This Commission sounds like a set-up. Particularly since it’s all cozily bi-partisan and all.

And, David, have you seen this story? It’s quite interesting and I’m hoping you’ll comment.

LINK.

“Bipartisan”… So the U.S. is required to maintain Republicans in power and continue implementing their policies even after the voters have thrown them out.

And simply no mention of the amount of money spent on ‘defense’ and an illegal war and the corruption that has been documented for both major military ‘excursions’.

It is a very well studied phenomenon that ‘standing armies’ kill economies.(of course that is when it’s peacetime’ and we still have government saying we are ‘at war’).

Here’s some food for thought on that idea:
http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/33934075/Bankrupting-the-American-Republic-The-Permanent-War-Economy-and-Soaring-Deficits

http://www.alternet.org/story/83555/?page=entire

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1987066

From your link “”Judges aren’t in the business of making law — we interpret law,” said Judge Reggie Walton, a George W. Bush appointee.”. He needs to talk to Roberts,Alito,Scaalia,Thomas, and Kennedy.

thank gawd! I might have started to HOPE that the Big 0 had just been waylaid by the clintonistas from working for the people after Tuesday –

stay TRUE to your sell out fuck ‘soul’ barack zer0. YOU know who has what, and the asses your kissing got a lot more what than what we-the-peeons can pay ya.

rmm.

uh oh!

Fuck the commission. Sideways. With the rusty garden implements of their choice.

fatster, the LA Times has a story about the campaign finance decision whose author is clearly less educated than most people here: he thinks that decision was conservative!

For more see:
US: Democrats agree on commission to cut Social Security, Medicare
This is going to be a s rigged as possible.
I just don’t see how anybody who’s not in some political office is going to be able to live in this country

If there is one focal point which I would love to see a progressive push for complete transparency… a campaign promise broken so egregiously on may fronts… this commission would be a great choice.

The sooner that this “Cat Food Commission” is consigned to oblivion, the happier I’ll be.

Keeping my fingers crossed for its demise, but I’m going to stay hyper-vigilant on this issue.

I just bet they’ll recommend dumping our foreign oil wars, eh? And dismantling our CIA, no doubt.

This is the Pete Peterson plan…cut Social Security and Medicare so rich don’t have to pay as much taxes. Obama bends over to every New Democrat crap (Conrad).

Fuck the commission, just send in IMF to deal with the american plebs, and be done with us.

United States of Austerity!

President Zero is once again assigning the work of leadership to hapless people and expects the work will somehow be done well enough that he can tie a bow around it and say “accomplished”. He is trying to organize the work of policy making rather than actually do it. He is not a leader and he does not know how to fight.

I expect he will soon appoint the Ketchup Advisory Board too.

Fiscal responsibility? I’ll tell what the Congress should do, but won’t:

- Restore marginal tax rates for the wealthiest to the Reagan era rates. Heh.

- Want wars? Pay for them via a war tax instead of pretending they’re free. That’ll wake people up and have them demanding withdrawal

- Medicare/SocSec fix? Double the current $100k cap to $200k, or better yet, lift it entirely.

We don’t have a whole lot of problems if we actually address them in terms of priority to most Americans.

I am sure that they will be considering cuts to military spending as well!

/snark off

If people were paying very close attention in the primaries, Obama was signaling that he would bond with those who wish to dismantle The Great Society and The New Deal. He built up a simmering anti-Boomer sentiment with young people. I remember getting into back and forths with the bots over on dkos over Social Security and boomer entitlements. He dissed the “sixties” and their “psychodrama”. He complimented Reagan. Reagan hated Medicare.

A dangerous Trojan horse came in. This commission’s one purpose is to weaken in order to kill Social Security. This should be our focus now; to call attention to the assault on the last of the middle class who are not part of the catering class.

Kelly is right on. All good fixes. But what we will get is “Soylent Green”.

Another dem retiring. Gee, I wonder why.

Now why would *we* want to be at the mercy of the IMF?–

“IMF Clarifies Terms of Haiti’s Loan”
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/519364/imf_clarifies_terms_of_haiti_s_loan

Good ideas.
That means they’re no chance of getting them adopted.

(Bringing back a friend’s suggested campaign finance rules:
Only natural persons may donate.
No limit on the amount donated.
All donations are reportable.
I figure the first rule will scares the corp-rats, the last one will scare the GOoPers, and the middle one will scare only taxpayers and honest candidate.)

Foreclosures aren’t going fast enough.

Cut social security payouts 20%. That ought to increase the foreclosures.

Pass the Fancy Feast, please!

hear, hear!

Now, get out in the streets and Demand it!

Is there a precedent for this “bipartisan” commission crap that Obama keeps shoveling at us in regards to writing and basically strangle holding legislation? I don’t mean junk like the 9/11 white wash commission. I mean junk like the Baucus Senate Commission that was set up to sabotage hcr, and now this one? This can’t be the way to run a railroad. The trains would be forever late and ridership would be offered to only the elite. This has got to not only be stopped but it needs to be exposed for the cynical and sinister ploy that it is.

Only a Democrat will be able to privatize Social Security and President Pander is in the perfect position to do just that. Who doubts that we would do that if he thought he could get his sacred “bipartisan” support? And to think we have to endure at least 3 more years of this phony.

Just wait until all the senior citizens start moving in with kids. Their wealthy GOP yuppie kids will be screaming for INCREASES in social security.

This commission is just more feel good BS that ultimately will accomplish nothing worthwhile. The Obama Administration ought to get a clue about the GOP—they are obstinate and implacable obstructionists that are only out for themselves. We need bold and creative leadership that is willing to take risks, not this compromising and backsliding “bipartisan” Beltway baloney.

wonder what the Kossacs will think about this ‘detour’ on the road to Change.

How long must we wait to be liberated by the Chinese?

Let Obama cut Medicare and privatize Social Security. He’ll have a million senior citizens at the WH gates screaming for his removal.

Yep – the BRAC; Base Realignment And Closure Commission.

At first I couldn’t believe it either, but there is precedent and it’s legal. Maddening.

“This commission is just more feel good BS…”

Feel good for whom? It’s the initial step to privatizing everything in sight, from physical infrastructure through Gov. services and entitlements.

I only hope that the republicans were obstinate and implacable obstructionists! Obama will have them on board for this, no problem! Bipartisanship and Change will accomplish the unthinkable.

Maybe this an movement we oldsters should begin. We don’t threaten our children (and their peers) . . . merely state how sad it will be for the grandchildren to have to visit their bag-lady, on-the-street Grama. As you said, I should think the prospect of having to have seniors move in with juniors would care the beejesus out of them and might turn their attention to things political rather than things material.

Another attempt at Non-Governing from the Non-President. Honestly, who would have thought a Democratic successor could make George Bush look forthright?

well at least we have president lie berman there to tell him what to do.

Reinstate the draft and levy war taxes.

Now that’s change we could believe in..

Really! I just got whacked over @ Kos for calling him Barry. The Obamabots are in firm control of that site now. Won’t help though cause its obvious BO is starting to develop a bad case of political BO. Mr. talk tough do nothing is growing tiresome.

Oh he’ll have his bipartisan majority next January, blue dogs and republicans. No DFH’s need apply.

This is when social security will be handed over to wall street just like the village idiot wanted to do.

Wonder what kind of country this will be when they destroy SS and medicare? I wouldnt hazard a guess, but I think it advisable to stock up on ammunition for whatever firearms you might have laying about the house. Expect gangs of seniors wandering the streets doing B & Es for food. Now that’s not a pretty vision.

Mad Max at Assisted Living Dome

A week or two ago I kind of felt guilty for slashing Obama so mercilessly. Now I wonder what the hell I was thinking. This relentless fretting about “teh deficits” seemed to me to be just more empty talk, like everything else, but holy crap, here it comes. No wonder he just exalted Bush with the “humanitarian” efforts in Haiti. Next, we’ll need them here, and Bush’s one failure will be corrected.

You’re getting sleeeeepy, verrrrry sleeeepy.

Waving bright, shiny objects before an easily hypnotized public is easier than solving the intractable problems that defy public relations and political expediency.

Are you retarded? or are you Rahm’s sockpuppet? It could only be one or the other. The point is, THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE CHANGE. An economy as clobbered as this one needs to hit the gas with deficit spending, or we’ll never dig out. Don’t call trillion dollar bank and health care giveaways good government. They’re the opposite. And don’t compare opposing presidential idiocy with slavishly supporting it. It makes you look like a nincompoop.

Too true.

Exactly!

Why did O praise Reagan as one who had great ideas? Why not FDR? It wasn’t accidental. And of course the DLC quickly papered over with denials, when the progressive outcry occurred.

So what part of fighting for us is caving in to the Repukes who want to destroy Social Security?

Then why is Obama behind this commission which is being created for that purpose?

how about withdrawing from Afghanistan, or at most leaving a skeleton force?

Obama just asked for how many more billions of $$$$ for Afghanistan?

On top of the billions he asked for not long ago.

This insane escalation will drain every last dime from the U.S.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, we’re essentially serving as security guards for China, while it extracts huge hauls of copper and other resources, on its way to international hegemony.

How about taxing the ‘too big to fail’ banks? Taxing those bonuses?

And, how about raising the federal tax rate. We’re at historic lows, and at wartime no less. Two wars!

You say that like juniors(and their kids) aren’t already living with the seniors. Three generations on the street!

Trillions for wars, trillions to the banks, Congress quietly pulled a Xmas Eve vote giving unlimited taxpayer dollars to Fannie and Freddie until 2013, but nothing for middle class Americans who saw their 401K’s decimated. Both parties frantically sent our jobs overseas, taking out millions of Americans who would have beem paying into SS the last twenty years. Bush tax cuts for the wealthy have remained in place with Obama. Both parties refuse to allow Americans access to cheaper drugs, driving up Medicare costs, which they love to rail about. Millions of unemployed lost their homes and all hope of ever recovering again and 30% of Americans are living 200% below the pverty line right now.

So how are Obama and the Dems planning to reduce the debt they deliberately created? Who do they plan to go after for a piss ant sum of money when compared to the bankers or our fifty year war plans?
The pesky,demanding, stupid, gullible, middle class. Gonna slash SS and Medicare and finally destroy the last New Deal lifeline in the midst of a depression. This is a depression, and they’re about to bring the country to it’s knees.

Both parties have known exactly what they were doing. Both parties willingly destroyed the middle class. Both parties sold their souls and sold this country to the lowest form of life; greedy, lying, uselss, discusting bankers.

As far as Obama goes, he’s a monster.

Here’s a novel idea to increase revenue to SS.

Quit shipping American jobs overseas.
Whoops! Too late. Gone too far.

Now have the balls to tell us ad nauseum how SS is broke, unsustainable, and start slashing.

I really think the Deficit Commission proposal, as summarized above, is unconstitutional, and from what little I have been quickly able to discern about the Base Closure statute, I do not think it is an apposite precedent for proponents of the Deficit Commission law.

The Base Closure law seems to say (per a Wikipedia article) that the Congress has delegated to the commission the power to make closure proposals that will become effective unless rejected by simple majorities in the congress.

By contrast, according to the summary above, the Deficit Commission statute would create a requirement for three-fifths majorities in both the house and the senate for entitlement program increases to be enacted. Thus, the statute purports to amend the constitution. You cannot do that. Oops – until the RATS and Kennedy say you can, citing Bush v. Gore, presumably.

So, we should not give up on the constitutionality question.

Where you been?

Constitutional? Presidents don’t have to go by that old thing anymore.

Obama in April, 2006 gave a speech as the invited guest of honor for the neo-liberal Hamilton Project, funded by Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs. In his speech, Obama paid lavish tribute “to my friend, Bob (Rubin” and talked of the need for MORE NAFTA-type trade pacts and for cuts in entitlements.

Rubin and Goldman Sachs backed Obama with millions for several reasons. They’ve been repaid in billions and they want more: they want entitlements to be slashed to next to nothing. Obama’s their man.

To understand Obama, you need to understand what the Hamilton Project is, look at Obama’s speech, and see where the money of Goldman Sachs and Rubin went. Obama is their Trojan Horse.

There’s another potential constitutional problem with such a deficit commission, Alanhawaii. The constitution requires all spending bills to originate in the House of Representatives. This Commission would actually be instituting legislation that affects spending and that is likely unconstitutional, not that it matters much anymore.

We need to get out in front of this – its clear that this is part of a plan to cut Social Security & Medicare and protect the wealthy. The Republicans can’t do it so they will get the Dems to do it for them. Call your Dem member of the House and Senate and tell them that a vote for this commission absolutely guaranties that you will never vote for them again.

You make good points, but given what we’ve seen from the Democrats recently, you can’t blame some of us for being cynical and, at least in my case, apprehensive. Good solutions would require work and problem solving, and the Democrats don’t seem to be excelling at either of those things these days.