Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

It's simply a fact that this was the most transparent administration ever.

==========­==========­==========­==

Read it and weep, dearie:

More documents were classified and fewer were declassified in FY 2009 than in FY 2008.

Obama's administration is less transparent than Bush's.

http://www­.firstamen­dmentcente­r.org/news­.aspx?id=2­2720

And this is what Obama did, when the judicial branch of the United States ordered Obama to release the photos (as Obama had pledged to do as a candidate in 2008):  

He used Joe Lieberman to slip into legislation expanded powers for the Secretary of Defense to circumvent the Freedom Of Information Act and bury forever the photographic evidence of the t0rture & abuse of uncharged, unconvicted, detainees in US custody.

http://www­.truthout.­org/102209­5

http://www­.alternet.­org/blogs/­peek/14332­2/outrage:house_sne­akily_pass­es_bill_ba­nning_rele­ase_of_pho­tos_showin­g_detainee­_abuse/

http://www­.truth-out­.org/topst­ories/1114­09jl01


So, which is it?  

#1 - You're a political operative paid to spread disinformation?  

Or,

#2 - You're one of those young women with a hopeless, desperate crush on Obama, your identity so intertwined with needing to believe he's the real thing that if you entertain the possibility that you might have been wrong, your entire ego disintegrates?

If it's the latter, cheer up.  There are prisons across the country with available men looking for women like you to believe in them.

If it's the former, pack light for your eternity in h3ll.
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Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

The week before and the week after the healthcare bill passed in the Senate was the one and only (and last) 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 de@d 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.

So there's plenty of evidence to support the idea prove that Obama never intended to pass real healthcare reform, only pass a massive corporate giveaway program that doesn't deliver on what he and Democrats were put into power to do (get affordable quality medical care for all), but that he spins healthcare reform.
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Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Apparently I can't open the link to the campaign ad... .

He certainly campaigned on the idea of universal health care. But he EXPLICITLY rejected the idea of single payer. I can't post links for the moment, but just go to YouTube, "Obama single payer Meredith Viera 24 January 2008" ,where he clearly explains his position.

And to campaign on the idea of universal health care means that he will do everything to WORK WITH CONGRESS (as Congress, not the WH, writes and passes bills) to move us as close as possible to that idea. In the meanwhile, after having waited for more than half a century, Obama is indeed the first president to extend HC to more than 30 million of the 50 million that are uninsured today. So that's a VERY big and historic step into the direction of universal HC, as he promised.

The only promise Obama did break when it comes to HC is the individual mandate. But if you take a closer watch at what he said, he said he was against a mandate IF at the same time people clearly don't have the means to pay for it. What his HCR is doing, however, is giving those who can't afford it subsidies.

Finally, once it became clear that it would be difficult to get the votes for a PO in the Senate, Obama indeed remembered that it would be stupid to focus on a PO only, because even without a PO, the HC bill was already achieving a lot of important and historic things.

Fortunately, we don't have to rely on your Iying eyes & ears.  We don't have to listen to your spin about what Obama did and didn't say, or what you say that he campaigned on -- WE HAVE THE FILM & TAPES TO JUDGE FOR OURSELVES!


And it all works just fine.  

You're a real piece of work, toots.   
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Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Obama and the DLC have 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: 

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.

They've all got to go, along with mushy middle-of-the-road thinking like yours.  You need to get better informed, and cultivating some real Democratic convictions wouldn't hurt either.  Because whether it's taking single payer universal health care, a public option, investigations and prosecutions of Bush-Cheney, etc., off the table, or continuing the Bush-Cheney policies and going Bush-Cheney one better (by asserting that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'preventive detention', the right to imprison anyone indefinitely because he thinks they might commit a crime), or using Joe Lieberman to hide behind, to duck out on his campaign pledge of transparency, and gut the FOIA, no real Democrat could continue to support Obama or any politicians purporting to be Democrats doing this.
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Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats want what they want. The DLC-controlled Democratic Party gives lip service to all populist issues (like civil rights protections, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, public healthcare, Wall Street reform, environmental & energy issues, etc.). 

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and R0ve were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush & R0ve were just more ruthless in doing what politicians and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks,  don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the Democratic Party's nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the R0ve machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching Bush and Cheney off the table, have us still reelecting them and not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

Obama and Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it. 

The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to achieve our alleged shared objectives.

Getting Democratic voters (and Obama's 'most ardent supporters') to understand that Democratic politicians have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.

KEEP READING
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Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

Check this thread here and be sure to follow the links for the complete story:

Outgoing Democratic congressman Paul Kanjorski is one of several witnesses (4 or 5 other congressmen who Kanjorski hasn't specificallly identified, but has stated were present with him at a meeting in the White House) who can directly place George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice at the scene of the conspiracy to deceive Congress into backing the attack on Iraq with evidence falsified by the CIA.    

It's through Kanjorski's account that we learn the Bush-Cheney administration's scheme, which included the CIA's fabricating photographs for the explicit purpose of deceiving Congress into authorizating the use of military force in Iraq.

You'll also learn in the thread just how Cheney's expertise, his knowledge of Congress and the subcommittee process from his firsthand experience as a member of Congress, was the vehicle for hiding the t0rture from Nancy Pelosi and Congress, and most interesting is how John Murtha was utilized.

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Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'

There's plenty to rail against Democrats for and call into question their real political bent and intentions, beginning with those who refused to read the NIE that was made available to them in a locked and guarded room in Congress.  Hillary Clinton, even after being advised by Bob Graham to go to the room and read it before she voted, didn't.  She also claims that she didn't talk her vote to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq over with her husband, who as a former president got the same daily intelligence briefing that Bush got, and knew that it was trumped up twattle.

But here's the real smoking gvn, about the true nature of Democrats, and their not being any different than Republicans:

Obama & Democrats ran on putting the wars on the budget, with no more supplemental emergency spending bills to pay for these wars.  Funding the wars through supplementals was how Bush & Cheney managed to avoid congressional oversight & public scrutiny.

After close to two years of controlling both Houses of Congress & the WhiteHouse, Democrats are continuing the funding of the wars through supplementals.  

What's significant about this?: 

When the funding of wars goes 'on budget', congressional committees & subcommittees then hold hearings & investigations into US policies, about US interests around the world, from which the UnitedState's overall foreign & military policies are derived.  That's how civilian-control over the US military takes place:  Through the citizens' chosen representatives choosing weapons systems & overseeing US military operations & installations, plans & policies, etc.

This doesn't happen with supplemental spending bills.  

The nature of them is, "It's an emergency, we're running out of money, give us $80 billion now (that's the magic sum, invariably $80 billion) or you won't be 'supporting the troops'...We'll talk about it later".  

"Later" doesn't happen.  

The $80 billion ploy is so the American people think they're always talking about the same $80 billion. 

I know, I know, "How is that possible that the average American wouldn't realize it's not the same $80 billion when it's year in& year out?"  The average American is just barely keeping it all together as it is & fighting for his life(style).

Committees in both Houses of Congress have either never begun investigations into fraud and abuse, or dropped investigations (both on what happened during the Bush administration and afterwards), yet Congress is doing no oversight, & thieving criminal private contractors are still being awarded government contracts.

But that's not even the half of it.

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