Spintested: September 2011

Muffingate's Sad Story: 178 Articles Perpetuate DOJ Myth, 37 Correct It

Friday, September 30, 2011

There are a couple of points I should address, the first being that we're not actually broke. We are a rich country, but the elites are trying to make even more for themselves. Just take a look at what Bank of America is doing with the new debit card fees -- That's 1000% profit.

I happen to agree with you in that the government has no business throwing soirees (even catered business meetings) with taxpayer money. Meetings, no matter what city they're in (if they can't be teleconferenced), should be held in public buildings and participants can attend to their own food and beverage needs.

If we want to have that conversation, let's just have it. But to frame it as a $16 muffin is deceptive and inflammatory and doesn't lead to thoughtful decision-making.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Approval Rating Is Underwater, But Don't Try To Predict 2012 Yet

The "modernization" that needs doing isn't what Obama is proposing. What Obama has done is put Social Security on the path to bankruptcy. Payroll tax holiday. Extending that payroll tax holiday. That's not a solution.

Then there's what Obama's done and is doing to Medicare/Medicaid. Cuts and more cuts. Instead of Obama's health insurance windfall act, he should have expanded Medicare to cover everyone.

And where did Hillary come in to this? I'm no Clinton fan.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wall Street Protests: Which Side Are You On?

No m'am.

"NO PERSON", not even the candidate himself, can contribute.

Yesterday I just happened to have heard Ratigan respond to that exact question.

:-)
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Frank Lautenburg: Chris Christie A Bully, 'Abusive To Women' (VIDEO)

Just imagine with the precedent just set by Obama in killing al-Awlaki (of a president killing an American citizen, with no due process, no charges, no oversight) what a bully like Chris Christie would do if he became president.

Do you remember in the days before Bush's launching war on Iraq when Lynn Cheney made the cable news show circuit calling for the blacklisting and arrest (for treason) of professors (and any other person of public stature) who publicly questioned the Bush administration's plans?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Frank Lautenburg: Chris Christie A Bully, 'Abusive To Women' (VIDEO)

Everything about Christie, from his weight to his aggressive bullying and hostile speech, is an indicator that he doesn't handle stress well.

That's not exactly a trait you want in a Commander-in-Chief.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Muffingate's Sad Story: 178 Articles Perpetuate DOJ Myth, 37 Correct It

It wasn't just a continental breakfast -- Sam Stein didn't even get it right. It was the tab for the hotel that hosted the conference, everything from the rental for the conference room itself to the janitorial staff to clean up afterwards.
About Bill O'Reilly
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Muffingate's Sad Story: 178 Articles Perpetuate DOJ Myth, 37 Correct It

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Marcospinelli/muffins-justice-department-muffingate-myth_n_988928_110688036.html
About Bill O'Reilly
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Muffingate's Sad Story: 178 Articles Perpetuate DOJ Myth, 37 Correct It

Even Sam Stein hasn't gotten it right.

The $16 per muffin/person was for everything at the conference, e.g. the venue (the hotel's conference room where the event took place) as well as the food, the plates and utensils, the coffee and tea urns, the service staff, the janitorial staff clean-up, etc.
About Bill O'Reilly
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wall Street Protests: Which Side Are You On?

Get a clue: It's A Lie That The Working Poor Don't Pay Taxes

About Occupy Wall Street
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wall Street Protests: Which Side Are You On?

Lie number 3) U.S. corporations are over-taxed.

Example: Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty

We have the highest corporate tax rate, or one of them, in the OECD nations.

Actually, as measured in terms of share of GDP, the U.S. has the lowest corporate tax burden of any OECD nation. While the official tax bracket may seems high -- 35 percent -- if one takes into account various loopholes and tax dodges, the effective tax rate is considerably lower, or around 27 percent, which comes in as slightly higher than average for OECD members. And according to ace tax report David Cay Johnston, the bigger you are, the less you pay -- the effective tax rate for the biggest U.S. corporations is only about 15 percent.

There you have it, for future handy reference. Poor people do pay taxes, the biggest corporations don't pay enough, and the United States, as a whole, has a low tax burden overall.
About Occupy Wall Street
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wall Street Protests: Which Side Are You On?

Lie number 2) The U.S. suffers from high taxes.

Example: The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore:

What all this means is that in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest.

Totally untrue. As measured in terms of total tax revenue as a share of overall GDP the average tax burden for countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2008 was 44.8 percent. The U.S. -- 26.1 percent. The U.S. pays less taxes, as a share of GDP, than Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Austria, France, Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Switzerland and Japan.

Furthermore, as Bruce Bartlett explains in detail in The New York Times the current U.S. federal tax burden, measured, again, as a share of GDP, is only 14.8 percent -- a 60-year low.
About Occupy Wall Street
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wall Street Protests: Which Side Are You On?

The Top 3 Lies About Taxes:

Lie Number 1) Poor people don't pay taxes.
Example: From The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

At a hearing last month, SenatorCharlesGrassley said, "According to the JointCommitteeOnTaxation, 49 percent of households are paying 100 percent of taxes coming in to the federal government." At the same hearing, CatoInstituteSeniorFellow AlanReynolds asserted, "Poor people don't pay taxes in this country." Last April, referring to a TaxPolicyCenter estimate of households with no federal income tax liability in 2009, FoxBusiness host StuartVarney said on Fox and Friends, "Yes, 47 percent of households pay not a single dime in taxes."

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith provide the definitive takedown of this myth.

In 2009, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation found that 51 percent of households owed no federal income tax. According to Marr and Highsmith, that figure was inflated by special recession-related factors -- In a more typical year, "35 to 40 percent of households pay no federal income tax."

But that does not mean that these households pay no federal taxes at all. Far from it: Nearly all working Americans pay payroll taxes to fund Medicare and Social Security. In 2007, the poorest Americans -- taxpayers in the bottom fifth of income -- paid 8.8 percent of their income as payroll taxes. The next fifth paid almost ten percent. The top 20 percent of earners paid only 5.7 percent. And while the government has that money, they use it and make money off of it.

And of course, these numbers don't include state and local taxes or excise fees like gas taxes, which tend to have a regressive impact that hits poorer Americans harder. Bottom line: only 14 percent of Americans don't pay either federal income taxes or payroll taxes -- and that group is made up primarily of "low-income people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability, or students."

The rich have gotten rich off of the sweat and labor of others and then have taken those profits to buy politicians who've gamed the system so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes through all manner of tax schemes not available to the poor and middle classes. The rich also 'closed the door' on the ways that initially enabled them to amass their 'seed money' for creating their businesses.
About Occupy Wall Street
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wall Street Protests: Which Side Are You On?

Dylan Ratigan kicked off the campaign to GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS this week.

Ratigan has committed to using his show on MSNBC as a platform to force this issue to the center of the 2012 elections with a petition for a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.

Here is the proposed Constitutional amendment:

"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

Sign the petition, tell friends, Facebook it, Tweet it. #GetMoneyOut.

Or Text SIGN to +19177206888 to sign
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Approval Rating Is Underwater, But Don't Try To Predict 2012 Yet

Why do you believe Obama cares about the middle class? Let's remember that it was Obama who put SS and Medicare on the table, not the Republicans.

When politicians say that "SocialSecurity is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their CorporateMasters.

You don't see politicians putting CampaignFinance and ElectionReform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on SocialSafetyNet programs for the People.

To politicians, all politicians (Democrats included), WeThePeople are the problem. If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed. If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give large to BigBusiness, privatizing national resources owned collectively to us all, WeThePeople, and deregulate so that corporations wouldn't be constrained by anything, could become profit-making machines on steroids, unobstructed by piddling voter concerns, such as health, safety, environment, etc. And for accomplishing this, politicians would be amply rewarded, perhaps even enter the ruling class themselves.

You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politicians, but the fact is that the DLC controls the DemocraticParty, and that Democrats in Congress and in the WhiteHouse have signed on to privatize public resources, utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constitutionally-required role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administrations -- What little regulating they've put in legislation the last 2 years is ineffective for a whole array of very sneaky moves). As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractors stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge profit-making machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.

You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy. What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporations' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycles these past months is Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties that means more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas. Then there's Obama's CatFoodCommission (and its plan for gutting SocialSecurity and Medicare), along with the renewed push on TheDreamAct, which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages.

WeThePeople are being transformed, from sheep to sacrificial lambs.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Approval Rating Is Underwater, But Don't Try To Predict 2012 Yet

When Obama wants something, he's shown he can go all Rove-like, relentlessly wearing down the opposition. The problem is that he and the DLC-controlled DemocraticParty don't want what the Democratic voters put them into power to get.

We already know that cutting taxes does not create jobs and creating jobs is what is needed and what will solve our fiscal problems. Yet Obama has already capitulated to Republicans, caving to (at minimum) a $1 trillion plan that paves the way to slashing (and ending) Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

Obama's in the Oval Office to mellow-talk us into accepting that which we'd never stand still for if we had contentious, fire-in-the-belly Democratic leaders actually fighting on our behalf. Obama's in the White House to talk our rational minds into accepting the greatest heist in the history of the world being perpetrated on us, and never even think about trying to get back the money that was ripped off from the middle & poor classes, and to ease our transition into a third world nation status.

Obama is the grifter leading off the second half of the con game, which is to squeeze the rest of the dimes from the poor and middle classes. It began with part 2 of Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (high-priced junk health insurance that has no cost controls), and has continued with his push for more *AFTA treaties (outsourcing more Americans' jobs) and the Deficit (Cat Food) Commissions, 1 and 2 (and the 'Super Congress').

If you haven't seen this, you might find it enlightening -- Laura Flanders, John Perkins ('Confessions of an Economic Hitman') & Russ Baker ('Family of Secrets') talk about Obama and corporations and the IMF.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Approval Rating Is Underwater, But Don't Try To Predict 2012 Yet

Ditto for the head of his NationalEconomicCouncil. Although appointing LarrySummers might have been a bit of a stretch, despite his yeoman work in destroying financial regulation—thus enriching his old boss RobertRubin and helping cause the Crash of 2008—McCain could easily have found a JackKemp-like Republican “supply-sider” who would have duplicated Summers’ signal achievement of expanding the deficit to the highest level since 1950 (though perhaps with a slightly higher percentage of tax cuts than the Obama stimulus). The economy would have continued to sputter along, with growth rates and joblessness levels little different from today’s, and possibly even worse.

But McCain’s election would have produced a major political difference: It would have increased Democratic clout in the House and Senate.

Read more here.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Approval Rating Is Underwater, But Don't Try To Predict 2012 Yet

If McCain Had Won

McCain would probably have approved a failed troop surge in Afghanistan, engaged in worldwide extrajudicial assassination, destabilized nuclear-armed Pakistan, failed to bring Israel’s BenjaminNetanyahu to the negotiating table, expanded prosecution of whistle-blowers, sought to expand executive branch power, failed to close Guantanamo, failed to act on climate change, pushed both nuclear energy and opened new areas to domestic oil drilling, failed to reform the financial sector enough to prevent another financial catastrophe, supported an extension of the BushTaxCuts for the rich, presided over a growing divide between rich and poor, and failed to lower the jobless rate.

Nothing reveals the true state of American politics today more, however, than the fact that has undertaken all of these actions and, even more significantly, left the DemocraticParty far weaker than it would have been had McCain been elected. Few issues are more important than seeing behind the screen of a myth-making mass media, and understanding what this demonstrates about how power in America really works—and what needs to be done to change it.

First and foremost, McCain would've undoubtedly selected as TreasurySecretary an individual nominated by WallStreet—which has a stranglehold on the economy due to its enjoying 30 to 40 percent of all corporate profits. If he didn’t select TimGeithner, a reliable servant of financial interests whose nomination might have allowed McCain to trumpet his “maverick” credentials, whoever he did select would clearly have also moved to bail out the financial institutions and allow them to water down needed financial reforms.

About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Approval Rating Is Underwater, But Don't Try To Predict 2012 Yet

By Chris Hedges:

Barack Obama’s politically expedient decision to betray and abandon his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, exposed his cowardice and moral bankruptcy. In that moment, playing the part of Judas, he surrendered the last shreds of his integrity. He became nothing more than a pawn of power, or as Cornel West says, “a black mascot for Wall Street.” Obama, once the glitter of power fades, will have to grapple with the fact that he was a traitor not only to his pastor, the man who married him and Michelle, who baptized his children and who kept him spiritually and morally grounded, but to himself. Wright retains what is most precious in life and what Obama has squandered—his soul.

Read more here.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Speaks At Mike Mullen Retirement Ceremony

How appropriate -- A Goldman Sacks ad before Obama's remarks.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Democrats Hope Tea Party Candidates Win GOP Primaries, Help Keep The Senate Blue

Thursday, September 29, 2011

And Obama doesn't need Congress to go after the banks; his Justice Department can do the job just fine.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Democrats Hope Tea Party Candidates Win GOP Primaries, Help Keep The Senate Blue

To begin with, while Bush 1 may have birthed it, NAFTA was ratified by a Democratic Congress and signed into law during Bill Clinton's administration; it was implemented in 1994.

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old raclst America, than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US. 10 million more voters turned out for Obama than the other guy, 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 tool.

That's 'Titanium' political capital, and Obama came into office oozing it. So much that the GOP was in a puddle in the gutter outside of the US Capitol. Is that really a vague memory? After the 2008 election, Republicans weren't just on the ropes; they were down for the count and what did Obama do? He issued them a pardon. With a Democratic Congress, FILIBUSTER-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy and Byrd, at death's door), Obama slammed on the brakes on the momentum of his election no sooner than he won the election, did a 180-degree turn on his promises and slowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats tried to do.

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 dead giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

And after more than a year of making secret deals with BigInsurance, PhRma, Hospitals, the AMA, insisting SinglePayer and a PublicOption couldn't get the votes, he pushed his insurance windfall legislation through by reconciliation.

Obama's 'most ardent supporters' need to get better informed; cultivating some real Democratic convictions wouldn't hurt either. Because whether it's taking SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare, a PublicOption, investigations and prosecutions of BushCheney, etc., off the table, putting SocialSecurity and Medicare and Medicaid on the table, or continuing the BushCheney policies and going BushCheney one better (by asserting that presidents have the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'indefinite preventive detention', the right to imprison anyone indefinitely because he thinks they might commit a crime), or using JoeLieberman 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

Adoption Rates Hit New Low With More Children Left In Care

About 25,000 US-born children are placed for adoption in the US annually.

Just in California, close to 100,000 children are in foster care. Of those children, 31 percent were under the age of 5.

Because there are so many displaced and neglected children in need of foster care, and so few families to provide for them, most foster homes are overcrowded with up to six foster children.

An average foster baby will live in three different homes before his first birthday. On average, a child will remain in foster care for 26.6 months.

This revolving door of care puts children at risk for Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), which leads to a lifetime of disrupted relationships.

Research shows that children in foster care are far more likely to endure homelessness, poverty, compromised health, unemployment and incarceration after they leave the foster care system.

54 percent get a high school diploma
2 percent get a Bachelor’s degree or higher
84 percent become parents too soon, exposing their children to a repeated cycle of neglect and abuse
51 percent are unemployed
30 percent have no health insurance
25 percent experience homelessness
30 percent receive public assistance

These figures are five years old. It's safe to assume that as the economy has worsened, so has this situation.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Affordable Care Act? What the Heck Is That?

No, my friend, insurance companies have already figured out the way around the restrictions in the bill. The con game in the legislation -- Medical loss ratio. The amount of money insurers must spend on healthcare, and how it will enable insurance companies to continue to price gauge and keep obscene profits instead of delivering affordable and quality medical care to policy-holders.

Don't believe me? Meet Wendell Potter.

On Countdown with Keith Olbermann, whistleblower Wendell Potter talks with Lawrence O'Donnell.

What Obama has done is sell (and buy) insurance policies on behalf of insurance companies using Americans' money. Over-priced, lousy insurance policies, at that. That's a pretty neat trick, by the way -- To sell and buy. It's like playing chess with yourself.

Having insurance doesn't mean getting health care. BIG DIFFERENCE.

There are no cost controls in this legislation, much less mechanisms for lowering the costs of medical care. No controls over co-pays, no controls on deductibles.

Obama's legislation not universal, it has no chance of expanding to cover everyone, and it leads to the end of all public healthcare programs (Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.). That's a fact.

Obama's preserving an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care. It's government sanctioned racketeering. Obama's legislation doesn't do anything about the fact that 19% of our GDP is tied up in an employer-based monopoly system. Ending employment-based insurance was what everybody wanted.

"Covering the kids up to age 26" is a cruel farcical joke. To begin with, how many people do you think were bought off with that? To have insurance, to pay for it, you need to have a job. To keep a job in this economy. To get a job in this economy. Not just the 26 year olds who can't find a job in this economy, but their middle-aged (and up) parents who need to keep their jobs, not be outsourced or downsized, in order to keep these 'children' on their insurance policies.

And with Obama's 'Super Congress' planning Medicare and Medicaid cuts, including upping the age for qualifying, as seniors they won't be getting "affordable" insurance.

Then there's the prohibition on the government from being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportation.

The insurance mandate is, indeed, a tax. Contrary to what Obama claimed, the IRS will be the enforcer, which means compounded fines and prison.

Put your money into private prison stocks; that's where the growth is going to be.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

NYC Transit Union Joins Occupy Wall Street

:-)
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Affordable Care Act? What the Heck Is That?

Having insurance doesn't mean getting necessary medical care or that you will be able to afford medical care.

Think about that for a minute, because I do understand how, after hours/days/months of spin by professional spinmeisters (politicians), you might not appreciate the distinction.

What the legislation does is require money to go from here (my pockets/taxpayers' pockets) and into insurance companies' pockets.

There is NO LIMITATION on insurance companies' charging and increasing co-pays and deductibles and eliminating services.

There is NO REQUIREMENT for insurance companies to have to provide services not paid for.

Anthem's announcement some months ago hit people over their heads like a two-by-four, making the need to eliminate insurance companies as the middleman in our medical care system obvious to many:

== Health insurance hikes stun small businesses

While Anthem Blue Cross has been taking the heat for proposing rate increases of up to 39 percent on individual consumers, other health insurers have stunned some small businesses with hikes that in some cases exceed 75 percent.

Tom Simmons, president of an Oakland design and consulting firm with four employees, said he had just read about the Anthem increases when he opened a letter from his insurer, Blue Shield of California, informing him his monthly family premium would go up to $1,596 a month from $908, a nearly 76 percent increase.

Obama and Democrats were put into power with a mandate to get affordable, quality medical treatment, not insurance, for everyone.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Men We Trusted to Lead Us

"Why Aren't We Demanding Restitution?"

On Dylan Ratigan's show, Eliot Spitzer and Larry McDonald explain how banks paying back TARPmonies doesn't begin to cover what's been stolen.

Watch it here.
About Ben Bernanke
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Men We Trusted to Lead Us

What would Obama/Democrats do if reelected?

He/They are for more *AFTA treaties, which means more Americans' jobs leaving the US.

Are Obama/Democrats done with "bipartisanship"? I don't hear it.

Are Obama/Democrats done with deregulation? Just two weeks ago Obama deep-sixed air quality regulations.

Are Obama/Democrats shutting down the wars? No, they aren't.

Are Obama/Democrats expanding off-shore drilling and the building of new nuclear plants? Yes, they are.

Are Obama/Democrats going after the banks? No.

Obama's/Democrats' "vision" surely isn't this Democratic voter's vision.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Men We Trusted to Lead Us

Dylan Ratigan kicked off the campaign to GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS this week. Ratigan has committed to using his show on MSNBC as a platform to force this issue to the center of the 2012 elections with a petition for a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.

Here is the proposed Constitutional amendment:

"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

Sign the petition, tell friends, Facebook it, Tweet it. #GetMoneyOut.

Or Text SIGN to +191772068 88 to sign.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Men We Trusted to Lead Us

That's not how it works: After he's reelected is too late.

I'm an old OLD liberal Democrat who has been voting for the lesser of two evils for the past couple of decades that the DLC has controlled the Democratic Party. Always it's that line, "after we get the Democrat elected, we hold Democrats' feet to the fire to force change", and it never happens.

The Democratic Party is bought and paid for by corporate elites, just like the Republican Party is. The only way, or the first step, is to get the money out of politics.

Check this out, sign the petition, tell friends, Facebook it, Tweet it. #GetMoneyOut.

Or Text SIGN to +19177206888 to sign
About Ben Bernanke
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Men We Trusted to Lead Us

Which is why all of the talk about Obama having "finally discovered a backbone" and has changed the last week or so with these jobs' speeches is just so much BS. When he fires Geithner and Bill Daley (and every other corporate-plant) and brings liberals/progressives into his administration, stops prosecuting whistleblowers, closes the White House doors to corporate lobbyists (and tells Reid and Pelosi to do the same in Congress), starts instituting the transparency in his government that he promised in 2008 and starts prosecuting the financial fraud and war crimes of Bush-Cheney (and puts the wars on the books, complete with competitive bidding contracts and prosecuting defense contracting fraud), and stops pressuring NY's AG to back off Wall Street, that will be a time to reevaluate Obama. Until and unless that happens, Obama's a crook, no better than Bush and Cheney.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Men We Trusted to Lead Us

It is true that GWB inherited a recession .

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

No, it is NOT true that GWBush inherited a recession; Bush and Cheney did everything they could to push the nation into recession by eroding consumer confidence from the very day after the USSC selected them as the winners of the 2000 election.

Bush-Cheney wanted and needed a recession in order to ram through Bush's tax cuts.

The actual recession, as called by NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) identified the date for the beginning of the recession to March, 2001.
About Ben Bernanke
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Healthcare Plan: Justice Department Joins States In Call For Prompt Review Of Law

Has Obama said anything of the sort? [No.]

In 'Audacity Of Hope', Obama said of his own political appeal:

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton. He convinced centrists that he was a centrist. He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist. But guess what?

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

Blue Dog = (might as well be registered as a) Republican

Candidate Obama was all over the place, depending on who was talking to at any given time and what day it was in the campaign, which primaries were done with and who he didn't need to woo anymore.

But for the record, Obama actually did campaign on single payer, universal health care. In addition to the now infamous video clip from 2003 -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE - there's a campaign ad featuring Obama himself - http://www.factcheck.org/video/obama_motherwmv.wmv .

See the part where he says he has a plan to "cover everyone'? That's called "universal coverage". Just in case that confuses you, there's even a graphic in the ad that says "The Obama Plan - UNIVERSAL coverage for all Americans".

Here's another reference where Obama campaigned on public option - http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/10/yes-obama-campaigned-on-a-public-option/

During the campaign, Obama supported "healthcare reform". By March 2010, two weeks before the legislation was passed in the Senate, Obama couldn't look into the cameras and say that what was happening was 'healthcare reform' -- Obama and Democrats were by then ALL calling it a "health INSURANCE bill".

Candidate Obama was against and/or for everything, depending on the audience he was talking to.

So don't presume to know what Obama means or intends until you get it from him (and then take it with a grain of sand because as we've already seen, Obama changes his positions and pledges like most people change their underwear).
About Most Popular
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Defense of Marriage Issue Will Be Settled Soon

The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal money going for abortions. Stop spreading lies..
About Gay Marriage
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Defense of Marriage Issue Will Be Settled Soon

Americans can only make laws that don't abridge or infringe on people's rights as guaranteed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Even if it was true that the majority of Americans didn't want there to be gay marriage (it isn't; the majority of Americans support gay marriage -- 53 percent of people believe the government should give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex, while 44 percent were opposed), prohibiting gays from marrying violates the Constitution.

And 100 percent of Americans could be Christian and the bible would still not be the law of this land.
About Gay Marriage
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Republicans Continue to Wage War Against Government Workers

Dear Bob Cesca,

It's not just Republicans. Democrats have been AWOL on all matters relating to ordinary Americans.

“One year from now, we have the chance to tell all those corporate lobbyists that the days of them setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race - and I've won. I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am President, they won't find a job in my White House. Because real change isn't another four years of defending lobbyists who don't represent real Americans - it's standing with working Americans who have seen their jobs disappear and their wages decline and their hope for the future slip further and further away. That's the change we can offer in 2008.

When I am President, I will end the tax giveaways to companies that ship our jobs overseas, and I will put the money in the pockets of working Americans, and seniors, and homeowners who deserve a break. I won't wait ten years to raise the minimum wage - I'll raise it to keep pace every single year. And if American workers are being denied their right to organize when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States."

-Candidate Obama, November 3, 2007 in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Watch the clip here.

Dylan Ratigan kicked off the campaign to GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS yesterday. Ratigan has committed to using his show on MSNBC as a platform to force this issue to the center of the 2012 elections with a petition for a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.

Here is the proposed Constitutional amendment:

"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

Why don't you join us all, Bob, sign the petition, tell friends, Facebook it, Tweet it. #GetMoneyOut.

Or Text SIGN to +19177206888 to sign
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

The next step is to end the revolving door between government and lobbying.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

Dylan Ratigan kicked off the campaign to GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS yesterday.

Ratigan has committed to using his show on MSNBC as a platform to force this issue to the center of the 2012 elections with a petition for a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.

Here is the proposed Constitutional amendment:

"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

Sign the petition, tell friends, Facebook it, Tweet it. #GetMoneyOut.

Or Text SIGN to +19177206888 to sign
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Democrats Hope Tea Party Candidates Win GOP Primaries, Help Keep The Senate Blue

The Tea Party (which is really just the base of the Republican Party given prominence by the media) is an effective nemesis for Obama: A paper tiger that serves the purpose of scaring Democratic voters into voting against their own interests and accepting Obama's embrace of BushCheneyRepublican policies and legislation. If the Tea Party was a threat to Obama, if Obama and DLC-Democrats believed the Tea Party to be a threat, had they wanted to put the Tea Party down, the time to do it was last year during the healthcare debate when the Tea Party was coming to prominence. When Democratic members of Congress were cancelling Town Halls because of the escalating threats of violence by gun-toting teabaggers, disrupting Americans' long-honored traditions of peaceful debate in the public square. Instead of taking to the bully pulpit, instead of increasing security on government properties hosting these events, Obama disappeared from the healthcare debate to cut secret deals with Big Insurance, PhRma, hospitals, the AMA, etc., and then he lied about it, all the while that the Tea Party grew and bullied at Town Halls. What Obama also did during the same Town Hall time period? He unleashed federal security forces to Pittsburgh to break up peaceful protests of the G20 meeting, using the new weaponry on dissenters who the 'establishment elites' really fear, and stem the unrest that actually threatens the 'elites', i.e., the American people taking back their government . -http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2009/sep/25/sonic-cannon-g20-pittsburgh Obama has no problem quelling dissent or inspiring our better angels when he wants or needs to. Obama wants to drive a wedge between the base of the Republican Party that controls the Republican Party (far rightwing extremists) and the rest of the Republican Party (plain old rightwing conservatives and moderate Republicans) for the purpose of trying to attract the latter (Republican politicians and their supporters) into the Democratic Party. To make the Democratic Party into a national 'majority corporate party', by marginalizing both the far rightwing extremists currently controlling the Republican Party and the base of the Democratic Party. In order "to govern, from the center, for 100 years". The Tea Party serves this end it several ways. Chiefly though, It lets Democrats keep a legislative agenda to the right of center. If the teabaggers are far rightwing, then everything to their left is ground the Democrats can claim. And that's a lot of corporate-money ground. Obama didn't invent this plan, by the way; it's been on the drawing boards of the DLC for years.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Democrats Hope Tea Party Candidates Win GOP Primaries, Help Keep The Senate Blue

What would Obama/Democrats do if reelected?

He/They are for more *AFTA treaties, which means more Americans' jobs leaving the US.

Are Obama/Democrats done with "bipartisanship"? I don't hear it.

Are Obama/Democrats done with deregulation? Just two weeks ago Obama deep-sixed air quality regulations.

Are Obama/Democrats shutting down the wars? No, they aren't.

Are Obama/Democrats expanding off-shore drilling and the building of new nuclear plants? Yes, they are.

Are Obama/Democrats going after the banks? No.

Obama's/Democrats' "vision" surely isn't this Democratic voter's vision.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

U.S. Drug Shortages Threaten U.S. Health System
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

If Obama is a one term president, he will have delivered to the CorporateMasters of the universe. He'll hand the baton off to Republicans for the fleecing to continue and go on to reap the benefits from his treacherous betrayal of the People, i.e., the same sort of corporate payoffs that presidents since Gerald Ford have enjoyed.

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 (the People)".

Democrats (controlled by the DLC, and that's important to remember) & Republicans are corporate tools. 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, BigCorporations. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of thePeople.

If you must continue to delude yourself into thinking Obama's a good guy who never would have started those wars, and who has only the best of intentions but got a bad deal (I don't share that opinion anymore), then think of all this as a business plan where the Corporate Masters of the Universe have charted out their plans years in advance (governments do them, too) and select the politician/personality best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments. If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profiteering, then GeorgeWBush is your man to front it (with DickCheney, 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 BushCheney 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 and trust. BarackObama.

The truth is that Obama is no better than BushCheney. Not better, not worse, but the same. His '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. But that is NOT going to happen under Obama or the DLC-controlled Democratic Party. It's not even on their 'To Do' list.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

I yearn for leadership in all branches of government that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporations) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathic character disorders.

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporation's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporations.

Now, corporations are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporations as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths. They're completely self-absorbed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competition (other corporations or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultants tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporation to behave that way. And they can't be criminally prosecuted.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

Some of us understood exactly what the politicians were doing with a payroll tax holiday and its effect on SocialSecurity.

WallStreet WANTS SocialSecurity money to risk in the stock market.
They want to USE that money to make commissions, salaries, bonuses, etc.; if they lose some (or all) of the SS money, too bad.

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

When politicians say that "SocialSecurity is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their CorporateMasters.

You don't see politicians putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

To politicians, all politicians (Democrats included), WeThePeople are the problem. If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed. If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collectively to us all, WeThePeople) and deregulate so that corporations wouldn't be constrained by anything, could become profit-making machines on steroids, unobstructed by piddling voter concerns, such as health, safety, environment, etc. And for accomplishing this, politicians would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.

You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politicians, but the fact is that the DLC controls the DemocraticParty (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the DemocraticParty, the pro-corporate branch), and that Democrats in Congress and in the WhiteHouse have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constitutionally-required role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administrations -- What little regulating they've put in legislation the last 2 years is ineffective for a whole array of very sneaky moves). As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractors stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge profit-making machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.

You can choose to think of Obama in whatever way makes you happy. What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporations' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycles these past months is Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties that means more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas. And then there's Obama's offer of putting SocialSecurity and Medicare on the 'SuperCongress's' table, along with the renewed push on the DreamAct, which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages.

WeThePeople are being transformed, from sheep to sacrificial lambs.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Poverty Is Rising, But State Tax Systems Burden The Poor, While Rich Get Off Easy (CHART)

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Poverty Is Rising, But State Tax Systems Burden The Poor While Rich Get Off Easy

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

As did extending Bush's tax cuts.

With Obama's deal to preserve Bush's tax cuts for the rich (making it Obama's tax cuts for the rich), 99ers were cut off. Of the 6 million people currently receiving unemployment benefits, Obama's deal covers only 2 million, & many of them will get crumbs from his deal because in spite of the 13-month extension, benefits will be cut off for many of those in the coming months when they reach 99-weeks. And only 25 states out of 53 states/territories in/of the US have 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, so that's even fewer still.

David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now! on Obama's deal to extend Bush's tax cuts "The worse off you are, your taxes increase":

"The bottom roughly 45 million families in America or households in America—and there are a little over 100 million households—they’re going to actually see their taxes go up. Republicans got an extraordinarily good deal, that raises, I think, basic questions about the negotiating skills of the President."

And even more -- The payroll tax 'holiday' in the deal (and in Obama's 'American Jobs Act') sets SocialSecurity up for its end. That's what Bush and GroverNorquist planned and why Bush believes he'll be vindicated as a great conservative in history: For ending the GreatSociety programs, by having bankrupted the nation so there's no way to pay out those benefits. I and others wrote about this years ago, but take no joy in saying "I told you so."

Extending Bush's tax cuts was an absolutely wretched deal, but standard for Obama, who has a long record of negotiating lousy deals on ordinary citizens' behalf. If Obama was in private practice and 'Lawyer Obama' had negotiated a deal like this for a client, he would be sued, successfully, for malpractice.

The purpose of the deal was so that Democratic political operatives could say, "Obama helped the unemployed"; most readers won't know the actual facts of how Obama sold out the American people. Again. Obama and Democrats have no jobs plan either. Both parties are thinning the herd.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Get Money Out: Join 100,000 Americans

You are absolutely correct. Sorry about that -- That was a cut and paste gone horribly awry.

Everything else though is true.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Get Money Out: Join 100,000 Americans

That is what Ratigan is pledging; to be that voice and keep this in the forefront of the 2012 election if he gets 100k signatures.

Just sign the d@mned thing!
About Politics
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Get Money Out: Join 100,000 Americans

Them, too.

Not that union money is anywhere close to being equivalent to the money that corporations pump into politics, but unions are incorporated.

What Ratigan is talking about is publicly financing elections. Like it used to be.
About Politics
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Justice John Paul Stevens Talks Death Penalty, Citizens United, New Memoir

Supreme Court is more interested in granting more powers to coporation than doing it's actual job, protecting Humans. Anyone, who thinks that the supreme court, congress, the execuetive and both political parties aren't doing the same thing, is not paying attention. It is time to rehaul our democracy and institutions before it is too late. If you are near DC or NY, then occupy and demand your democracy back. The most important thing, is electing good, ethically people from within a grassroots movement. The polical machine (controlled by corporations) with not elect someone in our corner.

The USSC has no history of protecting Corps over humans. Quite the contrary. On a different note .. how do you differentiate "humans" (individuals) from "corps" (communities of humans)?

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

I, too, yearn for leadership in all branches of government that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporations) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathic character disorders.

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporation's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporations.

Now, corporations are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporations as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths. They're completely self-absorbed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competition (other corporations or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultants tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporation to behave that way. And they can't be criminally prosecuted.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

Unless you're filthy rich, why would you want a flat tax? Flat taxes disproportionately benefit the rich over poor and middle classes, and would leave the rich with more money to continue to purchase politicians.

Ratigan's project is about passing a Constitutional amendment prohibiting money in politics. Federal campaigns would be publicly financed, the way it used to be.
About 112th Congress
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

All good questions (which I think I know the answers to, such as individuals wouldn't be able to contribute to campaigns), but ask Ratigan.

Tweet him @dylanratigan or at Facebook, or e-mail The Dylan Ratigan Show
About 112th Congress
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

Publicly financed campaigns = level playing field.
About 112th Congress
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

or Text SIGN to +19177206888 to sign
About 112th Congress
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Super Committee's Cuts Anything But Automatic

Dylan Ratigan kicked off the campaign to GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS today.

Ratigan has committed to using his show on MSNBC as a platform to force this issue to the center of the 2012 elections with a petition for a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.
Here is the proposed Constitutional amendment:

"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

Sign the petition, tell friends, Facebook it, Tweet it. #GetMoneyOut.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Counter-Reformation: The Fall of Campaign Finance Reform

I just signed the petition for Dylan Ratigan's freshly launched project to Get Money Out of Politics.

If you want the change that you thought you were getting when you voted for Obama and Democrats, it's only going to come once the money is out of politics.

Now's the time to drive this meme; join the movement.

Go here and sign the petition.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Super PACs And Secret Money: The Unregulated Shadow Campaign

No one in Washington, on either side of the aisle, is interested in ending this.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Ted Koppel Criticizes 'Nightline' For Soft News Turn (VIDEO)

Monday, September 26, 2011

What's ironic to older viewers like me is that we remember when we dismissed Nightline with Ted Koppel as the Fox News channel of its day (elite establishment propaganda).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Jon Kyl And The Super Committee: The Real Reason He Didn't Quit

This 'Super Congress' was a "heads Republicans win, tails Democrats lose" from the start.

If it doesn't reach an agreement, then automatic cuts slashing Medicare and other vital services are triggered.
About Jon Kyl
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Rick Perry Is 'Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change'

Th right course of action, IMHO, is to wait till Obama gets a second term, then start working on a real progressive candidate, or an independent one, if you're so inclined. You start this effort now, and the likelihood of an R president in 2012 increases exponentially.

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

It's always "next time, just let [today's DINO du jour] get in, to warm the seat". I've been hearing this for more than 20 years, and the only change is for the worse.

In politics, in life, there really is only now. Each day that conditions remain the same or further declines (Obama has advanced BushCheney positions that should have you marching on Washington), a sort of stare decisis sets in, making it more difficult (if not impossible) to turn around. We have become the proverbial boiled frogs; there's a generation that's been born and doesn't know about life pre-9/11 and 4th amendment protections.

No, putting Obama back in the White House is not the answer.
About Republicans
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Rick Perry Is 'Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change'

Chris Hedges writes-

Barack Obama’s politically expedient decision to betray and abandon his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, exposed his cowardice and moral bankruptcy. In that moment, playing the part of Judas, he surrendered the last shreds of his integrity. He became nothing more than a pawn of power, or as Cornel West says, “a black mascot for Wall Street.” Obama, once the glitter of power fades, will have to grapple with the fact that he was a traitor not only to his pastor, the man who married him and Michelle, who baptized his children and who kept him spiritually and morally grounded, but to himself. Wright retains what is most precious in life and what Obama has squandered—his soul.

Read more here.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Rick Perry Is 'Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change'

You know I respect your opinions and philosophies by now, I hope. My only concern THIS election is that by not supporting the lesser of two weevils (JOKE), you are only considering the FISCAL situation. If any of the Republicans is elected....FOUR of the Supreme Court are over 72 years old. The Republican appointments may take us over the edge as far as loss of rights, to where we may never recover.

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

On every front, Obama has been a disaster -- Not just fiscally.

As far as the Supremes go, it's lost already, and Democrats are as culpable as Republicans. Democrats allowed Republicans to set the terms of the confirmation hearings, Democrats let the names get out of the committee and Democrats voted for them.

I'm unimpressed with Obama's appointments thus far. He's shown us exactly who he is in the interim, (someone who doesn't give a chit about the Constitution and puts those on the Court who would support expanded executive power, the 'unitary executive'). It's unlikely any future appointments by him would restore or recognize the People's rights, especially privacy from government intrusion.

The idea that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is described as a liberal, or that either Clinton or Obama contributed greatness of intellect to that deliberative body in their appointments is farcical. When supporters still held out hope for Obama, believing him to be the agent for change that he pledged to be, more liberal, more populist, Obama put a intellectual lightweight bean-counter and a corporatist on the court. If that's who he puts on the court when he had the opportunity and before reelection, then the contempt with which he holds the base, the left, is huge. Obama won't even make liberal or left-of-center recess appointments.

I'm really not interested in giving that man another opportunity to make a lifetime appointment to the SC.
About Republicans
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressive Prescription for a GOP White House -- Challenge President Obama

I too believe that our elections have become a set-up, a rigged game with what you call the Corporate Masters of the Universe pulling the strings but if this is what our "democracy" has devolved to then there's absolutely NOTHING we can do about it short of revolution.

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

It may come to that, but there are still more cards to be played -- It's not checkmate for us yet.

I do know that the solution isn't going to come from the Democrats, which you have no idea how painful that is for me to say. It's a corrupted party, no different than Republicans at this point. An argument can be made for it being worse than Republicans, because Republicans make no bones about who they are and what they are for. Democrats run on knowing better.
About Ralph Nader
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Rick Perry Is 'Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change'

You couldn't be more wrong. You can't sell me on Obama (nor anyone I know), and it's those of you who continue to support him that are keeping us all saddled with him. The only lemonade to be made from the 2012 election should Obama remain in the race is to work to get an independent the 5 percent necessary to get a seat at the table.
About Republicans
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Rick Perry Is 'Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change'

No spin about it; I don't vote for candidates who govern or legislate like Republicans, no matter what initial is after their name on a ballot. A vote for Obama is a vote for capitulation and cooperation with Republicans. If the choice is gridlock or policies that favor corporations and the rich, policies for the sake of Obama being able to spin into "accomplishments" (but are actually a continuing assault on the poor and middle classes), then give me gridlock any day of the week.

I'm not voting for Obama, period, fuil stop. I've been voting for the lesser of two evils ever since the DLC took over control of the Democratic Party two decades ago, and the government has moved farther to the right each election cycle. It's you DLC-supporters who have created this mess with your continued support of DINOs, and I'm done with it. If you ceased supporting Obama, he couldn't possibly run again and we might stand a chance of a real Democrat taking his place.

You've been warned. If you continue along this path, if you continue to support him, you will be responsible for losing the White House by insisting on keeping him as our standard bearer. The choice and the fault is all on you.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama: Rick Perry Is 'Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change'

Times have changed since Reagan and the way that we measure wins have been gamed. Obama won 28 states, plus DC and Nebraska's 2nd district (yes, political parties are now gaming states, ending electoral votes). Popularly, Obama won 10 million more votes than McCain. That's called a mandate.
About Republicans
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

© Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP