It must shock the hell out of the Dems to discover that citizens are not interested in crumbs at this point.
Whatever happened to standing up for principle?

The whole notion of ‘compromise’ has become a way to avoid conflict while papering over the underlying problems that no rhetoric can solve.

‘Compromise’ doesn’t work with the GOP at this point.
It doesn’t work with HoJo at this point.
It doesn’t work when your minimum vote count is 60 (rather than 50 + VP).

Howard Dean made a comment about the Dems, that “they’re not tough enough”.
That is one of the most cogent explanations that I’ve seen.

They’re not tough enough.
Not Bush-addled, priggish faux toughness; tough in the sense of being determined, resilient, creative, and unyielding.

They need to get tough.
The GOP isn’t going to play; the filibuster rule is a disaster that will destroy BOTH parties (the R’s for obstruction and the D’s for incompetence).
So what are they going to change?

Oh no ROTL, they are tough alright.

Tough at giving their base that supports them corporate BS whenever they feel like it, and pile on to the fact.

I wonder who is next now to pile it on Dean. I sure wouldn’t be surprised now sadly if Biden came up with something.

How can we get Howard Dean’s back against all these scurrilous personal attacks? Why don’t those who favor the Senate bill defend it on its merits instead of attacking Dr Dean?

Because they can’t. In their hearts, they know he’s right. They are simply defending the privileges of an absurd and broken institution, the US Senate.

Just unbelievable. Great post, Jane. Them Democratic leaders sure know how to deliver a vicious upper cut when it comes to protecting the insurance industry from the progressive netroots. Yep, they sure know how to find their spines and fight when it comes to rough handling the progressive base.

The babies are all out of the Senate bill bathwater. Dump it.

oh great, looks like i’m going to have to call kerry’s office again (his vote on the dorgan amendment prompted my last call).

maybe i’ll ask for an explanation of his concern over what howard dean is saying instead of how both the house and senate bills undermine states’ insurance regulators (which ought to be a big deal for representatives of the state of MA – and certainly a much bigger deal than joining in the despicable dean pile on).

from the letter to pelosi and reid:

The interstate compact provisions in both H.R. 3962 and the Senate proposal, as currently written, will lead to a race to the bottom in insurance regulation and severely threaten the important and often lifesaving protections the residents of our states enjoy. In the Senate bill, insurers are permitted to sell policies in our states while only being subject to the regulations of the state in which the policy is written or issued. H.R. 3962 permits states to decide among themselves which regulations will govern, which could make the regulations in the consumer- friendly state irrelevant. Practically speaking, insurers will domicile their plans in states with less stringent regulations and market to the population in more protective states like ours, just like nationally chartered banks have done.

Is this the same John Kerry who fought so valiantly on behalf of all the people who supported him by folding up like a $2 suitcase, and conceding in 2004 around the time the Dixville Notch votes were counted?

Yeah, I’m really interested in what he has to say.

Interesting chart, Jane.

We started with Baucus and the Finance Committee, shaping the bill.

Specter is out of play because Sestak has him on the ropes (boy, wish we’d planned that one…).

McCain is, well, McCain — the old man yelling at clouds who is completely out of touch with the common man when he can’t even keep track of how many houses or cars he owns.

Obama has not gone to the mats, we’ve already seen his playbook. Especially the one where he brings on Rahm-the-DINO-Pitbull as COS.

So now they haul out Kerry.

What do they have left in their arsenal? Anything with more juice than this?

Jane. Those numbers are a slice of reality that tells us more about Kerry than words coming out of his mouth.

Thanks for what you are doing Jane

Do those Obama numbers have to do with money given by those institutions during his campaign for Senate and the Presidency? Can you explain?

Man enough to stand up to Dr. Dean, but not to the swift boaters and purple hearters.

slap a liberal, get a photo op!
step right up !

Here is a listing of Big Bio in MA

this link came from the always fabulous Rayne and it has proved tremendously handy

Kerry’s handlers steered him wrong on the “swift boaters”

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/schumer-weve-reached-agreement-with-nelson.php?ref=tn

Schumer: We’ve Reached Agreement With Nelson

But, Nelson tells the DFHs in the House: just lie there and enjoy it.

The Reimportation vote is the one I’ll remember. I think well-meaning people can honestly disagree on whether getting any bill passed is better than nothing but there’s no excuse for voting nay on the drug bill.

I agree, that was treachery.

Wow, Rahm must really be piling on the threats now for Kerry to feel the need to do Rahm’s bidding. Kerry’s in a safe-as-houses seat, for Pete’s sake!

Like the doughnut hole….a travesty/bribery/favoritism/criminality against sick people.

Oh, and get this: MoveOn must have heard Andy Stern and its members loud and clear, because it too is saying “no” to the Senate bill. No wonder Rahm’s freaking out right now.

See, Rahm, “access” isn’t worth much if it’s to a White House that’s going to be cut off at the knees in less than a year’s time.

In case anyone missed it last night…

Gads, yes, Kerry’s backyard is Bio-Pharma Central.

Ugh.

John Kerry reporting for duty!

Will Lanny Davis come out and defend Kerry,now? /S

Thanks for the link….an amazing conversation.

The Genuine Article, alright..

was wondering when I saw it yesterday, what, if any co ordination was going on there – both are big strong groups and don’t really need reinforcement, but was wondering just the same

John Kerry recently sent out letters to everyone on the D mailing list asking the public for donations so they could fight these corporate lobbyists. The D’s are having a seriously difficult time getting campaign donations for 2010 and they are using whatever they can to scare the people into sending money.

Is there any accounting disclosure for how much the legislators have taken in while this debate has been underway? Will the debate continue as long as needed to get the campaign money they want?

Senate Dem presser now CSPAN 1

They’re really bringing out everyone to pile on. Now it’s John Kerry’s turn. Love the triangulation against “liberals”:

I wonder if he is invested personally in insurance and drug companies? I wonder if he would be ruined if the insurance companies don’t make it in this economy. 10% unemployment must be hurting the insurance companies profits.

Jane,

Have you noticed that Lanny Davis looks like Montgomery Burns in the video still on the upper right of FDL page? I love it. If it was planned, I love it even more.

Next time, instead of Uncle Lanny, call him Monty Burns. He won’t get it and he’ll look even more deer-in-the-headlights than this time when you hit him again with “whoooo’s paaaaayinggg yooouu???”

Too funny.

Sparkatus

Don’t worry, Senator Kerry. No matter how shitty this bill gets, nobody thinks you’re walking anywhere.

Kerry, Schumer and Rockefeller appeared to have good intentions, but they’re revealing that their weak strategy has been to stand up for the American people by ultimately taking any litte scrap they could get as they negotiated with opponents like Lieberman and Ben Nelson, whose far-more-effective strategy has been to give absolutely nothing while demanding everything.

Senator Kerry, you didn’t just make a fool of yourself by losing, you did great harm to the American people – who were counting on you to win – by this total failure of leadership.

And now you come out, act all tough, and attack Howard Dean for saying, “enough of failed leadership.”

Are you joking?

Btw, Kerry. Have you, the DSCC, and all the other Democratic senators formulated a strategy to save us from the insidious threat posed by people who hang tea bags from their rearview mirrors?

Frankly, senator, I’m not even so sure anymore that you and your fellow incumbent Democrats have the right stuff to save us from tea bags that hang from rearview mirrors.

Pathetic.

Did Howard Dean really say that about Medicare?

wouldn’t be too difficult using quarterly FEC filings – I know there was some reporting on Lincoln and Baucus, will do a little googling and see what we can find

thinking a certain blog proprietor will be interested in how much Durbin and Reid took in with their ‘help us save the PO’ bamboozle

No doubt Stern and other labor groups already feel sold out on the EFCA-Employee Free Choice Act.

Obama was FOR that bill when he was campaigning for President.
Now, not so much.

A HUGE slap in the face.

What is interesting to me — but not surprising — is that the Senators all have to stick together. Yes, we all knew the GOPigs were like that, but now we see Dems doing it, too.

Howard Dean stands alone. Well, he has US, but we don’t count to the DC freaks. They are SO cowardly, I swear they remind me of my daughter when she was 4 years old, and going to pre-school on the first day. And she was FOUR YEARS OLD. What’s their excuse?

And yes, I know there are several who were WITH the public option, but quickly came on board with the GOP when the going got tough. They wouldn’t know BRAVE if it bit them in their lard asses.

Dodd:

“We’ve been truly blessed to have Harry Reid as our leader…”

Dear Jane:
Watching these people go after their own base is enough to make you sick. I think that all of this was decided last spring when Rahm met with the industry and gave us all up. Watching you take apart Lanny Davis was fun but I wouldn’t be too hard on Rahm for sniffing around in your underwear drawer, I’ve thought about it a couple of times my self. For those of you without a sense of humor( that was a joke )

:0===|

Things the Press will never ask Sen Kerry, is it true that the insurance companies are broke and by forcing everyone to buy health insurance you are bailing the insurance companies out?

Hey Dodd: You’re out of your league citing FDR in your grandstanding…

So he’s giving a “guarantee” that citizens won’t be wiped out financially, blah, blah, blah?

And if they choose (for one reason or another) not to sign up, then the IRS starts enforcement action? That dog don’t hunt…

My ass is gettin’ kinda sore. Who the hell are they gonna bring out and parade around next? Will Obama bring out Michelle and prostitute her? If he thought it wuld shut us up, hell yes he would.

In response to ashley @ 33

After twelve years of Reagan and Bush Sr., Howard Dean was saying that Medicare as it was then being run was failing the American people.

What he has been saying consistently for years is that the health care system is broken and that there needs to be some type of alternative health care option for all Americans to those offered by the private insurance companies.

One idea he has put forward is a Medicare buy-in for all Americans.

What Dean has consistently said since he ran against Kerry for the nomination in 04 is that Medicare can very much be a solution to the problems in our health care system.

Btw, John Kerry, why don’t you go back windsurfing.

I’m glad you say you were for a public option before you started to show just how much you are willing to work hard against it.

And another thing — what’s with Chuck Schumer? I swear he reminds me of a 7th grade cheerleader. Everyone that gets a press conference, there he is. Right behind the person, mugging for the camera. I see it at press conferences, I saw it at the convention. Even when some state cast the votes that brought Obama the nomination. And this has happened several times. He’s always there!

fyi – Axelrod and Dr Dean on Press the Meat tomorrow – announced format to be Axelrod first, then the good doctor – couldn’t tell from lame announcement whether they will actually be on together

Senator Kerry is one of our prime reasons to be rid of the senate. He has never met a compromise he can’t destroy by meddling.

Go to hell Senator. And some fat chance of your ever being reelected! [edited by mod.]

[Modnote: no violent or threatening imagery, please.]

Let’s be clear. There has been no compromise with Republicans. The compromise has been with industry stooges within the Democratic caucus.

And the issue is not standing on principle. The issue is what principles are you standing for. Not all of the members of the Democratic caucus have the same principles.

The failure is in holding the Democratic caucus to the most ambitious healthcare reform plan, since it’s all up to them. And that is what merited Howard Dean’s complaint that they weren’t tough enough.

“Every team has its quarterback…”

I don’t claim to be an expert about football, but I’m pretty sure the quarterback needs to be a vertebrate. So far, I’ve seen no evidence that Reid has a skeletal system (read: spine).

You what really, REALLY bugs the shit out of me about the Democratic centrists going after Dr. Howard Dean??

He’s a DOCTOR.

He’s a doctor who as governor managed to develop a state program to provide health care to all children and all seniors in his state.

He did it while balancing a budget for 11 years.

He already has the cred under his belt and they dismiss him all the time.

I’m sure it’s his cred which bothers them.

Gee, was private insurance still profitable in Vermont after Dean implemented these programs, I wonder?

dday is liveblogging the presser

Or, Teresa….

Thanks for explaining what Dean meant at the time. I was 8 then, and wasn’t really following politics.

Go to hell Senator. And some fat chance of your ever being reelected! Your constituents will lynch you the minute you go home.

I think not.

surprisingly intelligible considering he had someone’s dick in his mouth at the time

Separately is the way I read it.

So what happens to “The 65″ in the House, now that the Senate appears to be marching in lockstep?

Crap People who want to run for President always want more camera time. There was an old joke about how it was dangerous to stand between Sen Phil Gram and a camera a few years before he ran for President.

You people complaining here are one of two things…

Either you are corporate shills in sheeps clothing, just writing this nonsense to provide fodder for Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh or you are childish silly twits.

Here’s a parable…Let’s say that we liberal progressives are living in a fort we have built with Obama and outside the fort are the hungry wolves/Republicans. So some of you don’t like the way the fort is built so you want to tear it down and build a new one, but if we do that the wolves will eat us while we’re rebuilding. We have to fix it from within. And we can do that.

This bill is not worthless and it is a ‘win’ for the left. So you got a bicycle and not a pony for Christmas, stop complaining, get a paper route and make enough money to buy your own pony.

Read this from the AP:

“The estimated 30 million Americans purchasing coverage through new insurance exchanges would have the option of signing up for national plans overseen by the same office that manages health coverage for federal employees and members of Congress. Those plans would be privately owned, but operated on a nonprofit basis, as many Blue Cross Blue Shield plans are now.”

longtime joke was the most dangerous spot in the Beltway was btw McCain and a microphone

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/16/815429/-No-One-Is-Going-To-Save

You people

Classic GOPer use of language

Perhaps we could make a list of all the others that have said the same as Dean, such as Robert Reich and Wendell Potter, for starters. I’m sure there are plenty of others of the same opinion. Perhaps it should be brought to their attention that Howard Dean is not out there all alone.

Perhaps we should clue them into the name the Senate bill has been dubbed, “The Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act of 2009.” Perhaps it should be brought to their attention that Howard Dean, et al, are just way more credible than these selfish, petty bastards that vote their pocketbook, not their conscience. It should also be pointed out that the people were with them on this bill until the PO and the idea of Medicare expansion was rejected. That alone should have told them something!

Maybe we should also point out that we know that those with the voting power have ulterior motives for the way they vote, and that the corporations that provide them with campaign finances mean more to them than constituents. Perhaps we should let them know that what comes next is campaign finance reform and perhaps term limits unless they give the people what they want. And I mean I want each candidate to literally sign an airtight statement regarding campaign finance reform including free airtime for serious candidates and no taking corporate funding of any kind. (Personally, I hate the idea of term limits, but if that’s what it takes, so be it!)

BTW, part of negotiation is you don’t give stuff up for nothing in return. If they refuse to put in a public option, and they refuse to expand Medicare, then they don’t get to deliver 30M-40M customers to their corporate masters wrapped up in a big red bow as an XMas present. The mandate must be tied to the public option and medicare expansion as part of the negotiation process. These people are terrible negotiators!

Off topic: Jane, you have no idea who I am or why I’m saying this, but I just felt the need to come in here and say that you were right and I was wrong about HCR. Needed to get that off my chest.

People like John Kerry are the reason why I tend to vote Republican (though going forward I don’t think I’ll be voting for either Democrats or Republicans). Republicans do a lot of things I disagree with, but they are at least more honest about it. Like I remember what happened with the Cheney Energy Task Force where the defense to that was that the WH can turn to a wide range of input for advice – not that I agreed with who they decided to ask for advice, but that is at least a straightfoward answer and I believe they believed it. However, you have Obama explicitly campaign about what was done by Bush as being morally wrong, but then Obama then goes and does the same thing as Bush. I’ve had greater toleration for Republicans as they’ve stabbed me in the front whereas Democrats act like your friend and then stab you in the back. Someone who betrays you hurts far worse than someone who says they are going to do something you disagree with and then does it.

Whatever he’s having must be really good, if it can make him think Reid is doing a good job.

Ha ha. And, oh, Ouch! Kiss my boo boo?

Sadly, Mark Kleiman, from whose site I first learned of FDL back in the days of Plamegate,
has gone full-metal Obamabot.

“you people” fills one square on my bingo card ….

“The estimated 30 million Americans purchasing coverage through new insurance exchanges would have the option of signing up for national plans overseen by the same office that manages health coverage for federal employees and members of Congress. Those plans would be privately owned, but operated on a nonprofit basis, as many Blue Cross Blue Shield plans are now.”

Anybody who has FEHBP or has family on it knows the lie by omission in the APs statement is that the FEHBP are private plans that have no substantive oversight from any Federal office. All the “same office” does is administrative – check that the plans submit documents they are required to submit from time to time and produce reports. If you have a problem with the private plan about benefits, denial of coverage, etc, you’re pretty much on your own like anybody else to fight it out with the company. Chip Shirley is an example of the ignorant in this country who really don’t have a clue what they are talking about.

“For those of you without a sense of humor”

You have just labeled yourself. If you have to announce that you think you have made a joke, you haven’t made one.

I thought we had moved beyond the old sexist ‘you don’t have a sense of humor’.

Sen Landrieu, is that you?

This bill is not worthless and it is a ‘win’ for the left. So you got a bicycle and not a pony for Christmas, stop complaining, get a paper route and make enough money to buy your own pony.

This bill would force everyone to buy health insurance that alone would push Moderate voters into the Tea Bagger camp in other words you double the amount of wolves out there.
Two sure it helps some people but we could help lots more and make a better use of our tax dollars if we had
National Healthcare and if Americans paid what Mexico and Canada pay for the same drugs.
Maybe you like wasting money?
Also Obama had no problem finding money for more troops but Healthcare has to be budget neutral?
Please try this argument somewhere else like the Press they might fall for it.
Not us for unlike Obama we have been reading, debating and researching this issue since before the Presidential Primaries while he has been reading the cliff notes version of this issue written by lobbyists.

Classic use of traditional media to bolster their position, too, don’t you think?

This site has gone backwards and forwards over this bill, gotten deep into the fine print, but we’re supposed to believe the freaking AP over what we can read and deduce for ourselves?

Gimme a break.

Go look at what’s happening in Massachusetts under “RomneyCare”, which is what the Senate bill most closely resembles.

As our own Emptywheel pointed out yesterday, RomneyCare hasn’t done diddly for the masses, but it’s sure helped out the insurance industry at the expense of what’s left of the middle classes!

John Kerry is one of the Democrats who believes that progressives can “win” by backing down. That if we take the moral high ground and never, ever fight back, then the public will reward us and see the other side as the mean ‘ol bullies. We’ve had an entire generation of that type of thinking, and all it led us to was a nuetered party that is afraid of it’s own shawdow and that helped Republicans sell this country out to corporate interests.

To say that it makes them uncomfortable when progressives fight back is a huge understatement.

Here’s another parable:

We have a fort.

A horse shows up outside our gate. It’s an attractive horse that looks strong and sleek. We decide to let it in. Then at night, the bastards we built our fort against break out of their hiding place in the belly of the beast and overrun our fort, call us stupid/insane/illogical and attack us from within.

Sure its better healthcare than the Obama plan.

I wonder why anyone still wonders why some people voted for Nader rather then Gore, or Nader rather than Kerry.

I recall quite well the summer of 2003 in Seattle, when a lot of seattle were part of Dean’s BASE!

I knew soooooooooooooooooooooooo many people who’d say … “I really like Dean, but, I don’t think he’s electable … blah blah … scare middle… kerry war hero republicans CAN’T attack him! … blah blah …” and then the affluent neighborhood Dem$ $how up with their coach bag$ and of course they’re scared of scaring the middle, then we’ll lose …

… and the primaries ultimately went to this asshole.

I’m from massachusetts, I moved to seattle when I was 29 in ’89, kerry represents part of the leafy neighborhood political pieces of compromising shit, OR, the $ell out$, cuz they can afford it.

I got zeroed on the big orange by some dillitantes & debutants who said I $houldn’t $tart cla$$ war … $ocial cla$$ war is older than the first villages, BUT, if you sing “My Favorite Things” and pretend life is like Seasame Street, I guess the help will take care of everything so you’re not sad!

Kerry, like Gore & Dukakis, DESERVED to lose for running such a DLC piece of shit campaign.

rmm.

And, affordable.

well, this says it all, doesn’t it.

Health Sector Contributions to Members of the 111th Congress, 1989-2009*
Name Office State Health Sector** Health Insurance Pharma Health Pros Hospitals Nursing Homes
Obama, Barack P IL $20,144,316 $1,552,981 $2,132,573 $12,108,983 $2,881,638 $244,190
McCain, John S AZ $9,027,044 $736,884 $902,915 $6,325,601 $658,250 $152,950
Kerry, John S MA $8,344,060 $687,434 $887,043 $4,717,648 $1,306,997 $169,190
Specter, Arlen S PA $4,521,093 $382,228 $1,238,916 $1,738,490 $795,928 $92,100
Baucus, Max S MT $3,902,881 $675,349 $1,099,605 $1,401,776 $421,542 $232,949

Sorry dude, but my liberal cred’ is undeniable, see I’m posting under my real name (unlike you phonies) so you can just google Chip Shirley and you’ll find thousands of letters I’ve had published which prove where I’m coming from. Here’s one you might like…and by the way, the name you post under shows where you are really coming from ‘things come undone’ yeah you’re really trying to help…right…check out a letter from a real liberal progressive…
…………………………………………………
Chip Shirley: High taxes made America great
Athens Banner-Herald | Story updated at 7:00 pm on 7/20/2009

You know how conservative radio talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are so fond of saying that Democratic President John Kennedy actually lowered income taxes?

The tax cut, which became effective after Kennedy’s death, dropped the top marginal tax rate from 91 percent to 77 percent for the richest Americans. Now the rate is down to 36 percent.

All during the time we paid for World War II and President Eisenhower built our entire interstate expressway system, tax rates were around 90 percent for the wealthiest of us. And we couldn’t have gone to the moon and stood up to communism without having a top rate of at least 77 percent for the wealthy.

When are Republicans going to wake up and read a book? The history of taxes in the United States can be found in any encyclopedia. America did everything great it ever accomplished with the upper tax rate for those who make millions per year at 77 percent or higher.

The wealthy pay far lower taxes in the United States than anywhere on Earth.

Facts are facts. All of our European allies and Israel have universal health care available from the government.

Chip Shirley
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Tuesday, July 21, 2009

suppose what you say is true, and, I think there is a lot of truth in it.

WHY do so many progressives believe that way?

1. $ocial Cla$$ – there are tho$e with the re$ource$ to afford the degradation$ from the fascists.

2. Wannabee $ocial Cla$$ – there are those who think they’re part of group 1, or want to be part of group 1, or … just are following the herd and really haven’t a clue, cuz, taking about money is ju$t $o uncivilized…

it is f’king pathetic.

rmm.

Chip, if this Senate bill is so lovely, then how come RomneyCare — which is what it most closely resembles — is such a rotten deal than one-fifth of folks in Massachusetts still forego necessary medical care even as the insurance companies clean up big-time?

Bet you won’t answer this.

Look, you want to keep the cred you believe you’ve earned? then quit attacking liberals and progressives here.

And for crying out loud use something meatier than a freaking AP report to justify your position. We do far more than that here, or haven’t you been reading FDL Action, Emptywheel, News Desk and more at this site?

I’d like to know this too, if anyone has the data to tease it out. It’s a big excess over the other senator who was running in the general election, and a senator who ran well in the Democratic primary didn’t make the top bracket.

This bill is not worthless and it is a ‘win’ for the left. So you got a bicycle and not a pony for Christmas, stop complaining, get a paper route and make enough money to buy your own pony.

So you get a bill for mandated junk insurance for Christmas? Earn more money.

Okay that made me laugh:

If you have to announce that you think you have made a joke, you haven’t made one.

Dunno when I’ll get a chance to use that, but I will. Great line.

Anthony Weiner is giving it one more try, Dec. 22 (from his website, http://www.countdowntohealthcare.com?):

Dec18

A Message From Congressman Anthony Weiner:

This has been a frustrating week for all of us who have fought so hard for the public option and for real reform that will bring down health care costs. As I wrote earlier on countdowntohealthcare.com, some of us have begun to feel as though we’ve compromised our compromised compromise.

I’m not ready to leave the table yet. I believe it’s too important and there’s still time to help improve the result.

But I want you to guide this effort. I want to hear your concerns and get your guidance. That’s why, on TUESDAY, December 22nd, at 7:00 PM EST, I’LL BE HOSTING AN ONLINE CHAT AT http://countdowntohealthcare.com/chat/.

There’s a lot to discuss. Some have said that progressives shouldn’t support the current Senate proposal. Without the public option, they say, there’s not enough to provide genuine competition to insurers.

Others have said that we should focus our energies on how to improve whatever emerges from the Senate. Once the Senate passes a bill, it will go to a conference committee to be reconciled with the House bill. That process could be a real opportunity to move the Senate bill closer to the one we passed in the House.

I want to hear what you think and where you come down. There’s a lot of noise out there–much of it heated. Now is a time for all of us to have a conversation about what we need to achieve and how we’re going to get there. Please join me on TUESDAY, December 22nd at 7:00 PM EST at http://countdowntohealthcare.com/chat/.

Anthony

As per Jane’s excellent HuffPost article. Building bridges to all All americans on the right , especially the Libertarian minded independents and the non rabid religious right is of the highest urgency for Progressives and Socialists.
Kerry threw a class gauntlet with his attack on Dean yesterday. We need to recognize that the enemy of our enemy is our friend, and that the Top 1% represented by people like Kerry and their lackeys are fighting to protect that downstairs/upstairs status quo. History shows that there’s nothing new about this. We need a strategy on how to reach out to those on our right who share our populist outrage.
Jane’s editorial is dead fucking on and it’s time we start thinking strategically about how to engender a political turn around that will concentrate on the many not the privileged greedy few.

“Mem from Somerville” over at Orange is proclaiming this to be a great deal.

Well clearly Kerry is just saying that he was for Dean, the public option, and drug re-importation before he was against them.

Ha!

Perhaps we should clue them into the name the Senate bill has been dubbed, “The Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act of 2009.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps it should be “The Insurance Industry Profit Protection and APPEASEMENT Act of 2009.” ?

The Media and the Dems don’t seem to realize that if you spend hundreds maybe thousands of hours blogging, arguing, researching reading etc about issues you become an expert.
Maybe we each only spent a 100 hours on average talking about healthcare since the primaries maybe we are not experts as the Outliers books suggests

Outliers is a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. To support his thesis, he examines the causes of why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the “10,000-Hour Rule”, claiming that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)

However we are a diverse group thus are better able to come up with answers than the experts.
Never mind the experts are ignored by the bought and paid for lobbyists and press.
We get better answers because we avoid group think because we argue about everything and we avoid the bias of believing what is most convenient for our own group because our own group is to diverse to have many common interests worth lying to ourselves for.
Plus as non experts or proud lobbyists/press we can admit when we are wrong and change direction quicker.

The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies (Hardcover)

http://www.amazon.com/Difference-Diversity-Creates-Schools-Societies/dp/0691128383

The press however thinks they are smarter than us? When they got the war wrong, WMD wrong, the economy wrong, the housing bubble wrong.
However the Lefty and Econ blogs were right about all this:)

ZING!

Right now, the GOP’s got a presser going on CSPAN-1. Every single thing that Jane said they’d be using in their campaign ads is there. They are going to make this mandated POS Senate bill the centerpiece of their 2010 campaigns, and for once they will be fact-based and therefore all the more effective.

Isn’t that the same John Kerry that was for the war funding before he was against it? Hell, he and joey change their positions in the same DAY, let alone over 15 years later.

And once again, the senate bill won’t come close to providing care for an additional 30 million. It’s the biggest lie of this debate.

I’m very disappointed in this bill – but let’s be glad Republicans REFUSED to attend the health care committee meetings.
This bill is so far right that it’s scary to think what it would have been if Repubs had entered into negotiations and THEIR positions had to be accommodated!

As the “bill” moved further and further right – favoring the Insurance industry – Republicans kept screaming “socialism!”
sigh

John Kerry is one of the Democrats who believes that progressives can “win” by backing down

Huh?

John Kerry’s not a progressive. John Kerry is a right-wing Democrat opportunist. After the 2004 election Alexander Cockburn published an analysis of Kerry’s career (thankfully done by someone else). The results:

A rigorous statistical analysis of Kerry’s *entire* voting record in the 108th Congress reveals, however, that he falls right in the middle of an increasingly conservative Democratic Party — tied with Joseph Lieberman, and only slightly more moderate than the conservative Dianne Feinstein: http://voteview.uh.edu/sen108.htm

Um, Sen. Kerry?

We have come here, not to the President, because we believe that this body can be responsive to the will of the people, and we believe that the will of the people says that we should be out of Vietnam have affordable health insurance available to all nationwide on day one now….

The Neo Cons were Liberals once to then they got weird.

Following Obamas departure from Coppenhagen, the world is facing Obama’s failure as more of the same ‘benign neglect’.

“This is a declaration that small and poor countries don’t matter, that international civil society doesn’t matter, and that serious limits on carbon don’t matter. The president has wrecked the UN and he’s wrecked the possibility of a tough plan to control global warming. It may get Obama a reputation as a tough American leader, but it’s at the expense of everything progressives have held dear. 189 countries have been left powerless, and the foxes now guard the carbon henhouse without any oversight.”

“Not fair, not ambitious and not legally binding. The job of world leaders is not done. Today they failed to avert catastrophic climate change.


The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through.

We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis.” –––Bill McKibben

Your parable is illogical because before Obama we had no fort and we had no power because the Republicans had held the White House for 28 consecutive years back to Reagan’s first term in 1980!!!

Notice I include Bill Clinton as a Republican, that’s because Alan Greenspan refers to him as the ‘Greatest Republican President” because he signed NAFTA and GATT. Don’t blame me for Clinton, I was smart enough to be volunteering for Harkin vs Clinton for the nomination in 1991. I got frostbite in New Hampshire for Harkin. My liberal cred’ is golden.

Weiner,

We don’t need you to hold our hands as we go through any stages of grief until we accept that this Democratic Congress failed us miserably so we can fall in line.

We think you must announce today that you will vote against this fucking turd and start demanding that congressional leaders move to budget reconciliation.

There’s nothing else to discuss.

Thanks.

I wonder why anyone still wonders why some people voted for Nader rather then Gore, or Nader rather than Kerry.

Nader-hating is a disciplinary measure, meant to insure that the party faithful NEVER regard the “good as the enemy of the perfect.”

I just realized something: I am absolutely NOT afraid of another Republican administration! If that’s what happens between now and the populist revolution we need, so be it. This corporatist bullshit has passed the tipping point. I’m not afraid of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney, or any of those idiots. If having them in actual positions of authority is what it takes to kill the Democratic Corporate Party for good, fine. We can all go out and fill the streets in happy protest.

Rahm and Pouffe and all the rest are wrong: I’m not coming back, not if this bill passes.

I’ve come on late and don’t know if Leen was answered as to the money Obama received from the Healthcare industry.
I also was floored when I read the money he received from the industry until I learned that profession was considered in our contributions. Many people in the Healthcare industry want reasonably priced excellent health insurance as well.

god I love america

it is a perfect example of the human condition.

you can fleece the folks and they keep right on coming back for more.

what other country can do that decade after decade.

and the demo voters really think their senators represent them and not the lobbyists.

they even line up to vote for them.

in a dumbed downed society this is like taking candy from a baby.

even from the sick and needy mega profits.

and to top it all off we call ourselves a christian nation.

the devil himself or is it herself could not have created a more corrupt society when it comes to health care and our wars for profits.

capitalism by its very nature is corrupt yes even evil and most even on here love their capitalism.

capitalism leads to imperialism, corrupt politicans, and profits over people and most of all corp fascism.

but keep blaming individuals and miss the root cause of our corrupt mentality that we want to share with the world.

the have mores have made capitalism and patroitism synonyms. pure genius on their part.

and to keep our wars for profits going they keep the slogans going support our troops and our troops are heros.

and the have nots line up to yell out those slogans while the have mores smile all the way to the bank with their war profits.

they are about ten times smarter than the dumbed downed that line up to vote for these have mores.

the have mores have more for a reason.

as one per cent of the population they have more wealth than the bottom 95% of the have nots. oh and they will not quit until they have 99% of the wealth.

now that is pretty smart.

they even know how to make mega profits off the sick and needy.

and many of the sick and needy line up to support their ability to make those mega profits off them.

pure genius of the have mores.

I beg to differ.

Be real. It’s likely the Senate is going to pass “this fucking turd” despite a thousand posts to FDL. That’s a done deal unless a few recalcitrant Dems take more rigorous stands than they have to date. If they do, then your reconciliation fantasy can become a reality.

But not likely. If so, the bill will move to conference.

The House has expressed its support for most of the positions advocated on FDL. So if this crap isn’t resolved in conference, it can die there.

Don’t leave Weiner et al twisting in the wind because they listened to you earlier, but now you’re miffed. This outcome was always the most likely given the other side’s resources and widespread congressional corruption. Stop grieving prematurely.

As our own Emptywheel pointed out yesterday, RomneyCare hasn’t done diddly for the masses, but it’s sure helped out the insurance industry at the expense of what’s left of the middle classes!

that’s not quite so (and not, i think, what marcy wrote). some people have been helped, some have been hurt. but the good that has been done is not sustainable (no cost controls). and from what i can tell, what we have in MA is in almost all ways, BETTER than the HOUSE bill.

and i don’t think a little PO would make a damn bit of difference here either.

You expressed what I was thinking better than I could have.

This bill is way better than Romneycare and it is clearly drastically intrusive into the business of insurance companies. It offers a real gov’ watchdog on those companies most shady practices and…
……….W E…W I L L…I M P R O V E…I T…
if you children don’t burn down the house first.

@#106

Leen did you have any info on how much $$ Kerry received from Goldman Sachs,if any?

Googling” Goldman Sachs and Healthcare Reform” is quite an eyeopener-especially a Stanford link from July ’09 about the GS software. relating to healthcare stocks.

I think that, so long as Howard continues to fight for the American people, we definitely should get his back.

Having said that, the incompetent Democrats now in power have put themselves into a really bad position. Every time they attack Howard or us, the American people hear these incompetent Democrats attacking them.

A Research 2000 poll conducted between December 16 and 17 shows that 59% of all Americans and 88% of Democrats still support a public option, compared to 33% of all Americans and 37% of Democrats who support what the congressional Democrats and the White House are currently proposing and saying so forcefully is the best thing for the American people (though it most definitely is not).

Obama and the sellout Democrats failed to be on the right side of this issue when they had the chance and they have now squarely put themselves on the wrong side.

I say let them attack away!

…And so? You want to build car-tire barricades in the streets? We all know this analysis; most of us understand its truth. What then?

Your parable is illogical because before Obama we had no fort and we had no power because the Republicans had held the White House for 28 consecutive years back to Reagan’s first term in 1980!!

No you are not getting the point Obama campaigned on not forcing people to buy health insurance, he campaigned on healthcare and ending the war because of this we built a fort /got him in the WH.
Then he betrays us a classic Trojan Horse move a reference by the way which you did not seem to get at Sparkatus’s 76.
Which might explain why you did not see the logic in the reference?

Your parable is illogical because before Obama we had no fort

It’s true. What’s also true, however, is that during Obama we have no fort either. The current Senate bill is an attempt to tack “health insurance reform” onto Obama’s resume while keeping the same parasites in control of our bank accounts. What’s being attacked here, then, is our attempt to GET a fort, through the “progressive power of ‘no’.”

if you children don’t burn down the house first.

Patronizing and dismissive language classic Elite we know better than you uneducated rabble behavior.

Have Weiner contact Jane and ask for my contact information. Seriously, someone needs to explain to him that he’s not doing himself any favors with this mealy-mouthed bullshit.

It was in 1971 that Kerry posed his famous and courageous question about Vietnam: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

It is strange how someone can owe their whole career to a remark they made nearly 40 years ago. Or perhaps not, Obama owed his sudden rise to his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention where, it just so happened, John Kerry was nominated. Interesting how these careers are embedded in each other and also explanatory. Neither has been as liberal in action as they have portrayed themselves in words.

Goldman Sachs ? Healthcare Reform Bets, Hedges, and Analysis, Not …Jul 21, 2009 … Would Goldman short the Health Care stocks to zero if reform goes through? This is a good question and something to think about, …
stanford.wellsphere.com/healthcare…/goldman…healthcare-reform…healthcare…/750266 – Cached

NOTE: Interestingly enough, that SAME month of this Stanford link, Goldman joins forces to create the BIGGEST insurance company-ever.

Link to follow

I want to know that too.
The law should require that there be an audit of those health insurance companies before we mandate that anyone buy insurance. Just how healthy are they? Do they have any “pre-existing conditions?”

( I was so proud of you Jane! Lannie’s sleazy DLC ass has needed a good whoopin’ for years!)

On Dean, since Rahm Emanuel hates his guts many of us have had a sick feeling deep down when Obama brought him into the White House. It was Rahm who called Bill to warn the Democrats back in November “”When you try and fail, the other guys write history.”

The history Bill Clinton and Rahm Emanuel won’t ever talk about is the damage their ultra pro-business capitulation did to the public’s opinion of Congressional Democrats. They gave us George Bush for two terms and Republicans in control of Congress for the next 12 years.

Apparently our history loving Obama has adopted Bill’s election losing/”Just pass the bill even if it’s not exactly what you want” strategy, with full knowledge of exactly what this will do to the Democrats as a party.

It’s horribly sad and ironic to note that our bold and brave Howard Dean, after breaking the Democrats loosing streak in 2006 by his boldness and bravery and after paving the way for a successful Presidential election win, is now shunned and insulted for his continued boldness by those who benefited the most from it.

……….W E…W I L L…I M P R O V E…I T…

Thus the vigorousness with which the appeal “Congress will not consider this issue again for another fifteen years so we better get what we can get now” is applied.

Read the link and realize that even these numbers may be funny adjusted to the upside.

http://firedoglake.com/2009/10/05/bailing-out-failed-management-health-insurance-company-edition/

The Neville Chamberlain Munich Agreement Insurance Act

Replying to Knoxville @ 113

A Research 2000 poll conducted between December 16 and 17 shows that 59% of all Americans and 88% of Democrats still support a public option

and Two-thirds of Americans support Medicare-for-all

they don’t care what we think.

I beg your pardon nameless one…It is you who are showing the numbness of the skull area…There was no fort for a Trojan horse t enter before Obama.

Are you saying that we could have nominated someone more progressive? That could not be Hillary obviously, because she is not more progressive…perhaps you mean Kucinich?

If we had lost the last election we would be at war with Iran right now with President McCain and Vice President Palin at the helm. How’s that for burning down a fort?

It is truly amazing how the “Change You Can Believe In” Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress have committed so many errors on so many points in so little time.

How does a political party go from nearly 80% approval ratings, with the opposition in tatters and its only advocates far-right nuts and windbags, to a position where it has lost its soul and probably the next election?

Whence comes the Democrats’ will to political suicide? Is it really just for personal enrichment and power?

There must be more behind such pathetic behavior. What can it be? The calculations of the ruling class that a centrist party can get more done in its favor than a right-wing party? The aspirations of the lobbyists to feather their nests advocating continuous dispute? Personal egotism?

I just don’t get it anymore.

Join Weiner’s conversation per his invitation and tell him yourself.

Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and ING Launch Independent Insurance Group

Posted by Alex Finkelstein 07/07/09 3:06 PM EST

(NEW YORK, NY) — Already among the behemoths of the real estate capital industry, The Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs, ING and Credit Suisse are branching out into a new field – insurance.

The companies today jointly announced the formation of Insphere Insurance Solutions, Philip J. Hildebrand, a nationally known health industry executive, is CEO of the new group.

Philip J. Hildebrand
Hildebrand says that as one if its initial solutions, Insphere Insurance Solutions plans to have a marketing agreement with ING, a leading global banking and insurance company.
Hildebrand says Insphere Insurance Solutions expects to be the largest independent career agent insurance distribution group in America, with a force of 3,500 agents and offices in over 40 states when the company commences services in 2010.

This new company expects to be the nation’s largest independent career agent distribution group offering life, health, long-term care and retirement products .

(Excerpt)

Now Blackstone is Pete Peterson’s firm, and he has an interesting resume of his own,including manning the helm of CFR after David Rockefeller stepped down.
His group Blackstone has done several mergers with Romney’s group,Bain Capital. (I posted a few comments on this over on a thread about Ezra Kelin and the gutting of state insurance regulations.)

Hard to believe these guys would be going into insurance for the first time,big time, way back in July, unless the fix was already in,imho.

I won’t care whether or not they care what the American people think when we’re done ensuring that the sellouts are shown the door out of office.

No Margot, you don’t get it. I’m in the fort, not on the horse, the horse is outside the fort and it’s a Trojan horse, not a Trojan condom, you’re mixing metaphors.

You are tiresome. Why don’t you get lost?

Damn, I am acting “childish” again!Get it right. I am a DFH and damn proud of it.

New in town stranger? Don’t let the door hit you in ass you call a mouth.

Where’s freep when you need him?*g*

Tell Weiner that he must announce today that he will vote against this fucking turd and tell him to start demanding that congressional leaders move to budget reconciliation.

Tell him to stop enabling sellouts.

There’s nothing else to discuss.

If we had lost the last election we would be at war with Iran right now with President McCain and Vice President Palin at the helm. How’s that for burning down a fort?

That was never in the offing. McCain had the Bush albatross to carry.

A premonition of Rahm’s trainwreck in the mirror

Bailout to Wall Street with the real economy still destroyed – check.

Expanding the war in Afghanistan to achieve Cheney’s victory – check.

Selling out health care reform to Big Insurance & Pharma – check.

Watch for next year’s mid-term popular vote flip, where R’s receive nearly 10 million more than D’s. This will mirror Obama’s margin of victory (69,456,597) over McCain (59,934,814) in 2008′s presidential election.

Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and ING Launch …Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and ING Launch Independent Insurance Group. Alex Finkelstein. Posted by Alex Finkelstein 07/07/09 3:06 PM EST …
http://www.realestatechannel.com › … › Commercial Real Estate – Cached – Similar

There must be more behind such pathetic behavior. What can it be? The calculations of the ruling class that a centrist party can get more done in its favor than a right-wing party? The aspirations of the lobbyists to feather their nests advocating continuous dispute? Personal egotism?

It’s pretty obvious actually. Progressives have made themselves politically irrelevant — look at the vigor with which they lined up behind John Kerry in 2004. And the Republicans have exhausted their political capital with eight years of Bush. So the DLC is the remaining option.

what is this “fort” you speak of? “fortress” has a latin root word “fortis” which means, approximately, “strong” or more correctly “strengthen”. From there the medieval french word “fortelesse” which was the millitarized word for “castle”. as we all know, castles were strong places that medieval barons used as a residence, barrack, prison, “fortress” and overal staging area, to control the peasant serfs of a certain area. it was from the castle the “fortress” that the orders the taxes the judgements and the soldiers came from on high to collect for the lord. i would rather not have installed a “fortress”.

Kucinich?

We could have won with anybody or are you saying that when a majority of voters believe what Dennis supports on the issues healthcare for everyone, end the wars now and Obama is to the Right of the majority that Democracy would fail?

American Prospect, what with Ezra and noe Kuttner is loosing its cred.

I expect that Jane will soon pen an outline as to how to build a unified front with a more right leaning public against the status quo in Washington.
Thom Hartman, Ed Schultz, and Jane are moving agressively to the front of the line, driven, I suppose, by a combination of healthy instincts and reason. ‘We’ have a chance now, to engender a peaceful rebellion that will yield revolutionary and urgent changes. 20% independents, populists, libertarians straddling the center, 5% disaffected Reps/Dems each pealing off from center to the populist side. 5% leftist progressives. – It’s possible if we can kraft a strategy to harness the growing counter (kleptocratic) gov. sentiments now washing over the country. We can find enough common ground amongst us and compromise on those ‘visceral’ wedge issues, because their import is insignificant when compared to what we are facing if we don’t adjust the world view of the Wall Street thieves and their government enablers.

I beg your pardon nameless one…

Childish attempt to make me reveal my name to a stranger on the net like I want stalker groupies googling me or worse try being a little more subtle next time.

of if if if. by the same logic if howard dean had won the election we would have universal health care and half the war in iraq and 3/4 (?) of the war in afghanistan wouldnt have happened and the world would bebetter a happier more just place. get real. we KNOW what we DO have – corporate servants who WE installed because we belived they would be better. they arent MUCH better. not enough better to justify reelecting them at the cost of having this bill passed.

Totally agree, but Rahm is where he is and remains there because Obama put him there and keeps him there. Rahm is Obama’s Man (as are Summers, Geithner, Gates, etc.). So long as Obama keeps them on, this tragic history will be laid at his doorstep, not his minions’.

Roosevelt had a different problem, a cabinet of theoreticians when he needed activists. He had the courage to tell some very smart and well-meaning supporters that it was time to go. Obama doesn’t even have to worry about losing talent. He could just say bye and no one would weep.

As for John Kerry, he’s a one-line footnote in history, good for the next decade and then forgotten. His wife will be better remembered.

Here is a good post on important changes in Reid’s Manager’s Amendment. It appears there are some good changes and some disappointments.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/19/816680/-BREAKING:-Important-Changes-in-Health-Care-Managers-Amendment

NEWSMEAT ▷ Lloyd Blankfein’s Federal Campaign Contribution ReportCAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION SEARCH (individual donations of $200 or more since 1978) …. Goldman Sachs Group Inc./President, John Kerry (D) President …
http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Lloyd_Blankfein.php – Similar

very well written and its where we have to go

It’s likely the Senate is going to pass “this fucking turd” despite a thousand posts to FDL.

True enough. The Senate is likely going to pass this fucking turd.

But this is a fucking turd, the American people know it’s a fucking turd, and all you people can do is come here and beg us not to harm the incumbent sellouts politically for having handed the American people a fucking turd?

Tell Weiner to stand with Howard, Hamsher and me against this fucking turd, and tell him that, if he doesn’t, he’s failing the American people.

There likely will be more than a thousand posts at FDL between now and next Nov, and they will be dedicated to taking out every single sellout within the ranks of the Democratic Party.

Hmm, wonder who they will haul out next to smear Dr. Howard Dean? Perhaps Michael Dukakis?

I had already lost much respect for the spineless, self-righteous Kerry, who performed so atrociously during his run for president.

Now it’s total as the tool tries to score Rahm points by bashing Dean.

What a pathetic loser.

Jane, you’re doing a good job, want to throw in a few things for your consideration as this battle over the Senate Bill apparently moves into it’s final stage this week.

You’ve highlighted an easy case with Kerry, but there a numerous Democratic Senators and Reps who have conspired to kill real reform as “stalking horses” for the private insurance industry. (I encourage to look up that term in several dictionaries to get the real flavor of the meaning. Remember, the horse doesn’t know what it’s doing, only that what it’s doing seems to work out pretty well for it’s own purposes.) As just one example because it is so easy and so illlustrative, this includes three of four Senators (Murray, Cantwell, and Wyden) from the supposedly “bluest” NW corner of the country. Merkley probably is, because of where his money came from in his 2008 race, but we don’t know because the reports this week are that Merkley’s office refuses to tell constituents what his bottom line is. We do know in the 2008 election, and since, he repeatedly told his constituents he was right there with Obama against a mandate and no public option. We know where Obama has ended up. (It’s an unsatisfying “told you so” that some of us were warning that he or HRC were just playing the sleaziest of politics on the health care issue and neither actually made it absolutely clear if and what kind of publicly-owned option they would make one of their few “must-do” legislative objectives.)

The important thing about these “stalking horse” Democrats is that they have always supported the corporate welfare that the mandate is and did not support any kind of public option because that seem to work out pretty well for them in their election campaigns. That is, they did that mindlessly like a horse until this summer when they found out their constituencies had already determined to passively oppose their re-elections by no longer donating to them and no-vote’ing in their races (or just not showing up in the off-term election.) So these Senators (and Reps) desperately started to spin that they would vote for a bill with a public option, but never did a thing to actually work for it, as in tell Reid he doesn’t have their vote without it. They are lost and clueless and desperate to do whatever selfishly works out for them, which is continuing to be stalking horses for the industry by now ramping up the propaganda campaign that they “have” to vote for a bill without it because they care so much for those of us and our friends and family who are uninsured. At the bottom line they are just supporting what they supported at the outset because in their dumb animal way they perceive that will work out best for what they selfishly want — the power and prestige of being re-elected.

Right now, the best lesson we can teach those who we sent is to defeat this bill and make them work hard to do a good bill while we have the leverage of the 2010 election. They pass what we are hearing will be the Senate bill and that’s will be the end of it as far as they are concerned. The kool-aid drinkers who think this “is a start” and the kind of Democratic betrayers who gave us this are actually going to work to improve it are ignorant or dishonest, and probably both.

Abolish the Senate. Seriously, what’s the point? So that a bunch of wealthy patricians can do the bidding of giant corporations?

i don’t know how to do that on the scale you’ve described

I think I’ve taken more than my first step, don’t you?

One step at a time…

Democrats HATE AMERICA AND ITS OWN SUPPORTERS!!!!!

Are you all happy with this “healthcare bill” which in Obama’s own words is “health insurance reform” which DOES NOTHING TO REALLY HELP PEOPLE.

ONE IS STILL GOING TO NEED DEEP POCKETS TO AFFORD HEALTHCARE….

AS FOR PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS, WHO IS TO SAY INSURANCE COMPANIES WILL NOT CHARGE YOU FIVE TO TEN TIMES MORE….

THESE DEMOCRATS SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITH THIS!!!!!

THESE ACTIONS BY THE DEMOCRATS ARE A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!!!

so you mean, for example. the people who attend (or have attended) the tea parties?

Here’s Jane’s outstanding article, an absolute must read:

Left/Right Populist Outrage Will Defeat Senate Health Care Bill

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/leftright-populist-outrag_b_397483.html

don’t let my questions slow you down!

ygm

see my comments @118 and @121, your link.

thanks! i’m at the wrong computer to get it, but will check asap i’m at the right one….

Note: Apparently Mitch McConnell, in his noon press conference, pointed out that in the new Reid managers’ amendment, written in secret by the Democratic Party leadership, and finally unveiled today, two states are getting special federal hand-outs to cover expected Medicaid cost increases: Nebraska and … Vermont.

Which sounds to me like evidence of what Bernie Sanders and his “principles” amount to, when it really counts. All that remains is the revelation of his final parochial asking price for Vermonters, the rest of the nation be damned.

Kerry delivered quite a frustrated stemwinder yesterday – in service to the corrupt Party-machine politics of the President’s Congress (an institution wholly absent from the Constitution’s carefully-separated branches).

Some lengthier excerpts:

Yesterday we heard a person I admire and like and have become a good friend of, Howard Dean, who worked his heart out in 2004 to try to win, and then worked his heart out in 2008 to help elect this President.

Yesterday he wrote something which, incidentally, had some errors in fact about what was included and not included in the bill. But he said yesterday:

Let’s kill the bill and start over.

As another person whose work I greatly admire because I think he holds things accountable, Keith Olbermann said Wednesday night:

This is not health, this is not care, this is certainly not reform.

I respectfully–and I mean that–respectfully disagree with both of them. I don’t think they fully evaluated what is in this bill and what it accomplishes for America, nor fully evaluated the realities of what it would mean if you said kill it and start over. There is no President who is going to step up in the next few years if we don’t make progress. There is no Senator who is going to invest in a process after this, if we don’t make this reform work now.

If you follow that kind of advice and give up now because this bill isn’t everything you want it to be individually, then the very reforms people have spent their life working for, reforms that the Democratic Party has been proposing for decades that are in this bill, many of us ran on them and said: This is why we want to come to Washington to accomplish this–they would be destroyed. That would be it. It would be gone. What a mistake that would be.

[...]

Some of our progressive friends have said because it doesn’t have the public option, we ought to do that. Even though it doesn’t have a public option, the bill encourages the creation of more not-for-profit insurers, which I will say a little more about in a minute, that have the ability to drive costs and increase competition. We don’t have that today. Is that not worth fighting for on the Senate floor and putting into this bill?

[...]

I believe this legislation, even though it doesn’t have the public option I want–and there are a lot of other things it doesn’t do that could make the bill more effective–I believe when you take the totality of this bill and measure it against the problems we have in America today in delivery of health care and you look at the ways in which this bill increases coverage for seniors, provides lower cost drugs for seniors, expands the number of people who will be able to afford health care, helps to promote any number of individual reforms, almost every single idea that is worth considering that has been put forward by any think tank or any group in America is in this legislation in an effort to do what we call bending the cost curve–a terrible phrase, a Washington phrase.

It just means lower the cost increase in health care. Bring it down so it is reasonable with respect to what people can afford in relation to the rate of increase of inflation and other costs in our lives.

The Senate bill that is attracting all this trumped up, completely inapplicable but effective politics of destruction, this Senate bill, in fact, provides a provision that will allow the States to establish health care coverage for people between 133 percent and 200 percent of poverty. It allows States, not the Federal Government telling them what to do, no government from Washington, as everybody is trying to pretend this does, it doesn’t tell the States what to do, but it allows the States to contract directly with plans that provide insurance. It allows those States to have the authority. This is States rights.

[...]

Something else the Senate bill does. It provides $6 billion in startup funding under the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan, CO-OP program. This money fosters the creation of a new nonprofit member-run health insurance that offers coverage in the individual and small group markets. Those are the markets where the costs have gone up most rapidly and where Americans have the hardest time surviving.

[...]

The press has reported that one of the options being considered in the managers’ amendment is the creation of the Office of Personnel Management-administered plan. That is a plan administered by the Federal Government that would offer individuals an option to get a national nonprofit plan. I would say to Keith Olbermann and Howard Dean, take a look at this. Look at the OPM-managed and co-op-managed plans that actually provide a not-for-profit option at the Federal level.

[...]

We give Americans the option of participating in a plan administered by the same entity that administers the health insurance for Members of Congress. I think leveraging the role of OPM to encourage creation of a national nonprofit plan is a key way to lower health care costs and to roll more Americans into plans that devote a higher premium portion of dollars to medical dollars.

Some of our progressive friends have also said we ought to kill this bill because it has an age-rated premium. They want us to kill this bill because it has an age-rated premium. I don’t like age-rated premiums. It would be wonderful to get rid of them altogether.

[...]

People who are criticizing this bill ought to stop and take a look at what it does. Insurance companies are going to be prohibited from denying coverage or charging more because of a preexisting condition. [...] This bill will prohibit companies from denying insurance to people because they have a preexisting condition.

[...]

So insurance companies are going to be prohibited from providing a lifetime cap or an unreasonable annual limit on coverage. That sounds pretty reasonable to me.

[...]

Charging older Americans nearly three times as much for health insurance is by no means ideal. I know that. But, boy, when you look around the country, the majority of States have no rating structure in the individual market at all, and there is a huge rate disparity, as I described, in the small group market. So you have no rating restraints. So we get down, at least, to 3 to 1. The House is at 2 to 1. Today, in most places in America, there are no restraints, nothing–zero–for the individual market, and there are high rating bands, as I said, of 20, 25 percent for the small group market.

[...]

Some of our friends have said we should kill this bill because the exchanges are not strong enough. Well, I have been working on the exchanges with about 70 different groups in America ranging from seniors’ representatives, union representatives, small business, and other representatives, all of whom are concerned about the exchanges being strong. I am pleased to say those who claim the exchanges in this Senate bill are not strong enough have not read the bill. You do not have to get past the first 200 pages in this bill to see how the exchanges have been strengthened.

[...]

So we actually create an exchange that can negotiate down the prices. And they have the power to approve the participation of plans if they are determined to be in the best interests of qualified individuals and qualified employers in the State.

I have advocated for these provisions because of a simple reason. In Massachusetts today we have this ability. We do this, and it has driven down the premiums. In Massachusetts, we have something called the Connector. In fact, the exchange that is in this bill is significantly based on the Connector in Massachusetts. In that, the Connector has the ability to negotiate contracts for what is called Commonwealth Care, and it has placed pressure on the carriers to reduce the rates overall.

[...]

Uninsured Americans with a preexisting condition can have access to an immediate insurance program and help them avoid medical bankruptcy.

[...]

I see colleagues who were here with me back when we struggled with the Clinton administration’s effort on health care and every one of us would have been more than happy back then to have accepted–right then and there, we would have accepted what we have here today. I will tell you something: We would have had Republicans, such as Senator John Chafee, and I think Bob Packwood and others at that time, who would have tried to get a compromise passed, not totally dissimilar from the direction we are moving in here, and it was totally rejected by the Clinton administration.

[...]

Those have been the core of the arguments they have used, fundamentally, to stop the success of President Obama.

[...]

Health care reform has dramatically reduced the premiums in Massachusetts. Premiums fell by 40 percent. We are not here conjecturing as to what is going to happen. This isn’t some pie-in-the-sky theory that if we do this, here is what is going to happen. We have done it. In Massachusetts, we are insuring over 97 percent of all of our citizens, the highest level of insurance in the United States of America. Guess what. The number of companies participating in the program has gone up since it was passed, and they like it. The premiums fell by 40 percent, from $8,537 at the end of 2006 to $5,143 in mid 2009, while the rest of the Nation saw a 14-percent increase.

[...]

I particularly applaud the effort of Senator Reid, who personally has sacrificed the effort to help move this, and the entire leadership, including Senator Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, and Senator Dodd, of the HELP Committee, who was carrying that load for Senator Kennedy. Tom Harkin is now doing that job, and he and Barbara Mikulski and Jeff Bingaman were central to shaping what is coming to the floor.

[...]

I can’t help but think how often we have private conversations around here at the Prayer Breakfast, at the National Prayer Breakfast, at the Senate Prayer Breakfast, and in private conversations about what the duties and obligations are of good adherence to most of the organized religions of the world and certainly most of the philosophies of the world. They all embrace a component of the Golden Rule.

Have you seen the video in Elliott’s diary Kos Rebuts Tweety’s Claim That We Aren’t Grown-Ups?

If not, I highly recommend it.

As Markos put it, we’ve only just gotten started in the last couple of years.

We’re definitely on the right path to getting the party and the government that will work for the American people and that will work to keep the promise of this country.

I expect Kerry and Obama are birds of a feather. Excellent blog!

WHY do so many progressives believe that way?

I don’t know, and I wish that I knew.

What I do know is that we’re going to have to let go of some Democratic leaders that we used to like and respect. If they can’t get on board with the fact that Pat Buchannan was right …… we ARE in a culture war where the other side is out to totally destroy us, then they have to go in favor of progressives who do understnad the nature of the fight we’re in.

Guys, we’re in a fight for our very survival. The conservatives of today aren’t interested in finding common ground or in working with us. They want TOTAL control and TOTAL victory. They want us and our core values defeated.

Right below is linky to Jane’s article. The wave that she describes is mounting as we speak. I was in Poland when Solidarity was washing over the country. This, may be such a moment in America. The Left needs to offer their points of likely agreement, and subsequent points where reasonable compromise may be shaped. There is far more that we have in common with those to our right than those living upstairs, – that should be damn fucking obvious by now.

Re: Sanders – say it ain’t so, powwow!

I’ll light a candle to that!

Two related points:

A) LOVED that Lanny Davis smackdown! Prof. Greg Grandin made the same point about that public opinion-jacking bastard’s lobbying for the Honduran coup plotters during a contentious debate on Democracy Now! on August 7, 2009; he posted a follow-up article at HuffPo called Fact-checking Lanny Davis on Honduras.

My favorite part came when Grandin pointed out the very peculiar nature of Davis’s knowledge of Latin America in particular and anything he says in general: he only “knows” what he’s paid to know.

In the DN! interview, Davis described his job as an effort “to be as honest as I can about my observation of the facts….”

You mean, without getting fired, right Mr. Lobbyist? Who’s paying you? Answer the question!

B) And I love how you, and many FDL authors and commenters, keep busting the myths of the propagandists even as they’re firing them at us. Jacking us around, attacking our hearts and minds with carefully scripted myths, seems to be the only game they know. Once we catch on, they’re doomed.

Toward that end, everyone should watch the interview Laura Flanders did with Mark Danner, in a GRITtv segment titled Constructing Myths of America. “History isn’t recorded,” Danner says, “it’s constructed.” That’s the process of myth-making that I’m always on about.

Busting their myths before they can get off the ground, as we’re doing here, gives me great hope. Why?

There’s nothing more powerful in the known universe for arousing apathetic electorates than betrayal detected. We don’t like it. Our betrayers won’t like it, either.

dude, did you read my comments on that thread? i agree – that’s what i was saying this summer. but have you read the posts from that time? all the mocking and sexual jokes, etc? do you have a plan or even a suggestion for what we do about that? or do you think it doesn’t matter (i’d love to think that)?

LMAO

Disagree. It’s not the joke. It’s the audience and the context. You can tell one joke in a bar and get gales of laughter. Tell the same joke at a PTA meeting and you get stone silence.
Many if not most jokes told by comedy central comics nowadays would be regarded with shock and horror if told to an audience in 1950. Definitely NOT regarded as funny what with all the sex and raunchy language.

I knew PerfectionCook’s comment was a joke even before he qualified it. And I also knew somebody would get their nose out of joint about it on this site.
But if he told it at a football game tailgate party . . .

Jane is suggesting that the attacks from the center against progressives,(Kerry, Kennedy,etc) are geared to create distance from the progressives and thus present the center as the place of reasonableness and a shelter from all the crazies.

One would think that Axelrod’s Advertising/Branding machine would have taken a measure of the popular sentiments, perhaps they have and a simply lost their cool in the the face of so much counter (shitty gov.) anger.

The point of vast, and across all niches agreement is that Oligopoly is not the form of government that works for the People of this Nation.

Dear dyanisme,

Those holding the levers of power and connected to these establishment-led Democrats and want to see the “liberal-progressive” base destroyed and gone away with too….and they have been wanting this “progressive-liberal-left” group to go away ever since the Vietnam War…

What do you dolts think the DLC was formed for?

The DLC was formed to marginalize and ignore the “progressive-liberal-left” base which these Conservative Democrats and Corporatust Democrats and war mongering Democrats despise…..

The Democratic Party of today since the formation of the Democratic Leadership Council are doing their best to marginalize the scorn the “progressive-liberal-left” base and wish them to go away except at ELECTION TIME!!!!

I suggest everyone go to antiwar.com and listen to Glen Greenwald’s audio Interview with Scott Horton and unxdertsnad that both of these political paerties are wedded to the monied interests and that thr so-called “two-party” system is a jole….

All of a sudden so many people on the Democratic Party side who opposed Bush’s war policies are taking a blind eye to Obama’s continuation of so many right-wing policies under the guise of “deliberation” and the “intelligence” of Mr. Obama and his team of criminals.

Funny how you need Trojan Horse spelled out so clearly for you.

And no fort pre-Obama? Let’s see,

1. large and growing majority in House, despite Rahm’s f’ed up Blue Dog strategy (and thanks to Dean’s 50 state strategy, which tee’d up Obama’s grassroots effort so spectacularly..and ironically).

2. The elusive “filibuster-proof” sixty senate seats.

3. Just about any D was going to win (v McCain or any other R after the Bush debacle became so clear for what it was). The primary was the general.

4. 88% of Democrats support the public option, *still*.

But somehow, a guy who campaigns spouting elements of the catechism — no mandate; supports public option; cost control and systemic change — but then turns and doesn’t lift a finger, rather cheers, while it’s knifed in plain sight on the Senate floor isn’t a trojan horse.

thank you for the link and i’ll happily watch the vid. but i’ve been reading kos and more since before he went to scoop and have my own opinions about his politics and what’s been going down in the political blogosphere the last couple of years.

Selise (going through your Salon link-will take time), it’s not some plan that anyone of us concocts, it’s this opportunity hanging out there, that’s growing, assuming a life of it’s own and quickly becoming undeniable.

I think that our task may be to start figuring out various likely scenarios as to not be surprised by actions the Obamapollogists will take, and to stay a step ahead of them.

off to measure the temp, peruse your links, thanks.

Right on again. Nader looks better and more prescient every day.

“Washington is corporate-occupied territory.” I remember when he said that it was considered crackpot radical. Now it is self-evident to even the dimmest.

I also remember how Kerry just sat there silent and stone-faced when those single-payer activists were thrown out of the early hearings. All I could think was “you dirty shit. I’m glad you lost.” Just more Uncle Tomobama.

If you think Kucinich would have won NC or VA or even Fla then you are as wrong as a Viagra commercial. He had plenty of time and money to impress Iowans and they weren’t impressed.

Thanks for pointing this out on Kerry Jane, This corporate bastard should needs to be shown for what he is!

The Progressives really need to break off and form their own party, we are always gonna get the status quo till then and the progressives we have now are just gonna continue to be bought off one by one durring these big legislations.

Dear fuckno,

Yes there is this bipartian claptrap abound in Washington, D.C.

After all, Clinton’s mentor at Georgetown University Carroll Quigley was famous for his view that over-partisanship was always at the fringes. Clinton lauded his former professor Quigley at his acceptance speech for nomination in 1992.

Check this article out by Lanny J. Davis in The Washington Post from January 14, 2007 entitled: PARTYING TOGETHER: McCain-Clinton ’08? Obama-Hagel? That’s the Ticket

In this article Davis writes this typical Washington, Inside the Beltway claptrap of “bipartisanship.”

Here are a few excerpts:

“Imagine this scenario: The country is so deeply divided that the media have color-coded the map of the United States to indicate the partisan chasm — one color covers the South and most of the border states, the other drenches the North….As the presidential election year nears, one candidate, a shoo-in for his party’s nomination, has an obvious choice for running mate. Yet he also senses the uniqueness of the moment. So he makes a risky decision: He asks a leader of the opposition to run for vice president alongside him, forming the first bipartisan presidential ticket in U.S. history….This is no fantasy. It’s the decision Abraham Lincoln made when, running for reelection in 1864, he asked his Republican vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, to quit the ticket in favor of the highly partisan Democrat Andrew Johnson….”

“…Today’s national unease and rabid partisanship – so similar to the circumstances of 1864 — raise the challenge for someone to form a bipartisan ticket in 2008. The lingering trauma of 9/11, the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorism call for an administration open to bipartisan solutions to the crises that confront the country….Last year’s congressional elections showed that voters are tired of the partisan gridlock in Washington. They want some solutions from liberals and others from conservatives. That’s the new politics of our age, as exemplified by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman’s reelection in Connecticut as an “independent” Democrat. Though he has voted mostly with his fellow Democrats over the years, Lieberman is open to both liberal and conservative approaches….The most important reason for a bipartisan presidency in 2008 is the need to find solutions to the war in Iraq and to avoid delaying the end of significant U.S. involvement over fear of partisan recriminations….”

Read the full article by Lanny J. Davis @:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/AR2007011201956_pf.html

Again, here is what Lanny Davis and the Washington Insiders are all about. They do not like like “partisan” views at all. They are all part of the same club and it’s time some of you here, not all, get this through your head.

These Washington Insiders are not like you or me. They do not care about you or I the way you would think. Get into reality. I favor partisanship. But if you think they would not throw issue after issue in the toiler when it’s not a political winner to maintain power, think again. That is why the Democratic Party formed the DLC–to win elections rather than hold onto real core values and ideals of social and economic justice.

“Remember, know thy mind as others seek snakes and oil.”

You live atop excrement mountain,

and I’m not gonna listen to you,

because I’m a real liberal not a big fib-eral,

and I’ll never give up my cool.

No drama Obama is the man that I trust

and thank god that he is at the wheel.

Every day I work hard, just like FDR

and you [edited by mod] need to get real !

“Stop grieving prematurely.”

God, how many times have the skeptics and pessimists heard that refrain in this health debacle?

But the pessimists have been right all along. The bill is our worst nightmare and it will pass nearly intact. We will be saddled with health cartel domination for at least 10 years, until the weight of its failings force the issue to the fore again.

(Not to mention that abortion will be forced deeper into the back-alley.)

sorry, fuckno, i’m being too vague (in a lame attempt to not be too provocative). anyway, love your “it’s this opportunity hanging out there, that’s growing, assuming a life of it’s own and quickly becoming undeniable.” hope that’s so and would like to do whatever i can (if anything) to help things move in the direction you’ve described.

Your point is worthy of a diary. I have yet to hear a talking head make this point when Dean is on the air.

It gives a great deal of insight to the attacks on Dean.

I’m not sure what you are saying here, but I THINK you are condemning Nader hating. Am I right?

I am always surprised at how many Progressives, even far-left Progs like Jane just loathe Nader. He took away the Presidency from their precious Al Gore.
(an assertion that I have recently found questionable. I understand that 200,000 Democrats voted for Bush in 2000. We might want to blame THEM 1st.)

Everyday in everyway the truth of what Ralph was trying to tell us all becomes more clear.

Look at the effort put in to this health care battle. 3 dedicated major TV commentators on MSNBC. Dylan Ratigan in the AM. Even mainstream commentators like Rick Sanchez and Anderson Cooper weighed in strongly
on the side of Real HCR. A major movie, SICKO kicked off the festivities last year. Multiple blog sites dedicated to the cause. Radio shows constantly talking about the need for reform. Plus a small but dedicated cadre of demonstrators willing to get arrested for reform. Poll after poll demonstrating a stiffening of support for the PO.

All this and much more and we still are getting a nightmare of a bill that is a wet dream for the Cartel. Amazing. Ralph would say: What’s the surprise?

I hope all these Democrats lose their next election!!!!

And I do not care who beats them….and, ya know what I mean?

Not a dime’s worth of difference between these two corporate parties.

I hope Harry Reid LOSES BIG TIME too!!!!

It’s okay to LOATHE THESE DEMOCRATS as well….They deserve all the hate they get and should get too!!!

The members of our kakistocratic government are finally ripe and ready to defenestrate, and We the People ought to lend them our united hands and help them synchronize their exit.

After the bank bailout we could have won with anyone:)

I liked your comments, however I would say that your point about him being a DOCTOR does’nt mean much to me. You could line up a thousand doctors tomorrow who would trumpet the insurance company, keep the status quo line. I know. I’ve worked around them for 26 years and one is my best friend.

Politically, most docs are idiots.

Still, the rest or your comment I heartily endorse!

To distract us, these scum are going to try an rabble rouse against Iran. They need to be cut off at the pass in the Media now!

The huge gift Reid’s amemdment gives to Nelson and all pro-lifers re the abortion language:

Nelson’s ass is saved with Harry’s amendment because he pushed the insurance question off to each state’s own legislature.
Nelson’s state is a “non-partisan” unicameral legislature. Good luck finding any pro-choice members there.
-Nelson and Stupak win =1 state.

13 other states have Republican controlled legislatures.
-Nelson and Stupak win = 14 states..

10 more states have split legislatures -most are in purple states.
-Nelson and Stupak win maybe half = 19 states.

While the other 26 are Blue, in this climate many will never get any pro-choice legislation passed, may lose one-third of these.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_state_legislatures)

Grand total = ~28 states will likely adopt Stupak/Nelson language.

This is a horrible outcome for womens’ rights, thanks to 60 despicable, selfish, lobbyist infested Senators and their President.

I posted this on the Waaambulance thread a couple of days ago:

thought that this info from Davis’ Wiki might be both informative and enlightening:

Lanny Davis is the Treasurer for Joe Lieberman’s Reuniting Our Country PAC. [2]

Attorney
Davis started his legal career as an associate at Patton Boggs in 1975 and became a partner in 1978. He served as special counsel to the President from 1996 to 1998, during which time he also was the spokesman for Clinton in issues regarding campaign finance investigations and other legal issues, including President Clinton’s impeachment trial.

After leaving the White House, Davis returned to Patton Boggs. As part of his work there, he worked as a lobbyist for the nation of Pakistan prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001.[8]

In 2006, through opinions expressed in the Wall Street Journal (August 8, 2006) and on Fox News, Davis strongly supported longtime friend Joseph Lieberman in his losing bid against Ned Lamont for the Democratic Party nomination for the post of U.S. Senator from Connecticut. He then continued to support Lieberman when he ran and won the General Election as an Independent.

In 2008, Davis supported Senator Hillary Clinton in her race for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, and has appeared on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC as a surrogate for her. After Clinton conceded, Davis went on to support Barack Obama.[9]

In 2008, Davis questioned the United States’ response to the conflict between Russia and Georgia and advised present and future US leaders to consider the point of view of the Russian leaders before unilaterally supporting the government of Georgia in the conflict.[10]

He is a senior advisor and spokesman for the Israel Project, and serves as a lobbyist for the Pakistani government.

Remember this—-They STILL NEED PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR THEM AT ELECTION TIME AND IN THE VOTING BOOTH NO MATTER WHAT RAHM EMANUEL SAYS OR THREATENS OTHERS WITH…

IT IS TIME FOR THE LIBERAL-PROGRESSIVE TO SAY NO TO THESE DEMOCRATS ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!!

NO MORE—YOU CANNOT TAKE OUR LIBERAL-PROGRESSIVE VOTES FOR GRANTED ANY LONGER–WE ARE SICK OF BEING SICK AND TIRED OF YOUR EMPTY PROMISES AND EMPTY SPEECHES AND LYING RHETORIC!!!!!

These same amoral Democrats think that the liberal-progressive base has nowhere else to turn, hence, that is where the abuse and negelect of liberal/progressive concerns starts. The Democrats use the liberal/progressive base at election time and then say see ya later until four years from now…..

It parallels with what David Kuo said the Bush White House really thought of the Christian right–that they are useful at election time but that’s it.

I hope that the progressives/liberals for the Democratic Party and who supported the empty presidential campaign of Obama finally understand THEY ARE NOT WANTED BY THESE DEMOCRATS IN WASHINGGTON, D.C. AND IT’S FINALLY TIME TO REGISTER WITH ANOTHER PARTY–SAY THE GREEN PARTY OR JUST LEAVE THE DEMS ALTOGETHER AND BECOME AN INDEPENDENT.

LEAVING THE PARTY IN DROVES WILL ALSO SEND A POTENT MESSAGE…THIS SHOULD TAKE PLACE THIS WEEK…

I LEFT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY FOR THE GREEN PARTY WHEN OBAMA AND HARRY REID INVITED JOE LIEBERMAN BACK INTO THE PARTY AND SAID “LET’S MOVE ON.”

I NOTICED OBAMA’S LACK OF SPINE WHEN HE INVITED JOE LIEBERMAN BACK INTO THE PARTY LAST NOVEMBER AND OBAMA’S IMMEDIATE BACKTRACKING OF HIS PROMISES ON THE VERY NIGHT HE WON THE ELECTION AGAINST McCAIN-PALIN….GO BACK AND READ HIS SPEECH FROM ELECTION NIGHT NOV, 2008.

The sad thing is, they’ll spin it as proof that “the country has moved to the right,” rather than noticing that portions of the left have abandoned them.

I had no idea what this project was about ,with whom Davis is affiliated.

Speaking of myth making,Boy, did I get quite an awakening:

Re: Israel Project:

The Seminal » The Israel Project’s Secret Hasbara Handbook Exposed

Jul 12, 2009 … Specifically, they’ve exposed a secret hasbara handbook written for The Israel Project by star Republican marketer, Frank Luntz. …
seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6256 – Cached

NOTE: I had to do a double take on that Hasbara-I thought it said Hasbarak.

I am against any attack on Iran, but none of you should be surprised if and when it occurs….

There is not a dime’s worth of difference between either political party…

Actually, if you ask me, it’s only a matter of when, not if, regarding an American military attack against Iran along with Israel using Saudi airspace to carry it out….

Yes, these Dems see being loud and taking military action against Iran as a “political winner” and especially to “rally around the flag and Obama” after this healthcare bill disaster…..

Those holding the levers of power always have a new scheme up their butts and do not want to be exposed at all.

“Israel’s project secret Hasbara Handbook exposed”

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/07/10/the-israel-projects-secret-hasbara-handbook-exposed/

Obama approves aid to Israel, PA
Jewish state receives $2.775 billion as part of agreement granting it $30 billion in coming decade; Palestinians get $500 million for first time
Published: 12.18.09, 22:28 / Israel News
Yitzhak Benhorin

“…US President Barack Obama this week signed the 2010 foreign aid budget law which includes $2.775 billion in security aid to Israel. This is the second year the budget is transferred to the Jewish state as part of understandings that the American assistance to Israel in the coming decade will total $30 billion…For the first time, the American foreign aid budget law includes a clause forbidding American export and import banks to use the aid funds for providing guarantees, insurance or credit to companies sullying refined oil to Iran….Despite the serious financial crisis, the Americans did not raise the possibility of reducing the aid or cancelling it at any stage. Israel is bound by the agreement to use 75% of the security aid in dollars – in other words, to produce military devices in the US in order to help create workplaces there…In addition to the regular annual security aid, President Obama and the American Congress approve special additions to the Israeli defense industries for the development of technologies, particularly in the missile defense field. The US has helped and continues to help Israel with the production line of the Arrow 2 missile defense project, which is jointly developed by the Boeing company and the Israel Aerospace Industries….”
Read entire article @:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3821976,00.html

Important to read and deeply consider what’s going on here:

A take down (rightly so) of Sanders:

Bernie the Quitter Fools Us Again
The Health Care Charade

By MICHAEL COLBY http://www.counterpunch.org/colby12182009.html

seems like Bernie is a parochial sell-out, judging form Nebraska and Vermont being the beneficiaries of latest tweaks to the Senate perversion.

“you people” driving our SUV’s

60% of Americans support the public option. 60% of Americans support the public option. 60% of Americans support the public option.

This is not about what the progressives want. This is about what 60% Americans support…THE PUBLIC OPTION

Smart move. I want to hear what you think, what your concerns are and your suggestions for how we can move ahead…or not

John Scary has been a senator for too long, we need a fresh blood!

Absolutely, this (60%) is the source of popular power which is always being split asunder by relatively minor but emotionally potent wedge issues, drawn upon by the Oligarchs, whenever the ‘rabble’ misbehaves.

The more horrific language of this massive legislative gift to Israel is here (http://www.alternativenews.org/english/1915-the-us-to-raise-military-aid-to-israel.html)

The highlights:
-While seniors get no cost of living under the guise of our terrible economy, the President gave Israel a 10% increase over the ridiculously high amounts already given under Bush.

-Israel is given it’s newly perceived rights to Jerusalem.
-No American official is allowed to do business with any Palestinian, in Israeli controlled parts of Jerusalem.

That’s a whoppingly big Democrat/Israeli Have a Happy F***ing New Year to Palestine.

Wow. Not even the Republicans ever went that far.

I agree with your point of audience and context. Underwear is hilarious in the boys’ locker rooms and other places in snickerville Sniff + knickers = snickerville get it? It’s a pun.

Still whatever the venue, if you have to announce it’s a pun…….

I’m way late to this, haven’t read comments . . .

It’s the second time I’ve seen those numbers Mz. Hamsher reports and they are STAGGERING!!!

Obama, $20 mil in what, three years, with McCain in all his years with only HALF of that Obama’s gains?

Interesting that the top three were all presidential candidates!!
But OBAMA got TWICE AS MUCH in only 3 YEARS, than the other two!!!

Wow. Had I seen this stat BEFORE the election, I wonder where my vote would have gone . . . wow.

Can’t look back, I guess but still . . . what hindsight to use for the NEXT time I wanna make some decisions about voting . . .

Incredible info, thanks again Mz. Hamsher.

Before you head on over to enjoy the chat with Weiner, see Weiner the Whining Weakling.

Final thought:

Take Mz. Hamsher’s info, add it to Masaccio’s Posit, and one can draw a singular line betwen the two.

$20fucking million in 3 years from healthcare and HC Insurance.

Bought and paid for. A lesson in voting.

1) Follow the money.
2) Keep it simple sister/son. KISS.
3) Occam’s Razor

Man, if I had this info before I last voted . . . but then, what were the choices

Can’t look back, but I’ll look for this info NEXT time I vote . . .

Thanks to all for great info and painting the big picture for all to see.

Holy propagandist’s handbook! This is exactly what I’m on about, thanks for the link. Looks like Frank Luntz, the report’s author, has joined the comments. Could be interesting.

As the exposé’s author, Richard Silverstein, says:

It’s an empty exercise in every sense of the word. Reading this makes you realize that the entire Israel lobby edifice is a house of cards.

Same goes for the myth of American Exceptionalism. Once we catch on, the myth-makers are doomed.

What I want to know is, who writes this stuff? Where did Luntz learn this method? Is it his, or somebody else’s proprietary method for managing electorates?

There’s a long history of this schtick. Nixon’s treason during Vietnam, Reagan’s Iran-Contra betrayal, GWB/Rove’s theft of presidential elections and perversion of the Department of Justice into a GOP hit job machine.

[President] Johnson then made a thinly veiled threat about going public with the information.

“I don’t want to get this in the campaign,” Johnson said, adding: “They oughtn’t be doing this. This is treason.”

[Senate Republican Leader Everett] Dirksen responded, “I know.”

Johnson continued: “I think it would shock America if a principal candidate was playing with a source like this on a matter of this importance. I don’t want to do that [go public]. They ought to know that we know what they’re doing. I know who they’re talking to. I know what they’re saying.”

The President also stressed the stakes involved, noting that the movement toward negotiations in Paris had contributed to a lull in the violence.

“We’ve had 24 hours of relative peace,” Johnson said. “If Nixon keeps the South Vietnamese away from the [peace] conference, well, that’s going to be his responsibility. Up to this point, that’s why they’re not there. I had them signed onboard until this happened.”

Dirksen: “I better get in touch with him, I think.”

“They’re contacting a foreign power in the middle of a war,” Johnson said. “It’s a damn bad mistake. And I don’t want to say so. …

“You just tell them that their people are messing around in this thing, and if they don’t want it on the front pages, they better quit it.”

Too bad he didn’t, it would’ve destroyed the GOP for a generation or two.

I’m sure the torturers at APA have something to do with it. Designing the next McCarthyism is their specialty, after all. And I’m sure the Dems are using it too, as in the smearing of Dean as well as the whole reform debacle.

I’ve been focusing on the GOP’s methods. I’m much less aware of Democratic ploys. It’s easiest to overlook the ones to whom you stand the closest, eh? So, I need help answering questions like, who’s the master myth-maker for the Dems? What are the DLC’s key myths? Who are their key media patsies? Etc.

Appreciate your comment and your personal concern for the profession.

My point, irt Rayne’s observation, is the combined context of doctor-governor-successful state health care program. It would be silly to disregard any one element in that context.

From my venue, I have grown up with family members as doctors who have taken their oath seriously “to do no harm,” serving in rural areas where few docs roam.

Vermont is full of rural areas with rural docs committed to their profession and practicing medicine for people with serious need for health care. Dean, as a doctor and governor, knows this about his state. Whether one knows Docs who ride the industry for profits or one knows docs who are serious about “do no harm,” the bottom line is Dean’s combined background made him understand the needs of his state for a medical program success.

Please read Larue:

CTlil December 19th, 2009 at 9:09 am 107
I’ve come on late and don’t know if Leen was answered as to the money Obama received from the Healthcare industry.
I also was floored when I read the money he received from the industry until I learned that profession was considered in our individual contributions to our candidate of choice. Many people in the Healthcare industry want reasonably priced excellent health insurance as well.
Most of the contributions to Obama was individual.

That’s an interesting link.

Especially when this just happened.

Sounds like messages are being sent or just interesting timing.

You sir, are secretly a member of the Likud party who wants the US to go to war with Iran. That is the only framework in which your comments are logical.

i’m not one of the 60%. see my comment this thread @127.

chipshirley, a fortress? LOL
Here’s a parable for you:

Gingerbread Man (read supporters of the insurance lobby clearing house give-away bill): Gee thanks Fox! It sure is nice of you to take me across the river. I won’t be completely safe from all those angry people, but at least I’ll have gotten away for now.

Fox (read insurance industry): Here we are, on the banks of the other side. Skrunch, munch, crunch, slurp, swallow, ssmaaack! That was delicious!

Published on Saturday, December 19, 2009 by Politico
Stupak, Working with GOP, Trying to Sink Abortion Compromise
By Ben Smith

“An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D. Mich.) coordinated opposition to a Senate compromise on the place of abortion in health care legislation this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, the Conference Catholic Bishops, and other anti-abortion groups, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO. The emails show that Stupak – who has so far remained silent on language accepted by Senator Ben Nelson (D. Neb.) and faces intense pressure from the White House to accept it – is already working behind the scenes to oppose the compromise… They also demonstrate a previously unseen degree of coordination between Stupak and the office of Republican leader Mitch McConnell….”

Read article @:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/19-6

To be serious for a moment. Actually what stimulated me to respond to Perfectioncooks ‘joke’ was mainly a little rush of fear.

I hate to see any kind of sexual reference to any of the women who take the risk of going public on blogs, especially political/controversial blogs.

No matter how innocent the intent, there is that chance the some whacko will be stimulated.

Every day women accept the risks inherent in public exposure to take their rightful places in the world. It’s a burden we men don’t have or know about unless we experience it second hand through our female loved ones.

Thanks to Jane and all the other women for accepting the risks to do what you do for us all.

Just one last thought about propagandists, and why their methods are doomed. See, by depending so much on deception, they make truth into our invincible ally, and their worst enemy. Propagandists have never had to deal with bloggers who can bust their myths before they get airborne.

My greatest hope, reinforced by threads such as this one, is for us to reach a critical mass of awareness of the betrayal. It. could. work!

[Edited by Moderator. Attack the argument, not the individual], I explained that it was a joke because [Edited] this page is one in the same.

Obama Admn Putting out its Cronies to Counter Howard Dean—

The Obama administration it seems has stepped up its frontal attack on Howard Dean. Check this out folks:

The Obama White House it seems has asked Mrs. Victoria Reggie Kennedy to write an Op-Ed for Sunday’s Washington Post entitled: “The moment Ted Kennedy would not want to lose,” for December 20, 2009. Here are some excerpts of her article for Sunday’s paper:

“My late husband, Ted Kennedy, was passionate about health-care reform. It was the cause of his life. He believed that health care for all our citizens was a fundamental right, not a privilege, and that this year the stars — and competing interests — were finally aligned to allow our nation to move forward with fundamental reform. He believed that health-care reform was essential to the financial stability of our nation’s working families and of our economy as a whole….Still, Ted knew that accomplishing reform would be difficult. If it were easy, he told me, it would have been done a long time ago. He predicted that as the Senate got closer to a vote, compromises would be necessary, coalitions would falter and many ardent supporters of reform would want to walk away. He hoped that they wouldn’t do so. He knew from experience, he told me, that this kind of opportunity to enact health-care reform wouldn’t arise again for a generation….As Ted wrote in his memoir, he was deeply disappointed that the Clinton health-care bill did not come to a vote in the full Senate. He believed that senators should have gone on the record, up or down….Ted often said that we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. He also said that it was better to get half a loaf than no loaf at all, especially with so many lives at stake….”

Read the full article by Victoria Reggie Kennedy @:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/…

I guess the White House is covering all its bases and is still trying to counter and attack Howard Dean with this article by Ted Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy. It’s unbelievable but I wonder if the White House would have asked Mrs. Kennedy to conveninelty write this article only days after Dr Howard Dean, M.D. penned his fine article in the same paper.

Sorry for your loss Mrs. Kennedy, but I still oppose this bill. I also have noticed a typical Obama administration and media phrase here as well which is “that we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Well this bill is far from perfect and is not even good. It is neither. In fact it sucks!

Your late husband said “Medicare for all Americans.” He also said Americans should be able to have the “same healthcare as members of Congress.”

This bill is so far away from Medicare for all and it actually contrary to your article will raise people’s premiums, put people in a deeper financial hole and will not alleviate the existing structural problems in the healthcare system.

I did not know that your late husband was a proponent of corporate fascism either. I am sorry for your loss but I do not and will not support this bill even as much as I admired the late Edward M. Kennedy.

The White House now is dragging Ted Kennedy out of his grave to counter Howard Dean and we don’t really know whether he would want to have gutted any of the public programs from Medicaid to Medicare and that is why it’s unfair to speculate on what he’d think or agree to at this time.

Lastly, the people walking away from this bill are doing so because its not real reform and its more money into the pockets of the big insurance companies at the expense of taxpayers and that people will face fines and penalized if they cannot afford it. Yes, if they cannot afford it and in this sense it does not address the core issue at the heart of this healthcare debate. So, I reject your view on this one entirely.

I also find it interesting how Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama and yes, Joe Biden are recruiting the likes of Mrs. Kennedy to legitimize this awful and disastrous healthcare bill.

On this issue, I am on the side of Doctor Howard Dean, M.D., not the Washington Insiders.

Why the fuck should anyone listen to John Kerry?

Pipe down already, loser.

Nader is the Emmanuel Goldstein of the Democratic Party. Remember Emmanuel Goldstein? He was the object of the “Two Minute Hate” in George Orwell’s 1984.

http://www.factcheck.org/gephardt_ad_quotes_dean_out_of_context.html

Actually yes, it looks like Dean slag off Medicare for its administration. That’s kind of weird since it has the lowest overhead of any of the health programs.

Message to President Obama,

Goodbye Democratic Party and say hello to your one-term presidency.

You-Mr Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Joe Biden and the entire Democratic Party and the Dems in Congress are not only parasites, but traitors to those who have long supported the Democratic Party. You are all evil human trash and do not belong running America. All you people are doing is fracturing this country just like Bush and Cheney did but in a more silent but still sinister way. David Axelrod, Timothy Geithner, Joe Biden, Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin, Ben Barnake, Kathleen Sebelius and Valerie Jarrett are not real Democrats but corporatists who do not care about average Mr. and Mrs. America.

Yes, you Mr. Obama along with your P.O.S. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are single-handedly ruining America. We all know that you and your Rahm are fixing with a war on Iran as well.

I cannot wait for your defeat in 2012 fast enough and to think I was once a Democrat. I am in the Green Party now and have been since last Novmeber of 2008 when you spinelessly along with Harry Reid welcomed Joe Lieberman back into the party and caucus with open arms. I hope every last Democrat loses in their next election cycles as well.

Yes, you Democrats work for the Banksters and the Military-Industrial Complex and use the progressive-liberal base at election time but soon forget who voted for ya once in office.

Understand it Mr. Obama and let your weasel Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel know that you will all not win the election next time around because the liberal-progressive base will not be used any longer.

The progressive-liberal base is done with looking the other way in regard to “compromise” and the failings of the Democratic Party. There are enough liberal/progressive groups to adversely effect every senate and house race in America in 2010 and beyond.

I challenge you-Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and Mr. Emanuel to be stupid enough to declare open warfare at the progressive-liberal base as Lanny J. Davis continues to do as in his attacks against Jane Hamsher and the continual verbal assaults against Howard Dean.

Just do it and be man about it—Declare Open War Against Us Leftists!!! Because it appears your administration has already for all intent an purposes done just that (war against liberals/progressives) anyhow. I challenge your administration, Mr. Obama to be brave and brazen enough to Declare Open War Against Us Leftists, and do this openly!!!

Mr. Obama—say hello to being a One-Term President.

hello. I read here often and see some comments on building a coalition of sorts for mutual agenda items with people at the Tea Parties. I also see some of the comments about tea ‘baggers’ and neocon religious conservatives yada yada.

just thought I would chime in to say that is a really limited stereotype of who is actually at the Tea Parties. I am a 24 yr Dem and I was at a Tea Party on Tax Day April 15th with a sign that said ‘Congress Stop $pending!!!’

I have met more Indies and mod Dems there than any of the comments on Dem and Progressive sites seem to understand are there.

we KNOW we cannot afford the spending, we KNEW the stimulus, as written, was not going to be effective, we KNEW that once Billy Tauzin had a closed door deal with Obama it was al over for this bill

the ‘pragmatic’ ‘post partisan’ Obama was the staus quo candidate IMO. Wall St and Pharma Insurers gave him the most money.

Yes yes I am an HRC supporter. I bitterly cling to the Constitution. and I loved Big Dawg and still do. He lifted more people of color out of poverty than any POTUS since LBJ. When Obama stops lowering MORE people INTO poverty then we can talk about his ‘liveral cred’.

Anyway just wanted to lt you know you likely have more common ground on issues than you may think at sterotype glance with the populist movement,

Obama started the class warfare rolling, then he schmoozes the bankers when the press poll leaves. Housing is about to collapse AGAIN. HRC proposed HOLC, sn FDR model in Fen 2008 op ed in the WSJ. Obama was to the RIGHT of HRC and uneblievaly Obama was to the RIGHT of even McCain on housing.

Obama was the Credit Suisse candidate.

Would progresisves have been happy with HRC more hawkish stance. No. but tell me how what Obama is doing in AfPak, and Yemen!, any different? its not

if HRC was the one who was pushing this ‘compromise’ as POTUS, progressive and The Village heads would EXPLODE and everyone knows it.

IMO the GOP folks I meet at the Tea Parties are far more honest than the Village wonker wankers who would never stand for these compromises coming from the ‘Clinton’ wing which they abhor.

sorry, typos abound/without my glasses right now.

Good Morning! Progressives
It is time to fight fire with fire!
We must first understand that Barack Obama is a Republican, so the idea of him having to deal with a Republican Congress in 2011-2012 is fine with him.
The biggest myth in America is the Left is not Majority. Hello PEOPLE! The pictures you see on TV about the TEA PARTY/REPUG PARTY don’t lie, the GOP is a DYING PARTY. (GOP is a southern party at best with no growth)
What all PROGRESSIVES have got to understand is everything is changing. THE Democratic Party is just a BRAND NAME. Progressives need to use that Brand Name like everyone else has been doing.
REMEMBER THIS!!! THE PEOPLE WHO KNOCK ON DOORS AND MAKE PHONE CALLS DURING CAMPAIGNS ARE THE NEW KING MAKERS. WHO EVER CONTROLS THEM CONTROLS THE GAME.
Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod know that without the NET ROOTS, they will never win the WHITE HOUSE!!!
What we must do is learn how the ELITES play the game! Barack Obama like Ronald Reagan was a great ACTOR. Barack Obama acted like he was a progressive to get elected.
Progressive Candidate need to learn how to act like ConserverDEMS, Republicans, etc to get elected! At the end of the day the only thing that matters is getting to the House or Senate! Once you get to the House or Senate you can transform into a PROGRESSIVE. (What is BEN NELSON? A DEM? I don’t think so! He is a Republican)
We are going to connect with our various networks we use in the 2008 election. The college students of course are going to be PISSED! But we are going to show them the power they have.
Barack Obama and the elites are showing us the way!!! It is all about ACTING!!! If you live around a bunch of Republicans talk and walk like them on the Campaign Trail, and once you get to the Senate or House transform into a PROGRESSIVE. The democratic party is just a name. Our plan features a lot of SHOCK and AWE!
The key ELEMENT we will be working on to keep our Progressives loyal is Persuasion MONEY, and the control of the MAIL LIST will stay with us.
Progressives we must use this Insurance Bail Out Plan to challenge Weak Dems who currently are in strong Progressive districts! They are easy Targets!!!
For example let us look Weiner!
His district is safe? Not Really.
Once Weiner and other weak Dems vote for this Insurance Bail Out! They will be easy to beat.
Picture this Debate! In New York
Weiner comes in with GQ persona.
“The Real Progressive” ask Weiner, why did you vote to force people to buy INSURANCE?
Weiner will not be able to answer this question and keep his base happy! So the Insurance Bail Out Plan may Help us get rid of Weak Dems.
THIS IS A GREAT DAY FOR PROGRESSIVES!!!

you think Kerry is bad, we need to educate people on Harkin. he went on Rachel’s show and used his progressiveness to sell us on this bill and he gets most of his money from Goldman Sachs, health. when do we leave this sick party? we can’t afford this party anymore.

Most all of them are worthless, Kerry’s just one of many. No matter how much noise they make or how tough they talk, as this or any other fight nears its end, they all start selling us out. This time around you know one of them is selling out as soon as they start talking about all the good things there are in the bill. When push comes to shove, they always go along. Not one of them cares enough about progressive issues to risk breaking with the party. No matter that time after time it turns out the progressive position turns out to have been right after all, not one of them is willing to stand with us. They’d rather vote for what they know is wrong, just so long as everybody else votes that way. The safety of the herd.

We progressive voters, both Democrats and Independents have to face the fact that we enable this behaviour. If we had shown backbone and called the Democrats’s bluff, this wouldn’t be continueing. Election after election we find ourselves “having” to vote because the republican alternative is so awfull.

Now, because the Democrats have screwed things up so incredibly badly, we’re probably going to have the republicans back again. If the Democrats had come into office like balls of fire, and bulldozed through legislation like Bush did, they’d have sky high approval ratings and a happy base.

We have GOT to get ourselves organized into a voting block. The various organizations like MOve On and FireDogLake have got to sit down together and come up with a voting block that trades its votes to the Democratic party for action on progressive issues. I’d love to have Ed Schultz or someone like him bargain a block of a few hundred thousand votes in return for a firm Afghan exit date or a Public Option. Democrats CAN NOT win elections without the progressive base. There’s absolutely NO reason for us to be treated like second class citizens by a party that owes its victories to us.