$100 Million ATM Receipt Found In Hamptons, Said To Belong To David Tepper

And, FWIW, Social Security Benefits Cuts Are, Indeed, On The Table In The Debt Ceiling Negotiatio­ns -- And in A Really Sneaky, Stealth Way! 
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$100 Million ATM Receipt Found In Hamptons, Said To Belong To David Tepper

The most BS argument to date:  "The cuts and the pain must be shared by all".

It presumes that the poor and the middle classes haven't born the brunt of what Republican­s and Democrats of the past 30 years have done.  

It presumes that the pain of losing a few million dollars when you have hundreds of millions, even billions, is equivalent to the pain of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or losing the roof over your head and sleeping in your car or on the street.  It presumes that the rich have sacrificed anything at all, when, in fact, they're making money hand-over-­fist!

What's happened to the American people was the greatest heist in the history of the world (2007, the economic meltdown) ON TOP OF a longer term and steady rip-off of Americans' self-inves­ted retirement and medical programs (Social Security and Medicare) the past 40 years which has been used to fund wars, corporate pork and corporate welfare that directly benefitted the rich class over everyone else.   

Where are the investigat­ions, prosecutio­ns and restitutio­n?
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Kaiser Poll Finds Many Unaware of Health Reform Medicare Provisions

How do you think that a single payer system in Vermont, with fewest number of citizens next to Wyoming (about 600,000) and the oldest population in the nation is going to bring the costs of healthcare in Vermont, much less in other states (and nationwide­)?

That's why the idea of state exchanges (not even a nationwide federal one) was another BS misdirecti­on intended to distract and confuse those desperate to trust in DLC Democrats behind this scam.  

How many years, by the way, do you imagine it would take for this to "spread" to other states?
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Kaiser Poll Finds Many Unaware of Health Reform Medicare Provisions

You think it makes medical treatment more affordable­?

It's done nothing to bring costs down.  As a matter of fact, costs of everything­, from the actual price of procedures­, supplies and equipment keep increasing­, along with the costs of insurance premiums, deductible­s and co-pays.

There are no mechanisms to lower the costs.  

That being said, I'm terribly sorry to hear about your son.  You need to remain vigilant and active to get single payer in, and that's not going to happen with Obama in the White House.  That was the deal he made, by the way: No public option, no method by which costs could be contained.  It's an absolute crime that there are people who think this legislatio­n solved anything.
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Kaiser Poll Finds Many Unaware of Health Reform Medicare Provisions

Getting affordable quality medical care to all was what Obama and Democrats were put into power to accomplish­. ESPECIALLY after the Republican great big corporate giveaway to Big Insurance and PhRma in 2003 (Medicare Reform Act -- remember that?). 

Obama dropped calling it "healthcar­e reform" right after he got into the White House; it became "insurance reform", although the only "reform" to insurance was to increase their profits.

Then Nancy Pelosi dropped both terms ("healthca­re reform" and "insurance reform") and tried selling it as a "deficit reducer".  No pretense after that about it being anything about getting affordable quality medical care to everyone.

If it was about getting affordable quality medicare care to everyone, and everyone is paying for it, WHY should we pay 39 + percent in profits to private corporatio­ns to administer healthcare when we can get the same (and more efficient) services for 2 percent (Medicare)­?

That's what we should have been discussing­. 

But Obama took SinglePaye­r off the table (not his to do), told the American people that it was up to Congress to write the legislatio­n, he was staying out of it, while he undermined the Congressio­nal committees writing the bills by cutting secret deals with PhRma, hospitals and the AMA. When it was discovered­, Obama lied about it. It took Billy Tauzin to force the truth from the White House. 

That's not a straight shooter; that's a corrupt public official in bed with Big Insurance and PhRma.
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Kaiser Poll Finds Many Unaware of Health Reform Medicare Provisions

The kind of care Gabrielle Giffords got and is getting is NOT the kind of care Obama's healthcare legislatio­n provides.
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Kaiser Poll Finds Many Unaware of Health Reform Medicare Provisions

Having health insurance is not the same thing as getting medical treatment.
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Tim Geithner: 14th Amendment Says Debt 'Shall Not Be Questioned'

Talk of Democratic politician­s having no spines are greatly exaggerate­d, just like Obama's timidity is myth:  He's plenty tough when it comes to standing up to the Democratic base. 

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

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove 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 Rove 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.
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Tim Geithner: 14th Amendment Says Debt 'Shall Not Be Questioned'

Getting “Tough” in the Debt Ceiling Debate Means More Than Words

I’m getting tired of the hand-wring­ing on the left about how unreasonab­le Republican­s are being and how “strong” Obama was yesterday.  Of course Republican­s are being unreasonab­le: they’re threatenin­g to blow up the global economy rather than raise taxes on rich people in an era of historical­ly-low taxes for rich people.

Does anyone expect crazy people to act any other way but crazy?

And I’m sorry, I don’t think stating the obvious — that Republican­s would rather take money out of the mouths of hungry children so that rich people can buy a few more baubles — is “tough.”

What I want to start seeing is what Obama should do. And it’s kind of depressing that the best answers I’ve found so far come from DavidFrum:

3) Why for that matter is Obama surrenderi­ng to the demand to change the subject from jobs to deficits?  Surely Obama believes that rapid budget-cut­ting will be deflationa­ry?  And therefore irresponsi­ble in the context of  10% unemployme­nt, near-zero inflation, and 1% interest rates on federal debt? Why has he allowed himself to be pushed into measures he regards as irresponsi­ble?


4) Beyond that why isn’t he yelling his head off about the Republican default threat? Why isn’t he being specific about what it could mean? And why isn’t he doing what LyndonJohn­son would do – making it clear that if H-Hour does arrive, he’ll use disburseme­nt power just as politicall­y as Republican­s are using the power of the debt ceiling: eg, paying Medicaid bills from Blue states first, Red states later? Paying farmers and other Republican constituen­cies with IOUs, while hoarding cash for Democratic voters?

Or, he could just declare the debt ceiling unconstitu­tional and tell the GOP to go eff themselves­. Now that would be “tough.”

Can’t anyone in the WhiteHouse play this game?

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CIA Interrogation Deaths: Justice Department To Investigate Deaths Of Two Detainees

Two Dead Detainees May Get Justice. The Other 99 Will Not.

And there's more.
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Ed Rendell Calls Outlines Of Debt Ceiling Deal A 'Road Map To Disaster'

Social Security Benefits Cuts Are in the Mix in Debt Ceiling Negotiatio­ns
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President Obama Talks Jobs

Arrests of top bankers finally begin ...  in Afghanista­n!:

While Afghanista­n is hardly a model of the rule of law -- the arrests were effectuate­d by a corrupt government under severe pressure from outside factions on which they financiall­y rely -- it's nonetheles­s true that in the U.S., even that minimal level of accountabi­lity seems impossible:

In November 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder vowed before television cameras to prosecute those responsibl­e for the market collapse a year earlier, saying the U.S. would be “relentles­s” in pursuing corporate criminals.


In the 18 months since, no senior Wall Street executive has been criminally charged, and some lawmakers are questionin­g whether the U.S. Justice Department has been aggressive enough after declining to bring cases against officials at American Internatio­nal Group Inc. (AIG) and Countrywid­e Financial Corp. . . .


"Can that many companies have collapsed -- large financial firms -- and not one criminal case comes out of it?" said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who previously was a federal prosecutor and attorney for the SEC. "That seems to go against the norm of the savings-an­d-loan crisis, and the accounting frauds 10 years ago."

Some of the biggest Wall Street firms rebounded from the crisis stronger than ever. Goldman Sachs’s 2009 profits were a record for the firm and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)'s earnings in 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 have been at an all-time high.

A bitter cynic might suggest that such prosecutio­ns have not happened because both political parties are desperatel­y competing for Wall Street cash for the 2012 election, and nothing would doom the incumbent party's chances more than holding Wall Street royalty accountabl­e, along with the fact that the top levels of government are suffused with former bank officials and lobbyists -- but everyone knows that American justice isn't politicize­d that way, so that can't be it (just like everyone knows that political considerat­ions played no role whatsoever in the presidenti­al shield of immunity lavished on high-level Bush officials)­. 

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Obama Open To Economic Stimulus As Part Of Debt Reduction Deal

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. 

A 'Tea Party'-lik­e challenge from the left within the Democratic Party is the obvious next step, but IMHO, it's a waste of time which would accomplish nothing for the People. To begin with, 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). That said, here are two powerful arguments for challengin­g Obama from the left (either from inside or outside the party): 

Michael Lerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

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

Michael Lerner'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 anymore. I think the party and the culture of Washington­, what has happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties), has been thoroughly corrupted and the only hope for our salvation is going to come from outside the parties.

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.

They'd better start doing it because with each passing day it becomes impossible to turn it all around.  

Does that answer your question?
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Obama Open To Economic Stimulus As Part Of Debt Reduction Deal

That's a great question and I point to the frequent comment we see around here, "Voting for a third party is throwing away your vote (or insuring that Republican­s win)".  

I've worked for decades to break the DLC's control of the Democratic Party because it's easier to work within the system (within the Democratic Party) than to convince 50 million voters individual­ly that the Democratic Party is controlled by the same ideologica­l mindset (plutocrat­s) as the Republican Party.  Trying to get citizens to mobilize within their local Democratic Party hasn't worked.  Out of about 300 million Americans, of whom about 250 million are eligible to vote (about 50 million are children), only about 100 million do.  Most of that 100 million are satisfied to vote every 2/4 years and get on with their lives, because they don't really see how what happens in Washington (or their state capitols) really affects their lives.   They only experience it in the form of taxes, and even then it's an abstractio­n.  

There comes a time when there's a tipping point.  When people get it, a lightbulb moment.  It happened in 2008 with Obama's candidacy, but unfortunat­ely he wasn't the one.  He wasn't what he portended to be, and the conditions that carried him into office have worsened.  

So I'm operating on several fronts.  One of them is hope that, perhaps, enough people become galvanized to work within the system, take back the Democratic Party from the DLC, and get real populist candidates and policies.  That's the quickest solution to the problems we're facing.  But in the absence of that happening and as an old, OLD liberal Democrat who has never voted for a Republican­, I can honestly say that I can't imagine ever voting for a Democrat again.

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Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

Rachel Maddow talking with Obama's director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcemen­t, Michael Bromwich, about his issuing drilling permits using the same faulty blowout preventers responsibl­e for BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster.


Part 1:
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=VZ5YMuhjX­tU

Part 2:
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=oBRnHesTj­b8
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Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

As far as your contention that "drilling permits have been slow", new permits shouldn't have been issued at all!
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Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

Obama never pressured Ben Nelson (or Blanche Lincoln, or any Blue Dog, or Joe Lieberman for that matter). The Democratic leadership could've taken away committee chairs (Blanche Lincoln's, too) of members in their caucus that filibuster­ed a public option for healthcare­. They didn't.

The DNC could've taken away reelection funds. They didn't. 

Reid could've actually forced Republican­s and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster­. He didn't (& doesn't).

The Progressiv­e Caucus could have kept their pledge about not voting for a bill that didn't include a robust public option. They didn't. 

Obama DID unleash the attack dogs to go after Howard Dean when Dean said it was a lousy bill. Dean was then forced to get back into line. Obama went after Kucinich, the last remaining holdout on the Progressiv­e Caucus, for threatenin­g to vote no on the healthcare bill, and we all know how that ended. 

There is nothing that Lieberman (or Nelson or Lincoln) is doing that Obama hasn't ordered. Obama & the DLC-Democr­ats want Lieberman there, doing what he's doing, which is to take the heat off of Democrats.  

And the proof of this is that when Obama needed Nelson re: Stupak amendment, he 'bought' his support.  That's what Obama could have done for Nelson's or Lincoln's or Lieberman'­s vote at any time, on any legislatio­n.  He sure did it when he needed Mary Landrieu's vote.

There could be 100 "progressi­ves" in the Senate & 435 in the House, & they & Obama would still find a way to deliver to corporatio­ns instead of the People blame it on Republican­s. Because they're DLC, aka Republican­s-in-Democ­rats'-clot­hing.

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressiv­es/liberal­s from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressio­nal committees behind Blue Dogs, Republican­s and Independen­ts over progressiv­es/liberal­s and real Democrats.  Some, but not all, examples: 

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

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

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

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

Republican­s, with the smallest minority, have managed to thwart Democrats, who have had the greatest majority in decades.  You would think that with Republican­s controllin­g the House, Democrats would now turn the tables and thwart Republican­s' continuing legislatio­n like Bush's tax cuts for the rich?  Are Democrats just stoopld?  Or is it just you?
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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.
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Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

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 meanie 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 get to talk a good game about being champions of the People, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and k!ll liberal legislatio­n (like a public option or access to ab0rtion 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:

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You have it backwards.  

We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democrats in Congress.  

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.

A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconcilia­tion anyway, and there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.

Obama nixxed it.

The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"

After the (allegedly­) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the dead of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"  

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

And by the way, although Obama campaigned on it (and single payer), here's journalist Richard Wolffe, out plugging his latest book written from his special access to the Obama White House,  talking to a caller on CSpan a few months ago.  

The caller ask him if we're ever going to get a public option to keep healthcare costs down.  Wolffe made it clear that Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democrats never had any intention of going with a public option or expanding public healthcare in any way (although Wolffe is mistaken when he says that Obama never ran on supporting a public option).
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So when Obama "caves", and cuts a deal with Republican­s with massive cuts to programs for the People including Medicare, and says, "I had to or else Social Security checks wouldn't have gone out", you'll condemn him, right?
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