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The author of Liebercare slaps a “Do Not Disburb” sign on the Senate:
In the wake of the health-care debate, winning Republican support for such a bill is crucial, even if it might mean adding provisions favored by the nuclear and oil industries, or scaling back the legislation’s scope.
“I don’t think the Senate has an appetite for another such epic, polarized legislative war this session,” said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), who met with Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) on Wednesday to strategize on how to enlist support for a compromise climate bill they are writing.
Good luck getting through EFCA, immigration reform or any other “epic, polarized” legislation that displeaseth the Lord of the 60th Vote, who hath also declared that the House no longer exists.
Unless of course you’re a bank, and then the White House just tells Congress to get stuffed and writes you a fatcat check.
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There are two houses of Congress?
It’s too bad the old remedy for illness -swallowing cod liver oil- isn’t one can force on the critters that supposedly represent the citizens.
Of course ,when the body is as cancerous as is our current government, cod liver oil doesn’t work too good and excising the cancer is the only cure.
not to mention DADT/DOMA.
If Congress isn’t going to address the EFCA, the unions need to keep addressing it in the courts as the fundamental constitutional freedom of association, instead of turning their hard-earned funds over to spineless congressional Democrats.
ENDA, dead.
Climate change, even watered down to please the Brown Dogs, dead.
Financial re-regulation, even watered down to please Our Owners, dead.
DOMA repeal, dead.
DADT repeal, dead.
Employee Free Choice, dead.
Immigration reform, including uniting LGBT families, dead.
I guess it’s a real good thing that the Freddie and Fannie bailouts went to INFINITY when they did, otherwise our overworked Congress would be tasked with oversight of the guarantees. Lucky them!
Only in America could our greatest deliberative body say, “We’re done, no more deliberating please!” for the rest of the entire session.
Anyone up for holding back Senate pay and benefits if they aren’t gonna work?
Here’s what I think is going on.
1. I think Obama has had problems with the Israeli lobby dating back to early in his campaign. For some reason, real or imagined, they just didn’t trust him. After he won the nomination Hillary C. campaigned for him in the Jewish community telling them, don’t worry, he’ll be there for Israel when it counts.
2. The ONLY true allegience Joe Lieberman has shown in his political career is not to Democratic principals or to the Democratic Party, it wasn’t to Al Gore for selecting him to run for V.P. or the people of Connecticut. His allegience is certainly not to “labor” and it’s farsical to think Lieberman actually cares a hoot about the Health Insurance Bill or those who’ve donated to him (that’s in the past). The ONLY cause he’s been consistently loyal and aggressive for throughout his entire career is Israel. Think about it.
3. I don’t have a doubt that there IS a connection between Obama’s cowtowing to Joe Lieberman & Israel. I don’t have a clue what it is but it’s there, & sooner or later it will become plain as day. Sooner or later we’ll learn what it is.
Jane, you again having a little temper tantrum because you can’t accept the fact that it takes 60 votes to do anything “epic” in the Senate. It’s true. Deal with it, Jane.
It’s easy to get 30 progressive votes.
It’s easy to get 20 more democratic-moderate votes.
It’s easy to get 5 more corporate-democrat votes.
That’s 55 votes for an epic bill.
Jane, think about where those next 5 votes come from: Nelson, Baucus, Lieberman, Arkansas lady..
Maybe we should take your advice and focus solely on screaming in the House, and then letting everything die in the Senate. So long as we keep our Progressive Purity.
Jane, you’re unbelievable.
Wor2fish, not you, you’re all too predictable. Tedious but predictable. Again, why is 60 votes in the Senate required? How many times in the Bush years was this “rule” you rely upon for your sophomoric rant circumvented?
I am all too predictable because the Republican Party is all too predictable. 40 Republicans plus one Dem/Independent douche bag will vote to continue filibustering EVERYTHING that could be called either reform or a success to Obama. Those are the rules, Bailey. Either accept that and learn to compromise with 60 Senators, or be uncompromising, proud, pure and right and get nothing through the Senate.
All we in the Corporate world need to do is buy off one crummy Democratic Senator from Arkansa or Montana and we can filibuster ANY policy you progressive can possibly dream up.
You and Jane would rather destroy Rahm and then Obama instead of figuring out how to get the best “possible” bill through the Senate? Sorry, that’s a dead-end strategy.
work2fish, Did you skip 5th grade? Compromise and surrender are not equivalent. By the way, I missed your responses to my questions, “why is 60 votes in the Senate required? How many times in the Bush years was this “rule” you rely upon for your sophomoric rant circumvented?”
What does the Nuclear and Oil industries want? Sarah wants to Drill baby Drill in Alaska and that should be a no for the Environmentalists in Congress emphasis on should be.
The Nuclear industry what do they want a cut of Obama’s green power cash? If so Nuke plants are very expensive there goes the green energy money quick and the money to update our electrical grid?
Or does the Nuclear Power industry want the right to build new plants without worrying about local opposition?
Just what new horrors is Joe hinting at now?
It use to take 15 years to build a Nuclear Plant now with Bush cutting paper work and government approval considerations I don’t know however after 3 mile Island only Nuke projects in the can already or upgrades to existing plants got approved.
Bottom line we have not built a new Nuclear Power station since 3 Mile Island in this country. Our Countries Nuke plants had a 30 year life span I believe which thanks to upgrades to existing plants has been extended they do need to be replaced.
We could go green or go Nuclear.
Wait does Joe want to finish the Nuclear waste dump in Harry’s home state if so then that means Harry is not running for office again because that project is very unpopular however a lame duck Senator has no worries about reelection.
Forget Filibusters any Senate leader can get votes if he wants to first I would tell Joe No vote on Israeli aid until we pass Real Healthcare.
All the Israel supporters in the GOP lets see them vote against Israel aid in a world wide recession the news could set the Israeli stock market into collapse.
Israel will lean on Joe and the GOP for us.
We will be attacked as anti Israel nope we point out that Israel has healthcare and we want Americans to be treated as well as Israel. Lets see Joe and the GOP fight National Healthcare then!
Things are Only Impossible if you really don’t want to do them. but where there is a will/whip there is a way.
If we had traded more troops to Afghanistan for National Healthcare and a tax on the rich to pay for it we could have gotten GOP votes. But Obama bet small on his best poker hand.
I bet when he played Poker in Illinois the Pols and the lobbyists were letting him win and he was being talked into votes or just not voting on certain issues they wanted.
left this below…
Jane,
I know Yves is on this, but have you talked to Mish, Tyler Durden, Ilargi, Calculated Risk, and Barry Ritholtz, among others?
The econ blogs covering Big Shitpile have a natural affinity for your argument. Their readers are smart and pissed. They have long realized that DC is a fixed game run for the benefit of the corporatocracy, that the two parties are now but two faces of the same Wall St behemoth.
Cheers, and thank you!
Campaign Finance Reform must be shoved down the throats of both the House and the Senate by the population. Otherwise what we’re seeing happen with the Health Insurance Bill is the template by which corporations will run our government for the forseeable future.
A CFR bill is the only one wherein the Congressperson could dare defy their corporate overlords and have a chance of winning re-election. And any Congressperson of conscience would relish the chance to free themselves from their enslavement to the endless and humiliating tedium of raising campaign funds.
Corrupt Congresspeople, like Joe Lieberman, will naturally oppose the termination of their flow of ought-to-be-illegal bribe money, but many, I think, would prefer to stop being puppets of corporate masters.
JOE LIEBERMAN IS BAD NEWS! No matter what he is doing, he is so full of himself! How did this little insignificant worm of a man become so powerful? We have to stop him. Write your Congressmen and women and get them to stand up together for the House bill WITH A STRONG PUBLIC OPTION! Then push it through by reconcilliation. Very simple. That way we can brush aside the obstructionists like Lieberman and Landrieu and Nelson and the entire party of no. We voted for change we can believe in. Not watered down matzoballs.
Obama has absolutely thrown away his chance at greatness. He could have been a transformational president and leader. Instead, he chose to surround himself with the Clintonian triangulation masters and corporate profiteers.
What an outrage. I cant even stand to look at Obama or listen to him anymore. Just another politician. Just another fraud. And, when the Dems face major losses in 2010 and 2012, its not because they werent conservative enough, its because Obama lost his moral authority. We will never buy this health care bill.
Get rid of all the Clinton people, Obama … The big dog, in particular, and yes, Bill, that would be you, doesnt really want you, Barack, to do too well; because, there is still a lot of animosity and petty jealousy . Dont ever upstage the big dog. The Clintonistas are always all about the Clintons.
Rahm has to go. Enough. Investigate the corruption. Someone, please save the Obama presidency – if it isnt already too late.
We need it, I agree. But I think CFR just got more difficult, no? In light of a widely anticipated Supreme Court ruling equating corporations with individuals and money with speech.
As we have discussed for months now – Rahm and his band of political insiders are only interested in securing power and money in the short-term regardless of the impacts. As a result, turnout in 2010 and 2012 will be severely down in the following demographics: (1) women, (2) Hispanics, (3) LGBT, and (4) new or renewed votes. All in all, it is sad to see BUT I stand with Jane that we must work like crazy to remove all the barriers to real progress that is possible.
That argument is starting to sound like the South Park episode Blame Canada.
The Supreme Court–a product of Bush (installed by the S.Ct.) and the Lieberman-led “gang of 14″–will gut any CFR worthy of the name. You can count on it. Only thing that stands a chance (maybe) is public financing of Senate campaigns.
What we don’t know is how this all would’ve shaken out if Obama had pushed for something closer to the House bill. By all indications that didn’t happen and the Senate delivered something close to what O wanted. We’ll see what happens now in the conference, but the signs sure aren’t good. I don’t see how the left can credibly play the spoiler in a situation where the president doesn’t want something better.
Based on the latest Connecticut voter polls, Joe’s a dead man walking.
But here’s the deal, Joe’s got the right idea. We need more Joe Liebermans or actually I’d say Bernie Sanders. If we could get three more independents in the Senate to go with Bernie, and thirty-fourty independents in the House to play with the Progressive Caucus, we might be on to something…
The reconciliation process can be used on the financial portions of legislation, and that requires only 51 votes — which, with Biden, we should have, non? Bush used it to pass his budgets. And yes, it would have worked on the Senate bill. Yes, really.
TigerJoe LieberWoods. Never met a colleague he wouldn’t fuck.
DOMA/DODT
hahahahahahaa
oh yeah that’ll happen
Under what alternative universe?
Hasn’t Sanders caved?
http://www.rebelscum.com/toys/darksidelieberman.jpg
What good are two houses of congress when a single douche bag senator can dictate the terms of a bill ?
Lady Gaga Leiberman.
Seriously, our system of intended “checks and balances” is utterly in ruins via our Senate.
As a parent, I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that giving in to his temper tantrum has led to this. It seems to me that reasonable conservatives must be getting tired of their party of no representation, too. Just like these are times where we can’t go along with incrementalism for political gain, they are also times where people can’t go along with just doing nothing for political gain. What a disgraceful bunch of toddlers playing stupid toddler games while the country they are supposed to be leading is falling apart and the people they are supposed to be representing are barely hanging on by a thread.
You condemn Jane for applying some alleged progressive purity test even as you rail at her for having a point of view different from your own?
(cough) hypocrite
The fix was in all along. All Lieberman did was play the bad guy.
While it may be true that 60 votes are needed to pass a bill , it was never intended to be that way for every piece of legislaiton created
I would actually prefer it if Lady Gaga took his seat. However, I believe she’s not a Connecticut resident.
Soooo, now while we’re cracking Congressional heads together to support stuff we want, nothing ventured nothing gained, we’re looking for, vetting and promoting candidates that show promise as progressives.
Oh, pshaw. Let’s get a bad bill by whoring. You are so naive. /s
I like Lady Gaga.
Exactly. For budgetary bills and bills that revolve around money (such as HCR), those can be dealt with using reconciliation, which is how Bush got his budgets passed with only 51 votes (including Cheney).
He’d fuck her anyway.
Time to bring back the Have You Had Enough campaign ads.
I prefer Imogen Heap.
Remember the
AlamoBoatlift.At least if it were Lady Gaga whining about how hard it is to be a senator, the performance would be more fun to watch.
I’m going to try taking the rest of the year off at my work. If the boss says no, I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue and stomp my feet until I get whatever I want. I need to run for Senate so I can get paid good money and have great health insurance for sitting on my ass and holding press conferences about how important I am.
First, Did the Repugs ever have 60 votes under Shrub…?
Second, Reid has never forced them to actually filibuster… The mere threat has cowered Reid…
Those are the rules… Yes, when they’re actually applied…!
President Barack H. Obama’s austerity measures have only just begun. From healthcare to war to the environment, Obama will be just comfortable with his neoliberal economic agenda to see the environmental bill defeated. The Kerry-Boxer is still a very weak bill and way short of what needs to be done anyhow. The Obama administration does not like criticism and often caves to remote pressure. It was great watching Jay Rockefeller address the liberal grassroots at the close of the healthcare debate. The Democrats have to be defeated. Martha Coakley’s race in Massachusetts is an interesting one to watch, at this point too.
Only a strong united people’s movement can even begin to undo the crimes of this One-Party Corporate State in America right now. Unless this movement begins in earnest, the United States of America will go the way of Argentina, and become a totally broken nation of third world nation status. The Demovcratic Party is a useless entity at this point….The only alternative is for ALL PROGRESSIVES AND LIBERALS NEVER TO VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRATS AGAIN!!!! REAL CHANGE WILL NOT GO THROUGH THIS DEMOCRATIC PARTY!!!!
Barack Obama is an empty suit and so too are his court jesters whom do not believe in the people of America but in their slimy profits. Obama is helping in an immense way to bring America to third world nation status….Obama’s hero is President Ronald Reagan.
The Obama administration loyally is carrying out the neoliberal economic agenda in which populations of every country that this project is present suffer from economic deprivation and the severe loss of jobs and wages to education cuts and environmental degradation, not to mention the loss of true freedom and justice, and law breaking by this same neoliberal state which is now America along with the likes of India and China.
The trouble with the French is they have no word for naive.
We need to link in the Public’s mind that Healthcare, job losses, home losses etc are directly linked to Obama taking care of the banks first. Of Obama spending money on foreign wars as Americans lose their homes.
Katrina was the beginning of the end for Bush. How many people lost their home and or Jobs to Katrina vs how many have lost their homes and jobs under Obama?
ooooo, I’ll hafta look her up.
So I guess I missed the part of the constitution that says one individual senator essentially has veto power.
I guess the republicans also didn’t use reconciliation to pass the largest tax cut for the rich in American history.
Excellent retort!
“The mere threat has cowered Reid”
Reid (my Senator) still suffers from Stockholm Syndrome.
Aloha, Paula…! I’m glad you posted your Xmas experience…! *g*
Remember? I wasn’t aware it ever ended. Has Markos reached the bottom of his loony bin?
IOKIYAR
Why? What trauma happened to him that Reid has recourse to that excuse?
Trouble with the Romans was they had no word for non sequitur.
I talked to my sister in Vegas yesterday and she’s thrilled with Reid…! *Gahhh* ;-)
Indeed. She is the shit!
Now I’m thinking of her song “Bad Romance”. I think that would qualify as one.
Trouble with Lovers is they have no word for Sorry.
The trouble with the Americans is that they have no words for fuck you.
Looking in the mirror?
9/11.
Ding!
New to politics.
All that moaning about “oh, if only we had 60 votes” still works for some people.
And one day the truth about Santa Clause will hit like a ton of bricks, too.
http://www.instantrimshot.com
Who has been chosen to replace Rahm? He was a repellant choice from the get, to be sure, but he’s there and wielding his hammer as he sees fit. More importantly Obama relies on him as much as Bush relied on Rove.
I wish it were not so, but it is so, and if it were to change, through investigation, indictment, removal, whatever, who should be stood up in his place?
What, exactly, is supposed to happen if the anti-Rahm campaign is successful?
(BTW I think I pretty much stopped listening to Obama around about the time of the Berlin Speech. What a yawner!)
Nah, we just invade and occupy.
That’s pretty scary.
all kabuki…all the time…AGREE FIX WAS ALWAYS IN
Heh, The Hawaiian alphabet is only 13 letters long…! Plus, many words have dual meanings…! Take ‘Aloha’ for instance…! ;-)
Can you provide a link on traumatized Reid’s statements after 9/11? I missed them Plus I don’t understand how that would relate to HCR.
didja recieve 2 pups for Xmas?
Just what does Oil and Nuclear Power have to do with healthcare with oil prices still near record highs why do they need help?
Nuclear Power they need a place to dump the waste first!
Still makes me laugh every time.
Uh Mayor Daley or his brother both know how to get things done Rahm is even less effective than Rove and both are Obvious which for a real Chicago Pol is a crime that quickly leads to indictment.
Of course I’m sure any number of Lefty Bloggers could do the job.
Quelle dommage
Ah, nice edit.
I enjoyed both versions. :-)
Preferably someone who isn’t a criminal.
Tiny Dancer really has Napoleonic issues
Yes, but the edit did have more punch.
Quoi de neuf?
Yes indeedy!
I had to look that up. Not much, and you?
Seconded! Plus anyone truly scared about 9/11 would not have let Bush invade Iraq until after Bush got Ossama. We did years worth of fly overs over Iraq but not once did he use any WMD nor did our planes I’m assuming we were smart and had spyplanes as well as fighter fly over find anything.
Yet we still invaded because of made up evidence designed to back a decision that was already made.
wish i could do photoshop
http://www.internetstones.com/image-files/coronation-of-napoleon-bonaparte-emperor-of-france.jpg
I love words. They are more reliable than people.
That’s how I found it. My French phrase book only contains two entries, raison d’etre and raison bread.
Not much, blissfully quiet here.
At least when words fail me I don’t usually hold a grudge (grumble grumble).
Not even raison cain?
okay,youve made me hungry
ratfood,
I’m not a hypocrite. I tolerate Jane. She can write anything she wants. She can team up with any radical right-wing nut-job like Norquist and O’Reilly and ruin Rahma and Barack. I’m merely stating that if you want to get bills through the Senate that amount to anything and are long-lasting, you need to overcome the filibuster with 60 votes.
If you want B*shit meaningless bills that expire in 10 years, or bills that can later be easily reversed with some later reconciliation ruling, then you pursue 51 votes with reconciliation. Read the Byrd Rules for Reconciliation. You’ll learn very fast why it’s a bad idea to use Reconciliation for HCR. Or, you can wait for Jane Hamsher to tell you what to believe.
Case in point – Bush’s huge tax deduction and estate tax repeal expires at th eend of 2010. It vanishes. It won’t be reinstated. Is that how you think we should solve the health care problem? Every few years hope for 51 Dems to reconcile the budget and slip a little medical coverage to some poor people? That’s your idea of significant reform?
Read, learn, wake up.
Sorry Jane, you’ve messed up with Grover Norquist. It was nice knowing you. I’m looking forward to seeing you on FOX News every time you agree to be the “voice of the discontented Progressives proving once again that the Democrat Party is tearing itself.”
Yes, caved for $14 billion in community health centers. Now, whether that’s a good deal or not – well, I don’t know, but imagine if there were three or four more free range Senators willing to play the DC power structure off against itself to move the bill to the left.
See, if the problem is the parties, then let’s put in a critical mass of non-party players, and re-stir up the pot.
Is Holy Joe referring to the first session that ends in December, or the second session that begins in January? Not that it matters. This is just Joe tweaking progressives one more time.
apart.”
Adding to phrase book. Damn, pencil broke!
Me too. I have some French bread…
I don’t have any raisin bread, making do with oatmeal raisin cookies.
Tell Bazzie “Hi.”
Heading upstairs.
Remember that suddenly Obama is going to get overtly involved and roll up his sleeves, to make sure
he CONTROLS, threatens, or butters up anyone who will dare to deviate from the Senate bill. The moment he cut the deal with pharma and insurance, there was no way he was going to go back on that ugly, scuzzy back door agreement. Reconciliation was nowhere on the agenda. Obama and Rahm had the whole despicable show planned to finite detail. This President has no moral spine. Defeat him.
Au revoir…! Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya…! ;-)
Harpers Magazine
October 26, 2006
A Bit More on Barack
By Ken Silverstein
The November issue of Harper’s Magazine is just hitting newsstands everywhere, and I’ve received quite a few comments about my story on Senator Barack Obama. That tally includes several lengthy conversations with a staffer in Obama’s office, who graciously but firmly rejected some of the article’s contentions. Late Monday, Obama’s office issued a press release that challenged parts of the story.
The staffer—and some readers—took issue with my statement that Obama had “established a political machine funded and run by a standard Beltway group of lobbyists, P.R. consultants, and hangers-on.” But if you examine Obama’s campaign finance records carefully, it’s hard to reach any other conclusion. Here are some additional details that were not included in the article.
Since announcing his candidacy for the Illinois Senate seat, Obama has raised the astonishing sum of nearly $21 million and has built close relationships with a number of traditional fat-cat donors. For example, one of Obama’s leading career patrons is Skadden, Arps ($53,271, according to the most recent disclosure filings), a leading corporate law firm and one of the biggest donors to the Democratic Party….Several of the firm’s lawyers donated money to Obama and also helped raise money for him as well. That includes Christina Tchen, a corporate litigator at Skadden who has represented major financial firms in consumer class-action suits. (Tchen is on the board of trustees of the University of Chicago Hospitals, where Obama’s wife, Michelle, is vice president for community and external affairs.)
Others who have helped raise funds for Obama’s Leadership PAC include John Gorman of Texas-based Tejas Securities, a major funder of Senate Democrats (and of the Bush presidential campaigns) and Winston & Strawn, the Chicago-based law and lobbying firm. Individual contributors to Obama include some of the best-connected lobbyists in town, including Jeffrey Peck (whose clients include MasterCard, the Business Roundtable, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) and Rich Tarplin (Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute, and the National Association of Manufacturers)….
In the magazine article, I asserted that Obama is not a mouthpiece for his donors; neither does his voting record mirror the wishes of his contributor list. But, as I suggested, it’s naïve to think that he’s completely unaware of who’s footing the bills. Exelon, a leading nuclear-plant operator based in Illinois, is a big donor to Obama, and its executive and employees have given him more than $70,000 since 2004. The Obama staffer pointed out that the senator pushed for legislation that would require nuclear companies to “inform state and local officials if there is an accidental or unintentional leak of a radioactive substance,” according to an office press release. Obama took a stand on that issue following reports that a plant operated by Exelon had leaked tritium several times over the past decade….But Exelon is probably not entirely unhappy with Obama. At a 2005 hearing at the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, of which Obama is a member, the senator—echoing the nuclear industry’s current campaign to promotes nuclear energy as “green”—said that since Congress was debating “policies to address air quality and the deleterious effects of carbon emissions on the global ecosystem, it is reasonable—and realistic—for nuclear power to remain on the table for consideration.” He was immediately lauded by the industry publication Nuclear Notes , which said, “Back during his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2004, [Obama] said that he rejected both liberal and conservative labels in favor of ‘common sense solutions.’ And when it comes to nuclear energy, it seems like the Senator is keeping an open mind.”
The entire article with links can be read @:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/10/sb-a-little-bit-more-on-obama-1161881683
Other articles related can be read @:
Harpers
November 2006
Barack Obama Inc.:
The birth of a Washington machine
By Ken Silverstein
Link at: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/11/0081275
The New York Times
February 3, 2008
Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate
By MIKE McINTIRE
Link at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
Big nuclear really isn’t a solution. We use coal for most electricity and nuclear isn’t portable like gasoline or diesel or bio-diesel.
The only thing big nuclear is about, so far as I can tell, is to get big gov’t money for some cronies. The current Dems don’t need that.
However, nuclear batteries (very small scale stuff) is an area where gov’t might be interested in helping.
Wait, so it’s OK for Obama to appoint Republicans to Cabinet posts yet not OK for Jane and the ACLU and PFAW and CAF to work with them too?
Such a silly person.
Joe Lieberman is just paraphrasing Dick Cheney of course.
And Dick is just paraphrasing Rahm.
And Rahm is just paraphrasing Tim.
And Tim is just paraphrasing Lloyd.
And Lloyd is just paraphrasing God.
And God is just paraphrasing Barack.
And every night the First Papa tucks in Sasha and Malia, intoning, “Thy Will be done—on Wall Street as it is in Heaven”
Is this a great country, or what?
Rafood, Jane,
Got to admit, you’re good. Firedoglake and Hamsher readers may want to keep in mind how many hundreds of millions of dollars corporations give to Senators to consider their cases when making new laws. Progressives can accumulate a lot of money to contribute to Senate campaigns, and fire up a bunch of voters, but don’t kid yourself. 10% of the American population owns about 90% of all assets and wealth and stocks in this country. That 10% puts its money on the winners during elections and most of that went to the obvious winner of the 2008 election – Obama and a bunch Democrats. Now Obama and a bunch of Democrats are simply paying the pipers.
Obama appreciates the massive funding from millions of net readers and average people. It didn’t match corporate money, but it was certainly big. That money was for Obama. It wasn’t for the Senators. Corporate money is for Senators. The Senators write the laws, Obama doesn’t. Obama sets the agenda. I’m new to politics, but I know that much.
Regardless of what I say, you’ll soon see this play out. Lierberman just signaled to all Republicans and Corporations that he’s not about to support any more laws that negatively impact major corporations, investment banks, or the energy industry. There’s your 41 obstructionists. From here on out the Senate gets to work entirely with Reconciliation.
Now lets get angry, get even, and investiage Rahm. With any luck, we’ll be able to impeach Obama for not giving us the Public Policy.
So true.. All staged and directed by ObamaRahma
Notice how he/she/it didn’t respond to my comment debunking the whole “we need 60 votes just to blow our nose” nonsense that was the heart of his/her/its argument?
Um, work2fish —
One word: “Reconciliation”.
tbsa,
the reconciliaion-driven largest tax cut ever expires soon. Is that how you want health care reform to proceed? Dems get a majority, reconcile health care. Republicans get a majority, reconcile it away, and so on and so on.
Given the way politics and the Senate work it doesn’t surprise me he would want no more big divisive issues. Sen. McCaskill said the same.
However, Obama was elected on a change mandate and an agenda which is pretty hefty. To get that change he might have to use a little leverage using his bully pulpit. To wit, support for Afghanistan and military spending affects the interests of senators in states where there’s a lot of military spending. For example, do we really need that next submarine, aircraft carrier or airplane engine?
Ideally we would support the Palestinians to have their own state, the same way we supported Jews to have their state. If Israel and Lieberman oppose that, then maybe he should give his support for the Obama agenda (at least where all the Dems are together, and that’s not on every item).
From my point of view there is an ideal agenda and we only make concessions when we can’t get the votes (as on HCR). But, to get the votes the gloves are off.
Same ole story.
He came to change Washington but Washington changed him.
A weaker Clinton without the peace on prosperity.
I thought they would run him over and they are.
And, there have been many this year which didn’t require 60. A lot of bills simply don’t rise to the political occasion of Republicans opposing cloture of debate.
Hell, yes.
And find them some new office space, in a basement somewhere. If they won’t do the jobs they were elected to do, they don’t get any of the perks they’re so fond of.
oh go soak your pointy little head.
You think that’s going to happen? It would piss off all the corporate owners.
Just out of curiosity are the folks at Hotair and Red State predicting Grover will show up on Countdown and join Keith in a special comment?
But you do make some good points about the 60/51 debate. So, do 60% of us have to agree with you, or just a bare majority?
Forget the filibuster. We want it obliterated now because the reactionaries are clobbering us with it. But sooner or later it will be the reactionaries with 51+ votes and the liberals will get to use it to stop them. Concentrate instead on voting in as many genuinely progressive folks as possible.
And even more important than that: Orgainize a fucking mass movement to put pressure on all of them in Congress.
*snerk*
Why don’t we make a guarenteed right to decent health care for all American citizens an amendment to the Constitution?
That ought to hold out at least until Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman and Barack Obama finally shred it.
It will be. Cutting taxes for the rich is part of the New Politics: can’t hurt the Important People; importance is defined by your income as much as by your job. If you have a forty-hour job, or one paying less than 6 figures a year, you are, by definition, Not Important.
Me likee. Sorry for the delay. Verizon’s DSL suxxxxxx this time of year. Only so much ya can cram thru da phone line.
Gasoline and diesel are not solutions, they’re problems. They’re worse than nuclear in terms of pollution. You need trucks and pipelines to move them, as well.
That’s a fact.
our problem is much larger than just 3 people, as im sure you know. the problem is, we have a ruling class that is way fucking overrepresented in congress (and everywhere else) because our system allows them to pay for laws they want, by sending unlimited money to the shills in the house and senate. Jane is right ,whiny angry little “progressives” are wrong (work2fish and likeminded people). NOTHING will ever get done, that corporations and their special interests and all their money dont pay for, until we change the system, fix the problem, so any other “issues” are really kind of a distraction right now. If i have that in common with grover norquist, then me and grover norquist have common cause. the health care fix and sellout should have made that loud and clear to everyone.
Dood… WTF do you think we’ve been saying all along…? *gah*
Anyone ever see this article in Time Magazine? Obama thinks he literally “walks on water” yet depends on lies and propaganda to get him what he wants. No, one can beat back Obama’s momentum. Obama has rabbitt ears, no pun intended. President “Rabbitt Ear” Obama.
Here it is:
Time Magazine
Thursday, Apr. 02, 2009
How Obama Is Using the Science of Change
By Michael Grunwald
“…Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama’s campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. “BUT, BUT, BUT,” deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama’s GOTV operatives nationwide, “What if I told you a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scripting?!?! Would you be interested in at least taking a look? Of course you would!!”….Moffo then passed along guidelines and a sample script from the Consortium of Behavioral Scientists, a secret advisory group of 29 of the nation’s leading behaviorists. The key guideline was a simple message: “A Record Turnout Is Expected.” That’s because studies by psychologist Robert Cialdini and other group members had found that the most powerful motivator for hotel guests to reuse towels, national-park visitors to stay on marked trails and citizens to vote is the suggestion that everyone is doing it. “People want to do what they think others will do,” says Cialdini, author of the best seller Influence. “The Obama campaign really got that.” (See pictures of Obama taken by everyday Americans.)…”
“…The existence of this behavioral dream team — which also included best-selling authors Dan Ariely of MIT (Predictably Irrational) and Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago (Nudge) as well as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman of Princeton — has never been publicly disclosed, even though its members gave Obama white papers on messaging, fundraising and rumor control as well as voter mobilization. All their proposals — among them the famous online fundraising lotteries that gave small donors a chance to win face time with Obama — came with footnotes to peer-reviewed academic research. “It was amazing to have these bullet points telling us what to do and the science behind it,” Moffo tells TIME. “These guys really know what makes people tick.”….President Obama is still relying on behavioral science. But now his Administration is using it to try to transform the country. Because when you know what makes people tick, it’s a lot easier to help them change….”
Read the entire article @:
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1889153,00.html
or:
He came pretending to change Washington and Washington came pretending to change him.
Everything is always pretend in Washington.
Plastic, as it were.
The climate bill (cap & trade in it’s current incarnation) is a tough one in any political climate and the current Senate mix makes it nearly impossible. Even a watered-down bill has little chance. We probably have to be satisfied with regulating carbon via the administration’s EPA and face a court challenge when it happens. If it’s opponents would like to negotiate a decent bill, then that’s fine. It may be weaker than environmentalists want, but that’s the way things happen sometimes.
This isn’t much of an excuse. The current bills are meaningless, and will have to be revisited soon anyway.
and in all of Latin America they don’t speak Latin…
True dat, PW, true…! 8-(
You blue me away with that sad story.
Oh, and work2fish:
George Walton,
No one needs to agree with me, though a simple majority would be nice. ;) Or at least a good argument to the contrary. Webmasters, please don’t rescind my right to comment here.
Back to the 60 vote, 50 vote crap. Where are the Progressive Senators demanding that the 3/5 filibuster rule be changed? Why not pound on the Democrats to change that stupid rule in the Senate, at least for the next year or two until enough Republicans re-accumulate to change it back to 3/5 again or worse?
The Senate rules are the obstacle to major progressive policies — not Rahm, not Harry, not Obama. (There are at least three bigger defects in the American system, like campaign finance, Fed accountability, and the military industrial complex, but we’re talking Senate rules here.)
Nice confusion of process with end result, work2fish. That’s like saying that because my style of kitchen knife was once used by a crook in a robbery, I should never use it to cut up chickens.
And it may kill 9/10ths of us because it fails to interrupt the onrushing abrupt climate change event, but that’s the way things happen sometimes.
Moreover, once single-payer or Medicare for All was enacted, it would be political suicide for anyone or any party attempting to gut it. Which is why those most obvious of solutions were never on the table.
I think it’s a plus as it offers us a potential path for the future and in the short run it gives more people low-cost care they might not get elsewhere. Yet, it doesn’t dominate the reform and turn off a lot of people who would prefer (at least for now) to not go that way. It’s a great compromise.
Yes….good point there….
The problem is the polls suggest the Majority has gone Left and Obama has been left behind on the issues. Time can spin all the planted Rahm happy talk it wants that won’t change polling reality only action will.
Voters need to be fat and happy before they can be talked up like Greenspan used to do on the economy.
Homeless jobless or worried about being there voters pay much more attention to the issues.
I’m guessing these experts told Rahm that but he only told the Times writer the parts he liked.
Is there going to be a coordinated march on Washington against ObamaCare?
Does anyone know this?
There could be a huge demonstration bringing together the antiwar people, environmentalists, civil libertarians, LGBT community, and those fighting for healthcare and social/economic justice….I bet these demonstrations, at this point, would be HUGE!!!!
Let’s Do It!!!
we need to do everything we can to make this monumental rip off “political suicide” for anyone who signs it. that has to be the short and mid term goal.
Rahm Emanuel–the man is a menace….to America and the world….By extension, soo too, is Obama and Biden and Clinton and Gates….
Obama–keeps Bush family pal Robert Gates at Defense–that is “change we can believe in,” alright…..NOT!!!!!!
Seriously? You’re more pissed at Rahm than interested in what really happened on 9/11/01 or whether bin Laden is still alive or whether we can yet nail some Bushies for their truly despicable deeds? Sure, Rahm may stick his finger in your eye every time he speaks, but does it really measure up to Bush-era stuff? Get real!
Rumsfeld said trillions had gone missing from DoD and you want Rahm?
We’ve got huge fights to get the Green Revolution moving and you want Rahm?
We still have to get the financial industry regulations and you want Rahm?
C’mon, let’s fight important fights.
Obama is getting health care reform where Clinton couldn’t.
Clinton didn’t have ready-made wars on his doorstep, Obama has.
Clinton was very very good and so far Obama is too. Just different environments they’re operating in.
So work2fish, why couldn’t Harry Reid have used reconciliation on HCR legislation if Bush was able to do so? You’ve never actually explained that.
C’mon, please provide a reality-based, factually-verifiable debunking of this if you can:
Let’s see forty Republicans plus Lieberman vote for a stand-alone bill that would allow insurance to keep excluding people with pre-existing conditions. They’re not that suicidal.
the combined left and right? problem with that all the rightward demonstrations were corporate produced astroturf. i cant imagine they will help, as long as they are getting everyhting they want. the biggest thing we can do is just keep harping on the truth. the truth that this bill rigged from the beggining. and so was FISA, and prerrty much every other evil corporate freindly policy these goons have put forward.
Well, if I’m not important, then it shouldn’t matter when I agitate for tax system reform with lowering non-human (corporate) rates and raised rates for the wealthier citizens.
what was clinton “very very good” at that obama is too? lying, as far as i can see.
But they serve well in automobiles. I have yet to see a nuclear plant in a car. Gimme batteries (charged by nuclear plant electricity) with the same mobile qualities of gasoline or diesel and then you have something.
Clinton did what he could under the radar to weaken Medicare as well….Clinton ended “Welfare as we know it,” declaring the end of big government. Michael Meropol wrote the book “How Clinton Finished the Reagan Revolution.” By the time Obama is done, there will be a book called, “How Obama Destroyed the Last Vestiges of the FDR/LBJ Democrats: The Furthering of Neoliberal Economics and Reshaping War in the 21st Century.” Yes that will be a book title, post-Obama….
Clinton also killed millions of innocent civilians when he was president….Clinton worked with the terrorist group the KLA in the Balkan War…..
Joe says no more Epic Battles I think he’s nervous:)
Tell it to our opponents. I hate to repeat it over and over, especially with Jane’s recent anger about HCR, but we can’t afford to make the perfect the enemy of the good. That leads nowhere. We have to use every capacity we have to push our agenda while we have the chance. That sometimes means compromise, sometimes hard-ball politics and sometimes just good teamwork. It works too. Just look at all the looniness the Right has brought us with their solid teamwork. We can do a lot better than that.
Epic Battle:
People’s Revolution!!!!!!
We Need a People’s Revolution against the Corporate Dictatorship!
Before the whole shithouse goes up in flames….–The Doors
No. That wasn’t on the table because that’s not what Obama campaigned on and it wouldn’t have gotten many votes.
Health is a natural resource. (off topic, sorry)
Another case for Single Payer:
“Bolivia’s GDP growth has averaged 4.9 percent annually since the current administration took office in 2006. Projected GDP growth for 2009 is the highest in the hemisphere, and follows its peak growth rate in 2008.
“The Bolivian economy has done very well under President Evo Morales, and government policy has been key. These economic gains are a big part of the reason he is favored to win re-election by a wide margin.”
“None of this would have been possible without the government’s regaining control of the country’s natural resources,” ..”
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/bolivias-economic-performance-over-last-four-years/
In a debate, Jane Hamsher would whip Chris Matthews’ ass!!!!
In a debate, Jane Hamsher would slap down Kevin Drum!!!!
In a debate, Jane Hamsher would have Markos crying…..
In a debate, Jane Hamsher would beat any of her weak-knee opponents….
Oh ye of short memory…
Clinton broke through the political logjam of deficits, balanced the budget and gave us a good economy for 8 years.
That, of course, wasn’t the last word on that political fight. After that the Republicans said they could just raise the debt further. So, now they say we can’t do anything big and current Dems just ignore that nonsense and do HCR & other good things.
It’s a long political fight and their side has been a total disaster while Dems are succeeding, even when handed a total disaster of an economy.
What they’re very very good at is winning the macro political fight by executing on individual policies over time. Republicans got what they wanted (mostly through unity of Kool-Aid-drinking insanity), but all it’s shown is they’re crazy.
Electric cars? Or, for larger vehicles, CNG?
You’d have to upgrade a whole lot of infrastructure for those. The electric system isn’t sturdy enough for all-electric yet, and it would require major work to add enough charging spots. Not to mention the costs involved ….
do you really belive that horseshit, or are just trying to get some negative attention, or do you get paid to log onto blogs and post this crap. because you sound like pollyana. there ARE no “left” and “right” in america. there is no red team and blue team. there is the corporate class and their paid hit men, and there are the rest of us. it is useless to think of our problems in terms of party politics, when the problem is an exponentially metastasizing class problem. your hero, BO loves bi-partasanship right? so we are becoming bi-partisan, only for the people, not for your hero BO, or his corporate benefactors
We can’t allow the halfway-decent (or the half-assed, in the case of the current bill) to become the enemy of the good, either.
You start by going for everything you want, not by going for what you are willing to settle for in the worst case.
And, Jane & Randi Rhodes in a tag-team event against any two Repugs would be fun.
chris mathews is a sychophantic worm. long before the Dems LOSE THEIR FUCKING ASSES he will have switched sides. look for him to get a leg thrill over mit romney next time around.
You’re cracking me up. That’s some good comedy writing, and a solid delivery, too.
That’s why I said you need similar qualities to liquid fuels. We have to transition to better things using at least some of the infrastructure we currently have. That’s one reason I like bio-diesel and hybrids – it gives us a lot of the benefits of batteries, but without it’s limitations and it gives us a cleaner exhaust AND it may transition us to a fully battery-based system.
As the flatearther T. Friedman told C. Rose: occasionally the public needs to pick up the Government, take out a very big stick and tell it “Suck.On.This!”
Ya think? Okay…..okay…..okay…..I will wait as I have been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and……on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on……..
Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel took Impeachment off the table…..The Democrats are not going after the crimes from the Bush era because they have continued those crimes under Obama and then some…..The Obama administration filed a brief in defense of John Yoo……
What Rahm does, is stand athwart the path to addressing the issues you listed.
Randi Rhodes = Obama administration Gatekeeper just like Stephanie Miller, Bill Press, Mike Malloy, Rachel Maddow, etc…These liberal talkers met with Obama and in my eyes those types of special meetings makes you look like nothing but a shill but in the case of Miller, Press, Maddow and Rhodes—they are all Gatekeepers for Obama!!!
Don’t insult Jane like that….Jane is way more intelligent and refined than Randi Rhodes……
I prefer Laura Flanders, antiwarradio.com, This is Hell Radio, Democracy Now!, Taking Aim with Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone from WBAI, New York, UpRsing Radio, Counterspin, MichelAngelo Signorile at OutQ on Sirius 109, Dave Marsh on Sundays on Sirius Left 167, and Media Matters with Bob McChesney.
Maybe Jane can hook up with the people at Black Agenda Report…..I don’t trust the liberal talk radio hosts whom have just been Obama Gatekeepers!!!
‘left and right’ ‘corporate v. non-corporate’ eh
I’d rather not think about those kinds of categorizations at all. I think we have a system (complicated by being multi-layered and multi-ethnic and other things) and we need to make it work. To achieve that you have to satisfy a lot of needs and some wishes and even a few demands from groups or occasionally individual politicians. But, meet those needs you must or the system fails (as we saw with the Republican Reagan-Bush era).
For example…
Can we go on spending so much on ‘defense’? Whose ox gets gored if we cut that back? Who gains? Can we rally more support from those who gain?
Can we go on spewing carbon into the air? Whose ox gets gored if we cut that back? Does anyone noticably gain? How can we rally support for something so amorphous? It’s not easy.
On and on…
Obama and bipartisanship? I’m not with him on that. I think we need majority support and good ideas. Bipartisanship is achieved in small ways already, but do we really need people who oppose our ideas to vote FOR them? I think Republicans should vote their conscience (and a lot of them may not be today) and represent their constituents and America. If that means they oppose all of the Dem legislation, then so be it. We won the elections and have the majority, so let’s use it.
how do I reply to no. 18? I haven’t figured out how to reply to a particular entry, or grab their quotes.
Anyway, that Albatross dude has it right. Far more right than Jane. I’m a manager in a multinational corporation. I voluntarily give a portion of my salary to a PAC that funds mostly Senators, some folks from the House, and bit to the president. My company has military contracts, we sell GMO stuff to little countries in South America, Africa, India. We benefit from NAFTA. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say our stock is not doing too badly, we’re cited as a great company to work for in the world. You might say I’m a collateral beneficiary of America’s capitialist-corporatist governing system.
Anyway, since we essentially pay for the campaigns of these ethically challenged and not-so-enlightened Senators, they typically do things that favor us. If they pass laws that result in dramatic drops in our profitability, we change our campaign contributions in a way that dramatically drops their ability to get re-elected. It’s that simple. Our money is HUGE, highly concentrated, and focused on maintaining corporate growth.
True, labor unions can amass this sort of money, too, but that’s why Congress is so non-union friendly. The big Corporations don’t want masses of non-corporate people to have strong representation in the governing of America, so we pressure Congress to make life tough for unions.
Websites and bloggers can amass some cash to fund campaigns, too, but it’s nothing to what one chemical industry can put together in about 12 hours. Or what one energy conglomerate can toss towards a Senator with a phone call.
By now you can see how strong corporations are. So how do our chosen candidates win so many votes? That’s where the real bullsh*t comes in. When we want a Republican to win, our cash finances lots of commercials about gun control, flag burning, state’s rights, abortion, family christian values, terrorism, fear, immigration — red meat for emotional conservative voters. You’ve seen all tiresome nonsense.
When we want a corporate-friendly Democrat to win, or it’s obvious a Democrat will win, then we load that candidate up with cash, and they run commercials speaking fondly of unions, fairness, education, civil rights, equality, jobs, women’s rights, environment, transparency. You’ve seen all the nonsense on commercials, too, and it’s all rather tedious and unlikely to happen anytime soon, but those are red-meat issues for progressive/liberal/democratic voters.
There you have it. Our guys get elected, they take care of us. Notice how fast the investment banks have recovered? Notice how fast the stock market has gone back up? Notice how fast corporations have quit firing people? Notice how the military industrial complex has gotten exactly what it wants? That’s not a fluke. That’s how Congress and the Administration works with us.
Obama and Rahm simply had to prove they could somehow reform health care, while at the same time turning around the economy without hurting the corporations that bought them. So please, please don’t hammer Obama and Rham for doing their job we paid them to do. Sure, voters have voted for them to do something different, but we actually paid them to do a job for us.
Moral of the story: get yourself attached to huge institutional money (capital) as quickly as you can. Get a corporate job in banking, insurance, medicine, finance, military contracting or government itself. Then you’ll actually have representation in Congress and you can at least enjoy a comfortable lifestyle as you try to somehow change our corrupt government.
Tell Obama that. He was the one who chose not to go for single-payer. He also won more votes than you or me. eh.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. (bows deeply and repeatedly) :-)
sounds like you and wizardleft1962 have more problems with Obama & Pelosi than with Rahm. But, of course, they’re pretty secure and Rahm may succumb to some pressure. What do you gain except to annoy top Dems?
I wasn’t in favor of Rahm becoming CoS except it meant less problems for Pelosi in the House. Maybe that was the deal you can’t stomach, but Obama & Pelsoi are okay with it. Maybe that deal made HCR MORE possible?
At what point do you say ‘ditch the hole thing and let the people die?’
I think Obama & Pelosi (and other Dems) said it was important to do HCR and they compromised to get there.
“Gatekeeper”? Whazzat?
My best guess? There are just too many crony capitalist Democrats [far more than the 4 or 5 usually mentioned here] who prefer the sixty vote rule precisely because they are no more interested in real reform than the Republicans.
That’s why electing more progressives and generating an honest to God mass movement is far more crucial to me. Now, I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong here. I just see things more from the perspective of someone old enough to have lived through both The Great Society [wrecked in large part by the Vietnam fiasco] and a geniune mass movement.
Not getting any younger, I’d love to be part of one again. Even if [with my disabilities] only as a spectator this time.
Problems?
Not really….I know what these people are all about by their deeds and lack of deeds…..They want to ruin America, that’s their problem….
I am a survivor and will survive all the bad things coming down the pike……I have lived both the hard and easy ways during my lifetime…..I will not however allow them to put any microchip implant in my body just so I can have healthcare…..I’ll go live in the woods before that happens….
You’re alright….I like your style, even as we may not agree 100% At least you are not verbally assaultive like neon is.
Mark—-Have a Happy New Year 2010 and Happy Holidays!
You misread me. I said take care of Rahm first and you will have better chance of getting at what you listed as important. The farther from the event the less public passion to pursue justice.
My friends tell me there’s a progressive march planned for late March in D.C.
Though not aimed specifically at health care.
It’s just what we need. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of folks show up! Who would give a fuck how the mainstream media covered it. It would galvanize liberals and progressives in a way nothing else could.
I hope Jane and other left wing netroot bloggers become part of organizing it.
Well, if she practiced with me she might. ; o )
Your crack about Randi and Jane, not so funny.
Uh, with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels already 40 ppm (twenty years’ worth) above the safe limit, nobody is talking about anything remotely like “perfect.” So your overused slogan is rather inappropriate to the debate about abrupt climate change legislation.
Check this Interview out that Nat Hentoff gave regarding Obama…..
“I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had…..It’s much worse than that. Obama has little, if any, principles except to aggrandize and make himself more and more important. You see that in his foreign policy. Obama lacks a backbone – both a constitutional backbone and a personal backbone. This is a man who is causing us and will cause us a great deal of harm constitutionally and personally. I say personally because I am 84 years old, and this is the first administration that has scared me in terms of my lifespan.”~ Nat Hentoff
America Under Barack Obama
An Interview with Nat Hentoff
by John W. Whitehead
John W. Whitehead: When Barack Obama was a U.S. Senator in 2005, he introduced a bill to limit the Patriot Act. Now that he is president, he has endorsed the Patriot Act as is. What do you think happened with Obama?
Nat Hentoff: I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had. An example is ObamaCare, which is now embattled in the Senate. If that goes through the way Obama wants, we will have something very much like the British system. If the American people have their health care paid for by the government, depending on their age and their condition, they will be subject to a health commission just like in England which will decide if their lives are worth living much longer….In terms of the Patriot Act, and all the other things he has pledged he would do, such as transparency in government, Obama has reneged on his promises. He pledged to end torture, but he has continued the CIA renditions where you kidnap people and send them to another country to be interrogated. Why is Obama doing that if he doesn’t want torture anymore? Throughout Obama’s career, he promised to limit the state secrets doctrine which the Bush-Cheney administration had abused enormously. The Bush administration would go into court on any kind of a case that they thought might embarrass them and would argue that it was a state secret and the case should not be continued. Obama is doing the same thing, even though he promised not to….So in answer to your question, I am beginning to think that this guy is a phony. Obama seems to have no firm principles that I can discern that he will adhere to. His only principle is his own aggrandizement. This is a very dangerous mindset for a president to have.
JW: Do you consider Obama to be worse than George W. Bush?
NH: Oh, much worse. Bush essentially came in with very little qualifications for presidency, not only in terms of his background but he lacked a certain amount of curiosity, and he depended entirely too much on people like Rumsfeld, Cheney and others. Bush was led astray and we were led astray. However, I never thought that Bush himself was, in any sense, “evil.” I am hesitant to say this about Obama. Obama is a bad man in terms of the Constitution. The irony is that Obama was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He would, most of all, know that what he is doing weakens the Constitution….In fact, we have never had more invasions of privacy than we have now. The Fourth Amendment is on life support and the chief agent of that is the National Security Agency. The NSA has the capacity to keep track of everything we do on the phone and on the internet. Obama has done nothing about that. In fact, he has perpetuated it. He has absolutely no judicial supervision of all of this. So all in all, Obama is a disaster.
JW: Is the so-called health commission that you referred to earlier what some people are referring to as death panels? Is that too strong a word?
NH: That term was used with hyperbole about the parts of the health care bill where doctors are mandated, if people are on Medicare and of a certain age or in serious physical condition, to counsel them on their end-of-life alternatives. I don’t believe that was a death panel. It was done to get the Medicare doctors to not spend too much money on them. The death panel issue arose with Tom Daschle, who was originally going to be the Health Czar. Daschle became enamored with the British system and wrote a book about health care, which influenced President Obama….In England, you have what I would call government-imposed euthanasia. Under the British healthcare system, there is a commission that decides whether or not, based on your age and physical condition, the government should continue to pay for your health. That leads to the government not doing it and you gradually or suddenly die. The present Stimulus Bill sets up the equivalent commission in the United States similar to that which is in England. The tipoff was months ago on the ABC network. President Obama was given a full hour to describe and endorse his health plan. A woman in the audience asked Obama about her mother. Her mother was, I believe, 101 years old and was in need of a certain kind of procedure. Her doctor didn’t want to do it because of her age. However, another doctor did and told this woman there is a joy of life in this person. The woman asked President Obama how he would deal with this sort of thing, and Obama said we cannot consider the joy of life in this situation. He said I would advise her to take a pain killer…. That is the essence of the President [Obama] of the United States…..
Resd the entire Interview at:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/whitehead6.1.1.html
America [ruining it or otherwise] usually doesn’t enter into the equation at all. Instead, they want only to further their own political and economic interests.
Just like the folks on Wall Street. Most of them are not idealists. They simply look at the world around them and ask: What should I do to make my life more comfortable, richer, more rewarding.
Then they rationalize it.
Now that’s Cynicism We Can Believe In!
I think you sum up the corporate-government whorehouse quite nicely.
Your kind, work, are the problem.
Please explain how you and your company are not more despicable than the sincere yet misguided tea-bagger?
What do you stand for, other than blind self-interest?
The problem, work, is that some of us have consciences, care about the country and the planet, and want to be able to look our friends and family in the eye.
Under Obama, for the first time ever, those collecting Social Security will not have an increase come January 1, 2010…..
This is “change.”
Remember when Michelle Obama told you and I that “Barack will be asking you all to make tough choices,” during the campaign? Yes, I remember……
Yes, Nat, I feel ya man!!!!
Obama is so very dangerous because he has all kinds of things up his sleeve, and even as his ass-kissers say Obama will get around to this or that, or “give him more time,” as if the stiff does not know what he is doing is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard. Obama knows exactly what he’s doing and it ain’t so pretty…..Onama has always known what he was going to do as president but didn’t want to answer real specifics in the campaign knowing that telling the truth and giving out his real plan would make him LOSE!!!!
Usually people who wield real power don’t have to say they do. You may be right about the way it all works, but it’s not likely you’re the one in position to make any real decisions.
Also, being a part of the problem isn’t something to brag about. I’m sure most if not all of the rest of us on here would rather not become the problem with you. It takes a special kind of person to boast about helping contribute to the pain and suffering (if not deaths) of others in the name of “comfortable lifestyle”
Now who’s unbelievable.
i dont see truth to this.
his allegiance is to lieberman.
agreed. you get what you need from the bill through the uber-majority process then get the rest from reconciliation.
name me 3 times liberals used the filibuster during the bush years.
name 1.
Could it be that some one sent the message to Obama play ball with us because we can get to you and your family? Did BO really change or was he forced to? I’m just saying a couple days after the WH dinner is crashed he approves 30,000 troops.
And I am NOT saying the couple were involved, they were probably used as a tool.
Ho. I spotted the “Do Not Disturb” sign Lieberman hung on the Senate doorknob. I tippytoed up and wrote “any further” on the bottom.
a year or two on the couch with some fainting salts will work wonders for LIEberman and his fair friends in the glorious senate.
not bragging, and no I’m not the CEO. But this is how the system works. Destroying Rahm, destroying Obama, destroying weaker Dems is not going to change the system.
Jane and Firedoglake teaming up with Grover and FOX News will certainly hurt America.
I realize things won’t change overnight, but if the Corporations get dissatisfied, and if someone other than Palin and Rush emerge as viable Republican voices and leaders, corporations will shift their massive wealth to the Republicans again. We should hold onto Obama as long as we can.
Sell your crazy somewhere else, please. I suggest DailyKos.
LOL!
I’m a Democrat. What do you mean, “we?”
You sound like a satirically written soliloquy from the movie “Wallstreet.”
You think you’re Sun Tzu or Machiavelli?
You’re having this Transient Ischemic Attack… every time it’s mentioned that reconciliation would work for every budgetary aspect of reform. You just blow right over it, like a skip in a record.
Why is the blood not getting to your brain, oh, amoral “pragmatist?” Did you say “get a job?” Get a good job?
Now I get it. The heart is like a shriveled up raisin. You can’t get much blood to the brain that way. Take a month off. Come on down to where I live. I’ll show you around.
[Modnote: please stick to the issues not the individuals, iow play nice.]
this is what we’re up against. We live in America. We live in a place largely owned by powerful corporations. Attacking our administration for not destroying private corporate insurance is foolish. From Wikipedia below. These are the bastards who pay for and control our Congressmen and Senators. Attack and replace your State Senators, boycott some Corporations, but don’t blame the Obama administration.
In the United States
In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.[18]
In 2003, the 1% with the highest income paid more than 34% of the nation’s federal income tax; the 10% with the highest income paid nearly 66% of the total income tax; the top 25% paid 84% of the income taxes; and the upper 50% accounted for nearly 97% of US income tax revenue.[19] The US has a progressive tax structure which taxes less for smaller incomes, so income and taxation are not perfectly correlated.
Also, it is not wealth but income that is taxed in the United States (with the exception of estate taxes upon death). Capital gains taxes are also lower than regular income taxes. This means, for instance, while Warren Buffett has an estimated net worth of $62 billion (2008), ranked one of the richest men in the world, his taxable income in 2006 was $46 million (2006), about 0.1% of his net worth. And because most of his income was made as capital gains, his tax rate was a below-average 17.7% (2006).
The Tax Justice Network promotes transparency in international finance and opposes secrecy. We support a level playing field on tax and we oppose loopholes …
http://www.taxjustice.net/ – Cached – Similar
About TJN
Corruption and Offshore
Contact us
Magnitudes and Measurements Newsletter
Netzwerk Steuergerechtigkeit
Co-operation, Competition on Tax
Resources
More results from taxjustice.net »
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/ – Cached – Similar
Wal-Mart
Corporate Personhood
About Us
Primers US Supreme Court v Democracy
Independent Business
Volunteer
Merchandise
More results from reclaimdemocracy.org »
[PDF] Supreme Court of the United States Supreme Court of the United StatesFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
ReclaimDemocracy.org works to ensure we do not decay from a democratic republic to plutocracy. In its view, the constitutional promise of equal protection …
http://www.nvri.org/…/docs/ReclaimDemocracy.org%20Merits%20Brief.pdf
sorry mods
I’m not an intellectual and I am, something of a ruffian
thanks for letting me hang out here and I’ll try to read and be good
when you’re a struggling chump in a truck with family, it’s all “personal”
I guess we’ll now have 3 years of photo-ops of Mr. Congeniality. The downward spiral continues.
And passengers on the Titanic were told to stay on the ship as long as possible.
Become a parasite — then you can finally do genuine, authentic work on behalf of the host organism.
You are big, we are small. Should we bow down before you?
Oh, and one little nitpick O mighty one: when abrupt climate change really gets roaring, things will change overnight. Ever hear of extreme weather events?
so the oligarchs purchased the politicians and the managed media and use these assets to both control the people and periodically extract wealth accumulated by the people in order to maintain the current balance of power ? Keeping the people free to do as they are told vs being free ?
in order for change some sort of critical mass of people must awaken and recognize where within this structure we fit and act in ways that serve we the people’s self interests ?
the populist uprising, the revolution calling is about government serving people not people serving government ?
so by demanding transparency bloggers and other forms of new media are competing with the managed information coming from the entrenched power of the media, one with the goal of awakening the people the other with the goal of keeping them asleep?
just saying how it works, that’s all. We need to elect more progressives and make them raise taxes on the wealthiest citizens and corporations so we can improve all of America. That’s all I’m saying. No need to team up with Grover Norquist to help drive down taxes and destroy America. Nuf sed.
But yet…EMPRESS JANE LIEBERMAN IS FORMING HER OWN EPIC BATTLE WITH THE RIGHT WING FRINGE TO TAKE DOWN HER OWN!
Nice.
Joe & Jane need to have a public lunch to let us know who is who.
We can hear you just fine without the shouting [all caps].
You mean the American Civil Liberties Union, the Campaign for America’s Future, Alec Baldwin, and People for the American Way are the right-wing fringe? Because they’ve made alliances with right-wingers like Grover Norquist and even Bob Barr, you know. And since President Obama appoints right-wingers to various posts, does that make him part of the right-wing fringe, too?
It’s the last refuge of people without an argument.
acknowledging that there is anything positive about Grover Norquist and his goals is a mistake. Anyone who identifies themselves as even remotely progressive, enlightened or intelligent will not let their name be connected to Grover’s name. Hamsher is destroing her reputation with this association.
Go read everything you can find about Grover Norquist and tell me where I’m wrong.
“Go read anything by Grover . . . ”
From everything I’ve read by Grover Norquist, coupled with all he has done actively attempting to destroy the United States, I can safely say that the guy is a scumbag. I can safely say that Hell will be just a tab bit hotter for him. In fact, I wish him death by gangrenous hemorrhoid.
That said, this is not about Grover. This is about saving the U.S. health care system and providing access to healthcare for people – something the Senate bill, in particular, does not do. Sometimes you need to drive the wrong way down a one-way street to get to the hospital in a life or death situation. This is a life and death situation for hundreds of thousands of Americans, and I applaud Jane for helping us get there any way possible. If Grover wants to play the role of useful idiot, well, he owes us one anyway and let him do it.
Instead of concerning yourself about whether Jane Hamsher is hurting her reputation, perhaps you should concern yourself with what we need to do to make health care accessible to people. The Senate bill only gives money to insurance companies and gives a few million extra people “insurance coverage.” Coverage is unrelated to receiving health care if your commercial for profit health insurance does not allow you access to health care.
oh isn’t that sweet.
how extraordinary.
he didn’t have to do that, really.
this is entirely too much.
i think i know the perfect place to set this down.
oops.