Dodd the latest retirement.

Democrats are running for the exits - plus a poll on why so many are quitting.

I weep for the party I once believed in.

By 'Smart Blonde'


Many people at 'liberal' sites taken over by Obama's avid followers are finally realizing that Obama is not exactly what they thought they were buying. Yet they are still equating Pumas with Republicans. They need to wake up and realize that we are the ones who begged them to stop and think, to evaluate him on the basis of his contradictory statements and deeds, to look at his record, meager as it was, before voting for him to be the Democratic nominee.

Obama claimed to be the anti-war candidate on the basis of one 2002 speech, but once in the U.S. Senate he voted for all the war funding Bush asked for. Kucinich has been introducing anti-war bills in the house since 2002; Obama, as the rising star black senator, might have done so with more success. He chose not to. Obama also said during the campaign that he would expand the war in Afghanistan and perhaps take on Pakistan, too.

Now that it's obvious that Obama's anti-war stance was just a campaign ploy, the anti-war movement has rolled over and died rather than fight 'the one'. Obama voters want to pretend these are still Bush's wars and that Obama has no power against DADT or DOMA, no power to get a Democratic congress to pass a good health care reform bill. The way things are going, the insurance industry and bigpharm will get a lot richer thanks to Obama so their large contributions to his campaign will pay off.

Obama was noted for voting 'present' in the Illinois state senate, showing he doesn't want to take positions he can be held accountable for. Barack Obama was not noted for legislative accomplishments in Illinois or in Washington, where he spent little time, breaking his promise not to run for president until after his first senate term. The signs of his lack of true convictions and his inexperience were abundant.

Hillary Clinton would not have done everything that we want but her competence and experience with government at the national level exceeds Obama's. if Hillary were president, she would have accomplished far more than Obama has in the first nine months in office. I think Hillary could have already gotten a good health care reform bill passed because she had worked hard on this during bill's first term and because she had proven herself in the senate and earned the respect of other senators.

Of course, that was her main problem: she's an intelligent competent woman in a country where misogyny runs deeper than racism. She was called a bitch and a ballbreaker because she is strong. Hillary's appearance was criticized because she wasn't young enough, hot enough; than the younger Sarah Palin was criticized because she was too hot.

But Republicans supported Palin, in fact they loved her, while the slogan of many Democrats was 'bros before hos.' I weep for the party I once believed in. I weep for my daughter and all American women.

Looting our money and redistributing it to large corporations is now the one ongoing function of the Federal Government.

My God, the health care debacle enrages me. It was clear a while ago that the entire "debate" has been, in essence, staged. The public option was never going to be in the final bill. Obama knew it. The Senate Democrats knew it. The Republicans knew it. The only people left flat footed appear to be the House Democrats who - whether they like it or not - no one with real power cares about because, frankly, they don't matter.

I wrote in December that the Left wing of the Democratic party would be thrown under the bus by Obama. The clearest evidence we have yet of this has occurred in the last two weeks as Obama has backed away from the public option. Glenn Greenwald makes mince meat of the "liberal" journalists here, who are - let's be brutally frank - Obama's pimps. Jonathan Alter gets the prize for being the most brazenly whorish. He is an amoral scumbag who trashed Clinton through out 2008 and has openly flip flopped along with Obama on the public option. The man has no principles, no morality, and probably no soul.

The final health care bill will almost certainly be nothing more than a forced transfer of wealth from the middle class to large insurance companies. Buy their product or you are breaking the law.

Looting our money and redistributing it to large corporations is now the one ongoing function of the Federal Government.

Irony alert: The Healthcare bill without the public option is statism at its rawest. This is fascism if we define it in the traditional sense as the marriage of the state and corporations. So yes, the townhall screamers got it right for the wrong reasons. The Federal government has colluded to make it illegal for most of us to avoid buying health insurance. Further it has colluded to ensure that pharmaceuticals can set any price they like for drugs. This will be law by year's end. The hope and change Presidency is an unmitigated catastrophe for anyone who still holds the quaint notion that we, the people, matter.

Since 2001 our tax dollars have gone to:

The airline industry.
Pharmaceutical giants (Tamiflu)
Haliburton
The auto industry.
The banking sector.
AIG
Add your own - I'm sure I've missed some. The government is now a subsidiary of a few corporations. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum this fact ought to enrage you as well. Why do we pay taxes? To bailout corporations. That's why. This is not capitalism.

The perennial debate in this country - what role should the government play in our lives - is now dead. Now the only debate is which multinational corporations get to rape us.

Every "crisis" is another opportunity to transfer wealth from the middle to the richest. Under the guise of heath care "reform" we are about to see the most successful looting of the middle class yet.

Oh, and yes, you'll have no other option. Of this you can be sure.

saturday morning post.

Poll:

Without a public option there is no reform. There is only regulation

Bill Kristol is a big, fat, liar. He flat out lies here. Of course, Right wingers screeching "socialism" 24/7 , and equating health care reform with "tyranny" is expected - and ridiculous.

The more dangerous question is - what are the dems. concocting regarding healthcare? It seems, as time goes on, Obama's primary mission with health care reform is to enrich insurance companies. A single payer, medicare type program is ideal. Barring that, a robust public option must be enacted. Without a public option there is no reform. There is only regulation. Regulation that will primarily benefit insurance companies. If we allow insurance companies continued, exclusive control of the system we will continue to have rationed care and diminishing choices regarding our health care.

Yes, America, the people rationing health care RIGHT NOW are insurance companies. Why?

Profit. Huge profit.




One other note:

Attacking FEMA is becoming a regular part of the attack of health care reform. Please remember: under Bill Clinton FEMA worked....

...Virtually overnight, the agency has developed a new reputation for quickness and efficiency.

inexperience and arrogance.

Democrats fold on Gitmo closing. Tis' true. They yanked the money set aside for the closing of Guantanamo. Obi One will play this off as something he has no control over. Don't buy that crap.

Whatever one thinks about closing Gitmo - Obama botched this. His inexperience and desire for the spotlight resulted in a foolish, thrown together press conference early in his term. He announced with great fanfare that Gitmo would be closed.

He did so without a plan in place.
This is rank inexperience and arrogance.

We need another choice.

Seriously. What is wrong with the Republicans? Seriously.

RNC chair Steele invited moderates into his party by saying this: "All you moderates out there, y'all come. I mean, that's the message. The message of this party is this is a big table for everyone to have a seat. I have a place setting with your name on the front. Understand that when you come into someone's house, you're not looking to change it. You come in because that's the place you want to be."

Wow. Moronic.

For starters, a political party is not a "house". If you invite a group into a party you expect them to change it. So what Steele is saying to moderates is "Hey, come to the GOP, then sit down and shut up." Nice. These people still do not get it. GOP conservatives are demonstrating the same stupidity as the Whigs of the 19th century.

I doubt the GOP will disappear. But it would help its cause if it expelled the evangelical social conservatives and not the moderates it is determined to demonize. A party that had at its core fiscal conservatism and libertarian values has a chance to mold the conversation about now. The other party is committed to borrowing us into the abyss, apparently believing that money can be conjured with scare tactics and a xerox machine.

Fantasies about Reagan, pushing vicious, dishonest attacks on gay people, pretending that we were founded as a "Christian nation", ignoring the complexity of the abortion issue, and insisting that the unfettered free market can deal with exploding health care costs, is the problem with the GOP. Not John McCain...who ran a serviceable campaign in an impossible GOP year, against the elite's chosen son. The GOP would be better off if it had MORE John McCains not less.

(The unfettered free market gave us child labor, slavery, and sweat shops. The government had to step in to force change. Greed is NOT good and never has been.)

The emergence of Newt "serve the wife divorce papers while in a hospital bed" Gingrich, the statist, imperial Cheney, and the drug hypocrite Rush as the titular heads of the GOP - IS THE PROBLEM.

Reports of the GOP's demise are overblown. If fact, I expect the GOP to bottom out soon and recover a bit next year. But more and more their continued viability is dependent on one thing: Obama failing. This may well happen - but it is not a strong platform. Bush's idiocies pushed the country Left. Not much. But enough. I don't care what the polls say. The other team got a chance - corrupt as they are. If the GOP does not present an agenda that makes sense and that is not rooted in in a fantasy of 1954 they will continue to shrink. If Michelle Malkin and like minded trolls are the alternative to Obama let's just declare BHO king for life now and be done with it - as that is how it will play out.

Frankly, if the GOP does disappear I wouldn't mind a bit. Another party is needed in this country. Let's call it the Independent Party. Or maybe The Jeffersonians.

Strangling the political core is the poison identity politics and an entitled society has injected into the system But at the core, money ruling politics is the problem. As long as money is considered "speech" and those with more money get more "speech" both parties are poisonous.

Big banks and other criminal enterprises will get bail outs, crumbs and circuses will be thrown our way for as long as it works. Then, when it stops working, false flag football will be the game we are forever playing. That is, until time runs out on the House of Ponzi. That societal collapse you see in the rear view mirror is closer than it appears.

Love of money is the root of ALL evil. Who knew St. Paul was a modern political pundit?