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Kend, the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling are much worse. Obama is much more fiscally responsible than Republicans who are intentionally trying to bankrupt the government. Sometimes it's necessarry tosell bonds to borrow money and financially difficult times are those and boom times like the Clinton years are the times to pay it back.
But the Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility and the Republicans of reckless, extravagant spending.
I think Obama made significant changes. They changes were not nearly as significant as I would like. I hate his love for free trade. He drank too much Clinton kool-aid. The changes I liked and would vote for am because of them:
1 Chrysler saved
2 GM Saved
3 AHCA passed (AKA Obamacare); (because of blue dogs like Max Baucus it was not a single player plan; to get Sen Baucus to sign it, Max's county got single payer.)
4 Middle class tax cut
5 Went from losing 750,000 per month to 30 straight months of job gains (in spite of Republican governors cutting 4.5 million jobs)
6 Education spending increased
7 Laws against hate crimes strengthened
8 CHIPS expanded (Children’s Health Insurance Program)
1 Chrysler Saved
9 Forced through Child Labor Laws
10 consumer protection agency formed
11 Credit card reform
12 Predatory lending to soldiers restricted
13 Troops paid for stop loss time
14 Torture stopped
15 VA spending increased
16 Women allowed to serve on subs
17 Equal pay for women
18 Nuclear arms reduction proposal
19 BP cleanup fund
20 EPA strengthened
21 FDA powers broadened
22 Healthcare for 9-11 responders funded (during Bush Term it was ignored)
23 DADT was repealed
24 Within 24 hours of his inauguration in 2009, he ordered that the financial statistics of the top 400 families should be treated like everyone else's; that is, they should not be a classified government document.
25 When the congress was adding Part D to Medicare (the prescription drug assist; I think it was in 2004) the democrats tried to pass an amendment to help fund it by a 1% income tax on incomes over 1 million.
26 In 2009-10 when Obama lost his filibuster proof senate, the senate had a record number of filibusters (380 or so); during LBJ's 6 year reign as senate majority leader there was one.
27 The bills that were filibustered would have helped our economy for both the long and short term. My favorites were the card check bill, the Disclose Act, stopping waivers for the Buy American Act of 1936 and the credits for bringing jobs back (no credits for tearing down factories to send jobs overseas.
28 Republicans supported the Reinhart-Rogoff Study used to push austerity throughout the world; The study was a total scam supported by Pete Peterson who wants all the social security money invested on wall street. It was easy to suck in democrats and the general public because too much debt being a bad thing makes intuitive sense.
My comment #21 was sent too early, I am trying to make it more readable.
The TPP is disgusting and shameful and must to be stopped. Any senator that votes in the affirmative, regardless of party affiliation, needs to be exposed and defeated at their next election. Corporations are taking over our planet and they have no souls. They only worship money and greed.
I liked your "Arnold"ism re change we can be afraid of... FYI, 'SHillary isn't mine, picked it up in Thom's chat. If you can, you should drop in durring the show. very entertaining..AND educational!
Continuing my #14 comment. For example, when a multi-national corporation bought out Merriam-Webster in the 1980's the definition of fascism changed. It eliminated the part of the definition about the merging of state and private interests. It only changed in some versions. In two merriam-webster dictionaries I own, it is gone completely. That is, the word private (or anything similar) is not in any of the multiple definitions. My sister had some dictinaries that still included the concept of public and private merging interests.
Our chances of stopping this Obamanation of a treaty are about the same as our chances of restoring constitutional governance: zilch, bupkes, nada, nol, none. But we still gotta try...
That sales pitch translates to "Change we should all be afraid of...very afraid of!"
That sales pitch translates to "Change we should all be afraid of...very afraid of!"
Reed Young -- what makes a definition correct? Is it because it is a dictionary produced by a fascist?
You should go to Greece. You can drink on the beach and at nudie bars.
Every decade governments seem to think they know better than the people who elected them. Kinda scary.
On a lighter note. I walked to my Safeway down the street in Scottsdale, AZ. In the middle of the Safeway is a new wine bar. Yes I can now stop for a glass of wine while I am buying my milk and eggs. Sitting at the wine bar was a civilian guy there with a gun on his hip. God Bless America. I love this place. At home we cant buy or sell any alcohol with food anywhere. It can only be bought in a liqiuor store.
"SHillery" presidency... great satire, Sandlewould!! I'd love a woman in the oval office, just like I always felt about a first black president. But not just any woman will do. - AIW
capitalist:
1. a person who has capital, especially extensive capital, invested in business enterprises.
2. an advocate of capitalism.
The latter is exactly what the caller said a capitalist is, but Thom repeatedly said that his definition was "wrong." It isn't wrong. Definition #1 is closer to Thom's emphasis on using capital to earn more capital, but it notably does not say exclusively using capital, and it certainly does not require "sitting on one's butt waiting for a check." The phrase "especially extensive use of capital" could allow or suggest that investment-only model, but nothing in that definition *requires* that capitalists do not do any work in addition to the investment of capital. The caller seems to have been correct and Thom, incorrect. In terms of the conventional usage.
Yes, definitions of words change as the conventional usage changes, and if I recall correctly from previous Thom Hartmann Programs he does have a thorough and fairly sensible argument for using "capitalism" and "capitalist" the way he does, but it is still his usage, not The Correct Definition which is how he portrayed it just now. So his insistence that the other, quite common usage is simply "wrong" comes off as obstinate and arrogant, whereas if he explained "I use the words capitalism and capitalist like so for the following reasons" those reasons might be very enlightening. It might even occasionally persuade "2. an advocate of capitalism" not to advocate it or identify with it so much, or in some way reassess their assumptions, an outcome that I doubt will result from just insisting that they're using words incorrectly. Especially since they're in fact not using those words incorrectly, and he is.
Jobs or Gates...hard to avoid. Got sick of Gates' viruses and not geeky/patient enough to build my own. My old one was a custom, but still windows...
Has anyone ever seen the dems extolling the virtues of free trade? I know a lot of them are all for it, but I never here them defending it. I know when the use it the word protectionism they have a derogatory tone in their voice, but never say why. The right uses the Smoot-Hawley (sp?) act as phony an argument as it is, but the dems seem really quiet.
Palin -- As an example, why do believe that when Nancy P and her fellow dems passed the Employee Free Choice Act they thought it would never see the light of day? I think it would have seen the light of day if the Repugs would not have fought against Al Franken's confirmation and if Ted Kennedy would not have gotten cancer. The AHCA and the consumer bill did pass. They both were watered down by the fascist dems, but Obama had enough left in them to change the economic course of the USA.
macbook -- Doesn't that come from one of the key fascists - Steve Jobs and Apple?
10-K, I hope there's a thousand more Snowdens imbedded in that network, as you've suggested. Seems inevitable, doesn't it! However there still remains one major hurdle: anyone who considers blowing their cover has to be willing to sacrifice any stability they have in their lives, and be willing to spend the rest of their days in isolation, hiding and on the run. That's a huge sacrifice.
You're damn right these wars are about money! Kinda puts a different spin on that old slogan conservatives love so much: "Freedom isn't free". The more "enemies" and "terrorists" our corporatized government can create, the easier it is to justify keeping us in perpetual war, which keeps the weapons manufacturers and for-profit mercenaries very happy. Especially while there's all these third world countries with oil, minerals and other natural resources left for them to steal, too small and weak to fight back. Those corporate fascists must be in pig heaven. These are the thoughts that stuck in my mind as I watched Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars the other night. - Aliceinwonderland
treason |ˈtrēzən|
noun(also high treason )
the crime of betraying one's country, esp. by attempting to kill the sovereignty of or overthrow the government. (definition taken from macbook dictionary)
Put simply, I would submit that any one who votes for or “fast track”s the TPP, including Obama, is committing treason.
No. Unless it gets connected directly to him, or a pattern of 'bullying" is made clear to the voters( and many voters will look at bullying as an asset in public office rather than a detriment) I don't think this will have much effect outside of some of the drivers in NY and NJ who were fuming in traffic for three days. The two hour mea culpa was a little "too much" and just gives me the inner feeling that he is quite nervous, and if so, that could be related to additional instances of behaviors that have been quashed-at least for the time being. People with knowledge of detrimental behaviors on his part, if they are political enemies, would probably want to wait until much closer to 2016 elections before going public with such information. I think those possible factors will have much more influence on the 2016 elections than BridgeGate.
http://www.databreaches.net/omniquad-surf-wall-remote-injects-string-int...
"Rather than protecting clients, it reveals their identity to every website they visit.
Surf Wall Remote (SWR) injects an extra string into the browser user agent, that personally identifies the visitor. "
http://cryptome.org/2013/12/omniquad-exposes.htm
Who can we trust anymore? But as Steve Gibson of Security Now....."TRUST NO ONE!" ...maybe not even yourself.
Alice- I couldn't agree more. I voted for him the first time, and would have a second...if I hadn't lived in a hopelessly red state, just to keep Romney out. Having heard a lecture on the 'illusion of separateness' carefully strategized and orchestrated by elites of both parties and Corp. CEOs, given by a guy (who's name escapes unfortunately) who was allegedly an intern in the Clinton Admin., I am hopeless about the National Dem Party. Locally, not necessarily, depending on where you live. My Dem. Gov. is trying to ram a pipeline down our throats and as far as marriage equality, well, you can forget it. At any rate, I truly think that we must hope for a peaceful solution, and hope to rebuild in a sustainable, peaceful way after the Great Collapse.
As I have been saying, ubiquitous media shapes water-cooler dialogue and with it, the dialogue on Capital Hill. Without control of it, no other issue in the interest of the people will ever be dealt with legislatively. We MUST be on guard. Every time a corporate media circus is created in the left hand, (not to be confused w/ left) the right hand (not to be confused w/ correct) is up to no good. The scariest thing is that the powers elite, (the unholy marriage of Wall Street [Dems] and Dirty Energy [Repubs]) have gotten very good at distracting us on the one hand while using the distraction to cement their bidding in the Public Mind with the other. In this case they’re using Bridge Gate to slither around our awareness of the TPP while at the same time cementing a SHillary presidency. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it until all who call themselves ‘progressive’ realize that at the national level, we have no more hope of reforming the Dems from within than we would the Mafia. We need our progressive voices with influence to start educating the people re. Candidates like Kshama Sawant. With both Dems and Repubs in Congress receiving approval ratings lower than dog poo and cock roaches, and POTUS and SCOTUS ratings at all time lows, with a little help from progressive voices like Thom’s we could turn the tide and force Corp. media to either cover them or lose ratings so fast their vapid chatter would be sucked into the void.
Well I hope everyone has written the President and their congressmen on this issue. I sure did; and, did my best to get everyone I know to do the same. That is about all we can do in this matter. Even if fast-tracked, I'd be shocked if the thing passes. Although, I'm fairly certain that if it does pass, it will be without the vote or approval of any of my congressmen. Of course, if fast-tracked, another confirmation letter against the legislation will certainly be in order from all of us.