I think all he had to do was draw a line in the sand and say “I won’t cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security”. He could AT LEAST have forced the ideological issue and have given people a reason to take his side. I mean does any average American have a clue what matters to this guy?

If you’re a businessman and see a decade’s worth of fiscal contraction on the horizon,
in an economic environment which already has a large demand gap,
are you going to build that new factory? Even if there isn’t much contraction for the first year?

Confidence Fairy, call your office.

Ultimately, I think this reasoning is a mask to cover the fact that the White House really, really wants to cut the deficit for ideological reasons.

could be. or maybe what they see as simple pragmatic political calculation.

Or he is doing the work that the IMF and the EU central banks are doing around the world to kill any kind of social insurance or social control of public necessities by imposing “austerity” by threatening to foreclose on the nation’s debt.

He is working for the banks and global corporations and not the people of the United States. We are getting the same treatment that Ireland, Greece, Spain and the rest are getting except it is at the hands of our own government.

Sorry for the early off topic, but this is too good to pass up. Murdoch pwnd by Anonymous:

http://www.new-times.co.uk/sun/

I agree

Obama is not this stupid

He could have got the debt ceiling raise back in December? what did Dems get for the Bush Tax cuts nothing

Obama is a Wall Street Mascot

the Wall Street Mascot “OBAMA” just said he would rather cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade and leave Defense along? and this guy loves the USA middle class? really

By the way the only issue in the USA jobs? and we got more Kabuki games

does any economist think that a debt ceiling deal = more jobs? no

Hey, why not both? Seriously…

The president still claims he doesn’t care if he’s only a one term president if he gets his programs through. Well, his real programs have been pretty weak kneed thanks to all the compromises, or his real ideology, which has created giveaways to the rich and non assistance to the middle class.

The GOP has successfully hamstringed all of his bills, if not within the bills themselves, then, as we have seen this year, in the implementation stages by denying funding. I knew this was a high possibility from the start, yet too many Obama worshippers denied it as even a possibility. The GOP wants to continue to chip away at citizen rights, and Obama keeps giving them the tools.

So he doesn’t care if he’s a one term president. Is he even thinking what a republican house with a republican dimwit like Bachmann in the Executive will do to the country? Or does he even care?

His legacy, sadly, may be a presidency wrought with fodder for bigoted, right wing anti-government types to point to and say “see”. Of course, there own part in this mess is never to be brought up in their own house.

Wall Street insists on a debt limit increase, it’s inevitable, yet the Tea-GOP is on the verge of getting a major policy win in exchange for what has always been a routine vote.

“the White House is thinking”

I’ll see you THAT OT and up you this one:
Phone-Hacking Whistleblower Hoare Is Found Dead at Home, Guardian Reports Make what you will of the headline and the story……..

As for Obama, I think he’s just as much controlled by the IMF as any of the other government heads longing for a return to feudalism. I seem to recall that last year sometime the IMF “required” the US to give them 50 billion bucks for their resurgent ops.
It’s all of a cloth, but myself, I think they’re going to destroy the planet long before all their little plans come to fruition.
At the rate they’re going I give us 10-15 years max before the planet becomes unlivable. Not much time to enjoy their ill gotten booty….or ill botten gotty….whichever.

Fuck ‘em running backwards, I say.

the most disturbing thing for me is how the current administration has delayed everything since the get go. On the economy, “extend and pretend.” On health care, wait until 2014. Now on spending cuts, let’s put them over ten years and play games with years oen and two, so it doesn’t hurt our re-election. The issues this country needs to deal with are being held hostage over four year timeframe, so our hope and change president can get re-elected.

In the fight over the debt ceiling, the Republicans are functionally on the side of the people. By making unreasonable demands, they are actually holding off the drastic slashing of Social Security, Medicare, and other viatal programs whose evisceration is dear to President Obama’s political heart. Of course, this assumes that the public statements of the Republicans and Democrats reflect what is actually going on in the debt ceiling negotiations. It is more likely that the corporate masters of both parties have already decided the outcome, and worked out the best way for the two parties to “fight” so as to make the result more palatable to public opinion (as they perceive it).

Naomi Klein pulls no punches in her comments about the debt ceiling charade happening in Washington:

“Using trumped up crisis to raid the public purse and attack the basic rights and benefits is a very old trick – but rarely is the shock doctrine tactic wielded as brazenly as in the pseudo debate about the debt ceiling. This is naked class war, waged by the ultra rich against everyone else, and it’s well past time for Americans to draw the line.”

Sincerely,
Aimee, David, Sarah
and the RootsAction team

If Klein says it, it’s gold to me

I am wondering if he is becoming the same type of President as Clinton? Clinton gave into NAFTA with few if none regulations. He gave into Rubin, Geitner, Summers & most importantly to Greenspan on getting rid of Glass-Stegal. I am sure there were many more.

It seems that we are being sold a bill of goods by both. The problem is we can’t get a good third party of true progressives elected!

While Obama may not care if he is a one-term president, his actions show great concern for his future with the monied elite.

How do progressives counter this with respect to the pending decision to raise the debt ceiling? By railing against cuts to the social safety net, or demanding closure of loopholes for corporate gamers?

Based on past performance, we know how that strategy ends. Republicans in Congress — and our moderate Republican in the Oval Office — will call the bluff of progressives who will concede without getting much of anything.

Why not try something different this time? Demand shared sacrifice and identify a host of cuts to corporate welfare. Plus cut congressional pensions. See how that plays out.

We already have Republicans in D-sheep clothing continuing and in some cases worsening the deepening crises.

Want to try something different? Why not declare independence from the D and R Parties. Emulate Bernie Sanders at the very least. Not D, not R, just independent and proud, standing for working, working poor and poor people all over the world, not just here in America.

And no more sacrifice from the bottom 98%, thank you very much. Give em the finger when they mention shared sacrifice, that’s a carefully polished turd of a meme.

Just listen to the guesswork trying to guess what’s going on as cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are put on the table by the President. What will they be? How much will they cut? When will they take effect? Who will they effect? Nobody knows, because nobody will say. It’s all wrapped in a backroom deal that the public is not privy to, and passed in a rushed affair arbitrarily tied to an unrelated debt ceiling vote that has always been routine before, and the Republican Party was on record as saying they were going to vote to raise.

This is apparently the transparency and accountability the O-bots voted for and castigate people for rejecting? This can’t be endorsed with re-election.

I’m floored by the brazenness of open discussion on the merits of lying to cut a deal. No need to cut spending early on a ten year plan, don’t you know.
As usual the tax hikes would be retroactive.
That is the reason there are no tax hikes on the table. Nobody believes the Democrats would honor their end of the bargain.

How do you translate “give em the finger” into strategy with the pending decision to raise the debt ceiling? Does that meann proud independents like you and me should shout Hell No to more debt if it’s coupled with cuts to the social safety net? Is Bernie Sanders shouting Hell No?

Unfortunately, progressives have lost the willingness to risk everything. Of course, it’s a different world today than it was in 1968. The man can track you so much more and can ruin your chances for any future. But if people don’t decide it is worth the risk and sacrifice, we’ll continue down this road.

We really do need a million, or two, person march on Washington. Rattle the foundations of the power structure. Imagine if for a week the Congressional office buildings were filled with the “powerless” milling about and demanding real answers. Yes, a lot might go to jail, but it would show America, and the world, what we’ve come to.

Right now we’ve reached a place where so-called grass roots are either faked or used to placate the people seeking real change, while those with the money have conference calls, and send their paymasters out to buy those who will be our so-called leaders.

It’s time to make ourselves not just heard but felt, otherwise we will continue to be ignorred.

We are getting the same treatment that Ireland, Greece, Spain and the rest are getting except it is at the hands of our own government

This is an interesting observation and makes me wonder even more at Obama’s motives and who pulls his strings. The people of this county, as passive as they may appear, would never accept direct intervention into our economy from a foreign (non-US) entitiy like the IMF and World Bank. The only way policies those organizations would favor is by the hands of our own government, and even then, it’s a delicate act to do so as Barry-0 & the Republicrats are finding out.

I don’t think I’m picking on Matt, who’s just the messenger here and who says outright that he doesn’t really agree with the strategy.

Oh, David, I’d go ahead & pick on Matt. He’s not just a messenger; he’s a mouthpiece.

LOL!

TWOOPH!

Well, that’s not good news.

Strargery and Straterizering. That is exactly what it is. A game being played, but the winner gets the losers spoils.

Sheesh! Talk about dimensionalizing!

I can’t get past his strategy on the HCR bill, the tax bill, or anything else he has done. Why in the clouds would he do the same damn thing again?

So let’s hone in on the sentence doing all the work here, the one that holds the logic together, the one I boldfaced.

You get the bemefit of the dount, that it’s a keypad tpyo. (In her thread below, Jane wrote “Flat this comment as inappropriate”, but I suppose her fingernails need honing for that teensy keypad on her smartphone.) Otherwise, you might hone your diction and home in on distinctions.

It’s time to stop asking why Obama did this or that. Or asking why he isn’t trying harder. Obama is doing exactly what his neoliberal constituency wants him to do. They are happy with the way the Obama Administration is playing out. Frankly, it would be easier for Obama to be a progressive. The public would be with him. But he isn’t a progressive. He’s a neoliberal. Get over it.

Even though Obama is a neoliberal, we are bound to him through the next election. For a variety of reasons, we cannot avoid having to support him in the next election–the Supreme Court certainly not the least. That said, progressives should be laying the groundwork for the 2014 and 2016 elections. We should also do what ever we can to elect progressives in 2012. Obama will not need our money. Give to Progressives. Support the PCCC.

We need to get over Obama, start taking the long view, and get to work.

Mr. Obama recently said the typical middle class person
lacks the time to worry about Federal budget items.

That resonates.

Middle class persons should care to know if they are munchkins,
sometimes themselves obnoxious ones, afraid of puppets marching to the tune of puppeteers.

They should have the time and information to see if they’re getting a fair shake.

The troll has spoken!

The reason Obama is not going to get away with not giving anything away is because he WANTS go give it away. And I bet you I know what they want to give away: your Social Security and Medicare. The is what the GOP is gunning for, and this what Obama wants, too. Oh, he will put on a show, but at the end it is going to be same story, he caves, “we had to make a deal” excuse. This is a 3 ring circus, so while they distract you in the other 2, the deal is already cut in the 3rd ring. While everyone is distracted with debt ceiling negotiations, the deal is already set on the cuts to SS and Medicare. Now, the show is going to go all the way to the deadline of Aug 2, I believe, and the everyone is going to say they had to do this for the sake of the country. All the Dems will cave, as usual, and we are going to get screwed by the “OWNERS OF AMERICA” party, I am not quite sure how to combine the Rep and Dems to come up with a catchy name for the combo. Oscar Levant once defined a musical as a number of calamities, followed by a floor show. Just get yourself ready for the floor show.

Thank you. This is what I’ve been saying too. It is time to ignore Obama and the current Democratic Party. They are intent on following their current path over the cliff. I believe now is the time to lay down the upstart narrative as to how the Second Great Depression formed and the blame for it. But also an upstart, alternative Progressive view as to how politics is truly played. Not this weird, middling, incrementalist,unaccountable, “I can’t get anything I want” Obamaesque nonsense that accomplishes nothing. We have to clearly state that part of the reason for the Second Great Depression’s creation was because Obama and company refused to hold accountable the philosophy and the actors that caused it, bought into it to some degree, and wouldn’t use the power they had when they had it to effect real change.

What garbage. He’s working to destroy lives, and the “D” next to his name co-opts any chance of opposition. The sooner he’s gone, the better. I wouldn’t give a shit if Hitler was the Republican nominee. (Although I don’t know if Adolf could get the nod…that vegetarianism doesn’t play well with the Repub base, I’m thinking.)

When it comes to compromising, Obama really gives it 110%.

The real blackmail

Failure to raise the debt ceiling doesn’t create the slightest threat of the US being forced to default on any of its obligations. Nothing in the law repeals the obligationon the Treasury to pay all of those obligations, which were all incurred by the passage of statutes that have the same force of law as the ceiling statute. And while, in the face of this legal contradiction — different laws imposing contradictory requirements on Treasury — it is easy to infer a Congressional intention to raise the debt ceiling to cover whatever obligations were incurred by every law passed by Congress, you will search in vain for any legislation that gives the Treasury any authority to broker the spending obligations of the US, to decide that some people get paid and others get stiffed.

But if there’s no blackmail force from default behind the threat to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, there’s plenty of blackmail from the threat of forcing Obama into such a legal contradiction. He will have no choice but do something formally illegal if the Rs hold out and refuse to raise the ceiling.

The trivial threat is that they get to fight the 2012 election in the setting of a ginned-up constitutional crisis. They badly need to be able to run attacking Kenyan Usurpation, because if there is no such distraction, they have to run defending Ryancare.

The more serious threat comes from the fact that, as this positng notes, we have the annual appropriations coming up soon. However fake the crisis of Kenyan Usurpation involved in the president having chosen the responsible illegality out of the two he had been forced to choose, it makes an R threat to refuse to pass new appropriations much more credible, and thus much more useful as a hostage. Once the spending authority from the current appriations bills runs out, the spending, and thus the borrowing above the ceiling the administration has been doing to cover that spending, will no longer have the legal authority to counter the ceiling restriction. The administration would no longer be able to borrow above the ceiling. And since the real crunch would come after several months of the R noise machine ginning up the Kenyan Usurpation of Obama ignoring the ceiling in the first place, the president would be much more likely to be blamed by the electorate for whatever horrible consequences.

Ultimately, I think this reasoning is a mask to cover the fact that the White House really, really wants to cut the deficit for ideological reasons. But nonetheless, it’s pretty deeply revealing.

There’s no telling whether the reasons are political or ideological. What is clear is that Manchurian candidate Obama revealed his agenda four days before his inauguration. The following is from the January 16 2009, WaPo:

Obama Pledges Reform of Social Security, Medicare Programs

By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 16, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama pledged yesterday to shape a new Social Security and Medicare “bargain” with the American people, saying that the nation’s long-term economic recovery cannot be attained unless the government finally gets control over its most costly entitlement programs.

That discussion will begin next month, Obama said, when he convenes a “fiscal responsibility summit” before delivering his first budget to Congress. He said his administration will begin confronting the issues of entitlement reform and long-term budget deficits soon after it jump-starts job growth and the stock market.

It should be noted that at that time he had Pete Peterson in mind for his keynote speaker at his “fiscal responsibility forum.”

Hello,everybody,the good shopping place,the new season approaching, click in. Let’s facelift bar!
===== http://www.madeshopping.net ===

Air jordan(1-24)shoes $30

ugg BOOT $50

Nike (R4,NZ,OZ,TL1,TL2,TL3) $33

Handbags(Coach lv fendi d&g) $33

Tshirts (Polo ,ed hardy,lacoste) $16

Jean(True Religion,ed hardy,coogi) $30

Sunglasses(Oakey,coach,gucci,Armaini) $12

New era cap $9

Bikini (Ed hardy,polo) $18

FREE SHiPPING
http://www.madeshopping.net