Spintested: 01/19/12

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Hi, I'm answering here because I was out of replies....I have one simple question...Who would you suggest that we elect that would be BETTER than President Obama? Which individual in this nation can meet your criteria and NOT be a politician?

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

With all due respect, you have to stand back and look at this from a different perspective, which I'll get to in just a moment.

As much as it can be answered, I've answered it here. Once there, click on EXTEND ENTIRE THREAD and read it. But the fact of our political system is that American voters don't and can't draft candidates for the presidency so it's moot.

Candidates have to want it, and will enter the race when they feel it and see an opening. There only is an opening when a 2-term president is leaving office or a sitting president's numbers are so low that there's no chance he'll get reelected.

Obama's fans continued support of him prevents any opportunity of that happening. And it also guarantees that if Obama gets reelected, he'll see it as a mandate for more of the same 'caving' and continue Bush-Cheney-Republican policies and legislation. Obama's fans continue to support Obama and Democrats at the expense of their own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of corporations and establishment elites.

So what perspective should we be approaching this from?

What's keeping this broken system in place.

Money. Lobbyists. Incumbents. Corporations as people. Citizens United.

Neither of the parties has reform on their agenda. When the system is reformed, when the money is taken out of politics, when switch-backing between government and business is prevented, when you can't get rich by public office, then and only then will real leaders emerge.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Even that is revisionist history.

Bush extended more than $17 billion in TARP monies to GM and Chrysler in December 2008.

And Obama didn't repeal DADT; Congress did. Even after Congress repealed DADT, effective the end of the year, Obama wouldn't issue a stop-loss order to keep soldiers from being dismissed before the legislation was implemented.
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

If you really believe that, then you've just signed the US's death warrant, for according to you, there is no mechanism to keep power in check.

What was a hard pill to swallow about Watergate for the nation was Ford's pardon of Nixon, and it felt exactly like when Obama refused to investigate or prosecute the CIA/Bush/Cheney/Yoo/Bybee/Rumsfeld/the banks, et al.

The public doesn't have to like long drawn out prosecutions; the public can watch American Idol. I think you have misread and misinterpreted what the public believes or what it will sit still for. I think you should stop second guessing what "the public" feels. Why don't you want the rule of law reinstated?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

#1 - You know that single payer wouldn't have passed, how?

When Americans on the left and the right say, "Don't touch my Medicare", the only way that single payer wouldn't pass is because of corrupt politicians not listening to their constituents.

#2 - Republicans "were decimated" over the Clinton impeachment NOT because they're against impeachment per se, but because they didn't believe that Clinton's behavior rose to the level of an impeachable offense.

There is no question that investigations and prosecutions would have "made things easier" (gotten a populist agenda accomplished), and that's exactly why it hasn't happened.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Here we go again -

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all have been put on the table by Obama in the past and he's said they'd be on the table in the future.

And as far as your claim that "ACA greatly expands Medicaid", Obama expanded eligibility for Medicaid but that doesn't mean that Medicaid's services were also expanded. States are required to share costs for Medicaid with the feds, and at this time of record budget cuts by the states, states are making drastic cuts to what Medicaid will treat. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/us/05deficit.html?_r=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/us/05deficit.html

Obama's doing the punt to the states that Republicans are so notorious for, and what Reagan set into motion a couple of decades ago. The kind of society that Americans want costs what it costs. Shuffling the money around from the federal government to local and state government doesn't make it any cheaper -- It just makes it easier for the rich to steal.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"
-former UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

#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 HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

#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.

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.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

#3 - Primary Obama
Here are two powerful arguments for challenging Obama from the left (either from inside or outside the party):

Michael Lerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

Ralph Nader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and no, he's not running again).

Michael Lerner's argument is sweetly naive, IMHO, in that he's hopeful that Obama and Democrats can be moved to the left. I don't think that's true anymore. I think the party and the culture of Washington, what has happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties), has been thoroughly corrupted.

Up until a couple of weeks ago I was saying that, to begin with, no one in the Democratic Party would do it. Due to the hierarchical system of party government, it would be su!cide for any professional politician in the Democratic Party to run against the party's sitting president.

Liberals/progressives within the Democratic Party, no matter what their rhetoric, no matter what they say, they march to Obama's/Reid's/Pelosi's tune. They vote as they are 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 Corporate Masters 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 (Alan Grayson, Dennis Kucinich, 2 examples).

The DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically-controlled Senate overseeing an NSA with today's eavesdropping abilities (I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it's really impossible to deny in light of things like this).

As I said, that was up until a couple of weeks ago. Word has it that a challenge is coming, but it's really not a serious one, not intended for anyone to get the nomination from Obama.

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

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

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 Romney/Gingrich/Perry/Bachman/Romney/Palin/etc. administration.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

And about Obama and his campaign promises, Obama says one thing and then does something entirely different behind the People's backs, whether it's gay rights, marijuana laws, offshore oil drilling, air quality regulations, etc.

Obama's a politician, and I mean that in the worst possible sense. In the used car salesman sense. He says what's expedient at the time, what his immediate audience wants to hear.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

There's rarely a majority in Congress to pass anything at all until a campaign has been mounted to sell it.

And when a president and his political party are swept into power to deliver affordable, quality medical treatment for all as Obama and Democrats were in 2008, and the one method that can accomplish it (and also happens to solve other unique problems facing us at the time, i.e., a crashing economy, joblessness, etc.) that president not only doesn't use his bully pulpit to sell, but unilaterally takes off the table, removes from even discussing it, then the fix is in and that president is corrupt to the core.

Obama took single payer (Medicare For All) off the table, because if the goal is to get affordable quality medical care for all then everything else pales in comparison. What Obama did was preserve an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care that everyone except the insurance industry wanted to end. It's government sanctioned racketeering.

What you believe about Obama wanting single payer, much less a public option, is without any foundation. As a matter of fact, all of the evidence points to a scheme to eliminate public healthcare of all kinds.

In February 2010, when proponents of a public option were finally making some headway between the time that the House passed its version of healthcare reform and the time that the Senate passed its version (and it's important to remember that Obama never pressured Blue Dogs or Joe Lieberman, never used the power of the White House and never took to the bully pulpit to advocate for a public option), Obama held a 'make it or break it bipartisan summit' at the WhiteHouse which was gamed to prevent public option proponents from getting real reform, (affordable quality medical care for everyone). PO proponents were shut out of the negotiations. Why wasn't Anthony Weiner or any proponents of public healthcare, of a public option, of single payer, at that summit?

The summit was gamed to let insurance companies retain their lock on the path to getting healthcare.

Whether it's Republicans saying no or Democrats saying yes, to attend this summit you must have accepted that the insurance industry's ability to make profits off of you be preserved and protected, despite it bankrupting the American people individually and the nation at large.

Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather, Part II) of medical care; the insurance industry is "wetting its beak", letting you get medical care (maybe, if you can afford the deductibles, the co-pays, and if your illness is covered by your policy, but) only if you pay them a gratuity up front.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

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

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 garbage, when it was '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; if it doesn't happen now, it will never happen. And if it never happens, everything that Bush and Cheney did, from taking the nation to war on lies to conducting the greatest heist on the People in the history of civilization, will happen again. Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party have not done anything to prevent it. Nothing.

The revisionism of history has already begun. By blocking investigations and prosecutions into the Bush-Cheney administration, Obama allows the white-washing of them in history. People like you had better start understanding the mechanics of what's been going on if we're to stand any chance of recovering and preventing it ever happening again. And the only way that's going to happen is through investigations and prosecutions. Because 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).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

It's not an either/or proposition. Obama could have done it all, and with a narrative that addresses our real situation, fixes our problems, in a 99 percent-way and not a continuation of the 1 percent solution of plutocrats.

The real shame of this is that Obama could have been a transcendent president, good for both business AND the People. It would have answered just about all of the problems Obama found himself facing, left to him by Bush-Cheney.

The job creation possibilities were lost when the real reform proposed by single payer universal healthcare advocates was eliminated from even getting a seat at the table, and Obama chose to preserve an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care, which is government-sanctioned racketeering.

The 'job creation' reform that survived was billions spent on the Patriot Act-like invasion of citizens' privacy and the outsourcing of jobs that's involved with putting medical records on the internet -- All for a system that doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it).

The SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare system wouldn't have put the insurance industry out of business by the way. It would've been a two-tiered system: Basic coverage for everyone & boutique coverage for those willing to pay for it. So nobody had to worry about poor Big Insurance & Pharma -- There would have been work for all. Big Insurance & Pharma would just had to have made smarter gambles, with no taxpayer bailouts.

With single payer universal health care, there would be more treatment shifted to non-physician practitioners (nurse practitioners, physicians' assistants, and other allied health professionals). Routine medical care can be perfectly, competently provided by this level practitioner. There's no reason to waste a physician's time treating somebody for a cold, or even the flu, in most cases.

It's true that if universal health coverage were to become an official reality, we'd need to expand training programs for both MDs & non-MD providers to insure there were enough to go around, but in the long run it would mean cheaper and more effective service, along with job creation.

These are all good things, but Obama chose the dark side. The CORPORATE side

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

That fact alone casts suspicion on Obama's good intentions after his failure to investigate and prosecute, and his continuing Bush's 'unitary executive' practices (and expanding them, with 'indefinite preventive detention' of American citizens and Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret). It is pure Kafka.

Most of Obama's supporters believe that Obama ended the torture practices of the BushCheney regime and closed down the CIA black sites, but apparently that's not true: Obama's continuing to torture ('Torture Continues Under Obama') and he's decriminalized it, along with creating all new black sites (Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners and Obama's Interrogation Program).

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

The US can only survive by everyone (not just the liberals) wanting to get along with each other. You've got to want the country to work more than you want your way over other Americans getting their way. Or some of their way. You've got to be willing to compromise.

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

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

At the very root of our problems are Constitutional crises created by, first, Republican presidents and now under a Democratic president. Republicans' utter contempt for the Constitution and callous disregard for creating them caused by Democrats' cowering response is what underpins all of our problems and what's destroying the country.

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

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

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

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

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Obama had plenty of allies, enough in the Democratic Caucus to get the job done, but he refused to use the tools available to do the job.

He also worked, actively, to prevent more allies, more progressives, from getting into office.

Between redistricting, and how seats have been gamed, and Citizens' United, what we got in 2008 was as Democratic as it's ever going to get in the lifetime of just about everyone alive today, and we saw what Obama did with it (p!ssed it away, intentionally).
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

If Republicans are going to turn down anything Obama and Democrats put forth, why then aren't Obama and Democrats fighting for the BEST plan out there? Everyone who has ever negotiated a contract knows this. Every lawyer knows this. You put everything on the table, and you don't take anything off unless and until you get something in return. In poker parlance, Obama folds on a straight flush.

There should be tax HIKES on corporations and the rich. There should be massive cuts to the military. Banks should be threatened with nationalization unless they begin lending to small businesses. There have been more than 3.5 million home foreclosures but there are 11 million more in the pipeline -- There must be principal write-downs.

Why aren't Obama, Pelosi, Reid and Democrats talking about the Progressive Caucus's budget and plan to balance the budget (reduces the deficit by $5.1 trillion)? It beats Obama's AND Republicans' plans.

As Krugman has said, the Progressives' budget:

"balances the budget through higher taxes and defense cuts, plus some tougher bargaining by Medicare (and a public option to reduce the costs of the Affordable Care Act). The proposed tax hikes would fall on higher incomes, raising the cap on payroll taxes (takes care of Social Security's solvency forever)... and unlike the Ryan plan, it actually makes sense."

But Obama takes solutions that work for the People, the vast majority of Americans, off the table. Whether it's ending Bush's tax cuts or the wars, the '14th Amendment Solution' (and it was, indeed, a legitimate option), etc., Obama kneecaps and handicaps the Democratic voters who put him and Democrats into power.

Democratic politicians should be beating this drum, loudly, constantly, and pushing the People's Budget instead of working off of a set of corporate lobbyists' plans.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

As far as SOPA/PIPA and Keystone are concerned, Obama hasn't closed the door.

Just like the odious sections of NDAA, Obama's supporters presumed they knew what he meant when he said he wouldn't support it as it was, only to find out that it was precisely those sections that civil libertarians objected to that Obama insisted remain.

I'm surprised at how Obama's 'most ardent supporters' (even the not so ardent ones) keep failing to learn the lesson of lawyer-speak.
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Obama Considering Larry Summers As World Bank Chief

About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

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

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

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

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

Republican-turned-Independent Charlie 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.
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

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 know anything about politics, you'd know that this is a dead giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

Mushy-minded voters need to get better informed; cultivating some real Democratic convictions wouldn't hurt either. Because whether it's taking single payer universal health care, a public option, investigations and prosecutions of Bush-Cheney, etc., off the table, or continuing the Bush-Cheney policies and going Bush-Cheney one better (by asserting that presidents have the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'indefinite preventive detention', the right to imprison anyone indefinitely because he thinks they might commit a crime), or using Joe Lieberman to hide behind, to duck out on his campaign pledge of transparency, and gut the FOIA, no real Democrat could continue to support Obama or any politicians purporting to be Democrats doing this.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Obama's healthcare legislation is part 2 of Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003.

You seem not to know that Obama's healthcare legislation was written by the insurance industry and was a product of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

And Obama didn't repeal DADT - Congress did.
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

On the final night of this fall’s Democratic National Convention, Obama will deliver his acceptance speech at Bank of America stadium.

Compare the Obama logo and the Bank of America logo.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

When you can't discuss the points, when you make it personal, you lose the argument.

All I see in your comments are the general and vague talking points, cliches, "it's not perfect", "would have liked a public option, but I understood the reality which you continuously ignore", blah blah blah blah blah. FWIW, I don't "always" or "continuously" do anything. And if you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

The reality is that Obama is a corporate tool, no different than Republicans, and he has been able to sucker supporters in the Democratic Party just as Bush was able to sucker supporters in the Republican Party.

What do you possibly envision Obama doing should he get a second term? What do you believe he will see he has a mandate to do? Enact Simpson-Bowles? Privatize Social Security? Attack Iran (or let Israel do it)? Deregulate industries? Approve Keystone when it returns after the 2012 elections? Support SOPA/PIPA when it returns?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

And as no discussion on the !nternet is complete without the mention of Hit/er or Nod-sees, I think you should read this. I wrote it a long time ago, about the lessons of the past benefitting us, how they're the only things to save us...But first we must learn them.
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

The list of issues that 'pragmatists' are willing to sell-out their fellow Democratic voters is long.

If 'pragmatists' aren't on Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, or don't have relatives or friends on any of these programs, Obama's cutting these benefits don't matter.

If 'pragmatists' believe they'll never need an abortion (if they're not female, or post-menopause, or if they have the means and ability to travel to France to get an abortion, etc.), then assaults on a woman's right to choose aren't 'deal-breakers'.

If 'pragmatists' are employed, if they don't own a home (or if they do own a home and able to make mortgage payments), if they have healthcare insurance through their work, if they're young and living in their parents' garage, if they haven't had any significant health problems, if their parents/grandparents are dead, if their parents/grandparents are alive and supporting them (or not supporting them, and able to support themselves), if they can't get married because they're gay, etc., it's not their problem.

If they're not a 'brown' person, if they're not criticizing politicians or government, if they're not sick and using medical marijuana (or if they rely on legal substances like alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs to manage their stress or recreation), [everybody together now]..."IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM!"

[Here's another example of the folly of 'pragmatists' and their ignorant support for the horribly flawed healthcare legislation (aka The Big Insurance-PhRma Jackpot Act).]

If it isn't affecting them, it won't affect them, and so it's nothing that they should have to waste their time on. Or in their 'bottom line'.

There's nothing "pragmatic" about these people. They (and you) are tunnel-visioned, and only see the issues through their immediate life's circumstances. Some might say that they're in denial. Others might say they're selfish, "narcissistically-inclined". Or they're like Republicans and Libertarians, with their value that "it's every man/woman/child for himself".

But they're certainly not about Democratic values.
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

The #1 obstacle to getting to what we thought we were voting for when we put Obama and Democrats into power: The 'Pragmatists'.

Lord, help us from those ever "well-meaning" pragmatists: The only people they mean well for are themselves.

We hear about "pragmatism" a lot from Obama's 'most ardent supporters'. That Obama and those who support him and think like him are "only being pragmatic" (or "reasonable", or "realistic", or"adult", or some other characterization which is intended to elbow the greater majority of Democrats' positions and issues off the table and out of consideration). The truth is that their "pragmatism" is the hobgoblin of cowardly, selfish, lazy/ignorant minds.

'Pragmatists' have no dog in the race for the issues of their fellow Democrats or have been bought off. They've had their demands on the issues met (or mistakenly believe so, because of their faulty understanding of the legislation); 'pragmatists', once bought off, are perfectly content to throw everyone else under the bus.

'Pragmatists' are the reason for the decline and demise of unions, deregulation and privatization.

Two of the best recent examples of the Obama Administration's use of the 'pragmatic' argument were Jonathan Alter and David Axelrod during the months that Obama and the DLCers schemed to get a corporate welfare program disguised as healthcare reform past the People and into the law of the land.

See here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

KEEP READING
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

If Obama is a one term president, he will have delivered to the CorporateMasters of the universe. He'll hand the baton off to Republicans for the fleecing to continue and go on to reap the benefits from his treacherous betrayal of the People, i.e., the same sort of corporate payoffs that presidents since Gerald Ford have enjoyed.

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

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

If you must continue to delude yourself into thinking Obama's a good guy who never would have started those wars, and who has only the best of intentions but got a bad deal (I don't share that opinion anymore), then think of all this as a business plan where the CorporateMasters of the Universe have charted out their plans years in advance (governments do them, too) and select the politician/personality best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments. If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profiteering, then GeorgeWBush is your man to front it (with DickCheney, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizing of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows).

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust. BarackObama.

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

Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromising change to our campaign financing system, until corporations are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participating in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless. But that is NOT going to happen under Obama or the DLC-controlled Democratic Party as we'd hoped when we put them in power in 2008; it's not even on their 'To Do' list.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Also scandalous:

Obama not only had the insurance industry write the "freakin bill", he put the foxes in charge of this chicken coop (former WellPoint executives Liz Fowler and Steve Larsen) to write and enforce the regulations. Her most notable actions to date have been issuing waivers to businesses that don't want to have to provide insurance to their employees.

Obama has a habit and pattern when it comes to putting off progressives - He kicks cans down the road until he can't. Then he picks the cans up and throws them up onto roofs. What do I mean by that? When he's backed into a corner to make good on his promises, he'll have some agency in the executive branch come up with the regulations that would satisfy the promises (or partially satisfy), and that will buy him some time. Then he'll block enforcement (EPA regulations on air-quality).

Obama's 'most ardent supporters' say things like, "Obama tried again and again to tax the uber-wealthy 1 percent", Obama didn't have to "try" a gol'darned thing -- All he had to do was let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire.

And what happened to cause the economic meltdown was CRIMINAL FRAUD, and he's done NOTHING to remedy the situation, restore the economy and those harmed, nor prevent it from happening again. Obama has chosen to surround himself with the architects of the greatest heist in the history of the world, and not those who really are champions of the People.

Obama's approach to the stimulus was way too little, as we on the left knew and predicted it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

What you're talking about is called medical loss ratio and the insurance industry has already figured out a way around it.

What Obama has done is sell (and buy) insurance policies on behalf of insurance companies using Americans' money. Over-priced, lousy insurance policies, at that. That's a pretty neat trick, btw, to sell and buy. It's like playing chess with yourself.

Having insurance doesn't mean getting healthcare. BIG DIFFERENCE.

There are no cost controls in Obama's legislation, much less mechanisms for lowering the costs of medical care. No controls over co-pays, no controls on deductibles.

On Countdown with KeithOlbermann, whistleblower WendellPotter talks with LawrenceO'Donnell about where the con game (medical loss ratio, the amount of money insurers must spend on healthcare) is in the legislation, and how it'll enable insurance companies to continue to price gauge and keep obscene profits instead of delivering affordable and quality medical care to policyholders.

Obama's legislation isn't universal, it has no chance of expanding to cover everyone, and it leads to the end of all public healthcare programs (Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.). That's a fact.

Obama's preserving an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care. It's government sanctioned racketeering. Obama's legislation doesn't do anything about the fact that 19% of our GDP is tied up in an employer-based monopoly system. Ending employment-based insurance was what everybody wanted.

Obama's healthcare legislation prohibits the government from being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportation.

The insurance mandate is, indeed, a tax. Contrary to what Obama claimed, the IRS'll be the enforcer, which means compounded fines and prison.

And we would've already had a PublicOption, the votes were there, had Obama not nixxed it.

If you think a Republican president would work to repeal Obama's healthcare legislation, then you need to ask yourself why Obama couldn't/wouldn't work to get the real healthcare reform that voters put him and Democrats into office to get.

FWIW, Obama's healthcare was designed by the rightwing's Heritage Foundation. If Republicans were to repeal it, they would get pass it again under their own name, with a new title, and neither you nor Republican voters would know the true origin -- Republican voters would love it because it had an 'R' on it, and you would hate it because of that 'R' on it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party got the healthcare legislation through that the insurance industry and PhRma wanted.

Amy Goodman interviewed 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.

Read the entire interview here.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

The 'donut-hole' that never should have existed in the first place, and that the DLC-controlled Democrats created as a "compromise" for Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (another massive corporate giveaway package).

The whole of Medicare Part D was a scam and a scheme, a "first step" (as Obama's 'most ardent supporters' like to say) towards privatizing public healthcare.

In 2003, PhRMA lobbied hard and got Congress to insert language into the bill that created a Medicare drug benefit that prohibits Medicare from using its market clout to negotiate with manufacturers for lower drug prices and making sure the drug benefit was only available through private insurance plans.

The result was that Medicare members can only get drug coverage by joining a private insurance plan. People who have both Medicare and Medicaid (dual-eligibles) were switched from Medicaid prescription drug coverage to a private Medicare drug plan. Prescription drugs for this population cost 30 percent more under the new private Medicare drug plans than they did under Medicaid, increasing pharmaceutical companies' profits by at least $3.7 billion dollars in just the first two years of the program. For example, Bristol Myers earned a windfall of almost $400 million, thanks to higher prices for the stroke medication Plavix.

The American taxpayer has been subsidizing pharmaceutical companies for decades with the promise that the R&D we were paying for would result in lower prices and breakthrough cures. Instead, we've been stuck with higher prices (twice as much as other industrialized countries) while the pharmaceutical companies try to snag new markets overseas with what were to be our discounts.

Not only did Obama break his campaign pledge (of the government, PhRma biggest customer, negotiating for lower priced drugs, and reimporting pharmaceuticals), he gave PhRma a huge gift. The deal that Obama made with PhRma wasn't for PhRma to go up against Big Insurance; it was for PhRma to help sell a plan that makes more profits for Big Insurance.

PhRma paid chump change ($80 billion over 10 years, plus $150 million for ads to support a plan that had NO public option) so that they could keep massive profits and k!II public healthcare. Obama (who had dropped the public option and the universal requirement) let the pharmaceutical industry continue to make obscene profits, and gave the insurance industry a clear field and new customers, all paid for with taxpayers' money.

Oh, and by the way, $80 billion over 10 years is less than 1 percent of the profits PhRma makes in one year.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

'Medical loss ratio' is what you're talking about.

And the insurance industry has already figured out the way around it.

Don't believe me? Don't want to take my word for it? You don't have to. Go call Wendell Potter and Lawrence O'Donnell Iiars:

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.

Why put the insurance industry into the equation of Americans' medical treatment at all? Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The way that the insurance industry makes its profits is by taking a cut of money that can be spent on medical care. And in reality the insurance industry profits like Wall Street and all other corporations that have crashed our economy have profited: By denying claims and preventing treatment (Wall Street and corporations do it by offshoring manufacturing, outsourcing jobs, eliminating jobs in spite of record profits for short term windfalls to shareholders and bonuses for CEOs, etc.).

The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather, Part II) of medical care; the insurance industry is "wetting its beak", letting you get medical care (maybe, if you can afford the deductibles, the co-pays, and if your illness is covered by your policy, but) only if you pay them a gratuity up front.

The controlling meme that has been operational for the past 40 years, the sales pitch for privatizing government services and resources, is that "private industry can do it cheaper". While Republicans (Nixon) began it, Democrats joined in (Jimmy Carter). But it's just not true that private industry does it cheaper. Or even better.

What the insurance industry has charged anywhere from 12-39 percent for, the US government (Medicare) does spectacularly well for 4 percent.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

And here's the real scandal: Not only did Obama never have any intention of getting affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone, how he and the healthcare lobby set out to accomplish their real goal (mandating high priced junk insurance for everyone) should show you just how corrupt they all are.

Because if getting affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone is your goal, you do not take single payer off the table. Single payer is the most effective and economical way to accomplish universal healthcare. Yet it had to be gone at the start, before negotiations ever began, in order to make sure there would be no public option (and by extension, no real cost controls).
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama, with Pelosi's and Reid's compliance.

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

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

Obama nixxed it.

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

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

Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public health care, he'll do everything within his power to prevent it as long as he's in the White House. Because that was the deal that he made. Those who believe that Obama's healthcare legislation is "incremental change", it institutionalizes the insurance industry as the gatekeepers to medical treatment (requiring having a job, too), which is something that everybody wanted to end. And there never will be a public option or any kind of affordable, quality medical care for all as long as Obama and DLC-controlled Democrats are in office: "There Won't Be Any Public Option--Obama Never Was For It". Watch it and weep.
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

About "incrementalism":

We've been doing it your way, putting the lesser of two eviIs into office, for more than 20 years now, and the government and the DemocraticParty has been moving incrementally farther to the right. That's because your way is to l!e 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 Roe overturned because why bother outlawing abortion when you've made it virtually impossible to obtain one?

Regulating banks and Wall Street won't be necessary because the top 1 percent will have ALL of the money.

The disabled and elderly will be dead, so privatizing Social Security won't be much of an issue.

Schools will be all privatized under Democrats -- You'd better hope you're still employed and making a great salary to pay for good charter schools for your kids. PBS has had its funding slashed under Democrats so your kids will have no commercial-free children's programming and will be rank-and-file consumer-slaves.

And the wars, expanded under Obama and Democrats (beyond what BushCheney did) will still be going on when your children have children.

If you are a liberal, if you and I are on the same side and want real Democratic policies, and going about getting them your way (protecting Obama, reelecting DLC Democrats) is getting Republican policies, 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?
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Obama's not even a centrist Democrat, much less a left-of-center one: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a BlueDogDemocrat."

BlueDogDemocrat = Might as well re-register as a Republican
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

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.

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.

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 k!ll 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.

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.
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

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).

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's healthcare legislation is nothing more than a massive giveaway to the health insurance industry. It is one of the most corrupt pieces of legislation ever enacted by our government.

The health insurance industry provides no real service. All it does is take money out of the system. It's nothing more than a blood-sucking middleman.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

http://www.myvidster.com/video/3615640/Jeremy_Scahill_Torture_Is_Ongoing_Under_Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

'Teen Mom 2' Star Jenelle Evans Arrested For Second Time In One Week

Torture is Ongoing Under Obama.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

Obama is considering Larry Summers for World Bank Chief.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

What any Obama supporter is actually supporting:

"Yes, I’m willing to continue to have Muslim children slaughtered by covert drones and cluster bombs, and America’s minorities imprisoned by the hundreds of thousands for no good reason, and the CIA able to run rampant with no checks or transparency, and privacy eroded further by the unchecked Surveillance State, and American citizens targeted by the President for assassination with no due process, and whistleblowers threatened with life imprisonment for 'espionage', and the Fed able to dole out trillions to bankers in secret, and a substantially higher risk of war with Iran (fought by the U.S. or by Israel with U.S. support)."

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Iron Lady: Dementia and Margaret Thatcher

Wait? Why?

I suggest that Karin Kasdin work on her own discomfort when faced with a fact of life - Aging and all of the indignities that go with it. It's misplaced sympathies such as what Karin Kasdin expresses that prevent our being able to get out from under the thumb of the 1%.

After Thatcher is dead, there will be some other reason, someone else's feelings that should be spared and prevents us from talking about what happened during her reign in office, and evaluating conservatives' policies across the globe that have brought us to the brink of destruction. Even after Ronald Reagan's death, we still can't discuss the fact that he had Alzheimer's while in office out of deference to his widow.

Onset of Alzheimer's is as long as 20 years (and perhaps longer) before the first symptoms become apparent to those around the patient.

Alzheimer's patients go to great efforts to try to hide evidence of their mental decline, that they may be having problems with their memory, that there might be a problem with their thought processes, and this was true during and before Alzheimer's became a household word. This was true before Reagan was diagnosed, before his time in the White House.

Reagan's mental decline was known not just within the White House during his presidency, but the diagnosis of Alzheimer's was suspected by those who had experience with Alzheimer's (both by professionals who treated Alzheimer's patients and by families/friends of Alzheimer's patients).

On video somewhere is a 1984 photo-op session in Santa Barbara where a reporter asked Reagan about arms control talks with the Soviets. Reagan was visibly confused, and couldn't form words. Nancy, who was standing beside him, said in a low, almost inaudible voice, "We're doing the best we can", which Reagan then repeated.

After Reagan left office, it was reported that his mental decline while in the WhiteHouse was of concern to some of Reagan's aides, and the senior staff brought it up with James Baker, about what to do. Baker told them he would attend one of their meetings with Reagan, to observe. Apparently Reagan managed to keep it together during the meeting, which is not uncommon -- Alzheimer's families report similar experiences of gathering the family to observe, and patients manage to perform well and hide the problems they're having.

After that meeting, Baker told the staff that "The boss is fine" and nixxed any further need to concern anyone with the aide's doubts.

When that story was reported, nobody in the media thought to ask, "When did James Baker get a medical degree?" or, "Shouldn't there be a protocol for when presidents are suspected of no longer being compes mentes?" Or, what about pre-determining a candidate's mental fitness for the office of the presidency?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

© Blogger templates Newspaper by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP