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Summary: Barack Obama, Change We Can Believe In: Week of March 14

Sat, 03/13/2010 - 14:28 — Dave Culver

3 New Items including:

  • Requiem for a Lightweight President
  • Behind Obama's wavering on terror trials, critics see politics

David Culver, ed., Evergreene Digest

Jim Morin

Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama, Chris Hedges, Common Dreams
We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives.

Requiem for a Lightweight President, Michael Brenner, Huffington Post
Our last, forlorn hope it that we avoid the worst. That this confused, self-absorbed man just hangs on long enough for those frightening forces to expire from an overdose of their own noxious eruptions.
It's not about positive change any more; it's about warding off calamity.

Behind Obama's wavering on terror trials, critics see politics, David Lightman and Marisa Taylor, McClatchy Newspapers
The Jan. 19 special election of Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., demonstrated to skittish Democrats that the decision to prosecute the suspected Christmas Day underwear bomber in civilian court was a polarizing campaign issue.

The 'Public Option': Democrats' Scam Becomes More Transparent

Sat, 03/13/2010 - 08:42 — Dave Culver
  • As soon as it actually became possible to pass it, the 50 votes magically vanished.  Senate Democrats (and the White House) were willing to pretend they supported a public option only as long as it was impossible to pass it.
  • Requiem for a Lightweight President

Glenn Greenwald, Common Dreams

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about what seemed to be a glaring (and quite typical) scam perpetrated by Congressional Democrats:  all year long, they insisted that the White House and a majority of Democratic Senators vigorously supported a public option, but the only thing oh-so-unfortunately preventing its enactment was the filibuster:  sadly, we have 50 but not 60 votes for it, they insisted.  Democratic pundits used that claim to push for "filibuster reform," arguing that if only majority rule were required in the Senate, then the noble Democrats would be able to deliver all sorts of wonderful progressive reforms that they were truly eager to enact but which the evil filibuster now prevents.  In response, advocates of the public option kept arguing that the public option could be accomplished by reconciliation -- where only 50 votes, not 60, would be required -- but Obama loyalists scorned that reconciliation proposal, insisting (at least before the Senate passed a bill with 60 votes) that using reconciliation was Unserious, naive, procedurally impossible, and politically disastrous.

Requiem for a Lightweight President

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 17:59 — Dave Culver
  • Our last, forlorn hope it that we avoid the worst. That this confused, self-absorbed man just hangs on long enough for those frightening forces to expire from an overdose of their own noxious eruptions.
  • It's not about positive change any more; it's about warding off calamity.

Michael Brenner, Huffington Post

Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Coleen Rowley

The longest taps American politics has ever known is being sounded. You can hear the bugler's first notes when the din of infernal Washington subsides briefly in the darkest hours of these chill winter nights. It will haunt us until January 2013 - or, maybe, January 2017. The Obama star has begun its long, slow fadeout. We already ask ourselves: "Whither is fled the visionary gleam; where is it now the glory and the dream?"

Compromising Financial Reform

Tue, 03/09/2010 - 15:34 — Dave Culver
  • The goal behind creating an independent CFPA is to ensure that there is a body within the regulatory structure focused solely on consumer protection -- as the rest of the bank regulators make bank "safety and soundness" their primary concern -- and to crack down on the pernicious lending practices that helped precipitate the financial crisis.
  • Democrats Follow Failed Health Care Strategy and Preemptively Surrender on Consumer Financial Protection Agency


Pat Garofalo and others, Think Progress

Durenberger takes aim at health reform fearmongering

Sun, 03/07/2010 - 20:57 — Dave Culver
  • On the eve of President Obama's health care summit, Durenberger told Kaiser Health News that the plan bears a strong resemblance to the reforms pitched by him and other Republicans in 1993. At the time, Durenberger's proposal was the GOP alternative to Clintoncare.
  • Asked why the GOP embraced his ideas in 1993 but shoot them down now, Durenberger told the national online health news service: "The main thing that's changed is the definition of a Republican."

Jill Burcum, Star Tribune | MN

Three cheers for former Minnesota Senator David Durenberger who took aim Wednesday (Feb 24) at the ill-informed rhetoric painting the Democratic health reform bill as some kind of wild-eyed socialist scheme.

On the eve of President Obama's health care summit, Durenberger told Kaiser Health News that the plan bears a strong resemblance to the reforms pitched by him and other Republicans in 1993. At the time, Durenberger's proposal was the GOP alternative to Clintoncare.

It included a mandate to buy insurance, subsidies for the poor and insurance reform to protect those with pre-existing conditions -- key elements of the Senate bill that became the foundation for White House plan released Monday (March 1).

Summary: Barack Obama, Change We Can Believe In: Week of March 7

Fri, 03/05/2010 - 18:24 — Dave Culver

4 New Items including:

  • Obama Applauds Mass Firing of Teachers
  • Obama Looks To Overhaul 'No Child Left Behind'

David Culver, ed., Evergreene Digest

Mike Luckovich

Obama backs plan to give health overhaul fast track in Congress, Margaret Talev and David Lightman, McClatchy Newspapers

  • Obama urges Dems to use reconciliation to pass health care
  • Reid Ready to Support Passing a Public Option for Health Insurance Through Reconciliation
  • Good Policy not Bipartisan Junk

Obama Applauds Mass Firing of Teachers, Michael Whitney, Firedoglake
A wholesale firing of an entire school; the only ones left in the entire high school are the food service workers and the custodians. So why is Obama and his administration going out of its way to praise this mass firing?

The enthusiasm gap, Robert Reich, Salon.com