Miss Marie writes: (albeit 3 days ago)

“Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader turned multimillionaire power broker, is defending his nomination to become secretary of health and human services..”

~~~

NOT ANY MORE!!

So, can we move along here? Nothing new or different to see here. Send in your requests for Dr. Howard Dean, and we’ll just keep this project focused.

What’s the big deal?  Daschle stepped on his wee-wee and now he’s out.  Obama, at least, doesn’t try to hang on to problems like Bush did—look how long he let Harriet Miers twist in the wind.

Daschle’s history. Time to move on.  Let’s hope Howard Dean hasn’t done anything that stupid—he’s probably a better choice as an experienced and SUCCESSFUL manager and physician.  So he doesn’t have experience with The Hill.  Hello!  Isn’t that what Rahm Emmanuel and Joe Biden and the President himself supposed to supply?

Hillyarious. As soon as Obama is elected who does he turn to? Clinton retreads. Ouch.

Now everyone he nominates is suddenly very sorry…but really…only sorry they got CAUGHT.

Change you can count on.

Hillyarious. As son as Obama is elected who does he turn to? Clinton retreads. Ouch.

Now everyone he nominates is suddenly very sorry…but really…only sorry they got CAUGHT.

Change you can count on.

Jim Swanson—You stated it so much better than I did—I just saw huge amounts, from every for-profit “health care” industry, having gone into the Daschle’s pockets! Its true, he would never have suported single payer—-the insurance industry was his bread and butter!

I wish Pres. Obama would support single payer, and, appoint someone who does. Kucinich, Kaptur, etc. The problem is, we need them in the HOuse, too! Also, Conyers! Lee? Same..

Howard Dean might propose something LIKE single payer, that would not leave about 8 million peopple out, like Dsachle’s poroposal would have, even after about 10 yrs. Nader would be good, (back off, Nader haters), but, better in the Dept of Justice.

I am glad Daschle is gone, but, I just hope Pres. Obama doesnt appoint, say, John McCain!

Street protesting, at least around LA, never threatened loss of life or limb in the past.  I was only jailed once and that only because I set it up to be jailed.

It’s not only safe, it seems to be perhaps the only way to make the power structure sit up and take notice. So get up and get out because it WORKS.

Teh High pitch screech of a dog whistle as usual. Marie you always have the luxury of missing the more dire point.
If Hillary couldn’t get healthcare reforms, there was no doubt a much more influencial person was going to be required to even get it started in this disasaterous economy.
Finally we have seen the catastrophic effects of Repug policy. Consistently siding with big business, aka insurance to derail any hopes of healthcare reform. Finally they have come out of their mental comas to recognize the fact that it has been this appeasment of Insurance provideers which has contributed to the lack of competitiveness on the world market.Suddenly figured out they had been screwing not only the citizens but also their other big corp backers (masters)..Duh! Dachle recognize the problem in June, told his Accountant to fix it and was the one who informed the Admin about the problem. He’s paid for his error!
Don’t tell me you next post will be on Prosecuting Phelps because he has failed to live up to the role model you relied on to teach your kids self esteem, reliance and perserverance.
Who do you suggest Pres Obama name as HHS Sec, Sarah Palin, who can’t even interrupt her Political schedule to seek medical attention for the safe birth of an already compromised baby?
those of US who live and struggle in the REAL world don’t give a shit about this story either. We want, and need, someone who can get healthcare reform passed ASAP.

Xntrk—If you had been at the protest, here, in Ohio, with 4 other people—-you would have been afraid!LOL! Not of making an ass of yourself, but, of being hit with beer cans, spit, cigs, and, seeing a little boy by give us a peace sign, and, his father slap him for it!

There were more in a nearby city, but, I figured the rednecks around here needed to see it! More showed to a candlelight vigel—I think because it was after dark! LOL!

“Fear” off being photographed and taped at the AFB, with an old prof of mine, telling me to get out of the pic,(it was CIA—he had spent years in jail for protests) and, running back in, cause they can go f*ck themselves…we were right

We just need more people!! We need to be harder to round up!

Its true what you say—I cannot think of many examples right now, but, it happens all the time.

It results in people saying, “B-b-b-ut—-we cant!” “we have to give (blah blah) a chance!” or “it is too compilcated!” bs

There is a big open space in US politics, just waiting for enough people to say that theyve had it…I hope they decide it soon. The more DC throws at them, the more they seem to want to take.

Maybe we are all still at the prom, waiting for someone to dance—-lets not let the hall monitors run the party. Theyre no fun.

Dr. Dean is being “floated”, at least o nthe net..we should support it. He would be much better than Daschle.

“Maybe we should take to the streets and demand change, it seems to work in some countries.”

Say when and where. Convince me I wont be with 5 other people like the Iraq War protest here in my city. Somebody rent a bus.

A vote for Obama is a vote for change!

Oh we are a gullible lot.

I cannot help but sit here and wonder if the shoe was on the other foot and this and other choices would have been McCain’s. Would he have filled his cabinet with old political hacks from the Senate? Sleazbags who have been suckling from the Washington teet? What would we as liberals have said? We would have sceamed bloody murder, of course!

So lets hold barry to the same standard. After all, he serves only at the grace of the liberal voting block, for without us, McCain is making these decisions.

We should have known something was up when the confirmation hearings were polluted with the worst kind of Clintonian scum.

Does anyone in DC ever get their cum-uppins?

I’ve got to hand it to Obama, he sure is cleaning up Washington as promised!

The more irresponsible jokers he hires and then resigns to corruption in commical porportions, the less there will be to weed out in the future.

Out with the old, lets get some new humble blood in Washington and get some real work done.

Obama “change” fairytale, facing Washington politic reality. No we can’t!

I’ll never forget that fawning Daschle when Blair came to speak in front of the US congress—having suffered unrelenting humiliation in Britain as “Bush’s poodle”... I’ll never forget the enthusiastic reception from the US congress—with Tom Daschle the first in line to rally the applause.

We should urge President Obama to appoint Rep Kucinich, or, Rep John Conyers! Ralph Nader?

Daschle’s statement yesterday,that of providing “more affordable, better quality insurance ” showed him to be the insurance industry schill he has become. The law firm, Alston and Bird, are neck deep in representing of various health care lobbying firms. (example, from maplight.org and opensecrets.org)Alston and Bird clients: Am. Health INsurance Plans—$7,080,000; Medicare and Medicaid Private Plans—$4,064,000;Renal Leadership (bizarre..)—$330,000;Am College of GI—$200,000…etc.Caremark Rx $170,000Health South Corp.—$440,000. (Total $2.1 billion profit for Alston and Bird.)

Linda Daschle received : Am Health Quality Assn., $230,000; Health Freedom Found., $230,000; Health IT NOw Coalitin, $55,000.

Tom Daschle’s personal fees , up to two weewks before his APPT. was announced, were in tehe100s of thousands.

But, the scary part is, will Pres. Obama appoint someone even more bought out?!

Little Br—I had the same “problem” with my sisters-both of them!(one, much more than another—she is a college prof—I think the students really love him, no matter what!) Both are pretty disappointed now, but, like many, say “he’s better than Bush”. Well, that is disappointing. But, mostly, we just dont talk politics anymore. Feels strange.

felicity—alteratively, Pres. Obama could join forces with the majority of citizen/human beings in the uS, and accomplish things he could really call change and actually be very proud of. He might not even get re-elected—-but, hell, he could make such change, I think that he would. If he didnt, get re-elected, yet, sided with the people, he could be a legend…

P.T.—I found that “odd” on Geithner, too…I couldve done a better job. And, I certainly dont know economics. Just being rich doesnt make you smart—I am beginning to think, quite the contrary.

I remember Bill Maher, when hearing of the coal mine disaster in W. Va., and, finding out that the man in charge of mine safety was the man who owned most of the coal mines—-his “guest” said that, “well, maybe its bewcause he knows alot about the business, has knowledge of it”. Bill said, “Yeah, the way a fox has knowledge of hens!”. It was great!

The article states:  “The rationale for confirming [Tim] Geithner was that he is a financial wizard—one of a handful of people, it was argued, with the experience and intellect necessary to manage the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression.”

Actually, Geithner’s failures in regulation while at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York helped produce the crisis.  Cheating on taxes aside, his incompetence should have precluded his appointment as treasury secretary.

I can’t tell or really know what Obama’s end games are, but I do believe that behind the Beltway corruption is rampant.

According to my thesaurus, corrupt is dishonest, deceitful, unethical, unprincipled, unscrupulous, crooked, untrustworthy, shady, underhanded, venal and deceptive - which pretty well, in fact amazingly so, sums up behind the Beltway operators and how they operate.

And that’s the environment facing Obama, the kinds of people with whom he must wheel and deal if he hopes to accomplish anything.

As Sherlock would say, the game’s afoot and that game bears little or no resemblance to anything most of us ever encounter.  I don’t know their rules, but I think Obama does and is playing the game accordingly.  I’m willing to wait for the results before I condemn his presidency to the failure bin.

During the interminable campaign season, Obama supporters lectured the rest of us over and over about how hurdling the historic bar to electing an “African-American” forced Obama to run to the right.

Supposedly he had to reassure the anxious and easily-befuddled masses that he was no Black Panther or revolutionary brutha.

My brother and I usually agree politically, but we developed a widening difference of opinion when he became enthusiastic about Obama.  When Obama selected his Foreign Policy Task Force, or whatever it was called, I gnashed my teeth and complained bitterly to my brother that Obama had excluded everyone but Clintonista-hawk retreads! 

My bro, increasingly attuned to Obama’s vaunted “pragmatism”, was not bothered in the least.  He offered the usual unpersuasive pragmatic arguments, e.g. Obama has to reassure a nervous and anxious electorate and Mend Fences within the Party, etc.

Who did you expect him to pick?  Noam Chomsky? My brother chided.  That shut me up for a while, but then I responded that yes, it would have been gratifying if Obama at least asked Chomsky or any reputable person who wasn’t an unregenerate Washington (DC) Insider.  At least it would send a signal to non-partisan progressives that Obama was at least capable of “thinking outside the box”.

And of course, after being elected, Obama promptly went even deeper into the Establishment Insider bench to round out his administration.  I haven’t discussed this with my brother, but he’d better not argue that Obama is just shrewdly starting off playing to conservatives in order to secure his political capital for that second term.

Yes, it’s only been a couple of weeks since Obama took office.  But since his election, despite throwing a couple of bones to progressives, Obama has done nothing but choose dubious and tainted hacks to fill important positions—even if he has to continually make “exceptions” to pledges about not hiring lobbyists, etc.

Obama and his supporters would have us believe that he’s acting out of a profound vision or plan for “post-partisanship” that begins by somehow uniting both strands of our duopolistic double-helix to bring forth a new, whole life form.  Thus, supposedly “unorthodox” decisions such as appointing conservative Republican Judd Gregg Secretary of Commerce.

My small quibble with this strategy is that I consider it misplaced, and possibly a deliberate misdirection or red herring.  Because it appears to me that Obama’s quest for “unity” between the parties involves kow-towing to the common denominator of conservativism (paleo- and neo-) in both parties.  Forward into the Past!

Despite all the Warm ‘n Wonderful hype about Obama being a down-to-earth guy with a beautiful family—like a reincarnation of “The Cosby Show” in real-life, except even more prestigious—he seems neither compassionate nor sensitive to moral and ethical issues.  He seems to me to be as much a Part of the Problem as the disciples he’s selected—a technocrat oblivious to unacceptable sleaze.

And now he seems to have backed himself into a corner by standing behind Daschle 1000%; the alternative is to do a George McGovern flip-flop, which would earn the scorn and condemnation of the “inside politics” dogmatists who’ve been championing Obama’s shrewd pragmatism.

It’s a lose-lose prospect.

Dear Tom, you’re a big boy and can certainly read the rules (or at least pay to have someone read them for you).  In my book you are typical two-faced trash.

Dear Barak, first of all see above.  Secondly, Tom is a bit too connected to the health care industry to throw off any appearances of conflict of interest.  I do have a suggestion however, how about throwing a bone in Dennis Kucinich’s direction.  If you want to even start to right this sinking ship that would be a good place to start.  I am an athiest, but I think we really need the equivalent of nuns with rulers to start cracking knuckles out there.  By the way, you can also stop the wars we’re involved with in too many places to mention.  That includes Israel.  It’s past time for their lobby to be given a one way ticket out of this country.  But I suppose you really can’t blame them totally.  They’re just taking advantage of our campaign hungry buddies over there in Congress.  That’s something that We the People have to take care of.  You received my vote on two occassions based on hope and what I perceived as your integrity.  I didn’t expect “miracles” just the beginning of turning this country back into what I think it should be.  “No” is sometimes the most difficult word to say, but it has to be used now and often.

Thanks,

Obama’s “honeymoon” may be one of the shortest in history.