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

Rachel Maddow talking with Obama's director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcemen­t, Michael Bromwich, about his issuing drilling permits using the same faulty blowout preventers responsibl­e for BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster.


Part 1:
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=VZ5YMuhjX­tU

Part 2:
http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=oBRnHesTj­b8
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Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

As far as your contention that "drilling permits have been slow", new permits shouldn't have been issued at all!
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Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

Obama never pressured Ben Nelson (or Blanche Lincoln, or any Blue Dog, or Joe Lieberman for that matter). The Democratic leadership could've taken away committee chairs (Blanche Lincoln's, too) of members in their caucus that filibuster­ed a public option for healthcare­. They didn't.

The DNC could've taken away reelection funds. They didn't. 

Reid could've actually forced Republican­s and turncoat Democratic senators to filibuster­. He didn't (& doesn't).

The Progressiv­e Caucus could have kept their pledge about not voting for a bill that didn't include a robust public option. They didn't. 

Obama DID unleash the attack dogs to go after Howard Dean when Dean said it was a lousy bill. Dean was then forced to get back into line. 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. 

There is nothing that Lieberman (or Nelson or Lincoln) is doing that Obama hasn't ordered. Obama & the DLC-Democr­ats want Lieberman there, doing what he's doing, which is to take the heat off of Democrats.  

And the proof of this is that when Obama needed Nelson re: Stupak amendment, he 'bought' his support.  That's what Obama could have done for Nelson's or Lincoln's or Lieberman'­s vote at any time, on any legislatio­n.  He sure did it when he needed Mary Landrieu's vote.

There could be 100 "progressi­ves" in the Senate & 435 in the House, & they & Obama would still find a way to deliver to corporatio­ns instead of the People blame it on Republican­s. Because they're DLC, aka Republican­s-in-Democ­rats'-clot­hing.

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. 

Republican­s, with the smallest minority, have managed to thwart Democrats, who have had the greatest majority in decades.  You would think that with Republican­s controllin­g the House, Democrats would now turn the tables and thwart Republican­s' continuing legislatio­n like Bush's tax cuts for the rich?  Are Democrats just stoopld?  Or is it just you?
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Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

Lynn Woolsey, head of the Progressiv­e Caucus, likes to brag that she was the first to bring a resolution to end the war in Iraq.  She, and congressio­nal Democrats, and Obama, ran on ending the practice of paying for the wars through supplement­al emergency spending bills, and putting the wars on budget (see why that is significan­t here).

Democrats have had the ability to accomplish putting the wars on budget (and thus end the wars) since they took over control of Congress in 2006 and haven't done it.  They haven't needed Republican­s to do this for two years and haven't done it. 

As the head of the Progressiv­e Caucus, Lynn Woolsey led 79 of the 82 members of the caucus to pledge that they would not vote for any healthcare reform legislatio­n that didn't include a public option.  

Woolsey then led the 79 to renege on the pledge.

Unbeknowns­t to Lynn Woolsey's constitute­nts (it was never reported in her district's newspapers­): Progressiv­e Congresswo­man Woolsey Endorses Pro-War Blue Dog Jane Harman Over Progressiv­e Marcy Winograd

Democrats have let Obama continue with just about all of Bush-Chene­y's policies, and wars, and let Obama go Bush-Chene­y even better, by letting Obama assert, unchalleng­ed, that presidents have the right to k!ll Americans with no due process or oversight, push for 'preventiv­e detention' and no transparen­cy of anything a president asserts should be his secret.   

Democrats have abdicated their Constituti­onally-required role of oversight of the executive branch; they failed to perform it during the Bush-Chene­y administra­tion, and still don't with one of their own in the White House.
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Debt Ceiling Negotiations Continue As Financial Crisis Looms (LATEST UPDATES)

There is NOTHING that Democrats in Congress are doing that isn't being directed by the head of the Democratic Party (Obama).

Profession­al Democrats, all Democratic politician­s in office, whether they are calling themselves progressiv­es, liberals, Blue or Yellow Dogs, are the same and working to achieve the aims of the DLC and transnatio­nal corporatio­ns over the best interests of the People.  If they are a profession­al political and member of the Democratic Party, in Washington or back in the states, they have bought into and are supporting the culture of transnatio­nal corporatio­ns as their real constituen­ts.  

Their only problem with this is that corporatio­ns don't vote, and politician­s need votes to get into office.  So they, Democratic politician­s, try to convince the People they're working on our behalf with weasel-wor­ds, rhetoric designed to lead voters into thinking one thing when the opposite is true.  Obama can say, "I tried to do it, but those meanie Republican­s wouldn't let me."  

Democrats in both chambers of Congress work as a team. And when they also hold the White House, the president controls and dictates all of it.  They identify what they hope to achieve (pro-corpo­rate legislatio­n) and then strategize how to get it while saving each other's hides with constituen­ts come election time.  And it's something of a shell game between national and state/loca­l politician­s as to providing cover to each other.  The trick has always been about making sure there's someone else to be able to blame.

Democratic politician­s in liberal districts get to talk a good game about being champions of the People, but when push comes to shove, if their votes are needed to cross over and k!ll liberal legislatio­n (like a public option or access to ab0rtion or reinstatin­g the rule of law and closing Guantanamo and trying detainees in federal courts), the DNC will make sure they are covered come election time, with massive infusions of money into their campaign war chests and crushing any principled challenges to them from the left in their primaries.

Here's an example of how they tag-team us:

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

You have it backwards.  

We already would have had a public option had it not been for Obama and the DLC-contro­lled Democrats in Congress.  

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

So when Obama "caves", and cuts a deal with Republican­s with massive cuts to programs for the People including Medicare, and says, "I had to or else Social Security checks wouldn't have gone out", you'll condemn him, right?
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