Democrats in Congress worry that Obama will cave to GOP
The liberals are watching three big tests over the next month to see whether the president is firmly in their corner: extending Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire Dec. 31, ratifying a new nuclear-arms treaty with Russia and repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military.
Seriously — THIS is what “liberal” Democrats are worried about? Well, I can’t say it better than Lambert:
Nothing on jobs at all, or foreclosures, or the banks. Quelle surprise. If you didn’t know that the Ds threw the working class under the bus in 2008, now you really know it, eh?
(emphasis mine)
Nearly a year ago Glenn Greenwald wrote a post that changed my relationship to the Democratic Party, “The Democratic Party’s deceitful game”
This is what the Democratic Party does; it’s who they are. They’re willing to feign support for anything their voters want just as long as there’s no chance that they can pass it.
…
The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it. One minute, it’s Jay Rockefeller as the Prime Villain leading the way in protecting Bush surveillance programs and demanding telecom immunity; the next minute, it’s Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer joining hands and “breaking with their party” to ensure Michael Mukasey’s confirmation as Attorney General; then it’s Big Bad Joe Lieberman single-handedly blocking Medicare expansion; then it’s Blanche Lincoln and Jim Webb joining with Lindsey Graham to support the de-funding of civilian trials for Terrorists; and now that they can’t blame Lieberman or Ben Nelson any longer on health care (since they don’t need 60 votes), Jay Rockefeller voluntarily returns to the Villain Role, stepping up to put an end to the pretend-movement among Senate Democrats to enact the public option via reconciliation.
But that was last year. THIS year, I guess it’s asking too much that they even just pretend to be on our side.
Filed under: General | Tagged: Democrats and their lying ways, Glenn Greenwald, Lambert Strether |
The Confluence 
well like Carville said 😆
And no one mentioned S510 as a litmus test? It’s all over for all of us if that thing passes. If you’re out of work, don’t even think about trying to grow your own food.
Rockefeller gives me the creeps. Did any of you notice him among during BO’s inauguration? He stood there, looking line a man of wax. Question: Why was Rockefeller among those who would be in that historic inaugural shot?
******
On a depressing but very funny note, see video below on Quantitative Easing:
http://rackjite.com/archives/5896-Fuzzy-bears-explain-quantitative-easing,-the-Federal-Reserve.html
I saw that a couple of days ago … I really like it. “What is the deflation?” “Doesn’t it mean we can buy more of the stuff” “Yes but the Fed says it is bad” ….
Most economists really hate this video. It has some fallacies in it but gets across what I feel is a valid point about the Fed’s actions and inactions. Overall I think it’s great.
The little guys really touched a nerve. Especially with all the insider job switching.
I think it’s very funny: “You’re sh*tting me.”
I also like the very clear and simple explanation of “the Goldman Sachs” and how they are the three-ring circus are the only ones who benefited from the bail-outs.
Think the 600 billion is like a stimulus to banks which is supposed to trickle down to create jobs and consumer demand in time for Christmas. Not sure how much is trickling though…the banks still have toxic asset holes on their balance sheets, and there’s fannie/freddie and the foreclosure mess too. The other thing the 600 billion is trying to do is dilute the dollar to make our export industries more competitive. Not sure that’s happening either…the Chinese seem to be winning that battle of nerves for now.
Bottom line, whether it’s individuals, companies, or government, we need to get back to spending and investing in our future. Growth is a better path to managing our long term debt than austerity. Believe Krugman has been consistent about that. But if wealthy individuals and companies continue to hoard cash/commodities more than invest in jobs and people, the government needs to take the wheel, but the administration doesn’t have a plan for that.
I don’t know anything about S510… After a quick search I found this at Corrente but, no details there either.
I couldn’t say it better or add more that you’ll find at FoodFreedom.
I don’t know … that site made my eyes glaze over.
In a nutshell. it sounds promising–I mean, who doesn’t want food safety? But inside, you’ll find it’s much like the health care “reform” legislation: really good for corporations and really sucky for actual people.
It gives a lot more power to the FDA (unearned and undeserved, imho) without specifying exactly what. The Tester amendment undoes about 1/20th of the damage the main bill does to the small farmer. There are lots of provisions for the ability to create as-of-yet undefined regulations. The bill leaves it wide open for the FDA to suddenly determine that it’s in the best interest of our food security for everyone to use (and only use) GMO seeds.
It’s a big waste of money and in the end, the food will be no safer nor more nutritious nor more plentiful.
I think one could use the term perversions rather than provisions of this bill. It does give me the creeps. It is perverted, IMHO. It is like the Bush Clean Air, Pure Water crap. Food Safety means the corporate thugs will own all the means of production, including all the seeds. We can be crooks if we plant a garden to keep from starving. It will be like the Irish potato famine. Ireland exported food during the time of the famine. Starvation was a way of controlling the people. It was the British ethnic cleansing method. Will it be ours? The Irish had to give up their farms to get any meager public asssistance during the potato blight. The ways of control and stealings ones land/ homes are not new.
Agree. Sadly.
Agreed on that Greenwald post, it was a revelation for me too. It makes you wonder when the Digbys and Rachel Maddows are going to drop the disingenuous notion that the Democrats are “spineless”.
I call it the “What Democrats Do” post. We knew – we’d lived through and written about – just about everything he mentioned.
He clarified the pattern so it was recognizable and could be used to predict events.
After he wrote THAT, then we weren’t so surprised when Kucinich got off the plane and switched his vote.
I hadn’t read that so I was actually really surprised. Stunned even.
I should have said “when Kucinich got ON the plane” and switched his vote…. I think it was a given that by getting on the plane, he was going to switch.
It would take an exceptional person to get through that trip without flipping. And if you weren’t willing to flip, why get on the plane?
Somebody must have left a pony’s head in Kucinich’s bed…
So Ben Nelson was the designated villain for the Paycheck Fairness act?
Obama is spineless as a liberal, and when people on the left keep supporting his Highness no matter what, they sort of become spineless by default. Glenn hasn’t done that, he calls Obama out on all those betrayed campaign promises, he has a spine…even if I don’t agree with him 100% of the time.
According to Krugman, “Obama Has ‘Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World’.” Hey, what else is new, Krugman!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/21/paul-krugman-obama-reagan_n_786506.html
i.e. “what else is NEW ….”
[Sorry about all my typos. Wish there was an “Edit” or “Delete” button next to the “Submit Comment” button.]
Agreed. DO NOT ACCEPT NARRATIVES OF D WEAKNESS. They are doing what they want to do, and “villain rotation” is a perfect example of their shell game. Hey rubes!
“The Ds are spineless” is a very, very easy riff to run, but not only is it not true, it leads to the conclusion that what we need is “better Ds.” We don’t. We need to destroy the legacy party system of which the Ds — who should go the way of the Whigs in the 1850s — are a part.
Well I’m not jumping on anyone’s P bandwagon anytiime soon. I could have thought about Feingold, but then he had a spine. I will not follow Pelosi, Reid or Obama.
“The Ds are spineless” justifies voting for Democrats as the lesser of two evils.
Once you accept that the Democrats are doing exactly what they want to do the argument that the Republicans are worse loses its credibility.
The Republicans ARE bad, but the Democrats are no better.
disagree. The republicans are much worse. Any vote is a vote for the lesser evil. I don’t care what parties are in the mix.
Yeah the democrats are doing what they want and it is bad, but republicans are a nightmare. They want to dismantle every social gain we have made in the last 100 years.
I agree, myiq2xu. The public has been played by the two-Party system long enough.
sure and leave the republicans with all the marbles? How’s that going to help anything?
A “third party will only take up the slack left by the democratic party implosion. But that “third party” (we have lots of third parties and fourth and fifth etc…) and become one of the non responsive two partys.
What we need is a media that is not owned by multinational corporations and public financing of elections. ANY party in power will play the same game unless they are held accountable by media and not funded by corporations.
Sorry, but no new party is going to be any different if they want to compete.
The party of “we’re going to help you – we’re for the little guy” has always seemed to me to be the big sucker vote. And the social engineers invariably get it wrong. Blacks went from the back of the bus to under the bus and with so many others continue to believe the lies of their leaders.
Honk!
Notice that Eugene Robinson and Charles Blow never, never, never mention BAR or its opinion of Obama?
It’s on purpose.
This is OT, but I just saw this and I mean, c’mon, this is getting really ridiculous. What is the justification–that his father is a danger and hid something on the boy?
I tried to embed it here, but it didn’t work for someone reason: a boy being patted down at the airport. They took his shirt off and everything–he’s about 11.
All you have to do is paste in the URL without any of the
youtube=
or brackets
I fixed it.
He looks younger than 11 to me. That’s just sick. I think they patted his junk too.
It tells me they are scared to death to grope anyone who might actually BE dangerous!! They are choosing the least likely persons to examine because they have absolutely NO IDEA what they would do if they encountered someone wearing a bomb.
If you can’t hack it at the seminary, join the TSA.
Jerks.
Haw. Good one.
It’s kind of funny that the “liberal” test for Obama is whether or not he extends the Bush tax cuts. And will he renew START, the Nuclear Arms Treaty, that was signed into law by George Bush SR in 1991?? Next, is he able to do away with DADT, which one of our best Dem president’s ever, signed into law?
So this is the so called “liberal test” for President Obama, will you renew the policies of Bush SR and Bush JR, while striking down Bill Clinton’s?
“The liberals are watching three big tests over the next month to see whether the president is firmly in their corner:”
Head desk. Ouch. I guess I’m supposed to measure how “liberal” my president is by how many Republican policies he renews??
HONK!
He’s Ronald Reagan liberal. Just the way the Obots like.
Jeff Jarvis, new media guru with 55K followers.
@jeffjarvis: Men: Stop calling it junk. It is a penis. And a scrotum. You sound infantile. Penis, Penis, Penis. There, did that hurt?
Penis and scrotum is too clinical. I never heard the expression, but junk is in my vocabulary from now on.
Yeah but it changes the whole meaning of “junk in the trunk.”
Some singer also says junk, I thought it was a messy room they were talking about. I agree, PENIS, but if they need another name WeE Wee…junk sounds as if they don’t have proper hygiene.
NO ON JUNK!
Duh. Will they stop asking her this question?
Clinton doesn’t plan to run for office in 2012:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20101121/pl_yblog_theticket/clinton-doesnt-plan-to-run-for-office-again
Never apparently. I don’t know why they don’t realize that she won’t run against Obama in 2012.
Even if she had an idea about running, which I’m sure she doesn’t, it’s a good way to keep the rabid CDS roaches out of her hair while everyone else cogitates about the idea and/or experiences occasional twinges of regret. It’s the Hillary will not be running to save your ass in 2012 campaign.
That Chris Christie guy said no, I’m not running. Stop asking! Short of suicide I don’t know what else to do!! It made me laugh. If I kill myself will the press stop asking that question?? Probably not.
Hillary is a world leader, the whole world admires her. She has crowds of thousands greeting her every where she goes. The presidency would almost be like a demotion. She’s not going to run, she’s achieved more as SOS then is even possible within a presidency.
What does she do when Obama loses in 2012?
Start a new party. A woman’s party.
Hillary will pay back to the Democrats. She’ll put her power behind the new party and the Democrats won’t know what hit them.
She retires and continues her work in public service like her husband. She deserves the rest, the travel is brutal as SoS. Becomes a beacon to the world for what is possible and what is not.
I’d rather have my own ending. It makes me smile.
I’m still hoping for Hillary 2016!
I met an African who told me that Hillary would have done a better job than Obama! He said that Obama made a lot of promises, but Hillary is a fighter. And he thinks she should run against him in 2012! The world is behind Hillary. She knows it. That is why I will not rule out a 2016 run. Knowing that there is a very, very good chance that she would win if she runs again might prove to be too irresistible for her not to take the opportunity.
she needs some rest first. Look for her to retire after the first of the year if she has been effective enough to have some bragging rights.
Good God, two years into Obama’s first term and the dems, or the dims, are still wondering if he will cave?
You ignoramuses: HE WILL CAVE!
(Do you ever feel like crawling into a cave?)
No, he’s not going to “cave.”
Obama is a conservative.
He’s going to do what he’s been planning to do all along.
(nodding) Yep.
My questions are why are the liberals still wondering what BO will do and what ballsy (laugh!) reaction are they planning when they discover he’s not in their corner…more tests for Obama?
Apparently, Paul Krugman has just discovered that “Obama Has ‘Largely Accepted [A] Conservative View Of The World.” I would say, Paul, that he has accepted a Neo-Con world view. Hey, how about saying that he’s GWB III?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/21/paul-krugman-obama-reagan_n_786506.html