The first week of March has seen a number of commentaries in the American media, mainly from liberal pundits, worrying over the declining public standing of President Obama and the growing signs of disarray in the Democratic Party.
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're all doing what we can...
I would hope that somehow the Democrats will learn a lesson from knowing they are going to take a serious beating in November, and do something about it.
They have 8 months to get the progressive and independent votes back.
Plenty of time to create and pass some useful legislation, like a universal single payer HCR bill, and plenty of time to charge, try and begin prosecution of Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the war criminals.
Why, I bet they could even get away with not prosecuting Obama as an accessory after the fact, as long as they prosecute the others, and defund the wars and start REALLY getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq.
And plenty of time to charge, try and prosecute Paulsen, Geithner, Bernanke, and Lloyd Blankfein, and the upper management of AIG, and break up Goldman Sachs.
If they do these things in the next few months they can win November with landslides, and Obama might even win a second term two years down the road.
Making Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public utilities would be icing on the cake.
Otherwise they are toast. And apparently republicans are worse. Somehow (scratches head in puzzlement).
George W. Bush
Tax Cuts for the rich
Strategery
Invading Iraq
"They will welcome us as liberators"
"The oil will pay for the war"
WMD's
Mission Accomplished
Torture isn't a war crime cause my lawyer says so
Hurricane Katrina
"The fundamentals of the economy are strong"
Sarah Fucking Palin
Katie Couric - But are you ready to become the leader of the free world?
Sarah Palin - Totally. I will totally lead the world. Any world. I will lead Mars or whatever too if those guys need a world president. Or just a Mars president. I took on the ole' boys club in Alaska and I can take it on in Mars.
Katie Couric - But I'm not asking about being president of Mars.
Sarah Palin - But I am answering about being president of Mars because a president person needs to be prepared for anything. I like to reform.
LANGUAGE WARNING: Today's story is uncharacteristically blunt, and from this moment forward we will be using lots of inappropriate language in making our points.
It is by now fairly well known that Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's White House Chief of Staff, had a bit of a blow-up with liberals who were ready to start running ads against "blue dog" Democrats who were working very hard to shut down the health care reform effort.
Now we're not gonna get in the middle of that argument today; instead, since we're finally getting a chance to talk, I figured me and Rahm could get a few other things out of the way that have been on everyone's mind for the past year or so.
Dianne Feinstein is doing a Pombo on the Endangered Species Act, with an Amendment to gut it in an upcoming Democratic "Bipartisanship Enhanced" jobs bill.
Like Salmon ? Too bad ! McClintock's in on it, too.
Hey, this even makes the Kansas City Star. Everything's up to date in Kansas City. Dead silence at a certain other "Democratic" blog.
Yes, our northern CA based Sen. DiFi thinks Billionaire Business Water Brokers in Kern County of Southern CA Who Donate To Her Campaign Are More Important Than Salmon. So Does Tom McClintock.
She intends to put an amendment that says we can ignore the Endangered Species Act, onto the upcoming jobs bill to let more water be pumped out of the Sacramento- San Joaquin Delta. Why does this matter ? Because at certain times of the year, the nursery fish need the water to swim and feed in. And the West Coast salmon runs are at the brink of going away. Forever.
{{{ "This came as a bit of a shock that she did this," said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif.
He represents California's North Coast, which has been hurt by two years of bans on commercial salmon fishing stemming from collapsing salmon stocks.
"If this were to go through, it would have a devastating impact on Northern California and other jobs and other economies in the state," Thompson said. }}}
Where the hell have you been, Blue Dog Rep. Thompson ? Didn't you notice the real reason so many people up here in northern CA 04 DIDN'T WANT Carpetbagging Tom MCCLINTOCK of Southern CA pimping for these Southern CAL business sharks to take water out of Norcal and kill off our agriculture and wildlife ? He's running the exact same playbook that former Republican Rep. John Doolittle ran with Dick Cheney and the suckerfish up in the Klamoth river drainage.
Bye, Bayh, Missed American Pie
Took My Donor to the Levee, but the Levee was Dry
Them Good Ol Boys of WellPointe were drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singing "this'll be the day that they die
This'll be the day that they die !"
Did you write the book of gov
And do you have faith in God above
If the Gruber tells you so
Do you believe in Rock n Roll
Can an excise tax save your mortal soul
Can you teach Max Baucus how to dance, real slow ?
Well, I know that you're in cahoots with him
'cause we saw you dancing in the Finance Cominn
You both kicked off your shoes
Man, we hate those Anthem Blue Cross Blues
There was a lonely teenage sickly buck
with a pink Korman ribbon but no pickup truck
With no insurance she ran out of luck
The day, the patient died
I started singing
Bye, Bayh, Missed American Pie
Drove my donation to the levee
But the legislation was dry
Them Bad Ol Dems were drinkin' whiskey and rye
And singin,' "this be the day that it dies
this will be the day that it dies"
Now for 10 years, WE'VE BEEN ON OUR OWN
And profits grow green on a rolling bone
But that's not how it used to be
When the Candidate sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from Howard Dean
and in a voice, that came from you and me
Oh, and while the WellPointe CEO was lookin' down
The Cigna stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Obama read Sunstein's book
The Gang of 4 practiced in throwing hooks
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day, the health reform died.
And we were singing
(those of us still alive)
Bye, Bayh, Missed American Pie
Drove my donor to the levee but the water's too high
Them Bad Ol Dems were making bills for nigh
And singing "This will be the day that it dies
This'll be the day that it dies"
Helter skelter winter in a summer swelter
The birds & fish flew away without ESA shelter
Eight miles high, and falling fast
The rain fell mercury tainted on the grass
The Feinstein tried for a forward pass
With the Pombo on the sidelines about to cast
Now the half time air was sweet perfume
while Billy Tauzin played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance
'cause the Insurance execs tried to take the field
The lobbyists refused to yield
DO YOU RECALL WHAT WAS REVEALED ?
The day, the music died
We started singing
Bye, Bayh, Missed American Pie
Drove Our Constitution to the Levee
But the Levee was Dry
The Supreme Court Boys were drinking Money and Lies
And singin' "this will be the day that they die
this will be the day that they die."
Oh, and there we were all in one place
NASA's been outsourced, no more lost in space
with no time left to start again
So come on, Evan, make yourself nimble, make yourself quick
Call those industry donors, light your candlestick
'Cause your Senate Seat's the Devil's only friend
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of sage
No Creator born of ocean's shell
Could break that spirit's spell
As the smoke wafted high into the night
To light cleansing smoke in a clear blue site
I saw Satan frown in stymied might
The day the Donations Died
We are singing
Bye, Bayh, Missed American Pie
Drove my warrior to the levee
And the levees were high
The good old boys are running faster and high
Singin' this will be the day that I ride
This will be the day that We Ride
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some Happy News
She said Evan Bayh quit and turned away
I went down to the sacred bores
Where I'd heard like music years before
But the lobbyists cried the music wouldn't play
And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried, the poets dreamed
Not a word by Wellpointe spoken
The Insurance Industry might be broken
And the 3 Senators that we admire the most
(and it's not Collins, Holy Joe, and Olympia- they're toast)
They caught the last train for the coast
The day, that Bayh went bye
And we are singing
Bye, Bayh, Missed American Pie
Drove our hopes to the levees and heaved a big sigh
Those lobbyist boys, are feeding 'em whiskey and rye
Singing "this will be the day WellPointe dies
This could be the day WellPointe dies."
__________
http://motherjones.com/kevin-d... So why did he quit so suddenly? His official statement says he's frustrated with the Senate because there is "too much partisanship and not enough progress - too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving......
that's pretty much Marc Ambinder's take: "He wanted to be POTUS and came to hate the Senate and liberal activists. He wanted no mas."
Democratic Congressman John Murtha of Johnstown,Pennsylvania, age 77, has just passed away early this afternoon in Arlington, VA, following complications from gall bladder surgery he had earlier.
Murtha, a Vietnam era Marine veteran who was recently best known for being one of the first more "establishment type" Democrats to have enough cajones to criticize President George W. Bush on his Iraq war policy. Murtha was Chairman of the House Appropriations Sub Committee on Defense. He served in Congress from 1974 to 2010. In November of 2005, Murtha, who had visited many injured troops at Bethesda's military hospital, whose suffering made a deep impression on him, submitted a resolution in Congress calling for the redeployment of US troops in Iraq.
"The United States cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq, militarily. It is time to bring them home. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... This statement set off a MSM Faux Outrage Conservative Shitstorm, and helped push some of the nation out of its complacent stupor on Bush's war in the Middle East.
Altho Murtha was pro- life, he came at it from a respectable viewpoint, in that he was politically liberal on many other issues such as labor and civil rights. Considering his district was conservative western Pennsylvania, which can be been rather "redneck" (Murtha himself used that gloriously un P.C. term to describe some of the less than socially progressive attitudes of some of his district's residents), he was a leader.
Murtha is survived by his wife, Joyce, and 3 children, John, Patrick, and Donna, and 3 grandchildren.
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. And may you find yourself in heaven, 5 minutes before the Devil knows you're gone. RIP, John Murtha
Lately there has been a spate of diaries at such web sites as FireDogLake and "Open" Left wherein lay members - typically under attack from site moderators, who act as Democratic Party hacks and gatekeepers - have sought ways to bring back the Progressive Party, or join the Greens, or build up some other institution, that will allow progressives to act together as a cohesive political unit. (I posted an entry there myself, only to end up being attacked by site moderators, threatened with banishment, and ultimately banned when I refused to back down against their incessant bullying.)
Fellow FDLer TalkingStick points out the wisdom of studying the teabaggers for ideas about how we progressives can rebuild our own movement.
Mason calls for progressives to join him in building a Progressive Party from the ground up, apparently not aware that it already exists in states such as Vermont and Washington, and as Green Party affiliates inMissouri and Wisconsin. He is joined in this effort by MadHemingway, who posted the 1912 platform the Progressive Party ran on.
FDL members are not alone in Left Blogsylvania in expressing their utter disgust with the Democrats; at "Open" Left, such lay members as Arthur Lukas gripe about where progressives are and asks where we should go from here. Even at the Daily Obama, whereupon I also post, a poll I put up asking if it is time for progressives to break away from the Democratic received a fifty percent yes-vote.
Such discontent is often met by moderators and site owners with derision, insults, threats, and banishments of the "offending" members. Nevertheless, it has grown more difficult for the access-bloggers to bully progressives into submission, a lesson FDL's Jason Rosenbaum refused to learned after the beat-down his contemptuous post before the Massachusetts special election received. In short, no one on the left is buying into the Big Lie that Democrats are any different from Republicans in terms of substantive policies, nor are we responding to threats and insults anymore for "failing" to be bullied into supporting Democrats no matter what.
This discontent and refusal to be bullied has created an opening for progressives seeking to organize the left back into a cohesive and more importantly, effective movement in opposition to the far right. There are angry voices aplenty, people outraged by the betrayals of the man they though they were electing president in '08 and the endless capitulations to the GOP made by Democrats. Here we have an advantage.
The only thing lacking in the new political environment is effective leadership among progressives. We will not find it among the self-appointed "leaders" of the 'netroots, the access-bloggers like Chris Bowers, Markos Moulitsas, and the aforementioned Rosenbaum whose only real goal is to gain access for themselves - and only themselves - to the inner circles of "serious" political power and corporate media recognition. It is therefore up to us to take on leadership roles and organize the left.
If we can take charge, we the progressive base, then we can finally begin the work of taking back America from the fascist elements that have usurped it for their own ends to the detriment of everybody else. The Full Court Press is one tool for doing that, and it's a very good start.
At a DNC fundraiser last night, President Obama had an interesting exchange with a Democratic organizer about health care reform, wherein he appeared to suggest that Congress could drop the ball and fail to pass a bill--and that voters should judge them harshly if they do.
"[I]t may be that -- you know, if Congress decides -- if Congress decides we're not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not," Obama said.
At what point do progressives stop being Democrats' whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people? David Sirota wrote today about Obama's latest call to increase war spending beyond its already ludicrous proportions.
How many of the extreme right-wing and criminal policies of Bush-Cheney has Obama adopted? How many of those extreme right-wing policies has he exceeded? Last month, knowledge that Obama has gone a step further than Bush, authorizing the executive branch to murder American citizens on the flimsiest of rationales. This sh__ has GOT to end.
A recent change of the guard in the Massachusetts Senate race force the President to reveal he is working. We, the American people, are waiting, just as we have been for months and months. For a full year, countless citizens have felt as though they were patient. Yet, the President did not seem to have their interests at heart. True change has not come. Countless constituents anticipate none is forthcoming. Three hundred and sixty five plus have gone by and the American people are tired of being patient.
MSNBC's Ed Schultz talking at the AM950 Blue State Bash on Saturday night to a crowd of progressive talk radio fans in Minnesota lets go with both barrels at Robert Gibbs, at Barack Obama, at the "people who have infiltrated the Democratic progressive movement", and at the whole delusional idea of bipartisanship.
"I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him," Schultz said. "And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb the same way Senator Leahy got it on the Senate floor. I told Robert Gibbs, I said, 'I'm sorry you're swearing at me, but I'm just trying to help you out."
"I'm telling you, you're losing your base," he continued. "Do you understand that you're losing your base? And that the American people don't want public option, the American people want single-payer!?'"
There's a phenomenon called "core accretion" in the world of astrophysicists. It refers to the process by which little planets become big planets during solar system formation.
During this process, the biggest and strongest of the planetesimals gobble up the smaller ones. And the character of the new planet takes on the combined character of all the rocks it has accreted in the process.
It works a little like this:
If the Democrats continue to take this country the direction they've been taking it all the way through 2010, it may be time that the Democrats are done. If the Democrats were supplanted by another Party or Parties, what would happen next? What to do, this would bring chaos and political defeat!
Jon Walker makes a very effective argument about why learning the wrong lesson from the defeat of Martha Coakley in yesterday's Massachusetts Senate race will lead to disaster.
Not only will Democrats lose badly if they adopt this strategy, but they will be laughed at. Republicans never had 59 Senate seats, and that did not stop them from passing the legislation they wanted. Trying to explain to the American people how, despite controlling everything, Democrats cannot do anything, because a mean minority of 41 Republican senators won't let them, is a message that will go over like a lead balloon. If you try to use that excuse, people will think elected Democrats are liars, wimps, idiots, or an ineffectual combination of all three.
The Democratic reaction to losing Kennedy's seat will be to do exactly what voters were punishing them for.
From a perspective of operant conditioning or other theories of what constitutes rational behavior i.e., the theory of learning to "earn rewards" and "avoid punishments," the behavior of Democrats is what behavioral learning theorists refer to as "misbehavior," because it doesn't fit their theory of what rational behavior should be like, dammit!, assuming, of course, that behavior is rational in the first place. In plainer, descriptive language this behavior might more simply be called "working for pain" or "earning pain." Earning pain is a real phenomenon in both rats and humans. And can be downright amusing to watch in the human case.
Struggling against a sea of troubles, a once-in-a-lifetime president having a once-in-a-lifetime mandate for real change, Barack Obama, has made the counter-intuitive and unpopular decision to stay the course.
On war, health care, the economy, on justice and accountability, on the rule of law itself, Barack Obama, and Democrats more generally, have opted to stay the course. They view staying the course as the safe option. Freeze when Republicans are in power, and run to electoral safety when they are out. Just like rats irrationally yet repeatedly running between electrified grids and freezing after each shock, in various states and fits of fear, if I may deign to notice.
Following an epidemic of fraud, a tsunami of foreclosures (with a second tsunami in short order), and record gambling losses transferred to the public balance sheet, former Fed vice-chairman Alan Blinder is scared:
My fear is that a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a sturdier and safer financial system is slipping away.
There will be no consumer protection legislation. No clawbacks of ill-gotten gains. No regulation of on- or off-balance sheet financial instruments. And no prosecutions of fraud.
Barack Obama will not be content to simply re-arrange the deck chairs, he'll say. Americans do not run from their troubles, but take them head-on, he'll say. What he means is,
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is an article that was originally posted on my blog a few days ago. I'm posting it here at DD as a followup to my previous diary about the need for ballot access reform.
*******************
A few days ago, I discussed the need for ballot access reform as a crucial first step in opening up the American political system and removing the shackles placed upon it by the Republican and Democratic parties. Today, I'd like to discuss another equally important element of political reform which I believe is a necessary co-requisite to ballot access liberalization: electoral fusion.
Fusion balloting, which is also referred to as cross-endorsement or open ballot voting, refers to the practice of allowing multiple political parties to nominate the same candidate for the same office. This cross-endorsement can open up several possibilities for minor parties operating within the constraints of a political system like ours here in America, in which two parties are dominant: these minor parties might, for example, choose to cross-endorse candidates nominated by one of the two major parties, or to cross-nominate each other's candidates, or to run their own candidates without any cross-endorsements, depending on what their political and strategic priorities are. At present, fusion balloting doesn't affect most voters because it's only allowed in eight states: Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, Oregon South Carolina, and Vermont.
A year ago, when Obama was inaugurated, when the new Congress began with huge Democratic majorities, I thought the Bush/Cheney years were finally over. But they're not over. Nothing has changed.
I've supported Democrats for 40 years. Despite all their betrayals, I felt I had no choice. I told myself they were the lesser of two evils. I told myself incremental change is better than no change at all. But nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change if progressives keep supporting the Democratic branch of the Corporate Fascist Party.
During the Great Depression, Woody Guthrie traveled across America and saw the injustice, poverty, and despair of a nation suffering the consequences of economic and social injustice. In the city square, in the shadow of the steeple, by the relief office he saw his people. They were hungry, they were out of work, they were out of hope. As he was walking that ribbon of highway, he saw what America is, but he also saw what America can be. He never stopped hoping that someday, America would become a land of economic and social justice. So he wrote This Land Is Your Land, as an anthem of what America can be.
His story is our story, his anthem is our anthem, his land is our land, his cause is our cause. Woody Guthrie told the truth about America because someone had to. He told it across this country, as he walked through the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, with a guitar on his back and the truth in his soul . . .
According to the Boston Globe, nearly half of Americans polled believe that U.S. dictator Barack Obama is not living up to his campaign promises.
Nearly half of the Americans surveyed said Obama is not delivering on his major campaign promises, and a narrow majority had some or no confidence that he will make the right decisions for the country's future.
More than a third saw the president as falling short of their expectations, about double the proportion saying so at the 100-day mark of Obama's presidency in April. At the time, 63 percent said the new president had accomplished a "great deal'' or a "good amount.'' The percentage saying so in the recent poll dropped to 47 percent.
Although the article does not mention the loss of left-wing support as reason for the drop-off, choosing instead to focus on right-wing discontent, the overall attitude indicated by surveys is that he is either incapable or unwilling to make good on public expectations of change away from the institutionalized horrors of the Bush-Cheney regime.
The signs are everywhere that at least one chamber of Congress will revert back to Republican rule, though the public is unlikely to notice the difference. Obama really shot himself in the foot by raising people's expectations without having any intention of meeting them. No one thought he would be able to work miracles, and no one has claimed that he would end eight years of devastation overnight. But with a year now behind his dictatorship, Obama has not made even token efforts to undo the policies of the Bush-Cheney regime - and in some cases, such as government secrecy and illegal spying on Americans, he has exceeded them. The public is not stupid. We do not enjoy being lied to, used, taken for granted. And we will punish those who do so.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
