Obama was voted in to fix the economy. Obama was not voted in to stimulate his main campaign contingencies, dither around on health care, and continue the Bush policy in Afghanistan.

Mort Zuckerman sums up the way millions of 2008 Obama voters (including those who voted for Brown in Massachusetts) feel about his administration or lack thereof:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-19/hes-done-everything-wrong

If the economy is still at or above 8% unemployment come November 2012, then I am voting Republican straight down the ticket. I will not give Democrats 4 more years to continue to turn the other cheek and bankroll, bankrupt entitlement systems such as PERS and Medicare, while those working taxpayers who form the foundation of the system are ignored.

Like Jon Stewart says, The Democrats still have a larger majority than George W. Bush had when he manged to do whatever the f*** he wanted.

There was much wailing and gnashing of the teeth last night from the home of the health care I'm not a lobbyist but VP of Government Relations, Harvard Kennedy School of Government alum who lives across the street.

I totally agree.

Maybe they can at least get helping Haiti right. So far it sounds like they arent doing much better than Bush did with Katrina. Then there was another quake today.

When President Obama placed Rahm E of DLC fame as his Chief of Staff, that was indicator of who this administration would error in favor of..

Im a registered non party affiliation voter. Im definitely not going to vote for any republican candidates as long as pandering to the far right fundies is their mandate, but the democratic party can't depend on my vote either... Since both parties error against the people and in favor of the corporations, no vote is a vote...

How do we get the influence of corporate money out of our political system when the very people who need to initiate that direction are the ones that benefit the most from it?

There is a saying that you can use to frame many things, in this case I'll use it to frame the pathetic attempts that have been made to pass a health care bill.

If you want to pass a healthcare bill really bad. We've got a really bad healthcare bill for you.

Yes, the entire wreck needs to be withdrawn. Shred all 2000+ pages of it and go back to the drawing board. This time actually bring in members of the opposite party and actually use some of the ideas from that side of the isle.

This entire year has been horrible. The president keeps coming up with bad idea after bad idea. From his cap-and-tax, to his healthcare, to his 'let's put the terrorists on trial here in America', the bad ideas just keep on coming. Add to that his 'promise' that his administration (and government in general) would be transparent; instead it's become even more opaque. Let's throw in the high unemployment and his penchant to blame Bush for EVERYTHING and Obama's first year has been a disaster.

No one flogs the Democrats for their failures better than themselves, and I share in your profound disappointment. But let's make sure an equal measure of blame falls where it also belongs, on Republicans. They've obstructed and obfuscated at every turn, offering no serious counter-proposals and voting in unthinking lockstep against Obama for no other reason than to see him fail.

I suppose in fairness we have to note Democrats did the same thing to Bush, especially in his second term. But that, and the fact that needed reform to health care, which leaders of both parties have been saying we need to do for years, can be distorted and held hostage by one person (Lieberman, Nelson, and now Brown), shows how broken our system is. No wonder voters, especially young ones, are getting so disillusioned and disengaged from the political process.

Congress did indeed do something: They passed the stimulus.

And look what it's done. It created or saved 3 MILLION jobs. Except almost all the new jobs consist of stuffing envelopes with unemployment checks. (Those jobs come with a downside: SEIU will make you spend weekends stuffing "Yes on 66/67" envelopes.)

A jaundiced perception of events won't change the fact that the bloom is off the rose.

They never had 60 votes that would work together for anything which means they can still get this done IF they want. Most of them don't want as they make too much money keeping it as it is.

Massachusetts Democrats nominated a woman that refused to work hard and they got what they deserve for that. But voting for Brown as a protest was stupid unless people wanted what he will stand for (think tea baggers and endorsed by Palin for what that will be). It's all too bad but it's so typical and so disillusioning.

Going along with this, you keep seeing those polls where more Americans dislike the current health care plan proposal. That lumps together those who wanted single payer or public option and does not mean even 50% want no change. Polls don't help anybody with anything but we are constantly bombarded by them.

Well Said

Man, so does this mean that they'll have to actually compromise to get stuff done now, rather than just have a rubber stamp session?

What a shame.

Maybe someone will actually have time to read the health care bill now.

The Democrats are their own worst enemies. They are the only part who can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I've never figured out why they can't hold their coalition together for a single thing. Their badge of honor (their diversity) is also the arrow through their hearts. What a bunch of self-serving morons.

"Maybe they can at least get helping Haiti right."

Good luck, he's having a tough enough time with Detroit.

I personally think the President is doing a good job. Unfortunately the two people running the congress, as I've said before, couldn't pass gas if they ate a case of beans. Speaking of Harry Reid, stick a fork in him, he's done with the midterm elections coming up.

Get ready for the "Handmaid's Tale" to be reality in a few years! Margaret Attwood saw the future in 1986!

Oh, goody...

Brown will assure that all the congresscritters manage to keep the health insurance "death panels" in place.

Be prepared to see more people dying, or contracting infectious diseases, waiting for care in the emergency rooms of hospitals all over the country. Then, we can start referring to hospitals for their real function: "Death camps"

Your conclusion -- that our problem is the ups vs. the many more downs -- is dead on. There's a terrific book that the Dems could have read if they'd been willing to entertain the possibility that shining Wall St.'s shoes all day was perhaps just possibly not the only strategy possible -- it's called "Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War" by Joe Bageant. It's outstanding -- I hope a lot of hungover Democrats take a look.

Good interview with Bageant here (about 8 min)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9J-Dy0OcKw

The Democrats figured they could act like Republicans and it would protect their hold on power. Progressives? The anti-war movement? Screw them. Well, how did that work out for you?
Sure, healthcare reform was a big issue, but if President Obama had actually focused on progressive change after Bush, then Massachusetts would have been a lock.
Instead, large groups of voters felt they had been misled during the campaign.
"Change You Can Believe In" was more of a marketing slogan than anything else.

Lots of half-glass empty commentary here. Brown is simply an example of a phenomema happening in American politics, where people are increasingly resisting voting for party hacks. Overall, this may portend a better future for our country. Just as long as the whole thing doesn't became a charade, a la Sara Palin-mania. I met a smart blue-collar guy the other day with a Palin tatoo. Doesn't read much. Just likes the fact that she is an "ordinary person". "The only thing goofy about her is the names she gave her kids." I wanted to burst out laughing and start ranting about a few other goofy things I could think of, but maintained composure.

They have 10 days to pass healthcare and they need to f****** do it. Period.

Its not health care reform, its an insurance industry takeover. That is a very important distinction.

The day Coakley ran down to Washington DC to collect half a million dollars from the big pharma lobby should have been a major eye-opener for what this "reform" bill is really all about.

Oops. I think Ms Coakley may have lost primarily because of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK7ZCbuIfKk&feature=player_embedded#

Nothing like a story about a hot curling iron, and subsequent bureaucratic indifference and inaction, to infuriate people enough to go out and vote.

I love the Massachussets accent.

Obama must be furious that he had to go hug someone who got creamed like that.

There's nothing like two pigs in a pen arguing over which one is less dirty--and people standing around criticizing one pig or the other and each other.

Why the angst over a lost election? Almost half of Massachusetts voters voted for the Democrat (48%), and a hair more than half voted for the Republican (52%). I'm not sure how that qualifies as some sort of paradigm shift/wake up call/game changer.

The state's had a Democrat senator for a long time because it was *Ted Kennedy*. He's dead, things change. So?

This guy who won the election? He'll do what all Senators do--take money from special interests, entertain lobbyists, and become part of the camel-by-committee fest of mediocrity that is modern American government.

"I suppose in fairness we have to note Democrats did the same thing to Bush, especially in his second term."

Dems were nowhere near as obstructionist under Bush as the GOP is now. They did not force every bill to have 60 votes to pass.

" I don't belong to an organized political party I'm a democrat" Will Rogers

Ecohuman,
Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1 in Massachusetts.
So a 52%(R)-48%(D) split for these candidates is very significant.

They didn't force Bush to have 60 votes because a majority of their members agreed with the bills. I don't think the Mass. Senate results are going to accelerate or decelerate the screwing down into the ground of the little guy. But you never know. I guess the key is to work as hard as you can to not be that person. 30 years ago when I got out of school the economy was in the tank and unemployment was high. And then we had some good years. I think we'll have good years again.

Like the Naderites before them, the disaffected "progressives" have made it possible for the republicans to hold onto their control of the federal government.

Gary,
I hope you're right about the good years ahead but remember: 30 years ago the Boomers weren't in charge.

Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 1 in Massachusetts. So a 52%(R)-48%(D) split for these candidates is very significant.

Why? Because people might've voted outside party lines? Or did something simpler happen--that one party took a radical, carefully massaged message to the masses?

the key fact here--that the vote went about 50/50--means that most Dems voted Dem, and most Republicans votes republican. a 3-1 margin means *some* Dems voted for the opposite party's candidate.

What's odd is that when Bush won by a hair, he claimed a mandate and Dems were quick to condemn that language as false and overreaching. But a Republican wins by a few percentage points in Massachusetts, and Dems claim a massive "game change"?

Good point Bill. But one thing that gives me some hope is that the next generation (I can't remember the name for that one) seems to be more aware of the potential negative effects of the debt that is being incurred on the federal level. It seems like a lot of time is spent on this blog about the level of debt in Oregon/Portland to fund programs that we can't afford. I think the same points can be made on the federal level. I think that issue alone is responsible for a lot of what happened in Massachusetts. People in the middle are scared of the spending. And let's face it, the folks in the middle are the only ones that the candidates need to convince to get elected.

I don't think the Dems are claiming a game change - they're dreading it. They're regretting the loss of the Independents as well as the loss of enthusiasm for the job they're doing.
I guess you could say it's not significant because both parties are there to serve the corporations, anyway, but I bet our local pundits at Blue Oregon aren't fighting over who gets to do this post.

Eric, the continuous refrain like yours; "Republicans....offering no serious counter-proposals" on health care is really old and not accurate. There are numerous proposals published and orally stated.

Where are the considerations for: tort reform; insurance competition; hospital/doctor/medical service competition (national access to comparative costs of services); drug competition/over-site; and strict verifiable services of health care to US citizens only??

For many fiscal responsible citizens, if we are to have a health care reform, it should have been a stepped-staged process with performance reviews along the way to measure effectiveness, cost benefits, and citizen review of performance (voting, etc.) to element elements not working and to make proposals to add elements in a stepped fashion if needed.

This makes sense because even Obama said "the main reason for health care reform is to lower health costs. Where are the measure to insure that, besides a hope and a guess??

It shouldn't be an all-encompassing initial bill. Citizens in polls show an overwhelming desire to leave many parts of our present health care intact, but recognize some fixing is needed.

"If the Democrats run for cover, if we become pale carbon copies of the opposition, we will lose, and deserve to lose." -Ted Kennedy

It is, as always, about interest group politics.

Key interest groups are in the business of reducing their transaction costs by using legislation to create captive customers. It is the analytical equivalent to a captive audience in the free speech context.

The individual mandate contained in the proposed Health Care "Reform" is just a natural extension of the mandates for participation by public employees in healthcare and retirement savings, etc., as detailed in public employee union collective bargaining agreements.

If non-public employees demand and desire to be free of mandates should it not also mean that members of public employee unions should have the option, at a minimum, to opt out of PERS or a prescribed set of options for healthcare (prescribed insurance purchases). It cannot be said that every last represented member voluntarily agrees with every single mandate. Someone does not give up all their free speech rights the instant they accept employment with a public entity, nor should they give up all freedom on how to distribute their earnings.

First they came for the public employees, then . . .

If I became an employee for the City of Portland my first act would be to demand to be paid in cash, inclusive of the earnings now dedicated for delivery to any retirement savings scheme or any healthcare related expenditure.

Bingo, Jack!

http://www.anunreasonableman.com/

http://www.seventeentraditions.com/

The D's and bluecoats scapegoated Nader for their series of big debacles at their own hands in 2000 (and 2004). D is for deceiver (or delusionist, for the mass of true believers). R is for reprobate (the unwashed masses of bluecollar R's and their associates are among the "unconditional (dis)electorate" of that world).

As publicized a lot the past week by the pundits, over half of MA voters are registered "Independent" (another 28,000+ are "other"). Here are the 2008 figures for all of the US: http://elections.gmu.edu/Registration_2008G.html

F the "two-party" system! It's just two handles on the same whipsaw.

As publicized a lot the past week by the pundits, over half of MA voters are registered "Independent" (another 28,000+ are "other").

Yep, that's what I'm saying. the whole "Dems outnumber Republicans 3 to 1" is almost meaningless, because Independents sway either way depending on the issues. This isn't some kind of national referendum.

F the "two-party" system! It's just two handles on the same whipsaw.

I completely agree. It's like the government was handed to two 12-year-olds, and they continue to try and make a left/right, hero vs. villain story out of it.

The two parties to choose from:

1-Bought off liars (dems)
2-Bought off lunatics (reps)

Score one for the lunatic party.

Jack, your overview of Congress 2009 and the corruption there -- both 'parties' intentionally desecrating America and demolishing lives and livelihoods: I agree, as I watched and analyzed it, in my view. Not so much (agreement), though, with your view of Massachusetts.

Perhaps in our Vote-by-Mail, all paper-trail all the time, Oregon, we forget everywhere else has election tallies spitted out of computer-programmed 'black box' no-ballots no-evidence Touch-the-TV voting machines. And we seem to not notice vast evidence, documented, during the last 8 years showing the vote tallies are TOTALLY made up, fiction, fraudulent, vote-counts nobody voted and votes nobody counted.

Considering the plausibility -- as has happened before -- that 'black box' NOballot tallies are false, then any propaganda-biased massmedia pundit analysis of 'meaning' or 'message' or 'results' in an election is only hot-air blowing smoke ... believe it if you choose to, but you have no actual factual tangible BALLOTs in a box to stand on and support your 'belief.'

Today, see here for instance:

- BIPARTISANLY YOURS: COAKLEY WON THE HAND COUNTS - by Bev Harris, January 20, 2010.

This article is about our right to know ... that Coakley won the hand counts there.

That's right.

According to preliminary media results by municipality, Democrat Martha Coakley won Massachusetts overall in its hand counted locations,* with 51.12% of the vote (32,247 hand counted votes) to Brown's 30,136, which garnered him 47.77% of hand counted votes. Margin: 3.35% lead for Coakley.

Massachusetts has 71 hand count locations, 91 ES&S locations, and 187 Diebold locations, with two I call the mystery municipalities (Northbridge and Milton) apparently using optical scanners ....

ES&S RESULTS
The greatest margin between the candidates was with ES&S machines -- 53.64% for Brown, 45.31% for Coakley, a margin for Brown of 8.33%.

As a point of reference, however, in the Maine gay marriage issue recently there was no significant overall difference between machine count and hand count locations.

DIEBOLD RESULTS
Diebold's results are 51.42% for Brown, with 791,272 Republican votes counted by Diebold, vs. 47.61% for Coakley, with 732,633 Democratic votes counted by Diebold, for a spread of 3.81% favoring Brown.

LATE-REPORTED RESULTS

It's always interesting to watch hand counts beat machine count results to the newspaper.

In the Massachusetts special senate election, results from six of 71 hand count locations were reported about 2 1/2 hours after the polls closed, with the remaining 65 hand count locations in right away. ....

And there are many more details in the full report, at the link. None of it allowed, all of it censored in the TV mass mindwashing media ... in case anyone reading this knows nothing else beyond what's on TV.

Also at the link, above, is more info and documentation being compiled in Massachusetts the morning after. Such as finding where, in fact, the marked ballots are ... or aren't. Here's a telling picture, for example, as NOT Seen On TV
.

.

Or a citizen pundit can go the easy way and simply announce the (TV)conclusion on which the facts are based.

As Ted Kennedy spins in his grave, I have to conclude there are differences between the two major parties:

Republicans have an authoritarian ability to organize and function as a military unit, and therefore win elections and prevail in Congress even as a minority. Unfortunately, they have no answers to the nation's problems, don't really care and don't believe in government anyway.

Democrats have lots of ideas, too many of them. They have a bunch of bright people with big egos, and getting them to agree on a course is like herding cats.

Gil is right. The two parties have to start to blend together in the center, at which point a centrist faction can break off from the idiotic extremes and form a new party.

Call it the "left of liberal, leaning republican" party. Hey, where can I sign up?

The dems knew this legislation was a steaming pile of manure, but their conclusion was that the political cost of doing nothing was greater than doing something.

If you talk to any knowledgeable person in the healthcare insurance industry, they support reform. The economic model of third party payor fee for service healthcare is fundamentally flawed ... consumers are separated from the economic cost of the healthcare services they are consuming.

I was an Obama supporter until I watched him try and slam this crap down our throats. I guarantee that if this bill passed, premiums would have increased ... guaranteed. This bill did not address the severe problems with our system, in fact, it would have made a bad situation worse. Yes, there were some good aspects of the bill, but overall it would have been a disaster.

There's all this talk about how stupid or incompetent the Politics and Persons are, in the ______ party (fill in the blank with your favorite ones to hate, D or R, both qualify).

But ... they hold power, and We the People do NOT.

I dream of what could wake us all up together to see The System of The Establishment is the enemy of America and all Americans. As long as we pick at parts of it (according to our individual angers) and fight among ourselves, the whole of it hangs together. Federal politics is a Stage Show, a Punch'n'Judy Play. All the stuff 'they' never accomplish, bumble stumble and crumble, is BECAUSE 'they' INTEND NOT to ACCOMPLISH any changes. 'They' are IN, we are OUT, and 'they' mean to keep it that way. The crimes and atrocities are NOT 'accidents' or 'incompetence' -- it's ALL ON PURPOSE.

The Vast Rightwing Conspiracy INCLUDES the Democratic Party IN ON IT.

One guess who 'they' are opposed to and fighting against; (hint: see a mirror).

Two options I think we have:
1) Get together among ourselves, select candidates who are NOT-Democ and NOT-Repub, go outside The System to elect our designated persons ... like with Write-In voting. Yes, we CAN.
2) Dissolve the union of the 50 states, each one withdraw -- then 'National' or 'Federal' ANYTHING ceases to exist. That's pretty much how the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics did it, and now each of those formerly coerced Republics is an independent sovereignty with a seat in the U.N. No bloodshed, nobody got killed (in any great massacre extent), and all the parts today coexist, largely, and aren't building up militaries for attacking each other.

Stop kicking the Republican Party.
Stop kicking the Democratic Party.
Ignore them both. Abandon them.
Let's get our own People's Party going.

- -

And now a comic-relief minute of levity.

Today, as ever, LIARS Larson-gone-loco was bashingBashingBASHING the "government class, all the BIGGEST GROUP OF overpaid undercutting-us 'public employees' who suck the wages-blood of taxpayers dry, broke, bankrupt, blah blah blah yadda yadda ...."

As if he thinks people are too stupid to ever recognize the "BIGGEST GROUP of public employees" he describes sucking dry the taxpayers, is the military troops and veterans.

- -
But, seriously folks, just to put an Oregon face on it, where doctors medicine and human habitations are needed, there is INSTEAD this:

CIA Contractor Now Flying Spy Drone Over Haiti (Updated Again), By Noah Shachtman, January 19, 2010

A controversial CIA contractor has found new work in Haiti, flying drones on disaster recovery duty.

When last we heard from Evergreen International Aviation, the Oregon-based firm was offering to post sentries at local voting centers during the 2008 election, ”detaining troublemakers” and making sure voters “do not get out of control.”

Now, company vice president Sam White tells Aviation Week that the firm is flying at least one ScanEagle surveillance drone over Haiti. ”The company has a fleet of 747s and a fleet of large and small choppers, and has begun ferrying in supplies to Port au Prince,” the magazine’s Paul McLeary notes. “White wouldn’t say who the company is moving cargo for, saying only that ‘we’re working with different agencies, and we have one plane coming in tomorrow full of humanitarian supplies.’”

Over the years, Evergreen [McMinnville] has had all sorts of interesting clients over its five-plus decades in operation. Back in the late ’80s, the company “acknowledged one agreement under which his companies provide occasional jobs and cover to foreign nationals the CIA wants taken out of other countries or brought into the United States.” ... (more)

Your flyway taxes at work ... or is it 'in play' ? ?

Whoa! There are some very scary posts in this thread.

Hope and Change? The only hope I have is that I have enough change in my pockets for bus fare.

If the economy is still at or above 8% unemployment come November 2012...

Seriously? At the current rate of sextuple-digit monthly job losses, with no significant slowdown in losses, and not a chance in hell of any kind of job stimulus (assuming anyone had an idea that would actually work) passing through Congress -- particularly now -- we'll be lucky if the unemployment rate isn't 15%.

New political party meme happening. Trend spotting, this from FireDogLake, from reddit from out of thin air, or something.

Arrrgggh! It’s The American Pirate Party (APP), By: Jim Moss, January 20, 2010

. .

... As it turns out, there is already a U.S. Pirate Party (go figure), so the name was quickly changed to The American Pirate Party. And a skeleton platform was presented:

- Internet neutrality and progressive legislation regarding technology.

- Legalization and taxation of drugs, prostitution, and all other activities we currently classify as "consensual crime."

- Fiscal conservatism, social liberalism.

- An end to corporate personhood.

- A Public Option health care system.

- Reducing the power of filibuster by restoring it to its original place in Senate procedure, requiring simple majorities to pass laws.

- Eschew professional politicians in favor of politically knowledgeable citizens interested in political positions.

- Campaign finance reform that prohibits corporations from giving money to a political candidate in any form. Only contributions from private citizens.

At some (tipping) point, folks have to think what it is they feel and then vote what they think, instead of all these years thinking what they hear someone say and voting for the talk.

Now you know: APP

"We can't do anything with 59 votes -- the Republicans will filibuster! And we can't have that. We have to do the responsible thing -- nothing."

I don't think the problem was that the Democrats would do nothing. The problem was they would do anything, no matter how far it strayed from the critical first intent.

It began here:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/us/politics/09health.html?_r=1

And all those good intentions were sacrificed to do anything instead of nothing, to attempt a political victory instead of such a terribly important policy transformation.

"This would never have occurred if the Democratic Party stood for anything."

Come to think of it, the implications above would support if not prove that point.

I see the "Clever" and well funded Republican machine infiltrated the Democratic Party in Congress, electing their own as Dems, such as Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Lieberman, etc.
Therefore,
1. The Dems never had a 60 vote filibuster proof majority,
2. And the Republicans enjoyed successful ongoing obstruction at every turn by their surrogates.

Agree?

All while pounding the final nail in the middle class coffin.

Don't forget Senator Wyden (R-N.Y.).