Krugman is mistaken. The Prezdint is taking a stand, but it isn’t for those who voted for him.

Great read by Richard Freeman. His conclusion:

The (Obama catfood) Commission’s proposal is the most naked, undisguised declaration of class warfare possible. Its agenda is not to reduce the deficit but rather to reduce what is left of the American middle class and American workers, to a condition of servitude, of feudal peonage. Their poverty will make them docile and subservient. This will make possible the final looting of America…

Whoooo, a Warning: Yet another pic of W; let’s help him go away.
Morning All.

Re: Krugman. Just yesterday I was thinking about writing to Michelle Obama to urge her to henpeck the president into living up to campaign rhetoric and fighting back. A monstrous, well-publicized letter writing campaign to enlist her aid could perhaps embarrass him into doing SOMETHING.

Mornin’, BT, pups

‘Soul-searching’ Obama aides: Democrats’ midterm election losses a wake-up call (second link above)

The advisers are deeply concerned about winning back political independents, who supported Obama two years ago by an eight-point margin but backed Republicans for the House this year by 19 points. To do so, they think he must forge partnerships with Republicans on key issues and make noticeable progress on his oft-repeated campaign pledge to change the ways of Washington.

Emphasis mine.

Man, talk about a bunch of clueless fenderheads.

He may go away, but he can’t hide. The trail of carrion left his wake leads right to his door.

Barry’s buddy writes that we need to make unnecessary cuts in SS to show we’re serious about reducing the deficit.

They’re not clueless. It’s political cover for them to do what they planned to do from the very beginning.

Kucinich ’12.

Feh. I don’t think they actually believe that but they desperantely want us to believe it. As you said: clueless and fenderheads.

I was thinking about writing to Michelle Obama to urge her to henpeck the president

I’m not sure she’s part of these policy conversations in any way and, if she is, I think she would defend his actions.

I almost quit reading at that paragraph.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent in 2008, said Sunday that the president appeared to be basing his war planning on the politics of his liberal base. “You don’t fight and conduct wars that way,” Mr. McCain said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “You win, and then you leave. And that’s what we’ve done in Iraq.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/world/asia/15prexy.html?_r=1&hp

Iraq is a win just what do they teach Naval Officers? 10 years McCain the Lefty ase says get out! The Lefty base wonders why the banks get a bailout, the rich get tax breaks but we are losing our jobs and homes.
Now we wonder if we are to lose our SS to pay for these endless wars?

Morning Joe is now a totally relentless attack on Obama. Always has been bad, but now MUCH worse.

And for the flip side of that coin, from the WSJ (paywall):

“Printing money is no substitute for pro-growth fiscal policy,” said Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican who has been privy to early discussions with the group of conservatives rallying opposition to the Fed plan. He said the signatories to the letter “represent a growing chorus of Americans who know that we should be seeking to stimulate our economy with tax relief, spending restraint and regulatory reform rather than masking our fundamental problems by artificially creating inflation.”

Do the math to figure which way the wind blows…

To do so, they think he must forge partnerships with Republicans on key issues…

So in other words, move from center-right to hard right. We all knew that was coming, right?

Morning BT, Firepups.

Afghanistan, just yesterday from the UK’s view of things:

In Chak, the Karzai government has in effect given up and handed over to the Taliban. Abdullah, still in charge, even collects taxes. His men issue receipts using stolen government stationery…
The most astonishing thing about this rebel district – and for Nato leaders meeting in Lisbon this week, a deeply troubling one – is that Chak is not in war-torn Helmand or Kandahar but in Wardak province, a scant 40 miles south-west of Kabul. … If Chak is in any way typical of developments in other rural districts – and Afghanistan has hundreds of isolated valley communities just like this one – then Nato’s military strategy could be in serious difficulty. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/exclusive-afghanistan–behind-enemy-lines-2133667.html

Our paper of record, today: American forces in Afghanistan have tripled under Mr. Obama, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander, has expressed confidence that they are making progress. … officials in Washington have said it is too early to say whether the strategy will work.
…officials emphasized Sunday that any transition would be based on local conditions, not a dictate from Washington, and would be a process, not an event. “This will be ground-up,” one official said.

Whose pacification program is working? “Kabul, Abdullah insists, controls just one square kilometre around the district centre; the rest of Chak belongs to the Taliban. “Last year, 30 ANP [Afghan National Police] came over to our side with two trucks full of heavy weapons… They could see how popular we were here, and that they were following the wrong path. They were all from the north. We sent them home to their villages.”" (Independent)

Our Supreme Commanders genius: The plan’s success depends in part on building an Afghan Army and police force genuinely able to defend their own country. The combined forces today have about 264,000 men, with a goal of 350,000 by 2013. Yet attrition has been a problem for years, with many soldiers and police officers simply walking away, some winding up with the insurgents. (NYT)

All genuflect to the Wise Men of Washington: “You don’t fight and conduct wars that way,” Mr. McCain said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “You win, and then you leave. And that’s what we’ve done in Iraq.”

Appearing on the same program, the president’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, said any pullout would be driven by strategy. “We’ve always said it would be based on conditions on the ground, and that is still the case,”
(NYT)

Our politicians supporting this Corregidor Commander: During a flight in May, after a glass of wine, Petraeus told his own staffers that the administration was “[expletive] with the wrong guy.”
http://firedoglake.com/2010/09/22/president-obama-needs-to-fire-david-petraeus/

And how’s that working out? “All this talk of a political settlement with Karzai… it is all tricks and propaganda,” he says. “The Taliban will not negotiate with anyone until all foreign troops have left.” His men are genuinely perplexed by General Petraeus’s assertion that Nato’s purpose in Afghanistan is to prevent the re-establishment of al-Qa’ida. “There were some foreign fighters in Chak for a while last year,” Mullah Naim recalls, “Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis. But they were fighting under the Taliban, obeying our orders. They were nothing to do with al-Qa’ida. There are no al-Qa’ida fighters in Afghanistan any more. I have fought in the south and in the east as well as here. In seven years of operations I have not seen a single al-Qa’ida fighter. Not one.”
(Independent)

Our forever war, what a success. Let’s plan a parade! Narcissistic sociopaths.

Which brings up the biggest scandal of all: Imagine a Congress that their party still controls passing an extension of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires but leaving the unemployed in the cold. If this happens, laugh out loud the next time a Democrat claims to be on the side of working people.

So true. And so inevitable.

Respectfully disagree. It’s we who are clueless and fenderheads if we think the admininstration has any interest at all in addressing the concerns of American workers and the middle class.

No one could have anticipated…

And the media is more than happy to help them along.

Barry’s buddies will cut consumer spending further which is just what the economy doesn’t need.

I’m thinking they should rename that show to “Joe and Mika’s Toolbox.”

“And now here’s (fill in blank) from Politico…”

I better stop here. I can feel my coffee gurgling up…

If Obama moves any further right, he’ll be in among the “Armey” of teabaggers.

Yes, they will do whatever they can to prevent the economy from recovering. Thus, the coordinated attacks on QE2.

Is it still a clueless attack on Obama? FDL could be called the same but we have facts, links and arguments with other commentors to keep us honest.

It’s looking like Obama’s legacy will be that he was the first black president and nothing more.

Where we are headed is easy to see: Our elected leaders will ask those of us in the working classes to make ‘sacrifices’ to the national debt, while continuing to allow the wealthy classes and corporations to fleece us. Obamacare is just one example – mandatory insurance for all with some price controls via indexing, but no caps on the base insurance rates. So while seniors cannot pay more than 3 times the rate for non-seniors, the rate for non-seniors is not controlled at all.

The USA was a nice experiment. But given our complacent attitudes and laziness, given how we watched and did nothing as the previous president launch pre-emptive strikes at a country that did not attack us, given how we are now allowing our current president to renege on just about every major campaign promise in the guise of “meeting them in the middle” – a middle that is far on the right, given that plutocracy is now our governing system and we refuse to recognize that, and given that all of this leads to an income/wealth disparity that we have never seen in our history, we as a country are going to doomed to revert to a kinder, gentler form of slavery, not based on race, but based upon economic class.

All he needs are some hats and signs and he’s there…

By caving on tax cuts, the president would turn his recent speeches into empty talk, lending his hand to those who would drive the car back into that ditch he loved to talk about.

“Would turn”? Sorry EJ, that ship sailed a loooooong time ago….

Thanks for the link. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Yep. Obama’s just a teabagger without the Confederate flag tee shirt.

Michelle hates being first lady. “It is hell.” She’s unlikely to be any help at all, as she can’t wait to get out of the WH.

10 years of fighting and we can’t control 40 miles outside the capital? Has anyone told Bush or Jon McCain this? Never mind Obama?

She’s a smart woman.

Krugman says: “There were no catchy slogans. . . .” What’s wrong with the old ones, like “Change we can believe in”?

I also have to disagree with Dionne’s overarching premise. A play-doh spine in the Democrats in Congress would be an overall improvement

ot -Chris Coons will be sworn-in today at 4 pm eastern.

And to McMia

It simply amazes me that neither party has any desire or ideas to actually do anything about the economy. Assholes.

The economy does not recover then all those hedge funds who borrowed money to buy home depot, clear channel, oh and Rupert bought the Wall Street Journal (I’m pretty sure with bank money) well all their business plans to repay the banks were based on pre bank collapse economic demand.
Just how many years can the banks ignore that the company stock they hold as collateral for those loans is worth much less than it did 2 years ago and that it won’t get better anytime soon?

Or not. I don’t doubt that the first ladies since Barbara Bush have also hated it (and perhaps she did too; Nancy Reagan prolly luved it). Only they were smart enough not to outloud it.

The use of the word Spine suggests he may read FDL:)

What’s amazing is that it benefits the Rs to do nothing but destroys the Ds to do nothing.

QE2 is junk. The banksters will take the money and run right to the currency markets trying to make a killing for management and shareholders.

Does anyone besides myself have the sense that the last ten days represent a watershed? For the first time in my life I have begun thinking that it might be better just to vote for a Republican like Romney in the hopes of getting a slightly less fascistic leadership on that side of the aisle rather than voting for a spineless Deomcrat in hopes that he or she will grow one. Nothing in the past ten days reminds me so much of a similar period of time in August 1988 when I watched with horror the evaporation of Michael Dukakis’ lead while he sat around in Boston doing nothing to stem. The President has been in the same situation ever since I left for the Far East. His next polls are going to be devastating, because he is losing his base.

Among posters here on FDL, I’ve been more supportive of Obama than most. He talks the talk, and as someone who was drawn into the Civil Rights Movement at the start of the ’60s by MLK’s talk, I respond to rhetoric. But MLK actually walked the walk. That’s the difference.

OMG! The jealousy over Keith Olbermann’s success just oozes out all over the page. I’m surprised that Scarborough hasn’t jumped all onto this bandwagon.

Oh, I agree. That’s what makes the Rs coordinated attack on so invulnerable.

Might be a watershed for you. Many of us crossed that bridge (you can take the mixed metaphor out & shoot it if you want) a long time ago. Perhaps you noticed.

If As Obama moves any further right, he’ll be in among the “Armey” of teabaggers.

Does anyone besides myself have the sense that the last ten days represent a watershed? … The President has been in the same situation ever since I left for the Far East. His next polls are going to be devastating, because he is losing his base.

I think we may be heading for a watershed moment: That he CAN’T win in 2012.

What about women who marry powerful men by helping them get powerful don’t they know what they are getting into? Don’t they talk to other women about what happens if they are successful at helping their husbands become powerful.
Life in a gilded cage is among the best options, getting cheated on or replaced by another woman drawn to their husbands position and wealth is another. Being ignored because their husband is so busy running or destroying a country was also a given.

Didn’t allow me to edit. Said my time was expired.

I meant to say, “Fixed it for you.”

And if they bet wrong? another bailout?

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,385

US KIA Irak: 4,427

Iraki, Afghan and Pakistani casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M

US MBS 2010: 39,432 and counting

New Kicks

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things

Namaste

Actually he’s to the right of the Tea Party – Obama has already called them posers on entitlement cuts.

Among the new changes the edit time has been reduced to 0.5 nanoseconds. Gotta be quick. *g*

Kurtz also writes that many within the broader NBC News organization had raised serious concerns about Olbermann with the top management. Chief among these, he says, was Tom Brokaw, who was one of several top NBC News stars to worry that Olbermann “has badly damaged MSNBC’s reputation for independence.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/15/msnbc-phil-griffin-fire-olbermann_n_783459.html

NBC You of the falling News ratings like all the MSM ever since Reagan got rid of the Fairness Doctrine went Right with your coverage and lost viewers and Advertising Revenue as you chose to become Pravda Propaganda rather than actual news.
KO gets you viewers because he’s more balanced and inline with the truth and the MAJORITY of Americans.

Not that I think Romney should be voted for, but at least you’d get what you expect instead of someone who pulls a Jekyll and Hyde. I used to vote for Republicans because they’d stab you in the front by being open about being corporatists while Democrats would stab you in the back by lying even more, but now I’m off the lesser evilism.

I think we need to find a way to capitalize on the growing sentiment among even the strongest Obama supporters that he can’t win in 2012. I’m sure smarter folks than I are working on it at FDL.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that she isn’t 100% behind his actions.

Your morning youtube is great. Have fun in the cesspool.

Howard Kurtz of CNN’s Reliable Sources is attacking KO Bwahahaha! When has KO been wrong on the facts and if he has been wrong when has he not acknowledged it?
How many times has Fox News lied about something and NBC and CNN repeated the lies because Fox reported it but then later never acknowledged that they reported a lie?
How many times has Howie gone after Fox for lying? How many times has FDL gone after Howie for almost everything? Just how unreliable can Howie be?
I think Howie should worry Jon Steward will visit his show.

I used to vote for Republicans because they’d stab you in the front by being open about being corporatists while Democrats would stab you in the back by lying even more

A whole lot of voters feel that way. That’s why the Rahm Emanuel formula for Democratic victory has been so thoroughly discredited.

Please don’t vote for a Republican unless you support what they stand for. Vote for a third party or write in a candidate. Let your real convictions be declared through your vote.

If Obama move further to the center, he’ll be do doing this

I quit watching that long ago. I don’t care if they attack Obama – I think Obama needs to be severely criticized – however, Morning Joe is accusing O of “socialism” and all the same crap used by Fox News.

It’s just disgusting. With all the real and legitimate criticisms of the White House, Morning Joe and Fox News and right-wingers everywhere make stuff up about socialism, secret Muslim Kenyan conspiracies, or being liberal. The once-in-a-blue-moon lefty that makes an appearance on Morning Joe is always undermined by a Lawrence O’Donnell, a Mike Pence, or some other jackass who is stuck in a contrarian loop.

Another Day of Homeland Exceptionalism! One person who was preparing to board an airliner became exceptionally angry. He did not want to be exposed to cancer causing Skeletor X-ray Scanning Machines. He also did not want to be sexually molested by TSA perverts. Therefore he left the airport or tried.

I began to make my way to the stairs to exit the airport, when I was approached by another man in slacks and a sport coat. He was accompanied by the officer that had escorted me to the ticketing area and Mr. Silva. He informed me that I could not leave the airport. He said that once I start the screening in the secure area, I could not leave until it was completed. Having left the area, he stated, I would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine. I asked him if he was also going to fine the 6 TSA agents and the local police officer who escorted me from the secure area. After all, I did exactly what I was told. He said that they didn’t know the rules, and that he would deal with them later. They would not be subject to civil penalties. I then pointed to Mr. Silva and asked if he would be subject to any penalties. He is the agents’ supervisor, and he directed them to escort me out. The man informed me that Mr. Silva was new and he would not be subject to penalties, either. He again asserted the necessity that I return to the screening area. When I asked why, he explained that I may have an incendiary device

http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html

No, he would not have any PETN. incendiary devices are only put on board by CIA patsies such as the Undie Bomber.

Thanks for link.

RE: Moving to the center. Facepalm, I say, facepalm. The WH is still talking about all this kumbaya bipartisanship BS like the last two years never happened.

I really, really, tried, but I just couldn’t read the entire text attached to each link. They were all just too disgusting, under the circumstances.

The beatings will continue, until morale improves.

I suspect “bipartisanship” was featured during the 2008 campaign because it could serve as the reason to abandon all other promises.

Sure, but really, to use such a transparent, crap excuse to keep on doing nothing is fucking infuriating. We may be the fattest, laziest, “reality” show loving country on the planet, but some of are paying attention. For me, the Kool-Aid stopped being delicious a long time ago.