Social Security ...

Do the Democrats have the courage and staying power to carry out what Jane Hamsher outlines?

Bob Shrum is an establishment party figure willing to speak the hard truth: the Democrats can only save themselves by running against the plans that Obama and the Catfood Commission have for cutting Social Security benefits.

But Democrats will need to convince the base that this effort is not just another half-hearted replay of the health care fight. The embarrassing lack of conviction they have shown for ending the war, fighting for a decent health care bill, standing up to the banks or the pharmaceutical industry or any other issue they fought for fiercely when it didn’t matter is just not going to cut it.

If the Democrats want to win their seats back in November, Social Security could very well be the ticket. But they will need to fight hard and fight smart, and ruffle a whole lot of feathers. Because until their willingness to shake up the party over this issue becomes the story, nobody is going to care.

It would take work, organization and intelligence and the willingness to stop following the weasels in Obama's administration. Now that would be something to care about. But don't expect it to happen ...

Obama, the smiling Bushie ...

Other than for the first few days in office, has Obama done anything worthwhile?

The Dow is swinging wildly–down as much as 980 points within the last hour–largely due to insecurity about the situation in Greece and shaky retail sales. And according to Brad DeLong, who is generally pretty tight with the White House, Obama will come out in opposition to Audit the Fed this afternoon.

At a time when confidence in the markets desperately needs shoring up, the President should be looking to instill confidence in investors by supporting accountability and transparency within the financial system — not acting to shield the banks. [link]

Obama has catered to thieves and liars. Obama has bowed down to moneyed interests. Is there a single principle that Obama has not betrayed?

Not only has he chosen to follow Bush's murdering steps, Obama now makes jokes about killing people, just like Bush. The similarities are adding up ...

I don't find that a Democrat who acts like a ReThug is any improvement over a ReThug.

Really, at least Bush could not destroy Social Security while he was in office. He must be laughing his guts out now that Obama plans to accomplish what Bush couldn't. As far as Social Security and Medicare we would have been better off with McCain as President and the Congress in Democratic hands. As it is Obama has ruined the chances of many Democrats. If one could conceive of the ReThugs having the smarts and/or Obama having the 'audacity' one could almost imagine Obama being a pre-planned Trojan Horse working for the Republican/Corporate Party.

Today's quote ...

The very idea that an administration run by Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel and staffed with centrists, Wall Street mavens, and former Bush officials -- and a Congress beholden to Blue Dogs and Lieberdems -- has been captive "to the Left" is so patently false that everyone should be too embarrassed to utter it. For better or worse, the Democratic strategy has long been and still is to steer clear of their leftist base and instead govern as "pragmatists" and centrists -- which means keeping the permanent Washington factions pleased. That strategy may or not be politically shrewd, but it is just a fact that the dreaded "Left" has gotten very little of what it wanted the entire year. Is there anyone who actually believes that "The Left" is in control of anything, let alone the Democratic Party? The fact that Lanny Davis -- to prove the Left's dominance -- has to cite one provision that was jettisoned (the public option) and another which the Left hates (the mandate) reflects how false that claim is. What are all of the Far Left policies the Democrats have been enacting and Obama has been advocating? I'd honestly love to know.

So would I ...

So we will be better off with a Crooked Evil Republican as president ...

... and the usual dumb, incompetent Democrats in Congress (as long as the VP is not Palin, or Lieberman)?

Jane Hamsher: George Bush couldn’t pull off the great Social Security robbery because of opposition from the left. But Obama has neutralized liberal institutional pushback by locking them in the veal pen, holding EFCA hostage to sideline the unions and relying on his own personal magnitism [sic] to to keep member organizations like MoveOn or the Sierra Club from making a strong move without fracturing their own ranks.

Sad but possibly so.

Fixing the donut hole by making it bigger before they make it smaller? ...

The Democrats and President Obama have been clear that the “doughnut hole,” as the gap is known, would disappear gradually over the next 10 years. They have not mentioned that Medicare patients would, according to House figures, face a slightly larger hole in coverage during two of the next three years than they do today.

[from: Health Care Reform: This is Getting Personal by Ann in AZ, firedoglake.com]

When I get around to it I will be switching my voter registration from Democrat to Independent.

The Republicans are evil and dangerous and the Democrats are incompetent and dangerous.

Your worst nightmare ...

What Steve Soto writes ...

Leaving Me Behind

Synopsis of Obama's Democratic Party and, particularly, its leadership ...

Sign anything? Check.
Incompetent Democrats? Check.

If this happens, we'll have a Republican bill that won't work, which no Republicans will vote for and which they will run against for the next decade at least.

It's Newtie's wet dream.

Though Obama is not someone that I had expected much from, I thought he would get a few of the right things accomplished because

1. he was a Democrat, and
2. he was intelligent.

Boy was I wrong on both counts!

Really, could McCain have been worse. I think the only thing really different between what McCain promised and what Obama has delivered is Palin. Think about it ...

Come on, if Obama cared about jobs ...

... he'd actually do something about them.

The only programs Obama is going for are what used to be called Republican programs --- permanent wars and more transfer of the nations wealth to the degenerate rich. These are now officially Democratic programs also.

What's left of the Republican Party is literally insane. The Democratic Party has morphed into the Conservative/War Party. There is no Party for the left.

All sane people has been ejected from the Republican Party. The controllers of the Democratic Party have no intention of honoring any promises to Progressives. They will continue to stage elaborate political theater in order to pretend they are 'working very hard' but can't quite make anything work.

I really think that working through the Democrats is a lost cause. Either give up or start a new movement. The collusion between Reid and Obama is manifest. Taking these people seriously is a wasted effort.

Today's quote ...

Why is it that "realism" is always and inevitably at the expense of women, gays and minorities? Is that the new Democratic value?

-- In MA Race, Martha Coakley Opposes Health-Care Bill Over Stupak Amendment by Susie Madrak, Crooks and Liars

Today's quote ...

Health care reform is extremely likely to pass in some form. But let's not kid ourselves that it's passing because the Democrats and the public have seen the light and understand that we need to be a more decent society. It's passing because medical industry has been greedy to the point where it's now unsustainable. That presented an opening for liberals to enact some policies they have believed in for a long time. But they didn't do it by making the liberal arguments straight up and have created some kind of strange hybrid system for which the best argument is that it might lead to opportunities for more reform. It's better than nothing. But it isn't liberal and it wasn't designed to be. And just in case, the powers-that-be stuck it to the pro-choicers to make sure nobody got the idea that it was.

-- The Lesson by digby, Hullabaloo

The lesson the 'Democratic' Party refuses to learn ...

If Democrats — the national party, the Obama White House and specific candidates alike — continue to dilute their own platform, they can expect a repeat of what happened last night in Virginia during the 2010 midterms and perhaps even beyond.

Obama's performance: as candidate astute and apparently deliberately deceptive; as President unbelievably short sighted ...

A Union Man Ponders the Democrats’ Collapse in the Virginia Elections

2. When the Obama campaign turned out the lights and went home just a couple days after the election last year that was it. The campaign was over. When the paid campaign staff operatives threw the switch to try to turn it all back "on" this year nothing happened. The Obama strategy of relentlessly and fruitlessly trying to coax support for its timid agenda from the Republican Congressional minority has left the rank-and-file with nothing to do but complain in frustration. The activists were largely missing in action, and the newly energized voters stayed at home. It was as if last year never happened. [emphasis added]

Today's quote ...

... This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight:

1. If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary "bipartisanship", you will lose votes.

2. If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes.

3. If you forget why you were elected -- health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform -- you will lose votes.

-- Lessons by John Amato, Crooks and Liars quoting Tonight's big lesson by kos, Dailykos

Today's quote ...

If this election serves as a reminder that pandering to right wingers is not a successful electoral strategy [for Dems], then Creigh Deeds will have done even more good for Democrats than if he had won the Governorship today.

-- What Happened in Virginia? by Ben Tribbett, firedoglake.com

Today's quote ...

I now see that it does not matter how many Democrats are elected. The Democratic leadership values “bipartisanship” above principles, the needs of working class Americans, or keeping their promises. The Democratic party in Washington insists on handing over complete control to whichever Republican senator will take it.

-- My Apology To Former Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee by Jon Walker

Today's quote ...

It's often forgotten or obscured, but the central political fact now is that the Democratic Party controls everything in Washington -- from the branches of government to favors doled out to lobbyists to the policies that Congress and the President enact. Wars that are fought and bills that are or are not passed and policies that are maintained are, by definition, Democratic actions. The dreaded Right can't dictate or stop anything. That's the burden of having massive majorities in all areas -- everything that happens is the result of what the Democratic Party does, and that's why the divisions and conflicts that truly matter are ones with the party itself. The "right v. left" and even "Democrat v. GOP" drama dominates most of our discourse, yet at this point it is a distracting and largely irrelevant food fight. It's the Democrats who have won the last two elections by large margins and wield all the power, and increasingly the defining conflict is between those whose overarching allegiance is to Obama and the Party as ends in themselves, and those who see those things as mere means to more important ends.

-- Gay issues, the "Fringe Left" and the liberal veal pen by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

The penchant of Dem Leaders to scratch and claw at their progressive supporters confuses me ...

In fact I begin to wonder about Obama's comprehension. He actually doesn't appear to think he had to really deliver on anything substantive. Though he has shown in his speeches a thorough understanding of issues he does not appear to be interested in instituting any changes except those that cater to the very same people and corporations that Bush catered to.

Obama is not governing for the people. I suppose he thinks he can keep them satisfied with his pied-piper spiel and that all he has to do is concentrate on slapping down a few of what he considers his unimportant lefty supporters while ingratiating himself with Republicans and the Blue Curs all the while ignoring the right wing fanatics who have crawled back out of the woodwork.

This is not a plan ... catering to those that despise you while at the same time ensuring that those who support you will also end up despising you. No, this is not a plan.

Here's a post at Hullabaloo which says it all much better: Playing With Fire

Pelosi, nothing. Reid, worse.

Errington C. Thompson, MD calls for leadership on healthcare and then shows why we're unlikely to get it:

... Now, as we look back over the last three years, what is the tough legislation that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have guided through Congress? Nothing. ...

I personally think Rancid Reid's performance shows a determined and successful obstruction of good legislation and an underhand obeisance to corporate money. I suppose that's leadership of sorts. In Pelosi the House, apparently, installed a real Democrat as Speaker, but one with no personal power or will at all.

That would make him successful at what exactly?

Punishing your allies while rewarding your enemies is a very unusual strategy, but it seems to be the one the village has set forth as being Obama's best chance of success. ...

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Today's QUOTES:

In the end, the Panic of 1873 demonstrated that the center of gravity for the world’s credit had shifted west — from Central Europe toward the United States. The current panic suggests a further shift — from the United States to China and India. Beyond that I would not hazard a guess. I still have microfilm to read. --The Real Great Depression by Lee Sigelman, The Monkey Cage There is absolutely no reason to believe that the next time a Republican is elected to the presidency he or she won't pick right up where they left off. That is the story of the last 40 years and until there is some price to pay they will keep right on doing it, escalating each time. For all the Colin Powell's who have come over from the Dark Side, there a many more who were trained in this worldview during this long conservative era. At some point they will try to keep power permanently. All it would take is just the right kind of crisis for them to justify it. After all, the precedents are all lined up --- normalized and legalized each step of the way by Democrats who didn't want to spend their political capital to stop it. --Torture Zombie by digby, Hullabaloo What happened in the U.S. over the last eight years is about much, much more than what "the Bush administration" did. It begins there, but responsibility in the post 9/11-era is much more diffuse and collective than that. Shoveling it all off on the administration that is leaving, while exonerating our culpable media and political institutions that remain, isn't merely historically inaccurate and unfair, though it is that. Allowing that revisionism also ensures that the critical lessons that ought to be learned will instead be easily and quickly forgotten when similar episodes occur here in the future. --Mumbai, the NYT's revisionism, and lessons not learned by Glenn Greenwald, salon.com

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