What we were given is the RomneyCare plan which was the Chamber of Commerce’s counter plan to Clinton’s single-payer national healthcare.

If memory serves, Clinton’s plan was not non-corporate single payer but the old profit-based private system set up in some sort of complicated network system to try to control costs.

Maine said it all for me. Dems (incl Obama) are corportized suckers and don’t deserve to be re-elected. Why in the world is the Super Committee cutting so much more than required? Huh?

When we come full face with our disastrous situation and get seriously upset, progressives (and even more important the non-labeled but in fact progressive voters) in this country who care about the public interest as part of the 99% will go into the streets and create a new independent party.

Oh! Excuse me! We are already doing this. Keep an eye on two sites: NYC General Assembly Working Groups and Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street which is replicated all over the country (and the world) wants to stay formless and goal-less for a while, letting actions, demands and goals emerge from local Occupations, from the bottom up as it were, while two working groups on NYC General Assembly site want to express demands and goals from a broader position, from the top although agreed to by consensus. One working group has crafted “The 99% Declaration” with 20 rough-draft goals. They use Facebook for discussion and plan to convene delegates in Philadelphia in July 2012 to formalize a Petition for Redress of Grievances to be presented to 3 branches of govt for action and if not acted upon, they want to reconvene to form an independent party to run candidates for office in the 2014 midterms — for starters. Another working group in NYC GA (“Demands”) is formulating several goals/demands and moving more slowly, debating each set of demands, intending to bring them to the NYC GA for consensus, while the 99% Declaration working group appears to be moving ahead without consensus until they get to the National General Assembly in Philly which they will form. By now new working groups might have formed. It’s all moving fast. There is tension, as there must have been when our Declaration of Independence was first argued out. In any case, there is serious energy forming itself into action.

Take a look at these sites and get involved. Find an Occupation near you.

If you leave out the $1.1 trillion from the troop drawdowns and the $430 trillion in reduced interest payments that make the plan look bigger, [emphasis mine]

Assume you meant $430 billion but can you verify?

He won’t have to be more than a one-term prez. At the rate he’s giving away the store, he’ll get it all done in one term!

OBAMA OUT!
WARREN IN!

Buttons, bumperstickers and T’s here.

Maybe Elizabeth Warren is not quite the one (although I greatly admire her) but she’s in the right direction to get the ball rolling. Just saying “Obama Out!” alone leaves the field to the right-wingnuts. Who’s a realistic alternative? Even one who will be an attractive candidate who will lose this time but speak up strongly for liberal principles, then we spend the next 4 years regrouping and finding the real prez.

Frankly I wouldn’t mind seeing Jane Hamsher but she’s probably more effective where she is, doing what she’s doing. One thing I wish Jane would add to her plate is a really fabulous candidate school for articulate FDL liberals running for all levels of office.

And please, do not insult my intelligence and patience by exclaiming how much “worse” the Republican challengers would be.
The “lesser” argument is weak, arrogant, foolish and useless.

Exactly. This argument has been used incessantly over at the Big Orange and other Obama fansites (Big O less so lately) and it makes no sense to re-adopt Obama simply because he’s a “nominal Democrat.” He’s not a Democrat or a progressive or anything like Howard Dean or Elizabeth Warren or any moderate Democrat I can think of. Letting him have the WH again in 2012 only moves the Overton Window of Dem values farther to the right, farther than it has come already in the last 3 years, making the Dem brand unrecognizable. I see no value in that.

Some say he will climb into his “true liberal” identity in a second term, like changing his costume in the telephone booth — are you kidding me? I don’t buy that. He won’t change. He’s a wannabe and he won’t take any risks not getting what he “wants-ta-be” when he retires from the WH. I’d rather let the devil come through the door in 2012 (even the devil who appoints SC justices who kill women’s choice and I’m a woman) so that passive Democrats will snap to attention and consciously fight back for our progressive values including women’s choice and build even stronger choice legislation. The religious collusion that underlies the ruination of choice and other social issues needs to be vigorously fought back against and Obama will never do it. He’s just “go along and get along” and let it happen.

Obama is losing us time. He’s like the Vichy government in WW II France, a collaborator with the enemy when the enemy today is not armed with guns, but campaign money, so he succumbs to the campaign money which can be just as lethal in its effects. We need to adopt the style of the French Resistance and get serious. We have no time. We need great leaders, great speechwriters, great framing, great PR to counter what we’re up against. This is media WAR!

On healthcare he moved the Overton Window on “universal healthcare” from single payer toward the right to a commercial corporate insurance scheme by caving in to a universal mandate on a for-profit product that will cost Americans a fortune. Rather than continue pretending with Obama, I’d rather have the next 4 years to regroup and find real Democrats (or a new party since the Dem hierarchy gave us Obama).

So how are the California One Care (SB 810) single payer bill and PA’s single payer bill (SB 400) doing? I had hoped with Jerry Brown in CA’s governor chair that SP would have better prospects after having been vetoed twice by Arnold. Or are Brown (and CA legislature) playing it safe by not going out on such an ambitious progressive limb? Single payer is smart and will save a lot of money for both states and the people in them.

>>He needs to be punished. They need to be punished. We need to un-elect them to have any shred of credibility left as a progressive organizing force.<<

A profound and refreshing statement, Fractal. I utterly agree. A robust movement of a united write-in campaign (rather than primary challenge), starting ASAP. Major obstacle to overcome: the lingering ga-ga over Obama by his original supporters and those who have fallen for him since. "Move aside Barack. We're sending in a new pitcher." Put FDL in the lead and make FDL and its allies BIGGER, much bigger. Send people into high schools and colleges to educate young voters on the progressive principles Obama is betraying and introduce a new leader. They are growing up fast with this disillusionment. Give them and the rest of Dem voters a new alternative for 2012. This is a Churchillian moment and the scourge is at our door (as it were). Make Jane Hamsher campaign director. Seriously.

Recently Jane put out the question: "What could Obama do now?" She should ask, "What could WE do now INSTEAD of Obama in a new administration team led by a new president — a REAL Democratic president?" That would be an interesting and exciting frame: Who's a REAL DEMOCRAT who will fight for progressive principles? Think of Howard Dean squared and he/she has to be a proven entity with name recognition. Elizabeth Warren for VP candidate (one idea). I would commit right here and now.

>>Perhaps now IS the time for Obama to call Congress back to create an infrastructure bank and to hurry it along to getting things done. Let the Republicans follow *that* leadership!<>If you will remember, the repubs were not taking Obama’s calls. At least if you believe Obama on the subject.<<

Well, I'm not convinced Obama is on our side, but I do believe his opposition, esp in the TP, is truly insane, not unlike similar bunch of Rip Van Winkles awakened by Gingrich in 1994 who had little mature experience in how to govern in a constitutional democracy so one-eyed Gingrich could be their king. TP is Gingrich wackos 2.0 with greater religious fervor (emotionalism). This gets to the core of what worries me. No matter how clueless Obama and Dems are, if they start getting a clue and want to unwind this disaster halfway reasonably, the opposition has coiled into an ideological/religious/irrational corner and managed to gain enough power to say no.

How did we let a splinter minority of crazies get their hands on our governance? This is a social development, not just political. Was it media's fascination with pathology in personalities? What?

I was approached recently by a young man who wanted to buy my car, a nice little vintage number he could soup up, but I need to keep it in case I have to live in it.

>>[T]his president is not only a privateer, he is also a “trickle down” economist, he is a corporatist …<<

Bravo perris! And bravo Jon for renewing the neuronal circuits of memory about the truth of what happened in the PO shell game. We were Gaslighted by Obama on the PO. The truth disappeared in a shell game after the PO disappeared in Obama's sellout to hospitals nearly 8 months before the bill passed, yet nobody realized it (broadly) until the NYT report which itself made few waves until a HuffPo blogger tried to take the story bigger. In those 8 months Obama traveled the country touting the PO (after he had scuttled it in the backroom tradeoff with industry) and used the corpse of the popular but dead PO to sell the bill as a whole to get public support for its passage. Cunning, calculating and cold.

Two things amaze me: 1) That Obama is such a cold-blooded liar and has a truly dark character (altho had a glimpse in his FISA flip before election), and 2) Why has this story never risen to TV land broadcast level of scandal for a 2-3 day news cycle? One would think it would by perfect fodder for Rethugs to show what a liar and hypocrite Obama is — but not a peep on air. Maybe it's because Rethugs and news corporations (and all corporations) don't want to advertise what a corporatist Obama truly is (never mind the character stuff) because they benefit so much by his sellouts and premature compromises and his disingenuous setups like a corporate-based health insurance system as the only thing that will work while single payer is "politically difficult," handing HCR over to Finance Comm money-pockets Max Baucus who handed it over to his chief of staff, former Wellpoint lobbyist Liz Fowler who wrote much of the bill, then Obama appointed Fowler to oversee HCR as it unfolds. Whoa! That was smooth! Her appointment was chilling. They don't want him to be broadly and publicly exposed as a rank corporate sellout artist. He's a golden goose for the corporate world which finances Rethugs — and many Dems too.

I'm still not sure what a veal pen is exactly but Obama is a Judas goat.

I hope to see Minnesota and Washington State next.

And PA and CA who have single payer bills in their legislatures now. The latter has passed CA legislature twice and been vetoed by Arnold each time, else we might have had SP in 6th (or is it 8th?) largest economy on earth. Too bad Gov Brown has chosen to cut social services and medical benefits to save budget money rather than boost the SP bill which would save scads more money for the state. Sounds like he’s not a liberal anymore, or not as smart as he used to be, or has lost his political courage (or all three). Or maybe he thinks it’s too early to be so bold.