Spintested: 12/05/10

Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge To Obama's Reelection

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Like you, I've been lobbying for that for some time, but there's a hitch with it.

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-In dependent Arlen Specter over progressive Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican -turned-In dependent 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-In dependent 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.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge To Obama's Reelection

Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate Masters of the Universe' have charted out their plans years in advance (governments do them, too) and then they select the politician with the personality that's best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments.

If you want to l!e the country into war for oil & war-profiteering, then George W. Bush is your man to front it, with Dick Cheney, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizing of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows.

And after 8 years of Bush-Cheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE & CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in & trust. Barack Obama. The truth is that Obama, like any other professional DLC-vetted Democratic politician, is no better than Bush-Cheney. Obama may even be worse -- Bush-Cheney make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are. Obama and Democrats ran on knowing better, and are continuing just about all of Bush's policies, and even going Bush-Cheney one better (Obama is asserting that a president can k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight whatsoever, and preventive detention?!?! Pure Kafka).

Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

Unless and 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.

Once campaigns are publicly financed (if it's not already too late), then reforming our system, repairing the damage that's been done & returning the government to the People can begin. But neither party is interested in doing that because it would mean they would lose their hold on money and power.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Maher Calls Obama 'Wimpy,' 'Wussy' On 'Fareed Zakaria GPS' (VIDEO)

Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate Masters of the Universe' have charted out their plans years in advance (governments do them, too) and then they select the politician with the personality that's best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments.

If you want to l!e the country into war for oil & war-profiteering, then George W. Bush is your man to front it, with Dick Cheney, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizing of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows.

And after 8 years of Bush-Cheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE & CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in & trust. Barack Obama. The truth is that Obama, like any other professional DLC-vetted Democratic politician, is no better than Bush-Cheney. Obama may even be worse -- Bush-Cheney make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are. Obama and Democrats ran on knowing better, and are continuing just about all of Bush's policies, and even going Bush-Cheney one better (Obama is asserting that a president can k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight whatsoever, and preventive detention?!?! Pure Kafka).

Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

Unless and 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.

Once campaigns are publicly financed (if it's not already too late), then reforming our system, repairing the damage that's been done & returning the government to the People can begin. But neither party is interested in doing that because it would mean they would lose their hold on money and power.
About Bill Maher
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge To Obama's Reelection

KillgoreTrout43 12 minutes ago (1:53 AM)

"I don't lay all the blame on Obama. He has a really lousy Congress he has to work with. He has an entire political party who vowed to see him fail. What bothers me is that continues to insist on bi-partisanship, when it is quite clear that the GOP wants none of it."

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

What more do people need to see from Obama to realize its not a matter of "spine stiffening" or an obstreperous opposition party, but merely that Obama doesn't share the values of the Democratic voters who put him into power:

"Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"

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".

Obama's 'job', as he sees it, is to deliver to the top 2%. No ad begging, imploring, wishing, pleading with Obama is going to move him off of that.

Start shopping for 2012. And not in the Democratic Party -- It's been corrupted.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Maher Calls Obama 'Wimpy,' 'Wussy' On 'Fareed Zakaria GPS' (VIDEO)

What more do people need to see from Obama to realize its not a matter of "spine stiffening" or an obstreperous opposition party, but merely that Obama doesn't share the values of the Democratic voters who put him into power:

"Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"

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".

Obama's 'job', as he sees it, is to deliver to the top 2%. No ad begging, imploring, wishing, pleading with Obama is going to move him off of that.

Start shopping for 2012. And not in the Democratic Party -- It's been corrupted.
About Bill Maher
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Maher Calls Obama 'Wimpy,' 'Wussy' On 'Fareed Zakaria GPS' (VIDEO)

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. Each party uses high-priced public relations firms, with spinmeisters crafting sophisticated propaganda campaigns to con voters into believing what isn't true. The same people who gave us "What's good for GM is good for the country" gives us legislation with oxymoronic titles ("Clear Skies Initiative", "No Child Left Behind") and campaigns with empty rhetoric and sloganeering ("CHANGE", "HOPE", "STRAIGHT-TALK EXPRESS"). All calculated to convince the left and the right within each party that their party's candidate shares their positions.

If you go back and watch Candidate Obama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, and listen with your now 'experienced ears' (experienced in lawyer-speak, aka Bush-speak, although Bush needed a team of speech writers to do what Obama is able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think you'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear to get their vote.

Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton. It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican. He convinced centrists that he was a centrist. He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist. [News Flash: The debate is over: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"]

The truth is that Obama's nothing but a politician, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense. It turns out that doing what's right for transnational corporations is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican, "What's good for GM is good for America." He did a snow job on everybody.
About Bill Maher
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge To Obama's Reelection

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. Each party uses high-priced public relations firms, with spinmeisters crafting sophisticated propaganda campaigns to con voters into believing what isn't true. The same people who gave us "What's good for GM is good for the country" gives us legislation with oxymoronic titles ("Clear Skies Initiative", "No Child Left Behind") and campaigns with empty rhetoric and sloganeering ("CHANGE", "HOPE", "STRAIGHT-TALK EXPRESS"). All calculated to convince the left and the right within each party that their party's candidate shares their positions.

If you go back and watch Candidate Obama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, and listen with your now 'experienced ears' (experienced in lawyer-speak, aka Bush-speak, although Bush needed a team of speech writers to do what Obama is able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think you'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear to get their vote.
Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton. It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican. He convinced centrists that he was a centrist. He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist. The truth is now out -- He's not even a 'centrist': "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat."

The truth is that Obama's nothing but a politician, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense. It turns out that doing what's right for transnational corporations is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican, "What's good for GM is good for America." He did a snow job on everybody.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge To Obama's Reelection

Politifact has gamed its way of measuring Obama's "promise-keeping"; its categories ('NO ACTION', 'IN THE WORKS', 'STALLED' or 'NOT YET RATED) are misleading. Many a campaign promise or pledge (hundreds of them) has been generously placed in these categories to languish.

As Politifact claims, "Once we find action is completed, we rate them 'PROMISE KEPT' 'COMPROMISE' or 'PROMISE BROKEN'". By Politifact's own definition, it enables Obama to keep these issues in limbo for 4 years.

One of many examples of Politifact's gaming its list is that Politifact doesn't even list in its "Promises Broken" category Obama's campaign promise to impose 'Windfall Profits Taxes on the Oil & Gas Industry" - Obama immediately reneged on it once in office, saying, "The prices have now dropped - We'll see about doing that if or when they rise again." Oil hit over $80/barrel (the amount that, had Obama kept his promise, the windfall profits tax would have been triggered) months ago. Politifact has conveniently ignored this issue.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Time to Think the Unthinkable: A Democratic Primary Challenge To Obama's Reelection

After getting Obama into the White House, he and Plouffe disbanded the base groups responsible for doing the legwork to get Obama and Democrats into office in 2008, and the 50 State Strategy.

And then there was Obama's & the Democratic Party machine's abandonment of ACORN (which has been largely responsible for registering new Democratic voters the past couple of election cycles) after the Republicans launched a bogus frontal assault on the organization.

You can't work within a political party when those controlling the party are working to destroy it from within.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Millionaires Don't Need Tax Cuts

FYI -

Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee who lives off her defense contractor-husband's vast wealth, announced that she supports rewriting and expanding the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it easier to prosecute W!kiLeaks & those like them; as always, Feinstein abuses her role as Chair of the "oversight" Committee not to scrutinize and limit the abuses of the intelligence community but to protect them at all costs, as that's where her source of wealth and power lie.

She was responding to yesterday's announcement that Joe Lieberman -- joined by GOP Senators Scott Brown and John Ensign -- introduced a bill intended to make it easier to prosecute Assange. When it comes to authoritarian punishments for those who dare to expose what the US Government does, the mindset is entirely bipartisan.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Millionaires Don't Need Tax Cuts

There should be tax HIKES on corporations and the rich. There should be massive cuts to the military. Banks should be threatened with nationalization unless they begin lending to small businesses. There have been 3.5 million home foreclosures but there are 11 million more in the pipeline -- There must be principal write-downs!

Democratic politicians should be beating this drum, loudly and constantly.

Obama and Democratic leadership have already indicated they're on board with Social Security cuts, privatizing, etc. -- Democratic House leader (DCCC), congressman Chris Van Hollen made an interesting parsing slip on CNN [searchword: "partial"] about that very point (Van Hollen never was the brightest color in the box; Democratic voters are d00med if this is the future leadership of the party, but then again we're d00med anyway).

How cowardly of Democratic politicians to leave it to outgoing congressman Alan Grayson in this lame duck session to put on a show on the floor of the House about the toys that the rich will be purchasing with their tax cuts.

The only reason that Dianne Feinstein has come public now is because she needs some good 'populist'-press on an issue that appears to be a done deal. If Obama and Democrats were going to let the Bush tax cuts expire (as they should), Feinstein never would have come forward.

Has anybody seen the Democratic leadership lately? Where is Obama? Where is Harry Reid? Where is Nancy Pelosi? Where is Steny Hoyer? Where is Jim Clyburn? WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE'S LEADERS???

Come to think of it, where's Elizabeth Warren? Weren't her supporters, the ones who assured everyone it was just fine for her to take an advisory role to Obama instead of one with teeth, with power, saying we'd be hearing from her all the time, calling Obama and Geithner out?

Obama's been a quisling from the very beginning. Pro-corporate, pro-war and military industrial complex. That's what the DLC is all about.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Millionaires Don't Need Tax Cuts

FYI -

Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee who lives off her defense contractor-husband's vast wealth, announced that she supports rewriting and expanding the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it easier to prosecute W!kiLeaks and those like them; as always, Feinstein abuses her role as Chair of the "oversight" Committee not to scrutinize and limit the abuses of the intelligence community but to protect them at all costs, as that's where her source of wealth and power lie.

She was responding to yesterday's announcement that Joe Lieberman -- joined by GOP Senators Scott Brown and John Ensign -- introduced a bill intended to make it easier to prosecute Assange. When it comes to authoritarian punishments for those who dare to expose what the US Government does, the mindset is entirely bipartisan.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: WikiLeaks Chief 'A High-Tech Terrorist' (VIDEO)

Yes, it is. Makes sense -- I don't think you can't have a police state and have efficient operations.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

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 Republicans are corporate t00Is. Like siblings competing for attention and approval (donations) 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 We The People.

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats were for strong regulations on banks, Wall Street, investigations, prosecutions, restitution of what's 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 ObamaCare is not), and more. The DLC-controlled Democratic Party gives lip service to these and all populist issues, because like Republicans, the DLC works for the transnational corporations.
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

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, whether it's economic policy or 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 Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

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 Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

#1 - It's not creating jobs.

#2 - The real way to benefit the middle class is to get rid of the deficit. With this staggering debt, there is no money for Americans to borrow. Average Americans, you and me. Small businesses in America.

#3 - The slashing of government programs is going to take place anyways, but by borrowing more, it is going to be a bl00dbath. And the average family is going to get $800, but what they'll lose in other services is going to wipe that out. One example might be what we're going to lose in the way of services that we don't even give a second thought to. Things like road maintenance, public transportation, health insurance increases, other insurance increases, and so on. I've had to replace two windshields and have my wheels realigned 3 times this year due to roads that aren't being maintained. $800 isn't going to begin to cover what I've lost due to what the government used to do, but isn't anymore because it's broke.

If Bush's tax cuts are allowed to expire as they are set to on December 31st, the deficit would be cut in half, instantly.

If the tax cuts are continued for the rich, we would have to borrow $700 billion to pay for it.

If the tax cuts are continued for everyone, we would have to borrow $3 trillion to pay for it.

And if there is a 2-year extension "compromise", we would still have to borrow $70-140 billion for the rich's portion and $383 billion for the middle class's portion.

This is both poor economics and poor politics.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

If Bush's tax cuts are allowed to expire as they are set to on December 31st, the deficit would be cut in half, instantly.

That is good for the PEOPLE.

If the tax cuts are continued for the rich, we would have to borrow $700 billion to pay for it.

If the tax cuts are continued for everyone, we would have to borrow $3 trillion to pay for it.

And if there is a 2-year extension "compromise", we would still have to borrow $70-140 billion for the rich's portion and $383 billion for the middle class's portion.

Obama is expanding the wars into Yemen.

Where's the money coming from?

Obama and Democratic leadership have already indicated they're on board with Social Security cuts, privatizing, etc.

There should be tax HIKES on corporations and the rich. There should be massive cuts to the military. Banks should be threatened with nationalization unless they begin lending to small businesses.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

3 million foreclosures down, 11 million more in the pipeline.

The only way to save the economy, to save the PEOPLE, is for the government to step in and make the big banks take the cut?

15 million families are about to face foreclosure.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

LET THE BUSH TAX CUTS EXPIRE!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

WikiLeaks: Cables Highlight Terror Fund Woes

"I wouldn't describe an ongoing war between the Soviets and Afghanistan as a good thing, even if it kept the Soviets preoccupied--there were people being killed in that war, as there are now."

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

I completely agree with you. I was trying to make a more general point, about a cohesive foreign policy that is in keeping with what American citizens believe is true about us, about what made us admired in the world and a beacon for democracy. That has been a distant memory for many years.

And yes, the Soviet Union may have collapsed from other forces at work, but many of those forces were other US efforts to undermine the Soviet Union (G0d forbid, c0mmunism should succeed and tempt the 'workers of the world to unite'.)

What keeps us in these wars and in Afghanistan is an oil economy that is an anachronism -- It's k!IIing us many ways, most importantly climatologically. It can't and won't sustain human civilization as we'd like it to for much longer. Our dependence on oil is due to power and greed. It has kept us from moving to clean, green sustainable alternatives. The Middle East quagmire would have crumbled long ago. !sraeI may or may not have evolved into a t3rr0rist state itself, but that wouldn't have been our problem. You might find this interesting:

On Democracy Now!, Noam Chomsky - "W!k!leaks Cables Reveal Profound H@tred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership".

About Wikileaks
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

Blue Dogs are Republicans in everything but name.
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

Here's another example of the folly of 'pragmatists' & their ig.no.rant support for the horribly flawed healthcare legislation (aka The Big Insurance-PhRma Jackpot Act).
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

And as no discussion on the !nternet is complete without the mention of H!dIer or Nod-sees, I think you should read this. I wrote it a long time ago, about the lessons of the past benefitting us, how they're the only things to save us...But first we must learn them.

KEEP READING
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

And as no discussion on the internet is complete without the mention of Heedlor or Not-sees (I can't believe the f!lter here is still screening the real words), I think you should read this. I wrote it a long while back, about the lessons of the past benefitting us, how they're the only things to save us, but first we must learn them.

KEEP READING
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

And as no discussion on the internet is complete without the mention of H!tIer or N@z!s, I think you should read this. I wrote it a long while back, about the lessons of the past benefitting us, how they're the only things to save us, but first we must learn them.

KEEP READING
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

If 'pragmatists' believe they'll never need an ab0rt!on (if they're not female, or post-men0pause, or if they have the means & ability to travel to France to get an ab0rt!on, etc.), then assauIts on a woman's right to choose aren't 'deal-breakers'.

If 'pragmatists' are employed, if they don't own a home (or if they do own a home & able to make mortgage payments), if they have healthcare insurance through their work, if they're young & living in their parents' garage, if they haven't had any significant health problems, if their parents/grandparents are de@d, if their parents/grandparents are alive & supporting them (or not supporting them, & able to support themselves), etc., IT'S NOT THEIR PROBLEM.

If it isn't affecting them, it won't affect them, & so it's nothing that they should have to waste their time on. Or in their 'bottom line'.

There's nothing "pragmatic" about these people. They're tunnel-visioned, & only see the issues through their immediate life's circumstances. Some might say that they're in denial. Others might say they're selfish, "narc!ssistically-inclined". Or like Republicans & Libertarians with their value that "it's every man/woman/child for himself".

But it's certainly not a Democratic value.

What you are calling 'pragmatism' is the problem that prevents solutions for our working together & coming to agreements that serve to benefit all of us. The powers that be don't want solutions that benefit all of us -- Solutions that benefit all of us cut into their profits.

KEEP READING
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

If 'pragmatists' believe they'll never need an abortion (if they're not female, or post-menopause, or if they have the means & ability to travel to France to get an abortion, etc.), then assaults on a woman's right to choose aren't 'deal-breakers'.

If 'pragmatists' are employed, if they don't own a home (or if they do own a home & able to make mortgage payments), if they have healthcare insurance through their work, if they're young & living in their parents' garage, if they haven't had any significant health problems, if their parents/grandparents are dead, if their parents/grandparents are alive & supporting them (or not supporting them, & able to support themselves), etc., IT'S NOT THEIR PROBLEM.

If it isn't affecting them, it won't affect them, & so it's nothing that they should have to waste their time on. Or in their 'bottom line'.

There's nothing "pragmatic" about these people. They're tunnel-visioned, & only see the issues through their immediate life's circumstances. Some might say that they're in denial. Others might say they're selfish, "narcissistically-in clined". Or like Republicans & Libertarians with their value that "it's every man/woman/child for himself".

But it's certainly not a Democratic value.

Until you recognize that what you're calling 'pragmatism' is the problem that prevents solutions for our working together & coming to agreements that serve to benefit all of us, any "solution" I offer you is going to be met with out-of-hand dismissive arguments & derision.

KEEP READING
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

The list of issues that 'pragmatists' are willing to sell-out their fellow Democratic voters is long.

If they're not gay, repealing DOMA and DADT doesn't affect them (or so they believe), so they tell those whose lives are being devastated by those laws, "Relaaaaaaax, it's no big deal. Obama will get around to it (sometime in the next 8 years)."

And if he doesn't, if it's 2016, nothing substantive has changed either legislatively or culturally (hom0phob!a still rampant, bullying continues, etc.), will 'pragmatists' still be saying about the Democratic Party's candidate, "He's with gays on these issues, and once in office he'll end discriminatory laws & practices, but he can't say or do anything now during the campaign or he risks losing the mushy middle or Republican crossovers who don't support it", as Obama's FISA vote in July 2008 was peddled to the Democratic base?

KEEP READING
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

Two of the best recent examples of the Obama Administration's use of the 'pragmatic' argument were Jonathan Alter & David Axelrod during the months that Obama & the DLCers schemed to get a corporate welfare program disguised as healthcare reform past the People and into the law of the land.

See here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

KEEP READING
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

Let's talk about the #1 obstacle to getting to what we thought we were voting for when we put Obama & Democrats into power: The 'Pragmatists'.

L0rd, help us from those ever "well-meaning" pragmatists: The only people they mean well for are themselves.

We hear about "pragmatism" a lot from Obama's 'most ardent supporters'. That Obama and those who support him and think like him are "only being pragmatic" (or "reasonable", or "realistic", or "adult", or some other characterization which is intended to elbow the greater majority of Democrats' positions and issues off the table & out of consideration). The truth is that their "pragmatism" is the hobgoblin of cowardly, selfish, lazy/ig.no.rant minds.

'Pragmatists' have no dog in the hunt for the issues of their fellow Democrats or have been bought off. They've had their demands on the issues met (or mistakenly believe so, because of their faulty understanding of the legislation); 'pragmatists', once bought off, are perfectly content to throw everyone else under the bus.

'Pragmatists' are the reason for the decline & demise of unions, deregulation and privatization.

KEEP READING
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

Defending Blue Dogs, are ya?

The quote, "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat", is directly from the article.

The quote isn't, "Privately, Obama describes himself as pragmatic."

And with regard to this comment by Obama in the article -- “To the degree that we brook no dissent within the Democratic Party, and demand fealty to the one, ‘true’ progressive vision for our country, we risk the very thoughtfulness and openness to new ideas that are required to move this country forward” -- Context is everything.

Obama wrote that against angry Democratic supporters and in defense of Democratic senators who voted to confirm John Roberts, not only to the US Supreme Court, but as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

KEEP READING
About Taxes
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Here are the options:

#1 - Republicans have a change of heart and reveal their 'inner Democrats', & work for the people and against the transnational corporations.

#2 - Republicans continue to say NO to everything. There will be gridlock for 2 years.

#3 - Republicans work with Obama and the Republican-controlled House and the DLC-controlled Democratic Senate. Given that, "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat", what will come out of this unh0ly alliance would be Republican-like legislation.

#4 - Democratic politicians act like Democrats, pull out all of the stops and fight Republicans, take to the bully pulpit, use every legislation trick and gimmick, and do what Republicans have done so effectively to thwart Democrats since Democrats got control of both Houses of Congress (since 2006) and later the White House in 2008. Again, given that disgruntled constituents unhappy with Obama, Democrats and their strategies has done nothing to motivate Obama & Democrats in this direction, or that losing so many Democratic seats (conservative Democrats, & few liberals) hasn't persuaded Obama and Democrats in Congress to act like Democrats and work for the People, and also because "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat", getting good populist legislation out of this Congress or this president doesn't seem likely.

#2 (letting Republicans continue to say NO to everything, gridlock for 2 years while we work to clear out every single last Democratic & Republican incumbent from Congress and the White House and Washington in 2012) seems to be the obvious best and only path.

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

The real end game is in the WHITE House, and the fix was in long ago when Democratic voters got hoodwinked into believing that Obama was, at best, a centrist (the base believed he was a liberal pretending to be a centrist).

The truth is now out -- He's not even a 'centrist': "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat."
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: WikiLeaks Chief 'A High-Tech Terrorist' (VIDEO)

We've got a war going on WITHIN the US. Within our government, between our people (the very rich and powerful people) -- For the most part, most of the American people are watching like fans at a boxing match. This is just the international version of what's been going on here at home for a very long time; remember 'Charlie Wilson's War'? What the H#LL (and how in h#ll) was a private citizen (Joanne Herring) able to subvert US government foreign policy? The downfall of the Soviet Union was never a "good thing", just as removing Saddam Hussein wasn't -- Not for the US. Keeping the Soviets alive and occupied in a neverending war in Afghanistan was a good thing, just as keeping Saddam Hussein in place (Sunnis, against Iran) was a good thing.

At least when there was a Soviet Union, we knew where the nukes were. Now? Not so much.

Neocons and neoliberals (not to be confused with liberals or liberalism) opened a Pandora's box, the contents of which will not be recontained anytime soon (not in my nor my kids's lifetimes).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: WikiLeaks Chief 'A High-Tech Terrorist' (VIDEO)

This is MUST SEE!:

Thom Hartmann on Julian Assange's and W!kileak's contribution to the cause of free speech, AND Hartmann reads something that Assange wrote a couple of years ago entitled 'The United WHAT? of America', where Assange describes corporate rule looks like, the corporation as a state.”
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tax Cuts: The Real End Game Is In The House

The real end game is at the WHITE House.

Thom Hartmann lays it out here.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: WikiLeaks Chief 'A High-Tech Terrorist' (VIDEO)

Apparently this:

My own sense is that we should err on the side of telling the truth, even when it’s inconvenient or when it makes our lives—or the business of government—more complicated. And that people who tell the truth should at the very least not be denigrated. That’s something I learned when I was young, and that I tried to impart to my three boys when they were growing up. As Albert Einstein is reported to have said long ago, “The search for truth implies a duty. One must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true.”

And shouldn’t news organizations be defending WikiLeaks and doing some soul-searching of their own about why they aren’t devoting more resources to the search for the truth? Why is it that the National Enquirer and Internet blogs sometimes seem better than they are at finding out what’s really going on?

When we’re mired in a political environment where much of the public distrusts the federal government and despises both parties, maybe we should all reflect on what a former soldier, who put himself in harm’s way defending freedom, our way of life, and the Constitution—including the First Amendment—asked me in a living room in Austin during a football game.

If we want to restore trust in our government, maybe we can start by telling the truth, keeping fewer secrets, and respecting the privacy of average citizens a little more. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both."

About Wikileaks
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: WikiLeaks Chief 'A High-Tech Terrorist' (VIDEO)

Daniel Ellsberg's Open Letter To Amazon:

To Customer Service and Jeff Bezos,

I’m disgusted by Amazon’s cowardice and servility in abruptly terminating its hosting of the Wikileaks website, in the face of threats from Senator Joe Lieberman and other Congressional right-wingers. I want no further association with any company that encourages legislative and executive officials to aspire to China’s control of information and deterrence of whistle-blowing.

For the last several years, I’ve been spending over $100 a month on new and used books from Amazon. That’s over. I have contacted Customer Service to ask Amazon to terminate immediately my membership in Amazon Prime and my Amazon credit card and account, to delete my contact and credit information from their files and to send me no more notices.

I understand that many other regular customers feel as I do and are responding the same way. Good: the broader and more immediate the boycott, the better.I hope that these others encourage their contact lists to do likewise and to let Amazon know exactly why they’re shifting their business. I’ve asked friends today to suggest alternatives. I’ve removed all links to Amazon from my site, and I’ll be exploring service from Powell’s Books, IndieBound, Biblio and others.

So far Amazon has spared itself the further embarrassment of trying to explain its action openly. This would be a good time for Amazon insiders who know and perhaps can document the political pressures that were brought to bear—and the details of the hasty kowtowing by their bosses—to leak that information. They can send it to Wikileaks (now on servers outside the US), to mainstream journalists or bloggers, or perhaps to a site like antiwar.com, which has now appropriately ended its book-purchasing association with Amazon and called a boycott.

If you’d like to read further analysis of your cowardice, I suggest you see this excellent article by Glenn Greenwald.

Yours (no longer),
Daniel Ellsberg

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: WikiLeaks Chief 'A High-Tech Terrorist' (VIDEO)

Former Bush adviser Matthew Dowd writes:

As I was sitting with my three grown sons over the post-Thanksgiving weekend watching football, my oldest son, who served in the Army for five years and was deployed in Iraq for nearly a year and half, turned to me and asked, “When as a country did we become a place where the government gets upset when its secrets are revealed but has no problem knowing all our secrets and invading our privacy?”

Hmm, interesting question.

In Washington’s polarized political environment, Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on a few things: That the government, in the name of fighting terrorism, has the right to listen in on all of our phone conversations and read our e-mails, even if it has no compelling reason for doing so. That the government can use machines at the airport that basically conduct the equivalent of strip searches of every passenger. That the government, for as long as it wants, can withhold any information from the public that it decides is in the national interest and is classified. And that when someone reveals this information, they are reviled on all sides, with the press corps staying silent.

I recall during the Clinton administration when Republicans expressed outrage over a White House health care task force holding “secret” meetings and not releasing the names of attendees or the topics of discussion. And then not many years later, Democrats expressing similar outrage at the Bush administration’s secrecy when it held private meetings related to energy policy. Now both sides have gotten together to attack WikiLeaks over the opposite situation: They are criticizing the Internet watchdog for openly releasing information related to how our government conducts foreign policy.

Everyone in Washington claims to support transparency and government openness during campaign season and when it’s popular to do so. They castigate the other side when it does things in secret and suggest that its intentions must be nefarious if it is unwilling to make its deliberations public. But when an organization discloses how our foreign policy is conducted, some of these same people claim that the release will endanger lives or threaten national security, or that the founder of WikiLeaks is a criminal.

When did we decide that we trust the government more than its citizens? And that revealing the truth about the government is wrong? And why is the media complicit in this? Did we not learn anything from the run-up to the Iraq war when no one asked hard questions about the justifications for the war and when we accepted statements from government officials without proper pushback?

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: WikiLeaks Chief 'A High-Tech Terrorist' (VIDEO)

Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee who lives off her defense contractor-husband's vast wealth, announced that she supports rewriting and expanding the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it easier to prosecute W!kiLeaks and those like them; as always, Feinstein abuses her role as Chair of the "oversight" Committee not to scrutinize and limit the abuses of the intelligence community but to protect them at all costs, as that's where her source of wealth and power lie.

She was responding to yesterday's announcement that Joe Lieberman -- joined by GOP Senators Scott Brown and John Ensign -- introduced a bill intended to make it easier to prosecute Assange. When it comes to authoritarian punishments for those who dare to expose what the US Government does, the mindset is entirely bipartisan.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: WikiLeaks Chief 'A High-Tech Terrorist' (VIDEO)

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
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

WikiLeaks Server Goes Down, Julian Assange Facing 'Hundreds Of Death Threats'

wonmean 1 hour ago (3:35 PM)

"Hillary Clinton's a good Secretary of State in my book."

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

What makes you believe that?

And what's "your book" - 'The Bush-Cheney | 'Neocon-Neoliberal (not to be confused with liberals or liberalism) Guide to Winning Friends & Influencing People Around The World'?

I'm appalled that Hillary Clinton ordered US diplomats to spy on other nations' representatives at the UN. The State Department is NOT the CIA or any of the other couple of dozen 'intelligence' services we've created since 9/11! It's not a spy service. It's bad enough that the CIA camps out in our embassies around the world, but to have our diplomatic service's (a government agency where honesty and trust is the coin of the realm) top political appointee ordering our diplomats to spy in what should be (and what used to be) the model for how nations work cooperatively makes Hillary no better than John Bolton.

And by directing diplomats serving in embassies overseas to spy as well, Hillary has put diplomats in very dicey and dangerous positions, which I assure you they are not happy about.

And before you or anyone else suggests that "they do it all the time", they don't! While attaches assigned to embassies are often covers for covert activity (for example cultural or military attaches), they're not part of the regular diplomatic corps.

Diplomatic corps personnel should be insulated from espionage activities and to have that barrier breached is very troubling.

Other nations do have spies in their diplomatic delegations to the UN, and they presume everyone else does the same thing. BUT WE DON'T. Or at least we haven't (not before the Bush administration and John Bolton, at least).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

WikiLeaks Server Goes Down, Julian Assange Facing 'Hundreds Of Death Threats'

Since it's unlikely that you will return for a give-and-take discussion of what constitutes a "good Secretary of State", I'm going to put up what my half of that discussion might have been:

What's "your book"? The Bush-Cheney | 'Neocon-Neoliberal (not to be confused with liberals or liberalism) Guide to Winning Friends & Influencing People Around The World"?

I'm appalled that Hillary Clinton ordered US diplomats to spy on other nations' representatives at the UN. The State Department is NOT the CIA or any of the other couple of dozen 'intelligence' services we've created since 9/11! It's not a spy service. It's bad enough that the CIA camps out in our embassies around the world, but to have our diplomatic service's (a government agency where honesty and trust is the coin of the realm) top political appointee ordering our diplomats to spy in what should be (and what used to be) the model for how nations work cooperatively makes Hillary no better than John Bolton.

And by directing diplomats serving in embassies overseas to spy as well, Hillary has put diplomats in very dicey and dangerous positions, which I assure you they are not happy about.

And before you or anyone else suggests that "they do it all the time", they don't! While attaches assigned to embassies are often covers for covert activity (for example cultural or military attaches), they're not part of the regular diplomatic corps.

Diplomatic corps personnel should be insulated from espionage activities and to have that barrier breached is very troubling.

Other nations do have spies in their diplomatic delegations to the UN, and they presume everyone else does the same thing. BUT WE DON'T. Or at least we haven't (not before the Bush administration and John Bolton, at least).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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