Teddy!

PS — Comments about the current primary are out of place in this thread. Yeah, I know it’s late nite, but let’s have some non-pie, non-poo fun. Cast our minds forward and measure the next Presidency for its first Accountability Moment. There will be plenty of time for primary talk elsewhere.

in case anyone missed this at the end of teddy’s post…

And a Congress that does its job as well.

*waving* hey teddy - gee, 2012 - i had not really thought much beyond the first part of 2009.

Looks like my campaign platform (minus the federal level stuff).

dugg ya teddy

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, war profiteering.”

Truer today, Teddy, than when FDR uttered them in 1936…! 8-(

There probably won’t be much recognizable as the USA by 2012.

The economy is going to be in depression, there will a continuing energy crisis and we will probably have has some sort of military coup staged when the congress decides that the gig is up for the MIC. The USA will be broke by then and the dollar worthless.

Things might be very interesting in ways you can’t even or don’t want to imagine.

Oh goodie. The right did it.

Teddy- great post, and I agree with your list. 100% 150% 200% 2012%

Let me say it again. A great, great post.

Hey!

Pach’s post about accountability got me to thinking about 2012 — what will I hold the President accountable for then?

Evening Teddy,

Corporate law has to be rewritten, a corporation is not an individual.

The media has to be broken up, the FCC has a herculean task in front of it.

Wonderful thread, thank you.

Kinda scary, isn’t it? Krugman’s got me really scared; I’m reading his book, where I found this FDR quote.

Hiya VG! Thank you, ma’m.

But the Democrats will get the blame if we’re not careful!

You go, Teddy.

how much do we hold the incumbant in 2012 accountable for that which was created prior to 2009? it took FDR more than 4 years to get us back on track from the last depression.

I don’t see how “they” can prevent the coming economic unravelling. The old fed tricks don’t cut it. They don’t have the tools to solve this one.

Teddy, you nailed just about everything I want. Too add to your list, I’d put Restore Habeas Corpus and Ban Torture on the list, too.

For Project Runway fans, Christian Siriano will chatz at the WaPo0 tomorrow at 11am eastern

Man up, dude.

How will the dems get blamed?

The collapse of the USA will be the result of the economy completely tanking.

But the dems will be ineffectual in doing anything about it.

Our economy was destroyed when we offshored our manufacturing base and turned into a service and financially based economy.

Dropping interest rates or flooding money into the economy is like giving wine to a alchie.

evening Teddy.

not sure i am entirely ready to start thinking about 2012 just yet

How about “If credit card companies can still charge usurious interest rates?” Now they can apparently, on a whim, jack your interest rate to 30%. (Disclaimer — I use one card and pay it off every month, so I’ve only heard about this. But the people I’ve heard about it from are in some SERIOUS hurt.)

I know, I was just catching up on Krugman, a little earlier…

And the problem now becomes obvious. This is now the third time Ben & co. have tried slapping the market in the face — and panic keeps coming back. So maybe the markets aren’t hysterical — maybe they’re just facing reality. And in that case the markets don’t need a slap in the face, they need more fundamental treatment — and maybe triage.

That kid is a hoot.

What a list! That looks the product of a lot of good thinking.

But the Democrats will get the blame if we’re not careful!

That’s been the plan all along. That’s why so many cans are being kicked down so many roads…

could we have free and fair elections too- or is that just way over the top?

I want a president who will wear tie-dye lapel pins. /s

Off Topic Post.

So I’m watching KARE-11 News, the NBC affiliate here in Minneapolis, and they run a story about the Chinese government claiming to have conducted a raid and foiled a terrorist plot against the Summer Olympics. Fine, whatever.

But after showing stock footage of Chinese pedestrians, the arena, and uniformed Chinese officials at a press conference, they showed footage of Islamic people praying in a mosque.

NO mention was made of any possible connection to Islamic organizations. They simply ran a story about a possible terrorist attack in Beijing, and decided to accompany it with footage of men in turbans praying in a mosque.

I called 763-793-1111 and left an angry message. They haven’t yet put the story on their website (and they may not) but if they do I’ll post a link to it.

Appalling.

The occupations must end in Iraq & Afghanistan and we must finally become honest brokers wrt Israel/Palestine. We must pay reparations to those we have harmed and rebuild infrastructure that we have destroyed.

We must acknowlege all of our gross errors and lack of adherence to the Geneva Conventions and International Law and become full members of the ICC.

We must work honestly to denuclearize the world, starting right here at home.

The democrats deserve blame. They are complicit and have the same policies as the republican corporatists.

Excellent, though I think the “financial services” landscape will be fundamentally different by 2012. I’m not even sure there will be credit cards by then.

I don’t want any D president to fund charter schools, indirectly or otherwise.

Frabkly, at this point I would prefer to see the collapse of both parties and a new constitutional convention and get rid of the political system we have.

We need a parliamentary system perhaps and not just two parties which are more alike than different.

We need a revolution. Ask Tom Paine.

more here

including this:

Although China has not been a major target of international terrorist groups, a small separatist group that collaborates with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement has staged bombings in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The Chinese and U.S. governments as well as the United Nations have labeled the East Turkestan group a terrorist organization. East Turkestan is another name for Xinjiang.

Uighurs, who are Muslim, make up the largest ethnic group in oil-rich Xinjiang, home to about 20 million people. Human rights activists say the Chinese have repressed the Uighurs, central Asians whose culture and ethnicity are different from China’s Han majority.

More muslims living atop other peoples’ oil. Whodathunkit?

We need to get our assses out of the rest of the world and stop flooding it with weapons for a start.

I have no problem with this list. I hope that whomever is elected in our name THIS time has no problem with it either.

Thanks for posting this. It is excellent.

that is a bit too far out (2012) to ponder. there is much to de undone. i’m a wee bit more concerned with the present and the immediate future so on that note, i’ll just sit back and read

I don’t see how “they” can prevent the coming economic unravelling. The old fed tricks don’t cut it. They don’t have the tools to solve this one.

The next President is going to land in deep shit with no way out. A broken economy, no money, and enough Repulican’s and Blue Dogs in Congress to obstruct economic change..it isn’t going to be pretty.

the wapoo article is going in the news box next teddy

That’s a pretty good list. But I’d add a couple things and they won’t be popular. But I’ve never been a popular guy.

If you have one kid, you get one tax deduction. If you have two, you get two. If you have three, you get one. If you have four, you get zero. If you have five, you lose your personal deduction. If you you have five, both parents, together or not, lose their personal tax deduction.

If you have more than one child and you’re on welfare, you lose it. We have to begin to stop the sense of entitlement that exists on the part of parents. Not to mention it’s absolutely ludicrous to call yourself “green” if you have more than two kids.

The greenest thing anyone can do is not have kids.

The sense of entitlement has to stop.

non-pie, non-poo fun.

OK I am confused.

Re: #3. If the Unitary Executive still exists…
This is really not something the president can restore, in my opinion.
Congress needs to restore it.
The president could cut down on all the presidential directives and secretive stuff- but when the next prez came around, s/he could revert it back.
This is the huge problem. Congress needed to follow through and challenge the unitary exec or it stands whether it is exercised by the next prez or not.

Oil addiction grew out of the industrial age and the belief that it was a limitless resource and we could take it from wherever it was by passing out some bakshesh.

These are all good steps I’d like to see the next President take. Will you hold the next occupant of the Oval Office accountable for all of these? Will you support a challenger if all these are not accomplished, or even started, by 2012?

I’m trying to see where my own wishlist ends and accountability begins.

i’d add human trafficking as well

From Krugman’s Mar. 7th post…

Geithner(NY Fed President) then goes on to describe the policy measures being taken. And here’s the thing: I don’t think it’s just me, the actions sound trivial compared with the problem. He more or less admits that credit markets are worsening faster than the Fed can cut rates, so that money is effectively getting more expensive, not cheaper; the other measures he describes sound minor. Rearranging deck chairs — that may be too strong, but it’s pretty unreassuring.

So what should be done? I’m not sure (and I’m thinking about it, hard.) For now, I’d just say that this is really, really scary.

Pretty ominous…! 8-(

Linky, for those who haven’t seen it…

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

I look forward to the State of the Union address in 2009. (Will the new president give one?) We need to pay careful attention to that, and see if the new president is honest. The state of the union then will be more abysmal than now. We need to hear what the president says s/he will do to right the ship. If anything is missing, we need to shout it out. If not, we need to hold the new president to task.

I’m not thinking it is possible to fix this mess in four years, but we need to be on course.

You are welcome, and thanks.

I suspect there will be a “military” coup in the States. Bush already laid the groundwork for it to happen.

it will be the captains of industry and the media along with the MIC who will run the show.

Bye bye constitution.

I agree with everything, but who can we get? We would have to start picking now I’m for Feingold. How do we convince our President to leave without helping the GOP?
Also its hard to think about us netroots people failing to influence the process after we have worked so hard.

Seconded!

Good point. I used a credit card check once, and got a statement showing 35% interest. Fortunately, I was able to pay it off the same month, so I didn’t have to pay the rate, but I could not believe it. I wrote Feinstein about it, but no reply…

The economy is in free fall for all intents and purposes. The USA will cease to exist as we knew it a less than 3 years.

I too am concerned with the present, but I don’t want our party’s incumbent to be startled by a primary challenge in 2012. I want to say, right now, what will prompt that challenge. It’s only fair.

It’s kind of my honey-do list to be left on the HMS Resolute desk on 1.20.09.

TO: Teh President
FROM: Progressive Democrats

.
.
.
.

She’s probably pleased about the interest rate.

If a Democrat wins the White House this year, I would be extremely unlikely to support defeating him or her in the primary for 2012. I would really have to be convinced that that path is better than trying to force progressive change on him or her through the Congress.

Just being honest here! Don’t yell at me. :)

The democrats deserve blame. They are complicit and have the same policies as the republican corporatists

Exactly right..which cracks me up about the polarization in the Dem Party. If you look at the consultants, advisors, and hangers-on, with the candidates, it’s the same old players..every four years they just re-shuffle the deck, using the same cards.

How many months can we go with jobs bleeding in the hundreds of thousands?

We must be well on our way to a balanced budget, including allowing bush-era tax cuts to wither away.
We must have a more balanced trading arena and begin the restoration of american manufacturing. The USAF tanker is a good place to start.

Will you support a challenger if all these are not accomplished, or even started, by 2012?

yes.

If these things are not even started by 2012, we won’t have our country any more.

(it’s hard enough to recognize it now!!!)

Imagine when the dem congress tries to get at the “wealth” that the top 1% have stashed away. You think they are going to ante up to “save america”? Hell no… they will have long gone.

But that goes against the scripture.

Excellent.

What’s on your list, then? What will you hold our next President accountable for? Is there nothing our next President can do to disappoint you?

Because if that’s the case….

{not yelling}

Good point
Nore and better preogressive congresscritters in 2008 - 2010 and 2012.

Things I absolutely expect to see from the next President are:
Qualified, competent Bench and Departmental appointments.
A Secretary of State who understands more than one other country.

The US economy is one vast credit bubble. 99% of the people owe money… house, cars, consumer debt.

That was the capitalist’s dream… extend credit to stimulate production. hahahahaha

That’s true. But I’m worried that since impeachment is off the table, this may be impossible. Can they write laws that simply reinforce what the Constitution says?

Social Security. I just want someone to tell me what the plan is. Just mention it.

Restrictions on capital flight need to be put in place immediately, imo.

Oh, I’m not criticizing at all. It is a thoughtful post, only that there are so many things looming in front of us (on the local, national and international front) that I can’t project that far. I worry about the finanical crisis that is real (right now and in the immediate future) I worry about human trafficking and slavery (sex and focred labor) that is occuring right in fromt of us with barely an outcry being heard for all these women, men and children. I could go on and on, but this is the roadblock that prevents me from looking too far forward and instead kind of go from day to day.

The wars will end because there will be no more money for them. The federal government will be so broke and printing more money only makes for insane inflation and it will have less and less value.

Slam the barn doors after the horses are gone eh?

All the wealth of the nation is offshore already.

The USAF tanker is a good place to start.

Who can tell what that is about. The original Boeing deal was a scam with the Airforce leasing the tankers for 10 years..(the leasing cost was more then the cost of the planes) and then Boeing got the plans back with the airforce having the option to buy back at full price.

The new deal will use Airbus airframes and the planes will be built in the US. How much US total content, who knows…how much US content in a Boeing aircraft..who knows. Both deals are probably dirty and screw the taxpayer.

Well, that one’s easy. If we tax (!) people’s income above $250,000 a year for payroll taxes, the system lasts until infinity. Create a doughnut hole between the current cap and 250, then start taxing again.

One thing is that whoever is president (democrat) will have to be honest to the american people about just how fucked up everything is and that we ALL are going to have to make sacrifices and that it will take time to repair the damaged inflicted by the last administration. If the president keeps talking to us about where we are, what is required, etc., we will get through it

Heh, in Dubai…!

ThatGuy @ 42, I assume that abortion is available in this world you describe? And emergency contraception?

did my comment go to moderation??

Why do we even need these damn tankers? To refuel fight jets we don’t need?

Hard refresh, TexBetsy. It is there.

Good Evening everyone…… they say it will be in the 80’s week…. the wildflowers are popping out all over…

Ah. This is what Pach meant to post yesterday that everybody found so confusing. At least this one is clear about what’s wanted.

I’m with RobZuber. The Presidency is the least accountable elected office in our current system. Resources spent trying to defeat the president in a primary could be more effectively used to win a dozen congressional primaries, and would have more effect on advancing the movement.

I’m already kinda p-oed at how much attention the presidentials are getting when we could be looking at 60 senate seats.

Look, with the president, you get what you get. There are no pressure points. You can’t use money, because the president has effectively unlimited resources for a campaign, and you shoot yourself in the foot if you run a primary opponent or, worse, a third party candidate.

So, no, there’s nothing the president can do that will lead me to take action to hold him accountable, other than through legislative action and pressure.

thank you lurking mod!

teddy - i’ll support any primary challenger who appears (to me) to be better than the incumbent. i’m not making a list because i’m not giving up my right to choose a better candidate - no matter how good the incumbent it. i think that’s just nuts.

My number one is court appointments, especially SCOTUS. If the next dem pres. appoints wishy washy middle of the road equivocators just be cause he or she thinks they need to in order to get the votes then screw em, find someone who will appoint a librul justice!

Fair question.

I have difficulty answering this because I dislike the modern view of the President as a “Supreme Legislator”. I view the Congress as the primary motivator for many of the issues you list out here.

I would probably need to see major abuse of the power of the Executive (something like vetoing a restoration of habeas corpus). But then I might actually favor impeachment over a primary challenge, depending on the timing.

I have great difficulty seeing myself supporting a primary challenge based on policy differences, even big ones. The President would have to be near Nixonian levels of corruption for me to go there.

Sure, do away with the Air Force entirely…! The current KC-135’s, the mainstay of the tanker fleet are 40+ years old, they’re old and very tired…

Teddy, if we promise not to throw it at each other or the walls or the mod tower, can we have this kind of pie?

“…Cassandra’s story is very old: she was cursed that she would always tell the truth and never be believed. But it is also a very modern story and, perhaps, the quintessential Cassandras of our age are the group of scientists who prepared and published in 1972 the book titled “The Limits to Growth”. With its scenarios of civilization collapse, the book shocked the world perhaps more than Cassandra had shocked her fellow Trojan citizens when she had predicted the fall of their city to the Achaeans. Just as Cassandra was not believed, so it was for the “Limits to Growth” which, today, is still widely seen as a thoroughly flawed study, wrong all along. This opinion is based only on lies and distortions but, apparently, Cassandra’s curse is still alive and well in our times….”

Great Post. We need to focus on the big picture and long term. The very reactionary segment of US corporate and personal wealth that backs the gang of criminals and nutcases that have taken over the GOP, they always focuses on the big picture and very long terms. Therefore we must focus likewise. Below are my comments:

9. If FDR’s words have not been returned to a rightful place in our national discourse.

This #9 should be at the top. It is number one in my book -building a new big-tent grass-roots people powered New New/Fair Deal coalition. Paraphrasing John Maynard Keynes -ideas are far more powerful than vested interests (prime example: the defeat of the attempted Bush social security swindle). In my opinion, the political, social and economic ideas and philosophies supporting the Roosevelt/Truman/Eisenshower/Kennedy/Johnson post-WWII consensus have were allowed to atrophy. Therefore, even though this political and economic consensus delivered the highest per capita economic growth rates in US history, and an unparalleled rise to world power, the citizens who benefited from this consensus lost interest, and faith in it.

Many of the ideas behind the New/Fair Deal consensus were challenged by new conservative ideas, many of them from new theoretical developments in economic and political philosophy -and, to be honest, a couple of major economic and geo-political boo-boos by Johnson. A few (very few, as it is now becoming clear) of the conservative critiques were justified, in my opinion, but they were co-opted by truly retrograde reactionaries, and turned into a gigantic fraud and swindle perpatrated on the US population. The reactionaries managed to display their total dishonesty, incompetence and rank stupidity and emptiness into the total 100% failure of Biblical proportions on all fronts we see today. But their fraudulent and dishonest intellectual arguments and emotional fear and resentment mongering still dominate the national discussion.

Many of the leaders of the Democratic remain intellectually bankrupt (like Reid, Emmanuel, Hoyer, Feinstein and their ilk) and whether wittingly or through their ineptitude, cowardice and lack of ideas, or corruption, are positively aiding the reactionary cause. Unfortunately I think HRC and Obama both still have many ties to this tired old broken down machine.

I think the ability to start laying the foundation of a new rationale for social and economic democracy that will register with the voters is the number one priority. And turning it into a reality in terms of a new movement of grass-roots political organizing. If the next Democratic president cannot lay the foundations for that new movement, then they have failed.

Some comments on the others:
1. If US troops are still dying in the Middle East.
2. If the current health care mess still prevails
3. If the Unitary Executive still exists
4. If our current energy and environmental situation is unchanged
5. If Bush Era lawbreakers, philosophers, and profiteers roam free.
7. If the Federal Government still protects corporations from citizens, instead of the other way round.
8. If campaigns for federal office are still privately funded.

The president has the bully pulpit on these, but pressure and action from a new more progressive and much more aggressive Congress needed for effective action on 1-4, 5, 7 and 8.

That is why I am more excited about Donna Edwards and Foster wins than whether HRC or Obama get the nomination.

Go more progressive and much more aggressive congress in 09!

The wars will end because there will be no more money for them. The federal government will be so broke and printing more money only makes for insane inflation and it will have less and less value

We are already there..the question now is, how long will foreign govts be willing to keep getting screwed with the falling dollar. I think it was last week that the Gulf States that have been propping up CitiGroup said that they don’t have the resources to save the company. If the largest bank in the US goes broke..the shit will really hit the fan.

hahahahaha i’ll take some of that pie.. yummy

I’m already kinda p-oed at how much attention the presidentials are getting when we could be looking at 60 senate seats

and i’m already kinda p-oed at how much attention the presidentials are getting when we could be learning how to do congressional oversight. because while we’ve improved by several fold over the past couple of years, we still suck badly at doing accountability. mostly, i think, because the process is so opaque.

You mean if we elected a Democrat and then troops were still dying in Iraq in 2012, you’d sign up for the Committee to Re-Elect? Really?

I think that gives away a tremendous amount of our power as a progressive movement.

I wuld re think the entire national security state concept.

Why DO we have such a huge military with nuke subs and carrier groups and billion dollar a piece fighter jets and $2-4 billion bombers? Isn’t that total madness?

How about our nuclear tipped missiles numbering 6000?

hi katy!

Actually, I guess I need to add an item, which should go below the new #1 (or, Teddy SF’s old #9).

#2: Continue, expand and intensify the 50 state strategy. A strong robust, grass-roots Democratic organization working to elect home-grown progressives at local and state levels every election cycle.

If the next Democratic president uses influence to weaken or kill the 50 state strategy, then, they are not working for long term good of the country, and they need to be opposed.

mmmm key lime mmmmmm

Maybe I’m more of a pessimist about what the state of the US economy is going to be in 2009. I think that it will be a Herculean task just to maintain Social Security and the health benefits people have now in the coming Depression. I think that a President could restore the Constitution, close Gitmo, withdraw troops from Iraq, begin investigations and criminal prosecutions of criminal acts perpetrated by Bush and his cronies. But a major overhaul of the healthcare accomplished by the first term AND a “Manhattan Project” from Green Energy? Other than tax incentives for the latter…where’s the money going to come from in a depression? I think that there will soon be millions of working people living on the streets…with vast tracts of suburbs lying empty. That will result in a “squatters movement” and initially, at least, battles between “private security” sent to flush people out of bank-owned homes. Houses will be set on fire. People will die. Food and fuel prices will continue to escalate…more and more will need gov’t supplied food and crowd onto public transport. Businessmen will ride to work on bikes.

The Depression itself will serve, however, as a means of restructuring the economy so that future corrupt acts might be more difficult. Consolidation of media outlets could be curbed, and the larger ones compelled to break up. And if the President could help craft legislation that would restrict the impact of lobybists, and make changes in campaign financing (without the Supremes declaring it unconstitutional) then that would be a real victory. It will be fought in Congress, as well.

I wouldn’t push or support a third-party or primary challenger if there was substantial movement toward most of these goals, or if through some miracle a system of universal healthcare was passed.

I think Citibank is basically on life support. But once a few banks fold up, the rest collapse and it’s madness.