“Powerless”

Good word choice, Jon.

Look it up in the dictionary and you’ll see a picture of the Democrat Party logo (an ass) next to the definition.

With this Quisling in the WH the Republicans are surging.

They would be powerless too, if the POTUS and SCOTUS were not supporting them, with POTUS using “compromise” and “bipartisanship” as an excuse to empower them. The House and Senate Leadership are all also to blame for accepting the bribes from corporate lobbiests; and that includes POTUS. We don’t really know what SCOTUS does, but it is clear that the majority favor corporate wishes above the rights of “the people”..that much seems evident.

What did obama cry in his milk over ?

NOTHING,he’s coming after anything but his military Nazi goons next.

“Boehner shows it is only powerless when controlled by Democrats.”

Yep. And the magic number in the Senate is 51. No, wait, it’s 60 now that the Democrats are in charge. No, wait, it’s more like 65 or 70 because of the Blue Dogs.

And the Presidency is nearly all-powerful when a Republican is in the Oval Office. Helpless, helpless, oh so helpless are the Dems before the Mighty Pow’r of King Bush! No, wait, the powers of the Presidency are really quite limited now that Obama is in office.

And Al Gore won Florida in 2000 and Bush stole the election because it’s time to bash Bush. No, wait, Bush eked out a win because it’s time to bash Nader.

Cue the Kabuki Show…

If the President and the Senate were telling the House to pound sand they would be powerless.

Seriously, if President Obama was to look at Boehner and say flat out. “We’re two thirds of the government and we say there is a revenue problem. So if the deficit is important to you, you actually have to agree to a dollar in revenue increases for every dollar in cuts. We’ll start with the top marginal tax rate – especially since that is the people’s preferred method of deficit reduction. Oh, and John we’ll also be expecting defense budget and agricultural subisidy cuts among your choices – since that is two and three on the peoples’ list. Without that you can shut it down, while I’m pointing out to the public that we were fighting for their choices. Get back to me. ” Meanwhile Harry Reid makes sure that that 41 senators do not allow any of their bills to be voted on, watch the House remain useless. Sadly, in that scenario the latter is the easiest of the two things to accomplish. There are easily that many Senators who want to slap the House down just because they are being so arrogant.

Instead we have a President who has never met a Republican he didn’t welcome to the White House and ask “What can I give you?” And then causes spiral fractures as he twists democratic arms hard to make it happen.

It is a spectacle of pretty amazing proportion that the Democrats have gone from gooey to down right flowing liquid for a spine for the last 3-4 years…. I feel like walking into my post office and taking a number to ask for my Government abdication allotment..

It’s truly pathetic….

Boehner’s own job was at risk; I think Eric Cantor is much hungrier for the top spot than Steny Hoyer ever was. And Team Obama decided they’d much rather deal with The Boehn than with Cantor, going forward. A loss for The Boehn might have tipped his raucous caucus against him in a power move neither Reid nor Obama wanted to see: Speaker Cantor.

Excellent diary which hits the nail on the head.

While I agree with your view of neutered house democrats, it’s a fact that constitutionally the budget is required to originate in the house. Having said that, it appears that for years when the dems were running it, they failed miserably in asserting that prerogative over the senate.

No, on second thought they didn’t fail–they did exactly what they wanted.

GOOD ONE !!!

The good news is that executive privilege deserves to be lessened.
The bad news: The wrong people are doing it.
More bad news: The Dem senators wouldn’t debate presidential war powers.

Boner and Congress would’ve won no victories had Obushma and the Sen. Dems been willing to fight. Of course, we know that Obushma has no desire to fight the Tea Bag party because he broadly agrees with their program, differing only with respect to a handful of social programs and issues.

Meanwhile, while programs are being gutted and pared to the bone, “defense” spending continues unabated. The MIC is experiencing an exponential growth spurt, spending more than six times the amount that China, the next biggest spender does. Shared sacrifice? Hardly. The rich aren’t sharing, the corporations aren’t sharing and the MIC sure as hell isn’t sharing in any sacrifice.

If we look at the causes of the French Revolution, we are right on track with what happened then. The wealthy pay little to nothing in taxes while military expenditures ruin the economy and the PTB exacerbate the problem by imposing austerity measures on the backs of the population. One major difference is that the representatives of the common people won’t be locked out of government, they’re in on it!

Executive privilege will come back stronger than ever the next time a Republican occupies the White House.

The Dem’s job is to fold.

Otherwise the oligarchs couldn’t have taken over and turned this republic into a plutocracy populated by serfs.

Every one of you contributes to this by continuing to legitimize the broken and hopelessly corrupted electoral system. The incipient feudal state into which the USA is being transformed CANNOT BE FIXED through the political system.

CANNOT.
BE.
FIXED.

It’s clever way you wrote this post without ever mentioning the most relevant name — Pelosi.

Let’s face it. The Democratic House was a doormat 2006-2010 because of feckless and incompetent leadership. Personally, I admire Pelosi, bust she was – and is – over her head.

Excellent point. Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have de-funded the Iraq occupation by refusing to bring the Bush administration’s supplemental appropriations to the floor. She could have impeached President Bush, for that matter. To borrow a phrase, impeachment would have been a slam dunk. She chose to let the Bushies go their merry way, reinforcing the narrative that Dems don’t have the right stuff.

“And the Presidency is nearly all-powerful when a Republican is in the Oval Office. Helpless, helpless, oh so helpless are the Dems before the Mighty Pow’r of King Bush! No, wait, the powers of the Presidency are really quite limited now that Obama is in office.”

…Unless King Obama says they are otherwise, like launching a war of aggression, indefinite detention, assassination, etc. Obama only claims powerlessness when he wants to. Also note that Obama signed – rather than vetoed – the bill blocking closure of Gitmo, much as Obama now likes to blame Congress and claim powerlessness for that as well.

The fact is that the only Democrats left who want to fight are among the rank and file. The “serious” people are scared out of their wits at the idea of putting up their fists even as the other guy pummels them over and over again. Forget the notion of fighting even a little bit dirty — too many on our side turn their bloodied noses up at that.

The Dem’s job is to fold.

Yep. “Bad Cop, Spineless Cop”.

That’s an interesting way to view this. I wonder if it had been Speaker Cantor, would that have forced the president to be more firm.

Turn on your spell checker.

I disagree with the basic premise of the article, Jon.

I think the Democrats are doing exactly what they want to do. The Republicans in the House provide just enough cover, in their minds, to get away with it.

They’re playing good cop/bad cop with the country just like they have for the last 50 years. Name one landmark piece of legislation that changed our country for the better since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which was arguably much weaker than it should have been).

There aren’t any.

I would not mind one bit if obama were brought up on articles of impeachment for the same things we wanted president cheney and vice president bush

why the hell are we not shouting about that now that a democrat is pulling the same crap we wanted that administration impeached?

obama is worse then bush when it comes to war crimes and while we might mention the crimes he’s committing gone are the calls for impeachment we were livid were not brought against cheney/bush

Peterr has a fresh cross-post ready for our perusal: Speeches on Deficits, Then and Now

It’s more a matter of Obama and the Dems being nutless, gutless, and feckless.

And yet, Pelosi STILL leads the House Dems.! The argument is not about why the Dems we elected immediately run so quickly away from us, it’s about electing those who honor the Democratic Ideals they campaign on. Glenn Greenwald has ANOTHER great entry today on Obama’s failure to show even a cursory concern for our Constitutional framework or a shred of personal morality.
At this point I’d raise funds for & vote for Glenn Greenwald for ANY position he’d run for! http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html

Gotta go for those “fresh’ posts. Wouldn’t want to be caught dead posting on a stale one. would we?

OMG! I am!

Obma is nothing new, Franklin Roosevelt & Lyndon Johnson killed majority calls for progressive reform:

http://www.counterpunch.org/connolly10292010.html

It’s all a ruse. They are all on the same side. The difference is that the House in 2009-2010 was there to put on a show for the Democratic base while the Senate and Obama played their roles of assuring that the House was constrained–and blamed the impasse on the filibuster, Joe Lieberman (who did what Obama wanted) and Ben Nelson.

Now the Republicans make crazy social proposals in order to appease the religious conservatives and to scare the shit out of the Democratic base, then blame the Democrats for not getting all they really wanted.

THEY ALL WORK FOR THE OWNERS OF THE COUNTRY!

We need a constitutional convention to replace elections with the random selection of representatives who serve for limited terms.

I read your linked article after I made post #31. Thank you for giving support for my arguments.

Thank you!

I can only hope that some day Americans will wakeup but really I hold no hope.

The democratic Senate needs to stomp out more of the repub House BS.

Even centrists and independents are starting to buy the “Obama is weak” meme. Obama and his advisors have to be banking on two things going into 2012 (and I’m sure more): 1. Recovery is imminent. and 2. a weak Republican field. Number 2 is a lock, but number 1 is nowhere near certain, and if the economy dips again, #2 won’t matter at all.

The point in this is that, considering how tentative his position is, you’d think Obama would be trying to do everything to counter the “weakness” meme, which is something that will become utterly corrosive to his re-election efforts if the economy continues to sputter along. While I agree that ultimately Obama wants what the Republicans want, I also believe as an article of faith that Obama wants to be re-elected above all else. I’m starting to believe, in other words, that Obama, while duplicitous and protective of the status quo, is also getting pretty badly outwitted as a candidate.

Sure seems powerless to me..they got only 32b in cuts instead of the 100b which they had promised.

Ain’t it amazing – when we control both houses of Congress the conservative Senate runs the show. When we control 1 house the ultraconservative House runs the show.

Guess that says who ever is more hard right controls the show.

Boehner shows it is only powerless when controlled by Democrats.

Or, as Margaret would say, Vichycrats.

The House, like the filibuster, is a tool. The problem is the Democratic Party.

The problem is also Matty and Ezra, who spent 2 years convincing you–and succeeding!– that the problem is the tools and not the Democratic Party.

But, like I said, Matty and Ezra are going to make fine Republicans some day.

Although, to be honest with you, I’d rather kill the D-Party entirely and leave Matty and Ezra politically homeless in their peak earning years. They deserve no less.

Here’s what Hannah Arendt has to say about that:

“What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.”