note to O: dude, sorry but you're a day late and a dollar short.

read the whole steaming pile of hypocrisy HERE:
(emphasis added)

In a sharp turnaround, the administration on Thursday announced a new proposal to place limits on the size of banks and prohibitions on their commercial activities. It's an idea that one senior White House official said President Obama began considering "a couple of months ago." But the timing of the rollout, coming one day after what the White acknowledged was a "wake up call" wasn't a coincidence.

The reality of angry voters turning against them, as embodied by the election of Republic Scott Brown to the Senate seat in Massachusetts, is having a profound effect on Democratic leaders. Officials now recognize that the party appears far too aligned with financial industry bailouts and special-interest dealmaking, and that if the electoral bloodletting is to end, more distance is needed from Wall Street.

barack obama: champion of "separate but equal"

from MoDo's washington post editorial, "the trials of gavin newsome"...
emphasis added:

“Oh, I can’t get in trouble here,” Newsom said with a playful wince. “I want him to succeed. But I am very upset by what he’s not done in terms of rights of gays and lesbians. I understand it tactically in a campaign, but at this point I don’t know. There is some belief that he actually doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage. But it’s fundamentally inexcusable for a member of the Democratic Party to stand on the principle that separate is now equal, but only on the basis of sexual orientation. We’ve always fought for the rights of minorities and against the whims of majorities.”

ironic, isn't it? the "change agent/fierce advocate" has embraced "separate but equal"...and the obamabots STILL proclaim he's a "progressive". ok, "progressive" compared to WHAT, exactly?

john aravosis nails it...AGAIN...on dadt:

read the entire, insightful piece here:
(emphasis added)

Of course, it would be a big mistake for someone in the White House brain trust to cut off its relationship with SLDN, "the" group that represents gay military personnel. SLDN was formed from the Campaign for Military Service, the group that was formed to fight the ban when Don't Ask Don't Tell was first being formulated in early 1993. SLDN has been in the thick of it from the beginning. I'd expect the other gay groups to stand with SLDN on this one. Because SLDN is right. But more importantly, the community will most certainly stand with our lead group that has been fighting the ban for all these 17 years. The White House takes on SLDN at its own peril.

could a repeal of DADT be on the horizon?

from HuffPost:

Congressional negotiators and White House officials are moving forward with plans to add the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell to the upcoming defense authorization bill, Democratic sources tell the Huffington Post.

In Congress, members are being whipped to ensure that the votes will be there for passage, should the legislation be placed in the bill. At this juncture, aides say, the prospects look good. Meanwhile, a source close to the White House says the president has instructed the Defense Department that he believes the repeal of DADT should be placed in the authorization bill.

i'll believe it when it happens... until then, "don't ask, don't give" continues.

i know what bullsh*t smells like...and this is it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/21/AR2009122103240.html

brain numbing emphasis added:

The OPM is between a rock and a hard place because the Obama administration wants to ditch the act, a.k.a. DOMA, something Kaplan subtly made clear by calling it a "so-called" act.

To emphasize the point, she added: "As the President has explained, the Administration believes that this law is discriminatory and needs to be repealed by Congress -- that is why President Obama has stated that he opposes DOMA and supports its legislative repeal."

discriminatory? discriminatory??? DISCRIMINATORY?!?!? SRSLY, WTF...why not just call it what it is: UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!

O', SRSLY?!?11!! dana peroxide perino?

for frack's sake. this is like giving a puppy a treat for pissing on the carpet AND chewing up a new pair of jimmy choo shoes.

Since leaving office, Perino has attacked the Obama administration for calling out Fox News and for its handling of the swine flu epidemic, among other things.

article here.

at this rate, i'll be first in line for SOS when (s)hillary resigns to run for governor of NY!

The signature piece of his campaign and "fierce advocate" isn't even willing to fight for it...

via huffpost (emphasis added). full article HERE:

"Everybody knows we're close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don't want to do it because it makes the politics harder," said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn't seen as bipartisan. "These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them."

WTF?!? SRSLY. "Fierce Advocate" needs to start worrying about those of us that put him in office based on his campaign platform. Regardless, those "blue dogs" and "conservadems" had better get ready for PROGRESSIVE CHALLENGERS in their primaries!!!

Organizers of the National Equality March Close the Day with Passion

it's chow time.

The Gay After Tomorrow

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

health care plan in 4 minutes...

...if only the rhetoric from the speech was reinforced by the president at every opportunity available, instead of seeming to acquiesce to every whim of resistance.

hello? is any body listening?

...he can but will he? i guess we'll find out next week.

full article (a must read) is here:

Here's one thing he could say: I'm not going to chase after the crazies on the right anymore. I cannot do business with these people, try as I may. I reach out and they accuse me of being a socialist who wants to pull the plug on grandma.

i'm ready for PRESIDENT obama to start delivering CANDIDATE obama's promises.

WE FOUND OUR BACKBONE!!!

...like dorothy, who had the power to go home "all along", the democratic party's long-hidden spine has finally reappeared...thanks to the CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS!!!

via huffpost:
(emphasis added)

"We're the group that speaks to the righteousness of an issue, [but] inevitably the decisions about how that issue's going to be addressed are conducted somewhere else," said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), describing the traditional fecklessness of progressives in Congress. "The fact that we have stuck to our guns about the public option has surprised people."

A majority of the 81 Congressional Progressive Caucus members of the House have vowed to oppose any health care bill that does not include a "robust public option." That threat has kept it alive. With 256 seats in the House and 218 needed to pass a bill, Democrats simply can't move health care reform on their own without progressive caucus support.

snip

"It's not a question of allow. It wouldn't have the votes," she said. When the White House went squishy last week on the public option ("not essential"/"one sliver"/"a piece"), Pelosi returned to the basic calculus. "There's no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option," she said.

snip

"Quite frankly, we got motivated because there were other caucuses in the Democratic caucus who seem to get disproportionate attention based on their numbers," said Ellison. The Blue Dogs only number 51. "And we're like, wait a minute, we've got 80-plus members. How can we be ignored?"

snip

"We've done our compromising and we're not compromising any more. We've got our shot. Let somebody else show some flexibility now," said Ellison.

snip

As the prospect of a bipartisan bill fades, progressives hope their hand will be increasingly strengthened as Obama realizes where his allies are. "The White House does not know how to use the progressive community. They see us as kind of money in the kitty already," said Ellison. "The White House should be saying to the Blue Dogs and to the right wing, 'I cannot give you what you want because I have a progressive community that we're accountable to.'"

i *heart* bernie sanders...

...tell it like it is, bernie, tell it like it is!!!

"As a result of the greed, irresponsibility and illegal behavior of Wall Street our country has experienced the worst economic decline since the Great Depression," said Sanders. "Mr. Bernanke was head of the Fed and the nation's chief economist as this crisis, driven by reckless speculation, developed. Tragically, like the rest of the Bush administration, he was asleep at the wheel during this period and did nothing to move our financial system onto safer grounds."

"As the middle class of this country continues to shrink, we need a chairman of the Federal Reserve who is more concerned about expanding the productive economy -- increasing decent-paying jobs for all Americans -- than continuing to fan the flames of Wall Street greed and outrageous compensation packages."

balls vs. no balls...as presented by jon stewart via the selling of war vs. selling health care reform

as awful as the shrub regime was, team obama needs to go to their playbook on "message management 101".

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FINALLY! the "fierce advocate" has made a good decision...

with all the fubars...health care reform (oh, wait, we've massaged the message to health insurance reform), the financial welfare bail-out debacle, throwing the glbt community under the bus (and then running over us and then backing over us to see if we were ok and then running over us again to continue forward momentum), i was skeptical that sotomayor would turn out to be what she was "packaged" as.

Sotomayor made what appears to be her first public decision as a justice on Monday, voting unsuccessfully to delay the execution of an Ohio death row inmate.

She voted along with the court's liberal bloc – Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer – to stop the execution of Jason Getsy, whose execution is Tuesday.

for once, from this administration, we finaly get WYSIWIG (borrowing from the computer world: what you see is what you get).

the audacity of HYPE

all my fears and consternation in one article. i couldn't have said it all any better:

Does Obama have the ability to stand up to corporate interests? There's scant evidence of that so far. Indeed, most notably in the course of the financial industry bailout, he deferred to them quite spectacularly. And it's not just corporate interests, either. There's something about the military/national security complex that seems to set Obama back on his heels on such issues as dealing with Guantanamo detainees, coming clean about the Bush administration's torture legacy or "Don't Ask Don't Tell."

too bad CANDIDATE obama isn't the pResident

...yet another campaign promise broken to appease lobbyists and corporate interests.



negotiating bulk pricing for Medicare recipients could literally be a matter of life and death for many people.

whether or not you acknowledge the 800 pound gorilla in the room or not...

does not mean it isn't an 800 pound gorilla.

note to "fierce advocate": big PhRMA is an 800 pound gorilla. refusing to allow the negotiation of bulk pricing and less expensive reimportation of prescription drugs is NOT an acceptable component of health care "reform".

WHITE HOUSE CONFIRMS: DEAL WITH BIG PHARMA BARS PRICE NEGOTIATIONS

once again, dan savage knocks it out of the park

President Obama: Was It a One Night Stand?

anything i try to add would diminish the impact of the article. clicky teh linky.

These are the people "fierce advocate" is afraid of offending

if "fierce advocate" wants to be truly "bipartisan", he should start negotiating with the Progressive Caucus!