WAR: Obama's silly pursuit of Bush's attempt at manliness ...

Greenwald shines a light on the dangers as Obama escalates the causes:

The evidence proving this causation is now so overwhelming as to be undeniable. Waging wars, occupying, and dropping bombs in Muslim countries is the single most counter-productive step that can be taken to combat Islamic extremism (indefinitely imprisoning them without charges is a close second). It's akin to advising a lung cancer patient to triple the quantity of cigarettes he smokes each day. Yet we continue to do it over and over, and then point to the harms we cause as reasons we need to continue doing it. Our "counter-terrorism" campaign basically consists of three steps repeated endlessly:

(1) Interfere in or otherwise act aggressively in the Muslim world.

(2) Provoke increased anti-American sentiment and fuel terrorism as a result of Step 1.

(3) Point to the increased anti-American sentiment and terrorism as a reason we need to escalate our interference and aggression in the Muslim world. Return to Step 1.

The coordinated campaign to hype the alleged "growing domestic Muslim threat" at exactly the time we are escalating our conventional war in Afghanistan and our covert Predator war in Pakistan is a perfect illustration of this process. Basically, what Shane's article reveals is the shocking truth that waging war and otherwise interfering in Muslim countries for more a full decade radicalizes Muslims and drives some of them to want to return the violence. Who would have guessed?

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Pretty please ...

The Obama Administration's approach to handling the real problems in this country almost makes Bush appealing (I said almost).

The following is a copy of a post from Hullabaloo (digby). She appears to take these critters at face value. I cannot take they seriously anymore (not that I don't take the consequences of their perfidy seriously). They're playing us and they think we are stupid.

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"We Were There For Them"

by digby

Understatement of the century:

When I asked top White House economic advisor Larry Summers if the President needs to encourage banks to do more lending, he told me that bankers “need to recognize that they've got obligations to the country after all that's been done for them, and there is a lot more they can do.”

Tomorrow, the President will meet with heads of the country’s biggest banks and Summers told me the White House has a blunt message: “President Obama is going to be talking with them about what they can do to support enhanced lending to customers across the country.

"We were there for them. And the banks need to do everything they can to be sure they're there for customers across this country.”

They sure were.

But I'm afraid that Summers is willfully misrepresenting his banker pals' moral philosophy which says that they are "fulfilling their obligations" by making huge profits and giving themselves enormous bonuses. They are the productive members of society who are supporting all of us parasites with their superior talents and stronger work ethic. "We have to tolerate the inequality" of giving bankers huge paychecks in order "to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” In fact, they are doing God's work. Profits, after all, are not satanic.

It's nice that the president is going to scold these people about not being greedy bastards, but I'm fairly sure that after everything that's already happened, the bankers will be trying hard to keep from smirking and the rest of the country will roll its collective eyes at the absurdity of appealing to their sense of gratitude and fair play. It's just a little bit late for anyone to take finger wagging seriously, I'm afraid.

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We have money ...

for war, but NOT for jobs ...

for war, but NOT for health care ...

for war, but NOT for education ...

for war, but NOT for peace ...

We have all the money you want as long as it's for war.
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Dennis J Kucinich via Crooks and Liars:

"The message is clear: We have money for war but not for jobs," said Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio). "We have money for war but not for health care. We have money for war but not for education. . . . We have money for war but not for peace."

Whose really responsible for Lieberman ...

In my opinion both Obama and Reid are responsible for the train wreck that is Lieberman. Either Obama and Reid approve of what Lieberman is doing or they both are such craven cowards that they are afraid to do anything that will stop or limit Lieberman's hare-brained and demented behavior.

Perhaps it's a little of both.

Apt characterization of Republicans ...

... and, sadly, of not a few Dems:

... [they denounce a judicial decision] for reasons having nothing to do with law and everything to do with their own political beliefs and outcome preferences -- i.e., they're advocating, as usual, for the consummate act of outcome-based "judicial activism" which they endlessly claim to oppose.

Jane Hamsher says:

It’s time that people took off the rose colored glasses and faced the fact that Obama’s “leadership” on health care was empty and passive. He went for the corporate-friendly “win” that enriches the insurance and drug companies, just as he has enriched the banks and failed to hold them to account. Those who look first to others as scapegoats for his actions have apparently not come to grips with the fact that as President of the United States, he’s a very powerful man who is not using that power to advance the progressive agenda they attribute to him.

And I just have to agree!

The kind of health insurance corruption Obama and the Dems plan to keep in place ...

My Medicare Part D plan, through AARP, has a tiered copay amount for a 30 day supply of medication.

One of the ways to cheat a customer is to charge for two months copays (and those copays keep going up drastically each year) if they estimate that a liquid medication will last anything over 30 days. So for example if a medication is estimated to last 35 days then they will charge you for 60 days. They will not consider prorating the copay amount to cover 35 days. Imagine, someone might accuse them of being fair and not providing enough money for their executive bonuses.

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Added: Turns out that two copays is more (by a couple dollars) than I would pay for the same 10ml bottle if I bought the drug from CostCo without insurance.

Insurance you can believe in?

Yeah, yeah, just part of the game ...

Source: Reid Fed Up With GOP Obstruction, Committed To Finishing Health Care By Xmas

Today's quote ...

What’s new is the public acknowledgment that this is what we do, and how we behave, that it’s routine, and the implicit acceptance that it’s okay. And all that has occurred with no recognition whatsoever that if an agent from another country did that here, it would be called a terrorist act carried out by a people without soul or morality.

-- Becoming 9/11: CIA Expands Drone Attacks Inside Pakistan by Scarecrow, firedoglake.com

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.

Too put it mildly ...

... Even bigger than health care, if the entire Democratic party exists only to give Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Mary Landrieu sole power to design every peice of legislation, the progressive grassroots needs to reevaluate why they even vote for Democrats.

Obama's patchwork principles ...

... like most Obama decisions, last night he incorporated enough of every side and paid homage to conflicting principles such that it's impossible to identify what he really believes ("civilian trials are a fundamental American value and now we'll deny them to many detainees" is quite similar to: "Afghanistan is in our absolute vital interest and we'll start leaving in 18 months"). He's convinced his admirers that this is a form of noble "pragmatism" but, far more often, it appears to be a mishmash of political calculations bereft of principle and plagued by numerous internal contradictions that make it impossible to understand, let alone defend. Everyone gets to read into it whatever they want to see.

Classified Benchmarks ...

America's insanity just gets better and better. Once again the US has, will you believe it, BENCHMARKS! Remember those. Those benchmarks that have no consequence when they fail to be met. Those benchmarks that are forgotten when they no longer work as a propaganda tool.

But wait, these BENCHMARKS are better. These bench marks are CLASSIFIED. Just think of the propaganda value of CLASSIFIED BENCHMARKS.

Now that must be what Obama SMARTS brings to Bush STUPIDITY.

Way to go. Change you can believe in.
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Apparently Obama is working for the Republicans:

While Democratic lawmakers are increasingly opposed to a possible troop increase, Republican lawmakers say the move is necessary and that the president needs to convey that in his speech tomorrow.

Of course, fighting 'insurgents' and citizens in a country far, far away keeps the US from taking care of it's own problems: health care, education, starving children, overcrowded prisons and other little matters like an increasingly insane political environment.

Not to mention all the money certain factions make in and around the military establishment. Afghanistan is not the only center of corruption revolving around this war of the very wealthy and very unChristian 'Christians.'

America's delusion ...

... no matter how one rationalizes continuing and escalating the war in Afghanistan, the same arguments make a more compelling case for invading and nation-building in Mexico. Which we all know is laughable. So, why is no one laughing?