This started as a response to a post on the International Anti-Tea Party Group page. Thought I’d post it here as a brief outline of my beef against OB.

I totally get that OB has a tougher row to hoe than any president ever has.

But tough or not, he promised change, accountability and transparency. Why would he risk losing his base by appointing fraud-tainted, Goldmann-Sachs types like Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers?

Why choose Rahm Emmanuel, knee-deep in the Blago corruption, for chief of staff ?

Why put Max Baukus in charge of healthcare reform?

Or McChrystal, Cheney’s bloodthirsty former death squad leader, in charge of CentCom?

Why block dozens of investigations into Bush family crimes or other GOP badness?

Why let ACORN take a false rap of fraud (ACORN’S been cleared of wrongdoing by every DA who’s looked at them) and get defunded by Congress, when they delivered so many voters for him?

Why would he personally mock progressives on issues like legalizing pot, or let Rahmbo repeatedly, forcefully, and publicly reject and insult progressives? Can you imagine Sarah Palin’s top staffer calling the Tea-Partiers fucking retards, or saying on CNN that it doesn’t matter what she does, they’ll still support her on voting day?

Why pardon one of the most corrupt Senators ever, GOP Ted Stevens, yet refuse to look at the scores of Rovian prosecutions against Dems like Don Siegelmann and others?

I won’t even begin to list all the Bush anti-Constitutional policies, starting with FISA, that OB has either refused to overturn or blatantly endorsed. That would take an entire thread itself.

I fully understand what he’s been up against. But Obama lost me with his APPOINTMENTS to key positions.  These showed me exactly where his priorities are. Just because he’s nicer and smarter than the Tea-Bigots doesn’t mean I have to vote for him.

I think the biggest problem the Left has had is that we keep voting against the Right with whomever we’ve got, instead of insisting on real progressive candidates.

I wrote an essay about how the Left became so irrelevant, in case you’re interested:  http://www.punkyamerica.com/?page_id=35

[UPDATE: For an even more comprehensive breakdown of 114 secret GOP valentines of the Obama Stimulus Bill, see this update at Think Progress]

“Charging them [the GOP] with hypocrisy, appealing to their better, more practical, more what‘s-best-for-the-country patriotic angels is like trying to teach your dog to drive…It wastes a lot of time. It won‘t work. And ultimately the dog comes out of the exercise less embarrassed for failing than you do for trying.”

Rachel Maddow, Feb 10, 2010

I want to BE Rachel Maddow. Below are excerpts from her 2.11.10 transcript, in which she shines a spotlight on 22 of the GOP white mice who opposed the  Obama stimulus package in Washington, then claimed credit back home for jobs that the stimulus bill created:

MADDOW: If there‘s one thing that Republicans agree on now, it is that the stimulus is a bad, bad policy. It‘s a bad idea that does bad things. It‘s a bad president‘s bad way of making a bad economy more bad because he‘s bad. Stimulus bad.

Also? Stimulus good. What you‘re looking at here are pictures of the same Republicans who have trashed the stimulus as a bad, bad thing in their home districts taking credit for all the good things the stimulus has done.

That‘s Bobby Jindal there, governor of Louisiana who has railed against the stimulus, then gone around the state handing out big fake checks with his own name on them as if the money came from him instead of from the stimulus that he‘s been railing against.

Then, there‘s Congressman Phil Gingrey of Georgia. That‘s him getting all Publisher‘s Clearinghouse with a giant check for funds that he voted against and criticized as worst than worthless. He called the money and that check he‘s holding a boondoggle and a dismal failure.

And it‘s not just a couple of these guys who have been caught like this either. Republican John Mica of Florida trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district as “helping improve one of our key economic generators.”

Republican Frank Wolf of Virginia trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district by saying, “We could use that money desperately. There are a lot of things up here that that money could be used for.”

Republican Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home state by attending the groundbreaking of a sewage treatment plant that it funded and praising the jobs that it would create in his district.

Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas trashed the stimulus, voted no, and praised its effect in her home state by saying this funding will spur growth in Texas communities.

Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district as a great thing for this county. We‘re not accustomed to federal dollars in that magnitude finding their way to North Carolina.

Republican Senator Kit Bond of Missouri trashed the stimulus, voted no and then praised its effect in his home district by saying it would create jobs and ultimately spur economic opportunities.

Republican Joe Wilson of South Carolina, remember him? The “you lie” guy? He trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district by saying it would provide jobs and investment in one of the poorer sections of that district.

Republican Senator Bob Bennett of Utah trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district by saying said, the addition of federal funds would maximize the stimulative effect on the local economy.

Republican Pat Tiberi of Ohio trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district by saying it would support businesses and jobs.

Republican Mary Bono Mack trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in her home district by saying the funding will provide much needed assistance.

Republican Senator Mike Johanns of Nebraska trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home state by saying that just one proposed stimulus-funded project in Nebraska would create 38 new jobs.

Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home state by highlighting a project he says would create over 200 jobs in the first year, and at least another 40 new jobs in the following years.

Republican John Linder of Georgia trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district by saying the employment opportunities created by this program would be quickly utilized.

Republican Mike Castle of Delaware trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district by sending out press releases touting how imperative those funds were.

You want to see Mike Castle of Delaware handing out one of those giant checks? Yes, as if he hadn‘t actually voted to kill the money that‘s in that check. Mike Castle is running for senator from Delaware now, presumably on the platform of being a giant hypocrite.

Republican Eric Cantor not only trashed the stimulus and voted no on it, he coordinated the feat of having all House Republicans vote against it. Then he held a job fair in his home district at which nearly which half of the companies who were at the job fair because they were in a position to hire have received stimulus funds.

Even John Boehner, leader of the House Republicans, who has led the trashing of the stimulus and voted no on it and who bragged so enthusiastically on Republicans in the House all voting against it.

When it came to his home district, John Boehner praised the federal funding for shovel-ready projects that will create much needed jobs.

Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of denying-global-warming fame – he trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised the effect in his home state by saying it would help spur additional economic growth.

Republican Jack Kingston of Georgia trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district by saying these funds should help save or create local jobs.

Republican John Carter of Texas trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district by saying it was a victory for the economy in central Texas.

Republican Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania trashed the stimulus, voted no, then praised its effect in his home district by saying it would be great for employment in the area.

None of this is a secret, which is the most important thing to understand about it. Republicans right now do not care about policy. By which I mean, they will not vote for things that even they admit are good policies.

On policy terms, they have been caught bragging on the stimulus as good policy. I have no doubt that some of them think that health reform is good policy. We know they think things like a deficit commission or cap and trade or pay-go are good policy because they‘re on the record supporting them.

But they‘re not going to vote for them because – screw policy. Screw what even they believe is good for the country. Screw what even they believe is good for their own districts. They are not voting yes for even things that they agree with, for anything substantive.

They are not going to vote yes for anything substantive that this president supports. It‘s not going to happen. You‘re not going to earn Republican votes for a second stimulus, for example, by pointing out it‘s good policy that creates jobs. We know they already know that.

They concede that in their home districts and they are still not voting for it. And they are unembarrassed about this fact. They are not embarrassed. Charging them with hypocrisy, appealing to their better, more practical, more what‘s-best-for-the-country patriotic angels is like trying to teach your dog to drive.

It wastes a lot of time. It won‘t work. And ultimately the dog comes out of the exercise less embarrassed for failing than you do for trying. Grow up, Democrats. Face the music. Do it alone. You‘re the majority. Kill the filibuster if they won‘t let you use that majority. The country needs you to.

I like this writer, but she’s swallowed a little too much corporatist DLC (Democratic Leaderhip Council) Kool-Aid this time, by claiming the Dems should pass any bill they can, just to ‘win’:

There is a lot of anger among Progressives and rightly so. But it’s time to take a moment, step back from the fray and above it. The bickering and anger is exactly what Joe Lieberman and Republicans want.

If no health care reform bill is passed at all because Dean and other Democrats are successful in killing the bill, 2010 and 2012 look bleak for Democrats.

Here are my comments, go add your own:

IMO, the GOP won long ago. They won when Obama appointed Max Baucus to shepherd the process; when Obama backed out of his promise to veto any bill that doesn’t include a public option; when Rahm Emmanuel called progressives effing retarded for pressuring Dems into supporting a public option (because it would cost GOP votes later, he said-which we never got anyway); when Obama embraced the MA model requiring all citizens to purchase insurance (a MA resident, my insurance costs have increased 30% in two years, while meds & service coverage has decreased by about as much).

In all fairness, I can’t really characterize any of this as a GOP WIN. They did nothing but nothing, while the Dems did all the giving away. But the real problem started 2 decades ago, when Dems bought into Lee Atwater’s lie that they “must campaign & govern from the center”-after which the Right, & the DLC, began moving the center to the Right. The DLC has ruined the Democratic party. We compromise, and still lose.

Karen Harper, with all due respect, 2010 and 2012 already look bleak for Democrats.

While politicians fall all over themselves trying to exploit/avoid the Amy Bishop tragedy, seems everyone’s ignoring the case of a man beaten to death by police over a joint. This is Joe Doyle’s take on it, in a Letter to the Editor of Salem News:

Family Still Seeks Justice

“Stop, children, what’s that sound; everybody look what’s going down.”

- – “For What It’s Worth,” Buffalo Springfield

 By Joe F. Doyle

We have recently been inundated by a flock of public officials trying
to associate themselves with the high-profile Amy Bishop
triple-homicide case, because it opened up the possibility that Bishop
was responsible for another homicide — that of her own brother in
1986. This case has elements of everything — associations with
Harvard, Hollywood, money and connections. The current investigation
aims to assure us that no homicide will ever fall through the cracks
again in Massachusetts.

If the governor, legislators and federal investigators are telling us
the truth about wanting to seal up those cracks, I’d like to point out
a Grand Canyon-sized fracture right here in Essex County. It concerns
Ashleigh (15 years old), Dakota (10) and Rayne-Marie (13 months) and
their mother, the widowed Margaret Howe.

Their father, Kenneth R. Howe, was brutally beaten to death on
Thanksgiving Eve 2009, at what is known as a “sobriety checkpoint” in
North Andover. Many Americans feel these checkpoints are violations of
their rights. This one cost Howe his life.

Sobriety checkpoints are not legal in many states. In Massachusetts,
 something called a “conditions precedent” is needed to justify their
use. We don’t know if that criterion was met in this case.

The medical examiner has ruled Howe’s death a homicide.
Witnesses have said they saw 10 to 20 police officers stomping and
kicking a man who was lying on the ground at the side of the road. One
said there was no aggression on Howe’s part to instigate a beating; he
next saw Howe, inanimate, being shoved into a state trooper’s cruiser.

According to the state police, Howe was a passenger in the vehicle that
was pulled over and was in possession of a marijuana cigarette. We are
waiting for the results of a DNA test on the alleged joint to prove
that it was Howe’s.

To put this in perspective, if I and nine of my friends had brutally
beaten a state trooper by the side of the road on Thanksgiving Eve, do
you think District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett would have seated a grand
jury by now? Do you think everybody would know who the people who
administered the brutal beating are, and everything about them?

But Blodgett’s reaction to date reminds me of a frightened deer in
somebody’s headlights. He’s not doing his job.

Margaret Howe’s attorney, Frances King, two months ago requested new
U.S. Attorney Carmin Ortiz to take over the investigation because “the
state police can’t investigate the state police.” Never has an incident
been more compelling for federal intervention. Howe was denied his
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

To date, there have been three different published versions of where
and when Howe died.The one thing we do know is that he was beaten to
death and there has been no grand jury, state or federal, seated.
Meanwhile, the same officers are still driving around with their
firearms.
[Note: Here's the conservative Boston Herald's initial report on the incident].

Members of Howe’s family — the three young girls and their mother –
are suffering emotionally, psychologically and financially. Where is
the justice for the nonfamous, nonwealthy and nonconnected? At this
point, four months out, it is not being provided by either the state or
the federal governments.

The famous Buffalo Springfield song “For What It’s Worth” contains
another line that may be relevant: “There’s a man with a gun over
there, telling me I’ve got to beware.”

…and we never had 60 votes, so let’s stop pretending we do and we did; there are a dozen GOP’s smack dab in the middle of the Democratic Party, and they’ve been there screwing around for years. The only time the Democrats will ever get 60 votes is when they bargain away the store to do so.

But 60 votes is not really the point. The GOP has not had a 60-vote majority in the senate since 1923, and that’s never stopped them from passing their most controversial, costly and damaging  legislation.

The ‘we need 60 votes to beat the filibuster’ line is Dem-speak for “we are almost as corporatist as the GOP, but we want to at least look like we’re standing up for the average Joe and Jane while we fill our pockets with schwag.”

Other industrial giants protect their manufacturing bases, which is one reason why their economies are strong and growing. China imposes a 22% tariff on imports from the US; Geramny India levies a whopping 40%!

Americans, on the other hand, embracing the NAFTA and GATT treaties that give corporations more power than citizens, impose a mere 2.1% tariff on imported goods.

In India, it’s a felony to own more than two retail businesses (there’s one Wal-Mart in all the land), so the country boasts over 12,000,000 mom-and-pop businesses. Here in the US, such small businesses collapse by the thousands daily, in the face of encroaching multi-nationals like Wal-Mart.

The Chinese, the Japanese, the Germans, and a host of other industrial nations included legislation in their economic stimulus programs that prohibited their governments from purchasing imported goods, ensuring that all stimulus dollars remained in-country, directly benefitting citizens and the economy. The Obama stimulus contained similar “Made In America” provisions, which the Republicans refused to co-sign, and which were all eventually negotiated out of the legislation.

…does that mean:

• * I can claim home ownership in the Caribbean, but still work and live here and pay no taxes?
• * If I don’t make a profit this year, I don’t have to pay any taxes?
• * The government could lend me trillions of dollars at 0% interest,  not hassle me about paying it back, and prevent taxpayers from ever learning that they gave me the money?
• * My only legal obligation is to myself, not family or any other people, town, state, or country?
• * If I kill a bunch of people, I can just pay a fine?
• * Martha Stewart should have just paid a fine for allegedly lying about a $60,000 stock move sale?
• * The CEO at Pfizer should have gotten a few years in prison for killing people with a drug they knew could be deadly?
• * I can give Uncle Sam the ultimatum to forgive my tax debt or I move to another country?

Not looking forward to the protracted legal battle planned by GOP if they don’t win by a landslide in Massachusetts tonight (though I predict they will win solidly). Obama’s chickens are coming home to roost, imo. Dems have marginalized real integrity like Dean, Kucinich, Feingold, Nader, and embraced corrupt DLC parasites like Baucus, Liebermann, Feinstein, Emmanuel. Obama’s played to the GOP every step of the way, while Rahm Emmanuel brags that the Lefty base “isn’t going anywhere.” I have a funny feeling they’ll be going somewhere today.

‘Political pragmatism’ is a dog that doesn’t hunt. Dems lost in ‘88 trying to be politically pragmatic and out-tough the GOP. “Death-penalty Clinton” won  in ‘92 only because Perot siphoned 20% away from Bush Sr. Gore contorted himself so as not to look too lefty in 2000–and lost.* Same with the Dems in 2002 and 2004. Kerry’s smarmy centrism roused no one in ‘04, and he lost. OBama finally wins big for the Dems with promises of sticking to Democratic principles—and then fails to do so for an entire year, in the name of ‘political pragmatism.’ Expect more big losses for the Dems.

Wonder if this is the “Obama long game” that Democrats  have been telling us to shut up and wait for.

* Note: I realize there’s evidence of massive GOP electoral fraud in every election since 2000, but my point is still the same; political parties can only cheat when the races are close, and Democrats playing to the center simply guarantees a close race