ELI!!! What an honor! Couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately the only way campaign finance will ever occur is if the masses in the hundreds of thousands march on the Capitol and put the fear of the “mob” in members of Congress.

Eli!

OT: Mitt schmoozing in New Hampshire after his big wins. The black guy they recruited to stand behind him ducked out the moment Mitty badmouthed Obama. Whoa!

On edit: Where’s the stage manager? This Kabuki show just went rogue!

BLUETOE!!!

Buzz!

It’s like asking which CEO of McDonald’s is responsible for making unhealthy food.

Update: 6:12 PCT: black guy just stepped back in…. not smiling. Looks kind of queasy. I guess someone told him to get sorry ass back out there on camera. This is weird. He doesn’t cheer when the whities cheer or smile or wave a flag. Do we have a citizen journalist who can ask him, after this is all finally/blessedly over, what he got paid to sit there?

I was really looking for a way to work Bill Black’s favorite word, “criminogenic”, into the post, but couldn’t find a way to do it elegantly.

A corrupt system creates corrupt politicians, who in turn perpetuate and expand that corruption.

Heh!

Follow up: Mitt Romney, Empty Suit Walking.

Oh, and Eli, you hit it on all nailheads. We are so screwed. Just a big, Yikes!

Thanks, but I’m hoping someone can convince me I’m completely wrong.

The “most corrupt” US President would have to have been a supporter of slavery. The US is pretty corrupt, but slavery kind of makes all this pale in comparison. Andrew Jackson was probably the most pro-slavery President…. if you ever made an occasion of Jefferson/Jackson Day dinners, you probably want to stop doing that.

People questioning why Romney gave his ‘victory’ speech in New Hampshire. Mmnmm, I think he has a house there…..and the car elevators are probably still being installed in La Jolla. He’s home for a lovely long weekend in the woods, maybe.

Citation?

****eli****

what has the world come to when firedogs agree with darrell issa? that was a rhetorical question.

Obama supports a new form of slavery. It’s called serfdom.

****greenwarrior****

It’s one of those stopped-clock things where every once in a while they say something true by accident.

You got that right! 1/5 of the population going hungry; almost 1/2 of the population at the poverty line. Someone is going to have to step up, but sadly I don’t think we are going to have a candidate (on either side) this year. Criminal, really.

Eli…just Eli
World’s feeling a little weird tonight.
Some more, and again, but especially weird.

Hiya demi. It’s *always* weird.

Not to mention the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that led to the Trail of Tears.

In the summer of 1835, shortly after the Democratic convention adjourned, antislavery forces organized a campaign to distribute propaganda tracts through the mails to the South. The southern response was predictable. Southern state legislatures passed laws to keep out such “incendiary literature,” and many southern postmasters refused to deliver abolitionist mail. At Charleston, South Carolina, on 29 July, a mob of some three hundred incensed citizens stormed the post office to seize abolitionist material. Although persuaded to disperse, a few Carolinians returned that night and took possession of the literature, which they burned the following evening on the Charleston parade grounds.

The Jackson administration’s handling of this controversy has generally been interpreted as evidence of its southern orientation. According to one account, the Democratic party’s pro-South and pro-slavery bias was the “darker side to Jacksonian Democracy.” The Jackson administration certainly was hostile to abolitionism and any efforts to disturb the South’s “peculiar institution.” It showed a continuing solicitude for southern opinion and interests, and it embraced the racial tenets of “herrenvolk democracy,” which affirmed the equality of whites and their superiority over non-whites. Jackson himself was a substantial planter, owning many slaves, and while he insisted that they be treated “humanely,” he showed no disposition to disturb the legal and constitutional arrangements that maintained the slave system. Yet Jackson’s position on the slavery issue was more complex than this.

The Democratic party was a national organization, and northern attitudes about slavery and civil liberties had to be given weight. Moreover, Jackson’s denunciation of abolitionism did not signify that he considered slavery a positive or permanent good. Rather, he thought that by maintaining sectional calm, Providence would, in time, somehow eradicate the evil. Indeed, he generally perceived the growing slavery controversy as artificial and political, with both abolitionists and southern extremists seeking to divide the Union to serve their separate ends. The permanency of the Union and the American experiment in liberty went hand in hand; both were directly threatened by agitation over slavery. And so, too, was the Democratic party. The administration therefore sought to put a damper on the slavery issue by placating southern worries while resisting extreme proslavery demands.

With Jackson vacationing in Virginia, the administration’s initial response to the mails controversy fell to the recently appointed postmaster general, Amos Kendall. Seeking to intercept the mails with as little noise and difficulty as possible, Kendall adopted an evasive strategy of refusing officially to sanction the action of local postmasters who detained the mail, but also declining to order it delivered. He thus left postmasters to their own discretion.

Upon learning of the situation in Charleston, Jackson angrily denounced the abolitionists as “monsters” and suggested that those who subscribed to the papers have their names recorded by the postmaster and exposed in the public newspapers. Yet Jackson did not justify mob action or the complete interdiction of abolitionist mailings. He denounced the “spirit of mob-law” as evidenced in Charleston and thought that the instigators should be “checked and punished.” Reminding Kendall that federal officials had “no power to prohibit anything from being transported in the mails that is authorized by the law,” he suggested that the papers be delivered only to those who were “really subscribers.”

The mails controversy became a leading question when Congress convened in December 1835. In his annual message, Jackson noted the “painful excitement” caused by the abolitionist tracts and recommended that Congress prohibit their circulation in the South. His proposal prompted a heated debate in the Senate when Calhoun objected to giving Congress power to exclude material. Such authority, Calhoun alleged, would equally permit the federal government to “open the gates to the flood of incendiary publications.”

Calhoun urged that state law, not Congress, be the arbiter of what was incendiary, and in February 1836, he reported a bill declaring it unlawful for postmasters in states and territories to receive and put into the mail any material “touching” the subject of slavery that was addressed to any area where such material was prohibited. Not everyone found Calhoun’s distinction clear. At least one key Jacksonian asserted that Calhoun’s bill was actually an administration measure because it ultimately relied upon federal authority to enforce the ban.

Northern Whigs led the opposition to Calhoun’s bill, protesting that it violated freedom of the press. Significantly, a number of loyal Jacksonians, including Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and John Niles of Connecticut, also considered the proposal “preposterous and mischievous.” After considerable discussion and revision, the bill barely survived a test vote in the Senate on 2 June when a tie was broken by Vice President Van Buren. It then failed on a final vote when enough northern Democrats combined with northern and borderstate Whigs to defeat it. The tally was more sectional than partisan, indicating how slavery jeopardized party unity. Eventually, toward the end of the session, the Senate approved a Post Office Department reorganization plan that explicitly forbade postmasters from detaining the mail. But southern state laws remained on the books, and federal law became, in the words of one historian, “largely a dead letter in the South.”

Read more: Slavery – Andrew Jackson – policy, election, second http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Washington-Johnson/Andrew-Jackson-Slavery.html#ixzz1t0nWaiGX

http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Washington-Johnson/Andrew-Jackson-Slavery.html

Wow, thanks Adam….. powerful information on history I never got taught. Thanks for sharing that.

small, courteous wave to dearie and to greenwarrior. (hi, hi)

You’re welcome :)

hi, kiddoe……..I read your comments at the Diner later in the day. Glad that things have settled down and that you are doing well. Congrats on your daughter and son on their college pursuits. Good on you and on them!

Yep… but instead of having to work the lord land for 3 days a week, we’re all going to have to spend a day a year weeding the First Lady’s White House vegetable garden.

I always enjoy reading your comments. The grands – congrats on the newest one – and about your dad.
I also enjoy your other comments…not that I’m thread stalking or anything. Ha.

Most Americans are only given a sanitized version of history. The myths and exceptionalism serve the interests of the ruling elites. Hoe many schools use Howard Zinn’s history?

If she has a sense of irony she’ll plant cotton.

And yet… the Right is attacking college professors (I’ve got a couple in the family) for being far left/pinko commies. I fear for the future of colleges. Really.

Frontline tonite
Wall Street Synthetic CDOs……….oy

My son has Zinn’s book in his room on his shelf. Jr. college in LA.

And if anyone hasn’t yet read Shock Doctrine, do it now! We aren’t through being shocked.

Obama is the worst president in history because he had, by far, done the most to renege on his campaign promises. He campaigned as a populist, an FDR/Truman/Kennedy, then governed as a Bush/Reagan/Nixon fascist.

ETA: He’s also, hands down, the lowest low-life so far in the 21st Century.

I agree with Issa, too, but he’s the wrong messenger. Issa is also part of that corrupt government.

Eli, you’re right. Obama is just the most recent corrupt president. Romney will be no different.

Republican agenda. Undermine the unions. Undermine institutions of higher learning. Undermine the tenets of the New Deal. Promote greed and “rugged individualism and American exceptionalism.

Imagine if FDR had supported the banksters when he was elected in 1932. Obama had an historical moment to be a transformative president. He chose poorly.

Baloney.

Yeah, I did a post about that a while back. Bush may have been worse in objective terms, but he delivered for his base. Obama’s done a lot more for Bush’s base than he has for what was supposed to be his own.

A historian that celebrated the “people” and not the plutocrats.

and what’s wrong with being a far left commie pinko?

I keep asking and never getting an answer: Why should I trust Obama? What has Obama done for his party, the people who paid/voted/supported his run for President? Is Obama a Democrat or not? He sure feels like a Republican to me, and I left the Republican Party back in the Nixon years.

:)~

FDR did save the bankers. It was the Emergency Banking Act of 1933.

all the banks knew that the swaps were gonna fail,they just diddnt care,cause,US taxpayers would bail them out

and they got bonuses to do their dirty work

I’m afraid we’ll run out of time before you get to my Q at 43. Please help me understand why I should support Obama (and not because he’s the least of the worst….. and not because of SCOTUS…. just because what is good about him?)

Think there is a qualitative difference in what FDR did to restore confidence and Obama’s groveling before the lords of Wall Street.

It has only just begun… They have a ways to go before the 0.01% will be happy… Just some small adjustments to the population of the 99%..

They will never be happy until they are down to a handful of inbred richies. Until they are related to all of each other and have it all, they will never be happy. Thank God for the NRA……we should all be armed to the hilt! And have our pitchforks sharpened, also, too.!

Yes, he is a Democrat. His ideology is in line with Democratic Presidents back through FDR.

Nate Silver, who writes the excellent FiveThirtyEight Blog for the NYT, did an analysis of Obama’s ideology in response to charges that he was a moderate Republican. Silver’s analysis concluded:

” It is almost certainly an exaggeration, therefore, to conclude that Mr. Obama’s positions are similar to those of a Republican of the 1990s. His DW-Nominate scores are considerably to the left of even the most liberal Republicans of the 1990s — and slightly to the left of most 1990s Democrats.”

this FRontline show =pablum

The Trail of Tears was one of a long list of genocidal acts Americans cheerfully took part in for hundreds of years.

I’m sure Obama would have just as cheerfully slaughtered Native Americans, too. Nobody ever asked, though.

Nate Silver sees what he wants to see.

Yet Bush’s base (the ‘have mores’) absolutely despise Obama…

Well, what about FDR interning over 100,000 Japanese-Americans?

Ever read “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”? A piece of history the elites don’t want you to know.

No. He does objective analysis. He is by the numbers.

How about rating how Obama fits compared to 1970′s Dems?

Nate can go cook his figures all he wants, but the only thing he’s to the left of is the right field foul pole in any ballpark.

Obama IS trying to be Black Reagan. Obama has studied everything Ronald Reagan did and tried to duplicate it.

It was wrong but then again the political/historical context were very different. I would hope that Democrats at the time spoke out against the internment of Japanese Americans. Certainly a dark chapter. Don’t think, however, FDR ever o.k.ed the assassination of U.S. citizens, indefinite detention etc..

From the Silver piece:

I’ve given a lot of credence to the DW-Nominate scores in this article, assuming that they do a reasonable job of capturing shifts in the ideological positions of Congress over time. In truth, after having read “Ideology and Congress,” I’m not entirely persuaded that they can capture all of these dynamics. The system is essentially blind to the content of legislation, so if there are changes in the types of bills that Congress votes upon, there could be long-run ideological changes that are not well accounted for by the system. Measuring ideological change is one of the trickiest questions that political scientists face, and a complete treatment would require a thesis- or book-length approach.

That sounds to me like DW-Nominate takes legislation at face value, so anything called “Health Care Reform” or “Financial Reform” is scored as progressive, no matter how big a corporate sellout it might actually be.

What’s wrong with interns, OG? LOLOL

You mean he uses “statistics?” Oh that’s just brilliant. No doubt some on the right could use “statistics” that prove Obama is a Maoist deep cover mole. Just ask Allen West.

Thank you for sharing that. I scanned it and will look more closely later. Clinton, of course, was a discrepant Democrat in many ways. So comparing Obama on that front isn’t going to do it for me. I also look at how Obama voted before he became President and what issues he has supported and what he has attacked (whistleblowers, for example) to determine whether or not he was honest (medical marijuana, for example) and really willing to lead for change (TSA affronts, for example). He spoke of transparency….fail. He let the ‘wrongdoers’ walk free. He hired the criminals to run his financial policies. Make me want to vote for him. Nate Silver ain’t gonna do it for me.

The fact that it does not account for the content of legislation or weight by the importance of issues to the public makes it ludicrous.

What can one expect from the NYTimes. The “Old Gray Lady” has morphed into the “Old Gray Hag.”

What about Obama letting 20% of American children go to bed hungry?

In my opinion the most corrupt political act ever perpetrated in US history was the crooked election of Rutherford B. Hayes. It cost hundreds of millions of people their freedom and has poisoned our politics for over 130 years.

Plus if it *only* accounts for legislation and nothing else, that’s kinda leaving out a pretty significant part of presidenting.

That sounds fascinating. I’ll have to do a little research on the subject. Thanks OG.

And we had Mr. Hope&Change, with a huge following ready to back him up, cave to the Rs and haul them back out of their own morass and rejuvenate them. Why did he do that, OG? What’s his ‘strategy?’

Bush’s Base is NOT the old ruling class. Bush’s base is newer much dumber Texas oil money. The people that got rich on Texas oil only had to be smart enough to get to Texas by WW2, dig for oil and keep digging. There’s so much oil in Texas everybody that kept digging either got rich on oil or got rich stealing oil money from even dumber Texas oil people.

Worse than invading a country and killing thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens, and wasting a trillion dollars?

The only (!) good thing I can say about Bush the Lesser is that he finally STFU and retired to his estate where he can stew in his own juices. He was, indeed, our Shock&Awe…..how did America let that happen to ourselves???

As Eli says it all.

The first rule of the plutocracy “If at all possible do no harm to fellow plutocrats.”

Word has it he’s clearing brush.

But Cheney didn’t.

I am not here to convince you to vote for Obama. Vote as you wish in 2012. If you think Romney will be better, go for it.

I am simply contesting what I consider to be a misrepresentation of American history.

Yeah, it doesn’t account for a POTUS with a 70% approval rating selling out those who voted for him behind closed doors and turning over HCR to a Congress with a 20% approval rating. Or bailing out the banks with trillions while homeowners are losing their jobs and homes.

But Nate finds that Obama is left of FDR. So much for his stupid bullshit.

Obama is just a wannabe. Those dudes are never going to accept him. I don’t care how hard he tries. I could, of course, be wrong…..Is Colin Powell a member of Augusta? Is Colin Powell invited anywhere these days? And Clarence Thomas is their monkey…..he’s just not smart enough to know it.

They, the Obama Administration is doing some slaughtering of indigenous people, with Drones. We, that is “Democrats” must kill insurgents, militants, radicals, jihadists, and the ultra lefties. The President is using “signature strikes”. That is just kill people randomly.

Then there are the lies and prosecutorial misconduct at the Bradley Manning Trial-Kangaroo style. More censorship because the Truth would undermine the little confidence we have, in the Government.

Much worse.

Yes, but what I was saying was in response to someone asking why schools don’t teach Zinn. I was saying some of them do.
This should be encouraging.
And, you know, when there’s that book on the shelf…a body has to pick it up once in a while and read it.

I get that, what I don’t get is that no one can tell me any POSITIVE reason that I should vote for Obama…..anything POSITIVE that the man has done. It all becomes, “Well, he’s not as bad as……” Crazy making! Why do you think he is worthy of ANYONE’s vote???

Oldgold has a point. American history is rife with examples of egregious, extra constitutional actions by presidents, justices and congress. Just because it’s our generation experiencing them is no reason to conclude that it has never happened before or that it has never been this bad before. Clearly it has happened and gotten worse than what we are currently going through. That being said, oldgold’s position seems to be that we should give Obama a pass because he’s just carrying on a proud tradition. Sorry. That is intellectually dishonest. Can Obama supporters honestly say that they would have made excuses for Bush’ inaction on the brutal OWS police crackdowns? The adventure in Libya? Can they claim that they would have endorsed the Heritage Foundation approved, euphemistically titled “Affordable Care Act” if it had been signed by the wanking chimp? How about dragging his feet on LGBT rights? Courts martialing a whistleblower for embarrassing the military? The examples go on and on. I don’t give Obama a pass for being a corporatist dick because “everybody does it” and I sure as Hell don’t give him one because somebody wants me to believe he’s a Roosevelt Democrat.

Hi Demi, not surprised Zinn would be used at the college level. Would be nice if even younger minds were exposed to Zinns unique take on American history rather than the typical pablum and propaganda that passes for “history” in high school.

and if the corruption and duplicity is not an “aberration” of the system what does that say about the system?

You obviously have a conclusion in mind so spit it out. I’m not going to play any games tonight. In fact, I don’t think I ever want to do that again. I find it slightly condescending of you to try to lead me to a specific conclusion like I’m some inattentive high school student.

I am not giving Obama a pass.

I have criticized him on a number of occasions. Of course, not to the degree that most here do.

Actually, I thought Bluetoe’s question was one of those rhetorical ones where various readers got to have their own aha moment. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

I will vote for him because of the individuals running that have an opportunity to win, his political ideology is closest to mine.

Could be. I’m very thin skinned at the moment. It’s sometimes hard to determine motive behind a keyboard. If so, Bluetoe has my apology.

And I keep asking….because I really am trying to learn…..what is it about him that you admire and that leads you to back him…. opposed to the fact that he may (I’m not sure) better than the alternative. What about Obama is, shall we say, good???

Thanks, for you response. I was typing before you posted. I, however, am not at all clear as to what Obama’s political ideology actually is. But that’s just me. I do appreciate your responsiveness. I really am trying to learn.

You’ve also vociferously defended him when he didn’t merit defense. And as Dearie points out, you don’t offer anything positive about him beyond “he sucks less”. I think what many of us are saying is that’s no longer good enough. BTW-there are alternatives to Obama who aren’t named “Willard”.

Oh please. No one’s trying to “lead” you to a specific conclusion. It was nothing more than a rhetorical question who’s answer is likely self evident to anyone that spends time at the Lake.

No apology necessary Margaret. Far be it from me to disparage anyone or their opionions that’s a regular at the Lake.

I’ve already apologized for that and I offer it again. I misunderstood.

Again, I’m sorry. It’s been a tough week.

Sorry to hear it’s been a tough week. Tomorrow is Wednesday, however, and then it’s only two more days to the weekend.

I think we’re all stepping all over each other. The thing about Clinton is that it didn’t take time for most of us to realize he was a good old boy, slick, “all men are dogs” kind of guy (thanks to my brother for that definition of men in general). But most of us did okay during the 90s, so we ignored his peccadilloes…..and the Repubs were so out to get him that it was hard not to have sympathy….until he really fucked up, as it were. Obama started out with a cleaner slate. But we aren’t doing well and it just feels like he will happily sell us all down the river.

In his first two years, this president helped pull the economy back from a depression, rescued the American auto industry, passed a health care reform law 100 years in the making, signed Wall Street reform, DADT repeal, the woefully under-appreciated student loan reform, New START, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the biggest overhaul of our food-safety laws in 70 years, new regulation of the credit card industry, a national service bill, expanded stem-cell research, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, net neutrality, the most sweeping land-protection act in 15 years, and health care for 9/11 rescue workers, among other things. (That’s just his first two years. In his third, Obama also ordered the strike that killed bin Laden and helped oust Gadhafi in Libya.)
 

OG: save this comment….we are in EPU land and your comment deserves much discussion. Bring it up early .. as soon as a post allows!

Margaret @ 98

BTW-there are alternatives to Obama who aren’t named “Willard”.

True, but none of them will win a single electoral vote. As such, they are not viable.

If I’d wanted this list, I could have gone to the Obama website.

All hat, no cattle.

Watching, reading and learning how others see this conundrum, this puzzle, this challenge. It Is a challenge.
I’m thanking all of you, Peggy, oldgold, dearie.
This is going to be rough rough rough.
Hold your ground is going to have more meaning as time moves forward, I think.

I think it’s a list that should be addressed in the coming months.

I’m late to this party but I want to say a few things. I can agree with some of what you say, but my criticism of Obama goes to this: he has taken too many half measures and is a slave to bi partisan actions. Just one thing to note. His stimulus package was the right thing to do, but it was no where near enough, and many told him so (like Romer, for example). We still have over twenty million who want jobs. Not a depression? Well for you maybe not, but in my limited experience unemployment is a fucking cancer. No democratic president can stand next to that kind of unemployed for three and a half years, and not been screaming about it, and then say he has done a great job.

But I do agree he is the lesser of the fucking evils facing us at the moment. I’m not sure that is enough to get me to vote for him or not.

The stimulus, health care reform, and financial reform were *all* the right thing to do, and the implementation on all three was half-assed at best.

I think financial reform was not even half assed, now that you mention it. But it’s the thought that counts, I guess.

Is “quarter-assed” a thing?

It is late so I don’t want to belabor it but finacial reform was a very critical element needed to ensure this does not happen again. As it is, we can almost gurantee it will happen again. What do they call it, another Minsky moment is on the way.

Believe me, I know. Kabuki reform.

Yes, they were half-assed. I agree with you and have said so many times here.

Of course, most legislation that has a liberal tinge to it emerges as half-assed. Social Security is an excellent example of this.

enjoyed the talk. Take it up another day perhaps.

Republicans are much better at making sure their legislation is completely full of ass.

Yes, they are.

Just received a “Dear Friend” letter from Obama, complete with a bumper sticker and other such. My first thought was to take pen in hand and respond – especially to the donation card on which all the boxes are helpfully ticked, starting with “I agree that we are starting to see what change looks like.”

We are? (I guess it is change when they tick the boxes for you.)

Well, I thought better of snarky comments and I sealed up the envelope with the sticker and such to send it back – figured that would be message enough and it didn’t need a stamp so what the hey.

Then I thought, some poor postie will have to schlep that to the White House, all along not knowing there wasn’t a dutiful campaign contribution inside. Perish the thought!

So, Mr. and Mrs. First Lady, if you have stayed up late to read this, you can now retire.

No soup for you.

People had to chain themselves to the fence, if I recall, for Obama to even nod at DADT. I do not think he gets credit for that. And I’m not sure it is fully in effect even now. And women are still getting raped with impunity. O’s got a long way to go to get any credit for humanity in re military.

Obama does not get any credit for getting rid of DADT?

I am sorry, I mistook you for someone that was serious about this.

Indeed,that’s exactly what president Obama is “A PHONY CORPORATE TOOL”,i can’t agree more with this statement,a lier too,even cynical.

Another intellectually dishonest post. I don’t know what the purpose of this site is other than to be an outlet for pot heads who fancy themselves as politicos. F*ck Ron Paul.