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One of the crowning ironies of the swarms of reflexive Obamapologists attacking FDL for working with conservatives like Grover Norquist concerning the details of Rahm Emanuel’s Freddie Mac stewardship as reported by the Chicago Tribune is that they didn’t raise so much as a peep of protest when the ACLU, CAF and PFAW worked with the guy.
Another, of course, is that Obama himself has a long history, especially with preachers, of conservative outreach — so much so that in 2008, a leading conservative publication in the UK actually touted him as the person who would save worldwide conservatism from the bad image given it by George W. Bush:
European conservatives should, like many of their American cousins, hope not only for an Obama nomination, but also for his election on November 4th. It has been difficult to present a strong case for conservatism in Europe, partly because of the Bush administration. But Obama could change that; a charismatic and broadly supported president with ideas similar to Burkean philosophy would lend credibility to conservatism everywhere.
If you’re wondering how somebody like Andrew Sullivan could be an unabashed fan of both Reagan and Obama, now you know.
131 Comments
There’s no question about it: Obama is right of center. I can much more easily identify with Palin’s misguided (and probably disingenusous) rage against possible death panels than I can with Obama’s misguided (and probably disingenuous) policies that keep corporate death panels in place.
Me too. Medicare funding is going to be reduced. Get rid of the eaters.
Such a ridiculous comment. Sorry. Palin is mentally challenged. Obama is at least smart.
How smart is this fool who repeatedly renegs on his campaign promises insisting that he never campaigned on things we have videos of him campaigning on?
The first of this I saw was the FISA turnabout. But I can’t count the number since.
I’m an optimist when I say he’s a fool. If he’s not, we are in some very deep shit.
Obama ran as a left-leaning pragmatist, he is governing as far to the right as any Republican would. At times I think “well, he probably won’t bomb Iran, like a Republican might,” but then again, when you think back, George W. Bush also had decided he would not bomb Iran.
Obama has really carried W’s torch on most fronts: Disengaged in middle east — lets Israel do whatever and keeps sending the checks, selling out the public interest to special interests in regulation, reform, enriching industries with taxpayer subsidies and bailouts. He’s gonna maintain indefinite rendition without trial for many, squashed most investigations of Bush crimes, war crimes, etc, continues to keep us in Iraq, escalating in Afghanistan, now bombing Yemen, …
It’s crazy that he’s got all the sheep at Daily Kos thinking he’s their messiah.
I’ll bet rahm is glad Israel can do anything they want to. HuffPo had a post saying Israel is taking organs from the Palestenians they kill.There were some rabis in the US selling them.
This is not my party anymore.
Sorry that wasn’t in the Holiday Spirit. But I would certainly hate to see my son’s body come home after being murdered on their own land. It’s enough to make you an insurgent.
are you nuts?
try not to fall for every weird story you read.
take a few minutes to get past National Enquirer headlines.
IDF Confirms Organs Were Harvested
Been in the news all week.
read what milly wrote, SD.
They weren’t harvesting organs from Palestinians that they kill.
And they weren’t having rabbis sell them.
So now you both have a source to work from.
Because harvesting organs against peoples knowledge or will makes it so much better.
it does make a whole lot different, don’t it?
stealing stuff, kinda different than murdering folks for spare parts and selling ‘em off?
It’s just sick.
I agree with you about the sickness and criminality of robbing from cadavers.
Just want to know that you understand the vast difference between that and the shit that milly’s asserting.
I saw it on Huff Po. Also a while back rabbis are selling them in the US.
Then my computer got a bunch of viruses.
Merry Christmas.
well, milly, it might not be just what you were thinking it was.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Thanks ..I get viruses time to time.
Why don’t you just come out and rationalize the IDF’s practices a decade ago.
I don’t know WTF you’re onto. Why would I be rationalizing it?
I’ve been wishing for months that I could afford the kind of drugs that enable some people to seriously perceive Obama as a Socialist or Marxist. Or better still, the kind of drugs that would enable me to perceive Obama through the Dailykos murk, as some kind of messianic figure.
Heh! No kidding. I actually like the guy despite his corporatism (try and find a politician in America beyond the rank of alderman who isn’t a corporatist), and am happy that he’s actually trying to rid the world of nukes and work on climate change, but when he screws up — as he has with a variety of things from health care to Honduras — I’m not afraid to point that out.
There are any number of people at Daily Kos who are pointing out that Obama has sold us out.
Some of them are even getting paid to do it.
WORD!
There is a lot that this WH is doing right that Bushie wouldn’t have ever done. And there is a good chance that Obama’s diplomacy first is going to be very important in bringing the world with us to face our global battles for the environment.
Damned if he can’t take the heat when Americans want to point out his failings in our eyes.
QUESTION AUTHORITY is so much more important in this centrist sell out world we live in. (Thanks Bill, Rahm and all y’all fucking DLC Third Way assholes).
Andrew Sullivan has said he does not like the Palin Politics. No longer a conservative. Maybe he just likes Obama cause he is so charming.Obama is more like bush conservative. Not state’s rights, constitution, citizen’s rights..fiscal responsibility. Funding Freddie and Fannie without anyone to make sure it is done right is just bush/fascism.
But we often say Obama is wrong to do that. This is what you, and Jane, are ignoring. She is doing things we think others are wrong to do, and you are cheerleading it because she’s on your team.
I am strongly reminded of the marches against the war on Iraq. Leftists platformed with groups that were openly antisemitic. That was wrong. Of course we shared a goal: end the war, but our motives for marching, for taking that platform, were very different. Grover Norquist is poison for America and for the world. You shouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire, let alone buddy up with him just because he doesn’t like someone you don’t like.
Was it wrong for the U.S. to partner with Stalin to defeat Hitler?
We partnered with Stalin in more ways than one. American financial interests funneled money into the Soviet Union and implicitly Stalin made sure that revolution was not exported to the West. The nations of eastern Europe were given to Stalin so that Russia would be assured that no other western tyrant like Hitler could use their territory to attack the USSR, much as we installed our people in West Germany and founded NATO to ensure there wouldn’t be an attack westward from Russia.
Once Stalin implemented the ridiculous theory of “socialism in one country he precluded revolutions in other countries, the policies of the Comintern be damned. The Comintern policies under Zinoviev never amounted to more than throwing wrenches into the spokes of the worldwide communist movement, all they ever did was shoot themselves in the foot.
Stalin was much less of a threat to the rest of the world than he was to his former comrades in the Bolshevik Party who had carried out the revolution of 1917 as evidenced by the number who wound up dead after 1926 up to the beginning fo WWII.
Or, why so many Russians went west after the October Revolution. (One of my father’s college professors was one of them: engineer from St Petersburg. I don’t think he’d have survived until 1939 if he’d stayed there.)
Ummm…so let me get this straight: “U.S.” = Jane, “Stalin” = Norquist and “Hitler” = Obama. Have I got that right, a@@hole?
Exactly one of those names you mentioned actually works toward progressive ends. Pick one — and if you hang out at dKos, I’m sure you’ll pick wrong.
OK, I know this one…ummm…OK, OK…Is it Stalin?!?
The “U.S. allied with Stalin” meme is an overreaction to the deliberate falsehood that Jane is now somehow “allied” with Norquist beyond their mutual stance against Obama’s continued sanctioning of the corporate looting. It’s actually falling into the pro-Obama meme.
That said, for the pro-Obamas who are straining so desperately to contrive a soundbite where they can yell “JANE SAID OBAMA=HITLER”, a question:
Did you think the analogy and its consequences all the way through?
Because the point of the analogy is that America allied itself with someone who slaughtered tens of millions of his own people at a time in order to enforce his rule.
Are you indeed saying that it’s okay to have a common cause with an evil only if it’s against another evil?
Think carefully.
.
Hey, PW, Is your driveway-Dodd-taxes post supposed to be up?
Eeeek! Nope, I’m still writing that one! (Thanks for the heads-up!)
You are right about Rahm but the real problem is Obama, in particular, his personnel choices. Hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance does not exist solely on the right as we are learning during this first year of the Obama presidency.
Keep up the good work and don’t let the bastards get you down.
Quote: “the swarms of reflexive Obamapologists attacking FDL for working with conservatives like Grover Norquist”
Is it simply impossible to imagine that someone might be appalled by what Jane Hamsher is doing and not be a “reflexive Obamapologist”? Is that simply beyond the imaginative capabilities of anyone at FDL?
Because — seriously — you undercut your own credibility by making this seemingly “reflexive” assertion and indeed this attack on those who disagree. In fact, if you look through the commentary, you’ll see that time and time again it’s the supporters of Jane’s foolish move who bring up Obama, not those of us who are appalled.
I’ve been shocked and disappointed to come to the conclusion that Jane Hamsher is a fake activist and a fake progressive. Is this a condition that afflicts every blogger here, I wonder?
It would help if you didn’t all show up spouting identical talking points, y’know. Not to mention that you all have the same strategy: Namely, to pretend that no other instances of genuine multipartisan cooperation exist — which is why you hammer on Jane ignore the ACLU. (I’m still waiting for you to declare the ACLU and CAF “fake activists” and “fake progressives”, by the way.)
But as long as you want to be playing the evil-by-association game: Know who else really, really hates Grover Norquist besides the Jane-bashers? Michelle Malkin! And she hates him because of his willingness to work with groups like the ACLU, CAF, and PFAW:
Gee, how does it feel to be in bed with teabagger Michelle Malkin, LynnDee?
That was a short flounce.
I thought you were taking your keyboard and going home, like you promised yesterday.
It is absolutely disingenuous for anyone to imagine that Jane feels any affinity for Grover beyond augmenting a point in order to reach a specific result. Especially Obama groupies, since their idol does this shit on a daily basis like; Obama entertaining Olympia Snowe, which on many counts is a far, far more egregious, and damning, type of behavior.
I dont defend Obama. But let me point the obvious. Olympia Snowe is not a fascist. She is on the right, but not a fascist.
So, who in your mind fits that bill? And, which definition of fascism are we using?
So what? We now splitting degrees of evil. I come back to the fact that we formed an alliance with a monumentally evil man, Joseph Stalin, to defeat Hitler and could not have done so without him.
So are you comparing Obama to Hitler now? WTH? Are you serious? How can you draw parallels from those times?
No. I’m comparing Norquist and Stalin. The complaint against Jane is that it’s irresponsible to form an alliance with Norquist because he’s so evil. I’m saying “so was Stalin.”
Rabid nationalism expressed as American exceptionalism is a given. The Corporatist aspect of Government bailouts of Wall Street Bankers, Freddie/Fannie, and now the Health Insurance Industry, is starting to move the Fascist weather vane in Obama’s direction.
Fascism, is a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism[1][2][3][4] with a corporatist economic system,[5] and which is usually considered to be on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum.[
Maybe she isn’t, but she is working toward different goals that we are and she’s upholding the corporatists even when she doesn’t have to.
Leave it to those wily Brits…! ;-)
Look at who he appointed to the Legal Services Corporation Board:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/washington/story/81144.html
Look at his response to the judge in the Ninth Circuit on DOMA. He’s not even a republiKKKrat anymore – he’s Thomas Sowell and Michael Steele.
I’ve been shocked and disappointed to come to the conclusion that Jane Hamsher is a fake activist and a fake progressive.
Fake…? Whatcha smoking/drinking… I could sure use it…!
Thanks, PW. Me thinks this entire administration is ironic. And untruthful and ham-fisted.
This is old news. There was a big story about rabbis in New Jersey dealing in human organs. Look it up.
Different story. Not even the same country.
Take your talking point home and put it to bed.
Nice try. Don’t Obfuscate.
Obama is the president, he has to try to work with all elements of our political system. It’s his job, especially with about only 20% of Americans self-described liberals. He has to get things done – moving the agenda along step by step – and does not have the luxury to be vilified by the press and public for not trying to work with people from all over the political spectrum as well as various interest groups. He has limits to his power as well. The Senate is just one power base to deal with, as un-democratic (small d as it is).
YOU, Phoenix Woman, along with Jane and Brian CAN choose whom to associate with and whom to side with. Repeatedly – and none of you have answered this – you avoid dealing with the horrible consequences of trusting and siding with a right wing loony like Norquist, who will eat your lunch. Threatening Bernie Sanders because he doesn’t agree with you is ridiculously stupid as well.
You are being USED. get it? You FDL people could have chosen any of several strategies to deal with Rahm and his problems. You at FDL CHOSE to side with the right, making you their partner, and they WILL use it against progressives in the 2010 and 2012 elections. Bad choice.
In fact, why didn’t you take another avenue to achieve your goals in this? Odd, you haven’t explained how you were unable to move to the right and side with Norquist.
Are you kidding???????? This is NO defense. You blew it along with much of your credibility. You are getting beat up here from the left as you are on KOS.
You’re amateurs and this game demands better skills and a better thinking process than you have. People like Norquist are NOT to be trusted and they are way ahead of you.
Children are beautiful in their innocence. This is not child’s play however.
Tony
Because KosObots have really changed the game.
Hey, it’s hard to swarm for the status quo. Give ‘em some credit.
The Obotamous infection on fdl is not nearly so virulent as it is at DK. At least we get some of the more thoughtful ones. They’ll add to the discussion by honing our anti-establishment dialectic. Happy Holidays.
Nice non-addressing of any of the issues in the post. Attempts at distraction are all you have, aren’t they?
But, since you insist on it: How does it feel to be in bed with Michelle Malkin, Tony?
You’re serious, Right…? Vegas would luv your ass…! ;-)
My money’s on Jane and FDL…!
Wanna bet…? ;-)
what Tuttle said!!!
Tony, go get yourself a good psychiatrist, we don’t do therapy for crazy people here.
Your concerns reflect a conventional wisdom that so far has worked for progressive causes (i.e., for the American people) – um – not at all. For example, this:
is completely lacking support and specifics. What are the specific dire consequences?
Then:
Again, specifics, please, not vague worries about “credibility.”
Or are you saying we FDL people should repeat ineffective behaviors and hope for different results?
Obama has turned out to be quite the liar…
Let’s get rid of him.
Quote: “It would help if you didn’t all show up spouting identical talking points, y’know. Not to mention that you all have the same strategy: Namely, to pretend that no other instances of genuine multipartisan cooperation exist — which is why you hammer on Jane ignore the ACLU.”
PW, I am speaking from my heart. If I sound like others while I do that, I don’t know what to say about that. Obviously, you all here are sounding a bit alike too, but people who agree have a way of finding each other, don’t they? So, I don’t believe this is a serious complaint.
The ACLU has a very discrete, principled mission, which everyone understands. Further, they are nobody’s fool. Neither of those points feels true to me of Jane. If you disagree, then that’s fine. We disagree.
In all honesty, I have less of a problem with her joining forces with Grover Norquist, although I find that utterly baffling and perplexing. It certainly doesn’t feel to me like she’s suddenly discovered a discrete, principled mission a la the ACLU. It feels to me like she’s simply acting out and willing to kill health care reform to do it.
So no, it’s not the teaming up with Grover Norquist. I believe that will make her a laughingstock, but that alone would not upset me. We’re all free to do what we want with our lives. If she’s at a turning point and wants to be an outlier, more power to her. It’s the fact she seems so bent on destruction. That’s the sorrow. The destruction.
What will she do when the giddiness of acting out wears off, and all she’s got left is the destruction she’s caused? The ruins of her anger? It’s just so sad.
It’s so nice of you to be so concerned for Jane’s well-being, when you’ve only been here – what, four or five days?
Bless your heart.
Afraid I don’t follow, to what destruction are you referring?
Surely you don’t mean by simply tarnishing our fraudulent, corporatist president or his criminal lackey? Could you be referring to the unity among progressives, so evidently revered by our recent visitors from dkos and elsewhere? Please elaborate.
It’s the fact she seems so bent on destruction… …What will she do when the giddiness of acting out wears off, and all she’s got left is the destruction she’s caused? The ruins of her anger? It’s just so sad.
*Gah*
I’m sure Jane will emerge just fine…!
I’m rooting for all that destruction she’ll cause…! Lord know’s we need it…! ;-)
Sorry about your AEtna stock.
What the hell are you talking about? This shitty, evil bill needs to be defeated, what’s wrong with working with Norquist to defeat it, and then parting company with him afterwards. You’re going on as if Jane were marrying the bastard or pledging alleguance to him. Grow up!
xackly how’s the lovely couple gonna be defeating the bill?
Obama is NOT a conservative nor is he a liberal or progressive. He is a servant of Wall Street.
He is an ineffectual leader with a growing credibility problem.
The slime of the campaign season was thrown over everything he said and did. It continued through today and still moves steadily like a shit spreader in the fields. I have come to see all of that as a distraction. There are indeed whackjobs and racists saying looney stuff everyday. All of this has served as a smokescreen. Obama is not an Islamist but he seemingly touches head in the direction of Wall Street five times a day or more. Obama is going to shift even more to Republican ways. I can’t wait for his deficit reduction act to start. Can you say, “Clinton Welfare Reform, the sequel?” Social Security privatization could be just around the corner also. Obama will work on the schedule of his buddies in the financial rackets.
Hey no doubt in my mind he is and will serve bigbrother. I never expected otherwise. He has the Christian right to bow to remember his debate with McCain at Warren’s mega church in Orange county CA. He praised McCain. And his work in Chicago he aligned with the heavy weight pols. he work the Senate good old boys club. Obama does not hold liberal values let alone progressive. Obama never developed into a cratve thinker. He did the lawyer thing at Harvard after shunning Wall Street and now he has jumped on their bandwagon. The people are suckers in his mind. God bless them that have their own. We need Dean.
Alright, PJ and RF…! Whatcha all drinking…? ;-)
Aloha CT! Any diet cola is fine for me, thanks.
Teddy has a thread upstairs, BTW.
Right now – hot tea. I have a bottle of Samuel Smith Christmas Ale for tomorrow. (And a chicken-and-mushroom pot pie in the freezer and some carrot-cake slices in the fridge. And chocolate.)
So if the ACLU signs a letter along with Norquist regarding a subject with which the pro-Obamas agree with the ACLU then that’s fine… but if FDL signs a letter along with Norquist regarding a subject with which the pro-Obamas virulently disagree with FDL then that makes FDL “teabaggers”, “neocons”, “racists”, “amateurs” and “children”?
As this meme has been repeated nonstop by the pro-Obamas since the letter was announced then by definition that would mean that the pro-Obamas who insist on this dichotomy are professional adult sheep.
Nice…! ;-)
Rats… took too long to compose my post, so I missed out on LynnDee walking back the letter stuff…
… so now it’s boiled down to “But Jane just doesn’t understand!?
DESTRUCTION is enabling the corporate takedown of what little is left of the USA’s democratic processes.
By this definition Obama and his cohorts have proven themselves very destructive… but after the horror that was Bush-Cheney many people find it hard to belueve that their hoped-for savior could have turned out to be yet another bad apple, albeit with with a smoother modus operandi.
Jane is being very constructive… and surprisingly effective.
Aloha and merry Christmas, CT.
I’m having trouble with the idea that it’s okay to unthinkingly and unconditionally support a president or any other elected official who has a D after the name, but not one with an R, even when their policies and actions are otherwise indistinguishable.
That’s following blindly. I don’t want to go there or do that.
I thought the McCain commercials last year mocking Obama as “The One” were just BS but clearly that is an accurate depiction of how many of his supporters view him.
Obama is central-right. He is the equivalent of Christian-democrats in europe. He is not a progressive, but he still believes in democracy. The problem is that the “conservatives”/right wingers in this country (with whom Jane is now looking for “alliances”) are the equivalent of neofascists in europe. In case you missed it, there is a huge difference between democracy and actual fascism.
I never realized democracy and alliance were mutually exclusive concepts. Thank-you so much for sharing your wisdom… such as it is.
Alliances with fascists against democrats? Hello?
Like their colleagues across the aisle, your “Democrats” are in reality kleptocrats. Labeling Norquist or anyone else you despise a fascist will not alter that. Norquist does not make policy, allying with him in an effort to hold our policymakers accountable is in all our best interests.
Given that the fascists are who we’re now fighting, I’m not sure what your problem is.
Norquist is … I’m not sure what.
I am sure that Jane knows what she’s trying to do.
Whether or not I agree with her is not her problem. That goes for you, also.
The enemy of my enemy may be a useful ally, without ever being a friend. (See, for example, nearly everywhere in the world. We seem to be one of the few countries where it’s assumed that if you’re on one side once, that you always will be on that side. And it ain’t necessarily so.)
I am sorry but I am really shocked watching this mentality here. After 8 years of an administration that nearly destroyed the world, it is very hard to even imagine that there would be progressives that would find it ok to form alliances with someone who played an important role in the political career of Bush and has been a close friend of Karl Rove for decades. Not to mention his support for the criminal gangs of Contras, his support for mass murderer Jonas Savimbi in Angola or his links to Abramoff. We are talking about the worst of the worse. We are talking about real fascism here. And you think someone like this is a “useful ally”? You can not be serious. I think the problem with many who support this new approach are either uninformed about such facts, or simply do not have a real political orientation. It is sad to watch this thing happening in Firedoglake and I truly feel sorry for Jane, because I used to respect her, appreciate her efforts and love her attacks on Lieberman.
same song, second verse. boring.
That’s the best you can do? Beyond boring.
Apparently you have no problem with Obama continuing or escalating those same destructive Bush policies? Driving the country off a cliff is okay as long as our guy is at the wheel.
“After 8 years of an administration that nearly destroyed the world,…”, here’s a man likely to do the job the Texas hick failed to do.
Stalin was a useful ally. Doesn’t mean he was our friend.
Get this through your pointy head: ally is not the same as friend.
You can, if you’re not stupid about it, work with people you don’t like, maybe even people you can’t stand the rest of the time, while you share a goal.
It’s called co-operation, and it’s worth trying.
Huh? Did you miss that the enemy then was Hitler? What were the similarities with today’s situation?
stop it, – the US made a very uneasy alliance with one of it’s major enemies in order to accomplish Hitler’s defeat. We in fact destroyed Nagasaki and Hiroshima to keep Stalin at bay soon after Yalta.
bluewind
(taps bluewind on skull with paw “hello? hello? is this thing working?”)
“democrats?”… sorry, assertion of facts not in evidence.
“fascists”… you mean like in merging state and corporate interests and holding those interests as being above and beyond the best interests and the will of the people? Well, if you want some of those the White House is over that way.
I suppose it’s too late to point out the intense irony of all those who were screaming that Jane was a purity troll yesterday… and yet who are screaming that Jane is “impure” today because she agreed with Norquist about something?
Obama is not a progressive, he’s not a centrist.. nor a conservative.. he’s a puppet for the CFR, trilateral commission and the bilderberg group. They run him and he lies to us.
Jane’s a smart cookie and dedicated to effecting change in what ever time she has. May the next year vindicate her and her tactics for the good of us all.
Peace now
Me too, except for the fact that Obama is continuing Bush/Rove policies on so many fronts. Somehow I feel bound to criticize those policies when Obama pursues just as I did when Bush and Rove instituted them.
I agree with that. I believe the foreign policy has been unchanged and Obama is surrounded by Bush loyalists (i.e. Gates and Petraeus). I have no problem with Obama criticisms at all. He has been a disappointment. But to see progressives (?) forming alliances with real fascists, is beyond imagination. It either reflects total lack of judgment or lack of real political orientation.
Do you realize how much damage has been done to the country and to our party in the last year? During the first Bush year he didn’t do much of anything except play golf (watch this shot) and clear brush. He didn’t seem to have any policies or anything. And here comes the person I voted for and donated to and it’s like a tornado. I feel conned and I don’t like it. I wanted Obama to be the most successful President we have ever had and he threw away the good will of the American people.
We formed an alliance with Joseph Stalin to stop Hitler and could not have done so alone.
You keep saying “forming alliances.” As far as I know, the extent of this “alliance” is that they each signed the same letter. Beyond that, if there’s specific reason for one to go after the other I doubt anyone has signed a treaty forbidding it.
Read my post 72. I am not defending Obama.
I’m just baffled that these koslings keep trying to convince people that Jane is the problem, rather than the little punk in the whitehouse. You people really look like complete, deluded suckers, like birthers or something. Please try to think more clearly, ok? I’m embarassed for you.
I’m glad Kos and Kompany are out of the closet. That shoot the messenger if the message is right is so republican. He just is all sour graped because obamarahm has screwed himself and the democratic party over health care.It is not over. Hard to write those diaries praising sell outs. So Jane rounds them up for a Kause for their hate.
And why not call Bernie Sanders and the going going gone democrats. We will fix it later just doesn’t cut it when people are sick and dying.
At least it shows real democrats can still think.
I don’t think Obama has a liberal or consevative bone in his body. He is a politician that blows in any direction like the wind.
WE! Elect politicains then are upset when they act like poiticians.
We should be happy that jane is willing to work with anyone, because most people won’t work with anyone.
GO JANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are some wild imaginations here. I guess this “alliance” means that Grover will be posting regularly at FDL and Jane will be advocating shrinking government to a size where you can drown it in the bathtub. I hear that they’re about to announce the wedding date.
Signing a petition to block Bernanke’s appointment was something I agreed with, but it’s not comparable to seeing a letter with only two names on it, one of which is Jane’s and one of which is Norquist’s. I’ve condemned Obama for supporting military commissions, for fighting the ACLU and the EFF on any number of issues, for escalating the Afghan war. But evidently, since I found Jane’s latest cooperation with Norquist to be odious, I must be a reflexive Obama apologist.
I’ll fully back efforts to make the health care bill come out more like the House bill. But as disappointed as I am that we aren’t getting the public option or the Medicare buy in at age 55, I’ve concluded that we’re likely to end up with something that’s a lot better than no bill, and that it can be built on. I don’t think this because I’m an Obama fan; quite the opposite. He’s a weak, ineffectual disappointment. But here we are.
The worst thing is to see FDL endorse right-wing doctrines, for example, claims of unconstitutionality based on the teabagger/Randroid interpretation of the Commerce Clause. Forcing people to buy insurance only from private industry is bad policy, but it’s legal; Congress does similar things all the time. They require buildings to install handicapped-accessible ramps, and you can’t buy one of those from the government. Is the ADA unconstitutional?
Where is the law that prohibits one from building one’s own access ramp, either explicitly or effectively? You can buy plywood, ready mix, sand and (optionally) steel pipe and DIY as long as it meets spec.
I don’t believe the bill that passed the Senate allows people or groups to self-insure here without incurring a penalty which, while the IRS can’t chase you down for not paying, could at least theoretically be withheld from refunds.
Maybe it becomes economically rational at that point for many people to swallow the stealth tax hike and self-insure.
That would be a non-profit mutual insurance ccompany.
However when we discussed this in a different post, it was point our there is a clause in the HCR bill to forbids insurers from setting reimbursment rates.
The mutual-self insurance would be better if it owned hospitals and employed doctors to control costs.
But, it has problems of scale and area of coverage, and we are walking around the edge of a single payer plan.
I’m convinced DKos has a few full-time representatives of the administration and/or major industries posting on there all day. There was some balance, but those who are more skeptical of the president cannot keep up with the Obama Defense League. There is a very clear pattern of rationalizing the actions of this administration using similar talking points and attacking the messengers who counter the claims by the administration or disagree with something the admin supports. And like others have pointed out, they spend most of their time attacking others, not just Jane, rather than praising all the great things this administration has done. The site is just filled with hatred, distractions right now.
DKos is the place to go if you feel like wasting your days away arguing over distractions with people living in another world, stirred up most likely by full-time plants.
That said, I still think Jane needs to be more careful with this strategy. Teaming up with a Republican, Norquist, alone is hard to sell to the left, as it should be.
Markos works for (not necessarily is employed by, but generally promotes) the Democratic Party, not progressivism. Markos was instrumental in the D party’s hijacking of the term “progressivism” and I would be happy for this Third Way-sponsored false conflation to stop this very second. (Admittedly, I also want a pony.)
And about the kos dairies… while getting on the rec list can be gamed in several ways a somewhat better sign of the actual feelings of kossacks as a whole can be gained from comparing the tip jar score with the number of comments.
(The tip jar is supposed to be the first comment on any article and is supposed to be left by the author of the article. As comments can be rated by kossacks this is intended to provide a feel, separate from the article recommends, for how the general kossack population feels about an article .. this tip jar is supposed to be left automatically but this can also be gamed.)
If an article has a thousand+ comments but only has a tip jar score of around 500 then that article would seem to be not as well-regarded as another article that has only 800 comments… but has a tip jar score of over 1200.
Circumstances vary, of course. And Jane is none too popular among a large swath of kossacks… but neither is she as reviled among all kossacks as a misreading of the sheer number of rec listed anti-Hamsher diatribes might suggest.
But, yes, a hornet’s nest to be sure :)
I’m glad Jane is working with whomever it takes it takes to kill this anti-American treachery passing for health-care reform.Fight with higher principles than your enemy ? You must enjoy a lifestyle of losing.So we should fear Grover and feel safe with some repugnant little sociopath like Lanny Davis ? His ilk own the Dems via the DLC.The weak and the stupid should fear evolution, not Jane .
To say that our only choice is go with Grover or Lanny is a ridiculous strawman.
Think it through. You may hate Obama, and you say it’s all about principle and all that, but get real. Do you really want some rabid right wing Republican picking the next 3 or 4 Supreme Court justices?
There’s a lot of very extremist language being thrown around on FDL these days, but not much strategic thought, I’m afraid.
yeah, talk about a strawman…’framing the argument with Republican slime’ or whatever…
There are progressive ideas that have support on the left and right and it is stupid to think that we shouldn’t work together point by point.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/17/815621/-Will-Ben-Bernanke-Withdraw-as-Chairman-of-the-FED
I re-published this MoveOn.org letter (Dec 17, 2009) –asking for Bernanke’s renomination to be put on hold– with a grimace because of the wingnuts who also had signed on. But it didn’t stop me from adding my name.
Jane solves the Kobayashi Maru test. She changes the rules of the no win game. She cheats death.
These are somehow not admirable qualities in American Politics. Broder is displeased.
Hat tip to Jane, Phoenix, et al.
On a side note, The Orange Satan has more and better Zombies.
Just saying.
And so it comes down to the same threat as always:
And this is supposed to be a “choice”… exactly how?
I guess instant gratification takes too long.
sangemon: “I guess instant gratification takes too long.”
Not if you’re a corporation. They were getting theirs before Obama was even elected… when he and Rahm put the Obama name on the FISA capitulation.
The corporations haven’t had to wait one damn second for gratification from Obama.
And BTW…. when and where has there been the slightest sign that Obama intends to turn his back on his corporate masters in some nebulous future?
This pro-Obama meme ranks right up there with “You’re pressing too hard! Your kind needs to wait for civil rights!” … Oh, wait… that’s an Obama policy as well. No wonder his loyal subjects have no problem with it.
Am I the only one who thinks Markos comes off as a bit of a creepy, scumbag? Why anybody would want to ally, let lone be led by that guy is beyond me. He’s one of the progressive movement’s biggest problems.
Yeah… it’s just you.
;)
Yeah, why not purge this Markos guy.
Lets get Orly and Grover and the Palin clan to co-sponsor a petition to send him to a re-education camp.
Not saying purge, I’m just saying I don’t trust the guy. Given the stories I’ve heard about him and his operation it strikes me that a lot of it is more about him than any issue/idea/movement.
I also see him on all the shows, meet the press most recently, and I’m sorry he just doesn’t impress me. I could only imagine what midwestern working class independents think of him. To me he projects every quality a ‘liberal’ has been made fun of for years, he epitomizes a very bad and incorrect stereotype.
Nope. I like him lots. He’s really good on TV. I loved it when he put Tancredo in his place.
That’s been about his only television highlight. Otherwise he’s always stammering and stuttering all over the place until he hits you with his really uncomfortable, phony looking smile. The guy just projects weakness, which is the last thing a ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ should be projecting.
Sangemon
The hacks operating the Dem machine have been using the Supreme Court bugbear for decades to keep the sheep in line.Assuming you are not paid to regurgitate this talking point , I hate to apprise you that you’re not thinking strategically.,or more importantly, you are not even thinking for yourself.Our government has turned on its people,which means both parties are owned by the monopolists who have positioned their international interests against our national interests Being that we are sitting on an socio-economic powder keg, which could be lit by the individual mandate,maybe you should worry more about saving the republic than the Dems.Or is that too extremest for you ?
dems
Christmas Day: really very ticked off that someone at FDL deleted my comment from last night. Thankfully I saved it and am reposting it. Could someone explain what is objectionable. I am getting tired of donating to FDL, to FDL causes, to marcy’s Fund, all in the spirit of fighting the good progressive fight. But to have my post deleted that’s close to the last straw. I’m not a fan of dkos, but if deleting posts is going to be the name of the game at FDL, then that’s nothing I will support in the future.
Next post is my reposting of what I posted last night.
emily litella
I’m shocked, simply shocked, that such a comment would be allowed to appear on FDL!