BGinCHI - June 28, 2011 | 9:57 pm · Link

I wish Bernie would bite out Ron Johnson’s throat for a finale (like a Senate Ozzie Osborne).

Bernie is the most courageous man in the Senate. Yes, that’s a compliment.

Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century) - June 28, 2011 | 10:00 pm · Link

I didn’t think it was possible, but “Hangover II” is a lot funnier than the first installment.

Caz - June 28, 2011 | 10:05 pm · Link

Bernie Sanders is an admitted communist, so it says a lot when you hold him out to be some sort of hero of yours. Doesn’t it bother you that you hold a communist in such high regard?? What is wrong with you? Are Stalin and Hitler heroes of yours too?

JPL - June 28, 2011 | 10:05 pm · Link

I can hear neighbors say who is he. Has he ever been on the morning shows or Sunday shows?
Edit.. My own opinion is that he should be cloned and run for office all over America, but most people do not know who he is.

arguingwithsignposts - June 28, 2011 | 10:09 pm · Link

@Caz – when has sanders admitted he is a communist. back up your bullshit.

kdaug - June 28, 2011 | 10:11 pm · Link

@Caz

Democratic Soc1alist. Get it straight, jackass.

Ash Can - June 28, 2011 | 10:13 pm · Link

I don’t care what you guys say; Caz cracks my shit up.

kindness - June 28, 2011 | 10:15 pm · Link

Signed.

Bernie gives socialists a really good name. Wish my DiFi wasn’t such a DINO.

OzoneR - June 28, 2011 | 10:15 pm · Link

The thing is, he does what the left blogsphere criticizes every Democrat for doing, conceding the point on the deficit.

Any deficit reduction package must rely on new revenue for at least half the reduction in red ink, he added in a major address in the Senate. Sanders spoke at length about what caused deficits (wars, Wall Street bailouts, tax breaks for the rich) and how to shrink them (more revenue from the wealthiest Americans to match spending cuts). He urged fellow senators not to yield to Republican congressional leaders who “acted like schoolyard bullies” when they walked out of budget negotiations. He summed up the situation in a letter to the president that had been signed by more than 16,000 people by the time he completed his speech.

Agreed, a lot of Democrats agree, but they don’t have the majority, if they did, we’d probably not see the cuts we’re seeing. We certainly didn’t see them in 2009 and 2010.

But Sanders doesn’t say “Fuck the deficit, lets create jobs,” he says “Deficit reduction, fine, but we should do it this way.”

When Obama does that, he gets slammed.

Dennis SGMM - June 28, 2011 | 10:17 pm · Link

@Anne Laurie

Thanks for the link! Signed and forwarded the text along with a link to all of my commie-lover friends.

OzoneR - June 28, 2011 | 10:20 pm · Link

Heck, I did it on the NYT’s deficit calculator and it ended up paying down the national debt in 20 years, due to my awesome yearly/deficit surpluses.

The problem there is liberals will want to spend those surpluses and not use them to pay down the debt.

Not that they’re wrong for wanting to spend it, on jobs programs, healthcare, education, etc., but liberals will never pay down the debt with a surplus…ever.

Cliff in NH - June 28, 2011 | 10:23 pm · Link

61255 signed the letter

Thank you for signing.

Oh hell yea.

I’m among those demanding that cap gains should be taxed as ordinary income.

shano - June 28, 2011 | 10:24 pm · Link

Ozone: liberals have a much better record-through the whole of American history- of having balanced budgets and surpluses.

Too bad the GOP gets in and wrecks the place, then the Dems have to clean up again. teh suck.

shano - June 28, 2011 | 10:26 pm · Link

I want a tax on high speed computer stock trading and a tax on ALL speculative derivatives trading.

Percysowner - June 28, 2011 | 10:27 pm · Link

The problem there is liberals will want to spend those surpluses and not use them to pay down the debt.

Not that they’re wrong for wanting to spend it, on jobs programs, healthcare, education, etc., but liberals will never pay down the debt with a surplus…ever.

On the other hand, Republicans take a surplus, don’t spend it to improve the country and squander it away leaving a gaping deficit. God forbid we have jobs, education and healthcare!

Uncle Clarence Thomas - June 28, 2011 | 10:29 pm · Link

.
.

Oh my. No wonder President Obama hates this old white dude’s guts. But that’s OK, Bernie – I approve.
.

.

Cliff in NH - June 28, 2011 | 10:32 pm · Link

http://sanders.senate.gov/news.....ca62fa2b3b

Seventh, if we tax capital gains and dividends the same way we tax work, ordinary work, we can raise more than $730 billion over the next decade. Why should somebody who clips dividend coupons pay a substantially lower tax rate than somebody who is out working on our streets or is a nurse or is a teacher?

Linda Featheringill - June 28, 2011 | 10:34 pm · Link

OzoneR #20

Hitler was a COMMUNIST? LMFAO. You should probably shut up now, you just completely embarrassed yourself.

Hitler was to capitalism what Stalin was to Marxism, total perversions.

[Why yes, I am.]

ETA: Forgot to say that I agree with ozone.

Jim C. - June 28, 2011 | 10:36 pm · Link

Signed as well. I totally understand that sometimes folks expect and ask to much of Obama and want him to work miracles, but I also do think there are “line in the sand” moments where Obama’s compromising instincts worry the heck out of me and I don’t think he gets the max of what he could get.

This is one of those moments.

I hate to throw out the word, but sometimes I think he’s a bit of an appeaser to Republicans instead of smacking them in the mouth and calling them onto the carpet.

I know you can’t do that all the time. I know there are times he has to be the grown up in the room, stay above the fray, etc. But I also know that every once in a while he DOES need to really commit and throw the full weight behind the right thing and do so publicly.

Belafon (formerly anonevent) - June 28, 2011 | 10:38 pm · Link

Percysowner

but liberals will never pay down the debt with a surplus

Seems I remember the 42 president doing exactly what you said Democrats don’t do. What Democrats won’t do, is choose absolutes. We’re not going to choose not to eat for a month just to pay off the credit card.

Jeffro - June 28, 2011 | 10:40 pm · Link

Never mind, found it:

http://youtu.be/sJeFrqBJF6E

Frankensteinbeck - June 28, 2011 | 10:42 pm · Link

OzoneR @17:
Sounds like what Obama said in his deficit speech. Raise taxes on the rich, control medical costs, not cut Medicare, cut the military budget, and throw in some infrastructure investments. But he WAS really polite about explaining why the GOP plan was useless. We need more confrontative voices too, in roles other than ‘lead negotiator’, so I welcome Sanders’ vehemence on this topic!

Loneoak - June 28, 2011 | 10:47 pm · Link

A Bernie Sanders bumpersticker was the only one my dad ever put on his car. And we’re from Michigan, not Vermont. So happy to have a father I didn’t need to battle about politics.

cat48 - June 28, 2011 | 10:49 pm · Link

(I’m imagining John Quincy Adams, another Congressional pest with a penchant for unpopular opinions, applauding from his seat in Valhalla.)

Michele Bachman said on GMA this morning that JQA also worked hard to “free the slaves” along with the other founders & would not back down when George S. questioned her on those facts. It’s going to be a long summer…..

OzoneR - June 28, 2011 | 10:52 pm · Link

liberals have a much better record-through the whole of American history- of having balanced budgets and surpluses.

absolutely, not denying that. Liberals will prevent the debt from increasing, but they’ll never pay it off

aliasofwestgate - June 28, 2011 | 10:56 pm · Link

62199.

I’ve signed as well. I’m now fighting my former employer in order to get unemployment right now. I’m not happy about this because i have medical bills to pay off, among other things glaring over my shoulder and that’s not counting living costs. Basically i was approved overall, but i can’t get any until i find work and pay them 3500$. (after i earned them probably 30 times that much money over 7 years.) So yeah, i may have a few bones to pick and Sanders has the right idea.

SteveinSC - June 28, 2011 | 10:58 pm · Link

I signed. Bernie is my hero. And by the way Hitler was the embodiment of the ultimate development of capitalism, its sort of apotheosis—the dictator of a warmongering corporatist state, complete with the hollow trappings of a democracy. A big business creation brought to the Germans by Krupp, I.G. Farben, etc. I.e., sort of where we are going.

Yutsano - June 28, 2011 | 11:01 pm · Link

A big business creation brought to the Germans by Krupp, I.G. Farben, Prescott Bush

Clarified. Let’s not forget history here. And never forget where the Bush money actually came from.

jl - June 28, 2011 | 11:01 pm · Link

62525 at 11 PM Balloon Juice comment time.

cat48 - June 28, 2011 | 11:12 pm · Link

And liberals blasted him for it.

They’re going to do the same thing to Obama this time, regardless, b/c they are certain the last “budget cut deal” was a HUGE CAVE even though the press decided about 3 days later it was all “smoke and mirrors” and when the CBO finally scored it, it actually COST $6B to be paid out. Still Obama is an “appeaser.” My personal favorite was the “cut” to the Census Dept of the leftover money from the 2010 Census which is now completed. Lew & Sperling went thru this crap in the Clinton Admin with the GOP before & they’re experts at “smoke and mirrors” cuts. However, most of those are probably gone so they’ll probably ask for deferred cuts this time until the economy improves. If they approve the cuts, we should be ok.

ABL - June 28, 2011 | 11:15 pm · Link

62956 when I signed.

pat - June 28, 2011 | 11:16 pm · Link

Just signed, 10:10 central, it’s up to 65,400 or so. Forgot to note the exact count.

Not that it will do any good.

Sigh.

ABL - June 28, 2011 | 11:18 pm · Link

@Cliff #40-

What the hell is that pledge supposed to accomplish?

I really hate these people. I had to turn Colbert off last night because I wanted to do violence to Grover Norquist’s smug ass.

General Stuck - June 28, 2011 | 11:24 pm · Link

Looks to me at this stage, the wingers are not so much playing chicken, but forcing Obama to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling his self, by fiat, declaring the law unconstitutional, as some legal eagles already believe.

Then trying to label the Obama administration a tyranny, and Obama a tyrant acting like a king. Obama can fuck around with these idiots only so long, before he has to act to stop the dominoes that will start falling on each other with world finance and the panic that will surely set in if he lets this play out to the last minute.

I have no idea if the gooper strategy, playing ideological Russian Roulette, will bear the political fruits they hope for. It seems highly desperate with a cornered rat feel to me. But what do I know.

Goddamn Republicans. I hate your fish eating guts to no ends. You are seditious and not fit to govern an outhouse, let alone a country.

Grover Gardner - June 28, 2011 | 11:26 pm · Link

Signed. 63360.

Yutsano - June 28, 2011 | 11:29 pm · Link

Dare I say, I would love to have a beer with the gentleman.

What you have done there, it has been seen. And I am now going to indulge in my chocolate Top Pot and contemplate the universe.

Linda Featheringill - June 28, 2011 | 11:32 pm · Link

Freedomworks has 12,119 signatures on their petition.

Bruce S - June 28, 2011 | 11:33 pm · Link

Caz – June 28, 2011 | 10:05 pm · Link

Bernie Sanders is an admitted communist, so it says a lot when you hold him out to be some sort of hero of yours. Doesn’t it bother you that you hold a communist in such high regard?? What is wrong with you? Are Stalin and Hitler heroes of yours too?

Caz – yes. You are an insightful person. My heroes are Bernie Sanders, Elvis (of course) and…Hitler and Stalin.

Thanks for dropping by and allowing me to clear this up.

Now a question for you. Is your medication near at hand? Please be sure to follow the instructions…

Judas Escargot - June 28, 2011 | 11:36 pm · Link

Bernie Sanders is an admitted communist

Even if he were… so what?

This isnt D&D. It’s not like you just uttered the Truename and dispelled whatever demon bothers you.

boss bitch - June 28, 2011 | 11:40 pm · Link

Meanwhile OFA is asking me to make phone calls for Janice Hahn

the problem is what?

General Stuck - June 28, 2011 | 11:40 pm · Link

Looks to me at this stage, the wingers are not so much playing chicken, but forcing Obama to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling his self, by fiat, declaring the law unconstitutional, as some legal eagles already believe.

Then trying to label the Obama administration a tyranny, and Obama a tyrant acting like a king. Obama can fuck around with these idiots only so long, before he has to act to stop the dominoes that will start falling on each other with world finance and the panic that will surely set in if he lets this play out to the last minute.

I have no idea if the gooper strategy, playing ideological Russian Roolette, will bear the political fruits they hope for. It seems highly desperate with a cornered rat feel to me. But what do I know.

Goddamn Republicans. I hate your fish eating guts to no ends. You are seditious and not fit to govern an outhouse, let alone a country.

cg - June 28, 2011 | 11:42 pm · Link

This is what I’ve been seeing for the past 15 minutes:

Safari can’t open the page “http://sanders.senate.gov/peti.....#038;#8221; because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait for a few minutes, and then try again.

PeakVT - June 28, 2011 | 11:46 pm · Link

Don’t republicans ever think about getting permission to use songs?

Probably, but they don’t try to because they would find that they could only use songs by sucky artists. And it gives them a chance to show the base that those are-teests are all mean-spirited libruls look at how they made us stop using the song well we don’t need it anyway so nah. Or something along those lines.

Anne Laurie - June 28, 2011 | 11:49 pm · Link

Michele Bachman said on GMA this morning that JQA also worked hard to “free the slaves” along with the other founders & would not back down when George S. questioned her on those facts.

For the record, JQ really did work hard ‘to free the slaves’:

Late in life, especially after his election to the House, he was noted especially as the most prominent national leader opposing slavery… Adams vilified slavery as a terrible evil and preached total abolition, while Calhoun countered that the right to own slaves had to be protected from interference from the federal government to keep the nation alive. Adams said slavery contradicted the principles of republicanism, while Calhoun said that slavery was essential to American democracy, for it made all white men equal… Adams predicted that if the South formed a new nation, it would be torn apart by an extremely violent slave insurrection. If the two nations went to war, Adams predicted the president of the United States would use his war powers to abolish slavery. In the House Adams became a champion of free speech, demanding that petitions against slavery be heard despite a “gag rule” that said they could not be heard.

In 1841, Adams had the case of a lifetime, representing the defendants in United States v. The Amistad Africans in the Supreme Court of the United States. He successfully argued that the Africans, who had seized control of a Spanish ship on which they were being transported illegally as slaves, should not be extradited or deported to Cuba (a Spanish colony where slavery was legal) but should be considered free. Under President Martin Van Buren, the government argued the Africans should be deported for having mutinied and killed officers on the ship. Adams won their freedom, with the chance to stay in the United States or return to Africa. Adams made the argument because the U.S. had prohibited the international slave trade, although it allowed internal slavery. He never billed for his services in the Amistad case. The speech was directed not only at the justices of this Supreme Court hearing the case, but also to the broad national audience he instructed in the evils of slavery.

Adams repeatedly spoke out against the “Slave Power”, that is the organized political power of the slave owners who dominated all the southern states and their representation in Congress. He vehemently attacked the annexation of Texas (1845) and the Mexican War (1846–48) as part of a “conspiracy” to extend slavery.

Bachmann is an idiot with an agenda, and JQA explicitly did not consider himself a “Founding Father”—that was his parents’ generation. While he honored their heroic achievements, he worked for the rest of his life to improve the Constitution, not to freeze it in amber as a mindless totem or a bludgeon to play ‘We’re right, they’re wrong’ against his opponents.

Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century) - June 28, 2011 | 11:59 pm · Link

we, are voices crying in the blogosphere.

no one will take the blogosphere seriously until it attains a political accomplishment.

amk - June 29, 2011 | 12:13 am · Link

@ 89 Mike Kay – Yup. When they elect a dog catcher is the day they’ll be taken seriously by pols. Teabaggers, all said & done, were more effective politically.

Three-nineteen - June 29, 2011 | 12:17 am · Link

I signed, but I wonder why this petition is aimed at the President and not the FUCKING REPUBLICANS THAT ARE BLOCKING ACTUAL PROGRESS IN THIS COUNTRY. Isn’t that the block of votes we have to convince? Send this to Cantor, to Boehner, to McConell.

amk - June 29, 2011 | 12:27 am · Link

@ 94. But they were able to return the rethugs to congress and governors to major states. They fucking turned up to vote.

Jim, Foolish Literalist - June 29, 2011 | 12:34 am · Link

I think the teabaggers are similarly impotent

I’d say the Teabaggers are the carefully arranged public and MSM-friendly (“real America”, as they like to say) of Karl Rove type groups that blanket the airwaves with pretty run-of-the-mill ads paid for by untraceable Citizens United dollars. The money for the ads and the astroturf rallies all come from the same pockets. At least at the Senate level, was there a Tea-Bagger candidate who won besides Rand Paul? Ken Buck, Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Grifter-Quitter’s cat’s-paw up in Alaska… all lost. LePage and Christie IIRC both won three-way races by a hair. So Rand Paul and Rick Scott are the only Teabagger candidates to win above the Cong District level, no? I miss anybody?

Jim, Foolish Literalist - June 29, 2011 | 12:39 am · Link

Walker and Johnson in Wisconsin, Kasich in Ohio, Deal in Georgia,

I was trying to draw a distinction between establishment Republicans and Tea Bagger “insurgents”. I don’t know about Deal or Johnson, but weren’t Kasich and Walker the party favorites?

Laertes - June 29, 2011 | 12:50 am · Link

The first eleven presidents
all slaveowners but two:
those Massachusetts liberals
John Adams and John Q

(I don’t know who wrote this. It wasn’t me. I just remember it.)

Suffern ACE - June 29, 2011 | 12:54 am · Link

@Jim, Foolish Literalist-Marco Rubio, or was Christ some no name third party nut before the primary. Lee in Utah as well.

Bruce S - June 29, 2011 | 12:58 am · Link

boss bitch – June 28, 2011 | 11:40 pm · Link

Meanwhile OFA is asking me to make phone calls for Janice Hahn

the problem is what?

As I said, “All well and good, but Jesus the movement we had in 2008 dropped the goddam ball (by design of it’s leadership IMHO) ...”

We’re playing defense. OFA - which is supposed to be “Organizing for America” – hasn’t done shit until it came time to “organize” again for Obama. “We stand with the President” – which is plastered across my local OFA office – isn’t an agenda. It’s a faith-based politics and a cult of personality.

Two years ago there were hundreds of folks locally ready to work on issue-oriented agendas. There were a couple of meetings and then the “leadership” abandoned the notion of organizing based on a grass-roots movement, OFA was folded into the DNC and we ended up with the Tea Parties dominating “grass-roots” discourse and putting Obama and the Democrats into a defensive crouch.

Even on health care reform, I had an OFA “organizer” tell me that there was confusion about what to do because “they didn’t know what would be in the bill.” WTF? This was sheer idiocy. Political malpractice of the worst sort.

Part of the reason Obama’s hands are so tied is because he stopped believing what he told us back in ‘07 and even ‘08 about “making him do it.” I blame myself for believing too much and doing too little. But the responsiblity has to at least be shared by the folks who are now sending me emails asking me for money or to do some conventional GOTV - when I was prepared to do a lot more. As were many thousands of others. Many of whom are dispirited and won’t respond at all.

Cliff in NH - June 29, 2011 | 12:59 am · Link

If you’d like to use a version of your username with fewer or more dots (.), you don’t have to change a thing. If your username is ‘my.address@gmail.com,’ messages sent to ‘myaddress@gmail.com’ and ‘m.y.a.d.d.r.e.s.s@gmail.com’ are already delivered to your Inbox.

Cliff in NH - June 29, 2011 | 1:03 am · Link

mike, thats not cloggin up your email box is it now?

use a deliberate mispelling to see where it gets shared if thats all you are complaining about.

Geez.

-ps I’ve not gotten physical spam from Bernies petitions, I think you are full of shit. The Nation is the biggest source of my physical spam, followed by opt in mailing lists. (not spam)

Yutsano - June 29, 2011 | 1:14 am · Link

Bernie Sanders stands for everything that the Constitution does not stand for.

Such as?

Cliff in NH - June 29, 2011 | 1:18 am · Link

I see caz still doesn’t know what socialist means.

How can the government promote the general welfare of its people without caring about the humans who make up the country?

Cliff in NH - June 29, 2011 | 1:21 am · Link

FYWP WTF Was that for? Grrr…

I see caz still doesn’t know what s ist means.

How can the government promote the general welfare of its people without caring about the humans who make up the country?

edit: moderator delete whatever you want of duplicates

Dennis SGMM - June 29, 2011 | 1:27 am · Link

@Caz

...and the fact that you idiots support him is truly terrifying.

Then why don’t you run away? It was good enough for George W. Bush, it should be good enough for you.

Comrade Kevin - June 29, 2011 | 1:30 am · Link

I get more crap emails from Major League Baseball, The Nation, and “Democracy for America” (Howard Dean’s org? Not sure how they got my address) than anyone else.

Cliff in NH - June 29, 2011 | 1:39 am · Link

Kevin, that’s why you use a +tag identifying what you are signing on emails when you give a email to Anyone, it’s so you can track the spam, and have a trail to trace…

Use gmail for all random web interactions, use gmail manager to track multiple gmail accts if you want one for politics and one for realife and one for fakelife

Yutsano - June 29, 2011 | 1:46 am · Link

but he’s totally sure that his blissful ignorance means we’re wrong

But he KNOWS he’s right! His Tribe tells him so! Bernie Sanders is teh Enemy! WOLVERINES!!

Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century) - June 29, 2011 | 1:56 am · Link

scourge of inflation, the key symptom of deficit spending

“Reagan proved deficits don’t matter” ~ Dick Cheney

Mnemosyne - June 29, 2011 | 2:02 am · Link

Given that interest rates have been essentially 0% for a decade, I think we could use a little inflation. Can you believe that I used to have a checking account that made 3.25% interest? Now you can’t even get a 5-year CD that yields more than 1% APR.

Grover Gardner - June 29, 2011 | 2:07 am · Link

Given that interest rates have been essentially 0% for a decade, I think we could use a little inflation.

Can you wait till I pay down my mortgage a little—please?

Mnemosyne - June 29, 2011 | 2:12 am · Link

@ Grover Gardner

Did you get an adjustable rate mortgage or something? If it’s a fixed rate, then it doesn’t matter to your mortgage if overall interest rates go up, because your rate is fixed. If you got an adjustable rate, well, may God have mercy on your soul, because your bank sure won’t.

Cliff in NH - June 29, 2011 | 2:22 am · Link

@yutsano also, in this country if they can stay deadlocked and do Nothing at all for a while more the deficit will nearly disappear.

Hence the low interest rates on us bonds.

unf there are other stupid things being discussed instead of just locking it up.

Cliff in NH - June 29, 2011 | 2:33 am · Link

well, that sure sucks.

gov worker? thanks for your service, I hope you can hold out cause I expect teabaggers to hold us hostage for a few weeks before the country wakes up and kicks them in the ass Hard.

shano - June 29, 2011 | 4:07 am · Link

Excuse me, BryanD. but Bernie was on that committee to audit the fed with Ron Paul and Alan Greyson.

You all do not even know what Bernie does! Its astonishing!
BERNIE AUDITED THE FED

harlana - June 29, 2011 | 6:01 am · Link

to this Caz person: Stalin wasn’t even a true communist, not by a longshot! Pick up a frickin history book and read.

Btw, what are these rumors about Obama caving?

Ash Can - June 29, 2011 | 6:29 am · Link

@ Bruce S #105: This makes very little sense. Right now, the 2012 campaign is just beginning to gear up, so money is needed. And campaigning for your local Dems is at least as important as campaigning for the president, who at this point faces running for re-election against a cartoon character. How much good will Obama do in a second term if either the House or the Senate, or, God forbid, both, are under GOP control? As for the health care issue, the bill really was in serious flux well into the process—that’s how legislation works, after all—so it’s obvious that the OFA people wouldn’t know what would be in the bill, at least until it was being finalized. In the meantime, it would have been incumbent upon all of us to badger our own elected representatives about it—hardly OFA’s bailiwick.

OzoneR - June 29, 2011 | 8:44 am · Link

OFA – which is supposed to be “Organizing for America” – hasn’t done shit until it came time to “organize” again for Obama

They were pretty active in the HCR debate, financial reform, getting SCOTUS justices confirmed and are very involved in the Wisconsin recall elections.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

OzoneR - June 29, 2011 | 8:50 am · Link

Part of the reason Obama’s hands are so tied is because he stopped believing what he told us back in ‘07 and even ‘08 about “making him do it.” I blame myself for believing too much and doing too little. But the responsiblity has to at least be shared by the folks who are now sending me emails asking me for money or to do some conventional GOTV - when I was prepared to do a lot more. As were many thousands of others. Many of whom are dispirited and won’t respond at all.

Did it ever occur to anyone of you that maybe there wasn’t enough people “making him do it.”

It’s not your fault, it’s not OFA’s fault. There just aren’t the numbers of the ground. To give you an idea, if you saw the amount of people who pressured the New York legislature on marriage equality vs. the millionaire’s tax, it would make complete sense. It was like night and day.

Valdivia - June 29, 2011 | 8:53 am · Link

@OzoneR—I was going to pipe in and say pretty much what you said but you beat me to it. I have been actually harrased the past couple of years by OFA for all sorts of campaigns and to help on the legislative end by calls and letters and many more things but for some it’s as if it did not happens.

OzoneR - June 29, 2011 | 9:04 am · Link

I have been actually harrased the past couple of years by OFA for all sorts of campaigns and to help on the legislative end by calls and letters and many more things but for some it’s as if it did not happens.

The problem is that OFA wasn’t involved, the problem was the issues weren’t to the satisfaction of people around here. OFA made a push for the HCR bill, it wasn’t good enough for people, they made a push for Wall Street reform, not good enough, Elena Kagen, not good enough, and so on and so forth.

I find it really funny, also not surprising, that OFA is being blamed.

Gravie - June 29, 2011 | 9:06 am · Link

Signed, posted on my FB page, whereupon a friend of my husband’s came on and wrote a six-post anti-Obama diatribe. So I reposted for a clean start.

Chris - June 29, 2011 | 9:15 am · Link

Oh, fuck you, WP. Seriously. See what I mean about the S word…?

Going twice;

He’s an admitted soshalist, or communist, or marxist…what’s the difference

Thank you for making our point.

Hitler was a soshalist. Stalin was a communist.

Really? Hitler supported state control of the means of production? That’s odd, because I could swear that a shit ton of large corporations existed in Nazi Germany that remained under private ownership throughout the regime. Go on. Hitler was a soshalist because…?

Whatever you want to call him, he is an enemy of the state, and the fact that you idiots support him is truly terrifying.

Interesting choice of words, Caz. In this country, people who disagree with the ruling ideology are called “dissenters,” “the minority vote,” or just “people with opinions.” Only regimes like Hitler’s or Stalin’s consider people “enemies of the state” simply because they have the wrong ideas.

Are Hitler and Stalin your heroes, Caz? Are you now a soshulist/communist/marxist/what’s-the-difference?

Bulworth - June 29, 2011 | 9:47 am · Link

Signed!

OzoneR - June 29, 2011 | 10:25 am · Link

OFA neutered itself as a movement, waiting for “the bill” rather than pushing a broader health care reform agenda, educating, organizing.

you can’t push a vague concept. What people wanted in HCR differs, some wanted single payer, others wanted a completely private system, some people wanted a hybrid. You can only push for tangible things.

Stuff like marriage equality is different because its black and white. Not all of us here can agree on what we want to see in HCR bill. Some may not want a single payer system, some may want that, some may want Medicare to be extended to 55, others may say 50. Until you have a bill, you can’t lobby for anything except vague concepts.

This reminds me of what I see at GOS all the time, this idea that we need “Democrats to fight for people” and when you ask them what that means, they saw “politicans who

The Tea Party didn’t sit around and wait for what the GOP would put in a bill.

what bill? The Tea Party doesn’t want ANY bills on anything.

There were large meetings in the Bay Area with hundreds of potential activists and no structure, leadership or follow-up emerged.

No interest in anything other than what’s coming from the top down. If that’s “organizing”, it’s a joke.

Wait, you’re complaining there’s no leadership and then complaining there’s only orders coming down from the top? You’re contradicting yourself here.

Bruce S - June 29, 2011 | 10:55 am · Link

And “orders from the top” = “leadership” in an organization that proposes “grassroots organizing.”

Should have added an exasperated question mark to that line. Meant the opposite of how it reads.

artem1s - June 29, 2011 | 11:07 am · Link

70K+ when I signed

Thursday Open Thread - Jack & Jill Politics - June 30, 2011 | 1:19 am · Link

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