Spintested: 11/21/10

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Sunday, November 21, 2010

It's simply a fact that this was the most transparent administration ever.

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

Read it and weep, dearie:

More documents were classified and fewer were declassified in FY 2009 than in FY 2008.

Obama's administration is less transparent than Bush's.

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=22720

And this is what Obama did, when the judicial branch of the United States ordered Obama to release the photos (as Obama had pledged to do as a candidate in 2008):

He used Joe Lieberman to slip into legislation expanded powers for the Secretary of Defense to circumvent the Freedom Of Information Act and bury forever the photographic evidence of the t0rture & abuse of uncharged, unconvicted, detainees in US custody.

http://www.truthout.org/1022095

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/143322/outrage:house_sneakily_passes_bill_banning_release_of_photos_showing_detainee_abuse/

http://www.truth-out.org/topstories/111409jl01

So, which is it?

#1 - You're a political operative paid to spread disinformation?

Or,

#2 - You're one of those young women with a hopeless, desperate crush on Obama, your identity so intertwined with needing to believe he's the real thing that if you entertain the possibility that you might have been wrong, your entire ego disintegrates?

If it's the latter, cheer up. There are prisons across the country with available men looking for women like you to believe in them.

If it's the former, pack light for your eternity in h3ll.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only (and last) 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, and 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 and "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's return 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?"

Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public health care, he'll do everything within his power to prevent it as long as he's in the White House. Because that was the deal that he made.

So there's plenty of evidence to ~~support the idea~~ prove that Obama never intended to pass real healthcare reform, only pass a massive corporate giveaway program that doesn't deliver on what he and Democrats were put into power to do (get affordable quality medical care for all), but that he spins healthcare reform.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Apparently I can't open the link to the campaign ad... .

He certainly campaigned on the idea of universal health care. But he EXPLICITLY rejected the idea of single payer. I can't post links for the moment, but just go to YouTube, "Obama single payer Meredith Viera 24 January 2008" ,where he clearly explains his position.

And to campaign on the idea of universal health care means that he will do everything to WORK WITH CONGRESS (as Congress, not the WH, writes and passes bills) to move us as close as possible to that idea. In the meanwhile, after having waited for more than half a century, Obama is indeed the first president to extend HC to more than 30 million of the 50 million that are uninsured today. So that's a VERY big and historic step into the direction of universal HC, as he promised.

The only promise Obama did break when it comes to HC is the individual mandate. But if you take a closer watch at what he said, he said he was against a mandate IF at the same time people clearly don't have the means to pay for it. What his HCR is doing, however, is giving those who can't afford it subsidies.

Finally, once it became clear that it would be difficult to get the votes for a PO in the Senate, Obama indeed remembered that it would be stupid to focus on a PO only, because even without a PO, the HC bill was already achieving a lot of important and historic things.

Fortunately, we don't have to rely on your Iying eyes & ears. We don't have to listen to your spin about what Obama did and didn't say, or what you say that he campaigned on -- WE HAVE THE FILM & TAPES TO JUDGE FOR OURSELVES!

And it all works just fine.

You're a real piece of work, toots.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Obama and the DLC have worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressional committees behind Blue Dogs, Republicans and Independents over progressives/liberals and real Democrats:

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressive Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Republican-turned-Independent Arlen Specter over progressive Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican-turned-Independent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, is an effective endorsement of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressional seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy is retiring from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in US history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constitutionally-guaranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic). But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.

They've all got to go, along with mushy middle-of-the-road thinking like yours. You need to get better informed, and cultivating some real Democratic convictions wouldn't hurt either. Because whether it's taking single payer universal health care, a public option, investigations and prosecutions of Bush-Cheney, etc., off the table, or continuing the Bush-Cheney policies and going Bush-Cheney one better (by asserting that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'preventive detention', the right to imprison anyone indefinitely because he thinks they might commit a crime), or using Joe Lieberman to hide behind, to duck out on his campaign pledge of transparency, and gut the FOIA, no real Democrat could continue to support Obama or any politicians purporting to be Democrats doing this.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

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

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and R0ve were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush & R0ve were just more ruthless in doing what politicians and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the Democratic Party's nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the R0ve 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 and Cheney off the table, have us still reelecting them and not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

Obama and 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 achieve our alleged shared objectives.

Getting Democratic voters (and Obama's 'most ardent supporters') to understand that Democratic politicians have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Check this thread here and be sure to follow the links for the complete story:

Outgoing Democratic congressman Paul Kanjorski is one of several witnesses (4 or 5 other congressmen who Kanjorski hasn't specificallly identified, but has stated were present with him at a meeting in the White House) who can directly place George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice at the scene of the conspiracy to deceive Congress into backing the attack on Iraq with evidence falsified by the CIA.

It's through Kanjorski's account that we learn the Bush-Cheney administration's scheme, which included the CIA's fabricating photographs for the explicit purpose of deceiving Congress into authorizating the use of military force in Iraq.

You'll also learn in the thread just how Cheney's expertise, his knowledge of Congress and the subcommittee process from his firsthand experience as a member of Congress, was the vehicle for hiding the t0rture from Nancy Pelosi and Congress, and most interesting is how John Murtha was utilized.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

There's plenty to rail against Democrats for and call into question their real political bent and intentions, beginning with those who refused to read the NIE that was made available to them in a locked and guarded room in Congress. Hillary Clinton, even after being advised by Bob Graham to go to the room and read it before she voted, didn't. She also claims that she didn't talk her vote to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq over with her husband, who as a former president got the same daily intelligence briefing that Bush got, and knew that it was trumped up twattle.

But here's the real smoking gvn, about the true nature of Democrats, and their not being any different than Republicans:

Obama & Democrats ran on putting the wars on the budget, with no more supplemental emergency spending bills to pay for these wars. Funding the wars through supplementals was how Bush & Cheney managed to avoid congressional oversight & public scrutiny.

After close to two years of controlling both Houses of Congress & the WhiteHouse, Democrats are continuing the funding of the wars through supplementals.

What's significant about this?:

When the funding of wars goes 'on budget', congressional committees & subcommittees then hold hearings & investigations into US policies, about US interests around the world, from which the UnitedState's overall foreign & military policies are derived. That's how civilian-control over the US military takes place: Through the citizens' chosen representatives choosing weapons systems & overseeing US military operations & installations, plans & policies, etc.

This doesn't happen with supplemental spending bills.

The nature of them is, "It's an emergency, we're running out of money, give us $80 billion now (that's the magic sum, invariably $80 billion) or you won't be 'supporting the troops'...We'll talk about it later".

"Later" doesn't happen.

The $80 billion ploy is so the American people think they're always talking about the same $80 billion.

I know, I know, "How is that possible that the average American wouldn't realize it's not the same $80 billion when it's year in& year out?" The average American is just barely keeping it all together as it is & fighting for his life(style).

Committees in both Houses of Congress have either never begun investigations into fraud and abuse, or dropped investigations (both on what happened during the Bush administration and afterwards), yet Congress is doing no oversight, & thieving criminal private contractors are still being awarded government contracts.

But that's not even the half of it.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people.

During the Bush years, Democrats said if the People wanted change, they had to put Democrats in the majority in Congress. So in 2006, we did.

Nothing changed.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting Bush-Cheney and beating Republicans back, among which were investigations, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administration to testify under oath, and impeachment.

They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".

In 2008, we did. We gave them 60 for the Democratic Caucus. And we gave them the White House.

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old r@c!st America, than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US. They did it because of his ability to persuade that he was going to change the system, end the corporatocracy, lobbyism in government -- He was going to be the People's president, not a corporate t00I.

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election & a filibuster-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy & Byrd, at d.e.a.t.h's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises & sloooooowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything, in lockstep.

His political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation. If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a de@d giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

I'll cut to the chase:

Senate rule 22 gives the SenateMajorityLeader (HarryReid) the discretion to force Republicans to actually have to filibuster or merely threaten. Reid lets them merely threaten.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

The House passed a healthcare bill, a real women-h8ting boondoggle with the Stupak amendment, and it was then that Obama really showed his true colors and skills as a treacherist: How to reconcile the House bill with what was going to be the Senate's healthcare bill (what came out of the Senate Finance Committee).

Finesse-ing ability doesn't begin to cover what was going to be necessary, to get one bill from the House version that threw women under the bus (the Stupak amendment) and the Senate version (no public option, no cost controls -- Just a great big corporate giveaway bill that throws all of the American people under the bus), and spin it as Democrats delivering on their promise to get affordable quality medical treatment for everyone when it doesn't do any of that.

Obama took care of the Stupak amendment first (with an executive order and the White House spin machine making assurances that weren't accurate ).

Then, the White House went after the Progressive Caucus, and got all but two of the 79 (out of 82) members that had pledged not to vote for legislation that didn't contain a public option to back down. The last two (Dennis Kucinich and Eric Massa) folded after some unique pressure was brought to bear on them.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Back to business, and how Obama went to work making sure that there would be no public healthcare options to control Big Insurance's profit-making:

Through the Senate Finance 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.huffingtonpost.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

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Speaking of transparency, Obama in his own words:

"Transparency Will Be Touchstone"

"On transparency", "About inviting the people back into their government again", and "Part of the job of the next American president is making Americans believe that our government is working for them, because right now they don't feel like it's working for them. They feel like it's working for special interests and it's working for corporations"

"We need a president who sees the government not as a tool to enrich well connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as a defender of fairness and opportunity for every single American. That's what this country's been about and that's the kind of president I intend to be"

"Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public, no more secrecy.....No more secrecy....."

"Clintons did health care the wrong way, behind closed doors":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU0m6Rxm9vU

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

"The American people are the answer"

Obama's Transparency Problem

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

"There's no evidence at all to support the idea that Obama took the PO off the table before the debate even began."

=============================================
Obama didn't take "the public option off the table before the debate even began" -- Before the debate even began, Obama made sure that there would be no public option, no single payer universal health care, no means for Americans to choose a public healthcare system, no means for containing costs through public healthcare programs.
In hindsight, it's easy for all to see, but it was seen by many engaged in the process.
Not only did Obama campaign on "a public option", he campaigned on single payer, universal health care.

Here's a campaign ad featuring Obama himself.

See the part where he says he has a plan to "cover everyone'? That's 'universal coverage'. There's even a graphic in the ad that says "The Obama Plan - UNIVERSAL coverage for all Americans".
Obama ran against mandates, and criticized Hillary for them in her campaign promises. Here is Candidate Obama on mandates.

Here again -- Obama campaigned on public option. 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, so said Obama.

People began to notice that Obama was waffling on his pledges (a public option, no mandates) just about the time that Obama began walking back from the public debate on healthcare, saying "it was Congress's job to write the legislation" and "a public option wasn't the only means of controlling costs". Then Obama disappeared from the debate, 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.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Lynn Woolsey, head of the Progressive Caucus, likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the war in Iraq. She, and congressional Democrats, and Obama, ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplemental emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see why that is significant here).

Democrats have had the ability to accomplish putting the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and haven't done it. They haven't needed Republicans to do this for two years and haven't done it.

As the head of the Progressive Caucus, Lynn Woolsey led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislation that didn't include a public option.

Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.

Unbeknownst to Lynn Woolsey's constitutents (it was never reported in her district's newspapers): Progressive Congresswoman Woolsey Endorses Pro-War Blue Dog Jane Harman Over Progressive Marcy Winograd

Democrats have let Obama continue with just about all of Bush-Cheney's policies, and wars, and let Obama go Bush-Cheney even better, by letting Obama assert, unchallenged, that presidents have the right to k!ll Americans with no due process or oversight, push for 'preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret.

Democrats have abdicated their Constitutionally-required role of oversight of the executive branch; they failed to perform it during the Bush-Cheney administration, and still don't with one of their own in the White House.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

"The Speaker of the House opted to work with the President and passed hundreds of domestic improvement bills which the Senate has ignored ."

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

What's the big accomplishment of getting 420 pieces of legislation passed in one chamber of Congress but not the other? It only becomes law when both chambers pass it.

Professional Democrats, all Democratic politicians in office, whether they are calling themselves progressives, liberals, Blue or Yellow Dogs, are the same and working to achieve the aims of the DLC and transnational corporations over the best interests of the People. If they are a professional political and member of the Democratic Party, and in Washington, they have bought into and are supporting the culture of transnational corporations as their real constituents.

Their only problem with this is that corporations don't vote, and politicians need votes to get into office. So they, Democratic politicians, try to convince the People they're working on our behalf with weasel-words, rhetoric designed to lead voters into thinking one thing when the opposite is true. Obama can say, "I got health insurance for the People", but having health insurance isn't what Americans wanted and isn't what Democratic voters put Obama and Democrats into power to get for them. Having health insurance isn't the same thing as everyone being able to get affordable, quality medical treatment.

Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the White House, the president controls and dictates all of it. They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corporate legislation) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituents come election time.

Those in liberal districts get to talk a good game about being champions of the People, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and k!ll liberal legislation (like a public option or access to ab0rtion), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

Here's an example of how they tag team us:

KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Both parties have to go.

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)".

Democrats (controlled by the DLC, and that's important to remember) 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, transnational corporations. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of WeThePeople.

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and 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 (and that isn't nuclear), putting an end to the wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, affordable, quality universal healthcare (which Obama's healthcare legislation is not), and more.

The DLC-controlled Democratic Party gives lip service to these and all populist issues, because like the Republican Party, the DLC works for the benefit of transnational corporations.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

The American taxpayer has been subsidizing pharmaceutical companies for decades with the promise that the R&D we were paying for would result in lower prices and breakthrough cures. Instead, we've been stuck with higher prices (twice as much as other industrialized countries) while the pharmaceutical companies try to snag new markets overseas with what were to be our discounts.

Not only did Obama break his campaign pledge (of the government, PhRma biggest customer, negotiating for lower priced drugs, and reimporting pharmaceuticals), he gave PhRma a huge gift. The deal that Obama made with PhRma wasn't for PhRma to go up against Big Insurance; it was for PhRma to help sell a plan that makes more profits for Big Insurance.

PhRma paid chump change ($80 billion over 10 years, plus $150 million for ads to support a plan that had NO public option) so that they could keep massive profits and k!II public healthcare. Obama (who had dropped the public option and the universal requirement) let the pharmaceutical industry continue to make obscene profits, and gave the insurance industry a clear field and new customers, all paid for with taxpayers' money.

Oh, and by the way, $80 billion over 10 years is less than 1% of the profits PhRma makes a year.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

missjulz 59 minutes ago (2:05 PM)

"We don't have short term memory loss. We recall the results of meetings with the pharmaceutical industry et al during HCR."

williamg 1 minute ago (2:15 PM)

Yes, and what were the results:

--Donut Hole voluntarily filled in Medicare Part D
--PHarma stays neutral on legislation (Hillary Clinton said PHarma's money was a big reason her plan was defeated in the early 90s).
--Dr.ug reimportation would have to be addressed in seperate legislation.

Why is that so terrible -- especially since dru.g reimportation would lead to the dr.ug companies just raising rates in Canada, allowing Americans little savings?
=====================================================

The 'donut-hole' that never should have existed in the first place? The 'donut-hole' that the DLC-controlled Democrats created as a "compromise" for Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (another massive corporate giveaway package)?

The whole of Medicare Part D was a scam and a scheme by both pro-corporate parties, a "first step" (as Obama's 'most ardent supporters' like to say) towards privatizing public healthcare.

In 2003, PhRMA lobbied hard and got Congress to insert language into the bill that created a Medicare drug benefit that prohibits Medicare from using its market clout to negotiate with manufacturers for lower drug prices and making sure the drug benefit was only available through private insurance plans.

The result was that Medicare members can only get drug coverage by joining a private insurance plan. People who have both Medicare and Medicaid (dual-eligibles) were switched from Medicaid prescription drug coverage to a private Medicare drug plan. Prescription drugs for this population cost 30% more under the new private Medicare drug plans than they did under Medicaid, increasing pharmaceutical companies' profits by at least $3.7 billion dollars in just the first two years of the program. For example, Bristol Myers earned a windfall of almost $400 million, thanks to higher prices for the stroke medication Plavix.

KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

"I can't imagine a man like Ronald Reagan squandering his political capital on something as ambitious and public-minded as health care reform."

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

Neither did Obama. It's not healthcare reform. Forcing taxpayers to pay for millions of insurance policies, which will insure a few million more Americans (not all, mind you), isn't getting affordable quality medical treatment for everyone. Insurance = medical care. And what Obama did doesn't even begin to address the problems Americans had and the reason they put Obama and Democrats into power to get for them. There are no cost controls and no universality.

We didn't get healthcare reform; what Obama did was get a corporate welfare program disguised as healthcare reform past the People and into the law of the land.

I think Lawrence O'Donnell & Company explain it very well, but I can get others if these aren't to your liking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96U-7lILbXc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaKV2gGjEpk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=230taWZe3d4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tez2u5UFCqA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp6PP7R_9ls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd6GTgUlNWs

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

Did Obama, who ran a pitch-perfect campaign to victory in 2008, use his oratorical skill to shape the healthcare debate?

Did he use his unique ability to communicate, an ability that got more voters than ever before in the history of the nation to vote for him (a black man, in good old rac!st America, because they believed he could end corporations' grip on government & return the government to the People), to intervene & interrupt these kinds of disruptive tactics, and bring reason and order and humanity to the decision-making process?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ik4f1dRbP8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwiKGjM5tHU

He didn't because what teabaggers were doing at Town Halls was what he & the DLC-controlled Democratic Party wanted to have happen. To get the pro-insurance & pharmaceutical industries kind of healthcare legislation that was passed, and not the real healthcare reform that he & Democrats were put into power to achieve.

Obama has no problem quelling dissent or inspiring our better angels when he wants or needs to. And the only people Obama has ever battled are progressive and liberal Democrats.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

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

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and R0ve were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush & R0ve were just more ruthless in doing what politicians and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the Democratic Party's nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the R0ve 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 and Cheney off the table, have us still reelecting them and not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

Obama and 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 achieve our alleged shared objectives.

Getting Democratic voters (and Obama's 'most ardent supporters') to understand that Democratic politicians have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Oh I get it:

The Clintons would have done a better job of duping us on the left into believing that they and the DLC-controlled Democrats in Congress were really really outmaneuvered by the Republicans with the smallest minority than ever in Congress.

Kind of like the N@z! tactic of having J3ws in Dachau march to the 'showers' past prisoner bands playing soothing music.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

I have watched the DLC take the DemocraticParty farther to the right each election cycle, promising change & reform, blaming the lack of it on voters for not electing enough Democrats liberals progressives, all the while the party leaders are bankrolling pro-corporate DINOs over true liberals & cooperating with Republicans in Congress.

Never are the party leaders using the bully pulpit of their offices to educate or inform the American people as to the great traditions of liberal Democracy & how the People have prospered under liberal Democrats.

Obama continues just about all of the Bush-Cheney policies. He's blocked all investigations & prosecutions into Bush-Cheney, on everything from their war crimes and the economic meltdown. He continues the failed wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, expanding them into Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and before you know it, Iran. Obama appeals the DADT ruling when not appealing it would just end it. Obama appealed the DOMA ruling with an argument that gay marriage is equivalent to incest and pedophilia. Obama chose to give massive payoffs to Big Insurance & PhRma (and a rider ending women's access to ab0rtion) instead of opting for real healthcare reform. Then there's Obama's finance reform legislation that neither reforms nor fixes nor prevents economic meltdowns.

How does any Democratic voter defend Obama after he asserts he has the right to k!ll any American citizen with no due process or oversight? And 'preventive detention'? And his claims of 'state secrets' to deny courts even look at his a$a$ination program?

Krugman didn't go far enough, and your complacency, your denial, is what enables it, and will be the de@th of us all.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Krugman hasn't gone far enough, limiting his comments, that Obama has "largely accepted the conservative view of the world", to just Obama and not the DLC-controlled Democratic Party as a whole.

Democrats are in the same business as Republicans: To serve their Corporate Masters and chase after those great big corporate bucks for themselves and their campaign war chests.

I suggest that you consider Democrats and Republicans as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. One side (Republicans) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric.

Once in power, Democrats consolidate Republicans' gains from previous years, and continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertising campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what We, the People thought they were.

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigans and all the different ways they've been tricked, and start seeing Democrats as no different than Republicans, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tailored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisan cooperation' demeanor. It's smirk-worthy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude, that's somehow "a good thing".
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Is your belief that Krugman is a m0ron due to his not having drunk the Kool-Aid with you about Obama?
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Hillary ran to the right of Obama. Hillary and Bill Clinton co-founded the DLC. Do you know what the DLC is?

Democratic voters, for the most part, still haven't finished their love affair with Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush's "best friend" and partner in advancing the move to a "new world order".

Most Democratic voters think the Clintons are liberals. Most Democrats don't know that the Clintons co-founded the DLC; most Democratic voters have no idea what the DLC is.

Just like the real debate & assessment of Reagan that's never happened, we've never assessed Clinton's true legacy. Eliminating the social welfare safety nets, Glass-Steagle, the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, rendition, privatization, the sanctions & daily bombing of Iraq (& so much more) laid the foundation for what BushCheney did to decimate the country. As AlanGreenspan said, "Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we've had in a while."

The Clintons benefitted greatly from the repeal of Glass-Steagall (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), which Bill Clinton signed into law at the end of his administration, and what's behind the economic meltdown. He made $100 million in the last ten years, and much more than that (unknown, secret, which is the nature of hedge funds) from his dealings with Yucaipa and Ron Burkle.

In the weeks before the midterms elections, when Bill Clinton was campaigning for candidates in states where Obama's popularity is in the tank, not one reporter asked Clinton any question of substance (including his signing Gramm-Leach-Bliley, which repealed Glass-Steagall, and would he do all over again if he had the chance -- He would, by the way).

This is another reason for why there have to be investigations and prosecutions into the collapse of our economy and the 'preemptive wars' policies -- Obama has to stop blocking these processes, because we can't go forward without looking back. We cannot make wise decisions, not about policies and not about the politicians we need to make these policies and lead us without knowing what the h3ll happened.

Once Americans learn the role of both parties, and who these politicians really are and who they're aligned with, they will understand that both political parties are corrupt to the core and that the solution for our political and financial woes can only come from OUTSIDE of these parties.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

What's it going to take to get through to you, Beatriz09?

There is "no progress this president made". No progress on behalf of the People. No progress on any of the issues that Democratic voters put Obama into power to get for them. It's been a continuation of the Bush-Cheney policies, with Obama going them one better on corporate giveaways of the People's money, the People's resources, the People's future.

Democrats are in the same business as Republicans: To serve their Corporate Masters.

I suggest that you consider Democrats and Republicans as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. One side (Republicans) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric.

Once in power, Democrats consolidate Republicans' gains from previous years, and continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertising campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what We, the People thought they were.

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigans and all the different ways they've been tricked, and start seeing Democrats as no different than Republicans, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tailored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisan cooperation' demeanor. It's smirk-worthy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude, like that's somehow "a good thing".

I think you're in massive denial, to keep defending Obama in the face of all evidence to the contrary that he's what you think he is. What would that mean to you, for your life, if you were to believe that Obama is not the populist, not the Democrat you believe him to be, but a Reagan conservative? What would that mean to you personally?
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama On TSA Screening Anger: I Get It

Isaac Yeffet, long-time anti-terrorism specialist for the Israeli Secret Services, and director of security for El Al Airlines (and currently running a security consulting firm in New Jersey) was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last week.

Yeffet explains why and how Israel and other nations have the most secure airlines in the world, nearly perfect safety and security records, without using scanners or body searches.

Transcript | Video

Either Obama knows all of this and is a corrupt l!ar protecting a defense contracting industry making billions of dollars off of Americans (after terr!fying them intentionally), or Obama's an ig.no.rant rube who couldn't spell 3D chess, much less play it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama On TSA Screening Anger: I Get It

In your opinion. In my opinion, there is no more important issue. Not if you are dedicated to protecting and defending the Constitution, the country and your own (and loved ones') life. Everything that we have done since 9/11 has been wrong and ineffective, if our intention is to secure the nation and protect Americans from t3rror!st attacks. If you think the reaction to the scanners and the grope-down is overblown, I suggest to you that you've been so worn down that you don't even know better any more.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama On TSA Screening Anger: I Get It

You don't give up your Constitutional rights to get on an airplane. In modern times, where people's jobs are dependent upon their being able to get from point A to point B in record time (or getting home from vacations at a particular time in order to make it back to work on time) plane travel is a *have to*. Right after 9/11 (before, actually, when my family fell victim to an act of t3rr0r), I said that it's very easy for the government to keep Americans safe from terr0r attacks by locking everybody up into controllable quadrants, invading all of our privacy and restricting our freedom of movement. We would all be living like the world was one great big prison. But the government has no right to do that, it is prohibited from doing that, and it's unnecessary. And to do that would have a chilling effect on our very nature and identities as free people. Nothing of the abuses being committed by our government have anything to do with keeping us safe. It's about lending the illusion that we are safe, in order that commerce continues. If you have been reading and watching news reports, these scanners aren't being used and wouldn't necessarily have prevented what you're so terr!fied of. And the grope-downs are not SOP, not being performed correctly, and also wouldn't prevent what yo're so terr!fied of. The reason for the scanners is to bilk taxpayers out of money to pay a manufacturer for these machines. There are serious questions about their safety, as well. The grope-downs are NOT how pat downs are supposed to be done, so the persons groping are either s3x offending id-jits or warped, twisted nvtcases practicing their own ideas for catching t3rror!sts. But none of what's going on is what we should expect of professional security services in the US. What we're seeing and experiencing is as if the Three Stooges took over the Department Of Homeland Security. An anti-terrorism specialist for the Israeli Secret Services, and the former director of security for El Al Airlines (and currently running a security consulting firm in New Jersey) was on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last week. He explains why and how Israel and other nations have the most secure airlines in the world, nearly perfect safety and security records, without using scanners or body searches. Transcript - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40258307/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/ Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQum39C8K9Y
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama On TSA Screening Anger: I Get It

Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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