On Fiscal Cliff, Republicans Wait For Action From Obama, Democrats

Two things.



The President introduced a plan that cut long-term Social Security benefits which isn't allowed to impact the deficit. So I'm not so sure that there is a plan going on that will make the 98% happy.



Second, to the republicans, the economy is not a mess. It's a great start toward what they believe in their heart is the appropriate 'natural order' where the 1% own everything and the 99% beg and plead for $1-a-day wages or die. Eliminating government protections and consolidating capital is the means to get all the way there.



The only things the republicans demand is more cuts in capital gains and personal income for the wealthy - and as much deregulation as possible. Everything else is just noise from them. And of course, these are the two items that have undermined our economy and societal continuity. So far, by bluffing and assuming the President will give into them has helped them achieve these goals. Will it work this time? I sure hope not.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

On Fiscal Cliff, Republicans Wait For Action From Obama, Democrats

"Whatever we decide on must have the endorsement of Boehner and McConnell, and they each have to commit to producing votes to pass it,” said one congressional Democratic aide involved in the talks. “As we have seen from Boehner, he can't produce the votes. How can we possibly even think of putting something together if neither of them will commit to actually produce votes?"



What is this crap?!?! Put the darn thing up for a vote and then count who say yay or nay for f's sake!!



I can't stand this nonsense - a bill has to be 100% assured of passage before bringing it up?!?!? It's putting me over the edge.



Put the bill out in public for a day and then bring it up for a vote the next (assuming it's as simple as described above - otherwise, add more time to consume it, then vote).



Politicians in both parties are WAY too comfortable operating this way - avoiding the silly requirement to be accountable for actions. This approach is no action. No action - no accountability. Just whine about the other side as your re-election campaign. What a great deal!



VOTE on something! If all the republicans vote against it, then that paints them badly (as usual). Just do it....
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Cliff Hanger: Obama's Last Stand and the Republican Strategy of Fanaticism

"What if we go over the cliff and House Republicans continue to hold out against any tax increases on the rich while demanding major cuts in Medicare and Social Security?"



This is why the "negotiations" have to be done completely in public. Obama is morbidly conflict averse and refuses to use his leverage. If he took it to the republicans and explained where the points of contention are, as noted in the quoted speculation, it would be a huge boost to potential Dem candidates for House in 2014.



Obama needs to, for a change, start looking long term. If he hasn't learned that making "grand bargains" with republicans is always a losing proposition by now, then he needs to hand the keys to some adults who are willing to play hardball. Obama has to stop worrying about what the titans of industry will think about his decisions and start worrying about how he can convince borderline republican, gerrymandered districts to flip Dem in 2014 and beyond.



But I'm afraid he's still too self-absorbed in his "bipartisan" obsession to get there. I'd love to be proved wrong, but to expect the President to stop paying ransom to republicans (or worse, to stop agreeing with republicans on irrational beliefs about the economy) at this point would be naive.



We need to put the republicans on the defensive next year. It's the only way to win back the House in 2014.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

'Plan B' Vote Spiked In House In Major Setback For Boehner

And the offset is coming from where??? Hmmmm? (answer: General Fund)



I'm sure you didn't miss that part, right?



And so the cuts in benefits don't get realized by folks like us (I assume you're not making more that 120k) - the benefit cuts help sustain a tax break for business and corporations.



The cap on fica deductions needs to be lifted. The cut on businesses needs to lapse. At that point, maybe a conversation about rate cut on the tax can be entertained. But the clear and obvious burden (from a percentage of income perspective) remains on the middle class, working poor, and people like my teenage kids who make dirt per hour but still pay FICA on every dollar they earn - while the rich and corporations see cuts and preferential treatment.



A Republican President would never get away with this. But his Eminence, the infallible Pope Obama can do whatever he wants and get defended by Democrats. It's indefensible and disgraceful.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

'Plan B' Vote Spiked In House In Major Setback For Boehner

We get nonsense like this from the White House, "The president will work with Congress to get this done and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy."



The President's head is clearly more dense than tank armor. The public does NOT CARE about "bipartisan" anything!!!! We have said it loud and clear, over and over and over again.



What people want are credible solutions. If you pose the solutions in a sensible manner and keep the solutions alive and defended (defending anything isn't really something that Obama has the stomach to do, tho) in the media, then people will gravitate toward them.



The vast majority knows that the rich are richer and paying a lot less in taxes than 10 years ago. Throwing Social Security under the bus to get that isn't bipartisan compromise, it's human sacrifice. Social Security does not contribute to the deficit - it's illegal for that to happen (although the President's insistence on cutting that tax on businesses has begun undercutting the trust fund - I wish I knew what the President has against the elderly and Social Security).



A compromise would be something like, 'if BLS unemployment numbers drop to 4%, then capital gains rates can drop down to 15%'. Sell something like that to the public and draw the battle lines for 2014 elections to win back the house.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Zombie Apocalypse Singled Out In Tom Coburn Report On Homeland Security Waste

Love the bogus, "see? told you that everything the government does is a waste" comments here.



Homeland Security was a republican contrivance by a republican President, supported by a republican congress (including Dems who were afraid of being accused of not fully panicking after 911 - or, in the pandering words of their excuse-makers, 'ensuring that everything is done to protect lives!') and given a most republican, right-wing name.



From day one of the HS administration, maintenance of unreasonably high citizen fear levels was a major goal - although the administration, to their defense, may legitimately have been as terrified of foreigners as they wanted the public to be. And spending on nonsense projects (I was in an elected municipal authority role at the time and saw some of it first-hand) was at a fevered pace. A few projects were sensible (eg mobile disaster response vehicles), but the vast majority were absurd overreactions (eg inventorying chlorine at public pools).



It's nice that Coburn has had enough. I'm genuinely impressed that he has the courage to try to gore this sacred ox. A full, tear-wrenching mea culpa, however, is in order from him and everyone else who voted in terror to give birth to this beast in the first place.



And a level of courage from his peers to get this monster under control would be in order, too. The President could take the lead on this mess if he saw fit, as he's now the HS owner.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Stephanie Cutter: We Never Understood Why Romney Campaign Didn't Push Back On Bain Attacks

I don't understand this contention at all.



Either it's a gimmick to make the President sound like he's the corporation-loving person that he's demonstrated himself to be over the last 4 years (because they aren't THAT naive to think that there was really a defense for the crimes against capitalism committed by Bain that could be possible without opening up the company's dirty laundry basket to intense scrutiny) or...



the President and his campaign were, in fact, so naive as to think that there was a solid defense of Bain's crimes against capitalism possible without exposing all of Bain's dirty laundry to the world.



Since the campaign made much hay with Bain's malignancy, I can't believe it's naivety. So what is there to be gained by uncorking this nonsense? I guess they fear the cliff negotiations are going to provoke the talking heads to position Obama as anti-business so they're going to use silly post-election analyses like this - and invite Bain's leading annual capital gains recipient to the White House for vittles - try to counter it. If so, utter waist of time and effort.... again.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Fiscal Cliff 2012: Republicans Say White House Proposes $1.6 Trillion In New Tax Revenue, New Stimulus, Elimination Of Debt Ceiling

I ignored your questions because they are absurd - like just about everything you've typed.



California's problems are not due to taxes being too high or too low. But that's all you want to fixate on. Taxes are generally low all over this country when compared to the rest of the world. Countries like Germany and Finland have higher taxes than us and still thrive.



So the incontrovertible fact is that a tax rate number cannot be the reason why some organization or economy is doing well or poorly. Therefore, your insistence that I explain all of California's problems in the context of your fallacious argument is absurd on face.



Were California pensions a problem? Obviously they were (or are). I believe there was a reform bill passed recently to try to address some of the problems. Are there other problems? There has to be - and I believe they have to exist because a silly belief that the tax rate is the reason for the state's financial trouble is nonsense.



Yet that is what you want to fixate on here. You probably think that if the tax rates - which are the lowest that they've ever been in about 100 years - are raised, then disaster will ensue because bureaucrats will set fire to the revenue. It's as silly and useless an obsession as is possible and I won't waste any more time on its childish irrationality.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Fiscal Cliff 2012: Republicans Say White House Proposes $1.6 Trillion In New Tax Revenue, New Stimulus, Elimination Of Debt Ceiling

Exactly backwards - the human factor is precisely why "rational markets" theories are so consistently proved wrong. Markets (investors and consumers) do not respond like robots to economic conditions.



Your other republican-brain problem is that you think that everything is about taxes. Taxes are a value in equations, but you guys fixate on them - you are enraged by them. You're lost in the "meaning" of taxes. And so you end up making silly comparisons about thing A and thing B based on taxes.



Issues like the fact that many California municipalities were bankrupted by fraudulent investments not too long ago are lost upon you. Issues like other nations in the world have higher tax rates than California but still thrive (any taxes in Australia?!? how is their economy?) crush your superficial argument before you hit the "send" button but you still carry them on anyway. Ridiculous.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Fiscal Cliff 2012: Republicans Say White House Proposes $1.6 Trillion In New Tax Revenue, New Stimulus, Elimination Of Debt Ceiling

Proved fact: reduced spending in a depressed economy results in a contraction in that economy. Find a macroeconomics article published in the last year using currently available data that can dispute it (hint: you can't - ALL data supports it). The best example is UK because they aren't effected directly by the Euro. Part of the problem in the EU (outside of UK) is their Euro ties.



Keynesians predicted it accurately. They also predicted that US Treasury bond rates would stay low while your side has continuously shrieked since 2006 that the bond vigilantes are about to hit us because of our deficit next week. Treasury rates have never been lower - in fact, they are well below inflation and still selling strong.



Tell me, how is the Finnish economy? And then tell me how small their public spending is. How is Germany's economy and how does their public spending compare to US?



So blah nanny blah blah blah all day long. All you have are your vacuous labels. It's the height of republican enlightenment - applying labels. You're afraid of facts and digging into actual data because your feeble attachment to failed policy might be shattered, so don't face the facts, squint hard and scream loud against them. But that doesn't change reality. It just makes you look silly.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Fiscal Cliff 2012: Republicans Say White House Proposes $1.6 Trillion In New Tax Revenue, New Stimulus, Elimination Of Debt Ceiling

Oh, the angry trolllies are out in force today! None understand how the economy works, yet they demand that their austerity solutions be implemented at the same time austerity has demonstrated complete and total failure (as predicted by those who understand macroeconomics) by sending the EU back into recession.



I'm glad to see the President has radically changed his negotiating tactics to finally reflect an understanding that there are sensible, historically successful, solutions to our problems and instead of accepting a slate of republican plans to compound our problems, he is hitting them over the head with those sensible solutions.



These ideas don't solve ALL the problems, to be sure, but they are a great start. And in the meantime, maybe a few republicans who use a calculator to do math will come around. There have been two sides on the macroeconomic playing field and right now the fresh water, Friedman, Randians have been routed over the last few years by the Keynesians - starting with the "bubbles? there is no housing bubble! bubbles are impossible!" and up through the double-dip in Europe.... wrong on every count. It's time for the adherents to republican economic dogma pack it in as it's really, seriously embarrassing.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why We Should Stop Obsessing About the Federal Budget Deficit

I believe I've seen you vehemently defend the President on many occasions. Some, I'm certain, are more than justifiable. I'm not against the President, but I'm fully frustrated by his weakness on several key subjects - deficit hawking being one of the worst.



So how does one defend this President's insistence on 'going it alone' after Congress rejected his plan to form a dog food commission and forming his own dog food commission by appointing deficit hawks who demanded Social Security cuts, tax cuts for the wealthy, and savage federal spending cuts? How do you defend his persistent talk about reducing the deficit - especially when compared to his talk of increasing revenue and seizing the current opportunity to fund infrastructure spending at bargain prices (T-bill rates under 2%)?



I just don't see how Professor Reich can be expected to be one of the few torch carriers on this - why doesn't the President buck up?!
About Deficit
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Just Do It: A 10-Point Solution For The Fiscal Cliff

I'd spin the same point another way. Estate tax isn't "redistribution" - look at it as what it literally is: an income tax break for heirs.



There's no concept of "family income," so when someone dies and hands off $10 million, it's clearly $10 million of INCOME to the receiving party. The estate tax laws give these heirs a huge break on taxing this INCOME. Since it's a tax break, it should be called as such. After all, if someone in my family hands me $100,000 (and, uh, that ain't possible, BTW), I have to put it on my tax returns as income - so why is it 'fair' that someone handed $10 million as 'inheritance' is absolved of that same responsibility?!?



Hence - 'tax break for heirs.'



And when the inheritance is things - like farms or buildings or cars, then we should probably deal with them in a more lenient fashion. Maybe give the heir the option of paying a percentage of the last 5 years of the object's value or paying a percentage of the object's actual price when sold. Thus, family businesses and farms can really stay that way, while those who just want to grind their parents' bones into cash as fast as possible have a way out, too.



If that's too much for people to handle, then consider it a 'war against concentration of wealth.' "Redistribution" is used by the author, intentionally or unconsciously, more as a dog whistle invictive than anything.
About Nancy Pelosi
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Lashes Out At Top Republicans Over Benghazi-Linked Criticism Of Susan Rice

Come on, Obama - put it ALL on the table RIGHT NOW!



How many thoroughly qualified nominees have been languishing (or have withdrawn from consideration) over the last 4 years?!?! Dozens? Hundreds?!?



And only a handful of gingerly, quietly made recess appointments in response.



"Come at me" is hollow and unimpressive. But worse, it's not even close to the darn point! If the man descended from heaven tomorrow and was nominated for Sec of whatever, Jesus Christ himself would be rejected by the republicans for having long hair or looking too middle-eastern. NO ONE will be acceptable - how many times does this have to be proved to you, Mr. President?!?!



So how about pulling on the bigboy drawers and wading into the fight for once. Tell the nation that there are ___ vacancies right now that are adversely effecting performance of government operations. The republicans have blocked them all - and offer this story and some of the other most colorful rejection excuse stories to expose their unethical, bad faith conduct.



Set expectations for adult behavior and if there is none forthcoming, inform the nation that you will make recess appointments aplenty. THAT would be leadership. THAT would be toughness. Threatening a discussion is neither of those things AND it wastes even MORE time than has already been wasted trying to fill important posts. Enough!! DO SOMETHING!!!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Meaning of a Do-Nothing Election

Tired of the nader beatings - give it up. Gore failed to fight for a new ballot in Florida. He could have won if he pushed for that. Gore's campaign had the opportunity to earn votes from nader supporters, but failed to do so. You could make a case that Florida's government earned some blame in 2000, but how can anyone claim that avoiding a confrontation over their corruption is nader's fault (answer is no, BTW)?! Clinton won despite Perot - no reason Gore couldn't win despite nader (except for not running a good enough campaign).



Kerry avoided confrontation with dubya and the swiftliars, leading to his loss. They weren't as good as they needed to be.



It's a badge of bitterness to continuously redirect blame onto those who deserve it less than those who have personally, directly earned it.



Stop with these pleas for absolution of a perfect man in the White House. He's NOT even close. He only looks good because the repubs are so overthetop terrible. No one forced Obama to appoint geithner as Treasury Secretary - one of history's worst appointments for the job. Obama refuses to fill vacancies because he's too weak to use recess appointments - which is undeniably HIS fault.



The belief that Obama is flawless and everyone else is to blame - voters, republicans, etc. - is intellectually equivalent to Harriet Meiers's judgment that dubya was one of the most brilliant people she's ever met: groundless, illogical, and totally driven by emotion.
About House Republicans
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Meaning of a Do-Nothing Election

In general, I can't find much to disagree with in your post. This President is too scared of or enthralled by the big powers and thinks he can charm them into doing the right thing - despite being proved wrong every single time he's tried (e.g. health insurance reform). His Treasury Sec nominee will probably be the definitive statement on the tenor of the next 4 years - a rerun of missed opportunities, historically terrible negotiating/capitulation to adversaries, and poor judgment, or a term featuring a few drops of testosterone and courage. We'll soon see.



That said, I'm sorry, Tom, I'm not very bright. What does the term "call to the colors" mean? I've never heard it before.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why Biden Won

I don't understand what you mean, but I saw a white guy onstage who is the literal and figurative essence of everything wrong with wall street bulldoze a moderator, spill a torrent of lies in a condescending and demeaning manner consistent with what you'd expect from a wall street huxter, and steamroll the President of the US with rudeness. And after doing so, the polls swung around up to around 12 points.



If there is ever a time to 'risk' being the angry black man, THIS is the perfect opportunity. I'm not saying he should go Rambo, but he has to unleash a few broadside blasts at romney on key issues. Because being a pinata for the disgraceful creatures that romney represents isn't cutting it... unless you want romney to win, of course... which may not be the worst possible outcome if you believe as I do that not enough people are feeling the pain of republican trickle-up economics... romney will spread that pain far enough where we can maybe bury those policies once and for all.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama vs. Romney: Jobs

It's nice when YOU say it.



But I have to I wonder if the President will have the courage to confront romney on Tuesday night at the next debate over these differences.



And not in his usual passive-aggressive feebleness ("I just don't think Americans believe the governor's numbers add up") - say something clear, conclusive, bold, and memorable (e.g. "The governor's plans and budgets are all based on phony economic ideas that have failed for 99% of the population while redistributing Trillions of dollars to the top 1% during almost every republican administration over the last 30 years").
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Presidential Failure

I'm impressed by the tenacity of Obama supporters to excuse or equivocate over the debate performance.



A lot of voters cast their ballots based on things like how someone handles themselves in a debate. You may not like that and you may be rightly offended by those who are superficial and ill-informed. You may have put in literally days and days of detailed research on policies, etc. to arrive at the support of a candidate.



But their measly 2-hour "investment" in candidate research and vote is worth exactly the same number of tallies as yours or mine. There are no vote-quality points included in the system.



So the bottom line is this: Polls are getting close to even at this point - SOLELY because of the debate. Rail on against the writers who post uncomplimentary things about the debate and remind you of the discomforting reality that debate performances matter a great deal - but that doesn't change the fact that if the President doesn't decide to put on his big boy pants for the next debate, you may have to get yourselves ready to deal with romney in the White House.



Maybe instead of complaining about the writers you should raise your voice to the President and demand that he do a better job in the next debates. Arguing that Obama deserves a pass doesn't help your cause.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Myth and Its Dangers

How about these myths, too:



To get re-elected President, you must govern from the center.



And the related one: Voters don't care about the results of a government - the only important thing to voters is to see all parties get along collegiately.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

No More Excuses

I'll put it another way.



When your opponent is almost resoundingly, unilaterally disliked and mistrusted, represents all the bad aspects of an economic system that rewards the rich and punishes the non-rich, has a lies to statements ratio of around 1:1, behaves rudely and condescendingly - and you STILL don't have the stones to call the guy on the carpet in from of millions of people for any of the misstatements and lies, you have absolutely no guts, no honor, and/or no dignity at all.



Comparing any of this to launching a war in Iraq is way off base. It's nowhere near relevant. Letting romney get away with his string of lies because it's so shockingly bad is more like walking away from the scene of an ongoing rape in order to avoid calling attention to it or getting sullied. Having confidence that others can later piece together the evidence and charge the criminal with the crime isn't enough - people expect and respect action in the face of crime.



Review the arc of all the President's "accomplishments" and you will find a man who is terrified of personal conflict of any kind. And if he doesn't pull on his big boy pants for the next debate, get ready for some serious shifts in the polls. Clearly, romney isn't going to conveniently fall on his sword during debates like mccain did. So Obama better shape up fast.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

No More Excuses

The thing that bothers me most about the badness that was Obama's performance is the shock so many people have over it.



This isn't anything to I feel very happy about saying, but anyone who wants to go back to my 2008 comments about my greatest fears of Obama's personality can verify that we all should have seen this coming.



The books from Taibi and Suskind and others with behind-the-scenes access to the President and the inner circle spelled it out in very plain text: Barack Obama has intellect, but no vision, no passion, no fight, no urgency, and no political instincts at all.



He is more concerned about behaving respectful to everyone than anything else. He wants everyone to like him - never realizing that many people relying on him to take up their causes prefers a fighter to an adorable door mat. No one likes bullies, but no one follows 'leaders' afraid of conflict.



The last 4 years of campaigns and record in the White House presaged this debate performance. Anyone paying attention to all facets of the man's work is completely unsurprised.



And don't expect much in the next debate, either. My prediction is Obama will announce something like, 'after the debate, go to ____ website to see where any of us has not told the truth' in lieu of actually taking romney on directly. It'd be great if I'm wrong, but I'm rarely let down when predicting this President turning tail from a fight.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Snap Debate Reactions

"Do you "win" a debate by lying from beginning to end?"



No, you don't necessarily win on that alone...



But - you DO LOSE a debate when your opponent lays out a constant stream of lies and all you do about it is stammer in surprise that someone could be so brazen and do NOTHING AT ALL to counter the lies.



Obama's performance was a complete embarrassment. romney won by forfeit brought on by self-implosion. And if Obama doesn't have the courage to challenge a man as wholly awful as romney, what does that say about the man?!?



I forget who said it here, but given what we know about romney and the President's incredible naivete, "this election is not picking the lesser of two evils, it's picking the lesser of two apocalypse." That assessment is dead on.
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Snap Debate Reactions

Usually find myself in agreement with just about everything you write. But this article is mainly built upon sheer optimism.



I'm not the only in history to repeatedly say, "A lie, left uncountered, will become the truth." I had to turn the TV off last night. romney would churn out a package of lies and then Obama would pensively stand, in clear and obvious agony, trying to find a way to rebut romney's without calling any attention to the core lies under romney's words.



The President is so desperately and paralyzingly afraid of confronting someone that he surrendered that debate. Looking feeble and intimidated, he consistently came across as the least-prepared because he couldn't bring himself to counter romney's often groundless claims.



Based on the 'snap polls' showing that likely voters saw romney crush Obama, it's clear that the President's long-standing belief that America rejects politicians who go toe-to-toe with their opponents needs to turn around - and fast.



Maybe the President only needs to run out the clock here for a win - but he had a chance to put away romney last night and got pounded instead. We'll know better over the next few days if the President is in trouble.



Bottom line: fact checks the day after mean absolutely nothing... if the President doesn't shove the fact check results into the face of the debate-watchers DURING the next debate, then romney can feel free to say whatever he wants with impunity.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Debate Suggestions for Obama

"Eye-rolling, head-shaking, sighs, smirks and cackles can kill a campaign."



No they can't. Never has, never will. Reagan shook his head, smirked, and rolled his eyes frequently - makes no difference. And Reagan was considered a very solid debater.



Body language (or regular language) that kills is that which exudes a loss of control (like McCain's temper in 2008). The context and the appearance that the candidate is in control of his/her emotions is what matters.



Please, let's stop perpetuating this tired myth.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why Is Romney Losing?

romney's words, actions, and unrepentant statements from his 'struggles' during college where he lived off of stock money given to him through to this campaign showcase the prototypical entitlement persona of someone suffering from an extreme case of 'silver-spoon syndrome.'



So I disagree that romney is faking anything. He's not Daddy Warbucks and the inference from Brooks, et. al. that he is some sort of closeted moderate simply fails the giggle test.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

10 Reasons Why Mitt Romney's Debate Prospects Are in Trouble

Debates are won and lost on demeanor. How the debaters conduct themselves spins voter perceptions toward or away from candidate policies more than the policies themselves. We've seen it time and again.



So Obama will use the same strategy he used in 2008: be plain, bland, and polite. It worked because McCain's temper tantrums didn't need a lot of prodding and those eruptions of anger turned away a good number of would-be voters.



The Obama debate strategy was, in other words, 'give the other guy enough rope...' There was little counter-punching and there was even less in the way of direct challenging during those debates.



My point is that Robert's debate analysis is tremendously over-engineered. McCain at least had some credibility when he was running. romney's credibility is non-existent and his positions (and history) virtually indefensible. Even the friends of mine who are off the charts with their, let's call it, "anti-socialism" openly tell me they can't stand romney.



In 2004, dubya at least made a strong effort to appear like he cares about 'the little guy' and became a guy people wanted to have a beer with. romney's sneering contempt for the unrich is such that he won't even try to fake empathy - and that'll continue to be obvious during the debates.



So here's all the debate analysis you need:



Romney will lose because very few people can stomach rich bullies.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Romney's Last Chance: Cheat and Lie

The script, with the exception of the errant nuclear bomb drop (they would definitely portray Israel getting bombed by Iran), is not going to be too far at all from the actual scripts that will fuel the panic-generators on the right over the last few weeks of the campaign. They've proved time and again that there are no bounds, no rules, no morals, no ethics - only unrelenting, p3tul3nt, 'ends justify the means,' in their never-ending quest for power.



Sadly, that has never stopped the President from groveling at their feet every time the republican party says "boo." And after the onslaught of intellectual depravity is unleashed near election day, the President will, unfortunately for us and the world, go right back to his knees begging republicans for support and throwing workers, home-owners, the poor, the elderly, and the middle class under the bus - wait, no... I mean "compromising."



Decorum! Yeah, that's the thing that we need in Congress and the White House now.... kumbaya.... I can only hope we can survive the next 4 years of either of these two.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Clinton to Treasury

This is a joke, right? Please tell me it is...



Maybe you can palette placing into a position of tremendous power the guy who championed and signed the repeal of Glass-Steagel, a reduction of capital gains rates (which set off the tech bubble), and the man who hired/shaped such Obama characters as tim geithner, rahm emmanuel, among other hucksters - but not me.



The folks who did as much (or more) over 30 years of conservative rule to set the stage for the 2008 implosion were clintonistas. And the folks on Obama's staff who whittled the needed stimulus package from the original Romer proposal to a meager portion were acolytes of or people from the clinton administration.



And we need MORE of that gang in power?!?!



No thanks.



Just because the man can get the people dancing in their pews doesn't mean he's got any value to society in an office with as much power as the Treasury.



No more bushes. No more clintons. No more GS alumni. No more of the 'ruling class' should be in these positions of influence.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Democrats Blew It

Clearly, you have no clue about how capitalism works. No government, no capitalism - period. Germany's economic performance is superior to ours right now and they have close to twice the spending on entitlements than we do (can say the same for Finland and many other nations). Therefore, entitlements [for the non-rich] aren't the problem.



You can writhe around on the ground, wailing in protest of the simple fact that economies can't function without government, but it doesn't change reality. You want to get candy whenever you want it - then go to Somalia and enjoy the fruits of your labor and total, government-less freedom. Good luck. I'm sure the doctors are good out there, too.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Speech... Yawn

They were never going to work with him. They were always going to fight him and do everything to make him fail. This is why his 'go along to get along' approach was never going to have any success in bringing adults to the negotiating table - there are no adults in the republican party.



When someone only wants to fight you, you have two choices: fight or walk away. Bargaining and trying to make friends doesn't work when the other party has only your demise on their mind. Very little progress has been made because of the President's 'play nice' approach.



The facts are behind my position. Matt Taibbi and Ron Suskind have documented the behind-the-scenes actions and the subsequent impact of Obama's bipartisanship obsession in painful detail. Blaming Congress is a convenient excuse that requires we all believe the President is a powerless slob who can't stand up, articulate, and directly appeal to America with a vision and exposition that rallies the country behind his path. He's done no such thing - barely more 1st term press conferences than dubya. Oh, and make sure you read Taibbi's coverage of how Obama's nice-nice approach motivated the too-big-to-fail big-wigs to greater glory... you might actually have a breakdown.



Weak excuses may be acceptable to you - but they don't cut it with me.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama's Speech... Yawn

Fair assessment.



I've written this a million times - Obama's personality is flawed for this work. His only passion is to appear to be a good-hearted referee between two equally serious and earnest groups (Dems and republicans). No personal swats at anyone is allowed - everything has to be compromise and congenial, no matter what the loss or cost (e.g. extending tax cuts for the rich, extending patents for pharma, etc.) to the economy or citizenry at large.



Worst strategy ever was to send out clinton (and Kerry) to be Obama's policy hit man. In the course of doing so, the President, by contrast, can ONLY appear aloof, distant, and disconnected from policy. The only way to avoid offending a hardened republican or tea partier is to not say anything specific about their extreme policies - and thus you get nothing from the President's speech except his trademark cotton candy.



Again, in the wholly pointless pursuit of bipartisan gregariousness, Obama chooses to prevent progress. In this case, however, it was for his own re-election.



What clinton, Warren, Kerry, and other speakers did during the convention was to show what leadership and the courage of personal conviction looks and sounds like. Against that backdrop, the President's standard 'don't offend anyone!!' fare can only aspire to come off like second-rate fluff.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Clinton's True Legacy: Outsourcer-in-Chief

The truth hurts.



My guess is billy was a few names down on the "preferred nomination speaker" list, somewhere after newt gingrich, don rumsfeld, and judge roberts - but higher than alito and dick cheney.



So why not choose from such a list? He picked the notorious rick warren to deliver the invocation at the 2009 inauguration - why not pick another disgrace of a person to deliver a nomination speech?



Obama is as ethically shallow as any of the other recent modern presidents. The company he keeps is a constant reminder that he's not the 'good guy' he works so hard to portray himself as.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Campaign Must Get Its Economic Story Straight After Day Of Gaffes

Here's the problem with Obama and what you want him to say:



1.) Obama believes that the most important thing - more important than actually doing hard work for the people of this country - is to speak in a positive, dignified, collegial manner at all times, especially when the undignified person is a republican. If you HAVE to say something yucky, be as vague and obtuse so it can't be considered a personal attack on anyone.



2.) The major problems this country faces are all based on republican (and bill clinton's) policy blow-back - unbridled greed will solve all the minor problems.



3.) Mitt rmoney is the personification of every one of those many failed policies. He is the face of ALL the corporate raiders, the tax-evaders, the grifters, the silver-spooned entitled, overdriven greed that is the scourge of the middle class. He's the soulless ghoul who laid off your uncle at the plant. Rmoney's fingerprints are literally and figuratively all over our economic mess.... which leads to the last logic point...



4.) Go back to point #1.



The campaign doesn't know how to answer the question because to answer it means that a 'personal attack' may be the interpreted result - and Obama hasn't the stomach for such tawdry business.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

GOP Convention Fails at Principal Political Goal: Convincing Swing Voters That Romney Understands Their Lives

Robert, it sounds like they failed to convince you - but you had all the facts, which made their attempt pointless.



Unfortunately, 'swing voters' are missing a lot of facts. In addition, the President has been MIA the last several weeks (at least there has been no ad presence here in PA while rmoney has been saturating the media).



And true to his 'prim and proper - no matter how self-destructive or generally destructive it may be' self, no counterpoint jabs for the republican convention. Let's see how much respect the rmoney camps (i.e. all the PACs) show for Obama and the Dem convention... and let's see if speakers at the Dem convention will be permitted to produce the facts that you have listed above during major, televised speeches so that the 'swing voters' can become more educated.



If the lies go unchallenged and truth remains too prickly for Obama's fragile sensibilities to permit him to speak it and act on it in ways that confront the movement that is crushing this nation, then it really doesn't matter what happens in November at all.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Case Obama Needs Progressives to Make Against Republican Convention Attacks

Why doesn't Obama make the case himself?! After all, he was the one who picked his team and made the decisions to back down to republicans before they threatened, after they threatened, and then a little more for good measure. It was Obama who did everything he could to make it look to everyone like he's working closely and well with republicans.



Now after the President set up this comical facade, we have to explain how and why things were really, really bad? Right.



Your article really makes the point that the President should have fought tooth and nail throughout every day of his term. A public fight has a way of imbuing people with lingering memories punches being thrown in both directions and in the context of the actual battles while they occur. Trying to go through the scorecard of the fight, years later, with people who never knew any fight over things like committee votes existed - is incredibly weak.



And weak is the best word to describe the type of leadership we've gotten from the President. His weakness has brought us to this stage where millions of voters don't understand where he stands. Hopefully, future Democratic candidates will at least learn how NOT to lead.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Paul Ryan Got Federal Funds To Help With Bush-Era GM Plant Closure He Blames On Obama

If it's becoming more clear, rest assured that several billion dollars of koch et. al. money will fix that right away because the President will not fight back, ever.



How do I know this is true? Because he only rarely fought back against the nonsense floating around in 2008. The people running romney's campaign know the President didn't fight back against lies and smears that arose during every legislative turn of the last 3.5 years. So given that there is virtually NO CHANCE that they will be "outted" by the media or sued for slander or libel, the republican party and it's corporate pals will say anything.



Faced with the same odds, almost any greedy candidate would do the same thing. Unwittingly, the President has helped set up the USA for disaster. Instead of changing the guts of this nation's broken system, he decided it'd be better to use the system to make everyone happy... fail.



Obama is the perfect candidate for the corporate elite to crush in lies. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I've seen nothing but slanderous material from the rmoney PAC ads. Nothing from Obama at all. If he sits by and keeps mum or tries to 'stay above' it, his lead will be gone by election day and we get to become the next Mexico in a couple years. Maybe in 2016, those of us who still have the right to vote for a non-republican can turn the tide.
About Paul Ryan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

On Paul Ryan

It's harder to get away with scams when you're in DC because the dollar numbers are huge and the hands that touch those dollars are few. By contrast, once money slides all the way down to the hundreds of thousands of municipal entities, it's almost impossible to get caught if you run a scam. There aren't enough investigators to track it - and not so shockingly, the ryan types of budgets work to prevent regulators of any kind to police such matters.



Pushing programs out to the "communities" sounds nice and folksy in theory, but in reality, it becomes a pay-to-play form of institutional patronage - which is probably explains exactly why the republican party would like to implement it. It works very well for them in Pennsylvania. Voters have amazing recall for the photos where a politician stands next to wheel-chair-bound folks holding a huge cardboard check.
About Paul Ryan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Harry Reid Romney Tax Tipster 'Is A Credible Person,' New Source Tells CNN (VIDEO)

From a pure logical or legal perspective, that may be true.



However, when the accusation is based on data traditionally released by every other candidate in this sort of race, it's fair game.



It'd be like leaving 10 years of your work experience out of a resume when applying for a job. Can a prospective employer looking at it prove that you were in prison for 10 years or in the Peace Corp? Of course not. But you can easily clear up the conjecture by releasing the information that everyone else going for the same job puts up.



The ball is in your boy's court. Doubt you will care what the truth is, though. Even if/when he's proved a tax cheat, some pretzel-logic conspiracy theory somehow tied to Soros will probably get the nod from your squad, proving once again that rules of logic fly away from team neo-con the minute facts arrive that crush yet another republican fairytale.
About Harry Reid
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Clinton Will Reportedly Play Major Role At Democratic National Convention

The breadth of clinton love is a sad commentary on the ability of our electorate to evaluate anything more intense than tawdry and superficial flecks of data (e.g. "he had a surplus!").



The man did some things that had to be done - closing military bases, curtailing military spending, and increasing taxes - and rightly deserves some credit for dealing head-on with those unpopular tasks.



However, once the courageous acts were done in the first couple years, he rolled into bed with the ultra right wing and super-charged the weaponization of the financial markets and "free trade." The clintonistas molded and supersized K-Street and defanged the DNC by creating the DLC in order to consolidate their power. Since we still don't have enough people with any courage in the White House or Congress, the devastated economy that we have since the detonation of the forces of the wealthy and powerful against the 99.9% remains a wreck with no plausible hope of recovery.



I'm not saying clinton was worse than reagan or dubya because I don't think he was. However, I am saying that his unrepentant heroics for the wealthy should give his hero worshipers some pause before gushing. The price we are paying today for the deals made to maintain his megalomaniacal pursuits has been too high to get a free pass.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Think Different: What Apple Can Teach America

I haven't read the article to which you refer. But it appears to be ignoring an awful lot of history in order to reach a conclusion that has little, if any, accuracy - let alone relevance to the economy.



Saying Apple got it right with the ipod because they know when to build consumer devices is wrong on face.



First, everyone hated buying CDs because you could never easily preview songs to know if the whole collection is worth the purchase. Consumers who bought music - virtually any genre - represented a massive amount of pent-up demand for a different paradigm for getting music.



Apple's brilliance here had NOTHING to do with 'hey, let's build gadgets!' as the article implies. It was ALL about bringing a new way to buy music.



Second, Apple's first personal gadget was 1993 when they introduced the Newton. It was a great little tool and failed miserably, squandering $100 million in investment. The market didn't exist for a tough-to-connect small, low-powered computer as expensive as the Newton. They blew it and the imitators that followed also failed.



And before someone says that the Newton is proof that Apple was the purist innovator here, those of us who have messed around with a Compaq iPaq (introduced in 1998) know where the silly concept of the little "i" in front of all of Apple's small products came from. If you're that innovative, can't you come up with your own small vowel name prefix?!?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitt Romney 'Legally' Bain Capital CEO Until 2002, Former Partner Says (VIDEO)

No, the reason we have the problems we have in this country is due to low-gear thinking that buys into preposterous, illogical nonsense like that which romney has been putting out on this topic.



The weak cover story that this Conrad guy offers is laughable. They negotiated for a "retirement" package for three years?!? Every day these 'intense negotiations' dragged on while romney supposedly had absolutely NO control whatsoever over the company was another day where the "partners" could have made a mistake and tanked the company - killing his chance at getting a sweetheart deal for the company.



romney can't be that foolhardy to just up and walk away from bain - and THEN start negotiating a deal! There is no way anyone locks himself out of his own company without a separation deal already done. To believe otherwise is to accuse rmoney of being naive beyond comprehension.



romney signed articles of incorporation for new bain companies after 1999. He was CLEARLY in charge and calling the shots for at least the bigger deals. It's the only conclusion that passes the giggle test.



What's more likely is the "partners" didn't like dealing with him long distance and made some offers to buy him out in 2001. Then later when things looked ugly in the rear view mirror, they came up with ways to rewrite history. And now they've gotten caught in the lie.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/business-is-not-economics

Maybe I'm too hung up on terms here, but I disagree with assessment of Obama's words being "exactly right."

Specifically, I object to the inaccuracy of characterizing the job of a private equity firm as "part of the American way."

Private equity and hedge funds are "legal" and maybe the origin of those entities had altruistic intentions. But PE and HF organizations, in modern practice, are parasitic and destructive.

So when the President LITERALLY rolls them into the same league as "Mom and apple pie," it makes my flesh crawl. In the process of making such an absurd characterization, the credibility of all the President's 'complements' are soiled.

This penchant of the President to go to almost hyperbolic extremes while speaking in order to placate the emotions of people with whom he may disagree on a matter continues to amaze me. Those who disagree with him jeer gay soldiers, cheer the deaths of the uninsured, tell his wife she's not welcome to visit their schools, and call for his impeachment because he's Muslim.

It's not chivalrous to try to 'connect' with those folks. It's not bipartisan or polite. It's a sign of weakness that belies the atrocious and irresponsible "compromises" that the President has made in his term. The fact that he faces a gold-plated straw man in this election and STILL tip-toes around offending people is testament to his complete lack of courage.

His job is to lead - not try to make everyone like him. There will be no change until 2016 at the earliest.

Couldn't you have just said, "The President's comments are getting on the right track," instead of he's "exactly right"?

Siding With the 1%?

"Appalled by eight lost years during which the rich had gotten richer and the poor poorer, ..., progressives worked the phones, knocked on doors, and gave generously to bring about change they could believe in."



Funny how the author skipped over the fact that, although many of gave generously, worked, etc. for change, by the author's count, we're now up to 11+ lost years where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.



Truth be told, we're at around 32 straight years of rich getting richer and everyone else either getting poorer or standing still. Bubbba was supposed to fix that, but now that all of the data is in, we can see he was no better than the republican presidents (but a special asterisk for signing the repeal of Glass-Steagal!!) before him or since.



It's about time people recognize that Obama hasn't put the slightest dent in the "rich getting richer at everyone else's expense" trajectory AT ALL. And don't forget that Dem senators voted in huge numbers to appoint Scalia and the rest of the activists on the court that the author appropriately derides.



The system is the problem. And Obama decided to embrace the system. People are free to judge if he's tried to use that system for good or not. But the bottom line is that the system is 100% unchanged since his arrival.



And the impacts of his inability to change it continue to be extremely harsh.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

America For Sale: Obama's Leaked Doc Exposes Foreign Corporations' Radical New Powers

Not sure what your background is, but it takes months of brutally tedious planning and coordination to 'get troops out of iraq.' And if you think that the military hadn't been working on plans to move everyone out since before Obama got into office, you effectively sp1t in the face of military leaders.



And because of that, the President could have pushed for an earlier withdrawal by shifting the planning priorities. But he failed, like he does with most things, to push for what is right.



You and far too many others don't just support the President. You literally worship him and are virtually incapable of attributing any human failing to him - despite the vast amounts of documented proof of deficiency and poor performance. Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction" opening lyrics relate to the wrongness of the phenomenon: "You take a mortal man, and put him in control. Watch him become a god. Watch people's heads roll."



On the question of who's better between romney and Obama is like asking if it's better to be fatally poisoned or shot. They are either part of the elite who are destroying this country or terrified of and too incompetent to take on the elite who are destroying this country. It's a lose-lose choice.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Mandate Is the Perfect Symbol of the Central Mistake of Obama Administration

No. My problem is with folks like you who pretend that saviors like President Spongespine Squarepants are better just because they aren't [fill in name of scary republican here].



Of course romney is worse. The problem with your vision is that you think Obama is enormously better for the country than romney. But it's like saying that a baseball player with a career batting average of .175 is better than one with an average of .050. At the end of the day, they are both terrible.



Last, I already crushed your groundless groan about supreme court justices into the useless pulp of nothing that it is. What matters more than regurgitating the nader issue (Gore quit the Florida recount, but I guess that fact is lost on you) is what is being done now. Obama is doing NOTHING to support the efforts made to fix the corporations united problem.



And this is precisely why the high value you place on the man is a joke. There is no fight too big that Obama won't shrink from.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Citizens United Reaffirmation Could Lead To More Deregulation In Campaign Finance

Wrong. We have choices between candidates who will do the work of the highest bidder. Solid candidates are the exception to the rule.



When you only have servants of the powerful to vote for, then what is substantially different than elections in, say, Iran where 95% of the votes end up going to the ruling group?



Having only servants of the powerful to vote for makes us EXACTLY as BAD as ALL the other banana republics out in the rest of the world.
About Campaign Finance
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Has Obama Snookered SCOTUS Into Declaring the Right Wing Agenda Unconstitutional?

"That outcome will be driven by the makeup of Congress."



Proved wrong on face by basic empirical data over the man's first term as President. The President is not a victim of a bully congress - unless he deigns to genuflect before Congress and subjugate himself to it. Obama has done essentially that, though more specifically, subjugated himself to the republican party. And he did so with a Dem congress.



Other than a 1/4 sized stimulus bill that was watered down with bad republican ideas (and for which none of them voted after all), there has been nothing done (other than theater) to address our manufacturing, financial industry, and employment problems - unless, of course, you understand that the atrociously bad trade deals negotiated and pushed for by the President are going to make matters WORSE.



Bottom line - it won't matter if the flipper or the current bad excuse for a President end up in the White House. It won't matter what the makeup of Congress is. There is one party right now in this country - the republican party - that both of these men serve. One republican is no better than another. They both lead to failure.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Mandate Is the Perfect Symbol of the Central Mistake of Obama Administration

If the "game" to which you referred is "elections," then your choice of words is very poor.



After transposing we get, "You have to win elections to change elections." Doesn't make any sense at all.



If it's parsed differently to give you benefit of the doubt, it could read, "You have to win elections to change the game." That could make sense - if it had any credibility. For example, no elections of any kind imposed the citizens united ruling and that has super-sized the "game" like nothing else has.



You may want to say, "yeah, well, the supreme court appointees were made by people who were elected." And then I would say, "And so why hasn't the President (who deserves no respect at all due to his terrible lack of leadership and courage) stumped across this country in support of Bernie Sanders' proposed legislation to overturn the citizens ruling? And if the Sanders bill is inadequate, why hasn't the President demanded a Constitutional Amendment that he feels IS adequate?" There is no excuse for Obama on this issue - none.



So at the end of the day, it's not just winning elections that matters. It's fighting, leading, and doing what's right for working people. Right now, there is no one on any president ballot who fits that category. Obama is status quo.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Has Obama Snookered SCOTUS Into Declaring the Right Wing Agenda Unconstitutional?

"If the Supreme Court upholds the PPCA, including the individual mandate, it does not mean that Voucher-Care or Social Security privatization are good policies -- [but ...], they would not be prohibited by the Constitution."



How can that be considered "good"?!?



I have yet to hear of a single instance of a surviving federal law that obligates citizens to pay for a unilaterally necessary product or service from private organizations. Some people talk about car insurance, but I can still survive in many places with a car or car insurance. Everyone needs health care - regardless of individual decisions to 'play the odds' when they are 'well.' Neither the Constitution nor history supports mandatory public obligation to private companies.



So I'm just fine with an overturn of the mandate - ESPECIALLY if it means the republican privatization plans are scuttled in the same sweeping motion. I've seen this President go along with bad republican policy and see no reason to believe he wouldn't sell out seniors after the election. And even those who object to that statement should still sleep better knowing that future republican presidents can't outsource vital public services to profit-seeking companies.



With the mandate eliminated, the key cost problems of the health care industry are put back into focus again - perfectly in time for the election. The debate begins anew. Meanwhile, if the health insurance cost-efficiency and preexisting condition acceptance requirements remain in place after the ruling, then the legislation still has value.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama vs. Romney: The Economy

"Obama has to tie Romney to the 1 percent -- paint him as the pawn of those who have ripped off the middle class."



Don't hold your breath on that. Not gonna happen. President Paddy-Cake will not confront romney in the persistent and 'in-your-face' manner that's required to get the message clearly communicated to voters. It takes forcefulness, repetition, and brutally honest.



So as the President tiptoes around the specific republican atrocities to desperately remain "bipartisan" (because polls said that independents don't like partisanship!), independents drift away. The President and the campaign have failed to figure out that results actually matter far, far more than superficial fluff, such as posing as a bipartisan.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

10 Reasons Obama Can Win

"And liberals could decide to work for Obama with the rationale:better a glass half full than one that is empty."



http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/breaking_08_pledge_leaked_trade_doc

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/leak-cracks-open-transpac_b_1594675.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/obama-trade-document-leak_n_1592593.html



Glass half full?!? If the latest free trade position, recently leaked, negotiated by the President's team doesn't wake up the rest of the liberals to realize that the choice in November is really between two mounds of jagged, shattered glass, then nothing will. It really doesn't matter who wins in November. All of the existing problems will continue to get worse - just maybe at somewhat different rates of speed.



Pain is a sobering thing, though. So the good news here is that the sooner we face-plant the nation onto the canyon floor, the sooner the national pain is spread widely enough to help a critical mass of the population to focus on our real problems.



Right now we have two parties subservient to the established wealth and power structure (one is in thrall of it while the other is terrified of it). Until someone rises to challenge that structure - or until something drastic from the bottom up shatters that structure - we all freefall together in slow-motion, regardless of who we vote for.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Democrats Failed in Wisconsin Because They Failed Wisconsin

Total nonsense. If getting anything done means that all legislation must include thoroughly-crashed policies (example is the compromise that led to maintaining the tax cuts for the wealthy that is directly responsible for a massive percentage of the national debt - tax cuts for the wealthy have never and will never improve an economy; consolidating wealth in an economy usually results in the annihilation of [or revolution in] that economy), then it's better to get nothing done at all. Simple logic.



That's all beside the point though. Being a leader means that you articulate a vision and inspire people to move with you toward that vision. To do so, a political leader has to communicate that vision with voters.



What Obama does is sporadically preach at voters, routinely upbraid his base, once in a while punch a radical republican, but mostly spends his time groveling to republicans, adopting republican talking points, and worse, in cow ed silence. And he did this when republicans had virtually no influence in Congress as well as now.



Obama is the world's worst player of "chicken." He will always get out of the way - always. And the republicans know it and take full advantage.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Democrats Failed in Wisconsin Because They Failed Wisconsin

The President of the United States is supposed to lead. He should be articulating a path forward and openly fighting as hard as the republicans do.



It's irrelevant if the people perceive a President as "on the defense" or on offense. He should be on offense all the time.



Whether it's because he's a chicken as Scheer indicates - or a conspirator as Austintatious says - Obama has no game at all. Unless, of course, you consider perpetually curled in fetal position under a desk as "game."
About Republicans
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Wisconsin Recall Vote: Exit Poll Shows Key To Scott Walker Victory

It becomes clearer to me with each passing day that the only thing that's going to get the attention of millions of voters is going to be their impending arrival in the ranks of the homeless and impoverished.



When the republicans begin their next wave of things like attacks on social security and reducing taxes for the rich - perpetuating the deliberate transfer of wealth from the 99.5% to the 0.5% that has occurred over the last 30 years - conditions in this country will continue to worsen.



At some point along the decline, more voters will realize that there is far less 'wrong' with the poor and the young people (lazy!) and that the problem is the rigged system. I don't see any other way that change will occur. Too many people are still too isolated from pain.



republicans will succeed in bringing us that condition because they succeed regardless of who controls White House. Look for massive spending from koch and all the shadow groups formed by the rich and powerful on congressional races. If they take the Senate, they know they can do whatever they want.



I doubt they will waste their money on romney because they know he has no chance and they know they don't need him given that Obama has proved to be a sp1ne-free pushover so far. Lock the Senate up and browbeat the President into signing off on their priorities (bipartisanship!). Then we can all wait for rock bottom.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

God Loves David Brooks

Pretty much every person I've heard start a discussion with, "The trouble with kids today..." implicitly and unconsciously ends the discussion with a distinct acknowledgement of their own startling troubles in understanding kids, society, and, well, just about anything at all.
About Ethics
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Jobs Stall

"Republicans will have a field day ..., taking it as a sign that Obama's economic policies have failed and we need instead their brand of fiscal austerity ...."



With the exception of the stimulus, which was only about 1/3 what it needed to be, Obama's economic policies are the policies of the republicans and the wealthy elite: austerity/spending cuts, maintain tax breaks for the wealthy, more tax breaks for wealthy, more "free trade" agreements to export jobs, keep hands off the finance industry, etc.



The warnings to Obama of the danger associated with adopting republican policies in a vain and hubris-laden effort to wrap himself in the flag of his most prized accomplishment - "bipartisanship" - is that republican policies are almost unilaterally, disastrously flawed and, therefore, doomed to fail.



In this political era, bipartisanship with republicans guarantees failure.



People large (Krugman, et. al.), medium (Uygur, et. al.), and small (me) have been sounding the alarms for years. All have been ignored in the unholy pursuit of "bipartisanship."



And NOW comes the ignominious conclusion: the republicans run away from their policies and hang their failures on the neck of the hapless President who agreed so eagerly to "compromise" to their demands. It would be tragic if it wasn't so easily predicted.



Ironically, the dysfunction of the republican party (that simultaneously generates bad policy and bad candidates) that has helped Obama fail is the same source that is helping win reelection. But we lose.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

What Did Obama Mean by Change?

If you want someone to lead us singing folk songs, fine.



I wanted the person who was going to chase the money-changers from the temple to send them packing. But all I got was money-changers with more even money wearing cleaner underwear.



As a bonus, we got more unemployment, fewer people with health care, more dead soldiers, more tortured foreigners, more assassinated Americans, more homeless, and no one in the White House willing to take a stand on any crucial matters of economic justice at all.



Kumbaya......!
About Elections 2012
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost