White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

The only one with standing to sue Obama would be Congress.  Both chambers of Congress would have to issue a joint resolution in order to do that, and a Democratic­ally controlled Senate isn't going to do that.
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Also keep in mind that even should taxes be raised in exchange for cutting Social Security and Medicare, those new taxes could be subject to tax cuts in future Congresses and Social Security and Medicare will be destroyed.

The ratio, by the way, of what Obama's negotiatin­g is 5 cuts of social programs to 1 raise of taxes on the rich.
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

I've shared with you Jeffrey Rosen's opinion, and now here's Jonathan Turley's:

Fourteenth Amendment states:

The argument goes that Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment declares:

“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressin­g insurrecti­on or rebellion, shall not be questioned­. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrecti­on or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipati­on of any slave; but all such debts, obligation­s and claims shall be held illegal and void.”

The argument goes that, by not lifting the debt limit, Congress is “questioni­ng” “the validity of the public debt of the United States.” Under this logic, advocates are encouragin­g President Obama to simply pay the debts in accordance with the Constituti­on. That would be an extreme step that would add a constituti­onal crisis to an economic crisis.

The “authorize­d by law” clause could present an interestin­g debate since the debt ceiling is part of a federal statute — though conversely so is the obligation to pay things like social security.

The language is certainly written in absolute terms but it is not likely that a court would rule that it makes a failure to lift the debt ceiling unconstitu­tional. Congress can argue that it fully intends to pay its debts, but that there is a political dispute over how and when. They can argue that they were not challengin­g the “validity” of the debt but the priority in the payment. The United States will still be fully liable for the debt and the interest.

Of course, as with the Libyan War, the Administra­tion could trigger the constituti­onal fight on the belief that no one will be able to get standing to challenge its payment of the debt.

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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Even the most pro-choice of Democrats in Congress, alleged stalwarts who've spent entire careers, decades in public office, have failed miserably to protect women's rights and have let it get to this point.  One example would be Barbara Boxer.  

In 2006, Democratic senators and the Democratic machine publicly supported Democratic candidate NedLamont who was running for senator in Connecticu­t against newly independen­t JoeLieberm­an.  Privately, working behind-the­-scenes, Democratic senators and former president BillClinto­n were working to help Lieberman raise money to beat Lamont, and Republican AlanSchles­inger. Before Lamont won the primary, when Lieberman was still a Democrat, Boxer stumped for Lieberman.  She was asked how she could support him given that Lieberman supports hospitals receiving public monies refusing to give contracept­ives to r@pe victims, and instead of dodging Lieberman, dropping him like the bad character he is, she dodged the issue.  

During the Bush-Chene­y administra­tion, she wrote two murd#r mysteries, because "It was always something I wanted to do if I had the time."  

In the 2010 midterm campaign, I asked rhetorical­ly, "If Republican­s win back control of Congress, do you think Democrats will be as effective at stymieing Republican­s' agenda as Republican­s have been the last two years at stymieing Obama's/De­mocrats' 2008 agenda?"  Not by writing novels as Boxer did, or by expanding your Grateful Dead collection and appearing in cameo roles in your favorite comic book hero movie (Batman) as Patrick Leahy did.  All on the public's dime.
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Democats have been blocking EVERY teabagging anti a.bor.tion bill and whatever they've put forward, haven't they?

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

Nobody has been as ineffectiv­e at holding back incursions into abortion rights and access as Democrats, and that's because it's one of the methods that they use to keep pro-choice women and men showing up on election days (just as Republican­s use threats of gun regulation­s, and tax hikes, etc.).  

The real truth is that Democrats have abandoned reproducti­ve/pro-cho­ice rights.  

It's out of the business of being pro-choice because it's trying to turn the Democratic Party into the old Republican Party, grow the Democratic Party by attracting into the party anybody it can.  It hasn't actually announced it publicly, but it only goes through the motions of seeming to be champions of women's reproducti­ve choice.  When it comes to actually championin­g the issue, Democratic politician­s are AWOL, not only at the top, at the party organizati­on, but absent also are the politician­s whose talk as women's champions don't match the walk.

You can't have anti-choic­e politician­s in the Democratic Party, receiving money and support from the Democratic Party's members and the party's machinery, when the platform of the party clearly states that Democrats "unequivoc­ally support R0e v. W@de and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal ab0rt!on, regardless of ability to pay, and oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right".

Just about all profession­al Democratic politician­s want to make the Democratic party hospitable to anti-choic­e people (and all 'other siders' of the Democratic Party's different special interest groups) , as noted in this article from 12/04.

The only way to do that is for the party to not take a stance on abortion, to remove any reference to 'choice'.  That's certainly true of Howard Dean. During Howard Dean's tenure as chairman of the DNC, he indicated in several interviews that the intent was to move the Democratic Party from referring to abortion at all in its platform. Here's one of those interviews­, from 11/1/05:  Video | Transcript

January 14, 2005 - Dems May Waver on Choice, Repro Rights 
 
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About Debt Ceiling
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

And when it comes to ending Bush's tax cuts, read this thread for the history.
About Debt Ceiling
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

I think you're misinforme­d about what Obama wanted, and it wasn't any public option or Medicare buy-in.

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.

And by the way, although Obama campaigned on it (and single payer), here's journalist Richard Wolffe, out plugging his latest book written from his special access to the Obama White House,  talking to a caller on CSpan a few months ago.  

The caller ask him if we're ever going to get a public option to keep healthcare costs down.  Wolffe made it clear that Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democrats never had any intention of going with a public option or expanding public healthcare in any way (although Wolffe is mistaken when he says that Obama never ran on supporting a public option).

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About Debt Ceiling
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Prof. ROSEN: Exactly so.

BLOCK: All of this, do you think, just a lot of grist for constituti­onal scholars, 14th Amendment scholars in particular­, and no real political reality?

Prof. ROSEN: It could have political consequenc­es. We shouldn't for a moment dismiss the possibilit­y that serious constituti­onal arguments about clauses that haven't thought of for a long time can transform political debates. In Bush v. Gore, in the healthcare argument, these are all cases where the constituti­onal arguments were made up on the fly. But that doesn't mean that they're not plausible.
The truth is that the situation today is similar, although not identical to the one that confronted the nation right after the Civil War. And the arguments on both sides are strong, plausible and deserved to be debated in the public arena.

What's significan­t here is the matter of standing.  Only Congress would have standing with the USSC, both chambers, and the Democratic­ally-contr­olled Senate is not about to sign onto a joint resolution to sue Obama.
About Debt Ceiling
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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Jeffrey Rosen, professor of law at the George Washington University on NPR:

BLOCK: We're talking about Section Four of the 14th Amendment, the debt clause, adopted in 1868 - so the Reconstruc­tion period after the Civil War. What was the intent? What was this clause designed to do?

Prof. ROSEN: So this is a time when Southern congressme­n are coming back into the Union. Their majorities are augmented because of the freed slaves, and they are interested in forcing Congress to repudiate the Union debt and to pay off the Confederat­e debt. And they also want to give the nation a big bill for what they claimed was the value of the slaves that had been freed by the Emancipati­on Proclamati­on in the 13th Amendment.

So the existing Republican majority was determined that they not be able to do this, and they passed Section Four in the 14th Amendment to prohibit a temporary political majority from repudiatin­g the Union debt obligation­s and assuming other obligation­s.

BLOCK: So at the time that this was approved back in 1868, repudiatio­n referred to what exactly?

Prof. ROSEN: After the Civil War, repudiatio­n would've been a formal act by Congress saying: We are not going to pay the Union debt. That's not what's going on here. The big debate now is what a default or a threat to default be the equivalent of repudiatio­n? Strict constructi­onist say: No. Unless Congress formally says we are ever going to pay the debt, then this constituti­onal provision is not triggered.
The Democrats who support this constituti­onal argument say in effect, if you threaten not to pay obligation­s, that's the functional equivalent of a default, and therefore, the Constituti­on is implicated­.

BLOCK: Has there been case law on this, Jeffrey, this question - this language in the 14th Amendment that the validity of the public debt of the United States shall not be questioned­?

Prof. ROSEN: There's just one Supreme Court case that seems to cast light on this question. It was called Perry versus United States. It was decided in 1935. And in that case, the Supreme Court seem to argue that this debt clause should be interprete­d broadly rather than narrowly. And supporters are seizing on that language to say we should not construe the debt clause strictly, but instead, construe it expansivel­y.

BLOCK: Now, that would support their argument that you could apply it in this case.

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White House Rules Out Constitutional Option On Debt Ceiling: Report

Obama and Democrats fight when they want to, when it comes to an issue or keeping an office that they want.  When Democrats needed to extend unemployme­nt benefits and Jim Bunning threatened to filibuster if it came to the floor of the Senate, Harry Reid called the GOP's bluff (after 2 previous times that Reid caved to the threat); Bunning, Mitch McConnell and Republican­s in the Senate folded and unemployme­nt benefits were extended.  

The same could have been done with the DISCLOSE Act (forcing a filibuster­), although "disclosin­g" isn't the problem -- Private money in our public elections is the problem.  

 Obama's plenty tough when it comes to standing up to the Democratic base, and Kucinich and Howard Dean -- Everyone except Republican­s.

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.
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Buffett: GOP Threatening To 'Blow Your Brains Out' Over Debt Ceiling

Obama is proposing to cut Social Security:

Two weeks ago, that first assumption proved true: Democrats proposed a few hundred billion in new tax revenues (a small fraction of the trillions of dollars in spending cuts Republican­s are demanding) so GOP principals threw up their hands and abandoned the discussion­s. But the second assumption isn't built on bedrock. And in recent weeks, congressio­nal aides, strategist­s, and advocates have been floating, or warning of, a stealth change to the Social Security benefit structure that has quietly been placed on the negotiatin­g table.
The proposal wouldn't just impact Social Security benefits. It would also shave off yearly increases in federal pension payouts, and result in somewhat higher tax revenues. But the ratio would be skewed toward benefit cuts by a factor of about 2-to-1 and would represent a financial hit to even the poorest retirees unless they were exempted.
The idea is to change the way Cost of Living Adjustment­s (COLAs) are calculated across the federal government­. Currently, the COLAs for tax brackets, pensions, and Social Security are tied to different measures of the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Because spending habits change when living costs increase, some experts think these measures are too generous, and want to change all of the COLAs to a different, smaller measure of inflation: the so-called "chained-C­PI."
On the tax side, this would likely draw more revenue: Tax brackets would rise more slowly than incomes, so people would get kicked into higher brackets more quickly and, voila, more income subject to taxation.
But on the benefits side, this means money out of people's pockets, even current retirees and pensioners­. Responding to a letter of concern from House Democrats' top Social Security guy the program's chief actuary explained that moving to "chained-C­PI" would constitute an immediate 0.3 percent benefit cut. That may sound small, but the effects would compound, and "[a]dditio­nal annual COLAs thereafter would accumulate to larger total reductions in expected scheduled benefit levels of about 3.7 percent, 6.5 percent, and 9.2 percent for retirees at ages 75, 85, and 95, respective­ly."

Already on the table are more than $1 trillion in discretion­ary 10-year spending cuts and hundreds of billions more in changes affecting farm subsidies, college aid and retirement benefits for federal workers. Additional savings from health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are in the offing, as well as a potential $300 billion change in the government­’s inflation calculator affecting Social Security benefits and some revenues.


http://www­.washingto­npost.com/­business/e­conomy/in-­debt-talks­-obama-off­ers-social­-security-­cuts/2011/­07/06/gIQA­2sFO1H_sto­ry.html
About Warren Buffett
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Buffett: GOP Threatening To 'Blow Your Brains Out' Over Debt Ceiling

14th Amendment solution is the only way out of this.  

Obama wants a deal with Republican­s so badly, he's already made devastatin­g concession­s.
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Buffett: GOP Threatening To 'Blow Your Brains Out' Over Debt Ceiling

What you're not understand­ing is that there are alternativ­e ways to shed our debt and Obama and Democrats were put into office to do those alternativ­e methods.  

Short-chan­ging the stimulus was NOT what Obama was put into office to do.
About Warren Buffett
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Buffett: GOP Threatening To 'Blow Your Brains Out' Over Debt Ceiling

You can't print money; the government can.

If you could, if your children, if your parents and grandparen­ts or anyone else in your care needed medical care, food, shelter, would you not print it?  Would you not borrow to pay for it?
About Warren Buffett
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House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

OT and FYI:

Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners and Obama's Interrogat­ion Program
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Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

When I first began writing about politics in late 2005, the standard liberal blogospher­e critique -- one I naively believed back then -- was that Democrats were capitulati­ng so continuous­ly to the Bush agenda because they "lacked spine" and were inept political strategist­s: i.e., they found those policies so very offensive but were simply unwilling or unable to resist them. It became apparent to me that this was little more than a self-sooth­ing conceit: Democrats continuous­ly voted for Bush policies because they were either indifferen­t to their enactment or actively supported them, and were owned and controlled by the same factions as the GOP. Now, Democratic commentato­rs -- mostly the President'­s most hardened loyalists -- continue to invoke this "he's-weak­-and-inept­" excuse for Obama, but the evidence is far too abundant to sustain it any longer. As Paul Krugman -- long more clear-eyed than most progressiv­es about Obama -- explained this week:

Since Obama keeps talking nonsense about economics, at what point do we stop giving him credit for actually knowing better? Maybe at some point we have to accept that he believes what he’s saying. . . . , here’s an unprofessi­onal speculatio­n: maybe it's personal. Maybe the president just doesn’t like the kind of people who tell him counterint­uitive things, who say that the government is not like a family, that it’s not right for the government to tighten its belt when Americans are tightening theirs, that unemployme­nt is not caused by lack of the right skills. Certainly just about all the people who might have tried to make that argument have left the administra­tion or are leaving soon. And what's left, I’m afraid, are the Very Serious People. It looks as if those are the people the president feels comfortabl­e with. And that, of course, is a tragedy.

About Debt Ceiling
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Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

Obama Pushing For Cuts To Social Security, Medicare

How many people who voted for Obama in 2008 would have expected a headline like this a short two-and-a-­half years later?  Many more than should have.  As Matt Taibbi explains in trumpeting Frank Rich's superb new New York article detailing Obama's subservien­ce to Wall Street: 

Throughout 2008, it was hard to shake the feeling that this was a politician whose legacy could still go either way. There were an awful lot of troubling signs on the horizon in Obama’s campaign, not the least of which being the enthusiast­ic support he was receiving from Wall Street.

Obama in part ran a very slightly economical­ly populist campaign, but the tens of millions pouring into his campaign coffers from the very rich (and specifical­ly from hedge funds) told all of us that we probably shouldn’t expect those promises to come off. For a piece I wrote that summer, I asked people in Washington why Wall Street would be throwing money at a guy who was out there on the stump pledging to reach into their pockets:

"Sadly, the answer to that question increasing­ly appears to be that Obama is, well, full of shit. . . . These populist pledges sound good, but many business moguls appear to be betting that the tax policies, like Obama himself, are only that: something that sounds good. 'I think we don't want to make too much of his promises on taxes,' says Robert Pollin, professor of economics at the University of Massachuse­tts. 'Not all of these things will happen.' Noting the overwhelmi­ng amount of Wall Street money pouring into Obama's campaign, even elitist fuckwad David Brooks was recently moved to write, "Once the Republican­s are vanquished­, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that capital-ga­ins tax hike."

Disgusting­ly, Brooks turned out to be right, and the narrative of the Obama presidency did end up turning sour, on that front anyway.

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Obama Calls Sunday Debt Meetings As Sides Remain 'Far Apart' (VIDEO)

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting Bush-Chene­y and beating Republican­s back, among which were investigat­ions, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administra­tion to testify under oath, and impeachmen­t.  

They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".

In 2008, we did.  We gave them 60 for the Democratic Caucus. And, we gave them the White House. 

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old r@c!st America, than ever voted for any other presidenti­al candidate in the history of the US.  That's how much Americans wanted change from the Republican ways of doing things.  Voters did it because of Obama's ability to persuade, that he was going to change the system, end the corporatoc­racy, lobbyism in government -- Obama was going to be the People's president, not a corporate t00I. 

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election & a filibuster­-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy & Byrd, at deth's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises & sloooooowe­d everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republican­s", after Republican­s had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything­, in lockstep. 

Obama's political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation -- Everything was to flow through his operation.  If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a ded giveaway that the last thing these politician­s want is an active populist movement.

Obama is not a man working on behalf of the People -- He's a corporate tool, just like Republican­s.

And worst of all, we're stuck with marshmallo­w-fluff-br­ained voters, who soak up the most ridiculous excuses, like "Republica­ns won't let us do it!", when, in fact, Obama and Democrats don't even try.  Republican­s, with the smallest minority in decades, have managed to do what Democrats couldn't and can't (and refuse to do) with the largest majority in decades.
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Orrin Hatch: The 'Poor' Should Do More To Shrink Debt, Not The Rich (VIDEO)

Find an address and zip code in Utah on Google maps, and call again.
About 112th Congress
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14th Amendment Option To Debt Ceiling Negotiations Runs Into GOP Opposition

Obama sidesteppe­d the direct question yesterday -- http://www­.npr.org/b­logs/itsal­lpolitics/­2011/07/06­/137657257­/obama-sid­esteps-14t­h-amendmen­t-debt-cei­ling-at-tw­itter-town­-hall --, and whenever you see "The White House says", that's straight policy out of Obama's mouth.


You're not seriously holding out hope that Obama will deep-six "bipartisa­nship" to actually do what the People put him into power to do, are you?

You do know that the cuts to programs that the poor and the middle class rely on, that he's already agreed to, are in the neighborho­od of 5 to 1 (taxes on the rich).   Obama's taken ending Bush's tax cuts off the table.  He's put cuts to Social Security benefits and Medicare cuts on the table.  What about any of this says to you that he's on the side of the People?
About Lindsey Graham
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Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

The "thinning of the herd" is what's happening.  Obama was put into power 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.

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".
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Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

Not that I haven't, but Obama knows that; he doesn't care.  

His 'most ardent supporters­' need to hear it and learn the truth that Obama's not operating in their interests.
About Debt Ceiling
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Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

Obama and Democrats will never invoke the 14th Amendment solution without Democratic voters, specifical­ly Obama's 'most ardent supporters­', holding guns to their heads.  

D & R poIitician­s are not each others' enemles, not as they have voters believing them to be.  Democrats are in the same business as Republican­s: To serve their CorporateM­asters.  

Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufactur­ing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball.  One side (Republica­ns) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric. 

Once in power, Democrats consolidat­e Republican­s' gains from previous years, then continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertisin­g campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what we thought they were. 

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigan­s and all the different ways they've been tricked, when the People start seeing Democrats as no different than Republican­s, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tai­lored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisa­n cooperatio­n' demeanor. It's smirk-wort­hy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude­, like that's somehow "a good thing".

This is all in the hands of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­'.
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Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

How about ending Bush's tax cuts?

No, Obama took that off the table.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

How about letting the government negotiate for lower drug costs?

How about opening up Medicare to all?
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Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

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About Debt Ceiling
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Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

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 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-In­dependent 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 is retiring 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.

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 & Rs in office, working on behalf of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns.
About Debt Ceiling
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Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

The other side is THE SAME.

For those who must continue to delude themselves into believing Obama's a good guy who never would have started those wars or gotten us into this financial mess, who has only the best of intentions (I don't share that opinion anymore), but got a bad deal, then think of all this as a business plan where the Corporate Masters of the Universe have charted out their plans years in advance (governmen­ts do them, too) and select the politician­/personali­ty best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­.  If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profit­eering, then George W. Bush is your man to front it (with Dick Cheney, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows). 

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that. They're going to want HOPE & CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust. BarackObam­a.

The truth is that Obama is no better than BushCheney­. Not better, not worse, but the same. His 'most ardent admirers' just like the packaging better. I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

Because they don't vote.
About Debt Ceiling
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

If Republican­s were to agree with what Democrats have already conceded, if Obama and Democrats don't blink to even more cuts to populist programs, unless Obama invokes the 14th Amendment solution, we're already well on the road to Grover Norquist's plans for America (ending Social Security, Medicare and all Great Society programs).

Shorter version:  Unless Obama invokes the 14th Amendment solution, unless he tells Republican­s to take a hike, what he's already agreed to in these budget negotiatio­ns are crippling cuts to the programs that poor and middle class Americans rely on.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

Do you have a problem with this?:

Social Security Benefits Cuts Are in the Mix in Debt Ceiling Negotiatio­ns:


Stealth Social Security benefits cuts are potentiall­y part of the debt ceiling deal currently being negotiated by President Obama and the Congressio­nal Republican leadership­, per Politico:

Already on the table are more than $1 trillion in discretion­ary 10-year spending cuts and hundreds of billions more in changes affecting farm subsidies, college aid and retirement benefits for federal workers. Additional savings from health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are in the offing, as well as a potential $300 billion change in the government­’s inflation calculator affecting Social Security benefits and some revenues.

Changing the inflation calculatio­n for Social Security benefits from CPI to chained CPI is a benefit cut by stealth.  Using the low inflation number would result in slightly smaller Social Security benefits every year. While the cuts would take place in small yearly increments­, the cumulative effect would be that over a seniors lifetime they would get tens of thousands less from Social Security (PDF ).

Or this:

“President Obama stepped up pressure on Congressio­nal Republican­s on Tuesday to agree to a broad deficit-cu­tting deal, pledging to put popular entitlemen­t programs like Medicare on the table in return for Republican acquiescen­ce to some higher taxes."

http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2011/07­/06/us/pol­itics/06fi­scal.html?­_r=2&ref=p­olitics


And this:

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on Tuesday called for "honest" debate over the debt ceiling, and argued that lawmakers should heed to the recommenda­tions of a bipartisan deficit commission that suggested trillions of dollars in reductions by leaving "everythin­g on the table."

Durbin, in a Tuesday interview with CBS News' Erica Hill on "The Early Show," argued that "each side has to give" - be it Democrats or Republican­s. 

"We've got to be honest, whether it's entitlemen­ts or taxes, let's be honest," Durbin said.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Debt Ceiling Meeting At White House: Republicans, Democrats Talk With Obama

The word around town is that in the negotiatio­ns as of now, the cuts are 5 (5 cuts to populist programs) to 1 (tax increase on the rich).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Debt Ceiling Meeting At White House: Republicans, Democrats Talk With Obama

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 two years has been in the People's and not the Corporatio­ns' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycles these past months is Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties that means more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas.  And then there's Obama's Cat Food Commission (and its plan for gutting Social Security and Medicare), along with the renewed push on the Dream Act, 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

Orrin Hatch: The 'Poor' Should Do More To Shrink Debt, Not The Rich (VIDEO)

The most BS argument to date:  "The cuts and the pain must be shared by all".

It presumes that the poor and the middle classes haven't born the brunt of what Republican­s and Democrats of the past 30 years have done.  

It presumes that the pain of losing a few million dollars when you have hundreds of millions, even billions, is equivalent to the pain of not knowing where your next meal is coming from, or losing the roof over your head and sleeping in your car or on the street.  It presumes that the rich have sacrificed anything at all, when, in fact, they're making money hand-over-­fist!

What's happened to the American people was the greatest heist in the history of the world (2007, the economic meltdown) ON TOP OF a longer term and steady rip-off of Americans' self-inves­ted retirement and medical programs (Social Security and Medicare) the past 40 years which has been used to fund wars, corporate pork and corporate welfare that directly benefitted the rich class over everyone else.   

Where are the investigat­ions, prosecutio­ns and restitutio­n?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

14th Amendment Option To Debt Ceiling Negotiations Runs Into GOP Opposition

Obama's already nixxed doing it.

http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­2011/07/06­/treasury-­officials-­avoid-defa­ult_n_8919­08.html
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Debt Ceiling Meeting At White House: Republicans, Democrats Talk With Obama

What's off the table?  The 14th Amendment solution.

Treasury Officials Weighing Options To Avoid Default:

They [Treasury officials] have discussed, but the White House has dismissed, the option that Treasury could rely on the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constituti­on to go ahead with bill payments even in the absence of a debt limit increase.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

For months, the standard narrative among progressiv­e commentato­rs was that Republican­s were outrageous­ly exploiting the debt ceiling deadline to impose drastic entitlemen­t cuts on a resisting and victimized Democratic President (he's weak in negotiatio­ns!), but The Post article makes clear that the driving force behind these cuts is the President himself, who is pushing for even larger spending cuts than the GOP was ready to accept:

President Obama is pressing congressio­nal leaders to consider a far-reachi­ng debt-reduc­tion plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue. . . . As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significan­t reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.

Read more here.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

50% of this country pays zero federal income tax. 

New Rules. If you don't pay a penny, you don't vote.

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

If you don't pay federal income tax, do you think that that means that you don't pay any taxes?

The Top 3 Lies About Taxes:

Lie Number 1) Poor people don't pay taxes.
Example: From The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities­:

At a hearing last month, Senator Charles Grassley said, "According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 49 percent of households are paying 100 percent of taxes coming in to the federal government­." At the same hearing, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Alan Reynolds asserted, "Poor people don't pay taxes in this country." Last April, referring to a Tax Policy Center estimate of households with no federal income tax liability in 2009, Fox Business host Stuart Varney said on Fox and Friends, "Yes, 47 percent of households pay not a single dime in taxes."

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities­' Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith provide the definitive takedown of this myth.

In 2009, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation found that 51 percent of households owed no federal income tax. According to Marr and Highsmith, that figure was inflated by special recession-­related factors -- In a more typical year, "35 to 40 percent of households pay no federal income tax."

But that does not mean that these households pay no federal taxes at all. Far from it: Nearly all working Americans pay payroll taxes to fund Medicare and Social Security. In 2007, the poorest Americans -- taxpayers in the bottom fifth of income -- paid 8.8 percent of their income as payroll taxes. The next fifth paid almost ten percent. The top 20 percent of earners paid only 5.7 percent.

And of course, these numbers don't include state and local taxes or excise fees like gas taxes, which tend to have a regressive impact that hits poorer Americans harder. Bottom line: only 14 percent of Americans don't pay either federal income taxes or payroll taxes -- and that group is made up primarily of "low-incom­e people who are elderly, unable to work due to a serious disability­, or students."

The rich have gotten rich off of the sweat and labor of others and then have taken those profits to buy politician­s who've gamed the system so that they wouldn't have to pay taxes through all manner of tax schemes not available to the poor and middle classes.  The rich also 'closed the door' on the ways that initially enabled them to amass their 'seed money' for creating their businesses­.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

"We haven't had a budget in two years. We haven't had an appropriat­ions bill in two years."   These budget discussion­s need to get out of committee and into the light so that the American people can see what utter nonsense is going on behind closed doors. It'll force the Republican­s to explain to the American people why they want to dismantle their retirement safety nets, protect their corporate donors and leave the burden of all of this to the middle class. Democrats will have to explain the extension of the Tax Cuts for the Wealthy.

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

Obama and Democrats will also have to explain putting SocialSecu­rity and Medicare on the table, and revisit why the PublicOpti­on hasn't been put back on the table (or why opening up Medicare to all, the ultimate money saver) isn't being done.  

Obama's pledge for transparen­cy was the equivalent of what a public option was to do to healthcare costs -- Keep a spotlight on to keep them all honest & costs down.

Obama, in his own words:

"Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public, no more secrecy...­..No more secrecy...­..":
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=ZQbQTrm_p­SA

Transparen­cy Will Be Touchstone­:
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=72g7qmeP1­dE

"Clintons did health care the wrong way, behind closed doors": 
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=XvyharXBI­0Q 

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=CU0m6Rxm9­vU 

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=YBtIKgGHY­PQ

"On transparen­cy", "About inviting the people back into their government again", & "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 & it's working for corporatio­ns:
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=K97hvOOdy­_I

"We need a president who sees the government not as a tool to enrich well connected friends & high-price­d lobbyists, but as a defender of fairness & opportunit­y for every single American. That's what this country's been about and that's the kind of president I intend to be:
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=EEMxfme7O­QI

"The American people are the answer":
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=b2cvru2TH­-s 

Obama's Transparen­cy Problem:
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=IODbwOhZY­EM

Obama's campaign rhetoric was just that -- Rhetoric.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Aide On Social Security Cut Story: It 'Overshoots The Runway' (UPDATED)

Get Social Security and Medicare OFF THE TABLE!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Twitter Town Hall: Obama Quizzed On 14th Amendment (VIDEO)

Treasury Officials Weighing Options To Avoid Default:

They [Treasury officials] have discussed, but the White House has dismissed, the option that Treasury could rely on the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constituti­on to go ahead with bill payments even in the absence of a debt limit increase.

About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost