I think that statistically it's improbable that no one in Inhofe's family is/was gay. That would make his family unique from all other families in the world.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
It's voters on BOTH SIDES of the aisle who need to get a clue. Republican voters need to realize that they're not the privileged 1% whose interests Republicans work exclusively for. And Democratic voters need to realize that Democratic politicians don't work for the 98%, but need their constituents to believe they do.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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.
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.
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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
When NancyPelosi boasted of getting 420 pieces of legislation passed, I asked "What's the big accomplishment of getting 420 pieces of legislation passed in one chamber of Congress but not the other?" It only becomes law when both chambers pass it.
Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the WhiteHouse, the president controls it all. They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corporate legislation) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituents come election time.
Those in liberal districts talk a good game about being the People's champions, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and kiII liberal legislation (like a PublicOption or access to abortion), the DNC will make sure they're covered come election time, with massive infusions of campaign money and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.
One example of how they tag team us:
LynnWoolsey, head of the ProgressiveCaucus, likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the Iraq war. She, congressional Democrats, and Obama, ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplemental emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see significance here).
Democrats had the ability to put the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and didn't do it; they didn't need Republicans.
Unbeknownst to LynnWoolsey's constitutents (it was never reported in her district's newspapers): Progressive CongresswomanWoolsey Endorses ProWar BlueDog JaneHarman Over Progressive MarcyWinograd
As the head of the ProgressiveCaucus, LynnWoolsey led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislation that didn't include a PublicOption.
Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.
Democrats have let Obama continue with just about all of BushCheney's policies, and wars, and let Obama go BushCheney even better, by letting Obama kill Americans with no due process or oversight, 'preventive indefinite detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret.
Democrats have abdicated their Constitutionally-required role of oversight of the executive branch; they failed to perform it during the BushCheney administration, and still don't with one of their own in the WhiteHouse.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
In the 2010 midterms' campaign, 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.
Blue Dogs took a beating (liberals lost only 3 seats) in the 2010 midterms and Obama took it as a mandate to move even farther to the right.
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Remember that Obama did what he could to discourage Democratic turnout in 2010.
Just before the 2010 midterms, Obama broadcast that he would be doing more of the same, even if Democrats remained the majority and in control of both Houses of Congress. More caving by Obama and Democrats, to Republicans:
This after Republicans couldn’t have been clearer, from even before Obama got into the White House, that they had no intention of working with him or Democrats.
Aides say that the president’ s been spending “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0,” brainstorming with administration officials about the best way to revamp the strategies and goals of the White House.
And despite the predictions that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislating power, including perhaps control of the House and even Senate, Obama isn’t thinking of the next two years as a period that’ll be marked with the same obstructive nature from the GOP.
“It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsible, either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them,” Obama says. “Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.”
Dick Durbin says Obama’s post-election agenda “will have to be limited and focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people.” Tom Daschle says Obama has to reach out more: “The keyword is inclusion. He’s got to find ways to be inclusive. “
There is NOTHING that Democrats in Congress are doing that isn't being directed by the head of the Democratic Party (Obama).
When you are the president, you are the head of your political party. When your political party controls both Houses of Congress and the White House (as was the case in 2008-2010), you do what the head of your party tells you to do.
There is nothing that Democrats in Congress are doing that Obama hasn't signed off on, much less ordered. The only people who don't understand this are those who have never worked in politics.
Democrats like to hide this from the people, and lend the illusion of democracy (small 'd'), like "herding cats", "no organized party", etc., but that's how it is, and it's the only reason there are political parties.
If you do not get behind what the leader of your political party tells you to do, you're going to find your life really cold and lonely for the duration of your term in office. Come election time, you will NOT have the party behind you, and that is certain death for your time in office.
Just to show you where Obama's and the DLC's real heart lies, there are so many things he and the DLC/DNC could have done, could be doing, to get real Democratic legislation through, but don't.
Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignments, etc., but did not.
There is plenty that a President and a Speaker of the House and a Senate Majority Leader can do to pressure representatives and senators into voting as you want them to vote. We saw that Obama had no problem doing it when he wanted and needed Blue Dogs like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu's votes -- He literally bought them.
There is nothing that the Blue Dogs are doing that Obama and the DLC doesn't want them to do.
Before the midterms of 2010, I asked, facetiously, if Obama's 'most ardent supporters' believed that if Democrats lost control of Congress, would they be as effective at preventing the Republicans' agenda from moving forward as Republicans have been at stymieing Democrats. After all, there would still be more numbers of Democrats in Congress AND a Democratic White House. Not one of Obama's 'most ardent fans' replied.
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Democratic politicians are counting on it, too.
Until Obama's 'most ardent supporters' realize that and demand accountability from him and Democratic politicians, all efforts are futile.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The problem is that Democratic politicians haven't been. Aren't.
We're in this mess because Democrats refused to defend the word 'liberal' when Ronald Reagan, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism , and how liberals were responsible for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, massive public works projects like the Hoover Dam, etc., the DLC (the Republican wing of the Democratic Party that has been controlling it for the past 2 decades) convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC (now morphed into No Labels and Third Way) attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgvnned by election dirty tricks and fraud.
When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characterize themselves as far-anything or extreme, but mainstream. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicament of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to 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.
Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to the American people. When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.
But Democratic politicians have been AWOL on that, and all issues that Democratic voters believe the party stands for.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
When politicians say that "Social Security is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their Corporate Masters. You don't see politicians putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.
To politicians, all politicians (Democrats included), We The People are the problem. If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed. If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collectively to us all, We the People) and deregulate so that corporations wouldn't be constrained by anything, could become profit-making machines on steroids, unobstructed by piddling voter concerns, such as health, safety, environment, etc. And for accomplishing this, politicians would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.
You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politicians, but the fact is that the DLC controls the Democratic Party (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the pro-corporate branch), and that Democrats in Congress and in the White House have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constitutionally-required role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administrations -- What little regulating they've put in legislation the last 2 years is ineffective for a whole array of very sneaky moves). As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractors stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge-profit-making machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.
You can choose to think of Obama and his intentions in whatever way makes you happy. What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past four years has been in the People's and not the Corporations' interests.
What's gotten lost in the news cycle the past few months are Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties which mean more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas. And then there's the 'Super Congress' (and its plan for gutting Social Security and Medicare), along with the Dream Act ticking along (which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages).
We The People are being transformed, from sheep to sacrificial lambs.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Politicians WANT a high deficit so that they can create a fiscal crisis that forces us to cut vital safety net programs. It's what Grover Norquist (president of Americans for Tax Reform, and George W. Bush's once-a-week lunch buddy for the 8 years of the Bush-Cheney Administration) meant when he said,"Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub."
During the 2000 election, when Gore was talking about "lock box" and Bush was campaigning on tax cuts ("We gotta get the money out of Washington or else the politishuns'll spend it!"), I was writing about how Bush and Grover Norquist intended to bankrupt the country as a back door to ending the Great Society.
I was writing about conservatives frustration over their futile attempts to end Social Security and other New Dea/Great Society programs, and how even their own (Republican politicians in Congress) would do it directly because it was so popular with the People. It would end their political careers if they went at ending Social Security with a head-on vote. They would have to go about it indirectly, lining up the ducks in a row, for the step-by-step dismantling of the singlemost effective program in the history of the US for lifting people out of poverty.
The way they would do it would be to get the nation into so much debt, into bankruptcy, that there would be no money left in SocialSecurity. That's how they would kill it.
When GeorgeWBush got into the White House after the contentious 2000 election (when Republicans stole the election), when Bush rammed those tax cuts through, no Democrats talked about "what about if we need that money for a rainy day?" Or "find ourselves in a war?"
Around 2006, when Democrats won the election and talk was rampant about Bush's legacy, when even conservatives were repudiating Bush, Bush was saying that he was certain he'd be vindicated in history as " a great conservative".
Even conservatives didn't see what he was talking about (that what Bush is counting on is the end of the Great Society programs, like Social Security and Medicare, vindicating him as both a great president and a great conservative).
By the way, not one journalist asked Bush why he thought he'd be vindicated by history; they still don't, as he's made the rounds of his book tour since leaving the White House.
Democratic politicians aren't stupid, by the way. They knew what Bush and Republicans were up to, and they let it happen.
Why? Why would Democratic politicians want to end Social Security and Medicare?
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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