The best defenses Obama can even try to levy are that his actions made the economy less horrible than it would have been and that Romney would do even worse.

The best defense is to lay out a jobs and infrastructure and taxation plan.

Demand congress pass it before the election.

Yes. He should do that.
Then again this is the guy who wants to cut the deficit and spending. He is just too conservative to even think that way and he has surrounded himself with like minded neo liberals.

Obama and his cronies couldn’t care less, except it means they’ll probably be retiring earlier then they had hoped. Barry will just switch to doing 100K lectures for his Corp. pals after he loses. So much for Hope and Change.

Jon……so to paraphrase…..It’s tough to shoot pole with a rope????

Did you see DD post? Obama has trouble just before the election.

Demand congress pass it before the election.

Sometimes, you just break me up.
You owe me a new keyboard. :-)

It is beginning to look that way. His only hope may be the idiot he is running against.

Awww, how cute! Green Shoots!

What do you mean weak growth? The banksters are flush with freshly printed money.

The sad thing here is that Obama must lose while Romney should not win.

His only hope may be the idiot he is running against.

Romney is a “magnificent guiding light in the glooming darkness”.

LOL. True dat.

Obama will win the election. 4 more years.

Is that good, bad, WTF, or who gives a rat’s ass?

It doesn’t help Obama’s cause that the signature accomplishment of his first term is a Rube Goldberg contraption of a health-care law that most Americans don’t understand at half of whom detest.

But…but…Lilly Ledbetter!

A contraption that breaks big ticket 2008 campaign promises, to not raise taxes on the middle class, to provide for single payer if not a public option, to allow Medicare and others to negotiate bulk deals with Pharma.

The only thing that the ACA makes healthier are the bottom lines of insurers, hospitals, medical device manufacturers and pharma.

Hey, those are job creators! Do you know how many clerks the health insurers have to hire to deny claims, lie to patients, and lose paperwork?

Yes, 10% of the working population of the United States, or about 10 Million people.

What, you spewed out your coffee laughing so hard?

Obamas America: Hopeless and Unchanged

I’ll be honest. I don’t have a clue.

Lemme ask my rat.

You don’t hear that “Rube Goldberg” refrence much. Reminds me of my mom. That was one her favorite references.

Really does apply here, doesn’t it.

But, let’s not forget DADT. After all he traded the Bush Tax cuts extention for that.

That was good. Neat play on words there.

Can I use that???

Diet Dr Pepper.

Would I lie to you?

That’s worse than the Tigers trading John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander in 1987.

Wait a sec, these heteros go off and spawn countless generations of hot young men for my enjoyment and the signature achievement of the contemporary gay rights movement is to send them off to their deaths in a military draft?

True. Obama thinks that he shouldn’t do anything more, that the economy will turn itself around. He’s more Hoover than FDR.

In other words, Obama will run on his patented “we suck less” slogan. Oh, joy.

Very good.

I love baseball analogies.
Or is that a metaphor???

What’s a “simile”.
Ahh, really doesn’t matter.

Dude, I’m not gay, not there’s anything wrong with that, but I agree. War takes the best and the brightest. And, sometimes, the best looking.

OK. That said, I’m off to Hooter’s for lunch.

Very apropos. Obama thinks the economy is like those little cars at the carnival that you ride in and really don’t have to steer.

Is THAT an analogie?????

“…there is zero indication that it will get any better before November.”

There is little indication it will get better before 2016, maybe even 2020 or 2024.

“Obama … made the economy less horrible”

WE SUCK LESS! WE SUCK LESS! WE SUCK LESS!

Point being is that like the Democrat Party has been hijacked by wealthy conservatives to promote their interests over ours, the LGBT movement has been hijacked by conservatives to promote their interests (marriage, military) over ours (housing and job protection).k

Wouldn’t you just LOVE it if someone had a poster with that at the convention.

Coach, I think if it doesn’t get any better by 2016 we’ll just get use to that as the new normal. Ya’ know, like when you;ve had jock its for about 3-4 weeks, you really don;t notice your balls itch anymore.

That’s not a health “care” law, it’s a health “Insurance” law that’s a product of the Heritage Foundation (Koch Bros.), and a former Wellpoint executive.

Obama is a neoliberal disciple of Milton Friedman’s Chicago School of disaster capitalism, and an effective mask for the Corporatocracy, more so than Romney. The 99% never had a chance under his policies.

You mean like after a certain amount of time you forget that you’ve got a knife stuck in your back from allowing someone you trusted to get behind you?

I got lots of good friends that are gay. You guys and girls been losing more ground in the democratic party than the Indians did at Wounded Knee.

That’s why I think a good coalition would be LGBT, real liberals, Hispanics, Asians, Blacks, Native Americans (I’m 1/16 Cherokee)and Samoans to build a third party. We might not get our candidate elected, but we could decide which of their candidates win.

Convention in San Francisco??????

Agreed. And, by no stretch of the imagination, can the “care” it brings be called “affordable.”

‘Zactly.

Being a voter in our political system is like being a criminal defendant in a town with two lawyers. One is drunk, corrupt, and incompetent. The other is the District Attorney.

I don;t know if you saw my recent “statistics” but my double coronary bypass cost $128,000. Fortunately my insurance paid all but $5,000 and my wife’s hysterectomy cost $82,000. If we hadn’t had insurance we would either be dead, dying or in bankcuptcy.

NOw THAT’S a simile, right????

Don’t know how to break this to you, but the best and brightest aren’t stupid enough to volunteer to be corporate killers for USA,Inc. That’s just BS designed to fool the masses to justify illegal wars for resources. Ask Gen. Smedley Butler when you see him.

“Is that good, bad, WTF, or who gives a rat’s ass?”

Mostly, it is just sad. 300 million people in this country and the best we can do is Obama and Romney. That is just sad.

Bingo. Go to the head of the class.

Probably bankruptcy or perhaps not. I endured 7 weeks on intensive targeted radiation that was priced at $60K with insurance, but as a self pay (no insurance) patient I paid $13K. You may have paid $5K co-pay, but I hadn’t paid any insurance premiums for years. Interesting that a procedure costs so much less when the insurance industry isn’t involved.

I’m glad your insurance paid the lion’s share of the costs and that some twerp from the insurance company didn’t jerk you around over paying.

We need some way of distributing the risk of health-care expenses, and the insurance model works to some extent. Unfortunately, the model we’ve developed in this country is incredibly inefficient. We spend quite a bit more on health care than other industrialized countries and get crappier care.

It’s not the best we can do. It’s all we are allowed. More choices of any product at the grocery store, and they are nothing more than “product”.

Until people are willing to organize, another party won’t work. I don’t see that happening until real conditions on the ground deteriorate to the point where conditions in today’s prison appear as a favorable alternative to life on the streets. Food is way too plentiful today for that to happen just now, and if it happens slower, then it will have to get significantly worse so that people realize how bad it is before it gets better. Today’s task is consciousness raising, to ditch the leftist tripe and create a populist consensus space where all Americans can seek common cause.

I’m not one to primarily identify politically as gay. I prefer coming together on economic grounds as the 99% to cobbling together a coalition of the splinter groups.

“… the insurance model works to some extent. “

The HI model was built using homeowners and auto models as a prototype. This was flawed from the start because most purchasers of auto and homeowners insurance never make a claim. Sooner or later everybody gets sick and needs healthcare unless they experience sudden, accidental death.

We spend quite a bit more administering the health care finance system than other countries.

” I prefer coming together on economic grounds as the 99% to cobbling together a coalition of the splinter groups.”

Exactly. Becoming a coalition of “special interests” was the beginning of the downfall of the democratic party.

We are all special, therefore nobody is special.

You mean we still have access to trials in this country? I thought your drunk incompetent defense attorney just rammed a crappy plea agreement down your throat and cashed your check?

That is Major General to you sir. Not too many people have heard of him, but take his essay and replace the corporations of then and replace them with the corporations of today and you can practically leave the rest unchanged!

Yep, like getting blown into red dust by an IED?

you filthy communist! /s

It still remains to be seen if the insurance companies will pay up under the regulations set to become law in 2014, or if the public’s health coverage will be meaningless because of corporate chicanery and government malfeasance. If I were a bettor I would place money on the latter option, but the truth of the matter still has to be seen to be believed.

So why does Jane Hamsher give aid and comfort to tbogg who is essentially an adjunct of the DNC and is serving as a herder to corral the bewildered herd into the voting booth to slit our own throats again?

I thought it went, “We are all special but some of us are more special than others.”

Considering that being gay is not a question of choice, but a fact of nature, it isn’t really a political factor.

Excellent point and THAT is what WE need to do. UNITE as the 99%. After all we are, well……..99% of the people in the country.

If we could identify our common goals and temporarily forget our petty differences, hey, “Power to the People” could be a reality.

Ahhhhhh, I’m not sure I beleve that myself. You and I both know the golden rule, “He who has the gold makes the rules.” It’s certainly sounds inspirational.

A journey of a million miles begins with a single step. (And a trip to the bathroom)

I don;t care what you’ve been told.

I rode to school in a the big bus.

Amazing that he wrote that over 75 years ago. It’s no wonder that O doesn’t want us to look backward because we’d realize that history does indeed repeat itself, especially if we ignore its lessons.

Phoenix Woman is TBogg’s female equivalent, except she’s slavishly devoted to the Clintons while rationalizing the actions of the Democrats.

Somehow the PTB have managed to hijack the term “special” and it no longer means exceptional, but describes someone that’s defective or less then “normal”. That’s a linguistic crime resulting from political correctness.

I’d avoid characterizing everyone with a broad brush. People should have the right to choose their sexuality as much as those for whom it is not a choice should not be discriminated against.

I am a well bathed anarchist, thanks.

Problem is that many lefties and progressives could not sit in the same room with much of the 99%, those who are racist, sexist, homophobic, “eat” at McDonalds, watch FoxNEWS from the comfort of their suburban couches and drive SUV’s.

The Decolonize Oaklanders will make sure of that. My understanding is that DO is down to 1/2 of a person, as the last women there found out that she had some internalized oppression that she’d not worked through, and had to kick that 1/2 of her out so that the other 1/2 could work in an oppression-free environment.

kafka said: “Obama will win the election. 4 more years. Is that good, bad, WTF, or who gives a rat’s ass?”

I’ll go with number four. He’s every bit as corporate-owned as Romney, so a second term for Obama won’t be anything to breathe a sigh of relief over.

None of the gay people I’ve known would describe homosexuality as a choice, to do so would be to disregard the forces of nature.

Funny you should mention that.

Last week I was having a drink or four at Hooters and the guy next to me said he was an anarchist. We talked for a while.

Considering the current state of nation, he had some interesting ideas. :-)

I understand.

I’m still working on “getting the bugs out” of the plan.

It actually has the potential to be more destructive because there won’t even be token opposition to his neo-liberal policies. Only a neo-liberal can completely destroy the advances of the New Deal and the Great Society without objection.

You go to Hooters for the fine dining experience and you have the nerve to tell me I’m living high on the hog because I purchase Fancy Feast Medleys.
Unfuckingbelievable!

I don’t think that the evidence is in to say how it works for everyone. The notion that nobody would choose to be gay due to discrimination belies the fact that unless you’re a complete dog, gay men can have more sex in an afternoon than most heteros thought was possible in a month. It is complicated and nobody’s experience is denied by saying that it works differently for different people. Some undoubtedly are born that way, but there is no evidence that is the case for all of us. There are transgender folks who say that we’re all messing with gender. That might be the case for them, but it is not the case for everyone. Differentiation is a good thing.

I respectfully disagree. Homosexuality occurs in nature all of the time, and I didn’t mention discrimination. It all boils down to sexual attraction. I tried having sex with men on numerous occasions and it just didn’t work for me, because I’m attracted to the opposite sex. That proved to be an obstacle to the men that desired me sexually in the gay community that was my environment for years.
So you believe that one can successfully “pray away the gay”. That’s nonsense.

All I had was the clams.

FRIED clams.

Maybe Barry should ask some of his rich Bankster pals to create a few jobs before Nov. If they don’t he’s toast. Willard will have us all having our ancestors baptized by next summer or else no SSI, Medicare or Food stamps anymore.

Glad you cleared that up. How can you afford to pay for booze at restaurant prices when it’s so much cheaper and less dangerous to drink at home?

If converting to Moronism is all that’s required to save the social safety net, I’d be willing to renounce atheism and join the cult of believers.

Quite right–there will be very little criticism of Obama’s policies if he wins a second term. (And what criticism there is will be greeted with scorn and derision from the “big tent” Dems.)

Because TBogg has a clairvoyant friend named Nate Silver who has predicted an Obama victory and so it doesn’t make a difference.

One way of having fun here at FDL is to ask PW everything she knows about Ralph Nader, then look each canard up…