Spintested: 09/03/12

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Monday, September 3, 2012

The House passed a healthcare bill, a real women-hating boondoggle with the Stupak amendment, and it was then that Obama really showed his true colors and skills as a treacherist: How to reconcile the House bill with what was going to be the Senate's healthcare bill (what came out of the Senate Finance Committee).

Finesse-ing ability doesn't begin to cover what was going to be necessary, to get one bill from the House version that threw women under the bus (the Stupak amendment) and the Senate version (no public option, no cost controls -- Just a great big corporate giveaway bill that throws all of the American people under the bus), and spin it as Democrats delivering on their promise to get affordable quality medical treatment for everyone when it doesn't do any of that.

Obama took care of the Stupak amendment first (with an executive order and the White House spin machine making assurances that weren't accurate ).

Then, the White House went after the Progressive Caucus, and got all but two of the 79 (out of 82) members that had pledged not to vote for legislation that didn't contain a public option to back down. The last two (Dennis Kucinich and Eric Massa) folded after some unique pressure was brought to bear on them.

If Obama really wanted Joe Lieberman's vote, he would have done to Lieberman and the Blue Dogs what he did to Dennis Kucinich.

What did Obama do when Kucinich (the last hold-out on the Progressive Caucus, all of whom had pledged to vote for a healthcare bill only if it had a public option, and who all caved) was opposing him to the left. Obama flew to Cleveland and held a big rally. Obama rallied Kucinich's constituents against him and he got Kucinich's vote.

Where was that mentality with Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, the other Blue Dogs and even Olympia Snowe? If the president of the United States had used the bully pulpit against them, a lot of progressives would have respected that and said, "You tried your best".

But Obama didn't try. He cut a deal. Months earlier, cutting the will of the People off at the knees. The public was powerless in the backroom deal. Read Sam Graham-Felsen's oped in WaPo: Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Obama could only play the hand he was dealt. The best thing he could have done was realized he was never going to ever get any cooperation from the GOP who've run a 4 year scorched earth policy.

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

When it serves something that the DLC-controlled Democrats want, Democrats have gotten what they want from Republicans.

Republicans haven't been filibustering; they've been threatening to filibuster and Harry Reid can (and has) required the GOP to actually filibuster instead of merely threatening one.

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

Democrats could've changed the supermajority rule (it doesn't have to be done at the beginning of a new Congress; It can be done at any time (see page 6 ].

But Democrats put off their critics for not forcing the Republicans to actually filibuster and changing SenateRule22 during the session by assuring fed-up Democratic voters, "We'll change the rule come the beginning of the next Congress".

They didn't.

There's not just one way (or even two or three) for Democrats to get bills passed without Republican votes.

But Obama and the DLC-controlled DemocraticParty didn't and aren't doing that. Because it might actually work to get Democratic voters' legislative agenda made into the law of the land and do good for the People. And that's not what Obama and Company are there for.

Obama and Company are there to do the work of the transnational corporations. Along with the Republicans, as was clearly evidenced the time that HarryReid kept the Senate open (pro forma) so that Obama couldn't make recess appointments, collaborating with Republicans to keep liberals out of government. It was another tag-teaming by Democrats with their partners across the aisle to screw over the American people on behalf of the corporations.

Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people. They don't want to do it.
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

The president never had "full control of congress. Many blue dog Dems were not party-line towers like the Repub. machine always is. As well, a fillabuster-proof senate never existed.

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

That's demonstrably false.

Americans put Obama and Democrats into power to get affordable, quality medical treatment for everyone. Instead Obama, as salesman and customer, sold insurance policies on behalf of the insurance industry to the American people and purchased insurance policies on behalf of the American people. Overpriced junk insurance, with no guarantee of treatment and not at affordable prices. Obama was never playing 12th dimensional chess; he's playing Monopoly, by himself, with him as the Bank.

He didn't use the bully pulpit, didn't twist arms, he refused to use his considerable oratorical skills and political capital to deliver the real healthcare reform that voters put him and Democrats into power to achieve. No, instead Obama knee-capped his base, undercut left-leaning Democrats working on delivering to Democratic voters what had been promised to them in the 2008 campaign by cutting secret deals with Big Business (all the while telling the public that it was Congress that writes legislation, not the president, so he's "staying out of it"), and rallied the last supporter of a public option's constituents against him.

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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

The American taxpayer has been subsidizing pharmaceutical companies for decades with the promise that the R&D we were paying for would result in lower prices and breakthrough cures. Instead, we've been stuck with higher prices (twice as much as other industrialized countries) while the pharmaceutical companies try to snag new markets overseas with what were to be our discounts.

Not only did Obama break his campaign pledge (of the government, PhRma biggest customer, negotiating for lower priced drugs, and reimporting pharmaceuticals), he gave PhRma a huge gift. The deal that Obama made with PhRma wasn't for PhRma to go up against Big Insurance; it was for PhRma to help sell a plan that makes more profits for Big Insurance.

PhRma paid chump change ($80 billion over 10 years, plus $150 million for ads to support a plan that had NO public option) so that they could keep massive profits and k!II public healthcare. Obama (who had dropped the public option and the universal requirement) let the pharmaceutical industry continue to make obscene profits, and gave the insurance industry a clear field and new customers, all paid for with taxpayers' money.

Oh, and by the way, $80 billion over 10 years is less than 1% of the profits PhRma makes a year.
About Barack Obama 2012
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

If passing the Health Care Act isn't change, I don't know what is.

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

ACA, an invention of the Heritage Foundation, is Part 2 of Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003.

If Republicans succeed in repealing it, the reason is so that they can reintroduce it with a few minor changes to throw off the dumber of their constituents and collect their share of booty from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

If you don't want to believe that the parties work in tandem, build upon each other's 'successes' (on behalf of corporations), just look at Bush's 2003MedicareReformAct and RomneyCare, both of which mirror ACA, and keep the problem in place (insurance companies as the gatekeepers to Americans getting medical treatment and employment-provided insurance, both of which EVERYBODY wanted ended, skyrocketing costs of medical care, no cost controls and not universal)?

Fercrissakes, look at the donut hole!

The 'donut-hole' that never should have existed in the first place, and that the DLC-controlled Democrats created as a "compromise" for Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (another massive corporate giveaway package).

The whole of Medicare Part D was a scam and a scheme by both pro-corporate parties, a "first step" (as Obama's 'most ardent supporters' like to say) towards privatizing public healthcare.

In 2003, PhRMA lobbied hard and got Congress to insert language into the bill that created a Medicare drug benefit that prohibits Medicare from using its market clout to negotiate with manufacturers for lower drug prices and making sure the drug benefit was only available through private insurance plans.

The result was that Medicare members can only get drug coverage by joining a private insurance plan. People who have both Medicare and Medicaid (dual-eligibles) were switched from Medicaid prescription drug coverage to a private Medicare drug plan. Prescription drugs for this population cost 30% more under the new private Medicare drug plans than they did under Medicaid, increasing pharmaceutical companies' profits by at least $3.7 billion dollars in just the first two years of the program. For example, Bristol Myers earned a windfall of almost $400 million, thanks to higher prices for the stroke medication Plavix.

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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Not that I was referring to SCOTUS, but who do you think confirms justices if not senators (Congressional races)?
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

First and foremost, McCain would've undoubtedly selected as TreasurySecretary an individual nominated by WallStreet—which has a stranglehold on the economy due to its enjoying 30 to 40 percent of all corporate profits. If he didn’t select TimGeithner, a reliable servant of financial interests whose nomination might have allowed McCain to trumpet his “maverick” credentials, whoever he did select would clearly have also moved to bail out the financial institutions and allow them to water down needed financial reforms.

Ditto for the head of his NationalEconomicCouncil. Although appointing LarrySummers might have been a bit of a stretch, despite his yeoman work in destroying financial regulation—thus enriching his old boss RobertRubin and helping cause the Crash of 2008—McCain could easily have found a JackKemp-like Republican “supply-sider” who would have duplicated Summers’ signal achievement of expanding the deficit to the highest level since 1950 (though perhaps with a slightly higher percentage of tax cuts than the Obama stimulus). The economy would have continued to sputter along, with growth rates and joblessness levels little different from today’s, and possibly even worse.

But McCain’s election would have produced a major political difference: It would have increased Democratic clout in the House and Senate.

Read more here.
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Who would have thought that when John McCain lost the 2008 election that we'd still be contending with his plans for governing?

If McCain Had Won

McCain would probably have approved a failed troop surge in Afghanistan, engaged in worldwide extrajudicial assassination, destabilized nuclear-armed Pakistan, failed to bring Israel’s BenjaminNetanyahu to the negotiating table, expanded prosecution of whistle-blowers, sought to expand executive branch power, failed to close Guantanamo, failed to act on climate change, pushed both nuclear energy and opened new areas to domestic oil drilling, failed to reform the financial sector enough to prevent another financial catastrophe, supported an extension of the BushTaxCuts for the rich, presided over a growing divide between rich and poor, and failed to lower the jobless rate.

Nothing reveals the true state of American politics today more, however, than the fact that has undertaken all of these actions and, even more significantly, left the DemocraticParty far weaker than it would have been had McCain been elected. Few issues are more important than seeing behind the screen of a myth-making mass media, and understanding what this demonstrates about how power in America really works—and what needs to be done to change it.

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About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

If you're voting on principle, you need to read this.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

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.

Do you know what Obama said he'd do if re-elected to a second term?:

Explaining this spring how he would manage to enact his agenda in a second term, Obama was still looking forward to sitting down and cutting deals. This time, he said, Republicans would be nicer because he’s not running for re-election.

Obama's either corrupt or he's the very definition of 'insanity', "doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different outcome". Or his supporters are.

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?

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

You can't make claims like "Obama killed OBL", the circumstances and proof of which Obama went to great lengths to conceal, and expect to be believed and unchallenged, especially when you ran on transparency and undermine the machinery of a people-run democracy.

Obama's broken promises on transparency. His war on whistleblowers.

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
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

It's the start of the END of all public healthcare programs, along with the end of affordable, quality medical treatment.

The only "start" that ACA is is the institutionalization of insurance companies as the gatekeepers to medical care. Insurance companies add nothing to the relationship between someone who is sick and someone who can provide treatment. Insurance companies exist to make profits off of DENYING care.

I've never been impressed with the analogy of car insurance to health insurance, because for one thing people don't have to drive.

Perhaps a more equivalent comparison with healthcare in this democracy where everyone needs medical treatment throughout their lifetime might be other necessities for survival, such as food, water, and shelter (protection from the elements). We subsidize food costs, heating oil expenses, housing, because it's necessary for human survival.

There are resources that should be nationalized, such as water and oil and land. They belong to all of us, as our birthright, to share, and not for the 1% to take and sell them for profit, for their own private gain.

There are services which we recognize are necessary, like fire-fighting and policing, that are non-profit. Or used to be. We chipped in through our taxes to pay for these services, in order to get these services for a reasonable price.

The same should be true for medical treatment. When Americans say, "Don't touch my Medicare", that is what they are saying that they want.

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. He's preserving an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care. It's government-sanctioned racketeering.

Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather, Part II -- "I don't want a lot...Just enough to wet my beak") of medical care, letting you get medical care only if you pay them a gratuity up front.
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Ask yourself, "How did FDR get us out of a Depression". It's not as if we don't have a blueprint for it.

Yes, looking backwards is the way out, and necessary if we are to get this nation back on track on every front, from the economy to restoring the rule of law.
About Barack Obama 2012
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

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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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

If Bush was so bad (and I think he was|is), why is Obama blocking all investigations and prosecutions into Bush-Cheney administration?

If Bush was so bad, why is Obama continuing just about all Bush-Cheney policies (and going Bush-Cheney one better, with 'indefinite preventive detention', torture and killing American citizens with no due process or oversight)?

Perhaps if Bill Clinton hadn't done the same thing for the Reagan-Bush administration, we wouldn't have been saddled with Bush-Cheney at all.

When Obama came into power, the GOP wasn't on the ropes; it was down for the count because of the devastation that Bush-Cheney had caused the nation. Then Obama issued Bush-Cheney and Republicans essentially a pardon. None of them express any remorse or contrition, there's talk that we can expect the rehabilitated Bush family's next legacy to our nation for president in the not so distant future, Jeb Bush. As a matter of fact, Republicans are rested and ready for another round of tax cuts for the rich and slicing-dicing Social Security, Medicare, and anything else they can get their hands on that belongs to the People.

And Obama wants to continue to play nice with them, appeal to their sense of 'bipartisan cooperativeness'.

Bush's tax cuts for the rich are now Obama's tax cuts for the rich.

Obama's not the Democrat that you think he is. He's not any kind of Democrat; he's a DINO.

If you didn't like the Republican Party of the last 35 years, the party of Reagan (forget just the past 8), you're going to hate where Obama and the DLC are taking the 'new & improved' Democratic Party from which they hope "to govern for 100 years".

Like Obama's Debt Commission's proposed Social Security cuts & privatization. Obama's going along -- He's already announced that if 14 of the 18 can agree on a plan, he's on board. All but one are for privatizing the Social Security trust fund.

Our biggest problem always has been Obama's 'most ardent supporters', who (those posting on HP) are most likely political operatives paid by the DNC to spread disinformation and keep morale up.

There's no way to win against Republicans unless you fight Republicans. The only Republicans Obama and Democrats fight are Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, two people with no job in government or the Republican Party.
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Shame on Obama for taking tools off the table for achieving Democratic voters' objectives.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

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?

Obama's 'most ardent supporters' need to get that both parties have us gamed.
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

In another Word document, one of the team spells out how automation can work so one person can be many personas:

Using the assigned social media accounts we can automate the posting of content that is relevant to the persona. In this case there are specific social media strategy website RSS feeds we can subscribe to and then repost content on twitter with the appropriate hashtags. In fact using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example. There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas

It goes far beyond the mere ability for a government stooge, corporation or PR firm to hire people to post on sites like this one. They're talking about creating the illusion of consensus. And consensus is a powerful persuader. What has more effect, one guy saying BP isn't at fault, or 20 people saying it? For the weakminded, the number can make all the difference.
About Barack Obama 2012
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Treat the online support for Obama with suspicion:

[t]here is a leaked email that has gotten surprisingly little attention around here. It's the one where AaronBarr discusses his intention to post at DailyKos - presumably something negative about Anonymous, the hacking group. But that's not the email I'm talking about here.

HBGary people are talking about creating "personas", what we call sockpuppets. This isn't new. PR firms have been using fake "people" to promote products and other things for a while now, both online and even in bars and coffee houses.

But for a defense contractor with ties to the federal government, HuntonAndWilliams, DOD, NSA, and the CIA - whose enemies are labor unions, progressive organizations, journalists, and progressive bloggers, a persona apparently goes far beyond creating a mere sockpuppet.

According to an embedded MSWord document found in one of the HBGary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Then the team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire BrooksBrothers riot online.

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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Listen, as long as I've got you here, perhaps you can answer this -- No other Obama fan can:

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 whistleblowers, legalized medicinal marijuana in the states and Bush-style obscenity prosecutions:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_691667.html

Obama's continuing 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 kill American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret? It's Pure Kafka.

How do Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain his putting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' care, et al, on the table for benefits' cuts?

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this. How do Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain all that to themselves? How do you?
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

For you to believe that means you really don't understand the issues. One example is Lily Ledbetter.

Lily Ledbetter has been at the top of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' lists of his "accomplishments" and has gone unchallenged because to explain the ridiculousness of it as an "Obama accomplishment" can't be done in a 10-word sound byte.

To begin with, claiming Lily Ledbetter as Obama's achievement is like the driver of the winning car in this year's Le Mans race (Mike Rockenfeller) picking up a hitch-hiking Obama right before he crossed the finish line and saying Obama won the Le Mans. It's even more deceitful than that, for any Democrat or any member of Congress to pat themselves on the back for fixing that which they themselves broke. But even that doesn't quite explain it.

Obama and Democrats got into power on a pledge to change the way Washington works. Little is ever said or explained about what that really means. I'm going to attempt it:

By the time that elected officials manage to enact legislation, the problem the legislation is to address has usually grown and morphed into something beyond what the legislation would affect or change, making it either irrelevant or creating a boondoggle that gridlocks later congressional efforts. Or, something else.

With Lily Ledbetter, it took 45 years to have the legislature address a problem (statute of limitations for filing equal pay discrimination lawsuits in the Civil Rights Act of 1964) in what never should've been agreed to by Democrats in the first place in 1964. Lily Ledbetter really had nothing to do with "landmark sex discrimination". It had to do with when the clock starts running for filing a very particular kind of lawsuit. It doesn't affect statutes of limitation for any other kind of lawsuit. It doesn't apply to the filing of all lawsuits. It's just for a particular class of lawsuits - For the filing of an equal-pay lawsuit.

And it wasn't 45 years of Congresses trying to fix it. It was a year and a half. It was in response to the Supreme Court's decision in 2007 in one woman's lawsuit. It's not going to affect millions, or thousands or even hundreds of others - Ironically, if it were to affect more women, it never would have passed, no matter what party held the Congress (because it would have meant more money paid out from corporations to women, and Democrats work for corporations just as Republicans do).

If you want to tout passage of Lily Ledbetter then you're going to have to take the blame for not following it up immediately with legislation for transparency in pay. Being able to find out what everyone else is getting paid. It's a joke without it. It's like taking you to a Michelin star restaurant, blowing the aromas from the kitchen in your face, but not letting you eat anything at all.
About Barack Obama 2012
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Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

To those who are voted for Obama:

Did your vote for him mean you wanted him to water down legislation, make legislation Republican-like, cave to Republicans, play nice with them?

If Obama is re-elected, what do you expect out of him and Democrats in a second term? More of the same as we saw in his first term? Do you expect his positions on issues to change from how he postured in his first term? Obama put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on the table in his first term. Do you support that? Are you expecting Obama to change if re-elected, and become a fighting champion for the 99%?

Just like before the 2010 midterm elections, Obama has announced he won't do anything differently. It'll be more "bipartisan" effort, more caving to Republicans, hoping that they'll change:

Explaining this spring how he would manage to enact his agenda in a second term, Obama was still looking forward to sitting down and cutting deals. This time, he said, Republicans would be nicer because he’s not running for re-election.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

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 team 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. It's why we are a nation run by rule of law and not rule of man. Where we examine evidence in courtrooms to get to the truth.

But all that is over.

The situation might have been remedied had Democrats and Obama come into office investigating and prosecuting the Bush administertion, Wall Street, defense contractors, and restoring the 'rule of law'. BushCheney exploited the inherent weaknesses in the Constitution: A precarious balance of power between the three branches of government. But Obama refused, and has continued the BushCheney disregard of the Constitution, even going beyond BushCheney abuses.

Do you know that the Pentagon has no photos of the dead OBL, and no DNA analysis was done on OBL. Nor does any video exist of the raid, either at the scene, at the Pentagon, in the WH Situation Room.

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. Policies that have us committing international war crimes, having nothing to do with terrorism, but for Corporate Oil's profit-making.

Our future depends on real investigations. Our lives depend on it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Two articles that speak that I think are must reads for Democratic voters are John Cusack's Interview of Law Professor Jonathan Turley About the Obama Administration's War on the Constitution and journalist Russell Mokhiber's Ten Reasons I'm Not With Barack Obama.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

In March 2009, Senator Bernie Sanders attempted to block his nomination to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A statement from Sanders’ office said that Gensler “had worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of AIG and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in US history.” He also accused Gensler of working to deregulate electronic energy trading, which led to the downfall of Enron, and supporting the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, which allowed American banks to become “too big to fail.”

The DLC-controlled Democrats have been working overtime since the 1980s to eliminate regulations and oversight.

We need more than Democratic politicians talking about thinking about needing regulations and actually doing it. Implementing regulations.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

If you really believe that then you don't know what's in finance'reform' bill, or the healthcare 'reform' bill, or what's not in them -- Regulations.

There's nothing in the finance 'reform' bill that will prevent another economic meltdown. There's nothing in it that would've prevented the last one from happening. WallStreet's very happy with the legislation. Stocks rose on its passage.

What Obama's done with that finance reform - Meet Obama's regulator of the finance reform legislation, GaryGensler.

One Year After DoddFrank, More Rules Get Delayed Or Weakened

If you can't openly stop the move for reform, then put up as many roadblocks as possible, stall as long as you can to keep the status of no regulations going. Until your replacement, either through a new administration or the usual 2nd term shuffling of players, can "study it all again before implementing", i.e., never. Ever try to put mittens on a kid who doesn't want to wear them? Think OJ and the glove.

GaryGensler spent 18 years at GoldmanSachs, making partner when he was 30. Gensler was UndersecretaryOfTheTreasury (1999-2001) and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (1997-1999) in the UnitedStates. BarackObama selected him to lead the CommodityFuturesTradingCommission, which has jurisdiction over $5 trillion in trades. Gensler was sworn in on May 26, 2009. Gensler was also a senior adviser to the HillaryClinton campaign and, after the DemocraticPrimary, the Obama campaign.

Questions as to whether there are conflicts of interests relating to Gensler's former employment have been raised, as has been the case in any number of former Goldman employees that go on to hold pivotal positions in the US Treasury, FederalReserve, or as regulators. Gensler has the reputation in the market though as a politically ambitious man who is more likely to squash than accommodate speculation.

As the TreasuryDepartment’s undersecretary for domestic finance in the last two years of the ClintonAdministration, Gensler found himself in the position of overseeing policies in the areas of US financial markets, debt management, financial services, and community development. Gensler advocated the passage of the CommodityFuturesModernizationAct of 2000, which exempted credit default swaps and other derivatives from regulation. The Senate was expected to examine his views on derivatives regulation during the Senate confirmation hearings.

KEEP READING

About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

Just because your granddaughter has health insurance doesn't mean she's getting medical treatment.

health insurance ≠ medical treatment

Obama's healthcare legislation doesn't control costs and doesn't deliver medical treatment to everyone (not even those who think they're going to get it). Insurance companies are not required to cover anyone's preexisting condition gratis. And between increased premium costs, deductibles and co-pays, ACA Unlikely to Stem Medical Bankruptcies

People who voted for Obama/Democrats voted to get affordable, quality medical treatment. That was NOT a vote to protect and further enrich the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Voters didn't send Obama and Democrats into power to entrench the insurance industry as the gatekeepers to being able to get medical treatment. Voters did NOT send Obama and Democrats to Washington to continue tying insurance benefits to their employment.

Yet that is precisely what Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats did.

Meet The New 1%: - Healthcare CEOs replace bankers as America's best paid:

Pity Wall Street's bankers. Once the highest-paid bosses in the land, they are now also-rans. The real money is in healthcare and drugs, according to the latest survey of executive pay. One example is Joel Gemunder, CEO Omnicare, who had a total pay package in 2010 worth $98 million.

Obama's healthcare legislation is nothing more than a massive giveaway to the health insurance industry. It is one of the most corrupt pieces of legislation ever enacted by our government.

The health insurance industry provides no real service. All it does is take money out of the system. It's nothing more than a blood-sucking middleman.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

I think Obama's "led" brilliantly; just not on the people's behalf. He's managed to deliver to the Corporate Masters while convincing his 'most ardent supporters' that he's either too nice, inept, or that his failures are because of Republicans, [pick your excuse].

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

Barack Obama Promised A New Kind Of Politics, But Played The Same Old Game

No, they're not actually angry with Obama - The market is doing better than it ever has, CEOs are raking in huge salaries and bonuses, and no one is being prosecuted, etc. They love that Obama and Congress haven't tied their hands with any meaningful reform.

What they're unhappy with is the rhetoric, that Obama and Democrats are villainizing them, blaming them for the plight of the workers, and the cause of the economic collapse.
About Barack Obama 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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