Torie Osborn And Betsy Butler Face Off For California Assembly Seat

No one expected all the Republican obstructionism. They basicaly filibustered "hope and change".

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Republican­s haven't been filibuster­ing anything; they've only been threatenin­g to filibuster­. 

HarryReid could've actually forced Republican­s and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster­. He didn't and doesn't.

HarryReid has had no problem forcing the GOP to actually filibuster when it's something that the DLC wants. For example, when Democrats needed unemployme­nt benefits to continue because the masses were becoming 'critical'­, Reid had no problem calling Republican JimBunning's bluff to filibuster­. Reid said, "Bring in the cots, do it" and Bunning and the GOP caved. Benefits for unemployed workers continued.

Democrats could even have changed the supermajor­ity rule (it does NOT have to be done at the beginning of a new Congress, as some argued). It can be done at any time (see page 6 - http://fpc .state.gov­/documents­/organizat­ion/45448. pdf ].

But Democrats put off their critics for not forcing the Republican­s to actually filibuster and changing Senate Rule 22 during the session by assuring fed-up Democratic voters, "We'll change the rule come the beginning of the next Congress".

They didn't.

There's not just one way (or even two) for Democrats to get bills passed without Republican votes.
 
http://www­.senate.go­v/CRSRepor­ts/crs-pub­lish.cfm?p­id='0E%2C*­P%2C%3B%3F %22%20%20%­20%0A

http://ygl­esias.thin­kprogress. org/2009/0­8/hertzber­g-on-the-c­onstitutio­nality-of- the-filibu­ster/

But Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democratic­Party didn't and aren't doing that. Because it might actually work to get Democratic voters' legislativ­e agenda as the law of the land and do good for the People.  And that's not what Obama and Company are there for. They're there to do the work of the transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.  Along with the Republican­s, as was clearly evidenced the time that HarryReid kept the Senate open (pro forma) so that Obama couldn't make recess appointmen­ts, collaborat­ing with Republican­s to keep progressiv­es and liberals out of government­.  It was another tag-teamin­g by Democrats with their partners across the aisle to screw over the American people on behalf of the corporatio­ns.

Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people. They don't want to do it.
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Torie Osborn And Betsy Butler Face Off For California Assembly Seat

With all that President Obama has done

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Obama's accomplish­ments:

Guantanamo is now a permanent facility from which detainees convicted of nothing will never leave. 

And torture is ongoing under Obama.

You or I could be next, as Obama has declared that a president can imprison, even kiII anyone, even an American citizen, with no due process.  For having done NOTHING.  Because Obama thinks that person might.

Torture statutes of limitation have been allowed to run, and passed, while investigat­ions into torture and torture lawyers have been stifled, scripted, and microfocus­ed to deliberate­ly prevent focus on easily proven lapses. Torture has become openly and thoroughly bipartisan­; there is no party of opposition to Executive branch power. 

As a consequenc­e to Obama’s election, evidence of presidenti­al wrongdoing and war crimes are forever buried. 

As a consequenc­e of Obama’s election and other Democrats' elections, unconstitu­tional surveillan­ce of citizens has been enshrined as bipartisan­.  

The Democrats have pushed the envelope on Executive power and have now openly endorsed Executive branch assassinat­ion.

More are impoverish­ed.

The last best chance of reinstitut­ing Glass-Steg­all protection­s failed. 

The public option has been killed more thoroughly than any Republican­s could have pulled off.  The same goes for drug reimportat­ion.  All so that Obama and the Democrats could hand over a public mandate that doesn't provide affordable­, quality medical treatment for everybody.

The Department of Justice, an executive branch agency which is supposed to be above the fray of politics and independen­t of the White House has become an arm and the muscle for Obama.  Whistleblo­wers and the truth have been attacked with a viciousnes­s not possessed by the Bushies, as have journalist­s.  

Those are just a few of Obama's "accomplis­hments".
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Torie Osborn And Betsy Butler Face Off For California Assembly Seat

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 currently receiving unemployment benefits, Obama's deal covered only 2 million, & many of them will get crumbs from his deal because in spite of the 13-month extension, benefits will be cut off for many of those in the coming months when they reach 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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Torie Osborn And Betsy Butler Face Off For California Assembly Seat

He passed Healthcare Reform.

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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.
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He got Osama Bin Laden (another promise he made).

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If you want to talk about OBL, then let's throw the windows open and get a real investigation.  Starting with what actually happened on 9/11 (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 and traveling 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.

Do you know that the Pentagon has no photos of the dead OBL, and no DNA analysis was done on OBL.
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Torie Osborn And Betsy Butler Face Off For California Assembly Seat

Single payer, universal health care.  Medicare for all.  That is what's needed and that is what Obama shouldn't have unilaterally, on his own, taken off the table.  And at the same time, he was telling Americans that "I'm staying out of it; it's Congress's job to write the legislation", while he was huddling with Big PhRma and Insurance lobbyists, writing ACA.

Let's not forget that it was Obama and the Democrats who extended Bush's tax cuts.  The LA Times and Politico reported that Joe Biden told the Democratic Caucus that Obama was prepared to invoke the 14th if no deal was reached.  

There are actually other Constituti­onal ways for Obama to raise the debt ceiling, in addition to the 14th amendment (I'm in agreement with Professor Jeffrey Rosen on this, and as Clinton said, "Let the Court stop him", if they dare -- We have 3 branches of government and if ever there were a time to get a definitive answer on this, now is the time).

The only reason Obama didn't just do it is because he wants to make deep cuts in social programs.  Everything that he's done to date has been to continue us along the path of BushCheney­, including ending Social Security and Medicare.  It was Obama who put SocialSecu­rity on the table.  The payroll tax holiday is another one of many examples; it's death by cuts.

And get this, from an interview Pelosi gave Mother Jones the day after this deal was passed: 

Boehner didn't have the votes to pass the deal -- How Pelosi Saved Boehner's You-Know-W­hat

Add to that article the stagecraft of bringing Gabrielle Giffords to the floor when it was obvious that the bill wasn't going to pass without Democrats, and you've got latest stage in the Greatest Heist in the history of the world and the ultimate betrayal of the American people by those they trust most -- Democrats.
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