here’s what the president should have said…

1. Enact Fair Elections Now Act. $100.00 maximum donation

2. FCC mandate that all political advertising is a public service and therefore free

3. Permanently ban anyone who has served in federal office from becoming a lobbyist
4. Enact The Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act of 2010 – Eliminate $1 trillion in tax giveaways. Change the top tax bracket to 70% to help pay down debt

5. Break up the big banks and strengthen the Volker Rule

6. End ALL wars and lower the bloated defense budget

7. Reduce health care costs by adding the public option. Allow Medicare to purchase drugs. Allow drug re-importation. The Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board should be given a broader mandate for cost control.

8. National Infrastructure Bank – Run by engineers, not politicians. Find $2 trillion over 10 years to create jobs now and increase productivity later. Put millions back to work. Fund with a millionaire’s tax

9. Federal government make massive investments in R & D to create quality jobs long term in areas like biotechnology, alternative energy, IT, materials, science, alternative-fuel automobiles, and clean technology. Fund with a financial transactions tax

10. Government pass a law requiring the seating of public and worker representatives on corporate boards to help stem the tide of jobs being shipped overseas

11. Raise educational standards through a national core curriculum. Advocate the firing of the bottom 10% of teachers nationwide and replace them with good teachers. Make higher education free to families that can’t afford it to encourage upward mobility in society. Fund with a carbon tax

12. Advocate a national ban on handguns

I liked Scarecrow’s reaction myself, which inspired me to add my own thoughts.

Such a really bad performance, there was hardly any content in this “speech”. There was a corporate plea for less medical malpractice lawsuits. The R’s wanted that and Obama always gives them anything they want. But Obama is not concerned about the medical malpractice itself.

Obama and his neo-con boss Peter Peterson, have decided that the debate between business leaders and the poor is over. The poor lose. The poor are an annoying inconvenience. The Administration actually admits they care nothing for the victims of their Disaster Capitalism. Obama is putting millions more into poverty. His hope and change were a cruel joke..

Every promise Obama has made, he has betrayed. Obama has failed the American people as he helps Wall Street and K-Street destroy this country. Heckuva job, Barack, constant Lies, Poverty, Wars and COINTELPRO.

federal deficit totals more than $1.3 trillion, while the national debt registers at $14 trillion…about 14 million Americans are out of work, but some economists working with their own models says it is closer to 25 million…There are about 2 million people who are homeless in America…Some 45 million Americans, some homeless, most not, depend on food stamps…Some 43.6 million people lived below the poverty level in 2009, up from 39.8 million in 2008…An administration official, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, tells me this evening that the President has no intention of laundry-listing the woes of the American people

I think the main issue for me is when he came out for cuts in social security. I know that this had been presaged by some insightful commentary on this site but, still, I was totally unprepared… what? not there? any thoughts from the crowd here pertaining to carts and horses would be most welcome

I thought “our destiny remains our choice” was particularly nonsensical.

A paean to U.S. exceptionalism.

i raise you “win the future”

I wouldn’t expect much in the next 2 years. If you don’t have a concrete policy on how to create jobs, how the hell are you going to create them? This 20 yr plan NASA bullshite is all fine and dandy, but people need fucking jobs NOW! People are losing their houses NOW. Oilbummer needs to get out of the bubble and talk to people because he’s living in never-never land.

As much as I detest leaders and patriotism–at least FDR had concrete, observable plans for what he wanted to do with the economy. The CCC, WPA, etc. You could look at that and say–he’s fucking doing something! But this nitwit in the White House is totally clueless. I know all the Obots are swooning about his Highness, but the emperor has no clothes.

Mornin’, BT, pups

First off, no, I didn’t watch or listen to any of it. Finished a scifi novel. Much more enjoyable.

Krugman put an “ouch” out there:

“Remember, this [Ryan] is the GOP’s leading deep thinker these days.”

Ouch.

The Democrats and Republicans are like the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals. They put on a good show, do a lot of trash talking but in the end it’s all about taking your money.

Blitzer said that Ryan was the most intelligent republican on the Hill and the CNN panel described his rebuttal as Reaganesque. Eric Erickson thought that Bachmann’s speech was better. Go figure.

It is hard to figure out where Obama really stands on Social Security. The best plan I have is to watch what he does or what he proposes in his next budget. I think he did not want to directly deal with the issue. He honored his Catfood commission, and he also said that there were many things that he would not do to Social Security. But as always, he did not say that he absolutely would not raise the age of full retirement. Meanwhile, it is also crucial to watch how Social Security watchdogs respond. So far they seem content with what he has said. Also we can watch the hardline Wall streeters and see how they respond. So far they seem to think that Obama has committed to cuts in SS. See the NYTimes piece today for that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/opinion/26wed1.html

Obama has joined his undifferentiated predecessor in our house. If we wanted to celebrate the 100 birthday of Reagan with Obama we might have tuned in. One of the better quotes I’ve seen coming from more conservative economic types.

Think of the betrayal of conservative values by Richard Nixon in reverse and you’ve got the scale of the political transformation now underway at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The next two years will be a great time for the rich and conservative as Obama sells everything down the river in order to separate the poor and the middle-class from the crumbs they used to hope to receive. All the while pompously spouting lefty sounding rhetoric.

The Wall Streeters just can’t wait to get their hands on SS money.

My reaction: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I think you overrate it.

It is hard to figure out where Obama really stands on Social Security.

That’s pretty easy. He doesn’t need it because he pulled himself up by his bootstraps with no help from the gummint as all of us should’ve done and if we didn’t, tough shit.

The speech was about what I expected. I turned off the teevee at the point when he praised himself for freezing civil service salaries. Strategically, it was a good speech. As to the venue, the only thing I got out of it was the sight of some 600 self-satisfied millionaires congratulating themselves on what a great thing they are for the country. The plutocracy has never been more in evidence — or perhaps, it always was, but my blinders are off, for good.

“Remember, this [Ryan] is the GOP’s leading deep thinker these days.”

Walking through Ryan’s thoughts might get your feet a little bit damp. Maybe.

Morning BT and Firepups.

Robert Scheer is reporting in…

They can have my SS…

Got that right! To save SS Obama will convince the people, with the corporate media’s complicity, it first must be gutted.

I picture his brain as one big lump of spaghetti code.

Ryan could learn a thing or two from Bobby Goober Jindal

Brad DeLong is the only one with the courage to say what we here at FDL have been saying for months and months.

…and Pat Buchanan thinks Bachmann is a compelling speaker. I’m shocked. Really I am.

Yeah, I noticed he said he “doesn’t want” to raise the retirement age, cut benefits or subject it to the whims of the stock market but he didn’t say he “wasn’t going” to.

Do you mind if I respond to your link? Pavlovian obeisance is at work in Obama’s case. He made so many promises during his campaign which gave folks a sense of hope, like the public option, that many people found it difficult to let reality cut through their own denial which seemed borne of intermittent reinforcement of their hopes. Good people with honest hopes for healthcare reform simply did not have the imagination to prepare for Obama to betray them. Same with Social Security; his candidate speeches were promises that he’d fight to keep Social Security intact without any cuts, changes to retirement age or changes in COLA. So folks just are not prepared cognitively for Obama to betray them despite evidence to the contrary over the last year, like the Catfood Commission, Durbin’s betrayal, the silence of the Senate ‘liberals’ like Schumer and Gillibrand.

It’s amazing, (and annoying) that anybody gives a platform to that racist, torch carrying bigot.

‘Our Destiny Remains Our Choice’

Pure Calvinism. If you aren’t well-off it’s because you aren’t trying hard enough or simply don’t deserve to be. The fact that our differentiation between the poor and the wealthy makes the US a third-world economy is only as it should be.

NPR pointing out she did not know where she was looking, but said she had more energy than Ryan…pretty good compare and contrast…..

Yes, yes it is. They should be ashamed, but we know they aren’t.

When Bernie Sanders spoke for six hours (? not sure hw many hrs exactly) in December, I hung on his every word. I could relate to his descriptions of Vermonter’s struggles. Made Obama’s speech sound like empty platitudes and avoidance.

As a Soviet scholar, I prefer to think of it as full session of the politburo.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,466

US KIA Irak: 4,436

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

US MBS 2011: 3,100 and counting

Pie in the Sky

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things

Namasté

Namaste.

TX Gov Goodhair affirming how TX always takes care of the frail, the elderly…..Just a liar as services, including schools being cut. How can those words comes out of his mouth.

I thought “our destiny remains our choice” was particularly nonsensical.

Yeah. We have a rendezvous with choice. Or something like that.

I heard on npr news this morning that they were going to fact check obama’s speech. npr also was covering the ryan and bachmann speeches, but did not mention anything about fact checking them.

She was like the guy on the corner: standing on a box, screaming at someone off in the distance — with a chicken on his head.

Nice. You are exactly right. As an old Soviet hand myself, I should have thought of it.

It’s easy when you have no shame.

It’s easy when you have no shame brain.

Fixed it for ya.

Good morning all.

Wow, you’re both right, for sure.

Just as npr usually doesn’t fact check the repugs speeches, they certainly aren’t going to cover any lies that repugs serve up.

Brilliantly stated.

Just thinking about Ryan…

Ask the 86 year women at our local store, who had to go back to work after 20 years because her retirement account was destroyed by Wall Street, if she wants her SS privatized.

Her first by choice “privatized” retirement got stolen by greedy banks.

She’s smart. She said to me, “You think I want the same thing to happen to my SS? I am not stupid. Forget privatizing.”

She also told me she “use” to vote GOP and thinks TPers are “a rude and out of touch bunch.”

She’s a gem.

Actually, I wasn’t expressing any sort of opinion of “PO” either way. I just liked the slogan. Probably should just steal the slogan and leave the rest of the clutter behind…

Thankfully I was working at my 2d job whilst Obummer was farting out a lot of hot air in Dee Cee-land (yes, I’m very very lucky to have 2 jobs, albeit job #2 is very part-time & pays squat). I came home to my trad-Dem roommate, who truly was *starry-eyed* over Obomba’s speech; said it was “fantastic,” and that I had to listen to it stat.

As graciously as possible, I said: no thanks. Don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth. “Good speeches” are about all Obama’s “good” for. What’s he DONE for you and me???

This person has loads of people around her, including her kids & boyfriend, losing jobs, but her job happens to be secure (for now). She simply doesn’t get it, no matter all the foreclosed houses in our rather nice neighborhood. I am constantly depressed by the level of total denial exhibited by US citizens and their willingness to be completely distracted and entertained by bright shiney objects.

Hobson’s choice.