Another weekend of crappy moderation, I see, with hundreds of comments stuck in the loop for hours or being deleted for no apparent reason.
What happens when the weekday HP staff leaves on Friday afternoon? Who is left in charge on weekends?
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The "mountain" is 'getting rid of what prevents affordable, quality medical care for everyone".
ACA doesn't do that. ACA makes getting affordable quality medical care for everyone an impossibility. ACA institutionalizes the current system. It went in the wrong direction.
The fact that you don't know this means you that you don't understand the issue, the legislation, nor did you read this article or know how the medical, insurance and pharmaceutical industries operate.
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Too much kool aide son. Get a grip.
Both work fine where I live, too.
But I'm going to take wobblysow's comment as an opportunity to demonstrate just how politicians create such beliefs in minds like his. It's what lawyers do when preparing a case for trial. They try to get something in the record which they can spin later for the jury.
Let's look at what Republicans did to the US Postal Service, which 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 Health Care
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ACA/Obamacare is a vehicle for CORPORATE control - The insurance and pharmaceutical industries' control. Written (both the legislation and the regulations controlling it) and implemented by the insurance industry.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
If not a victory if by victory you mean affordable quality medical care for everyone; ACA doesn't do it. ACA wasn't intended to do it. ACA was intended to prevent it. Because if affordable quality medical care for everyone is what you're after, the only way to get it is single payer. ACA was intended to continue the insurance and pharmaceutical industries profit-making.
Early in the healthcare legislation process, Obama declared that he wouldn't sign any legislation that didn't include a public option, but he did. Instead of working to get a real healthcare reform bill through, Obama worked overtime to make sure that there would be no real reform -- Just a massive corporate giveaway with no cost controls and no universal coverage.
The week before and the week after the healthcare bill (or, more accurately, 'The Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industries Windfall Act') passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.
A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconciliation anyway, & there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a PublicOption in it. Obama nixxed it. What was the reason?
"If the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and there's no time!"
After the (allegedly) pro-PublicOption senators accepted that excuse and stood down, Republicans discovered two flaws with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the dead of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a PublicOption?"
The Obama-Biden administration will do everything within its power to prevent a public option, public healthcare, and affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone as long as it retains the WhiteHouse, because that was the deal that was made.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
There is no mechanism in ACA for lowering the costs of treatment.
On Countdown with Keith Olbermann, whistleblower Wendell Potter talks with Lawrence O'Donnell about where the con game (medical loss ratio, the amount of money insurers must spend on health care) is in the legislation, and how it will enable insurance companies to continue to price gauge and keep obscene profits instead of delivering affordable and quality medical care to policy-holders.
Obama put the foxes in charge of this chicken coop (former WellPoint executives Liz Fowler and Steve Larsen) to write both the legislation and the regulations, and enforce the regulations.
Fowler's most notable actions to date has been issuing waivers to businesses that don't want to have to provide insurance to their employees. So much for Candidate Obama's pledge on restricting lobbyists from writing our laws.
Obama's healthcare legislation prohibits the very thing that was the top issue in the 2008 election: The government being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportation.
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Of course the insurance industry benefits from it - It wrote the legislation as well as the regulations governing it and is implementing it.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Now that the constitutionality and thus the legitimacy of Obamacare has been upheld, public perception is that it's a huge win for Obama; he looks strong and Republicans look weak.
the bill has profit and premium caps for insurance companies. How is this a negative?
Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party got the healthcare legislation through that the insurance industry and PhRma wanted.
From Amy Goodman's interview with whistleblower Wendell Potter, former CIGNA executive:
AMY GOODMAN: But don’t the insurance companies like this legislation?
WENDELL POTTER: They do. And that’s why this will not be repealed. They like a lot about it. This legislation, we call it "healthcare reform," but it doesn’t really reform the system. There are a lot of good things in there that does make some of the practices of the insurance industry illegal, things that should have been made illegal a long time ago, so that—
AMY GOODMAN: Like?
WENDELL POTTER:—for that matter, there are good things here. But it doesn’t reform the system. It is built around our health insurance system, as the President said. And they want to keep it in place, because it also guarantees that they will have a lot of new members and billions of dollars in new revenue in the years to come.
AMY GOODMAN: How does it ensure that?
WENDELL POTTER: One of the—the core component of this—and it’s kind of ironic, but the one thing that the Republicans and conservatives are saying they want to repeal is the provision that we all have to buy coverage from private insurance companies.
AMY GOODMAN: Like we do for auto insurance.
WENDELL POTTER: Exactly, right. And they’re citing or they’re saying that that’s unconstitutional. That’s also all for show, because it is just an effort to try to, in a sense, turn people away from the idea of reform. It sounds complicated, but it’s part of the insurance companies’ strategy.
4. The ACA, although initially flawed, can be a stepping stone to a single-payer system, through an iterative, evolutionary process.
By the way, the fact that the author repeatedly refers to the Affordable Care Act as "Obamacare" is a sign of where her political motivations lie.
David Axelrod, and even Obama, call it "Obamacare".
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
So if I lamented about there being no Filipino restaurants around, instead of opening one stateside, your response would be "Move to the Phillipines!"
In the US, part of our greatness, the reason people wanted to emigrate here, was our innovation and classness culture of inclusion of all - We built better mouse traps, and that meant state of the art industries that served the most of us efficiently and at reasonable prices. SMART programs that included social safety nets, which benefit everyone.
I think your xenophobia is showing.
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Through their spouses and children. There are some significant and troubling conflicts of interest with Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginni, and then there's Roberts's wife (Jane Sullivan Roberts) and Scalia's children.
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Shorter version:
The insurance and pharmaceutical industries make out like bandits with ACA. If ACA were repealed or struck down and Republicans prevail in the 2012 elections, they will put the same legislation through but call it something else so as to confuse and try to trick their constituents -- That will be their gift to Big Insurance and PhRma.
If the Supreme Court strikes ACA down because of the mandate, then Republicans would have a hard time coming back with the same but differently titled legislation.
All 3 branches of government are bought and paid for.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Feingold didn't retire from the Senate; he lost his bid for reelection in 2010.
About Campaign Finance
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Ever heard of Medicare? How about the VA?
The government is able to do, has been doing, administration of these programs for years, brilliantly, and at a fraction of what the for-profit insurance industry has been doing it. Our money needs to go for actual treatment of patients and not towards the 3rd, 4th and 5th vacation homes of CEOs.
About Barack Obama
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In Europe they have universal coverage, and the insurance co's there still manage to turn tidy a profit, as do the medical folks. And the CEO's of their companies make far less than ours do as well. Are we saying that here in America with all of our exceptionalism, that we can't do at least as good a job?
Pity Wall Street's bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay. One example is Joel Gemunder, CEO Omnicare, who had a total pay package in 2010 worth $98 million.
The truth is that most Democrats in Congress have made honest efforts to help the middle-class
DLC-Democrats and Republicans like to foster the fallacy that there is an extreme or far left faction within the Democrati Party. There are no extremes or far left in the DemocraticParty. They left long ago, and can be found bombing animal testing labs and burning down suburban subdivision sites being built on land where ancient forest have been clear cut. If they vote at all anymore, it's as Independents and rarely for Democrats.
The fact is, real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to Americans.
When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.
When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characterize themselves as far-anything or extreme, but mainstream. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicament of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to kill babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritarian intimidation are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.
The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when RonaldReagan, LeeAtwater and KarlRove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism, and how liberals were responsible for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud.
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 doing what politicians 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.
But Obama only does that to progressives.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Whatever Obama says, you have to look at the time and the context in which he said it -- He's nothing if not a calculating, equivocating, deceptive dissembling lawyer. His supporters assume intent and meaning to his words that just isn't there.
The media and our campaign system isn't set up to test the vetting that's being done by the pro-corporate party (Democratublicans). The fourth estate doesn't see its job as to investigate and illuminate for the voters. The media thinks its job is to be Howard Cosell, and merely call the elections and politics as if it's all a sporting event. So if a Democratic candidate isn't doing the investigating of his Republican opponent (and vice versa), then the press thinks it's the Democrat's fault if he loses. I think elections belong to the American people, and we rely on the media to get us the facts. If the parties aren't going to expose these candidates, and the media won't, we're doomed. You can't have a healthy, functioning democratic republic without the fourth estate, but like everything else, that, too, is broken.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
I take issue with that. Those who believed Obama was a liberal were given much help by Obama and the media (as recently as yesterday, I heard him referred to as "liberal" and "progressive" by anchors on MSNBC and CNN).
The shorthanding we do with these labels doesn't help. You consider him to be "a moderate", which means different things to different people, depending on where they're standing themselves. "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat." Do you consider Blue Dogs to be moderates? I don't.
About his own political appeal, Obama has said, “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton. It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican. He convinced centrists that he was a centrist. He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist.
If you go back and watch CandidateObama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, and listen with your now 'experienced ears' (experienced in lawyer-speak, aka Bush-speak, although Bush needed a team of speechwriters to do what Obama's able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think you'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear in order to get their vote.
Back in early 2008, when Candidate Obama talked about admiring Reagan and what he wanted to emulate about him, "I think RonaldReagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, RichardNixon did not and in a way that BillClinton did not", do you seriously believe that he was saying that he wanted to go even farther right of the BushCheney administration he was coming in after?
Obama's nothing but a politician, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense. It turns out that doing what's right for transnational corporations is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican, "What's good for GM is good for America." He did a snow job on everybody.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Don't put words in my mouth.
Hospitals can't refuse to treat people who show up in their emergency rooms because of government regulations - EMTALA.
Did you really need it spelled out for you that I was talking about emergent care? That hospital emergency departments aren't really intended for or set up to handle non-emergent patient care?
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Of course they're in business to make money - that's the reason you go into business.
The real problem is that Big Money/Big Business controls the political process, which includes high-priced propaganda campaigns that spin policy and candidates as things they're not. Corporations have been able to control politicians, candidates, the primary process, so that populist candidates can't get a seat at the table.
Our problems (bought politicians, pro-corporate/anti-populist policies and legislation) didn't just spring up with the USSC decision in Citizens' United. Our problems can be traced back directly to Buckley vs. Valeo (1976), when the USSC declared that money is speech. Heap onto that Democrats letting conservatives take over the airwaves to the exclusion of liberal perspectives by not reinstating the Fairness Doctrine after Reagan and Clinton's Telecommunications' Act of 1996 that enabled the consolidation of media (not to mention the destruction of our public education system by BOTH parties).
Changing all that, getting money out of elections, getting corporations out of government, ending corporate personhood, etc., isn't on either party's agenda.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
It's way past time to get the DLC-Democrats out of office, out of the Democratic Party, and put real Democrats in. That's what we thought we were doing when we put Obama in over Hillary Clinton. But in came Obama who put the Clinton team into the White House, and not one liberal in his administration. He actually kept liberals neutralized for close to a year, with vague promises and nomination paralysis (waiting to be confirmed, where they weren't free to speak out about his Republican-ways. No recess appointments, just half-hearted excuses.
Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressives/liberals from getting elected. Obama and the DLC have put the power of the 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 RhodeIsland).
Republican-turned-Independent CharlieCrist over liberal Democrat KendrickMeek.
Obama supports voting third parties, even when it risks Democratic turnout.
Republicans, with the smallest minority, have managed to thwart Democrats, who've had the greatest majority in decades. You would think that with Republicans controlling the House, Democrats would've turned the tables and thwarted Republicans' continuing legislation like Bush's tax cuts for the rich? Are Democrats just stupld?
Obama never pressured BenNelson (or BlancheLincoln, or any BlueDog). The Democratic leadership could've taken away committee chairs (BlancheLincoln's, too) of members in their caucus that filibustered a PublicOption for healthcare. They didn't.
The DNC could've taken away reelection funds. They didn't.
Reid could've actually forced Republicans and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster. He didn't (and doesn't).
The ProgressiveCaucus could have kept their pledge about not voting for a bill that didn't include a robust PublicOption. They didn't.
Obama DID unleash the attack dogs to go after HowardDean when Dean said it was a lousy bill. Dean was then forced to get back into line. Obama went after Kucinich, the last remaining holdout on the ProgressiveCaucus, for threatening to vote no on the healthcare bill, and we all know how that ended.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Democratic voters been voting for Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing for 20 years now. It's always imperative that "Republicans can't get the seat/White House", and "we'll work to purge these people from the party", or "next time we'll not vote for another DLCer; just let [today's DINO du jour] get in, to warm the seat". I've been hearing this for more than 20 years, and the only change is for the worse.
In politics, in life, there really is only now. Each day that conditions remain the same or further declines (Obama has advanced BushCheney positions that should have you marching on Washington ), a sort of stare decisis sets in, making it more difficult (if not impossible ) to turn around. We have become the proverbial boiled frogs; there's a generation that's been born and doesn't know about life pre-9/11 and 4th amendment protections.
No, putting Obama back in the White House is not the answer.
We on the left have been doing it your way, the DLC's way, for over 20 years and the government and the Democratic Party keeps moving farther to the right. That's because your way is to cave, to lie to the American people and put Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing into office. At the rate this is going, Republicans won't have to bother getting elected, or certainly not in any great numbers because Democrats are doing their work for them. Republicans won't bother having to overturn Roe, for example, for why bother outlawing abortion when Democrats have helped Republicans make it virtually impossible to obtain one?
If you and I are on the same side, as you insist, and want real Democratic policies, and going about getting them your way (protecting Obama, reelecting DLC Democrats) is getting Republican policies and NOT Democratic policies, when do you realize that maybe you don't know what you're talking about?
When do you realize that you've become that classic definition for 'insan!ty' ("Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results")?
Do you ever realize it?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
During the Bush years, Democrats said if the People wanted change, they had to put Democrats in the majority in Congress. So in 2006, we did.
Nothing changed.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting Bush-Cheney and beating Republicans back, among which were investigations, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administration to testify under oath, and impeachment.
They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".
In 2008, we did. We gave them 60 for the Democratic Caucus. And, we gave them the White House.
Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old r@c!st America, than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US. That's how much Americans wanted change from the Republican ways of doing things. Voters did it because of Obama's ability to persuade, that he was going to change the system, end the corporatocracy, lobbyism in government -- Obama was going to be the People's president, not a corporate 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 slowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything, in lockstep.
Obama's political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation -- Everything was to flow through his operation. This was a dead giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.
Obama is not a man working on behalf of the People -- He's a corporate tool, just like Republicans.
Since Obama has gotten into office, he's continued most of Bush's policies & his 'accomplishments' are being spun as "reform" when, in fact, they're Republican in nature.
There could be 100 "progressives" in the Senate and 435 in the House, and they and Obama would still find a way to deliver to corporations instead of the People. And then try to blame it on Republicans.
Worst of all, we're stuck with marshmallow-fluff-brained voters, who soak up the most ridiculous excuses, like "Republicans won't let us do it!", when, in fact, Obama and Democrats don't even try. Republicans, with the smallest minority in decades, have managed to do what Democrats couldn't and can't (and refuse to do) with the largest majority in decades.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
And about the Affordable Care Act:
Having health insurance ≠ medical treatment.
Obama's healthcare legislation doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it). ACA Unlikely to Stem Medical Bankruptcies
People who voted for Obama and Democrats voted to get affordable, quality medical treatment. That was NOT a vote to protect and further enrich the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Voters did NOT send Obama and Democrats into power to entrench the insurance industry as the gatekeepers to being able to get medical treatment. Voters did NOT send Obama and Democrats to Washington to continue tying insurance benefits to their employment.
Yet that is precisely what Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats did.
Meet The New 1%: - Healthcare CEOs replace bankers as America's best paid:
Pity Wall Street's bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay. One example is Joel Gemunder, CEO Omnicare, who had a total pay package in 2010 worth $98 million.
Obama didn't repeal DADT; Congress did.
Obama actually IMPEDED repeal.
Obama and Democrats didn't do everything in their power to end it. Not after the House had fallen to Republican control, and certainly not before the 2010 midterms or when Obama came into power on 1/20/09 and Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress.
Right before the midterms I asked commenters here if they thought Democrats would be as effective at obstructing Republicans as the Republicans as the minority party have been these past 4 years at obstructing Democrats.
Obama's been giving silent assent and aid to Republicans by not taking to the bully pulpit over this and all issues. Obama could certainly sign a stop-loss order (read my previous comments here and here before the standard knee-j3rk response about a new president overturning it).
As AxelDC said:
This was an obvious case for reconciliation. The bill is the DoD budget, and reconcilliation is to avoid filibusters on budget issues. The House overwhelmingly passed it, the Senate had 57 votes, and Reid and Obama refused to push it through.
What about a stop-loss order on Day 1? Obama has that authority and Congress would have to override him.
Instead, he thought he would be too clever by half and predictibly fail in the Senate and hope the public would punish Republicans for it. Didn't quite work out that way did it? Either pass it in reconciliation in December or the courts will have to do what Obama refuses to do.
The audacity of campaigning, the timidity of governing.
Nothing really has been done to address the pay gap that exists between male and female employees. Since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed into law, the pay gap has closed at less than half-a-cent per year. That trend is continuing, as the pay gap barely closed from 2009 to 2010:
Women made 77 percent of men’s earnings in 2009, the year the law passed. In 2010, that was virtually unchanged, as women’s wages rose to 77.4 percent of men’s. The gap is even larger for African Americans and Latinos: black women made 67.5 percent of all men’s earnings in 2009, while Latino women made 57.7 percent. In 2010, those figures ticked up to 67.7 percent and 58.7 percent, respectively.
Women make up half of the American workforce, and in two-thirds of American families, the mother is the primary breadwinner or a co-breadwinner. But they make less than their male counterparts in all 50 states, though the size of each state’s wage gap varies. While the gap continues to close in places like Washington, D.C., where women make 91.8 percent of men’s earnings, it is growing in others, like Wyoming, where women’s earnings dropped from 65.5 percent of men’s in 2009 to just 63.8 percent in 2010.
Because of the gender pay gap, women with the same education doing the same job as men earn far less over their working lifetimes. The wage gap costs $723,000 over a 40-year career for women with college degrees. In some industries, the gap can cost women close to a million dollars.
In November 2010, Senate Republicans killed efforts to close the pay gap when they unanimously voted to block the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have updated the Equal Pay Act, closed many of its loopholes, and strengthened incentives to prevent pay discrimination.
There was another bill out there that would not only have made the technical fix of Ledbetter, but updated the Equal Pay Act of 1963, closed loopholes and made a much bigger difference in closing the pay gap. There was no reason why the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act could not have been combined with the Paycheck Fairness Act back at the beginning of the first term, in 2009. But while the bill passed the House quickly, Democrats in the Senate didn’t get around to taking up the Paycheck Fairness Act until the lame duck session of 2010, and it predictably failed 58-41, with all Republicans opposing. There’s obviously no guarantee that the Paycheck Fairness Act could have passed earlier in the term. But it’s plausible to argue that leveraging Lilly Ledbetter, which was a campaign issue, into a real advance on equal pay could have paid off. As it is, the Senate quickly got filibustered with little fanfare in the lame duck.
The point is there were other options. But the legislation that could have made a difference was left behind. And it severely damages the credibility of the Administration and its allies to keep waving the bloody shirt of Lilly Ledbetter when it actually did pretty much nothing for the larger cause of equal pay and equal work.
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Lily Ledbetter has been at the top of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' lists of his "accomplishments" and has gone unchallenged because to explain the ridiculousness of it as an "Obama accomplishment" can't be done in a 10-word sound byte.
To begin with, claiming Lily Ledbetter as Obama's achievement is like the driver of the winning car in this year's Le Mans race (Mike Rockenfeller) picking up a hitch-hiking Obama right before he crossed the finish line and saying Obama won the Le Mans. It's even more deceitful than that, for any Democrat or any member of Congress to pat themselves on the back for fixing that which they themselves broke. But even that doesn't quite explain it.
Obama and Democrats got into power on a pledge to change the way Washington works. Little is ever said or explained about what that really means. I'm going to attempt it:
By the time that elected officials manage to enact legislation, the problem the legislation is to address has usually grown and morphed into something beyond what the legislation would affect or change, making it either irrelevant or creating a boondoggle that gridlocks later congressional efforts. Or, something else.
With Lily Ledbetter, it took 45 years to have the legislature address a problem (statute of limitations for filing equal pay discrimination lawsuits in the Civil Rights Act of 1964) in what never should've been agreed to by Democrats in the first place in 1964. Lily Ledbetter really had nothing to do with "landmark sex discrimination". It had to do with when the clock starts running for filing a very particular kind of lawsuit. It doesn't affect statutes of limitation for any other kind of lawsuit. It doesn't apply to the filing of all lawsuits. It's just for a particular class of lawsuits - For the filing of an equal-pay lawsuit.
And it wasn't 45 years of Congresses trying to fix it. It was a year and a half. It was in response to the Supreme Court's decision in 2007 in one woman's lawsuit. It's not going to affect millions, or thousands or even hundreds of others - Ironically, if it were to affect more women, it never would have passed, no matter what party held the Congress (because it would have meant more money paid out from corporations to women, and Democrats work for corporations just as Republicans do).
If you want to tout passage of Lily Ledbetter then you're going to have to take the blame for not following it up immediately with legislation for transparency in pay. Being able to find out what everyone else is getting paid. It's a joke without it. It's like taking you to a Michelin star restaurant, blowing the aromas from the kitchen in your face, but not letting you eat anything at all.
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
How many more enemies are being made for American citizens through Obama's drone killings of civilians across the globe?
Democratic voters didn't put Obama into the White House to militarize and indemnify the CIA, or continue the neocon wars on behalf of transnational corporations, yet that's precisely what's going on.
The mission in Afghanistan wasn't to wipe out the Taliban. Congress didn't authorize either Bush or Obama to do that. You seem to be using 'Taliban' interchangeably with Al Qaeda -- Huge mistake. Only a neocon or a neolib would boast of Obama's "escalating" the war in Afghanistan. The truth of our failure in "exporting democracy" to Afghanistan is here.
The troops aren't withdrawn from Iraq, nor will they all be. In addition to the thousands of mercenaries remaining there, there are thousands more being left to "protect" an 'embassy' (a CIA fortress) the size of Vatican City in the center of Baghdad.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The official objective has been kept from the American people:
"The war in Iraq was very very clearly about oil, as was the war in Afghanistan. The oil pipeline that was planned (in Afghanistan), the best security for that was an occupation."
"If you map the proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan and you look at our bases? Matches perfectly. Our bases are there to solve a problem that the Taliban couldn't solve. Taliban couldn't provide security in that part of Afghanistan -- Well now that's where our bases are. So, does that have to do with Osama Bin Laden? It has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. It has everything to do with the longer plan, in this case a strategy which I wouldn't necessarily call neoconservative, however it fits perfectly in with the neoconservative ideology which says, 'If you have military force and you need something from a weaker country, then you need to deploy that force and take what you need because your country's needs are paramount'. It's the whole idea of unilateralism, of using force to achieve your aims."
-Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel whose assignments included a variety of roles for the National Security Agency and who spent her last 4 1/2 years working at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUxI3rSLDO8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltOy_F6ZII
We're not out of Iraq (just as we're not leaving Afghanistan*). That cutback in troops by the Pentagon doesn't apply to State.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/world/middleeast/iraq-is-angered-by-us-drones-patrolling-its-skies.html
In addition to some 5,000 private security contractors now protecting the embassy’s 11,000-person staff, Iraq is rife with American-paid contractors, mercenaries, and is a war zone, with the dead piling up day in and day out.
Whenever there's been a cutback in the number of troops, there's been an increase in the number of mercenaries hired and paid for with US taxpayer dollars.
What's the objective, how is the military going about achieving it, and where are our tax dollars going?
* We're not leaving Afghanistan: The 10-year strategic partnership agreement that Obama and Karzai signed commits the US-- its troops and billions more dollars -- to Afghanistan for the indefinite future.
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama offered to make Bush'sTaxCutsForTheRich permanent.
Here's EzraKlein talking about it:
What Obama offered Boehner was an opportunity to take the BushTaxCuts off the table. So though $800 billion in revenue sounds sizable, it’s only half as much in total revenue as the WhiteHouse’s April proposal, two-fifths as much as SimpsonBowles wanted, and one-fifth what we’d get if the BushTaxCuts expire next year.
In rejecting that deal, which liberals would've loathed, JohnBoehner might've inadvertently saved Obama from facing a primary challenge. More to the point, he might've locked in higher taxes down the road. Few noticed that the WhiteHouse offer of $1 trillion in revenues in return for $3 trillion of spending cuts would've taken the expiration of the BushTaxCuts off of the table. That'd mean the tax debate concluded this year, a time when the debt ceiling gives the GOP leverage, rather than next year, when the BushTaxCuts are set to expire and the WhiteHouse has most of the leverage.
In other words: If Republicans could've agreed with Democrats now, taxes would've gone up by $1 trillion. If they can’t agree with Democrats next year, they’ll go up by more than $4 trillion. And Republicans had a better hand this year than next year. I expect they’ll come to wish they’d played it.
The $4 trillion deal Obama offered the Republicans: A two-year increase in the Medicare eligibility age. Chained-CPI, which amounts to a $200Billion cut to SocialSecurity benefits. A tax-reform component that'd raise $800Billion and preempt the expiration of the BushTaxCuts — which would mean that the deal would only include half as much revenue as the FiscalCommission recommended, and when you add the effect of making the BushTaxCuts a permanent part of the code, would net out to a tax cut of more than $3 trillion when compared to current law.
Obama put SocialSecurity "on the table" for consideration by his DeficitCommission -- even though SocialSecurity has not contributed to creating or sustaining the deficit/debt in the first place. He kept Social Security on the table when he made a deal to delegate deficit reduction authority over entitlements to an undemocratic Super Committee. Now, in a speech reportedly about jobs, he proposed to extend and increase the ill-considered FICA tax cut he embraced last December -- a tax cut that directly undermines the financial integrity of Social Security.
According to the WhiteHouseFactSheet on "TheAmericanJobsAct" the FICA tax holiday for workers will be increased to a 50% reduction, lowering it to 3.1%. Under the 2010 tax deal, the payroll tax for workers was reduced from 6.2% to 4.2%. In addition to expanding the tax cut for workers, Obama has extended the FICA tax holiday to employers by cutting in half the employer's share of the payroll tax through the first $5 million in payroll.
Big questions about the wisdom, efficacy, and implications of a tax-based jobs strategy need to be debated. Even bigger questions about the consequences of the payroll tax holiday in particular need to be answered. These questions are not just about the relationship between payroll tax cuts and job growth. They are about the future of SocialSecurity.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Read Social Security Payroll Tax Cut -- A Temporary Stimulus With Permanent Damage by Charles Blahous.
And Charles Blahous, who currently serves as one of the two public trustees for the Social Security and Medicare Programs, says:
“Social Security was not established to be a source of ‘temporary’ stimulus funds. The idea that its payroll tax rate should be moved up and down with economic events is highly dangerous to the program’s financial future.“The staunchest supporters of Social Security are those pushing the hardest to cut the program's chief financing stream—the payroll tax. Severing the link between payroll taxes and benefits means beneficiaries could no longer claim they ‘earned’ their Social Security benefits. This would erode future support for this vital program."
"If Congress continues to cut the program’s funding source, one of two things must happen: 1) Social Security’s insolvency will be accelerated; or 2) Social Security will have to increasingly rely on general revenues (i.e., income taxes) to pay beneficiaries.”
Democrats enjoyed a greater majority in both houses of Congress than either party has had in decades. Even without 60 (but the Democratic Caucus in the Senate had 60). But one example is that Obama didn't need 60 to pass real healthcare reform. All Democrats needed was 50 plus Biden (reconciliation), which is what they did in the end anyway. But Democrats did it, reconciliation, for a corporate-pork-laden bill with no cost constraints that doesn't provide affordable quality medical treatment for anyone, much less everyone (what they were put into office to get).
Democrats also have refused to exercise the discretion that Senate Rule 22 allows: Making Republicans actually filibuster, instead of just threatening to do it.
Rule 22 gives the SenateMajorityLeader the discretion to actually make the call. Filibustering is hard on those soft, pampered bodies. HarryReid has refused to make them do it, letting them merely threaten. Reid should. Americans love reality TV. 'Survivor-Washington, DC'.
The few times Reid has forced Republicans to actually filibuster, when Democrats have really needed whatever the issue was (like when Jim Bunning threatened to filibuster over extending unemployment benefits), Republicans caved.
Reid lets them merely threaten. Still. All that talk about changing filibuster rules, and nothing has come of it. Senate rules can be changed at any time, and not just at the start of a new Congress - It can be done at any time (see page 6 - http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/45448.pdf ).
Nor is there just one way (or even two or three or more ways) for Democrats to get bills passed despite Republicans' obstructionistic tactics. But first they have to want to do it, with the fierce urgency of now (don't click on that link, don't watch it, if you aren't prepared and can't bear to have your cherished illusions about Obama destroyed).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
You have a reading comprehension problem, in addition to a civility problem.
What I said:
What's gotten lost in the news cycles is Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties that means more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas, on top of his failure to fulfill his campaign promise of renegotiating NAFTA.
#6 - Continue the Insanity, meaning we keep doing the same thing* over and over again hoping for a different outcome.
[* - Same thing = Continue to refuse to believe our own 'lyin' eyes', keep doing what we've been doing for the past 20 years, continue voting for DLC-controlled Democrats, vote again for Obama in the hopes that he's a closet liberal playing 12-dimensional chess, believing that he's got a plan, a strategy, that nobody can see or figure out, but because he's the smartest, grown-uppiest in the room, in all of Washington (on the whole planet, even) his scheme eludes and confounds us, so we just need to be like Republican voters and have blind faith in our political leaders.
Clue: There aren't any grown-ups to save us; we're 'it'.]
What happens when millions are out of work, no jobs, no money, no hope. London, Philadelphia, where next?
"Quickly Brad, there are thousands of lives at stake... Brad any answer..." - Roy Neary, 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Read the Article at H
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
#4 - A Third Party Challenge
We'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 percent that is necessary for getting a seat at the table, I think that may be enough for great numbers of Democratic voters this time around.
#5 - The "Oh, F R I C K it, let's get it over with - Vote for Republicans"-plan
The horse is out of the barn and we should just let the radical right have its way. It's not like Obama and the gutless Dems are going to stop them.KEEP READING
It would be carnage for a few years, people eating other people (though that really only happens in the southern tier of states), old people dying (why are we so eager to keep them alive, anyway?) and cats and dogs living together...
Let it all come crashing down--but let's make sure to kill Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare. These Tea Partiers should be allowed to pay what the market will bear, right?
By the way, while our Tea-Party/Real Men (or whatever those guys who wouldn't pay taxes a few years ago are called) friends talk about how they'd like to keep more of their hard earned money and give less to the idiots who "gave us Vietnam and Iraq," perhaps they'd like to pick up the bill for the grading and paving of the road that leads from their home to their office--can't be what, more than $60K a year.
While they're at it, maybe they'd like to cut a check for the police and fire people they'd have to employ to protect their home and valuables from damage. If they could get one guy for another $30K, they'd be lucky. Oh, and then there's that water and waste service, if you've got that.
Really, just let these frickers get what they want.
#3 - Primary Obama
Two powerful arguments for challenging Obama from the left:
MichaelLerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.
RalphNader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and no, 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 anymore. I think the party and the culture of Washington, what's happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties), has been thoroughly corrupted.
Up until recently I was saying that, to begin with, no one in the DemocraticParty would do it. Due to the hierarchical system of party government, it would be suicide for any professional politician in the DemocraticParty to run against the party's sitting president.
Liberals/progressives within the DemocraticParty, no matter what their rhetoric, no matter what they say, they march to Obama's/Reid's/Pelosi's tune. They vote as they're told to from up top or else they risk the full weight and power and tools of the office of the president, the DNC and the CorporateMasters controlling them. The Party will cover them as best it can, get as many votes as it needs from Democrats in safe districts first, and will only call upon liberals/progressives to betray their constituents from safe districts if it needs them, accompanied by threats/promises of national party help when it comes time for their reelection bid (AlanGrayson, DennisKucinich, 2 examples).
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 (I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it's really impossible to deny in light of things like this).
Up until a few months ago. Word had it that a challenge is coming, but it was really not a serious one, not intended for anyone to get the nomination from Obama. But that would only happen if Obama's numbers went down, and like the idea of the Republicans having a brokered convention, Obama's 'most ardent supporters' would have to wake up and realize that he's sold the people out again and has made more deals with corporations in order to keep any 'normal', moderate Republican from getting into the election.
So unless Obama drops out (in which case another corporate tool will take his place), the only legitimate challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republicans or Independents). And the most likely way that Obama would drop out is if his numbers plummet.
So what's left?
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
I get this question regularly so bear with me for a moment as I explain the situation as I see it, the options available, possible solutions, etc.
#1 - Sitting Out The Election
I never advise people to sit out elections because the first rule of politics is, "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 Democratic base, from his administration, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, by putting Social Security and Medicare on the table, by 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 much less a seat at the table.
#2 - Getting More Liberals/Progressives Into Congress
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. Obama and the DNC have been working their butts off to prevent real Democrats, real progressives, from getting into office - Their strategy for getting more Democrats into office has been to run Democratic candidates who believe in Republican ideology and support Republican policies and legislation.
One variation on this is if, A) Obama doesn't pull an LBJ (drop out) or, B) another Democrat or third party candidate doesn't challenge him, then take the money and shoe leather that you were planning on spending for Obama and use it to make both Houses of Congress overwhelmingly 'blue' and let the chips fall where they may (Obama sinks or swims on his own, or a Republican gets into the White House) and we go to work immediately finding a real Democrat for 2016.
Given how effective Republicans (with the smallest minority in decades) have been at stymieing Democratic legislation and policies, you would think Democrats could do the same for any Perry/Bachman/Romney/Palin/etc. administration.
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/free-trade-deals_n_1008237.html#comments
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/house-approves-south-korea-panama-colombia-trade-deals/2011/10/12/gIQA7AP2fL_blog.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/trans-pacific-partnership-documents-sherrod-brown-jeff-merkley-ron-wyden-robert-menendez_n_1624956.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines.shtml?/headlines01/0705-03.htm
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
And there's more -
People like you, Obama's 'most ardent supporters', saddle us with DINOs, with Democrats who don't work in our best interests, because of your unbridled support of him.
Look at what Obama did just last week because he needed the Hispanic vote: He stopped enforcing immigration laws that he'd been doing with a vengeance. Had the Hispanic vote been a sure thing, Obama never would have done it.
It's people like you who are f**king us all over.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Why wouldn't you vote for someone like Ralph Nader, whom I presume is someone whose politics you agree with?
I'll shortcut this for everyone and guess your response: "Because he can't win".
He can't win because you won't vote for him. Because you keep buying into the establishment elites' talking points. You keep voting for their candidates, because they tell you they can win, but once they win they don't govern in your interests -- They govern in the 1%'s interests.
Here, a Sufi tale for you:
One night, Nazrudin was on his hands and knees searching for his key in a well-lighted area. Some of his neighbors came to see why Nazrudin was on his hands and knees.
“What are you looking for, Nazrudin?” inquired one of the neighbors. “My door key.” Came the reply.
The helpful neighbors dropped to their hands and knees and joined Nasrudin in his search for the lost key.
After a long unsuccessful search, one of the neighbors asks: “We’ve looked everywhere. Are you sure you dropped it here?”
Nazrudin answers: “Of course I didn’t drop it here, I dropped it outside my door.”
“Then, why are you looking for it here?”
“Because there’s more light here,” responded Nazrudin.
A constitutional amendment? That's all? Okay Get ot started.
======================
I've been working my a## off - Time for you and others to join in.
http://MoveToAmend.org/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/25/montana-governor-calls-for-amendment-to-overturn-citizens-united/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/08/sen-sanders-files-amendment-to-end-corporate-personhood/
No candidate should be talking about anything else. Hold them to it. Flood media personalities' phones, email, Twitter and FB pages demanding they cover the solution to Citizens' United.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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 three years has been in the People's and not the Corporations' interests.
What's gotten lost in the news cycles is Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties that means more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas, on top of his failure to fulfill his campaign promise of renegotiating NAFTA. And EFCA. And then there's Obama's Cat Food Commission (and its plan for gutting Social Security and Medicare), along with the renewed push on the Dream Act, which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages.
You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politicians, but the fact is that the DLC controls the Democratic Party (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the pro-corporate branch), and Democrats in Congress and in the White House have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate. Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constitutionally-required role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administrations. What little regulating they've put in legislation the last 2 years is ineffective for a whole array of very sneaky moves. But as a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractors robbing us blind, insurance companies aren't complying with healthcare reform laws, banks are continuing as huge profit-making machines for their officers and leading the nation into one bubble and crash after another.
We The People are being transformed from sheep into sacrificial lambs.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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