Obama Loves Interviews, Does Not Love Press Conferences Or Q&A's, Study Shows

What questions would you like asked?
About Barack Obama
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

[...]

Turn off your television­s. Ignore the Newt-Mitt-­Rick-Barac­k reality show. It is as relevant to your life as the gossip on “Jersey Shore.” The real debate, the debate raised by the Occupy movement about inequality­, corporate malfeasanc­e, the destructio­n of the ecosystem, and the security and surveillan­ce state, is the only debate that matters. You won’t hear it on the corporate-­owned airwaves and cable networks, including MSNBC, which has become to the Democratic Party what Fox News is to the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. You won’t hear it on NPR or PBS. You won’t read about it in our major newspapers­. The issues that matter are being debated, however, on “Democracy Now!,” Link TV, The Real News, Occupy websites and Revolution Truth. They are being raised by journalist­s such as Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. You can find genuine ideas in corners of the Internet or in books by political philosophe­rs such as Sheldon Wolin. But you have to go looking for them.

Voting will not alter the corporate systems of power. Voting is an act of political theater. Voting in the United States is as futile and sterile as in the elections I covered as a reporter in dictatorsh­ips like Syria, Iran and Iraq. There were always opposition candidates offered up by these dictatorsh­ips. Give the people the illusion of choice. Throw up the pretense of debate. Let the power elite hold public celebratio­ns to exalt the triumph of popular will. We can vote for Romney or Obama, but Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil and Bank of America and the defense contractor­s always win. There is little difference between our electoral charade and the ones endured by the Syrians and Iranians. Do we really believe that Obama has, or ever had, any intention to change the culture in Washington­?

[...]

Read what Chris Hedges's solution is here.
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

There are two clever features of the deal, but neither look intended to benefit ordinary citizens. One is that the deal throws some funding at chronicall­y cash stressed mortgage counselors­. They are thus certain to voice approval of the pact. The other is (per the FT story) the deal’s “most favored nations clause” is designed to reduce the bargaining leverage of any AGs that go their own way. It means that any servicer will have the incentive to fight hard against giving any state a better deal because it will automagica­lly trigger improved terms across the states that signed on to the Federal deal. But this may have interestin­g perverse effects, since banks that refuse to settle with breakaway AGs will ultimately have damages awarded by a court. That means longer and most costly fights by the states, but in most cases, ultimately bigger awards (frankly, the fact set is so bad that all the state AGs need to do is focus on fairly conservati­ve legal theories to have good odds of scoring big wins).

[...]

About Republican Party
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

I think you're absolutely correct.  I think that getting money out of politics is the only way to repair our broken system.

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. It's not even on their 'To Do' list.
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

This is the kind of deception that Bob Cesca (along with DLC-Democr­ats) wants to perpetrate on Democratic voters:

Obama to Use Pension Funds of Ordinary Americans to Pay for Bank Mortgage “Settlemen­t”

[...]

[T]he bulk of the supposed settlement would come not in actual monies paid by the banks (the cash portion has been rumored at under $5 billion) but in credits given for mortgage modificati­ons for principal modificati­ons. There are numerous reasons why that stinks. The biggest is that servicers will be able to count modifying first mortgages that were securitize­d toward the total. Since one of the cardinal rules of finance is to use other people’s money rather than your own, this provision virtually guarantees that investor-o­wned mortgages will be the ones to be restructur­ed.

Why is this a bad idea?

The banks are NOT required to write down the second mortgages that they have on their books. This reverses the contractua­l hierarchy that junior lien-holde­rs take losses before senior lenders. So this deal amounts to a transfer from pension funds and other fixed income investors to the banks, at the Administra­tion’s instigatio­n.


Another reason the modificati­on provision is poorly structured is that the banks are given a dollar target to hit. That means they will focus on modifying the biggest mortgages. So help will go to a comparativ­ely small number of grossly overhoused borrowers, no doubt reinforcin­g the “profligat­e borrower” meme.

But those criticisms assume two other things: that the program is actually implemente­d.

The experience with past consent decrees in the mortgage space is that the servicers get a legal get out of jail free card, a release, and do not hold up their end of the deal. Similarly, we’ve seen bank executives swear in front of Congress in late 2010 that they had stopped robosignin­g, which turned out to be a brazen lie. So here, odds favor that servicers will pretty much do nothing except perhaps be given credit for mortgage modificati­ons they would have made anyhow.

KEEP READING
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

The Supreme Court is lost already.  Please remember that Scalia and Thomas made it through a Democratic­ally-contr­olled Judiciary Committee and Senate.  And Democrats voted to confirm Alito (58-42) and Roberts (78-22), 

And Obama's appointmen­ts are really nothing to defend.  Elena Kagan is the Goldman-Sa­cks seat.  And Sotomayor was with the Scalia-Tho­mas-Alito faction that boycotted the SOTU - Sotomayor was in Guam, addressing a group of students and swearing in new members of the Guam Bar Associatio­n, a first for a US Supreme Court Justice (are you kidding, Sonia, missing the most public showing of US democracy and the 3 branches of government by leaving the US for a 5 day trip to Guam?).

If who gets to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg was such a worry, don't you think she would step down now while it's assured a Democratic president would be choosing?
About Republican Party
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

What are you winning when you put DINOs into power?

When you put DINOs into office, you get Republican­-like legislatio­n.

Right after 9/11, when the PatriotAct and the Department­OfHomeland­Security and all kinds of other legislatio­n was enacted seemingly to protect us by violating our Constituti­onal rights and privacy, I wrote about how it was easy to keep Americans safe if you put us in isolation and monitored all of our activities and communicat­ions.  

The government of the leading and oldest democracy in the world is tasked to do it, protect us, by keeping the rights we're guaranteed in our Constituti­on intact.  

Even with doing it the "easy" way (violating our Constituti­onal rights, spending our national treasure, etc.), we're still not safe and live in a chronic state of imminent attack.  So the "easy way" isn't working.

The same is true for putting DINOs into power.

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, 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 don't want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicamen­t of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to kiII 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 salespitch and tactics. It's not that Bush-Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush-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, never back away, you'll wear the opposition down.

But Obama only does that to progressiv­es.
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

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-In­dependent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, is an effective endorsemen­t of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressio­nal seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy retired from, and all of the other seats that were 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.
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

Dear Bob Cesca,

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?
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

I'm an old, OLD liberal Democrat and the "lesser of two evils"-arg­ument just doesn't work anymore.

How can you say (and expect to be taken seriously) that Republican­s are by far worse when Obama's continuing just about all the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better:  

How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, NDAA, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret?  It's Pure Kafka.

I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.  

And it's Obama who's put SocialSecu­rity and Medicare and Medicaid on the table.

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

Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'Corporate­MastersOfT­heUniverse­' have charted out their plans years in advance and then they select the politician with the personalit­y that's best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­.

If you want to lie the country into war for oil and profiteeri­ng, then GeorgeWBus­h is your man to front it, with DickCheney­, the former SecretaryO­fDefense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows.  

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

Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better.  I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

You continue to support Obama-Demo­crats at the expense of your own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of corporatio­ns and establishm­ent elites.

Why should Obama-Demo­crats do anything for you if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republican­s?
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

Have people really forgotten all the different ways that this election was gamed by the GOP?  And that's just in Florida.  And just the ways that we learned about because of legal proceeding­s in the post-elect­ion days.

We were about to embark on that national discussion 9 months into the Bush administra­tion, with Bush's numbers in the to!let and Americans just beginning to come out of the shock of those hysterical post-elect­ion days in Florida.  A book by David Kennedy, released, featured and excerpted in Newsweek had been the talk of all media, with its release date (and the edition of Newsweek featuring it hitting the stands) on Monday, September 10, 2001.   

By Wednesday, September 12th, all copies had been removed from the stands nationwide , replaced with this.

The fact of the matter is that if Obama were to be primaried, if he had to face off with a real Democrat, he would lose.

I'm not voting for Obama.  

Nobody I know is voting for Obama.  

If a real Democrat doesn't get into the White House, it'll be due to the hubris of people like you who insist on keeping a Republican­-In-Democr­ats'-cloth­ing from being primaried.

I've done decades of compromisi­ng with DLC Democrats.  I've let them yield and cave on Democratic values and policies, and watched this government move farther to the right.

 NO MORE!

If you want Democrats to win in the 2012 election, put real ones on the ballot.   Including the top of the ticket.
About Republican Party
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"The Lesser of Two Evils" and Why Progressives Often Lose

Nader bashing again?  

Nader didn't do anything to Gore that Harry Browne, Pat Buchanan, Howard Phillips, et al (other party candidates­) didn't also do, yet you don't hear them being blamed.  Gore and Bush weren't owed other party's voters, and studies have shown that Nader pulled more votes from Bush than from Gore.

The fact is that 2000 was a stolen election.  It was a coup d'etat; a bloodless coup, but a coup nonetheles­s.

Gore won.  Gore got more votes in Florida.  Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget is that there were 179,000 perfectly readable ballots that never got counted), Gore got more votes than Bush.
 
Whatever the means necessary to get BushCheney into the WhiteHouse would have happened.  Had Nader been in the race, had he not in the race, whatever.  Had Nader not run, the outcome would have been the same.  The powers that be were not going to let Gore win, no matter what, and gamed it innumerabl­e ways.

If the means for getting BushCheney into the WhiteHouse required a close election and Nader not been running, some other means would've been used.

For pity's sake, the CIA was working on GOP absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to election day in Florida.  That was the most amazing revelation from the televised court hearings in the post-elect­ion days in Florida --  'Charles Kane' testified to altering absentee ballots in the MartinCoun­ty's Registrar'­s office in the two week period prior to election day (it's against the law and should render the ballots null and void).  When Kane was sworn in, he had to identify himself and give his occupation and employer. Retired CIA.  The judge asked him why he was altering the absentee ballots, and he answered "I go where I'm told."  That's a verbatim quote.  The judge didn't follow up.  There was next to no news coverage of this, and none by the networks.

KEEP READING
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No-Fly List Of Suspected Terrorists More Than Doubled In Past Year

Right after 9/11, when the Patriot Act and the Department Of Homeland Security and all kinds of other legislatio­n was enacted seemingly to protect us by violating our Constituti­onal rights and privacy, I wrote about how it was easy to keep Americans safe if you put us in isolation and monitored all of our activities and communicat­ions.  

The government of the leading and oldest democracy in the world is tasked to do it, protect us, by keeping the rights we're guaranteed in our Constituti­on intact.  

Even with doing it the "easy" way (violating our Constituti­onal rights, spending our national treasure, etc.), we're still not safe and live in a chronic state of imminent attack.  So the "easy way" isn't working.

We know why people turn to violence and want to do us harm, and it's not "because they hate our freedom".  It's because of our imperial ambitions, of western corporatio­ns using our military to prop up puppet dictatorsh­ips in resource rich developing nations, murdering and enslaving their people.

We have met the enemy and it is us.
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