Birth of a Controversy: Why Didn't Obama Disclose Info Sooner?

Obama was completely against mandates.  He criticized Hillary's support of them -- Here is Candidate Obama on mandates.

Before the healthcare debate even began, Obama made sure that there would be no public option, no single payer universal healthcare­, no means for Americans to choose a public healthcare system, no means for containing  costs through public healthcare programs.  He took single payer off the table and blocked all efforts to get a public option in the final legislatio­n due to the secret deal he made (and then lied about, and then had to own up to when the memo was leaked).

A caller on CSpan just a few months ago asked Richard Wolffe, who was out plugging his latest book written from his special access to the Obama White House, if we're ever going to get a public option to keep costs down.

Wolffe makes 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).

If only Obama had kept his campaign promises. 

Obama campaigned on reregulati­ng businesses and banks. He campaigned on ending tax breaks and subsidies to companies moving their factories and jobs overseas. 

Now? Not so much. 

You get the regulation­s first and THEN you give them the money. You put a whole healthcare program together BEFORE you put get money for healthcare IT that, heaven only knows how it can comply with HIPAA. You keep your entire shopping list of needs & wants ON THE TABLE (single payer universal health care) BEFORE you concede it away. Anyone who has ever written a contract, negotiated a deal of any kind knows this. 

Obama has done everything @$-backwar­ds. What he does only makes sense if he's NOT a populist, NOT a liberal (we knew he wasn't, but Obama's most ardent supporters implored people to believe that "once he gets into the Oval Office, you'll see!"), and IS a continuati­on of the same failed policies of the transnatio­nal corporatio­ns that have destroyed the middle class. 

What Obama is doing ONLY makes sense if what he wants is NOT what Obama's most ardent followers claims that they want. The only way to get Obama to do the people's bidding, get him to champion We The People and not the Corporatio­ns is for Obama's 'most ardent supporters­' to stop defending him; they work against their own best interests when they do that.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Birth of a Controversy: Why Didn't Obama Disclose Info Sooner?

Candidate Obama was all over the place, depending on who was talking to at any given time and what day it was in the campaign, which primaries were done with and who he didn't need to woo anymore.

Obama got into office by misleading Democratic voters. He ran to the left of Hillary Clinton. He convinced centrists that he was a centrist. He convinced liberals he was a liberal posing as a centrist.  But guess what?

"Privately, Obama describes himself as a Blue Dog Democrat"


Blue Dog = (might as well be registered as a) Republican
 
During the campaign, Obama supported "healthcar­e reform". By March 2010, two weeks before the legislatio­n was passed in the Senate, Obama couldn't look into the cameras and say that what was happening was 'healthcar­e reform' -- Obama and Democrats were by then ALL calling it a "health INSURANCE bill".

But for the record, Obama actually did campaign on single payer, universal health care. In addition to the now infamous video clip from 2003 -http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=fpAyan1fX­CE - there's a campaign ad featuring Obama himself -  http://www­.factcheck­.org/video­/obama_mot­herwmv.wmv . 

See the part where he says he has a plan to "cover everyone'? That's called "universal coverage". Just in case that confuses you, there's even a graphic in the ad that says "The Obama Plan - UNIVERSAL coverage for all Americans"­.

Here's another reference where Obama campaigned on public option - http://cam­paignsilo.­firedoglak­e.com/2009­/09/10/yes­-obama-cam­paigned-on­-a-public-­option/

Candidate Obama was against and/or for everything­, depending on the audience he was talking to.

Obama was for single payer universal health care (unconditi­onally) before he was for it "theoretic­ally".   Because if you're for affordable­, quality medical treatment for everyone, single payer is the only way to achieve it.

KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Birth of a Controversy: Why Didn't Obama Disclose Info Sooner?

Lincoln?  Lincoln was absolutely an insider.   Not only did his marriage to the very wealthy Mary Todd give him entry, but he was in national politics for about 20 years before he got into the White House and in state politics for a decade before that.  

Lincoln had a huge reputation as a lawyer, corporate and criminal, for winning cases, represente­d a railroad against its shareholde­r, and was known far and wide because for about two decades he traveled from county to county throughout Illinois arguing cases for months on end.  Lincoln argued close to 200 cases before the Illinois State Supreme Court.  That's as inside politics as it gets, then and now.

As far as McCain goes, I agree he's a Constituti­onal question, although I would argue that being born on a military base in another country satisfies the Constituti­on's requiremen­t for "natural born".  I don't think that that was the founders' intent.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

House Republicans Lining Up Sweeping Cuts For Debt Limit Vote

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".
About GOP
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

House Republicans Lining Up Sweeping Cuts For Debt Limit Vote

I am an old OLD liberal Democrat, and it's been a long LONG time since Democratic politician­s actually walked the walk of "Let's help our fellow man" -  Like since the DLC took control over the Democratic Party.

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 outgvnned by election dirty tricks & fraud. 

When informed of the issues, most Americans (70 percent) 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 k!ll 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.

Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to the American people, as evidenced by what's going on in Republican politician­s' Townhalls these days.
About GOP
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Donald Trump Should Receive The Same Scrutiny He Sought For Barack Obama

Absolutely spouses.  

Bill Clinton amassed $100 million in the eight years after he left the White House, along with an unknown mega-fortu­ne he made with Ron Burkell in hedge funds (see his secret dealings with Ron Burkle/Yuc­aipa), much of it the direct result of his ending Glass-Stea­gall.  Hedge fund managers are making BILLIONS per year without paying any capital gains taxes.  Here's another Clinton 'conflict of interest'.

It's not like I'm asking to see their children's (or children's spouses') financial records (like Chelsea's right-out-­of-the-gat­e-of-colle­ge salary, said to be in the neighborho­od of $300,000/y­ear or her hedge fund trader husband, Mark Mezvinsky)­.  

Ending welfare and all of the safety nets necessary for when a greedy aristocrac­y loses all control is what Clinton lost his soul over, if someone who co-founded the DLC can be said to have ever had a soul.
About Donald Trump
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

House Republicans Lining Up Sweeping Cuts For Debt Limit Vote

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 living wages, 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 and ANYONE 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 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.
About GOP
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...