Neoliberalism

Q: What's the difference between Reaganism, Neoconservatism and Neoliberalism?

A: Neoliberalism applies a drop of lube. Other than that the answer is 'Nothing'.

Obama is a Neoliberal

Daily Kos: UPDATED: What is Neoliberalism?:

"* Economy is a self-regulating entity that always balances out.
* Government is inefficient and costly.
* Private business is efficient and therefore the best way to solve our problems.
* Wealth trickles down from the wealthiest to the middle class and the poor because businesses create jobs that then puts more money into the economy leading, in turn, to more jobs."

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FDR's grandson:

Curtis Roosevelt: The Absent Commander-in-Chief: Who's in Charge Here?:

"President Obama seems to have forgotten that President Eisenhower warned us about 'the military/industrial complex' as long ago as 1960. Does the president not recognize the danger of appointing an Army general to head the CIA and appointing the former director of the CIA to become Secretary of Defense? Is Obama not tying himself ever more closely to the military-industrial complex? Is this naivete? Is it lack of experience? Neither is an appropriate excuse for a president who should be acting as commander-in-chief.

In essence, the president does not seem to be in charge. And that is a serious charge."

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Obviously.

Obama Not Obsessed With Keeping Job: Robert Gibbs (VIDEO)

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Eyes of All

Yup.

The Bad Deal | Common Dreams:

"The President is not a progressive – he is not what Americans still call a “liberal.” He is a willful player in an epic drama of faux-politics, an operative for the money power, whose job is to neutralize the left with fear and distraction and then to pivot rightward and deliver a conservative result.

What Barack Obama got from the debt deal was exactly what his sponsors have wanted: a long-term lock-in of domestic spending cuts, and a path toward severe cuts in the core New Deal and Great Society insurance programs – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And, of course, no tax increases at all."

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"And the President too is a young man. Unlike say Lyndon B. Johnson or Jimmy Carter, when his term ends he won't be able simply to go home. He'll need a big house in a gated suburb, with high walls and rich friends. And a good income, too, from book deals and lecture fees. He may be thinking about that now.

The good news is: it won't save him. For if and when he ventures out, for the rest of his life, the eyes of all those, whose hopes he once raised will follow him. The old, the poor, the jobless, the homeless: their eyes will follow him wherever he goes."

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Eschaton: Baffling:

"The continued systematic pursuit of obviously bad public policy is baffling. It's not like it's good politics. Does the Obama campaign staff really think they are gonna hold PA or OH with trade concessions to Korea? Do they think they will turn out voters in New Mexico on a deportation platform?

This isn't hard. Hire people to build things with the free money the world is offering us."

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Seriously, all the OA supporters and their hand-wringing over real liberals who aren't clapping loud enough is fucking annoying. No better than Bush supporters and just as blind.

Daily Kos: -- To the neoliberals on this site --:

"Why all the subterfuge? You won. Do progressives really need 'roping in'? Obama 2012, your campaign, has already put out its strategy. Obama is better than the Republicans, and you should prefer a list of Boy Scout achievements to Republican tea party garbage. And, hey, even if the Republicans win next year, you can run against them while enjoying the fruits of their neoliberal policies. And if you are a Democrat, you can blame the progressives for your defeat, which was the whole point of the game in the first place. So where's the victory celebration?"

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Cool.

Astronaut Photographs Perseid Meteor... From Space : Discovery News

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More Money...

'More money, more problems'? More like 'More money, Fuck You'!

Upper-class people less empathetic than lower-class people: study | The Raw Story:

“One clear policy implication is, the idea of nobless oblige or trickle-down economics, certain versions of it, is bull,' Keltner added. 'Our data say you cannot rely on the wealthy to give back. The ‘thousand points of light’—this rise of compassion in the wealthy to fix all the problems of society—is improbable, psychologically.'"

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How the Democratic establishment shunned the left, spawned the Tea Party and moved America right : Peter Daou

Green with Tea Party envy - The Washington Post:

I suffer from Tea Party envy. There is little about the actual party I like and there are some members I abhor, but I am jealous of its sense of purpose, its determination and its bracing conviction that it is absolutely right. In its own way, it waves a crimson battle flag while President Obama’s is a sickly taupe — the limp banner of an ideological muddle.

Obama would be a good White House chief of staff, but as a president he lacks political savvy. He never knew how to get ahead of the Tea Party wave. He never knew how to marshal — or create — his own constituency. Republican invective notwithstanding, he lacks demagogic tools. He tries to solve problems instead of, for the Republicans, creating them. Barack Obama does not do pain."

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Obama's favorite President. Though, as Michael Moore points out Unions and we the people aided and abetted this destruction.

The Day the Middle Class Died:

"Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way:"

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Small glimmers of a resurgence:

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‘You’ve got to get mad!’

No longer the beacon...

Opinion: Once Upon a Time in the West - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International:

"The word 'West' used to have a meaning. It described common goals and values, the dignity of democracy and justice over tyranny and despotism. Now it seems to be a thing of the past. There is no longer a West, and those who would like to use the word -- along with Europe and the United States in the same sentence -- should just hold their breath. By any definition, America is no longer a Western nation."

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Entirely reposting , Fair Use be damned. Needs to be read.

AMERICAblog News: Hope takes a holiday

I'm starting to align myself more and more with Woody Allen (and Hillary Clinton) on this whole "hope" thing. People don't just turn out, and vocally turn on, their members of Congress because you give a blind quote to the Wall Street Journal. And it takes more than hope to make it happen. Not to mention, a lot of us aren't feeling much other than despair at the moment. If past is prologue, why should the effort on jobs be any different than the stimulus, health care reform, or the deficit? Big promises, small effort, and a so-so, or in the case of the deficit, a horrific finish.

The White House thinks it can dispirit millions of people who voted for the President, who believed in him, who truly thought he was different, who believed that he would actually, finally, bring change to this city, to our dysfunctional government, only to find out that he was as bad, if not worse, than the rest of them. The White House thinks we can go through all of that, time and time again, and then they can just pivot and say "never mind about that man behind the curtain, now go sic em," and we're all, like happy little lemmings, going to start terrorizing members of Congress on their behalf?

Uh uh.

I just heard from a young gay Obama supporter, who works in DC politics, who told me he's not even voting for the President next time. Not that he wants him to lose. He just isn't very interested in him winning. And he doesn't think his vote will make the difference anyway, so it's a matter of principle for him. The problem for the President is that if you add up enough dispirited principled voters, suddenly you find yourself losing a close state. (You also lose a lot of volunteers, and donations, along with the lost enthusiasm - I've had more than one person tell me they're not going to volunteer, or donate, or raise money this time around like they did last time.)

It's a larger problem for the President, and one his team has never fully acknowledged going back to the days of the campaign, when it first reared its head. The Obama people - and let's face it, the President himself - have/has a way of alienating people who really want to like them/him. You don't just do that to people, get their hopes up, then dash them repeatedly, and then think you're going to flick some switch and everything's going to be all back to normal.

Not to mention, it takes a lot of organizing to get people to swarm their members of Congress. And it's something that's likely far beyond the capabilities of the demoralized masses, and the emasculated sorry excuse for non-profit advocacy groups, that we now have in the wake of three years of hope takes a holiday.

As negative as this presidency has made me, I'm someone who almost always thinks you can win in politics so long as you have the right people and the right plan. But like that young gay kid I mentioned earlier, and like so many other people I work with every day, I'm just not sure how much I care anymore. Or rather, I still care a lot - but I know this President, I know this Congress, I know these pitiful progressive non-profits who do little more than genuflect in the White House's shadow, and I know that regardless of what any of us do, the powers that be are going to sell us out and make a mess of things. And the Republicans know it too, as evidenced by their spectacular victory over the President and the Democrats in Congress on the deficit deal.

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Olbermann on debt deal: ‘You’ve got to get mad!’�|�Raw Replay:

"“We have superceded Congress to facilitate 750 billion dollars in domestic cuts including Medicare in order to end an artificially-induced political hostage crisis over debt, originating from the bills run up by a Republican president who funneled billions of taxpayer dollars to the military-industrial complex by unfunded, unnecessary, and unproductive wars, enabled in doing so by the very same Republican leaders who now cry for balanced budgets – and we have called it compromise.”"

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Still not mad?

Obama Sides With Panetta On Need To Cut Medicare Over Defense | TPMDC

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HiStory

Let's do this, Wisconsin. Make it happen.

Wisconsin recall votes may impact 2012 election | Reuters

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Daily Kos: The debt ceiling, the White House and the damage of 'compromise':

"The more we hear reaction from both parties, the more convinced I am that my original take on the debt ceiling deal was correct, and that this 'compromise' is in fact an unambiguous and abominable failure by the administration. There's simply not enough lipstick for this pig: it is a failure, pure and simple, and one which is going to have serious long-term negative repercussions for the economy, the markets, and the political environment in general."

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What Happened to Obama’s Passion? - NYTimes.com

But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

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Jeff Madrick: Obama: The President Who Wouldn't Make the Louisiana Purchase:

"He might even have pulled the Constitution card and said Congress had no right to set a debt ceiling in the first place, according to the 14th amendment. He said his lawyers told him that was a weak argument. But Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territories in 1803 knowing full well that it was probably unconstitutional for him to do so. There were also concerns back then about whether America could afford it. But that's what great presidents do in the big moments. They do what's right rather than abiding by minor niceties. Jefferson's is but one example.

Consider Obama the president who would not have made the Louisiana Purchase."

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The history lesson Obama has ignored - History - Salon.com

Just under three quarters of a century ago, a group of conservative economic advisers close to Franklin Roosevelt informed the President that they were worried about the rapid rate of growth in the US economy. Since 1933, when FDR took over at the height of the Great Depression, the economy had been expanding steadily, at an average rate of 14 percent per year. Schooled as most of these advisors were in the tenets of economic orthodoxy (which called for cuts in spending during an economic downturn), and unsure of the effects of the Keynesian-style deficit spending that the administration had been engaged in under the terms of the early New Deal, the President was advised to cut the budget, reduce deficit spending and tighten the money supply as a means to stave off inflation. Heeding their word (and no economist himself), FDR did just that.

The results were an unmitigated disaster.

Thanks to the Administration’s decision to move away from the increasingly Keynesian policies it had been following — policies that saw the unemployment rate fall from a high of 25 percent in 1933 to 14 percent by 1937 -- FDR launched one of the sharpest economic downturns in American history-the so-called "Roosevelt Recession" of 1937-38. In just a few short months, the GDP declined by 13 percent; industrial production by 33 percent; wages by 35 percent and an estimated four million people lost their jobs. No fool, FDR quickly reversed himself and went back to Congress to seek a massive stimulus bill to put people back to work and repair the damage to the Depression-era economy. Within three months growth had returned and the economy was back on track.

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Kinda feels like this.

Mar 11, 2011: Japanese tsunami from the point of view of a car. [VIDEO]

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Mission Accomplished

No reason that I should stay....

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Robert Reich: Ransom Paid:

"Anyone who characterizes the deal between the president, Democratic, and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics nor politics."

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Debt Ceiling Deal: The Democrats Take a Dive | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy:

"We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions? When the final tally comes in for the 2012 presidential race, who among us wouldn't bet that Barack Obama is going to beat his Republican opponent in the fundraising column very handily? At the very least, he won't be out-funded, I can almost guarantee that.

And what does that mean? Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?

It strains the imagination to think that the country's smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by 'surrendering' at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?"

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Daily Kos: White House: Republicans will 'recoil' from any future attempts at�gamesmanship:

"I want to know what planet this White House Official has been on where the Republicans would 'recoil at gamesmanship' or be 'unlikely' to stack a committee with ideologues.

I don't even have a decent response to this—it's just too silly. Once again, administration negotiators have given far-right Republicans nearly everything they demanded under the absolutely bizarre impression that next time around, they'll be more reasonable, or that next time around, the Republicans won't be able to take hostages that the Democrats find unpalatable.

It's a game of chess in which one player cannot look forward to more than one move at a time, steadfastly refusing to even contemplate what moves the other player might make in response."

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AMERICAblog News: Just stop already

The President is a lousy negotiator and doesn't have the stomach for any fight, to be sure, but he's also getting what he wants. It's the President who kept trying to one up the Republicans by adding more cuts to the deal (remember, he's the one who put Social Security and Medicare on the table), so spare us the "I would have preferred something better." No he wouldn't. The President is interested in one thing: not making waves. And whatever he can do to ensure that he makes now waves, he'll do it.

And now there's a second thing motivating the President. No, not the national interest. His own political self-interest. Somehow he's got it in his head that the only way he can win re-election is to massive cut spending in the middle of an anemic quasi-recovery on life support. He's not doing it because he thinks it's the right thing. He's doing it because he thinks it will get him re-elected. And even there, he's wrong.

Joe and I predicted this day. We saw it coming on how the President handled gay issues, how he handled the stimulus, and how he handled health care reform. Joe and I begged all the apologists to wake up and realize that the way the President handled HCR - not fighting for anything - was exactly what he'd done before, and would do in the future. But we were told by the smarty pants lobby that this was incremental politics at its best, and we were just silly idealists. Yeah, not so silly now.

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Daily Kos: Trojan Horse: The Obama Deception:

"If Obama were merely incompetent we could say that he's a disappointment. But he's not incompetent and he's not merely a disappointment – he's a willing traitor to the American people. He has betrayed the movement that brought him into office. It's as simple and awful as that.

Hope? Change? We were fools to ever believe it.

So don't call Obama a moderate. Don't call him a centrist. Don't call him a blue dog. Call him what he is...a Republican."

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Quoteth Dick Cheney

In the immortal words of Dick Cheney, Obama and the Democrats can go fuck themselves. At this point, President Romney would be an improvement.

Eschaton: SUPERCONGRESS:

"Some details aren't clear to me yet, but seems like they've hit on the perfect combination of stupid and evil for the debt ceiling 'deal.'"

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AMERICAblog News:

"Suffice it to say, the GOPers won. Big. Expect to hear some crowing from Dems. about minor little victories. We'll hear lots of spin and boasting. Overall, we're seeing a GOP package. Have to hand it to them, they know how to use their power. Too bad Democrats only control the White House and the Senate."

Krugman: Proposed debt deal will cost jobs and revenue�|�Raw Replay

The Halt and the Lame - NYTimes.com

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Whole lotta this:

Responses to debt deal range from angry to angrier - Yahoo! News:

"But Kiran Mahto of Portland, Ore., who volunteered for the Obama campaign in 2008, would have preferred no deal at all to the concessions he felt the president made to congressional Republicans.

Mahto, a 35-year-old managing editor who works in health care information technology, said the agreement is the latest in a long string of times Obama has disappointed him, and vowed it would be the last.

'I'm actively opposed to this president now. That also goes for his party since they've been silent through the whole ordeal,' said Mahto, who thinks the debt deal will lead to an Obama defeat in 2012. 'Cutting the deficit will do nothing to get people jobs. Without jobs and without a liberal base, he will lose.'"

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Daily Kos: You Can’t Demoralize Me with Your Highly Accurate “Obama Is a Colossal Failure” Narrative:

"Obama is my guy to the end.

(Do you remember the rallies of 2008? They were awesome.)

Sure you can point out that Middleman Obama has failed to address the country’s priorities - jobs and economic recovery - while firmly embracing the creeping Orwellism of the Bush national security state.

So maybe he has pre-emptively surrendered on all the most important elements of his professed agenda.

What was he supposed to do?

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Primary

Krugman.

Meh, Bleh, and Eek - NYTimes.com:

"At this point, we just have to accept it as a fact of life: Obama doesn’t, and maybe can’t, do outrage — no matter how much the situation calls for it. The purpose of last night’s speech, if there was one, was to rally the nation against crazy Republicans. But there were no memorable lines, no forceful statements of the very stark reality. “Now, now, that’s not reasonable” isn’t going to move multitudes.

It turns out, I’m sorry to say, that he wasn’t the one we were waiting for."

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He doesn't represent me. He doesn't represent Progressives. I will not vote for Obama in 2012. I do not believe he deserves re-election, the alternative be damned.

Obama and the Left: a problem for the WH? - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com:

"At this point, the only factor that can lead someone to deny the significance of this trend is willful blindness. And it's hard to imagine those numbers going anywhere but down as the realization sets in that it is the President who, now by his own admission, has been working hard to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, and as the President increasingly pursues what is clearly his 2012 strategy: casting himself as a trans-partisan centrist (his doing so vindicates, in my view, those of us who have long argued that there was nothing 'new' about Obama's politics; it was just slightly re-branded Clintonian, Third Way triangulation)."

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Mr. President, What is this "Shared Sacrifice" You Talk Of?

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Daily Kos: Short and Succinct on MY Social Security:

"'Entitlement' my ass, I PAID cash for my social security insurance! Our benefits aren't some kind of charity or handout. Congressional benefits -- free premium federal health care, enormous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, 3 weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days -- now THAT is welfare! And they have the nerve to call my retirement 'entitlement'?"

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For the sake of what's left of any soul of the Democratic Party, Obama needs to be challenged.

Bernie Sanders Says It Would Be A ‘Good Idea’ To Primary President Obama | ThinkProgress

SANDERS: Brian, believe me, I wish I had the answer to your question. Let me just suggest this. I think there are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president, who believe that with regard to Social Security and other things, he said one thing as a candidate and is doing something very much else as a president. Who cannot believe how weak he has been for whatever reason in negotiating with Republicans, and there’s deep disappointment. So my suggestion is, I think one of the reasons the president has made the move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him and I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama believes he’s doing. [...] So I would say to Ryan, discouragement is not an option. I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.

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Dupes

Eschaton: No Drama Obama:

"The rather obvious solution is a clean debt ceiling hike, but none of the people involved in this ridiculous mess seem to want that.

Using crisis as an excuse to ram through massive 'bipartisan' changes without public input is horribly undemocratic.


Shame on all of them."

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Compromise My Ass:

"Man, the citizens of this country are being duped big time, again.

Dupe: One that is easily deceived or cheated; delude, trick.

President Obama quoted Thomas Jefferson in his nationally televised speech tonight. Here's another quote from Jefferson:

Thomas Jefferson: .'If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.'"

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It’s not like you weren’t warned:

"My response to the President’s speech?

You know, at some point, you just have to stop listening to people who always end being proven wrong.

And to help nudge you along, here’s a reminder of what some people, some outsiders, some people who are scorned as “the professional left” and as “bloggers in their mother’s basement” were saying, back at the time President Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts in December 2010, last year:"

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Does politics disappoint Pres. Obama?:

"The President doesn't want his hands tied. I can understand that from Lincoln -- but Obama doesn't face an armed rebellion, he faces a bunch of Republicans who don't want to do what's reasonable, what's customary, and what the American people overwhelmingly want. I understand the need for negotiation, but he's not really negotiating with the Republicans. He's like a man picking up an unconscious opponent from the floor and pretending to wrestle with him so he can justify calling the bout a draw. He has sought this outcome; sought the inferior position we suddenly, amazingly given public opinion, find ourselves in today."

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AMERICAblog News: The top priority of Obama’s "grand bargain" is his reelection:

"but it seems depraved that a Democrat would run for reelection on a platform that would 'cut social insurance and health care programs for people who are old and sick and cannot work.' If a GOP President proposed these changes, we'd be calling it was it is. The Democratic base would be apoplectic. But, for some reason, we're all supposed to suck it up because a Democratic President is doing it. It's just wrong."

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#f*&@kyouWashington

Shock Doctrine.

Eschaton: There Is No Crisis

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What Obama Was Willing to Give Away - NYTimes.com:

"Jonathan Cohn summarizes what seems to have been in the deal that Boehner walked away from; it’s horrifying. Above all, the proposed rise in the age of Medicare eligibility was a real betrayal of both Democratic principles and good government."

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Daily Kos: The Debt Ceiling Battle Was Lost Last December:

"Yes, now President Obama and Democrats have to accept a bad bargain to raise the debt ceiling. But if they had negotiated better last December, they could have made a better bargain then. They didn't. The Deal was a terrible mistake. And 7 months later, people like Bernstein want to forget how the bad deal in December is leading to the bad deal in July/August on the debt ceiling (and the one after that on the budget.)

It is taxes that Republicans care about. It is the one thing that animates the party. In December, President Obama had the biggest stick he is likely to have until after the 2012 elections. He gave it up without getting back what he needed.

It was terrible bargaining and everyone should have been able to see it. Apparently, not everyone did."

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Obama, George H.W. Bush, and the ghosts of 1990 - War Room - Salon.com

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Tweeters rage against the D.C. machine - What's Trending - CBS News:

"#F---YouWashington"

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A conservative Christian did this. Not a brown person. Not a Muslim. A conservative Christian who targeted Liberals.

Norway's Timothy McVeigh.

Norway Attack: Island Survivors On Their 2-Hour Fight For Life

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Right-Wing Pundits Jumped To Blame Muslims And ‘Jihadists’ For Norway Attacks | ThinkProgress

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Daily Kos: Norway attacker was a political Terminator:

"Taking out 80 of the people committed enough to go to the AUF's Utoya summer retreat? That's like sending a Terminator back in time to take out a future Parliamentary leadership.

The crime was unspeakably heinous to begin with. And telling Americans that the killer targeted a 'summer camp,' it was no doubt imagined, would only make it sound worse.

It did. But it didn't really describe the magnitude of the loss for Norway. Nor did it convey the calculated sickness—and the very, very intensely political nature—of what the gunman undertook to do."

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Noodle

Change. Dammit. Change.

The only deal is no deal:

"What am I willing to give up so that Congress will follow through on its constitutional obligation to protect the credit of the nation? Exactly what I'm willing to give up to ensure that the sun rises, that water is wet, and that Republicans will toady to the rich. Nothing, that's what I'll give up.

No matter how many times it may be said, and no matter who says it, there is no 'unique opportunity' here. There's no opportunity at all. There's not even any here, here."

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Ted Strickland: Dems' Concessions On Debt Debate Are 'Very Troubling':

"In an interview with The Huffington Post, former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (D) aired his concern that the fiscal 'belt-tightening' President Obama and many Democrats have pursued has effectively diminished the party's brand. Democrats, he argued, have 'allowed the center of the political debate to be shifted so far to the right that we find ourselves debating on their territory and using Republican language.'

'It's very troubling,' he said."

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Daily Kos: Obama's Speak/Doublespeak on Entitlements:

"If you believe that targeting retirements at a time when unemployment is rising, as are CEO pay and bonuses, at a time when new jobs are not being created at a rate that is near enough to take a bite out of this recession, if you believe that targeting entitlements at this time is some sort of shared sacrifice, after we the taxpayer bailed out criminally negligent banking institutions for at times, fraudulent practices, and not a single one of 'em has gone to jail, then you my friend, are contributing to the destruction of the middle class, and the continued oppression of the working poor."

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The Very Serious People Still Want That Grand Bargain And Don't Care What It Does To The Economy -- Or Us | Crooks and Liars:

"Let's tell the emperor he has no clothes: Cutting spending during a prolonged recession is about as likely to reduce the long-term deficit as rubbing your lucky rabbit's foot. This is disaster capitalism, plain and simple:"

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Daily Kos: We’ve Already Lost So Cancel Any Perceivable Celebration:

"We have abandoned Keynes and common sense and moved in with Milton Freidman while partaking in shock doctrine austerity binge drinking, but we’re told we won’t get drunk. We’ll just have a few drinks while we forget what we are supposed to stand for as Democrats.

So what the hell are we celebrating anyway?"

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Prophetic.

AMERICAblog News: Taylor Marsh, 2007: Obama "wants to hold hands with the wingnuts to save some fantasy Social Security ‘crisis.’ "

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Because this makes as much sense as anything else these days...

Man wins right to wear pasta strainer on head in driver’s license photo | The Raw Story

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Clap Louder

Much of the clap-louder crowd are breaking their palms today over this:

Obama: Enough is Enough in Debt Talks, 'This May Bring My Presidency Down, But I'm Not Yielding' | TPMDC:

"'I have reached the point where I say enough,' Obama told the leaders, according to the account. 'Would Ronald Reagan be sitting here? I've reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.'"

A couple of points if the 'don't question dear leader' folks can quiet down for a moment.

1. No one forced Obama to couple deficit (the grand lie) with debt limit increase. He should have told the Republicans to go fuck themselves from the get-go. Dems and Repubs corporate masters were never going to let them default. Never. Because it would spook the precious markets (per them).

2. He still put SS and MC on the table. No denying that.

3. He'll do anything for a deal, regardless of how band is hurts the middle class. We get small tax increases yet the local library gets shut down? Whoppty-fucking-do.

4. Ronald Goddamn Reagan. Is it not crystal clear who this man patterns himself after?

5. You want me to clap louder? Raise the fucking debt ceiling in a clean bill. No more cuts to middle class programs.

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What Tiabbi says.

Obama Doesn't Want a Progressive Deficit Deal | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy:

"I simply don't believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc. That they won't do these things because they're afraid of public criticism, and 'responding to pressure,' is an increasingly transparent lie. This 'Please, Br'er Fox, don't throw me into dat dere briar patch' deal isn't going to work for much longer. Just about everybody knows now that they want to go into that briar patch."

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Adm. Thad Allen: Separating The Value of Public Service From The Politics

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Watermelon-prescribing 'doctor' gets a month : Crime Scene:

"A man who posed as a doctor and told a Belmont woman to eat watermelon in a hot tub to help her kidneys has been ordered to spend a month in jail and never to pass himself off as a medical professional."

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Evil or Stupid

Krugman:

The Obama-Keynes Mystery - NYTimes.com:

"I’m not alone in marveling at the extent to which Obama has thrown his rhetorical weight behind anti-Keynesian economics; Ryan Avent is equally amazed, as are many others. And now he’s endorsing the structural unemployment story too.

To those defending Obama on the grounds that he’s saying what he has to politically, I have two answers. First, words matter — as people who rallied around Obama in the first place because of his eloquence should know. Yes, he has to make compromises on policy grounds — but that doesn’t mean he has to adopt the right’s rhetoric and arguments. The effect of his intellectual capitulation is that we now have only one side in the national argument.

Second, since Obama keeps talking nonsense about economics, at what point do we stop giving him credit for actually knowing better? Maybe at some point we have to accept that he believes what he’s saying."

No, We Can’t? Or Won’t? - NYTimes.com

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Digby

Hullabaloo:

"Everyone's always trying to figure out what Barack Obama really wants. But it's not a mystery. He's been clear about it from the very beginning. What people have to face is the fact that he is a rigid leader who refuses to change course in the face of changing circumstances. Perhaps that's a strength at times. But in this one, it's a tragic weakness. We have over 9% official unemployment and probably double that in reality. The housing sector is still dead. Growth is anemic and very possibly about to go south. His grand bargain vision from 2009 was always anathema to the liberal project. Today it is destructive on an entirely different level."

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Richard (RJ) Eskow: A President On the Verge of a Political Breakdown:

"Yet instead of pushing for the spending that's needed, the President keeps reinforcing Republican arguments instead. According to the AP he told reporters in the Rose Garden that 'uncertainty over whether lawmakers will raise the nation's debt limit is keeping businesses from hiring.' (What was keeping them from hiring before that?) Economic advisor Austan Goolsbee evaded the issue of badly-needed stimulus funding as well as anyone could - that is, not very well at all - while repeating that ill-advised 'business confidence' mantra."

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Daily Kos: President Obama and the New Deal:

"In the past week, we witnessed the truly astonishing spectacle of a wide array of Democratic Congressional leaders feeling it necessary to stand up to a Democratic President in order to defend the programs and values that have defined the Democratic Party since the Great Depression. Just think about that. And now some consider it a victory that there probably won't be any immediate cuts to Social Security, even though there will be a trillion or more in overall budget cuts, without any major increases in revenue. And cutting Social Security is now safe to discuss on both sides of the aisle. To use digby's own comparison, only Nixon could go to China; and while Reagan and the Bushes did not even seriously try, a Democratic president may be opening the door to the dismantling of the New Deal."

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With Entitlements on the Table, Obama Plans to Go Big on a Budget Deal | The Nation:

"Even still, it’s extremely disheartening; it demonstrates that, as always, Obama is willing to cater to the center-right in a huge way (entitlement cuts) for the sake of a small political advantage.

Moreover, this proposal is further evidence that the debt ceiling negotiations were an intentional decision on Obama’s part. The president genuinely believes in deficit reduction, and chose to use the debt ceiling as an opportunity to cut spending with significant bipartisan cover. Obama hasn’t been fooled into these negotiations, nor is he playing rope-a-dope or a complex game of 11-dimensional chess. This is what he wants."

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Obama's Political, Economic Advisers Say Jobless Rate Won't Matter in 2012 | MyFDL:

"Now the people who helped Obama defraud voters by channeling everyone’s hope for change have convinced themselves he won the election because they’re political geniuses.

The lastest example of this delusion is Obama’s senior campaign adviser, David Plouffe, who confidently told Bloomberg that going into the 2012 elections with over 8 percent unemployment and no meaningful jobs programs will not hurt Obama’s chances for reelection:"

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If the drinking game is 'How many Bush/Rove talking points can the Obama administration parrot and enact' then our country is headed towards alcohol poisoning.

Panetta makes 9/11 gaffe in Iraq | The Raw Story

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Shivved

Jesus fucking Christ, for the sake of liberalism and this country, Ronald Wilson Obama must not be elected to another term.

Unbelievable.

Obama puts Social Security, Medicare cuts on the table | The Raw Story

Miles Mogulescu: Republicans and Obama are Like Thelma and Louise Racing Toward the Cliff:

"I wish I could see an exit from this theater before the movie ends in disaster."

And nobody gives a damn....

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Forever Scammed

Gonna be a 'What Atrios Says' kinda day.

Eschaton: No We Can't:

"No We Can't
Not a new observation, but I do continue to be amazed that in the greatest fucking country in the history of the universe our elite classes have basically decided that things suck and there's nothing to be done.

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Eschaton: Elite Fail:

"Elite Fail
Unemployment is at 9.1% and everybody in Washington is desperately trying to figure out how to increase taxes and cut spending. Maybe it's opposite year and somebody forgot to tell me.

And, yes, in normal times there are tax increases I'd get behind and I'm sure reasonable spending cuts exist (though whether they're being considered is another question), but the point is that the fact that we're having this conversation at all is insane. Jobs bill jobs bill jobs bill jobs bill jobs bill...."

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This is what we dirty fucking hippies have been pointing out for 30 years...

Daily Kos: GOP Has Been Openly Scamming Dems for 30 Years Now:

"The neo-conservative is willing to leave those problems to be coped with by liberal interregnums. He wants to shape the future, and will leave it up to his opponents to tidy up afterwards. (emphasis added)

And the GOP has been pulling this scam ever since. As Bloomberg News reported even before Obama had won the election, the bond markets were poised to start insisting on cuts to social spending in order to protect the bond traders themselves. This, of course, was just a repeat of the scam that was pulled on Bill Clinton when he took office:"

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This is what we dirty fucking hippies have been pointing...

The Annotated Frank Rich - The President’s Failure to Demand a Reckoning From the Moneyed Interests Who Brought the Economy Down -- New York Magazine:

"The president’s failure to demand a reckoning from the moneyed interests who brought the economy down has cursed his first term, and could prevent a second."

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It isn't pragmatic to parrot and propagate the Republican bullshit puke machine. Obama is pushing every Republican policy and talking point out there.

Think about it. We'll go an entire term without a single Democratic/Liberal/Progressive piece of legislation being passed.

Barack Herbert Hoover Obama - NYTimes.com:

"Yep, the false government-family equivalence, the myth of expansionary austerity, and the confidence fairy, all in just two sentences.

Read this and this to see why he’s wrong. This is truly a tragedy: the great progressive hope (well, I did warn people) is falling all over himself to endorse right-wing economic fallacies."

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Jeff Sessions. Major League Asshole.

Jeff Sessions: Saying Millionaires Should Share Pain Is 'Rather Pathetic'

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Don't drink and purchase puppies.

NYC pet stores ban drunk people from purchasing puppies | The Raw Story:

"'We have to tell them to come back the next day and most of the time they never come back,' Jacoby said. 'Most of the time it happens around holidays — St. Patrick's Day or Gay Pride.'"

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Snakes

Here's how our ruling elites behave when they think no-one is watching.

Clinton and Paul Ryan kissing each other's ass and discussing the need to end Medicare.

We are ruled by truly awful people.

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What Krugman says...

Debt Limit Stakes - NYTimes.com:

"Think about it. There’s a significant chance that failing to raise the debt limit could provoke a renewed financial crisis — and Republicans would rather take that chance than allow a reduction in tax breaks on corporate jets.

What this says to me is that Obama cannot, must not, concede here. If he does, he’s signaling that the GOP can extract even the most outrageous demands; he’s setting himself up for endless blackmail. A line has to be drawn somewhere; it should have been drawn last fall; but to concede now would effectively mean the end of the presidency."

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AMERICAblog News: Honey I shrunk my negotiating position in the deficit talks:

"So basically, the Republicans keep saying 'no' and the White House keeps offering them more and more cuts to programs, and fewer and fewer tax increases, while the Republicans simply keep saying 'no.'

Heck of a negotiation. The White House is simply negotiating with itself at this point. Lowering its bid, lower and lower, while the GOP does nothing. Guaranteeing that any final deal that is reached starts at a point so low that we're screwed no matter what the details.

Now, I'm sure the White House thinks it's going to win the battle by showing the American people how earnest the President has been in these talks, while the Republicans have been intransigent. Yeah, fat chance. That is all a matter of spin. And the White House folks, and Dems generally, don't spin very well. They need to hire someone who does, and empower them to win, rather than tying their hands in a never-ending desire to be nice to people who want to destroy you."

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No one could have predicted....

Financial Reform Destined To Fail, Top Federal Reserve Official Says:

"For Hoenig though, the choice is clear when it comes to what to do with the financial institutions that caused the most punishing downturn since the Great Depression: break them up into pieces that regulators can understand and provide a backstop to entities engaged in the so-called real economy -- but allow those dabbling in more risk-laden activities to fail.

The Obama administration and Congress chose the alternate route in passing the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. To Hoenig, they made a mistake.

'Following this financial crisis, Congress and the administration turned to the work of repair and reform,' he said during a Monday speech in Washington. 'Once again, the American public got the standard remedies -- more and increasingly complex regulation and supervision.'

'The Dodd-Frank reforms have all been introduced before, but financial markets skirted them,' he continued. 'Supervisory authority existed, but it was used lightly because of political pressure and the misperceptions that free markets, with generous public support, could self-regulate.'"

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Shocking.

After Taking A $10 Billion Bailout, Goldman Sachs Announces It Will Outsource 1,000 Jobs To Singapore | ThinkProgress

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Nice work, NYC'ers.

Glenn Beck and family encounter hostility in NYC - Yahoo! News

Hateful bastard deserves every bit of it. You reap what you sow. Fuck. Him.

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Alabama's GOP Delegation Voted Against Funding for Tornado Forecasting

Not nary a one will pay a political price.

Legal Schnauzer: Alabama's GOP Delegation Voted Against Funding for Tornado Forecasting:

"Bachus, however, apparently neglected to mention that he and other Republicans in Alabama's Congressional delegation voted against funding for satellites that are critical for accurate storm forecasting. The Web site climateprogress.org reports that Bachus and his fellow Alabama Republicans--Martha Roby, Mo Brooks, Robert Aderholt, Mike Rogers, and Jo Bonner--voted against a bill that would replace aging satellites that are the heart of America's weather-forecasting system."

Therefore, who's really at fault? The asshole politicians or the dumb-asses who elect them. This we know for sure: An ass is involved in the process at all points.

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Oh, Matt Taibbi. How many nails must you crush on the head...

Loony-ass Insurgents vs. Waffling Bores: GOP Presidential Fight Starts Tonight | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy

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Daily Kos: Bill Maher lays out GOP's utter failure

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People of the U. S. can not or will not wrap their collective heads around the ass kicking we receive. America. farf yea.

AMERICAblog News: Rachel on Osama and money: "The goal of Al Qaeda was to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy":

"'According to bin Laden, the goal of Al Qaeda was to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy. That was his grand strategy' (6:35 in the clip).

She titles her report 'On Our Terms, Not His'. On his terms, we lost, right? After all, isn't that what the Reagan of our myths did to the old Soviet Union — get them to spend themselves into bankruptcy?

Food for thought, though I don't hold out hope for our digesting it. The real predators feeding on our decline — the military-security industry — are feasting. They're unlikely to allow the process of decay to stop until the last drinkable drop has passed their lips. And we're unlikely to stop them."

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Washington works just fine

I wonder which Republican policies our 'Democratic (haha)' President will champion today. Do your back exercises and stretches, because we will most certainly be hauling the load on our backs.

No look at all these non-pragmatic, non-serious, pie-in-the-sky-ers. Change is not perceptible, Hippies!

Newly Released Spending Deal Targets Health, Environment, Energy | TPMDC

Six-month spending bill unveiled: What's cut and what's not - TheHill.com

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Ouch, ouch and ouch.

Rep. DeFazio: Obama should ‘act like a Democrat’�|�Raw Replay

Cornel West: Obama is ‘another black mascot’ of ‘Wall Street oligarchs:

"Princeton professor and famed black intellectual Cornel West has long been a supporter of President Barack Obama, but he’s recently changed his tune."

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Obama’s constitutional law professor joins group calling Manning’s treatment illegal:

"The Harvard professor who taught President Barack Obama about America's founding document has added his name to a letter damning the treatment of U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning, the lone soldier accused of leaking a vast number of government secrets to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

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Obama Is Missing - NYTimes.com:

"What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular?"

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Daily Kos: From change agent to dealmaker:

"Instead of being the public leader, the transformational leader, that many of us expected, the leader he campaigned to be, he's shrunk. He's just become another Washington insider playing the insider game. The insider game has him making choices between shutting down the government and stepping on the poor. The insider game has him choosing between tax cuts for the wealthy or declaring war on the unemployed middle class. The insider game has convinced him there is almost nothing he can do about the housing crisis. The insider game has him appointing a corporate CEO who ships jobs overseas as the head of his domestic jobs council. The insider game has him appointing the very same people who ran the economy into the ground as his principal economic advisers. He told us of a Washington that was broken, but he was quite mistaken. Washington works just fine. Just not for regular people."

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DC For Obama Furious Over Budget Deal:

"Barr said his grassroots group, which is not affiliated with Obama's official campaign, knocked on more than 100,000 doors for Obama in Virginia ahead of the 2008 election. Barr said more than 250 people had already signed up for an April 28 campaign launch party.

Barr's enthusiasm has faded. 'We may end up postponing indefinitely,' Barr said. 'We may also just hold it and use that time as strategy to fight back against the White House and Congress.'"

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Surprise, surprise: rich get richer - The Boston Globe:

"THIS IS the biggest stickup in American history."

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The Real Housewives of Wall Street | Rolling Stone Politics

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I couldn't agree with this post more and this is why I will not vote for any Democrats in 2012. Give. It. Too. Them. instead of this bullshit slow-burn of the same policies that Obama and Congressional Dems (haha) are applying.

AMERICAblog News: Maybe it is time to let the GOP destroy the economy

My income is less than half what it was before the recession. And I know people that have been looking for a job for a year. It's tough out there. But at some point, maybe we have to consider whether we're going about this all the wrong way.

If the Republicans want to make a political/electoral issue out of the debt ceiling, then let's not raise it. Hand the keys to the legislation, to to speak, to Boehner and McConnell, and tell them it's their choice whether the legislation passes. And when it doesn't pass, and the world economy melts down, no one will elect a Republican for decades to come.

I'm simply tired of dealing with Democrats who don't have half a brain or half a backbone, and Republicans who would rather demagogue, and lie, than fix the country.

Why keep paying ransom to the hostage takers?

Maybe it's time to simply let Atlas shrug.

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I was at the beach 3 years ago when this artist was creating a beach mural. Same time this couple went. Very cool.

Sand-Written Wedding Proposal Mystery Solved! - Yahoo! News

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Getting Rolled

If only we had a President and Democratic party willing to fight. Leadership, I think it is called.

We are getting our asses kicked daily.

AMERICAblog News: Warren Buffet: Wealthiest winning class war in US:

"The real and only class warfare in America is the ultra-rich versus everyone else. And yes, they're winning in a big way and the Democrats can't figure out how to even slow it down. Heck, we even have a Democratic president that talks about Reagan as though he was one of the great presidents of the US"

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New Civil War erupts, led by super rich, GOP Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch:

"Wake up America. You are under attack. Stop kidding yourself. We are at war. In fact, we have been fighting this Civil War for a generation, since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981. Recently Buffett renewed the battle cry: The “rich class” is winning this war. Except most Americans still don’t realize they’re losing, don’t see the prize at stake.

All this was predicted back in September 2008 by Naomi Klein, author of “Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.” Yes, we were warned that the GOP’s Reaganomics ideology would stage a rapid comeback … warned before the market collapsed … before Wall Street was virtually bankrupt. … before Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson conned Congress into $787 billion in bailouts … warned before Obama’s 2008 election"

....

“But rest assured,” continued Klein in September 2008, Reaganomics “ideology will come roaring back when the bailouts are done. The massive debts the public is accumulating to bail out the speculators will then become part of a global budget crisis that will be the rationalization for deep cuts to social programs, and for a renewed push to privatize.”"

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Infographic: How unions succeeded in making your workplace safer in the 100 years since the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

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He was against illegal wars before he was for them.

Joe Biden Warned In 2007 That He'd Impeach Bush For Waging War Without Congressional Approval

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Change and all.

Obama takes ‘unprecedented’ aim at leakers | The Raw Story:

"WASHINGTON (AFP) – Elected on a promise of a more transparent government, President Barack Obama has taken 'unprecedented' aim at leakers who divulge classified information to journalists, critics say.

'We've seen the current president bringing five prosecutions so far... against people for whistleblowing, for leaks of classified information,' said Daniel Ellsberg, famous for his 1971 leak of the 'Pentagon Papers,' which helped turn the tide of public opinion against the Vietnam War.

'All previous presidents put together brought three prosecutions... We see a campaign here against whistleblowing that is highly unprecedented in legal terms.'"

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Passport Divide

Not good.

U.S. shows growing alarm over Japan nuclear crisis - Yahoo! News:

"The State Department strongly urges U.S. citizens to defer travel to Japan at this time and those in Japan should consider departing,' it said."

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What happens if a Japan-sized earthquake hits California? - The Week:

"What are the chances California will get hit by the Big One?

'The question is not if but when Southern California will be hit by a major earthquake — one so damaging that it will permanently change lives and livelihoods in the region,' warns the United States Geological Survey in a 2008 study. A magnitude 7.8 quake in California — Japan's quake was 30 times more powerful — would kill at least 2,000 people and cause $200 billion in damage, the USGS estimated. Because of how the state's many faults are structured, a quake of more than 8.0 is unlikely in much of California, geologists say."

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Bay Area Sushi Bars Face Daunting Supply Shortages � CBS San Francisco

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America's Great Passport Divide - Richard Florida - National - The Atlantic:

"At the opposite end of the spectrum, less than one in five residents of Mississippi are passport holders, and just one in four residents of West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, and Arkansas.

It's a fun map. With the exception of Sarah Palin's home state, it reinforces the 'differences' we expect to find between the states where more worldly, well-traveled people live versus those where the folks Palin likes to call 'real Americans' preponderate. Mostly to entertain myself, I decided to look at how this passport metric correlates with a variety of other political, cultural, economic, and demographic measures. What surprised me is how closely it lines up with the other great cleavages in America today."

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