I don’t know how to title this post because words fail me

This should read "Don't ask me for my VOTE"

So, I was over at the Guardian site and found a link to this piece by the AP, Liberal Group Threatens to Pull Obama Support.  And I thought, “Great!  Obama’s boneheaded deficit hawk plans are the eucatastrophe we’ve been waiting for, along with Rupert Murdoch’s empire falling like Ozymandius.  *Two* eucatastrophes in one week!  Does it get any better than this?”

And then I started to read the article.

CHICAGO — A liberal group upset over potential cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security delivered pledges Friday to President Barack Obama’s national campaign headquarters threatening to pull its support.

About a dozen people representing the Progressive Change Campaign Committee delivered what they said were 200,000 pledges from people who will refuse to donate or volunteer for Obama’s re-election campaign if he cuts the entitlement programs.

“It’s not a question of who they’re going to support for president, they’re going to vote for Barack Obama. It’s a question of where their time and money is going to go,” spokesman T. Neil Sroka said.

{{winding up for a dopeslap}}

What’s the matter with these people??  They’ve gotten a once in a lifetime opportunity to turn this ship around and they give it all away before they’ve begun.

No, No, NO, you ditzes.  If you signal in advance that you are going to vote for him anyway regardless of your committment to withhold campaign contributions and volunteer time, he has no reason to listen to you.  It just means his campaign manager can cross you off the list of “people who must be appeased”.  You have made his re-election campaign a whole lot easier.  He’ll just hit up his banker friends for the balance.  He gets the REAL money from them; he gets his votes from *you*.  Money is not enough to get him elected.  He actually needs to court voters.  But he won’t court you if you are too easy.

You must stand up to him and withdraw your VOTES.  You must find a different candidate.  AND YOU MUST MEAN IT.  Even when they threaten you and make you scared sh^&less with the specter of a Republican in the White House.  That’s the only thing that will work.  Anything short of that guarantees a slide to the right and the sacrifice of everything you hold dear in the New Deal.

Who is this Neil Sroka guy?  If he’s not a campaign operative, could someone please remove any sharp objects from his immediate vicinity before he seriously injures himself?

 

Wanted: 536 candidates committed to the 12 word platform

The 12 Word Platform:

• Medicare For All.
• End the Wars.
• Soak the Rich.
• Jobs for Everyone (slaps face)

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It’s not quite JOBS for EVERYONE but, there are 536 job openings …. and there are openings in every state — in fact there is one opening in every single United States Congressional District ….. For candidates committed to The 12 Word Platform.

• 435 Congressional openings
• 100 open Senate Seats
• 1 Presidential opening

With so many Smart, Serious, Worried & Desperate Unemployed people in this country it seems like we should be able to find candidates to fill these positions.

And a plan to help them design their campaigns.

When you’re truly thankful for the smallest favors

Is Paul Krugman upset that the Republican leadership turned down Obama’s offer of Social Security and Medicare?  It certainly sounds like that:

Getting to Crazy

Put it this way: If a Republican president had managed to extract the kind of concessions on Medicare and Social Security that Mr. Obama is offering, it would have been considered a conservative triumph. But when those concessions come attached to minor increases in revenue, and more important, when they come from a Democratic president, the proposals become unacceptable plans to tax the life out of the U.S. economy.

Apparently, Krugman has fallen so deep into the game between Democrats/Obama and Republicans that he’s forgotten how dangerous this deal is to actual human beings.

As Lambert said (Taking the R out of “Shrill”: Krugman exhibits, endorses ratchet effect)

And thus, the D discourse has been successfully ratcheted right, since now Obama’s proposal for cuts to both programs have set the baseline — a strategic setback for working people, but and so a step that America’s favorite Nobelist applauds, because of its tactical elegance.

It’s Big Lies all the way down.

This entire Debt Limit Ceiling story is complete hooey.  It should be a standard line in any budget bill that of course we will pay all debts necessary to cover the expenses agreed upon in the bill.  And then there’s that pesky Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution:

Section 4.The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

If the Second Amendment refers to All Guns then doesn’t the Fourteenth cover All Debts?

Silly me.  I’m obviously not a lawyer.

[Note: The small favor is that the Republicans have apparently turned down the offer.  For now]