Go Jane! We need to keep pounding this message home. There is nothing about Social Security that needs fixing!

good presentation jane .. thanks for speakin’ up for the rest of us .. you come across very well on camera …

Precisely Jane.

“Reform” mean “nothing for you if you’re not a corporation.”

I’m beginning to relike Barney Frank. He does a pretty good attack dog, calling Jindal just plain mean for refusing unemployment relief to make a political point. He & Schumer have done a good double-teaming on Jindal in advance of his Obama response tonight. I hope his makeup is good enough to cover the bruises.

ian – is obama’s plan a health care plan or an insurance plan?

the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

How about giving up war in exchange for med benies?

he’s got stitches too.. Huntsman of utah sliced and diced him earler today as well …

Social security is one of the few well run government programs
To mess with it would be political suicide

I can unrelike him at an to-be-determined point in the future.

Indeed.

lol! good call.

Republicans = lemmings lately.

Gov. Dean was on Tweety earlier touting Obama’s health care plan. When asked if there were going to be any losers he said the insurance companies. He said if medicare is going to be available to all that they were very much opposed to this.

War is far more glamourous for vain glorious repukes

Yes. Let’s bring the troops home and quit this endless war nonsense.

Isn’t Jindal a medical doc? Oh, no, he chose a political career instead of going to Harvard Med where he was apparently accepted. So he’ll have to call in outside help.

Obama’s health care plan isn’t worth it. It is based on the Massachusetts plan which makes things worse.

Besides, judging from what is happening in Minn & Penn we may get single payer in the states first.

seriously – ian – i hope you are around to see my comment. i really think your post has two important typos:

health care should be health insurance

no need to help them pull the bait and switch on us. please?

There are some times when fickleness is appropriate.

I’ve always wondered how someone could be such a big supporter of the military
yet never have worn the uniform as is the case with most politicians

MA resident here. if fiscal responsibility is what you want, our plan doesn’t make the cut. (to say nothing of universal coverage).

it’s a temporary stop gap measure that serves as a good experimental data point. let’s learn from it.

Unless of course they or their kids have to go

MN here. Where Timmy speaks softly and carries a big veto pen and Republicans who step over party line are burnt toast.

my 23 for you

The short answer must be “Yes”. The GOP has little to negotiate with and less to lose. It’s wanted to gut Social Security and put labor back in its place since 1934. The idea that the aggregate resources available to labor should go up, at the expense of government continuing to subsidize “free market” capitalists, is a non sequitur. Labor would only fritter it away, as Andrew Carnegie complained. His libraries and endowments were a function of his noblesse oblige, not a down payment on a right owed to all Americans. His family hated him for it and would have taken back all those college and Main Street libraries in a heart beat. Today’s neocons want to prevent their government from doing something similar.

Cripes, I forgot Piyush is giving the Repuke response … gotta cork the Chianti and break out the Highland Park.

I’m waiting to see how much influence Elizabeth Edwards has had on this issue.

Would it be declasse to open the spigot on the wine box, lie on the floor with mouth open and let ‘er rip?

I think this is a great idea to trade the most popular program in government, and one that really works, for a half-assed giveaway to insurance companies.

Related: David Cay Johnston explains

How Social Security “Reform” Was Used to Launder $1.7 TRILLION into Tax Cuts for the Wealthy

Here in Mass we are required by law to have insurance whether we can afford it or not
This is not a good example for a national plan

with even Jon Huntsman mocking them, I don’t know why the congressional rethugs think that they’re not just immortalizing themselves as the new rump parliament.

LOL … great idea !

Nicely done Jane.

Thanks for the post Ian.

Looks like we have our netroots mobilization orders.

Would that be some of that 2008 vintage stuff? *g*

You forgot this:

:)

Their obstructionist ways worked so well in Congress, they’re likely to keep playing that hand until they regain power or jump off a cliff.

would be a temporary solution at best
would pay big price next day

Must go dig out teevee. Second time this week. Only for Hugh Jackman and Obama….

2010, I think. A wine before its time.

Gonna need somethin’ to help watch the speech tonight…

Ian !

Care for a wee dram ?

Well, what wine goes with butter pecan ice cream?

Hmmm, forgot something in the link

Try this

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/3865

PS still missing edit ;-)

Another great job Jane did! I kept looking and listening and pretending that MSNBC was going to decide between Jane and the Turk for the 10:00 pm spot. Jane is further left, and I’d vote for her.

I’ve opened that wine. It’s the Millbrook chardonnay, a surprisingly fine wine for the Hudson valley. The vintner also owns vineyards in Tuscany and in CA. Now you can hold out your glass.

I was waiting for this , I missed Shuster tonight while blabbing on the phone.
This scares the pee waddlin’ out of me. The secrecy is very disturbing as we have no time to protest this.
Why can’t Obama wait until after 2010 when there will be even more Dems in the Congress?
I recall reading that FDR tried to “balance the budget” and spun the US into a greater Depression for his efforts. Is this what they want???

Obama’s economic team is the weakest part of his administration.

What use is good looks unless you can dance like this …

our health coverage law has more to do with making our states insurance industry happy than with helping the people

Canadian Ice Wine !

That would be Kahlua.

just how much is a dram?

Does it matter what the wine tastes like? Just eat more ice cream!

I’d like to see Jane replace JoeScar and have Marcy in the 10 p.m. slot.

When they’re sick of Gregory, we’ll have Christy to take over ;-)

Come on Abrams, get on it !

Need to finish the cabernet I’m workin on.

What????!!!! You haven’t switched to Yes Pecan?

Jane, Cenk, and Shoos!

w00t!

Good show Jane, You sounded sharp as a tack and looked divine. Good to see that MSNBC is going to you for your wisdom. Keep up the good work. You tawk good.

*Hic* … jush ah *hic* wee bit …

Snark new anticoal ad.

Ah, it was a trick question …

Oh, ya just gotta smile watching this, don’t you?

Obama buries news of longer-than-promised Iraq withdrawal by releasing it before SOTU speech that won’t mention it.

Therein lies my problem. You know that thing about Fat Tuesday???

Good one!

when i was a kid my friends step father used to drink Jug Wine It cost 89 cents and came in a plastic jug ,with jug handle and all LOL !!!

Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Rogers & Astaire … dudn’t get any better …

My brother drank wine from a box for years. We finally shamed him into upgrading.

I’ll defer, happily!

I’m sure the MSM won’t let it get buried …

OT Getting ready for obama’s speech. Is Joe Biden going to fall asleep like his predecessor?

You know that thing about Fat Tuesday???

Geez I thought that meant something else !

Right. The MSM is sooo on top of important stories.

I’m wondering if Biden can stop talking long enough to listen.

Rachel ain’t taking the extention of times and troops in Iraq lying down. Neither is Keith! Good on them.

No. His son and his brother have some troubles that will be keeping him awake for a while!

Yes, when it makes the Dems look bad …

here’s the shotlist of phrases, People

I recall reading that FDR tried to “balance the budget” and spun the US into a greater Depression for his efforts. Is this what they want???

Yea, he listened to the Republicans and blue-dogs of his day in 1937 (?) and tried to balance the budget by cutting programs which tanked the economy until he re-instituted the New Deal programs a year or so later

http://www.docudharma.com/show…..ryId=11954

I put my trust in Obama when I cast my vote for him
I didn’t forfeit my right to question his actions though

Fat Tuesday?

What about ?

The is sooo fabulous.

I’m off to watch the wizard.

Dr. Biden should give Palin some tips on dressing.

Mardi Gras, literally.

missing a few:

transparency
honest
bold

Heh!

I choose “same old politics”

Well, O has a bunch of “experts on the Depression” in his economic team so maybe they are following the script.
Gad!

aren’t ya’ll gonna live blog the speech so you can bitch in real time?

Was change on the list?

Gonna go watch the prezident!

Ha, that’s why I just arrived.

The Speech!

You can bitch too you know.

Sheik Djibouti.

As for me, I’m watching on C-SPAN. No talking heads…

Whatever he says, I’m against it!

I do, I bitch about the bitching.

Oooooh, robo-crane-cam. Very awards-show.

Hedge fund tied to Stanford. See TPM when you get a minute.

I’ve got a good mind to join a club and beat you with it. . .

Ginsberg is there!!!

Thanks !

”Members of the faculty, faculty members.
Students of Huxley and Huxley’s students.
Well I guess that covers everything”

Groucho in Horse Feathers (Movie)

You’d have to catch me first!

Liveblog thread is up–>>

Would you be willing to join a club that would have you as a member? /s

Good to see you, man.

RonD !

We’re upstairs.

“there’s a 150 billion dollar surplus and there will be for at least ten years, this program is so successful ronald reagun borrowed trillions of dollars from the surplus and that has never been payed back, once that loan is payed back this program is simply unasailable”

a hope a dem reads that and uses it

We need to keep pounding this message home. There is nothing about Social Security that needs fixing!

How about raising payments to the poorest of it’s recipients?
Or, creating a real lockbox to prevent a drain of it’s monies to the general revenue fund?
Or, repaying all the IOUs from the general fund back to the SS fund?

Just because you don’t want it messed up doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.

Yes. Let’s bring the troops home and quit this endless war nonsense.

“Endless war nonsense” does sound like stopping, but we actually spend as much on having a zillion bases all over the place for barely noticable reasons. We also seem to spend a zillion bucks on things for which there is no enemy or purpose.

We need smarter government and less waste.

I recall reading that FDR tried to “balance the budget” and spun the US into a greater Depression for his efforts. Is this what they want???

I think they may have given the impression, real or not, that these budget changes would hit quickly. Hopefully the recession/crisis will be bottomed out before any ‘fiscal responsibility’ goes into effect.

They’re also probably on the hook to Blue Dogs or Repubs who asked for this in order to vote for the stimulus bill. But, I agree it’s poor timing to talk about it this early.

How about Medicare “reform” as the price for universal healthcare, since it would have to be done anyway as part of comprehensive change.

If SS is to be put on the table, a condition of “reform” must be the raising of taxes.