John Breaux Sees Democrats Embracing Paul Ryan's Plan To 'End Medicare'

Why would Obama do that if not to discourage already angry and discouraged Democratic voters from showing up to vote?

Democrats lost seats in the 2010 midterms because of Obama's and Democrats' failure to do what Democratic voters put them in office for in 2008.  It was BlueDogs who lost seats in huge numbers, and lost Democrats control over the House and lowered the total in the Senate -- Progressives only lost 3 seats.  

Since the midterm elections, Obama's tried to spin this as some mandate for more Republican-like legislation.  

Do you honestly believe that the message of the midterms was to cut spending when the vast majority of Americans want no cuts to Medicare or SocialSecurity and want the wars to end now, BushObama tax cuts to be repealed and taxes raised on corporations and the rich?  Yet that's exactly what Obama and Republicans and the Democrats in the House and Senate who voted for this 'Super Congress' (including NancyPelosi) are trying to sell.  Just this past week, Pelosi said she could sign on to Simpson-Bowles.
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John Breaux Sees Democrats Embracing Paul Ryan's Plan To 'End Medicare'

I'm praying the Democrats win an overwhelming majority and we go to a one payer system, like the civilized world has.

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What do you think you're voting for when you put Obama back into the WhiteHouse?  

And if your answer is "populist policies", what makes you think that's what Obama supports?

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

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 White House.

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."

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SIGAR Report Finds Afghanistan Reconstruction Compromised By Security, Corruption

MADDOW: America, it‘s your tax dollars at work. This is the war economy as translated to land-locked Central Asia. We dump a ton of money thinking that we are paying for our military effort. Everything that goes along with our military effort ends up letting - or in this case, directing like a squirt gun, instead of flooding - 

ENGEL: The streets become rivers of mud. 

MADDOW: But the money doesn‘t go to the country and trickle down its economy. It just goes to the elites and power brokers who can keep it for themselves. 

ENGEL: A war lord system. There is a lot of money in war - contracting, supplying, shipping. And if you have been in power, you keep those contracts for yourself and you build neighborhoods like this. And maybe, you don‘t even live here. You live somewhere else, in a foreign country. 

MADDOW: This is what it is like in Kabul. This is the exact same dynamic that we saw in Kandahar where you‘re talking with these counterinsurgency doctors and soaked military officers who are incredibly smart and have far reaching thinking about this sort of thing and they can because of that, they can see the basic contradiction at work that we‘re trying to do. 

If the whole effort, all the money and everything, is to establish governance and - if the whole effort is to establish governance, all of our money, all of our spending here is only supporting the elite, the warlordism -

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SIGAR Report Finds Afghanistan Reconstruction Compromised By Security, Corruption

ENGEL: Exactly. And the reason the streets are still unpaved is that these government officials refuse to pay any taxes to the government. They are in a fight so the government won‘t come and pave the roads or connect it to any kind of sanitation system at all because the same government ministers won‘t pay to register the neighborhood. 

MADDOW: So they won‘t throw their weight around to get their neighborhood taken care of, because they don‘t live here anyway. 

ENGEL: They don‘t live here anyway. So you have these large homes, and some of these homes - you see this building right behind you? 

MADDOW: That looks like a hotel. 

ENGEL: No. No. No. They are all private homes. 

MADDOW: This is a private home? 

ENGEL: It‘s a private home. It probably has 25 bedrooms in it and garish, colonnades and unusual architectural features. And then, they‘ll rent that out to some western client and they‘ll charge either by the bedroom or by the floor or for the whole thing. And if you were to build this one - it‘s obviously under construction - that is a $1 million plus house in Kabul with no paved streets. 

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SIGAR Report Finds Afghanistan Reconstruction Compromised By Security, Corruption

ENGEL: Because this was originally just empty land. You can see there is no real pavement or anything like that. When the Americans came in with the northern alliance (the northern alliance, which was the allies against the Taliban) took this land and then gave it away to all their cronies. They created a new war wealth neighborhood out of nothing. 

MADDOW: And so we‘ve still got open sewers and we‘ve still got no pavement, but we have rococo castles. Nouveau riche castles. 

ENGEL: That lease for $10,000 to $25,000 a month, because it‘s a safe area. But here‘s the irony. Most of the government officials - and these are almost all owned by government officials - don‘t live in them. They rent them out to foreign companies, contractors. And they live in Dubai or have their families in Islamabad. So they are purely investment properties. 

MADDOW: There‘s a sign right there in that one. It says, “house for rent.” 

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John Breaux Sees Democrats Embracing Paul Ryan's Plan To 'End Medicare'

When politician­s say that "Social Security is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their Corporate Masters.  You don't see politician­s putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

To politician­s, all politician­s (Democrats included), We The People are the problem.  If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed.  If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collective­ly to us all, We the People) and deregulate so that corporatio­ns wouldn't be constraine­d by anything, could become profit-mak­ing machines on steroids, unobstruct­ed by piddling voter concerns, such as  health, safety, environmen­t, etc.  And for accomplish­ing this, politician­s would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.

You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politician­s, but the fact is that the DLC controls the Democratic Party (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the pro-corpor­ate branch), and that Democrats in Congress and in the White House have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constituti­onally-req­uired role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administra­tions  -- What little regulating they've put in legislatio­n the last 2 years is ineffectiv­e for a whole array of very sneaky moves).  As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractor­s stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge-profi­t-making machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.

You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy.  What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporatio­ns' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycle the past few months are Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties (S. Korea and Colombia) which mean more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas.  And then there's Paul Ryan, Simpson-Bowles, the 'Super Congress', all with plans for gutting Social Security and Medicare, along with the Dream Act (which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages) creeping forward.  

We The People are being transforme­d, from sheep to sacrificia­l lambs.
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SIGAR Report Finds Afghanistan Reconstruction Compromised By Security, Corruption

What's the objective, how is the military going about achieving it, and where are our tax dollars going?

Not long ago, Rachel Maddow walked the dusty, garbage-strewn streets of Afghanistan with RIchard Engel to see what exporting US-style democracy means, and what US nation-building actually builds. Watch this to see where are our tax dollars going, and learn how we are not "nation-building", not making us safer, and not helping the Afghans or building their nation at all (or a democracy). Learn how this has all been just a huge rip-off of the American people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR5BHnN__5M


Here's the transcript:

RACHEL MADDOW: There are very few countries in the world poorer than Afghanistan where abject poverty is almost everywhere. The keyword there is almost. There are super rich folks here. We visited their neighborhood in Kabul. They‘re garish, bizarre. What it looks like to be rich in poor, war-torn, land-locked Central Asian neighborhood. 

MADDOW: So we are in a neighborhood now. Kabul. Talking about the distribution of wealth, in Kabul and the effect of - 

RICHARD ENGEL: There is a distribution of wealth. This is where it is distributed. This is where it ends up. All of the money from contracts and association with the government and association with the U.S. military has ended up here. 

MADDOW: Why? 

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Arianna Criticizes Obama Over Bin Laden Ad

Romney has an all-too real propensity to allow religious dogma to trump common sense when it comes to birth control

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As an old, OLD liberal Democrat (a 'New Deal' Democrat) who has never voted for a Republican, never will, I can honestly say that I can't imagine ever voting for a Democrat again.  

I never advise people to sit out elections, because 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 base, from his administration, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, 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.

And just as Obama is accusing Romney of flip-flopping on issues, so has Obama flip-flopped and reneged on campaign promises.  The irony is that, if past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, Romney's record as governor isn't all that dissimilar from Obama's in the White House.  There were even moments of liberalism to Romney's record (gun control, state co-pays for abortion, etc.) - Certainly more progressive than Obama.
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Arianna Criticizes Obama Over Bin Laden Ad

All that Obama's been doing is trying to save unregulated capitalism and the lock that the 1% has on the other 99%.

With Obama's deal to preserve Bush's tax cuts for the rich (making it Obama's tax cuts for the rich), 99ers were cut off.  Of the 6 million people who were then currently receiving unemployment benefits, Obama's deal covered only 2 million, and many of them got crumbs from his deal because, in spite of the 13-month extension, benefits were cut off for many of those when they reached 99-weeks.  And only 25 states out of 53 states/territories in/of the US have 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, so that's even fewer still.

David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now! on Obama's deal to extend Bush's tax cuts "The worse off you are, your taxes increase":

"The bottom roughly 45 million families in America or households in America—and there are a little over 100 million households—they’re going to actually see their taxes go up.  Republicans got an extraordinarily good deal, that raises, I think, basic questions about the negotiating skills of the President."

The payroll tax 'holiday' in the deal sets SocialSecurity up for its end.  That's what Bush and GroverNorquist planned and why Bush believes he'll be vindicated as a great conservative in history: For ending the GreatSociety programs, by having bankrupted the nation so there's no way to pay out those benefits.  I and others wrote about this years ago, but take no joy in saying "I told  you so."

Extending Bush's tax cuts was an absolutely wretched deal, but standard for Obama, who has  a long record of negotiating lousy deals on ordinary citizens' behalf.  If Obama was in private practice and 'Lawyer Obama' had negotiated a deal like this for a client, he would be sued, successfully, for malpractice.

The purpose of the deal was so that Democratic political operatives could say, "Obama helped the unemployed"; most readers won't know the actual facts of how Obama sold out the American people.  Again.  Obama and Democrats have no jobs plan either.  Both parties are thinning the herd.
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Arianna Criticizes Obama Over Bin Laden Ad

You say, "Why should Obama-Democrats do anything for you...." They ended the recession for g.'s sake.

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How did they do that?

I would argue that this isn't and hasn't been a recession but a depression, it's a fluid situation that the actions these past 3 years (by both parties) have been nothing more than throwing flash grenades to distract and confuse and divert attention while enabling the heist to continue (and go off in new directions).  Nothing, NOTHING has been done to fix the problems that enabled the heist, new bubbles have inflated and the housing meltdown continues on.  

There have been 3.5 million home foreclosur­es so far in this meltdown with another 11 million in the pipeline.  11 MILLION.  That's 15 million families about to lose their homes.  With these foreclosur­es come another wave of job losses, more business downturns which will lead to another round of both home and commercial real estate foreclosur­es.  

Like all other deals that Obama has 'negotiate­d', more NAFTA-like trade deals (S. Korea and Colombia) mean more jobs moving overseas.   The jobless rate, down about 1% in the last 3 years, is rising again, but the real jobless rate has never been officially acknowledged and is more than double.  The solution to our economic problems has always been jobs, but Obama has bought into the Republicans' dogma on that.  And as more American lose their jobs, that's less money going into Social Security and Medicare.

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Arianna Criticizes Obama Over Bin Laden Ad

Entitlements under liberal or conservative governments have to be rethought. There just is not enough money. Massive government spending sends countries into bankruptcy. Expenditures for the war in Afghanistan will pale in comparison to those for future social entitlements.

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"Entitlement" has gotten to be a dirty word thanks to propagandists like Frank Luntz, who have coined new definitions for it.  

People are "entitled" to Social Security and Medicare because they paid for them.  From their paychecks, for decades.  And the reason there are fiscal problems with them is because the money has been spent for other things.  "We was robbed!", and We The People have been left holding the (empty) bag.  It looks as if the 1% is going to get away with this heist, too.

There are simple fixes that would put both programs on sound fiscal footing, but both parties at this time refuse doing these fixes (raising the cap on SS and replacing ACA with expanding Medicare to cover everyone, are two) and are apparently committed to ending both programs.   
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Arianna Criticizes Obama Over Bin Laden Ad

with a link that doesn't work

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It seems that website is doing upgrading, just as HP is, and the links I provided have changed to this, this, and this.
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Arianna Criticizes Obama Over Bin Laden Ad

After reading comments on this thread, it's apparent that Obama's 'most ardent supporters' are no different than Bush's.

Democrats condemned Republicans when they politicized 9/11, and rightfully so.  

If you want to talk about 9/11 and OBL, then let's throw the windows open and get a real investigation.  Starting with what actually happened (the 911 Commission was a cruel joke), the policies that led to 9/11, our response to it, the post-9/11 policies which have us in a perpetual state of war with Americans being no safer.

And anyone who says "Obama killed OBL", I ask, "How do you know?"  The greatest terrorist attack on the US and the alleged perpetrator, ill with kidney disease, a towering figure of 6'4" living among 5 and-a-half-foot people, eludes apprehension for a decade, and when we ultimately get him we quickly dispose of the body where it can never be exhumed, refuse to release photographs or anything confirming the death ("Take our word for it") and hide the SEAL time and let conflicting accounts of what happened remain.

It's as likely to be true as the official account of 9/11, where the US sent all of the steel from the WTC to China, untested, to be recycled.  

We don't do that.  We salvage downed air planes from the bottom of the ocean and reconstruct them in hangars to find out what happened.
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Arianna Criticizes Obama Over Bin Laden Ad

The thought of the republicans taking over government in 2012 is a terrifying thought to me.

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

How can you expect to be taken seriously when you say 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 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 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 you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republican­s?
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