Spintested: 04/02/11

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Saturday, April 2, 2011

The ign-orance of today's youth is kiIIing us all.

Ralph Nader started or is responsible for creating more nonprofit organizations in the US (not to mention more activists owe their careers to him) than anybody else including:

Citizen Advocacy Center
Citizens Utility Boards
Congress Accountability Project
Consumer Task Force For Automotive Issues
Corporate Accountability Research Project
Disability Rights Center
Equal Justice Foundation
Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights
Georgia Legal Watch
National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform
National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
Pension Rights Center
PROD (truck safety)
Retired Professionals Action Group
The Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest
Center for the Study of Responsive Law
Public Interest Research Group
Center for Auto Safety
Connecticut Citizen Action Group
Aviation Consumer Action Project
Clean Water Action Project
Center for Women's Policy Studies
Capitol Hill News Service
Multinational Monitor (magazine covering multinational corporations)
Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
Essential Information Organization
Telecommunications Research and Action Center
National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
Taxpayer Assets Project
Princeton Project 55
Appleseed Foundation
Resource Consumption Alliance (conserve trees)
Center for Insurance Research
Consumer Project on Technology
Government Purchasing Project (encourage purchase of safe products) Center for Justice and Democracy
Organization for Competitive Markets
American Antitrust Institute
Commercial Alert
Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest
Congressional Accountability Project
Citizen Works
Democracy Rising

Over 4 decades, Ralph Nader has exposed problems and organized millions of citizens into more than 100 public interest groups to advocate for solutions. His efforts have helped to create a framework of laws, regulatory agencies, and federal standards that have improved the quality of life for generations of Americans.

The groups that Nader is responsible for have been instrumental in enacting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Because of Ralph Nader, cars are safer, food is safer and healthier, the air and water are cleaner and better quality, drink cleaner water, and we work in safer environments.
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548) was a United States Congress joint resolution providing that the president can send US armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." The War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration. The resolution was passed by two-thirds of Congress, overriding a presidential veto.

Libya is not a territory, possession or armed force of ours.

What's really mind-blowing about this is that when the War Powers Act was passed by Congress in 1973, Nixon vetoed it. Even Nixon saw the potential for abuse.

The War Powers Act is a means by which politicians don't have to be held accountable, as history has shown us. When the 60 (really 90 days) is up, Congress's feel pressured to continue these wars for all the wrong reasons, and throw good money and lives after bad.

About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

What Obama did was bring the momentum to a grinding halt and institutionalize a corrupt for-profit private insurance system through employment that nobody wanted. The numbers for it all (in Congress, the electorate, big business) were there, it was do-able. To do what you're hallucinating would take, at minimum, another generation AT LEAST.

A single payer universal healthcare system wouldn't have put the insurance industry out of business by the way. It would've been a two-tiered system: Basic coverage for everyone and boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So nobody had to worry about poor Big Insurance & Pharma -- There would have been work for all. Big Insurance & Pharma would just had to have made smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With single payer universal health care, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physician practitioners (nurse practitioners, physicians' assistants, and other allied health professionals). Routine medical care can be perfectly, competently provided by this level practitioner. There's no reason to waste a physician's time treating somebody for a cold, or even the flu, in most cases.

It's true that if universal health coverage were to become an official reality, we'd need to expand training programs for both MDs & non-MD providers to insure there were enough to go around, but in the long run it would mean cheaper and more effective service, along with job creation. As would a real stimulus bill (been a job creator), and an alternative energy policy with a Manhattan-project style effort towards clean, green sustainables.

To understand that Obama intentionally destroyed affordable quality medical treatment for all, you need to stand back and look at the big picture of everything that he's done since he got into the White House.

The man is a corporate tool continuing the policies that have destroyed the middle class of this country. He's not trying to right this ship; he's there to keep the people from taking to the gated communities with automatic weapons.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

By the way, would you accept this same kind of treatment from a friend? Or a wife or a husband? Would you allow yourself to be treated badly, remain married because you don't want to take a chance that you might end up with the same kind of treatment from another husband or wife?
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

What you're actually doing is voting for Republicans in Democratic costumes.

You're the reason that Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party can bIow us off. They know that they can count on your vote no matter how badly they treat you and the rest of the base voters.

Where do you get the idea that Democrats or Republicans are the only allowable candidates to run for office? Democrats and Republicans aren't 'owed' a clear shot at the office. Nowhere in our laws, nowhere in the Constitution, does it declare that "You have a choice between Democrats or Republicans, and nobody else".

I'm an old liberal Democrat, probably close to 3 times your age, politically active and connected my entire adult life, never voted for a Republican and probably will never vote for another Democrat again. That corrupt is the party.
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Bashing Nader again?

That was a stolen election. Al Gore won. Gore got more votes in Florida. Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget were 179,000 perfectly readable ballots that never got counted), Gore got more votes than Bush.

Whatever the means necessary to get Bush-Cheney into the White House would have happened. Had Nader been in the race, not in the race, whatever. Had Nader not run the outcome would have been the same. The powers that be were not going to let Gore win, no matter what, and gamed it innumerable ways.

If the means to getting Bush-Cheney into office required a close election and Nader not been running, some other means would have been used.

For pity's sake, the CIA was working on GOP absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to election day in Florida.

Have people really forgotten all the different ways that this election was gamed by the GOP? And that's just in Florida. And just the ways that we learned about because of legal proceedings in the post-election days.

There was a coup d'etat in this country in 2000. A bIoodless coup, but a coup nonetheless.

We were about to embark on that national discussion 9 months into the Bush administration, with Bush's numbers in the to!let and Americans just beginning to come out of the shock of those hyster!cal post-election days in Florida. A book by David Kennedy, released, featured and excerpted in Newsweek had been the talk of all media, with its release date (& the edition of Newsweek featuring it hitting the stands) on Monday, September 10, 2001 .

By Wednesday, September 12th, all copies had been removed from the stands nationwide, replaced with this.

Where do you get the idea that Democrats or Republicans are the only allowable candidates to run for office? That is what you're saying when you call Nader a "spoiler". Democrats and Republicans aren't 'owed' a clear shot at the office. Nowhere in our laws, nowhere in the Constitution, does it declare that "You have a choice between Democrats or Republicans, and nobody else".

With your way of thinking, you enable Democrats to blow their constituents off (as Obama is doing now).

I'm an old liberal Democrat, probably close to 3 times your age, politically active and connected my entire adult life, never voted for a Republican and probably will never vote for another Democrat again. That corrupt is the party.
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

We keep voting for Democrats because we know the alternative is even worse, that's all.

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

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's continued just about every Bush-Cheney policy, and even gone Bush-Cheney one better. Obama's legislation is Republican legislation. 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).

What Democratic voters like you aren't understanding is that the DLC (DINOs) has taken over the Democratic Party and works in concert with the Republican Party on behalf of transnational corporations.

You just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of Obama's 'most ardent supporters'; 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).

You need to look beyond the stagecraft and at the actual policies and bills, and not the Kabuki-theater.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

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's continued just about every Bush-Cheney policy, and even gone Bush-Cheney one better. Obama's legislation is Republican legislation. 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).

What Democratic voters like you aren't understanding is that the DLC (DINOs) has taken over the Democratic Party and works in concert with the Republican Party on behalf of transnational corporations.

You just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of Obama's 'most ardent supporters'; 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).

You need to look beyond the stagecraft and at the actual policies and bills, and not the Kabuki-theater.
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Obama handing out new drilling permits off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico to companies using the SAME FAILED badly designed blowout preventers that caused the BP oil disaster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a61X_nd_voQ
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Watch this and then explain how Obama is any different than Bush.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to the American people.

The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when Ronald Reagan, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism , and how liberals were responsible for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgvnned by election dirty tricks & fraud.

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characterize themselves as far-anything or extreme, but mainstream. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicament of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to k!ll babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritarian intimidation are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

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

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the R0ve machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching Bush and Cheney off the table, have us still reelecting them and not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

Obama and Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

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

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

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the R0ve machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching Bush and Cheney off the table, have us still reelecting them and not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

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

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

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

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

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

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

Nothing changed.

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

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

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

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

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election & a filibuster-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy & Byrd, at deth's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises & sloooooowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything, in lockstep.

Obama's political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation -- Everything was to flow through his operation. If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a ded giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

Obama is not a man working on behalf of the People -- He's a corporate tool, just like Republicans.

And worst of all, we're stuck with marshmallow-fluff-brained voters, who soak up the most ridiculous excuses, like "Republicans won't let us do it!", when, in fact, Obama and Democrats don't even try. Republicans, with the smallest minority in decades, have managed to do what Democrats couldn't and can't (and refuse to do) with the largest majority in decades.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Tthe Tea Party is an effective nemesis for Obama & the DLC-controlled (corporate, neoliberal) Democratic Party -- The Tea Party is a paper tiger, and this is all kabuki theater.

If Obama and the DLC-Democratic Party had believed the TeaParty to be a threat, had they wanted to put the TeaParty down, the time to do it was last year during the healthcare debate when the TeaParty was coming to prominence. When Democratic members of Congress were cancelling Town Halls because of the escalating threats of violence by gvn-toting teabaggers, disrupting Americans' long-honored traditions of peaceful debate in the public square.

Instead of taking to the bully pulpit and announcing increased 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 l!e about it) as the Tea Party grew & bullied at Town Halls.

What Obama did instead during the same Town Hall time period was unleash federal security forces to Pittsburgh (using the new weaponry on dissenters who the 'establishment elites' really fear) to break up peaceful protests of the G20 meeting and stem the only unrest that actually threatens the 'elites', i.e., the American people taking back their government.

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 in 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 -- It's been on the drawing boards of the DLC for years.

When is the base of the Democratic Party going to get itself organized into a revolt-lobby party like the Tea Party and force Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats to work in the People's interests instead of transnational corporations' interests? That's our only hope.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

By the way, SinglePayer universal healthcare was the compromise. It wasn't our first, best proposal. We've already been denied our first best proposal: A level playing field where we all could rise and share in the obscene corporate profits that come at the expense of so many people's lives. We've lost to a corporate mentality that it's a 'dog eat dog'-world, where making a living isn't enough (or even possible); only 'making a kiIIing'.

Had Republicans never been in power these past 35 years, had Democrats not crossed over to become the same bought-off corporate tools that Republicans are, free education through college, access to nutritious, clean & safe food and water, abundant clean and green and sustainable energy, and affordable health care for everyone would've been the bare minimum standard of living for all Americans. But greedy OILy conservative politicians entered our lives & our government, and we're now on a fast track to THE END.

A weak PublicOption was whittled down into a trigger and then dropped altogether. There are no cost controls in the healthcare legislation, but plenty of protections for continued gouging by insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

The latest Democratic caving is over the budget.

When the budget process began, Republican congressman PaulRyan came out with the first number that Republicans wanted to cut ($32 billion). Then there was a TeaParty revolt in the House, and Republicans said "Fine, you win, $64 billion."

So now they're at $64 billion and Democrats have moved all the way over to where PaulRyan was when the process began. So even if Democrats get that number (which in Washington would be considered a "win" for Democrats), Democrats have gone all the way over to where the Republican leadership thought their opening bid would be. Ultimately the cuts are going to be very dramatic, more so than anyone in either party thought was wise a couple of months ago -- NOBODY is representing the interests of the poor and middle classes.

Nothing is going to change until and unless Obama and Democratic politicians make the decision to engage. Democratic voters thought they'd made the decision in 2006 and in 2008 when they put Obama and Democrats in power. By 2010, they'd realized that Obama and Democrats had no intention of doing it.
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

To those like you who spew rhetoric like, "Look at how impatient they are. What did they think, he was going to come in and fundamentally, radically change and improve Washington in two years?", I don't think anybody thought that. I certainly didn't. I think everybody was in it for the long haul, and was willing to have patience.

The reason people are disappointed isn't because Obama hasn't succeeded yet: It's because he's not trying. He's doing the opposite. Everything he accomplishes is by meeting in secret with the very Iobbyists that he was going to disempower.

Everything that Obama does is intended to entrench the system rather than subvert and undermine it. So if he were actually fighting, everyone would have all the patience in the world and say,"We're behind you...It's going to take a long time...(We know that) you can't unentrench powerful interests quickly", etc. The disappointment is that he's not trying; he's doing the opposite.

The proof of that is evident on a daily basis.

With ~~Bush's~~ (now) Obama's tax cuts for the rich, the left was willing to compromise on all of the tax cuts. Obama's deal on the tax cuts for the rich wind doesn't cover the 99ers and increases taxes on the poor.

The left comes to the table already having compromised our positions. On everything. All the time. We've done the compromising for more than 30 years.

And even after we compromise, after we have deals, Republicans renege and Democrats still cave some more. One example of that is the Capps amendment. That was the compromise AGREEMENT on abortion in Obama's healthcare legislation.

In the end, with the StupakAmendment and Obama's ExecutiveOrder, Obama and Democrats have put us firmly on the path of ending all insurance coverage for abortions.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/11/17/gwu-study-yes-the-stupak-amendment-would-end-coverage-of-abortion-services-over-time/

Fairly soon, Roe and overturning it is going to be moot with all that Republicans have managed to get Democrats to "compromise" on, making getting an abortlon impossible. As it is now, you can't get an abortlon in 87 percent of the counties in the US. [It's now up to 92 percent.]

KEEP READING
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

To those who spew rhetoric like, "Look at how impatient they are. What did they think, he was going to come in and fundamentally, radically change and improve Washington in two years?", I don't think anybody thought that. I certainly didn't. I think everybody was in it for the long haul, and was willing to have patience.

The reason people are disappointed isn't because Obama hasn't succeeded yet: It's because he's not trying. He's doing the opposite. Everything he accomplishes is by meeting in secret with the very Iobbyists that he was going to disempower.

Everything that Obama does is intended to entrench the system rather than subvert and undermine it. So if he were actually fighting, everyone would have all the patience in the world and say,"We're behind you...It's going to take a long time...(We know that) you can't unentrench powerful interests quickly", etc. The disappointment is that he's not trying; he's doing the opposite.

The proof of that is evident on a daily basis.

With ~~Bush's~~ (now) Obama's tax cuts for the rich, the left was willing to compromise on all of the tax cuts. Obama's deal on the tax cuts for the rich wind doesn't cover the 99ers and increases taxes on the poor.

The left comes to the table already having compromised our positions. On everything. All the time. We have done the compromising for more than 30 years.

And even after we compromise, after we have deals, Republicans renege and Democrats still cave some more. One example of that is the Capps amendment. That was the compromise AGREEMENT on abortion in Obama's healthcare legislation.

In the end, with the Stupak amendment and Obama's executive order, Obama and Democrats have put us firmly on the path of ending all insurance coverage for abortions.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/11/17/gwu-study-yes-the-stupak-amendment-would-end-coverage-of-abortion-services-over-time/

Fairly soon, Roe and overturning it is going to be moot with all that Republicans have managed to get Democrats to "compromise" on, making getting an abortlon impossible. As it is now, you can't get an abortlon in 87 percent of the counties in the US. [It's now up to 92 percent.]

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Unfreakin' believeable -

The White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a classified briefing to House members Wednesday afternoon.

This is impeachment territory.

It's what Bush and Cheney and Republicans do.

And how any real Democrat defends it is beyond me.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Treat the online support for Obama with suspicion:

[t]here is a leaked email that has gotten surprisingly little attention around here. It's the one where AaronBarr discusses his intention to post at DailyKos - presumably something negative about Anonymous, the hacking group. But that's not the email I'm talking about here.

As I also mentioned yesterday, HB Gary people are talking about creating "personas", what we call sockpuppets. This isn't new. PR firms have been using fake "people" to promote products and other things for a while now, both online and even in bars & coffee houses.

But for a defense contractor with ties to the federal government, Hunton & Williams, DOD, NSA, and the CIA - whose enemies are labor unions, progressive organizations, journalists, and progressive bloggers, a persona apparently goes far beyond creating a mere sockpuppet.

According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HB Gary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Thenvthe team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire Brooks Brothers riot online.

In another Word document, one of the team spells out how automation can work so one person can be many personas:

Using the assigned social media accounts we can automate the posting of content that is relevant to the persona. In this case there are specific social media strategy website RSS feeds we can subscribe to and then repost content on twitter with the appropriate hashtags. In fact using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example. There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas

It goes far beyond the mere ability for a government stooge, corporation or PR firm to hire people to post on sites like this one. They're talking about creating the illusion of consensus. And consensus is a powerful persuader. What has more effect, one guy saying BP isn't at fault? Or 20 people saying it? For the weakminded, the number can make all the difference.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Obama is just another Washington insider, perpetuating the status quo, blocking real reform. He isn't fixing anything. He's continuing the same failed deregulatory system that's allowed corporations to prosper at the expense of Americans' lives.

To excuse Obama, to pass the buck, say "It's Congress's job", is to be ig.nor.ant of the executive branch agencies under a president's control & all of these agencies' cozy relationships with Big Business. Obama's done nothing to change it.

One example is Obama's reaction to the oil blow-out in the Gulf. How does separating MMS into two or three agencies (where one would issue the drilling permits, another would inspect the drilling operations, etc.) change employees' behavior, where inspectors didn't inspect but had oil companies' employees write up the inspection sheets?

People need to be fired & face criminal charges. But Obama doesn't like doing that. Obama blocks investigations & prosecutions, preferring to "look forward, not back".

Career politicians (professional Democrats & Republicans) have gamed the government so that everyone, from Congress to the White House, can point their fingers at someone else & say, "It's not my fault, it was his responsibility".

And then after years of investigations and hearings, watered down findings are published and then buried. Business continues as before. If anyone is left holding the bag it's some low-level flunkie, someone who has retired (with full pension & benefits) before the finding is published, and is never prosecuted.

If you don't want your cherished illusions shattered about that, don't watch this - Rachel Maddow's investigative report broadcast a few days ago on what caused the Gulf catastrophe (bad design of blowout preventer) and how nothing has been fixed, new drilling permits are being issued daily (for deeper drilliing than before).
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

You don't engage in anything except Plouffe-Axelrod talking point rhetoric. You have no original thoughts of your own.
About Elections 2012
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Obama didn't end DADT.

To begin with, it's not ended. The Pentagon is still dlcking around with it.

Secondly, it was CONGRESS that passed the legislation that basically leaves it up to the Pentagon to do it when the Pentagon sees fit. Obama wouldn't even issue a stop-loss order.
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If Aytch-P's mah_der_8tors don't let it through, the last page of what Dr. Margaret Flowers had to say is here.
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“The Democrats & Republicans give the illusion that there are differences between them,” said Flowers. “This keeps the public divided. It weakens opposition. We fight over whether a Democrat or a Republican will get elected. We vote for the lesser evil, but meanwhile the policies the two parties enact aren't significantly different. There were no Democrats willing to hold the line on SinglePayer. Not one. I don’t see this changing until we radically shift the balance of power by creating a larger & broader social movement.”

The corporate control of every aspect of American life is mirrored in the corporate control of healthcare. And there are no barriers to prevent corporate domination of every sector of our lives.

“We're at a crisis,” Flowers said. “Healthcare providers, particularly those in primary care, are finding it very difficult to sustain an independent practice. We're seeing greater corporatization of our healthcare. Practices are being taken over by these large corporations. You have absolutely no voice when it comes to dealing with the InsuranceCompany. They tell you what your reimbursements will be. They make it incredibly difficult & complex to get reimbursed. The rules are arbitrary & change frequently.”

“This new legislation doesn't change any of that. It doesn't make it easier for doctors. It adds more administrative complexity. We're going to continue to have a shortage of doctors. As the new law rolls out they're giving waivers as the provisions kick in because corporations like McDonald’s say they can’t comply. Insurance companies such as WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Cigna & Humana that were mandated to sell new policies to children with preexisting conditions announced they weren't going to do it. They said they were going to stop selling new policies to children. So they got waivers from the ObamaAdministration allowing them to charge higher premiums. Healthcare costs are going to rise faster.

The CenterForMedicare & MedicaidServices estimated that after the legislation passed, our healthcare costs would rise more steeply than if we'd done nothing. The CensusBureau reports that the number of uninsured in the US jumped 10 percent to 51 million people in 2009. About 5.8 million were able to go on public programs, but a third of our population under the age of 65 was uninsured for some portion of 2009. The NationalHealthInsuranceSurvey estimates that we now have 58 or 59 million uninsured. And the trend is toward underinsurance. These faulty insurance products leave people financially vulnerable if they have a serious accident or illness. They also have financial barriers to care. Co-pays & deductibles cause people to delay or avoid getting the care they need. And all these trends will worsen.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/power_and_the_tiny_acts_of_rebellion_20101122/
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

“You can’t effect change from the inside,” Flowers has concluded. “We have a huge imbalance of power. Until we have a shift in power we won’t get effective change in any area, whether financial, climate, you name it. With the wealth inequalities, with the road we are headed down, we face serious problems. Those who work and advocate for social and economic justice have to now join together. We have to be independent of political parties and the major funders. The revolution will not be funded. This is very true.”

“Those who are working for effective change are not going to get foundation dollars,” she stated. “Once a foundation or a wealthy individual agrees to give money they control how that money is used. You have to report to them how you spend that money. They control what you can and cannot do. Robert Wood Johnson [the foundation], for example, funds many public health departments. They fund groups that advocate for health care reform, but those groups are not allowed to pursue or talk about single-payer. Robert Wood Johnson only supports work that is done to create what they call public/private partnership. And we know this is totally ineffective. We tried this before. It is allowing private insurers to exist but developing programs to fill the gaps. Robert Wood Johnson actually works against a single-payer health care system. The Health Care for America Now coalition was another example. It only supported what the Democrats supported.

There are a lot of activist groups controlled by the Democratic Party, including Families USA and MoveOn. MoveOn is a very good example. If you look at polls of Democrats on single-payer, about 80 percent support it. But at MoveOn meetings, which is made up mostly of Democrats, when people raised the idea of working for single-payer they were told by MoveOn leaders that the organization was not doing that. And this took place while the Democrats were busy selling out women’s rights, immigrant rights to health care and abandoning the public option. Yet all these groups continued to work for the bill. They argued, in the end, that the health care bill had to be supported because it was not really about health care. It was about the viability of President Obama and the Democratic Party. This is why, in the end, we had to pass it.”

KEEP READING
About Elections 2012
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician from Maryland who volunteers for Physicians for a National Health Program, knows what it is like to challenge the corporate leviathan. She was blacklisted by the corporate media. She was locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizations such as MoveOn. She was abandoned by those in Congress who had once backed calls for a rational health care policy. And when she and seven other activists demanded that the argument for universal health care be considered at the hearings held by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, they were forcibly removed from the hearing room.

“The reform process exposed how broken our system is,” Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago. “The health reform debate was never an actual debate. Those in power were very reluctant to have single-payer advocates testify or come to the table. They would not seriously consider our proposal because it was based on evidence of what works. And they did not want this evidence placed before the public. They needed the reform to be based on what they thought was politically feasible and acceptable to the industries that fund their campaigns.”

“There was nobody in the House or the Senate who held fast on universal health care,” she lamented. “Sen. [Bernie] Sanders from Vermont introduced a single-payer bill, S 703. He introduced an amendment that would have substituted S 703 for what the Senate was putting together. We had to push pretty hard to get that to the Senate floor, but in the end he was forced by the leadership to withdraw it. He was our strongest person. In the House we saw Chairman John Conyers, who is the lead sponsor for the House single-payer bill, give up pushing for single-payer very early in the process in 2009. Dennis Kucinich pushed to get an amendment that would help give states the ability to pass single-payer. He was not successful in getting that kept in the final House bill. He held out for the longest, but in the end he caved.”

KEEP READING
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Obama's healthcare legislation IS Republican healthcare legislation.

There is no mechanism for lowering the costs of treatment. Obama put a fox in charge of this chicken coop (former WellPoint executive Liz Fowler) to write and enforce the regulations. Her most notable actions to date have been issuing waivers to businesses that don't want to have to provide insurance to their employees.

Obama's healthcare legislation prohibits the very thing that was the top issue in the 2008 election: The government being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportation.

Obama's healthcare legislation is Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (which was a $700 billion + giveaway to Big Insurance & PhRma), Part 2.

Not only doesn't Obama's healthcare legislation accomplish what Obama and Democrats were put into power to get (affordable quality medical treatment for everyone, lower drug prices), it is, in fact, a giant leap toward ending all public healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.).

Obama's healthcare legislation puts more people into Medicaid, which the states are required to co-pay along with the federal government. The states are already going bankrupt, and moving toward eliminating Medicaid services as a result. States' options are limited, especially those states with constitutional requirements to balance their budgets. So while people may find themselves covered by Medicaid, if you're thinking that should all else fail you've got Medicaid as your safety net, guess again: Medicaid won't cover c/hit.

Having insurance (which is all that Obama's legislation does, and not even for everyone, just for a few million more) doesn't mean getting necessary medical care or that you will be able to afford medical care. All that Obama's healthcare legislation does is require money to go from here (my pockets/taxpayers' pockets) to there (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.

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.
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

How Obama has handled the massive problems is EXACTLY how Republicans would've handled them (and how BushCheney was handling them). Obama's not governing as he had promised or as a real Democrat would have.

The real shame, the real tragedy for all of us is that Obama could have been a transcendent president, good for both business AND the People. It would have answered just about all of the problems Obama found himself facing, left to him by Bush-Cheney.

On the domestic front, the job creation possibilities were lost when the real reform proposed by single payer universal healthcare advocates was eliminated from even getting a seat at the table, and Obama chose to preserve an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care, which is government-sanctioned racketeering.

The 'job creation' reform that survived was billions spent on the Patriot Act-like invasion of citizens' privacy and the outsourcing of jobs that's involved with putting medical records on the internet -- All for a system that doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it).

The SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare system wouldn't have put the insurance industry out of business by the way. It would've been a two-tiered system: Basic coverage for everyone & boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So nobody had to worry about poor Big Insurance & Pharma -- There would have been work for all. Big Insurance & Pharma would just had to have made smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With single payer universal health care, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physician practitioners (nurse practitioners, physicians' assistants, and other allied health professionals). Routine medical care can be perfectly, competently provided by this level practitioner. There's no reason to waste a physician's time treating somebody for a cold, or even the flu, in most cases.

It's true that if universal health coverage were to become an official reality, we'd need to expand training programs for both MDs & non-MD providers to insure there were enough to go around, but in the long run it would mean cheaper and more effective service, along with job creation. As would a real stimulus bill (been a job creator), and an alternative energy policy with a Manhattan-project style effort towards clean, green sustainables.

These are all good things, but Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats have chosen the dark side. The corporate side.
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

You don't know what you're talking about.

To begin with, is Michael Lerner not a citizen of the US? So what that he's a rabbi? He's also the editor of an award-winning bimonthly magazine with the largest progressive J#wlsh circulation in the world.

And Nader again?

That was a stoIen election.

Al Gore won. Gore got more votes in Florida. Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget were 179,000 perfectly readable ballots that never got counted), Gore got more votes than Bush.

Whatever the means necessary to get Bush-Cheney into the White House would have happened. Had Nader been in the race, not in the race, whatever. Had Nader not run the outcome would have been the same. The powers that be were not going to let Gore win, no matter what, and gamed it innumerable ways.

If the means to getting Bush-Cheney into office required a close election and Nader not been running, some other means would have been used.

For pity's sake, the ClA was working on GOP absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to election day in Florida.

Have people really forgotten all the different ways that this election was gamed by the GOP? And that's just in Florida. And just the ways that we learned about because of legal proceedings in the post-election days.

There was a c0up d'etat in this country in 2000. A bIoodless c0up, but a coup nonetheless.

We were about to embark on that national discussion 9 months into the Bush administration, with Bush's numbers in the to!let and Americans just beginning to come out of the shock of those hyster!cal post-election days in Florida. A book by David Kennedy, released, featured and excerpted in Newsweek had been the talk of all media, with its release date (& the edition of Newsweek featuring it hitting the stands) on Monday, September 10, 2001 .

By Wednesday, September 12th, all copies had been removed from the stands nationwide, replaced with this
About Elections 2012
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

You don't know what you're talking about.

To begin with, is Michael Lerner not a citizen of the US? So what that he's a rabbi? He's also the editor of an award-winning bimonthly magazine with the largest progressive Jewish circulation in the world.

And Nader again?

That was a stolen election.

Al Gore won. Gore got more votes in Florida. Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget were 179,000 perfectly readable ballots that never got counted), Gore got more votes than Bush.

Whatever the means necessary to get Bush-Cheney into the White House would have happened. Had Nader been in the race, not in the race, whatever. Had Nader not run the outcome would have been the same. The powers that be were not going to let Gore win, no matter what, and gamed it innumerable ways.

If the means to getting Bush-Cheney into office required a close election and Nader not been running, some other means would have been used.

For pity's sake, the CIA was working on GOP absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to election day in Florida.

Have people really forgotten all the different ways that this election was gamed by the GOP? And that's just in Florida. And just the ways that we learned about because of legal proceedings in the post-election days.

There was a coup d'etat in this country in 2000. A bIoodless coup, but a coup nonetheless.

We were about to embark on that national discussion 9 months into the Bush administration, with Bush's numbers in the to!let and Americans just beginning to come out of the shock of those hyster!cal post-election days in Florida. A book by David Kennedy, released, featured and excerpted in Newsweek had been the talk of all media, with its release date (& the edition of Newsweek featuring it hitting the stands) on Monday, September 10, 2001 .

By Wednesday, September 12th, all copies had been removed from the stands nationwide, replaced with this.
About Elections 2012
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You make my point.

Feingold was useless and worthless in the Senate. For the past 35 years, corporations have risen to power because of the ineffectual performances by politicians like Feingold. They all have to go if the people's issues are going to be prevail.
About Elections 2012
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Ralph Nader has done more to improve the quality of your life, of all of our lives, than anyone in government.

Nader is responsible for consumers having rights, for clean and safe products, and the tragedy is that tr0LLs like you don't even realize you owe your life to him.
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Campaign finance reform.

Public financing.

End corporate personhood.

Any politician in power who doesn't have campaign finance reform at the top of his or her list (over and above everything else, as the first priority and nothing else until it's achieved) is a fraud and a t00I of the corporatocracy.

Anything and everything else is just a waste of all of our time and energy.
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

This is such Kabuki theater.

Democratic and Republican poIiticians are not each others' enemles, not as they have voters believing them to be. Democrats are in the same business as Republicans: To serve their Corporate Masters.

Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufacturing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball. 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, 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 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".

When it comes to achieving corporations' business, Democrats are remarkably competent. Obama is even more competent in that he's been able to give himself some distance from policies that displease Democratic voters ('plausible deniability') in a variety of ways that keep his favorable ratings high. Whether it's renaming Republican legislation ("Romney healthcare" to "Affordable Health Insurance Act") to getting other legislators like Joe Lieberman to actually do the heavy lifting legislatively, Obama's 'most ardent admirers' lay themselves on the line for him out of their ig-no-rance of what he's actually doing.

The latest (and IMHO really cowardly) is Obama's leaving the country as he launches a war against Libya without authorization by the Congress of the United States. It's just what he did after getting Lieberman to gut the FOIA and then get Gates to destroy the photographs of t0rture and abuse at Abu Ghraib (then he went to China).

Getting Obama's 'most ardent supporters' to understand that he and DLC-controlled Democratic politicians have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Democrats are worthless -- The latest Democratic caving is over the budget.

When the budget process began, Republican congressman Paul Ryan came out with the first number that Republicans wanted to cut ($32 billion). Then there was a TeaParty revolt in the House, and Republicans in the House said "Fine, you win, $64 billion."

So now they're at $64 billion and Democrats have moved all the way over to where Paul Ryan was when the process began. So even if Democrats get that number (which in Washington would be considered a "win" for Democrats), Democrats have gone all the way over to where the Republican leadership thought their opening bid would be. Ultimately the cuts are going to be very dramatic, more so than anyone in either party thought was wise a couple of months ago -- NOBODY is representing the interests of the poor and middle classes.

Nothing is going to change until and unless Obama and Democratic politicians make the decision to engage. Democratic voters thought they'd made the decision in 2006 and in 2008 when they put Obama and Democrats in power. Democratic voters need to get people into office who will engage, who will be as effective as getting their interests mets as Republicans have been at getting their supporters' interests met.

Obama needs to be primaried.

Michael Lerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

Ralph Nader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and he's not running again).

No one in the Democratic Party will do it. It would be su!cide for any professional politician in the Democratic Party to run against the party's sitting president (the DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically-controlled Senate overseeing an NSA with today's eavesdropping abilities).

Unless Obama drops out, the only challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republicans or Independents).
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

"Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

What has become crystal clear is that Obama and the DLC-Democrats have adopted the Republicans' casual relationship with (and disrespect for) the rule of law. Preserving the rule of law underpins how the US has been the most successful, longest running democracy in world history.

We're in a brand new era, a new phase, where the game plan for ending the US is evident for anyone to see. And it begins and ends with the rule of law. By refusing to investigate and prosecute Bush, by "looking forward, not back", Obama has broken the covenant that the American people have with their government.

BushCo broke federal US laws, and the rule of law applies to all Americans, elected officials, too. Elected officials especially.

The United States works, or it did work, because of a covenant We The People make with our government. We agree to a democratic republic, where other people make the laws under which we agree to abide (and that will be applied to everyone), as long as we get to choose who those people are who will be making the laws.

It is under those conditions that we consent to be governed.

When we no longer trust in the process, when we no longer trust that the selection process by which our elected representatives is fair and accurate, or that the laws don't apply equally to all, then all bets are off.

And no government can stand once that happens.

For a president of the United States not to equally apply the law to all people, presidents, too, means that the grand experiment is over.

Not prosecuting BushCo is destroying the country. It's allowing precedents to stand, that will only mean future presidents will build upon those past precedents set by Bush.

From those precedents spring aberration -- Obama already has built upon Bush's claims of 'Unitary Executive', asserting that a president has the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and no legislative or judicial review of that position. Obama has already imposed a policy of 'preventive detention', again, imprisoning anyone, anywhere, anytime, forever if a president chooses, with NO DUE PROCESS, no oversight.

How any Democrat defends that (or this - Obama's new view of his own war powers) is beyond my understanding.
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Watch this to understand what's going on with all industries in the US and the government agencies charged with oversight over them -
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/flyingcheap/

We don't need leaders in government who work "in a bipartisan manner", who "look for consensus". We don't need any more "uniters, not dividers".

We need "cleaners".

We need crusaders. Fighters. A president who knows right from wrong, doesn't split the difference on corruption for the sake of expediency. We need a president with convictions, who will set the full power of the DoJ and all investigative arms of the executive branch loose to expose, purge and separate (with a cleaver) Big Business's hold on the People's government.

We need representatives in all branches of our government more loyal to the Constitution and the People than to a political party flush with corporate pay-offs.

That's not Obama and this current Congress.
About Elections 2012
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Obama is just another Washington insider, perpetuating the status quo, blocking real reform. He isn't fixing anything. He's continuing the same failed deregulatory system that's allowed corporations to prosper at the expense of Americans' lives.

To excuse Obama, to pass the buck, say "It's Congress's job", is to be ig.nor.ant of the executive branch agencies under a president's control & all of these agencies' cozy relationships with Big Business. Obama's done nothing to change it.

One example is Obama's reaction to the oil blow-out in the Gulf. How does separating MMS into two or three agencies (where one would issue the drilling permits, another would inspect the drilling operations, etc.) change employees' behavior, where inspectors didn't inspect but had oil companies' employees write up the inspection sheets?

People need to be fired & face criminal charges. But Obama doesn't like doing that. Obama blocks investigations & prosecutions, preferring to "look forward, not back".

Career politicians (professional Democrats & Republicans) have gamed the government so that everyone, from Congress to the White House, can point their fingers at someone else & say, "It's not my fault, it was his responsibility".

And then after years of investigations and hearings, watered down findings are published and then buried. Business continues as before. If anyone is left holding the bag it's some low-level flunkie, someone who has retired (with full pension & benefits) before the finding is published, and is never prosecuted.
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Obama Set To Launch Re-Election Bid, AP Sources Say

Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party let them demonize ACORN for doing absolutely nothing wrong.
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Japan Nuclear Crisis: Radioactive Water Leaks Into Sea From Crippled Plant

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About Japan
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