Obama, Romney Campaigns Duck Future U.S. Role In Afghanistan War
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Preventing terrorism is not and has never been the objective of the US government or the US military.
About War Wire
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Obama, Romney Campaigns Duck Future U.S. Role In Afghanistan War
Watch this, Rachel Maddow and Richard Engel walking the dusty streets of Afghanistan's 'middle class', and see where US taxpayers' dollars have gone. The parallel between "nation-building" in Afghanistan (not) and what the 1% is doing to America's middle class should chill you to the bone.
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Obama, Romney Campaigns Duck Future U.S. Role In Afghanistan War
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.
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Obama, Romney Campaigns Duck Future U.S. Role In Afghanistan War
Obama has no interest in slowing the corporate steamroller. His only interest is in making you think so.
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 Corporate Masters.
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, 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, and 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".
When it comes to achieving corporations' business, Democrats are remarkably competent. Obama is even more competent in that he's been able to give himself some distance from policies that displease Democratic voters ('plausible deniability') in a variety of ways that keep his favorable ratings high. Whether it's renaming Republican legislation ("Romney healthcare " to "Affordable Health Insurance Act") to getting other legislators like Joe Lieberman to actually do the heavy lifting legislatively, Obama's 'most ardent admirers' lay themselves on the line for him out of their ignorance of what he's actually doing.
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I'm an old OLD liberal Democrat and the old "lesser of two eviIs" argument just doesn't work anymore.
As the head of the Democratic Party, the spotlight falls on Obama.
Obama's continuing just about all of the Bush-Cheney 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 kiII American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detentlon' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret? Pure Kafka. As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this, or Obama's stepping up every offense that we on the left accuse conservatives of (for example, caving to the dirty energy interests, shelving regulations on clean air, issuing more offshore drilling permits than Bush-Cheney, etc.). The pandering that you accuse Romney of is also what Obama does.
At this point, I would argue that Obama and Democrats are worse than Republicans. Bush-Cheney-Republicans make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, whereas Obama and Democrats ran on knowing better. "Lesser of two evils"? No, Obama's the more effective of the two evils. More effective on behalf of the corporate elites.
Obama has done nothing to engender my or the People's trust. In secret budget talks, Obama left EVERYTHING on the table, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Just as Obama ran on SinglePayer, then backed down, then said he wouldn't sign any legislation that didn't include a public option, and then reneged, in the weeks after the election he's going to be cutting another secret budget deal with Republicans (he'll push SimpsonBowles, the 'CatfoodCommission's' report), just like the one he cut on the lousy health insurance legislation and Bush's (now Obama's) tax cuts for the rich, that ends Great Society programs. And then there's the KeystonePipeline - Obama already put the land-grab for the southern route on the fast track.
'In bed with corporations'-secret deals is Obama's mode. It's how he operates. HE'S A REPUBLICAN-IN-DEMOCRATS'-CLOTHING. Obama is not a man of the People; he's a tool of the Corporations.
Why should Obama and Democrats do anything for Obama's 'most ardent supporters' if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republicans?
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Obama, Romney Campaigns Duck Future U.S. Role In Afghanistan War
We're not in Afghanistan for anything having to do with terrorism, although our foreign policy, using our military for corporate acquisition of the world's resources, is creating terrorists and putting American citizens in peril.
The official objective in Afghanistan has been kept from the American people:
"The war in Iraq was very very clearly about oil, as was the war in Afghanistan. The oil pipeline that was planned (in Afghanistan), the best security for that was an occupation."
"If you map the proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan and you look at our bases? Matches perfectly. Our bases are there to solve a problem that the Taliban couldn't solve. Taliban couldn't provide security in that part of Afghanistan -- Well now that's where our bases are. So, does that have to do with Osama Bin Laden? It has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. It has everything to do with the longer plan, in this case a strategy which I wouldn't necessarily call neoconservative, however it fits perfectly in with the neoconservative ideology which says, 'If you have military force and you need something from a weaker country, then you need to deploy that force and take what you need because your country's needs are paramount'. It's the whole idea of unilateralism, of using force to achieve your aims."
-Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel whose assignments included a variety of roles for the National Security Agency and who spent her last 4 1/2 years working at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUxI3rSLDO8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltOy_F6ZII
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
See if it reminds you of what's going on in the US, how the 1% is robbing the 99%, and how both parties are in on the heist.
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Obama, Romney Campaigns Duck Future U.S. Role In Afghanistan War
we only have two choices and one of them (Romney/Ryan) is totally unacceptable.=============================
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. And we'd better do it because with each passing day it becomes impossible to turn this all around. The 2010 midterms and the 2012 primaries swept out a bunch of incumbent Blue Dogs.
I say this as an old, OLD liberal Democrat (a 'New Deal' Democrat) who has never voted for a Republican, never will, but 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.
So we're not limited to just Romney. But should Romney get into the White House, will Democrats in Congress be as successful as Republicans have been in stopping Democratic policies and legislation, or will they rubberstamp Romney's policies and join in voting for Republican legislation as they have done during recent past Democratic administrations?
Perhaps with a Romney White House, Democratic politicians will be forced to work on behalf of the 99%, or be thrown out of office in 2016, replaced finally with real Democrats.
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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 say (and expect to be taken seriously) that Republicans are by far worse when Obama's continuing just about all the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better:
How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, NDAA, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret? It's Pure Kafka.
I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.
And it's Obama who's put SocialSecurity and Medicare and Medicaid on the table.
At this point, I'd argue that Obama-Democrats are worse. BushCheney make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, whereas Obama-Democrats ran on knowing better.
Consider our elections as a business plan where the 'CorporateMastersOfTheUniverse' have charted out their plans years in advance and then they select the politician with the personality that's best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments.
If you want to lie the country into war for oil and profiteering, then GeorgeWBush is your man to front it, with DickCheney, the former SecretaryOfDefense who initiated the privatizing of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows.
And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE and CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust. BarackObama.
Obama's 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).
You continue to support Obama-Democrats at the expense of your own best interests. As long as his numbers remain high, he does the bidding of corporations and establishment elites.
Why should Obama-Democrats do anything for you if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republicans?
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DLC-Democrats and Republicans like to foster the fallacy that there is an extreme or far left faction within the DemocraticParty. There are no extremes or far left in the DemocraticParty. They left long ago, and can be found bombing animal testing labs and burning down suburban subdivision sites being built on land where ancient forest have been clear cut. If they vote at all anymore, it's as Independents and rarely for Democrats.
The fact is, real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to Americans; they're only hard to sell to Obama's 'most ardent supporters' who are either political operatives paid to cheer him online or ignorant b00bs who treat politics like sporting events, something to pick a side and root over instead of educating themselves on all aspects of the issues.
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.
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.
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 is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud.
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 doing what politicians had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.
But Obama only does that to progressives.
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Do you know what it takes to amend the Constitution? It's nothing that a president can do on a whim, by his own edict; it's not like an executive order.
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. They only differ on a short list of wedge issues, and on those their advancing of the ball is incremental with each administration.
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. Romney wasn't the Tea Party's pick. He's the Republican establishment's pick.
Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton. It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican. He convinced centrists that he was a centrist. He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist. [News Flash: The debate is over: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"]
The fact is that 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.
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If Republicans stopped asserting that Obama is a liberal/leftist/progressive, do you think anyone else would?
Do you know how the DLC is "wiping out the Republican Party"?
By absorbing it. By turning the Democratic Party into the Republican Party. The Republican Party of the 1950s. The Republican Party that gave us corporate-think, GE, Ronald Reagan.
That's not speculation, that's not opinion - The DLC's (No Labels/Third Way) been completely open about it. The intent has been to marginalize the base of the Democratic Party (liberals), marginalize the extreme rightwing of the Republican Party and bring moderate and conservative Republicans into the Democratic Party, where the Democratic Party can "govern for 100 years".
Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton. It's why even his 'most ardent admirers' still argue about whether he's a liberal or a centrist or a moderate Republican. He convinced centrists that he was a centrist. He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist. [News Flash: The debate is over: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"]
The truth is that Obama's nothing but a politician, and I mean that 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." Obama did a snow job on everybody.
And now his most ardent supporters, terrified of the Republican bogeyman who Obama governs just like, demand that we all continue the path of insanity.
Sorry, but following your lead got us into this mess.
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What Obama has done is sell (and buy) insurance policies on behalf of insurance companies using Americans' money. Over-priced, lousy insurance policies, at that. That's a pretty neat trick, by the way -- To sell and buy. It's like playing chess with yourself.
Having insurance doesn't mean getting health care. BIG DIFFERENCE.
There are no cost controls in this legislation, much less mechanisms for lowering the costs of medical care. No controls over co-pays, no controls on deductibles.
Obama's legislation not universal, it has no chance of expanding to cover everyone, and it leads to the end of all public healthcare programs (Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.). That's a fact.
Obama's preserving an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care. It's government sanctioned racketeering. Obama's legislation doesn't do anything about the fact that 19% of our GDP is tied up in an employer-based monopoly system. Ending employment-based insurance was what everybody wanted.
"Covering the kids up to age 26" is a cruel farcical joke. To begin with, how many people do you think were bought off with that? To have insurance, to pay for it, you need to have a job. To keep a job in this economy. To get a job in this economy. Not just the 26 year olds who can't find a job in this economy, but their middle-aged (and up) parents who need to keep their jobs, not be outsourced or downsized, in order to keep these 'children' on their insurance policies.
And with Obama's 'Super Congress' planning Medicare and Medicaid cuts, including upping the age for qualifying, as seniors they won't be getting "affordable" insurance.
Then there's the prohibition on the government from being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportation.
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"KEEP READING"
No thank you; just because you love to talk doesn't mean you're a joy to read.
And time and again, you make like reconciliation is a magic ritual by which a party can insert legislation that was expressly rejected in one chamber or the other. That's not how it works, and I think you know it, but you're so invested in your view of things, you reject any information to the contrary.
Interesting that you're talking reconciliation only after I shot down your "filibuster" nonsense. Instead of trotting out arguments you know at some level are wrong, how about you develop arguments that can withstand casual scrutiny?
==============================
I think I've responded to every argument you've made, and done it politely.
For me to have responded respectfully at all to you given your refusal to comply with HP's comment policy (insults and name-calling) was generous on my part.
HP's comment policy:
(I) If your comments consistently or intentionally make this community a less civil and enjoyable place to be, you and your comments will be excluded from it.
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Whereas I don't regret it, I may not repeat it should you ever post a reply to one of my comments again. If you have no inclination to "KEEP READING", then stop stalking me.
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A simple majority was how Obama passed his windfall legislation to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries (healthcare).
During the healthcare reform debate, Obama never once pressured JoeLieberman for threatening to filibuster any legislation that had a public option in it - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/lieberman-obama-never-pre_n_399355.html
Obama did pressure Dennis Kucinich, crushed him, when Kucinich's vote wasn't even needed. Obama went after Kucinich, the last remaining holdout on the Progressive Caucus, for threatening to vote no on the healthcare bill, and we all know how that ended. Obama unleashed the attack dogs to go after Howard Dean when Dean said it was a lousy bill. Dean was forced to get back into line.
But not Joe Lieberman. Not Blanche Lincoln. Not Mary Landrieu. Not Ben Nelson.
When Obama needed Blue Dogs like Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson, he bought them. He sweetened the pot by giving more to their states in the legislation. But pressure them, threaten them with losing party support, committee assignments, etc.? No. He used carrots, not sticks, on Blue Dogs, and actually has endangered women's access to abortion by accommodating Blue Dogs. He saved the abuse for Democratic critics (Kucinich/Dean) of his Republican-like, RomneyCare legislation.
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The problem was the 40 Republicans and Joe Lieberman============================
JoeLieberman has Obama's back. Unfortunately, you presume Obama's objectives are the Democratic voters' objectives.
If JoeLieberman couldn't be counted on to vote with the DemocraticCaucus in lockstep on cloture & filibusters when the Republicans voted in lockstep (particularly when it came to domestic issues, the only area of legislation where Lieberman's vaguely progressive), what possible purpose did it solve to have him in the DemocraticCaucus (& hand him the much coveted plum of a committee chair)?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/us/politics/07cong.html?_r=3&ref=politics&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://thinkprogress.org/lieberman-not-progressive/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/8/17349/2244
For his treachery against Democrats going back years (at least as far as the 2000 presidential campaign, when he conceded absentee military ballots), Lieberman got everything out of that deal, and Democrats got what?
Without 60, without his voting on cloture/filibusters, on the legislation that Obama & Democrats had planned to put on the floor in the coming 2-4 years (which has all been what Lieberman would be expected to vote in the same way as the rest of the Democrats), what is Lieberman needed for that you'd bring him into the DemocraticCaucus (make him privvy to your strategizing) and reward him with a plum chairmanship, where he buried investigating the BushCheney administration over their failures during HurricaneKatrina?
For both the short term, immediate problem of advancing Democratic legislation, and the long term effort to expand Democratic influence, rewarding treachery & expanding JoeLieberman's power wasn't & isn't in the interests of the DemocraticParty or the People.
Do you really believe that Obama got nothing for that concession? No agreement that Lieberman would vote as Obama told him to vote? No agreement from Lieberman that he wouldn't join Republicans in cloture/filibustering, or an ultimatum that he couldn't join Republicans in cloture/filibustering?? No agreement that he'd sign on to a PublicOption?
Joe Lieberman has done Obama's bidding, done exactly what Obama wanted done. Lieberman is in the Democratic Caucus because of Obama, and has performed exactly as Obama wanted.
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We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama, with Pelosi's and Reid's compliance. We actually would have already had real healthcare reform legislation (single payer universal healthcare), but Obama had to get it off the table before negotiations ever began. Because if affordable, quality medical care for everyone is the goal, everything else pales next to single payer. And that's why Obama had to get it off the table.
The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only time a public option had any chance of happening until another generation passes.
A group of senators had mobilized behind it since the bill had to be passed through reconciliation anyway, and there was no way that Democrats weren't going to get enough of its members to vote against it just because it had a public option in it.
Obama nixxed it.
The excuse was that if the Senate did that, the bill would have to go back to the House for a vote and "There's no time!"
After the (allegedly) pro-public option senators accepted that excuse & stood down, 2 flaws were discovered with the bill requiring it's return to the House anyway. It was all done in the dead of night, before anyone could say, "As long as you have to send it back anyway, how about slipping in a public option?"
Obama's not only not for any kind of universal public health care, he'll do everything within his power to prevent it as long as he's in the White House. Because that was the deal that he made. Those who believe that Obama's healthcare legislation is "incremental change", it institutionalizes the insurance industry as the gatekeepers to medical treatment (requiring having a job, too), which is something that everybody wanted to end. And there never will be a public option or any kind of affordable, quality medical care for all as long as Obama and DLC-controlled Democrats are in office: "There Won't Be Any Public Option--Obama Never Was For It". Watch it and weep.
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60 votes (Lieberman, Bayh, Nelson) weren't necessary; the legislation was passed through reconciliation. 50 plus one.
FYI - 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 CHANGE across the board, he enters office with PLATINUM political capital.
Obama's healthcare legislation was all designed up front to be a massive giveaway to the insuance and pharmaceutical industries and not affordable quality medical care for all, while giving Democrats (progressives and liberals mostly) cover with their constituentts. That's why all members of the Progressive Caucus were forced to get on board - That's why Obama crushed Kucinich. Obama didn't need Kucinich's vote. ACA is nothing but more of the same as what we've had: Expensive junk insurance. Only now everyone is required to have it with no cost controls and no guarantees of affordable medical treatment.
KEEP READING
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ElenaKagan is the GoldmanSacks seat, not to mention that she was the 5th vote in rolling back Miranda a few weeks ago, and she joined the conservatives on the Medicare portion of ACA (that states may opt out) a couple of weeks ago.
Obama's spin when trying to get both Kagan and Sotomayor (a lackluster intellect if ever there was one) confirmed was that they'd be effective at countering the conservatives arguments when it came to trying to pull Kennedy over. It hasn't happened; Roberts, Alito, and Scalia wield far greater political warfare skills. And it was Kennedy who worked on Roberts for weeks, to bring Roberts over to the conservative side on ACA??
In claims against big business, Sotomayor (herself a former corporate lawyer) wrote the dissent in a 2-1 decision that ultimately favored victims' families. This was concerning the 1996 crash of TWA flight 800 off of LongIsland. Sotomayor wrote, "The crash hadn't occurred in US territorial waters, therefore victims' families shouldn't have had the right to sue for extra damages." She wrote that the judges who disagreed with her were ignoring legislative history and earlier case law," saying "their decision was a legislative policy choice which shouldn't be made by the courts".
That's conservative talk.
In 2002, on the issue of abortion, Sotomayor upheld Bush's 'Global Gag Rule' (the policy of withholding funds for international groups that offer family planning information and services, including abortion).
On the issue of discrimination, she frequently rules against plaintiffs. For example, in 2004, she ruled against African-American corrections' officers who said they were retaliated against for filing discrimination complaints.
Sotomayor certainly doesn't look at the law through the prism of how it serves the interests of the People.
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?).
We need more Earl Warrens. What we don't need are politicians looking to avoid a fight, and want to work "in a bipartisan manner". Republicans declared war on Democrats years and years ago, while Democrats keep trying to "make nice". Democratic politicians have gotten fat and lazy, feathering their own nests while Republicans have made long inroads into furthering corporate interests.
Whether Democrats are inept or corrupt, the result is the same: They have failed to protect the interests of the 99%. And all that they're putting out this campaign season is warmed-over Republican-like policies when drastic populist steps need to be taken.
About Barack Obama 2012
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Do you think Romney is any less suitable than George W. Bush?
Obama is Bush's 3rd term. No change.
With the lack of transparency, the war on whistleblowers, the secrecy under which Obama operates, we'd get the same governing that we'd get with a Romney administration. Only spun differently, with public relations campaigns tailored a little differently from the White House Communications Office.
About Barack Obama 2012
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Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance
Ten million more voters went to the polls and voted for Obama in 2008 due to the efforts of labor unions and other Democratic base groups.
When labor doesn't show up (to vote, to work phones, to walk precincts), it's because they're not buying what's being sold to them. Their hearts aren't in it.
I'm not impressed by this announcement that MoveOn, et al, have signed on to Obama. That's not the rank and file. Among rank and file union members, Obama has been a miserable disappointment.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance
It hasn't been 8 years of rape, nor has it been 4 years of Republican obstructionism. It's been 40+ years, and none of it happened without Democrats signing on.
From Nixon on, deregulation and privatization, the selling off of America's resources to corporations, has been embraced by both parties.
None of the conservatives on the Supreme Court could have gotten there without the Democrats' support.
Whether it's been the failed state of our media, our broken healthcare system, or our devastated economy, all of the groundwork that enabled it was laid with Democratic politicians either leading the charge or joining with Republicans.
And what's really preventing change, what keeps the corruption in place (Obama is corrupt, too), is a broken political system that neither party has any intention of fixing. Way before Citizens' United, there was Buckley vs. Valeo (1976), and before that, Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886).
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance
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.
A real Democratic president, with Democratic ideals, coming into office with the political capital that Obama came into office with, could have gotten single payer, Medicare for all. But that's not who or what Obama is. He's a corporate tool, and his fans' support keep him from having to satisfy their interests. The more they continue to support him, the more he can move to the right.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance
Congress is as Democratic as it's going to be for the next generation. Everybody complains about Congress, but it's the other guys' elected representatives that they're complaining about, not their own.
In 2010, when Obama and Democrats had refused to use the political capital given by them when 10 million more voters voted for them, voters used their votes to dump incumbents -- On both sides of the aisle. Democratic voters dumped BlueDog incumbents big time; liberals only lost 3 seats.
The real problem is that Big Money/Big Business controls the political process, which includes high-priced propaganda campaigns that spin policy and candidates as things they're not. Corporations have been able to control politicians, candidates, the primary process, so that populist candidates can't get a seat at the table.
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.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance
The $474 billion "Jobs Act"?:
What we got from Obama was a 2009 "Stimulus Light" proposal, with all the problems of the prior 2009 stimulus package in the form of inadequate magnitude of spending, wrong composition and targets and bad timing.Read more -
First, on the matter of the magnitude of spending in the proposal, some think it was bold. But put it in context; $447 billion just won't achieve the job creation it claims. It's once again too little for an economy the size of the US, for an economy in as deep an economic hole as it is and in an economy facing growing downward momentum at home in the context of a global economy also rapidly slipping.
In February 2009, President Obama proposed $787 billion in economic stimulus. Unemployment was about 25 million. More than two years later, after the $787 billion has been spent, unemployment (measured by the Labor Department's U-6 rate) is still around 25 million. Why, therefore, should Obama's latest proposals to create jobs, consisting about half the size of the 2009 stimulus, expect to create jobs when the larger stimulus did not?
Even more important than Obama's Jobs Act's insufficient magnitude, the composition is also seriously deficient - just as was the 2009 stimulus. Like the stimulus in 2009, it is once again overloaded in tax cuts. In fact, a greater percentage (60 percent) of the total Jobs Act is composed of tax cuts than was the 2009 stimulus (38 percent). Then and now, tax cuts simply cannot and will not create jobs, given the kind of "epic" recession in which the US economy now finds itself entrapped.
About Barack Obama 2012
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Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance
Are you ever a cheap date.
Obama's support for gay marriage is like everything else 'liberal' that his handlers claim he's for: Weak tea.
When it comes to 'lady parts', Obama's ACA leads to ending insurance coverage for abortion. You got the language right, Obama's 'lawyer-speak', the spin, the talking points - Ending insurance coverage for abortion is "staying outa lady parts", all right.
And as far as your grad school daughter remaining on your insurance, it's at a huge cost. What Obama did with ACA was keep a failed system in place that continues the highway robbery by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries of the American people. Obama's ACA does NOTHING to lower medical costs and prevent bankruptcies due to medical bills.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama Outspends Mitt Romney On Digital Ads 4:1
Obama came into the White House with Bush-Cheney-Republicans not just on the ropes, but on the mat and down for the count. Obama issued a pardon and let them rise again.
After just one month in the White House, instead of going after Republicans and how their failed policies have brought us to the brink of destruction, instead of hammering Bush-Cheney-GOP for our economic woes and wars of choice, Obama and Rahm Emanuel went after Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, two people with no role in the Republican Party.
Obama and Emanuel never mentioned Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Eric Canter, Karl R0ve, George W, H.W., Jeb Bush, Cheney, NOBODY who is actually IN the Republican Party as the problem. Obama still doesn't. During the Republican primaries, he mocked Donald Trump, an undeclared candidate for the presidency who every serious political pundit knew had no intention of actually running.
What makes Obama's most ardent supporters think he and Democrats would be any more successful achieving on our behalf in a second term? More importantly, should Obama win, what do his supporters believe that Obama will say he has a mandate to do? In his first term, he didn't do anything that he pledged to do in the 2008 campaign. As a matter of fact, he flip-flopped on just about every promise.
After the 2010 midterms, do you recall what Obama said that election's mandate was? "More of the same", "more bipartisanship", more caving to Republicans, watering down legislation to satisfy conservatives.
I don't hear a single word out of Obama, not one commitment to the policies of the left, of the 99%. Just more weak tea.
Whether it's Obama Watering Down Regulations More Than Bush, Study Shows, or making Americans more enemies by stepping up drone attacks on sovereign nations, or instituting Simpson-Bowles as he's expected to do, or pushing the job-outsourcing Trans-Pacific free trade treaty through like he did with the S. Korea and Colombia and Panama treaties, how is any of that good for us or any different than what Romney would do?
Get real, O'bots -- Both parties have us gamed.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance
I've asked Obama's 'most ardent supporters' a dozen different ways and they all keep dodging answering these questions. It looks like they all keep dodging even THINKING about these questions:
How do you think a win by Democrats in November would be interpretted by Obama, Democrats and the media? What do you think they will think they have a mandate to do?
Criticism and failing numbers in the polls have done nothing to persuade this president or this Congress to move to the left. What makes you think they're going to do in the next 2-4 years with less of a majority that which they refused to do when they had held the White House and both houses of Congress after the 2008 election?
Right before the midterms in 2010, Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress said that even with a Democratic victory they'd be caving more to the right. It was Obama who put Social Security and Medicare on the table. Ron Wyden was trying to sell his working with Paul Ryan as a good thing. Nancy Pelosi has already announced she's behind Simpson-Bowles (Catfood Commission).
We've been doing it the corporate DLC's way for 20 years now, and the government and the Democratic Party keeps moving farther to the right. If Obama's 'most ardent supporters' are on the same side and want real Democratic policies, and going about getting them their way (protecting Obama, reelecting DLC Democrats) is getting Republican policies and NOT Democratic policies, when do Obama's fans realize that maybe they don't know what they're talking about?
When do they realize that they've become that classic definition for 'insanity' ("Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results")?
Do they ever realize it?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Obama 2012 Campaign Helped By MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO Super PAC Alliance
There is a bigger picture to this election. Some of these Supreme Court justices are gonna retire soon hopefully Scalia and Thomas.
==============================================
When all else fails, "The Supreme Court will be lost!"
The Supreme Court is lost already.
The Senate, in point the Democrats, failed us; Alito, Roberts, and Thomas made it through a Democratically-controlled Judiciary Committee and Senate. And Democrats voted to confirm Thomas (52-48), Alito (58-42) and Roberts (78-22) and Scalia (98-0).
Obama's appointments are really nothing to defend. Both Sotomayor and Kagan are to the right of the justices that they replaced (Souter and Stevens).
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/09-0
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/13/kagan
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4074
http://www.theroot.com/views/sotomayor-liberal-enough?page=0,1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/18/AR2009071801787.html
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2009/07/17/abcs-greenburg-sotomayor-not-liberal-activist-almost-conservative
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2011/06/28/nprs-totenberg-kagan-sotomayor-not-nearly-liberal-predecessors
http://hispanic9.com/true_to_hispanic_beliefs,_sotomayor_is_not_a_liberal.htm
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