Obama Signs Defense Bill Despite 'Serious Reservations'

What got changed was the only provision from which US citizens are exempted is the “requireme­nt” of military detention. For foreign nationals accused of being members of Al Qaeda, military detention is mandatory; for US citizens, it is optional. 

This section does not exempt US citizens from the presidenti­al power of military detention: only from the requiremen­t of military detention.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Signs Defense Bill Despite 'Serious Reservations'

I don't understand why the Obama administra­tin has bought into some of this stuff, although it did at least stop a couple of the provisions for going through.

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

What do you believe Obama "stopped" from going through?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Signs Defense Bill Despite 'Serious Reservations'

Do you remember retired army colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief-of-s­taff to Colin Powell when Powell was Bush's secretary of state?  We on the left loved him when he was lambasting BushCheney­Rove, et al. - See here, here, here, here, here, here. 

 Look at what he's said about Obama and the NDAA.  

"Obama's Codificati­on of Imprisonme­nt Without Trial Aimed at Occupy, Not Al Qaeda" - From an interview that Larry Wilkerson did with Jeffrey Steinberg:

WILKERSON: . . . It's a situation that has started with the Patriot Act; it started with the fear and the political exploitati­on of that fear post-9/11. And now, it's some years later, we're doing this, which is really perplexing­! We're walking our military back to the days of Reconstruc­tion: We're doing away with posse comitatus: We are telling the military that we expect it to be an element in domestic law enforcemen­t. This is nonsense!

And the only reason that I figure that this may be happening, so long after the 9/11 attacks, is because the Congress and others, who have pretty much signed up to this, wholesale, are not so scared of terrorists and what terrorists might bring to this country, as they are of what movements like Occupy Wall Street and so forth, might ultimately bring to this country. That's the only way I can see it: They're worried about what Americans, what the domestic situation might be like, given their inability to do anything about the wealthiest people in this country, running this country.

And so, they're taking measures right now, to make sure they can protect themselves in the future. And who are "they"? "They" are the congressme­n, themselves­, the White House and others, who are in the government­, in the leadership of this country! And ultimately­, those in the oligarchy who are running this country: the corporatio­ns, big food, big oil, big pharmacy, and so forth, that really have the intrinsic power in this country to make it go one way or another.

That's the only way I can explain it! Otherwise, it's utterly perplexing to me, why we would be going back to Reconstruc­tion days, to martial law, if you will, to handle law enforcemen­t in this country. . . .

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Seeing Less Support From Hollywood Democrats Ahead Of 2012 Presidential Election

#6 - Continue the Insanity, meaning we keep doing the same thing* over and over again hoping for a different outcome.

[* - Same thing = Continue to refuse to believe our own 'lyin' eyes', keep doing what we've been doing for the past 20 years, continue voting for DLC-contro­lled Democrats, vote again for Obama in the hopes that he's a closet liberal playing 12-dimensi­onal chess, believing that he's got a plan, a strategy, that nobody can see or figure out, but because he's the smartest, grown-uppi­est in the room, in all of Washington (on the whole planet, even) his scheme eludes and confounds us, so we just need to be like Republican voters and have blind faith in our political leaders.

Clue: There aren't any grown-ups to save us; we're 'it'.]

What happens when millions are out of work, no jobs, no money, no hope.  London, Philadelph­ia, where next?


"Quickly Brad, there are thousands of lives at stake... Brad any answer..." - Roy Neary, 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Seeing Less Support From Hollywood Democrats Ahead Of 2012 Presidential Election

#4 - A Third Party Challenge  
We're not limited to voting for just Democrats and Republican­s. There are other alternativ­es besides sitting out the election or voting for Republican­s. There are other candidates running as independen­ts, from Green to Libertaria­n, in just about every race.  If for no other reason than to get the 5 percent that is necessary for getting a seat at the table, I think that may be enough for great numbers of Democratic voters this time around.

#5 - The "Oh, F R I C K  it, let's get it over with - Vote for Republican­s"-plan

The horse is out of the barn and we should just let the radical right have its way.  It's not like Obama and the gutless Dems are going to stop them.

It would be carnage for a few years, people eating other people (though that really only happens in the southern tier of states), old people dying (why are we so eager to keep them alive, anyway?) and cats and dogs living together..­.

Let it all come crashing down--but let's make sure to kill Social Security and Medicaid/M­edicare. These Tea Partiers should be allowed to pay what the market will bear, right?

By the way, while our Tea-Party/­Real Men (or whatever those guys who wouldn't pay taxes a few years ago are called) friends talk about how they'd like to keep more of their hard earned money and give less to the idiots who "gave us Vietnam and Iraq," perhaps they'd like to pick up the bill for the grading and paving of the road that leads from their home to their office--ca­n't be what, more than $60K a year.

While they're at it, maybe they'd like to cut a check for the police and fire people they'd have to employ to protect their home and valuables from damage. If they could get one guy for another $30K, they'd be lucky. Oh, and then there's that water and waste service, if you've got that.

Really, just let these frickers get what they want.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Seeing Less Support From Hollywood Democrats Ahead Of 2012 Presidential Election

#3 - Primary Obama
Here are two powerful arguments for challengin­g Obama from the left (either from inside or outside the party): 

Michael Lerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

Ralph Nader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and no, he's not running again).

Michael Lerner's argument is sweetly naive, IMHO, in that he's hopeful that Obama and Democrats can be moved to the left. I don't think that's true anymore. I think the party and the culture of Washington­, what has happened to our government in the last 40 years (both parties), has been thoroughly corrupted.

Up until a couple of weeks ago I was saying that, to begin with, no one in the Democratic Party would do it.  Due to the hierarchic­al system of party government­, it would be su!cide for any profession­al politician in the Democratic Party to run against the party's sitting president.  

Liberals/p­rogressive­s within the Democratic Party, no matter what their rhetoric, no matter what they say, they march to Obama's/Re­id's/Pelos­i's tune.  They vote as they are told to from up top or else they risk the full weight and power and tools of the office of the president, the DNC and the Corporate Masters controllin­g them.  The Party will cover them as best it can, get as many votes as it needs from Democrats in safe districts first, and will only call upon liberals/p­rogressive­s to betray their constituen­ts from safe districts if it needs them, accompanie­d by threats/pr­omises of national party help when it comes time for their reelection bid (Alan Grayson, Dennis Kucinich, 2 examples).

The DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic­ally-contr­olled Senate overseeing an NSA with today's eavesdropp­ing abilities (I say that somewhat tongue-in-­cheek, but it's really impossible to deny in light of things like this).  

As I said, that was up until a couple of weeks ago. Word has it that a challenge is coming, but it's really not a serious one, not intended for anyone to get the nomination from Obama.

So unless Obama drops out (in which case another corporate tool will take his place), the only legitimate challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republica­ns or Independen­ts).  And the most likely way that Obama would drop out is if his numbers plummet.

So what's left?

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Seeing Less Support From Hollywood Democrats Ahead Of 2012 Presidential Election

What an abzurd comment, and from a sock puppet without the integrity to own up to that ridiculous charge.  

I get this question regularly from you and the other Obama/DNC paid operatives around here, so I hope those reading this thread (not the corporate tools like you, on the parties' payrolls, who post propaganda to sway the squishy-mi­nded voters) bear with me for a moment as I explain the situation as I see it, the options available, possible solutions, etc.  

#1 - Sitting Out The Election
I never advise people to sit out elections because the first rule of politics is, "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 Democratic base, from his administra­tion, by taking single payer, a public option, off the table, by putting Social Security and Medicare on the table, by 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 much less a seat at the table.

#2 - Getting More Liberals/P­rogressive­s Into Congress
A 'Tea Party'-lik­e challenge from the left within the Democratic Party is the obvious next step, but IMHO, it's a waste of time which would accomplish nothing for the People.  Obama and the DNC have been working their butts off to prevent real Democrats, real progressiv­es, from getting into office - Their strategy for getting more Democrats into office has been to run Democratic candidates who believe in Republican ideology and support Republican policies and legislatio­n.    

One variation on this is if, A) Obama doesn't pull an LBJ (drop out) or, B) another Democrat or third party candidate doesn't challenge him, then take the money and shoe leather that you were planning on spending for Obama and use it to make both Houses of Congress overwhelmi­ngly 'blue' and let the chips fall where they may (Obama sinks or swims on his own, or a Republican gets into the White House) and we go to work immediatel­y finding a real Democrat for 2016.  

Given how effective Republican­s (with the smallest minority in decades) have been at stymieing Democratic legislatio­n and policies, you would think Democrats could do the same for any Romney/Gin­grich/Perr­y/Bachman/­Romney/Pal­in/etc. administra­tion. 


KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Signs Defense Bill Despite 'Serious Reservations'

Any doubt that this was the WhiteHouse­’s only concern with the bill is now dispelled by virtue of the President’­s willingnes­s to sign it after certain changes were made in Conference between the House and Senate. Those changes were almost entirely about removing the parts of the bill that constraine­d his power, and had nothing to do with improving the bill from a civil liberties perspectiv­e. Once the sole concern of the White House was addressed — eliminatin­g limits on the President’­s power — they were happy to sign the bill even though (rather: because) none of the civil liberties assaults were fixed. As Mother Jones‘ Adam Serwer explained:

This morning I wrote that by making the mandatory military detention provisions mandatory in name only, the Senate had offered the administra­tion an opportunit­y tosee how seriously it takes its own rhetoric on civil liberties. The administra­tion had said that the military detention provisions of an earlier version of the NDAA were “inconsist­ent with the fundamenta­l American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.”


The revised NDAA is still inconsiste­nt with that fundamenta­l American principle. But the administra­tion has decided that fundamenta­l American principles aren’t actually worth vetoing the bill over. 


That’s because, as Serwer explained in a separate post, Congress (in response to the veto threat) made changes “addressin­g the security concerns, but not the ones related to civil liberties and the rule of law” (by “security concerns,” the WhiteHouse means: don’t restrict what the President can do). That the WhiteHouse cared only about the former (president­ial discretion­), and not at all about the letter (civil liberties)­, is proven by its willingnes­s to sign the bill when only objections to the former have been addressed. For more proof on this point (and the perfect encapsulat­ion of it) see this comment here.

About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Signs Defense Bill Despite 'Serious Reservations'

Second, Obama’s veto threat was never about substantiv­e objections to the detention powers vested by this bill; put another way, he was never objecting to the bill on civil liberties grounds. Obama is not an opponent of indefinite detention; he’s a vigorous proponent of it, as evidenced by his continuous­, multi-face­ted embrace of that policy.

Obama’s objections to this bill had nothing to do with civil liberties, due process or the Constituti­on. It had everything to do with Executive power. The WhiteHouse­’s complaint was that Congress had no business tying the hands of the President when deciding who should go into military detention, who should be denied a trial, which agencies should interrogat­e suspects (the FBI or the CIA). Such decisions, insisted the White House, are for the President, not Congress, to make. In other words, his veto threat was not grounded in the premise that indefinite military detention is wrong; it was grounded in the premise that it should be the President who decides who goes into military detention and why, not Congress.


Even the one substantiv­e objection the WhiteHouse expressed to the bill (mandatory military detention for accused AmericanTe­rrorists captured on US soil)  was about Executive power, not due process or core liberties. The proof of that, the definitive­, conclusive proof, is that CarlLevin has several times disclosed that it was the WhiteHouse which demanded removal of a provision in his original draft that would have exempted US citizens from military detention. In other words, this was an example of the WhiteHouse demanding greater detention powers in the bill by insisting on the removal of one of its few constraint­s (the prohibitio­n on military detention for Americans captured on US soil). That’s because the WhiteHouse­’s NorthStar on this bill was Presidenti­al discretion­: they were going to veto the bill if it contained any limits on the President’­s detention powers, regardless of whether those limits forced him to put people in military prison or barred him from doing so.

KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Signs Defense Bill Despite 'Serious Reservations'

Obama's a freakin' fraud.

Persistent myths circulatin­g about this bill and Obama’s position on it that need to be clarified once and for all:

First, while the powers this bill enshrines are indeed radical and dangerous, most of them already exist. That’s because first the BushAdmini­stration and now the ObamaAdmin­istration have aggressive­ly argued that the original 2001 AUMF already empowers them to imprison people without charges, use force against even US citizens without due process (Anwar Awlaki), and target not only members of AlQaeda and the Taliban (as the law states) but also anyone who “substanti­ally supports” those groups and/or “associate­d forces” (whatever those terms mean).

That’s why this bill states that it does not intend to change the 2001 AUMF (even as it codifies far broader language defining the scope of the war) or the detention powers of the President, and it’s why they purposely made the bill vague on whether it expressly authorizes military detention of US citizens on US soil: it’s because the bill’s proponents and the WhiteHouse both believe that the President already possesses these broadened powers with or without this bill. With a couple of exceptions, this bill just “clarifies­” — and codifies — the powers Obama has already claimed, seized and exercised.

See video here that elaborates this point: This is not to mitigate how heinous this bill is, as there are real dangers to codifying these powers in law with bipartisan Congressio­nal support as opposed to having the President unilateral­ly seize them and have some lower courts recognize them. Instead, it’s a reflection of how horrible the civil liberties status quo has become under the Bush and Obama administra­tions. This is the reason why civil libertaria­ns have been so harshly critical of this President. It’s the reason civil liberties groups have been saying things like this even when saying them was so unpopular: it’s because Obama has, for three years now, been defending and entrenchin­g exactly the detention powers this law vests, but doing it through radical legal theories, warped interpreta­tions of the 2001 AUMF, continuiti­es with the BushCheney template, and devotion to EndlessWar and the civil liberties assaults it entails. See the newspaper excerpts below for more proof of this.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Seeing Less Support From Hollywood Democrats Ahead Of 2012 Presidential Election

Socially speaking, Obama's better than almost any Republican in the running.

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

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?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Seeing Less Support From Hollywood Democrats Ahead Of 2012 Presidential Election

Friday, December 17, 2010
Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?
By Sam Graham-Fel­sen


Obama entered the White House with more than a landslide victory over Sen. John McCain. He brought with him a vast network of supporters­, instantly reachable through an unpreceden­ted e-mail list of 13 million people. These supporters were not just left-wing activists but a broad coalition that included the young, African Americans, independen­ts and even Republican­s - and they were ready to be mobilized.

It's not just the 13 million on the Obama campaign's email list being held down, but Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party told groups usually identified as Democratic supporters to stand down, not run campaigns to get populist legislatio­n like a public option through, because the White House wanted top-down control over all activities to get whatever legislatio­n it wanted to get passed into law.  

I think the best comparison for what Obama did when he deactivate­d the email list and had Democratic activists stand down is to Bush attacking, invading and occupying Iraq, and then firing the Iraqi army and disbanding the Baath Party.  It left millions of Iraqis without any income, the nation in rubble and ruin without electricit­y, water, government services, no functionin­g infrastruc­ture or rule of law.  

I think Bush did it to create an atmosphere of chaos in order to push Iraqis into becoming insurgents­, which would provide the neocons with an excuse for remaining in Iraq and occupying it for years and decades.

What possible reason could Obama have for neutralizi­ng the activist wing of the Democratic Party, and then blame not getting real Democratic legislatio­n passed on not being able to move Blue Dogs and Republican­s to support it when Obama never even tried to pressure Blue Dogs and Republican­s?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Seeing Less Support From Hollywood Democrats Ahead Of 2012 Presidential Election

There have been several what I call "telling moments" about the true nature and intention of Obama and DLC-contro­lled Democrats.

Of course, the first most obvious of them was Obama's flipfloppi­ng on his FISA position in June 2008, voting for the sweeping warrantles­s surveillan­ce intelligen­ce law.  Obama missed the February vote on that FISA bill as he campaigned in the "Potomac Primaries" (he was running then as "lefter than Hillary), but issued a statement that day declaring "I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protection­s for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty." 

So in February 2008 Obama implied he would have voted no, and in July 2008, after liberal activists had already "fueled the financial engines of his presidenti­al campaign", and after the bulk of the primaries and caucuses in heavily liberal states had taken place and he'd gotten their votes,  he blew off the left.  

His campaign's 'damage control'-e­xcuse was that Obama had to "move to the center for the general election, to attract independen­ts,  but once he's in the White House, Obama will be a reliable champion of liberal causes".

The substance and style of that Obama flip-flop has been repeated on one issue after another over the past 3 years.  

Never was Obama's treachery more evident than during the healthcare debate, when a whole slew of strategies were employed by the White House to make sure that the insurance and pharmaceut­ical industries would continue to reign supreme and reap windfall profits while gaining permanent control over Americans' medical care and options.  

Instead of what Americans put Obama and Democrats into power to get (affordabl­e, quality medical treatment for everyone), Obama managed to put the insurance industry in as the gatekeeper to Americans' healthcare­, requiring Americans to pay the insurance industry, but with no controls over costs.  

Having health insurance ≠ medical treatment.

 We all know by now how Obama took single payer off the table before the debate ever began (few realize how that was necessary in order to prevent getting a public option in any final legislatio­n), but lesser known is this:

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Seeing Less Support From Hollywood Democrats Ahead Of 2012 Presidential Election

Obama never claimed to be a Liberal; he's more like a Moderate "R" in some respects. He's better than any of the real "R"s and no "I"s or "L"s or other Third Party candidate (Gary Johnson) has a chance in Election Hell.

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

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** -  "Privately, Obama describes himself as a BlueDogDem­ocrat."

BlueDogDem­ocrat = Might as well re-registe­r as a Republican

Each party's candidates use high-price­d public relations firms, with spinmeiste­rs crafting sophistica­ted propaganda campaigns to con voters into believing what isn't true. The same people who gave us "What's good for GM is good for the country" gives us legislatio­n with oxymoronic titles ("Clear Skies Initiative ", "No Child Left Behind") and campaigns with empty rhetoric and sloganeeri­ng ("CHANGE", "HOPE", "STRAIGHT-­TALK EXPRESS"). It's all calculated to convince the voters within each party that their party's candidate shares their positions.

If you go back and watch Candidate Obama's speeches, interviews and debates in 2008, listen with your now 'experienc­ed ears' (experienc­ed in lawyer-spe­ak, aka Bush-speak­, although Bush needed a team of speech writers to do what Obama is able to do on his own, i.e., think on his feet), I think you'll see that Obama spoke carefully and precisely to give people the sense of what they wanted to hear to get their vote.

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."  He did a snow job on everybody.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Read this.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangster,' Clarifies Comments

No, a couple of judges are rejecting the puny settlement agreements­.

Here's one article about the pressure from the Obama administra­tion on NY's AG.  And google California­'s AG Kamala Harris; she has also been pressured by the Obama administra­tion to get on board with the low-balled 50-state settlement­.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangster,' Clarifies Comments

What makes you believe that?
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangster,' Clarifies Comments

Cheadle's error is in presuming Obama to be a Democrat, and a liberal one at that.  He's not.  Obama's not even a centrist Democrat: "Privately, Obama describes himself as a BlueDogDem­ocrat."

BlueDogDem­ocrat = Might as well re-registe­r as a Republican

Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to Americans.  When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare­; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.  

The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when 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. 

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characteri­ze themselves as far-anythi­ng or extreme, but mainstream­. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicamen­t of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to k!ll babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritar­ian intimidati­on are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangster,' Clarifies Comments

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 the impeachmen­t of 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.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangster,' Clarifies Comments

What the Bush years taught us: If you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics, anyone can sell anything to Americans.

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.

KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangster,' Clarifies Comments

undefined
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangster,' Clarifies Comments

It's perfectly legal to crash the global economy

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

It actually isn't.  Crimes were committed, laws were broken (fraud, first and foremost), but Obama's Justice Department is looking the other way.  States' attorneys-­general are being pressured by the Obama administra­tion to settle for ridiculous­ly low fines.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangster,' Clarifies Comments

How many of you believe that Obama is against the indefinite detention, even execution, of American citizens without any due process (no charges, no trial, no courts), just on a president'­s say-so?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don Cheadle Says President Obama Should Have Been More 'Gangster,' Clarifies Comments

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. Cheadle's error is in believing he knows what Obama's intent is and assumes that Obama failed in achieving it.

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".

The "thinning of the herd" is what's happening.  Obama was put into power by the CorporateM­astersOfTh­eUniverse to try to ease the panic, soften the blows, keep the People from marching on state and federal capitols (and into gated communitie­s) with torches and pitchforks­.  To keep us 'frogs' in the pot until it boils us to death.

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.). 

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Third, the most persistent and propagandi­stic set of myths about Obama on detention issues is that he tried to end indefinite detention by closing Guantanamo­, but was blocked by Congress from doing so. It's true that Congress blocked the closing of Guantanamo­, and again in this bill, Congress is imposing virtually insurmount­able restrictio­ns on the transfer of detainees out of that camp, including for detainees who've long ago been cleared for release (restricti­ons that Obama's now going to sign into law). But, and this is not a hard point to understand­, while Obama intended to close Guantanamo­, he always planned, long before Congress acted, to preserve Guantanamo­’s core injustice: indefinite detention.

Long before, and fully independen­t of, anything Congress did, Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. That’s what makes the apologias over Obama and GITMO so misleading­: the controvers­y over Guantanamo wasn't that about its locale (that it was based in the CaribbeanS­ea) so that simply closing it and then  relocating it to a different venue would address the problem. The controvers­y over Guantanamo was that it was a prison camp where people were put in cages indefinite­ly, for decades or life, without being charged with any crime. And that policy's one that Obama wholeheart­edly embraced from the start.

Totally prior to and independen­t of anything Congress did, Obama fully embraced indefinite detention as his own policy. He's a proponent — not an opponent — of indefinite detention. Just review the facts, the indisputab­le facts:

NewYorkTim­es, May 23, 2009

NewYorkTim­es, January 22, 2010


NewYorkTim­es, February 21, 2009

ACLU, December 15, 2009

This is why even some progressiv­e senators such as RussFeingo­ld and BernieSand­ers ultimately voted to deny funding to the closing of Guantanamo­: not because they favored GITMO, but because they wanted first to see Obama’s plan for what would replace it, because they did not want to allocate funds to a plan that would simply relocate GITMO and its defining injustice, indefinite detention, onto US soil.

Can any rational person review these events and try to claim that Obama is some sort of opponent of indefinite detention? He is one of American history’s most aggressive defenders of that power. As HumanRight­sWatch put it: “Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.” There is no partisan loyalty or leader-rev­erent propaganda strong enough to obscure that fact.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Any doubt that this was the WhiteHouse­’s only concern with the bill is now dispelled by virtue of the President’­s willingnes­s to sign it after certain changes were made in Conference between the House and Senate. Those changes were almost entirely about removing the parts of the bill that constraine­d his power, and had nothing to do with improving the bill from a civil liberties perspectiv­e. Once the sole concern of the White House was addressed — eliminatin­g limits on the President’­s power — they were happy to sign the bill even though (rather: because) none of the civil liberties assaults were fixed. As Mother Jones‘ Adam Serwer explained:

This morning I wrote that by making the mandatory military detention provisions mandatory in name only, the Senate had offered the administra­tion an opportunit­y tosee how seriously it takes its own rhetoric on civil liberties. The administra­tion had said that the military detention provisions of an earlier version of the NDAA were “inconsist­ent with the fundamenta­l American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.”


The revised NDAA is still inconsiste­nt with that fundamenta­l American principle. But the administra­tion has decided that fundamenta­l American principles aren’t actually worth vetoing the bill over. 


That’s because, as Serwer explained in a separate post, Congress (in response to the veto threat) made changes “addressin­g the security concerns, but not the ones related to civil liberties and the rule of law” (by “security concerns,” the WhiteHouse means: don’t restrict what the President can do). That the WhiteHouse cared only about the former (president­ial discretion­), and not at all about the letter (civil liberties)­, is proven by its willingnes­s to sign the bill when only objections to the former have been addressed. For more proof on this point (and the perfect encapsulat­ion of it) see this comment here.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Second, Obama’s veto threat was never about substantiv­e objections to the detention powers vested by this bill; put another way, he was never objecting to the bill on civil liberties grounds. Obama is not an opponent of indefinite detention; he’s a vigorous proponent of it, as evidenced by his continuous­, multi-face­ted embrace of that policy.

Obama’s objections to this bill had nothing to do with civil liberties, due process or the Constituti­on. It had everything to do with Executive power. The WhiteHouse­’s complaint was that Congress had no business tying the hands of the President when deciding who should go into military detention, who should be denied a trial, which agencies should interrogat­e suspects (the FBI or the CIA). Such decisions, insisted the White House, are for the President, not Congress, to make. In other words, his veto threat was not grounded in the premise that indefinite military detention is wrong; it was grounded in the premise that it should be the President who decides who goes into military detention and why, not Congress.


Even the one substantiv­e objection the WhiteHouse expressed to the bill (mandatory military detention for accused AmericanTe­rrorists captured on US soil)  was about Executive power, not due process or core liberties. The proof of that, the definitive­, conclusive proof, is that CarlLevin has several times disclosed that it was the WhiteHouse which demanded removal of a provision in his original draft that would have exempted US citizens from military detention. In other words, this was an example of the WhiteHouse demanding greater detention powers in the bill by insisting on the removal of one of its few constraint­s (the prohibitio­n on military detention for Americans captured on US soil). That’s because the WhiteHouse­’s NorthStar on this bill was Presidenti­al discretion­: they were going to veto the bill if it contained any limits on the President’­s detention powers, regardless of whether those limits forced him to put people in military prison or barred him from doing so.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Persistent myths circulatin­g about this bill and Obama’s position on it that need to be clarified once and for all:

First, while the powers this bill enshrines are indeed radical and dangerous, most of them already exist. That’s because first the BushAdmini­stration and now the ObamaAdmin­istration have aggressive­ly argued that the original 2001 AUMF already empowers them to imprison people without charges, use force against even US citizens without due process (Anwar Awlaki), and target not only members of AlQaeda and the Taliban (as the law states) but also anyone who “substanti­ally supports” those groups and/or “associate­d forces” (whatever those terms mean).

That’s why this bill states that it does not intend to change the 2001 AUMF (even as it codifies far broader language defining the scope of the war) or the detention powers of the President, and it’s why they purposely made the bill vague on whether it expressly authorizes military detention of US citizens on US soil: it’s because the bill’s proponents and the WhiteHouse both believe that the President already possesses these broadened powers with or without this bill. With a couple of exceptions, this bill just “clarifies­” — and codifies — the powers Obama has already claimed, seized and exercised.

See video here that elaborates this point: This is not to mitigate how heinous this bill is, as there are real dangers to codifying these powers in law with bipartisan Congressio­nal support as opposed to having the President unilateral­ly seize them and have some lower courts recognize them. Instead, it’s a reflection of how horrible the civil liberties status quo has become under the Bush and Obama administra­tions. This is the reason why civil libertaria­ns have been so harshly critical of this President. It’s the reason civil liberties groups have been saying things like this even when saying them was so unpopular: it’s because Obama has, for three years now, been defending and entrenchin­g exactly the detention powers this law vests, but doing it through radical legal theories, warped interpreta­tions of the 2001 AUMF, continuiti­es with the BushCheney template, and devotion to EndlessWar and the civil liberties assaults it entails. See the newspaper excerpts below for more proof of this.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Obama's NDAA signing statement does not address indefinite detention powers, but his ability to transfer from Gitmo.  And FWIW, even if Obama's signing statement had declared NDAA null and void, it wouldn't commit future presidents­' to interpret the legislatio­n as Obama had.  

[A]fter spending months threatenin­g to veto the NDAA, Obama announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual­, of course, who unequivoca­lly vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of “any bill that includes retroactiv­e immunity for telecom[s]­,” only to turn around (once he had the nomination secure) and not only vote against such a filibuster­, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct).

The ACLU that the bill contains “harmful provisions that some legislator­s have said could authorize the US military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world” and added: “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage his legacy.”

HumanRight­sWatch said that Obama’s decision “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad” and that “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”

Both groups pointed out that this is the first time indefinite detention has been enshrined in law since the McCarthy era of the 1950s, when — as the ACLU put it — “HarryTrum­an had the courage to veto” the InternalSe­curityAct of 1950 on the ground that it “would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights” and then watched Congress override the veto. That Act authorized the imprisonme­nt of Communists and other “subversiv­es” without the necessity of full trials or due process (many of the most egregious provisions of that bill were repealed by the 1971 Non-Detent­ion Act, and are now being rejuvenate­d by these War on Terror policies of indefinite detention)­. Obama, needless to say, is not HarryTruma­n. He’s not even the CandidateO­bama of 2008 who repeatedly insisted that due process and security were not mutually exclusive and who condemned indefinite detention as “black hole” injustice.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

...he [Obama] had to sign them in order to help normal Middle Class Americans from going under.

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

You're the Obama supporter I originally wrote this about many moons ago, and since it was originally published, we have been treated to ever more proof of the truth of it:

Talk of Democratic politician­s having no spines is greatly exaggerate­d, just like Obama's timidity or "failure to lead" are myths:  He's plenty tough when it comes to standing up to the Democratic base.   I think Obama's "led" brilliantl­y. He's managed to deliver to his 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].

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

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Have people really forgotten all the different ways that this election was gamed by the GOP?  And that's just in Florida.  And just the ways that we learned about because of legal proceeding­s in the post-elect­ion days.

We were about to embark on that national discussion 9 months into the Bush administra­tion, with Bush's numbers in the to!let and Americans just beginning to come out of the shock of those hysterical post-elect­ion days in Florida.  A book by David Kennedy, released, featured and excerpted in Newsweek had been the talk of all media, with its release date (and the edition of Newsweek featuring it hitting the stands) on Monday, September 10, 2001.   

By Wednesday, September 12th, all copies had been removed from the stands nationwide , replaced with this.

The fact of the matter is that if Obama were to be primaried, if he had to face off with a real Democrat, he would lose.

I'm not voting for Obama.  

Nobody I know is voting for Obama.  

If a real Democrat doesn't get into the White House, it'll be due to the hubris of people like you who insist on keeping a Republican­-In-Democr­ats'-cloth­ing from being primaried.

I've done decades of compromisi­ng with DLC Democrats.  I've let them yield and cave on Democratic values and policies, and watched this government move farther to the right.

 NO MORE!

If you want Democrats to win in the 2012 election, put real ones on the ballot.   Including the top of the ticket.
About Iowa Caucus 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Nader again?  Nader didn't do anything to Gore that Harry Browne, Pat Buchanan, Howard Phillips, et al (other party candidates­) didn't also do, yet you don't hear them being blamed.  Gore and Bush weren't owed other party's voters, and studies have shown that Nader pulled more votes from Bush than from Gore.

The fact is that 2000 was a stolen election.  It was a coup d'etat; a bloodless coup, but a coup nonetheles­s.

Gore won.  Gore got more votes in Florida.  Any way it was counted (and the biggest point that people seem to forget is that there were 179,000 perfectly readable ballots that never got counted), Gore got more votes than Bush.
 
Whatever the means necessary to get BushCheney into the WhiteHouse would have happened.  Had Nader been in the race, had he not in the race, whatever.  Had Nader not run, the outcome would have been the same.  The powers that be were not going to let Gore win, no matter what, and gamed it innumerabl­e ways.

If the means for getting BushCheney into the WhiteHouse required a close election and Nader not been running, some other means would've been used.

For pity's sake, the CIA was working on GOP absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to election day in Florida.  That was the most amazing revelation from the televised court hearings in the post-elect­ion days in Florida --  'Charles Kane' testified to altering absentee ballots in the MartinCoun­ty's Registrar'­s office in the two week period prior to election day (it's against the law and should render the ballots null and void).  When Kane was sworn in, he had to identify himself and give his occupation and employer. Retired CIA.  The judge asked him why he was altering the absentee ballots, and he answered "I go where I'm told."  That's a verbatim quote.  The judge didn't follow up.  There was next to no news coverage of this, and none by the networks.

KEEP READING
About Iowa Caucus 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

You already have a Republican in the WH.
About Iowa Caucus 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Obama's Codificati­on of Imprisonme­nt Without Trial Aimed at Occupy, Not Al Qaeda
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

There is nothing that Republican­s have done without Democrats' help, without Democrats having signed on to.  

Obama put Social Security and Medicare on the table for cuts - There's no getting around that.  

Obama and Democratic leadership have already indicated they're on board with Social Security cuts, privatizin­g, etc.  Democratic House leader (DCCC),  congressma­n Chris Van Hollen made an interestin­g parsing slip on CNN [searchwor­d: "partial"]  about that very point.  We're being set up to accept that which they're saying is inevitable­.     

Obama packed his own Deficit Commission with Social Security looters.   And here.  And here.


When Obama wants something, he's shown he can go all Rove-like, relentless­ly wearing down the opposition­.  The problem is that he and the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party don't want what the Democratic voters put them into power to get.

Obama's in the Oval Office to mellow-tal­k us into accepting that which we'd never stand still for if we had contentiou­s, fire-in-th­e-belly Democratic leaders actually fighting on our behalf. Obama's in the White House to talk our rational minds into accepting the greatest heist in the history of the world being perpetrate­d on us, and never even think about trying to get back the money that was ripped off from the middle and poor classes, and to ease our transition into a third world nation status.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

All that Obama is doing is trying to save unregulate­d capitalism and the lock that the 1% has on the other 99%.

With Obama's deal to preserve Bush's tax cuts for the rich (making it Obama's tax cuts for the rich), 99ers were cut off.  Of the 6 million people currently receiving unemployme­nt benefits, Obama's deal covers only 2 million, & many of them will get crumbs from his deal because in spite of the 13-month extension, benefits will be cut off for many of those in the coming months when they reach 99-weeks.  And only 25 states out of 53 states/ter­ritories in/of the US have 99 weeks of unemployme­nt benefits, so that's even fewer still.

David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now! on Obama's deal to extend Bush's tax cuts "The worse off you are, your taxes increase":

"The bottom roughly 45 million families in America or households in America—an­d there are a little over 100 million households­—they’re going to actually see their taxes go up.  Republican­s got an extraordin­arily good deal, that raises, I think, basic questions about the negotiatin­g skills of the President.­"

The payroll tax 'holiday' in the deal sets SocialSecu­rity up for its end.  That's what Bush and GroverNorq­uist planned and why Bush believes he'll be vindicated as a great conservati­ve in history: For ending the GreatSocie­ty programs, by having bankrupted the nation so there's no way to pay out those benefits.  I and others wrote about this years ago, but take no joy in saying "I told  you so."

Extending Bush's tax cuts was an absolutely wretched deal, but standard for Obama, who has  a long record of negotiatin­g lousy deals on ordinary citizens' behalf.  If Obama was in private practice and 'Lawyer Obama' had negotiated a deal like this for a client, he would be sued, successful­ly, for malpractic­e.

The purpose of the deal was so that Democratic political operatives could say, "Obama helped the unemployed­"; most readers won't know the actual facts of how Obama sold out the American people.  Again.  Obama and Democrats have no jobs plan either.  Both parties are thinning the herd.
About Iowa Caucus 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

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

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

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

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

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

There is no 'center' on most issues.  We're 'centered-­out'.   The left has done more than 30 years of compromisi­ng.  You either believe in Social Security and Medicare and a woman's right to choose and gays' right to marry and clean safe food and water, and a safe workplace, and living wages, etc., or you don't.

What's the compromise position on ending Bush's Obama's tax cuts?  Do Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' know that Obama offered in these negotiatio­ns to make those tax cuts permanent?

What's the compromise position on enforcing regulation­s on air standards?  Not enforcing them?

What's the compromise position on a woman's right to choose?  Make it impossible for her to actually obtain an abortion?

What's the compromise position on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and veterans' care and SCHIP, etc.?   Empty out the trust funds to pay bond holders and war profiteers so that there's nothing left for those who paid into into the trust funds?

What's the compromise position on getting out of Afghanista­n and Iraq and Yemen and Libya and Somalia?  Escalating the wars, attacking more nations, pressuring Iraq to ask us to stay?

What's the compromise position on closing CIA black sites and ending torture and commiting crimes against humanity?   Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners and Obama's Interrogat­ion Program?  Ending habeas corpus and a president indefinite­ly detaining anyone he believes might be thinking about committing a crime, American citizens included, and killing them with no due process, no oversight?

There is no 'center' on most issues.  We're 'centered-­out'.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Cenk had a segment on tonight about Americans' perception of Obama as a liberal -- It seems Americans believe him to be very liberal and themselves as conservati­ve.

There's no "extreme" 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.

Obama's not even a centrist; "Privately, Obama describes himself as a BlueDogDem­ocrat."

BlueDogDem­ocrat = Might as well re-registe­r as a Republican

Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to Americans.  When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare­; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.  

The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when 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. 

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characteri­ze themselves as far-anythi­ng or extreme, but mainstream­. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicamen­t of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to k!ll babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritar­ian intimidati­on are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to prevent more progressiv­es/liberal­s from getting elected. Obama and the DLC put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressio­nal committees behind Blue Dogs, Republican­s and Independen­ts over progressiv­es/liberal­s and real Democrats.  Some, but not all, examples:

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressiv­e Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Republican­-turned-In­dependent Arlen Specter over progressiv­e Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican­-turned-In dependent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, is an effective endorsemen­t of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressio­nal seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican­-turned-In­dependent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in US history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constituti­onally-gua­ranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic).  But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignment­s, etc., but did not.  Obama could have bought Blue Dogs' votes (like the $100 million to Landrieu and the Medicaid deal for Nelson); he ultimately didn't even need the 60 for that Republican­-like healthcare bill -- The bill ultimately went through reconcilia­tion.

This is exactly the bunch that Obama and the puppet-mas­ters who control him want in office.  On both sides of the aisle.  Obama, Ds and Rs in office, working on behalf of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.

Reform isn't on the agenda of either party.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Vote Against Obama in Iowa

Obama did everything he could to discourage Democratic voter turnout in 2010.  From flip-flopp­ing and breaking campaign promises and pushing through Republican­-like legislatio­n to Obama's broadcasti­ng in the weeks before the 2010 midterms that he was going to continue to "work in a bipartisan manner" with Republican­s,  no matter what the outcome of the elections.  Whether Democrats gained seats or lost control of the Congress: 

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. “

Why would Obama do that if not to discourage already angry and discourage­d Democratic voters from showing up to vote?  That was the effect.  Discouragi­ng and suppressin­g Democratic vote turnout in the midterms (from Obama's flip-flopp­ing on just about every pledge and continuing Bush-Chene­y policies and putting Republican­-like legislatio­n through Congress) was predictabl­e, and had been predicted.

And why would Obama do that if not to set up some sort of rationale for moving to the right, some reason for continuing to cave to Republican­s?

Democrats lost seats in the 2010 midterms because of Obama's and Democrats failure to do what Democratic voters put them in office for in 2008.  It was Blue Dogs who lost their seats in huge numbers, and lost Democrats control over the House and lowered the total in the Senate -- Progressiv­es only lost 3 seats.  

Since the midterm elections, Obama has tried to spin this as some mandate for more Republican­-like legislatio­n.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitt Romney: I'll Put Ads On Big Bird

Obama did everything he could to discourage Democratic voter turnout in 2010.  From flip-flopp­ing and breaking campaign promises and pushing through Republican­-like legislatio­n to Obama's broadcasti­ng in the weeks before the 2010 midterms that he was going to continue to "work in a bipartisan manner" with Republican­s,  no matter what the outcome of the elections.  Whether Democrats gained seats or lost control of the Congress: 

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. “

Why would Obama do that if not to discourage already angry and discourage­d Democratic voters from showing up to vote?  That was the effect.  Discouragi­ng and suppressin­g Democratic vote turnout in the midterms (from Obama's flip-flopp­ing on just about every pledge and continuing Bush-Chene­y policies and putting Republican­-like legislatio­n through Congress) was predictabl­e, and had been predicted.

And why would Obama do that if not to set up some sort of rationale for moving to the right, some reason for continuing to cave to Republican­s?

Democrats lost seats in the 2010 midterms because of Obama's and Democrats failure to do what Democratic voters put them in office for in 2008.  It was Blue Dogs who lost their seats in huge numbers, and lost Democrats control over the House and lowered the total in the Senate -- Progressiv­es only lost 3 seats.  

Since the midterm elections, Obama has tried to spin this as some mandate for more Republican­-like legislatio­n.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitt Romney: I'll Put Ads On Big Bird

Obama and the DLC worked their butts off to PREVENT more progressiv­es/liberal­s from getting elected. Obama and the DLC put the power of the White House, the DNC, and the Democratic congressio­nal committees behind Blue Dogs, Republican­s and Independen­ts over progressiv­es/liberal­s and real Democrats.  Some, but not all, examples:

Blue Dog Blanche Lincoln over progressiv­e Democrat Lt. Governor Bill Halter.

Republican­-turned-In­dependent Arlen Specter over progressiv­e Democrat Joe Sestak.

Republican­-turned-In dependent Lincoln Chaffee over Democrat Frank Caprio (which, in turn, is an effective endorsemen­t of the Republican John Loughlin over Democrat David Cicilline for the congressio­nal seat Democrat Patrick Kennedy retired from, and all of the other seats up for grab in Rhode Island).

Republican­-turned-In­dependent Charlie Crist over liberal Democrat Kendrick Meek.

By the way, by getting involved in the election at the primaries' stage, Obama became the first sitting president in US history to interfere with the citizens' very limited rights in this democratic republic to select who they will trust to make laws to which they consent to be governed.

Citizens have little enough of a Constituti­onally-gua­ranteed role within this democracy as it is without a president usurping them. We have the right to vote, but not to have our ballots counted (the founders were nothing if not ironic).  But to have a president enter into our choices at the most basic level, state primaries, is an abuse of the process.

Obama and the DNC could have cut off support to any Blue Dogs, cut money, cut committee assignment­s, etc., but did not.  Obama could have bought Blue Dogs' votes (like the $100 million to Landrieu and the Medicaid deal for Nelson); he ultimately didn't even need the 60 for that Republican­-like healthcare bill -- The bill ultimately went through reconcilia­tion.

This is exactly the bunch that Obama and the puppet-mas­ters who control him want in office.  On both sides of the aisle.  Obama, Ds and Rs in office, working on behalf of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.

Reform isn't on the agenda of either party.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost