In what is clearly a political move to try to win favor with conservative voters before the 2012 election,

Yes, he makes policy decisions to attract conservative voters. They’ve also been vocal about their policy decisions aimed at the “independant” voter.

So, those two groups SHOULD vote for him. He’s delivered for them. Those are the votes he’s going after.

So please for our country’s sake will all progressives please not give him your vote. He doesn’t want it. He wants conservative and independant votes. Us progressives will have to look elsewhere for a candidate that’s willing to do policy in an attempt to gain our votes.

Or, you know, all progressives could go ahead and vote for him again. That will ensure he and all future Democrats won’t feel the need to earn our votes either.

Next time I hear someone making fun of teh stoopid from Republican voters, I’m going to point out how teh stoopid is rampant among progressive and liberal voters too. They’re willing to vote against their interests too.

Obama has become, if he wasn’t already, an arrogant motherfucker…I was going to waste a paragraph explaining that, but realized I don’t need to. It’s pretty self-evident.

what is does show is that the President can and will insert himself into the decision-making of executive agencies at all levels if he wants. He will get involved in even something as minor as the decision about a single drug if he thinks it will help him.

Maybe I’m missing something. I haven’t seen anything in any of the stories on this topic that suggests this was Obama’s decision. Or a decision made at his urging.

I know the guy is a douche-bag. Do we have evidence of that here?

My brother (who is a Democrat) recently gave his reason for wanting to vote for Romney. Romney is a Republican who fears the liberals and regularly caves in towards liberals. Obama is a Democrat who fears Republicans and regularly caves in towards Republicans. After following Obama this far, I cannot argue with his logic.

Obama is the HHS Secretary’s boss.

This was a highly political decision.

It’s just not credible to think such a policital decision as this was made without his approval less than a year from an election.

This was Obama’s call. He owns it.

One only wonders why/how this override even made it onto the media radar. Except the head of FDA must have screamed bloody murder and, after the fact, has gone out of the way to emphasize that a thorough review was done prior too the recommendation, i.e., sticking it to Obama for the reversal. There must have been a huge brouhaha within the Department before the media release, and Sibelius being the good soldier to play out the hypocritical role. I expect the FDA Administrator (Margaret A. Hamburg) to resign in protest forthwith . . . or be cut off at the knees again for daring to stand up to Obama’s ruthlessness.

You’ve got to figure that Obama is becoming a loathed figure within his own administration when he sells out like this, and cant even contain the media exposure. Of course, in this instance his motives were so blatantly political (vs scientific) that it had to be highlighted to gain the electoral bump.

But, still, also, dems still”suck less”.

here, let’s flip that a little bit –

do you think Sibelius would have made a move that would antagonize the base 11 months out . . . without running it by the Oval Office ?!?!

I agree with your assessment. Jon was speaking in terms of absolute certainty. I was just wondering if there was something I’d missed that backed this up.

While I believe 100% that Obama was behind this, I thought by the tone of Jon’s story that maybe some evidence had come to light.

See me @8.

Maybe I wasn’t clear above. I think Obama did this. Just was wondering if there was hard proof that I hadn’t seen.

Your brother makes some good sense. I am rethinking my vote.
Who makes plan b? Did they not donate enough money to O?

At some point, the evils being compared become so bad that “the lesser of…” becomes meaningless.

I am disappointed in the president once again but not surprised. He’s already lost me so he won’t care much. For almost 20 years I’ve been a clinic escort hoping that sensible politicians would begin to do the right thing in regards to women’s reproductive health and I’m here to tell you that hope is sliding away.

I’m pretty sure the drug is available on the cheap, without prescription, to women over 17. It was women under 17 who were effected by this decision. If you’re over 17 and show a pharmacist an ID they’re required to sell it to you. My understanding is that it’s very inexpensive.

Anyone know how much it costs? Google gives me next to nothing, and certainly nothing conclusive.

Where’s my Change I Can Believe In (TM)?

Decisions, decisions. On primary day, do I write in Mike Check or Plan B?

For almost 20 years I’ve been a clinic escort

Thank you very, very much for that. That is awesome.

I’m writing in Rocky Anderson even though he prolly doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell. I will NOT give Obalahblah my vote.

At 9:15 this morning PDT the President took ownership of the decision. At a presser lobbying for the confirmation of the Consumer Protection Bureau Chief the President explained in terms of HIS OWN parenthood that he found the decision entirely appropriate and totally accepted(ratified) it and seemed under the impression it did not fly in the face of ‘science’ because of the ‘possibility of a twelve year old girl’ not taking the pill ‘correctly or ‘safely’.
So, no, this wasn’t someone from Kansas going rogue.
I don’t see how this will swing anyone his way.
This does not ‘respect science’ as he once promised it caters to conservatives, as usual.

Primary day no longer matters…just send your income tax payment check to Goldman-Sachs by April 15th, and you’re good to go.

Didn’t know about the presser. Thanks for the info.

Obama is the worse of two evils because the Dems offer him no resistance while he makes Bush look like a piker.

So, if you really believe in the principle of the LOTE, logic dictates you’ll vote for the Repub. At least then the Dem party can go back to blowing hard about being against warmongering and corporatism and for civil liberties..

Me? I’m voting third party. To hell with both evils.

the logic falls apart when more half of this dumb fucking country stacks both houses with republicans.
Then we are totally fucked.

Then we are totally fucked.

We’re not totally fucked now??

News to me.

I agree that he is in charge on all these critical issues, especially so in the year leading to the election.
the medical marijuana crackdown is about his kids and dont forget that the black community — the voting adults — are very strong against drugs, albeit that they hate the imbalance and racism that comes with the crack cocaine sentencing structure.
I was surprised a few months ago at how strongly one of my colleagues came out to me about adult drug usage, precisely because of the example its sets for teens.

gotcha sweetie :D

I thought he said at the presser that it was Sibelius’s decision “alone” — anyone ?

I guess we have to look toward 2016 to vote for a progressive. 2012 is lost either way you look at it, whether Obama stay or goes. I’ll concentrate on Congress since thats the only hope for stopping the Runaway Conservative Train of which Obama is a willing passenger. Obama has been the biggest traitor to the progressive/liberal cause since I’ve benn able to vote, if only because he gained our trust only to betray us once he obtained the Presidency.

Give me a fucking break.

O may take us all for fools, but that’s only because he thinks he’s the only smart one in the room.

Don’t know, but if so it’s not surprising.

The man lies everytime his lips are moving; no surprise he’d lie about that too.

There’s just no way such a political decision as this was made this close to election season without his approval. He’s just a lying asshole.

Good luck with that. Have fun fighting corporate powers with unlimited money speech.

On the Plan B issue, there is obviously an all out war to force all women (and by proxy men) who can conceive to be parents, ready or not.

For most of us, sex is as inevitable as food water and oxygen. So without contraceptives there is almost 100% chance of eventually being in the right place at the right time.

But tt’s not a ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice’ debate. That is a strawman divide. It is the exticntion burst in the psyche of the patriarchy desperately clinging to the control of a woman’s role in society.

If Obama thinks he can get away with blaming Sibelius he’s nuts. This is his decision and he lost a huge chunk of votes IMO. What a detestable man he is.

Also, too, even if it was her “alone,” as President he could order her to reverse if he wanted to. The fact he doesn’t is proof he doesn’t want to.

Please everyone e-mail the WH. Feminist Majority had a letter you could sign last night. If we can’t stop this, at least we can try to make him know that we are watching everything he does.

Seems like Osterity is both an economic–and social–conservative. Big fucking surprise. What an asshole.

OT sort of.

“Any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll-tax cut, I will reject,” Obama told reporters Wednesday

Obama doesn’t want Republicans forcing approval of the pipeline, because he want’s to approve it after the election.

Heh, yep.

I hope the asshole doesn’t get the chance to approve it after the election.

Obama doesn’t want Republicans forcing approval of the pipeline, because he want’s to approve it after the election.

Exactly.

Thank you for making this point, Jon. The meme out there to persuade people to vote for Obama was that he was ‘shackled’ by the powerful entities surrounding him and just a weakwilled pussyfooter at worst, so that having learned his lesson he would strategize a truly powerful second term.

In your dreams.

Obama chose his surrounders, he chose the make up of his ‘team’, he chose to be who he is. And he will continue to strategize and choose as he gets his worse-than-Bush agenda firmly entrenched.

Last night I read a thread over here full of the R versus D malarky. Boy, the only way I think that the PTB which are the multinational bank/corporate entities could be sure that Obama would follow their rules, and all other apparatus of government the same, is that they know he is their man.

And if he’s their man, he’s not our man.

[By the way, though I think this is a timely illustration of where the power resides, I also agree with this particular decision. A parent, any parent would react as Obama has done in this instance - though my main objection to the FDA is that it isn't proven that this drug is safe and I wouldn't want kids taking it willy nilly. But that is separate from the issue of power and good on you, Jon for highlighting that issue.]

Who don’t understand still this is Karl’s/ bush machine minion ?

I really didn’t hear the qualifier ‘alone’. If he did he went on to emphatically express support and take personal empathic ownership of the limited scope of the decision.
I think in his duplicitous solomonic mind he reasoned that the restriction was for girls under 16 and they are at some risk and yielded to the sense of conservative parental rights over the rights of the young girl not wishing a pregnancy to commence. It is limited enough to make it seem he stands for ‘some’ reproductive rights still.
Sebelius wasn’t by any means thrown under a bus.
True to his form the president, though, acts through ‘fig leaves’ whether they are Sebelius, joe lieberman, ben nelson among others.

They’re right to be (everyone should be) concerned about crack cocaine. It’s a deadly dangerous drug, very addictive, speaking from past experience. But it should be treated primarily as a health issue — like alcohol, another deadly, addictive drug, speaking from experience — rather than by jails and fines, particularly when those sentences are racially unjust as well.

OK everything you say is so. Do you plan to vote for Gingrich? If you’re looking for someone worse than Obama, he’s it. Voting Green? Good luck with that. I think Gingrich may win. Read somewhere there’s nothing so scary as running into a ten year old with an AK-47 as happened often in Africa. The US is a ten year old with an AK-47. Is there nothing we can do to disarm the kid?

President Chameleon.

Pontius Pilate syndrome.

Separate from the specific issue surrounding this decision, what it does show is that the President can and will insert himself into the decision-making of executive agencies at all levels if he wants

This has been shown by Obama for a long, long time. This latest is just amongst the most noticeable since Obama overruled 104 years of precedent.

Banks make to much from laundering drug money. They’d never legalize drugs.

“If you’re looking for someone worse than Obama, he’s it.”

How exactly is Gingrich worse than Obama? When a Republican is in the WH, the Democrats pretend to care and oppose things instead of being doormats. Obama has shown himself to be worse than Bush by making Bush’s torturing look minor in comparison to starting wars without Congressional approval, assassinating citizens and perpetuating just about everything else Bush along with nationalizing corporate Romneycare. I’d expect with Gingrich the Democrats wouldn’t be falling all over themselves to defend conservative policies coming out of the WH.

NO

Does secretary Sibelius fear that easy availability of the “morning after pill” without a doctor’s prescription would undermine parental authority?

$3,200 a pound for a weed right around 2 oz of Gold. I would venture a guess there’s some money being made by someone.

No, if a dad in a drunken stupor rapes his underage daughter I’m sure when he sobers up in the morning he’ll take her to the doctor, explain everything and get that script PDQ.

Laundering drug money is the only thing that is keeping banks afloat at the moment. They’re hoping that selling improperly foreclosed homes will give them an extra cushion.

I retract my earlier question. I just read in the paper that Sibelius said that her rejection was based on the fact that the manufacturer hadn’t tested it on 11 year old girls.

He won’t be getting my progressive vote and neither will any of the Rethuglicans. :-) I’m with you OFG. You make sense.

Gingrich also would not have the need to cave in to the social conservatives like Obama did yesterday. Gingrich could ignore them at every turn and still maintain their support.

LIAR – this is about kissing up to the right wing who wouldn’t vote for Obama if they were threatened with death.

There are too many folks who miss the obvious because they can’t wrap themselves around the fact — which they may well spout — that they’re all corporatists. Somehow the old dem vs repub energizes the notion that there is a good fight to be fought. When “we suck less” is the strongest argument, the system is broke. Others say but, but the SCOTUS appointments. Clue here: the SCOTUS is irrelevant in the short term to keep the US from going over the precipice. And in the long run, well, you know . . .

Conventional analysis has the repubs winning the presidency: bad economics; anti-incumbent fervor; center right media meme/momentum; and O’s still a black man.

The U.S.’s sun is setting. Unfortunately, predictably, everyone but the wealthy get to suffer the decline.

Seems like an unnecessary step. Why doesn’t he just buy the OTC drug himself?

Because the druggist would ask who’s that for.
Not that that would stop him.

alan, I think because somewhere in the tons of articles coming out about this, it says the drug is no longer OTC.

Not really.

The decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius means the Plan B One-Step emergency contraceptive will remain behind pharmacy counters, as it is sold today – available without a prescription only to those 17 and older who can prove their age.

Or is “behind the counter” different than OTC?

Any guy over 17 can still get it.

I guess yo don’t know what the word liar means.

~
panders to finance
panders to polluters
panders to big energy
panders to so-called christian supporters of theocracy
and slanders anyone who ‘hopes’ that this oligarchic cesspool can ever be ‘changed’
live – learn and don’t vote for liars -
increase empathy & embrace action!

Gingrich has been so all over the place, it’s hard to get a handle on him. He’s the guy who would shut down the government because he didn’t like his treatment on Air Force One. Nothing happened since to make me believe he developed emotional maturity.

“…the ultimate blame…”

Coming right up in the 2012 general election. :o)

Privatizing this corporate jive-turkey is going to be fun to watch.

Obama should use Bashar al-Assad’s trick: “HHS is not my department. HHS is a department that belongs to the government. I don’t own them.”

Shorter Obama:

L’état, c’est moi.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

[By the way, though I think this is a timely illustration of where the power resides, I also agree with this particular decision. A parent, any parent would react as Obama has done in this instance - though my main objection to the FDA is that it isn't proven that this drug is safe and I wouldn't want kids taking it willy nilly. But that is separate from the issue of power and good on you, Jon for highlighting that issue.]

And juliania, this is the real eleventy dimensional chess game he’s playing. A game against liberal/progressives. He’s doing unprincipled things that lean conservative but has that emotional appeal to it that might not be enough to push some liberals away from him.
Consider the Osama killing as another example.

As for me, bo is a jackass and it will be a cold day in hell before I vote for him again.

Good one.

I can’t remember the names after three years, but he did the same to other supporters during the campaign and after he was elected. I suppose that kind of ruthlessness is part of the job description, but he has taken it to another level.

How exactly is Gingrich worse than Obama?

With Gingrich you get Bolton as secretary of state (or maybe even defense). If that appeals to you, you need suicide counselling.

And continuing to give Democrats our votes no matter how they govern ensures they’ll NEVER feel the need to enact progressive policies, which are the only policies that will make this country better.

From jobs programs to safety net issues to how we service our debt, the progressive solutions are the best for all involved. So if a progressive uses their vote to ensure no progressive policies are ever enacted then they need some type of counseling as well. Although I’ve heard there’s no cure for stupid.

You are perhaps thinking of Obama’s campaign advisers on economics, including Joe Stiglitz, who were summarily jettisoned after the election and replaced with the Goldman Sachs gang.

I really don’t see how Kathleen Sibelius thinks this will have something to do with parents. In California, if a 12-18 year old girl seeks medical treatment for a possible pregnancy related issue from a health care professional and does not want to inform her parents, the health care professional is forbidden from telling them by state law. So how in the world would this bring parents into the decision to buy Plan B?

Bolton would not be much worse than Hillary the Hawk. I mean can you count the nations we’re trying to pick fights with? Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan…I could go on indefinitely.

Obama December 2008:

“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” President-elect Obama said. “It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us.”
”
Obama December 2011:

“Screw science. I want to be re-elected.”

By 1931, most people had realized that National Prohibition had been a mistake and were ready to repeal it.  Almost all, except for President Hoover, who actually increased government spending on Prohibition law enforcement.  Soon, the entire nation was clamoring for repeal, and not even the president could do anything to stop it.

You light the fire and I’ll suck the candles

My brother (who is a Democrat) recently gave his reason for wanting to vote for Romney. Romney is a Republican who fears the liberals and regularly caves in towards liberals. Obama is a Democrat who fears Republicans and regularly caves in towards Republicans. After following Obama this far, I cannot argue with his logic.

By that logic, and I fully agree with it by the way, Mitt Romney is actually the lesser evil compared to Obama. Politics in the US is now like Alice in Wonderland without the drugs…

‘Bammie’s actions are out there for all to see. It’s confounding that so many still do not, can not, or will not see them. This is why I plan to vote for whatever assclown gets the R nod, unless there is a viablle 3rd option, which I do not see. If they get in (hoping) then let them further smack the 99% in the face so more wake up and a critical mass has a chance of forming to really take on this broken, corrupt quasi-Fascist system at the national and local levels simultaneously. That’s the hope and change I see for 2012.