The Bully Pulpit is a wondrous thing. Sometimes it can even move mountains, but usually only when it is consistent with real political action. Kudos to Obama for “evolving” on one of the few issues that has almost no financial downside.

In most other policy areas though – like healthcare, the housing crisis, bank regulation, civil liberties and foreverwars – his pulpit work is riveting, but the bully ends up siding with his paymasters.

It seems to me that several issues are being conflated here. Fair election administration and turn out are not synonymous.

In Canada, the electoral process is governed by non-aligned government bodies (ie. Elections Canada, Elections Ontario) whose only task is to bolster turn-out and run fair elections. This does not mean that voter turn out is spectacular. It has been falling for years. But at least, the registration process and access to the polls is not distorted by political intrigue.

In places that have mandatory voting, (Australia) the turn out is phenomenal, but I’m not sure the results are that much better. Their governments have dragged them into any war the US is promoting at the time (whereas Canada sat out Vietnam and Iraq and really only bothered with Afghanistan out of a sense of solidarity and morbid fear of lost markets).

Voter turn out it not a silver bullet. It would be nice to see the American process administered fairly, but actual participation depends on many things.

The singular difference I see in the US is that the entire enterprise is geared to debase its participants. Coke may compare its thirst quenching to Pepsi and Ford may tout its safety and fuel economy compared to Dodge, but Coke does not claim Pepsi is trying to poison people, and Ford does not claim that Dodge is UN-American, and is bent on killing its customers. The entire process is so toxic and dependent upon big money that voters are losing any respect for the process (although a majority, those who have not yet given up, still manage to get out to vote their perceived interests).

The problems with democracy in the US have many layers, and requires a variety of fixes. As long as the problems are seen through strictly partisan eyes, (this or that change advantages MY side) the root problems will remain.

Only a genuine commitment to the idea of democracy, and a major change in the political culture (gerrymandering and vote caging happens in both parties – though no doubt more egregiously on the right lately) will bring about improvement.

Yup. Even the changes that require no heavy lifting are off the table. Filibuster anyone?

Spring always arrives on the same arbitrary date. Local realities may vary.

I keep having this bizarre fantasy wish:

Somehow get Simon Johnson, Bill Black, and yourself, David , (other notables come to mind, but there’s only so much room on a podium) on a panel with administration, state and bank officials to debate the housing crisis. (Put it on C-Span, so there would be no fear of this tainting the popular political discourse for Ed Henry.)

I read so much of this stuff from knowledgeable sources, along with whatever passes for knowledgeable comment from those of power and privilege, and it’s like there are two completely separate realities. It hurts my head.

Is there any way to have a factual debate on this issue, or are we doomed to conflicting ideologies obscuring the reality forever?

Exactly.

Extend and pretend: Obama-style. Pull the old “Telecom-Immunity” play, and “look forward”. Rail against the crooks while campaigning, but neutralize any day of reckoning so the perpetrators walk. Zombie banks, zombie loans and zombie regulators will survive long enough so that useful allies can cash out. All they must do is to avoid the courts and the court of public opinion long enough to finish their wealth extraction.

No doubt there will be a day when this all comes back to haunt us – during the next financial crisis which they are making inevitable – but it will be far enough into the future that the current office holders (corporate and public) will be sitting on their laurels and bundles of cash. At which point, they will go on TV, playing eminence grise, lamenting “the system” (kind of like Jack Abramoff does) and cashing-in once again, reputations burnished and fortunes intact.

More important, this announcement has collapsed the unified wall of objection on the left to a settlement.

You have been predicting the demise of the settlement for months. The evidence that you were right has built up inexorably, almost to a fever pitch in the past few days.

Then POOF. A brilliant judo move: co-opt, contain, castrate. Opposition neutralization accomplished.

Who says this guy doesn’t play 11 dimensional chess. It’s just that he doesn’t play for us.

I will never again be confused about Obama. He is not weak, inept or unlucky. He gets exactly what he wants, and anyone who believed a progressive word in his speech is deluded. Pity so many ostensible liberals and nominal Democrats seem to be.

Like “Hope and Change”, the “Peace Dividend” was a lovely, evocative and compelling marketing ploy adopted to placate and entice a segment of the population.

Like Hope and Change, its valliant promoters took to the politcal field of battle and at the first sign of adversity, collapsed. The opposition was too powerful. We didn’t have the votes. Don’t blame us; we tried.

Meanwhile the bi-partisan oligarchs continue on their merry, lucrative way. Perhaps it’s time we recognized this pattern. The current political system will never change until a populist uprising of some sort forces change.

Right now America is like an alcoholic. After the events of past few years and Citizens United, incremental change is both unlikely and ultimately doomed. Real change will be possible once we hit bottom.

The only question is, will it be a “high bottom”, like when a drinker sees the damage he’s doing to his wife and kids, and quits for good. Or will it be when we wake up beside some dumpster in a town we don’t recognize.

Wow. Really?

People stupidly overpaid for houses during the housing bubble. Get over it. They deserve to suffer the consequences of their bad decisions.

The loan originators and banks operated the largest pump and dump scheme the world has ever seen, artificially driving up the cost of housing for EVERYONE, not just the “dumbshits”. The housing market has lost over half it’s value since 2006, which has suffocated the economy, added to the public debt and burned investors.

The only way to have avoided the being directly victimized by the fraud was to have stayed out of the housing market from 2002 through today (values are still sinking, and titles are still a mess).

But hey, no problem. We bet. We lost. It would have been nice if you smart folks had mentioned that by getting a new job and moving to a nice little house, we were really entering your financial casino, and that the tables were rigged.

Who is really off the rails here?

Newt is just saying out loud what Bush the younger practiced, and what all “intelligent” conservatives, not to mention the firebrands, actually believe. Against the law? So what. Bipartisan acquiescence to torture, domestic surveillance and targeted murders were once beyond the pale, not to mention the constitution.

The fact a presidential candidate is calmly saying these things just demonstrate how far off the rails America itself has veered.

Challenging the MOTUs and their government partners is a jailing offence. Publically embarrassing them is a capital crime. The WikkiLeaks revelations did both. The conclusion looks inevitable.

I honestly don’t know how you can do your excellent work on this without succumbing to despair, but chronicling this period in US history will be important. If the US continues on its current ruinous course, it will become one of the signposts of the end of the America the founders envisaged, and if sanity one day returns, it will become an object lesson of the abuses of power that almost ended the American experiment.

No matter how difficult these posts are to read (and even more so, to write), please soldier on, with our thanks.

I am as outraged by this nonsense as anyone (OK, not as much as those whose marriages are in question, but I live 4KM from Harper’s house, so the impulse to go egg his door is strong).

But have I missed something? Is this not just some government lawyer presenting an argument? Has the judge ruled here? Has ANYTHING actually changed?

If not, then I’d bet Harper will just make this go away. As much as he may personally want to re-imagine Canada as born-again paradise, he has much bigger fish to fry taking care of his crony capitalists and fighting “radical foreign-backed environmentalists” over pipelines.

I suspect he will try to work his culture-war objectives more patiently, through judicial appointments.

Isn’t it curious that the Obama administration only discovers it has a spine is in cases where their own personal, professional and financial well-being is threatened (in this case thier electoral prospects).

They only seem to fight when the cause does not impinge on the interests of their moneyed backers.

It is becoming clear that it’s not weakness when Obama caves to Republicans, or the military/financial/healthcare/energy conglomerates and their vested interests. It’s a calculated choice.

Deeds speak louder than words. The big apology came in the form of the “look forward not back” thing.

Aggressive, ongoing civil and criminal immunity and the shroud of secrecy provided by Obama is the most sincere apology imaginable for any of the nasty things said before January 20, 2009.

The rest (what Candidate Obama said, and whatever victory-lap Cheney says now) is just cheap theatrics to keep the partisan rubes in their appropriate cheering sections.

Mr. Dayen, please take a quiet bow yourself. The only thing more encouraging than the work you have done to date, is what we have to look forward to in the months ahead.

The opposition has endless resources (in media, financial, and political circles) and relentless focus on its objective – to be achieved by any means necessary. The global whitewash may have hit the rocks, but now the battle splinters into innumerable small pieces.

As they have done with the financial reform bill, the MOTUs can take a potential defeat and turn it into victory in the backrooms, courtrooms and state houses across the country.

The coalition will need vigorous netroots and media champions to keep the main narrative together and moving in the right direction.

But for now, congratulations and thanks are in order for all those you mentioned, and the thousands of others who labored in relative obscurity.