“It’s supremely galling. It’s unbalanced, unfair and mostly unwise.”

75+ largely negative comments later, it may be overkill at this point to add the following, HOWEVER…to call the Obama/Boehner Deal “galling…and mostly unwise” is itself a retreat on the part of Mr. Robinson, who apparently cannot bring himself to budge from his Obama-Apologist stance.

I can sympathize to a degree. It took me close to a year of watching Obama in office to rouse myself from the Hope&Change; Trance I’d fallen under and to recognize that, had I been paying closer attention during the campaign, I would have realized that I’d just supported and voted for a “moderate” Republican with the welfare of Wall Street in his heart and on his agenda.

Others before me have listed the many ways Obama has shown where his true loyalties lie.  I’m surprised that Eugene Robinson hasn’t noticed these things himself. But what’s truly galling is how Obama uses his false sympathy for the unemployed in speech after speech, presuming, no doubt, that his “compassion” reads as authentic, followed by ABSOLUTELY NO ACTION on his part to create a jobs program or even to fight hard for extending unemployment benefits.

Instead, he devotes his energy to “negotiating” a bad debt ceiling deal with the Republicans and then urges the gutless members of his own party to play along.

Obama was not stonewalled.  He wasn’t blackmailed.  And he wasn’t between a rock and a hard place.  He just found the perfect time and place to put down his mask and show his true face to the rest of the world.

Not a rout, my A$$!  And “not the end of the world?”...for some, maybe. But for others who might starve or die of a treatable disease…or they can’t afford to have medical care….or even just the stress that the politicians have caused (stress is a big killer you know!)...it is definitely the end of the world! It’s the Republicans and Obama’s “throw granny under the bus” idea of government. Next they’ll be trying to sell us on Soylent Green!

Eeewww! Trigger mechanisms?  Trigger is the name of Roy Roger’s horse. And you sound like Obama was defeated by the bad old Republicans.  Obama is a Republican even though he was elected as a Democrat. He has shown that he is supporting everything the Republicans want by his acts and using his words(lies?) as cover for the truth…that he is really a Republican snuck in as a Democrat.

Fact is that the government will be defaulting on the debt anyway…defaulting on their debt to the hard working Americans who paid into the system expecting to be paid back when they retired. These criminal extortionists who run the banking system and their puppet politicians expect, once again, to be bailed out by the Middle Class and the poor. This is what happened in France before their revolution…the rich didn’t want to pay their fair share of the tax burden either..and pushed it all on those who could not afford it. Maybe we need a revolution here!!!

Lafayette, August 2 at 2:43 pm Link to this comment

Because, for the moment, you are just indulging yourself in a political Spectator Sport called bitching-in-a-blog.
*************

I have said REPEATEDLY what the President should do at the time.
1) He should make it clear that he WOULD invoke the 14th Amendment, not that he wouldn’t
2) He should have made it clear that as President, he gets to distribute funds.  And that he wasn’t going to distribute funds to those 87 TeaParty districts or to the states of Kentucky, Utah and Oklahoma, for starters.  President Bush unilaterally elected not to spend allocated monies on programs he disagreed with.

IOW, invoke partisan policies Andrew Jackson, who was a SERIOUS bad-ass, would approve of!

“I don’t negotiate.”—Tommy Lee Jones.

Good god, Robinson, take off your blinders and grow up. This is exactly what Obama, the Republicrats and their Wall Street handlers wanted. They’re tightening the noose around the middle class just as they’ve been instructed to do by the IMF.

TRUE ENOUGH

ER: Through absurdly complicated procedures, the agreement ensures that Obama will not face another fight over the debt ceiling before next year’s election. For this, we can all be grateful.

True enough, but he would be a fool not to bring this matter before the American public in the form of an in-depth discussion of the Income Disparity during next year’s elections.

As I never tire of saying, the Income Disparity that afflicts almost the entire population (80%) is remediable ONLY by changes in the way we tax American households. There must be:
*  A very significant increase in taxation to those earning above the $250K threshold as well as
* Closing definitively deduction loopholes in order to increase tax revenues.

And a disbursement of those funds accrued towards:
* Reducing the American debt, along with
* The establishment of adequate Public Health services that address the multiple needs of our people - which concurrently means a significant amount of Job Creation.

Budget modifications must entail stiff reductions in DoD operational costs for which Panetta has been already put in place due to his experience as Clinton’s Budget Director. He will know how to accomplish that feat.

POST SCRIPTUM: Quo vadis?

The above would entail, almost automatically, establishing a decent National Health Care system offering both Remedial and Preventive Care. The latter particularly focusing on the Obesity Pandemic that afflicts the nation. (Which will cost us in lives far, far more than al Qaeda, Iraq or Afghanistan ever would have.)

We put America back to work in 1940 (after a disastrous decade of high unemployment) with the advent of war. We do not need another war, but we can employ government expenditures in Public Services to create jobs - and we should do so.

ds/g: A study of the problem was conducted at Harvard and one of its main conclusions was that the health of Americans is declining because of the growing disparity of income and wealth in the country.  The “every man for himself” way of life in this country is killing us.

It could be a factor of stress, but a far more serious linkage has been established with obesity.

The more probable reason is called a “pandemic” (officially) of obesity. Read here the sicknesses that are derived from gross overweight amongst the American public.

We are literally eating ourselves to death.

ANSWER THE QUESTIONQ

tw: There is no credibility left for Obama.

Given that the Debt Ceiling has been consistently revised upwards in the past, would you have provoked a Financial Default that caused Deficit Payments to rise permanently thus digging our finances deeper into the hole? (See history of Debt Ceiling adjustments since Reagan was in office, here. Count the number of times the ceiling has been raised in fairly automatic fashion by both parties.)

Presume as PotUS you refused to negotiate and caused a default on US debt-obligations. How would YOU explain credibly the “caving” to the American Public awaiting a credible answer because overnight they were all paying higher mortgage and credit payments?

In fact, have you any understanding whatsoever of how the American economy functions on debt?

Or, are you shilling on this forum for the TeaParty? 

Answer the questions.

“So, what would you have done had you been in the Oval Office catbird-seat?”
asks one commenter rhetorically.

1.  Would you have extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich with McConnell?

2.  Would you have extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich with Boehner?

3. Would you have extended the Bush tax cuts a third time with Grover Norquist
and the Tea Party?

4.  Would you have made the head of the ‘jobs council’ a CEO of a company that
paid no federal taxes, received federal bailouts and in invests heavily in ‘job
creation’ efforts in foreign countries but not here?

5.  Would you have accelerated Bush ‘bailouts’ to banks and other financial
institutions and then insisted on a ‘hands off’ policy when the CEOs and top-
level employees took “bonuses” paid by taxpayers?

6. Would you have promised “change” and then kept Bush key appointees to
“advise” you on military and financial affairs?

7.  Would you have extended the Bush ‘war on terror’ wasting thousands
American and Afghan lives and billions of US dollars?

8.  Would you have set aside all efforts to reform immigration?

9.  Would you have led an effort to pass a Republican Governor’s health
insurance subsidy in lieu of single payer universal coverage?

10.  Would you have halted reform of the financial system, leaving in-place the
six largest (now even larger) ‘banks’?

11.  Would you have administered a failed ‘program’ to help middle class
families holding ‘underwater mortgages’?

12. Would you have ..... ‘if you were in the cat-bird seat’?

The answer to each of the questions above is “Yes”, if you are a Republican.

But in each instance, apologists always find a ‘Yes, but’ to ‘explain’ Obama’s
actions.

But, there is no apology or explanation for that is satisfactory.

There is no credibility left for Obama.

With 95 democrats voting for the bill in the house the tea party types became useless.  They could neither stop the bill nor help pass it.  John Boehner was so worried about the vote he voted for it himself (something a speaker generally does not do) never thinking there would be more than enough democrats to pass the bill.  So much for simple math

Losing or Throwing the Fight?

I used to believe, for the purposes of harmony and peace, that I wouldn’t respond until after the other person throws the first punch.

I quickly learned that after the other person throws the first punch, it is all over. You are on your ass. You lost. That strategy never works.

But there is something else going on here. It is called throwing the fight. It would seem, initially, to the casual observer that there are two sides that are fighting against each other, but alas, it is not so. Obama didn’t ‘lose.’ He just did as he was told, rolled over and went down for the count.

Then you have people who try to say that Obama ‘lost’ the fight, a misrepresentation (polite way of saying ‘lie’) because that narrative sounds works on a few people (the marks).

Obama again betrayed his base. How many more times can someone betray you before you start suspecting that they are not on your side. Yes, they will insist that they are doing it all for you, just like any scam artist does.

When you are on a path, don’t be surprised when you end up at its destination. This is the typical result of voting for the lesser of two evils.

so it goes

I don’t care much for Obama after all this, but I’ll vote for him again if it keeps some slimy RepubliNazi creep out of the office for another four years. Lesser of two evils, and all that.

Hey you Gene! What the hell are you talking about? It was not a rout it was self inflicted. He has no excuse.

There is no way to right this ship without PAIN, and lots of it. GDP is going to have to take a major hit no matter what. It doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. If the buffoons in DC would have done what needed to be done, like let the bad debts be cleared instead of bailed out, convict the criminals on Wall St. to restore confidence in the markets, then we would already be on our way to a real organic recovery, not an overhyped smoke and mirrors stock market pumping. The people of Iceland know the deal.

SPECTATOR SPORT

ITW: What did Obama and Reid win? NOTHING!  What did they lose? Everything.

So, what would you have done had you been in the Oval Office catbird-seat? Come on - out with it. How would you have managed the negotiations with the Congressional kick-ass ideologues?

You would have stonewalled until Moody’s downgrades Uncle Sam’s paper and the Treasury starts paying a hundred points more to borrow? Thus digging the hole even further in negative territory?

So think of the Real Consequences that were in the offing without a compromise. Then tell us what you would have done.

Because, for the moment, you are just indulging yourself in a political Spectator Sport called bitching-in-a-blog.

@Birch: “On top of that, if the Republicans put up
someone who is even mildly sane, Obama will lose.”

Try Ron Paul vs. Obama.

Another boring dose of placebos and bromides, Mr Eugene Robinson goes to that empty well, yet again.  Enough! this is the kind of cheap analysis that muddles and masks the incredible deception occurring right before our eyes.  What a charade,
what a farce…..Mr Robinson, time for a reality check- this may not affect you the same way as it does so many Americans who are really under, yeah, try telling them this is merely a retreat when there’s really nobody standing up for what’s right and all we have are these spineless politicos with Mr Obama right in front of it all.

Dependence breeds exploitation, plain and simple.

We are, at best, ignored and, at worst, abused by the corporate-state because we are dependent on it.

The concentration of power is the problem.

Voting to change the names in the hierarchy won’t change it.

We need to develop our own social structure of interdependence with like-minded and like-hearted people. A voluntary structure in which we can build relationships of trust and mutual benefit. A structure from which we can isolate the sociopaths who, although they comprise but a small fraction of the population, siphon away the lion’s share of our time, resources and joy of life.

Humans invented society to take care of mutual needs that we can’t, or don’t wish to, handle individually. We have the right and the responsibility to make society anything we want it to be. If we shirk that responsibility, we deserve what we get.

Never before in history have we had the tools to do it on a society-wide scale…we do now.

All we need to do is find each other and have the guts to leave the greedy, the power-hungry and the heartless behind.

The Interdependence Movement

http://www.uplanu.net/index.php/2-uncategorised/7-pitchforks-for-peasants

@Birch: “On top of that, if the Republicans put up
someone who is even mildly sane, Obama will lose.”

Okay, let me throw out a bad scenario.  Obama vs. Rick Perry in the final race.

Makes my stomach hurt.

As a Canadian who has owned a vacation house in Fla. for many years, I feel I have a small stake in the game.

I find the anger expressed above sad and very worrisome. Where is this going? Is this the end of the American Empire, the American dream, a decline about which history books will be written?

The American spirit of personal freedom, independence and resposibilty, combined with an incredibly blessed country has served you well. It produced enormous wealth and the biggest middle class in the history of the world. For most there was enough to go around. In some ways the “trickle down theory’, a central part of Republican politics, seemed to work. Well not anymore, the world has changed. The growing gap between rich and poor has to be reversed. From my personal observation there is still a lot of $ in America, it’s just in too few hands.

Correction. The sentence below omitted a key word: Republican. 

The 2010 election featured an incredible charade that allowed Republican ringleaders to create a fictitious party-non-party they referred to as the “tea party.” 

The supine, lazy—shall we say well lubed and prostrate?—mainstream media perpetuated this charade. Let’s not let this disinformation campaign happen again in 2012. Below is the corrected text with the correction in bold.

“Indeed, the Republican tea party zealots who cowed the party into rejecting all proposals for new revenue will only feel emboldened, not just in their anti-tax fantasy but in their technique of threatening to wreck the economy if they don’t get their way.”

Not a rout, a retreat…! And we should take comfort in this, as if it were a wise (or at least, not-so-bad) strategic move?!

Problem is, based on current and past performance, what we may expect at the end of this ‘retreat’...now that Our President has shot-off one of his feet and his left testicle…is that the Teabaggers will hand him a loaded, defective shotgun, and repeat ‘Our way or the highway’.

And in the spirit of ‘compromise’, Wimpama will pull the trigger, blowing away both legs, his genitals, and what’s left of his mind.

Will that count as a ‘Rout’?

RE: “... Pseudo Left:  Hardball, Ed Show,  shills like Michael Moore, Eugene
Robinson, etc.”

That’s right - useful fools who entertain the easily duped so-call ‘left-lib-
progressives’ with rants on Beck, Hanity, Larson, Limbaugh et al - their mirror
images on the so-called ‘right’, likewise tasked to dupe their followers

As for the “...12-member bipartisan “super committee” of Congress…”  little or no
mention in the MSM (Truthdig included) about its constitutionality - seems to
assume that the Constitution is by now merely quaint and virtually meaningless;
ironic its being set up under a Harvard-graduate-in-Constitutional-Law POTUS…
who scripted this?

“I find this a poor excuse to vote lesser of two evils. “

Me, too.  Truly the lesser of 2 evils, and not by much.

I’d much rather see Obama replaced in the Democratic Primaries by a fellow Democrat than in the General Election by a Republican who will THEN appoint another Scalia or Roberts.

screamingpalm:
“What is more worrisome to me, is the ever-increasing powers of the Executive Branch…”

I just wanted to add that Elena Kagan, one of Obama’s SC appointments, very much believes in the expansion of powers for the Executive Branch.
Obama will never, ever appoint any individual who cares about people.

By Inherit The Wind, August 2 at 10:06 am
The only difference now between Obama and the GOP is his court appointments.  That’s the last and only reason to vote for him.  But I’d rather see a primary challenger and replace him.

I find this a poor excuse to vote lesser of two evils. Just as Obama is wedded to Wall Street, so too will be any of his appointments.

What is more worrisome to me, is the ever-increasing powers of the Executive Branch of which has the support of both parties of this duopoly.

And the corporations that taxpayers bailed out continue to layoff workers and
post huge profits.  Guess those tax cuts haven’t had time to work their special
magic.

PEW Poll cites 84% disapproval of the way Congress does its job.  Gee, that’s the
same number of people who also wanted to end tax cuts for the wealthy.
Wonder if there is any correlation?

The shocking thing—that American voters did weigh in, but their voices were
ignored.  This compromise is political only.

Now the less austere Congress goes on vacation for a month…yet again!  I
guess jobs aren’t an emergency.

The only difference now between Obama and the GOP is his court appointments.  That’s the last and only reason to vote for him.  But I’d rather see a primary challenger and replace him.

I agree with those who say Democrats should have a primary
opponent to Obama. The inevitable argument will arise that
whoever the Republicans put up, Obama will be the lesser of
the two evils. We have to jettison once and for all this
nonsense, because Obama is just a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
He signed up to lead our team,but is actually throwing the
game to the other side. Had there been a Republican as
President, this deal would have been impossible because there
would have been unified Democratic opposition. Obama sold
out his own side making it impossible for many Democrats to
vote against him. And the other argument for some Democrats
is that we cannot oppose the first black President. Yes We
Can!! I didn’t vote for Obama because he is black, I voted for
him because I thought he would best represent my policy
preferences. He’s gone contrary to everything I believe in and I
will never vote for him again under any circumstances, black,
white or green. On top of that, if the Republicans put up
someone who is even mildly sane, Obama will lose. So for the
sake of progressive ideas, the Democrats should dump
him while they still have a chance. Mealy mouthed
rationalizations like those provided by Mr. Robinson and the
people at Daily Kos just won’t do.

Losing because you refuse to fight, and because you refuse to use the powerful weapons at your disposal isn’t a retreat: It’s an admission of fear, cowardice, and unwillingness to fight.

What did Obama and Reid win? NOTHING!  What did they lose? Everything.  Buckle up your tin panties ladies and gentlemen, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

You don’t cut deficits in a recession.  Every time it’s been done, the economy takes a worse nose-dive. Now we have about 9.5% unemployment.  By next year I predict it will be close to 11%... Obama’s weakness and refusal to fight guarantees almost certain defeat in 2012.  The Senate’s refusal to fight, and to punish the GOP means in January of 2013 Mitch McConnell will be Senate Majority Leader.  And either Boehner or Cantor will be Speaker.  Ruth Bader Ginzburg will have to retire and a 6th TeaParty shithead will be appointed to the Court with an expected tenure of 30 years.  Expect every progressive piece of legislation since Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal to be rescinded or declared Unconstitutional…We’ll be back to Plessy v Ferguson as the Law of the Land.

This is not a retreat, Eugene.  It is a mark of final defeat that didn’t have to be.

I would like to see Bernie Sanders or Howard Dean drafted to run in the Democratic primaries to replace this well-meaning but totally incompetent, inept and spineless President.

There is no battle where Mr. Obama will hold his ground for the people who elected him.  Therefore there is no reason to keep him as the party’s nominee.  Time after time after time, the answers of what to do have been obvious, and he hasn’t done it.

I had such high hopes, but now? I cannot even see him being able to win re-election or to hold the Senate.

For me, the surest sign that “something is rotten in Washington” is that ordinary people, who have the enormous power of numbers on their side, are never consulted—or even adequately informed, even though their interests are totally at stake, and in many cases their very lives are at risk.
  Why don’t we ordinary people bring this point up? Because we have been ignored long enough so that we don’t even remember what it was like to participate in our government. We take for granted that it’s up to the officials.(Fat and lazy is easy and stupid.)
  What if every Senator and Representative had taken the debt issue (or the health care issue, for that matter) home with them to inform and engage the majority of their constituents, not just a focus grouop or two?  What if they then polled their constituents and took the results back to DC?  What if those locals took it upon themselves to represent their points of view in local radio broadcasts and newspapers, and at city and county government meetings?  It’s not as if we don’t know how to put a publicity campaign together! And if most of the people know the facts, most of the people make the best decisions. What allows the influence of groups like the Tea Party is the lack of influence of groups of people in opposition to them.
  Why don’t government officials use democratic methods that involve educating the majority?  Because democracy undercuts centralized power, and officials like to keep power in their own hands.  If they didn’t, they wouldn’t tolerate crazy
fracuses like this, and crazy uncontrolled spending on wars and Wall Street bail-outs. 
  When officials deliberately undercut democratic methods, it proves several things:  1. Our elected officials don’t want their constituents to enter the fray. 2. The parties don’t want the majority of their members to enter the fray.  3. Most of them, including the President, are listening to other voices, obviously, and democracy is a dead duck.
  The next time Congress people go back home, make an appointment, visit their offices face to face, raise these points and see what they say.

Apparently Obama is yet another of Harvard’s BEST AND BRIGHTEST, whose decency is defined by the observation that he always remains cool, civil, articulate, and bipartisan. He strikes me in actuality, however, as a kind of empty shell either incapable or unwilling to confront cynical ideologues who adhere to the gospel of Grover Norquist in a very real determination to do what has always been desired for 75 years; namely, destroy the New Deal down to its final traces and above all pulverize the concept itself of progressive taxation while maintaining America’s most stable growth industry and wealth producer for a limited number of plutocrats: the Pentagon.

“Obama acquiesced” “Obama tried, and failed, to shake Republicans” 

When, when, when are national writers going to stop this nonsense about Obama “caving” and “folding” and acquiescing?” Obama did what he wanted to
do, what his corporate masters told him to do, and Obama’s not looking back. For selling out the people, the country, and the Democratic Party, Obama’s corporate masters have guaranteed he will be independently wealthy for as long as he lives.
Make no mistake: Obama did not “acquiesce,” he pushed for this outcome.

“But it’s not the end of the world.”

Not to millionaires like you Robinson. As long as you’re a court stenographer, you’ll be okay. The rest of us? It sure feels like the end of something: the end of representative democracy.

“...the agreement ensures that Obama will not face another fight over the debt ceiling before next year’s election. For this, we can all be grateful.”

Grateful? Grateful? HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! I hope Obama comes in last in 2012, even if it means we have a Republican to contend with. Maybe, with a Republican, it’ll start looking more like Tahrir Square and Wisconsin in this country and less like Zombieville. Obama’s “death-by-a-thousand-cuts” plan is to exsanguinate us, drain us of everything we have and need. Turn this once-great country into a place where we climb over one another for a scrap of food. Grateful?! Pi** on Obama and piss on you, too, Robinson. I can’t stand the psychopath who’s leading this country or court jesters like you who help him remain in place. Sell-out wh*res is what you all are.

They haven’t gone after Social Security or Medicare yet but they’ve set themselves
up to do just that in round two . That’s what that special committee is all about , it
will be able to ram things through unabated . I can’t wait to see its makeup , would
anyone like to wager it will be loaded with conservatives with perhaps a token
moderate passing as a liberal ?

@ Lafayette 5:43

Do you really think the gopers give a shit about the debt? This wasn’t about any of that.
They have proved they can hold a gun to the whole world’s head and, far from getting arrested, have the opposition fall all over themselves trying to make them happy.
They have changed the legislative game. They are already looking forward to the next budget fight to do it again. What they won doesn’t matter at all. THAT they won, this time, when they should have been declared in insurrection, is everything.

“This isn’t a rout, however. It’s a retreat, in relatively good order, that leaves Democrats provisioned for the battles to come.”

Eugene, how can you say that?
Somebody busts into your house, holds a gun to your head, demands a hundred thousand dollars. After weeks as a hostage you settle for your life and fifty thousand dollars, free passage for the housebreakers with a commendation from the mayor, and assurance that they will be welcome back regularly to do it again. And an autographed picture for each of their kids.

Any gain for the gopers is a tragedy to the country, not only for the precedent it sets for how the legislative process works in the future, but how the world, including all those non-republican terrorists out beyond our borders, views it.
The reason you don’t bargain with terrorists is to prevent more terrorism.
We just not only gave the terrorists everything they wanted, but called it politics.

1 - 2 - 3

This isn’t a rout, however. It’s a retreat, in relatively good order, that leaves Democrats provisioned for the battles to come.

A rout implies a victory.

How are the Replicants victorious, pray tell? They have gained what ... other than confirm their reputation for bullheaded imbecility?

The National Debt Problem has not been solved. And it cannot be solved except by means of much more aggressive taxation above a threshold of $250K as well as closing Deduction Loopholes.

With those additional revenues the Treasury can (1) bring the debt down to more manageable proportions and (2) lower taxes on the household incomes less than $50K. Which (3) will expand Discretionary Income and boost Spending - because those are precisely the Consumers who will spend rather than save it.

Ralph Nader quote “the greatest power the major parties have over voters is their   belief that they have to vote for a democrat or republican”

STOP being   entertained by the   Pseudo Left:  Hardball, Ed Show,  shills like Michael Moore, Eugene Robinson, etc.,  and after a while you will see things from a   different perspective.

And get on your hand and   knees like Michael Moore did in 2008, but unlike   Michael, BEG Ralph   Nader   to   run for   President   in 2012.

“This isn’t a rout, however. It’s a retreat, in relatively good order, that leaves Democrats provisioned for the battles to come.” You have got to be kidding! It is a rout, and was so almost from the first when an army of malevolent morons funded by shadowy plutocrats and self-serving fellow travelers overran with relative ease our pusillanimous and foolish defenders of democracy and the people’s rights. It is a rout, euphemistically termed a “compromise”, and a rout that guarantees future routs until there is nothing left to flee from, and democracy has devolved into a few symbolic vestiges and the only solution possible other than a hopeless continuation of a two-class society is, quite simply, physical revolt.

QUITE FITTING JUSTICE

Robe115 (From Counterpunch): Naturally, the GOP refused any agreement that would involve new taxes.

Well, of course they did. But that does not cement austerity into budget planning for the next ten years. Why?

Because next year is an Election Year and if the PotUS wisely makes Increased Taxation of the Plutocrat Class an agenda issue, then Americans can vote upon it.

By that I mean, the congressional people running in that election, meaning not at all the TeaBaggers, will be up against a National Criteria the focus of which is Income Disparity (read unfairness). Which, in America, is the worst of any developed country. If we elect a Congress with a will to employ enhanced marginal income taxes above a threshold of $250K per annum of income, then it is NOT Mission Impossible.

If we can get this to be The Central Issue, then we shall have the Rabid Right over a barrel and whip their Sorry Asses. The American Public sees nothing at all wrong with taxing the rich - see here.  And I suspect that the Replicants, in their heart-of-hearts, know full well that the precipitous Income Tax Reductions brought about by Reckless Ronnie in the 1980s are at the center of this country’s ruination.

Far too much money has gone to a Super-Rich class of Plutocrats and not nearly enough on Social Justice – meaning social programs, for instance, like Universal Health Care offered by the federal government’s National Health System. (Which would bring about immediate cost reductions from the $7300 per capita - the developed world’s highest - that it is presently.)

MY POINT

The chickens are coming home to roost. It’s like a Shakespearian Tragedy, so many Golden Years brought to a calamitous end by voracious greed.

Quite fitting justice, in fact …

This is Gettsyburg and Obama is not on the winning side.
With this neat little commission of 12 no need for ammendments to the Constitution, just go around it like the Nazis did with the Maginot Line.
Turning Dervishes could not spin this into anything other than another step toward the collapse of the dollar.
Won’t it be great for Obama to get elected for a second term? - to do what?
Who will he send to a new Bretton Woods to negociate the replacement of the dollar? - little Tim?

TAMING THE TIGER

{From McClatchy: To be sure, the numbers could change. Under the current debt deal the (DoD) department would have to reduce its budget by $600 billion over the next decade if Congress can’t agree on the deficit-reduction proposals of a new 12-member, bipartisan legislative committee that’ll be tasked with recommending further spending cuts.}

It never ceases to amaze me why Washington takes annual numbers, multiplies by 10 (which is a decade), and then announces them to the public. Why? They trying to capture eye-attention.

The Pentagon’s budget is an ANNUAL $685 billion this year. The above 10-year budget reduction of $600B amounts to $6b a year … about 0.9% per year (if the budget is held constant). Which is a pittance, particularly in terms of the subcontracted Corporate Welfare part of that budget.

Here is its breakdown:
Components - (Funding) - Change, 2009 to 2010
*Operations and maintenance ($283.3 billion ) +4.2%
*Military Personnel ($154.2 billion) +5.0%
*Procurement ($140.1 billion) ?1.8%
*Research, Development, Testing & Evaluation ($79.1 billion) +1.3%
*Military Construction ($23.9 billion) +19.0% *
*Family Housing ($3.1 billion) ?20.2%
**Total Spending ($685.1 billion) +3.0%

How much of the above is spent in the private sector? I’d guess about a third of it, that is, $230B. So, six billion dollars is nothing about which to sweat. If you are a government contractor, would you worry about a 2.6% reduction of expenditure if it had to come from subcontractors?

WELL, WHADDAYA KNOW ...

But, let’s have faith. Leon Panetta (new DoD honcho) was Billy-boy’s Budget Director who paved the way to the Balanced Budget of 1998. I’ll bet he knows how to Tame the Tiger.

Let’s hope so ...

What’s sad is that limousine liberal clowns like Eugene want to sell this idea that Obama was “bullied.” Counterpunch has published a pretty accurate piece on reality:

http://www.counterpunch.com/whitney08012011.html

Excerpt:

Not surprisingly, liberal pundits everywhere are moaning that Obama was “mugged” or worse, that he was “blackmailed”.

What nonsense. This is the plan that Obama wanted from the very beginning, liberals were just unwilling to listen until now. They were too caught up with his lofty oratory and his personal history as if that was surefire proof of a kind heart and a progressive outlook.

Well, guess what? It’s not. The man is not who he pretends to be. Here’s a clip from a speech Obama gave in November 2008, before he even took office, and long before the budget deficits had become a problem:

“Our economy is trapped in a vicious cycle: the turmoil on Wall Street means a new round of belt-tightening for families and businesses on Main Street ....we’ll have to scour our federal budget, line-by-line, and make meaningful cuts and sacrifices as well.”

Huh? You mean Obama was prattling the right-wing mantra before he ever set foot in the Oval Office?

Uh huh; which explains why he picked the two losers most responsible for the Crash of ‘08 to lead his economics team; Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner. Obama devotees shrugged off the appointments as a rookie error unwilling to breach any criticism of the Dear Leader. Even now, they cry “Foul”, claiming Obama was either hoodwinked or—get this—a “poor negotiator”.

RE: ” What would have happened if Obama refused to budge? ”

A: His Wall Street backers would have said to the Republican, “Get with the
program, we’re loosing money.” And they’d have made them a deal they
couldn’t refuse. i.e. “Make the deal if you want your next campaign financed.”

So the way it’s going tells plainly that his mission all along (among other
things, expanding the wars) included the task of gutting the ‘social safety net’.

And, it was well understood by the planners, both those mission objectives
could only get done under ‘left cover’ - after voices on the so-called ‘left’ were
placated, tamed (neutered!) with the Obomber Hope and Change ‘snake oil’.

some know well in advance, e.g.
The men behind Barack Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouUJNG8f2k

Agree with most of the previous comments, but would add that this is not only a rout, but a watershed event. 

First, the President has made abundantly clear that he can be extorted and bullied on virtually any point of consequence.  No one going forward will believe he has the will or capacity to fight—- period.  The danger is twofold: (1) the extreme right has been emboldened on a Weimar Republic scale; and (2)if that weren’t sufficent, they may be emboldened to the point of serious miscalculation (triggering a real crisis) in the (very unlikely) event Obama is disposed to fight at some point—- which, of course, will provide Obama with additional justification for avoiding a fight, no matter how critical.  In short, this event makes Obama the weakest President in the last 80 years, at a time when the country needs a strong leadership response to an extreme rightist movement that is rapidly gaining ground.

Second, this event has substantially advanced the is disintegration and disarray in the Democratic party.  I don’t know what Mr. Robinson was watching, but the floor “debate” I saw in the House showed a party that was disorganized and whipped.  The Dem vote on the “debt deal” (endorsed by the party’s leader) was precisely 50/50.  Apart from enabling Obama’s capitulation, the “aye” votes from the Dems gave political cover to appx. 50 Republicans, who were able to vote “no” in the interest of ideological purity while their floor leaders could hardly contain their glee. This is a crushing defeat for the Dems not only on substantive grounds, but becaus it has left the party deeply and possibly irreparably fractured.

Bill Clinton set the wheels in motion by making the deal with the Devil (Wall Street, big business). Obama is the Devil come home to roost.  Neither his “Presidency” nor his party is likely to survive in any recognizable form.

The trouble I have with all these apologies about Obama (e.g. retreat, not a
route; he had no choice; this is the way the voters are going) etc. is that none of
them are true.

1. “Obama retreated, it’s not a route.” Obama extended the Bush-era tax cuts
with McConnnell. A few months later, Obama again extended the Bush-era tax
cuts with Boehner. Today, Obama will extend the Bush-era tax cuts with
Norquist and the Tea Party. Not a ‘route’? Where else can Obama go? Whether
nibbled to death by ducklings or just being swallow whole by a shark, Obama
has turned the middle class over to the butchers.

2. “Obama had no choice.”

Let’s be honest; Obama has been instrumental in framing the ‘debate’, so the
middle class loses no matter which ‘solution’ passes.

Obama’s has spent three years putting the middle class last and his ‘plan’
continues the same, and now there is very very little difference between the fate
of the middle class under either ‘plan’.

Obama had a choice whether to sit back and let the Republicans and Max
Baucus drive the health care legislation and shape it into an insurance industry
taxpayer subsidy. Obama had a choice whether to set aside immigration
reform. Obama had a choice whether to pursue Bush-era lies and torture and
infringements of privacy rights. Obama had a choice of laying back or making
financial reform meaningful. Obama had a choice of accelerating the bailout for
for corporations (like GE that paid no taxes, took bailout funds and now invests
heavily overseas). Obama had choices about protecting bankers and financiers
‘bonuses’ - paid with taxpayer money. Obama had choice about twice
extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.

3. The voters are going ‘this way’. No, here are four major issues. In each, the
voters wanted exactly the opposite of what Obama did:

a. The Debt and Fair Taxes: Washington Post-ABC poll Washington Post-ABC
poll, Spring 2011: 72 percent supported raising taxes on the rich including 68
percent of Independents and 54 percent of Republicans. Obama twice
‘bargained’ to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
b. TARP & Financial Bailout: Over 70% of us opposed the bailout. Obama
accelerated it with Geithner and Bernanke - both Bush carryovers embraced by
Obama.  Geithner is soon to receive his ‘bailout’ from the financial sector (as he
soon ‘retires’ from the Obama administration).
c. Health Care: 72% of us supported “a government­administered insurance plan
- something like Medicare for those under 65—that would compete for
customers with private insurers.” Supporting Max Baucus, Obama blocked
hearings on single payer and chocked off true health care reform. Instead he
supported a private-sector, for-profit health insurance ‘reform’ that provided
insurance companies fabulous guaranteed profits.
c. Afghanistan: 64% of us opposed expanding the war in Afghanistan and
wanted to disentangle from Bush-era ‘War on Terror’ and ‘preventive war’
policies. Today, still over 60% of Americans oppose the war. Obama continues
it.

Stop apologizing for Obama; Obama is a Republican.

You dont have to apologize for Obama being a Republican, Eugene.

It is we, the Democrats, who have to apologize for voting for him, and we have
to oppose his re-election in 2012. If the Party ‘powers’ must stick with Obama,
then we, the middling piddling middle class, must go with a third party. Better
to ‘waste’ our votes on a third party, than to waste our votes on Obama.

I remember when Obama extended the Bush tax cuts and assured angry Dems
and supporters that he did know how to fight and would do so when the
moment presented itself, “but you gotta pick your fights.”

President Obama, when will that moment come? 

This never should have happened.  Using your political instruments in the
Congress, this entire debacle should have been averted months ago.  The
president is not king, but, still, he has a lot of power.  Why not use it
sometimes?

I don’t even want to hear the Dems spinning this.  What they always say, “we
don’t have the votes, we don’t have the votes.”  Even when Dems have had the
votes, they have not used them, wasted opportunities.  I’ve been hearing this
whine about votes all through the Bush presidency.

Trusting Republicans to act rationally after a manufactured crisis based on their acting irrationally is the height of rationality. Right?

The only good thing to come out of this debacle so far is that the debt ceiling was raised (or will be soon). However, based on the final vote in the House, I still think Republicans were bluffing and enough Republicans would have eventually voted yes on a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling if President Obama had stood his ground.

All Democrats have done with triggers is provide Republicans with another hostage. Please, shift the focus away from the deficit and back to jobs and the economy which will also, you know, help with the deficit. Ask Republicans where are all those tax cut jobs you promised until their hypocrisy is plain for all to see. Start fighting or watch your progressive base stay at home out of ennui and despair;  I’m really tired of advancing to the rear.

Nice try of putting lipstick on a pig. Let face it:
Obama wanted this deal. He is a flim flam man. A
cynical technocrat wholly owned by moneyed interests,
unbound by any moral guidance or scruples. Although I
made the mistake of voting for this crook all this is
not a problem for me personally.  However, for the
majority of Americans this guy is a disaster. Change
you can believe in, indeed.

Disgustedly yours,
ex-Obama voter
(of which I suspect there are many more out there by
now)

“Even more significant is that $350 billion of the 10-year cuts—about 40 percent—are in defense spending. Bringing the gargantuan Pentagon budget under control would be a major step toward putting the nation on sounder financial footing. This is the one big conceptual breakthrough that the deal represents: Republicans abandoned the position that defense spending must not be considered ‘discretionary.’ Just like the money we spend on education or infrastructure, it reflects choices.”

Unfortunately, based on a 2010 military budget of $680 billion, this cut (when spread over 10 years) represents only 5%.  Not exactly something to whoop about…