Jeez, Jon, you are sounding a lot like Glen Ford, over at Black Agenda Report.

Look at the eleventh paragraph in this article, and paragraphs twelve and thirteen …

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/white-house-un-reality-show

The other paragraphs are worth reading, as well.

I am beginning to worry about you, Jon, you’ve shown, beyond doubt, in post after post, that the Senate Democrats have no wish to govern, nor have they any desire to act responsibly and allow the citizens of this nation to actually know or learn who voted for, or against … what.

You keep this up and the Great White Snark will start to bite, guaranteed.

And them is Jaws to reckon with.

It might get to the point that, if you can’t say anything good about Democrats that, well, you just might need to change the subject …

All spoofin’ aside, Jon, I sincerely thank you for your courage in speaking truth to power and, as well, sharing your insights with those whose partisan blinders serve, yet, only to keep them unable to see and admit the reality and severity of that truth.

DW

I am not trying to change the subject but look at what the courts just did with Obama’s recess labor board appointments.

The worst thing is this notion that there is supposed to be a balance between business and labor. That’s like suggesting the 1% gets 50% of the votes. The rights of an oppressive coddled %1 percent need to be grounded in their numbers and contribution or undermining lack of contribution.

We need a business reform movement.

Perhaps, the courts read the Constitutional provision on recess appointmets.

Everything isn’t about Obama.

First, Obama already conceded to Republicans on tax increases. And it is not about wage earners, but about dollars. No income under $400K is going to be touched, even if the wage earner earns a million a year. So, the amount of money coming in will be negligible.

I think I had read that, even if Obama had gotten what he campaigned on twice, increases on incomes over 250K a year, it would have brought in about one week’s worth of federal expenses. A lot of sound and fury signifying very little.

As a practical matter, all the rest of the Obama tax cuts of 2010 are now permanent. Republicans will not raise taxes on any amount of income because they don’t want to and Democrats won’t raise them because they will not want to re-confirm their reputation as the Party of tax and spend.

The time to act–and act decisively–was 2009, when Obama had a Democratic House and a stronger Democratic Senate, the country was more strongly behind him and the nation’s knees were shaking over what the economic collapse of 2008 would mean. He could have done almost anything that he wanted then. And maybe he did do what he wanted then.

Second, we do not know what will happen when the temporary extension expires, so it might be a tad early to declare victory.

Third, Obama wanted cuts to “entitlements,” He said so in an interview with WAPO in January 2009. The Cat Food Commission did not help him with that.

Neither did Republicans. John Conyers was beside himself because it was Obama who put cuts to entitlements on the table, “not Boehner, not Cantor or any Republican.” (Whereupon, John Conyers promptly got thrown under the bus.)

But the Grand Bargain joint committtee did not help Obama either; and re-election campaign time was approaching. So, all they punted until after the election.

Which brought us to two post-election months of D.C. and media-generated kabuki hysteria over the fiscal cliff. But, Republicans still did not give Obama political cover for the cuts, especially after the hits they took in the election.

Reportedly, Obama would not approve any plan that cut defense, but did not “entitlements” either.

So, if Obama does not end up cutting entitlements before he leaves, it will be only because (a) o commission or committee gave him the political cover he tried so hard to get; (b) Republicans refused to take the rap for the cuts; and (c) members of his own Party, the Senate in particular, told him they would not vote for his cuts.

Obama may be in the last half of his Constitutional term limit, but Senators seem to like to run until they are over 90–and even beyond ([perhaps a sign of how hard they actually work, but that’s another issue).

Maybe, his own Party is the reason why Obama has not sent Congress a budget since his first. In that one, he proposed cuts to fuel subsidies for poor people. The alternative to often is freezing to death or dying in a fire from one of the makeshift heating techniques people use. (Knowing it was lying, the WH excused that based on decreases iun the price of oil. However, the price home heating fuel had risen and so few poor people can convert oil into home heating fuel.

Jon Stewart called Goolsbee on that one on the Daily Show. Goolsbee, who clearly taken aback at being caught in his lie, had no retort other than “Wow. I can’t believe how well-prepared you are.”

Cutting fuel subsidies to poor Americans make Obama harsher on that issue than Hugo Chavez, who has supplied Joe Kennedy’s New England fuel charity with free home heating oil every year for a long time, so that Kennedy can give it away free to people in icy New England who need it, no questions asked.

Anyway, if “entitlements” do survive, it will be Obama who gets the credit, even though he came into office intent on cutting them and has tried his best to do so, consistent with his desire for political cover for his re-election and his legacy.

Obama spent his first four years in the Oval Office on a quixotic quest to save the GOP from their own batshittery. I’m not convinced that he won’t do the same for the next four years.

Always wait to hear FDL’s take on this stuff, appreciate it.

No income under $400K is going to be touched,

That is false. Both the ACA and the tax changes just enacted increase taxes for incomes over $250K.

Maybe, if we are lucky, we will have seen the last of these debt limit debacles.

“I’m not convinced that he won’t do the same [save the GOP from itself] for the next four years.”

I’m with you, Margaret. If we took Jon’s post here at face value we could all breathe a sigh of relief, thinking there was no need for Obama to go along with cutting Social Security, etc. But in the first place it’s only a 3 month delay on the debt ceiling, and it may be that the R’s are just stalling for time while they try to get their act together in their current turmoil, where they might well succeed. In the second place, as Jane showed in a diary a while ago, Obama wants the chained CPI and the like. The jury is still out.

But it does appear Obama has lost at least some of his cover should he ” negotiate” entitlements down. But there are plenty,of bushes for hiding.

Your second “but” would appear to overrule the first.

Obama’s going to do what he wants to do. As has been repeatedly pointed out, he had both Houses and a public on his side in 2009 and what did he do?

Bailed out the crooks that smashed the world economy, put entitlements cuts on the table, and made the important parts of the Bush tax cuts permanent (dividends, capital gains, estate, carried interest) and did his best to resurrect and save the Republican party.

The irony is that for all the foaming at the mouth braying from the Republicans about how Obama is out to destroy them (a shelf inflicted wound), he’s been their savior and best enabler.

The important thing is that Bush-Cheney’s foreign policy and human rights abuses have been institutionalized. We are now a police state.

They used to say that when fascism came to America, it would come wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible. Nobody said anything about a guy from Chicago.

http://youtu.be/_4cElnK2O-8