Listen up, sisters! Deficit hawks will eat your lunch, your kids, your jobs and your retirement. An economy without a deficit is like a fish without water. Reducing the U.S. federal deficit will make unemployment and poverty worse–way worse. And that means that women’s economic condition will deteriorate even further. – Susan F. Feiner
Are you feeling set up? Or is it snubbed? The incomprehensible motion of the shrug that Democrats are no longer interested? Greg Sargent explains why. Republicans never have been, with their new class of female political wannabes callous to the numbers, picking ideology over people, over women. Now Pres. Obama has done the same thing. Willingly, almost triumphantly, all on the wings of a “balanced approach.” Where women are concerned it’s anything but.
So, to review where women have been in the Democratic debt ceiling debacle. Pres. Obama’s debt ceiling meeting started with not one single woman in the room.
At Blair House, the old boys club meeting has consisted of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), U.S. Senators John Kyl (R-AZ), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Max Baucus (D-MT), Reps. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who have convened for the budget negotiations with Vice President Biden, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Budget Director Jack Lew, and economic adviser Gene Sperling. Where are the women? – National Council of Women’s Organization
This received zero national attention by the media.
It’s a miracle that minority leader Nancy Pelosi pushed her way inside the meeting, but by then everything was set in concrete, which is why Pres. Obama didn’t see it as important that she was in the room in the first place.
But here’s the reality. No single group relies on the U.S. social safety net more deeply than women as we age. COLA is important to women living on a fixed income with no other way through but poverty.
A “feminist economist” Susan F. Feiner weighs in on what we’re losing, as Pres. Obama carelessly invokes words like “reality show” to describe who is prevailing in this fight, saying no one cares. To women, who is “winning” is the Washington game that impacts our lives, especially when we lose, as we have done with Pres. Obama.
Listen up, sisters! Deficit hawks will eat your lunch, your kids, your jobs and your retirement. [...] Today’s deficit hawks (and way too many Democrats are flying with this flock), fundamentally and deliberately misinform by insisting on a fictional symmetry between private sector (household and corporate) bookkeeping and the U.S. federal debt.
… Here are the facts: U.S. government borrowing creates interest-bearing assets. The bonds are bought with dollars, the interest on them is paid in dollars and, at maturity, the bonds are paid off in dollars. Since the U.S. government is both sovereign in its own currency and the sole issuer of dollars, it can never run out of them. How could it?
Don’t think printing presses here: Federal debts are paid off by Treasury clerks making a few clicks on computer keyboards—keyboards identical to the one I’m typing on now.
In contrast, families and businesses have to earn income or sell assets to get dollars to pay off debts. The federal government does not face any such constraint. It can spend as much as it likes and borrow as much as it likes. With so many people out of work—nearly 30 million and counting–and so many firms operating well below capacity, there is no danger of inflation. So, right now, government borrowing and government spending will do one thing and one thing only: It will pump up aggregate demand, call jobs into being and reduce economic pain. Our children will be better off.
Meanwhile, the ceiling limiting the federal debt is an arbitrary constraint.
[...] Fiscal austerity—aka, reducing the deficit—endangers our lives. Deficit spending lies behind virtually all the social services, public amenities, and consumer safety standards that distinguish the U.S. from Rwanda, Bangladesh or Guyana. The Chicago Tribune recently reported that Congress is “moving to eliminate the only national program that regularly screens U.S. fruits and vegetables for the type of E. coli that recently caused a deadly outbreak in Germany.” Clearly, this $4.5 million program is too expensive. (Note to reader: $4.5 million is just over half the median pay for top executives at the nation’s 200 largest firms, according to The New York Times. Executive pay is up 23 percent over 2009. What if each of these guys chipped in a measly $22,500 so the rest of us could eat untainted food?)
Pres. Obama has been the conductor revving the engine on what is now a runaway train on entitlement “reform,” using the disingenuous selling point that by everyone eating his or her peas it will come out balanced.
It’s a lie. Women will find this out the hard way.
But Pres. Obama won’t have to worry. He’ll be long gone after his disastrous Republican economic schemes have reduced the strength of the safety net elderly women need to stay out of poverty.
No big deal. Women have spouses, right? What else could they possibly need?
Research from IWPR has shown the current Social Security program is a mainstay for women, and these findings have been supported by research from other organizations. Adult women are 51 percent (27 million) of all beneficiaries, including retirees, the disabled, and the survivors of deceased workers (52.5 million). Women are more likely to rely on Social Security because they have fewer alternative sources of income, often outlive their husbands, and are more likely to be left to rear children when their husbands die or become permanently disabled. Moreover, due to the recession many women have lost home equity and savings to failing markets. Older women—and older low income populations in general—have become more economically vulnerable and dependent on Social Security benefits. – IWPR
We’re about to be hit with another round of how this is everyone’s fault but Obama’s and how continuing to blindly support him is our only option and will start paying dividends any day now…
Women are in the middle of all that is daily life. Whether it is care of infants, protection, development, and protection of children, care of the home and support of spouses, attendance on the needs of parents, and somehow planning for their own old age. Yes men face many of these situations but the majority of the burdens fall on women. If I want to be disrespected and ignored, I can call a Republican. Who needs a Democratic President who doesn’t seem to give a damn.
Yep! When people look at President Obama and hear him speak that’s exactly what they see, I person who doesn’t give a damn!
Tweet the bejesus out of this. I just did.
Hmmm! I wonder if the room was 100% women would any of you be complaining and calling them man haters?
Nonsense. This isn’t about man hating. Sorry you don’t get that, but that’s plain as day. What I like about this article is that it’s a counterbalance to all the spin about how the Democrats are who women should be supporting, because they’re looking out for women, don’t you know? They’re not.
In fact, they’re not looking out for men, either. At least, they’re not looking out for the men who have to work for a living, and aren’t the one in a thousand who have been making out well in this economy.
Would a roomful of female politicians have done anything radically different in this political environment? My gut tells me no, because everything else that drives the system would still be just the way it is. Still, this is an excellent illustration of why women and other progressive groups need to demand better.
Yikes!
How about we try it and see? You consistently make THE most irrelevant, jackassical comments posted here. How bout you fu*k off?
Now secularh, it’s important to see the Obama loyalists’ take, because their besotted baloney speaks volumes.
Remember the “This is what a feminist looks like” Ms. cover? http://huff.to/MtAH
That was a fantasy. Like the possibility of having only women in the room (at least to this point), making such decisions. Reality is what we have to deal with.
What took you so long to figure it out.Obama threw woman under the bus during HCR and many women (I’m looking at you) refused to take your support for him off to table. It’s like; “He did not mean to push me.”, “He only slapped me because he was drinking.”; “I really made him angry, that’s why he punched me.”, “Don’t make it out worse than it is, he took me the hospital the moment I started bleeding.”
Honey, don’t you get it; you’re going to die in this relationship. It is only a matter of when, not if, and life it too short to put up with bullshit.
But I love him so much an he loves me. Fuck. That. Shit.
Pesident Obama threw women under the bus in HCR? Have you even read the HCR that was passed into law? Implentation of HCR is underway and now include such anti-women regulations as prohibeting insurance companies from exluding pre-existing medical conditions (some insurance companies consider being a woman as a preexisting medical condition) or prohibeting an insurance company recision where a woman or a womans child with a developmental disability or debilating medical condition can be denied coverage by insurance companies. HCR includes raising the age of a womans child from 21 to 26 years old who can be carried under a woman’s health insurance policy. Nancy Pelosi maneuvered the passage of HCR in the House. Do you consider Nancy Pelosi to have thrown women under the bus?
You are also against any changes to Medicare benefits that might include means testing with wealthy Medicare beneficiaries having higher deductibles, higher premiums and higher co-pays but are all in for raising tax rates on wealthy citizens including retired wealthy citizens.
Be specific, show us where Nancy Pelosi or President Obama threw women under the bus in HCR. Some of you folks are becoming sterotyped characitures of Rush Limbaugh’s ‘Femininst Nazi’s’.
RAJensen;
Since there is a request for specifics, despite the fact that specifics were given, by Taylor, in the original post no less, let’s count the wheels of the bus that go round and round.
First there was the whole Stupak-Pitts amendment imbroglio that moved the goal posts in the wrong direction. Instead of rolling back the Hyde Amendment, Obama and crew genuflected to misogynists and further codified Hyde via a signing statement.
Hyde is bad policy, it causes real pain and suffering to working class and poor women. If you don’t believe me ask the women of Philadelphia who were forced to go to quack physician Kermit Gosnell. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/02/us-crime-babies-idUSTRE7215IV20110302 The women this man abused went to him because they had no other choice; they were desperate to end their pregnancies.
Thanks to the “compromise” of HCR, there will be more death and dismemberment of a whole class of women. There will be more Women’s Medical Societies coming to light.
But Obama was not done with harming women who had the bad taste to be not rich or middle class. He next tossed the Working Class and Poor women of Washington DC under the bus. So now these women will struggle to find the health care they need too. All this to satisfy a Republican Party that is negotiating in bad faith, and wants to overturn Roe v. Wade by hook or crook.
Moving right along, lets look at Obama’s sins of Omissions. Where has the great communicator been on the whole Planned Parenthood controversy? He has been MIA. Not a single word about the attempt to gut this essential service. Not a peep about the constant drumbeat of lies used to demonize Planned Parenthood.
Killing Planned Parenthood means that, again, poor and working class women get screwed. 96% of what this organization does is routine reproductive health services. That’s birth control pills, Sexual infection screening and treatment, Pap smears, etc. etc., etc.
So riddle me this, how does it help that cohort of 22-26 year olds to have the main beneficiary die of a treatable cancer? Are we suposed to be happy because the now motherless young adults are still covered by dear old dad? That’s progress?
But let’s say mom dodges the big C, there are plenty of other nifty nasties out there that will no longer be covered if Planned Parenthood goes by-by. Plus there is the nifty trick that in vaporizing the organization, you just took away many women’s primary service provider. Maybe you don’t understand how this works, so let me enlighten you; managed care, which is what exists except for all but the super-rich, requires a primary service provider. Planned Parenthood takes the women who cannot afford any other alternative. That means thousands and thousands of woman lose health care.
Leaving the actual health care behind, let’s tackle funding shall we? Let us zero in on means testing. Since this is a political blog, let’s deal with the political realities : means testing is slow death for any entitlement program. Political reality is such that the government must distribute the largess a wide as posible. That way everyone has skin in the game. The minute an entitlement become something only for the poor, it is politically doomed. We are a rather heathen lot RAJensen, and much rather kick our fellow citizens in the face when they are down. There is this unfortunate tendency to see poverty as moral failing, especially when poverty has a non-white hue.
The other reality is means testing is just what it says it is, mean; and petty, heartless, cruel, and ungenerous. You have to be dirt poor to qualify for assistance and the assistance is meager to say the least. No advanced Democracy treats its needy so shabbily. To be on public assistance is to live a life of soul grinding desperation, to be utterly marginalized. You will be unpleasantly surprised what will constitue a “wealthy” recipient of Medicare once you let the means testing camel get its nose under the tent.
The reality of means testing is that it will soon become a race to the bottom; each party trying to be more “serious” than the other. The end result will be premature death, massive suffering, endless humiliation, and a destruction of the national soul. And to what end? To prove how tough we are, how hard boiled we are, how “mature” we are?
Having gone micro, lets go macro and actually look at HCR. It is a misnomer, health care did not get reformed. What got mildly reformed was health insurance. For a few crumbs brushed off the table, the health care industries got a whole new bunch of captive customers. The “reform” had helped here and there but not for long. Insurers are shooting all sorts of holes in to an act that already looks like swiss cheese. Pre-existing illness? They now will cover you, for a phenomenal charge that most cannot afford. Keep you adult child on coverage past 21? Pay through the nose.
The impact of this will fall most hard on women. They earn less, and they tend to live longer. All along the way they will get slammed by the health care policy Obama has set up. Their lives and their health will deteriorate thanks to Obama and his Congressional enablers.
Thanks to the failure of Obama, and Congress, the radical right was able to use “Obamacare” as a club to beat up Democrats. That,and the bail-out, help to create the political Jihad that is the TEA Party movement. Despite its poster girls of Michele Bachman and Sara Palin, that movement is deeply misogynist. It is causing real harm in every state that it controls. It is causing real harm to the national welfare too. Women are getting it in the neck because the “mommy state” that TEA Party types loth does help mommies. Mommies, young and old depend on the Welfare state more than most. The Democratic messaging for HCR, as pointed out by Taylor and others (ad nauseum), was the worst kind of political incompetence seen in a long time, damn near criminal in fact.
I’ve said it may times on this site and my own: results matter. At best Obama and Pelosi followed a will o’ the wisp that was HCR. They tried to notch a “win,” any kind of win on health care. But again, at best, they did not correct for unintended consequences. At best they are still attempting to pick out a very small silver lining from a huge cumulonimbus that is spinning off all manner of tornados. But it is hard to ignore that storm cloud and the destruction is wreaking in lives of thousands upon thousands of ordinary women. Results matter; and the results do look a lot like callus disregard for those women; and perhaps more than a little contempt.
I’m a guy and the first thing I will say is women should never look to men to look out for their best interests, especially if women aren’t willing to fight for themselves.
Let me explain. In the late 60′s early 70′s women had hardcharging leaders of all stripes, Bella Absug, Shirley Chisolm, Gloria Steinham, Betty Ford and others. They fought and promoted womens issues in their own way. They won despite resistance from many men and the conservative elements of society in general. There was enough of a crosssection willing to fight for womens rights because women were willing to fight for themselves.
Flashforward to today.During the healthcare debate DC Dem women voted for the ACA with Stupak restrictions in it and let it pass. It doesn’t matter that they voted separately to vote against the Stupak Amendment. Had they held firm and killed the bill rather than vote to pass it, it is my belief that the onslaught of attacks on womens issues and on Planned Parenthood would have been blunted. The ACA might not have passed but just maybe a different signal would have passed to have a more progressive health care bill. What the DC women Dems did was signal to the Administration, and everyone, was that they did not have the stomach to fight. Follow that with the DC women including Dems throwing the women of the District of Columbia under the bus in a recent fight over the use of District funds for womens health issues.
Also, the mainstream womens groups such as Planned Parenthood, NOW,etc have never challenged the White House or the DC Dem Women to fight harder to protect womens helathcare and rights. They give them a pass. Always relying on the courts to protect women, the last chance option if you will, will not always work. You have to fight to win before it gets to that point.
In short the current crop, of DC Women Dems and other womens leaders lack the spirit for a fight to protect their rights and health. Until womens groups or women voters start withholding their support, or supporting other candidates, women and others will be losing ground. With few exceptions the DC women in congress have been essentially useless to women.
Until elected women in Congress are willing, and start blocking legislation that will be harmful to women The Pres and the male leaders(with some exceptions) will take is a reason to ignore them.That holds true for progressive causes in general.
If no one fears electoral consequences then there is no reason to advance a cause.
LJ,
This is perfect. I wish today’s women take this message to heart; you have to fight, and sometimes lose, and always piss off men – your father, brother(s) husband, and son(s), if you want to win your right to be respected and advance. you can name the names of women from 40 years ago. How many women from today will be remembered in 2050?
Perfectly stated, LJ.
I noticed that you and a great deal of your commentators are very straight forward about your feelings for this president and the male majority corporate owned government that we have, my compliments. As I’ve stated before, I will not vote this election. Who am I hurting? No one aparently, as it is only mabey ten million of us not voting…still not enough to send a strong enough message for change. Many white Americans thought that electing a black president would be enough to at least get the “change” ball rolling, and the women that supported him, almost like JFK again. Another great let down.
I feel you on this, I am glad that the Obama honey moon is being shown for what it is…no change what so ever. My wife and I, practically our entire community voted for Obama.
By the way we’re African American.
Hi Antonio, thanks for stopping by to share this.
Art did a post on Friday you might be interested in:
http://taylormarsh.com/blog/2011/07/progressive-notes-more-black-women-would-be-impoverished-if-ss-cuts-pass/
You people and that glass is half empty point of view! African American? I have my doubts about that claim. An African American would factor in the powerful interests this President’s has had to deal with in their assessment of Obama’s performance. An African American would also factor in the hundreds of filibusters the GOP has engaged in even in the most routine of government business. An African American would also factor in Dem voters not bothering to show up at the polls in 2010 thus leaving the President in a position of having to deal with a Congress led by crackpot Teabaggers who don’t believe in science and judging from their conduct concerning the debt ceiling math! Dems like you have a self destructive streak a mile wide, you want to give up u do so, we’ll do the work without you. I have no doubts though that your type will be on hand when the fruits are past out. You and your ilk are simply lazy and unwilling to put in the time change takes! Good riddance!
“African American would also factor in Dem voters not bothering to show up at the polls in 2010 thus leaving the President in a position of having to deal with a Congress led by crackpot Teabaggers who don’t believe in science and judging from their conduct concerning the debt ceiling math!”
Sigh, the race card. Again. Whatever happend to the content of the character not the color of the skin? But since you are so willing to play the Joker, let me respond.
The situation Obama is in has little to do with his skin tone, it has much to do with, dare I say, his character flaws. It also has much to do with that 9.2% unemployment rate that is not moving.
Obama has shown way too much love to the bleached partisans of the GOP and far too little to the Progressive base that got him past HRC.
God, I hate going here, but since I have been dragged here, (kicking and screaming all the way, mind you) I am force to note that without the support of the Progressives ( a rather pasty lot I will confess) Obama would just be another Jesse Jackson with a monocrome rainbow to his credit. Bill Clinton got into all sorts of trouble when he dyspeptically pointed this out in HRC’s defeat in South Carolina.
Since it is in for a dime, in for a dollar; I might as well point out that no pasty complexion Pol would get one tenth of the latitude from the melanin enhanced set if he said that this level of unemployment was the “new normal.” If it was Barry O’ Bama, a rosy cheeked, Irish pol from Boston saying these things, the last hired and first fired would be screaming bloody murder.
No cohort of the public got as epically screwed by the housing bubble than African-Americans. They were jammed into crappy ARMs that they had no hope of every paying by lying grifters. Even when they qualified for fixed mortgages they got the ARM shaft. Whole neighborhoods have been foreclosed and left to rot by greedy banksters who ran away with piles of filthy lucre. Thousands of good men a women had their humble homes swiped right underneath them by these same con men.
And what did “The New Aaron” do? He made the Banks whole and left thousands of working class African Americans, and others, to go under the waves.
And that is why Democrats stayed home; that and brain-dead messaging from Team Obama and the Congressional Democrats.
But the absolute worst example of political malfeasance Obama has performed is to not understand the core values of the Republican Party. It does not play well with others; it does not accept any Democratic President as legitimate–ever. That the Democrat in question is also darkly hued only adds to the intransigence.
It is beyond foolish for this man to be attempting to compromise with this gang; but attempt that he did. He keeps blowing kisses to this lot while disrespecting the very people who got him elected. Punching the Hippy, wich is the favorite pass-time of the Obama Administration, is going to get you in dutch with those same “unrealistic” people when you sell out everything they hold near and dear.
At this juncture I would be deliriously happy if Obama was delivering half a glass; instead of what he is giving the base, a nearly empty glass that only contains some day-old spit.
First, I was responding to a point involving race that Antonio brought up. Plus everyone has a right to bring their issues to the table. Gays have a right to address the issue that affect them the most, homophobia. Women have the right to address the issue that affect them the most, sexism. African Americans have the right to address the issue that affect them, racism. Telling people to shut up and go away is hardly progressive. If content of character is what you care about well them you should a huge Obama supporter, while so many other politicians out there are humiliating and embarrassing their wives this President actually treats his wife and children with respect. All outward appearances indicate the Obama’s actually a real real marriage. Does that matter to your ilk, no! I also reject your assumption that you speak for all progressives. This President’s standing among his Democratic base is stronger than any Dem since the 1960′s.
As for your knocking the Prez for trying to make deals with the GOP, he has no other choice. In this this country there is such a thing as separation of powers, the Prez has to deal with Congress. All government spending has to originate in the House of Representatives and the GOP controls that body at the moment. Crap!
Your whole attitude just drips of contempt! I apologies if you find the whole race issue so tiresome. It would seem your brand of progressiveness doesn’t include everyone. I am personally not gay but if a gay person said to me they thought a particular situation was homophobic I would at the very least listen to their concerns. I wouldn’t dismiss them out of hand or sigh in annoyance. Homophobia is a real issue, so is sexism, so is racism.
Let’s be clear this President won the last election without the support of the likes of you and he will win re-election without the support of the likes of you. You don’t speak for every left of center person out there. I have more respect for the average Ku Klux Klanner, at least their up front about their beliefs. There is no pretense with them!
I’ll repeat: Results matter. The result of Barack Obama have been pure policy poison as far as core Democratic principles. That is the long and short of the argument.
That is also the only “character” issue that matters to me: what are the results? I could care less if Obama had three heads and ten arms and legs and was pink with purple polka dots. Race has nothing to do with this, incompetence does; Obama’s incompetence.
The argument that his is wonderful father and loving husband is irrelevant as far as policy is concerned. If he is, that is great for Michelle, Sasha, and Melia. I sincerely hope that his family life is what it seems; I’ve read enough biographies of powerful men where the opposite was true. But I never argued that Obama in his personal life showed poor character; no, you put those words in my mouth. The argument was that Obama POLITICAL character was suspect; a totally different thing.
You are correct in one respect, I am beyond patience with people trying to guilt-trip Progressives / Liberals / other people of good will with the race card. It is not an argument in good faith. It is not a honest discussion. It is an attempt to cut off debate. It is an attempt to bully others into rhetorical submission. It is the exact same thing that White Supremacists did way back in the Civil Rights struggle when they blathered about “mongrelization of the races.” It is a below-the-belt punch delivered one too many times by Obama partisans, and it carries no water with me.
This is a boy cried “wolf” moment Solo. Just because there are not so hidden racists throwing all manner of brick-bats at the President does not mean every person throwing brick-bats happens to be a racist. Yet It seems very important to you that anyone who has harsh words for Obama to be pulled that rabbit-hole, but one more time, I’m not interested. And as a matter of fact, yes, I am going to pull that rhetorical club from your hand and turn it into sawdust via sarcasm. I am also going to call you out for your hippy-kicking, because you definitely need to be brought to the bar on that account.
But to beat a horse that is totally dead, I’m not telling you to shut up, that is the sum of your discussion. I’m telling that despite the long and sorry history of racism in our nation, despite the fact that there is a toxic amount of racism in our political discussion this very hour, the race of Obama is not the issue–it is his failure to stand for Democratic core values. It is failure to have any kind of political moral compass ( something totally different from an individual / private moral compass.) It is the hands-off, what-me-worry, drifting, reactive way he governs. It is his go-along-to-get-along mantra. It is his inability to muster a passion for anything. The man could not even stand up to a foolish cop in the wrong when push came to shove. Obama was speaking truth to power on the matter of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr, but then, cravenly, cowardly, he walked that back and had the infamous “Beer Summit.” That is the pattern, the talk left, but govern right Obama way. And that is what I have a huge problem with. The Republicans are perfect Visigoths, and the only way you deal with barbarians is to stick a very sharp sword up where the sun don’t shine. But instead of using the power of the Bully Pulpit, Obama sat on the bench and let Nancy and Harry do all the heavy lifting. I would believe the meme that “Obama got the best deal he could” if he did something in public to support that notion. Instead it was all back stage dickering with special interest that produced a very bad bill with far too many poison pills for my liking. As pointed out on the blog, many times by Taylor, HCR was and continues to be misogyny writ large. HCR should have died an ugly death when women’s constitutional right to control their own bodies was used as a bargaining chip to pass a bill that was the Health Industries wet dream come true.
As to his standing with the base, there is only one acid test for that; in November of 2012. We can toss polls at each other ’till the cows come home and then do the cha-cha; the only poll that matters is the election. Polls are great water-cooler fodder, but they do not really prove squat. Civil Rights legislation was passed in the teeth of the polls, at least the polls in Dixie. W had sky-high polls for his war in Iraq, how did that work out? Just because a majority of US citizens think shredding the social safety net is a good idea does not make it so. The general public is all fired up to cut spending, as long as it’s not them making the sacrifice. Cut spending but not programs is the message polls deliver time and time again.
By the way, when, pray tell, did I say I speak for “all” progressives? I speak for me. The entire post was how “us people”, your words reconfigured, to whit the activist Progressive cohort, got Obama over the hump. Obama got the nod in a series of small state caucuses in February that doomed HR Clinton to Mrs Congeniality. Those caucuses were manly a rather white affair and not many working stiffs of any hue had time to show up. Obama won those caucuses by appealing to a very narrow set of people; that is the reality. Those are the exact same people now being told to “shut up” by Barack Apologists.
I’m not trying to be cranky, I am not trying to be dismissive, but this has gone for far too long. I was here commenting on this blog back in ’08 when Obama partisans were threatening unholy havoc if their man was denied the nomination. I did not like the naked play to race then, and I like it less three years later. It was, and continues to be, in my opinion, a refuge of scoundrels.
I have more respect for the average Ku Klux Klanner, at least their up front about their beliefs. There is no pretense with them!
Solo – You should be ashamed of yourself, but of course you are not.
When an Obama loyalist loses an argument on the facts he/she plays the race card.
Obama has no choice but to deal with a Republican House, but let’s remember who gladly extended the Bush tax cuts & embraced the GOP economic model. It was Barack Obama.
Let’s also remember who began carving away women’s freedoms, which began in Obama’s private insurance & Big Pharma health care bill. Then he denied poor women in D.C. the same freedoms.
Let’s also not forget who served up Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid on the chopping block. It was NOT Republicans. It was Barack Obama.
Your sycophantic race baiting does a disservice to everyone, but especially the candidate over which you’ve lost all credibility.
Fan politics is the worst of all and you have shown to be one of the most despicable examples through your continual race baiting.
And BTW “you people?” Really? We are going there? Sigh again.
Obama supporters didn’t threaten unholy havoc if their candidate didn’t win in 2008, that is a naked lie. It was Hillary who reacted in a very ugly very public way. All the Puma’s were Hillary supporters. Alas u have dedicated your life to not liking the President so I guess he will just have to get re-elected without your vote! I’ll make sure to check out this site next election day, I’ll be the one trying to to talk you out of jumping! LOL!
Arrant nonsense. I was around for those discussions, and Hillary supporters had nothing on the Obama supporters.
Arrant nonsense as Cujo 359 said. I remember quite well the arguments posted by our resident Obama trolls back then too. The meme of an African American desertion of the Donkey party was broadcast all the way to the convention. The not so subtile threat was issued on an almost daily basis: nominate Obama or a critical core Democratic constituency will bolt. It was very ugly stuff.
Was it uglier than what the bitter end PUMA types were putting out? Hard to say. Both Obama partisans and PUMA people were very annoying in their own special way. Both acted with all the emotional maturity of a spoiled toddler. I used to think that the PUMA types were the more ill behaved; many because they are still out there in the toxic swamps of the interwebs; nursing their resentments. But now I’m coming around to my furry friend, Cujo359′s, point of view. All I needed was a reminder of what horrible, foolish and arrogant messaging Obama partisans like to indulge in. Thanks for jogging my memory.
I admit to enjoying watching people like you two Cujo359 and spincityd die a little bit on the inside every time the President succeeds at something. Especially when it’s something ur ilk said he couldn’t do! I have confidence that getting re-elected will be another one of those things!
And an Obama troll (i’m not saying you’re one) will completely ignore the fact that Obama is second generation Harvard; not second generation civil rights activist (the community organizer B.S. was resume padding).
Obama was never and is not a change agent, he is a gate keeper of the status quo. This is the core of his conservatism. It’s who he is.
And an Obama troll (i’m not saying you’re one) will completely ignore the fact that Obama is second generation Harvard; not second generation civil rights activist (the community organizer B.S. was resume padding).
Obama was never and is not a change agent, he is a gate keeper of the status quo. This is the core of his conservatism. It’s who he is.
“Obama was never and is not a change agent, he is a gate keeper of the status quo. This is the core of his conservatism. It’s who he is.”
Be still my beating heart. TPAZ, you really know how to cut to the chase. On the button TPAZ, wonderful.
These are revolutionary times, and somehow, someway, we the Amreican people, the working and middle class, even the poor, must begin to stop giving blind, passive and faithful support to this corporatocracy led government. All over the world Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Greece, Latin America, England, Asia, Africa, men and women alike are comming together in an effort to create change, mabey in the only way they can, through violence. This economic, political, and financial oligarchy that strips areas of its natural resources, water ways, forrests and wildlife, land(oil, minerals, metals, etc), while displacing hundreds thousands of people, disrupting whole communities and cultures, and calling it
“Economic Growth” is what we have Allowed!!
Creating a “new” eco financial system in the form of bidrigging reconstruction contracts to favored corporations like Haliburton-Behctel-Dyncorp, of whom I was a part of for two years. Not to mention DOD-DHS Homeland Defense Security Industry, of which I am a part of now, all in the name of profit and we have Allowed It!!! I speak of the vast amount of profits accumulated.
This corporate-government uses it power and influence to repress wages and any attempts by employees to organize, unionize and leagally protest in the largest retail coroporation in the world, Wal-Mart. The recent class suit by women employees. The supreme court wouldn’t even allow them the right to go to court. Five people waring black robes, denied the rights of at least a million??? And we the American public Allow them that “power”.
Now we are engaged in three “corporate” wars and three assassinations, Karzai, his brother, and no doubt one day Kadafi with the promise of leaving
these undeclared Economic occupational wars for the good of “Freedom and Democracy, and we keep voting for them to do just what they are doing.
For me there are no “formulas” that can be patented and served out as though it came from an assembly line. Corporations(I mean like the ones I speak about now) and politicians perfer the American public to be confused and fearful, held captive and distracted by “shock TV”, dynamic advertising, and violent and useless entertainment programs, all the while feeding us the promise of the “New American Dream”….DEBT and BROKE!
But I will still have an impact on my community, still pay my taxes, still work for a living, and hopefully be able to make that change that I and so many others live, work, and die for as an American citizen. I won’t vote this election.
Thanks Taylor.
By the way I’m not Democratic or Republican.
Antonio: lovely, and absolutely brilliant posting.
You are a pathetic piece of work if you think that accusation is going to impress anyone. I was wondering who’d be bringing that weak crap here, and it turned out to be you. Congratulations.
Just to review, based on your comments thus far, you think that anyone who suspects that government would be more likely to respond to womens’ concerns if there were women in it making those decisions hates men, and anyone who doesn’t approve of the current President is a closet racist. Is that right? Are you really that preternaturally stupid?
I grew up in a part of the country where racists are depressingly common. I know one when I meet one, and there’s usually never any doubt. None of these people you’re maligning are racists. They just see things differently than you do.
No, the poster is not “preternaturally stupid,” just arguing in bad faith. It is the old stand-by of arguing to man (or woman) and not to the subject at hand. It is the old standby of ad hominem abusive; the stock-in-trade of far too many Obama partisans. The mistake made was the foolish supposition that these bad faith arguments would be given any credence by the contributors at TM.
Man, every time I log on here, I feel as if I’m entering a reality distortion field. If any race card was played, it was played first by Antonio. He’s the one who ended his comment with “By the way, we’re African-American.” How is his race relevant to his comment? Except in this — means more that someone supposedly of Obama’s “base” is being critical of him.
But that’s racialist, if not racist, thinking. And since spincitysd is talking about ad hominem arguments, Antonio’s line of argument is also a logical fallacy: argumentum ad verecundiam, or “appeal to authority.” By announcing the fact of his African-Americanness, he is implicitly saying that his criticisms should carry more weight. Not because of what he says. But because of who or what he is. And if you are inclined to disagree with that sentiment, then riddle me this: Why is his race relevant?
Solo did not bring race into this discussion. He merely participated once the subject was broached by Antonio. Go jump down HIS throat, and please stop using Solo as a foil.