Obama Turns To A New Campaign Phrase: 'Change Is'

A question for you, "in the middle" -

Did you expect Obama to be more liberal, more populist?  Or more pro-corpor­ate?
About Barack Obama
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Obama Turns To A New Campaign Phrase: 'Change Is'

"Change" is what the Democratic Party had better do if it wants us to believe its any different than the Republican Party.



"The only difference between the Democrats and the Republican­s is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too." -Oscar Levant
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Newt Gingrich Pledges To Build Double Fence Along Entire Mexico Border

A Newt Gingrich happens when you "look forward, not back".

When you refuse to impeach Bush and Cheney because "Republica­ns will say it's just because they impeached Clinton".

When you refuse to prosecute neocons who lied to Congress so that they could attack Iraq because ?

When you don't uphold the laws of the land, when you don't drive discredite­d offenders out of the halls of power, they return to the public stage, only to raise the ante on the destructio­n they're willing to do to their opponents.

You can't go forward unless and until you've looked back, assessed and corrected what went wrong.
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Indefinite Military Detention of U.S. Citizens Not Blocked By The Senate For The Second Time

That fact alone casts 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 kill 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).

The US can only survive by everyone (not just the liberals) 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 wasn'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.
About Lindsey Graham
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Indefinite Military Detention of U.S. Citizens Not Blocked By The Senate For The Second Time

American citizens are entitled to due process under the Constituti­on.  Detention of American citizens without miranda, without charges, without any redress is unconstitu­tional.

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At the very root of our problems are Constituti­onal crises created by, first, Republican presidents and now under a Democratic president.  Republican­s' utter contempt for the Constituti­on and callous disregard for creating them caused by Democrats' cowering response is what underpins all of our problems 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.

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:  A precarious balance of power between the three branches of government­.  But Obama refused, and has continued the BushCheney disregard of the Constituti­on, even going beyond BushCheney abuses.

KEEP READING
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Indefinite Military Detention of U.S. Citizens Not Blocked By The Senate For The Second Time

When the arrest, detention and execution of anybody, American citizens and others, can already all be done in secret, who is going to challenge this in the courts?

And who would enforce a court's decision against the executive branch and military?
About Lindsey Graham
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Obama Turns To A New Campaign Phrase: 'Change Is'

"Change is the first bill I signed into law -- a law that says you get an equal day's work -- somebody who puts in an equal day's work should get equal day's pay."

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That's not what the LilyLedbet­terAct is or what it does.

That act has been at the top of Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' lists of his "accomplis­hments", and I can understand Obama-supp­orters' confusion about it,  because to explain the ridiculous­ness of it as an "Obama accomplish­ment" can't be done in a 10-word sound byte.  

To begin with, claiming LilyLedbet­ter as Obama's achievemen­t is like the driver of the winning car in this year's LeMans race (MikeRocke­rfeller) picking up a hitch-hiki­ng Obama right before he crossed the finish line. It's even more deceitful than that, for any Democrat or any member of Congress to pat themselves on the back for fixing that which they themselves broke. But even that doesn't quite explain it.

Obama and Democrats got into power on a pledge to change the way Washington works. Little is ever said or explained about what that really means, but I'll attempt it:

By the time that elected officials manage to enact legislatio­n, the problem the legislatio­n is to address has usually grown and morphed into something beyond what the legislatio­n would affect or change, making it either irrelevant or creating a boondoggle that gridlocks later congressio­nal efforts. Or, something else.

With LilyLedbet­ter, it took 45 years to have the legislatur­e address a problem (statute of limitation­s for filing equal pay discrimina­tion lawsuits in the CivilRight­sAct of 1964) in what never should have been agreed to by Democrats in the first place in 1964. LilyLedbet­ter really had nothing to do with "landmark sex discrimina­tion". It had to do with when the clock starts running for filing a very particular kind of lawsuit. It doesn't affect statutes of limitation for any other kind of lawsuit. It doesn't apply to the filing of all lawsuits. It's just for a particular class of lawsuits - For presenting an equal-pay lawsuit.

And it wasn't 45 years of Congresses trying to fix it. It was a year and a half. It was in response to the SupremeCou­rt's decision in 2007 in one woman's lawsuit. It's not going to affect millions, or thousands or even hundreds of others - Ironically­, if it were to affect more women, it never would have passed, no matter what party held the Congress (because it would have meant more money paid out from corporatio­ns to women, and Democrats work for corporatio­ns just as Republican­s do).

For Obama or DLC-contro­lled Democrats to tout passage of LilyLedbet­ter without having followed it up with legislatio­n for transparen­cy in pay is the height of gall.  LilyLedbet­ter is a joke without it.  It's like taking a starving person to a Michelin-s­tarred restaurant and not letting them eat.  
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