Can finally calm the fuck down...
Take a breath...
Learn a lesson...
Do a little thoughtful introspection...
And some LONG overdue housecleaning...
Before we move on...
To the important subject...
Of Immigration Reform.
But I wouldn't bet on it.
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To date, this is how the very few interactions I've had with Never Trumpers have gone, because I want to talk about the Befor...
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It's been over for a long time now. The zombie Right now exists in a continuous state of aggressively rejecting basic observable ...
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Unfortunately, the Party of Lincoln isn't going to calm down; that's not in their job description; especially, since they're still numerically irrelevant, despite Obama's ongoing rehab job on them.
But, we still have that 18 seat majority in the Senate (I don't count Lieberman...who does?) and a like majority in the House.
The problem is, getting the preznint to understand that if he were sitting on the steps of congress on fire, there is not a republican in that building who would walk out and take a piss on him.
And here's the bottom line:
THERE. IS. NOTHING. HE. CAN. DO.
TO. CHANGE. THAT.
Nor, any of us. The only handle we have in getting progressive legislation passed, is on the democrats. "our" democrats.
Now that they have passed a bill (with ZERO republican support) that mandates 30 million or so new customers for the robber barons in the health insurance industry, when they had already killed single-payer and then, the public option, like they were a pair of 4 foot Timber Rattlers they'd found in the white house laundry hamper...
Now that Obama has instructed Harry Reid to kill the Dorgan amendment that would have allowed for re-importing cheap generic foreign drugs...
Now that Obama and the dems refused to bring up that bill in the house which would have stripped the anti-trust immunity from the healthcare mafia...
Now that Obama met with the CEO'S of the healthcare industry biggies and their uber-lobbyists, and cut the deal with them last summer, and then blocked the release of the white house logs of the meetings, just as George Bush blocked them, when he was letting Enron and the rest of the Energy-hogs gangfuck THAT market cross-eyed...
Now that Obama has used women's reproductive rights like so many poker chips, in cutting yet another deal for his "big win"...
With all of this from what is turning into a horror movie titled:
"Mr. Centrist Goes To Washington!"
I have to say, despite the fact that there are SOME good things in the bill, please forgive me if I don't join all the "frabjous day"-ing"
and the "Calloo! Callay!-ing"
from some sectors of the democratic party, for this wondrously humanitarian legislation that protects that $275 billion that the health insurance industry made off of sickness and ageing in america, last year.
I tell you, it brought tears of relief to my eyes, to read that hospital and Health Insurance Company stocks had gone up this morning. How selfish of me to think that those companies could afford, and WE needed, badly, healthcare reform legislation that would have Wall Street shitting green nickels.
I feel that's the old bottom line, so to speak, and I have a lot of trouble ignoring that, along with all of the rest.
I'm sure that any consumer shortcomings in the legislation will be addressed when Obama and the democrats re-visit it for a "fix", using some of the vast political capital that is going to accrue to them after the mid-terms.
I love Tanbark.
Nothing left to say.
The only handle we have in getting progressive legislation passed, is on the democrats. "our" democrats.
Yes, Tanbark always had good comments whether here or elsewhere such as FDL.
Drift: Immigration reform? Really? Must we? Why? So many other crucial issues, like money, jobs, education, jobs (again), horrific class cleavage which gets worse by the minute, police state, prison industry complex, oh and I almost forgot -- those dang Wars we keep underwriting.
I've been reading political stuff written during the late 1800's -- interesting. Populism was a movement of agrarians pissed off that Wall Street was closing in on the farms. Yep, even way back then. (check out latest issue, April, of Harper's mag)
Possible immigration reform: close the borders now; everyone currently here gets amnesty but should become usa citizens along w/ their children; roll back NAFTA and CAFTA; then follow all the other nations of the world who limit immigration in some sane and rational manner.
peace and in our lifetimes!
Tankbark always gets it done :-)
As to CIR, it's...the next thing. Not that D.C. doesn't do lots and lots of things at once (for example, take a wild guess how many funded programs are coming up for re-authorization. Each one of which is going to be a frakking food fight. Then double that number. Then redouble.) but I'm betting this is the one that'll suck up headline space (and banking reform.) Because there are too many Hispanic politicians and activists who have been carrying H2O for the White House who feel they were stepped over in the first year on a solemn promise Obama made to them, both publicly and in private.
One of the very few things I will say in Bush's favor is that he was willing to entertain more reasonable solutions to immigration than was the rest of the GOP. Republican xenophobia and demagoguery on this issue have left the door open to Dems, giving them a real shot at bringing the Hispanic vote on board for the next 10-15 years, if they act now.
Unlike most every other country in the world, we are very rich nation that shares one of the longest borders on Earth with a relatively poor nation. We also share centuries of culture and history. We are also completely addicted to cheap/illegal labor, and like any other illegal substance that people really, really want, going after the supply side of the problem almost never works.
I love Tanbark, too! Indeed.
What he said. :-)
Excellent photos.... but they really are scaring me. It is going to take years to replace their presence in our government.
You guys are all too kind to me, especially the maestro.
It's too funny, I'm currently banned at Digby's for saying the same thing.
Sarah Palin & Co. ARE the Charmin'-asswipe-with-expired-shelf-life of the republican party. But quite a few regulars at Digby's are sick of seeing Digby use her for a red-herring to try to cover Obama's feckless ass. And it aint about protecting the queen of Mooseturd, Alaska; it's about ignoring all of the shit in my original thread, about Obama.
Shorter tanbark: At this point in proceedings, I feel far more threatened by someone who didn't see, or didn't want, the big win that he could have had by simply shoving generic imported drugs down the throats of Merck, Pfizer, and Lilly, than I do from the bible zombies and flat-earthers.
I know the posters here, and the bossman, and me, are on the same side, but that was the deal-breaker, for me.
Just sayin'...as the sayin' goes.
Hugs to all.
I respectfully disagree, Tanbark.
The reimportation issue is a gift to the pharmaceutical companies, in that it completely dodges the real issue of patent reform. The Canadians set prices on drugs and we should, too. Instead, we subsidize the Canadians (and every other industrialized nation) with a patent system that lets pharma charge Americans whatever the hell they want for seven years. (I never understood why the anti-immigrationists didn't jump on this. Essentially paying for foreigners to have cheap drugs.)
If we want cheap drugs, we need to make pharma have a decent but reasonable profit without gouging just because they will make no profit after seven years. There is no reason that a six-year, 364 day old drug should cost $53.00 a pill but that same pill at 366 days old costs 53 cents.
Extend the patent time to ten years, require pharma to charge costs plus 15 percent if they want that patent. And ban pharmaceutical advertising outside of medical journals.
Reimportation covers up their greed and doesn't fix the real problem. Love ya.
I respect your respectful disagreement, BlueGal, but since we're so into "first steps" these days, I feel that forcing drug prices down by the marketplace method is something that will work, and just as importantly, that voters will understand. they would quickly bond with a president who did it for them, and Obama and the dems are going to need a lot of bonding.
"If we want cheap drugs we need to make Pharma have a decent but reasonable profit..."
Why? Let's get them out of the healthcare picture completely. Fund government research (They already do some of it...) and let THEM make and supply the drugs.
I think we're operating from a different perspective here. You're okay with the corporations making SOME money (and WHO is going to determine the amount, Congress and the president? I giggle...) off of sickness and ageing, and I want them totally out of the picture.
We are talking healthcare, and I don't think that ANY patents granted to Big Pharma are a good idea. Those people are not the solution; they are the problem.
I understand that they put substantial money into research, but my 2c is that that, too, is something that government should take over, as part of a socialized system. If we don't like how it's being run, we can fire the people who are administering it.
Try firing the CEO of Humana, or Merck.
As I said upthread, Obama and the dems were not hamstrung by the big, bad, republicans. They just caved to the fatcats, and it purely sucks.
Apology due here:
BlueGal; sorry if I came on to you too hard. You, of all people don't deserve that. Sometimes, I've got a hard mouth.
I grew it at that bluegrass site, where I had 13,000 posts, and 12,000 of them were political, fighting with the asshats.
It was strange. The Back Porch Forum was unmoderated. The owner, Rafe Martin, tried it once, but nobody paid any attention to Marcie, the mod WE voted for, and after a week, she threw up her hands, and just said "fuck it!". I mean, we went at it hammer and tongs. Practically no holds barred, except, the N-word and the C-word were frowned on, as were out-and-out threats or invitations to meet and mix it up. But, only frowned on...
We self-did it. If someone said something that was really viciously personal ("asshole"..."ignorant shit"..."prick", were all OK. :o) ) someone would holler "ouch", and it would back down, a little.
I finally got one more-or-less serious threat, and I was tired of, so to speak, arguing geography with people who think that the earth is flat, and who think that that zillion years of fossil record is a librul plot, but it was a hell of a run. And to Rafe's credit, the only person he ever threw off was a guy who had no redeeming characteristics whatsoever, and who just liked to holler shit, and sometimes, really cruel shit, at people. In six years, no one else ever got banned there, to my knowledge.
Sometimes, it was crazy and frustrating, but it was real; everybody got a say. Boy, did they ever more. :o) When I left I thanked Rafe Profusely, and told them: "Trust me, despite all the bitching about the profanity and negativity,someday you guys are going to be proud to have been a part of this." I believe that, if they don't.
Flagbabe and Larue, were my foxhole buds over there. We were seriously outnumbered, but never outtalked or outthought, or, in my case, out-cussed.
Some of the people were Christians, and we even had a mormon picker. They didn't like the fuck-shit-and-piss of it all(they said...) but, oddly, they kept coming back for more.
Which brings up something that interesting, to me. I have conservative friends here in the Cackalack...people who think that the sun rises and sets in Rush Limbaugh's pylonidal-cyst-afflicted-ass, who LIKE Me. They invite me to pick with them, feed me, occasionlly argue with me, gently, but they LIKE me. I've tried to figure it out. Maybe it's them atoning for their subconsciously-realized willful stupidity by befriending a lefty.
But I digress. Unfortunately, Digby is so protective of Obama, and so unwilling to put up with any serious dissension, that I get kicked off there, regularly, and then let back on. To her credit, she's loosened up some, but the better and truer shots I get off about Obama, the antsier she gets.
We'll see how long I'm in the doghouse now.
Same thing at FDL, although, for some reason, not on Jane's threads, and some of the newer threadmeisters. Old joke:
"Hey! I've been thrown out of better places than this." :o)
Anyhow, I'll keep in mind that I'm talking with people who are, in substantial measure, my political soulmates.
Love bakatcha, hon. :o)
From what Rachel Maddow said last night this bill does require insurance companies to spend 80-85 percent of their income on healthcare. If that's not unconstitutional then yeah, I think we can do that with pharma.
Yes, I'm okay with every manufacturer in America making SOME money. Also every laborer. It used to be people actually got paid for their work and product. Alas, in the age of WalMart and free blogging that is no longer.
Pharma employs people who get paid. Some of their executives get paid WAY too much, and we should also fix executive compensation big time. But this race to the bottom in wages has destroyed the middle class. If we take everyone out of the "equation" then we all work for or are supported by the government, and there is no tax base and no structure for that.
Seriously Tanbark we are sitting here giving of our wisdom for free. It does warp the argument. This progressive hopes to make it possible for a middle class to make something and make money at it.
Glad you responded.
I'm sorry, I think that Maddow (whom I like and am grateful for) like a lot of progressives, has looked at Obama's actions, or lack of them, and is drenched in the same panic-urine and flopsweat that is saturating his more "centrist" followers. They wanted a win so badly that if Obama had introduced a bill to put George Bush on Mt. Rushmore, they would have supported it.
Also, making "something" is fine.
Cars, banjos, beer, etc...
Not drugs. And from all I read, the "restrictions" on the robber barons are piss-thin gruel.
I wouldn't trust the congress that is like a yard filled with fire-ants, there are so many lobbyists up there, to "regulate" prices any further than I could throw them.
Good points, TB, and to add to that I really wish progressives would stop trying so hard to make Obama less of a politician. We progressives are ALWAYS going to be pushing from the Left OUTSIDE of the beltway. To be inside? That's the sell-out. Which is why I get up in Jane and Marko's craw about primarying Kucinich (and in Jane's case, Sanders). Are you kidding me? Two real liberals are there trying to do a job and you want to burn bridges over what? A milquetoast HCR that does a smidgen of good but not enough? That's worth burning the crops for? Will Kucinich and Sanders EVER work with FDL again? on ANYthing? I wouldn't.
And then I'm an Obamabot for saying he's a politician and all we can do is agitate for issues and not for candidates because Candidates are politicians and in some rare cases, human beings.
A lot of the hatred for Obama has nothing to do with any issue whatsoever. And not race either. It has to do with entitlement that certain people feel was taken away from them in the primaries. IN TWO THOUSAND FUCKING EIGHT. I have absolutely no time for that crap.
Don't know why I got off on that tangent, but I know I do need a vacation. Sigh. :)
"...to make it possible for a middle class to make something and make money at it."
Me too!
Cars, music, beer, shoes, etc...
Not drugs, on which people's lives may depend. They should not be in the "all the traffic will bear" economic category.
As you may have noticed, the stocks of hospitals, drug companies, and some insurance companies went up yesterday, on the news that the trojan horse had finally been dragged into the city. (missing the "public option" leg, of course...)
How well that qualifies as "middle class people making money", can be debated.
I don't think that bringing up rightwing hatred of Obama, in the same breath in which you're talking about honest and valid criticism of him from progressives, is helpful. Again, I'm sorry, but that's like confounding us with the 'baggers who are carrying around photos of him as Little Black Sambo eating a watermelon.
He needs to be less of a politician. Is Rahm helpful, with all of his political "savvy" and wheeling and dealing? I think not.
I think that Obama needs to be true to the things that he talked about in his campaigning...
Obviously, he's a politician. But he's a politician who was elected in a landslide because a lot of americans expected him to implement the changes that we so badly need, and which he talked about so convincingly.
The republicans haven't spayed and neutered him; he's done that to himself. And I'm sorry, but there is no one else to talk about, for it happening.
The republicans were sweating bullets at what this seemingly bright, articulate democrat coming in with locks on the board in both houses, might do to upset the corporate applecart.
If he had hit the ground running...
If he'd sent Lieberman over to the other side of the aisle, or made him set up a desk in the middle, instead of letting him keep that committee chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (!!!) when shortride endorsed and campaigned for one of the worst of the warpimps, in John Mccain...
If he put some of that prodigous political capital that he came in with, behind closing the prison at Gitmo, as just earnest money that he meant business...
If, in his first 90 days, he'd pulled out half of the troops in Iraq...
If, instead of leaving the warbots like Petraeus and Odierno and McChrystal in control of the clusterfuck(s), he'd buried them somewhere in the pentagon, and had found brass that would stand up and say: "We've done all we can do here. Time to go home."...
If he'd done these things and some others, he would have looked like Captain America, and the voters would have LOVED him. They would have loved him even if the repubs filibustered everything he'd tried. Americans know moxie when we see it, and we like it...even if it's wrong, which bush certainly was.
He could have been a truly great president, instead, he looks like just another political hooker, for sale to highest bidder.
Jesus, I'm gonna stop here; the list is depressing, all over again.
Suffice to say, Barack Obama wanted the presidency. He certainly made it sound as if he was in favor of many of the changes that most progressives supported. Surely he was bright enough to understand that the republicans were not going to give him a scintilla of help in mounting a salvage operation to try to save something from their 8 years of lunacy.
And he came in and went to them on his fucking knees, like THEY had those big congressional margins.
I think we're gonna get tsunami'd in the mid-terms, and I'll go you one better: it looks to me Obama and the dems are quite comfortable with that. It will go a long way to relieve them of the burden of failing so badly at the hoped-for changes that they were elected to implement.
Tanbark, it appears that you're looking at the Gilded Age of Obamalightenment as a bit of a put-up job. Tsk.
;)
From a foreign perspective, if Obama had done all the right 'populist-friendly' things - close GTMO, rollback troop deployment and timetable measured withdrawal from both theaters of war, defenestrate Lieberman out of meaningful power rather than tacitly countenance his Punch-and-Joey show, leash and muzzle the hounds of Wall Street - the powers implacably lined against him would have found some method of derailing the People's Express before it hit the Promised Land station.
I won't say what method(s) (as this is a family blog)...But they've been used before whenever some temporary tenant of 1600 forgot themselves and tried to shine a little light on the shadows.
Therefore IMO, the New Bosses are playing the long con - keep the enemies close until '12, after which re-election won't mean shit and the 2nd term Administration has latitude to run wild.
Will this lovely idea work? Well, hmmm.
Clinton, a fellow centrist, might have had a similar notion but his reenergized opponents kept him hamstrung and the public remained benightedly titillated throughout term 2.
So if midterms show a big swing back to batshit on the Pol-O-Meter - well, if that happens we're all screwed anyway. Triumph of the ignoroids.
;>)
Sadly, depressingly, I share Darkblack's sentiments about what could have been done by Obama if he really tried to impliment progressive polcies. Shit, I knew we were going to be let down when he kept Geitner and crew, and gave sweetheart deals to Wall Street with basically no strings attached.
Those presidents who went against the tide have paid a price for it. Teddy Roosevelt got kicked out of the Repub party; trust busting and public lands not going over too well with the powerbrokers. FDR is hated to this day and was a "traitor to his own class." Plus there was that little problem with Butler and possbile (though now denied) coup. LBJ did the right thing on civil rights, but we're still paying the price for what became the Southern Strategy.
The infuriating part to me is our Dem leaders not seeing that playing the acquiecing, precompromising, nice guys won't do a damn thing. Did Newt & Company go easy on Clinton for NAFTA and Gramm-Leach-Bilbey? Fuck no, they kept fishing till they could come up with something - anything - to impeach him.
If the Repubs take the House, you can bet money on investigations into Obama with an eye toward impeachment (start with Blagojovich, community organizing days, anything and everything). If they take the Senate, look for a newly Republican "independent" Lieberman to strut and preen while he leads a Senate investigation into Obama.
Christ, time for ibuprofen, now.
TB is right as usual.
I think we're gonna get tsunami'd in the mid-terms, and I'll go you one better: it looks to me Obama and the dems are quite comfortable with that. It will go a long way to relieve them of the burden of failing so badly at the hoped-for changes that they were elected to implement.
When I heard the Big O's even bigger TV mo(ment) "I'd rather be a good one-term President than" actually fulfill any of the promises that I campaigned for, I thought, oh noes, it's all over but the shouting!
I also wrote one of the first blogs that pointed out that keeping Summers as a financial advisor and appointing Geithner as Treasury Secretary (with purposely unpaid Federal taxes a known but seemingly inconsequential matter to the insiders who cared) was a big red flag for what might prove either a very long con (thanks!) or a very short walk off the pier of credibility about anything.
DB is on point (naturally) about the issue as to who rules America (now).
I won't say what method(s) (as this is a family blog)...But they've been used before whenever some temporary tenant of 1600 forgot themselves and tried to shine a little light on the shadows.
With all the post (and pre-!) election threats not being addressed by the proper government agencies, many of us wondered if he'd even be able to move into the White House.
However, doesn't this go with deciding to run for the job today? Shouldn't everyone have been aware of this since, oh, 1963?
Unfortunately, after this smelly health care nonprocess, we've got lots of time left to see how they can gracefully lose the bankster-revelation/financial whorehouse cleanup engagements as well.
Which will seem minor by comparison I guess, which may have been the plan all along.
Notice how many on the left have either dropped out or taken a long break because of exhaustion already?
The other guys don't take breaks you know. Of course, they are pretty well paid not to.
Go Tarheels!
S
__________
what? Primary SANDERS!?!?!? That's crazy. Someone has run out of track.
The target is the pub seats. All of them. Since the "porch" has gone viral and Congressional it seems, let's recall what shut them down. 2006. They all scattered and abandon the porch. They all shut up. Suddenly, more people were able to voice their surprising opinions. So. More Dems is called for in Congress. Sorry, but this is the only way forward regardless of health care and other disappointments.
No, this isn't what I envisioned either. FOR SURE. However, the alternative scares me. Really scares me now. MORE Dems is the only path really. I don't see a tsunami. Maybe the Health Care bill isn't what we wanted or how we wanted it BUT it damn sure is the predicted "Waterloo" and not for us. ONLY if the Dems get OUT there an keep on this right now. The snitfit party is down and it is time to kick them. HARD.
I leave for five minutes to pick up a gallon of Oban and a pack of dirty playing cards...
'Shouldn't everyone have been aware of this since, oh, 1963?'
Or 1865 even, eh Suzan? Why, McCain was just a baby then...
...
The glossy kind, DG? They clean up nice with a little soap, after.
;>)
"I leave for five minutes..."
:o)
And come back to find out that some big guy named "Gilliard"
(teary eyes, here...and no shit about it...)
has come in and goosed everybody in the ass. :o) :o) :o)
"...If he'd done these things and some others, he would have looked like Captain America, and the voters would have LOVED him...."
Love your remarks Tanbark, but why assume he wants to do ANY of it?
No one get to the top of the political pyramid in America without being fully invested the system. And that system is empire abroad and national security state at home and, yes, corporatism.
As for health care, see Chris Floyd:
Closing Time: An Historic Confirmation of Corporate Power
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/1947-closing-time-an-historic-confirmation-of-corporate-power.html
You got a good point there, 'vet.
The mythology of the repubs hanging on to his sac, to keep him from fulfilling practically ANY of the things we hoped of him, aint holdin' much water after the deals he's cut, for the "win".
Needless to say, this debate is rocking, on the progressive blogs. All I hope for is that this will be a springboard for him to grow some glands, to pick up the cudgel for the salvage operation, and really get after it.
But I'm not holding my breath. If I had to bet, I'd say he goes right back to going with the flow and chasing the bi-partisan pony.
David Michael Green is a professor of PoliSci at Hofstra. On his blog (I still don't know how to put up links here...) a while back, he wrote the most perceptive and honest assessment of Obama and the dems first year as "winners" that I've read. It was triggered by the loss of Ted Kennedy's seat.
It was titled:
"How to squander the presidency in one year."
The first two paragraphs:
"There's only one political party in the world that can simultaneously lick the boots of Wall Street Bankers and then get blamed by the voters for being flaming revolutionary socialists.
It's the same party that has allowed the opposition to go on a 30 year scorched-earth campaign, stealing everything in sight from middle and working class voters and then allow them to claim to be protecting "real americans" from out-of-touch elites."
You can google his name, and it's the third link down. It's a HELL of a good rip of our beloved centrists. :o)
Adolph Reed wrote a pretty scathing critique of Obama's corporate based "centrism" even before he was elected, Tanbark. Have you read it? I can't remember the URL address, I'm afraid, but it should still be readily available.
Sorry to hear you were banned at Digby's. I love her, but she does seem to be sliding into partisan Democratic Party hackdom, if only out of fear of the Rethuglicans. The problem is, she's not wrong to feel that fear. I doubt there are any easy solutions here; I definitely agree with GV's take on things.
Hell, you should check out the comments section at places like Sadly, No. Some of the posters there make Digby look like Ralph Nader.
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