If Dick Durbin is right and the Senate Democrats don’t have the votes to pass the American Jobs Act, then the Republicans have an incentive to forego their usual filibuster and let the bill fail a simple majority up-or-down vote. However, I get the feeling that the Dems could muster the votes through the amendment process by stripping out things that certain Democrats find objectionable. I think the Dems may be playing opossum.
What’s troubling, even here at this site, is the degree to which the left has tuned the president out and is investing its energies elsewhere. It may be a fool’s errand to hope for solutions from this Congress, but there is still a political battle to be fought over who is to blame. And if we give up that fight we will lose it.
Maybe the single most depressing thing about our political culture is how the left is so willing to act the puppet to the right’s puppeteer. They make it so the government is dysfunctional, so we give up on the government. No. We must engage them in battle and win the argument. Otherwise, we lose.
Yup. “Progressives” are a substantial part of the problem. They whined about a jobs bill, and now that Obama has given them one, SILENCE from them.
“Progressives” serve no other master than being anti-Obama. No matter WHAT he does. Just like teabaggers.
That’s bullshit and you know it!! Here is what I don’t understand, and I wrote it elsewhere, quite possibly another thread here. Remember EFCA? Rememeber how, when Dubya was President, all Democrats in the Senate voted for it? Why? Because it was a freebie. Everyone knew Dubya wouldn’t sign it. Are Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu that corrupt that they won’t even vote on the right side of a freebie? Because we know that this bill will never pass the House. Are you telling me that the Oil & Gas industry won’t let Mary Landrieu off her leash long enough to vote on the right side of a bill that they know Orange Julius will block? Do you get my point now? Something smells, and I don’t know what it is.
If Landrieu voted against Oil & Gas under any circumstances she would be politically dead in Louisiana. You might as well ask Rockefeller and Manchin to vote against coal.
Really? So where is the bipartisanship? Or post-partisanship? So why was Blanche Lincoln allowed to vote for EFCA when Dubya was President? Or even Mary Landrieu for that matter?
What world are you living in? Barack Obama is the one dancing as the Republicans call the tune. ENGAGE in BATTLE? Obama wouldn’t know where to begin.
You’re projecting the very failings of this administration which have gotten us into this mess onto the people of the left who are trying to get us out of it.
What horseshit. Obama has always had to deal with the very forces in his own party that are not supporting an entirely reasonable jobs proposal for narrow political or idiotic conservaDem reasons. He has always been in a position where conservaDems held the critical leverage, not just republicans.
of the American people are to the left of those that you call ConservaDems.
When Obama capitulates to the Republicans you cannot reasonably expect that folks in the Congress want to be perceived as being on his left.
Again, it all comes down to leadership.
Green lantern theory of politics.
maybe he hasn’t noticed that Durbin, the Majority Whip, says he doesn’t have the vote from Democrats to pass a watered-down jobs bill. I guess he’s got his needle stuck in the groove.
See my comment above. Maybe you can comment on why Bad Nelson and Mary Landrieu are afraid of a freebie vote.
to water everything down?
Because, Genius, you can’t pass anything that isn’t watered down. We have difficulty passing even things that are watered down, which has been the political reality since Day One.
But watered down how much? That’s the problem. Is there even a Democratic Party in Nebraska any more? And is it any wonder that people are pissed off when Ben Nelson is to the far right of the American public on this bill?
people should have showed up to vote in 2010.
had there been a leader in the White House.
Maybe they would have showed up if the loudest voices on the left hadn’t spent two years complaining about the most successful Congress in two generations.
Nothing breeds contempt on the loud left than success that fails to meet their purity test.
LOL!! You mean passing a bill that the GOP supported 20 yrs ago? That most of it doesn’t take effect for another 2 1/2 years?
Plenty has taken affect already. Like my 22 year old daughter being back on our family group insurance.
It takes time to create and implement a vast new system. They gave it the time needed to make it work.
It takes time to create and implement a vast new system. They gave it the time needed to make it work.
That’s a bullshit excuse and you know it!! I am sure glad FDR wasn’t as lame as you, or our current political elites.
Wow. I mean just wow. I knew you were constantly upset, but now I know you’re also laughably ignorant.
Go read the provisions of the original Social Security Act passed by your hero FDR. Or don’t since you seem determined to ignore reality.
Calvin reminds me of a fellow I was talking to immediately after ACA passed, and I said something about allowing for time to improve it, such as with a public option. Six months later he wanted to know where the changes were. I was flabbergasted. “We’re still in the same session of Congress, fer crying out loud!” He waved his hand dismissively: didn’t matter. He wanted his changes now, NOW!
Methinks that you are confusing the mythical FDR with the non-mythical FDR:
http://pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/main/2011/09/obama-just-as-progressive-as-non-mythical-fdr-1.htm
l
You are being entirely unreasonable.
Try looking at another viewpoint:
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2010/08/obama-fdr-and-what-were-up-against.html
Or are you too invested in your group think?
Two “clap louder!!” sites? .. hahaha! One of which bans you when you point out what a clusterf-ck HAMP was.
Imagine if instead of naming airports after him and recalling him fondly at every opportunity, the right brought up Reagan signing off on amnesty every two seconds, cursed him for hating nuclear weapons, and said his tax reforms were crappy compromises drafted by the liberal Bill Bradley.
Imagine how their brand would suffer, and the motivation of their horde.
That’s what you do to the Democratic brand with almost every comment you make.
Of course they don’t. They have selective amnesia. Or outright amnesia.
Booman, I’m not sure that you can pin voter apathy on 2 years of leftist complaints. It’s a longstanding issue.
Have you ever read the United States Constitution? You are aware, are you not, that Obama is the head of the executive branch, which has no vote in any part of the legislative process unless there’s a tie in the Senate?
That’s what I find so exasperating, that Obama is somehow getting blamed for all of these things that Congress has failed to do. I’m not saying Obama has done everything perfectly, mind you–I don’t know what the fuck he thinks he’s doing in Afghanistan, for instance–but I would guess that a very large majority of the complaints about him really come down to the lack of progressive legislation. Which he can propose, but it’s really up to his allies in Congress to deal with the inevitable obstruction.
For whatever it’s worth, I will also note that the phrase “bully pulpit” does not appear in the Constitution.
Yes, there are Democrats in Nebraska. That’s why, even as the Pennsylvania GOP considers moving toward proportional award of electoral votes, Nebraska considers winner take all. In 2008, Obama got the one electoral vote from the district Omaha’s in — and the Nebraska GOP would like to keep that from happening again.
By the twisted logic employed by you and your hero we can get everything passed as long as the legislation doesn’t accomplish anything.
A better alternative would be to tell the American people exactly what needs to be done and let the Republicans AND the conservative Democrats vote it down. Then we’d see what the people really want in 2012.
But that would require…
Well, you know.
Nothing will change in 2012. Only seven Republican incumbent senators are up for reelection and they come from places like Mississippi, Wyoming, Utah, and Tennessee. This is our system. If you want to govern it, you have to cut deals. And with one side not interested in any deals, and our side divided and distracted, there really isn’t anything leadership has to do with it. 95% of your comments bash the president. He’s not the problem. He’s not even a small part of the problem.
And you have to cut deals with the people who have the leverage. That is always in the middle. We are watching right now with the AJA what happens when the President fails to consider their delicate feelings when he proposes a decidedly centrist jobs bill that would help America in its economic crisis. We would have gotten NOTHING if Obama had failed to craft bills that could get their support during the first two years. Because he did, we got plenty.
And you have to cut deals with the people who have the leverage. That is always in the middle.
Far as I can see, it’s always on the right, while the middle disintegrates.
wilderness wench, repeal of DADT is an example of a progressive issue that Obama campaigned on and then enacted.
If you’re generally to the left of Obama politically then the majority of his accomplishments are going to include compromises with “the right”. If you’re, say, Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman, you’re still unhappy you got roped into voting for the ACA.
The whole fucking House is up for reelection in 2012.
Like Ron Paul or Charlie Rangel? And let’s not forget Robert Byrd.
And I am convinced that the country you live in exists in your head.
Of course it does. It exists in everybody’s head. It’s a societal construct!
Unfortunately, we still think as individuals despite our lemming-like tendencies.
I agree, it’s all the hippies fault. Ever since the sixties those sons of bitches have ruined everything. Now that they have gotten old and have spread their disease, they are even ruining Obama. It’s bad enough that they are always right, but how DARE they show how others are wrong!
To top it off, now they are on Wall Street with their filth, where there is large piles of money to be raised.
God, how I hate those fuckers.
nalbar
whatever. If you want to take it like that, fine. That’s not what I said.
It doesn’t matter what you say or do, just as it doesn’t matter what Obama says or does. These people live in their own reality, no different than teabaggers.
Unfortunately, the teabaggers are a front.
It’s a silly comparison.
Here’s another way to look at it: Would you rather spend the next four years bitching about President Obama or President Romney? Or, God forbid, President Perry? I guess some will say there’s no difference, but you would think the rather stark contrast between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush would have settled that question. (History lesson: While Clinton was in office, people on the Left routinely accused him of being a closet Republican. I was one of them.)
Despite the apparent belief among some that the primary job of the President is to somehow force Congress to pass whatever laws he proposes, he also has the responsibility of overseeing the day-to-day operations of the federal government. If you have a Democrat in the White House, then there is a reasonably good chance that key positions will be filled by competent people with some sense of personal integrity. If it’s a Republican, there is a much better chance that those positions will be filled by unprincipled ignoramuses. To me that makes a huge difference.
I’d rather spend the next four years bitching about Progressive-Landslide-Winner-yet-to-be-named.
People – left, right & independent; black & white; working & middle class – are ready for Leadership. Obama & his crew are not providing it. The Republicans are a frickin’ clown car. Our current political system provides no recourse – the only guidance I personally can find starts out “When, in the course of human events…”.
Maybe, just maybe, it is time to peacefully dissolve this form of government, write a new constitution & form a political system that cannot be bought.
Seriously.
Thanks for trying to spell things out.
Maybe it just hurts people to admit how moronic our political/government system is, makes it hard for them to engage with it in a reality-based way.
We are all turning on the president. Yep, authoritarianism comes in all colors and stripes, eh? It’s all our fault. And you seem puzzled as to why the left is so ANGRY. Nothing is being done (and please don’t pull down your list of pablum because it’s not bedtime yet) and we are being blamed for everything. You keep telling us how powerless we are and how we have to deal with the cards of failure that we’re being dealt and then you tell us we have the power to destroy the administration with our constant carping and unappreciation. Make up your mind. WHICH THE FUCK IS IT?! This site has always been rather schizophrenic but it’s getting decidedly worse as the poll numbers get worse. Are we powerless or are we powerful?
I see it as the president turning on his voters by calling us names and then wagginng his dirty finger at us by casting himself as the “good” to our “perfect.” And a plurality of us see it the exact same way, which is why all you centrists are running scared and hurling epithets to anyone who isn’t enamored with this middle-of-the-road hack.
No nasty subtext there at all…
No, we aren’t all turning on the President. I realize that siting in the midst of the like-minded, it’s easy to think everyone thinks that way. But that’s simply not the case.
And really? Dirty finger? Where did that come from?
To the whiners: at this point, just over a year before the election, your primary focus would appear to be bitching about the failure of Obama to live up to the cartoon version of him you naively imagined when you voted for him (without having watched and listened to him closely as he ran, and without understanding how our system of government actually works). By doing this, you are dimwittedly missing the point, which Booman patiently sits there making day in and day out. We are looking at the abyss, it’s right there in front of us. If Republicans get control of the Presidency and the Congress in 2012, we are totally fucked as a country. And why the fuck do you want to make Karl Rove’s job so easy by doing his work for him?
And as far as the idiotic hippy-punching meme, the Cenk Ungers, Arianna Huffingtons and Markos Molitsas’s of the world are not and never were hippies–in actual fact they are instead all former Republicans.
These are three very different people you’re lumping together.
Different, sure, but all three have helped whip up a frenzy of criticism of Obama from day one, all three will barely ever admit that Obama has done anything positive at all, all three are trotted before the cameras precisely because they will be certain to trash Obama as alternately a tool or a naïf, and yes, all three were actively and enthusiastically involved in Republican politics in the past. Their current career status depends in large part on being negative about Obama, not only when he might deserve it but also all those times when he doesn’t.
Fighting Bill! Very well spoken.
I often think that those on the Left who can’t stop whining actually want a Republican President because they simply can’t get out of their old habits with a Democratic President. All they know how to do is criticize, bash, belittle & whine. They are in a rut and after 3.5 years they still cannot face reality. If they demoralize the Democratic base, then they also need to take the credit/blame for how the election turns out.
They seemed to think that what they were doing was good fun. Well, it is much too serious now and if they want to see the good old USA survive, they had better put on their marching shoes and get the base and the middle ready to vote, in the much more difficult to vote election coming up.
I really think that’s part of the problem. they got so used to the adrenaline rush of attacking the President that they couldn’t stop when that guy went away, and they didn’t have the vocabulary of praise.
And of course one of the other factors is that the PUMAs never went away…
Fighting Bill, butterfly & suranis – you are pretty disconnected from the world of actual liberals/progressives.
I’m going to take you at your word that this is what you actually think is going thru the minds of actual progressives like me, but I can also assure you that you are far removed from the truth. And that is why your message (&, by extension, the message of the Obama campaign crew) falls so flat. You have no idea of what true progressives want and/or feel, so how can you connect with them (us) or hope to adequately represent them (us)?
You are truly lost in the woods.
“Actual progressives”?
I think a 10 point purity test is en vouge these days. Would you like to make one up?
Ok – I’ll play; though I don’t have 10 points for you, I have enough.
Actual progressives:
So
1 hate The prex
2 hate the prez
3 Progressives talk dumn
4 You’re not a pure progressive
5 You’re not a pure progressive.
Thank you, that was enlightening. 2 lines of the same demoralizing bullshit attacks on the president and 2 lines of attacks on me to try and ignore anything I say. Yery nice.
Nicely done, suranis. 🙂
Don’t feel a sad – u have a cheerleader! yah!
But, otoh, don’t ignore my first comment either.
This President has lost the trust of a lot of his supporters by governing to the right of Reagan whilst having campaigned to the left of Kennedy.
I voted for him, but didn’t contribute or campaign for him because of his FISA vote. I thought, “Let’s just see how he does.” Well, I, & people like me have seen how he’s done & we’re not happy. And we’re not going to vote for him again. We want a real progressive/liberal candidate.
If Bernie Sanders ran, for example, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat.
This site, you might remember, was founded on the idea that justice would be meted out to the miscreants of the previous administration. The current administration has no plans for that &, in fact, only seems to like frog-marching whistleblowers.
Bah! Enough of them.
I suppose I’m the one being dismissed as a cheerleader? Nice. Well, that certainly speaks well for you, that you apparently feel reduced to taking snide swipes at other posters.
Really – did I misinterpret your post?
Do you regard every post of agreement or appreciation as “cheerleading”?
no, just ones that cheer on on moronic, whiny responses to (relatively) substantial replies to stupid questions.
I mean really? 10 point purity test? That’s bullshit for you, but I cheerily played along.
Suranis’ analysis? Points 1 & 2 are “Hate the Prez” – I never said that, I said “Hate the policies”. And it follows that, if you hate the policies, you won’t vote for the man (not that you hate him). I wouldn’t vote for Ben Nelson’s policies nor will I for Barack Obama’s.
His take on the rest? Attacks on himself? Again, Really? Complains about whinging then resorts to whinging.
And your reply to that? “Nicely done”? Your idea of “nicely done” & mine are widely divergent. And, since I can identify crosswalks & stop signals I must conclude “cheerleading”.
Get real & let’s talk.
So your complaint was really the post you were responding to in the first place. I was just, as I said, a “snide swipe.”