What’s Obama’s rationale for rejecting temporary extensions? Besides its being a matter of playing chicken with the nation’s wellbeing, it looks politically stupid to me — it shifts the blame for a default, if it happens, to Obama.

Wiping coffee off the screen after reading “dumbest……”

Where are the calls for a Primary challenge or a 3rd Party candidate?

You state the truth with directness and simplicity, Jane. It really is quite bewildering to see how completely Obama fans — after two and a half years of Obama’s bad faith shenanigans — are misunderstanding the dynamics at play here. Talk about Lucy and that football.

You’ll never get anywhere with this shy and reticent writing, Jane.

The rationale for rejecting the temporary extensions is that it doesn’t solve anything. The GOP made hay for the last six months by saying they were the more fiscally responsible people. the grownups in the room. And now, they wanna play ‘kick the can’ and push any meaningful action off into 2012. Then they wanna campaign on it and make the Dems look bad.

My guess is, for the thinking electorate, this isn’t playing well for the GOP. They are no longer looking like the adults. Every couple of weeks they change their position on things, after Dem concessions have been made. McConnell stood in the Senate yesterday and said there will be no proper solution with Obama in the White House (which to me is nothing short of treason – he’s the duly elected POTUS, regardless of your personal feelings; under the previous administration, such words would have earned a personal and rather unpleasant visit from Cheney).

Obama finally lost it yesterday because the ‘new’ new deal on the table is not to do anything at all. The economic raters – the people who decide how much we will pay for borrowing anything at all – are threatening, legitimately, to drop our credit rating. This isn’t a scare tactic anymore. This is the game of ‘Chicken’ spiraling out of control, with the US Government riding a MOPED and the oncoming vehicle, a Mack Truck at a high rate of speed.

As is often said here, it is Kabuki theater. Obama’s tirade yesterday reflects the general consensus of the American public – sit down, shut up and git ‘er done already.

Obama’s caught between a Sachs and some dumb asses. Oh Noes!

Jane?
the Obamabots = like the Tea Party = non intelligent voters

the USA Govt is now under the control of both these non intelligent groups

the tea party walked away from a super deal that gave them 83% of what they wanted.

and the Obamabots thinks their leader loves Social Security, Medicare, Medicade and Ronald Reagan? Obamabots are so dumb, that they think a president can love Ronald Reagan and Social Security? Lol

Like Krugman said the Professional left should just clap, at the fact that the MORONs are killing their Elite Masters plans and goals

Well, Obama caused it all beginning with his famous Cat Food Commission. He then goes on the tv to tell Americans he will not fall under the premise of several short term debt raises because this is the time to do the hard things so he can get back to the business of jobs.

Kick us in the head again, Obama. You’ve been office almost three years and haven’t done a damn thing about jobs. In fact, the only things you have done is manage to take more from the American people! I agree about the dingleberries hanging onto Obama’s butt. If they still support him after what we all gave him at election time, they have nothing but toilet tissue fluff for brains!

It says right there in the piece: Obama wants above all else to be viewed as the dealmaker here. The Republicans took the deal away. The short-term deal doesn’t involve enough dick-swinging and tough talk and pain for the middle class.

But, just like the health care reform, the more voters find out about the
deficit reduction, the more they’ll … or, never mind.

Samuel Jackson strongly approves of this motherfucking article.

Expect Reid to try to add spending cuts — including Medicare and SS — to the McConnell package. Sticking the knife in progressives and twisting it. Once again, it will be Pelosi who must stand firm. Not a sure thing.

His most ardent supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers in the world

HA HA HA HA!! So true. There is one called “bernbart” at Salon that has to be read to be believed.

The problem is that neither side is doing what is best for America. They both have abdicated their duties as representatives of the American People. It is now a show of which “team”, not represenative party gets the goods.

The tax and revenue negotiations should be done properly in committee and not be tagged to whether or not the government is going to shut down.

Obama has long ago lost any entitlement to sympathy from any Democrat, and who cares how it happens as long as he is unable to make his megalomaniacal grand bargain.

Surely the temporary extensions solve the biggest problem of all, which is the damage a default would cause.

Obama now stands in the spot he wants to occupy. He’s told the GOPers that he’ll destroy his presidency and the national and international economy for the sake of killing off the remnants of the New Deal and the Great Society. He’s told them they’ll give him what he wants or everyone will suffer the consequences. I expect Obama will follow through with his threat. I expect the GOPers will fold. Obama’s one cold, ruthless bastard.

Maybe he is trying to help out his repug friends that have placed bets against the solvency of the country. You know, they all stand to make a great deal of money in the market by shorting.

Oh man! They would love him that much more for helping them cash in on failure of America to pay it’s debts.

Now Jane, I am becoming confusulated.

You have just said, and I quote, “His most ardent supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers in the world.”

Yet, almost daily, another well known (and well-respected) FDL front page-poster castigates the Republicant “true believers” as the most stupid whatevers.

Thus, “true believers”, Republicant or Dimocrat, together, all bipartisanshippy, are the most stupid and dumbest members of society imaginable.

The upside, of course, is that leaves the rest of us as not quite so stupid and dumb, at least, apparently …

So, what are we all going to do with all the brain power we obviously may lay claim to?

Well, enough of snark.

When Jane, will you take the trust which you have builded, over the years, among those who are not stupid or dumb, and run for political office yourself?

I do not say this lightly, I say this because trust is the most important “commodity” which society requires to actually move forward.

Only if people who have established trust, well-earned and actually deserved, stand up as contenders, offering realizable visions of a better, more sane world, is there any chance to avoid complete societal collapse in this nation, our nation.

Perhaps such collapse is unavoidable, it seems more likely, each and every single day.

In a class war, which IS precisely what we are engulfed in, civil society may only be successfully defended and maintained, if the people, the members of that society, understand what comprises civil society and what is required for its continued existence.

The true struggle, the war of ideas and the explicit articulation of principle, requires that such notions as the rule of law, for example, be clearly understood and appreciated, else “society”, which may be defined as simply HOW individual members of that society treat other members of that society, will become a vicious “race” to the bottom of the most brutish and destructive, as well as “unsustainable” sort.

We “live” in a society where the majority of its members do NOT understand that economic systems are not designed by the gods but by mere flesh and blood humans, and that there is no earthly reason why an “economic system” cannot serve the rational and reasonable needs of everyone in society, unless it is “designed” not to do so.

DW

There is NOTHING Obama does that reflects anything but what serves HIM best. He’s the WORST Democratic President ever!

I do not agree with this analysis. Accepting McConnell’s offer, will not undermine Obama’s 2012 election bid. Rather, I suspect it will strengthen it.

Can anyone in Washington say:
estate tax hike?

How about $3 million free of tax?
next $7 million at 35%,
the rest at 90%?

who does that hit hardest–maybe 10,000 people?
The rates are the lowest in history, and even this proposal is most certainly still the lowest for 99.99% of all Americans.

Is breaking the oligarchy too HARD?

The Fed. sets the rates of our legislated currency. The rating agencies have no authority whatsoever…………..except in kabuki theater.

I’ve been saying this for months. Who do we got?

Then you don’t understand the difference between the “Grand Bargain” and the McConnell deal — and its implications for Obama between now and 2012.

Only if spending cuts are added to the McConnell deal can a portion of the “Grand Bargain” be saved.

If push comes to shove, he’ll accept the McConnell deal. But he’s obviously been boxed in by it.

He’ll push very hard for spending cuts to be part of the deal — to save the “Grand Bargain.” And ask for Reid’s support in that.

The Obamabots all will reply that “you guys don’t get it, he’s brought his chess game again”. Unfortunately, a chess game in an MMA cage isn’t exactly the appropriate technique to win.

Truly sad, that the Obamabots are as blind as the tea party people (I’m working on not calling them teaba..s any more) Blind faith in the sounds of their own echoing chanting will lead them, and us, to ruin.

Unfortunately, I can’t name anyone who is truly wise enough, strong enough, free enough, moral enough, and has enough universal appeal to get elected right now. Instead, all we get are the synchophants of the moneyed interests, from both parties.

That’s what i said in the first line, oldgold, so we don’t disagree — I don’t think there’s any political problem with Obama accepting the McConnell deal.

HE is the one who is freaking out and doesn’t want to accept it.

So you don’t think that getting the McConnell deal was a victory?

It’s either one or the other. Either it’s a victory and he accepts it, or it’s not and he rejects it. It can’t be both.

Right, and it will be a bargain on Republican terms, ultimately, not his. He’ll get the blame for the cuts, no revenues (that is, no Republican capitulation). Really Obama gets the worst of all worlds right now, no matter what. And it’s all his fault.

Had he fought for the morally correct things, he wouldn’t be where he is.

He’s freaking out because it robs him of the “Grand Bargain” and his precious Medicare and SS cuts that show he’s “serious.” IMHO

not sure it would work the really rich will just use trust funds and other loopholes. It would mainly hit those with estates 10 million or less. Also not sure how i feel about estate taxes. if you have worked hard, paid your share and manage to build up wealth, why should the govt get another bite at the wealth you built. Seems like double taxation to me

Obama finally lost it yesterday because the ‘new’ new deal on the table is not to do anything at all.

No, that’s not why he lost it. He lost it because he wouldn’t get his “Grand Bargain” as part of the deal.

Sounds to me like everyone’s getting burned politically for trying to use the debt ceiling as a political tool to get other things. Apparently that wasn’t such a great idea after all.

my old friend!
you sorta missed the point Jane was making

Obama created the Catfood Commission led by people who hate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade
Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles

Obama wants to kill Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade, taking the McConnell deal hurts him in a couple of ways.

oldgold? Do you really think real Dems are going to rally around the guy who tried to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade?

oldgold? Is Obama going to tell the Dem Base he was just joking, about cutting Social Security?

oldgold? Like David Plouffe you are ignoring the Obvious, how in the hell can a black candidate attack the new deal, and win in 2012? please tell us how this is going to happen?

oldgold? do you think Obama can triangulate the Left? the guy just gave the GOP 83% of what they wanted? so why do real Dems need him?

oldgold? you need to wake up to the idea, that OBAMA has no intention of winning in 2012. a below avg real Dem would have focus on the Economy the last 3 years, to secure re-election, Obama did not!

Obama attack his only supporters daily, and without any remorse, because he always knew he was a 1 termer

primogeniture is even worse than what we have. but not by much.

McGovern, remember him?, proposed an almost confiscatory estate tax thinking the less than one percent of the population it effected didn’t matter. He took one state. The proposal didn’t make for electoral success then and most likely wouldn’t now. The fact remains in 2012 your choice will be Obama, say Michelle Bachman, or some third party candidate. Obama’s counting on you’re being in a box. Face it, we all are. We have no place good to go. We either fix that or take the consequences.

Even though I may be categorized as one of the dumbest MFs in the world, I understand the difference between the “grand bargain” and the McConnell deal.

I think the McConnell deal presents Obama with fewer political problems than the “grand bargain.”

Wouldn’t accepting the McConnell deal put a debt ceiling vote right before the 2012 election (which the repubs would take FULL advantage of) and wouldn’t accepting the McConnell (melting face) deal put cutting entitlements squarely down in front of the Democrats feet? How will that strengthen the 2012 bid?

If Obama excepts the MM deal then what does he have to run on.

His health care bill…….BIG fail and sell out

Reigning in Wall Street……Nobody in jail and TBTF getting bigger and paying huge bonuses

The economy……….well we all know the answer to that

Libya…….Big fail

Iraq/Afghanistan…….Too Unpopular

OBL……..Ha ha ha

Really what will he campaign on?

Jane, thank you for making my day. The only thing better than hearing Obama is “cussing mad” is that the source of his aggravation is his fervent supporters. Wonderful! I can only hope that this is the first of many things to make him “cussing mad.” Eric Cantor seems to be getting under his skin, too, and that gives me the tiniest warm glow toward Cantor, who I otherwise find creepy.

This should be bronzed:

Sounds to me like everyone’s getting burned politically for trying to use the debt ceiling as a political tool to get other things. Apparently that wasn’t such a great idea after all.

They were all juggling with knives.

typo meant accepts

“When Jane, will you take the trust which you have builded, over the years, among those who are not stupid or dumb, and run for political office yourself?”

Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is in one of the most liberal districts in the U.S., Madison, WI. Yet, she has to support Big Ag to get elected. Serving in Congress is just raising money for the next election.

IMHO, Jane’s got much more influence running FDL.

HE is the one who is freaking out and doesn’t want to accept it.

If Obama is freaking out, why would he freak out? He wants entitlement and deficit reform, and he’s demanding that the GOPers give them to him. This is the best time for Obama to make these demands. Postponing the conflict to the future will not likely produce the outcome he wants and will have him taking responsibility for raising the debt limit every time the GOPers make achieving a budget deal impossible.

He’s going all in, thus gambling with the lives of millions and even billions across the world.

I think the McConnell deal presents Obama with fewer political problems than the “grand bargain.”

To Obama, the “Grand Bargain” is a key to winning in 2012. You may (correctly) see it as risky, but he doesn’t. That’s what all this has been about, for god’s sake. He’s the one who tied raising the
debt ceiling to the “Grand Bargain.” It’s HIS strategy, no one else’s.

Right, but that’s only in a world where clean votes are preferable to Obama versus massive cuts to the safety net. That world doesn’t exist. Put it differently: Obama is essentially a Tea Partier who wants to be perceived as a centrist. Go from there.

Yep.

“They were all juggling with knives.”

Nominated for the metaphor hall of fame.

You need to re-read Jane’s post.

Some are expert knife jugglers.

Only the Dems were juggling. Republicans simply continued to be who they are.

Yes.

No I don’t.

I think Obama will sign the McConnell deal in a second. Before the ink dries he should start banging them over the head about how they willingly ignored one of their primary constitutional responsibilities and the President must be the adult and take the heat. I’d run ads in every Tea Party district.

If this goes down like it’s starting to look like it will. It will marginalize the Tea Party and will mark the beginning of the end of that movement.

Knives, my ass, they were juggling with katanas and had no idea they’re a much more sophisticated weapon.

Such language, Jane. Gotta quit hangin’ out with sailors.

And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch!

Who is the post primarily about?

He’s freaking out because he sees his Grand Bargain of entitlement reform being thrown out the window because the Pubs have gotten the word from their bosses to get this over and get it done clean. So they have a way to do that that doesn’t mean selling out their base, or their bosses, but screws him.

So, now he is trying to attach a cat food commission 2 to the McConnell plan with Reid. If McConnell has half a brain he will say no one gets out of the third rail alive, if Obama wants entitlements knifed in the heart without the banksters getting all the remaining cash, he has to do it on his own. And screw Obama further.

But we will see.

Still don’t get it, presumably,becuase I’m just too dumb a Obamabot. If Obama is ready to make all the draconian cuts to Social Security, at al, why aren’t the Republicans snatching up such a truly monumental victory?

This has been their wish since 1936-as Nancy Altman shows in her book.

Again if the McConnell deal is not what Obama wants-your premise-then why does Red State America, Erick Erickson, Freedom Works et al not see it this way?

It’s as if the Right blooshpere believes it is getting snookered but the left blogosphere believes the same. The Right agrees with O’Donnell’s analysis.

Yesterday’s WSJ editorial (Wed, 7/13, pg A16) page had the same take as O’Donnell: “This may have been the President’s strategy all along: Take the debt-limit talks behind closed doors, make major spending cuts seem possible in the early days, butthen hammer Republicans publicly as the deadline nears for refusing to raise taxes on business and the “rich.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303678704576442231815463502.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

It’s as if your premise is the GOP has demanded the clean bill all along and Obama has demanded deap cuts.

It’s time to stop viewing Obama’s desires as different from the rankest sleaze in the GOP–they’re all just apple-polishers, but no one–no one–is hungrier for a pat on the head than Obama.

If he gave them 83% why did they not accept? Why insist on 0?

Obama would sign the McConnell deal with regrets if he signs it at all. Entitlement and debt reform are key components of his program.

Naturally, the Tea Party freshman are as crazy as Obama is ruthless. The cannot be counted upon to toe the Party line once a fix is in. They too can force McConnell, Cantor and the rest to make their peace with the President.

Perhaps, Boo, you are correct, and yet I consider that Jane has both the charisma and the back-story, to begin to exert an even deeper “influence”.

I did not say she would “win”. Not the first time.

However, Jane speaks to AND from the heart and aspirations of the people.

That is the beginning of truly useful power, wielded wisely and well, for genuine transformation.

I would suggest, and suspect that you would agree, that such fundamental transformation is precisely what our society needs and MUST experience, or the future of most human beings living in this nation and the fate of humankind, itself, will likely be “nasty, brutish, and short”.

Political calulation is one thing, the ability to be a catalyst of real change is something else, entirely.

One way or another, Jane will and is, changing the world for the better, and encouraging everyone else to do likewise.

DW

I kinda agree with you on that.

First, America was so mad about Bush there was no way they would put another repug in office. What the PTB decided was to place a Chameleon on the ballot to fool us. Now that we see what the real color of the lizard is we have to deal with it until election. Guess what? The political operatives and Dean yelled about a primary to Obama. What choice is there now? Obama or a Teahadist? Which one does the most harm to America going forward?

With Democrats like Obama, it’s only a matter of time before the safety net gets shredded totally anyway–there is absolutely no resistance on the left. Republicans can wait for that till 2013. Scuttling Obama’s re-election chances has to happen right now.

Speaking as one of the “dumb motherfuckers” as you call them, you can bitch and moan about who Obama is let his liberal base down, but at the end of the day, it you can’t win an election with just a liberal base so you have to live in the real world where victories are muted and you have to deal with the playing field as it IS and not as you want it to be. The tea baggers and repubs are clinically insane these days, but unfortunately, you can’t ignore them either. Obama has done a good job with the steamin’ plate of crap he has been given

I don’t see Obama freaking out. I see him stating that he has points that he will not negotiate. That’s not freaking out. That’s what Machiavell would call political virtu.

That was my reaction to Oldgold’s first comment @22 above. I agree that accepting the McConnell deal would probably be a net plus in 2012. It might also have the benefit of appearing to triangulate with the responsible, grown-up Republicans against the tea party crowd. Also against Senate Dems. Apparently he enjoys playing (golf?) with Boehner & McConnell more than Cantor, Pelosi, or Reid. But if it’s such a good deal for Obama, why did he angrily reject it?

I agree that it’s probably because it’s not his history making, paradigm shifting, New Deal ending, Grand Bargain. It’s not his deal. He’s more Republican than the Republicans. They’re just looking for a way out of the box they’ve helped Obama build for themselves, because their bondholder masters have issued orders.

Whatever the true motives, Obama has clearly shown that he can fight tenaciously for something he really believes in. Clearly reveals the treachery behind his sell-out machinations on, e.g., the public option, among many other issues where passivity and perfidy characterized his actions.

All that yelling they got in town hall meets from the constituents. Plus, now after a year of saying that entitlements have to be cut they have changed their tune. They now know it will be a killer for them at election time. THey are going to let Obama hold that medal even though it’s what they wanted all along.

Obama is being driven by mule drivers of the GOP and has been since he stepped into office.

The rich don’t work any harder than the rest of us. They just game the system to fool people into handing over money to them. The rich are racketeers.

From my point of view, Obama added a lot of that crap to the plate. He was given a majority in both houses but threw it away so he could be “bipartisan.” Real world at that time was that he didn’t need to be bipartisan. He had the bully pulpit, huge approval ratings, and majorities in both houses. He chose to undermine his stated position (not his real one) at every step of the way.

The rich are destroying the world, not only this country. They are the enemy, never forget that.

You gotta feel sorry for the guy. His most ardent supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers in the world, and they don’t realize he thinks they are digging his political grave.

Jane, just popping in long enough to commend you for one of your most astute observations ever — and given your track record, that is saying something ; ) Nicely done.

At the risk of belaboring the point of the post — pardon me if I don’t get it — McConnell’s plan (unadjusted) is a gift to true progressives precisely because it shuts Obama down in his hunt for the “Grand Bargain.” It denies him the opportunity to tie cuts to the social safety net to the nation’s purported fiscal solvency. It forces him to voluntarily — in front of god and everyone — call for such cuts leading up to the the 2012 election. It means that we have a fighting chance to avoid them.

The next battle for us will be Reid trying to add those cuts to the McConnell package — to save a portion of the “Grand Bargain.” Reid would like to cut Medicare and SS as much as Obama. He has said so.

Progressives need the original version of the McConnell plan to pass — to protect Medicare and SS from a President who would gladly sacrifice them to stay in office.

“The fact remains in 2012 your choice will be Obama, say Michelle Bachman, or some third party candidate. Obama’s counting on you’re being in a box. Face it, we all are. We have no place good to go.”

That mindset is precisely what Obama and the rest of the Dems are counting on – indeed, what they’ve been counting on for at least 20 years now. As long as they can scare you away from voting third party by sneaking up behind you and shouting “BACHMANN!! PALIN!!” then they have you right where they want you. And they will be free to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the EPA, all the while appeasing their corporate masters with the lowest tax rates in history and feeding the military-industrial machine with perpetual war. Vote for a Dem, and that’s what you’re supporting.

Politicians work hard to get the votes they think are up for grabs. Let them know that you will support their team no matter what, and you can kiss any hope of having your agenda addressed good-bye – forever.

We today are seeing Obama’s “real” face, and his face defines the Party he leads.

Yep again!

Obama is rich.

End of story.

Beause they want more than 83%!
What is so hard to understand about that?

I wonder if these full-throttle efforts to dismantle the safety net are causing any apologists of the HCR to reconsider what it is. I think many of them accepted HCR within the framework of “Obama’s liberal, isn’t he?” Now that they can no longer hide behind that canard, I wonder if it will be revisited by the Ezra Kleins and Matt Yglesiases.

So they know cutting Social Security is a deal killer but Obama doesn’t?

He more than the GOP is so singlemindedly determined to privatize Social Secirty and destroy the country that he is willing to be a one-termer?

Overall the picture is clear as mud. Looking forward to seeing what the deal looks like.

People who are convinced that they are always getting screwed, often fail to understand when they have won.

The best results of victory, the opportunity to make broad changes in cousre can rapidly evaporate if you’re so caught up in your own hype that you fail to sieze the moment.

Exactly.

But they have now-with McCononell’s proposal-accepted 0. If you have a choice between 83% and 0 even the Republicans aren’t so fuzzy at math that they can’t understand that 83 is a no-brainer.

agreed. but people leaving behind a few million are not necessarily gaming the system. they could have just as easily worked hard, paid their share, and made good investments. In NYC a 3/4 bedroom family home is about $3- 5 million and that is for nothing fancy. My question is if you have worked hard and paid your share why should what you leave be taxed again. The majority of middle class are not gaming the system, and all estate tax does is hit them. the real rich will find always to avoid it as they do other taxes

Obama certainly wants the GOP’s fingerprints on cutting the safety net. That’s one other reason why he’s angry and why the McConnell deal is so smart.

Look, Obama has done more for the GOP and NeoCons than ANY President in the last 50 years! He has done more for them than any republican President in history!

He knows his support, money and electorial is actually coming from those Neocons. It has nothing at all to do with us little people, the puriest, sanctimonious, DFH, drug addled, Progressives that he loves so much to hate on!

Because the kids of the wealthy didn’t earn that money. The dead guy did.

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Krugamn says it best

“What Obama has offered — and Republicans have refused to accept — is a deal in which less than 20 percent of the deficit reduction comes from new revenues. This puts him slightly to the right of the average Republican voter.

So we learn two things. First, Obama is extraordinarily eager to make concessions. Second, Republicans are incredibly unwilling to take yes for an answer — something for which progressives should be grateful.”

Mike Sax, sound like you work for the White House

Has any of your bosses thought about how this looks outside of the beltway?

Obama never walked out of meeting disgusted when people wanted to kill the Public Option and Bush Tax Cuts, but Obama does get very mad when the GOP says no to him killing Social Security? this is what just happen

Mike Sax? your little mind probably can’t understand why Obama hates the new deal?

look at it this way? what has OBAMA ever done for progressives?
please make a list
good luck

Cantor, Boehner, and McConnell, rocket scientists of the GOP, playing our constitutional scholar for the fool he is. This is better than a classic Greek tragedy. The political calculus that pervades the American system of government is a sight to behold – each side proclaiming they are acting in the interests of the American people. The empty suit imposter occupying the White House has the next move – can’t wait for what he will do on behalf of the American people.

tom hanks & a Billion $ of Hollywood money.

I talk to regular people. Let’s call them know-nothing Dem voters who vote Dem because you just do. They think Soc Sec and Medicare must be “reformed.” So if these people think that way I believe we are fucked. Oilbummer knows that. We are a tiny fringe that sees the truth. 30/40 years we would have been the mainstream.

All I know and say it’s not a done deal yet…so the game of who might appear to be “winning” the politics du jour in this ever shifting climate is premature. Not saying that I don’t see the shifts here among who looks like the bigger chump/dupe in the game of chicken their playing.

But I think that to say (as many of his ardent supporters are saying) is that Obama is a brilliant strategist and showing up the republicons by calling their bluff with what they consider his double dog dare move of proposing cuts that they won’t call cuts to social security and raising the medicare eligibility age and now walking out of negotiations…well I’m not so certain, as just the day before the republicons actually backed off, those same supporters were defending the president’s safety net proposals as nothing new and that they were always a long term goal of his all along (citing a speech he gave in Jan 09 talking about this) and that of course they needed to be “reformed” so they would be stronger.

The rationales of his supporter’s defense of him shift almost as quickly as the gamesmanship on the debt ceiling/deficit issue.

Although some things remain constant throughout this whole “debate” amongst our millionaire ruling class elites. Primarily that the working class (not the investor class) will be screwed…just a matter of how long it will take and I guess what matters to some, just who will be to blame, although in my book there’s no question of that…it’s all of them.

Obamabots are stupid. Like real stupid. It feels good to be able to use here the term “Obamabots”, as in Daily Kos is bannable. And they are real Obamabots.

I think Obama is the very worst thing that could have happened to the democratic party. He is moved the party to the right and on top of that, he is totally incompetent. One of the worst presidents ever.

@ #20. You are the only person that get it. Firedoggies and Teabaggers are cut from the same cloth. Hardliners who have people sign pledges (single payer) that thus boxes them if from the art of compromise that IS politics. Talk about “dumb motherfuckers”.

The truth is you folks are the biggest bunch who sewing circle whiners on the net. “Obama got elected and he didn’t do everything we wanted him too!” Welcome to politics, welcome to changing the zeitgeist of the last 30 years “trickle down” takes a few years.

When Obama plays this debt thing out like the master politician of our era that he moterfucking is. You folks could create enough energy with your sewing circles meltdown that it could solve the global energy crisis.

Good to see Jane found the piss and vinegar again. Now direct it somewhere constructive….like a a moterfucking Repbulican.

Well judging by yesterday’s record-breaking campagin raising numbers, Peasant, evidently he still has plenty of support outside the Neocon bloc. Over 250,000 first time donors, 98% of the donations were $250 or less.
His support among Democrats is as high as it’s been in 50 years.

Knowing that there were at least 60 House Rs would vote no, regardless, it was still in their interest to push for the highest spending cuts they could get — with no tax increases. They knew all along that even 99% might not pass the House. But that’s not a reason for not pushing for more. As the drop dead date approached, and it became obvious that no deal could be made, they had to find an escape hatch. Enter McConnell’s plan. But, all along, accepting 83% was never the right move.

Was talking to a friend’s daughter, who is a veteran Democratic Congressional aide, and she said there’s lots of tough talk behind closed doors and in the caucuses, but in the light of day, it all goes away. She said she marvels at how clueless and out of touch the Beltway is, and that the skewed perceptions of what the country thinks and needs are truly amazing. Not being able to buy a house, not being able to send your kids to the college of their choice, not being able to afford to take a vacation, not being able to get affordable health care and not being able have anyone in Washington stand up for those who work for a living signals the end of the American Dream. She says those in Congress and the White House no longer relate to the values of the country and see their mission as insulating the wealthy and powerful from the rampages of extremists of both the left and the right. In other words, if it isn’t good for Wall Street or the bankers, it isn’t good for the country. This is Congress seeing the country through a set of crystals as fantastic as those of Joseph Smith.

Knives, my ass, they were juggling with katanas and had no idea they’re a much more sophisticated weapon.

Such language, Jane. Gotta quit hangin’ out with sailors.

To extend the metaphor even further… hand grenades.

With the firing pins removed…

Ill see your “bernbart” and go all in with Plum Line commenter “ceflynline”

“It is, actually, beautiful strategy and tactics. Like Fisher’s queen sacrifice”

not a motherfucker out there gonna come close

What makes you think all those donations were from Dem supporters? Even Corporations that favor repugs will give a token amount to the Dem candidate.

I don’t care how much money he rakes in for his campaign. Money does not equal legitimacy or representation of the masses!

C’mon man. We have 10% unemployment, probably really 20%. We have a Wizard of Oz president who is unwilling to use his power to alleviate some of that pain. Instead, Oilbomber is going for the jugular, going in the opposite direction.

I don’t know why you can’t it. He had a chance the first 2 years and he exposed himself as the corporate whore he is.

Sadly, I’m with you on that. I’ve often commented here that I know soooo many people, who are only too willing to see Soc Sec & Medicare “reformed” because “they have to be.”

Voters are willfully & woefully misinformed. They don’t their homework, no matter which party they reflexively identify with and vote for.

I have some trad-Dem friends who get *enraged* with me when I hesitantly & very softly offer up very low-level gracious criticisms of Obama. They simply don’t want to hear it. The end. Obama’s a putative “Democrat,” so that’s the end of it.

I think the paradigm that must be grasped is that *most* US citizens are very authoritarian (not just the dittoheads), and most are very very very very pathologically unwilling to accept the slightest questioning of their long-held ideologies & dogma.

And the FDL crowd (and similar) are a tiny minority of “cassandra’s” basically wailing in the dark. They can’t heeeeaaaarrrrrr us, nor do they want to.

And so: on it goes….

Excellent, excellent points. This whole scenario is too bizarre.

wrong, wrong,

the DNC did receive some of that money? yes

also Mike Sax this was before OBAMA decided to tell the world he was looking to kill to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade

maybe you can help us with this problem
how does the black guy in the White House plan on escaping the attacks from the left and right on him thinking about cutting social security, medicare in his DEPRESSION.

“every GOP political strategist has got to love this! Obama tells the world he would cut social security”

yesterday Cantor wanted him to write it down.LOL

Obama now owns this economy, because none of his ideas have work to fixed and none of them ever will.

Obama may need to raise 2 billion good luck, and he will probably lose

Now, guys, this is gonna be a big win for us…like healthcare reform…

(No smileface big enough or cyinical enough… :o))

Just when I thought you couldn’t bury your handle any deeper.

I don’t yet understand this:

“Cantor offered a temporary extension three times last night, and by both Democratic and GOP accounts, that’s what made Obama snap. He wouldn’t be rejecting it “even if it brings my presidency down,” and taking his case to the American people, if he thought he had scored some big victory.”

I would have thought O would be more likely to reject Cantors offers if O thought he had the advantage over Cantor. I believe the TeaGOPs are split and that gives O some leverage to exploit, and hence to reject Cantor with less risk than if there were no split.

Agree with you on most points, but if the PTB want Obama to “win,” then Obama will “win.”

And quite frankly, I’m not interested in the putative “donations” that Obama has raised in the past however many days… that’s as meaningless as so-called poll “data.” Whatever…

Reading comprehension isn’t your thing.

Mike Sax,

If Obama really was Dem or a Progressive he would have brushed aside everything to put America back on solid footing and recreate something besides Bush’s “Service” Economy plan.

What has he done? NOTHING! Oh, and in his speech this week he is talking about saving the working class by doing what his Banksta Jobs Zsar wants to do. LOL! Creating an Infrastructure Bank! Who do you think is going to win in that scenario? Surely not the working people of America!

I work for the WH. LOL! Brilliant deductive logic you must have employed to come to this realization. Please feel free to show your work so we can all marvel at your sharp analytical skills.

Obama has done plenty for progressivee which is why he continues to enjoy high support with them and he had over 250,000 new donors among his record breaking numbers released yesterday.

You want to go over this dead ground of “he has never done one thing, not one single teeny thing for progressives” again fine. He passed the stimulus in 2009 which would not have passed with McCain in WH.

Though you claim he hates the New Deal, the Dems have been trying to pass healthcare reform for 75 years before he delivered in 2010

He passed financial reform.

He and Holder stopped prosecuting for DOMA. He ended DADT

His first act in office he reversed Bush’s decree(which he had done first thing when he got in office back in 2001) banning funding for all international agencies which even offer information on abortion-among others this would appy to the UN.

And yes, in addition to this far from exhaustive list-I can’t be solely responsible for you education the way you hold Obama solely responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world right down to your train being late and finding a piece of lint on your pants-he is not the GOP. Despite talk of lesser than evilism this must be added to the positive accomplishments I have listed.

In the Tea Party House this year we have had wonderful bills to advance the cause of womanhood. Like the bill that would refedine rape-down. Or the bill that would allow any “medical professional”- which was construed as a doctor, a nurse, administartor, or even a janitor, long as they work at the hospital-to deny an abortion to a woman based on nothing than their own personal disapproval of abortion. Even if the pregnancy is the result of rape or the woman’s life is in danger.

This passed the House but of course went nowhere else. So yeah Romeny-Bachman in 2012 is no worse than Obama and if the Dems lose congress it’s all the same.

Onit; with you on this one.

Watching the DEM goalpost movers is very similar to listening to the “Mission Accomplished” bushmasters.

“Not quite accomplished? (Nothing…?) Patience! It’s only been two and a half years, and that 10% unemployment is waaay down, to 9.2%, and the wars are…well, it’s hard to wind down successful wars.”

Seriously, if, 30 months ago, someone would have posted on here and said that Obama would be negotiating with the republicans over how much to cut medicare and SS, and talking about his other victories-in-reverse they’d have been hooted off the ‘lake.

Jane, I always love your stuff, but I think you may be buying into the partisan hype a little more than is strictly necessary, here.

There is a really good article over at HuffPo right now, Debt Roulette, by Michael Brenner that really seems to get more to the heart of this kerfuffle. Seems like O has been trying to be the better Republican for a very long time now, and he is getting pissed that such as McConnell and Cantor just refuse to give him any credit for it.

How sad.

He truly is trying to be a team player, but his team just refuses to play along. Kabuki is clearly an art form in our present day Versailles, but at some point you just have to wrap it up and go home.

No, you don’t get it, because you write what Rahm tells you. Rahm isn’t very bright.

I’ll raise you a heydick @99.

Hardliner is now someone who believes we are owed our Soc Sec and Medicare because we fucking paid for it every fucking pay check. This is a hardliner in the world of DC. Get it? A serious person advocates gutting the rest of the New Deal, this is the Chris Matthews/Matt Igglyass/Esra Kline line of bunk.

Don’t confuse contributions from the MOTU with “support.” When Americans “support,” Barry, they will show up in peaceful demonstrations and marches. Don’t hold your breath.

Well 250,000 new donors aren’t all corporations-in fact 98% were 250 or less which is unlikely to be corporate donors.

It may not equal legitimacy but if so many average Americans are willing to donate to him in times like these obviously they believe, as you don’t, he has their interest at heat.

I am one of these. Here’s what a dumb Obamabot I really am. After having my own personal unempoyment benefits delayed for weeks-if you aren’t on unemployement you can’t know how petty some of these employers are in trying to deny you benefits. I had one guy make up a story that I had been selling drugs outside to avoid paying-I finally have them reinstated. Once I receive them I will send Obama something, may only be $20 or so but if I can make $50, I will.

Wasted money, dude. Oilbummer’s gonna screw you without K-Y. Scratch that. He has already.

That was a pretty entertaining read, wasn’t it?

Seriously, if, 30 months ago, someone would have posted on here and said that Obama would be negotiating with the republicans over how much to cut medicare and SS, and talking about his other victories-in-reverse they’d have been hooted off the ‘lake

Ain’t it a crying shame? Add to that the fact that trad-Dem voters are solidly asleep at the wheel and seemingly don’t give a f*ck that THEIR hard earned Soc Sec & Medicare dollar$ are being RIPPED OFF by “their” putative “Democratic” POTUS. Who’da thunk it possible? But there it is.

Sad. And then we get the deluded DENIERS here attempting to *convince* me, in Orwellian phrases, that night is truly day, and black is geniunely white, and that 2 legs are better than 4…

All I can say is: Won’t get FOOLED again… oh no!

And so: on it goes…

A lot of Americans are pretty scared too. Telling them “Obama doesn’t have your interests at heart” kind of does leave them with nothing to replace that once-sense-of-security with. If they accept that truth–that Obama is just another corporatist–then all of a sudden no one’s looking out for them, and that’s scary. I say that with genuine sympathy. I do everything I can to try to explain the truth to those trad-Dem types, but do so in a way that explains alternatives.

vegan, above, said it better than I.

Please accept my apology for missing the obvious, Barry is in your words, “a mf’n Republican,” a pro-choice Republican. I’m just thrilled he hasn’t yet bombed Iran. If we default, you know that’s coming.

Unfortunately, Republicans used to hate unregulated monopolies and oligopolies as much as they hated socialism. Now, Republicans are the party of socializing risk onto the taxpayers.

He has to undergo ritual humiliation at the hands of the GOP every 2 months to get what he wants.

It’s more like a sadomasochistic relationship with consenting partners in leathers with whips.

His most ardent supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers in the world.

Jane you do have a way with words. Gotta love it. Does make me wonder about the massive amount of small donors Obama LLC 2112 is reporting

So this whole episode has been a failure for them

What about somebody that has been unemployed almost 3 years? What about somebody that is no longer getting unemployment benefits and has searched for a job every single day for almost three years?

Does Obama care about those people? The 99ers that are going underground and bartering just to pay the light bill? DOes Obama care about me?

Let me tell you, I AM that person! I AM THE PERSON THAT supported Obama only to find myself unemployed exactly one month after he won ELECTION! What has he done for me lately?

If his zipper broke motherfucker would sew his dick to his pants.

Thank you. You make a very good point, and I quite agree with you.

Like you, I don’t just dump on my trad-Dem friends that Obama is a corporatist Republican, who’s out to rip them off as badly as Bush. I attempt to offer solutions and alternatives.

But let’s face it: the alternatives, at least in the short run, won’t get us very far – like voting 3rd party, attempting to primary Obama, etc.

But you make a good point: it’s d*mn frickin SCARY to witness the mean-spirited self-involved Kabuki Show in Dee Cee. Ya know that those BASTARDS won’t feel the pain. WE will.

But citizens really need to wake up to reality and take it to the streets. As long as they cling to their security blankets that Obama is a “good guy,” it’s only going to get worse.

Eh? Who cares about YOU, a serf, when we can all witness the *greatness* of Obama’s eleventy-dimensional chess moves, which Obama is playing just so that YOU, a serf, can slaver in AWE of Obama’s *fantasticness.* /s

Let them eat cake…

Mike, Barry is a Republican. Obamacare locks in profits for the health care oligopoly. It forces the middle class to pay for really crappy coverage. It allowed the health insurance oligopoly to “socialize” their risk onto the taxpayers. That’s not a business plan, it’s a scam. The fact that Barry can use the MSM to bait and switch elderly Democrats is not something to be proud of. Why you think your line of comments does anything in THIS COMMUNITY to help Barry is beyond me. As I’ve told you before, I’m gonna hold my nose and vote for him in 2012. You’re not helping.

Most of my family are Obots. I send them relevant articles but invariably they send back apologias from the Nation, like that woman Melissa Lasswell Hartwell or whatever. Or Van Doom Hovel.

The game is over, folks. The Obots are falling in line like in 08. I don’t see how you change minds, Andrew. I understand your sympathy for the patient, but you know it doesn’t take much to do a little Googling to understand the truth about Obama. A third grader could do it. They are carbon copies of the Repub partisans. It’s about party loyalty. Nader spoke of the hold the legacy parties have on the public. You are dealing with willfully intransigent people. Until the whole shithouse implodes they will support Oily O to the death.

AHAHAHAHAHA! Jane believes Cantor, doesn’t get what that temporary extensions mean doing this bullshit repeatedly. S

Hey Jane, WANNA BET?

You have to be the most crack-headed political analyst in the world, and that’s including Michelle Bachmann (you know, they do seem to have a separated at birth thing going on).

But I guess when you’re grifting the gullible, telling people what’s really going on isn’t exactly your first priority.

Donald Trump’s position too.

As I’ve told you before, I’m gonna hold my nose and vote for him in 2012.

Why would you do that? Just curious…

This is a strange place, FDL. It’s every bit as disconnected from reality as the Teaparty.

Clapping for Mike Sax, you prove my point
Obama gives the GOP 83% of what they want
and he gives Progressives SHIT!

Base on the list below, these are the things OBAMA did not do for Progressives,

Base on my calculations, Obama should have raise a couple of Billion dollars by now, for selling out all those people who help him in 2008?

So i am not impress with OBAMA 86 million dollar number at all

Thanks for coming to FDL, after you share this list with your bosses U may not come back to FDL again.

Let say Obama done 10 things for Progressives, he done a lot more for his GOP friends. LOL please read below Mike Sax

1. Reneged on pledge to filibuster FISA Amendments Act (July 2008)
2. Lobbied for $700 billion Paulson TARP bank bailout
3. Pushed for no sanctions against Lieberman despite his support for John McCain
4. Nominated healthcare company lobbyist Tom Daschle as Secretary of HHS
5. Had neoliberal Robert Rubin as his chief economics adviser
6. Then had the equally neoliberal Larry Summers assume this role
7. Chose the failing upwards Timothy Geithner to head Treasury
8. AIG bonuses and money to Goldman under Obama
9. Doubling down in Afghanistan
10. Delay and reduction of withdrawal from Iraq
11. Moving Guantanamo activities to Bagram
12. Military commissions for some detainees
13. Support for indefinite detention
14. Refusal to release torture photos under FOIA
15. Refusal to investigate and prosecute Bush era criminality
16. Geithner’s DOA economic rescue programs: the PPIP and TALF
17. Minimal help for homeowners and no cramdowns
18. Treatment of Chrysler and GM with bankrupcy compared to bank no fail “stress tests”
19. Kabuki of TARP repayment by banks while still dependent on government credit lines
20. Extra-Constitutional use of the Fed by the Executive for fiscal policy
21. Credit Card bill without usury caps and with 9 month delay for other reforms
22. Business friendly Mary Schapiro named to head SEC
23. Gary Gensler who helped deregulate derivatives named to head CFTC
24. $787 billion stimulus: too little, too late, poorly structured
25. Use of financial crisis to attack Social Security and Medicare
26. The great healthcare non-debate
27. Continued use of state secrets argument in ongoing Bush era cases
28. Use of signing statements, including one to punish whistleblowers
29. Vetting process problems, especially tax related ones
30. Leaving Dawn Johnsen’s nomination to head OLC twisting in the wind
31. Eric Holder, failure to reform DOJ, not removing worst of Bush USAs
32. Failure to move against new oil bubble
33. Retention of Bush Defense team: Gates, Patraeus, and Odierno
34. Continued missile strikes inside Pakistan
35. Keeping Bush’s domestic spying programs and adding a new one, cybersecurity
36. Choice of Elena Kagan who favors expansive Presidential powers as Sollicitor General, her subsequent nomination to the Supreme Court
37. Leaving EFCA (to help counter anti-union companies) to wither in Congress
38. Welcoming Arlen Specter who brings nothing to the Democrats into the party
39. Weak ineffective proposals for financial reform
40. Obama wanted John Brennan at CIA but settled for making him his counter- terrorism adviser
41. Chas Freeman with broader Mideast perspective done in by AIPAC
42. Dennis Blair made DNI; failed to act to stop atrocities in East Timor
43. Choice of McChrystal involved in torture in Iraq to head Afghanistan command
44. Obama threat to suspend intelligence cooperation with UK over Binyam Mohamed case
45. Efforts to keep Bush and Obama White House logs secret
46. Playing games with “Don’t ask, don’t tell”
47. Filing a brief to overturn Jackson (access to lawyer) in the Montejo case
48. Not withdrawing Bush brief in Osborne DNA case
49. Egregious brief in challenge to Defense of Marriage Act
50. The Supplemental which made Iraq and Afghanistan Democratic wars
51. Choice of Rahm Emanuel as the President’s Chief of Staff
52. Choice of Dennis Ross as Iran envoy and then his move to the White House
53. Politically embarrassing processes to fill Obama and Clinton’s Senate seats
54. Choice of Bill Richardson, then Judd Gregg to head Commerce Department
55. Reneging on pledge to re-negotiate NAFTA
56. Obama’s throwing his pastor Jeremiah Wright to the curb, then reaching out to religious conservative Rick Warren
57. Continued challenges to habeas corpus petitions over indefinite detention, the Janko case
58. The Obama White House website
59. Continuing an ineffective program that Iran can exploit politically
60. Going slow on climate change when there is no time to
61. Not withdrawing a Bush-era amicus brief in the Ricci v. DeStefano reverse discrimination case and supporting a rollback of Title VII
62. Appointment of a CIA General Counsel who doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture
63. Appointment of a DNI General Counsel who doesn’t know if waterboarding is torture
64. CIA delay in a FOIA request concerning torture
65. The influence of Goldman Sachs in the Obama Administration
66. Attempt to keep secret the Cheney interview on the Plame affair
67. Mountaintop removal under Obama
68. Attempt to restrict Congressional notification on intelligence matters
69. Opposition to a second stimulus
70. Another egregious attempt to fight a habeas corpus petition in the Jawad case
71. Continuing charter schools and standardized tests
72. Holder’s decision to support a weak, narrow review of torture
73. Re-appointment of Ben Bernanke as Fed Chairman
74. Continuing renditions
75. Politically dubious company was used to vet reporters in Afghanistan
76. Judge vetoes a too weak SEC plea bargain with Bank of America
77. Justice’s argument for making Bagram a new Guantanamo, the al Maqaleh case
78. Defense to turn over databases to poorly controlled fusion centers
79. Obama changes but keeps Bush’s Star Wars program
80. Failure to win an Israeli freeze on settlements
81. White House refuses to back its own staffer environmentalist Van Jones
82. Politicized US Attorney in the Siegelman case cleared by Office of Special Counsel
83. Criticism of Iranian nuclear program; support of Israeli nuclear weapons
84. Support for a weakened reporter’s shield law
85. Use of the Zazi case to retain broad Patriot Act surveillance provisions
86. Wilner v. NSA, continuing the coverup of warrantless surveillance of communications between attorneys and detainees
87. Attempt to spike the Goldstone report on Israeli-Hamas war crimes in Gaza
88. Slowness in filling federal judgeships
89. Inadequate aid to overwhelmed state budgets
90. Attempting to dodge the Supreme Court deciding whether innocent Guantanamo detainees can be resettled in the US
91. Allowing drilling in the waters off the north coast of Alaska
92. Keeping detainee accounts of CIA torture secret
93. Current FBI manual allows for widespread domestic spying
94. Securitization invalidates most foreclosures
95. Geithner wanting unlimited powers to save large banks
96. Another state secrets defense to conceal domestic spying
97. Circuit Court dismissal of Maher Arar suit
98. Weakening Sarbanes-Oxley and calling it financial reform
99. Unemployment
100. Inspector General for Fannie and Freddie ousted for investigating fraud
101. Gaming courts to convict Guantanamo detainees
102. White House counsel removed for his principled stands on torture and Guantanamo
103. US seizes mosques claiming Iranian connection
104. Howard Dean removed as head of the DNC
105. Scientist with close ties to Monsanto put in charge of all governmental agricultural research
106. Pesticide lobbyist nominated as Chief Agricultural Negotiator for trade
107. Effort to let some government contractors avoid paying taxes
108. A bad US Attorney nomination for Northern Iowa
109. Hunger in America
110. The breast cancer recommendations fiasco
111. Ongoing confusion and disorganization in the military commissions process
112. Phillip Carter another official in closing Guantanamo resigns
113. Refusal to sign anti-land mine treaty
114. The Ghizzawi case and the legal limbo of “cleared for release”
115. Black prisons at Balad and Bagram
116. Delay in declassifying historic documents
117. Max Baucus’ conflicts of interest in healthcare and with his girlfriend
118. Major security breach at a White House party and a ridiculous assertion of “executive privilege”
119. Dana “Pig Missile” Perino nominated to the Broadcasting Board of Governors
120. Cass Sunstein, an anti-regulator in a regulatory position
121. Warrantless for profit electronic surveillance by telecoms and search engines
122. The government sides with torture lawyer John Yoo and attacks Bevins actions again
123. The TSA publishes its security manual online
124. Toxic legal arguments in al Zahrani v. Rumsfeld, yet another Bevins action
125. The Nobel Peace Prize and a neocon acceptance speech
126. Blackwater’s involvement in military and CIA assassination and drone programs
127. Congressional Research Service censorship in the firing of Morris Davis
128. AIG writes off $25 billion in debt and sticks taxpayers with the bill
129. The Administration plays hardball to kill an amendment that would lower drug costs
130. A poorly considered blank check to Fannie and Freddie
131. Continuing a Bush botch in the Nisoor Square massacre case
132. Jonathan Gruber, a major defender of Obamacare was also a paid consultant for it
133. A Geithner related cover up of the AIG at par payments on swaps
134. Adoption of stealth signing statements
135. al Bihani, more bad legal reasoning in another Guantanamo habeas case
136. Cutting Medicare and Social Security by deficit commission proposed
137. A 3 year non-freeze budget freeze proposed
138. NASA flights privatized
139. OPR report on Yoo and Bybee watered down and its relation to the Padilla case
140. Government targeting of US citizens for assassination
141. Abuse of informants by ICE agents
142. Obama leaves Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board empty
143. Obama backs firing of teachers in Rhode Island
144. Irish human rights advocate Edward Horgan has US visa pulled
145. Threatened veto of 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act over Congressional notifications
146. Obama Administration intimidation of whistleblowing site: wikileaks
147. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to ignore science on endangered species
148. Senate vacation more important than jobless benefits
149. Government seeks to compel turnover of emails without a warrant
150. Obama goes after an NSA whistleblower: the Thomas Drake case
151. Obama goes after a CIA whistleblower: the James Risen case
152. Weakening Miranda rights in national security cases
153. Advocating the privatizing of public housing
154. Another step in making Bagram the new Guantanamo, the al Maqaleh case, the appeals court edition
155. Massey mining disaster, 29 die because of corporate greed and poor regulation
156. Obama proposal for a line item veto
157. A military commander allowed to use military forces for intelligence operations without Presidential approval
158. Political pandering in sending 1200 National Guardsmen to the Southwest border
159. A sad record on resisting Guantanamo habeas petitions
160. Israel attacks an aid convoy for Gaza; Obama punts
161. A further erosion of Miranda: Berghius v. Thompkins
162. Naming James Clapper, a Bush appointee, to be the next DNI
163. DOJ seeks to protect Vatican in sex abuse scandal
164. Yahya Wehelie, an American exiled without charge
165. Failure to replace National Labor Relations Board members means hundreds of decisions must be reviewed
166. SCOTUS opts for overly broad definition of material support to terrorist groups
167. Speaker Pelosi backstabs Social Security
168. Complaints by government scientists of political interference at Bush era levels
169. Flip flop on free trade agreement with Colombia
170. SEC declares major victory but lets Goldman off easy
171. Private contracting of intelligence continues under Obama
172. Two Guantanamo prisoners to be deported back to Algeria against their will
173. The Shirley Sherrod affair: trumped up charges of racism and a bungled response
174. Whitewash report on Bush era US Attorney firings
175. Despite its record, Blackwater still gets big US government contracts
176. Wikileaks releases government files showing Pakistan involvement with Taliban and admission that things are going poorly in Afghanistan
177. Obama seeks to get access to everyone’s web histories without a court order
178. Teacher funding sacrificed to keep Education Secretary Arne Duncan happy
179. State’s top Iran hand resigns over Obama’s Iran policy
180. Citizens United: validation of unlimited corporate political funding
181. Push to expand US arms sales around the world
182. Project Vigilant, Infragard and “volunteer” corporate spying for the government
183. Obama’s approval hits Bush levels in Arab world
184. Effort to pre-empt state environmental lawsuits involving green house gases
185. Justice’s Anti-trust division asleep at the wheel
186. Kagan’s recusals render her even more ineffective on the Supreme Court
187. Poverty level highest since 1994
188. Courts run interference for corporate violators of international law
189. Warren named to set up but not to run Consumer Financial Protection Board
190. Chief economic adviser Larry Summers leaves; Obama looks for someone even more pro-business to replace him
191. DOJ IG report goes soft on Bush era surveillance against peace groups and other activists; meanwhile the Obama Administration conducts raids against similar groups
192. Move to put backdoors in the internet to facilitate spying and more requirements on banks on international money transfers of any size
193. HHS Secretary Sebelius delays for at least two years required insurance coverage for contraception
194. Americans on Medicaid increased to 48.5 million in 2009
195. Big home lenders suspend foreclosures as their documentation gets challenged in court
196. HR 3808, a bill passed by Congress, to facilitate the acceptance of false documentation by banks in foreclosure proceedings
197. ICE raids and deportations increase under Obama
198. Social Security COLA frozen for second straight year; no action taken
199. Waivers for military aid to countries with child soldiers
200. Big and deserved losses in the 2010 elections

Obama is an Awesome Deal Maker for the GOP!

Obama really loves bending over! Mike Sax,
Mike Sax, I think Obama is going to have back problems in the future LMAO!

Mike, Here is some crazy math for you. Average donation is $70.00, 98 percent of donations are less than $250 dollars and there are some 522,000 individuals who have donated. That means that 98 percent of 522,000 is 511,560. Small contributors then must have donated about 36 million. Take this total and subtract it from 86 million. That means that large contributors gave 58 percent of the total, or around 50 million. As I look at these numbers I have to conclude that Obama and the Democrats are willing to do a whole lot more for the 2 percent than they are for the 98 percent. Its just simple math and it is the same formula Obama used in the last election. Now, wouldn’t it be interesting to see a listing of the 2 percent? It might just give us a good idea of what Obama’s next neocon agenda will be, after he takes a big chunk out of SSN and Medicare, which, at this writing, have not contributed significantly to the debt, but for some reason have to take up the lion’s share of the cuts. Hey, that 2 percent will be so appreciative that their precious Bush tax cuts won’t have to be torched.

You are dealing with willfully intransigent people.

Authoritarians… my Team v. their Team… yadda yadda… seems hopeless at this stage…

What and whose reality lies beyond FDS’s capacity to experience the world?

Oh, Jesus, suffice it to say that the healthcare “reform” you’re prattling about was written by the robber barons at Bluecross/Blueshield, United Healthcare, Wellpoint, etc…

All that he’s done for us is piss away the biggest opportunity for real change since Roosevelt.

We didn’t get the living shit kicked out of us in 2010 because of all the great things that Obama did for the american voters, and if you think he’s going to do more between now and 2012, with John Boehner playing Captain Queeg with his political balls, I have that oceanfront property in Topeka to sell you.

Well I’ve been in the same boat you have. I just dont come to your conclusion. I don’t think it’s that Obama doens’t care but I don’t think he can do it all himself.
That’s why hopefully NY-26 is a omen and 2012 is a very bad year for the GOP. What’s going on in the states, Wisconsin, et al, is in the same trend. The bluer America the more will get done and the economy will improve and hopefully we will both be back at fulltime work-I worked the Census and have since gotten into sales which has a low barrier of entry.

“He just passed financial reform.”

Yeah, this works in the MSM, but not at FDL or naked capitalism. No one has yet been indicted by Barry’s DOJ for crashing the economy in 2008. Read Forbes The next financial crisis will be hellish and it’s on its way

Glass Steagall (The Banking Act of 1933) was never put back.

If you read this site, even infrequently, you’d better appreciate why you stick out like such a sore thumb.

As I’ve said before, taking the list of things you wrote, what would be the difference between that and a Romney presidency. Nothing.

I really hope these criminals end up in default. The real economy is going to crash and burn anyway. And I would LOVE to see Wall Street writhing in impotent rage.

Haven’t read the comments here yet, Jane, but your sentence “I don’t think….but he does” plus that photo is right on the button. I think Obama is totally frustrated because he sees a window of opportunity, a chance to push through his Big Idea, that can only be done in a time of crisis such as this now (he has orchestrated to this effect) is. (Sorry about that runon, but the whole situation is a runon.) He’s a Chicago Boy and this is Argentina – or he wants it to be.

This is classical Shock and Awe diplomacy, so why are we not being shocked and awed? Naiomi Klein said that people can learn from previous experience. I sure hope so.

1) Obama’s stimulus package (as every sane and competent economist told him at the time and is telling him now) was less than half the size it needed to be to get the economy fully roaring again. He could have easily passed a $2T package using reconciliation (you know, the same maneuver Obama apologists kept saying couldn’t be used until the loss of Teddy Kennedy’s seat forced them to admit otherwise?), but chose not to do so, and now we’re about to go hurtling back into the abyss as Obama chooses to emulate the wrong things of FDR’s presidency (namely, his ill-advised 1937 austerity drive that abruptly reversed the progress made by the New Deal).

2) The “healthcare reform” plan, the second centerpiece of Obama’s first term, was written by WellPoint VP (and Baucus buddy) Liz Fowler. It forces Americans to buy overpriced, crummy insurance — and sics the IRS on them if they don’t — while not allowing even a weak public option, because the insurance companies know that even a weak PO would eventually lead to the death of the US insurance industry (and the US’ joining the rest of the developed world in not being shackled to that industry).

Why did Obama allow Liz Fowler to write a very industry-friendly bill? Because back in 2009, he’d cut a deal with her industry colleagues to ensure that the public option, as well as Medicare drug-price negotiation, were left out of the final product. This is all well known to longtime FDL readers.

But nice try.

Hey, Wake up!

NY 26 was about Medicare! A Dem won, because she opposed cuts to Medicare.

Barry is cutting Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.

Exactly!

People like Mike Sax can’t see past the tip of their own nose! If it doesn’t effect them, it doesn’t exist. To hell with the rest of the country or what tax payers/American citizens are dealing with. In their minds as long as there is still one occupied home on the street and two shops open in town, everything is fine!

Jed, excellent stuff.

We’re getting THE political sellout/hose job of all time, and some people STILL want us to clap louder and bring our own vaseline.

Mike S. when Wisconsin really needed Barry, he walked away. He gave virtually no support to the unions.

That’s because of the $5 donor drive a while back — it was done to beef up the numbers of regular folks so that the corporate money could be camouflaged somewhat.

Individual mandate, taxation of health benefits after reaching an arbitrarily defined level, extension of Bush tax cuts, gutting of entitlements, Depression inducing and self defeating debt deals, endless wars, protection of bankster criminals. You’re telling me that a Romney presidency wouldn’t have done those things? What would be the great difference?

Thanks. OT, I follow your terrific tweets as runtodaylight.

I’m not going to re-tweet, because I’m a little afraid of the technology at this point, but I am a loyal follower.

Thank you.

The truth is you folks are the biggest bunch who sewing circle whiners on the net. “Obama got elected and he didn’t do everything we wanted him too!”

Yes, I want to be the biggest whiner against OBama’s three or four or five wars. I want to whine about Big Zero lies, and lies and lies about everything. He has brought the wars home against the American people. He is a psychopath who tortured an American citizen, Bradley Manning. He is protecting AIG and BlackStone and Peterson fraud. He only helps rich people.

War and Class War is all we get from this Big Epic Failure. But Obama himself will whine about semi-pro and pro leftists.

It’s confusing to people, mostly. Obama is the best propagandist I’ve seen. Okay, maybe Raygun was better. But you get the point. Obama is a grifter. While he’s kissing you on the lips, one of his friends behind you is sticking the dagger in your back.

Critical thinking is so passe. This is the problem. The major problem.

Excellent point. NY26 was about NOT cutting Medicare, which Obama *studiously avoided* acknowleding during & after the NY26 election.

Now Obama is first in line to offer CUTS to Medicare, as well as Soc Sec.

How does that FACT somehow get morphed into Obama really really “cares” about the “small people,” but he “just can’t do much about it bc of the meanie-bully Republicans”????

Why is it that it’s OBAMA who’s *eagerly recommending* cuts to Soc Sec & Medicare in the first place??? Not so-called “Republicans”?? And why is it that Obama-apologists *refuse* to acknowledge this FACT??

yes

Agree.

And failure to defend the Constitution, a tolerance for, “waterboarding isn’t torture,” he abandoned Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights. He’s supporting the NRA on “Tiahrt.” Keeping us on a permanent war footing, supporting taxbreaks for outsources. The INTERNATIONAL profits from virtual slave and real child labor are what is crushing Democrats. It’s laundered through the Chamber of Death Commerce.

Hardened Obama supporters are going to be tough sells. But that’s certainly not everybody. I was a pretty noncommittal Obama supporter at first, but the writing here and arguments and facts laid out for me at sites like this and others really–genuinely–changed me. It happens and it’s up to people with the facts and the moral conviction to explain them to others. What I do know is that berating people for their incorrect beliefs only hardens them in their biases. Now, I have no problem calling Obama what he is or his hagiographers, like Markos. But most people really and truly just don’t know. They really don’t know.

Thanks.

“His most ardent supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers in the world, and they don’t realize he thinks they are digging his political grave.”

I am blushing and getting Hardball tingly.

I second that. I’m quite willing to stand up and WHIIIIIINE with the rest of FDL: Obama LIED and LIED big-time during his campaign. I’m not politically naive, and I don’t expect any politician to enact every campaign promise or plank in the the platform.

But when the candidate is duly voted in, and then does a *complete about-face* and runs his Admin in the same fashion as his “Republican” predecessor, only worse, I believe that I not only have the *right* to complain, but it is my DUTY to *complain* vigourously and often.

Spare me. Obama is a hard-right Neo-Liberal War Criminal who tortures US citizens on US soil. He’s solidified the rights of corporations and other fat-cats to socialize their losses on the backs of middle/working class tax payers. After promising *transparancy* and end to lobbyist back-room deals, he immediately pulled down the curtain and RAN into the back-room to make as many skeevy deals as possible.

I could go on & on. Libya is yet another issue, where I simply do not *get* how any trad-Dem voter could *countenance* Obama spending billion$$ daily on that folly at the behest of BigOIL, who stands to benefit big time.

Enough for now. I stake my claim to whine endlessly if that’s what it takes to wake up even one voter to the FRAUD that Obama is. Smell the coffee, my friends, bc the truth will set you free….

Wow Jed! Now you have impressed me. Did you actually write all these talking points manually?

Flattered that you would go to all that trouble.

Thanks for coming to FDL, after you share this list with your bosses U may not come back to FDL again.

You clearly have a lot of respect for the principle of free and open debate. You missed your calling, you are clearly of the material for the old Stasi Soviet bureacracy.

China might be able to use you today. Regarding your list of 200 points of light, look, Jed. That’s the price of governing if you really believe it’s even possible for any head of state to come away from you’re 200 these(in the tradition of Martin Luther’s Theses) you clearly have no idea what the act of governing.

To touch on a hot button issue, while I haven’t approved of the way the WH has reacted to Wikileaks, even Salman Rushdie pointed out there are some good reasons for secrecy in foreigh intelligence.

Wow, you really stopped making any sense with that commentary… esp about the Stasi. Whatever…

And hey: the next time I need an insight into how the USG should be run, I’ll be sure to call Salman Rusdie to gain his pearls of wisdom, which I’ll follow blindly without question…

To touch on a hot button issue, while I haven’t approved of the way the WH has reacted to Wikileaks, even Salman Rushdie pointed out there are some good reasons for secrecy in foreigh intelligence.

Did it warrant calling Assange–a man not even charged with a crime at that time–a terrorist, as Biden did?

Assumes facts not in evidence. Show me what he as publicly stated he will cut and how much?

Mild ad hominem, but still, ad hominem

How’s that koolaid?

It appears Jane was right.

Boo if they donate to him and vote for him don’t know how you can deny they support him.

So then, might we surmise that you have no problem with the President of the United States, stating, publicly, before trial, that someone is “guilty” and deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law?

Further, you are aware that Great Britain’s legal system is having serious problems with America’s “endless war on terror” behavior and may well not permit Assange to be extradited, if it comes to “that”, to the US, citing concerns about a fair trial?

Ah, well.

The rule of law is a little thing, an unimportant “thing”, is it not?

Just curious, Mike, just curious.

DW

Obama wants Catfood #2 to kill Medicare/Social Security via a all proposals must pass straight up or down vote – a required vote that Simpson could not get approved in his commission. So he rejects any deal that will not have a good chance to accomplish that screwing of the sick and aged – and that means demanding Reid put in Catfood #2.

It is good to have a Democratic President that is not Hillary. /s

So you know a lot about governing? You are a political hack! How do I know? You never answer a question and continually change the subject. You see, real people know when a jerk doesn’t answer a simple question.

Your thoughtful brilliance is not portrayed very well in this venue. Maybe you should be at one of those fund raisers you like to talk about so much.
I can’t think of anything better for citizens to do while our country is in crash and burn mode than for folks like you to go out and ask for more money to help it go faster!

well John which is more aggregious, ad hominem(mild you admit) or calls for censorship?

LOL! Dingleberry on the ass of Obama! Yep.

The Iranian Ayatollah issued a fatwa against Rushdie when he wrote the Satanic Verses, which essentially limited Rushdie’s freedom of movement for many years, until the Ayatollah had bigger fish to fry than Rusdie and rescinded the fatwa.

In the meantime, Rushdie enjoyed top-level security protection mainly by the British govt but sometimes by the USG – in other words, YOUR tax dollars & mine helped to protect Rushdie in his time of need. I didn’t really mind assisting Rushdie on an issue of freedom of speech, etc.

However, I find it *highly regrettable* that Rushdie decides to stand up on his 2 hind legs and bray that Assange shouldn’t have leaked the Wikileaks cables.

Eh – whot, Rusdie? One rule for YOU, but a different rule for someone else??? Sucking up to the tittie that fed & protected you for so many years? Pay-backs a bitch??

Rushdie, imo, was a right skeevy little prick with his dissing of Asange, and I lost respect for him, stat.

jedi’s a longtime commenter here. Pretty respected. That list isn’t new. It’s been compiled by jedi over the last 2+ years.

Less that half – about 41% of the money – was from under $1000 donners

Obama is demanding catfood #2 be added when the GOP did not demand it. He set up the attack on Social Security and Medicare via Catfood #1.

Damn good thing we have a Democratic President whose name is not Hillary. /s

Peasant, speculations like yours are tremendous. They are not reality but sometimes we need a break. Your talk of hacks makes me smile. Appreciate the levity.

If President Obama had bothered to address the concerns of the people who voted for him in 2008, then maybe the Republicans wouldn’t control the House of Representatives. So he’ll get no sympathy from me.

It’s not due to an inability to do what you suggest, it is due to an unwillingness.

Yes, and others have assisted in compiling that list, which, insofar as I can tell, is riddled with FACTS.

One, of course, can choose to be in denial of reality. Denial does not mean that reality can be bent to mean whatever you want, however. It just means that someone is in denial.

Hey! I calls em as I sees em!

Even the Spooks appreciate my frankness. You’re lost in your own virtual reality. I’m done with you mister Sax. Is your first name Clinton or is that your middle name?

Don’t misunderstand I hope Britain doens’t allow it. I just understand I’m never gonna like every single thing any President may have to do-or any leader in any country.

I’m not gonna not vote based on one issue. If you saw my list above he has done plenty. He has to govern in the real world.

You call em as you see them as anyone else does, of course that don’t mean your right. It’s been real though.

Are you an Obamabot? Congrats.

Does the torture “stuff’ concern you, Mike?

Torture is NOT “policy difference”, a point the Brits are making increasingly loudly and clearly.

And then there is the business of using drones.

(Not to mention the ongoing wars that we know about and those which we don’t, being “secret” though waged in our names, yours and mine.)

I don’t like these “things” AND speak to my disagreement with Obama about them.

Do you?

Or do you accept that the Prez just won’t do “everything” you want him (or her) to do?

Is “it” about NOT doing certain “things”, ultimately?

DW

Dear bhuddadoc, can you not see the parallel here? Bush seized his 9/11 moment and got a second term; Obama wants to do the same. It all fits. But Republicans are enough savvy to want the White House more than they want an idealistic stance. Kabuki with knives, as Jane said.

in response to stevo67 in posting #103:

With the firing pins removed…

Well, if so, let them be duds please. Otherwise…

I’ve been to a few juggling festivals here in the midwest since my husband used to do that before he fell off his unicycle and tore a rotator cuff : ( The very real juggling terror I witnessed was a very exuberant guy juggling FIRE! 12 ft up on tenuous scaffolding balanced on a rola bola at the front of a university lecture hall. I don’t think he accounted for just how very little clearance that gave him. I watched the flaming batons come perilously close to the ceiling which, at that moment, I wanted to be made of asbestos. We all survived, but the festival participants did not want an encore. The place was filled with acrid smoke!

What masaccio said.

Yes, exactly.

When has torture of foreigners and US citizens on US soil become so acceptable that we simply cannot “complain” about it … because “no politician does everything the voters want”???? WTF?

When has being a War Criminal become so acceptable that we simply cannot “protest” it… because “no politician does everything the voters want”???? WTF?

When has beginning new unnecessary Wars and continuing old unnecceary wars – at HUGE cost to middle/working class taxpayers, not to forget the deaths of US citizens and foreigners – become so acceptable that US voters should STFU and “deal” with it … because “no politician does everything the voters want”??? WTF?

So, essentially, the Obamabots are promoting that trad-Dem voters must just be yet another variety of sheep-like dittohead drinking our KoolAid medicine without protest or questioning… because “no politician does everything the voters want”???? WTF?

bailey…

Thats THE question. Why isnt that happening?

I would also like to know the answer to that question.

Damn straight, Jane.

Where are the calls for a Primary challenge or a 3rd Party candidate?

Right here: http://newprogs.org/

Even if you are an obama follower, can you not see the parallel here? Bush seized his 9/11 moment and got a second term; Obama wants to do the same. It all fits. But Republicans are enough savvy to want the White House more than they want an idealistic stance. Kabuki with knives, as Jane says.

Like I said, Obama is an A$$HOLE! The only real reason for him to reject a plan for temporarily increasing the debt limit is that Obama really really badly wants to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. The plan to temporarily increase the debt limit is a safety valve that undercuts Obama’s narrative that the country is in a debt limit political crisis and there is no other way to avert a default than by sacrificing social programs.

OBAMA IS A REPUBLICAN IN DISGUISE! I’m beginning to believe Glen Ford’s claims that Obama is a right right cynical jerk who has a deep disdain for the poor, middle class, African Americans, and workers and who deep down really admires and emulates Ronald Reagan. After all, we have seen a picture of Obama with Daley under Reagan’s portrait in the White House. Now, Obama mentions Reagan in his little spoiled brat, sissy fit, temper tantrum with Cantor.

I pray that a progressive challenger from the Left runs against Obama in the Primaries AND in the General Election against Obama and whomever the American Nazi Party nominates.

Obama put old people on the chopping block. For that he deserves worse than our disdain.

We are not pawns to be sacrificed by this President. I hate using the metaphor but damn if it hasn’t risen from the dead to feed on the brains of cheerleaders and other hopey-changey clinging types.

We don’t need a third party, what we need is independence.

Too long a list. :)

Did you include ATF/Do(in-)J gun running military grade weaponry including sniper rifles that can be used for assassination at 2 miles from target to the drug cartels in Mexico? That was because we love us the cash flow from Mexico drugs, keeps the banks flush with cash nearly as well as bin Bernanke.

veganrevolution…

I think you hit on a VERY important point… Propaganda.

In fact I think it should be obvious that Obama’s number one game… and in fact his only game is propagnada. Obama decided long ago to rule by propaganda.

His bringing on board Cass Sunstein… an avowed propagandist and his propaganda teams… is in my opinion the scariest thing about the Obama adminstration. Glenn Greenwald wrote about this and it is the most monsterous machination of government by deception.

Obama is nothing more than a habitual deciever… thats all he knows. This is scary stuff… to think someone like that is in charge of our country.

Mr Obama will be “The Last President of the United States as We Have Known It”

Capital gains–whether in real estate or the stock market–are the primary sources of income for the wealthy.

When someone buys atock for, say, $1 million, and then dies years later when that stock is worth $5 million, the heirs have a $5 million basis in that stock. If the heirs sell that stock for $5 million, they pay absolutely no capital gains tax since they sold it only at the value they acquired it. In other words, there is no capital gain to be taxed.

That is one of the reasons for inheritance taxes. With inheritance taxes on that sum there is not, as you seem to think some sort of “double taxation”, just one tax–the inheritance tax.

“I don’t think it’s that Obama doesn’t care but I don’t think he can do it all himself.”

But HE does. And his “it” is far different from the “it” of the people who campaigned for him and the people who voted for him. He thinks he knows better; he has always thought that. He knows his base is no longer with him, so now he has to go with them that he thinks brung him to the party. The guys with knives and masks. Remains to be seen whether that is going to work this time around.

I agree. Obama has no allegiance to the constitution or peace. Remember what Zinn said.

I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president–which means, in our time, a dangerous president–unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.

Obama is not a nice guy or just a proven misfit for the left. The reason the oligarchs and plutocrats banked on him was because he could convince the “thinking” types, the so-called “left”, the intellectual class that undermining the New Deal and socialism for the wealthy was inevitable and irresistible. Of course he had to fake left and run right. It’s who he is. He is incapable of rising to the challenge.

I don’t just trust Zinn’s instincts, I trust my own.

“I don’t think it’s that Obama doesn’t care but I don’t think he can do it all himself.” – Mike Sax

Sounds oh so reasonable if you don’t appreciate that Obama actually undermines what we all have worked and continue to work for. Just like Bush, doesn’t matter how many of us march and do other types of activism. Obama doesn’t play well with the left or Progressives and how anyone can deny or still hold out hope that he is some sort of savior or even on our side is laughable at best.

The cheerleaders, sycophants and even well meaning Obama-bots will continue to entrench. What many of us foresee is slavery to the oligarchs, crony capitalists and other scum while there are royalists and loyalists in the Dem Party urging us to lay down and accept the servitude.

I think we have come to the point where this sort of thinking, that Obama needs us, while shitting on us at every opportunity, should not be treated with kid gloves but ridiculed for the type of bullshit it is.

Sorry about my duplicate post above. I had tried to enter the first, was unable to do so, then was unable to find the original commenter but found that my comment applied equally to Mr. Sax. I would add that whilst he continues to argue, the responses to him have been eloquent and to the point. Bravo, FDLers!

Gee Mike, are you gonna further bury your handle by claiming Barry didn’t put the big-three on the table?

As long as you don’t want to blog in good faith, I can just link to some of the really incorrect statements you made here. Then the next time you post something at MyFDL, I can repost them in your thread.

Ethan! Good to see you again. How are things at Edison Electric?

Representing for Brian Wolff:

http://www.eei.org/whoweare/OurOfficers/Pages/wolff.aspx

Nice pro troll racket there.

What does any of this commentary even mean? I’m pretty sure Obama knew from day one that eliminating the deficit wouldn’t happen anytime soon, not in a borderline depression. FDR ran deficits for pretty much his whole presidency but he’s the one who put in place some of the most progressive policies this country has. I’m as upset as anybody that Obama didn’t do more to push through the public option (though traitors like Lieberman and Nelson had something to say in it), but this name-calling has become pretty childish.

Seriously, Jane, is this the best you can do for commentary? Hang ‘em up old girl. The game’s too fast for you. You don’t process enough information to keep up any more.

What should be a run-of-the-mill procedure–lifting the borrowing limit–has become a colossally stupid game of chicken. But I think Obama’s position is that any spending cuts obtained along with the limit lift, must be accompanied by additional revenue. As for all the quickly-moving negotiations and rejected offers, well, talk is cheap until a deal is made. Both sides have made plenty of feints (like Obama’s $4T grand bargain, which he knew the Repubs would never approve).

Mike Sax and his ilk,willing proponents of the SHOCK DOCTRINE…watch them catapult the propaganda

forest…

Very good points…I totally agree.

“The reason the oligarchs and plutocrats banked on him was because he could convince the “thinking” types, the so-called “left”, the intellectual class that undermining the New Deal and socialism for the wealthy was inevitable and irresistible.”

All of this was by design. Obama was chosen because he was known as an accomplished deciever… somone who could carry out the plan. And that is exactly what he is doing. Obama is a con man… working for the kleptocracy [ruled by theives].

And just as awful… virtually the entire Democrtic party is standing behind this guy.

false equivalency…..just more craptackular

calls for censorship

WTH are you on about?

The reason the oligarchs and plutocrats banked on him was because he could convince the “thinking” types, the so-called “left”, the intellectual class that undermining the New Deal and socialism for the wealthy was inevitable and irresistible.”
——————
yup its the inevitability,like INVASION of the BODY SNATCHERS
just go to sleep and let them takeover
Chicago School…we know better…..go to sleep Merika…go get your Prozac dose…leave the driving to us

I was concerned when I recently read a poll that YOUNG voters all believe SS & Medicare should be “reformed,” so they’ve got no criticism with Obama’s insanity. Probably because with all the trash talking re SS these folks don’t believe it will be there for them, so why support it.

They need to be reminded that as SS is trashed, that means Grandma will be occupying their old room, the one they hoped to move into when they returned home because they couldn’t find a job.

read this

Who’s Your Doctor’s Daddy?

by Donna Smith

Patients in the United States have known for a long time that they are not the decision makers in matters related to their personal health and well-being. Just as for-profit corporate interests control elections, candidates, public officials, policies and enforcement, for-profit health insurance companies control healthcare delivery. So when a recent report came out about insurance companies buying up physician groups and providers in increasing numbers, I wasn’t very surprised.

Left to the for-profit financial services corporations known as health insurance companies, more firmly entrenched market-based healthcare delivery will thrive on doctors doing exactly what shareholders need them to do as direct employees.

A colleague pointed out to me that this really isn’t too much of a news flash, and that doctors have been working for their keep from the for-profit insurance companies for some time. I suppose it’s just shocking to my sensibilities to now need to ask directly of my doctors and other providers, “Who owns this practice or facility? CIGNA? United Health Care?” Knowing who is signing the paychecks is critical to knowing whose interests are being protected and enhanced.

But drill deeper into this business strategy. From the article: “The model poses a natural threat to providers, particularly hospitals. OptumHealth, UnitedHealth’s subsidiary, has said its physician networks serve all players in a health system, including rival health plans with policyholders who use the same physicians… Primary care physicians are already in high-demand, and by acquiring them in certain markets, insurers could potentially wrest control of entire health systems by influencing referrals – whether that is an explicit intention or not.” ………….(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/14-2

There is one called “bernbart” at Salon that has to be read to be believed.

Boy, ain’t that the truth. Talk about dumb motherfuckers…

Appointing Alan Crabapple to the catfood commission know that’s progressive. Why did he sit on his ass when the Dims had both houses and the WH.

The ONLY answer is Universal Health Care.

It’s the only REAL solution.

Sadly the corrupt Democrats and the corrpt Republicans have no interest whatsoever in real solutionns. Their only purpose is to serve the kleptocracy [ruled by theives}.

It was a concerted campaign. Peterson spent $1.5 million advertising “I.O.U.S.A.” on MTV. That’s what that whole Roosevelt Institute “let’s brainwash the kids” hoopla was about.

They spent a lot of money for years fueling generational warfare and convincing kids that Social Security was old people stealing from them.

Jimmy Carter could kick Obama’s ass (now). That’s just freaking pathetic at best.

I hate to think that the Mike Sax’s and malinowski’s are being willfully ignorant because that’s just being a shitty human being but if they aren’t, they seriously are some dumb motherfuckers…

Bravo!

Oh, dear. I’m afraid, Mike, Jane’s posting was about you.

Must be nice to throw around words like “Obamabot” as a substitution for thinking.

Wow, and Brian Wolff worked for Rahm!!

not dumb
paid to troll progressive boards

I fail to see how your comment is a “reply” to mine.

?????

Hitler,if you recall went for the youth first

they took the authoritarians playbook

You’d have to read the threah I’m responding too rather than just calling out pointless invective

because healthcare in this country will offer few alternatives to young or old….best to hang together…etc

The main problem for Obama is that he is just too fucking stupid to realize that the GOP isn’t bluffing. They really will play a US government default for all it’s worth politically and they know the press will provide cover for them, and of course, the press will. Obama constantly whines about leaving “politics” aside (I know, it’s revolting when you consider Obama’s slavish devotion to political groveling). He seems to believe that the other side just doesn’t understand how willing he is to be as establishment and conservative as they want him to be. The only problem is that the other side doesn’t give a damn how compliant Obama is; his presidency is an affront to them. It’s an embarrassment to have to watch this dysfunctional psycho drama play out on the national stage, but Obama chose to eat shit and now we all have to watch.

how many will have to die,with little or no care?or just go broke too

i suspect he will be well paid for his dramatic skillzzzzz,all the players will be…even in Shakespearean times,actors were well paid

You show me the public statement he made to gut the big three I’ll be impressed.

It is good faith to not eviscerate Obama for talking about ending SS when he hasn’t said anything like it.

Clyburn was on Mathews last week and said the changes Obama was condsiering was taking the cap off and making it means tested.

This last one I admit though superficaly attractive has some problems with it-in making SS a welfare program-but again we are act speculation and releasing the cap would be a great move for both “fixing” SS such as it requires and giving us some much needed revenue.

Acting implies artifice, lying is simple sophistry. Obama is a sophist not an actor.

Must be nice to throw around words like “Obamabot” as a substitution for thinking.

No, it’s not nice and the crises we face in nearly all cases have been worsened by people who couldn’t rise above their loyalty to party and President.

I imagine none of us are particularly happy that we have to be truth tellers to people who would be our allies if the same policies were made by a Republican President.

Average American Dems and Repukes vote against their interests. It’s not better when Dems do “it”. It’s not anyone’s job here to comfort the delusional or deniers when their nonsense is challenged.

It is good faith to not eviscerate Obama for talking about ending SS when he hasn’t said anything like it.

That’s absurd when you consider the present practice of Congress and the Executive saying one thing, “We want a public option, really we do . . .”, and then doing the other, such as immediately throwing the PO away as soon as the doors are closed.

gotta agree
well……but some of the dreamy hopey ,changey stuff drew me in

You gotta feel sorry for the guy. His most ardent supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers in the world, and they don’t realize he thinks they are digging his political grave.

Spew!!

Van Doom Hovel

LOL! Wish I’d thought of that one.

BTW, I understand that her father was buddy-buddy with Wild Bill Donovan, worked with the CIA, was in Saigon when Dien Bien Phu fell, etc. Sort of like Zero’s mom worked with Geithner’s father and the CIA-front USAid in Indonesia.

I don’t see how calling someone “Obamabot” or “troll” or “DNC operative” challenges anyone less proves their opinion is nonsense.

:-) I hear ya. I don’t want to admit it, but I actually had some hope there in the beginning, not much, but a little.

That’s absurd…

Obama uses weasel words all the time. The bots won’t accept that his weasel words when accompanied by the evidence of his actions put him in the “moderate” Republican camp.

No one needs prove you anything. Bots just further entrench.

Knock, knock

Who’s there?

Mum replies: No dear, it’s because you’re 25

There’s my in-kind non-sequitur response to your non-sequitur. Do you have good conversations with the voices in your head?

Maybe you can get Cantor to primary Obama then run as a Green in the general election.

You’re right. Every so often I think about what I would ask the President in a town hall meeting if I had the chance. The latest question I came up with was, “Mr. President, can you explain why you are running as a Democrat?”

board trolling 101….trying to sound reasonable to some lurkers…imo

me likey!11
hey Obie…FDR or Ronnie?

His most ardent supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers in the world,

That’s gonna leave a mark…

Assumes facts not in evidence. When Obama forces McConnell to accept those 4.5 trillion in cuts all from Social Security then they might be.

So your an Obama supporter? Cause all guys like you do is attack Obama daily so I don’t get it.

Fact is there are a lot more of us “bots” than you and if you want to delude yourself that you have some corner on knowledge about what’s going on to make up for your frustration go ahead.

Well perhaps we need a “social security and Medicare: not just for old farts anymore” education campaign.

Perhaps “Harry and Louise could sit around that kitchen table and talk about how

**since Grandma’s social security got cut, she’s coming to live with us;
**she’s going to be in Junior’s room; it’s no longer available for him
**since there’s no disability coverage after Dad’s accident, what was Junior’s college fund will be depleted.

I dunno; I’m not good on the examples because I don’t know the full extent of the circumstances that benefit cuts would impact for the younger generation. [An indication of my own inadequate information.]

It just blows me away that folks [younger & older] are so willing to go to Guatamala or Africa to help the “underprivileged,” but are unable to see the needs domestically. And to see how “government” is an effective way of pooling our “contributions” [i.e., taxes] to deal with problems.

Who made Obama let the torturers go free and not even investigate past tortuers? You support that?

Who made Obama continue to torture, and rendition? You support that?

Who made Obama claim that he can assassinate American citizens with no due process? You support that?

Who made Obama keep Guantonimo Bay open the entire first year of his presidency (the Congressional limiting language didn’t take affect until after that first year)?? You support that?

Who made Obama campaign against mandates and for the public option only to force the final bill, through secret negotions, to include a mandate but no public option??? You support those?

Who made Obama propose a $4T “Grand Bargain” that included cuts in social security, medicare, medicaid, and increasing the ago of medicare to 67??? You support those??

If you support all of those, then IMO you’re no Democrat. If you don’t support all of those, then why do you support Obama?

You’re right. It’s become personal. When will Obama start acting like a traditional Dem? Oh wait, he isn’t one, you all keep telling us, am I right?

The American people believe in things like investigating the banksters and putting them in jail like the big 0′s hero did during a past banking crisis. Problem is that the Big 0 has merged his administration with the banksters. Nice!

Where’s the evidence there are more bots than the rest of us, hmm?

This site is more harmful to what you people seem to want than shutting your stupid fucking faces. You are horrible! Every bit as bad as the Tea Party.

Who made Obama give Mexican drug cartels military grade weaponry that has even been used to kill American border guards?

Actually you are confusing us with OFA which is just as much astroturf as the tea knuckleheads except in the few cases they have gone rogue.

They’ve bought into the notion that it’s insolvent and broken, because that’s all they hear. How you turn that around I don’t know.

I keep remembering that campaign Sarah Silverman had, “the great schlepp,” where young people would go talk to their grandparents about Obama. I’m wondering if something like that might work the other way on Social Security.

Why?

If we shut up would we get single payer health care tomorrow?

Real-living wage minimum wage?

A real jobs program in this second great depression?

If so, I’ll never speak (or type) another word again. But please tell me how shutting up gets us what we want, because those are the things I want. As a start.

And oh yeah, FREE BRADLEY MANNING NOW.

And BRING HOME ALL THE TROOPS NOW.

I could go on, but am interested in hearing how this strategy works. Will gladly try it if I’m convinced it will work, and not that you’re just someone that doesn’t like to hear critical opinions of Obama or Democrats.

He couldn’t find his walking shoes give the man a break. /s

So your solution is too sit back, be quiet and let the President’s neo-liberal policies go into effect??? That is exactly why we have seen this endless move to the right. All of the media propaganda with corporate bias and a President who wants to continue the same failed “trickle down” policies of the past 30 years, while people have been conciliatory. People who BELIEVE in the common good and a better society…people who BELIEVE that helping those in need of help makes for a better society for everyone… they haven’t been loud enough for years. We are just getting started on being loud and vocal. “Shutting our ….. faces” is not an option anymore.

You see, you have to push him with a rope.

He’s like Santa, you have to believe in him or all anyone will get is “clean” coal.

Obama disagrees with us but wants us to make him do things? How is that supposed to work exactly?

Obama has done a good job with the steamin’ plate of crap he has been given

Yes, he’s made the party that handed him (and us) that plate or steaming crap seem palatable, again. Hence the drubbing the Dems took in 2010. Good job, Barry-0!!

Whatever the true motives, Obama has clearly shown that he can fight tenaciously for something he really believes in. Clearly reveals the treachery behind his sell-out machinations on, e.g., the public option, among many other issues where passivity and perfidy characterized his actions.

So very true. He’s not the cowardly wallflower so many have thought him to be. This fact needs to be tattooed on every Obamabot’s head.

Well if what you want is to convicne no one to vote for Obama the Democrats your current strategy isn’t working.

What makes you think that just because you demand that something is done “now” it just happens?

If everyone were demanding it maybe but even then maybe not. It’s not possible for Obama or anyone else to do everything everyone in America is demanding at any moment. Logistical impossiblity.

Few things are simply done “now” and this is true of any government in the world.

Single payer healthcare didn’t make it throught the political process. Now you expect because you demand everything “now” like a 2 year old the heavens have to open up in obedience?

As for the troops coming home, even if Kucinch was elected in 2008 it wouldn’t have happened “now.”

Iraq has drawn down and we wil be fully out at end of this year.

Afgahanistan, well if you were demanding them “home now” as you are now then I guess you didn’t vote for Obama then either as he never even claimed they were coming home “now.”

They will be drawn out by 2014, under Bush there was no timetable do get out.

The republicans are not the brightest guys in the room, the democratic party is ready to whither on the vine but the right wing whacko’s in the republican party wont let it! The republicans were foolish for not allowing Obama to cut SSI and Medicare, he was willing to throw the poor and the elderly overboard and cut his own throat at the same time, they should have let him. Eric Cantor and the wingbats are focusing on winning battles instead of winning the war.

I’d be willing to bet my next paycheck we won’t be out of Iraq by the end of the year, UNLESS, the puppet govt is forced to kick us out which is unlikely. And you only have the word of a sitting President who may not be in office in 2014 that “combat” forces will be out of AFghanistan by the end of 2014. There is no certainty in that at all. Bush would have been forced to make the same promises if he was still in there.

Whatever the answer is, I’m all ears.

I would LOVE to go into next year like I did 2008, giving, volunteering for, and most energetically voting for Obama AND every D on the ticket.

As it stands now, there won’t be any dollars or time, and there is no way in hell Obama, or any D incumbant (nor the non-incumbant bluedogasshole D-Matt Kaine for Senate in my state) will get my vote at all. Nor my families.

And the thing is, talking to others around where I live that were all-in on Obama in 2008 and hearing them now, I feel confident I can guarantee that Obama doesn’t carry Virginia this time. And this time I will be glad he didn’t.

But if rope, hope, or any other ope causes him and the D Party to turn things around, I’ll be right back with them next year. But it’s gonna take real live ACTIONS, real legislation, real changes. NOT just purty talk that they’ll do better next time.

I feel pretty sure I won’t be voting D next year. No way in hell they’re changing now.

That’s the trouble you think you can push me against a war and make me choose A or B Obama or your list.

Some of those things I understand others I don’t. I would have preferred the public option but the deal we have which covers 30 million new Americans and doesn’t allow companies to disriminate against preconditions, is certainly better than the status quo.

As for all the talk about 4 T in cuts and destroyting Medicare you are speculating that’s all. He has never said he had decided on raising the age to 67, rather there were rumours that it was being considered but again just a rumour.

Gunatonimo had political hurdles and no one wanted them housed in their own state-NIMBY.

Reading the general expectations and criticisms for Obama from you as a collective is a very annoying exercise.

He is clearly doing his best, and from my POV, his best is very good. Considering what he’s been saddled with, Bush et al and in particular your inoperable two party political system, your out of control negativity is very distasteful.

I think he’s great for you guys and the world in general, but then again I’m fucking retarded.

/A Canadian liberal (meaning I’m a communist) from the outside looking in

That’s it. You have covered every Democratic “talking point” now. Your credibility is zero. I am speaking as someone who has been a member of the Democratic party for decades but isn’t blinded by party loyalty. President Obama has destroyed the Democratic party as being the “peoples party”. That’s over, done. You can make all the excuses in the world, but those who actually pay attention know this president does not represent 99% of the population. He doesn’t even hold up the Constitution (thanks to the Patriot Act and his perpetual wars), which is supposed to be his job.

I notice you refuse to answer my questions above.

If you don’t support all of those things, then I have to wonder why you would support Obama.

So, since you DO support Obama, I can only conclude that you do support those things.

I’m not saying that we all have to support every stance ever taken by a candidate when we support them, but with Obama ALL OF THOSE THINGS are in direct contradiction to the way he campaigned in 2008. HE made those the issues to focus on. So, I’m focusing on them. He campaigned saying he would return the rule of law to DC. He campaigned on health care reform and did so in a progressive manner, slamming Clinton for her idea on mandates. He campaigned on closing GITMO in his first year in office. On ending torture and in one now famous campaign event he spoke elequently about no President could unilaterally, without the consent of Congress send our Armed Forces into combat… and then he unilaterally sent our Armed Forces into a new combat..

Do you always support candidates that blatantly lie to you when running for office??? I know folks say “All pols lie during the campaign” but if we stop supporting them when they do, guess what, they won’t. Or are you OK with politicians lying their asses off during the campaign??? If so, you and I are on diametically opposite ends of some sort of political spectrum, because I believe they work FOR US. That our votes are OURS, and they cannot lie, cheat or steal to get them. And that they better not EVER take our votes for granted because they ARE NOT entitled to them. Do you feel any politician running for President is entitled to your vote simply because s/he’s not a Republican???

In 1980, I lambasted, hated, did everything I could do to work against the election of Ronald Reagan. Why would I support a Ronald Reagan like candidate now just because he’s got a D after his name????

I’m not the one that has changed. The Democratic Party has changed. And for those of us that care about the issues that affect our lives so much, we cannot, and WILL NOT, continue to support a Democratic Party that has abandoned it’s core principles so badly just because they aren’t Republicans. If “they’re not Republicans” is good enough for you, then by all means, knock yourself out over Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Ben Nelson, and all of them. But don’t be surprised when many folks decide “not being a Republican” isn’t good enough any more.

When asked yesterday whether reports that Mr. Obama would support raising the retirement age were accurate, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “A lot of the reporting about what has been under consideration has been accurate.”

http://bit.ly/prlofv

It’s not a question of refusing to answer questions but you are trying to force me into a catch-22 either I have support Obama or oppose your list but I can’t oppose anything on the list and support Obama. You want to bet?

Not so easy he’s done enough. He can do more when we get the tea party out. NY-26 and Wisconsin are good early harbingers.

Even if I didn’t like Obama I’d have to admit he’s better than Romney or Bachman. In addition the national Democrats basesd on these early returns I think have a shot at a real comeback.

It would be senseless to work to return the House to the Dems but yet work against or even simply fail to actively support Obama’s reelection to therefore weakening the position of so many newly elected congressional Dems.

As far as NPA and the idea of building a third party that will take too long. We have a chance to turn things around now I’m not waiting 20 years or more in the hope of a newly viable Green party or something.

The idea of the Greens has always been wrong to me philosophically too, yes, the environment is important but is it the only issue, no. Green even implies a single issue party.

Based on your name, “OldFatGuy” I might infer your getting up there. While I’m not old yet I have personally suffered during this bad economy like many other Americans.

I don’t want to wait years. I want to do what I can now. Supporting my party, the Democrats, is much more viable than waiting around for some Third Party to save the day.

Popeye you got a great name. Now eats your spinach and stay with me: when we see the plan we can debate the merits. Until then we have little to go on.

I will bet you $1,000 that in 2017 (well after ACA has been in force) that the 45,000 Americans dying each year due to lack of medical year will be EVEN BIGGER.

I only have $1,000 to wager though, so if you want that action, you have be first.

And ANY health care bill that results in that is a PIECE OF SHIT.

It doesn’t do anything for millions of Americans except provide them with a health insurance policy. Did you know that right now a majority of bankruptcies in this country are due to medical bills?? And a MAJORITY OF THEM HAD health insurance.

You can’t ever twist that PIECE OF SHIT corporate giveaway into any kind of progressive victory no matter how fancy you can get with that keyboard of yours. It was a huge progressive LOSS because now the issue is off the table again, the same old for profit insurance companies still run the game, AND now everyone by law MUST be their customers.

You wanna debate the healthcare bill that passed, I’ll meet you anywhere, anytime, let’s go.

I know this: most liberal Democrats agee with me not with you. I’m supposed to what just give up my “blindness” for your blindness of Blame Obama First? Where everyone takes turns in exaggerating how bad he is till you wait for someone to ask if Hitler is around maybe he’d be willing to primary Obama.

Wow, even the Press Secretary admits the stories were accurate, you just REFUSE to believe it.

Sort of like debating climate change with a right winger.

Poster above was right, you now have zero credibility.

Your posts are a cornucopia of weasel speak and excuses. I can understand why folks like you pledge allegiance to this President and party. It’s not his actions, but the bow he puts on the bag of bullshit that satisfies the sell out Dems tripping over themselves to transfer the wealth to the top 1%. No excuse left behind is the bot battle cry.

Please don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Please don’t notice who is pulling Obama’s strings. And for godsakes please don’t notice the emperor has no clothes.

WTF does NY-26 have to do with anything?? Or the tea party???

In 2009 and 2010, there were NO TEA PARTY in Congress. And the Democrats had the biggest majorities ever seen in a generation or more.

So what, if we get the majority back next year things will be great??? How the hell do you think folks are going to believe that after they had HUGE MAJORITIES already???

WTF are you smoking???

Why does third party scare you? Never mind, I think I know.

Third Party is at best long term, decades away possibility and even then it can just as easily be corrupted.

Neither party is capable of addressing the worst problems we face in any meaningful way.

Why can’t we just embrace our independence?

“I will bet you $1,000 that in 2017 (well after AFCA has been in force) that the 45,000 Americans dying each year due to lack of medical year will be EVEN BIGGER.

I only have $1,000 to wager though, so if you want that action, you have be first.

And ANY health care bill that results in that is a PIECE OF SHIT”

Old, thein lies the problem you specuolate that there will be more than 45,000 Americans dying from lack of health care come 2017 but then you say any healtcare bill that results in that is a piece of shit.

Certainly if so it would be a piece of shit, but it, at this point, 6 years before 2017, remains just speculation.

I would be happy to bet you though if you have $1000 then you’re ahead of me you fucking have! LOl

When I recive my unemployement benefits I’ll have $725. Of course I have to make a car payment.

What specifically did he admit were accurate?

I know this: most liberal Democrats agee with me not with you.

No, you don’t. Where’s the evidence? Is it some survey that asks if we support the President? Hell, I’ve answered strongly support to at least one big polling firm.

“Most liberal Democrats” don’t know the meaning of what it means to be liberal. Yep, I pulled that one out of the same place you did. You know a lot of average folks on the right hate liberals because of neoliberal policies that many so-called liberals accepted.

Now I’m sure Jane was right.

Remember you said above that we don’t know whether Obama really proposed increasing the age of Medicare to 67? Or cutting Medicare, or cutting social security?? You said all we had was press reports about it, that it might not be true.

Well, the President’s own Press Secretary just said those press reports about what was being considered were accurate.

EDIT: Oops, I guess it was a press report that reported the quote too, so technically I guess we don’t know if the Press Secretary actually said the reports were accurate about the proposals the press reported Obama said.

Or something.

Meh, I will give you that one though. Technically you could be right, this is all from the press.

I won’t mention Obama supporting those things anymore then until I do a little more digging.

But I feel fine on the rest of the stuff on my list.

People will self restrict their use of health care because price increases will continue to outpace wages.

The President confused HCR with insurance reform.

The left including we here were firmly pushing this President and Congress. We had the energy and the momentum.

Obamacare surrendered people’s lives to other’s greed. When does this President not put us on the chopping block?

To be fair, the carnival guy probably just misspoke. Are you trying to make bots cry?

For a democratic president to even jokingly put SS Medicare on the cutting table is disgusting not to mention scaring the shit out of seniors.

I believe your words were:

It is good faith to not eviscerate Obama for talking about ending SS when he hasn’t said anything like it.

Obama constantly whines about leaving “politics” aside (I know, it’s revolting when you consider Obama’s slavish devotion to political groveling). He seems to believe that the other side just doesn’t understand how willing he is to be as establishment and conservative as they want him to be.

Unrequited love is a bitch.

If your re-read my link that I gave you it states what he admitted.

I gave him the link stating what Jay Carney said but I guess he chose not to read it.

Bottomline Old, is you say you supported O and the rest of teh Dems in 2012 but won’t this time. (What will you do I wonder third party or will you follow Bin quick’s Progressives for Bachman brigade, or maybe follow the guy who said the true progressive strategy for 2012 is don’t vote at all)

http://my.firedoglake.com/davidasposted/2011/07/04/70176/

I will be doing what you did in 2008 and I know plenty of others who will too. I think if your hanging hope in Romney-Bachman to teach Obama a lesson you’re gonna be disappointed.

Mike Sax@116 — “His first act in office he reversed Bush’s decree(which he had done first thing when he got in office back in 2001) banning funding for all international agencies which even offer information on abortion-among others this would appy to the UN.”

Really? I think NOT. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/2009-obama.html

Laughable. Deserves nothing but derision. And such a persuasive bottom line.

Shallow thinking much? And you keep writing “your” when you mean you are or you’re. I write the wrong word often enough, so just trying to be nice wrt grammar even if I am pretty damn hostile to the excus-a-palooza.

Obama doesn’t learn lessons from his mistakes because they aren’t mistakes if you understand where his allegiance lies. Obama is willing to do most of what Bush did even if it makes him a one term President? What is it exactly you think losing would teach him?

Postponing the evisceration of Medicare and Social Security has resulted in Americans still having Medicare and Social Security. Failure to further postpone the evisceration of these economical, efficient, and necessary programs will only result in Americans soon not having them. President Benedict Hoover Obama does not want to postpone eviscerating Medicare and Social Security but wants to begin eviscerating them now — “before this rare opportunity passes us by.” Apparently, President Benedict Hoover Obama has never heard of President Eisenhower’s sage admonition whenever someone tried to panic him into doing something unnecessary and stupid: “Don’t just DO something. Stand there.” When it comes to the solvent Medicare and Social Security programs that have no effect on the unfunded-war-and-tax-cut-induced deficit, Democrats should just stand there and do nothing. Deputy Dubya’s tax cuts for the wealthy will expire by law on their own with no action required since they were shamelessly marketed and sold as only temporary (meaning less than ten years) anyway.

President Benedict Hoover Obama can simply insist on a clean bill raising the debt ceiling — as past Congresses have routinely done – and then rightfully share credit with the Congress for doing what everyone should have done in the first place. Insisting on anything else marks him as a fool and/or a knave.

wait wait wait. Obama snapped but his supporters are digging his grave?
what a thesis statement.
first of all, only Cantor says he “snapped”. other accounts disagree.
secondly, explain how Obama’s supporters are digging his grave?
I am extremely disappointed in Obama and hope there are a few primary challengers, but please, this is a stupid take on yesterday.
the fact is the dems are looking like adults right now, and cantor is looking like a 5th grader. (my apologies to real 5th graders)

An authentically liberal President would go on the offensive and among other things explain how lowering the age people could collect social security and even doubling the checks makes sound economic sense.

Instead what Obama offers is people to work until they are 67 and compete with workers in the international slave wage trades.

Yeah, let’s not forget Obama’s loud supportive voice for the Wi unions. Don’t remember seeing him jump into that fray even though he was BEGGED by Wisconsinites to do so.

What you said!!

A few of our liberal talkers, they know who they are, made excuses aplenty why he couldn’t.

What did Obama say?

“On the other hand, some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally seems like more of an assault on unions…

“And I think it’s very important for us to understand that public employees, they’re our neighbors, they’re our friends. These are folks who are teachers and they’re firefighters and they’re social workers and they’re police officers.

They make a lot of sacrifices and make a big contribution. And I think it’s important not to vilify them or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees.”

“generally seems like”? – “all these budget problems”? as if wages could be part of the problem – SMELLS like fierce advocate to me. He never misses an opportunity to reinforce conservative worldview at the same time sounding just a lil bit maybe “liberal” if that’s what you wanted to hear.

I agree wholeheartedly!

You can “deride” or anything else he’s still gonna get back in.
Sorry if I can’t reach the depth of thought evident in talk about “Obamabots and trolls.”

Oh, and cloak and dagger speculation about WH operatives.

Guys like you are nothing but Cassandras no creidbility.

I forgot the rules, if anyone says anything about Obama simply agree but then tell them it’s worse than they think that they’ve scarcely touched the surface.

Then you get to be “deep”

You can’t be serious. Is that why all those “bots” showed up for the 2010 elections, and the Dems won? The bot class is slowly disappearing as the adults convince them otherwise. Of course, Obama’s own flip-flopping helps. BTW, you say that there is no evidence that Barky will cut SS/Medicare/Medicaid — I seem to remember a little thing called a tax cut from our paychecks that decreased the amount of my SS withholding.

malinowski also comes from BJ. Since there is a whole coterie of dingleberries (h/t PeasantParty) whose raison d’être is monitoring this site, expect more company.

Want to see something dumb? Check this out the dumbest Obamabot comment ever:

madatnewsmedia:
“Oh, please! Don’t try to make it sound like all the other presidents didn’t do the same thing! and until you or Mr. Reich sit in the chair that every president sits in, your opinions are moot.”

Get this? 1. Your opinion only matters if you’ve been President, which means that Bush’s opinions do and other than Obama, Bush, Bush, and Clinton, nobody else in the US can critique the President…2. unless you do something yourself, you can’t possibly really know anything about it…3. Robert Reich has never been inside an Oval Office before, or sat in the President’s chair (which I’m sure most cabinet members have done just to fantasize.

Wow, that is literally the DUMBEST Obamabot comment I’ve ever seen.

It was in response to this one:

“I don’t think I agree Mr. Reich. Obama may or may not care about the struggles of the vanishing middle class, but he does care about re-electio­n”.

The 2nd comment was cynical, but not all that “critical” of Obama. Not enough to send that Obamabot over the edge like it did.

OMFG. A Democratic President with the aspirations of a used car salesman, and it does come naturally. I’m up for a primary. With Democrats like him, who needs Republicans.

Voters in 2008 did the same thing they always do. They voted for the candidate who received the greatest corporate media promotion. Obama got more corporate money (than anyone ever) and more Wall Street money (than anyone else in 2008), and as a result, the corporate-owned, market-focused media gave him overwhelmingly positive coverage (65% positive network coverage for Obama compared to 34% positive for McCain according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs).

Voters didn’t make a wise decision. They followed orders (propaganda), as usual.

Not saying I’d rather have McCain as President, but only idiots believe they’re the ones who chose Obama as opposed to big money and its ability to indoctrinate the masses.

If you think 2012 is 2010,if that’s your hope, you’re mistaken. People now see how deep and far the Republican grab will go and how much they overstated their mandate.

There never was a “bot” class but clearly Obama’s early fundraising shows he still got plenty of supporters. Know you’re concerned.

Waitwaitwaitwait! Do you know what this means?!??!!

Mr. President, you have just won The Bipartisanshippy Awards! There is now no need for you to prove your bipartisanshippy (shortened hereinafter to “bippy”) is bigger than anyone else’s. You may now begin doing what people thought they were electing you to do: stopping torture, rescuing us from bankster criminals, pulling out of permanent war, you know that dull stuff.

I completely misread that comment I responded to. This FDL layout is throwing off my eyes, and brain.

“Iraq has drawn down and we wil be fully out at end of this year.”
Bwaaaaaaahaaaaa … we will be fully out? What are you smoking? 50,000 troops will remain in the American military complex (aka Embassy) that has the swimming pools and the golf course inside its walls.

Propose something that is viable for now then-there isn’t. My progressive strategy of working for Democratic wins is at least viable. I’m a believer that action per se is better than inaction.

Philosphically the virtue of an act is that it is an act more than because it is necessarily the best act that can be imagined.

Mike Sax, back in your rant about “now” on 270, you make a claim about single payer health care that is false. Nobody has called you on it so far that I see, so I shall. You say:

Single payer healthcare didn’t make it throught the political process. Now you expect because you demand everything “now” like a 2 year old the heavens have to open up in obedience?

Single payer healthcare was taken off the table by Obama during a townhall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, when it was the first subject raised by a worthy citizen. Obama said at the time, “If we were going to rebuild the system from scratch…but…” and that is all the conversation that was EVER had on the subject. Surely you remember that proponents of single payer healthcare were arrested at one of Max Baucus’s committee hearings. Is that the “political process” to which you refer?

You claim that Obama is not out to gut Medicare and Social Security, and other posters have pointed to the Catfood Commission as a clear indication that he is. I would add to that the frequently mentioned fact that Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, is a completely separate program with its own financial concerns. Simply putting that separate program ON the table along with budget considerations is exactly the same sleight of hand that reducing the payroll tax (whee, a cut, a cut!) has accomplished, the undermining of a program set in place where young people can have faith that their payments on behalf of their elders will in future times be reciprocated when they themselves need the program. More payroll tax ‘cuts’ will further erode Social Security. Obama has deliberately begun that process already!

(I am not thinking you are any other than a lost cause, but it is worthwhile to debate you and let the truth be on the record. Stick around as long as you want.)

Absolutely, forest! Obama sounds a little bit liberal but his actions (hedging, waiting, double-speak) sounds a lot more republican.

Anyway, what a doofus thing for Obama to say about WI because police officers NEVER were on the chopping block there. He completely missed that main part of the divide & conquer strategy employed by the right.

Whoa, as I suspected, I just did a google of “most ardent supporters are the dumbest motherfuckers” and WOW.

It’s all over these toobz.

Definitely gonna leave a mark.

Oh, and cloak and dagger speculation about WH operatives.

That is not speculation. That is fact, a White House Gestapo, promised by Cass Sunstein.

They, the neo-cons, do their best to control all information. The war reporters are embedded as are most of the other corporate echo chambers. Obama conceals AIG fraud and other financial secret deals. There is the US Government False Flag terror in partnership with Pakistan. Lots to cover up, and Big Zero is the best at coverups, much better than Chimpie.

Give me a break. As pointed out by so many commenters, the only reason Obama’s campaign dollars are showing so high is because he had to auction himself out for $5. The fact that he can’t fill stadiums and other fundraising venues is the real evidence he is losing support.

As for people seeing the real faces of the republicans … Despite the contrary of what some are saying about what’s going on in Wi, and liberals outnumbering the support for Walker … there just is no evidence of that (the Prosser election/challenger is not a good indicator either) … and Politifact debunked the claim that there was evidence of more against Gov Walker than for.

2012 will be way worse than 2010 because now people are seeing a POTUS who is fighting to cut their, in the words of Obama himself “entitlements” and still won’t have jobs; perhaps they will have a house to live in, perhaps they can rent per Obama’s suggestion.

Frank you actually misunderstood me the cloak and dagger I mean is those who accuse me or any other “Obamabot” of working for the WH, DCCC, DNC, NSA, FCC or KFC.

I have been accused multiple times of working for the WH which really would be a good job, I would take it.

LOL

My fave comment was from another blog where someone claimed that “Obama is too smart to be president.”

This website has been targeted by the corporate/government secret police. Many of us have been targeted.

Entrench, it’s all right, it’s next to impossible not to do otherwise.

I treat 0-bots just like I do climate change deniers. There is no point in arguing with any of you. It’s clear that 0 has become a cult at worst and blind faith at best.

Wonder why the House hasn’t been all a flutter investigating 0 and preparing to impeach him yet? If you are a Republicon, “negotiating” with Obama silences the opposition of the thinking class, but especially 0-bots who will shout down the mean old lefties deriding their precious.

The Bots don’t realize that Obama is incapable of showing the fight and courage let alone political experience and skill necessary to deal successfully with the GOP.

Obama cannot find a way to seize the moment and create winning word frames to take to the American people. He has the pulpit… and either refuses to use it, or is incapable of using it. Obama is conflicted on just about every issue. What he says is not what he does.

He has mishandled the Debt Ceiling debate by not coming out swinging and fighting to the death [re: his presidency] for what could have been a defining moment by standing up for the issues and unrelentingly educate voters on these issues and offer real clarity. Most voters are concerned about daily survival and don’t understand the Debt Ceiling. It seems that
professor Obama cannot educate and explain in clear and persuasive terms exactly what this means to us.

I am left with the impression that Obama wants to look good prior to the election, but really wants to cave on entitlements. Clearly he wants this both ways and it presents him as waffling and weak. Hardly a brilliant political negotiator that sticks to his principles.

BTW what are Obama’s principles?

Well it’s easy to get along with you Obama-bashers just always agree with any criticism of Obama, always, no matter how convoluted and exagerrated and plain wrong and then add it’s even worse than they think. Then they will admire your tremendous insight and “depth.”

Propose something that is viable for now then-there isn’t. My progressive strategy of working for Democratic wins is at least viable. I’m a believer that action per se is better than inaction.

You are so full of shit. I never said I supported inaction and damn if anyone here did either. Maybe you misread? Be honest or do like you would have us do.

I worked for 0, yes, I was an OFA volunteer organizer.

You want an alternative? Have a library card? I will offer you a place to start. Go read Jamie Court’s book, The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell: How to Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws, and Get the Change We Voted For– A Direct Democracy Toolkit.

I have had a seat at the table and can tell you that you can work damn hard just be told to stfu. You want to work for change from within, have at it hoss, best of luck. No one here can convince you otherwise, you have to learn the hard way, fine. I get it.

Well if that’s true- I have no way of knowing whether it is or is not- but I certainly am just a regular guy trying to make his way during some very tough times in my country.

Even if there are these risks attacking new peolple simply cause you disagree with them as part of anything nefarious is not going to win you friends and influence with the people you claim to want to reach.

What a wonderful way to find sympathy. Someone here said he was acting like an insider and damn if he isn’t. The best 0-bots are volunteer shills, true believer types. If people here labeled you a true believer, I trust their instincts.

Your said “Even if I didn’t like Obama I’d have to admit he’s better than Romney or Bachman. In addition the national Democrats basesd on these early returns I think have a shot at a real comeback.”

And when all the bullshit is done, that’s what it comes down to isn’t it. Obama is LESS EVIL than Romney or Bachmann. Some of us are DONE with that game. Also, I think they had that comeback in 2008, had the house, the senate and O…how’d that work out for everyone ? It didn’t. Does Obama EVEN GESTURE towards a progressive position on anything ? No. Only when campaigning…

Obama is pushing the GOP in Congress to go more to the right than they wanted to do.

So it seems we get a more centered government with Dem control of House and Senate – but a GOP President – in 2012.

I do not understand why you fail to see the logic of a better Democratic Party platform result if we get rid of the fake Dem Pres that leads the rest into “Grand Bargains”. With a GOP Congress the Dems would oppose this grand bargain sellout and it would not happen. With Obama pushing the Grand Bargain we are at risk 24/7/365.

All the New Dems are deathly allergic to progressive framing – scares off too many donations.

I didn’t say you specifically are for inaction. All I’m saying is that if you just kiss off working with the Democrats there is pretty thin gruel left. There are some options but none particulary enticing.

And some here have called for inaction. So you can’t say no one here has.

http://my.firedoglake.com/davidasposted/2011/07/04/70176/

This post led someone in the comments section to basically give up and wave the white flag: “Since you have been nominated for Most Absurd Diary Ever, may I place myself in nomination for Most Absurd Comment Ever and trump your plan: Don’t even bother to read FDL or any other blog anymore.”

Some have also called for directly electing Republicans. Bin Quick is one-he has a name easy to remember. Here is another

http://my.firedoglake.com/alamacthc/2011/07/08/should-we-support-the-republican-in-2012/

This post led someone in the comments section to basically give up and wave the white flag: “Since you have been nominated for Most Absurd Diary Ever, may I place myself in nomination for Most Absurd Comment Ever and trump your plan: Don’t even bother to read FDL or any other blog anymore.”

BTW what are Obama’s principles?

That’s easy.

Here, I’ll list them for you.

Theme song for the targets of the thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkmEZs_Kcms

Still don’t get it, presumably,becuase I’m just too dumb a Obamabot. If Obama is ready to make all the draconian cuts to Social Security, at al, why aren’t the Republicans snatching up such a truly monumental victory?

Because both sides want to be the ones who can claim to have saved the country from eeeevil invisible deficit monster, which they think will win them the next election.

It would be nice if they both wanted to save us from the new depression or global climate change, instead.

We agree on Dem wins in House and Senate if they are not far right blue dogs – but just why do we need the far right corporate rich cheerleader with a D as President as it is harder to stop a bad “D” then it is to stop a bad “R”.

At least you did not say, as was said in 2008, that we had to vote Obama if we were black out of group loyalty, and if not black we had to vote Obama to show we were not racists. It will be nice in 2012 to discuss issues, assuming Obama has not already destroyed FDR’s legacy.

Do you have any boundaries on your ridiculousness or can we keep pushing you to new heights?

If you want to Rah-Rah Dems, like I said, have at it, but it’s a losing strategy. It’s not about Dems winning, it’s about stopping the massive wealth transfer to the top 1% and things like that.

The people who are stuck in Dem vs. Repuke thinking are politically stunted, sorry I have to be the one to tell you this.

according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs

According to Media Matters, the CMPA receives over 80% of its funding from conservative foundations.

I called for staying home in Senator Brown’s election and 800,000 stayed home and the R won by a 100,000 – the reason for the stay at home was Rahm/Obama and the “F’k the left – they have no place to go” comment from the WH as the reason the left was not included in Obama’s decision making.

A message was sent.

Seems it was not received – or the time line for destruction of the FDR legacy does not require a re-election.

The message must be sent again.

I’m late but I just want to say thanks that mike sax guy you brought out some wonderfully responses from everyone. Yes I’m voting Green this time to old to care about voting for the lesser of the 2 evils any more.

Thanks Jane even at bj they’re having a hissy fit;)

That’s better than those who tell me to “please leave FDL” but not so great that I’m a “lost cause.”

Juliania if I could ask you one question: lost cause for what exactly? What is it that would show I’m not a lost cause: that I repudiate Obama is that the only dividing line.

I feel like at FDL it’s this litmus test: you must criticize Obama and never disagree with any criticism of him.

As best as I can see, you are not arguing in good faith. Instead you seem to repeat every talking point ever spammed by the faithful. That is where I perceive a line has been crossed. People here sense it. That you also are attempting to manipulate others is a hint you are more than you say as well.

Because Obama’s priorities, while different from the Repubs, are not as diametrically opposed as you are assuming.

The four possible outcomes, in order of Republican preference, are:

1) Gut “entitlements”, no tax increases (“Pete Petersen’s Wet Dream”)

2) a clean bill (“Hey, don’t scare our Masters like that. We can always destroy Social Security next time.”)

3) Gut “entitlements”, some tax increases. (“Obama’s Grand Bargain”)

While gutting entitlements is a Repub dream, they’re not willing to back off their “no taxes, ever” position to sign off on the Grand Bargain, and Wall Street’s fear of a default has made some Rs willing to back down from 1) and accept 2, status quo ante, with the ability to try again next year.

But, as I said, Obama’s priorities are not the opposite (Grand Bargain, then clean bill, then Unconditional Destruction of the New Deal), which would make the clean bill the logical compromise. Instead, his priorities go like this:

1. Grand Bargain (“I tamed Social Security, and I didn’t sell my party out completely. I’m awesome!”)

2. Gut Social Security, no taxes (“I destroyed Social Security, and what’s my party going to do about it, vote for Bachmann? Fuck them, my Legacy is what matters.”)

3. Clean Bill. (“Well, that was a fucking waste of time. I want my ‘Signature Legislation’, dammit!”)

Obama’s hatred of the poor, the Democratic party, the New Deal and economic equality runs so deeply, and his egomania is so large, that the LAST fucking thing he wants is to ALMOST get his “reforms” (after three years of working to set up this “crisis”) and then just letting the situation get kicked down the road. He’d much rather get “credit” for being “responsible” now, knowing that the Dirty Fucking Hippies will have a year to hold their noses and decide they “have to” vote against the Scary Scary Republican next year, than leave everything until ’12, where if he caves without getting even a tax-increase fig leaf, he might damage his re-election chances and thus his Legacy.

He really, really wants to crush the working class and spit on FDR’s grave…just because he would rather be able to look bipartisanny than just completely give the Rs their wet dream doesn’t mean he won’t do that, if that’s his only option. If he wanted a clean bill, he’d have taken it by now.

So that’s why we don’t have a bill yet; because the Republicans are more willing to let Social Security and Medicare make it out of this year ungutted than Obama is. True fax.

(And I worked to elect the shitsack. *Kills self*)

I just skimmed the list of Obama’s regressive actions, so I could of missed these, but did you include

a) no effort to reinstate Glass-Steagall?
b) no effort to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine?
c) opening up the Atlantic coast to offshore drilling?
d) not putting BP in receivership to address the Gulf spill crisis directly?
e) allowing BP to pay its costs with funds from future Gulf lease revenues? (In other words, keep paying us or we won’t clean up this mess…) And allowing BP to resume drilling operations ahead of the original timeline?
f) never proposing a permanent jobs program, instead of a bunch of short-term “shovel-ready” (so named because the Repubs could easily bury them?) projects in the Stimu-Less?

And probably many more. O’s faults are many; he is Legion.

If I didn’t say anything while you pissed on Obama but rather agreed with you there would be no line crossed. That is the only line for you. You may claimdifferntly but you’re mistaken.

Only reason you think I’m “more than I say I am” is that: the Obama litmus test.

You’ve bought a brand. Your arguments are about image and identity not political economic reality. Grow up son! Your Prez is deconstructing your virtual, delusional world.

“Obama’s haterd of the poor, the Democratic party, the New Deal, and economic equality runs so deep, and his egomania is so large…”

“He really, really, wants to crush the working class, and spit on FDR’s grave.”

Vote I know you say these are true fax, I can’t take em seriously. I have to feel you are engaging in some very impressive exaggeration and hyperbole.

Your order of priorities section-3 not 4-I found interesting. You think the GOP is so opposed to any taxes they’d even wait to sink SS, which for them has always been the Great White Whale.”

So you don’t even support the wisconsin recall?

Obama put us on the chopping block in so many ways, I do a hell of a lot more than piss on him. I say what I think rather than parrot 0-bot talking points. I’m not sorry that bothers you. When I give you substantive response you give nothing back, especially ironic given how much you claimed to want a substantive discussion and all I see is you trolling with absolutely minimal exception. Don’t hate the player, right? Hate the game, am I right?

There’s a culture here. DO you really want it to change so your 0-bot talking points are treated with respect?

You don’t have to agree with anyone but don’t be a parrot.

You were saying how popular your guy is with all those donations:

July 14, 2011
“Republican Candidate” Extends Lead vs. Obama to 47% to 39%
Margin marks first statistically significant lead among registered voters
by Jeffrey M. Jones

PRINCETON, NJ — Registered voters by a significant margin now say they are more likely to vote for the “Republican Party’s candidate for president” than for President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, 47% to 39%. Preferences had been fairly evenly divided this year in this test of Obama’s re-election prospects.

forest…

You have spent all afternoon arguing with an Obamabot… which is exactly what they want you to do. It has caused you to get off the subject and sidetracked you from speaking out on the issue at hand… which is exactly what they want you to do.

There is no winning a discussion with Obamabots… they revert to Democratic party talking points over and over no matter what you say.

In the end… Obamabots will have done great harm to the cause they claim to believe in… which of course they dont really believe in… because they will have shown the world the complete idiocy of dumbly and blindly following a corrupt politician.

This is exactly what happened with G Bushes Bushbots. Americans were severly put off by the Bushbots absurd blindfaith worship of that scoundel. Same with Obamabots… no one likes pepole who cant think for themselves.

Dont waste your time other than pointing out these idiots… and then let it go… it’s a waste of your time… which is exactly what they want you to do.

The rest of us see and read these idiots too… and it is driving us further and further away from their employer [Obama].

Ezra Klein, Paul Krugman: WH wants a “farther to the right” deal, not the McConnell plan… are saying the same thing Jane did.

And even Digby agrees:

So basically they really are still counting on Morning in America to magically appear in time and think that massively cutting government will ruin the Republicans’ plans to complain. (Maybe that explains the Reagan comment yesterday.)

Interesting to see “Mike Sax” run over to a right wing blog [Angry Black Lady] and boast about coming to FDL to disrupt things.

And former Ohio governor Ted Strickland. The blowback on this should be big. I mean really big. Obama administration needs to sweat a little bit.

So, he admitted to be a troll!

I’d say they — the pit vipers in Washington, DC — are not waiting for Morning in America. They are waiting for the twilight of the modern American republic.

Eventually, Americans will elect a goon who will just up and declare on national tv: “Fuck it, we implementing a dictatorship.”

Two points: (1) limping along from temporary extension to temporary extension would result in the issue being demagogued even more than it already is; and (2) there is time to get this right. After all, a clean vote is just one line. If we can do a temporary extension, we can do a clean vote and be done with it.

“Mike Sax” is one of the dingleberries who “patrols this site.”

See his bragging about it at Angry Black Lady.

July 14, 2011 @ 4:42 pm As I said in a comment on that Hamsher post today, the rules of FDL couldn’t be more simple.

No matter what is said about Obama, how much they exaggerate(there was someone on today who called him the “worst ever” presumably Donald Trump) insult and are just plain wrong agree with them.

And then come back with how it’s actually much worse than they think that their criticism though 100% right only scratches the surface.

This is on the blog

http://www.angryblacklady.com/2011/07/14/jane-hamsher-calls-obama-supporters-dumb-motherfuckers/

Here also.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/07/14/jane-hamsher-calls-obama-supporters-dumb-motherfuckers/

Jane is right these OBAMABOTS are borderline moronic

when Jane speaks they failed to comprehend what she is saying.

when Obama cuts Social Security? what will they say?

Obama stills wants the Grand Bargain which = killing the new deal

I saied the exact same thing here so what of it? I never agreed to not comment on any other site.

And that’s Mr. dinglebery to you Mauimom

So the Obamabots can recognize who they are:

a. You are either a complete party loyalist above all else who chooses not to be informed on what is really happening. OR

b. You agree with the neo-liberal policies of President Obama. OR

c. While you may not agree with decisions made by Obama, you will defend them because you see no other choice than the “lesser of two evils”.

Option a would suggest you are lazy or have cognitive dissonance. Option b definitely says you are not a “progressive” or “liberal”. Option c indicates you want to maintain the status quo which continues this country with basically two parties – one interest.

Some people who call themselves “progressives” will get angry about this. But, if a few of them get angry enough to recognize they are blindly following rather than using critical thinking skills, then this post was worth it. Wake up people, austerity measures when an economy and the people in it need help is not the solution.

This has become one of the dumbfuckingest sites around. Each time I drop in, it’s loonier than before.

Except for tbogg, of course.

You know who else was on it: ElectaBlog that’s how right wing it is. Play your Stalnist games everyone can see who the progressives are and it sure aint you.

Thanks, ivn for the feedback. I’ll consider your thoughtful advice, but my immediate reaction is I am not persuaded. My immediate thoughts are we should just play these discussions out and gain whatever insight and experience we can even if it really is a rightwinger in disguise. Which is worse anyway? DO you think I wouldn’t treat the Big 0 the same just because he’s royalty and a fake Dem? At best, it sharpens the thoughts, the back and forth, at worst it distracts the discussion from the topic at hand but I see these things as flowing, fluid.

I think they are playing for the world not just good night, America as we knew it. At least now I know what Obama meant by saying we would reshape the world. It takes some banksters.

“Stalnist” ? “aint” ? There are rightwinger progressives, maybe you are one of them?

You have no idea who views this site? LOL

the facts are FDL ie Jane has been right 99% of time.

the facts are in 2008 we gave the Dems the house, senate and White House
and guess what we got?

Obama/Bush Tax Cuts
Obama/ Bob dole health care bill
Obama/Bush/ Hoover Economy
Obama/Bush wars, we got more war

and u think we should love OBAMA? WHY?
Obama should have raise 1 billion by now, he got cheated

Jane has helped MILLIONs understand OBAMA, yes Millions go figure out how that is possible?

wonder why the AARP all of sudden started fighting to save Social Security again? LOL ” talk was they thought the ship had left port and Social Security had to be cut, maybe all of those cancel notices got their attention”

the AARP touches 50 million

U seen the commercial where the white guy tells OBAMA leave my Social Security and Medicare along

If Obama cuts Social Security U will see the other commercial which will end OBAMA and other Dems political careers

I repeat Jane and her staff have been right about OBAMA and his Kabuki games 99% of time

Jane, Paul Krugman, and all the other real progressives said OBAMA economic team was a JOkE? 9.2% un-employment says it all

what is going to be main issue in 2012? the economy stupid

does Obama have any ideas to fixed the economy? LOL

tell Obama FDR saved the USA, Ronald Reagan Fuck it UP!

also tell OBAMA this is not 1992, triangulate the left at your own risk.

tell me why Obama is better?
GOP gets 83% of what they want with OBAMA,

talk is now OBAMA is going to give the GOP 2 trillion dollars in cuts and the DEMS will get nothing? tell us why OBAMA is so great? for LOL

forest…

I respect your skill and eagerness to debate and confront.

And I’m glad you took that person on.

Obamabots will ultimately do more harm than good. It’s my belief that many of these people are paid for their service. They are working for the Democratic party. That the Democratic party has to hire propagandists… is proof of the weakness of their positions. Many people are starting to realize what is happening. The Republicans do it too. Many expected that the Democrats would bring an end to this… unfortunately they seem to have increased it. More proof they are not on the side of the American people if they feel the need to manipulate and decieve.

Keep speaking out.

Bravo! Well, it’s a substitute for something. Not sure if it’s thinking…

That last sentence makes this my favorite Jane Hamsher post EVER! Just…wow. FBIT. (Funny because it’s true.)

Are you kidding? Obama threw in a permanent reduction of the estate tax in his December 2010 tax deal. The Republicans didn’t even ask for it. It was another one of those deals where Republicans came away amazed that the president’s idea of negotiation was to give them more than they asked for up to and including things they did not ask for at all. Increase the estate tax? Obama? I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.

Who wants to save the “Grand Bargain”? I don’t. The “Grand Bargain” is more like the grand screw job for the mass of Americans. It’s a bad deal. The time to negotiate the budget is when the budget is being written. An increase in the debt limit and brinksmanship over cuts/cut big/cut more/give away the Democratic store is absolutely not the time to negotiate the budget and cuts. It’s the time for a clean bill. Obama can take his “Grand Bargain” and shove in his…ear.

Also EclectaBlog has posted a combination diary, both pearl clutching and self serving at the same time, because Jane said that obamabots were fucking stupid. (Also posts on the extremely militant and ignorant ABL’s site according to Mike Sax

It’s on DKOS, and at eclectablog.com at the top. “Why I will never post another word at My.Firedoglake.com”

Perhaps one of the mods should go look at the first paragraph.

Wow, I’ve had lots to negative shit to say about Obama, but this is a field too far. FDL isn’t ever seeing another cent from me.

Your hero Obama just threw Elizabeth Warren under the BUS

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102×4922261

Good Luck helping the evil guy who wants to kill the new Deal get elected.

He is going to need you big time.

Photos of people crying because Obama cut their medicare, medicade, and social security is going to hurt Obama in 2012