Predictable.

“A large, powerful, historic event just happened. It validates my world view.”

Does anyone really expect them to think anything else?

Geebus, this is depressing.

Yes. Very. It is extremely depressing when you learn the party that you’ve faithfully followed for 4 decades (in my case) is now intentionally doing everything in it’s power to be as much like the other one as possible.

Very depressing.

And it doesn’t matter what would’ve happened Tuesday. If they had won massive victories, then today’s headline would’ve been about how SEE, we told you that modest stimulus was right! We told you those tax cuts were needed. We told you that corporate health care reform was the right way to go.

It’s not because they don’t understand. It’s because they’re being paid not to understand. (Didn’t some dood named Sinclair have a saying about that?)

When you discover the life long battle over politics really wasn’t a battle at all and really was just a show for the people because both parties now work for the same master, you’re damned right it’s depressing.

Now. What are we going to do about it?

I’ve typed on several threads that, after reading Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, I thought O might be LD.

Now it looks like he picked a CoS who suffers from the same malady.

What are we going to do about it?

Nothing. There’s nothing that can be done with this crew, and no one to replace them.

I’d just like to take a moment to thank Krugman for calling Evan Bayh an intellectual coward.

Obama and the white house also learned on tuesday that people in the USA want more USA jobs to go OFF SHORE

It’s that damnable bubble! Who can hear anything from real Americans while they’re stuck in that damned thing?

Certainly not anyone in the WH’s west wing or in the oval office.

“Intellectual” coward?

Krugman got it wrong. There’s nothing intellectual about Bayh whatsoever. He’s just a plain coward. If you want a modifier, call him a narcissistic coward.

Dylan, Cenk, and Glenn Greenwald may have a solution

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540#40013591

So predictable in fact that it sort of justifies my scoffing at people who weren’t going to vote “to teach them a lesson”.

The White House did the stimulus wrong by making it too modest and diluting it with too many tax cuts. The White House did the health care bill wrong by allowing the process to drag out over a year, stripping it of its most progressive elements, and crafting it so that it doesn’t kick in until 2014. The White House screwed up FinReg because people don’t believe it does much of anything. The White House screwed up HAMP. The White House screwed up offshore drilling. The White House screwed up Afghanistan.

But on the other hand, we get a pony.

What? You’re telling me that we don’t get a pony? That’s just wrong.

No one could be around DeeCee as a Democratic high-level staffer for as long and as successfully as Pete Rouse has without completely integrating GOP frames into his world-view. It’s exactly what I expected from him, and why he got picked to be CoS.

We are so screwed.

Yep. When you surround yourself with rich people, chances are you’re only going to hear things that concern then elite ruling caste.

It’s exactly what I expected from him, and why he got picked to be CoS.

Yep

We are so screwed.

And yep. :(

We ran this experiment in 2000 and know the results. They don’t “learn their lesson”. Whatever happens validates their world view. If it didn’t work, they just keep doing the same thing harder.

I like to call this “middle-aged man disease”.

You need to see what Donald Trump said about JOBS and NAFTA.

Diagnosis, not prescription.

Off topic but it seems Olbermann has been indefinitely suspended from MSNBC for having the temerity to make private donations to Democratic candidates. This looks like unilateral action by Phil Griffin. Let’s see how Phil feels when his viewers desert MSNBC en masse.

You’re telling me that we don’t get a pony?

Not to worry, I can virtually assure you that you will still get the polo mallet that would have accompanied said pony. The hitty end of the stick…

Chukka me jesus, through the goalposts of life

Hmph! I said they wouldn’t “learn their lesson” then for all the good it did.

I wonder what tool they’ll get to fill in the time slot?

I also heard or read somewhere this morning that 30% of LGBT community voted R.

I wonder what tool they’ll get to fill in the time slot?

I won’t be tuning in to find out

I also heard or read somewhere this morning that 30% of LGBT community voted R

And speaking of tools….

Krugman was referring to several people, but he singled out Bayh by quoting him when he could have mentioned any of a dozen other names instead. So I’m not sure he would have gone with narcissistic coward, as it would have been too narrowly focused on Bayh.

Still, in this particular instance, Bayh’s bs is an act of intellectual cowardice.

Now Bayh says that Obama should have done far more on the economy, but then (Mar 12, 2009):

Roll Call reports that a group of 15-20 “moderate” Senate Democrats — boosted by their success in “paring down the more than $900 billion economic stimulus bill to $787 billion” — plans to “formally announce next week that it is aligning as a loose coalition or working group focused on deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility”

Who led that move to undermine efforts to focus on the economy and jobs?

Evan Bayh.

What a dick.

I’m not fond of linking to other blogposts but this one from Crooks & Liars is different.

I understand breitbart is available.

MSNBC might keep Schultz on but can there be any doubt that Maddow is next?

So is O’Keefe.

Now Bayh says that Obama should have done far more on the economy

By which he means that Obama should have:
* cut taxes more
* axed more regulations
* dismantled more domestic programs

Didn’t Bayh vote for cloture but against just about every ounce of economic help that the Senate took up? I’m glad he’s retired but I’ll bet he fancies himself a candidate for president someday.

No doubt. Gotta program for that center-right nation. Gotta out-fox Fox to get that Depends ad revenue.

We’ll have to wait until the reichwingers go through the FEC database searching for her name.

Whoa. Go CNBC?? Yeah, baby.

My point was that when any of these clowns says “help the economy” they really mean “more Reaganomics”.

I got your point. Relax. :)

I thought it was odd when they pulled him off the air for a couple of months around the time he went off on hcr for including an individual mandate w/o a public option. His father was sick, I know. But still it all seemed odd and, when he returned, he turned his focus on the wingnuts and the sellout Democrats started getting a pass.

Anyway, that puts an end to my watching MSNBC. LoDo, Ed and even TRMS have been way too soft on Democrats and even provided cover for them. Olbermann’s not perfect, but he’s still worth watching

Yep. I’ll bet they aren’t looking for Scarborough.

Keith and Rachel

need to be looking at a situation where they don’t have to work under the arm of NBC that is owned by GE

there is a huge market in the USA for a real progressive news cast

don’t fool your self into thinking otherwise

ever heard of ROBIN HOOD

how many media people attack the elites

It comes down to this. Obama was not quite ready for prime time and we just didn’t recognize that fact. He’ll probably finally get his act together just in time to leave office.

We just need more and bigger tax cuts for longer and the economy will *explode* … yeah, that’s it!

I haven’t watched O’Donnell since he shilled for the social security privatizers. I never will either. MSNBC can have him and Tweety as their token “liberals”.

Back to work.

Namaste

Bayh is a great American and too good to be in Washington.

Thanks for that link above.

You’re right, it was worth posting here.

Very good read.

Oh great. Now that tinbrain has said it, I have to come up with a new position about Obama. Thanks a lot.

In other words, as Mr. Rouse and his colleagues analyze the criticism, what they are hearing is not that the White House did things wrong, but that it did the wrong things.

How about Both And?

I’ll save the reichwingers some effort:
SCARBOROUGH, JOE PENSACOLA,FL 32503 MSNBC/HOST 3/31/06 $2,100 Kitts, Derrick (R)
SCARBOROUGH, JOE PENSACOLA,FL 32503 MSNBC/HOST 3/31/06 $2,100 Kitts, Derrick (R)

Breitbart and O’Keefe. Sorta like Huntley and Brinkley.

Shoot your TV.

Edward Abby pic

Good job!

I guess he got the required permission from NBC executives first.

Or if he didn’t, the executives will now say he did.

Re the Olbermann thing. I hate to even contemplate the amount of crowing that is going to spill out of FoxPac on-air infotainers. MSNBC should have settled this thing internally.

It’s as I’ve maintained for a very long time. Business people are just not that fucking bright. They’re neither innovative nor creative, and many (if not most) of their (so-called) accomplishments are really quite dubious.

Fuckin’ short-sighted idiots.

Exactly like that. Except way different.

That was dated 2006. Either he had permission (who wouldn’t grant permission to contribute to Republicans?), or perhaps the policy was not in place then.

Precisely.

:-( Probably right.

Entirely predictable.

Wait, I think I remember this from the Miller Analogies Test. Breitbart and O’Keefe are to Huntley and Brinkley as Obama is to FDR.

Generally, that’s my observation too. They’re not really special ~ far from it. Sure like us to *think* they are, though.

Boycott not just NBC, but GE.

From what I saw, it was all about Phil Griffin ego and need to assert his authoritah. Well, Mr. Griffin, you’ve lost my respect.

Btw, here’s his email if anyone would like to send him a note:

phil.griffin@nbcuni.com

I thought GE sold NBC to Comcast.

Lesson learned…Coddle the oligarchy!
Wow they drove the economy over the cliff stupid. Now they will have the funeral and a two year wake. The riech media is coming out of the closet. My local banker said in a housing meeting yesterday they are expecting 40 months more downturn. That pony is for the next president.

GE doesn’t own MSNBC any more.

My dad’s band played Huntley’s wedding reception. He married a local TV weather person (they weren’t meteorologists in those days) named Tippy Stringer. She had breath that would drive a buzzard off a 5 day old carcass.

Yeah….I see the connection…

Thanks for the link. Everyone needs to watch this. It lifted my mood.

She had breath that would drive a buzzard off a 5 day old carcass.

And THAT looks good on ANY resumé. “g”

My local banker said in a housing meeting yesterday they are expecting 40 months more downturn.

California has 9 years of inventory. South Florida has 18 years of condo inventory. The freeze-up in the housing market due to title issues is just starting, as sales drop off further expect those numbers to explode.

Uncle Ben apparently missed the class where they mentioned that you can’t re-inflate a bubble. It’s like a forest fire, it burns until all the fuel is gone. Maybe in another 40 years housing will recover, mostly from people fleeing the flooding coasts and trying to get shelter inland.

I took the MAT in about 1989. Remarkably prescient, it was.

What? You’re telling me that we don’t get a pony?

Will a pile of pony poop and an admonition that you arrived too late to get the “real thing” satisfy you?

Bayh apparently has a huge amount of cash left in his campaign coffers. I’m betting he either runs as Obama’s VP in 2012 [all that appeal to the Midwest, y'know], or attempts to run himself if Obama doesn’t run.

Undecided as to whether he’ll have the balls to primary Obama.

Jane has a fresh cross-post available: DNC’s Fan Fic on Health Care and the Election

x2

Undecided as to whether he’ll have the balls to primary Obama.

He would need to purchase them first.

Thanks. I wrote him.

I’m thinking a possible “Third way” bid. It doesn’t matter, everybody in DeeCee is a Republican these days.

Jonathan Turley just put up a post with an update noting that both Scarborough and Pat Buchanan have made donations. Didn’t say which party but I think I can guess.

OBAMICAL!

5 bucks says Bayh is working with Trent Lott within a month….

both R candidates

As Cenk Uygur said, “the Democrats aren’t stupid either, they’re just supposed to be the patsies that lose to the Republicans in this big corporate game that’s being played on us” http://bit.ly/aP7eMT.

The elected Democrats and this administration have no lessons to learn. They’re doing EXACTLY what they mean to do. The rank and file Democrats are the ones who have difficulty learning their lesson. They continue to whine “the lesser of two evils” every two years. They refuse to accept that their Democratic candidates, (with a very few exceptions) are far too cozy in the pockets of their corporate benefactors to do anything except their bidding.

When will YOU learn that the Democrats don’t care at ALL about your issues? How many times will you keep doing the same thing expecting a different result?

woop woop 1 term president

hahah, yeah go for it white house – go get those voters that hate you and think you’re a terrorist and a muslim and a traitor. Don’t try to appeal to the base and all the independent voters that stayed home from frustration, or try to get the unemployed on your side. Nope. Olive branch and all that hilarious shit.

Gettin’ to be a troll fest. Somebody musta left the sewage valve open.

“Geebus, this is depressing.”

You got that right, Ollie!

“As Cenk Uygur said, “the Democrats aren’t stupid either, they’re just supposed to be the patsies that lose to the Republicans in this big corporate game that’s being played on us””

*nods* American federal politics as a professional wrestling script.

SD, I hear troll used a lot. Not really sure exactly what it is. I hope my post wouldn’t be considered such a thing. Is it?

When will YOU learn that the Democrats don’t care at ALL about your issues? How many times will you keep doing the same thing expecting a different result?

Stuff like that will get folks to start ignoring your comments. It’s condescending with little or no actual substance. Your comment assumes the country has a national third choice, which is wishful thinking. Until such time as an alternative presents itself we have to work with what we have. We may not get it right all the time but it sure beats sittin’ at home complaining.

With all due respect to BT, I don’t go along with the notion about learning or not learning lessons. I think Obamaco did exactly what they planned to do all along, and they achieved the exact result that the Oligarchy wanted to have achieved. No offense intended, but thinking that Dems are going “get it” or “learn lessons” is a mug’s game. Ain’t gonna happen. There’s been ample evidence that the Dems no longer are even slightly interested in what’s termed “progressive causes.” Frankly these days, imo, they’re not even “centrist,” or for that matter “right of center.”

These folks are full-on NeoCons; calling them NeoLiberals is highly inaccurate. Start seeing that what’s going on is EXACTLY what they planned, and they are doing happy dances in response.

They’re just not into Main Street anymore; haven’t been in a long time.

“…way to reinforce rightwing frames there, Peter.”

WTF, they’ve been re-inforcing them all the way to the ass-kicking they/we got three days ago; I’d be astounded if they quit now.

Sorry but unsurprised to hear about Keith Olbermann being kicked out or fired or whatever. A lot of folks have resoundingly dissed KO and called him all kinds of names. I, too, have at times been disappointed with some of his commentary, but I think sometimes the progressive left has sold him short, when I’ve found many of his special comments to be very spot on the money. I always felt that he played a real balancing act attempting to report on what’s really going on, whilst trying to appease whomever his boss is.

Rachel Maddow could well be next since the nation has once again “returned to sanity” (cough cough) and is no longer SocialistKenyanNaziObamaland.

Would love to see both of them where they could be totally honest and do the type of investigative journalism that both are capable of. Best of luck to Olbermann and a resounding thanks for his efforts.

You can blame anyone you want, but the true blame is on the shoulders of Barack Obama. He appointed every single one of those stupid people.

Obama will go down as the Floyd Patterson of politicians. Both were stylish and enjoyable to watch, but neither could take a punch.

Well, Obama takes a pretty good dive.

I don’t give a shit who it’s coming from;

Pointing out that Obama’s been regularly shitting on his base aint trolling.

You don’t know what or who I was referring to.

…and I’m not going to waste my time explaining it to you.

Au contraire, Sister, we’re already doing it, and you yourself named our savior.

I’m alluding to the lesson of the blinding of Cyclops by Odysseus. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds do an effing cool rendition of it, called More News From Nowhere

I turn another corner, I go down a corridor and I see this guy
He must be about 100 foot tall and he only has one eye

He asks me for my autograph, I write ‘nobody’ and then
I wrap myself up in my woolly coat and blind him with my pen

Cause someone must have put something in my drink, everything’s getting strange looking
Half the people had turned into squealing pigs, the other half were cooking

To whom can we turn for redress of grievous wrongs? Same universal person you correctly note is unavailable for our rescue: no one.

Only I like to spell it NO1. We’re NO1! We’re NO1! We’re NO1!

How did the Kochs and the Wall Street Dems jack the nation? By what power have we been misled? Was it an army of kinetic actors? Was it the money? No, but we’re getting warmer.

What did the money buy? Ads. What do ads do? Jerk us around like rats in mazes. I conclude (no surprise here ; } ) that it was the psy ops. The money bought the ads that built up the illusions to which we responded, just as the propaganda is designed to do.

Instead of virtu-osic-ally (literally, tapping into healing virtues inherent to us all) perceiving, appreciating, and contributing to relieving our own suffering, we’ve been jacked into another round of making it worse.

The fact that it takes ever-increasing record amounts to jack us into this national nightmare should encourage us. ObamaCo’s Hope-A-Dope just whiplashed the psyches of a whole lot of young impressionable minds with an indelible imprint of betrayal. There’s going to be an equal and opposite reaction, most likely. That’s where we come in.

There’s little hope of their turning to the same perps in the future. It will take ever-increasingly obvious psy ops, like the one Sister Jane refers to in her earlier post, DNC’s Fan Fic on Health Care and the Election, just to attempt to overcome that deep betrayal.

Long comment summed, I was trying to come up with a reply to you earlier. Cenk Uygur did it for me. “We’re going to do Obama without Obama,” he said during a rousing interview on Ratigan’s show that included Greenwald.

It. Just. Might. Work! Even if it doesn’t, it’ll beat doing nothing.

Hmph! I said they wouldn’t “learn their lesson” then for all the good it did.

The DLC, New Dems, Blue Dogs and Third Way crowd were never gonna learn the lesson that Dems have to stop being Repubs, Margaret, because that’s who they are. However, with the Blue Dog caucus decimated, now Progressives and Liberals have an opportunity to take over the Party. The real fight’s just begun, bring it on!

D’oh, I hates it when I get my modifiers in a knot.

To whom can we turn for redress of grievous wrongs? Same universal person whom you correctly note is available for our rescue: no one.

We need NO1 to rescue us. We need NO1 to assert our authority. Paging NO1, paging NO1, …. I sure hope NO1 is listening.

I would like to second the motion.

Bravo!

May I bow before you…

Very well said!

You can always tell the intention by the way it turns out.

‘m going to agree with James K. Galbraith, Obama’s Problem Simply Defined: It Was the Banks:

http://www.newdeal20.org/2010/11/05/obamas-problem-simply-defined-it-was-the-banks-26159/

No doubt the spin is DC will allow Obama to do all sorts of thing, mostly the wrong things, but we should no longer be engaging in a discussion about what he should do, we need to start discussing how to save the progressive movement FROM Obama.

Time for progressive to formally separate from Obama before he throws themm further under the bus.

I’m going to go on record as really missing the edit button.

Not finalized and nobody says it will be. Everybody assumes that and assumes wrong, so I guess you’re not going to fight them?

Seems to me we are not learning ANYTHING from the media, the right, nobody.

The people in charge should be fired, they didn’t push the administration and didn’t use threating language when they didn’t pass progressive legislation. Asking your core who make up a majority of unemployed Americans to constantly pony up $10-20 to help the DNC or whatever arm of the Democrats to get elected with the only convincing thing is to prevent the Republicans from taking control.

The work for 2012 has not started and I’m not surprised. The Tea Party has already fired its warning shot, where’s ours? As I have said dozens of times on FDL and judging by the blog post are all over the place from Yoga to some other unimportant nonsense that won’t solve the core problems of the Democrats believing Blacks, Latinos and Progressive Whites are automatically going to vote for them.

We are not making them earn our vote. When are you people going to understand that? If you can’t find somebody to run against House member, Senator or even President why don’t you do it?

We need to build this up from the State level up. Our test beds are New York and California where strong Democrats have won the Governors seat. What about Vermont’s push for Single Payer Health Care? Why not mobilize to help get Vermont Single Payer. California’s SB810 (Medicare For All) and State Senator Mark Reno have already said that SB810 will come up for a vote in 2011, its passed before, I see NO reason for Brown not to sign it and make history and solidify Democrats position (at least Californian Democrats) as THE progressive party.

Instead of finding other Democrats to run against Corp Democrats, why not empower Green Party candidates?

Its time to shift this shit into high gear.

100%, we need to solidify our PLATFORM and then move into States where Progressive movements are strong and then PASS Progresive laws.

You can start with the movement for Single Payer in Vermont – http://www.vermontforsinglepayer.org/

Single Payer Movement in California – http://californiaonecare.org/

Montana, Minnesota, New Mexico and Pennsylvania all have powerful movements.

Let’s focus back at home. I don’t know why FDL spends much of its time talking about stuff it can not control (Wars for instance) and clearly have no leverage to change things, no matter how big your march is, the mainstream media WON’T COVER IT. They will only show up if they believe there will be violence and destruction of property.

~~~ModNote: Let’s not edge close to advocating violence, please.~~~

The fact that I am reading that Obama is thinking of working with the GOP about the Tax Cuts shows how truly clueless Obama is

He still has not learned that he should start going FULL FORCE towards his ideas