Barack Obama and Harry Reid have unconditionally surrendered the values and policies that Democrats have stood for since 1932 to the Republicans and the Tea Party, as surely as Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox.
The only question now is whether enough House Democrats will revolt and provide sufficient votes for the House to reject this atrocity, forcing the parties back to the bargaining table--hopefully with the leadership of Nancy Pelosi.
If approximately 175 out of the 193 Democrats in the House combine with about 40 dissident Republicans--who oppose the Obama/Reid/McConnell plan for their own reasons--it can probably be blocked and negotiations of somewhat more reasonable terms reopened.
If not, July 31, 2011 will likely go down in history as the day that the liberal Democratic project--the hope that corporate power could be balanced by sensible regulation, Keynesian economics, and a measure of economic security for American citizens--died, or rather committed mass suicide.
House Democrats and Nancy Pelosi--You are all that stands between the American people and unconditional surrender to the darkest forces in American society and the mass suicide of the liberal Democratic project. Stop this madness!
that is prepared to do what ever it takes to win, usually does.
The American citizen is being used as human shields by the tea party.
The battle between the cons and liberals will continue but the real action will be republican vs. tea party. The right was willing to crawl into bed with the tea party in exchange for regaining control of the house. They made a deal with the devil and now we all are getting screwed BUT it will be rememberedÂ, by all, that it was the right that brought the skunk to the dance and they will eventually pay the heaviest price.
The House Democrats should not be giving the votes necessary to give cover House Republicans from tea party extremists. Let Boehner pressure his own members.
You are kidding right? You do realize that this is as good as it is going to get for the dems, and even it may not pass. You libs just don't realize how serious the Tea Party crowd is. They will let the nation default. Until the dems are ready to do that, they will lose more in every negotiation.
So walk away and let Wall Street beat the Tea Party politicians with their own political club.
I voted in 2010 and here in California we had a progressive landslide.
It's amazing what Democrats can accomplish when they stand up and fight and not wipe their feet on their own base.
It is predictable and all he wants is their unquestioning votes.
Obama lost votes in 2010 for just this sort of pathetic complicity--what makes anyone think continuing it will change it?
Without a message, the Democrats have no chance in the next election. But getting the messaging out early, and defining the terms of the argument are always the way to get a leg up in any debate. The message is: "Welcome to the Great Recession, Part 2 - brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood Tea Party Taliban and their Republican enablers."
Sell it like you never sold anything before and get the Democrats elected in 2012!
This is all straight out of "The Shock Doctrine". Don't say you weren't warned.
Of course, to do that, they have to stay in office. Good luck with that, you sorry excuses for representatives of the people.
www.progressiveparty.org
"Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.
It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.
In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html
The debt ceiling deal was the best that could be done given the political facts on the ground. What about the need to compromise to insure good governance do you not understand? The whole point to a compromise is that everyone should be equally unhappy with it.
The Republicans have NEVER even tried to compromise.
That ALL Obama has done since day one.
Default is NOT an option and voting it down would be a disaster.
Obama should have put his foot down, evoked the 14th, and that would have been that.
Mr Mogulescu himself needs to step up and say what Obama and the Dems should do instead, given that the GOP and Tea Party extremists hold the cards.
Does Mogulescu want Obama and the Dems to let GOP intransigence force the nation into default? Then say so. And say for how long that should continue. And admit frankly just damaging that will be to the nation. (And to Obama, and to the Dems, and to Progressives.)
Does Mogulescu want Obama and the Dems to let GOP intransigence force a default, and force Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment? Then say so. And acknowledge that will immediately plunge Obama and the nation into a constitutional crisis. And will result in a GOP led movement in the house to impeach Obama. A movement that would fail but which would do unimaginable damage to the nation and economy in the next 15 months.
Criticism of this debt-ceiling deal is welcome, I've got plenty of my own to share. But if folks are not fully prepared to CLAIM and OWN the harm that comes with each of the alternatives, then it's best for folks like Mogulescu to remain silent.
I understand your bigger point, however.
"Well, they borrowed the SUV, stole the credit cards and went joyriding all over the world for decades; maxed out the cards, got more and maxed them, drove the car into the ditch, after first rolling it three or four times, but we'll never earn the money to get the car going again unless we give them the Chevy, too. Oh, and we really need to sell our house and move out so we can pay off their credit cards, because they have a lot of guns,and need lots more ammo so they can keep the place in line and protect what we used to have."
What a load of carp.