DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI
Thanks for another useless rant against Clinton for his NAFTA, Welfare Reform, and Glass-Steagall misjudgements.  But, didn’t you also tell us that these, and other pro-big business actions, were inevitable, because the corporations own this country?  Aren’t you making such a fuss against Clinton because “he did” such horrendous things, when in fact you yourself, say he couldn’t have done otherwise, because the rich will have their way?  I suspect, you have some personal reasons for hating the man, and I’ll bet you hate Hillary just as intensely, and for the same sort of groundless “reasons,” you provide with Bill Clinton.  Go on and keep bleating your bullshit about Clinton.  Keep telling us that he’s Satan, just as his jealous republican haters tell us.  But please try not to make complete nonsense of what you say, when you also tell us that the rich own this country, and will always have their way, then pretend to excoriate Clinton for doing as the rich tell him to do.  Obama is just another Clinton, if you just keep focussed on their capitulation to the rich.  But, it’s the beneficial things Clinton was able to do, not just that same few mis-actions he fell into, that characterize his presidency for those of us that support him.  Only those that despise him for their own reasons, usually for Monica, that continue to throw rocks at him.  You keep repeating Nafta, Nafta, Nafta, as if this constant drumbeat, will make Clinton supporters reconsider their support.  Dream on.

Interesting, how Clinton is as much an issue in these discussions, as Obama.  What I see revealed here, is simply that a substantial number of right-wingers darken these chatlists, waiting to pounce on anyone that speaks well of Clinton, armed with NAFTA, etc.  These anti-Clinton people are intellectually challenged, a condition not easily or likely to be corrected any time soon.  Clinton’s remarkable and unprecedented achievements speak for themselves, and there are many more not listed among those brought forward by a couple of his supporters on this list.  No wonder the Clknton-phobes constantly leap up like hungry insects, quick to bite at the flesh of anyone with the guts to speak honestly about this touchy subject.

Virginia777, January 21 at 2:17 pm #

and ardee, how “reflective” of you “I think Obama’s lower even than Reagan”

yes and its liberals like yourself who are perpetrating this. Good work, ardee

Not!!
.........................
my original post, from which a typical virginia bullshit post stems:

ardee, January 21 at 8:02 am #

If memory serves:

Only one US President had lower approval ratings after his first year in office….Ronald Wilson Reagan.

On reflection, I think Obama’s lower even than Reagan…...

A pity Virginia that you havent a clue as to exactly how reviled and laughed at you are…..

Many commentators on “our future with Obama” bewail the fact that the Democratic Party now has only 59 Senatorial votes, several of which are iffy anyway. That overlooks another fact namely that President Obama, especially as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, can take measures, sometimes called Presidential Decrees, for which he does not need the consent of congress. Example: stop the dismissal of gay soldiers. Example: accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Example: reverse the ‘surge’ in Afghanistan. Example: stop the drone-war. If he does not take any of these measures in the next few weeks we will have learned that his ‘change of course’ is another one of his loudmouthed shams.

Great, I am proud not to be on your lists, and relieved that I
don’t have keep wringing my hands wondering if I am worthy of
your approval, if that were really true.

Samosamo:

I’m CRUSHED that you have such a low opinion of me! I’m going to go upstairs and cry myself to sleep in my blankee.

And if you buy that I’ve got a monument to sell you.

There are people here whose opinion of me I actually value, people whom I frequently disagree with and argue with, even rather hotly.

Rest assured you are not among them.  I simply classify you as one of “The Contingent” and expect a regular and continual stream of rather un-original insults, whose mediocrity is made up for by their volume and vehemence.

By Inherit The Wind, January 24 at 1:10 am

More often than I can think, you really try to come off as the
ultimate jerk more times than I think you are on the same page
as others on this site.

You have decent ideas and views of the whole situation and IF I
was ignorant of the situation, I was reminded how simple it was
to get that information and here you are about 3 days too late
heckling me as if I was obama himself.

Go back to your bottle so you can dream up more ways to
castigate someone that IS really against your pompous ideology;
you really are the king of your own small world.

samosamo, January 23 at 10:22 am #

Supreme Court judges can be impeached?
*************************************************

ROFLMAO—when I’m not crying for our lost nation.

Yes, ANY Federal judge can be impeached, several have, include one who promptly got elected to the House.  Alcee Hastings has been in the House since 1993, DESPITE being impeached and removed from the Federal bench for bribery. 

Unfortunately, the conviction penalty imposed by the Senate was solely removal, not disbarment from further service.  Walter Nixon was removed a month after Alcee Hastings. 

Only one Associate Justice of the USSC has ever been impeached, Samuel Chase, but was acquitted.

Usually, convictions in judicial impeachments are surprisingly bi-partisan because the putz was caught red-handed.

The problem with impeaching justices is the same as that of impeaching Presidents—it’s inherently political.  Plus, as far as I know, only Scalia and Thomas have a HINT of anything they could be impeached for—Scalia for conflicts-of-interest where he SHOULD have recused himself and Thomas for his wife’s direct political participation.

But the idea of impeaching a USSC justice, especially with THIS spineless House and Senate is simply ludicrous.

Inherit the Wind writes:
“It was CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS who f***ed up the oath, Skeezix, not Obama.”

—> Whoever flubbed first, it was a bad omen ... and if Obama’d simply responded with the correct beginning words ...

Consider a story from yesterday’s news: when Obama called Scott Brown on his PRIVATE phone, to congratulate him, Brown had them call him back on the proper phone, the only one to which they should have had access—and later made a funny remark about the “Patriot Act”. There’s a man who can think on his feet.

Samson writes:
“@CT ... you are slightly incorrect.  You say that Monsanto and Exxon and other corporations have the ‘same right to be heard’ in our elections as we have.”

Nonono: ‘twas Inherit the Wind, in the course of calling me a Neocon :^) who said that.

Dump Obama / Draft Dr. Dean

By Samson, January 23 at 1:42 pm

You want o’s obituary?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/22-7

It is very direct and you may have seen it already.

Now why did I not think of wikipedia, must have had a senior
moment.

Never vote for any candidate backed by money.

They are easy to spot, because they are the ones that have the money to pay for all those TV ads.  When you see all of those TV ads for a candidate, you know that candidate has big money behind them.  Which means they are ‘bought’ and that they’ll serve big money once in Washington.

Never vote for any candidate backed by big money.  Never vote for any candidate you see on TV.

The candidate that will represent YOUR interests is the one who’s so broke he has to ask his supporters for a ride in from the airport.

Learn to vote smart.  Never vote for ANY candidate you see on TV.

Federal judges can be impeached.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States

When you look at the list of historical impeachments in the US, most have been of judges.

US Constitution .. Article 2, Section 4

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

An Obama obituary ... please!

The left needs to rise up in an electoral revolt.  Its not a question of just staying home next election. If the left does that, then Obama and the Democrats lose, but the right and the teabaggers will be given credit for the ‘change’.

What the left needs to do is to run independent campaigns in the general election in every CLOSE race.  These need to be direct progressive campaigns campaigning on single-payer National Health Insurance, as well as a pro-peace, bring-our-troops-home platform.

This way, when the Democrats lose, like they are going to anyways having betrayed their promises of ‘hope’ and ‘change’, the left can accurately claim that it was a revolt by the left, not from the right, that sank the Obama-era Democrats.

The Democrats win elections by lying to the left, and by conning the left into voting for their pro-war, pro-corporate candidates.  We need to end that, and reclaim our votes for candidates who believe in what we believe in.

And we need to do so obviously and publicly such that its clear to everyone that the story of the 2010 elections is that it was the year of the “pissed off progressive” voters.

The way to do that is to run progressive independent campaigns that challenge the Democrats in every CLOSE race.

@CT ... you are slightly incorrect.  You say that Monsanto and Exxon and other corporations have the ‘same right to be heard’ in our elections as we have.

Actually, they have a greater right.  The overall rules for American elections tilt strongly towards favoring money over voters.  Someone or some entity that can pump millions into an election has a much greater impact on that election than one voter.

The rule change I’d like to see is this.  Only people who are qualified to vote in an election can give money to the candidates in the election.  IE, all donations have to come from registered voters who live in the district or in the state.

Shouldn’t it be the people of the district or the state that decide who represents them?

By Inherit The Wind, January 23 at 1:43 am

I think you mean more ‘right’ don’t you, because the ‘right’ is
now gauged in dollars.

Supreme Court judges can be impeached?

@CT, January 22 at 10:22 pm #

He couldn’t even get that right. It was an omen.
********************************

Another neo-con re-writes history.  It was CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS who f***ed up the oath, Skeezix, not Obama.  The same Roberts who just voted that Monsanto and Aramco and China-Inc have the same right to be heard in OUR elections that you and I have.

“Having taken the oath of office just one year ago ... “

He couldn’t even get that right. It was an omen.

The real deal: everybody’s Over Obama—free at last!

When The One goes down on Bernanke next week, it’ll be nearly as delicious as His Massachusetts comeuppance.

“Having taken the oath of office just one year ago ... “

He couldn’t even get that right. It was an omen.

The real deal: everybody’s Over Obama—free at last!

When The One goes down on Bernanke next week, it’ll be nearly as delicious as Massachusetts.

By Marlene W. Ross, January 22 at 12:03 pm

I can see some hope in your comment and I really agree about
people thinking this thing can all be swept away and fixed
from their delusional msm tainted minds, but you just pick on
a part of the problem because now that the scotus has
chipped in with another aristocratic favor or two, it means this
is a country of aristocracy representation meaning the
corporations dictate how this country is run, with o as a by
stander, and that if he did really fix something, say, such as
firing sod gates and the generals in iraq and afghanistan then
reappoint a new sod replace those defunct generals with ones
with orders to cease combat, pack up and come home, he
could; but he would also be signing is death warrant because
that would not be favorable to the aristocracy and just as jfk
‘bucked’ the cia or talked about shutting it down, o would end
up dead.

And for a real time example, the stock market, NEVER A TRUE
INDICATOR OF HOW GOOD OR WELL OUR ECONOMY IS
DOING, has dropped by at least 500 points in just 3 days just because there is talk of REGULATING the big banks, now where is the correlation in that other than it is someone’s way of trying to show what will happen if regulation happens and if does, again, o falls out of favor of the ones who gave him the
presidency and bang, his is dead.

While we all slept and partied late, those neocon think tanks were hard at work and they are really close to realizing their goal of ownership of america.

I would think o’s record would give him just this one term as
president, and I would think that even what I see as small
potatoes for accomplishing anything, much less anything his
campaign promises he marketed were about, because if he had
full filled his campaign promises, I think it highly probable he
would be dead by now because he was not given the presidency
to make good on promises that would be unfavorable to those
who so adroitly marketed the first black for president to avoid
the visibly ugly voter fraud that would have to be used to put
another highly visible candidate, meaning another corporate
white boy lapdog, in office.

Read Glenn Greenwald on Obama if you want to see through the neoliberal crap that Conanson is spoon feeding us here.

I always knew Obama was a pol, what I did not know that he was not just ready, but anxious, to violate his promises. Joe’s idiotic “promise count” is meaningless. It’s not the number of promises he broke Joe, it’s the quality and nature of his broken promises that count.

He wasn’t in office two weeks when he ordered Predator attacks in Pakistan that killed civilians. Just a few weeks ago, he personally ordered an attack in Yemen that killed 49 women and children.

No, sorry, Virginia; I’m on the independent left that rejects both republican corporatist war criminals and democratic corporatist war criminals.  And what is the difference between brown and a blue dog democrat?  Nothing.  The senate is a country club.

“measured by congressional votes on which he took a position”

He’s taken a position on something?????  I thought he just did what Pelosi told him to do.

well lichen, why are you complaining? you’ve got your poster boy in the Senate now

lets fill the Neocon ranks! (in our “protest” and “dislike” of Obama)

good idea (not!!)

RE JOE CONASON: “If scored strictly by his legislative attainments, Obama is a highly effective president. In fact, the scrupulously nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly rated him the most effective president of the past five decades. . .”

Probably another reason why the Republicans dislike Obama - they are ONE LAZY GROUP.  Has anyone actually seen them get up off their duffs?

Obama has made choices, made appointment, decisions, decrees; and thereby he has impoverished his own people while illegally murdering people in Yemen, Afganistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, (and who knows where else.)  He is a war criminal, and corporatist scum.

Joe, just what in the world are you thinking? You suffer a mild
stroke?

Yep, there is a lot on the plate, but everything that should have a
fix and could have already been fixed has been nothing short of
a welfare plan for corporations, meaning the biggest problem
basically starting with the rear-end ronnie reagan’s
deregulation, is money, the life blood of any nation and what
your ‘analysis’ is really about is the aristocracy’s benefits being
satiated and by the perfect person or lapdog of the aristocracy,
o, who by the colour of his skin was the easiest sell for a
presidency that greatly minimized the need for the flagrant voter
fraud of the past several national elections so the aristocracy
had their man in place to provide that welfare.

Joe, if you haven’t done so, please pick up a copy of Thomas
Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ and ‘Rights of Man’ (and reading his
other works would or should be very helpful in illuminating a
reality that you have missed in this post) where Paine quite
accurately describes this republic’s democracy of the people and
the strength that was in it and what it would be like for our
representation of the people to revert to a representation of the
aristocracy which has now occurred.

He couldn’t even close Gitmo in one year. I could do that in a day. And this:

Jan 3, 2010 - Obama Lied about Iraq

People forget that President Obama pulled ahead of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary only because she refused to commit to withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.  Obama’s current plan is that he “may” drawdown to 50,000 troops this year, “if” the security situation allows it. No one in the corporate media mentions this, although CATO recent summarized:

“Speaking of Iraq in February 2008, candidate Barack Obama said, “I opposed this war in 2002. I will bring this war to an end in 2009. It is time to bring our troops home.” The following month, under fire from Hillary Clinton, he reiterated, ”I was opposed to this war in 2002….I have been against it in 2002, 2003, 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8 and I will bring this war to an end in 2009. So don’t be confused.”

Indeed, in his famous “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow” speech on the night he clinched the Democratic nomination, he also proclaimed, “I am absolutely certain that generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that . . . this was the moment when we ended a war.”

Now he has doubled down on the war in Afghanistan and has promised to keep the war in Iraq going for another 19 months, after which we will have 50,000 American troops in Iraq for as far as the eye can see. If McCain had proposed this sort of minor tweaking of the Bush policy, I think we’d see antiwar rallies in 300 cities. Calling the antiwar movement!”

From http://www.g2mil.com/crumbles.htm

and ardee, how “reflective” of you “I think Obama’s lower even than Reagan”

yes and its liberals like yourself who are perpetrating this. Good work, ardee

Not!!

you got that right, Joe Conason!!

but the “the loud stampede” is not coming from the journalistic “herd”

its coming, loud and clear,

from the liberal herd

In today’s partisan climate Obama needed to learn the most valuable lesson to governing from Junior.

“You’re either with me or against me”.

Obama, didn’t get elected to make friends. Nice guys finish last.

It must have comment the bar Joe was at when he wrote the dumest article of his career. Was it the single Malt, Joe, that gave you this disillusionment? Comparing the achievements of Clinton to Obama is right on course as both are nothing but repugs in disguise. Slick Willy and Barrister Barack should be operating a used car lot somewhere….both were/are a disgrace to the office of presidency of the good ol’ USA. Just wait for your hangover is done and you see reality as it is.

Keep dreaming, Joe. Obama is a hollow sham, an empty suit. We need passionate, exciting leaders with political acumen & strategic vision. Palin/Bachmann, 2012.

Why beat around the bush? So what if Obama has been effective at getting the lead in school kids’ #2 pencils thinner and other trivial stuff?

How has he done on the BIG issues of our time? How has he done on the issues that affect you and me?
So far, he has kept the banks from failing (Yay!) allowing them to re-instate undeserved bonuses (Boo!)
Unemployment has stopped growing so fast (Yay!) but hasn’t started falling (Boo!)
Personal bankruptcies increased by 30% in 2009.
Health care is probably dead, which means 1000 hospitals will disappear in the next 5 years.
Obama STILL doesn’t “get” health care.  He still doesn’t understand that health care and health care insurance are NOT at all the same things.
He’s done little in Iraq and Afghanistan other than listen thoughtfully to Bush’s generals rather than the ones Bush fired.
He hasn’t figured out that he’s not a Senator and he doesn’t have to treat the Senate the way he did when he was a member.

Can he fix it? Sure!  But he has to find his spine and fool his fellow Dems into thinking they have spines (which they don’t). He’s FINALLY, a year too late, listening to Paul Volcker, who should have been his FIRST and LAST economic adviser—and everyone else charged with implementing it.  Volcker is the ONLY economic adviser he has with a proven track record of success in managing and fixing the US economy.  He’s actually been there and done it.

If memory serves:

Only one US President had lower approval ratings after his first year in office….Ronald Wilson Reagan.

On reflection, I think Obama’s lower even than Reagan…...

>>as measured by congressional votes on which he took a
position.

But Joe, that’s because Obama only takes a position
when he sees which way the wind is blowing.

He’s done it his entire career.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Interesting how this article doesn’t specify exactly in WHAT Obama is a legislative success, no details are provided of what policies he has implemented that helps the working class. These boot lickers of the powers that be also conveniently brush aside Obama’s massive expansion of imperial wars in the Middle East and bases in Latin America. Grow up please Mr. Conason.

Bill Clinton’s was “a presidency that has come to be regarded by the American people as one of the most successful in the postwar era.” Huh?

Successful at what?

Successful at forcing mothers off welfare to go work at minimum wage jobs with no prospect of joining a union, no guarantee of a living wage, no childcare support and no healthcare, sick pay or retirement benefits.

Successful at sending manufacturing jobs temporarily to Mexico, via NAFTA, before those jobs moved on from Mexico to China, also courtesy of NAFTA, while flooding the Mexican grain market with American-taxpayer subsized agribusiness corn, thus driving millions of Mexicans off the land and out of the factories and into the US illegal labor market.

Successful at repealing Glass-Steagall, opening the door for your bank to take your deposits and instead of using it to make loans to businesses and homeowners in your community, to use it to speculate on international derivatives markets, thus creating gigantic real estate and stock market bubbles, unprecedented profits and bonuses for bankers, and weakness and ultimately catastrophe for the productive economy.

Successful at proving that even without a Soviet Union confronting us, America can still tax its people to pay for a perpetual war economy amounting to one-half the world’s total military spending.

Bill Clinton was the president who proved that Democrats can suck the blood of the working people of America just as effectively as Republicans. Bill Clinton showed corporate America that Democrats could be an effective competing brand in the market for corporate support. The corporations prefer the Republicans of course, because they offer the pure, compromise-free corporate policy and philosophy. But America is still packaged and sold as a “democracy” and that means there has to be a cosmetic change of faces in the offices of government every so often, and there has to be a competing political brand to create the illusion of “choice”. Now, thanks to Bill Clinton, both national political brands are marketing to the corporations.  The stuff about helping out ordinary working Americans and small businesses is just stuff they put on the box.

So why did Republicans hate Bill Clinton so viciously, when in reality he was and is just a Republican under another name?

It’s the unwanted competition, stupid. The Republicans didn’t want a competing brand in the market for corporate support. The Democrats used to look to workers and trade unions for their support. Bill Clinton showed that the Democrats could throw their traditional supporters under the bus and compete with Republicans for the support of the corporate fat cats. After Bill Clinton, Republicans had to compete directly with Democrats for access to the richest mine of campaign contributions. The Republicans could never forgive Clinton for that.

Meanwhile, nobody in the ruling elites of either national party is interested in doing anything for anybody who hasn’t got a couple of spare millions at the very least.

There are still some Democrats who take seriously the party’s traditional causes of representing ordinary working people. But they, people like Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson, are marginalized and excluded from setting the party’s agenda. The leaders of the party, people like Rahm Emanuel,  are just competing with the Republicans to stick their straws in your arteries and start sucking your blood.

Bill Clinton showed that Democrats could be successful blood-gorged parasites too.

What a success!

Interesting, that you compare him to Clinton, who was and still is really a republican, who sold out the people of this country, and paved the way for Bush.

Of course all of that is true, about what Obama inherited from Bush, that’s why people voted for him.

Unfortunately since then, from the perspective of the people in this country, there has been sellout, after sellout, after sellout to the corporations, to the ones that caused this mess.

By his own admission, he lost touch with the people, this implys that he was in touch with something else.
Well the people aren’t guessing as to who this is.

At this point there are millions of us who wonder, who did we vote for, who is this man, what does he stand for, what does he believe in, and most importantly, is he willing to fight for the people of this country, the ones that voted him into office, on the assummption that they were voting the Republicans out of office.

That didn’t happen.

Right now it looks like, Obama doesn’t have the political will or juice to do much of anything, except try and follow Joe Liebermans advice.

And if thats all he’s got then you can kiss the Democractic party goodbye, and prepare yourself for 8 more years of Republican rule, as devastating as that will be.