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The Weekend Music Thread – Mini Themes

This one goes out to the GOP and most particularly, the Tea Party:

Brain Damage – Pink Floyd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77n1mDf6Iqo

Teenaage Lobotomy – The Ramones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwdc8u93r_w

Crippled Inside – John Lennon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIqaIfaJ3-E

Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne

» Posted By AdLib On October 4, 2014 @ 1:46 pm

Fixed!

» Posted By AdLib On October 4, 2014 @ 11:53 am

Great News on the Economy! (Made You Look!)

Funk, what a clear-eyed, objective and smartly laid out observation that maps out where we’ve come economically and why. Well done!

You’re really hitting the mark when you note how there was an opportunity to profoundly remake our nation back when Obama first came into office. Looking back, it is a bit regrettable that he spent so much focus on being bipartisan than aggressively pushing forward the kinds of change we needed. I appreciate how insane the times were and how he opted for trying to repair the system as it was but it of course led to a magnification of the economic inequity that existed pre-crash.

As Robert Reich and others have noted, the stimulus needed to be at least twice as big as it was and it needed to be much more about spending than providing tax cuts which favored the wealthiest.

I also felt he should have done something much more creative and supportive of the 99%, changing the structure of the bailout so that banks would get their essentially free loans but homeowners would be guaranteed reductions in their loan amounts, interest rates and allowed great flexibility if they weren’t able to pay their mortgage in full for one or more months.

The main loss of equity for the majority of Americans was the crash in housing prices that was a two-fold effect, the first quick loss in value when the derivatives market crashed then the ongoing loss of equity as the foreclosure epidemic took place (not to mention the destruction of lives that caused).

And as you mention, there could have and should have been a massive infrastructure rebuilding project that would have employed so many of the housing construction workers who had lost their jobs. It would have been a win-win, for jobs and reinvigorating the economy with money through the spending of those paychecks and rebuilding and updating our crumbling infrastructure.

Now, we may have employment back to where it was in 2008 but our decaying infrastructure is 6 years older with only a fraction improved through the stimulus bill.

As for the stock market, it really reflects corporate greed more than the economic health of the nation so its being up mainly means the wealthy are making more. And one term/subject I’ve come to really dislike is “productivity”. Many people don’t truly understand what that means but it’s a bad thing for all but the top 1%. I know you know but for others less familiar with it, “productivity” means getting more work out of people for the same or less money. When productivity goes up, that means workers are essentially making less money compared to the amount of work they’re doing. And in our corrupt economy, that’s a good thing. Productivity is really a measure of exploitation, the more it goes up, the more workers are being exploited.

You know what would score the highest on a productivity chart? Slavery. And scoring highest in productivity is what corporations and for that matter, our society is trained to be rooting for.

I agree with your encouragement to work local to make a difference, just as the wealthy and RW Repubs have. It is a long road but very worthwhile.

And agree with your urging to get the word out to others about the true inequities of our system and the politicians who are protecting and increasing them.

It’s kind of amazing to me how almost matter-of-factly so many Americans are about having a lower standard of living thrust on them and a lesser standard of living forced upon their children. It’s as if they have given up and assume that things naturally can only get worse.

No. Not if enough people refuse to go along with the Kochs & Co. scheme. We do not have to accept a lesser standard of living for each subsequent generation, it’s only happening because there is too much apathy in this country.

If enough stonewalling Repubs in Congress were voted out and a Dem Congress could pass infrastructure and social program spending, if the tax system was fixed to close loopholes for the wealthy and corporations, if a higher and self-adjusting federal minimum wage law was passed….all things that are possible in the near future, we’d have quite a start towards making things better for the 99%.

Change is possible but the powerful and wealthy will fight it hard. We need the strength of our numbers to beat their financial numbers in changing the course of our nation and economy. Hopefully, that sensibility will continue to grow.

» Posted By AdLib On October 7, 2014 @ 1:32 pm

Boo! Visit The News Networks’ Haunted House!

Harleigh, that’s a room that I would call, “Night of the Living Dead Brain Cells!”

» Posted By AdLib On October 4, 2014 @ 11:20 am

Cheers, slm! Thanks so much!

» Posted By AdLib On October 4, 2014 @ 11:19 am

Nirek, it has become a pretty terrible evolution in the news biz, no longer reporting but trying to manufacture news. And instill panic in the public too. If The Founders could see what’s going on now, they might have completely revised the 1st Amendment.

» Posted By AdLib On October 4, 2014 @ 11:19 am

The Top Secret Service Bloopers!

ExFan, can you imagine what would have happened if there was a well planned attack on Obama instead of loonies jumping fences and shooting indiscriminately?

The SS can’t even stop the idiots, I can’t imagine them protecting the Pres from a coordinated attack. Sure hope this serves as a wake up call for the SS to get it together quickly because it sure looks like a wake-up call to enemies of Obama and the US that killing our President wouldn’t be so hard to pull off.

» Posted By AdLib On October 4, 2014 @ 11:38 am

PPO – Very funny!

Of course, when O’Toole was found in bed with a prostitute who was yelling at him for not paying the agreed to amount, he explained that he was “working under covers”.

» Posted By AdLib On October 4, 2014 @ 11:34 am

Cheers Nirek and I think you’re right, the photo next to “dick” in the dictionary, to describe a real absolutely terrible human being should be Cheney!

» Posted By AdLib On October 4, 2014 @ 11:31 am

My pleasure as always, Kalima!

I wonder if the opinion in that article is on target or not. What I’ve been hearing is that the SS actually suffers from low morale, it’s seen as a bottom rung agency and those there are disrespected by CIA, FBI, etc. I heard a statistic that many have second jobs since the SS pays so poorly.

No question that the agency has been run into the ground and the internal problems have decimated it.

Pierson needed to go and the agency needs a top-to-bottom scrubbing, get the bad management and poor agents out, establish an environment of positive communication and respect and make the priority anticipating attacks on and protecting the President and family. It’s a long haul to turn things around.

And it’s just good luck that no group has attempted a coordinated assassination attempt on Obama because I’m afraid it might have succeeded.

» Posted By AdLib On October 4, 2014 @ 11:29 am

Kes, that is brilliant and hilarious! How did I miss that?! 😆

» Posted By AdLib On October 2, 2014 @ 4:06 pm

RSGMusic, it’s all tongue in cheek, these aren’t real events and there isn’t a series in the offing…yet! But it is a very appreciated compliment! Cheers!

» Posted By AdLib On October 1, 2014 @ 5:57 pm

Thanks ExFan! I don’t know though that making GHW Bush President sooner would have been better. And I am kind of anti-assassination but if for instance, aliens were to take Scalia, Thomas and Roberts off the SCOTUS and into deep space for the rest of their lives…I wouldn’t join a hashtag protest to bring them back.

» Posted By AdLib On October 1, 2014 @ 5:54 pm

Open Carry is a Whites Only Law

Nirek, that was the way it was for many years. Gunmakers now skirt around the restrictions against automatic weapons, the semi-automatics now are fast in firing that the restrictions are kind of pointless.

» Posted By AdLib On September 29, 2014 @ 10:09 am

And we could all be British citizens too if not for magazine limits during the Revolutionary War. Damn liberals, we could have had a royal family and they totally blew it!

» Posted By AdLib On September 29, 2014 @ 10:05 am

A sad coincidence today, video was revealed of ANOTHER cop shooting an innocent unarmed black man. He was told to get his ID and when he reached into his car for his wallet, he was shot at then the cop continued to shoot after he raised his hands in the air (sound familiar?).

The lesson here, obeying the police can be as deadly as not obeying them. So if you’re black and stopped by a cop…what do you do?

While watching this, one can only imagine that if the Ferguson Police had cameras on themselves, that the shooting of Michael Brown might have looked frightening similar (especially since the eyewitnesses all seem to agree on what happened).

» Posted By AdLib On September 25, 2014 @ 10:00 pm

CL, you know I do take your voice of experience to heart.

I wonder if we need to first get people to see racism differently so that they “get” how horrible it is.

That’s why I referred to it as terrorism. It’s a much more potent form of terrorism than anything ISIS or Al Qaeda could come up with because it’s been around hundreds of years and forces a huge segment of Americans to have to worry about their and their children’s safety.

Racism terrorizes millions of Americans and there are so many casualties, it’s not just a fear of fear like with ISIS, it’s concrete.

As advanced as we think we are today, you’re so right that it still takes courage to stand up against racism because there are police and others with power out there who have racism as a pillar of their identity. They won’t just give up on it and as you say, even if you’re white, opposing the racist environment they depend on can turn them against you.

It does take conscience and courage at this point, how much more blatant does it have to get that in America right now, racism is now a legal excuse for murdering innocent black people.

This has to stop.

» Posted By AdLib On September 25, 2014 @ 12:54 pm

Dear Trolls: Yes, I do think Barack Obama is a Very Good President and Here is Why

Kes, it’s amazing how little self-proclaimed experts on FDR and the Constitution actually know.

For example, SS originally paid benefits only to the primary worker. So, as originally passed, if a husband receiving SS died, his wife and family got nothing more.

If someone was disabled and could no longer work, they received nothing until they reached 65 years old.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html

Of course, these huge gaps in the original SS law were later revised to provide for spouses and children and disabilities.

But then that’s just the facts, that FDR didn’t pass perfect legislation that was uncompromised. Believing he rode on a unicorn is much more affirming to those who need it.

» Posted By AdLib On September 25, 2014 @ 12:16 pm

Kes, it’s kind of self-evident that this isn’t really a discussion about respect for The Constitution since only certain aspects of it that justify a particular agenda are cherry picked and others that dispute it are willfully ignored.

It’s of course solely about pursuing that agenda, as you artfully describe and principle has nothing to do with it.

» Posted By AdLib On September 25, 2014 @ 9:31 am

Obama promised to pursue programs and he kept his promises. He did pursue them then he faced the reality of a Congress that said, “We will vote against any bill that contains all those things.”

What should he have done, insist that the ACA must contain a Single Payer provision and all that he wanted and doom the bill so it would fail and there would be no reform?

He did approach passing the ACA from a tough strategic position. I too wasn’t happy that he made a deal with pharma however, considering how they were the central power behind killing the last attempt to pass health insurance reform when Clinton was President, one can understand a strategy to disarm his main opponents to get urgent reforms passed…with a structure put in place that could evolve into accomplishing all he had promised and envisioned.

Obama did succeed in getting Congress to pass health care reform, something that all previous Presidents had failed to do for around half a century.

Would we be happier with a President who again failed to pass any health care reform but resisted all calls for compromise?

We could be living in that reality now, over 30 million Americans still without healthcare, insurance still denied to millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions and healthcare costs rising by double digits annually.

These are the real world choices, there never was a choice of having all of Obama’s policies from the campaign instituted exactly as he wanted. So judging him against that impossibility isn’t really fair. What President in history was able to have Congress pass all the things he wanted just the way they wanted? Why would we hold Obama alone against such an impossible yardstick?

Politics is negotiation. No one gets everything they want and those who won’t compromise accomplish nothing. An all or nothing approach leads to nothing. That’s just the nature of the beast.

I think it’s best to leave the Tea Partiers to seeing compromise as a sin, it’s doomed them to being more and more marginalized as extremists and the GOP to being handicapped in winning Presidential elections.

» Posted By AdLib On September 25, 2014 @ 9:14 am

Monica, I have considered how beneficial a parliamentarian form of government could be at times here in the US but how disastrous it could have been during eras like the Bush Admin. In that form of government, Obama (and Bush) could have instituted laws without needing to compromise.

However in our democracy, politics is compromise.

To begin, the reason millions of the poorest in states can’t get onto Medicaid is because the Supreme Court ruled states have the right to deny it to them and Repub-controlled states have done so. That is despite Obama’s support for all the poorest people in all states being eligible. That isn’t his fault, in our system of government, the SCOTUS has the final say on legislation and though we all wish there was a way for Obama and Dems to go around them, there just isn’t (until a Dem President can replace at least one of the 5 Conservatives on the court).

As for the terms of the ACA Act, those were negotiated by Congress and again, Obama could not unilaterally change them. However, as with Medicare and SS, the changes desired could be enacted by future Congresses and signed into law by future Presidents. Change is typically incremental, there is nothing preventing changes to the ACA.

As for the US returning to war in Iraq/Syria, it isn’t desired even by Obama but it is a legitimate concern that if ISIS is allowed to continue to grow more powerful and murder more masses of people, that they may become a much greater threat to the civilized world including the US who they have sworn to attack. Can we afford to turn our back on them as we did with Al Qaeda and just hope the nations in the region will eventually fight and destroy them?

That is quite a dangerous gamble.

But the real reason Obama could feel a responsibility to act in this region is that it was the US, under Bush, who destabilized Iraq and brought ISIS into being. The US is Dr. Frankenstein and ISIS is the monster we created, can we just walk away and let them murder and dominate hundreds of thousands of innocent people because we’re tired of the war we started?

All of these issues are complicated, many competing imperatives collide and one reason why I really like Obama is his ability to be flexible and reason out what could be the best way forward. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t make mistakes or do the wrong thing, he does, but I’d suggest that when you stack up the bad decisions of each President in our recent history, his are far smaller and far less severe. And his accomplishments are arguably the most beneficial to the majority of Americans than any other President in the last several decades (ACA, end of DADT and DOMA, The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, The Consumer Protection Agency, killing Bin Laden, etc.).

The best Presidents fight for the most they can get from Congress. They aren’t anxious to go to war but consider the long term implications of not acting while a dangerous entity gains power. They’re not perfect, they can’t control what bills Congress puts on their desk, there is only so much they can do.

And with that understanding, I think he has done and is doing a remarkable job in extremely difficult circumstances.

» Posted By AdLib On September 24, 2014 @ 4:24 pm

ST, I don’t believe anyone here seeks a surrender or for anyone to change their personal beliefs or convictions.

Speaking for myself, all I was hoping for was a simple acknowledgement of the actual and indisputable content of The Constitution.

At least to clarify this, here is a description of The Constitution’s content from The National Constitution Center which was founded by an act of Congress, that summarizes the separation of powers as contained in The Constitution:

Among the many powers given to the legislative branch, or the Congress, are the powers to introduce bills, collect taxes, regulate commerce with foreign countries, coin money, and declare war. The head of the executive branch, or the president, serves as the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army and Navy, has the power to make treaties, can propose and veto legislation, and nominates ambassadors and justices of the Supreme Court. The president also appoints public officials, such as members of the Cabinet and heads of executive agencies, all of whom round out the executive branch. Lastly, the judicial branch, which includes the Supreme Court and lower federal courts, has the power to interpret U.S. law by issuing judgments in cases.

http://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/lesson-plans/separation-of-powers

What is explicit in the separation of powers, as contained in The Constitution, is that the President does not have the power to pass legislation, he may only propose or sign or veto legislation that has already been passed by Congress. Only Congress can pass legislation.

Many of the “crimes” you allege that Obama is guilty of, are premised on the mistaken belief that The President has the power to pass legislation.

The Constitution is very clear that this is not the case.

Thus your listed “crimes” including the passage of the ACA without Single Payer, the passage of a bill preventing Obama from moving prisoners from Guantanamo, etc. are not within the scope of powers any President has and are not actions that Obama has done.

The Constitution puts the power and responsibility for passing legislation in Congress’ hands. If you don’t agree with that then you are ironically at odds with The Constitution, which is your right but it does detract from pleas to respect The Constitution.

I think it is quite clear where we both stand on this issue, don’t wish to beat a dead horse on this so I’m fine with leaving it here.

» Posted By AdLib On September 24, 2014 @ 9:52 am

ST – You seem disconnected from conversation, just providing vague and nebulous references to protecting The Constitution as a response to whatever replies you receive. You refuse to acknowledge facts that are ironically, in The Constitution (such as the division of powers between the three branches of government).

One can’t be a crusader for The Constitution if one refuses to acknowledge truths that are in it (it’s kind of a requirement). You’ve criticized others as disregarding the Constitution while you repeatedly disregard The Constitution in order to avoid admitting that your criticism of Obama is inaccurate. That’s a bit of a problem when one tries to center their whole argument on their superior respect for The Constitution.

I don’t know why you don’t like Pres. Obama but it’s clear that you can’t provide many legitimate reasons for it, just false accusations which have been proven by several here to be untrue.

No one has to like Obama, Bush or any President but many here could offer true and legitimate reasons for opposition to a particular President and they wouldn’t need to ignore parts of The Constitution to do so.

Having to make up reasons to denigrate a President, distracting from one’s true reasons for harboring dislike is a bit unflattering and it’s doubtful that the perception others have of such arguments would be what was hoped for.

» Posted By AdLib On September 24, 2014 @ 12:13 am

ST, when one ignores all the facts people have presented that contradict one’s claims and one just repeats generic attacks against Obama…and those supplying the inconvenient facts…legitimacy is lost.

Your claim that healthcare for 10 million who didn’t have it is a crime of Obama’s escapes reason. Trying to blame him for Congress’ failings and decisions makes no sense.

If I’m wrong, please correct me but it seems more that you begin from a position of not liking Obama then try to apply whatever “crimes” you can attach to him as justifications for your dislike of him. Maybe it’s because you’d prefer someone far more liberal (who had dictatorial powers to make things happen that Presidents can’t), who knows, but most of the “crimes” you apply to Obama are simply untrue and reflect an unfamiliarity with the limitations of Presidential powers.

You’re free to apply whatever claims you wish, to justify your feelings about Obama and to discount the folks here you disagree with but in the view of reasonable people, one only undermines their own opinion when taking such great pains to ignore truth and facts.

» Posted By AdLib On September 23, 2014 @ 8:27 pm

Hey Aquarius 1027, great to see you! And thanks, we’re in agreement on this, trying to hold Obama responsible for what he has no power over makes no sense…but then some folks just want to dislike him so they blame him for everything.

» Posted By AdLib On September 23, 2014 @ 7:32 pm

ST, I do respect your POV though I wholly disagree with it.

Obama could have easily saved the nation from the economic collapse and simultaneously embroiled the nation in a massive and devastating prosecution of a former President and Vice President as war criminals?

That’s just not a reality I recognize.

» Posted By AdLib On September 23, 2014 @ 7:29 pm

Cheers, ExFan! Very appreciated!

» Posted By AdLib On September 23, 2014 @ 12:33 pm

ST, though I was a strong supporter of prosecuting the Bush Admin for war crimes, I certainly understood that Obama had his hands full in his first few years keeping the nation from continuing to fall off an economic cliff. Did he have the time, energy and political capital to simultaneously mount a prosecution of the previous American President’s administration for war crimes? I don’t think so.

Sometimes you have a choice that limits you, you either save the baby from the burning house or chase down the arsonist who’s running away. Isolating it from all that was going on, of course holding torturers responsible is important. But in context, was that more important than saving the economic lives of tens of millions or more Americans?

Don’t forget, this decision was really made back in 2006 when the Democrats won back control of Congress and Nancy Pelosi announced that they would not seek impeachment of Bush for his war crimes. They were the the ones with the real responsibility for applying checks and balances…and prosecutions against the Executive Branch, not an incoming President.

I think a possible reason that Dems in Congress made that decision is that some of them, along with Republicans, had knowledge of the tortures along the way and if Bush went down, many top pols from both parties would have to go down too.

Is that a good reason not to prosecute Bush and Co.? Not in my opinion but it makes their unwillingness to pursue it more understandable.

As to your descriptions of Obama’s policies, IMO, they are untrue and unfair.

Obama has been crystal clear about his opposition to torture, to portray it otherwise isn’t being accurate. He tried to move the Guantanamo prisoners to the US and have trials so they won’t be held indefinitely but Congress, which has the final say on this, passed a law preventing him from doing so. How is he responsible for an opposing law by Congress that prevented him from doing so?

And your description of the ACA as oppression of the American people is simply beyond my understanding. We have members right here on The Planet who could not obtain health insurance and have health care they could afford until the ACA was passed. Over 10 million Americans who didn’t have health insurance, have it now yet that’s described as a crime purely because the insurance they have isn’t single payer?

To be historically and Constitutionally accurate, President Obama had zero authority to pass any law on health care, that is a power only Congress has. The fact is that there were absolutely not enough votes in The Senate to pass single payer. Too many Blue Dog Dems were siding with Repubs against single payer and a 60 vote majority was not possible. Again, it was impossible to pass Single Payer in The Senate so it could never have become law. So The Dems in The Senate passed the only health care reform bill that they could pass, the ACA. And President Obama signed it, championing whatever the most reform was that could be passed. I don’t see the wrong in that, just pragmatism.

Should he have refused to sign any health care reform bill if it did not change our system to single payer? Would those 10 million Americans who finally have health care today have been better off without it? I don’t subscribe to the all-or-nothing proponents of single payer. Medicare and Social Security were not ideal programs when they began, it’s hard for me to see why taking a big step in the right direction is so terrible…simply because it’s not getting everything that’s desired immediately.

And those in the know, recognize that the structure of the ACA actually gravitates health care towards single payer, state by state. So if the ACA eventually results in single payer, which would be impossible to pass through Congress, isn’t that another brilliant long term victory by Obama that benefits all Americans?

Would those who so dislike Obama prefer to have had President McCain? We all know what his health care reform plan would have been, privatize Medicare and do nothing for the uninsured (not to mention how he wouldn’t have pushed for a stimulus package and instead would have just made huge tax cuts for the wealthy, pushing the US into a Great Depression). And would he have fought Congress to bring the Guantanamo prisoners to trial? Or prosecute the Bush Admin for war crimes?

In the real world of politics, everything is compromise. I just finished watching the Ken Burns documentary on the Roosevelts. They were among the most imperial Presidents we’ve ever had and they made some of the most important and profound changes to this nation but even they had to compromise to get many of their major bills passed.

I’ve always been bewildered by the expectation of Presidents to transcend the realities they are limited by, the opinions that as long as a president willed something, it could happen. And if something didn’t happen that he wanted, it was due to his failings. That’s not what happens in any of our real lives, just because we want something, it doesn’t surely happen.

And the US isn’t a dictatorship, the President can’t just say, “Starting today, America will have a single payer system!” and it happens. We have three branches of government with checks and balances on each other. The President is only one of these, he does not have total power in this democracy to simply rule by declaration. Thus, compromises are required and everyone doesn’t get everything they want.

Clearly, Obama hasn’t had things the way he would have wanted them as President. He fights for what he can, wins sometimes, loses other times. Those who judge him should look at what he’s fought for and won as opposed to what he doesn’t have the power to change.

I think we all have our fantasies that we wish could all take place to change the US into the ideal place we’d like it to be but using such a wishlist as a minimum bar that a President must clear to be considered decent is hard to justify as reasonable.

» Posted By AdLib On September 23, 2014 @ 11:07 am

The GOP Refrain: Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi (But Never 9/11)

ExFan, I think I solved that issue too. Did you get a notification from this reply?

» Posted By AdLib On September 19, 2014 @ 5:09 pm

ExFan, I’ve had to troubleshoot that problem, same thing happened for me! Our star ratings on posts and thumbs up on comments should all be working well now (and are even a little tricked up now too!).

» Posted By AdLib On September 19, 2014 @ 4:44 pm