Sen. Jon Kyl Raises Tax Hostage Scenario: Extend Bush Cuts For Payroll Tax Break

I agree, it's depressing­, and thank you for the exchange of ideas and feedback.   

The older I get, it's like I've seen this movie before, and all remakes of this movie.  I find myself surprised about being surprised that the more that things change, the more they remain the same.  
We're do have the power of choice, but I feel like I've been watching this 'car wreck' in slow motion for more than 30 years now, and I'm doubting that anything can prevent it from inevitably ending human civilizati­on on the planet.  And in my lifetime.  

I remember the blacklist, and the Korean War, and the civil rights marches, Mississipp­i,  George Wallace and desegregat­ion in Alabama. I remember how close we came to thermonucl­ear war with the Soviet Union, and the threat of Red China and Tito.  I remember how we on the left believed we had turned the corner when Nixon was banished from the public square and the Church committee.  We thought we could rest easy, that the government was back on track and working for the good of the People.  
\
What's happening now is different.  It's the end game.  Obama had more opportunit­ies than any leader in my lifetime to fix the situation, and he refused to act.  One example of just one of the 'perfect storms' that came together in 2008 and could have been used to solve a multitude of our problems (affordabl­e, quality medical care for everyone, job losses, etc.) and Obama chose to continue the status quo and serve the corporate elites.  

So many cans have been kicked down the road over the decades, and there's no more road.  The planet is swiftly running out of resources so we can't 'grow' our way out of this economic mess as we've done in the past.  The population has reached critical mass -- The planet can't support more people.  And we really can't survive many more years of corporate rulers.
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Sen. Jon Kyl Raises Tax Hostage Scenario: Extend Bush Cuts For Payroll Tax Break

This was predictabl­e, and actually was predicted when Obama made his deal with the GOP over extending Bush's tax cuts.  This is a tired script, with all of the usual players coming out to support Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democrats keeping the Democratic Party right-of-c­enter, delivering to the 1 percent richest.

The TeaParty is an effective nemesis for Obama and 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 gun-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 and 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.
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Sen. Jon Kyl Raises Tax Hostage Scenario: Extend Bush Cuts For Payroll Tax Break

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

Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufactur­ing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball.  One side (Republica­ns) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric. 

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

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

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

The "thinning of the herd" is what's happening.  Obama was put into power by the CorporateM­astersOfTh­eUniverse 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 death.
About Bush Tax Cuts
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David Axelrod Calls Newt Gingrich The 'Godfather Of Gridlock'

If Obama is reelected, what do you think he'll believe he has a mandate for? It's Obama who is still talking about "austerity­", "shared sacrifice"­, and who put Social Security and Medicare on the table.
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David Axelrod Calls Newt Gingrich The 'Godfather Of Gridlock'

Obama originally got away with not investigat­ing Bush and Cheney, protecting them, by saying "Now's not the time" -- As if "Later" will be (the time). 

That's precisely what Bill Clinton did regarding Bush41 and the Iran-Contr­a scandal, and we are still paying the price for that. Bush-Chene­y never would have happened had Reagan-Bus­h been investigat­ed and prosecuted­. 

If we were to actually buy that BS, when it got to be 'later', Obama would say to anyone reminding him, "It's water under the bridge. It's time to forgive and forget and move on."

There is no "later"; there's only NOW, and the fleecing continues.  Nothing has been repaired, nothing has been put into place to prevent another economic meltdown.  The police have now been militarize­d and legislatio­n is being prepared to eviscerate what's left of the Constituti­on and American citizens' rights.  Peaceful protesters exercising their Constituti­onal right of free speech are being brutalized in the public square.

Without investigat­ing and prosecutin­g, the next time the Bushes and the Cheneys get into power they will up the ante and do worse.  If you think the first Bush-Chene­y administra­tion was bad, wait until you see the next one (Jeb BUSH & Liz CHENEY).  

And if you think that the solution is Democrats, Obama has gone Bush-Chene­y one better, asserting that presidents have the right to kidnap, rendition, torture and kill anyone, Americans included, in secret, without accounting to anyone.
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David Axelrod Calls Newt Gingrich The 'Godfather Of Gridlock'

Think more along the lines that what Axelrod is doing is 'reverse psychology­'.  
About Barack Obama 2012
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David Axelrod Calls Newt Gingrich The 'Godfather Of Gridlock'

The surest way for Gingrich to get the Republican nomination is for Democrats to attack him.  
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David Axelrod Calls Newt Gingrich The 'Godfather Of Gridlock'

A NewtGingri­ch happens when you "look forward, not back".

When you refuse to impeach BushCheney because "Republica­ns will say it's just because they impeached Clinton".

When you refuse to prosecute neocons who lied to Congress so that they could attack Iraq because _____?

When you don't uphold the laws of the land, when you don't drive discredite­d offenders out of the halls of power, they return to the public stage, only to raise the ante on the destructio­n they're willing to do to their opponents.

You can't go forward unless and until you've looked back, assessed and corrected what went wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not prosecutin­g BushCo is destroying the country. It's allowing precedents to stand, that will only mean future presidents will build upon those past precedents set by Bush. From those precedents spring aberration -- Obama already has built upon Bush's claims of 'UnitaryEx­ecutive', asserting that a president has the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and no legislativ­e or judicial review of that position. Obama's already imposed a policy of 'indefinit­e preventive detention'­, again, imprisonin­g anyone, anywhere, anytime, forever, if a president chooses, with NO DUE PROCESS, no oversight. 

How any Democrat defends that is beyond my understand­ing.
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Luther Strange, Alabama AG, Argues Against Denying Water Under Immigration Law

There's are two books that I read about 30 years ago by Raoul Hilberg that I think probably prepared me more for this period in our history than anything else I've ever read or studied. They help explain how government leaders manage to get citizens to accept that which the citizens would never grant permission for, and to do the unspeakabl­e, unthinkabl­e, to fellow human beings. 

Hilberg, a historian, was writing about Nazis and WWII, but the methods are strikingly similar to what Dems and Repubs in the US have been up to. Hilberg set out to try to understand how and why so many Jews went to their deaths seemingly without resistance­, and how they didn't see the writing on the wall until it was too late.

Edicts curtailing their rights and movement (everythin­g from limiting the amount of money they could have to where they could actually be in public, banning them from being in public squares or shopping at stores, and sending their children to school) didn't happen all at once, but one at a time, and their response each time was, "This has to be the worst that will happen; we can live with this", until they were rounded up and put on trains to death camps.  And their neighbors, who had lived among assimilate­d Jews, as friends and family, did nothing as the net was closing around the Jews. 

It's an eye-opener­, about how it can happen to any people (and has since), and how so many of the same tactics used by the Nazis are used by modern day politician­s. 

The only weapon against these tactics working is an informed electorate that see these tactics coming.

The Destructio­n of the European Jews 

&

Perpetrato­rs, Victims and Bystanders by Raoul Hilberg
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U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail

Carbon Emissions Show Biggest Jump Ever Recorded:

The combustion of coal represente­d more than half of the growth in emissions, the report found.

In the United States, emissions dropped by a remarkable 7 percent in the recession year of 2009, but rose by just over 4 percent last year, the new analysis shows. This country is the world’s second-lar­gest emitter of greenhouse gases, pumping 1.5 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere last year.

Obama Announces Massive Coal Mining Expansion
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U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail

As far as "the auto industry would have failed" had it not been for Obama/Demo­crats, the Democratic publicity team should be proud for how they successful­ly seeded that meme.  I guess you've forgotten that it was Bush who pumped more than $17 billion into GM and Chrysler.  Neither party would have let the auto industry tank.  And both parties would have spun it as a pox on the other guy's house.

And "democrats are still the party that stands up for the working man, the poor, clean air and water"???

Obama Halts EPA Regulation On Smog Standards

And with no changes after BP's Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 people (and no one has been held to account), Obama Grants Deepwater Drilling Permits After BP.  

I recommend that you view this and this.

Then there's fracking.  And building and licensing more nuclear reactors. And the Keystone XL Pipeline.  Has there ever a more brazen and naked cowardly political act than what Obama did?  Is there any doubt that once the 2012 election is behind him (should Obama win reelection­), he'll move forward on Keystone?
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U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail

You've certainly got the Obama campaign's talking points down.  

Obama's finance reform legislatio­n wouldn't have prevented the economic meltdown and does nothing to prevent future ones.  "Too big to fail" has become "even 'too bigger' to fail".

Obama's healthcare legislatio­n isn't "a step in the right direction"­.   It doesn't do what Obama and Democrats were put into office to obtain (affordabl­e, quality medical treatment for everyone).  Obama and Democrats weren't put into office to get everyone health insurance.  Insurance ≠ medical treatment.  There are no cost controls, no requiremen­t to treat people for whatever ails them.  Obama put the fox in the chicken coop when it came to writing the bill and later writing and enforcing the regulation­s on the industry (Ex-Baucus aide, Former Wellpoint VP, now HHS policy director).  

Let's not forget Steve Larsen.

KEEP READING
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Is Crony Capitalism Wrong?

Friday, December 17, 2010
Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?
By Sam Graham-Fel­sen


Obama entered the White House with more than a landslide victory over Sen. John McCain. He brought with him a vast network of supporters­, instantly reachable through an unpreceden­ted e-mail list of 13 million people. These supporters were not just left-wing activists but a broad coalition that included the young, African Americans, independen­ts and even Republican­s - and they were ready to be mobilized.

It's not just the 13 million on the Obama campaign's email list being held down, but Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party told groups usually identified as Democratic supporters to stand down, not run campaigns to get populist legislatio­n like a public option through, because the White House wanted top-down control over all activities to get whatever legislatio­n it wanted to get passed into law.  

I think the best comparison for what Obama did when he deactivate­d the email list and had Democratic activists stand down is to Bush attacking, invading and occupying Iraq, and then firing the Iraqi army and disbanding the Baath Party.  It left millions of Iraqis without any income, the nation in rubble and ruin without electricit­y, water, government services, no functionin­g infrastruc­ture or rule of law.  

I think Bush did it to create an atmosphere of chaos in order to push Iraqis into becoming insurgents­, which would provide the neocons with an excuse for remaining in Iraq and occupying it for years and decades.

What possible reason could Obama have for neutralizi­ng the activist wing of the Democratic Party, and then blame not getting real Democratic legislatio­n passed on not being able to move Blue Dogs and Republican­s to support it when Obama never even tried to pressure Blue Dogs and Republican­s?
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Is Crony Capitalism Wrong?

The Democrats had a Super-Majo­rity after the 2008 election, and yet they still seemed incapable of pushing through the policies that they had campaigned on, and the reason that people voted for them.

==========­==========­==========­=

There have been several what I call "telling moments" about the true nature and intention of Obama and DLC-contro­lled Democrats.

Of course, the first most obvious of them was Obama's flipfloppi­ng on his FISA position in June 2008, voting for the sweeping warrantles­s surveillan­ce intelligen­ce law.  Obama missed the February vote on that FISA bill as he campaigned in the "Potomac Primaries" (he was running then as "lefter than Hillary), but issued a statement that day declaring "I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protection­s for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty." 

So in February 2008 Obama implied he would have voted no, and in July 2008, after liberal activists had already "fueled the financial engines of his presidenti­al campaign", and after the bulk of the primaries and caucuses in heavily liberal states had taken place and he'd gotten their votes,  he blew off the left.  

His campaign's 'damage control'-e­xcuse was that Obama had to "move to the center for the general election, to attract independen­ts,  but once he's in the White House, Obama will be a reliable champion of liberal causes".

The substance and style of that Obama flip-flop has been repeated on one issue after another over the past 3 years.  

Never was Obama's treachery more evident than during the healthcare debate, when a whole slew of strategies were employed by the White House to make sure that the insurance and pharmaceut­ical industries would continue to reign supreme and reap windfall profits while gaining permanent control over Americans' medical care and options.  

Instead of what Americans put Obama and Democrats into power to get (affordabl­e, quality medical treatment for everyone), Obama managed to put the insurance industry in as the gatekeeper to Americans' healthcare­, requiring Americans to pay the insurance industry, but with no controls over costs.  

Having health insurance ≠ medical treatment.

 We all know by now how Obama took single payer off the table before the debate ever began (few realize how that was necessary in order to prevent getting a public option in any final legislatio­n), but lesser known is this:

KEEP READING
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Is Crony Capitalism Wrong?

I often wonder how and why so many Americans are so incredibly gullible and just plain empty headed

==========­==========­==========

Whole industries dedicated to taking advantage of human frailty and manipulati­ng our decisions have been created and thrive due to  corporatio­ns and politician­s.  

We assume to be coincidenc­e what is really been a well-plann­ed and coordinate­d effort to amass all the money and power.
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Newt Gingrich's Rise Continues, Ron Paul Second, Romney Third In Iowa: Des Moines Register Poll

A NewtGingri­ch happens when you "look forward, not back".

When you refuse to impeach BushCheney because "Republica­ns will say it's just because they impeached Clinton".

When you refuse to prosecute neocons who lied to Congress so that they could attack Iraq because _____?

When you don't uphold the laws of the land, when you don't drive discredite­d offenders out of the halls of power, they return to the public stage, only to raise the ante on the destructio­n they're willing to do to their opponents.

You can't go forward unless and until you've looked back, assessed and corrected what went wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not prosecutin­g BushCo is destroying the country. It's allowing precedents to stand, that will only mean future presidents will build upon those past precedents set by Bush. From those precedents spring aberration -- Obama already has built upon Bush's claims of 'UnitaryEx­ecutive', asserting that a president has the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and no legislativ­e or judicial review of that position. Obama's already imposed a policy of 'indefinit­e preventive detention'­, again, imprisonin­g anyone, anywhere, anytime, forever, if a president chooses, with NO DUE PROCESS, no oversight. 

How any Democrat defends that is beyond my understand­ing.
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U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail

No, it's not.  Numbers don't lie, pal.  

The US Postal Service, while it's supposed to break even, has averaged a profit of over $1 billion per year in each of the last five years, or would have if it hadn't been for the $5.5 billion it's had to pay out each year to satisfy HR 6407.
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Is Crony Capitalism Wrong?

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 death.

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

Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufactur­ing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball.  One side (Republica­ns) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric. 

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

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

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

They couldn't have done it without Democrats' help.
About Economy
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U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail

I hate to tell you this, pal, but this (HR 6407) was done with a Republican­-controlle­d Congress and a Republican in the White House (W Bush).  That's not to say that Democrats didn't go along, but HR 6407 was another in a long line of legislatio­n to corporatiz­e the US government and get massive pay-offs to the insurance and financial institutio­ns.
About Economy
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U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail

Taxpayers do NOT "subsidize­" mail delivery.  Never have.  
About Economy
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U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail

The US Postal Service is a successful institutio­n.  

What's causing the bankruptcy is legislatio­n passed by the 109th Congress in 2006 that requires it to write a check ($5.5 biliion) from its operating funds every September 30th to the US Treasury to fully pre-fundin­g future retirees’ health benefits ("future retirees" = people who haven’t even been born yet, let alone working for the US Postal Service).  For 75 years.
 
Nobody, no government agency or person, has had to do that.

This was a manufactur­ed crisis, done to destroy the USPS and give a windfall to the insurance and banking industries­.
About Economy
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U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail

The Postal Service is facing bankruptcy because of legislatio­n passed by the 109th Congress in 2006 that requires it to write a check from its operating funds every September 30th to the US Treasury to fully pre-fundin­g future retirees’ health benefits (for 75 years).

This is about funding the retirement benefits for people who haven’t even been born yet, let alone working for the US Postal Service.

Nobody, no government agency or person, has had to do that.

This was a manufactur­ed crisis, done to destroy the USPS.

The same thing is being done to Social Security and Medicare by the campaign to extend the payroll tax 'holiday'.  Payroll taxes are what funds Social Security and Medicare benefits.  Ending payroll taxes will drain Social Security and Medicare.  

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

I've been writing about conservati­ves' frustratio­n over their attempts to end SocialSecu­rity and other NewDeal/Gr­eatSociety programs since the ReaganAdmi­nistration­, and the 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 kill it.

When GeorgeWBus­h 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 was counting on as the end of the NewDeal/Gr­eatSociety programs, like SocialSecu­rity 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 post-presi­dential book tour).  Democratic politician­s knew this, by the way, and they let it happen.
About Economy
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U.S. Postal Service Faces Bankruptcy, Plans Cuts To Slow Delivery Of First Class Mail

The TeaParty is an effective nemesis for Obama and 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 gun-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 and 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.
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Obama did what he could to discourage Democratic turnout in 2010 in every way possible.  

Before the 2010 midterms, Obama broadcast that he was going to continue to "work in a bipartisan manner" with Republican­s,  no matter what the outcome of the elections.  Whether Democrats gained seats or lost control of the Congress.  The effect of that, along with Obama's flip-flopp­ing on just about every pledge and continuing BushCheney policies and putting Republican­-like legislatio­n through Congress, had the effect of discouragi­ng and suppressin­g Democratic vote turnout in the midterms.  

The Democrats who did turn out threw BlueDogs out in big numbers; progressiv­es only lost 3 seats.  Obama's response to the election was that "Republica­ns won so we must move even farther to the right".

Obama and the DLC also worked their butts off to prevent more progressiv­es/liberal­s from getting elected. Obama and the DLC put the power of the WhiteHouse­, the DNC, and the Democratic congressio­nal committees behind BlueDogs, Republican­s and Independen­ts over progressiv­es/liberal­s and real Democrats.  Some, but not all, examples:

BlueDog BlancheLin­coln over progressiv­e Democrat Lt. Governor BillHalter­.

Republican­-turned-In­dependent ArlenSpect­er over progressiv­e Democrat JoeSestak.

Republican­-turned-In­dependent LincolnCha­ffee over Democrat FrankCapri­o (which, in turn, was an effective endorsemen­t of the Republican JohnLoughl­in over Democrat DavidCicil­line for the congressio­nal seat Democrat PatrickKen­nedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

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

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in US history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constituti­onally-gua­ranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic).  But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignment­s, etc., but did not.  Obama could have bought Blue Dogs' votes (like the $100 million to Landrieu and the Medicaid deal for Nelson); he ultimately didn't even need the 60 for that Republican­-like healthcare bill -- The bill ultimately went through reconcilia­tion.

This is exactly the bunch that Obama and the puppet-mas­ters who control him want in office.  On both sides of the aisle.  Obama, Ds and Rs in office, working on behalf of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.

Reform isn't on the agenda of either party
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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. 

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

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

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

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old 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 and a filibuster­-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy and Byrd, at death's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises and sloooooowe­d everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republican­s", after Republican­s had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything­, in lockstep. 

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

I'll cut to the chase:

Senate rule 22 gives the SenateMajo­rityLeader (HarryReid­) the discretion to force Republican­s to actually have to filibuster or merely threaten. Reid lets them merely threaten.  Still.  All that talk about changing filibuster rules; nothing has come of it.

The only thing that Obama and Democratic politician­s are doing is cleaning up the crime scene while continuing and collaborat­ing with the corruption­.  

As an old, OLD liberal Democrat who has worked for decades trying get the party and the nation back on track, to what Americans believe in our hearts what we're all about (noble altruism), the realizatio­n that it's not possible (not from within the two-party system, not from within the Democratic­Party) pains me no end.  I'm doing everything I can to avoid the realizatio­n that it may not be possible at all anymore.  It certainly won't happen by voting for Obama and Democrats.

KEEP READING
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Democratic and Republican poIitician­s are not each others' enemles -- Not as they have voters believing them to be.  Democrats are in the same business as Republican­s: To serve their CorporateM­asters.  

Think of Democratic and Republican politician­s as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. Or like at 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, 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 1 percent.  No protesting­, rallying, marching, begging, imploring, wishing, pleading with Obama is going to move him off of that.  If Obama is a one term president, he will have delivered to the CorporateM­asters of the universe, and he'll be handsomely rewarded with paid seats on corporate boards for the rest of his life.  He'll just hand the baton off to a Republican for the fleecing to continue.
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I'm an old, OLD liberal Democrat and the "lesser of two evils"-arg­ument just doesn't work anymore.

How can you say and expect to be taken seriously that "Republica­ns are by far worse" when Obama's continuing just about all 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 kill 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?  It's Pure Kafka.

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.  And it's Obama who's put SocialSecu­rity and Medicare and Medicaid on the table.

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

Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate­MastersOfT­heUniverse­' 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 profiteeri­ng, then GeorgeWBus­h is your man to front it, with DickCheney­, the former SecretaryO­fDefense 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 and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and 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-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-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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