Spintested: 08/13/10

Gibbs: Obama Still Wants To Feel Pressure From The Left

Friday, August 13, 2010

Yes, and that's a great documentary. What you are reminding me of by mentioning it is how history repeats itself, and how we never seem to learn from past mistakes. This in particular is what came to mind - http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00480

Perhaps we never seem to learn because so much of the truth has been obscured. Our government spins such webs of l!es that it's impossible for most Americans to believe the government would or could do that.

Most Americans have no idea who Sayyid Qutb was, and how along the way his influence could have been muted or stopped entirely. But behind ever FUBAR are those with an agenda (CIA), to use situations for their own advantage. Only later does it all blow up in innocents' faces.

Reagan's race to bankrupt the Soviet Union was just one such FUBAR. At least when the commies were in charge, we knew where the nukes were.

And when Saddam was in Iraq, he kept Iran occupied.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Gibbs: Obama Still Wants To Feel Pressure From The Left

'Tea Parties' are iconic in America. Throughout US history, some group or other has tried to piggyback its cause on the original revolt in Boston Harbor. The most current one emerged in 2009 through a series of locally and nationally coordinated protests, orchestrated by Fox and political operatives like Dick Armey, in response to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act and healthcare reform making its way through Congress.

The fact is that in spite of all of the coverage given the Tea Party by cable news networks, it's the fringe of the fringe within the Republican Party. Only 600 members nationwide. It serves all politicians (Rs and Ds) to make it more than what it is, and all politicians will use it to their own advantage.

The Republican leadership in Congress announced before Obama ever took the oath of office that they were going to block everything Obama and Democrats tried to do. Obama and Rahm Emanuel didn't go after them, and have NEVER attacked them, but instead they went after Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. If you believe differently, cite your source.

You may not like what I have to say, you may not believe it, you may not comprehend it, but it's well founded and sourced. Insults don't cut it, friend, and are the last refuge of those who can't argue or make their case on the facts.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Gibbs: Obama Still Wants To Feel Pressure From The Left

I don't think it was a mistake at all. I think it served two purposes for Obama and the DLC.

They believe that the left has two choices come this election: Sit it out or vote for Democrats. Either way can serve them.

I've been writing for years about the DLC's plan to turn the Democratic Party into the old Republican Party (moderate). Clinton, one of the co-founders of the DLC (along with Joe Lieberman) started it off in that direction, and Obama continues the tradition. One particular faction within the Republican Party that Clinton never dared to go after (the religious right) Obama has been going after.

The more that Obama insults the left, the more the media makes the Tea Party into something that it isn't (a serious movement of any kind, with staggering membership numbers), the more likely Republicans move toward the Democratic Party. And the more irrelevant we on the left make ourselves, by supporting Obama and the DLC.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Campaign For War With Iran Begins

And we are the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons against others.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Campaign For War With Iran Begins

Are you getting any direct answers to your questions about what the candidates would do if elected?

Do you think this election is a referendum on expanding the war into Iran?

Do you think Obama would spin it that way to justify a war with Iran? Would Obama (his surrogates, actually, as Obama likes to keep buffers between him and direct answers on the issues) justify US military expansion (or by Israel) into Iran, and say it was a campaign issue because of articles like this one, quoting "unnamed Obama administration officials"?
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Campaign For War With Iran Begins

If Democrats manage to retain the House and the Senate, do you think it means that voters like the job that Obama & the DLC-controlled Democratic Congress are doing, or that voters were afraid of Teabaggers setting the agenda?

Do you think a win for Democrats would push Obama to the left? Would it get Obama to end the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq (& not just pull out a few troops), or would it spur Obama to expand the wars, into Iran?

Do you think that if Democrats manage to retain control over Congress, that it would spur Obama on to take to the bully pulpit, pump money into job stimulus, get Reid to push those 200+ bills that the House has passed through to passage in the Senate through reconciliation, force Republicans to actually filibuster instead of just threatening to?

What, substantively, would you expect out of Obama & Democrats if Democrats were to retain control over Congress after November?

Specifically, what would that look like? Obama making speeches kicking Republicans' collective @sses? What about actions?

How do you think Obama would spin a win by Democrats? As a referendum that the voters like his "bipartisan approach to Republicans", and want him to do more of the same?

Or do you think he would acknowledge his own party's displeasure with him and Democrats, and the only reason they kept Congress in Democrats' hands is because they bought the 'fear' campaign of Tea Partyers controlling the government?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Petraeus Hedges On July 2011 Afghan Pullback, NYT Airs Skepticism Over War

If Democrats manage to retain the House and the Senate, do you think it means that voters like the job that Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Congress is doing, or that voters were afraid of Teabaggers setting the agenda?

Do you think a win for Democrats would push Obama to the left? Do you think a win for Democrats would get Obama to end the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq, and not just pull out a few troops?

Do you think that if Democrats manage to retain control over Congress, that it would spur Obama on to take to the bully pulpit, pump money into job stimulus, get Reid to push those 200+ bills that the House has passed through to passage in the Senate through reconciliation, force Republicans to actually filibuster instead of just threatening to?

What substantively would you expect out of Obama & Democrats if Democrats were to retain control over Congress after the coming elections?

What, specifically, would that look like? Do you expect him to make speeches kicking Republicans' collective @sses? What about actions?

How do you think Obama would spin a win by Democrats? As a referendum that the voters like his "bipartisan approach to Republicans", and want him to do more of the same?

Or do you think he would acknowledge his own party's displeasure with him and Democrats, and the only reason they kept Congress in Democrats' hands is because they bought the 'fear' campaign of Tea Partyers controlling the government?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

The week before & the week after the healthcare bill (or, more accurately, 'The Insurance & Pharmaceutical Industries Windfall Act') passed in the Senate was the one & only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.

A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconciliation anyway, & there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.

Obama nixxed it.

The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote & "There's no time!"

After the (allegedly) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it going back to the House anyway. It was all done in the de@d of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"

http://www.huf fingtonpost.com/2010/03/25/byrd-rule-sends-health-care-back-to-house_n_512609.html

There will never be a public option as long as Obama is in office. Or as long as the DLC controls the Democratic Party. Or another 25 years. At least.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Yet the White House insisted there was no deal with PhRma:

http://www.huf fingtonpost.com/2009/08/10/white-house-insists-it-di_n_255682.html

White House-PhRma Secret Memo Surfaces:

Since mid-July, the White House and the drug industry’s Washington lobby, PhRMA, have denied any specific agreement that would give the industry big benefits in exchange for its support for President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul effort.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/08/17/white-house-phrma-memo-surfaces-again/

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/08/ive_been_trying_to_peel_1.php

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Obama provided the different congressional committees working on healthcare bills with specifics that he wanted to see in the legislation ("doesn't add to the deficit", for example), but how Congress achieved it was up to Congress.

People began noticing that Obama was waffling on his pledges (public option, no mandates) at which point Obama threw his "transparency"-pledge under the bus, and went to work undercutting all of the congressional committees working on healthcare reform legislation except one: The Senate Finance Committee.

Through that committee's chairman, Max Baucus, Obama set the terms for the bill that would ultimately be adopted into law, by eliminating single payer universal health care from consideration and all advocates of public health care. No seat at the table.

And THEN, Obama cut secret deals with hospitals, insurance companies and PhRma on profits, and L!ED about it when it was discovered:

http://www.nbc11news.com/home/headlines/53311447.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31464689/ns/politics-white_house

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124567211118336815.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/health/jan-june09/pharma_06-22.html

http://www.huf fingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/internal-memo-confirms-bi_n_258285.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/health/policy/13health.html?_r=3&hp

http://www.alternet.org/story/141856/obama's_$80_billion_deal_with_pharma_is_a_very_bad_deal_for_us/

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

President Obama has tried to involve many people in the decision-making process. When this failed with health care, he submitted his own version that could realistically get passed.

============================================

This is the most impressive revisionist history I've seen on HP in quite a spell.

After running on a public option (yes, he did - http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/10/yes-obama-campaigned-on-a-public-option/), and negotiating for lower drug costs and reimportation, and transparency in the legislative process (""Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public, no more secrecy.....No more secrecy....." - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQbQTrm_pSA and, "Clintons did health care the wrong way, behind closed doors" -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvyharXBI0Q ), Obama stated that it's Congress's job to come up with a bill, he was staying out of it.

KEEP READING
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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Another example of Obama, not only continuing Bush's policies, but going him one better:

Obama administration defends its assassination program

In the wake of Leon Panetta's public defense of the targeting of American citizens suspected (but never charged or convicted) of terrorism, Obama officials are now apparently going around the country &, with chest-beating rhetoric, overtly defending their right to target Americans for assassination with no due process of any kind - http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=11055975

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/01/assassinations
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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Another example of Obama continuing Bush's policies:

Doctors Who Aid Torture (And Obama Who Helps Cover It Up)

The report from the physicians’ group does not prove its case beyond doubt — how could it when so much is still hidden? — but it rightly calls on the White House & Congress to investigate the potentially illegal human experimentation and whether those who authorized or conducted it should be punished. Those are just two of the many unresolved issues from the Bush administration that President Obama and Congressional leaders have swept under the carpet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/opinion/08tue1.html?ref=opinion
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Another example of Obama continuing Bush's policies:

Feingold sees similarities between Bush and Obama on intelligence sharing

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) voiced his suspicion that the Obama administration is stonewalling on intelligence.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) voiced his suspicion that the Obama administration is continuing some of the stonewalling practices of the George W. Bush administration when it comes to providing full intelligence briefings to the relevant committees in Congress.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/62959-feingold-sees-similarities-in-bush-and-obama-on-intel
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Another example of Obama continuing Bush's policies:

ACLU chief 'disgusted' with Obama

The top official at the American Civil Liberties Union seems to be losing patience with President Barack Obama & his administration.

Speaking at a conference of liberal activists Wednesday morning, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero didn't mince his words about the administration's handling of civil liberties issues.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0610/ACLU_chief_disgusted_with_Obama.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Another example of Obama continuing Bush's policies:

Obama Upholds Detainee Policy in Afghanistan

The Obama administration has told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/washington/22bagram.html?_r=1&fta=y
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Another example of Obama continuing Bush's policies:

In Warrantless Wiretapping Case, Obama DOJ's New Arguments Are Worse Than Bush's

Friday evening, in a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, EFF's litigation against the National Security Agency for the warrantless wiretapping of countless Americans, the Obama Administration made two deeply troubling arguments.

First, they argued, exactly as the Bush Administration did on countless occasions, that the state secrets privilege requires the court to dismiss the issue out of hand. They argue that simply allowing the case to continue "would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security." As in the past, this is a blatant ploy to dismiss the litigation without allowing the courts to consider the evidence.

It's an especially disappointing argument to hear from the Obama Administration. As a candidate, Senator Obama lamented that the Bush Administration "invoked a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court." He was right then, and we're dismayed that he and his team seem to have forgotten.

Sad as that is, it's the DoJ's second argument that is the most pernicious. The DOJ claims that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying — that the Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/obama-doj-worse-than-bush
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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

One example of Obama continuing Bush's policies:

Expert Consensus: Obama Mimics Bush On State Secrets

Is the Obama administration mimicking its predecessor on issues of secrecy and the war on terror?

During the presidential campaign, Obama criticized Bush for being too quick to invoke the state secrets claim. But last Friday, his Justice Department filed a motion in a warrantless wiretapping lawsuit, brought by the digital-rights group EFF. And the Obama-ites took a page out of the Bush DOJ's playbook by demanding that the suit, Jewel v. NSA, be dismissed entirely under the state secrets privilege, arguing that allowing it go forward would jeopardize national security.

Coming on the heels of the two other recent cases in which the new administration has asserted the state secrets privilege, the motion sparked outrage among civil libertarians and many progressive commentators.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/expert_consensus_obama_aping_bush_on_state_secrets.php?ref=fp1
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

The spokesman for the president, in a one-on-one interview with The Hill, sought to undermine anyone who noticed that Obama has continued most of Bush's policies (and even gone Bush one better) by suggesting to believe that means there's something wrong chemically with their minds.

That's war, IMHO, and as he threw down the gauntlet, let him defend the following:
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama&Democrats want what they want. The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty gives lip service to all populist issues (like civil rights protections, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, PublicHealthcare, Wall Street reform, environmental & energy issues, etc.).

If the Bush years taught us nothing else, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid & relentless in your sales pitch & tactics. It's not that Bush&R0ve were geniuses & knew something that nobody else knew; Bush&R0ve were just more ruthless (clumsy & careless many political graybeards would say) in doing what politicians & the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the nomination) & the oldest, most experienced politicians in our nation's history (including the Rove machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching Bush&Cheney off the table & have us still reelecting them, not marching on Washington with torches&pitchforks?

Obama&Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.

The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to deliver on any of our alleged shared objectives.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Gibbs attacked the "professional left" in anticipation of an NBC poll coming out (yesterday) showing a bad drop in his (& Democrats') numbers - http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/wsjnbcpoll-08122010.pdf

There is nothing that Gibbs said that wasn't authorized at the top.

The abzurdity of the charge at all is that when Gibbs tried to walk it back yesterday (in such a c0wardIy way, too, by having a deputy say that Gibbs wasn't talking about the rank and file liberals, but "cable news show hosts", ==coughMSNBC==), he hoped nobody would remember that the Obama administration has had MSNBC's on-air hosts on his side since the beginning. They spend most of their time attacking Republicans and teabaggers and the very few times that they do show how Obama has broken just about every pledge and promise, and continues most of Bush's policies, it's because their own ratings are sinking because the left sees them for the corporate w.h.o.r.e.s they've become. Every single one of them (from Keith to Ed) has fallen into lockstep when the White House says "Ok, back in the cages, little woogems!".

Obama even used Rachel Maddow a week ago to tout his 'accomplishments' for his pitch at the Net Roots convention - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so-Uuooz-Zo
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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Dennis Kucinich and Move-on.org and most others don't belong in that group, but IMHO Firedoglake and David Sirota do.

================================

That's not who Gibbs' meant by "professional left".

The interview with Youngman (http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/113431-white-house-unloads-on-professional-left), Gibbs takes a blunt view of the administration’s critics from the left:

==“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”==

In remarks later made to Huf fington Post’s Sam Stein (http://www.huf fingtonpost.com/2010/08/10/robert-gibbs-clarifies-pr_n_676934.html), Gibbs later qualified the remarks as “inartful” and Gibbs's Deputy Secretary Bill Burton clarified that Gibbs defined the “professional left,” as cable TV commentators [*cough*MSNBC*cough*].
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

And any politician in power who doesn't have campaign finance reform at the top of his or her list, over and above everything else, is a fraud and a t00I of the corporatocracy.

Obama tops the list.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Over the course of US history, corporations have managed to game our political system, and done it so effectively that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporations) is good for America (We the People)".

DLC Democrats who control the Democratic Party and Republicans are corporate t00Is. Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributions) of a parent, Republicans and DLC-controlled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituent, Big Corporations. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of We the People.

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama&Democrats were for strong regulations on banks, Wall Street, investigations, prosecutions, restitution of what has been robbed from the middle class and poor for the past 30+ years, environmental clean-up, clean, sustainable renewable energy (& that isn't nuclear), putting an end to the wars and occupation of Iraq & Afghanistan, affordable, quality universal healthcare (which ObamaCare is not), and more. The DLC-controlled Democratic party gives lip service to these & all populist issues, because like the Republican Party, the DLC works for the benefit of transnational corporations.

Unless & until there is drastic and uncompromising change to our campaign financing system, until corporations are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participating in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

During the 2008 campaign, Obama told people that they had to stay involved after the election, that they couldn't just vote for him, go away for four years and expect that he would do what they had hoped. He said that there were powerful interests working against what the people wanted, and if We The People wanted Obama to do our bidding, we would have to MAKE HIM DO IT.

Obama's most ardent supporters forget that those of us who criticize Obama are only doing what he warned us needed to be done. NOT to trust him.

Since the election (and even before, with his FISA vote), Obama has been deceptive, breaking every campaign pledge and promise, conceding the positions of the left (getting nothing in return), and hobbling real Democrats at every turn while making Republicans and Blue Dogs stronger (and harder to beat in 2010 and 2012).

Obamabots are the most immediate problem, as they help him screw them (& us) over. Until Obamabots wake up to these facts, they are their own (& our) worst e n e m ies, and the reason we don't get what we all thought we were voting for when we voted Obama and Democrats into office as the majority power in our government.
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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

If a group advocates absolute NO compromise on anything, or that President Obama must tow the liberal line and disregard the rest of the population, then they are causing more problems than they're solving.

====================================

For the past 40 years, it's been liberals who have done all of the compromising.

That's how we got into this mess, by being told "Liberals can't win elections, so they had better step aside and let DLC Democrats take over the party and work with Republicans."

DLC Democrats then went and caved to Republican presidents and Republican controlled Congresses, deregulating, privatizing, voting for Bush's tax cuts, the wars, etc.

Obama won on a campaign of CHANGE YOU CAN COUNT ON!

And since he got into the White House, he's continued just about all of Bush's policies (and even done Bush one better).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Who are the "professional left"? This group of philosophers reject any compromise as being corrupt. They advocate "pure" politics that turn voters into policy makers. This sounds inflexible, chaotic, and unmanageable to me. Gibbs called out this group because of their lack of understanding of how Washington works.

==========================================

The interview with Youngman (http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/113431-white-house-unloads-on-professional-left), Gibbs takes a blunt view of the administration’s critics from the left:

==“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”==

In remarks later made to Huf fington Post’s Sam Stein (http://www.huf fingtonpost.com/2010/08/10/robert-gibbs-clarifies-pr_n_676934.html), Gibbs later qualified the remarks as “inartful” and Gibbs's Deputy Secretary Bill Burton clarified that Gibbs defined the “professional left,” as cable TV commentators [*cough*MSNBC*cough*].
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Republican Party Only Winning Key 2010 Poll In Southern States

HarryReid could've actually forced Republicans & turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn't (& doesn't).

Did you know that Republicans haven't been filibustering anything, only threatening to filibuster? Did you know that Senate rule 22 give the Senate Majority Leader (Harry Reid) the discretion to force Republicans to actually filibuster and not just threaten to do it? Filibustering is very hard on those soft, pampered bodies. Reid forced it once -- Jim Bunning & extending unemployment -- & Bunning caved.

Democrats can even change the supermajority rule (it does NOT have to be done at the beginning of a new Congress, as has been argued). It can be done at any time. See page 6 - http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/45448.pdf

There's not just one way (or even two) for Democrats to get bills passed without Republican votes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/27/ezra-klein-how-to-end-the_n_661234.html

http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*P%2C%3B%3F%22%20%20%20%0A

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/hertzberg-on-the-constitutionality-of-the-filibuster/
About GOP
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Republican Party Only Winning Key 2010 Poll In Southern States

What does that mean, substantively?

What, specifically, would that look like? Do you expect him to make speeches kicking Republicans' collective @sses? What about action?

Do you know that he and the Democratically-controlled Congress don't need Republicans in order to pass anything? Never have. Even without 60 Democrats in the Senate.

Obama insisted Lieberman remain in the Democratic Caucus. In spite of multiple betrayals by Lieberman before and during the 2008 election (Lieberman endorsed McCain, campaigned FOR McCain).

Over REAL Democratic senators, Obama insisted Lieberman keep the chairmanship of the Governmental Affairs & Homeland Security Committee. That's the committee that whitewashed the Bush administration's failure during Hurricane Katrina. Obama rubberstamped that committee's not investigating Bush once Democrats took over control of government after the 2008 election.

Does anyone really believe that Obama got nothing for that concession? No agreement that Lieberman would vote as Obama told him to vote?

Obama never pressured JoeLieberman, Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln, or any Blue Dog). That's by their own admission. The Democratic leadership could've taken away committee chairs of members in their caucus that joined with Republicans and threatened to filibustered a public option for healthcare.

The DNC could've taken away reelection funds. They haven't.
About GOP
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Republican Party Only Winning Key 2010 Poll In Southern States

If Democrats manage to retain the House and the Senate, do you think it means that voters like the job that Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Congress is doing, or that voters were afraid of Teabaggers setting the agenda?

Do you think a win for Democrats would push Obama to the left? Do you think it would spur him on to take to the bully pulpit, pump money into job stimulus, get Reid to push those 200+ bills that the House has passed through to passage in the Senate through reconciliation, force Republicans to actually filibuster instead of just threatening to?

How do you think Obama would spin a win by Democrats?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Yet the White House insisted there was no deal with PhRma:

http://www.huf fingtonpost.com/2009/08/10/white-house-insists-it-di_n_255682.html

White House-PhRma Secret Memo Surfaces:

Since mid-July, the White House and the drug industry’s Washington lobby, PhRMA, have denied any specific agreement that would give the industry big benefits in exchange for its support for President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul effort.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/08/17/white-house-phrma-memo-surfaces-again/

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/08/ive_been_trying_to_peel_1.php

Obama is NOT an honest agent.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Obama provided the different congressional committees working on healthcare bills with specifics that he wanted to see in the legislation ("doesn't add to the deficit", for example), but how Congress achieved it was up to Congress. The People noticed that Obama was waffling on his pledges (public option, no mandates) at which point Obama threw his "transparency"-pledge under the bus, and went to work undercutting all of the congressional committees working on healthcare reform legislation except one: The Senate Finance Committee.

Through that committee's chairman, Max Baucus, Obama set the terms for the bill that would ultimately be adopted into law, by eliminating single payer universal health care from consideration and all advocates of public health care. No seat at the table.

And THEN, Obama cut secret deals with hospitals, insurance companies and PhRma on profits, and L!ED about it when it was discovered:

http://www.nbc11news.com/home/headlines/53311447.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31464689/ns/politics-white_house

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124567211118336815.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/health/jan-june09/pharma_06-22.html

http://www.huf fingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/internal-memo-confirms-bi_n_258285.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/health/policy/13health.html?_r=3&hp

http://www.alternet.org/story/141856/obama's_$80_billion_deal_with_pharma_is_a_very_bad_deal_for_us/

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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

After running on a public option (yes, he did - http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/10/yes-obama-campaigned-on-a-public-option/), and negotiating for lower drug costs and reimportation, and transparency in the legislative process (""Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public, no more secrecy.....No more secrecy....." - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQbQTrm_pSA and, "Clintons did health care the wrong way, behind closed doors" -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvyharXBI0Q ), Obama stated that it's Congress's job to come up with a bill, he was staying out of it.

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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

==The WhiteHouse finally made official what we've known for a long time: PresidentObama is against the PublicOption. How do we know this? Because Obama, for the first time ever, released his own official healthcare reform proposal — and it doesn't contain a PublicOption.

You can’t claim to support an idea if you're unwilling to make it part of your own proposal. Since the package is designed to pass using reconciliation, the fact that JoeLieberman, BlancheLincoln, & BenNelson are against the PublicOption is irrelevant. The PublicOption already passed the House, & SenatorTomHarkin said a PublicOption had the support of a majority of senators, so there's no reason it cannot be passed through budget reconciliation.

JoeLieberman may have played the part of the antiPublicOption boogeyman before, but now Obama's stepping up to prevent the PO from coming to fruition.

Just to be clear, you can’t “support” something if you make no effort to see that it passes. If you do things that directly harm its chances of becoming law, like not include it in your healthcare proposal, then you're against it. But don’t worry, even as Obama takes steps to make sure that people don’t have an alternative to the private insurance companies that helped ruin our healthcare system, he did take steps to make sure you face an even bigger IRS penalty if you refuse to buy the poorly regulated product from the private insurance companies.==

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/02/22/its-official-obama-is-against-the-public-option/
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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

And then on 2/23/10 - 'The President's Plan': No Public Option

==For more than a year, President Obama remained on the sidelines of the health care debate -- chiming in now and again with sometimes-inspired, sometimes-disappointing rhetoric about broad values while members of Congress did the heavy lifting.

Now, the president has finally weighed it with "a plan."

But it is not enough.

The White House is making a big deal about what's being labeled "The President's Proposal," which the administration announced with much fanfare Monday.

According to the White House, the Obama plan does a lot:

[...]

But the real news is what it does not do.

Despite urging from House leaders and a growing number of senators, "The President's Plan" does not include a public option.

Nor does it bow in any meaningful way to progressive proposals to expand access to Medicare and Medicaid.

In other words, the president has opted for the Senate's exceptionally compromised approach, rather than the bolder bill produced by the House. This is not exactly shocking. The president abandoned serious discussion of the public option several months ago. But the failure to even reference moves to develop a federally-funded alternative to private insurance represents a clear embrace of the Senate stance.==

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/23/opinion/main6234680.shtml

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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

3rd link - does at least address the issue at hand, saw nothing in it to indicate it was Obama who killed the public option.

================================

The links give the backstory to the fact that we could have had a public option.

But you think Obama was pushing for a public option?

Did you sleep through the spring, summer, fall, and winter? You obviously missed how Obama progressively equivocated on a public option, going from, "I will not sign any legislation that doesn't include a public option" to "President Barack Obama said Monday that Congress should approve a final healthcare bill even if it doesn’t include a public option" (12/21/09 -

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/73275-obama-public-option-not-the-most-important-part-of-healthcare-bill )

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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Representative Loretta Sanchez, Democrat of California, expressed her continuing support for the public option in a column in The Hill newspaper, defending her vote in favor of the bill. “Over the last few weeks, it has become clear that this bill is far from perfect,” she wrote this week. “It does not provide a public option, which I believe is critical to achieving genuine reform.”

Some advocates of the public option have been working to get a sense of the vote count in the House before renewing their demands. One potential strategy is to persuade a Democratic senator to put forward a public option amendment, but to force a vote on it only if Republicans succeed in making other changes to the reconciliation bill. If there were no other changes, the amendment would be withdrawn.==
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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Meanwhile, David Sirota, a liberal columnist, commentator and radio show host in Colorado, is pushing for action on the public option and is pressuring Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, who is facing a tough primary campaign ahead of a potentially even tougher re-election bid. “While the fact that no single Democratic senator has stepped up to promise to offer this amendment is a sad commentary on the state of politics right now, this is a rare chance to use the pressure of a Democratic primary to force this absolutely critical issue,” Mr. Sirota wrote in an e-mail message Monday to supporters of the public option.

The White House seems to be opposed to making any big changes to the bill, even though Mr. Obama has always expressed support for the public option. Aides to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said he was working as hard as possible to complete the legislation without any further changes.

Even if 51 Senate Democrats agree to add the public option to the bill, the situation in the House is unsettled. The coalition that approved the legislation on Sunday now includes some fiscally conservative Democrats who opposed the legislation in the fall. And it is unclear, even to liberal supporters of the public option, that they could win the votes.

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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

Senate Democrats have been worried that Republicans would offer a public option amendment, and that some of them might even vote in favor of it, in order to force Democrats into a choice of approving the public plan and dragging out the legislative process or voting against the public plan and potentially angering the Democratic party’s liberal base.

On the other hand, Senate Republicans believe that the public plan is a big step toward a total government takeover of the health care system. And they are worried that Democrats, having already won enactment of the bulk of the health care legislation, might actually muster the votes to approve the public option.

Some liberal groups are circulating petitions and pressuring Democratic lawmakers to give the public option one last chance. Now that the health care bill is law, they say, why not take the final stop and create a public plan to compete with private insurers?

“Congress passed its health insurance reform bill last night. It’s an admirable first step, but the task of providing affordable health care to every American is still before us,” wrote the liberal blogger Jan Hamsher of Firedoglake.com in a message to public option supporters. “This week, the Senate will pass a series of fixes to the bill. This is the moment for a leader in the Senate to make the first step towards actual health care reform: putting the public option up for a vote.”

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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

2nd link - I read it. I found nothing in to prove your statement the earlier poster was wrong.

================================

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/the-public-option-resurfaces/#more-23821

==So far, Senate Democrats have not offered any amendments to the reconciliation bill, which includes the final revisions to the health care legislation. Their goal is to prevent any changes whatsoever so that they can approve the bill on a simple majority vote, send it to Mr. Obama for his signature and seal their victory.

Republicans are hoping that they can win approval of an amendment that some Democrats might find irresistible, or at least punch holes in the bill on procedural grounds. Any such change would require that the bill be sent back to the House for another vote, and that could create all sorts of headaches for Democrats.

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Kucinich Hits Back At Gibbs: You've Read Liberals Wrong

You're absolutely, unequivocally wrong.

But don't take my word for it, READ THE LINK:

http://www.huf fingtonpost.com/2010/03/25/byrd-rule-sends-health-care-back-to-house_n_512609.html

Or this one:

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/public-option/

Or this one:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2010/3/25/61536/9269

Or this one:

http://www.openleft.com/diary/17973/earth-to-sen-bennet-you-have-absolutely-no-reason-to-not-offer-the-public-option-amendment

Or these:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/12/dick-durbins-spokesman-lies-about-reconciliation-continuing-effort-to-kill-public-option/

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/11/durbin-and-reid-whipping-against-public-option/

http://rawstory.com/2010/03/pelosi-public-option-dead/

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/durbins-office-if-house-passes-public-option-well-whip-for-it-in-senate/

Or dozens of others that can explain to you that Obama put the kibosh on it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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