IMPISSED

my only question is how long will it take this jokers to realize that shoring up private banks by printing money in a collapsing economy as bad as the one we have is a little like plugging a leveee with one’s finger in the midst of a hurricane. At some point, after we’ve thrown away a round couple of trillion in handouts, they’ll just have to nationalize the entire system anyway. We’re looking at the Icelanding of America in progress, in slow motion.

so its like play hard to get,or if your too good,your NO good

those jokers up on te HILL today,are just pathetic,CROs And congresscritters

ok rain stopped im gettin some real fresh air

o/t sort of

the Business Week reporter (moira somebody) was a bit cynical about the hearings with bank ceos this a.m. saying that politicians are just as responsible for the mess as banks, saying they are the ones that deregulated them to begin with. remarkable deflecting skillz complete with reasonable tone…I don’t disagree necessarily but it’s a bit like blaming the cops for your own criminal behavior.

the best way to get Obama’s attention is to make his life difficult

just don’t tell his girls that!

The ol squeaky wheel/ prodigal child strategy…it’s worked for thousands of years.

Yeah, he started taking us for granted as soon as he looked fixed to win the nomination.

OT on Eric Cantor union insult video

“I’m Eric Cantor and I approve this message.”

But it is the progressives who are always wrong. Insane McCain has proved the Great Depression was made worse by Franklin Roosevelt. But in fact, FDR created the Great Depression.

“When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression,” Austria said. “He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That’s just history.”

Republican lawmakers never tell falsehoods. Plus they are great humanitarians. If only we would follow Limbaugh and Hannity and Vitter, we would all get bonuses, bright shiny ponies, and diapers for those living in Louisiana.

i didn’t know there was a Progressiev Caucus. But this seems worth a try. Oppose stuff. get attention. maybe he’ll start off his proposals with stuff we want, cause he’s not keeping it out to let us get credit for getting it in. it’s not getting in. read more today about Rahm meeting with senators. damn. Hulllooooooo? JTB????

where can i see that? youTube? nothing pisses me off more than anti-union shit. and i was saying this mroning how 3 weeks ago i didn’t know who kantor was. now he’s near te top of my shitlist. very impressive, erik.

Democratic party=herding cats.
“I don’t belong to any organized political party, I’m a democrat”-Will Rogers. What was true then is still true today.
Senate dems=unorganized mob
Sen Reid, the best thing ever to happen to the republician party.
The dems won in 2008, yet seem to think that the rethugs are still in charge.

Please DIGG this great Post! Remember by Digging you help support the Lake!

Great Post Jane!! Maybe we should start dissing Obama just to get his attention so we can sway his agenda!

You bet! He dissed us with the FISA 180. Speaking of his decision to violate his previous promise, He said “For some of you that (the change) may be a deal breaker and that’s OK…”

Lynn Woolsey, my congresscritter, is co-chair of the progressive caucus in the House. For my district, she is quite good. But…

I wish that she would lead the progressive caucus in a way that it could make more of an impact on legislation. During the Bush years, I can understand that the progressive caucus was stifled. Those days are over.

The whole 60/40 tax cut thing on the stimulus should have been at the top of the agenda for progressives.

It is my opinion that a progressive party wouldn’t be more effective. It would have the ability to endorse dem candidates but then could challenge blue dogs or someone like Reid. A challenge from the left could doom a candidate thereby avoiding such a challenge would result in more listening.

During TARP and other legislation pending in the House, I’ve called her office to say that the progressive caucus should get involved. Never hear back on that!

all those gazillions of dollars he raised 25 cents at a time? that was us. i’m not breakin’ open another piggy bank for this dude if things keep goin’ this way. i still support him and appreciate having him in there. but he’ll get my lint instead of my change.

interesting but i don’t think any third party is going to be any kind of a force during my lifetime. no $$$

” D.C. Voting Rights Passed by Senate Committee

The bill would permanently expand the 435-member House by two seats. One would go to the overwhelmingly Democratic District, and the other to the state next in line to pick up a seat based on population. For the next few years, that state would be Utah, which leans Republican. “

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01486.html

the Business Week reporter (moira somebody) was a bit cynical about the hearings with bank ceos this a.m. saying that politicians are just as responsible for the mess as banks, saying they are the ones that deregulated them to begin with. remarkable deflecting skillz complete with reasonable tone…I don’t disagree necessarily but it’s a bit like blaming the cops for your own criminal behavior.

Wait, the politicians the bankers paid for passed legislation to deregulate which is what the bankers wanted. Who could have predicted? And even though no one forced the bankers to behave in the totally crazy and irresponsible ways they did (regulation or no) clearly this is not their fault. Thanks, this changes my whole perspective. *g*

Yes, exactly! The 40% of the bill that is tax cuts should have started out MUCH lower, or even non-existent, and the R’s should have had to WORK for it. They should have been sweating bullets over getting any little bit of their agenda into OUR bill! Instead, BO made it easy for them, they didn’t have to work for the tax cuts, and they didn’t have to vote for them, but they got ‘em anyway. Why is this so hard for Prez Superstar, et al, to understand? And if he won’t stand up and make the R’s work for it, then the Progressives should have. I surely hope that someone will send this conversation to the Progressive caucuses in both houses. BO has thrown you a power line (even if he didn’t know it- or maybe he did) Y’all better grab it quick and PLUG IN!

I’d like to know where the rank and file dems are ideologically. Do they mostly tend toward progressives or toward Blue Dogs? Obviously there is a lot of spread from district to district, but what are the trends?

Coverage Update! Stimulus Negotiators will be on C-span 3 live @ 3 EST!

yeah, isn’t that rich?

Please forgive the drive by OT, but I can’t let this one pass.

I guess it’s ok to do something other than fetch hot coffee for the GOP if you are a person of color now:

First Steele and now this:

Jindal will rebut Obama on Feb. 24

What positions do they have in mind for the other 3 minorities remaining in the GOP?

Certainly not the House or Senate; currently at zero GOP minority members.

So much for the notion of self regulation.

That would be more of a threat if we actually had more than lint in our pockets these days ;o

I’m with you on that. It’s not just dem leadership that needs improvement.

The new 60 threshold basically allows the overrepresented rural populations of low population states (two senators for everyone!) to hold the rest of the country hostage. Just so happens it’s mostly the Old Confederacy.

Not what the Founders envisioned for the Senate, the 2/3 threshhold for everything.

I don’t think I like that. Rather than rolling up sleeves etc. everyone will go into speechifying mode trying to cater to whoever they are trying to cater to.

Once they get to Congress their ideology shifts to the folks who pay the lobbyists. They vote to the benefit of the corporate masters of the universe they get tens of thousands in campaign donations from the employees of those corporate masters. If they vote against the corporate masters that money goes to someone else.

They’re gonna give ol’ Kay Bailey a sex change operation so they can claim to have increased their quotient of transgender minority members! *g*

Thank gosh we don’t have a 2/3 threshold!

The 40% of the bill that is tax cuts should have started out MUCH lower, or even non-existent, and the R’s should have had to WORK for it…Why is this so hard for Prez Superstar, et al, to understand?

He stated in one of his pressers that this was the lesson that he learned from the current negotiations. By the same token, if he wants a bill of around $8.25B, he needs to start out by stating he wants $1-$2T.

Yep.

Actually, he said MAYBE that was the lesson he should take away. I got the feeling that he didn’t really mean it. And I agree, he should have started out asking for more than he was willing to settle for. On the other hand, maybe he did.

Hugh, I’d be interested in your take on this. It doesn’t seem like tons of money, given the money available.
Tarp Companies Gave to Politicians Who Question Their CEOs

Earlier it was said there would be no coverage for that very reason.

In a moment of insanity, I thought perhaps we could attack Obama in the press, but then I remembered that he loves an attack by liberals, because it enhances his credentials for trans-partisanship.

So, perhaps we could praise him effusively, and he’d bribe us go away. No, the great Orange Satan has already done that.

Hmmmmmm! What to do? There must be a way.

Somewhere between the two I would suspect.

Move the left to the left and define the Rs as reactionary neanderthols.

but the new inclusiveness dictates that reactionary neanderthals are americans too. even as they work to undermine america.

Chris Bowers notices a pretty obvious pattern — the best way to get Obama’s attention is to make his life difficult.

this is exactly the argument i had at oxdown with jason rosenbaum in the thread to his diary: Progressives: Stop Whining About The Recovery Plan and Actually Fight (he meant for it)

jason wrote:

We’re *more likely* to get what we want if Obama is powerful than if he’s handed a bunch of defeats and is weak. Withholding support from the left isn’t going to get us what we want either, as is becoming increasingly clear.

my reply:

from what i’ve seen so far, progressives have been taken completely for granted and that’s why the rightwingers get a seat at the negotiating table and we don’t.

there’s something else that i think matters with regards to the this stimulus bill, and more generally the obama/geithner economic plan. if it fails, then obama will fail with it and here’s the kicker – so will the entire center/left coalition (such as it it) if all we do is support obama no matter what.

the best way to head off a right-wing backlash is to help obama to succeed. but if he stays wedded to policies that will fail, then the only way i can see to head off a right-wing back lash against those who have failed is to be loudly critical of obama using strictly left polpulist rhetoric right now. if the only opposition to obama is from the right, where will the populist rage go if not to the right?

Well I guess they do live in the “real” america. /s

The exception of course would be when legislation is offensive to both Progressives and Republicans in the House, and they could join forces to screw the corporatist Dems. Lambert suggests that they could align to defeat BARF.

this happened twice during the fisa fight in the house – once in october of 2007 and once in feb of 2008. didn’t get much attention, but imo they were very big wins.

While it is difficult to gather demographic information on ideological groups, some studies have been conducted. Liberalism remains most popular among those in academia and liberals commonly tend to be highly educated and relatively affluent. According to recent surveys, between 19% and 26% of the American electorate identify as liberal, versus moderate or conservative.[7] A 2004 study by the Pew Research Center identified 19% of Americans as liberal. According to the study, liberals were the most educated ideological demographic and were tied with the conservative sub-group, the “Enterprisers,” for the most affluent group. Of those who identified as liberal, 49% were college graduates and 41% had household incomes exceeding $75,000, compared to 27% and 28% as the national average, respectively.[8]

(wiki)

Probably self identified “movement conservatives” are about the same percentage of the general population as self identified “liberals”.

That leaves 60% of the population somewhere in the middle.

If 40% of the population is dem and 80% of “liberals” are dem- then liberals probably make up something like 40% of dem voters.

I think it shows the kabuki and hypocrisy involved. It’s the Captain Renault syndrome: I’m shocked to hear that banks have behaved badly and where’s my check? As for the amounts, as the Abramoff investigations have shown politicians and their staffs are surprisingly cheap to buy.

I believe Raul Grijalva said something along these lines – Like “Maybe we need to get their attention and stop voting with them” – when interviewed after Obama picked cowboy Ken Salazar, a very poor choice for Interior Secretary.

Yeah, and is isn’t as if the business interests didn’t pour millions of dollars into election campaigns to get the regulations they wanted. The hypocrisy of the business interest almost defies belief. It doesn’t defy it because it’s been around so long we forget it’s hypocrisy.

Obama’s deference to whining Rethugs is not the change we had hoped for. And no wonder, look who he is appointing to key economic posts: Summers and Geithner, co-conspirators in the Wall Street runup and meltdown. Where are the true progressives who helped him sooo much with voters? “Too big to fail is another good exampled”. If that were true why are we creating new megagiants with these insane mergers and buyouts who are now ever bigger? It is the history of the Dems in the last 20 years. To get concessions, the Rethugs moan, complain, and threaten. AND IT WORKS! They get their way. Why should they stop using such a successful tactic? Why don’t the Dems get it? We hear that “work is not jobs” and that “this is not a stimulus bil, it’s a spending bill”, statements so appallingly ignorant that we are left speechless. I’m ready to rebel right NOW! All I see it that the pitiful bankers get their get their golf cart holiday while homeowners are getting screwed. Get out the paint, the signs, the rotten eggs. The Dems did not grow a spine with the election, and the Rethugs continue to win votes that sink us deeper into a Depression.

t

he best way to get Obama’s attention is to make his life difficult

just don’t tell his girls that!

Most daughters (and spouses) can figure that out on their own.