Austintatious's Comments (101)

“It could not be more clear that the man lacks the political courage and integrity to do the right thing. The left was defrauded, hoodwinked, played like a 5 string banjo by the Obama machine and, once again, the Democratic Party. Assuming that there is still hope of turning the country around, further investment in Barack Obama and the Democratic Party will be a waste of precious resources, resources surely better invested in someone with the integrity and courage to keep his/her word on the issues most important.”

“To his credit, Mr. Ratigan has been ringing the alarm bell for weeks, and his message couldn't be more compelling. His work product has only one shortcoming, something he shares with many who seem to be conscientiously addressing the sham that is President Obama's so called reform of the financial sector and Wall Street. He simply does not give the President proper credit for his falwed policies regarding Wall Street, the banking sytem, and the financial sector.

He readily and rightly criticizes Geithner and Summers, but he rarely mentions the one who is most respionsible for this abject failure, our President. It was Obama who chose Geithner and Summers, and it is Obama who keeps them in place. Obama chose a course that keeps the worst offenders in place; in fact, Obama's policies are enriching those most responsible for creating the crisis and encouraging them to continue their criminal and grossly negligent practices. It was Obama who chose not to break up the so called "too big to fail" entities, and to avoid the restucturing of those entities.

It is Obama who is ultimatelty responsible, something that Mr. Ratigan seldom mentions; at least, not enough.”

“there's not enough money in it for big business and our elected representatives”

“If Biden were to resign and speak out against escalation in Afghanistan, Arianna's suggestion would be ancient histroy in a flash except, possibly, for the Republicans. Bottom line is, the Republicans don't matter. Yes, they're vile, virulent and vocal, but they are marginalized; suffering from self inflicted wounds and, happily, they just can't stop pulling the trigger. The party's controlled by right wing radicals with crazy ideas and very large mouths, the result being that they're losing thinking supporters every day.

If Biden were to resign, it would be earthshaking in consequence, and it WOULD get results. Others would follow, perhaps some of those high in the Administration who should have already resigned as a matter of conscience, Obama's Afghanistan policy being just one justification.

Something like that happens and other influential people will start speaking out. Average Americans will join in, and just maybe, this President will muster some political courage to do the right thing, more and more, becoming the obvious thing. If nothing else, just maybe that would help this nation start getting back on its feet, economically. That, alone, is motivation enough.”

“No, THIS is a ridiculous post.

To call upon the nation's political leaders to do the right thing, instead of allowing the country to be, once again, walzed down the path of empire building, military misadventure, and remarkable fiscal irresponsiblity, THAT is time, effort and a public platform very well utilized. To speak out at this very crucial time, a potential turning point in the national misadventure that is Afghanistan, it's the perfect time.

To suggest that to speak out now, as Ms. Huffington has done here, "...serves no progressive cause..." is an absurdity, for it obviously serves many, fiscal, social and moral responsibility, among them.

Your suggestion of "A big huge post..." about healthcare reform, that may well be the wasted of resources you profess to be concerned about, for Obama and the Dems have already sold you out. It's a done deal. The only questions left are how many Americans will still be in need of healthcare coverage when the smoke clears, and how big a windfall this is to be for the big corporations.

Sure, speak out about healthcare. It can't hurt and you ought to be damned mad about it; but to suggest that speaking out against further blunder in Afghanistan doesn't serve "progressive cause", well, we'll just have to label that as "psycho talk".”

“Ms. Huffington makes perfect sense. If Mr. Biden believes escalation or a continued large scale military presence in Afghanistan is wrong for America, he'll never have better opportunity to serve his country than this moment. Biden should publicly declare his opposition to Obama's war and resign in protest.

Indeed, it's not just Biden who should resign. In this matter of war and peace, life and death, sanity and insanity, all on this President's "team" who share Biden's perspective on America's misadventure in Afghanistan should demonstrate the wisdom and moral courage to leave this administration. It's exactly the right time for such a high level protest. Here's why:

The Republicans are irrelevant. Vile, virulent, vocal, yes, but politically estranged and, now, unable to prevent Obama and the Dems from effecting a sane and responsible policy regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. All that stands in the way is Obama and the Dems, and their total lack of political courage. Folks, they simply don't have it.

Should, however, Biden and those highly placed others sharing his perspective speak out and resign in protest, it would almost certainly motivate meaningful citizen protest throughout the land. Then, this President and the Dems would be facing what they fear most, rejection at the polls, the only thing sufficient to generate the wisdom and courage necessary for sane policy regarding Afghanistan.

With her suggestion, Arianna has hit upon something with genuine potential. As a rather brilliant surgeon once realized regarding his own seemingly insurmountable predicament, "IT COULD WORK!"”

“Afghanistan is already the proverbial quagmire, and the U. S. is already "perilously stuck " in it, up to our moral and fiscal axles and still sinking fast.

President Obama is on the verge of making this fiasco, now his fiasco, far worse. Indeed, this conflict is about to surge (yep, there's that word again) right past being "Obama's fiasco" to becoming "Obama's abomination".

It could not be more evident that America's large scale occupation of Afghanistan was, and is, terribly ill advised, and that it will never be less difficult to extricate than right now. Each new commitment or increase in troop strength will only make it harder to reverse course and leave, which we will ultimately do. When we do, things there will be just as bad or, more likely, worse than now.

It is a terrible situation for this President, although certainly not a surprise that he faces it. It would require remarkable political courage of President Obama to opt for withdrawal. We have heard many promises from this man regarding the issues most important to America. What we have NOT seen is the hard fight for, or the unwavering commitment and the political courage necessary to fulfillment of those promises. Will we see it now, or will this best opportunity this President will ever have to change course in Afghanistan go to waste?”

“Never expected it to be done yesterday. Just expected him to fight. In case you've missed it,, he's not. If he's not going to get things done in the first year or two, he won't get anything done.

What we're getting is just more of the same, or worse.THAT is not acceptable, not even for Barack Obama. You start out with no or low expectations on a given issue, and you get more of the same. You start out with high expectations, a high bar, and you may not win, but at least you've fought the good fight, bringing the people along with you and, just maybe, a victory here and there. That 's the ONLY way it was going to happen. This pansy ass stuff we're seeing, it's bound to fail, even before you start.

It ain't the Repubs he needs to fight; they're irrelevant. It's the bought and paid for Dems who are selling us out. That's who Obama should be going after, and that we knew BEFORE the election.

You bet your a** I'm still playing that tune. It ought to be your tune, as well.”

“Thank you. Never have we been closer to Brother Licoln's prediction that right now.

Sadly, and as much as I had hoped otherwise, Brother Obama is proving to be no Abraham Lincoln. How unfortunate for our country, for not since that time of national crisis have we been in greater need of the courage, integrity and commitment of a Lincoln.”

“Good lord, why can't people see that Obama and the Dems are the problem, not the fix.

Look at who he's engaged to reform the financial sector, and what they've actually done. The offenders are wealthier than ever on the taxpayers dime, they continue to engage in the very practices that caused the so called crisis, and the Administration and Congress pay only lipservice to the concept of reform

Look at what Obama's done about healthcare reform. He's sat back, allowed the Congress to come up with a bill, which guaranteed that any chance at legitimate reform would fail, paid only lipservice to the public option, the only possibility for genuine competition among the big corporations, has allowed Max Baucus, the very definition of corruption, to write a bill that will enrich big healthcare beyond even their wildest expectations, on the backs of the taxpayers, and is preparing to sell out the American people again.

The Dems are out there, naked; they can't blame the Republicans for their failures, now. The Republicans simply don't have the numbers to stop the Dems. They are irrelevant. The truth is that the Dems are selling us out, ALL of them.

Geithner is small potatoes. SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE ABOUT THE PRESIDENT AND HIS DEMS IN CONGRESS. THEY are the problem.”

“The lesson from that interview:

The politicians, ALL of them, are owned by big business. The Republicans, however vile, don't have the ability to prevent reform, if the Dems genuinely wanted it. They don't.

Example? The charade called healthcare reform. The Dems have the numbers and, therefore, the ability to effect meaningful change; alas, despite the valiant efforts of some (part of the fraud), they fall just short. Sound familiar? It should because they've been playing this one a long time. It's the same old performance, those fightin' Dems, trying so hard to get what the people want and need but falling just short, time after time. Each time, big business just happens to be the winner.

Well, at least we tried, they'll say, and in the end, big business profits and the people get the shaft. They can't get the votes for real reform but they just happen, by the skin of their teeth, to be able to get enough for the biggest windfall ever for big healthcare. Folks, it's deja vu, all over again.

BTW, did you notice how few references were made to Obama last night? They could barely bring themselves to admit that Obama has been AWOL. Think Obama's going to do what he promised? Forget it. Look no farther than his record on finance. It's called corporate welfare.

Lesson learned: The Dems are bought and paid for, the corporations rule, and this country has seen its best days. THAT's the lesson, and the truth.”

“The argument that your theory of meaningful deterrence will hold becomes moot when madmen become the leaders of nations having a nuclear capacity, or when nuclear weapons or materials that may be "weaponized" become available to radical groups like Al Qaeda. The potential for either or both of these scenarios seems greater each day.

A single weapon exploded in a large city, anywhere on the globe, is a nightmare of inconceivable proportion. While mass murder seemingly becomes more common around the world, the resort to nuclear weapons remains a most horrific possibility, and must be prevented, whatever the cost.

The kind of rationalization you engage in here is extremely dangerous, because it assumes the sanity of those to have access to such weapons, and that is the fallacy of your postulate that nukes have even one thing positive.”

“And that is why we elected him, to lead. Unfortunately, it seems that leading was not what he had in mind. In fact, I can't figue out what he had in mind.

Lot's of grand talk, but nothing of substance. It depresses me to think that all those folks saying that of Barack Obama, back during the campaign, were right. I didn't believe it then, wouldn't have it. I was wrong.”

“People, it ain't the Republicans who are blocking real healthcare reform. Yes, they're despicable. Yes, their sole intent is to cause the Obama Administration to fail, regardless of cost to country.

That said, real reform is failing because the Democrats are allowing it to fail. In the Senate, you have your blue dogs and other righties, the totally corrupt, like Baucus and Conrad, and the spineless, like Reid and Durbin. In the House, you have the Speaker and the so called progressive caucus. "Any bill is better than no bill.", Brother Emanuel will tell them, and they will cave on the public option.

However, the lion's share of blame for this abject failure, to date, is best laid at the feet of our President, having failed to lead on healthcare, from the very start. Once Obama decided to sit back, play it safe, and allow the Congress to put healthcare reform together, it was already doomed. The very suggestion that this Congress, the single most corrupt political institution on Earth, should be left to its own devices on something so important to the American people is laughable, an absurdity, on its face.

Folks, let's be clear. This President has wasted the best opportunity for genuine healthcare reform that our nation has ever seen or may ever see. It wasn't going to happen without Obama out front, taking charge from the very start. To fight and lose would be forgiveable but failure to lead, especially on this one, is not.”

“When conservative columnist George Will tells the nation it's time to get our forces out of Afghanistan, it's time to pay attention.

America's continued commitment of ground forces in Afghanistan is nothing short of a crime. American men and women, maimed and killed at an alarmingly rate, for an absurdly uneccessary and unjustifiable cause, a terrible sacrifice that will almost certainly prove to be as wasteful and meaningless as the deaths and injuries that occurred in Vietnam on both sides of the battle lines. Untold amounts of American treasure, flushed down that toilet, monies desperately needed at home.

To even speak the word "win" with regard to this atrocity is to lie, for it is "unwinnable", in the exact sense as was Vietnam. The pertinent questions, now: When the U. S. ultimately withdraws its ground forces from Afghanistan, and it will, how many lives will have been wasted on Obama's watch? How many life altering injuries will have been incurred? How many more American taxdollars wasted?

It's a war based on lies, misrepresentations and unrealistic expectations, another Bush/Cheney boondoggle. America is again living with the horror that was Vietnam, only now, it's Obama's Vietnam. This President's capacity to turn things around at home is diverted and wasted in Afghanistan. Obama's so called "political capital" is dissipating quickly, and he's speaking of sending more troops to that hell hole. Insanity.”

“There'd be significantly more money available if the American people would only realize the simple and obvious truth that corporate healthcare and the so called "conservatives" offer the least effective and most expensive healthcare option, and then do something about it.

The single best established fact relevant to the healthcare debate is that the private sector and the Republican Party have consistently brought the nation less healthcare of lower quality, for more money. It's that simple. We can be almost certain that some kind of legitimate public option, available to all, would be better than what we have now. Indeed, it's a remarkably safe bet.

Insisting that we stick with what we have now or pouring more money into what we have now, instead of trying something genuinely intended to make it better, well, that's not conservatism. That's just the definition of stupidity.”

“Yes, the Republican Party is a party of right wing fanatics, religious and political. Yes, the single item on their "platform" is to cause the Obama Administration to fail. Yes, they will say and do anything to make that happen.

Yes, the media are unprincipled, unethical and worthless, at best. Yes, they are helping the right wingers with their agenda.

But folks, even with all that, "they" are not what's bringing the country down. That distinction lays smack dab in the middle of the Democratic Party, aka the majority party. The Dems in Congress are almost as bad as the Republicans. Corrupt, bought and paid for, and many not even slightly interested in meaningful and necessary change.

It's the Dems who are standing in the way of progress, and that includes our President. Mr. Obama talks big but, in essence, stands for the status quo. The policies of his administration are amazinlg similar to those of the Bush/Cheney Administration and, where they purport to differ, they offer no more than lipservice to the concepts of change and accountability. What's more, they strive to overlook and even cover up the crimes committed by Bush/Cheney and cohorts.

People, let's be clear. It's not the Republicans who are the problem; what they're offering should be no surprise at all. It's the Dems who are holding us back and selling us out, Obama included.”

“Obama promised to fight for the American people, every day of his presidency. As a matter of choice, he's failing to do so. Instead, he's playing it as safe, politically, as he can. Yes, we can rightly blame Congress if legitimate reform is not forthcoming, but to suggest that Obama will be without blame is dead wrong, and here's why.

It was known from the start that real healthcare reform would be difficult, if not impossible. The only possibility for real reform, also the factor that is glaringly absent, is aggressive, relentless and focused leadership from the White House. This President and his team are all over the place on this, anything but focused and committed to anything specific, and their conduct is a disaster.

Instead of leading, Obama decided (1) to sit back and allow Congress to write the bill, rather than come out with his own legislation; (2) to feed us the ridiculous suggestion that bipartisanship was ever a real possibility; (3) to throw the public option ( the only factor absolutely necessary to meaningful reform) under the train; (4) to conduct secret negotiations and make secret deals with big pharma and the other healthcare bigs most responsible for the disaster that is our so called healthcare system.

If healthcare reform fails, and failure must be defined as anything coming out of Congress without a legitimate public option, the Congress will surely be to blame but, just as surely, this President will bear much of the responsibility.”

“Ignorance that defies credulity.”

“Quite an interesting comment. I don't know exactly where you're coming from, but you ask a very pertinent and appropriate question, and I wonder of you've hit on something quite profound.

Each day, I think about this President, his remarkable inconsistencies, his failures to keep his word, his easy capacity to sacrifice important principle for political expediency.

I think about the Obamas and I become more and more convinced that Michelle Obama would have been the better choice for President. If you've watched and heard one of her speeches, you know just what I mean. I wonder if Barack Obama's moral compass is Michelle Obama. It wouldn't be the first time that a remarkable woman was the guiding influence behind a man in a position of power. Certainly, Barack Obama is an amazing and remarkably talented individual but, more and more, it seems that he lacks the depth of character, the necessary committment, the faith in and devotion to the common people that he made us believe was his.

Give us one, just one, political leader with the courage and commitment to genuinely stand up for the American people, willing to demand that the wealthy and big business give the common people a break. It is abundantly clear, now, that I was wrong, that Barack Obama is not that person, that we were fooled by the eloquent speech and false promises. I've wondered, as time has pased, if Michelle might have been the leader we needed.”

“America's war in Iraq is an incredibly stupid blunder, a warrantless and terrible atrocity, and nothing more. The fact that so many of our fighting men and women have believed in the legitimacy of their presence there does not change the fact that it was a war of choice, based on a fraud perpetrated upon the American people and the world by criminals of the highest order.

We should salute service to country but that we should also understand that service to country does not make thoughts like those expressed here right, or even rational. The justifications expressed here for America's interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are no more than examples of the false patriotism used by Bush/Cheney to bring this nation to war, raw rationalization of an illegal and disastrous misadventure. What's more, to even suggest that "to volunteer" one's services with organizations like Halibutron or Black Water is laudable, or even sane, is an absurdity.

The truth is that the American people have been a gullible, easy prey for those brandishing false patriotism like that expressed here and, like this man, they usually don't even know they're being duped until it's too late. Until we become better at weeding out the truth, we'll continue to sacrifice our sons and daughters for the wrong reasons and the wrong people. So terribly sad.”

“Recipe for motivating the masses to take the matter of human induced climate change seriously -
enlist Sarah Palin, pay her ( she's really into the money, now) to go around the country, denying the phenomenon and belittling those working to address the problem. It's a sure fire recipe to motivate those with two or more brain cells and an ounce of integrity to get involved in the fight against global warming. Of course, the so called Republican base will never get on board but no matter; they're never going to embrace the science when their small minds are so filled with religious dogma, anyway.”

“You just don't get it, slg. These people do not assume that the man is a god, or that he has unlimited power to change the world or the country. Say what you will, it's not that they are naive; it's that they want the meaningful change this man promised. No, not even that is right. What they want is for this President to keep his word, to at least try to keep the promises he made to the American people. In that regard, this President is failing, and it's a failure of choice.

It's not that they assume he has the power to prevail in all he attempts. It's that they know what he promised and that, while he still has the support of the American people in meaningful numbers, he's chosen not to try. He's forsaken his promises to the American people on the big issues.

It's time for those making excuses for this President's failure to lead as he said he would, to acknowledge the truth. This President is not the man we thought he was, and not the President he said he'd be.”

“The Congress of the United States is bought and paid for by their primary client, big business. The Democrats are every bit as corrupt as their Republican colleagues.

Congress will pass a climate change bill. It will enable the corporations to continue their polluting ways with minimal and, certainly, insufficient modification, paying only lipservice to the concept of reducing human induced climate change.

Congress will pass a healthcare bill. It will further enable and enrich the parties already gouging the American people, and will cost the taxpayers untold amounts more.

Congress will then look the American people in the eye, brag about passing climate change and healthcare legislation, wink at each other, and watch all the cash from their primary client pour intio their war chests. Politics in action, American style.

And the people? We'll do what we always do - re-elect our favorite congressional representatives, for the more they sell us out, the more we seem to like it. Ignorance IS bliss.”

“This article, posted on 5/21/09, about what may be the most important piece of legislation to come out of that most corrupt of institutions, the Congress of the United States, in our lifetimes, and as of this time and date, had 4 posts.

The article on the HP Home page about Drew Peterson wanting to hire a hit man to bump off his wife, posted a day later - as of this time and date, 50 posts.

There's a lesson to be learned, here, and it ain't very reassuring.”