Spintested: 04/25/12

Obama Explains Increasing Medical Marijuana Crackdowns, Raids In 'Rolling Stone' Interview

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

A simple law was not needed. Existing law explicitly gives the executive branch the power to change the scheduling of particular drugs without needing Congressional action. Obama can instruct the relevant agencies under him to take an honest look at the research and reschedule marijuana so it qualify as having legitimate medical uses. The Obama administration could easily and justifiably move marijuana to, say, schedule III, which happens to be the same schedule that synthetic THC is in, making medical marijuana legal under federal law.

So Obama is either lying or he's ignorant of the law.
About Marijuana
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

A liberal.
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Obama: Romney Can't Say 'Everything I've Said For The Last 6 Months, I Didn't Mean'

There would be nothing unusual, extraordinary or legally suspect about Obama doing this. The executive branch has often moved certain drugs to lower or higher schedules based on new data without Congressional involvement. In fact, multiple sitting governors have petitioned the Obama administration asking him to move marijuana to a lower schedule, so he should be aware of the flexible authority he has.

Obama is not some hapless victim whose actions on this issue are constrained by congressional law. The truth is pretty much the exact opposite. Under current law Obama effectively has the power to unilaterally make medical marijuana legal. Obama is not legally forced to wage a war on medical marijuana; it is something his administration is actively choosing to do.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

The only way to get a real progressive into the White House in 2016 is NOT putting Obama in in 2012.

I know you don't understand that, how that works, but there it is.

A vote for Obama is a vote for the status quo. For NDAA. For increased drone strikes taking out civilians, creating more enemies for America. For expanded wars into sovereign nations. For more treaties like NAFTA and SKoreaAFTA, and CAFTA (union-busting, job outsourcing). For Simpson-Bowles adoption, with cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. For more deregulation and privatization of public resources. For more offshore drilling, with no safeguards in place. For less food inspection. For fracking, and nuclear plants.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

Romney can only do what Congress allows him to do.

Everything on your list is of concern no matter which man is in the White House. Some of those items on your list Obama has already done -- It's shocking that you don't seem to know that.

The Ryan Budget vs. Simpson-Bowles. 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.
About Pollster
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

The "lesser of two evils".

That's like saying, "Would you rather die by hanging or by electric chair?"

Our response should be, "I choose not to die at all."
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

More "lesser of two evils" malarkey.

Obama isn't any kind of Democrat.

A Democrat who governs as a Republican, continuing just about all of the BushCheney policies and getting Republican legislation through Congress isn't "better".

With Obama, we're getting Republican policies sold to us as if they're what we wanted. Just because the Republican Party's base is too stupid to know they should be thrilled to have Obama in the White House doesn't mean the Democratic Party's base is.

At a time when we could be, should be, using this primary season to get a real progressive, a real Democrat into the Oval Office, Obama supporters have saddled us with this Republican-In-Democrat's-Clothing. This Obama campaign strategy, to run out the primary clock, kick-the-can down the road until it's too late and Democratic voters are left with just him is Obama's formula for everything. It's going to saddle us with at least another 4 years of bad times, expanding wars, joblessness, foreclosures, completely destroying the middle class and wrecking the environment and civil rights.

Any Republican president doing what Obama's done would get excoriated by Obama's fans, but because he's got a 'D' after his name, they go along. They keep Obama's numbers up and then they play the fear-card ("The Republicans are coming, the Republicans are coming!").

They've either lost their minds or they're political operatives whose livings depends on perpetrating this fraud.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

As a Politics Pundit, I can post comments with greater word counts, among other things.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

By the way, SinglePayerUniversalHealthcare was the compromise.

SinglePayer wasn't our first, best proposal. We've already have been denied our first best proposal: A level playing field where we all could rise and share in the obscene corporate profits that come at the expense of so many people's lives. We've lost to a corporate mentality that it's a 'dog eat dog'-world, where making a living isn't enough (or even possible); only 'making a kiIIing'.

Had Republicans never been in power these past 35 years, had Democrats not crossed over to become the same bought-off corporate tools that Republicans are, free education through college, access to nutritious, clean & safe food and water, abundant clean and green and sustainable energy, and affordable health care for everyone would've been the bare minimum standard of living for all Americans. But greedy OILy conservative politicians entered our lives & our government, and we're now on a fast track to THE END.

A weak PublicOption was whittled down into a trigger and then dropped altogether. There are no cost controls in the healthcare legislation, but plenty of protections for continued gouging by insurance and drug industries.

And then the Democratic caving over the budget.

When the budget process began, Republican congressman PaulRyan came out with the first number that Republicans wanted to cut ($32 billion). Then there was a TeaParty revolt in the House, and Republicans in the House said "Fine, you win, $64 billion."

At $64 billion and Democrats moved all the way over to where PaulRyan was when the process began. So even if Democrats got that number (which in Washington would be considered a "win" for Democrats), Democrats went all the way over to where the Republican leadership thought their opening bid would be. Ultimately the cuts are going to be very dramatic, more so than anyone in either party thought was wise months ago -- NOBODY is representing the interests of the poor and middle classes. The 'People's Budget' is nowhere to be found.

Nothing's going to change until and unless Obama and Democratic politicians make the decision to engage. Democratic voters thought they'd made the decision in 2006 and in 2008 when they put Obama and Democrats in power. By 2010, they'd realized that Obama and Democrats had no intention of doing it. And should Obama get reelected, expect Simpson-Bowles to be his raison d'etre.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

With Bush's Obama's tax cuts for the rich, the left was willing to compromise on all of the tax cuts. Obama's deal on the tax cuts for the rich wind doesn't cover the 99ers and increases taxes on the poor. The payroll tax holiday sets Social Security and Medicare up for destruction -- There were and are better ways to get money to the poor and middle classes.

The left comes to the table already having compromised our positions. On everything. All the time. We have done the compromising for more than 30 years.

And even after we compromise, after we have deals, Republicans renege and Democrats still cave some more. One example of that isthe Capps amendment. That was the compromise AGREEMENT on abortion in Obama's healthcare legislation.

In the end, with the Stupak amendment and Obama's executive order, Obama and Democrats have put us firmly on the path of ending all insurance coverage for abortions.

Read this, too.

Fairly soon, Roe and overturning it is going to be moot with all that Republicans have managed to get Democrats to "compromise" on, making getting an abortlon impossible. As it is now, you can't get an abortlon in 92 percent of the counties in the US.

KEEP READING
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

We're back to the old Obama "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"-talking point, are we?

[Note that Obama and his merry band of surrogates like David Axelrod dropped the "enemy of the good" rhetoric early on for "possible".]

To those like you who spew rhetoric like, "Look at how impatient they are. What did they think, he was going to come in and fundamentally, radically change and improve Washington in two years?", I don't think anybody thought that. I certainly didn't. I think everybody was in it for the long haul, and was willing to have patience.

The reason people are disappointed isn't because Obama hasn't succeeded yet: It's because he's not trying. He's doing the opposite. Everything he accomplishes is by stuffing his administration with the architects of the economic meltdown and meeting in secret with the very Iobbyists that he was going to disempower, continuing to have them write the legislation that is destroying the poor and middle classes.

Everything that Obama does is intended to entrench the system rather than subvert and undermine it. So if he were actually fighting, everyone would have all the patience in the world and say,"We're behind you", etc. The disappointment is that he's not trying; he's doing the opposite.

The proof of that is evident on a daily basis.

KEEP READING
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

The idea that we can elect ONE man to office and then sit back and let him do all the work of changing things is ludicrous.

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

Nobody has suggested doing any such thing.

The fact of the matter is that Obama talks the rhetoric, but his actions show us something entirely different. For example, when it comes to rallying the base to contact Congress, Obama has worked to suppress base activism.

Read Sam Graham-Felsen's oped in WaPo: Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?

At the same time Obama deactivated OFA, Obama demanded all progressive outside groups cease their efforts to pass Democratic legislation. He wanted 100 percent control of the message through the White House.

And then Obama did nothing but cave and capitulate. He didn't pressure any Blue Dogs or Republicans on healthcare reform, not on a public option, on nothing.

And, Obama dithered in the two years leading up to the 2010 midterm elections while the GOP wiped out the singlemost effective Democratic voter registration group - Democratic Outside Groups, Voter Reg Drives Fall Flat.

Obama has a habit and pattern of doing the bare minimum possible, like sending OFA email at the last possible moment, just so that his political operatives can say, "OFA never stopped sending out communications."

'Plausible deniability' might be the slogan for Obama's career in office.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to the American people.

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's more accurately explained by lousy campaigns, milquetoast candidates outgvnned by election dirty tricks and fraud.*

[*A poll back in 1984, done during the week of the Democratic convention, illustrates this. It measured the enthusiasm of the delegates for the ticket (MondaleFerraro) before MarioCuomo spoke (low) and after (dismal). There was actually growing buzz that delegates were looking into ways to draft Cuomo as the party's nominee.]

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.

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 and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; BushRove were just more ruthless in doing what politicians and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer, never back away, you'll wear the opposition down.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the Rove machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching BushCheney off the table, have us still reelecting them and not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

Obama and Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

Did the Democratic Party get the message after the 2010 midterms? (No.)

Obama said before and after the 2010 midterms that even if Democrats remained in the majority, he was going to do the same thing that he's been doing -- More caving to Republicans:

Aides say that the president's been spending "a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0," brainstorming with administration officials about the best way to revamp the strategies & goals of the WhiteHouse.

And despite the predictions that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislating power, including perhaps control of the House & even Senate, Obama isn't thinking of the next two years as a period that'll be marked with the same obstructive nature from the GOP.

"It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, & so the strategy of just saying no to everything & sitting on the sidelines & throwing bombs didn't work for them," Obama says. "Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals & work with me in a serious way."

DickDurbin says Obama's post-election agenda "will have to be limited & focused on the things that are achievable & high priorities for the American people." TomDaschle says Obama has to reach out more: "The keyword is inclusion. He's got to find ways to be inclusive."

After the midterms, Obama assessed that the message of the election was that voters liked his efforts at bipartisanship, and wanted him to move even farther to the right (which he did):

Obama Urges Bipartisanship, Not Gridlock

Obama vows to ‘redouble’ efforts toward bipartisanship

Then there was Obama's signaling that he would extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich before the midterms, which he did after the midterms.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

And then there's Obama and the DNC working their butts off to prevent more liberal/progressive Democrats from getting elected by trying to discourage base turnout and this.

Another example of Obama, RahmEmanuel, the DLC, DavidAxelrod, DavidPlouffe, et al, working their butts off to prevent real progressives getting into office is BlueDog Blanche Lincoln.

Going against tradition and practice, the WhiteHouse put its full weight and support behind BlancheLincoln over the true progressive candidate in the primary, union-backed Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Presidents do NOT get involved in primaries. Citizens have little enough of a Constitutionally-guaranteed role within this democracy as it is -- 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.

While Obama is the first president to do it, it wasn't the first time Obama did it.

Obama made a deal with Arlen Specter and put the full weight and support of the Democratic machine behind Specter during the 2010 primary in Pennsylvania, trying to buy off Joe Sestak (among other alternative candidates Democratic voters in PA might have wanted to vote to have representing them).

Consider that: Obama actively went about trying to prevent Democratic voters from choosing their preferred candidate for the US so that a DINO, Republican Arlen Specter, could retain the seat.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

Before the 2010 midterms, Obama broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress. More caving by Obama and Democrats, to Republicans:

Aides say that the president's been spending "a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0," brainstorming with administration officials about the best way to revamp the strategies & goals of the WhiteHouse.

And despite the predictions that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislating power, including perhaps control of the House & even Senate, Obama isn't thinking of the next two years as a period that'll be marked with the same obstructive nature from the GOP.

"It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, & so the strategy of just saying no to everything & sitting on the sidelines & throwing bombs didn't work for them," Obama says. "Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals & work with me in a serious way."

DickDurbin says Obama's post-election agenda "will have to be limited & focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people." TomDaschle says Obama has to reach out more: "The keyword is inclusion. He's got to find ways to be inclusive."

Whether Democrats gained seats or lost control of the Congress, Obama said he was going to do more caving. What was he hoping to achieve by doing that by announcing that (along with Obama's flip-flopping on just about every pledge and continuing Bush-Cheney policies and putting Republican-like legislation through Congress), if not to discourage and suppress Democratic voter turnout in the midterms?

It was reminiscent of Nancy Pelosi's stating about two weeks before the 2006 midterms that if Democrats got control of Congress that "impeaching BushCheney was off the table". Her comment wasn't reported widely, but was out there enough so that when Democrats regained control of the House shortly after and Democratic voters expected an active Democratic Congress overseeing, investigating and prosecuting the Bush administration, she could say that it was the mandate of the election that BushCheney not be held to account.

KEEP READING
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

I'm a liberal Democrat, I don't watch Fox, but your watching Fox explains how you could make such a claim about what appeals to a "wide section of the populace".

When Fox viewers protest healthcare reform with signs saying, "Government, get your hands off my Medicare!", it's obvious that they're confused and have been targets of propaganda campaigns on what liberalism is -- Them. When informed on the issues, most Americans agree with liberal positions and policies.

There are any number of reasons that Congress and state legislatures aren't filled with real progressives and liberals, beginning with the corporatization of our political system and government and media. And yes, Obama has done his part, too.

KEEP READING
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

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.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

After the 2010 midterms, when Blue Dogs took a beating (liberals lost only 3 seats), Obama took it as a mandate for him to move even farther to the right.

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.

There is nothing that Lieberman (or Nelson or Lincoln) is doing that Obama hasn't ordered. Obama and the DLC-Democrats want Lieberman there, doing what he's doing, which is to take the heat off of Democrats.

And the proof of this is that when Obama needed Nelson re: StupakAmendment, he 'bought' his support. That's what Obama could've done for Nelson's or Lincoln's vote at any time, on any legislation.

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 blame it on Republicans. Because they're DLC, aka Republicans-in-Democrats'-clothing.
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

If you choose a third party, you will only be dividing the democratic vote. There is a difference between being ideologically pure and being pragmatic.

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

Actually, if you continue to back Obama, you're splitting the vote and saddling us with ever-more-to-the-right, Republican policies.

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
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

#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
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

#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 and we'll pick up the pieces afterwards.

KEEP READING
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

#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).

As I said, that was up until a few months ago. Word had it that a challenge was coming, but it's 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
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Younger Voters Shift From Obama

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

Younger Voters Shift From Obama

Nader again?

Nader didn't do anything to Gore that HarryBrowne, PatBuchanan, HowardPhillips, 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.

You presume that Nader voters would've voted for Gore (or voted at all) when studies and exit polling have indicated that's not the case.

You blame Nader voters when, had Nader not even run, had he not be in the race, Bush still would've won. Because Republicans had gamed that election more ways than we're ever going to know about. You might as well blame Pat Buchanan with the same vigor and vitriole.

AlGore 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've happened. Had Nader been in the race, had he not in the race, whatever. Had Nader not run, the outcome would've 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 -- 'CharlesKane' 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." Verbatim quote. The judge didn't follow up. There was next to no news coverage of this, and none by the networks.

Have you forgotten JebBush's vote purging scheme?

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

There was a coup d'etat in America in 2000. A bIoodless coup, but a coup nonetheless.

And Democrats suppressed investigations, and then screwed over the CongressionalBlackCaucus's attempts to expose that stolen election.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Younger Voters Shift From Obama

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 GeraldFord 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 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 DemocraticParty 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

Younger Voters Shift From Obama

That's very kind, but 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, not to mention that she was the 5th vote in rolling back Miranda a couple of weeks ago.

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?

I have been hearing this same argument for voting the DLC-controlled Democrats into office for the past 25 years, and the party and the government has moved farther to the right each election cycle while the 99% keeps losing ground.

At my age, there isn't any more ground that I can afford to lose, and Democrats aren't going to protect my meager scraps any more than Republicans. The best, the only strategy really, is to purge incumbents and support third party candidates. That's the best I can do for myself and offer to my children and grandchildren. I think you need to step back and look at the big picture.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Younger Voters Shift From Obama

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?
About Barack Obama
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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

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