And who can forget Henri?
Henri 1 is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M7ibPk37_U
Henri 2 is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q34z5dCmC4M
Henri 3 is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiYUzYozsAQ
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
I'm kind of partial to Bobo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUraEMKs6ys
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Homage to Bukowski:
wearing the collar
I live with a lady and four cats
and some days we all get
along.
some days I have trouble with
one of the
cats.
other days I have trouble with
two of the
cats.
other days,
three.
some days I have trouble with
all four of the
cats
and the
lady:
ten eyes looking at me
as if I was a dog.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Democrats have been more than willing to sell out their base groups's interests, and Obama's been particularly 'oily' (slippery) on these issues. So much so that even his most staunch defenders can't agree on whether he's a centrist or a liberal; the debate should be over because "Privately, Obama describes himself as a BlueDog Democrat".
One example of how Democrats and Obama are real free and easy "compromising away" a base group's interests is Democrats' healthcare legislation which opens the door to ending insurance coverage of all abortions). We wouldn't be down to this horrifying situation where you can't get an abortikon in 92 percent of the counties in the US (and 3 states in the country that have only one ab0rt!on clinic, and other states that heavily restrict a woman's access to abortion, and banning abortions in clinics or any facility that receives public funds, and banning abortion counseling and clinic recommendations) if Democrats and Obama weren't so breezy with women's hard-fought for rights.
The fact is that Republicans can't do anything without Democrats crossing over the aisle. Faux Democrats are the problem. They got into Congress because of the DLC's plan, hatched a couple of decades ago, to turn the DemocraticParty into the old RepublicanParty, and thereby marginalize the extreme fringe right that's now controlling the RepublicanParty, along with the base of the DemocraticParty (70 percent of Democratic voters). Then they'd "govern the country for 100 years".
We've been doing it your way, the DLC's way, for 20 years now, and the government and the DemocraticParty keeps moving farther to the right. That's because your way is to lie 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 -- Why bother outlawing abortion when you've made it virtually impossible to obtain one?
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?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
When a black man who ran as a liberal, who ran to the left of Hillary, in good old racist America, got elected over a white war hero, with 10 MILLION more voters than any president has ever been elected by, then any progressive who is able to walk and chew gum at the same time can do it.
Barack Obama got elected because Americans believed he had the ability to persuade other to populist policies. It's what he ran on.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Here's the problem with the "compromise"-meme, the strategy that Democratic politicians keep using as their excuse for failing to achieve on our behalf:
Even after we compromise, after we have deals, Republicans renege and Democrats still cave some more. One example of that is the 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.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/11/17/gwu-study-yes-the-stupak-amendment-would-end-coverage-of-abortion-services-over-time/
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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Are you talking about abortion? Even the most pro-choice of Democrats in Congress, alleged stalwarts who've spent entire careers, decades in public office, have failed miserably to protect women's rights and have let it get to this point.
In the 2010 midterm campaign, I asked rhetorically, "If Republicans win back control of Congress, do you think Democrats will be as effective at stymieing Republicans' agenda as Republicans have been the last two years at stymieing Obama's/Democrats' 2008 agenda?" If what Democratic politicians did during the BushCheney years is any indication, no.
For example, as a member of Congress, you can't just be for or against something (like abortion) when it comes up for a vote. You have to be meticulous and actively work to set up the conditions surrounding your vote, to make sure it counts. Your 'yes' vote means nothing if there are more 'no' votes to cancel your vote/voice out.
Knowing that, what did Boxer do the entire 8 years of the BushAdministration? She effectively went on sabbatical. She wrote murder mysteries ("Something I always wanted to do, if I ever had the time"). She, of course, took her senatorial salary all those years.
Boxer's support of JoeLieberman in 2006 exposed Boxer's very 'conditional' support of a woman's right to choose (and her general level of ignorance).
In 2006, Democratic senators and the Democratic machine publicly supported Democratic candidate NedLamont who was running for senator in Connecticut against newly independent JoeLieberman. Privately, working behind-the-scenes, Democratic senators and former president BillClinton were working to help Lieberman raise money to beat Lamont, and Republican AlanSchlesinger. Before Lamont won the primary, when Lieberman was still a Democrat, Boxer stumped for Lieberman. She was asked how she could support him given that Lieberman supports hospitals receiving public monies refusing to give contraceptives to r@pe victims, and instead of dodging Lieberman, dropping him like the bad character he is, she dodged the issue.
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
even if the Democratic party is repositioned to support more Progressive candidates it will only mean a more determined and unified conservative party which isn't going away anytime soon.=================================
What about him?
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.
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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Dr. Marcia Angell, a proponent of single payer universal health care, testifying before Congress as to the reason our health care system is in such a shambles:
"It's set up to generate profits NOT to provide care. To pay for care, we rely on hundreds of investor-owned insurance companies that profit by refusing coverage to the sickest patients and limiting services to the others. And they cream roughly 20% off the top of the premium dollar for profits and overhead. Our method of delivering care is no better than our method of paying for it. We provide much of the care in investor-owned health facilities that profit by providing too many services for the well-insured and too few for those who cannot pay. Most doctors are paid fee-for-sservice which gives them a similar incentive to focus on profitable services, particularly specialists, who receive very high fees for expensive tests and procedures. In sum, health care is for maximizing income and not maximizing health..."
And ACA does nothing to change that.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
By the way, the bully pulpit is one of the most powerful tools (if not the most powerful tool) in a president's arsenal. If you learned nothing else from the Bush years, it should have been that. That a president can get just about anything he wants through Congress and into law if he's stolid and relentless in his sales pitch and tactics. If he keeps at it, escalates his attacks, doesn't take 'no' for an answer, if he never backs down he will wear the opposition down. And if not during his term, then in concert or in relay with the next or a future presidential administration.
Bush-Cheney-R0ve weren't geniuses, they didn't invent the strategy, nor was it something that political operatives didn't know or that political science students don't learn in poli sci 101 (or business majors at the Wharton school, or MBAs from Harvard). Bush and Rove were just more ruthless in doing what politicians and the political parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans, been more subtle about.
What Bush-Cheney-Rove showed Democrats, though, was that when you have control over both Houses of Congress and the Judiciary, there's no need to be subtle. You don't even have to hide your intentions. You just do it, and ignore anyone who objects. Obama knows this, and does it regularly to the Democratic base.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
What you got is insurance, not affordable quality medical treatment, which is what Obama and Democrats were put into office to achieve.
Obama's healthcare legislation is Republican healthcare legislation. It is the Heritage foundation's plan.
There is no mechanism for lowering the costs of treatment. Obama put a fox in charge of this chicken coop (former WellPoint executive Liz Fowler) to write and enforce the regulations. Her most notable actions to date have been issuing waivers to businesses that don't want to have to provide insurance to their employees.
Obama's healthcare legislation prohibits the very thing that was the top issue in the 2008 election: The government being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportation.
Obama's healthcare legislation is Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (which was a $700 billion + giveaway to Big Insurance & PhRma), Part 2.
Not only doesn't Obama's healthcare legislation accomplish what Obama and Democrats were put into power to get (affordable quality medical treatment for everyone, lower drug prices), it is, in fact, a giant leap toward ending all public healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.).
Obama's healthcare legislation puts more people into Medicaid, which the states are required to co-pay along with the federal government. The states are already going bankrupt, and moving toward eliminating Medicaid services as a result. States' options are limited, especially those states with constitutional requirements to balance their budgets. So while people may find themselves covered by Medicaid, if you're thinking that should all else fail you've got Medicaid as your safety net, guess again: Medicaid won't cover c/hit.
Having insurance (which is all that Obama's legislation does, and not even for everyone, just for a few million more) doesn't mean getting necessary medical care or that you will be able to afford medical care. All that Obama's healthcare legislation does is require money to go from here (my pockets/taxpayers' pockets) to there (into insurance companies' pockets).
There is no limitation on insurance companies' charging and increasing co-pays and deductibles and eliminating services. There is no requirement for insurance companies to have to provide services not paid for.
Insurance companies have already figured out the way around the restrictions in the bill. The con game in the legislation -- Medical loss ratio. The amount of money insurers must spend on healthcare, and how it will enable insurance companies to continue to price gauge and keep obscene profits instead of delivering affordable and quality medical care to policy-holders.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
There's rarely a majority in Congress to pass anything at all until a campaign has been mounted to sell it.
And when a president and his political party are swept into power to deliver affordable, quality medical treatment for all as Obama and Democrats were in 2008, and the one method that can accomplish it (and also happens to solve other unique problems facing us at the time, i.e., a crashing economy, joblessness, etc.) that president not only doesn't use his buIIy puIpit to sell, but unilaterally takes off the table, removes from even discussing, then the fix is in and that president is corrupt to the core.
Obama took single payer (Medicare For All) off the table, because if the goal is to get affordable quality medical care for all then everything else pales in comparison. What Obama did was preserve an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care that everyone except the insurance industry wanted to end. It's government sanctioned racketeering.
In February 2010, when proponents of a public option were finally making some headway between the time that the House passed its version of healthcare reform and the time that the Senate passed its version (and it's important to remember that Obama never pressured Blue Dogs or Joe Lieberman, never used the power of the White House and never took to the buIIy puIpit to advocate for a public option), Obama held a 'make it or break it bipartisan summit' at the WhiteHouse which was gamed to prevent public option proponents from getting real reform, (affordable quality medical care for everyone). PO proponents were shut out of the negotiations. Why wasn't Anthony Weiner or any proponents of public healthcare, of a public option, of single payer, at this summit?
The summit was gamed to let insurance companies retain their lock on the path to getting healthcare.
Whether it's Republicans saying no or Democrats saying yes, to attend this summit you must have accepted that the insurance industry's ability to make profits off of you be preserved and protected, despite it bankrupting the American people individually and the nation at large.
Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather, Part II) of medical care; the insurance industry is "wetting its beak", letting you get medical care (maybe, if you can afford the deductibles, the co-pays, and if your illness is covered by your policy, but) only if you pay them a gratuity up front.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
First off, nobody has claimed it comes from the Office of the POTUS; it comes from the Office of the US Trade Representative. That's who negotiates US trade deals.
Democratic senators Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Ron Wyden and Robert Menendez recognize its authenticity. They are member of the Senate subcommittee on international trade, and were denied access by the Office of the US Trade Representative to any of the draft documents of the TPP. Eventually, after introducing legislation to try and force openness on the process, Wyden did gain access, but his staff did not, including those with key insight on trade policy.
That’s better than nothing, Wyden spokeswoman Jennifer Hoelzer told HuffPost, but not helpful from a practical standpoint, given that congressional staff perform much of the legislative work on Capitol Hill.
“I would point out how insulting it is for them to argue that members of Congress are to personally go over to USTR to view the trade documents,” Hoelzer said. “An advisor at Halliburton or the MPAA is given a password that allows him or her to go on the USTR website and view the TPP agreement anytime he or she wants.”
The general public and most nonprofit organizations have no access to the documents, although a number of corporate officials can see them.
Before the primaries, when liberals all over the country were calling for a challenge to Obama from the left, people like you were shouting them down with "Kennedy cost Carter reelection", when, in fact, Carter lost that election due to Iran and Reagan-Bush dirty tricks.
You care more for party loyalty, even when the party's loyalists have turned the party into the Republican Party, than for the populist policy that was the Democratic Party's raison d'être.
This is what you get when you act like a Republican, bullying your alleged kinsmen into accepting a DINO (instead of putting it up for a vote in a primary): We exercise our right to vote as we see fit for our long term best interests.
If Obama wins reelection, what do you possibly believe he will say he has a mandate to do? Obama has been Bush's 3rd term - He's actually upped the ante on the unitary executive, and can now rendition, imprison, torture, kill American citizens, with no oversight, no due process. On whistleblowers Obama is Bush on steroids. What the heck is wrong with you?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts all got on the Supreme Court because Democrats voted to confirm them.
Wouldn't have happened had Democrats not voted for them.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Given your belief about how it works, you would think that Obama would have had Reid and Pelosi and Dick Durbin and Steny Hoyer and the largest caucus within the Democratic Party (the Liberal Caucus), not to mention the Black Caucus, breathing down his neck.
Talk of Democratic politicians having no spines are greatly exaggerated, just like Obama's timidity is myth: He's plenty tough when it comes to standing up to the Democratic base.
Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats want what they want. The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty gives lip service to all populist issues (like jobs, civil rights protections, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, public healthcare, WallStreet reform, environmental and energy issues, etc.).
If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove were just more ruthless 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 Clinton's machine (to get the nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the RoveMachine) 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, not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?
Obama and Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.
The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to achieve our alleged shared objectives.
Getting Democratic voters (and Obama's 'most ardent supporters') to understand that Democratic politicians have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution, empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United States and other countries after the advice and consent of a supermajority of the United States Senate.
"Advice and consent".
If a president wants a treaty ratified, he'd better keep the senate informed and happy.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
I've been doing #6 and #2 for a couple of decades now and the Democratic Party and the government have moved farther to the right. Clearly those aren't the solutions.
The solution has always been as plain as the nose on my face, and it's what I've been saying for 30 years and it's what got Obama elected in the first place but has refused to do:
Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to the American people. 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 Ronald Reagan, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove 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, massive public works projects like the Hoover Dam, 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 outgvnned by election dirty tricks and fraud.
When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characterize themselves as far-anything or extreme, but mainstream. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicament of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to k!ll babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritarian intimidation are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
#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
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
#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.KEEP READING
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, we'll pick up the pieces later.
#3 - Primary the incumbent (Obama)
Two powerful arguments from last year 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 think most realize that that's not possible. 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.
Also, 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).
Word had it (last year) that a challenge was coming, but it was 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
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
As an old OLD liberal Democrat, active within the Democratic Party for decades, I'm here to tell you that the Democratic Party is controlled by corporations just as the Republican Party is.
A vote for any registered Democrat is a vote for the status quo, more of the same, of Democratic politicians working in the interests of corporations over the people's interests. Even progressive candidates get their orders from the party elites -- Progressive candidates may talk a good game, but if their votes are needed or wanted to pass pro-corporate legislation, they will abandon their alleged convictions and fall in lockstep with the party. Remember Dennis Kucinich and the public option. His vote wasn't even needed, but Obama wanted the issue crushed.
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, including the top of the ticket. 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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
If enough people vote third party, there will be a third party in the White House, and controlling Congress.
The point now of voting third party is to get a seat at the table, challenging the two-party system, during elections and debates. Right now, the Democrats and Republicans control the discussion and they don't want substantive dialogue on real issues. Or haven't you noticed?
As far as the Congress goes, don't expect much, if any change there. It's been gamed to keep the status quo.
People are, generally, satisfied with the job that their representatives are doing. What people want is the other guy'selected representative to get the boot, but not their own. That's not likely to change as redistricting has basically just affirmed or extended the status quo. Some on the left and the right have been redistricted out of their seats. Dennis Kucinich is one.
Politics, with political parties, is a top-down proposition. You do what the party tells you to do, and that goes for Democrats, progressives, too. If the president is a blue dog (as Obama is), you do what he tells you to do. The idea that Congress is like herding cats is ridiculous -- If you don't do what your party tells you to do, you get no help from them come reelection. You don't get money for your district. You don't get plum committee assignments. You are dead in the water of politics.
Even progressive Democratic senators and representatives are pretty worthless - For example, Al Franken, Tom Harken, Sherrod Brown, Chuck Schumer, all voted to prevent the requirement of labeling on foods containing GMOs. If they're not bought by one corporation, they're bought by another. Meet the Monsanto senators.
As I've said before, any politician who isn't making campaign finance reform his first and only priority is corrupt to the bone. Neither party has this on their agenda, much less at the top of their list of things to do.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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
If past is prologue, Romney's record as governor isn't much different than Obama's as president.
There were even moments of liberalism to Romney's record (gun control, state co-pays for abortion, etc.) - Certainly more progressive than Obama.
They're both corporate tools, but the bigger truth is that Obama's nothing but a politician at a time when we need real leadership. And I mean 'politician' in the worst sense of the word. In the 'used car salesman' sense. It turns out that doing what's right for transnational corporations is what Obama is about, and trying to sell it as good for Americans is what he does afterwards. He's the epitome of the 1950s Republican, "What's good for GM is good for America," just like Romney. He did a snow job on everybody.
Both men say one thing when they're running for office and then do something entirely different once they're in the job. So the talk of Romney pandering to the rightwing now really means nothing. It's tragic what American politics has become.
Everything that you've listed as worrying, Obama is doing. From blocking financial oversight, not enforcing environmental regulations, that's Obama.
Wake the F up.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The old fear card again, "The Republicans are worse!", when, in fact, the only difference between Democrats and Republicans is in their style. They're both accomplishing the same ends.
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.
If Romney wins, it'll be because people like you are bolstering Obama and have prevented primarying him.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
To those who doubt the authenticity of this article, the administration has refused access to the documents to the Senate committee overseeing trade agreements.
"The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of [trade] negotiations," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch in a written statement.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been so incensed by the lack of access as to introduce legislation requiring further disclosure.
The rich have gotten rich off of the sweat and labor of others and then taken those profits to buy politicians who gamed the system so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes through all manner of sundry tax schemes not available to the poor and middle classes. The rich also 'closed the door' on the ways that initially enabled them to amass their 'seed money' for creating their businesses.
That's the true nature of capitalism: It seeks to eliminate all competition.
Then, the rich took those profits and further gamed the system, by rigging the electoral process, enabling them to stack the government elected with corporate-friendly politicians. Business interests over the People's interests.
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 (We the People)".
Democrats (controlled by the DLC, and that's important to remember) and Republicans are corporate tools. Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributions) of a parent, Republicans and DLC-controlled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituent, transnational corporations. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of WeThePeople.
Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats were for the poor and middle classes, workers and unions, strong regulations on banks, Wall Street, investigations, prosecutions, restitution of what has been robbed from the middle class and poor for the past 30+ years, environmental clean-up, clean, sustainable renewable energy (and that isn't nuclear), putting an end to the wars and occupationsn, affordable, quality universal healthcare (which Obama's healthcare legislation is not), and more.
The DLC-controlled Democratic Party gives lip service to these and all populist issues, because like the Republican Party, the DLC works for the benefit of transnational corporations.
I am an old, OLD liberal Democrat. A New Deal Democrat. I've never voted for a Republican in my many years of voting nor will I. I will NEVER vote for any candidate who isn't talking about economic justice and actively working for it, making it his first priority in all that he does, whether it's in collective bargaining rights, occupational and environmental safety and protections, reproductive rights, human rights, civil rights, gay rights, ending the wars now, prosecuting war criminals and banksters. As it stands now, I can't see voting for any Democrat again.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
If Republicans are such scvm (and I believe they are) and "so dangerous", why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting them?
Why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting the greatest heist on the People in all history?
Why are Obama-Democrats continuing the war crimes of BushCheney, blocking investigations and prosecutions into their crimes?
How does a Democratic president, on the heels of the most criminally corrupt administration in the nation's history, not replace Bush-era US attorneys? Presidents may fire US attorneys, and they do so routinely at the beginning of a new administration. It is unusual to fire US attorneys in mid-term (as Bush did) except in cases of gross misconduct (which wasn’t the case during the BushAdministration). Instead of returning the democracy to the American people, Obama's AttorneyGeneral has US attorneys going after legalized medicinal marijuana in the states and Bush-style obscenity prosecutions:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_691667.html
How does Obama continue just about all of 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 k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret?
How do Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain his putting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' care, et al, on the table for benefits' cuts?
And then there's the escalation of wars, continued occupation of Afghanistan, NDAA, and Obama's atrocious environmental record.
You defend Obama 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 and 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?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Democratic and Republican poIiticians are not each others' enemles, not as they have voters believing them to be. Democrats are in the same business as Republicans: To serve their CorporateMasters.
Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufacturing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball. One side (Republicans) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric.
Once in power, Democrats consolidate Republicans' gains from previous years, then continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertising campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what we thought they were.
Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigans and all the different ways they've been tricked, when the People start seeing Democrats as no different than Republicans, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.
Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tailored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisan cooperation' demeanor. It's smirk-worthy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude, like that's somehow "a good thing".
This is all in the hands of Obama's 'most ardent supporters'. As long as they keep supporting him, we're all doomed.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The Constitution is already gone.
Obama's judicial appointments are no different than a Republican's. Did you know that Kagan voted with the conservatives on Medicaid? She's the Goldman-Sacks seat on the Court, and unless voters stop buying into this "lesser of two evils" garbage and vote third party, we are doomed.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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
The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty, with neoliberal BarackObama now at the helm no longer practices any of the common sensibilities of the once liberal DemocraticParty that created the largest middle class in the history of the world (and without a middle class, you can't have a democracy), which earned the world's respect and admiration (and kept Americans safe from acts of terror).
Obama ran on a pledge that he'd end corporations getting tax breaks for outsourcing. Just another of his broken promises, along with dropping his pledge to renegotiate NAFTA (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/11/obama_reverses_campaign_pledge_to_renegotiate ) and then pushing NAFTA-style trade agreements with SouthKorea, Panama and Colombia to passage.
Expect more NAFTA-type trade agreements after the November elections, and what we should be talking about.
As MichaelGendron of CommunicationsWorkersOfAmerica (which has hundreds of members out of work due to outsourcing and the economic downturn) said: "Any investment in outsourcing is a bet against American workers."
http://www.lankabusinessonline.com/fullstory.php?nid=2075782806
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Candidate Obama, in his own words:
"Transparency Will Be Touchstone"
"On transparency", "About inviting the people back into their government again", and "Part of the job of the next American president is making Americans believe that our government is working for them, because right now they don't feel like it's working for them. They feel like it's working for special interests and it's working for corporations"
"We need a president who sees the government not as a tool to enrich well connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as a defender of fairness and opportunity for every single American. That's what this country's been about and that's the kind of president I intend to be"
"Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public, no more secrecy.....No more secrecy....."
"Clintons did health care the wrong way, behind closed doors":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU0m6Rxm9vU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBtIKgGHYPQ
"The American people are the answer"
Obama's Transparency Problem
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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