The only thing with that is that when they attempted to crawfish their way out of their own dung pit by conditionally refunding PPFA, they alienated the very wingnutters that they were attempting to woo in the first place…and they aren’t too happy, either. Already, folk like Erick Erickson and the Dobsons are calling for refunds of the donations they were practically drowning on Komen for their initial decision.

So, Komen ends up trapped in both ends of a buzzsaw, with really no escape. Serves them right.

On the one hand, I do think that Glenn Greenwald is being red-baited and blackballed by Obama loyalists way too much and his consistent civil libertarian stands and critical stance towards Obama’s obvious faillures being distorted by people who obviously have an axe to grind in defending a center-right Democratic President.

On the other hand, however, that does not excuse in any way the boosting of Ron Paul as a “progressive” alternative who will somehow expand the political spectrum by discussing anti-imperalism. At best, he will narrowly expand a pre-existing “American nationalism” which historically has been against foreign expansion and the military-industrial complex. But, at worst, he will do so solely within a reactionary, far-Right, antebellum context that denies the reality of race, gender, sexuality, and the need for equality.

The real failure of a bonafide independent Left that combines the true civil libertarian/antiimperialism that Paul appropriates with a legitimate respect for the social diversity gains of the 20th century and a full-scale movement for economic equality and expanded democracy, is what has allowed Paul to be perceived as the “magic bullet” for promoting independent progressive ends. The fact remains, though, that he remains as he always was from the beginning: a reactionary Republican appropriating some Left ideals to promote a fundamentally Right policy.

Far better for those independent progressives to hold out and build a genuine Left alternative that respects their principles, not merely glam on a reactionary merely because he may sound some of their objectives. The enemy of our enemy isn’t quite our friend.

Anthony

Sad, sickening, and absolutely horrifying.

Yeah, if a program ever qualified for the “death penalty” that was imposed on Southern Methodist University’s football program during the 80′s, it’s Penn State.

But…I’d let the current year’s team play the season out. Why should they suffer because of the inaction and coverup of the upper brass??

Then, after this year, the program gets booted out of the Big Ten Conference, and suspended for two years, and the entire athletic department gets a thorough cleansing.

And the current players get to either continue their current scholarships and complete their degrees or transfer to other schools without penalty or hardship.

As for Paterno….well, he can just go straight to Hell. Portraying yourself as Jesus’ coach while abetting a sexual predator for so long doesn’t make you anything more than a liar and a hypocrite, JoPa.

Anthony

Of course, the usual Obamabots will respond that the Latino/Latina community should just get the hell off President Obama’s back now, since he’s already done more then they humanly deserve because he has to fight the big, bad Teabaggers and those awful Republicans enough. After all, what else can they do…allow Bachmann or Perry to get elected and watch them build the eletrified fence and shoot them all at will??

Hopefully, I hope they tell him to go straight to Hell, and push the fight even more. People who are here legally and do no harm do not deserve to be the pawns of Apartheid.

Anthony

The minute I saw the title of this post, I knew exactly where he got it from.

It’s from an Obmabot blog titled The People’s View, from a post attempting to justify the debt ceiling “compromise” bill:

Paul Krugman Is A Political Rookie… — The People’s View

In fact, I posted over at my own blog a rejoinder to such nonsense:

For People Who Insist On Seeing The Glass As Half Full… — Inventing The American Left

So…has Deaniac83 picked up his check from OFA yet??

Anthony

When a multimillionaire starts talking about how he wants to pay MORE in taxes, then usually is a hidden trap door. Buffett’s is that he wants to scrub the budget so that he can make a killing in investment bonds…and he’s no friend of entitlements, either.

Sorry, but he is as much a part of the problem as is any other mooching billionaire. Tax his butt, too.

Anthony

Sorry, but Ron Paul won’t last past Super Tuesday…his Fortress America message simply doesn’t chime well with the neocons, and Bachmann and Perry already have locked up the Christian Right/Tea Party share of the Repub electorate.

Mittenz absolutely MUST win New Hampshire and South Carolina, then finish at least second in Super Tuesday, to have any chance.

Perry should sweep the South, and Bachmann the Midwest…which probably means either a bitter fight to the convention, or perhaps a truce where Bachmann agrees to become Perry’s running mate in exchange for a GOTP Unity ticket. (I can’t see most older fundies picking a woman at the top of the ticket, not even Bachmann).

In my view, it’s Goodhair’s race to lose.

Unless, of course, St. Sarah of Wasilla decides to enter through the back door..and then all bets are off.

Anthony

Last time I checked, Texas was still a state of the Union, located south of Missouri. And they have this governor named Rick “Goodhair” Perry, who has money and pretty deep backers.

And if I remember right, he’s now in the race too.

He’ll sweep both the South and the more misogynisitc Christians who simply won’t stand a woman at the top of the GOTP ticket. If Bachmann can’t win Cali and the Northen states, she’s toast.

Bachmann’s a threat, of course…but my money’s still on Goodhair to pull it out.

Anthony

That may be true…but given the overreliance on cars for our well being and our “just-in-time” society, it would be a major inconvenience for most workers to shift away from cars…especially if where they work is further away from where they live.

Plus…auto insurance serves a vital purpose: it allows for quick payment and resolution of auto accidents by creating a pool of money from insurees. The more people insured, the bigger the pool, and the easier to replace and repair cars destroyed in accidents. Asking car owners to pay a bit extra for auto insurance is not even close to being a huge burden.

Removing the forced mandate for health insurance would make the health pool that much smaller, since insurers would simply bump up their premiums to make up for the loss of people getting insurance, and/or reinstate “preexisting condition” clauses in order to keep from paying out claims to to the insured.

Private insurance providers, like all other private firms, exist first and foremost to make a profit for themselves, and that would ultimately take precedent over providing quality health care or expanding the base of the insured.

There really is no substitute for single payer, backed by a national public health system. The private for-profit system of “health insurance” is the problem, not the solution.

Not to mention that getting rid of the greedheads and middlemen would really do a number on the debt and deficit….as in $7 TRILLLION over the next 10 years ALONE.

Anthony

Probably not, because the TeaKKKluxers only love THEIR Medicare, they just don’t want those freeloading Black “gangstas” and “welfare queens” and Brown “illegal aliens” to mooch off them.

They probably would prefer Medical Savings Accounts so that they could “play the market”, and vouchers for the poorest. The rest?? Well, if they didn’t live right by (their) God, then they get what they deserve. Plus, they need to work harder and longer for less, anyway, so that the “free market” system can flourish.

Anthony

Uhhhh…FDR was elected. Hitler and Stalin were NOT.

Hitler was appointed to his “presidency” by the ruling conservative party under former chancellor von Hindenburg in 1937. The Nazi Party never had a majority.

And…Stalin assumed command of the Communist Party in the former USSR after the death of Lenin.

FDR’s rejection of “compromise” was more due to the pressures of forces to his Left, such as the Populist movement (see Huey P. Long) and a still strong militant labor movement. Those forces were more of the key in pushing Roosevelt further leftward.

Anthony

The problem with that, though is that the provisions in subsection (e) (1) specifically state that the original rules state that any bill based upon the “Super Committee” report cannot be referred to a committee, but would (under subsection (e) (2), basically replace the bill that the other body would be considering….unless the bill being considered included revenues, in which the House would be allowed to refer it to the House Ways and Means Committee (which usually handles budget bills).

In that case, while it may not be amended or debated, it STILL could be simply tabled and killed by the Republican majority, and thus starved until a no-revenues bill was reported out of the “Super Committee”.

In other words…if a report with revenues came out of the SC, the House would simply table it to death. This is their ace-in-the-hole, along with the appropriation process, that they can use to blackmail the Dems into more severe budget cuts and extending the Bush tax cuts.

All they need is one deficit hawk Dem to go along, and it is history.

Anthony

Sorry, Ms. Hamsher, but you are simply dead WRONG on this.

That vote you mentioned was a procedural vote that was ginned up by the GOTP to insure failure of the original Reid compromise bill…the one that was defeated in the Senate on Sunday by not making cloture. It was basically a show vote done by Boehner for propaganda purposes.

To hang Grajalva for that and diminish his correct opposition to the final “compromise” bill like this is the height of hypocrisy…and I have to ask what your agenda in all of this really is to smear a progressive that’s really on your side of the debate.

Anthony

And on the original post:

It seems as if the fix is beginning to set in…all Obama has to do, sayeth Bonehead and McTurtle, is agree to the “triggers” in a way that insures that the cuts fall exclusively on “entitlements” and allows the Bush tax cuts to expire, and the deal is done.

And the best thing about it is, of course, it can’t pass without not only Obama bowing down to the GOTP like Kunta Kinte/Toby taking the whip, but he also has to sell this crap to the House Dems and get them to pass it, since no Tea Partier will be forced to vote for it…else the liberals get the blame for causing the default (because the Village Idiot Media always give the TeaKKK the benefit of the doubt).

A double-plus good deal for Obama, who gets his triangulation deal AND gets to hippie-punch the “professional Left” and gets rewarded by Wall Street for saving the country from the big bad TeaKKK, even if he had to firebomb several poor villages to “save” it.

And, the Tea Partiers can continue to rag on the “moderate” Repubs for giving in, even though they got 99.99999% of what they wanted in the first place, since the political dynamics are pushed even more in their direction towards a final victory in 2012, where they can simply rely on Diebold, voter suppression, and a dispirited and split Dem electorate to finally cross the finish line.

Nice job there, Barack and the DLC/Third Way. 70 years of effort destroyed in 16 months. And we gave them a supermajority, too.

Anthony