The White House is learning that you can only run a scam so many times before people catch on.

So, this is the Biden-O’Connell tax deal?

We traded Chimpy for Chumpy.

“we” has nothing to do with it.

O’Donnell is nothing. Just like Sarah. Blips. Here today. No substance.

What is this? Some kind of perverse game of “keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer?!”

The meeting was one of a number of direct conversations over the next few days between Mr. Biden and Mr. McConnell…that ultimately led to the agreement reached Monday.

If Obama’s Tax Scheme for the Wealthy goes down in flames, Obama will just throw ol’ Joe under the bus. “It’s Biden’s fault!”

Whoa-de-do. Where is everyone? Maybe fighting windmilltrolls elsewhere. Will take a look and come back.
BT, I so look forward to your 10:30 pst posts. Thank you, gentleman.

MC-Connell, duh.

Palin without the intellectual heft.

I hate this betrayal so much I am turning into a broken record. The Dems in the House do not believe a word Biden says. Biden dragged along his economics adviser Gene Sperling. House Dems didn’t buy Sperling’s glowing assurances that the taxcut bonuses/estate-tax cock-sucking would be “stimulative.”

So then WH had Larry Summers hold gaggle with press Wednesday afternoon where Summers dropped his “double-dip doom” bomb. House not buyin it.

Either Summers at the WH or the dog-and-pony show on the Hill then brought out the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). Just wait, they said, the CEA has a report coming out Thursday explaining how fabulous this deal is.

What do we hear from the CEA? crickets …..

Nothing on CEA’s front page either.

[ the sound of wheels coming off the bus ]

Howard Fineman’s contention and lead paragraph in an interesting piece on Huffpo:

“The tax-bill fight is revealing a crucial fact about President Obama’s new, “post-shellacking” White House: it is increasingly being run by veterans of the Clinton era.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/09/the-clinton-crew-takes-ov_n_794430.html

I don’t agree with everything that Fineman says about the Clintonistas.

Fineman’s: “they are brilliant” particularly strikes me as nonsense, describing people who desperately wanted to see Hillary Clinton get the nomination, but who weren’t “savvy” enough to point out to her that kissing republican ass was NOT the way to do it…

Also, Obama’s larding of his administration didn’t just happen post-shellacking; he did it from the gitgo…which is arguably part of the reason he and the democrats, just two years after an historic win, are back in the political shitter.

But this is a good read, and a provocative one, considering the distinct possibility that Hillary Clinton may make a run in 2012.

Who here would vote for Hillary?

Sad … pathetic … totally expected … still sad …

One of the key problems, I think, is that there is nobody, or practically nobody, left on the D side from before 68. Kennedy and Byrd are gone, Wrangell was elected in 72. Who else? This has been a long, disastrous, run for the free-market fundamentalists.

They don’t remember what it was like to have a functioning majority. They don’t remember what it was like to bargain from a position of strength. Most of them are post-80, and don’t remember what it was like when practically all Democrats, and many Republicans, were New Dealers.

They are not, for the most part, lefty partisans who are reluctantly going along where they need to. They prospered in the more conservative environment because they really think the correct position is just slightly to the left of the radical far right.

They (meaning Biden in this case) really think that the choice is tax cuts, or tax cuts plus UI extension, and what a great deal to get the UI extension. How could you not clap louder?

I know everybody is hot to primary and replace Obama, but you start your revolution at the bottom (the conservatives knew that, it took them 16 years between Goldwater’s defeat and Reagan’s win). You replace local party chairs, county and city officials, state legislators, governors, congressmen, the occasional senator, and the last round is replacing the Prez, not the first round.

As we go through our exercise of “who would primary him?”, the list is pretty short. Until the party is taken back and the list is long, don’t expect a quick victory.

So – what I get is this: the Republicans actually WON the 2008 election. With massive organizing support from Progressives, Dems and Independents.

Grumpy McPain and Grizzly-Bot Palin have time and money to range FREE over the airwaves, dumping on the Prez and revving up the conversative base; The Prez dumps on the Dems/PRogressives revving up a left BASE, who will fail epicly as a 3rd party in 2012.

It makes so much sense, I’m frankly impressed.

It’s getting crowded under here.

Mr. Obama, meet Mr. Shark.

Biden just made a huge mistake in both judgment and action. He’s toast.

Now, if this deal fails (and I doubt it will), and Biden is singled out to take the fall (possible, but unlikely, it will be DFHs instead), maybe this is the thing that will pull Biden off the ticket.

Obama leaves the health care debate to Congress: the American people get fucked over.

Obama leaves Congressional Democrats out of the negotiations over tax cuts and hammers out his plan: the American people get fucked over.

Obama is the common denominator. I’ll be happy when he’s gone.

demi’s right. Palin, O’Donnell, and their ilk were temporarily valuable as red herrings for the Pollyanna liberals who were supporting Obama’s selling us out, as those bloggers screeched about what the asshats were saying, instead of what Obama was DOING.

Now that the predictions of all of us who were warning that Obama and the people staying the course with him were dragging us into the toilet, have been borne out in such a near-total ass-kicking last month, the bible-zombies and flat-earthers have basically served their purpose…with one exception: it’s still going to be fun to watch the “moderate” republicans who like to use the snake-twirlers, and then kick them to the gutter, try to finesse that, this time around.

And there’s always the possibility that the repubs will throw up their hands and let La Palin have the nomination.

If she runs for it, we should all send her some money. No one else in the GOP can scare the living shit out of as many voters, with her gibberish about God wanting us to invade Iraq, and how women pregnant from rape or incest, should be forced by law to carry to term, as Ms. Mooseturd.

Run, Sarah, run.

The DFH bashing by the nerds is really tedious and unproductive coming from those losers and ultimately just defines them more clearly as the doofusses they are. JMHO

Who is the “sanctimonious” one?

The one who fights for the underdog to make things just a smidge more fair?

or the one who says “hey, I’m the one who can really deal with this guys. I’m special. I am the anointed one who can bring reason to the insane.”

She can win.

I’ll be happy when he’s gone.

Amen.

Keep your friends close, call your enemies sanctimonious purists.

Barry ain’t no street fightin’ man. Biden has street a little bit, but the wrong street.

Are they still thinking that the Progressive base is “going to come home” after the pasting they just took? They are either too stupid to govern, too arrogant to govern or too delusional to govern. Take your pick, it doesn’t matter because no matter what philosophy you adhere to, they have no business governing.

Yup.

Biden has street a little bit, but the wrong street.

These days it’s Wall Street.

Very few, I would hope. And that built-in deficit may make her stay on the Titanic until it really starts kicking up for the plunge, in mid-2012.

Or not. Having the thigh-sweats for the Oval Office is hard to cure.

There’s a piece up on the AP News, with lots of pundits condescendingly pooh-poohing the idea of a challenge to Obama in 2012. I think that, as usual, they’re full of shit. The political landscape in 18 months is going to make the current chaos of the repubs having Obama jump through trickle-down hoops look like a lawn party. Practically anything could happen, including, the best scenario for us: That Barack Obama does the only statesmanlike thing of his presidency, and announces in mid-summer of 2012 that he won’t seek a second term.

Fingers crossed.

Hahahaha

I’m gonna go with “delusional”.

Practically anything could happen, including, the best scenario for us: That Barack Obama does the only statesmanlike thing of his presidency, and announces in mid-summer of 2012 that he won’t seek a second term.

Absolutely – it happened to LBJ, and he was a better man than Obama.

In 18 months, you’re right. Iowa is in 13 months. Obama has about 6 months to crash and burn to the extent that someone (who?) has a credible shot at a primary challenge.

Anybody know anything about this DeFazio guy from Oregon? Any chance he could be a contender?

He will be challenged. That we can be sure of. They are scared, although I never believed that Barry had any intention of two terms. If somebody really strong like Grayson runs against him, maybe we can escape BushIV.

We ended up with Hillary already as President. The only thing that would have been better was there would have been less cheerleaders in the netroots mindlessly repeating talking points and less rhetoric about bipartisanship.

“She can win.”

A fantasy worse than any other political mistake the democratic party could make.

The republicans still loathe her.

And now, they’re joined by a lot of democrats. If she runs directly against him, instead of waiting for a possible withdrawal from him, there will be that many more Obama supporters who will cheerfully wish her abject political failure and who will work to that end.

If she waits for much longer, she’s going to be so tarred with the brush of being Obama’s Secretary of State, that she won’t be able to capitalize on distancing herself from him. Which, incidentally, is something for us to watch for in the next 6 months.

somebody really strong like Grayson

I like Grayson as much as the next guy, but a single-term Congressman who lost his re-election bid is not generally considered “strong”.

K Street, too.

I was actually referring to grizzly lips.

Yep. That one too.

“…and he was a better man than Obama…”

Hard to argue with that, despite LBJ being the main deciderer for the bloody, useless, misery of Vietnam. At least he recognized what a failure it was.

He lost because he was strong.

I’m going with that one too and a little bit of arrogant.

I here I thought it was C Street!

I like Grayson, too, and that worries me.

Purely hated it when he went down.

One of the saddest casualties of Obama’s “bipartisanship”.

If Obama loses the Congressional Black Caucus, he’s in very dangerous territory for renomination in 2012. His support among African-Americans remains sky-high, despite his treatment of Van Jones and Shirley Sherrod. But if the leadership of this bloc — Congresscritters representing huge chunks of this critical constituency — peel off, you’ll see party leaders flailing around looking for a primary challenge very quickly.

see:

“A deal breaker for me is the estate tax,” Representative Gregory Meeks, 57, a Democratic member of the Congressional Black Caucus from New York, said today on CNBC. He said he would support the package if the estate tax provisions were removed.

also:

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) also joined the chorus of critics Wednesday night. The group, of which Obama was a member during his Senate tenure, is drafting a separate proposal to compete with the White House-GOP deal. The CBC effort is being led by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.).

“We understand there are tough choices that will need to be made next year and are extremely concerned that the cuts that could be made should this package pass will disproportionately hurt the poor and low-income communities,” CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said in a statement.

Lee said she told Biden at the meeting that “an overwhelming majority” of Black Caucus members opposed the Obama tax plan, specifically the estate tax provision and the extension of income tax cuts for the wealthy.

He won’t take that loss lying down. He will fight.

He lost because he was strong

And that cute woman at the bar won’t go home with me because I’m good-looking.

Following the 1968 scenario, there will likely be a quixotic challenger who’ll do much better than expected against Obama in the first caucuses and primaries, thus drawing in a very credible opponent and precipitating Obama’s withdrawal to seek “peace in our time” in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Or Yemen or Somalia, for that matter.

I don’t get it..? Dummy me.

We need Grayson back in Congress. No reason he can’t run again in 2012.

biden and mcConnell colleague for 25 years.Why do you think these people would do anything that would be good for the under class.Baby Boomers Pledge”Fuck you I got rich from your labor Now I’ll get richer from your childrens labor.”

What no “too corrupt” option?

I agree with your assessment of Palin’s chances. The Republican detest her and the only reason she gets any attention at all is because she’s pretty. Look at all of the attention she gets as opposed to Alan Keyes say or Pat Buchanan. All are batshit crazy and all have had or still have presidential aspirations but the only one the media flock to is Palin. Same with I’m not a BWitch O’Donnell. Nobody would pay her the slightest heed except for her mother if she wasn’t a pretty woman. Palin is a media phenomenon but doesn’t have any clout in Republican circles except for the older Republican men who stopped being attracted to their wives decades ago.

I’m with you. Greyson lost because he’s truly progressive. He was seriously underfunded in his re-election bid when compared to his opponent.

Nah. That’s an all Republican and Republicrat street.

Please feel free to add your own options as long as one of them isn’t “perfectly able to govern”, because obviously they are not.

the only reason she gets any attention at all is because she’s pretty

Heh. I wouldn’t hit that with someone else’s bat.

Thanks, demi.

We shouldn’t get too concerned about not having anyone step up to even discuss the idea of a challenge. It’s early, very early.

Nothing would be gained by doing it now. OTOH, occasionally and publicly kicking him in the ‘nads would, I think, be laying good groundwork. It would also be taking advantage of the fact that Hillary can’t do much of it, as long as she’s at Foggy Bottom.

I’m not worried about too few people stepping up; if anything, I think people will be coming out of the woodwork to run, whether he’s already bailed or not.

That’s just how low I think his political stock will be in mid-2012.

As I said earlier, it’ll be a case of the voters telling the democrats:

“You get rid of him, or there won’t be enough democrats left in congress for a good poker game.”

I don’t get it either. Darned cute women… (grumble grumble)

“Strong” in the context of elections means winning. This is what shut down George Allen’s presidential bid. After you lose an election, you don’t run for a higher office, because you are a loser. You launch your campaign for higher office on the strength of your current electoral victories.

They aren’t even marginally able to govern. They couldn’t govern their way out of a time-out. My 5 year old daughter is a better negotiator.

I would have but it’s kinda a moot point at this time. What’s done can’t be undone and she has said she is not running after SoS.

I think IsIs was refering to strong in terms of policy.

All true.

Hillary needs many porters for her baggage: eight years with Third Way Bill and two with cryptoRepublican BO.

Tell Governor Richard Nixon of California your theory of movin-on-up the electoral ladder — I’m sure he’ll be interested. And former Congressman George W Bush. As well as his father Senator GHWB.

Grason was loud but had no spine.One of the first that I seen telling the People that the Public Opption wasn’t important to curve Health Care cost and we just needed leave ower Health Care in the hands of for profit insurance.

Isis, I have my doubts that he’ll fight. I’ve seen little to show that he’s a fighter. I don’t count repeatedly throwing his most loyal adherents under the bus, as evidence.

Teddy, that’s a good point about the Black Caucus. If, at any point, they bail on him, it’ll be the dead mine-canary that he’s an historical footnote. Of course, he might be one, anyway.

because she’s pretty

Tick … tock …

She isn’t getting any younger. She is a reasonably attractive woman – for her age – and she is ageing normally. I saw some stills from that dopey TV show she is doing – when the image is not carefully composed, she looks like an average 50-ish woman. Two more years and her looks will not be all that great an asset. Forget about it in six years.

That is exactly why I think she could win. Attractive. Likes to kill animals for sport. Horrible voice. No substance. Dumb. Uneducated. The PTB just want a “figurehead” anyway…If she makes it into “office”, they’ll tell her to jump and she’ll tell them to fuck off…then she’ll realize what’s really up.

I know everybody is hot to primary and replace Obama, but you start your revolution at the bottom (the conservatives knew that, it took them 16 years between Goldwater’s defeat and Reagan’s win). You replace local party chairs, county and city officials, state legislators, governors, congressmen, the occasional senator, and the last round is replacing the Prez, not the first round.

As we go through our exercise of “who would primary him?”, the list is pretty short. Until the party is taken back and the list is long, don’t expect a quick victory.

I don’t see that things need to be done in any particular order; we should seize opportunities wherever we find them. Nor is the time scale necessarily slow; we’ve just seen some examples of how quickly people’s attitudes can change.

But there is still considerable truth in your cautions:

1. Everything depends on activating the base. As I’ve often urged, we need to convince the uninvolved that things have gotten so bad that intensive political involvement has become the duty of every citizen and the only hope for a tolerable future for anyone not in the ruling elite. Politics is now everyone’s problem. And the base needs to be convinced that their vote matters all the time, in every election. They also need to learn not to personalize politics excessively. It would have been better if Obama had been for real, but the enormous turnout in 2008 was a huge victory nonetheless. Obama’s betrayal is not fatal; mass apathy would be.

2. We need to work at all levels, not just at the top. Primarying Obama doesn’t need to be postponed until we’ve replaced all the lower-level pols, but those goals do need to be pursued in parallel with the top-level effort.

3. Nothing is ever a reason for giving up. While rapid progress is a realistic possibility, it cannot be guaranteed. If it does take 16 years, it still needs to be done.

4. We have to think about the endgame. It would be incredibly demoralizing to fight purely defensively, aiming only to end the current flagrant abuses without changing the system fundamentally. The thought of “winning” only short-term, and leaving in place the system that created these problems in the first place, is almost as depressing as the thought of losing altogether. Real hope for the future is a human need in the present. (I’m thinking of writing a diary to expand on this last point at length.)

He certainly couldn’t do much worse than what’s being done already.

MyTwo: spot-on. There aren’t enough democrats to tote that load. She’d have to go…what’s the word I want?…

Triangulating! :o)

Yep. Her fifteen minutes of fame are almost at an end and it wasn’t soon enough.

I would. I really didn’t want to vote for Obama, but given McCain as the alternative, I felt I had no choice.

I look at their characters through the stars. Obama, a Leo, wants only to be appreciated and loved by the financial elites… not so much by the rest of us. Hillary Clinton, a Scorpio, has far more potential to be a transformational president. Scorpios do transform organizations that they run. And, she would not have as consistently negotiated away everything with Republicans, as Obama has done. She already has their number.

I doubt that she would have thrown women under the bus in that health care bill. She also voted against the FISA bill, while Obama voted for it.

Nixon’s Checkers speech…Nixon Prezdident

There’s a lesson here. See how easy it is to get the Party of NO! to say “yes” – just give them everything that they want.

Kissinger decides. Listen to the tapes at the Nixon center. Kissinger is recorded considering Nixon for Pres. He’s still around…even sitting to Barry’s left during Barry’s “drop-in” at the START meeting photo-op.

For those of you who want to help hasten BO’s retirement, please vote on a new party’s name and platform – and volunteer if you can – at

http://my.firedoglake.com/themalcontent/2010/12/07/the-movement-grows-voting-deadline-6-p-m-pst/

You still have a few hours left!

Oh lord…Yes, Obama always had Clinton people in his admin, that’s likely because you would have to go back to Jimmy Carter’s administration to find Democrats with WH experience otherwise. This article is nonsense. It seems to try and link Bill Clinton to Obama’s decision not to pursue Clinton-era taxation.

What a surprise. Simon Rosenberg lurvs him some Obama “compromise”. I made a comment but it will be moderated out so I’ll paste it here as well:

You like it because you’re a DLC neoliberal who will greatly and personally benefit from it. Period.

The economy will turn horribly south within 6 months and the Dems know it. Their cover story, “we did what the Reps wanted and look!”, won’t work without this bill passing. Nothing can save the situation except true massive stimulus with make work programs. Not in the cards.

It’s going to get worse.

Jane was just interviewed by Tamorine (?) Hall. Saying small chance of Obama being primaried. Interesting.

The economy will turn horribly south within 6 months and the Dems know it.

I’ve got bad news for you. You’re about two years late to this party….

No, that’s a fundie xtian street. And there’s no such thing in Washington as too fundie xtian, esp. when your boss is accused of muslimery.

The turning of the screwers.

I think there’s a very slim chance that she could win the nomination…at which point, I’d dance naked, if the GOP was that suicidal. :o)

It would be the perfect equivalent of the democrats letting Obama run again. what a race! Lowest percentage turn-out ever. :o)

Realistically, Palin is prolly the only chance we have at hanging on to the White House. At least, she’d give us a shot at it.

Just as a viscera-check, I’d love to know what percentage of REPUBLICAN women think that women pregnant from rape or incest should, by law, have to carry to term? Which legal change for Alaska, Palin stated she would sign, when she ran for Governor in 2006.

I would be astounded if it got to 50%.

I agree. Most establishment Democrats think Obama is both hunky and dory and there’s a lot of time between now and then to distribute political bones.

Me.

No, I’m talking about the financial institutions needed more money to stave off collapse. I’m well aware of the current state of the economy and the suffering caused by it.

Well, let’s see.

Nixon was never Governor (ran but lost). Congressman->Senator->VP->Lost to JFK, waited six years, won in 68. One of the great political comebacks in history.

George W Bush was never a Congressman (ran but lost). Waited 16 years, won Governor->Prez

GHWB was never a Senator (ran but lost). Waited 10 years, lost in primary against Reagan, was added to ticket, VP->Prez.

What do we see? Lose an election, go into the wilderness for many years until you (maybe) get another shot. Want to be Prez? Win your election.

It makes me sad that when we are on the verge of such greatness, that we can be held back by the fucking money grubbers and war mongers.

She can’t beat Oprah. That’s our primary challenger for Obama; Oprah.

If what we got from Obama and his Clintonistas was the result of their experience and savvy, then I’d rather have put the names of the top ten students in an 11th grade Poli-Sci class in a hat, and then drawn out a dozen or so.

“George W Bush was never a Congressman (ran but lost). Waited 16 years, won Governor->Prez”

Appointed Prez

Interesting.

“…think Obama is hunky and dory…”

But don’t you think, fewer with every passing week?

I mean, 3-6 months ago you’d have found a few people carping about Obama’s feckless shit here at the Lake. Now, I’m delighted to say, it’s getting to be the goddamndest political dogpile I’ve ever seen from people in the same party as the president.

Let’s don’t stop now; I’m getting to where I like it. :o)

There could be other things too. Maybe not. But, we never know All Of It, do we?

There are two problems with Hillary Clinton:

1. The Family. She’s been buddying up with Doug Coe’s theocratic fascists for quite some time now. Her Presidency would have been worse than Obama’s.

2. Whitewater. She could only win if the Powers That Be decided to let her. There may not be enough evidence to convict her in court, but there’s more than enough ammunition for attack ads to take her down.

And let’s not forget Bush’s Defence Secretary. That’s some hopey-changey right there.

Pffft! Last I heard she’d never think to challenge Obama on anything.

It makes me sad that when we are on the verge of such greatness, that we can be held back by the fucking money grubbers and war mongers.

I think that’s the worst part of this whole mess. We all really believed that we had some change a-comin’. I campaigned for this fucker. He lied to me.

Plus:

3. Republicans hate her with the burning passion of a thousand suns.
4. She isn’t getting any younger. 2008 was her year, even that was pushing it.
5. She has already stated that she will not run.

No Oprah. She cries more than Boner.

I agree with Jane that right now there is little chance that he’ll be primaried but as demi points out correctly, we never know what the future will bring and as you correctly point out, his support is slipping. I never say never, (well except just then)

She sure looked presidential telling that Pakistani woman to “quit bothering me,” for complaining about her country being bombed on a near daily basis.

And, while she did vote against the FISA CYA sellout, her voting record is still atrocious in the most literal sense possible.

The political landscape in 18 months is going to make the current chaos of the repubs having Obama jump through trickle-down hoops look like a lawn party.

The the economy is going to nose dive by then too, with or without their “stimulus”.

Well I was thinking more in the realms of science and discovery but what you said too of course.

Her presidency would have been worse than Obama’s? I hardly see how that’s even possible.

Whitewater? Bwahahaha. Where did you pick up that one? Red State.

science and discovery

That shit went out the window. The ruling theocracy in this country wants their cellphones and their iPods, but they don’t want us proving evolution. Or finding a cure for cancer. Sheesh, if we cured cancer, how would all those fancy non-profits keep raking in the dough? Or God forbid we find a way to cure/treat AIDS! Then there would be more kenyan muslims that could run for preznit.

I was over at Digby’s a good bit, ragging on her about her incessant use of Palin and the wingnuts to cover Obama’s ass.

She was like: “LOOK what they’re saying!”

I was like: “LOOK what Obama is DOING!”

His defenders jumped me good. I was: A troll…a “purity” troll…a Marxist…suffering from terminal hemorrhoids…and so on.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot, and some of the people who were most outraged at my posts about Obama, and the posts dissing Digby for her sly covering for him, are now frothing at the mouth about as much as are we. :o)

Digby has decided to start putting up threads which use the word “Obama” in the same paragraph with “this sucks!” Instead of pretending that all of the “centrist” crap landing on our heads were giftwrapped turds-from- Jesus and had nothing to with the “The President”.

Now that she’s sliding down the slippery slope to reality, I’ve welcomed her aboard and didn’t even ask what’s taken her so long to get a ticket. :o)

(It helps that no small number of her posters are starting to sound a bit like us. :o) )

You know who I haven’t heard from in all of this? Steny Hoyer. Mr. “I-don’t-think-we-ought-to-take-a-vote-on-taxes-till-after-the-election-so-as-not-to-rock-the-boat”. I said then that Hoyer was holding out because he knew how the infighting from the Republidens who would insist on keeping the rich tax breaks would look. Many if not most of those blue dogs would still have their seats if they had just voted for middle class tax cut extensions and gone home. Idiots.

Or finding a cure for cancer.

Yeah. That’s what I was doing when the funding was cut. Studying treatments and possible cures for prostate cancer.

Not me.

Primary is very winnable!

In this political environment all betts are off.

A woman named Murkowski won a write in vote, they said it was a foolish waste of time.

A witch won her primary against the big republican machine.

And a lunatic Rand Paul, won his primary despite Mitch Fucking Mconnel trying to squash him

great suggestion!!! he is asking for lawyers to volunteer to research documents to prove that one of the Supreme court justices, forgot which one, should be impeached over the making corporations people case

Dave; that’s it.

When he picked Gates, I was like: “WTF, did Rummy turn you down?”

Got it! Barry’s going to come up with a “Elizabeth Warren”-type progressive sop to run as VP with him for 2012. Yeah. Someone who will “give him sound advice” and will “act as a leftward tug on policy”. That will be the con they try to pull.

They couldn’t govern their way out of a time-out. My 5 year old daughter is a better negotiator.

Now that’s funny!

I figured that out. :o)

Sorry.

But one thing applies to both Hillary and Palin: They each have a track record that guarantees that they have practically zero chance to become president of the U.S.

Forget Winfrey. She’s part and parcel of the elite. She’s only too happy to have educational nitwits such as Michelle Rhee use her TV show as their platform.

I fully expect Biden to be replaced, both because of his age and because the VP in 2012 is the front-runner for the nomination in 2016.

But if anything, I would expect Obama to “reach across the aisle” and show he is not “anti-business” by taking somebody like Bloomberg.

I agree, we all need to warn people in advance against the pseudo-progressive “balanced ticket” VP scam.

But the way things are going, by then O is likely to have so little credibility left that if he runs at all, warning people off the VP scam won’t be difficult.

It’s interesting how often it becomes unclear whether Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton is under discussion!

I’ve never liked or trusted either of the Clintons, and I’ve never voted for either of them, although I did support Slick Willie against the Republican impeachment atrocity.

This country has already had more Bill and Hill than the first line of the song Mountain Dew. Enough!

Coming “late to the party,” but fwiw, just in case anyone remains “confused” about who Barack Hussein Obama & Joe Biden work for and with, then this should make it abundantly clear.

Obama/Biden are hard-right NeoCons working solely & only for & with the Republicans & the Oligrachs. Got it???

Most of here did a loooong time ago, but this “back room dealing” certainly clears any lingering doubts. Thanks, BT.

Oh you two! We need someone who can count. Like Michelle Malkin. (ducking)
No, wait! Gretchen Carlson! (thwack! (didn’t duck fast enough))

Have to disagree. Biden is certainly doing Obama’s bidding – it’s what VPs do – but Biden has never been a hard right person. I preferred him to Obama before the voting.

I’m sure Biden would prefer to be thrown under the Wilmington train.

She can’t beat Oprah. That’s our primary challenger for Obama; Oprah.

Oprah LOVES Obama. She’d speak out against Hillary if Hillary decided to run against Obama. She’d have Obama on her show every week to boost his chances. Oh, wait, this is the last year of her show . . .

Thanks for the report on Digby. I quit going over there when her support for Obama got to be more than I could bear. Funny how policies that she [and others] screamed about in opposition when BUSH was president didn’t merit even one critical word when pursued by Obama.

And I am SO over “look at the alternative” and “can you imagine President Pail.” At least we’d have some opposition to crappy policies, unlike now.

We don’t need anymore incremental “change”.

Hillary’s part of the problem. Jumping from the Obama frying pan into the Clinton fire would be a plan to get swamped by another election tsunami.

We need a new face. I liked Grayson. He wasn’t perfect, but he had the moxie to speak the truth, most of the time, and to be pissed that the GOP was speaking so much bullshit.

But his congressional loss does hurt his chances, no two ways about that.

We’ve got time for someone to step up, and whatever they’re saying, people like Dean, presently denying that they’d primary Obama, aren’t looking at 33 percent approval ratings for him…yet. It’ll be a different story a year from now.

Thanks, ‘Mom I wondered where you’d gone, and then I “found” you, over here. Makes sense.

As I said, Digby is going through a sea-change right now, and so are her posters, as they deal with the unspinnable reality about Obama. The zealots who basically shreiked “traitor!” at people who wouldn’t clap louder, have either changed their tune or disappeared.

They’ve still got a ways to go, but they’re on the move. :o)

No. Didn’t in 2008,.

This post will close the loop on earlier posts wondering what happened to the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) report that the White House (WH) promised to release today to show how desperately important it is for Congress to adopt the immoral WH taxcut bonuses deal. After Larry Summers dropped his double-dip doom bomb on Wednesday afternoon in his press gaggle, with zero economic analysis, the WH claimed the CEA report would back up Summers.

All day we waited for the CEA report, or for the new CEA chairman, Austan Goolsbee, to speak up. Well, Goolsbee showed up on Rachel Maddow’s show tonight and completely muffed it. He repeatedly admitted that it was bad economics to give taxcut bonuses for the ultra-rich, that those payoffs to the wealthy “won’t work” to generate jobs or economic growth, and that he “wish[ed] that weren’t in there.” Not a word about how failure to pass the taxcut bonuses would threaten a “double-dip” recession. Zip. Nada.

As for a formal report from CEA? Crickets. All day and into the night. Any announcement on CEA’s website archive of formal reports? Crickets.