Spintested: 07/08/11

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

Friday, July 8, 2011

Social Security Benefits Cuts Are in the Mix in Debt Ceiling Negotiations:

Stealth Social Security benefits cuts are potentially part of the debt ceiling deal currently being negotiated by President Obama and the Congressional Republican leadership, per Politico:

Already on the table are more than $1 trillion in discretionary 10-year spending cuts and hundreds of billions more in changes affecting farm subsidies, college aid and retirement benefits for federal workers. Additional savings from health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are in the offing, as well as a potential $300 billion change in the government’s inflation calculator affecting Social Security benefits and some revenues.

Changing the inflation calculation for Social Security benefits from CPI to chained CPI is a benefit cut by stealth. Using the low inflation number would result in slightly smaller Social Security benefits every year. While the cuts would take place in small yearly increments, the cumulative effect would be that over a seniors lifetime they would get tens of thousands less from Social Security (PDF ).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

President Obama stepped up pressure on Congressional Republicans on Tuesday to agree to a broad deficit-cutting deal, pledging to put popular entitlement programs like Medicare on the table in return for Republican acquiescence to some higher taxes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/us/politics/06fiscal.html?_r=2&ref=politics
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

Obama Says 'Nothing Can Be Off-Limits' In Budget Talks

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There we go. There's the Obama that we've come to know and distrust.

This is yet a replay of his secret deal with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that undercut the Congressional committees working on real healthcare reform instead of the corporate giveaway of ACA, and Obama's deal with Republicans to extend Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

After months of insisting that Democrats wouldn't allow cuts to Social Security and Medicare, that they were not on the table, Social Security Benefits Cuts Are, Indeed, On The Table In The Debt Ceiling Negotiations -- And in A Really Sneaky, Stealth Way!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, that has been reported these past years about what cards Obama's holding has come to pass.

What is it with you Obama supporters? Are you all on the payroll?
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

Did you know that air conditioning the troops, their tents in Afghanistan and Iraq, costs more than NASA's entire budget? $20.2 BILLION.

It's true.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

Go to the middle class suburbs in your area. They're ghost towns. Particularly the new developments, where people commuted up to 2 to 3 hours one way to get to their jobs. The new developments were the closest they could afford to own.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

Where are the Democrats, by the way?

With the exception of Bernie Sanders (an Independent), why is it all that I'm seeing on cable channels are Republican politicians and operatives touting the Tea Party line?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

The Supreme Court is already lost.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

During the 2000 election, when Gore was talking about a "lock box" & Bush was campaigning on tax cuts ("Got to get the money out of Washington"), I was writing about how Bush and Grover Norquist intended to bankrupt the country as a back door to ending the Great Society.

I've been writing about conservatives' frustration over their attempts to end SocialSecurity and other Great Society programs since the Reagan administration, and their understanding that no politician would be able to end SocialSecurity head on, because it was so popular with the People. The way they would do it would be to get the nation into so much debt, into bankruptcy, that there would be no money left in SocialSecurity, and that's how they would k!ll it.

When George W. Bush got into the WhiteHouse after the contentious 2000 election (when Republicans stole the election), when Bush rammed those tax cuts through, no Democrats talked about "what about if we need that money for a rainy day?" Or "should we find ourselves in a war". Or for shoring up the nation's crumbling infrastructure, i.e., the roads, highways, bridges, dams, railways, etc., etc., etc.

Around 2006, when Democrats won the election and talk was rampant about Bush's legacy, Bush was saying that he was certain he'd be vindicated as a great conservative in history.

Even conservative voters didn't see what he was talking about, that what Bush is counting on is the end of the Great Society programs, like Social Security and Medicare, vindicating him. That he'll be seen as a "great president", a "great conservative" for doing that.

FWIW, not one reporter asked Bush (nor did they on his recent book tour). Democratic politicians knew this, by the way, and they let it happen.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

Really? Where? Where are these people?
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

Why is it that simple solutions for SS and Medicare are never mentioned or on the table?

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Because keeping SS and Medicare isn't the goal. Just like getting affordable, quality medical treatment to everyone wasn't the goal of Obama's healthcare legislation. Because if affordable, quality medical care for everyone is the goal, everything else pales next to single payer. And that's why Obama had to get it off the table.

This is about setting SS and Medicare up for ending. Obama's payroll tax holiday as part of extending Bush's tax cut is another leg along that journey, to end SS. A little here, a little there.

When politicians say that "Social Security is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their Corporate Masters. You don't see politicians putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

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

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

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

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?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Republican Strategists: Obama Risking Independent Voter Support

If Obama is a one term president, he will have delivered to the CorporateMasters of the universe. He'll hand the baton off to Republicans for the fleecing to continue.

Over the course of US history, corporations have managed to game our political system, & done it so effectively that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporations) is good for America (the People)".

Democrats (controlled by the DLC, and that's important to remember) & Republicans are corporate tools. Like siblings competing for the attention & approval (campaign contributions) of a parent, Republicans & DLC-controlled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituent, BigCorporations. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of thePeople.

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

The truth is that Obama is no better than BushCheney. Not better, not worse, but the same. His 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromising change to our campaign financing system, until corporations are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participating in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Recovery Derailed: June Jobs Report Stokes Fears Of Return To Recession

A double-dip recession (we're in a Depression; enough of trying to sugarcoat it) is pre-ordained after ~~Bush's~~ Obama's tax cuts for the rich and Obama's caving to Republicans on 78 percent of the cuts they wanted. After months of insisting that Democrats wouldn't allow cuts to Social Security and Medicare, that they were not on the table, Social Security Benefits Cuts Are, Indeed, On The Table In The Debt Ceiling Negotiations -- And in A Really Sneaky, Stealth Way!

And now, Obama Threatens Veto – Of Any Debt Limit Deal Under $2 Trillion.

This is yet a replay of his secret deal with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that undercut the Congressional committees working on real healthcare reform instead of the corporate giveaway of ACA, and Obama's deal with Republicans to extend Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Pharmaceutical Money Targeted By Dems In Debt Debate

Obama Threatens Veto – Of Any Debt Limit Deal Under $2 Trillion
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

DCCC Chair Steve Israel Relays Fears Over Candidate Recruitment If Dems Buckle On Medicare

Dem Leader: Recruiting Candidates Will Be Hard If Party Buckles On Medicare

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Recruiting VOTERS will be hard if party buckles on Medicare and Social Security.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Bush wasn't the first to create Constitutional crises, but he created more of them, eviscerating the Constitution for all time. How do you go forward with it when its Achilles' heel has been laid bare for any BushCheney wannabe waiting in the weeds to exploit? What's now happened in the aftermath of BushCheney is that what Nixon did has been made legal. Once BushCheney happened, once they exploited those loopholes for everyone to see, you can't just go on as if it never happened. You can't "look forward, not back".

The situation might have been remedied had Obama come into office investigating and prosecuting the Bush administration and restoring the 'rule of law'. BushCheney exploited the inherent weaknesses in the Constitution: The precarious balance of power between the three branches of government. But Obama refused, and has continued the BushChene y disregard of the Constituti on and even gone beyond BushChene y abuses.

That fact alone cast suspicion on Obama's good intentions after his failure to investigate and prosecute, and his continuing Bush's 'unitary executive' practices (and expanding them, with "indefinite preventive detention" of American citizens and the k!IIing of Americans with no due process or oversight).

There was a coup d'etat in this nation, a bloodless one, but a coup nonetheless. And both parties are in on it and we're 'flying without a net' (Constitution).

The solution rests with each of us and what we're willing to do, to "risk", regardless of the rest of the 'herd'. If you think that Republicans are worse, if you don't realize that Republicans and Democrats work together in a 'good cop/bad cop' dance to further the interests of transnational corporations, then it'll be more of the same until we're all squeezed dry and living like Haitians.

If you think that Republicans are worse & you're going to continue voting for Democrats, why should Obama and Democrats do anything for you? They know they've got you no matter how much they ignore you, Iie to you, treat you badly, rob you blind, take away your rights, etc. Dr. Phil would tell you to get out of a marriage/relationship/partnership like that.

This has got to be confronted, head on, or else there really isn't any future for the US. Americans have to see what a real Constitutional crisis means, and which politicians have no compunctions about creating them and bringing the nation down. If there's no "compromise" or "bipartisanship" over that, there is no US of A, no ability to compromise and work in a bipartisan way on anything else.
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

By the way, I never said congress would act to impeach. I think they will just use it as a political football if the President tries this. But even many Dems don't want the constitutional crisis that would be created over an attempt to try out this "theory".

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

You've now hit upon one of my favorite subjects: Constitutional crises, Republicans' utter contempt for the Constitution and callous disregard for creating them caused by Democrats' cowering response. That's what underpins all of this and what's destroying the country.

As president, you've got to really want the US to work, to exist, to not exploit the loopholes in the Constitution that keep our three-branches of government precariously balancing the democracy. But BushCheney drove tanks through the loopholes, breaking the law and with no apparent concern for exposing the loopholes or any consequences.

Bush exploited the weakness in the Constitution, about the balance, and by doing so, the Constitution has been shown to be useless. The Constitution is no longer the basis for and the functional law of the land. The Constitution is no longer much respected in Congress, the Executive Branch, the SupremeCourt, nor in law or business.

Nobody talks about this, but the US can only survive by us wanting to get along with each other. You've got to want the country to work more than you want your way over other Americans getting their way. Or some of their way. You've got to be willing to compromise.

Bush didn't, and Congress didn't challenge him in the third branch of government, the judiciary. Bush created one Constitutional crisis after another. There's been real concern that if the judiciary ruled against him, he wouldn't abide. Then what? Nobody can force him. Three co-equal branches of government.

KEEP READING

About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

I never said congress would act to impeach.

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I never said you did.
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

you make the common mistake of thinking that all tea party folks are part of the Republican base

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I didn't say Teabaggers; I said the Tea Party.
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Prof. Jeffrey Rosen discusses whether President Barack Obama can invoke a part of the 14th Amendment to keep the U.S. from defaulting on its debt.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/vp/43676939#43676939
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

After months of insisting that Democrats wouldn't allow cuts to Social Security and Medicare, that they were not on the table, Social Security Benefits Cuts Are, Indeed, On The Table In The Debt Ceiling Negotiations -- And in A Really Sneaky, Stealth Way!

This is yet a replay of his secret deal with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that undercut the Congressional committees working on real healthcare reform instead of the corporate giveaway of ACA, and Obama's deal with Republicans to extend Bush's tax cuts for the rich.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

And......nobody said a word about cutting benefits, now did they.

Your info is a little outdated

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

Take it up with Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse- It's directly from his petition to protect Social Security and Medicare, out this week, and in response to "Obama's offering Social Security cuts".
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

#3 - " I think you're a shill I think you are either a TBagger or a very conservative Republican being used to plant false information."

Thinking is clearly not your strong suit.

Look around yourself; there are many of us old (and not so old) liberal and progressive Democrats who aren't blindly loyal to a party that has been hijacked by DINOs doing the bidding of transnational corporations over the needs of the people.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

#2 - "YOU know Libya is NOT a war but is a NATO action and that the U.S military action ended after about 20 days.We now provide support, communication jamming, fuel, intelligence, search and rescue. Other NATO forces are handling the ground...and YOU know that we are bound by treaty to be involved when the Security Council calls for action."

The president can't commit the US military to any action without the US Congress signing off on it. Period.

The War Powers Act is not triggered by a "war" or "troops on the ground", or "sustained fighting with enemy combants" or "put troops in direct harm", but rather "any case in which US Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities".

NATO is the US. Nothing comes out of NATO that isn't US directed. The same is true for the UN. The decision wasn't any 'coalition' one. It was straight out of the White House:

...[R]ight now it's all U.S. It's U.S. commanded, U.S. led, U.S. military. And when Admiral Mullen was talking about handing over command of the coalition, I was told, number one, well, "We're really not in any hurry to do that." And number two, it could be an American commander.

The US taxpayer is funding this adventure. We can't even discuss, much less get Obama to release, the $31 billion that was lifted from Khadafy's money in US banks to pay for it.

About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

#1 - "I challenge you to find anyone in Obama's office, any Democrat in Congress or Obama himself who said a darned thing about cutting benefits? And, I will want to see your source for "Obama wanting to cut SocSec and Medicare benefits for years"...because that's not true either......"

Blue highlighted text is a link. Click on it. In the comment you're replying to and here and here.

About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Both Rosen and Turley weigh in and affirm that it's a legitimate angle.

And so what if it's just one ruling? That's all that's necessary, one ruling, and in circumstances similar to these. And the issue is STANDING. Only Congress, both chambers filing a joint resolution, can take the president to court. Do you really believe a Democratically-controlled Senate is going to challenge Obama on this? Do you really believe that a Democratically-controlled Senate would vote to remove Obama from office?

The debt has already been authorized by Congress.

There are 3 choices:

1) Prioritize payments (which still means we're on the hook),

2) Cut spending (major cuts in programs that people need)

3) Default and sell off assets.

The American people are clear they do not want programs cut. The Tea Party is NOT "the People" (the Tea Party is the Republican base). You don't take people who say, "Government out of my healthcare" and "Don't you touch my Medicare" seriously -- You EDUCATE them, you don't empower them by giving in to their ignorant demands.

The point here is that Obama doesn't, never has, used the tools at his disposal to do the will of those that brung 'im.
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama On Jobs Report: 'We Still Have A Long Way To Go'

Don't you remember the argument from the extending Bush's tax cuts' tango? If the tax cuts were extended, they'd be able to create more jobs.

You would think that a REAL Democratic president would be hammering that home right about now. About how that didn't happen, and the proof is the new jobs report. A REAL Democratic president would be using the dismal jobs report to argue raising the debt ceiling for a REAL jobs' stimulus bill, and ending the Bush tax cuts.

But this isn't a REAL Democratic president.
About Unemployment
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Obama is continuing most of the BushCheney policies, getting Republican legislation through Congress, and you "remember all too well what it was like" because it's the same, but even worse -- Obama has upped the ante on BushCheneyRepublican abuses, on everything from extending the Patriot Act and gutting FOIA, to asserting a right to indefinitely imprison anyone, American citizens, too, even kill them, with no oversight, no due process, and in secret.

You just like the packaging better. A 'D' next to the name lulls you into a trusting slumber.
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Who has standing to challenge it?
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Here are two Constitutional scholars (one most decidedly NOT leftwing) in agreement about it being a solution -- Jeffrey Rosen and Jonathan Turley.
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama On Jobs Report: 'We Still Have A Long Way To Go'

It's truly amazing that we are all lamenting a growth of only 18,000 jobs with Obama but not a peep was uttered when Bush bled 700,000 a month....

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You're obviously new to the show. During the Bush years, we on the left were talking about it non-stop. About how 250,000 jobs must be created MONTHLY in order to keep up with the population's demands.
About Unemployment
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama On Jobs Report: 'We Still Have A Long Way To Go'

Obama and the DNC have been working their butts off to prevent real Democrats, real progressives, from getting into office.

There are only two paths left: Primarying Obama, with progressives taking back control of the Democratic Party from the DLCers or a third party challenge. [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. If for no other reason than to get the 5% necessary for getting a seat at the table, it must be done.

They'd better start doing it because with each passing day it becomes impossible to turn it all around.
About Unemployment
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

So call your member of congress today and tell them if they pass this, you’re done. That’s it. Tell them you don’t really care about hearing them make a bunch of a$$-covering promises they do not intend to keep. Tell them to say something meaningful like “I’ll pledge to vote against Nancy Pelosi as minority leader if this passes,” or just STFU.

Tell them you’re on to their little game of rotating villains. Because cutting the COLA tears a big hole in the social safety net, in a way that will immediately hurt millions of senior citizens. Nobody is interested in their cheap theatrics.

Call your member of Congress TODAY and tell them if they vote to cut Social Security benefits, you won’t vote for them in the next election.

About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

Call Members of Congress and Tell Them if They Cut SocialSecurity, You’re Done With Them

The DCCC sent out the most cynical email I think I’ve ever seen yesterday. It really took my breath away:

At this moment, SpeakerBoehner is crafting a deficit deal that would gut Medicare and SocialSecurity, while slashing benefits for seniors and the middle class in order to make sure he protects tax breaks for millionaires. This is unacceptable and HouseDemocrats won't stand for this.

JohnBoenher didn’t put cutting SocialSecurity on the table,Obama did. He's wanted to cut SocialSecurity benefits from the day he took office. He just wants to be able to blame the Republicans for it.

The best comedy on TV right now is the grandstanding of ProgressiveCaucus Democrats like KeithEllison, banging on about how they won’t vote for any cuts to SocialSecurity or Medicare. In this less-than-hard-hitting interview from yesterday, the equally strident pledge that Ellison made last year is never mentioned:

I won't vote for any healthcare that does not include a PublicOption. I won't do it, that’s a guaranteed no vote and I won't be dissuaded from that.

Who's Ellison kidding. His conviction will last only so long as they don’t need his vote. He signed a letter saying he wouldn’t vote for any more war funding without troop withdrawal provisions too, and now Mr. Anti-war says he’s “comfortable” with the action in Libya.

If they need him, Ellison — and the rest of them — will be there. The ProgressiveCaucus has 83 members. They could vote NancyPelosi out as minority leader. They could gum up the works for any legislation Obama wanted to pass. All this foot stomping is a colossal joke. They have power, they just won’t use it.

And if the DCCC gave a damn about cutting SocialSecurity or Medicare, how about withholding support in 2012 from Democrats who votes to cut it? They could force Obama to pass it purely with Republican votes. As if. The very thought of it is sidesplitting.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama On Jobs Report: 'We Still Have A Long Way To Go'

Obama is plenty tough when he wants to be.

Obama Threatens Veto – Of Any Debt Limit Deal Under $2 Trillion

Because we have a governing elite that doesn’t understand basic economic theory, the horrific jobs report will probably not change the mindset of the next 72 hours, which is to cement a deal to massively reduce the deficit, mostly through cutting spending. The White House has convinced themselves that this would increase confidence from the business community and lead to hiring. In fact, the President is so convinced this is a good idea that he, not the Republicans, is using the debt limit as a hostage. He threatened to veto any solution that didn’t equal at least $2 trillion-plus in deficit reduction.

In his meeting with congressional leaders today, President Obama said he would veto any deficit reduction bill that doesn’t raise the debt ceiling until after the November 2012 election, sources tell ABC News.

The president argued that this was a time to think big, sources said, and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, agreed. Though how to get there is another matter.

Obama presented three solutions to Congressional leaders yesterday, and then said he’d veto one of them. The other two were a medium-term solution of $2 trillion, along the lines of the Biden talks, and a “think big” solution of $4 trillion. There’s no reason that the increase in the debt limit has to be tied to deficit reduction – you can hardly think of an example of that from the past – but that was the clear message from the President. “Think big,” he told the assembled. And most of the Congressional leaders agreed with him; the only dissenters, apparently, were Eric Cantor and Jon Kyl, who worked on the medium-sized solution in the Biden talks.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

If he used this option, I'd support impeachment charges to be filed against him.

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For what? For enforcing the rule of law (the Constitution)?

The remedy for it would be the Congress taking him to court (Congress is the only party with standing). To do that, both chambers would have to file a joint resolution. Do you see a Democratically-controlled Senate doing that? Do you see a Democratically-controlled Senate removing him from office in an impeachment proceeding?

Not only that, this is where you draw the line in the sand on unitary executive power? Not when he asserted that he has the right to indefinitely detain anyone he wants, kill anyone he wants, American citizens included, based on nothing but a hunch? With no oversight, no due process.

Not on Libya? Not on Yemen? Not on Somalia?
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Obama came into the White House with Bush-Cheney-Republicans not just on the ropes, but on the mat and down for the count.

Then Obama issued a pardon, metaphorically speaking, and let them rise again.

After just one month in the White House, instead of going after Republicans and how their failed policies have brought us to the brink of destruction, instead of hammering Bush-Cheney-GOP for our economic woes and wars of choice, instead of investigations and prosecutions and RESTITUTION ("Look forward, not back" -- There's a novel idea for saving money; stop crime fighting), Obama and Rahm Emanuel went after Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, two people with no role in the Republican Party.

Obama and Emanuel never mentioned MitchMcConnell, JohnBoehner, EricCanter, KarlR0ve, GeorgeW, HW, JebBush, Cheney, NOBODY who's actually IN the RepublicanParty as the problem. Obama still doesn't; he mocked DonaldTrump, an undeclared candidate for the presidency who every serious political pundit knew had no intention of actually running.

Republican leadership made no secret of the fact that Republicans wouldn't be cooperating with a President Obama back before he got the nomination in 2008. That he could take his "bipartisanship" and shove it. It wasn't just campaign rhetoric, 'meat' for the Republican base -- Republicans had been 'shoving it' to Democrats since Democrats had regained the majority in the House in 2006.

But there was Obama, watering down Democratic legislation, continuing BushCheney policies (and even going BushCheney one better), and Republicans still wouldn't work in a "bipartisan manner".

So what did Obama do? He watered Democratic legislation down even more (made it actually Republican-like legislation) and passed it through reconciliation, which didn't need (or get) ANY Republican votes.

Obama makes secret deals, lets lobbyists write legislation and policy and regulations, and the only time that Obama gets tough is on those representing the Democratic Party base's interests.

Obama is a changeling, a Republican-in-Democrats'-clothing, a Trojan horse, and Obama's 'most ardent supporters' are being irresponsible by their blind loyalty to a label.
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Excellent point.

So many commenting look at these occurrences as isolated, believing there's no plan, no strategy to what both Democrats and Republicans are doing. They can't see the forest for the trees. They can't see that both parties' presidential administrations have built upon the abuses of their predecessors -- BushCheney couldn't have done what they did without BillClinton having laid the foundation, and Clinton continued what HW Bush had done. Obama's 'most ardent supporters' need to step back and look at the big picture.

We've gotten through 8 years of BushCheney only to get a Democrat continuing just about all of their policies -- Even going them one better, doing what even BushCheney didn't have the balls to try, like Obama's assertion that a president can indefinitely imprison anyone, including American citizens, and kill them, without due process, without oversight, WITHOUT ANY CRIME OR ACTION AT ALL HAVING BEEN UNDERTAKEN, just because the president believes "they're thinking about it".

Had Nader gotten 5% of the vote, think how much different things would be now. The debates alone would have a transforming effect on our political system. Had Nader won, think how much different things would be now. Does any Democratic voter doubt that Nader would be fighting to uphold the Democratic platform (unlike the current head of the Democratic Party, Obama, who is racing to implement Republicans' dreams)?
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Those ballots were eventually counted, although long after the election was over and certified, and Gore got more votes. Decisively.
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Speaking of Pat Buchanan and the 2000 election, nobody blames him as Nader is blamed for having the temerity to run and steal votes from Gore. Even Buchanan says that it's beyond unlikely that 20,000 Palm Beach voters intended to vote for him rather than Gore.

No one has a right to assume ownership of voters. One study done after the 2000 election determined that 3 out of 5 of Nader's voters were Democrats (2 out of 5 were Republicans), but that had Nader not been running they wouldn't have bothered to vote. Votes for Nader, whether they were Democrats or Republicans, were against Gore and Bush.
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Greece is being forced to sell its antiquities and choice real estate.
About Debt Ceiling
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

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.
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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.

NancyPelosi and HarryReid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting BushCheney 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 raclst America than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US. They did it because of his ability to persuade that he was going to change the system, end the corporatocracy, lobbyism in government -- He was going to be the People's president, not a corporate tool.

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 death's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises & slooooowed 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.

His political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation. If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a dead giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

Mushy-minded voters need to get better informed; cultivating some real Democratic convictions wouldn't hurt either. Because whether it's taking single payer universal health care, a public option, investigations and prosecutions of BushCheney, etc., off the table, or continuing the BushCheney policies and going BushCheney one better (by asserting that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'preventive detention', the right to imprison anyone indefinitely because he thinks they might commit a crime), or using JoeLieberman to hide behind, to duck out on his campaign pledge of transparency, and gut the FOIA, no real Democrat could continue to support Obama or any politicians purporting to be Democrats doing this.
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

During the 2000 election, when Gore was talking about a "lock box" & Bush was campaigning on tax cuts ("Got to get the money out of Washington"), I was writing about how Bush and Grover Norquist intended to bankrupt the country as a back door to ending the Great Society.

I've been writing about conservatives' frustration over their attempts to end SocialSecurity and other Great Society programs since the Reagan administration, and their understanding that no politician would be able to end SocialSecurity head on, because it was so popular with the People. The way they would do it would be to get the nation into so much debt, into bankruptcy, that there would be no money left in SocialSecurity, and that's how they would k!ll it.

When George W. Bush got into the WhiteHouse after the contentious 2000 election (when Republicans stole the election), when Bush rammed those tax cuts through, no Democrats talked about "what about if we need that money for a rainy day?" Or "should we find ourselves in a war". Or for shoring up the nation's crumbling infrastructure, i.e., the roads, highways, bridges, dams, railways, etc., etc., etc.

Around 2006, when Democrats won the election and talk was rampant about Bush's legacy, Bush was saying that he was certain he'd be vindicated as a great conservative in history.

Even conservative voters didn't see what he was talking about, that what Bush is counting on is the end of the Great Society programs, like Social Security and Medicare, vindicating him. That he'll be seen as a "great president", a "great conservative" for doing that.

FWIW, not one reporter asked Bush (nor did they on his recent book tour). Democratic politicians knew this, by the way, and they let it happen.

KEEP READING
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

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?
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Oh stop the BS.

Your money isn't the money he needed -- Meek needed the money and power of the DNC and WhiteHouse behind him instead of against him (along with BillClinton yet).

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 SinglePayer, a PublicOption, off the table, eliminating regulatory oversight from finance reform legislations, extending Bush's tax cuts, 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. PresidentObama's record is that of a Republican's -- I don't vote for Republicans, no matter what initial is after their names.

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).
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