Spintested: 04/14/11

Experts Fear Another Oil Disaster

Thursday, April 14, 2011

*BREAKING NEWS*

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement announced today that it's issued yet ANOTHER permit to drill, but get this: After the director's (Michael Bromwich) interview on The Rachel Maddow Show, given the shocking revelations that came out of his mouth, the Bureau will no longer announce the issuance of permits. The Bureau will continue to issue them, but all on the QT (shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!).

Obama in his own words:

"Transparency Will Be Touchstone"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The American people are the answer"

Obama's Transparency Problem
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Experts Fear Another Oil Disaster

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About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Budget Deal Passes House, Senate

What we're dealing with is a corporate takeover of both parties.

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'. One side (Republicans) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric.

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

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

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

Obama's 'job', as he sees it, is to deliver to the top 2%. No amount of begging, imploring, wishing, pleading with Obama is going to move him off of that, as we've already seen with his job approval numbers: His numbers require a Tea Party for comparison in order to remain up.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Budget Deal Passes House, Senate

Included in the bill:

$414 million in cuts to grants for state and local police departments.

A whopping $1.6 billion cut in the EnvironmentalProtectionAgency's budget, of which nearly $1 billion comes from grants for clean water and other projects by local governments and Indian tribes.

$600 million in cuts to community health centers.

Cuts to homeland security programs for the first time ever, though much of the agency's two percent decrease stems from a $786 million cut in first responder grants to state and local governments.

A $7 million cut to the Bureau of Public Debt, which accounts for and provides reports on the debt.

A $1 billion cut to HIV and disease-prevention funds.

A $3 billion cut to agriculture programs, the biggest portion of which comes from the Women Infants and Children fund, which loses $504 million.

A $390 million cut to low-income heating assistance; Community Development Funds are cut by $942 million.

A $650 million cut to federal highway investments.

Contributions to the United Nations and other international institutions are cut by $377 million.

$45 million pulled from nuclear nonproliferation funds.

A rider tucked in by lawmakers from Western states that allows states to remove wolves from the endangered species list.

Why would Democratic voters support any of this?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Fiscal Plan Appeases House Liberals, Sours Republicans

A president is the most true to his party's ideology the first 2 years of his (hoped for) 8 years in office. Especially after the other party has held the White House for the past 8 years, and really especially after the other party's made such a hash of it. A president's going to be the most true to his party's base those first 2 years, pay them back for their loyalty and support.

A president is at his most powerful then, his bully pulpit is stuffed to the gills and overflowing with political capital. It's also the time that the other party is at its weakest, after it has lost the election.

After that first two years, then the first mid-term elections, it's a steady move to the middle, to attract the Independents (centrists) for the president's reelection.

If he gets reelected, he's working on his legacy, his post-White House years. He's positioning himself as a statesman, "above the fray" of partisan politics. He's looking for his place on the world stage.

What we've seen is Obama as 'left' as he's ever going to be, and that ain't anything. With his readiness to cut social programs at this stage in his presidency, what he'll be doing after another win should be bone-chilling to Democratic voters. Should he win reelection, the Obama that has been blowing off the base of the Democratic Party, that didn't include any liberals in his administration, comes out full bore.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

At The Local Level, Tea Party Activists' Skepticism Turns To Anger On Budget Deal [UPDATE]

What we on the left know that Obama's 'most ardent supporters' don't.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Budget Deal Passes House, Senate

What we on the left know that Obama's 'most ardent supporters' don't.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Experts Fear Another Oil Disaster

The gas and oil industries have been buying up patents for alternatives for years and burying them to eliminate competition.

See here.
About Gulf Oil Spill
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Nancy Pelosi Snaps At White House Adviser

So in lieu of actually researching this, you take it as an opportunity to spew BS.

Here's just one recent supplemental you can try to wrap your brain around.
About Nancy Pelosi
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Experts Fear Another Oil Disaster

Resumed Drilling in Gulf of Mexico 'A Time B0mb' -- Nothing's Changed.

Obama Administration is issuing new permits for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico using the same failed blowout preventers as in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

See Rachel Maddow interview Michael Bromwich, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement who defends his issuing permits to drill in the Gulf using the same faulty blowout preventers responsible for BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Part 1 here.

Part 2 here.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Inside The Budget Deal: Vulnerable Populations Targeted, But Family Planning Saved

Included in this legislation:

$600 million in cuts to community health centers.

$414 million in cuts to grants for state and local police departments.

A whopping $1.6 billion cut in the Environmental Protection Agency's budget, of which nearly $1 billion comes from grants for clean water and other projects by local governments and Indian tribes.

Cuts to homeland security programs for the first time ever, though much of the agency's two percent decrease stems from a $786 million cut in first responder grants to state and local governments.

A $7 million cut to the Bureau of Public Debt, which accounts for and provides reports on the debt.

A $1 billion cut to HIV and disease-prevention funds.

A $3 billion cut to agriculture programs, the biggest portion of which comes from the Women Infants and Children fund, which loses $504 million.

A $390 million cut to low-income heating assistance; Community Development Funds are cut by $942 million.

Contributions to the United Nations and other international institutions are cut by $377 million.

$45 million pulled from nuclear nonproliferation funds.

A $650 million cut to federal highway investments.

A rider tucked in by lawmakers from Western states that allows states to remove wolves from the endangered species list.

Why would Democratic voters support any of this?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Budget Deal Passes House, Senate

What we're dealing with is a corporate takeover of both parties.

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'. One side (Republicans) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric.

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

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

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

Obama's 'job', as he sees it, is to deliver to the top 2%. No amount of begging, imploring, wishing, pleading with Obama is going to move him off of that, as we've already seen with his job approval numbers: They require a Tea Party for comparison in order to remain up.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Nancy Pelosi Snaps At White House Adviser

Google is your friend.

supplemental war spending 2009 2010 2011
About Nancy Pelosi
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

I'm a veteran so I can see now where you're coming from and what you're stuck on.......I've fought for you to have the voice that you espouse. So I'll leave it at that b/c we clearly won't agree on much.

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

And by the way, O' faceless Tinkerbelle, you didn't fight for me to have the voice that I espouse -- You fought on behalf of multinational corporations, to overturn Democratically elected governments and steal the resources of and exploit the people of sovereign nations. You fought for the Bush & Cheney families' dividend checks as corporate shareholders.

Put down the Kool-Aid.
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

I'm a veteran so I can see now where you're coming from and what you're stuck on.......I've fought for you to have the voice that you espouse. So I'll leave it at that b/c we clearly won't agree on much.

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

You're an anonymous, faceless commenter on a blog. You might as well claim to be Tinkerbelle, as relevant as that would be to a discussion on politics and government in the USA.

I don't so much mind your condescending insults (I'm guilty of doing it myself at times) as I do your NOT discussing the issues at all.

Try following comment policy here. Because your comments to date are reminiscent of R. Rinkle's famous advice to young lawyers:

When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When both are against you, attack the plaintiff.

About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

I suppose you think all this just recently began to happen. I would submit to you that your complaints would be better served in Crawford, Tx.

Actually sometimes i wish you folks who believe everything should just be fine after all the crimes committed should have had to live under the real perpetrator of the crimes until they were fully realized and resolved.

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

In yesterday's news (obliterated in the news cycle by a 1 PM speech by Obama on his fiscal policy):

Obama Administration to Spanish Judge: We Won’t Investigate Bush Lawyers’ Role in Torture

Why (if Bush and Republicans are such scum, "criminals", and so dangerous as I believe they are and as you claim to believe them to be)?
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

I suppose you think all this just recently began to happen. I would submit to you that your complaints would be better served in Crawford, Tx.

Actually sometimes i wish you folks who believe everything should just be fine after all the crimes committed should have had to live under the real perpetrator of the crimes until they were fully realized and resolved.

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

If Republicans are such scum (and I believe they are and you purport them to be) and "so dangerous," why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting them? Why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting the greatest heist on the People in all history?

Why are Obama and Democrats continuing the war crimes of Bush-Cheney, and blocking investigations and prosecutions into their crimes?

How does a Democratic president, on the heels of the most criminal and corrupt administration in the nation's history, not replace Bush-era U.S. attorneys? Presidents may fire U.S. attorneys, and they do so routinely at the beginning of a new administration. It is unusual to fire U.S. attorneys in mid-term (as Bush did) except in cases of gross misconduct (which wasn’t the case during the Bush administration). This is what Obama's U.S. attorneys do instead of returning the democracy to the American people -- Instead we get Bush-style obscenity prosecutions:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_691667.html

We need a real Democrat in the Oval Office, and real Democrats in Congress, instead of these DINOs. With fire in their bellies to go after those who obstruct the People's business (Republicans), and not fire in their bellies to go after the Democratic Party's base.

We have Obama and Democrats to thank for the resurrection of Republicans. The GOP & Bush were down for the count after the 2008, and Obama gave them all pardon.

How do Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain all that to themselves?
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Nancy Pelosi Snaps At White House Adviser

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

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

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

Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.

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

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

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

Nancy Pelosi Snaps At White House Adviser

This is just more proof that there is NOTHING that Democrats in Congress are doing that isn't being directed by the head of the Democratic Party (Obama).

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

Their only problem with this is that corporations don't vote, and politicians need votes to get into office. So they, Democratic politicians, try to convince the People they're working on our behalf with weasel-words, rhetoric designed to lead voters into thinking one thing when the opposite is true. Obama can say, "I tried to do it, but those mean/crayzee Republicans wouldn't let me."

Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the White House, the president controls and dictates all of it. They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corporate legislation) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituents come election time. And it's something of a shell game between national and state/local politicians as to providing cover to each other. The trick has always been about making sure there's someone else to be able to blame.

Democratic politicians in liberal districts are the worst. If their votes are needed to cross over and k!ll liberal legislation (like a public option or access to ab0rtion or reinstating the rule of law and closing Guantanamo and trying detainees in federal courts), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

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

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Budget Deal Passes House Vote

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

If Obama and the DLC-DemocraticParty 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 TownHalls 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 TeaParty grew & bullied at TownHalls.

What Obama did instead during the same TownHall 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 RepublicanParty that controls the RepublicanParty (far rightwing extremists ) and the rest of the RepublicanParty (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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

New Health Care Advocacy Group Launches With $5 Million In The Bank (EXCLUSIVE)

“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/
About Obama Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

New Health Care Advocacy Group Launches With $5 Million In The Bank (EXCLUSIVE)

“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 Obama Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

New Health Care Advocacy Group Launches With $5 Million In The Bank (EXCLUSIVE)

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, S703. He introduced an amendment that would have substituted S703 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
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

With all due respect, when Kucinich had the chance to make a difference, he caved.

Obama pulled that stunt (a Brooks' Brothers-type rally in Kucinich's state) after all of the progressives who had pledged to not vote for a bill without a public option had caved -- Obama didn't need Kucinich except to break the back of the call for a public option, to break the momentum of the left's call for it. What Kucinich did was even more treacherous, carried even more betrayal than the other progressives who had caved.

What Kucinich did was equivalent to, "Et tu, Brute?"

By the way, what the Kucinich-tale shows us is how selling out, how caving to save yourself ("to fight another day" is what you try to sell it) never works:

The DLC-controlled Democratic Party machine is redistricting Kucinich out of a seat.

The DLC-controlled Democratic Party machine is redistricting Kucinich out of a seat. https://theintercept.com/2018/04/26/steny-hoyer-audio-levi-tillemann/?comments=1
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

At The Local Level, Tea Party Activists' Skepticism Turns To Anger On Budget Deal [UPDATE]

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

You blame Nader voters when, had Nader not even run, had he not be in the race, Bush still would have won. Because Republicans had gamed that election more ways than we're ever going to know about.

Have you forgotten Jeb Bush's purging scheme?

DId you know about the Republican Party's having CIA operative Charles Kane fiddle with absentee ballots?

Democrats suppressed investigations, and then screwed over the Congressional Black Caucus's attempts to expose that stolen election.
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

Democratic and Republican politicians are not each others' enemies, 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, then 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, when the People 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".
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

You're also the one who keeps voting for Republicans-In-Democrats'-clothing. You see a 'D' after their names and you think they're populist. They're not. They're DLC-controlled.

Do you even know what the DLC is?
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

Nader isn't running. You're the one bringing him up.
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

A new Congress, too.
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

In the post-election days in Florida, the Republican establishment behind Bush was playing for keeps. Cut-throat. Pulling out all of the stops. Whether it was positioning John Bolton on the streets in Florida, sending the Republicans' Congressional aides from Washington to stage 'riots' and intimidate the locals counting the ballots (and the officials deciding what would be counted and the standards), sending armies of Republican lawyers to stall and challenge the counting of ballots, suppressing votes, etc.

The Democratic establishment behind Gore couldn't be bothered and were hedging their bets, working to establish ties to a Bush-Cheney administration before the votes were even certified.

James Baker staged it according to football rules and protocol. Superbowl at that. "We're ahead in the count, and the plan is to run out the clock before the other side can make any plays (much less get ahead in the count)."

Warren Christopher phoned it in as a baseball game. A video game of baseball. He accepted the defensive position from the very beginning, ignoring everything (how public perception drives the battle) and left it to legal challenges.

Democrats should have demanded a state-wide count instantly, but they immediately got pigeon-holed, intimidated, by the suggestion that such a demand would be spun by Republicans. That decision, that moment on election night, was the deciding moment of the election.
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

The old "lesser of two eviIs" argument just doesn't work anymore.

Obama's continuing just about all of the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better: How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret? Pure Kafka.

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.

At this point, I would argue that Obama and Democrats are worse. Bush-Cheney make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, whereas Obama and Democrats ran on knowing better.

Why should Obama and Democrats do anything for you if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republicans?
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

Everything that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did was built on the foundation laid by Bill Clinton.

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 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 & trust. BarackObama.

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).

You continue to support Obama and Democrats at the expense of your own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of corporations and establishment elites.

Why should Obama and Democrats do anything for you if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republicans?
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

"I thought Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we've had in a while. Barack Obama is even better."
-Alan Greenspan

About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

So knowing all of this, samidean, you're going to vote for the co-conspirators who helped the stealing of that election.

You're the problem. You're why the USA is circling the drain.
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

Eric Alterman summarized it well:

"[T]he inescapable fact is that Gore was the genuine choice of a plurality of Florida’s voters as well as America’s. As the Associated Press reported in its examination of the NORC report, “In the review of all the state’s disputed ballots, Gore edged ahead under all six scenarios for counting all undervotes and overvotes statewide.”

Gore beat Bush by almost every conceivable counting standard.

Gore won under a strict-counting scenario and he won under a loose-counting scenario.

He won if you counted “hanging chads” and he won if you counted “dimpled chads.”

He won if you counted a dimpled chad only in the presence of another dimpled chad on the same ballot—the so-called Palm Beach standard.

He even won if you counted only a fully punched chad.

He won if you counted partially filled oval on an optical scan and he won if you counted only a fully filled optical scan.

He won if you fairly counted the absentee ballots.

No matter what, if everyone who legally voted in Florida had had a chance to see their vote counted, then Al Gore, not GeorgeWBush, was elected president."

About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

Bashing Nader again?

2000 was a stolen election. It was a coup d'etat; a bloodless coup, but a coup nonetheless.

Al Gore won. Gore got more votes in Florida. Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget is that there 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, had he 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 for getting Bush-Cheney into the White House 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. That was the most amazing revelation from the televised court hearings in the post-election days in Florida -- 'Charles Kane' testified to altering absentee ballots in the Martin County's Registrar's office in the two week period prior to election day (it's against the law and should render the ballots null and void). When Kane was sworn in, he had to identify himself and give his occupation and employer. Retired CIA. The judge asked him why he was altering the absentee ballots, and he answered "I go where I'm told." That's a verbatim quote. The judge didn't follow up. There was next to no news coverage of this, and none by the networks.

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 Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Budget Bill Vote Surrounded By Drama, Last-Minute Lobbying (UPDATE)

If you eliminate a mortgage (which I make payments on time, and got for tax purposes, interest payment write-off, etc.), I, too, have zero debt.

But our economy (and your and my continued fiscal well being) depends on People spending.
My home has lost about 50 percent of its value in the last three years and is probably going to lose more value in the coming days. For many people, their homes have been their primary investment, and what they had hoped to retire on. Now that their pensions and other investments have been wiped out, they are going to be homeless and impoverished.

The only people who your plan works for are the bankers, the Wall Streeters, those who are prospering from this meltdown.

The economy isn't getting better.

3 million foreclosures down, 11 million more in the pipeline. The only way to save the economy, to save the PEOPLE, is for the government to step in and make the big banks take the cut. 15 million families are about to face foreclosure. <-- Blue highlighting means it's a link to be clicked.

The "thinning of the herd" is what's happening. Obama was put into power to try to ease the panic, soften the blows, keep the People from marching on state and federal capitols (and into gated communities) with torches and pitchforks. To keep us 'frogs' in the pot until it boils us to deth.

The people who should be in prison are those who did this to the People.
About Tea Party
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

I never advise people to sit out elections, because if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. It's what p!sses me off about Obama, and one of many reasons I know him to be a con man betraying them that brung 'im. Because by shutting out liberals, the base, from his administration, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, eliminating regulatory oversight from finance reform legislations, he's given pro-corporate, Republican-like policies an inside line. The People's advocates can't even get in the door of this government.

Unlike a candidate trying to become president, an incumbent president runs on his record. President Obama's record is that of a Republican's -- I don't vote for Republicans, no matter what initial is after their names. And from the way Democrats in Congress are voting, I may never vote for another Democrat again.

I tell people that they're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republicans. There are other alternatives besides sitting out the election or voting for Republicans. There are other candidates running as independents, from Green to Libertarian, in just about every race.

A 'TeaParty'-like challenge from the left within the DemocraticParty would have been the obvious next step, but it's a waste of time which would accomplish nothing for the People. To begin with, no one in the DemocraticParty will do it. It would be su!cide for any professional politician in the DemocraticParty 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 DemocraticParty (Republicans or Independents). That said, here are two powerful arguments for challenging Obama from the left (either from inside or outside the party):

MichaelLerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

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

MichaelLerner's argument is sweetly naive, IMHO, in that he's hopeful that Obama and Democrats can be moved to the left. I don't think that's true. I think the party and the culture of Washington, what has happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties have been thoroughly corrupted), the only hope for our salvation is going to come from outside the parties -- And it better happen soon because with each passing day it becomes impossible to turn it all around.

Obama's 'most ardent supporters' need to get on the correct side, the real Democratic side of these issues, or join the RepublicanParty (and take the DLC and Obama with them).
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Debt Speech: Tax Increases, Medicare Changes Included In President's Plan

I hope that you will not "sit out" the 2012 election

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

I never advise people to sit out elections, because if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. It's what p!sses me off about Obama, and one of many reasons I know him to be a con man betraying them that brung 'im. Because by shutting out liberals, the base, from his administration, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, eliminating regulatory oversight from finance reform legislations, he's given pro-corporate, Republican-like policies an inside line. The People's advocates can't even get in the door of this government.

Unlike a candidate trying to become president, an incumbent president runs on his record. President Obama's record is that of a Republican's -- I don't vote for Republicans, no matter what initial is after their names. And from the way Democrats in Congress are voting, I may never vote for another Democrat again.

I tell people that they're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republicans. There are other alternatives besides sitting out the election or voting for Republicans. There are other candidates running as independents, from Green to Libertarian, in just about every race.

A 'TeaParty'-like challenge from the left within the DemocraticParty would have been the obvious next step, but it's a waste of time which would accomplish nothing for the People. To begin with, no one in the DemocraticParty will do it. It would be su!cide for any professional politician in the DemocraticParty to run against the party's sitting president (the DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the WhiteHouse 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 DemocraticParty (Republicans or Independents). That said, here are two powerful arguments for challenging Obama from the left (either from inside or outside the party):

MichaelLerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

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

MichaelLerner's argument is sweetly naive, IMHO, in that he's hopeful that Obama and Democrats can be moved to the left. I don't think that's true. I think the party and the culture of Washington, what has happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties have been thoroughly corrupted), the only hope for our salvation is going to come from outside the parties -- And it better happen soon because with each passing day it becomes impossible to turn it all around.

Obama's 'most ardent supporters' need to get on the correct side, the real Democratic side of these issues, or join the RepublicanParty (and take the DLC and Obama with them).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Budget Bill Vote Surrounded By Drama, Last-Minute Lobbying (UPDATE)

Retire the American People's debt.

I proposed the idea back when HenryPaulson was scaring Congress into thumb-sucking fetal positions about the imminent collapse of the economic system, and lobbying Congress for unlimited powers & money (TARP).

I continued proposing the idea when Obama was handing out the 2nd half of TARP, & bailing out GM, & paying cash for clunkers (abzurd program, helping the rich yet again, foreign car makers, while hurting working class & used car dealers), & passing FinanceReformLegislation that doesn't prevent another meltdown.

I kept at it while millions have been losing their jobs, their homes, losing their health insurance (& still not having any, despite Obama's great big corporate giveaway to BigInsurance & PhRma), & the economy continues to spiral down.

Now, after WeThePeople are picking up the tab for another unwinnable war so that theDickCheney&Bushes can get transnational gas & oil company dividends from their stock portfolios, the only way that this economy is going to turn around is if the People have money to spend.

Businesses aren't hiring because nobody's buying. Nobody's buying because only the rich have money, & they already buy all that they want & need. That is, by definition, what 'rich' means. Banks got bailed out, they're sitting on the money, & they've giving themselves bonuses.

Retiring the People's debt -- Why should that be such a radical idea?

The People who actually labored & made the money & the great economy we had, who haven't been properly compensated for decades (but ripped off by corrupt politicians of what little they were able to put away for retirement, their children's college, & unforeseen emergencies), getting a lifeline that would keep the US from becoming a third world nation.

Retiring all debt every 7 years is even 'bibIicaIIy proscribed', for all of the Jude0-Chrlstlans who insist on scripture as the basis of US laws.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Thursday, April 14, 2011

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