Sarah Palin's death panel a reality

I agree totally with you comments. But can you imagine the backlash if I would have stated the truth that he is a conservative.The hard right paints him as being liberal in order to cover up the blatant racism that exists with in the movement. I take insult when he is called a liberal, because us liberals know he isn't.The truth is both major parties in the US are conservative parties. There is no liberal or progressive political party in the country. Health care reform was not a liberal piece of legislation. It was patterned after conservative Romney care and the rethug response to attempted reforms by the Clinton administration.It is nice to get an attack from the left.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I think you could have stood to do a little more research. Obama didn't take out the public option; the Senate did. Obama has withdrawn troops from Iraq; Bush increased troops (oh, and started the war in the first place.) Billion-dollar bailouts started under Bush, as you'll recall, not Obama.It's true that Obama has not ratcheted back the security state, but again - Obama presented bills to do exactly that to Congress; they passed the House and were blocked by Senate Republicans.I'm not saying Obama is perfect but it's certainly the case that if, out of ignorance of how the US government functions you ascribe considerably more agency to the President than he actually has, you will wind up concluding the president is fairly conservative.But he's not, at least not in American terms. The government is conservative. The structure of the United States Federal government makes it all but impossible for it to do anything liberal. Did you know that if the American people vote exactly 50% Democrat and 50% Republican, you wind up with significant Republican majorities in both houses of Congress? That should tell you something about the outcomes structurally permitted under our system of government.

I'm a liberal and so is Barack Obama. I mean that's quite obvious.The reason that we nonetheless have conservative governance is that the federal government is structured such that only conservative outcomes are permissible. Obama can be as liberal as you want him to be (he already is, in fact) and you're still only going to get RomneyCare, big bank bailouts with almost no financial regulation, no action on climate change, expansion of the security state, and the rest of it, because those are the only outcomes allowed under the system of government we have.A big step would be restoring majority rule to the Senate, but of course for people like you it's a lot easier to complain about Obama than to actually get down in the weeds of structural government reform, now isn't it?

You don't know shit about me so don't you dare tell me what I do or do not do. I am quite active politically and do much more than just complain.Obama
Health care reform
He stood on the sidelines while the whole system devolved into chaos. He did noting for many months to forward this. It was obvious it was not something high on his agenda, no matter what his campaign promises were.Don't ask Don't Tell
His administration is still actively fighting in court any court actions to rescind this. He has done nothing to lead on getting this changed. Even after the military themselves are saying it will have little to no effect on them.Wars
There has been little movement by his administration to end the US involvement in Afghanistan.You make claims that only conservative outcomes are possible. I think your reasoning is shot. By using the same argument only Liberal outcomes are possible.The reason we have conservative outcomes is that there is no liberal voice at all. The Democratic Party(of which I am a reluctant member) seems to be liberal because the Republican Party is so far the the right. The Democratic PArty of today is analogous to the Republican Party of Nixon.Obama made promises to be a liberal leader. He has shown in 2 years he is neither a liberal or a leader.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Thanks Crash, but, by skipping past my points, your admonishment is greatly diminished.Re: Health Care reform. In Spring 2009, Obama held secret talks with pharma companies and insurance companies. Obama agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada. This is not done by a "liberal" president. (Also, Obama did compaign that he would support the public option. But that was quickly dropped after he had secret meetings.)Obama has NOT withdrawn ALL troops from Iraq. He has re-labeled "combat-troops" with "counter-insurgency personal." 50,000 US troops are STILL in Iraq. I note you didn't respond to the 100,000 mercenary troops, PERMANENT bases, or MASSIVE US embassy. He ran as an anti-war president, did he not? Bush (US presidents) have great war time power. It appears Obama does too, yet he chooses to continue war-mongering.As I wrote, Obama is following the George Bush Jr. playbook: BillionS dollar bail-out for wallstreet. So what if Bush Jr. started it? Obama finished it. Not a liberal president.His continues to keep Guanomimo Bay open, though his platform said he would close it. And most importantly, Obama SUPPORTS torture and extraodinary rendition. Puhlease. Not a liberal president.Lastly, Americans are easily fooled into getting the government they deserve. There is no writing in stone that it MUST be conservative (fascist).

I think Theo answered this already by saying:

Still looking for any data from you. At least Mod made some attempt.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

LOL You never add anything. all you do is ask for back up. look i aint your baby sitter look it up if you don't believe me.all my attacks are retaliatoryand to answer your question: No, that is not what I was saying.I do not think that conservative or liberal is as much a factor of wealth as it is a factor of where you are from, it has been my experience that rural is more conservative, and urban is more liberal. Sub-urban is a mix, but can more closely relate to the state in which it is located.For Example I live in the 2nd richest county in the United States America's 25 Richest Counties (according to Forbes), and I live less than 5 miles from the richest county in the USA. There are 5 counties in the Northern Virgina region that are in the top 25. Across the river in Maryland there are another 3 counties in the top 25 richest counties.I do not know for sure but I would bet that Barron County, Wisconsin is more conservative than Fairfax County, Virginia. People are quite progressive around these parts.I am not from out here, I am originally from Southern Illinois (that why I'm SO ILL), were things are quite different. People are more conservative there.Virginia IMO is a more conservative state, but has a smaller population (more people live in the Chicago Metro area than all of Virginia), so the urban rural scale is more balanced, and allows Virginia to lean to either side of the the Conservative or Liberal view. Rural Virginia is the Conservative Virginia, just as Rural Illinois is the conservative part of Illinois, but in Illinois, 95+% of the population is the Chicago area (which is definitely not conservative), and thus Illinois is a rather liberal state. By area both are very conservative, but by population they are not. I have also lived in Urban Missouri (St. Louis County), and Rural Missouri (Phelps County), and Missouri is similar to Virginia in that it swings back and forth, due to smaller urban areas, and large rural ones where the demographics is more evenly balanced.to make a blanket statement that the Rich are conservative, or the rich are liberal is very silly, and does not look into the factors that are out there. SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE: I agree with the above quote for the most part; except: I did not make a blanket statement, all I said was that the rich were not the conservatives. There are just as many Rich Liberals (one of the richest ones, and richest Americans ran against Bush in 2004) as conservatives, and there are liberal voting rich counties and conservative voting rich counties, I was answering a blanket statement, and I have not simplified anything, those are words unfairly attributed to me.THEO DISCLAIMER: these are my opinions, and my personal life experience and observations while living in Illinois, Missouri, and Virginia is my evidence, if you want more, we are on the internet, and you are free to look.

With all due respect neither of you have addressed my points about structure, you've just repeated your grievances about Obama not having magically delivered you a pony and a blowjob.@Theodoric: Well, ok. What efforts have you taken to restore majority rule in the Senate? Be specific. You're right, because that's the role in legislating that the Constitution provides for the President - the sidelines. He's not a legislator. The last time Obama had a vote in the Senate was January, 2009. Your complaint is like complaining that my local Huskers lost to Texas a few months ago because Coach Pellini didn't throw enough touchdowns. Well, but that's a load of bullshit. Remember after the Scott Brown election, when everyone said health care reform was dead? Senators were scrambling for shovels to bury it. Then all of a sudden everybody's talking about the reconciliation path. Obama was the one that put them on that path. Obama saved health care reform, and it's entirely to his sole credit that Obama was able to pass what generations of Democratic presidents couldn't. Of course, that gets completely ignored by Firebaggers like you. Because it's the law. Amazing, I know, but the President doesn't just get to determine which laws are going to be followed and which aren't. Congress legislates, not the President, and it's that fundamental misunderstanding on your part that leads to you blame Obama for a great many things that aren't his responsibility. That's simply not accurate. His movements may not have succeeded but they're being made. I know it's impossible for you to understand but many things are not within the power of the President, either as a matter of physical law or as a matter of his Constitutional authority. As much as you want Big Black Daddy to make all the bad things go away. I don't see where you've used "the same reasoning", or indeed any at all. As I said, and as I will now repeat, if Americans vote 50% Democrat and 50% Republican that results, mathematically, in Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate.How could that possibly not result in a systematic bias in favor of conservative government? Obama has accomplished more of the progressive agenda than any Democrat of the past century. But for some reason, there's something different about this guy where he gets no credit from people like you for it. Gosh, I wonder what it could be? What could possibly be the reason that Obama has to work twice as hard to be considered half as good?@Dronester Says who? Can you name even a single liberal President of the United States who has enacted a drug re-importation bill? Just one? Your claim that somehow drug importation from Canada has become a core plank of liberalism seems dubious. In surveys, to the extent that that is even an issue its an issue primarily of importance to seniors.A liberal President very much could (and did) bargain away drug reimportation to secure crucial pharmaceutical support for a vast reform effort. Or is it only "liberal" to stick to your principles so closely that you ensure failure? I'm of the opinion that an enacted half-progressive agenda is superior to an unenacted, purely progressive one, but you wouldn't be a Firebagger if you didn't make perfect the enemy of good, now would you. Dropped? The House passed public option health care reform. How did that happen without the President?And which 60 Senators were going to vote for public option health care reform? Be specific, name by name. If you can't provide a full list of the 60 Senators who were going to vote for it then you have absolutely no basis to conclude that there was anything Obama could have done to get it through the Senate. The last time Obama had a vote in the Senate was January 2009.If, like me, you think that the public option had 50 votes (because it did), then your complaint is with the structural obstacles in the Senate that prevents majority rule, not with the President's apparent failure to mind-control 60 Senators. I never said he withdrew all troops. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect that he will - we still have troops in Germany, even. And why would we withdraw our embassy? That makes no fucking sense at all. He did not. No, they don't. The Constitution doesn't give the President any more power under war than it does under peace, and if you disagree then I'm sure you're quote the relevant portions of the Constitution, won't you? No, the Senate continues to keep GITMO open, because Congress is the branch with the authority to close military bases, not the President. Obama's legislation to close GITMO passed the House. How did it do that if his leadership was absent?Which 60 Senators are prepared to vote for the GITMO closing? Be specific, I want a list of 60 Senators. If you don't have one then, as before, you have no basis to assert that Obama has somehow failed to do something. He finished it? As in, he brought it to an end? Well, that's certainly true - Obama hasn't given any more billions to Wall Street, which hates him, and Obama's brought the dividends of those loans back to the Federal goverment - a windfall of trillions for the American taxpayer. Did you understand the point? That if Americans vote 50% Democrat and 50% Republican then Congress winds up with Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate?How could that not represent a structural bias towards conservative government? Be specific.

First of all. Fuck you. You evidently are incapable of discussing things rationally without getting insulting and condescending. Since you feel a need to fill your posts with insults and condescension I do not feel further discussion with you is warranted unless you want to pursue a more civil tone. I neither have to justify or validate to you anything I do politically. Ever hear of the bully pulpit. Ever hear of political armtwisting. The Republiucans and George Bush were quite good at it. Obama stood by the sidelines and did nothing for months to influence the debate in congress. He is the fricking POTUS, he does have some influence. More insults? Really? Really? Provide some evidence for these assertions. You call this crap health reform? It entrenches the status quo with minor changes. Very little takes effect until 2014. Plenty of time to repeal and change. Without a robust public option this does not qualify as reform, it is solely an adjustment. It screws patients, primary care docs and small business. The winners are the insurance companies, large corps, the industrial medical care industry and specialists. They are laughing all the way to the bank. Have you been following this at all. His administration is using the same uniformed, unscientific arguments to prolong DADT as the Bush administration did. Also, it is in the presidents purview to again use the bully pulpit and there are things called executive orders. The military is not and has not followed DADT. They are actively pursuing gays in the ranks. A direct violation of the law.Here is more of Obama's actions on the subject.

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Obama's current position is that Congress has exclusive authority to change the law.[citation needed] In May 2009, a committee of military law experts at the University of California at Santa Barbara[72] concluded that the President can issue an Executive Order to suspend homosexual conduct discharges.[73]

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In July 2009, the White House and other Democrats reportedly pressured Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings to withdraw an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 2647) that would have prevented the military from using federal funds to expel gay servicemembers.[74]

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SourceThis is not a declared war. It can be ended when the will is there. Not sure what your claims of law and constitutional authority are here. I and most Americans(shown by the elections) feel that Obama has no ability to lead. Where has he shown leadership? You need to flesh this out. Explain how a 50-50 gives more power to one side or the other. What? What are the great progressive accomplishments? I am very well informed, I ahvent seen them. Please lsit them so I can be reminded of the great progressive stalwart we have in Obama. Really? Really? You are going to play the race card? Wow!! Well I guess when you got nothing. I campaigned long and hard for Barack Obama. I had great reservations, but he was the lessor of the evils. I had very low expectations and that is what I got.Maybe Russ Feingold can whip up some progressive and at least we may be able to influence some decision making in the Democratic Party. Right now progressives are being shut out of decision making within the party. They are being shut out so the party can make its sprint to the middle(actually in historical terms it is a sprint to the right).

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

The end is nigh.We agree on something.I apologize for misreading your post and thinking you said something you did not. Though I am going to call you out on a lot of things you say, this time I should not have.I agree I unfairly attributed something to you that you did not say.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

People who can't rebut your points talk about your "tone." Yes. The bully pulpit is for popes, not Presidents. And the suggestion that Obama somehow wasn't publically out in front of his bill is ludicrous. Which Senator was about to vote for public option health care but declined to because Obama didn't give enough speeches? Be specific - name the Senator. Which Senator was Obama supposed to "arm twist", and how? What precisely was the President supposed to offer for their vote for public option health care, and who was he supposed to offer it to?Maybe 57 votes was all there was to get by the "bully pulpit" and "armtwisting." Did you consider that? Who else was there to "arm twist"? Be specific.Can you pass cloture in the Senate with only 57 votes? Be specific. What influence? Are you aware that it's illegal to attempt to manipulate the votes of Senators?Which Senators were prepared to vote for public option health care but didn't because Obama didn't exert enough "influence"? Be specific - name the Senators. As a matter of fact, I do. It's the most sweeping reform of America's health care system ever enacted by any President. Liberals would consider it a crowning achievement for any other President, but there's something about this one (to use McCain's term) where, for some reason, it doesn't count. Gee, wonder what it could be? And who were the 60 Senators who were prepared to vote for public option health care? Be specific - name the Senators. And yet insurance companies spent millions to try to defeat the bill. Why would that be, if it's such a "win" for them?Could it maybe be the case that you have absolutely no idea what's actually in the ACA? Bush did nothing to prolong DADT besides do nothing. It didn't even come up as an issue during 8 years of the Bush administration. Of course, it was your liberal hero Clinton who originally passed it, but somehow that doesn't even merit recognition by you.That we're even talking about its repeal - its full, irreversible, legislative repeal, not a mere executive suspension that comes immediately back into play under President Sarah Palin with disastrous consequences for troops that would come out of the closet in the interim - is a testament to the genuine progressiveness of the President. Afghanistan and Iraq are absolutely both declared wars, with authorizations of force voted on and ratified by Congress (including Hilary Clinton but not Barack Obama.) This is nonsense. The Democrats voted out of office were primarily the "blue dog" conservative Dems who were the greatest obstacle to Obama's agenda. Democrats who ran on the basis of Obama's progressive platform did very well. Dems who ran away from it were killed. That's a referendum on Obama's leadership but certainly not with the results you claim. Because, structurally - a 50-50 split of the vote doesn't result in a 50-50 Congress. It results in a 53% Republican Congress in the House and a 51% Republican Congress in the Senate - because the government is structured to favor Republican conservatives. You've never heard of "gerrymandering"? Who do you think has been drawing the electoral districts all these years? (Not Democrats - they're too "principled" or some such.) What the fuck has Obama done so far?Do your own research, Firebagger. Right:

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Health Care Reform Bill, preventing insurance companies from denying insurance because of a pre-existing condition

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Tax credits for up to 29 million individuals to help pay for health insurance

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Expansion of Medicaid to all individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level

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Added 4.6 billion USD to the Veterans Administration budget to recruit and retain more mental health professionals

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Eliminated subsidies to private lender middlemen of student loans and protect student borrowers

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Increased funding for national parks and forests by 10%

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Signed financial reform law establishing a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to look out for the interests of everyday Americans

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And so on. Fun website. Russ Feingold lost, Mr. "I'm well-informed about politics."

Here's an example, today, of what I'm talking about in regards to how the structure of our government fundamentally disallows progressive outcomes:

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In what amounts to an epic constitutionality #fail, Senate Democrats may have blown their chances to see their food safety bill signed into law.

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The U.S. constitution requires that any revenue-raising bill must originate in the House of Representatives. To honor this provision, the Senate often finds a discarded old House bill, strips it bare, and uses it as a "shell" and passes it back to the House.

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They somehow forgot to do that this time.

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Now House and Senate Democratic leaders are scrambling to figure out some procedural hocus-pocus that will allow them each to pass identical pieces of legislation before they leave for the holidays.

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At his press conference this morning, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer could barely contain his frustration.

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"Unfortunately, [the Senate] passed a bill which is not consistent with the Constitution of the United States, so we are going to have to figure out how to do that consistent with the constitutional requirement that revenue bills start in the House," Hoyer said...Hoyer wants the Senate to basically hold a revote on the exact same legislation. There's just one problem. According to Roll Call, which originally broke the story, the bill's chief opponent, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) would object to a clean, 15-minute mulligan, forcing Democrats (and the many Republicans who support it) to wade through days of procedural delays before that revote could happen. Given the crowded schedule and overwhelming gridlock, there's no time for that.

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So the legislation is in limbo for now.

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Category: DC - TPM – Talking Points MemoThe rules of the Senate allow a single Senator to essentially veto legislation. The Senate does not operate by majority rule. And the need to secure a whopping 60 Senate votes to pass any legislation - a vote count that it would require an 80% electoral majority, essentially, to achieve - means that the Senate passes only that legislation which least harms or most privileges powerful interests - conservative legislation, in other words.The progressive agenda has stalled not because of any failure of leadership, but because of the failure of the Senate to operate by majority rule.

No shit he is my Senator. He doesn't have to be in the Senate to be a progressive leader.Or do you think the only people that can influence politics are people in elected positions. You seem to have no idea of the history of the progressive movement. Maybe you can show somewhere that I have mentioned anything about Clinton. You think you know so much about people but you know nothing.I have no affection for Clinton. He is a DLC Democrat. This is and has been a centrist organization. Through the years the center has moved further and further to the right.Neither Clinton nor Obama can be called liberals or progressives.I see you cannot post without being rude and abusive so adios.
Have fun.P.S.
Your historical knowledge is abysmal
Have you ever heard of Teddy Roosevelt?
Bully Pulpit
It is not a religious term.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I'm much more interested in the history of the progressive movement's actual successes. And every single one relied on politicians in the government. Sure, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a resonant, epoch-changing speech.But it was Lyndon B. Johnson who signed the Civil Rights Act. MLKJr's speech didn't give even a single black American the right or opportunity to vote. That's the problem with the "bully pulpit" - it doesn't actually do anything. If 60 Senators don't want to vote for a bill, it won't pass. The "bully pulpit" can't force anyone to vote a different way. It may convince them to, but all 100 senators are human beings with individual agency and if they refuse to vote a certain way, that's on them. Nobody else is responsible for the vote of even a single US senator. Teddy Roosevelt didn't invent the term "bully pulpit", he simply used it as an analogy about the President's power to bring issues to the forefront of debate. (Which Obama definitely did in the HCR debate.) The term "bully pulpit" refers to the Pope's station; the raised platform or pulpit from which he dispenses official Catholic doctrine in the form of Papal bulls. Wikipedia's steered you dead-wrong on this issue. It happens.It's only in the Catholic church that using the "bully pulpit" actually obligates anyone to do something. The President's power is only one where he can drive some degree of focus on an issue. He can't use it to determine the actual outcome of legislation.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.