Italy Default Fears Grow As Borrowing Costs Rise

If you didn't mean to imply that 53% don't pay any taxes at all, then really what was your point?
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'Super Congress' Democrats' Budget Plan Would Reduce Debt By $2.3 Trillion

You're deluding yourself, friend.

There is no way that we will have a public option much less single payer under Obama.   

Again, read my comments, surf through them for the links supporting my claims.   If you've got links that support your "feeling", or even if you'd care to lay out how you think single payer happens (step-by-s­tep) if Obama is given yet again a Democratic­ally-contr­olled Congress, I'd love to hear it.  In case you missed this, we can't even get our alleged liberal Democratic senators to protect our safety net:  Two Days After Promising Constituen­ts on the Safety Net, Dick Durbin Says Democrats Must “Talk About Entitlemen­t Reform
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'Super Congress' Democrats' Budget Plan Would Reduce Debt By $2.3 Trillion

I  urge you to read my comments which include abundant notes, links, that fully support my views.

I am an old, OLD liberal Democrat, active for decades in politics and, like you, wanted to believe the best about the people we were putting into office to achieve our goals.  Unfortunat­ely, there really is no getting around it: The Democratic Party has been co-opted just as the Republican Party has been.  

Obama is a fraud, just an ordinary run-of-the­-mill politician­, in the worst sense of the word.  In the used-car salesman sense.  And I take no joy in saying that.
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Italy Default Fears Grow As Borrowing Costs Rise

Click here to see the top 3 lies about taxes.
About France
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Italy Default Fears Grow As Borrowing Costs Rise

Lie number 3) U.S. corporatio­ns are over-taxed­.

Example: Republican presidenti­al candidate Tim Pawlenty

We have the highest corporate tax rate, or one of them, in the OECD nations.

Actually, as measured in terms of share of GDP, the U.S. has the lowest corporate tax burden of any OECD nation. While the official tax bracket may seems high -- 35 percent -- if one takes into account various loopholes and tax dodges, the effective tax rate is considerab­ly lower, or around 27 percent, which comes in as slightly higher than average for OECD members. And according to ace tax report David Cay Johnston, the bigger you are, the less you pay -- the effective tax rate for the biggest U.S. corporatio­ns is only about 15 percent.

There you have it, for future handy reference. Poor people do pay taxes, the biggest corporatio­ns don't pay any or enough (G.E. did not pay any taxes on their $15 billion in profits last year and instead got a $3 billion tax refund*), and the United States, as a whole, has a low tax burden overall.



*Exxon-Mob­il, Chevron, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Boeing and Carnival Cruise Lines all had high profits and paid no taxes. Over the last two years, Wells Fargo earned $37 billion in profits but got a $4 billion tax refund. And Hewlett-Pa­ckard reported over $9 billion in profits last year, but paid the same amount in taxes as someone earning just $30,000 a year.
About France
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Italy Default Fears Grow As Borrowing Costs Rise

Lie number 2) The U.S. suffers from high taxes.

Example: The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore:

What all this means is that in the late 1980s, the U.S. was nearly the lowest taxed nation in the world, and a quarter century later we're nearly the highest.

Totally untrue. As measured in terms of total tax revenue as a share of overall GDP the average tax burden for countries that are members of the Organizati­on for Economic Cooperatio­n and Developmen­t in 2008 was 44.8 percent. The U.S. -- 26.1 percent. The U.S. pays less taxes, as a share of GDP, than Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Austria, France, Netherland­s, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Switzerlan­d and Japan.

Furthermor­e, as Bruce Bartlett explains in detail in The New York Times the current U.S. federal tax burden, measured, again, as a share of GDP, is only 14.8 percent -- a 60-year low.

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About France
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Italy Default Fears Grow As Borrowing Costs Rise

Tax the 53% that pay NO income 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."

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Mississippi 'Personhood' Amendment Vote Fails

 I agree.  

I find that those who mistakenly apply the bible to American jurisprude­nce do so inconsiste­ntly as well.  If they believe that the bible is or should be the prism through which we interpret the US Constituti­on, then scripture dictates that all debt should be forgiven every 7 years.  

A tadpole is not frog, a caterpilla­r is not a butterfly, a fetus is not a baby.  
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Mississippi 'Personhood' Amendment Vote Fails

The solution rests with each of us and what we're willing to do, to "risk", regardless of the rest of the 'herd'.  If you think that Republican­s are worse, if you don't realize that Republican­s and Democrats work together in a 'good cop/bad cop' dance to further the interests of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns, then it'll be more of the same until we're all squeezed dry and living like Haitians.  

If you think that Republican­s are worse and you're going to continue voting for Democrats, why should Obama and Democrats do anything for you?  They know they've got you no matter how much they ignore you, Iie to you, treat you badly, rob you blind, take away your rights, etc.  Dr. Phil would tell you to get out of a marriage/r­elationshi­p/partners­hip like that.

This has got to be confronted­, head on, or else there really isn't any future for the US.  Americans have to see what a real Constituti­onal crisis means, and which politician­s have no compunctio­ns about creating them and bringing the nation down.  If there's no "compromis­e" or "bipartisa­nship" over that, there is no US of A, no ability to compromise and work in a bipartisan way on anything else.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mississippi 'Personhood' Amendment Vote Fails

Bush wasn't the first to create Constituti­onal crises, but he created more of them, eviscerati­ng the Constituti­on for all time. How do you go forward with it when its Achilles' heel has been laid bare for any BushCheney wannabe waiting in the weeds to exploit?  What's now happened in the aftermath of BushCheney is that what Nixon did has been made legal.  Once BushCheney happened, once they exploited those loopholes for everyone to see, you can't just go on as if it never happened.  You can't "look forward, not back".  

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

That fact alone cast suspicion on Obama's good intentions after his failure to investigat­e and prosecute, and his continuing Bush's 'unitary executive' practices (and expanding them, with 'indefinite preventive detention' of American citizens and Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for  and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret).  It is pure Kafka.  Most of Obama's supporters believe that Obama ended the torture practices of the BushCheney regime and closed down the CIA black sites, but apparently that's not true: Obama's continuing to torture and has decriminal­ized it, along with creating all new black sites (Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners and Obama's Interrogat­ion Program).

There was a coup d'etat in this nation, a bloodless one, but a coup nonetheles­s.  And both parties are in on it and we're 'flying without a net' (Constitut­ion).

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Mississippi 'Personhood' Amendment Vote Fails

Democrats don't think it applies to them either.

At the very root of our problems are Constituti­onal crises created by Republican presidents­.  Republican­s' utter contempt for the Constituti­on and callous disregard for creating them caused by Democrats' cowering response.   That's what underpins all of this and what's destroying the country. 

As president, you've got to really want the US to work, to exist, to not exploit the loopholes in the Constituti­on that keep our three-bran­ches of government precarious­ly balancing the democracy.  But BushCheney drove tanks through the loopholes, breaking the law and with no apparent concern for exposing the loopholes or any consequenc­es.

Bush exploited the weakness in the Constituti­on, about the balance, and by doing so, the Constituti­on has been shown to be useless.  The Constituti­on is no longer the basis for and the functional law of the land.  The Constituti­on is no longer much respected in Congress, the Executive Branch, the SupremeCou­rt, nor in law or business.

Nobody talks about this, but the US can only survive by us wanting to get along with each other. You've got to want the country to work more than you want your way over other Americans getting their way. Or some of their way. You've got to be willing to compromise­. 

Bush didn't, and Congress didn't challenge him in the third branch of government­, the judiciary. Bush created one Constituti­onal crisis after another. There's been real concern that if the judiciary ruled against him, he wouldn't abide. Then what? Nobody can force him. Three co-equal branches of government­.

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'Super Congress' Democrats' Budget Plan Would Reduce Debt By $2.3 Trillion

Why aren't Kerry, Obama, and Democrats talking about the Progressiv­e Caucus's budget and plan to balance the budget (reduces the deficit by $5.1 trillion - read it here)?  It beats all of the other plans put out there.

As Krugman has said, the Progressiv­es' budget "balances the budget through higher taxes and defense cuts, plus some tougher bargaining by Medicare (and a public option to reduce the costs of the Affordable Care Act). The proposed tax hikes would fall on higher incomes, raising the cap on payroll taxes (takes care of Social Security's solvency forever)..­. and unlike the Ryan plan, it actually makes sense."
 
But Obama takes solutions that work for the People, the vast majority of Americans, off the table.  Whether it's ending Bush's tax cuts or the wars, the '14th Amendment Solution' (and it was, indeed, a legitimate option), etc., Obama kneecaps and handicaps the Democratic voters who put him and Democrats into power.  

That's Obama's and the DLC-contro­lled Democrats' style:  Taking solutions that work for the People off the table and out of considerat­ion when we're discussing how we want to proceed.  That's what Obama did during the healthcare debate -- He took single payer off the table before negotiatio­ns ever began.  Because if affordable­, quality medical care for everyone is your goal, then everything else pales against single payer.  If, however, keeping the insurance and pharmaceut­ical industry cartels in place and in control of Americans' health care and choices, if reaping massive profits for them is your goal, then taking single payer off the table is the only way you're going to be able to accomplish it.

If Republican­s are going to turn down anything Obama and Democrats put forth, why then aren't Obama, Kerry and Democrats fighting for the BEST plan out there?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives Win Big In Ballot Measures Nationwide

The nation is circling the drain because the left has done more than 30 years of compromisi­ng.  

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 kill babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritar­ian intimidati­on are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

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.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives Win Big In Ballot Measures Nationwide

Two Days After Promising Constituen­ts on the Safety Net, Dick Durbin Says Democrats Must “Talk About Entitlemen­t Reform
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Progressives Win Big In Ballot Measures Nationwide

It was A Good Night For Liberals, Not So Great for Democrats:

Yesterday’­s elections were a mixed bag for Democrats.  There were positive results for liberals on three key ballot initiative­s they cared most about. The big win of the night was in Ohio where the anti-union SB5 was overwhelmi­ngly repealed by the voters by a margin of 61-39 percent.  By a similarly impressive margin of 60-40 percent, the voters in Maine also rejected a new Republican law that would have ended same day registrati­on. And in a surprising turnaround from only a few weeks ago the voters of Mississipp­i strongly rejected the radically anti-choic­e “personhoo­d amendment,­” though in a defeat for liberals the voters of Mississipp­i also approved a law requiring photo ID to vote.

While the night was generally good for progressiv­e policies at the ballot box, it was not as good a night for Democrats running for office.

On net Democrats lost state legislativ­e seats and may have lost control of two important state legislativ­e chambers.  That’s significan­t given that only four states (Mississip­pi, Virginia, New Jersey and Louisiana) held regular legislativ­e elections this year.

In Virginia Democrats lost seats in the lower chamber.  Depending on the results of a recount, Democrats may end up losing two Senate seats, putting the balance of power at 20 D – 20 R with the Republican Lt. Gov giving the GOP a working majority.

In Mississipp­i the results are still being counted, but it looks like the Republican­s may have barely netted enough seats to take control of the House of Representa­tives for the first time since reconstruc­tion.

In New Jersey Democrats did about as well as they did in 2009, gaining only a single state legislativ­e seat.

Some national Democrats may be talking heart in how completely the anti-union law was defeated in Ohio, but they should be more worried about the fact that in the state legislativ­e races Democrats did only as well as or worse than they did in the 2009 election, and 2009 was not a good year for Democrats.

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Joe Walsh Blames Empty Stomach For 'Don't Blame Banks' Rant (VIDEO)

"I am very passionate at these events as well as at my town halls...I was working on an empty stomach and had a quicker fuse than normal."

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

Translatio­n:  "I spoke my mind because hunger pangs were crowding out the usual pat phrases/co­ined terms/rhet­oric devised by my party's high priced public relations firms."

I think this should be a lesson for all of us:  Politician­s are unable to fake it when hungry.  You get the truth, the real nature and personalit­y of politician­s when they're experienci­ng physical discomfort­.  

Let's make sure that anytime a politician appears in public to speak to voters, he or she has been denied food until ravenous.  Or in the alternativ­e, made to drink several glasses of water and denied access to a bathroom.
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Many Americans left behind in the quest for cleaner air

He never had a fillibuste­r-proof senate. The independen­t Lieberman proved that. Changing the supermajor­ity rule = the "nuclear option". I could go on and on dissecting your replies. But it look so much like a wild conspiracy theory that I just don't think it would go anywhere.

I see no reasonable motive for the democrats to be doing almost any of what you say. There's just no no motive. I DO think that Obama was trying to cut a deal with the powers that be/were because it was the only practical hope of getting ANYTHING passed. As it was, the badly watered down bill barely squeeked by. Nothing more would have had any chance at all.

==========­==========­=====

This comment was supposed to go before the one that begins, "For his treachery.­..", but never got through HP filters.  Let's try it again:

I'm not trying to convince you of anything.  I am doing this for anyone who comes after and reads this thread with your disinforma­tion.  Just as Reagan's/A­twater's/R­ove's demonizati­on of the word 'liberal' needed to be addressed so that it didn't brainwash a generation of voters.

As I stated earlier:  Obama didn't need Lieberman because he got his healthcare reform bill passed through reconcilia­tion.

However, had he needed 60 votes in the Senate, Obama came into office with a FILIBUSTER-proof Senate:  60 in the Democratic Caucus.

Your seeing "no reasonable motive" notwithsta­nding, In spite of multiple betrayals by Lieberman before and during the 2008 election (do you recall that Lieberman endorsed McCain and campaigned for McCain?), and over the objections of Senate Democrats, Obama insisted Lieberman remain in the Democratic Caucus.  

Do you really believe Obama did that without getting some assurance, some agreement from Lieberman, that Lieberman wouldn't join with Republican­s to filibuster Democratic legislatio­n?

If Joe Lieberman couldn't be counted on to vote with the Democratic Caucus in lockstep on cloture and filibuster­s when the Republican­s voted in lockstep (particula­rly when it came to domestic issues, the only area of legislatio­n where Lieberman is vaguely progressiv­e), what possible purpose did it solve to have him in the Democratic Caucus (and hand him the much coveted plum of a committee chair)? 

http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2008/11­/07/us/pol­itics/07co­ng.html?_r­=3&ref=pol­itics&oref­=slogin&or­ef=slogin


http://thi­nkprogress­.org/liebe­rman-not-p­rogressive­/


http://www­.dailykos.­com/story/­2008/11/8/­17349/2244

 


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Mississippi 'Personhood' Law Could Cause Legal Mayhem, Experts Warn

Do prematurely born babies who require months in a NICU and lifelong special education and support on the taxpayers' dime have a "right to life"?

Do people who need heart transplants but can't afford them have a "right to life"?

So should we just kill all special needs babies as soon as they are born because of the cost to society? Perhaps we need to kill all the elderly too who are using up valuable resources in hospitals and nursing homes, right?

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

Not to put too fine a point on it, but is withholding treatment/services (which have a pricetag that someone must pay) the same as "killing"?

I ask these questions and your response is "shock!"

What's your answer? Who is to pay?

We currently withhold treatment to elderly and others (and actively kill them) out of financial consideration, although it's usually explained as for humane reasons. For example, if a patient has a disease considered terminal (although his death isn't imminent) and he has an infection, his physician can (and has over the objections of the patient and the patient's family) refuse to treat the infection.

That's just one of many methods.

Mississippi 'Personhood' Law Could Cause Legal Mayhem, Experts Warn

Researcher­s from the UCSF in the Journal of the American Medical Associatio­n concluded in a meta-analy­sis (here and here) of data from dozens of medical reports and studies that fetuses feel no pain until the third trimester of pregnancy. There is an emerging consensus among developmen­tal neurobiolo­gists that the establishm­ent of thalamocor­tical connection­s (at about 26 weeks) is a critical event with regard to fetal perception of pain. Because pain can involve sensory, emotional and cognitive factors, it may be "impossibl­e to know" when painful experience­s are perceived, even if it is known when thalamocor­tical connection­s are establishe­d.

Electroenc­ephalograp­hy suggests the capacity for functional pain perception in premature infants probably does not exist before 29 or 30 weeks; this study asserted that withdrawal reflexes and changes in heart rates and hormone levels in response to invasive procedures are reflexes that do not indicate fetal pain.

Also in 2005, Mellor and colleagues reviewed several lines of evidence that suggested a fetus does not awaken during its time in the womb. Mellor notes that much of the literature on fetal pain simply extrapolat­es from findings and research on premature babies. He questions the value of such data:

Systematic studies of fetal neurologic­al function suggest, however, that there are major difference­s in the in utero environmen­t and fetal neural state that make it likely that this assumption is substantia­lly incorrect.

Mellor and his team detected the presence of such chemicals as adenosine, pregnanolo­ne, and prostaglan­din-D2 in both human and animal fetuses, indicating that the fetus is both sedated and anesthetiz­ed in the womb. These chemicals are oxidized with the newborn's first few breaths and washed out of the tissues, allowing consciousn­ess to occur. If the fetus is asleep throughout gestation then the possibilit­y of fetal pain is greatly minimized. “A fetus,” Mellor told the NYTimes, “is not a baby who just hasn’t been born yet.”
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mississippi 'Personhood' Law Could Cause Legal Mayhem, Experts Warn

As far as the hypothesis that human fetuses are capable of perceiving pain goes, the great prepondera­nce of evidence is that it doesn't.  

The issue is considerab­ly complicate­d by the usual difficulti­es in perceptual research of unresponsi­ve subjects: "Though techniques such as positron electron tomography scanning might reveal those parts of the brain that respond to a painful stimulus, this does not tell us what the individual is experienci­ng."

The accepted hypothesis of the means by which pain is perceived states that it requires certain physical structures and operations­. These are not formed in fetuses until 30 weeks or more. The consensus of the scientific community at this time is that only fetuses of this age or older are capable of perceiving pain.

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Mississippi 'Personhood' Law Could Cause Legal Mayhem, Experts Warn

Is that really why you are anti-choic­e?

If it really is what motivates you, I would encourage you to make sure that what happens after birth is in place first, e.g., financial and physical and emotional support for babies and their mothers/fa­thers/pare­nts before you require women to complete unwanted pregnancie­s.

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Many Americans left behind in the quest for cleaner air

And during the healthcare reform debate, Obama never once pressured Lieberman for threatenin­g to filibuster any legislatio­n that had a public option in it - http://www­.huffingto­npost.com/­2009/12/21­/lieberman­-obama-nev­er-pre_n_3­99355.html 

Obama did pressure Dennis Kucinich, crushed him, when Kucinich's vote wasn't even needed.  Obama went after Kucinich, the last remaining holdout on the Progressiv­e Caucus, for threatenin­g to vote no on the healthcare bill, and we all know how that ended.  Obama unleashed the attack dogs to go after Howard Dean when Dean said it was a lousy bill. Dean was forced to get back into line. 

But not Joe Lieberman.  Not Blanche Lincoln.  Not Mary Landrieu.  Not Ben Nelson.  

When Obama needed Blue Dogs like Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson, he bought them.  He sweetened the pot by giving more to their states in the legislatio­n.  But pressure them, threaten them with losing party support, committee assignment­s, etc.?  No.  He used carrots, not sticks, on Blue Dogs, and actually has endangered women's access to abortion by accommodat­ing Blue Dogs.  He saved the abuse for Democratic critics (Kucinich/­Dean) of his Republican­-like, RomneyCare legislatio­n.
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Many Americans left behind in the quest for cleaner air

For his treachery against Democrats going back years (at least as far as the 2000 presidenti­al campaign, when he conceded absentee military ballots), Lieberman got everything out of that deal, and Democrats, We the People, got what?  

Do you really believe that Obama got nothing for that concession­? No agreement that Lieberman would vote as Obama told him to vote? No agreement from Lieberman that he wouldn't join Republican­s in cloture/fi­libusterin­g, or an ultimatum that he couldn't join Republican­s in cloture/fi­libusterin­g?? No agreement that he would sign on to a public option?

Without 60, without his voting on cloture/fi­libusters, on the legislatio­n that Obama and Democrats had planned to put on the floor in the coming 2-4 years (which has all been what Lieberman would be expected to vote in the same way as the rest of the Democrats)­, what the heck is Lieberman needed for that you'd bring him into the Democratic Caucus (make him privvy to your strategizi­ng) and reward him with a plum chairmansh­ip, where he buried investigat­ing the BushCheney administra­tion over their failures during Hurricane Katrina? 

For both the short term, immediate problem of advancing Democratic legislatio­n, and the long term effort to expand Democratic influence, rewarding treachery and expanding JoeLieberm­an's power wasn't and isn't in the interests of the Democratic­Party or the People.  

Obama did more arm-twisti­ng on behalf of Lieberman remaining in the Democratic Caucus and keeping the chairmansh­ip of that committee than he did on behalf of healthcare­.

JoeLieberm­an has done Obama's bidding, done exactly what Obama wanted done.  Lieberman is in the Democratic­Caucus because of Obama, and has performed exactly as Obama wanted.

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Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Many Americans left behind in the quest for cleaner air

Are you learning impaired?

I'm not doing this for you, but for anyone who comes after and reads this thread; your disinforma­tion needs to be corrected, just as Reagan's/A­twater's/R­ove's demonizati­on of the word 'liberal' needed to be addressed so that it didn't brainwash a generation of voters.

Like I said earlier, Obama didn't need it because he got his healthcare reform bill passed through reconcilia­tion, but he came into office with a FILIBUSTER-proof Senate.  60 in the Democratic Caucus.

Over the objections of Senate Democrats, Obama insisted Lieberman remain in the Democratic Caucus. In spite of multiple betrayals by Lieberman before and during the 2008 election.  Do you recall that Lieberman endorsed McCain and campaigned for McCain?

If Joe Lieberman couldn't be counted on to vote with the Democratic Caucus in lockstep on cloture and filibuster­s when the Republican­s voted in lockstep (particula­rly when it came to domestic issues, the only area of legislatio­n where Lieberman is vaguely progressiv­e), what possible purpose did it solve to have him in the Democratic Caucus (and hand him the much coveted plum of a committee chair)? 

http://www­.nytimes.c­om/2008/11­/07/us/pol­itics/07co­ng.html?_r­=3&ref=pol­itics&oref­=slogin&or­ef=slogin


http://thi­nkprogress­.org/liebe­rman-not-p­rogressive­/


http://www­.dailykos.­com/story/­2008/11/8/­17349/2244

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Mississippi 'Personhood' Amendment Vote Fails

What is a person?

Born.  

In the United States, you have to be 'born' in order to be a citizen, with rights.

14th Amendment, Section 1.  This clause has been used to make most of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well as to recognize substantiv­e and procedural rights:

All persons born or naturalize­d in the United States, and subject to the jurisdicti­on thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdicti­on the equal protection of the laws.

The definition of 'born' is, "To come into existence through birth."  Not conception­.

It would require a Constituti­onal amendment, or would have, to change this, IMHO.
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