July 10, 2013

We do show up. You are again only reading the part that you want to

When we go to the polls, we are allegedly electing representatives. Go look that word up in your Funk & Wagnalls. Everyone at DU votes for (D)'s because we know the stakes and we know how horrific the (R)'s are. But for the marginal/disaffected/uncommitted voter, if he shows up and walks the streets and sends money like he did in 2008, and finds that most of the change he was promised doesn't happen, he realizes that he was voting for a lie, or at least promises that can't be met - IOW, he's not being represented, and will to some percentage not be as enthusiastic next time around. The Repukes don't have this problem, because every radio station, newspaper, magazine, and TV "News" station blares their message every day. Without this huge propaganda machine, the Dems have to work harder at it, and then follow through on it.

Look at it this way. Suppose that after, say, the 4th time that the Repukes "filibustered" a bill in 2009, Harry reid had said, "OK, that's it. This is good, crucial legislation, and a minority of bought-off zealots are preventing the entire country from benefiting from it. We are going nuclear, and if and when they ever get the Senate back, we'll deal with it then". Assuming you believe that our (D) program is the correct one, then from that point in 2009 right up until the 2010 mid-terms, our (presumably) beneficial laws would have been passed and implemented, a nice chunk of "change" would have begun, and the hopeful from 2008 would have kept the spark going. We might have kept the House and continued to undo the Bush/Frist/McConnell/Boner damage.

Both parties have to keep their voters engaged. It just is much easier for the Repukes because they own Big Media lock, stock, barrel.

July 10, 2013

It took awhile to grind me down

But the entire Obama term has been one long list of giveaways. Deepwater drilling. Arctic drilling. Corporatized Health Care. Union Busting. Teacher abuse (remember Rhode Island?). Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee. Prosecution of whistle blowers. Offers to cut SS and Medicare. Renewing the Bush/Obama billionaires' tax cuts. Refusal to take a stand on LGBT rights (states rights??). And KeystoneXL and TPP are right around the corner.

Eventually anyone with any principles at all has to stop backing up. The president doesn't seem to have any. I have mine and was able to bend them for a little while, but stop giving in long ago.

June 30, 2013

So was Slappy Thomas

Both of these criminals should have been impeached while Pelosi was speaker. But Manny's point above about how the Dems keep the Repukes alive to cover their own rightward march is spot on.

June 30, 2013

Every time a right-winger commits another atrocity, we hear how it's going to backfire

it never does. This is just wishful thinking, BK.

Edit: Rec anyway, it's well-written

June 30, 2013

But we're all racists who never liked him

He's also evolved on state-sanctioned torture, cuts to SS and Medicare, endless wars and "defense" spending, Single payer Healthcare, environmental protections, support for organized labor, and some other issues. bvar22 has an entire playlist of his campaign BS. It should be posted every time one of the apologists wants to know why dem voters don't show up. Can you even imagine a Repuke president abandoning his voters like our supposed Dem president has?

February 23, 2013

Did you expect anything else from a "moderate Republican"?

The stages of denial among the Kool-Aid drinkers

1. Are you going to believe Fox "News"?
2. Are you going to believe the NY Times?
3. This is just an initial trial balloon - it has no chance of passing anyway
4. Politically astute - by swerving to the far right, the president is painting the Repukes into a corner. You just don't understand chess
5. It's the best we can do with this Congress
6. Fine, vote (R) next time

January 2, 2013

I am very happy for this person, and those who will survive, but...

I am really tired of having to choose between having the poor starve and reining in the oligarchs. Seriously, this is a terrible deal over the long haul, but we were forced into it by the ruling class just to keep people like the author alive. This is an absolutely awful way to run a country.

Let me put this very succinctly:

This was not a matter of the (R)'s and (D)'s battling each other before we hit the "cliff". It was a matter of the governing class pushing us working stiffs to the cliff. I expect such treachery from the Repukes; it is their nature. However, I expect the Dems, especially the leader of the party, to fight against the (R)'s, tooth and nail. They don't any more. They offer us a non-fatal alternative, but do nothing to get us out of the death spiral.

I am happy that those who are on the brink got some relief, but this deal is a bad one for the nation as a whole. Period.

DU Rec for "saving" the desperate, at least temporarily.

December 31, 2012

Pass the KoolAid please

Really? The president has offered to cut SS benefits, twice. Is that winning?



So is the Dems'. See Sanders and Harkin and the progressive caucus



Yah, he's so smart that no one can figure it out. Edit: Don't be sad. Krugman can't figure it out either



A well-thought-out strategy that has changed three times in two weeks, thanks to begging from Dems in Congress and outrage among the voters.



I think everyone agrees on this



I guess, if hating that a DEM president if offering completely uneccessary SS benefit cut = hate toward the president. Then yes.



I am determined to undermine his attempt to cut benefits. Thankfully, so are a handful of real Dems in the Congress. I plead guilty, though if I am a right winger, then you as a "centrist" are probably a fascist. and why is it that when the president got trounced in 2010, we were, "the left" that didn't show up, but now we're right wing moles?

I do find the dance you're doing amusing though. "It's just in the newspaper - you can't believe it"..."He just said it to get the Repukes to react"..."He's offsetting the benefit cuts for the neediest"..."He never actually said that - Carney did"...

It sometimes makes me dizzy, but it's funny up until then.

December 31, 2012

About the same % of Americans support universal HC

which is why good governance is also good politics, except in a completely broken system like ours.

December 31, 2012

I thought we were done with Chris Christie threads until the primaries