30th anniversary, I argued that regarding abortion the country had reached a consensus that

has little to do with morality per se, much less with enforcing a single standard of morality. It's about a workable, pragmatic compromise that allows people to live their lives on their own terms and peaceably argue for their point of view....

This isn't to say that the debate about abortion is "over"-or that laws governing the specifics of abortion won't continue to change over time in ways that bother ardent pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike. But taking a longer view, it does seem as if the extremes of the abortion debate - extremes that included incendiary language (including calls for the murder of abortion providers) - have largely subsided in the wake of a widely accepted consensus. Part of this is surely due to the massive increases in reproduction technologies that allow women far more control over all aspects of their bodies (even as some of those technologies challenge conventional definitions of human life).

That isn't an outcome that is particularly satisfying to activists on either side of the issue or to people who want something approaching rational analysis in public policy. But it's still where we're at and it's unlikely the Tiller case will do much to move things one way or the other. The one thing that would likely change it would be if there was a massive shift toward later-term abortions, which seems unlikely based on long-term trendlines and technological innovations.

Leader: The Bankruptcy of General Motors

- General Motors filed for bankruptcy this morning, beginning a process that will leave the US government with a 60% stake in the company, and an unprecedented role as a business owner. President Obama is effectively pushing GM into bankruptcy, in the hopes that, after a brief period of nationalization, a smaller, sturdier GM will emerge, capable of competing in the international car market. The US will invest an additional $30 billion in GM, on top of the $20 billion previously committed. 

- Today's news is awash with sentimentality, looking back at this behemoth of American industry in its 101 years of existence. "What's good for General Motors is good for the country" is a saying that entered the lexicon, and is not altogether false.  Employing as many as 1 million people at points, including suppliers and dealers,  GM was the world's biggest company just ten years ago.  GM's demise (or reeducation, if you'd prefer) will be felt deeply around the country.

- A New York Bankruptcy judge cleared the way for Chrysler to exit bankruptcy by selling most of its assets to Italian car maker Fiat.  Chrysler could come out of bankruptcy as early as this week.

Politics

- George Tiller, a high-profile Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions was shot and killed on his way to church yesterday by an anti-abortion activist.  The assassin is in custody.

- Cuba continues to express interested in closer relations with the United States, and in a trip to Latin America, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is encouraging the thaw. Speaking at the inauguration for the new president of El Salvador, Clinton said:

Greater connections can lead to a better, freer future for the Cuban people. These talks are in the interest of the United States, and they are also in the interest of the Cuban people.

- The Las Vegas Sun reports that Nevada could be at the center of the battle over immigration reform.  Andres is quoted:

Immigration, Ramirez said, is a litmus test for Hispanic voters — if they think a candidate, or party, is hostile on the issue, they will show less interest in the candidate’s or party’s overall platform. This occurred in the 2008 election, analysts say. So the party could “risk alienating Hispanic voters more” by opposing a comprehensive bill, Ramirez said.

- Howard Fineman looks forward to President Obama's speech in Cairo, Egypt this Thursday.

Economy

- Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in China, and exchange rates are on the top of his agenda for discussion with his counterparts.

- Oil is at $67 per barrel, the highest it's been since November.

International

- An Air France jet bound from Brazil to Paris has disappeared over the Atlantic.  A search is underway off the coast of Brazil, in the hopes of finding the aircraft, which had 228 people aboard.

- The WaPo writes that US military and intelligence officials see a possibility for continued offensives by the Pakistani military in the Swat valley, combined with continued drone strikes near the Pakistani-Afghan border to seriously disrupt al-Qaeda in the region.

New From NDN

- Jake put together a backgrounder on Friday addressing the bankrupt Republican Party and bankruptcy policy. 

- Melissa posted on the President's weekly address, in which he promoted Sonia Sotomayor, his nominee for the Supreme Court.

One More Thing

- President Obama will speak in Egypt on Thursday, and he's already being compared to King Tut.

- On a recent trip to Five Guys burger joint, Obama learned about an intelligence agency he'd never heard of before.  Thanks, Five Guys!

- Last, Jeff Sessions seems to like Sonia Sotomayor, so perhaps there won't be much of a fight over her nomination after all.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Remember, Prop. 13 is not a hard cap of property taxes. Levies are adjusted to current market value when property changes hands. And that happens all the time.

According to the latest info from the Board of Equalization [...] total property taxes collected in 2006-07 were $43.16 billion.

The oldest property tax stats I could find were for 1980-81, from caltax.org. That year, property tax revenue was $6.36 billion.

So since shortly after Prop. 13's adoption, property tax revenue increased by 579 percent. That is not a typo. It went up 579 percent.

During the same span, population went from 24 million to 38 milion -- an increase of 58 percent.

As for inflation, as of January 1981, the rough midpoint of the 1980-81 fiscal year, the Consumer Price Index -- which gauges inflation -- was 88. As of January 2007, it was 202.4. That is a 133 percent increase.

So property tax revenue has increased by more than triple the combined rate of inflation and population growth -- 579 percent versus 191 percent. [...]

[I]n 1980-1981, the total of all general and special fund revenue for the state of California was $22.1 billion. For 2006-07, it was $120.7 billion. [...] That is an increase of 555 percent.

You follow? PROPERTY TAX REVENUE WENT UP FASTER THAN OTHER SOURCES OF REVENUE!