Having sold the middle class out on taxes, now the Jellyfish in Chief is going for their Social Security and Medicare. No doubt aristocrats like Earl the Pearl and Ron Wyden (R-N.Y.) will fall right in step. It took some of us until this administration to realize, finally, that Nader was right: These guys are all alike.
The President thinks we liberals will have to vote for him, because we won't have any other choice. Not voting for anyone next time is a choice. Given the way the White House is behaving, there'll be little difference if he loses. Other than the Supreme Corp., of course, but that's already a bit of a lost cause.
Mr. Obama also thinks he's going to win over some voters in the middle by cutting their and their parents' benefit checks. Good luck with that.
The President had a solid year in which he could have changed America, as he promised. But he either was insincere in his campaign, or didn't have the guts to do anything -- either way, he frittered away all the power we gave him on a muddled health insurance program that will likely be unraveled. That and more wars are just about all he's got to show. Now he's play-acting the big Deal Man in a desperate attempt to get re-elected in a deep economic trough that to the average American is starting to look a lot like a prolonged depression.
While he's at it, he should start interviewing some ghost writers. He's got only 16 months before he'll be back in Chicago writing his memoirs.
Comments (32)
I say he's in way over his head, and has been from day one. He was not qualified (in terms of having ever done anything to prepare him for the job), and he wasn't properly vetted by a fawning media. Bill Clinton had it exactly right before the 2008 election: "This is the biggest fairytale I've ever seen."
I agree that he's not up to the job. But, don't sell his support group short when it comes to getting elected next fall. Remember, the "Oz" ruled until Toto's pal came along.
You're right, Jack. Hey, I've been voting for Ralph Nader for President since '96.
Doomsday for Democrats? Will They be Demolished by the Most Craven Republican Party in History?
By RALPH NADER
Counterpunch ~ September 13, 2010
It is astonishing how many Democrats in the past three months have been making the worst case scenario for their prospects in the November mid-term Congressional elections. Do they believe that the most craven Republican Party in history needs their help in such a self-fulfilling prophecy?
****
The Democratic Party’s problems are much deeper than the Sunday talk shows indicate. First the Democrats do not have a progressive political philosophy. They could learn from a four time winner—Franklin Delano Roosevelt—when it comes to being perceived as the working families friend.
One has only to listen to the debates on C-Span between Democrats and Republicans running for Congress or the Governorships. Too often, apart from a Libertarian or Green in the mix, there are very few bright lines or contrasts between the Republicans and Democrats, however much they try to magnify personal differences. Indeed, the freshman Blue Dog Democrats, who won in 2008, go out of their way to criticize their Congressional leaders and President Obama, with the full encouragement of the national Democratic Leaders. The latter stayed away from the hustings during the long Congressional recess. The Democrats lost August to the Republicans and the right-wing radio and cable yahoos who speak of the stimulus, the health care law and the proposed restoration of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy as “job-killing agendas” and a disaster “for families and small businesses.” Such Republican false statements fill the Congressional Record.
What keeps the Democrats from making their case? Is it their desire to keep raising big money from big business at the cost of muzzling a far more effective political message than their post-Labor Day offerings of more small business tax cuts and a ten year $100 billion tax credit for corporate research and development?
Do they believe those two actions are vote-getters or balm for getting more campaign money from business? Indeed, the tax credit mainly goes to super-profitable computer companies (Cisco, Intel, Microsoft) and big drug companies that already have outsourced their production to China and India.
And small business, which is receiving eight tax cuts under Obama, is waiting for consumer spending to increase. President Obama should fulfill his campaign pledge in 2008 to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.50 per hour by 2011, which would increase that buying power. Even that increase, while worthwhile, still wouldn’t equal the minimum wage of 1968, adjusted for inflation.
The Democrats might listen to some of the articulate callers to C-SPAN radio or WPFW in Washington, D.C. to catch the powerful vernacular of protest. One caller succinctly made the case for policies, including using the tax code, to encourage companies to bring back industry and outsourced jobs that were shipped to China and other repressive or low-wage countries, with Washington’s help no less.
People are really upset about where corporate globalization, one-sided trade treaties, and costly foreign wars have taken our country. Working Americans who have lost their jobs can stay at home in November and cost the Democrats elections as they did in 2004. Voters look for politicians who take a stand, who know who they are and can show they side with the people, not global companies that have no allegiance to the country that bred, subsidized and defended them.
How did Reagan, even as a big business apologist, hold the 54 GOP Senate seats and only lose 26 House seats in the mid-term election of 1982? Reagan was, in the words of Jim Kessler, “facing 10.8 percent unemployment, 6 percent inflation, a declining GDP, an approval rating barely above freezing and the indignity of having drastically increased the budget deficit over the previous year after running as a fiscal hawk.” Maybe it is because enough voters saw the “Gipper” as knowing what he stood for and showing steadfastness and better times coming soon, in comparison to the wavering, concessionary posture of the then-majority Democrats in the Congress.
Ralph Nader is the author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, a novel.
The President thinks we liberals will have to vote for him...
Jack, I've been reading you here for years, and I know you self-identify as a liberal. But you are not a garden variety liberal. You also have what I would call a strong libertarian streak in you too. And that goes down as a good thing.
Why would anyone around here ever think Obama was going to make anything better when all of the local versions of him are the same ones continually exposed as piling up debt with asinine & corrupted boondoggles and policies?
Look at who is lining up to run for Portland Mayor and city council.
Look at who runs the PDC, TriMet and Metro and what they do.
The 100s of planners and public relations staffers producing a string of lies and scams to push forward their make work agenda that would never be voter approved.
I went to a Milwuakie Light Rail open house at Milwaukie High School a couple weeks ago and half of the 100 people there were bureaucrats and other connected/hired consultants and vendors scattered throughout the seated and standing crowd.
Every one of them are willing to use public deceit to impose their interests upon the community.
It's a remarkable phenomenom and a cancer that has matastezised throughout every city, county, regional and state agency.
The hierarchy at the top, Adams, Burkholder, McFarlane, Blumenauer, Achterman, Collette, Cogan, Lehan, et al et al et al are the worst possible people to have making policy and spending billions.
How such a saturation of incredibly inept and unethical people amassed to take over everything is beyond me.
So everytime I see local critcisim of any national dysfunction I wonder how people expect any effective national reform when the local madness is so unleashed.
Ben,
It's interesting that you'd bring up the locals right now because I was just thinking about President Obama's Inauguration Day. One of the main things that irritated me about the Beau Breedlove story was that Sam's big press conference fell on that day. Remember? We were finally losing Bush and Cheney but could we concentrate completely on the joy of that moment? No, because that was when Sam selfishly began his quest to learn that lying can be bad, and that it was better to think with Mr. Brains than Mr. Happy.
I really resented our new mayor for choosing that particular moment to rush to the microphones and start us on his little journey. I mean he didn't even leave us an envelope of cash at city hall. However, upon further review....
The way the Obama administration is going, that tarnished memory is no longer a big problem for me.
If there is a second Inauguration Day for President Obama, I'll probably just skip it and go to the movies.
And yet the massive amount spent on the military and wars seems untouchable for both Dems and Repubs as they argue over every little $100M in cuts. The U.S. currently spends around $1 trillion on its military and wars each year. That's about five times what the next closest nation, China, spends and about seven times what every nation in the Middle East spends. When you add in costs related to veterans' hospitals and benefits, we spend even more.
To finance this war, our government has resorted to buying its own treasuries (at the behest of a private banking cartel operating under the euphemism of the Federal Reserve), which is another way of saying we're printing money to expend on the destruction of our own wealth as a nation. But don't make the mistake of thinking this is not a tax on middle and lower class Americans, because printing money devalues your earnings and savings. You're being taxed when you pay for food, utilities, etc. Now ask yourselves if this is keeping you safe from terrorists or duping the American people into spending their wealth and blood to supply a mercenary force for global energy firms and international banks?
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft" -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people." -- Thomas Jefferson
Ben - it's because the selfish, fat, soft spoiled sheep have fallen for the belief that the government is the one to provide for them and be compassionate.
It never was, and when it tries to it fails miserably.
But the ones in charge still speak to the lie and get re elected.
Dwight Eisenhower is such a reminder of how far down the GOP game has gone. I mean how do you go from that to Michele Backmann or Newt Gingrich or Mama Bear herself?
My approach to election 2008 was that we needed a great president in the worst way after W. trashed the country for 8 years. I didn't see Obama as a messiah - I just thought we might as well go all in with this guy because if he doesn't work out we're screwed anyway. Guess what?
Since then, I've spent more time reading about who really runs the president and it's obvious he wouldn't have gotten where he is if the real powers didn't want him there.
The sad part is that - at a time when we need someone from the Adult Swim faction of the GOP - they're serving up toddlers and tiaras.
Oh well.
Meanwhile, Eisenhower's quotes are starting to take on a John Adams-level of prophecy although Ike was also the person who gave us Richard Nixon. Still, at a time when we could really use another Ike, we've got the GOP presenting a Stampede of Idiots, and I can't blame Obama for thinking he's a lock in 2012 - especially if that's what the CIA wants.
Mitt Romney? I loved Paul Begala's line that Mitt is like the guy in the picture frame when you buy it, that you take out and replace with a real person.
Boy, has this whole farce ever been a learning experience. Sometimes I just refer to Obama mentally as "the affirmative action president". Once in 2008 I responded to a friend's query about my opinion on the war between Clinton and Obama, saying something like "one thing is for sure, the country wants someone who is not a white male for president this time. But they aren't ready for a female. Ergo, Barack Obama." On inauguration night, I became teary over the prospect of a more rational leadership. Now, after seeing the train wreck of the Obama administration, I actually get nostalgic for Bill Clinton. Give me a white male experienced political genius, any day, over what we are witnessing now.
Trouble is, there doesn't appear to be any political genius anywhere any more.
Obama might be the closest thing to it on the landscape.
And THAT, is depressing.
Oh and here's the latest who-the-hell-did-I-vote-for material:
Obama fooled me, as did the events of 9/11, but now many of us have been totally awakened to the truth of our societal leaders.
We are in trouble folks, big trouble.
The Europeans can't seem to stop the power elite from its quest of world domination via the financial terrorists, we here in America are ripe for the picking for sure.
“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers.”
Nikita Khrushchev quotes (First secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1894-1971)
I didn't like Obama, but what choice did we have. McCain/Palin? Really? How many wars would they have started? Iran? North Korea? Pakistan?
The thing is too many people think that the president can solve all of our problems. Sure the president can provide leadership, but it is congress that passes laws. Congress is broken.
Finally, try to imagine a world where a few thousand people in Florida vote for Gore instead of that idiot Nader.
Maybe 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Certainly Iraq wouldn't have been attacked. And even if 9/11 had happened we wouldn't have spent 10 years and trillions of dollars in "af-pak".
I didn't like Obama, but what choice did we have. McCain/Palin? Really? How many wars would they have started? Iran? North Korea? Pakistan?
How many has Obama got us into? Libya, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan?
Finally, try to imagine a world where a few thousand people in Florida vote for Gore instead of that idiot Nader.
Maybe 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Certainly Iraq wouldn't have been attacked. And even if 9/11 had happened we wouldn't have spent 10 years and trillions of dollars in "af-pak".
Oh, so true! Instead, we'd have spent trillions of dollars on AlGore's schemes to "Shave The Planet™" while enhancing his personal wealth.
You are a loon if you think Al Qaeda cares one whit about who occupies the White House.
Several credible sources (including Sen. Alan Simpson) suggest that Sen. Gore was incentivized to vote in favor of the Gulf War resolution in exchange for 20 minutes of prime time TV exposure. There is no debating that he was one of only 10 Senate Democrats to do so.
It's silly to suggest that 9/11 would not have occured if Gore won the Presidency instead of Dubya. You must know nothing of what motivates our Islamofascist enemies.
It is not silly to suggest that 9/11 might not of happened if Gore were president. Indeed he might have been more interested in "Islamofascist" threats than Bush was. Remember, there were warnings that something was going to happen, but the Bush Whitehouse was more interested in starting up a new cold war with the Russians than focusing on our real threats.
Also, Gore could not spend Trillions on anything without the Congress. And with a Republican Congress we probably would have seen the Balance Budget act passed again (because they would spite themselves to foil the Dems) and no tax cut for the rich (because Gore would have vetoed it.) [Note: the idea that Gore could spend trillions on his favorite thing, whatever it might be, is an indication of a failure to understand how the federal gov operates. Congress is the one that spends money!]
The truth is the Federal government is under the control of multinational corps who have the Repubocrats in their pocket.
I'll say it: I have no issue with Obama whatsoever. We live in a fundamentally conservative country. There is no great "liberal majority" that is just waiting to support a president who pulls us out of Iraq and Afghanistan without a real post-occupation plan, or one who proposes a real single-payer health care plan, or one who proposes a real jobs/recovery plan that actually has a chance of pulling us out of this recession (and costing another trillion or so). As Bush senior says, "Ain't gonna happen."
Obama was elected because W. was so wickedly ineffective, and there was a genuine engagement by hundreds of thousands who normally don't participate in politics at all. Look at the tea party backlash against Obama's mere election for proof that this country is fundamentally conservative. There are certainly things that I would have liked to see Obama do differently, but overall he has governed as I expected he would - reflective of the political reality that we live in.
It's not the "country" that's fundamentally conservative, it's the upper class - regardless of self-identified ideology or party, they're nearly all instinctively pro-war, pro-corporate and anti-labor.
For 30+ years I've held my nose and voted for the lesser evil (and bad as he is, Obama is still the lesser evil compared to Romney, Bachmann et al) but for the first time ever, I'm truly tempted to cast a protest vote and let the Republicans bring on a full-bore 1929-style crash. If that's what it takes to wake up the labor movement and throw enough of a real, existential scare into the economic elite that they finally take financial reform seriously and start employing Americans (whether through the public or private sector doesn't matter), I'm starting to think, So be it. About the only thing still giving me pause on this subject is the Supreme Court. Five (or more) hard-core reactionaries with life terms would seal our doom like nothing else. Obama's picks so far, while not liberals in the Brennan/Marshall tradition, have still been clearly a cut above those of his Republican predecessors. So I can't quite say I won't vote for Obama again, but I'm sure not looking forward to it.
"The blue-ribbon, bi-partisan federal commission set up to address the crushing federal deficit is showing around a draft of its recommendations, and they're refreshingly honest. The federal government needs to cut spending, including on Social Security, and raise taxes. We can either feel the pain now or inflict it on our children and grandchildren. Alas, the chances of the current crop of politicians in charge of the country actually doing what the commission suggests is nil..."
Obama is just another groomed candidate to serve as the front man for the elites. He was the back-up candidate to Hillary, who proved to be less than likeable so he got the nod.
With the vote manipulation techniques now in place, there are no real democratic elections. What we have now is the electoral version of American Idol (and of course that show is not rigged 'sarc' )
Next President is likely going to be Governor Rick Perry.
Mitt Romney? I loved Paul Begala's line that Mitt is like the guy in the picture frame when you buy it, that you take out and replace with a real person.
Mitt Romney always reminds me of the archetype "Guy who fired you".
Unfortunately, the days of true statesmen, such as Eisenhower, are over. All we get now are partisan hacks, because those are the only guys that can get the money flowing from the hardliners in the political base. How much money did Obama spend on his 4-year lease of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? $1Billion? How much will he spend on an option on a 4-year lease renewal? $1.5B? $2B?
The guys we need doing that job just can't get their hands on that kind of cash, because you have to sell out in order to get there.
Really? Having read this blog for a long time, I'm fairly confident that most of the readership is probably for tackling the deficit. And you think that can be done without touching entitlements? Really?
Obama has certainly had some missteps, but at least he's trying to get something done, even at the expense of rankling the far wing of his base/party. How many other pols will do that?
Charamba, Douro 2008
Horse Heaven Hills, Cabernet 2010
Lorelle, Horse Heaven Hills Pinot Grigio 2011
Avignonesi, Montepulciano 2004
Lorelle, Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2011
Villa Antinori, Toscana 2007
Mercedes Eguren, Cabernet Sauvignon 2009
Lorelle, Columbia Valley Cabernet 2011
Purple Moon, Merlot 2011
Purple Moon, Chardonnnay 2011
Abacela, Vintner's Blend No. 12
Opula Red Blend 2010
Liberte, Pinot Noir 2010
Chateau Ste. Michelle, Indian Wells Red Blend 2010
Woodbridge, Chardonnay 2011
King Estate, Pinot Noir 2011
Famille Perrin, Cotes du Rhone Villages 2010
Columbia Crest, Les Chevaux Red 2010
14 Hands, Hot to Trot White Blend
Familia Bianchi, Malbec 2009
Terrapin Cellars, Pinot Gris 2011
Columbia Crest, Walter Clore Private Reserve 2009
Campo Viejo, Rioja, Termpranillo 2010
Ravenswood, Cabernet Sauvignon 2009
Quinta das Amoras, Vinho Tinto 2010
Waterbrook, Reserve Merlot 2009
Lorelle, Horse Heaven Hills, Pinot Grigio 2011
Tarantas, Rose
Chateau Lajarre, Bordeaux 2009
La Vielle Ferme, Rose 2011
Benvolio, Pinot Grigio 2011
Nobilo Icon, Pinot Noir 2009
Lello, Douro Tinto 2009
Quinson Fils, Cotes de Provence Rose 2011
Anindor, Pinot Gris 2010
Buenas Ondas, Syrah Rose 2010
Les Fiefs d'Anglars, Malbec 2009
14 Hands, Pinot Gris 2011
Conundrum 2012
Condes de Albarei, Albariño 2011
Columbia Crest, Walter Clore Private Reserve 2007
Penelope Sanchez, Garnacha Syrah 2010
Canoe Ridge, Merlot 2007
Atalaya do Mar, Godello 2010
Vega Montan, Mencia
Benvolio, Pinot Grigio
Nobilo Icon, Pinot Noir, Marlborough 2009
Portuga, Rose 2011
Revelation, Chardonnay, Pays d'Oc 2010
Beaulieu, Cabernet, Rutherford 2005
Monte Alto, Tinto Reserva 2005
Chateau Ste. Michelle, Cabernet, Indian Wells 2009
Espiral, Vinho Rose
Vin-Koru, Pinot Gris 2011
14 Hands, Hot to Trot Red 2009
Rodney Strong, Cabernet, Sonoma 2009
Abacela, Vintner's Blend #11
Portuga, White 2010
La Bourgeoisie, Red 2009
Januik, Red 2009
Three Rivers, River's Red 2008
Kirkland, Alexander Valley Merlot 2008
Muga, Rioja Rose 2010
Quinta das Amoras, Vinho Tinto 2009
Mauro Molino, Barbera d'Alba 2009
Garda Chiaretto Rose
Columbia Crest, Two Vines Vineyard 10 White
Chateau Ste. Michelle, Pinot Gris, Columbia Valley 2009
L'Hortus, Rose de Saignee 2010
Maculan, Pino & Toi 2008
McKinley Springs, Bombing Range Red 2008
Trader Joe's Pinot Gris 2009
Montes Alpha, Cabernet 2007
Gran Sasso, Sangiovese, Terre di Chieti 2009
Garda, Classico Chiaretto Rose
Beaulieu, Cabernet, Rutherford 1999
Picos del Montgo, Tempranillo 2008
Chateau de Montmirail, Vacqueyras 2008
La Granja 360, Syrah 2009
Montgras, Carmenere Reserva 2009
Lange, Pinot Gris 2009
Columbia Crest, Horse Heaven Hills Cabernet 2008
Kirkland, Pinot Grigio 2010
Trader Joe's Coastal Syrah 2009
Columbia Crest, Horse Heaven Hills Merlot 2008
Trader Joe's Coastal Chardonnay 2009
Vieux Papes Red
Domaine de l'Aujardiere, Chardonnay 2009
Santa Rita, Cabernet, Medalla Real 2007
Penfold's, Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet 2008
Guild, Red, Lot #02 2008
Dievole, Dievolino Sangiovese 2008
Laforet, Burgogne Chardonnay 2009
Columbia Winery, Merlot 2007
Bonterra, Cabernet 2008
Elk Cove, Pinot Gris 2009
Maquis Lien 2006
Scott Paul, Pinot Noir, Le Paulee 2007
The Occasional Book
Hope Larson - A Wrinkle in Time, the Graphic Novel
Rudyard Kipling - Kim
Peter Ames Carlin - Bruce
Fran Cannon Slayton - When the Whistle Blows
Neil Young - Waging Heavy Peace
Mark Bego - Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul (2012 ed.)
Jenny Lawson - Let's Pretend This Never Happened
J.D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey
Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol
Timothy Egan - The Big Burn
Deborah Eisenberg - Transactions in a Foreign Currency
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - Slaughterhouse Five
Kathryn Lance - Pandora's Genes
Cheryl Strayed - Wild
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
Jack London - The House of Pride, and Other Tales of Hawaii
Jack Walker - The Extraordinary Rendition of Vincent Dellamaria
Colum McCann - Let the Great World Spin
Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus - The Nanny Diaries
Brian Selznick - The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Sharon Creech - Walk Two Moons
Keith Richards - Life
F. Sionil Jose - Dusk
Natalie Babbitt - Tuck Everlasting
Justin Halpern - S#*t My Dad Says
Mark Herrmann - The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law
Barry Glassner - The Gospel of Food
Phil Stanford - The Peyton-Allan Files
Jesse Katz - The Opposite Field
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
David Sedaris - Holidays on Ice
Donald Miller - A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
Mitch Albom - Have a Little Faith
C.S. Lewis - The Magician's Nephew
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
William Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Ivan Doig - Bucking the Sun
Penda Diakité - I Lost My Tooth in Africa
Grace Lin - The Year of the Rat
Oscar Hijuelos - Mr. Ives' Christmas
Madeline L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time
Steven Hart - The Last Three Miles
David Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty One Day
Karen Armstrong - The Spiral Staircase
Charles Larson - The Portland Murders
Adrian Wojnarowski - The Miracle of St. Anthony
William H. Colby - Long Goodbye
Steven D. Stark - Meet the Beatles
Phil Stanford - Portland Confidential
Rick Moody - Garden State
Jonathan Schwartz - All in Good Time
David Sedaris - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Anthony Holden - Big Deal
Robert J. Spitzer - The Spirit of Leadership
James McManus - Positively Fifth Street
Jeff Noon - Vurt
Road Work
Miles run year to date: 29
At this date last year: 66
Total run in 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269
Comments (32)
I say he's in way over his head, and has been from day one. He was not qualified (in terms of having ever done anything to prepare him for the job), and he wasn't properly vetted by a fawning media. Bill Clinton had it exactly right before the 2008 election: "This is the biggest fairytale I've ever seen."
Posted by boycat | July 9, 2011 5:03 AM
Please don't insult the jellyfish.
Posted by portland native | July 9, 2011 6:00 AM
Not only "sold the middle class" on taxes but also on jobs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/business/global/26bridge.html?_r=1
When the CRC finally gets going the Steel will come from our sister country China as will the rails for the Milwaukee choo choo train.
The latest, more US citizen will be out of work starting shortly thanks to our awesome Federal Government.
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/7002057/feds-to-allow-mexican-truck-drivers-on-us-roads
It's most likely why the Police nationwide are arming themselves with tanks.
http://bojack.org/2011/07/put_it_on_the_list.html
Posted by phil | July 9, 2011 6:02 AM
I would say I told you so, but every time I do I get called a "tea bagger".
Posted by mk | July 9, 2011 6:14 AM
I agree that he's not up to the job. But, don't sell his support group short when it comes to getting elected next fall. Remember, the "Oz" ruled until Toto's pal came along.
Posted by David E Gilmore | July 9, 2011 6:14 AM
he'll be back in Chicago writing his memoirs
Do you mean there's going to be a THIRD autobiography?
Posted by Garage Wine | July 9, 2011 6:45 AM
You're right, Jack. Hey, I've been voting for Ralph Nader for President since '96.
Doomsday for Democrats?
Will They be Demolished by the Most Craven Republican Party in History?
By RALPH NADER
Counterpunch ~ September 13, 2010
It is astonishing how many Democrats in the past three months have been making the worst case scenario for their prospects in the November mid-term Congressional elections. Do they believe that the most craven Republican Party in history needs their help in such a self-fulfilling prophecy?
****
The Democratic Party’s problems are much deeper than the Sunday talk shows indicate. First the Democrats do not have a progressive political philosophy. They could learn from a four time winner—Franklin Delano Roosevelt—when it comes to being perceived as the working families friend.
One has only to listen to the debates on C-Span between Democrats and Republicans running for Congress or the Governorships. Too often, apart from a Libertarian or Green in the mix, there are very few bright lines or contrasts between the Republicans and Democrats, however much they try to magnify personal differences. Indeed, the freshman Blue Dog Democrats, who won in 2008, go out of their way to criticize their Congressional leaders and President Obama, with the full encouragement of the national Democratic Leaders. The latter stayed away from the hustings during the long Congressional recess. The Democrats lost August to the Republicans and the right-wing radio and cable yahoos who speak of the stimulus, the health care law and the proposed restoration of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy as “job-killing agendas” and a disaster “for families and small businesses.” Such Republican false statements fill the Congressional Record.
What keeps the Democrats from making their case? Is it their desire to keep raising big money from big business at the cost of muzzling a far more effective political message than their post-Labor Day offerings of more small business tax cuts and a ten year $100 billion tax credit for corporate research and development?
Do they believe those two actions are vote-getters or balm for getting more campaign money from business? Indeed, the tax credit mainly goes to super-profitable computer companies (Cisco, Intel, Microsoft) and big drug companies that already have outsourced their production to China and India.
And small business, which is receiving eight tax cuts under Obama, is waiting for consumer spending to increase. President Obama should fulfill his campaign pledge in 2008 to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.50 per hour by 2011, which would increase that buying power. Even that increase, while worthwhile, still wouldn’t equal the minimum wage of 1968, adjusted for inflation.
The Democrats might listen to some of the articulate callers to C-SPAN radio or WPFW in Washington, D.C. to catch the powerful vernacular of protest. One caller succinctly made the case for policies, including using the tax code, to encourage companies to bring back industry and outsourced jobs that were shipped to China and other repressive or low-wage countries, with Washington’s help no less.
People are really upset about where corporate globalization, one-sided trade treaties, and costly foreign wars have taken our country. Working Americans who have lost their jobs can stay at home in November and cost the Democrats elections as they did in 2004. Voters look for politicians who take a stand, who know who they are and can show they side with the people, not global companies that have no allegiance to the country that bred, subsidized and defended them.
How did Reagan, even as a big business apologist, hold the 54 GOP Senate seats and only lose 26 House seats in the mid-term election of 1982? Reagan was, in the words of Jim Kessler, “facing 10.8 percent unemployment, 6 percent inflation, a declining GDP, an approval rating barely above freezing and the indignity of having drastically increased the budget deficit over the previous year after running as a fiscal hawk.” Maybe it is because enough voters saw the “Gipper” as knowing what he stood for and showing steadfastness and better times coming soon, in comparison to the wavering, concessionary posture of the then-majority Democrats in the Congress.
Ralph Nader is the author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, a novel.
Complete article at
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader09132010.html
Posted by Mojo | July 9, 2011 7:21 AM
There might be much, much more to the Facilitator in Chief then meets the eye:
http://www.infowars.com/bombshell-barack-obama-conclusively-outed-as-cia-creation/
Posted by SeymourGlass | July 9, 2011 7:32 AM
My thoughts exactly!!!!!
Posted by the other Steve | July 9, 2011 8:18 AM
The President thinks we liberals will have to vote for him...
Jack, I've been reading you here for years, and I know you self-identify as a liberal. But you are not a garden variety liberal. You also have what I would call a strong libertarian streak in you too. And that goes down as a good thing.
Posted by boycat | July 9, 2011 8:32 AM
Why would anyone around here ever think Obama was going to make anything better when all of the local versions of him are the same ones continually exposed as piling up debt with asinine & corrupted boondoggles and policies?
Look at who is lining up to run for Portland Mayor and city council.
Look at who runs the PDC, TriMet and Metro and what they do.
The 100s of planners and public relations staffers producing a string of lies and scams to push forward their make work agenda that would never be voter approved.
I went to a Milwuakie Light Rail open house at Milwaukie High School a couple weeks ago and half of the 100 people there were bureaucrats and other connected/hired consultants and vendors scattered throughout the seated and standing crowd.
Every one of them are willing to use public deceit to impose their interests upon the community.
It's a remarkable phenomenom and a cancer that has matastezised throughout every city, county, regional and state agency.
The hierarchy at the top, Adams, Burkholder, McFarlane, Blumenauer, Achterman, Collette, Cogan, Lehan, et al et al et al are the worst possible people to have making policy and spending billions.
How such a saturation of incredibly inept and unethical people amassed to take over everything is beyond me.
So everytime I see local critcisim of any national dysfunction I wonder how people expect any effective national reform when the local madness is so unleashed.
Posted by Ben | July 9, 2011 8:50 AM
Great Frank Rich on Obama's one term
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/04-1
Posted by George Anonymuncule Seldes | July 9, 2011 9:17 AM
Obama is no more in charge of the WH than is the Captain aboard Atlantis able to fly the Shuttle.
Posted by Abe | July 9, 2011 9:24 AM
Ben,
It's interesting that you'd bring up the locals right now because I was just thinking about President Obama's Inauguration Day. One of the main things that irritated me about the Beau Breedlove story was that Sam's big press conference fell on that day. Remember? We were finally losing Bush and Cheney but could we concentrate completely on the joy of that moment? No, because that was when Sam selfishly began his quest to learn that lying can be bad, and that it was better to think with Mr. Brains than Mr. Happy.
I really resented our new mayor for choosing that particular moment to rush to the microphones and start us on his little journey. I mean he didn't even leave us an envelope of cash at city hall. However, upon further review....
The way the Obama administration is going, that tarnished memory is no longer a big problem for me.
If there is a second Inauguration Day for President Obama, I'll probably just skip it and go to the movies.
Posted by Bill McDonald | July 9, 2011 9:30 AM
And yet the massive amount spent on the military and wars seems untouchable for both Dems and Repubs as they argue over every little $100M in cuts. The U.S. currently spends around $1 trillion on its military and wars each year. That's about five times what the next closest nation, China, spends and about seven times what every nation in the Middle East spends. When you add in costs related to veterans' hospitals and benefits, we spend even more.
To finance this war, our government has resorted to buying its own treasuries (at the behest of a private banking cartel operating under the euphemism of the Federal Reserve), which is another way of saying we're printing money to expend on the destruction of our own wealth as a nation. But don't make the mistake of thinking this is not a tax on middle and lower class Americans, because printing money devalues your earnings and savings. You're being taxed when you pay for food, utilities, etc. Now ask yourselves if this is keeping you safe from terrorists or duping the American people into spending their wealth and blood to supply a mercenary force for global energy firms and international banks?
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft" -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people." -- Thomas Jefferson
Posted by Ted | July 9, 2011 9:53 AM
Ben - it's because the selfish, fat, soft spoiled sheep have fallen for the belief that the government is the one to provide for them and be compassionate.
It never was, and when it tries to it fails miserably.
But the ones in charge still speak to the lie and get re elected.
Posted by You | July 9, 2011 10:30 AM
Dwight Eisenhower is such a reminder of how far down the GOP game has gone. I mean how do you go from that to Michele Backmann or Newt Gingrich or Mama Bear herself?
My approach to election 2008 was that we needed a great president in the worst way after W. trashed the country for 8 years. I didn't see Obama as a messiah - I just thought we might as well go all in with this guy because if he doesn't work out we're screwed anyway. Guess what?
Since then, I've spent more time reading about who really runs the president and it's obvious he wouldn't have gotten where he is if the real powers didn't want him there.
The sad part is that - at a time when we need someone from the Adult Swim faction of the GOP - they're serving up toddlers and tiaras.
Oh well.
Meanwhile, Eisenhower's quotes are starting to take on a John Adams-level of prophecy although Ike was also the person who gave us Richard Nixon. Still, at a time when we could really use another Ike, we've got the GOP presenting a Stampede of Idiots, and I can't blame Obama for thinking he's a lock in 2012 - especially if that's what the CIA wants.
Mitt Romney? I loved Paul Begala's line that Mitt is like the guy in the picture frame when you buy it, that you take out and replace with a real person.
Posted by Bill McDonald | July 9, 2011 10:35 AM
While he's at it, he should start interviewing some ghost writers.
Bill Ayers is clearing his calendar as we speak.
Posted by Newleaf | July 9, 2011 12:59 PM
Boy, has this whole farce ever been a learning experience. Sometimes I just refer to Obama mentally as "the affirmative action president". Once in 2008 I responded to a friend's query about my opinion on the war between Clinton and Obama, saying something like "one thing is for sure, the country wants someone who is not a white male for president this time. But they aren't ready for a female. Ergo, Barack Obama." On inauguration night, I became teary over the prospect of a more rational leadership. Now, after seeing the train wreck of the Obama administration, I actually get nostalgic for Bill Clinton. Give me a white male experienced political genius, any day, over what we are witnessing now.
Trouble is, there doesn't appear to be any political genius anywhere any more.
Obama might be the closest thing to it on the landscape.
And THAT, is depressing.
Oh and here's the latest who-the-hell-did-I-vote-for material:
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/the-president-s-horrifying-mistake-124935579.html
Posted by gaye harris | July 9, 2011 1:25 PM
Teddy Roosevelt gave us the Square Deal.
Franklin D. Roosevelt gave us the New Deal.
Barack Obama wants to give us the Raw Deal.
Posted by JD in the NE | July 9, 2011 1:30 PM
Obama fooled me, as did the events of 9/11, but now many of us have been totally awakened to the truth of our societal leaders.
We are in trouble folks, big trouble.
The Europeans can't seem to stop the power elite from its quest of world domination via the financial terrorists, we here in America are ripe for the picking for sure.
“Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers.”
Nikita Khrushchev quotes (First secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1894-1971)
Posted by AL M | July 9, 2011 3:03 PM
I didn't like Obama, but what choice did we have. McCain/Palin? Really? How many wars would they have started? Iran? North Korea? Pakistan?
The thing is too many people think that the president can solve all of our problems. Sure the president can provide leadership, but it is congress that passes laws. Congress is broken.
Finally, try to imagine a world where a few thousand people in Florida vote for Gore instead of that idiot Nader.
Maybe 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Certainly Iraq wouldn't have been attacked. And even if 9/11 had happened we wouldn't have spent 10 years and trillions of dollars in "af-pak".
Posted by loon | July 9, 2011 3:53 PM
I didn't like Obama, but what choice did we have. McCain/Palin? Really? How many wars would they have started? Iran? North Korea? Pakistan?
How many has Obama got us into? Libya, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan?
Finally, try to imagine a world where a few thousand people in Florida vote for Gore instead of that idiot Nader.
Maybe 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Certainly Iraq wouldn't have been attacked. And even if 9/11 had happened we wouldn't have spent 10 years and trillions of dollars in "af-pak".
Oh, so true! Instead, we'd have spent trillions of dollars on AlGore's schemes to "Shave The Planet™" while enhancing his personal wealth.
Posted by Max | July 9, 2011 5:33 PM
"Maybe 9/11 wouldn't have happened...."
You are a loon if you think Al Qaeda cares one whit about who occupies the White House.
Several credible sources (including Sen. Alan Simpson) suggest that Sen. Gore was incentivized to vote in favor of the Gulf War resolution in exchange for 20 minutes of prime time TV exposure. There is no debating that he was one of only 10 Senate Democrats to do so.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/756792/posts
It's silly to suggest that 9/11 would not have occured if Gore won the Presidency instead of Dubya. You must know nothing of what motivates our Islamofascist enemies.
Posted by Mister Tee | July 9, 2011 5:34 PM
It is not silly to suggest that 9/11 might not of happened if Gore were president. Indeed he might have been more interested in "Islamofascist" threats than Bush was. Remember, there were warnings that something was going to happen, but the Bush Whitehouse was more interested in starting up a new cold war with the Russians than focusing on our real threats.
Also, Gore could not spend Trillions on anything without the Congress. And with a Republican Congress we probably would have seen the Balance Budget act passed again (because they would spite themselves to foil the Dems) and no tax cut for the rich (because Gore would have vetoed it.) [Note: the idea that Gore could spend trillions on his favorite thing, whatever it might be, is an indication of a failure to understand how the federal gov operates. Congress is the one that spends money!]
The truth is the Federal government is under the control of multinational corps who have the Repubocrats in their pocket.
Go by streetcar!
Posted by loon | July 9, 2011 6:26 PM
I'll say it: I have no issue with Obama whatsoever. We live in a fundamentally conservative country. There is no great "liberal majority" that is just waiting to support a president who pulls us out of Iraq and Afghanistan without a real post-occupation plan, or one who proposes a real single-payer health care plan, or one who proposes a real jobs/recovery plan that actually has a chance of pulling us out of this recession (and costing another trillion or so). As Bush senior says, "Ain't gonna happen."
Obama was elected because W. was so wickedly ineffective, and there was a genuine engagement by hundreds of thousands who normally don't participate in politics at all. Look at the tea party backlash against Obama's mere election for proof that this country is fundamentally conservative. There are certainly things that I would have liked to see Obama do differently, but overall he has governed as I expected he would - reflective of the political reality that we live in.
Posted by Miles | July 9, 2011 11:15 PM
Bull. He had the House and 60 votes in the Senate. And what did he do with them? Nothing.
Posted by Jack Bog | July 10, 2011 12:04 AM
It's not the "country" that's fundamentally conservative, it's the upper class - regardless of self-identified ideology or party, they're nearly all instinctively pro-war, pro-corporate and anti-labor.
For 30+ years I've held my nose and voted for the lesser evil (and bad as he is, Obama is still the lesser evil compared to Romney, Bachmann et al) but for the first time ever, I'm truly tempted to cast a protest vote and let the Republicans bring on a full-bore 1929-style crash. If that's what it takes to wake up the labor movement and throw enough of a real, existential scare into the economic elite that they finally take financial reform seriously and start employing Americans (whether through the public or private sector doesn't matter), I'm starting to think, So be it. About the only thing still giving me pause on this subject is the Supreme Court. Five (or more) hard-core reactionaries with life terms would seal our doom like nothing else. Obama's picks so far, while not liberals in the Brennan/Marshall tradition, have still been clearly a cut above those of his Republican predecessors. So I can't quite say I won't vote for Obama again, but I'm sure not looking forward to it.
Posted by semi-cynic | July 10, 2011 12:08 AM
"The blue-ribbon, bi-partisan federal commission set up to address the crushing federal deficit is showing around a draft of its recommendations, and they're refreshingly honest. The federal government needs to cut spending, including on Social Security, and raise taxes. We can either feel the pain now or inflict it on our children and grandchildren. Alas, the chances of the current crop of politicians in charge of the country actually doing what the commission suggests is nil..."
Posted by Pete | July 10, 2011 11:44 PM
Obama is just another groomed candidate to serve as the front man for the elites. He was the back-up candidate to Hillary, who proved to be less than likeable so he got the nod.
With the vote manipulation techniques now in place, there are no real democratic elections. What we have now is the electoral version of American Idol (and of course that show is not rigged 'sarc' )
Next President is likely going to be Governor Rick Perry.
Posted by Ralph Woods | July 11, 2011 9:40 AM
Mitt Romney? I loved Paul Begala's line that Mitt is like the guy in the picture frame when you buy it, that you take out and replace with a real person.
Mitt Romney always reminds me of the archetype "Guy who fired you".
Unfortunately, the days of true statesmen, such as Eisenhower, are over. All we get now are partisan hacks, because those are the only guys that can get the money flowing from the hardliners in the political base. How much money did Obama spend on his 4-year lease of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? $1Billion? How much will he spend on an option on a 4-year lease renewal? $1.5B? $2B?
The guys we need doing that job just can't get their hands on that kind of cash, because you have to sell out in order to get there.
Posted by MachineShedFred | July 11, 2011 12:45 PM
Really? Having read this blog for a long time, I'm fairly confident that most of the readership is probably for tackling the deficit. And you think that can be done without touching entitlements? Really?
Obama has certainly had some missteps, but at least he's trying to get something done, even at the expense of rankling the far wing of his base/party. How many other pols will do that?
Posted by Norbert | July 13, 2011 5:55 PM