Daily Kos

Nancy Pelosi is also right that cutting benefits from social security is not the same as cutting benefits from social security.

It strengthens social security.

......by today's standards. But seriously, Obama is OK!

It is too easy to forget the basic essence of what really
goes into the mental makeup of a successful politician.

Why are we so surprised when they engage in politics?
Obama is in the game with a GOP bent on destruction.

It's a poker game, cut him some slack and let him play
his hand in a high stakes round, for an ultimate pay off.

assault rifles with large ammunition clips..
Let's see how far gun control gets in Congress.

Consequences sometimes have immunity from elections.

a better deficit negotiation for liberals than the Boehner/Obama far-right deal.

What better way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  

What better way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

just have a meeting with Romney so he could get Romney's great ideas on how to fix the ecomony.  So, yes, I guess we did elect Romney because if we had elected Obama he would have had some good old demoractic ideas of his own, like, actually really saving and strenghtening social security and building the labor force.  

But, hey, it is the holidays, so let's embrace, the gift we've been given . . . austerity the gift that keeps on taking.  Austerity is the new black that keeps everyone else in the red, plus it is the lastest trend in Europe.

(who passed away today) was Mitt Romney's legal advisor during the campaign.  

"Sure, I'll fire the Special Prosecutor investigating the president at the president's say-so!", that Bork.  (Though I hadn't known he'd ruled corporations could force employees to be sterilized or fire them.  Bleh.)

So if Romney had won, he would have been advising Romney about who to appoint to the Supreme Court.

I am clinging tight to that, but it's a tiny scrap of comfort.

At this point, I'm kinda like, "Fuck this, I'm gonna go pet the dog," mode.  And I KNOW that giving up in disgust serves the interests of the 1%... but I just can't deal anymore.  (And before someone says it, I am low income.)

I was confused as it is only a month from inauguration and we aren't bombing Iran yet.  Thanks for setting me straight on this.  Mitt of course will wait until he's inaugurated.

how about we just set your hair on fire and be done with it?

I thought that was just a dog-and-pony show bought and paid for by the wealthy and connected so those elected would continue to legislate on the sole behalf of the 1% of people that controls 40% of the wealth.

The media will constantly remind us.

Because that's their job, and they do it well.

is : The Democrats act like Republicans and the Republicans act like, well, Republicans of course.

Do you all know that the DCCC had the nerve to try to fund raise from the fiscal cliff?  They actually asked me to contribute money to help them push through cuts to social security.  Fuck them!

And stop slamming him into his locker several times a day.

is the Republicans don't budge on their beliefs. They ram their bills through, gerrymander to stay in power and have made sure they are on every school board, local city council, judges you name it.......

The sad part is there doesn't seem to be any counter to their failed policies. We no longer have visionary politicians, looking out for the good. FDR with social security, Eisenhower with a national infrastructure, Johnson making sure elderly get medical services. Even Nixon realized we needed to clean our water and air.

Watch 2014 with the stupid media spin we need opposite parties in the WH and Senate/Congress. BS...we don't even have opposite parties. Why we keep prompting up the assholes in life (i.e. Republicans) I will never understand...

the Military Machine,

from its Guvment Welfare.

...back to work and paying in to it. If we had elected a Democrat, he'd be arguing that.

Does anyone really believe that President Obama and Boehner are negotiating anything?  There are two possibilities here and neither have either one of them negotiating anything.

Possibility #1:  Each side has a team of negotiators working around the clockmaking proposals, feeling out the other side and then taking the proposals back to these men for their input and/or approval.  Then, Boehner and President Obama take the negotiators proposals and go to the public with trial balloons to see how much their base can live with taking that information back to the table.  I can only hope that is what is happening because the only other option is...

Possibility #2: They already know what the compromise is going to be and they are dragging it out for the sake of showmanship to keep their respective bases happy.  Neither one of them would want to let their bases think they caved too early.  If this is the case, then we can expect a worse deal than what Obama has let slip out so far.  

If this is the case, I would expect that chained CPI will be in there and they will raise taxes on everyone who makes over $500,000 per year but they will not raise the capital gains taxes.  They will let the estate tax threshold be lowered slightly and the debt ceiling will be extended for a year.  

If I had to bet money, it would be on they already have a deal and it will be similar to what I described.

I shed a joyful tear upon his election in '08.

But this one is different.

I was deeply disappointed by the weak ACA and other sellouts to Democratic Party and progressive principles during his first term.

But this one's different.

I came to accept that that he is who he is, which is way better than the alternative and that the 'long arc of justice' will prevail.

But this one is different.

Shed another tear of joy on election night '12. Truly with this reelection we could finally begin to perceive the curve of the arc. But alas no.

This one cut's right to the core by offering up Social Security to be sacrificed. And with Pelosi piling on with such easy deceit about '"strengthening'' Social Security it brings home why -

this one is different.

Besides the immorality of it, the sheer political stupidity is utterly  incomprehensible and that is why I say that -

this one is different.

They're not politically stupid - they know exactly what they are doing. They are are destroying the Democratic Party as we know it. It is now crystal clear who they are. Won't get fooled again because -

this one is different.

Just depressing.

that call themselves Democrats.

over this.  We are doing a very important job in our role as the outraged Greek chorus.  "SAVE OUR SOCIAL SECURITY. OBAMA HAS BETRAYED US YET AGAIN!"  This role is essential!

For me, I'm not worried. This is a very long term political game/process. I see it and completely support our president.  It's taken me awhile to come to this place.  On the way, I've suffered a lot. The stakes are so much bigger and more important than chained CPI.  He needs to set the ground work for climate change legislation, for example, by completely discrediting the Republican party.  And please let them go nuts over gun control legislation! He's on his way!

For me, I'm directing my political passion, outrage and action towards my State of Michigan's political situation.

there's at least one upside:

It will mean the end of all these senseless teeth-gnashing, pants-pissing diaries and comments.

Fuck, people, have you ever negotiated anything in your lives? A raise with the boss? A point with your significant other?

President Obama was re-elected. I know how sad that makes some of you feel, so allow me to repeat it:

President Obama was re-elected...

in spite of your previous four years of teeth-gnashing, pants-pissing, and senseless yammering, when you were proven wrong again and again and again and again and again and...

specifically in reference to the Johnson-Goldwater election:

They said if I voted for Goldwater we'd go and bomb the hell out of the Vietnamese.  Well, sure enough, I voted for Goldwater and we went and bombed the hell out of the Vietnamese.

this last time...Lawrence ODonnell said he was the oracle and the President's caving was all for show...

Yet...some people have jumped back on that bandwagon, even though O'Donnell jumped off after making a fool of himself...

I guess some are willing to repeat their mistakes of the past...

pay for their mansions, SUVs, jets, vacation homes, endless wars, drones, swimming pools, diamond tiaras, caviar, lavish parties, ...

It's the American way!

Anybody up for donating a kidney?  How about a cornea?  Come on, people!  We have two of them!  

...they begin to lose sight of (if they ever even knew) the real detrimental impact of losing a few dollars in the poorest of households, (and even in the households of the struggling middle class)?  

Members of Congress are much richer than you and me.

With a median net worth of $878,500, Democratic lawmakers were actually worth more than nine times the typical American household in 2010. Not bad for the party that positions itself as the defender of the middle class...

...Obama's average net worth of $7.3 million isn't too shabby either, especially when compared to the median household net worth in America, which was $96,000 in 2009.

Republicans still have the upper hand in terms of wealth, but not by much. Their median net worth was $957,500, and 35 of them have assets totaling more than $10 million.

Regardless of party, Congress members' $174,000 salary blows away the median household income of $49,445 for 2010. And their net worth has been on the rise since 2004, unlike ordinary Americans, who have seen their wealth slip.

In theory--intellectually, they may attempt to understand that people who make so much less than our political leaders make have a harder time when their incomes are cut.  But, do they really fully understand the full impact of falling further and further behind the real inflation rate on people on a fixed income?  

Do they really comprehend how difficult it is for the average American when our One percent leaders, using convoluted, intellectually "reasonable" laws, sternly inflict even more austerity on people who are already dealing with their own personal austerity?

They may talk the talk of being "defenders of the middle class and the poor" but they don't personally walk the path of poverty and/or austerity  themselves.

of political power.

Why have it if you don't wield it?

...if we stay real quiet and prop up those lead balloons. /s

ploy by Obama (SS on the table) knowing Boehner wouldn't take the offer anyway.  It sounded to me like our side trying to make excuses for some shocking behavior from our recently re-elected President.  

SS and Medicare should never be on the table.  Remove the cap.  Wouldn't that be a simple solution?  Probably for both programs, actually.

I wrote the White House, yet again (they're going to sic the secret service on me yet) and told them how it sickened me that we always have to take care of the rich on the backs of the poor and elderly.  SS isn't a windfall profit for seniors by any stretch.  I said it the other day, and will again, my Mom's SS is my Dad's and amounts to about $1200 a month.  We have a client whose SS is so small he qualifies for food stamps.  Yeah, those seniors, living high off the hog.  The Republicans are trying to take what very little seniors have away from them.  Have been for years.  That should be repugnant to anyone with even a tiny shred of common decency.  

It's time we say enough to these stingy, selfish, heartless, terrorizing, immature assholes.  Way past time, actually.  Just like the NRA, they're only powerful because we give them the power.  Time to take it away.

...if Mittch-A-Sketch Romney had, in fact, won the election last month, you'd be seeing Republicans act a lot more aggressively than this, by, for instance:

-insisting on making the Bush tax cuts for the filthy rich permanent and, perhaps, even, cutting them even more
-they'd already be working on increasing the eligibility ages for both Social Security and Medicare
-if you think the adjustments being discussed to the Social Security CPI are unpalatable now, those "adjustments" would probably include the virtual elimination of the CPI and ANY future cost of liviing increases
-Republican states would be opting out of Obamacare in even greater numbers as Mittch-A-Sketch and his co-conspirators announce that they will undo virtually the entirety of Obamacare by executive order until Congress can get around to undoing it legislatively
-Romney would be proposing massive cuts in basic Medicare and Social Security benefits (not just future cost of living increases) , while seeking to decimate Medicaid, too.

For so long there I thought he equaled Bush Jr. Now I haz a confuze.

if Romney had won, then SS would be safer from cuts.  The democratic senate would oppose any cuts proposed by President Romney.

Obviously some of the people here would feel right at home with Romney, since Obama can't do anything right anyway....

Time to get back into that circular firing squad of O-sucks vs.  O is the best thing ever.  as we watch Obama "re-become" the same guy he was last term.

FYI - I love him in a lot of ways and would never even remotely consider him as Romney but face it - he's not ___ not sure what to fill in that blank with.

"You're only helping to elect Republicans!"

"Purist!"

"Probably a Hillary dead-ender."

"Americans want compromise"

"You're probably just racist and don't know it"

"Why do you hate President Obama?"

"If you're so good at criticizing, why don't you run for president, wiseguy?"

Question: Am I forgetting any?

So damned much.

It may be all I can afford to eat in the not too distant future.

Across the board tax cut in Obama's proposal. Same goes for his decision to adopt the Ryan budget, increase Medicare eligibility age to 67, and get rid of ObamaCare (such a shame, too, after all that work and the narrow escape at the SCOTUS). And I didn't realize that after Newtown, Obama's response was to loosen gun laws further & appoint an NRA-controlled expert panel to figure out how to better arm our teachers and get more guns in our schools, the way President Romney would have done.

Be pissed off about the Chained CPI proposal. Fight it like hell. But spare us a rerun of the Obama is a closet Republican & just like W/Romney/insert Republican here nonsense. Or is Nancy Pelosi really just Kay Bailey Hutchinson with a West Coast flair, too?

Look at what's going on here. I don't know if this is just a negotiating ploy by Obama or if he really wants this. But I'm pretty sure he went into this figuring Boehner couldn't deliver the votes--the WH has not been subtle about its doubts about Boehner's ability to control his caucus.

Now the right is totally split and at each other's throats. Grover has blessed "Plan B" but much of the rest of the conservative machine is furiously lobbying against it. Eric Cantor is going around right now furiously whipping votes for something Republicans consider a tax increase. And once you've voted to increase taxes on millionaires, why not on incomes over 250k?

So really, we're supposed to believe that if Romney won, Republicans would be tearing themselves apart over how much to increase taxes and on whom? Really?

Obama made the slightest concession possible on entitlements necessary to maintain his leverage as the "serious" "responsible" one in these negotiations, and that is showing up in the polls. Now Boehner & Cantor are furiously whipping votes for something they said they'd never do even though they know it will never become law. That's right, Republicans are going to go on record voting for a tax increase, undermining their own long-term position in these negotiations.

Maybe Obama is just lucky, but we'd do well to remember how we got here in the first place. While Obama was supposedly being handed his lunch on the debt-ceiling in Aug 2011, he came out with a deal that left the GOP stuck in this corner. This is what he does, take a short-term hit for a long-term, structural advantage.

So, as I said, fight the chained CPI. But enough with the hyperbole. Go ask Boehner & Cantor if they think Romney won the election.

wasn't the only one held in November.

Expecting the Republican House to just roll over and expose its belly is delusional at worst, wishful thinking at best. These are the descendants of secessionists and know nothings that we're dealing with here.

So yes, election(s) have consequences.

for submission as an OPED.  This Romney mandate thing really should be acknowledged by those feckless Democrats.

avoids what the election wasn't about, that the planet's GDP is already owed by or to some bank. Antitrust is not spoken here. "Democracy" sells weapons systems, but otherwise isn't permitted inside the homeland.  

than if Romney had won.  Remember way back to 2006 (I know, it was EONS AGO), when Bush was trying use his big whoop-te-do "mandate" to remake Social Security, we could STOP IT because we were Democrats and he wasn't.  

And that's just what happened.  The Democrats in Congress called bullshit on it and refused to let it happen.  Bush got nowhere.  SS was saved.  It wasn't tweaked to improve it or save money.  It was just LEFT ALONE.

So, it's ironic, but if Romney had won, mandate or no mandate, SS would be safer from him than it is now with Obama because our own Democratic caucuses are going to bend over backwards to facilitate this.  

The unpopularity of this amongst both the right and the left is outweighed by how popular the idea of cutting entitlements is with a certain beltway class of moderates who think that they know better than the rest of the country and that the poor and the elderly have to make sacrifices, bless their poor, old hearts.

We might be better off in all other respects because the president is a Democrat, but as far as the safety of SS and Medicare...  Obama is about to demonstrate that it was safer under Bush.

Yes.  That is ironic.