psnyder's Comments (7)

“Yep. I heard the same thing. The "public option" that Obama described last night would be so restricted in its availability as to be useless as a tool for reining in costs. Even if it passes, most of us would be under an individual mandate to buy for-profit health insurance and face a criminal penalty if we do not. F/u/c/k that. I'm off the bus.”

“Don't know whether they're cowards or so thoroughly compromised by their own corporate commitments that what we see as weakness is merely the rotten flower of corruption. Either way, we're screwed.”

“Globalizing the economy makes states - and loving or hating them - close to irrelevant for those who live in that free-flowing stream. One wouldn't need to hate America to do what Sacks suggests. One would just need a degree of indifference to it as compared to one's own welfare, a prerequisite that it seems a large enough number of plutocrats have already exhibited.”

“Is the focus of Sachs' work relevant? Do you think it impossible to evaluate the argument he makes here without reference to his professional specialty? After what he did in post-Soviet Russia and Poland I'm not a big fan of Sachs myself, but such ad hominem considerations aside, the argument he makes here seems sound.”

“I am a supporter of this President whose ardor has cooled. He seems to be at least as dedicated to covering up for torturers and frauds, and therefore owning torture and fraud, as to anything else. He's also seems determined to indemnify with tax dollars the ultrawealthy who looted the banking system to begin with. I am ready to jump back on the bandwagon - I did contribute and canvas for him - but I think I'll walk for for a spell.”

“Just because they call it "fair and balanced" doesn't make it so. They're working on the propaganda principle that a lie repeated often and forcefully enough will come to be accepted as true. Well, the Obama campaign is not accepting it. Good for them. That speaks well to the Democratic Party regaining a measure of spine.”

“Me, too. Shoen is spouting right-wing frames. I'm glad you called him out on that.

And then there's this: "if we have an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket, which is increasingly likely." Eh? On what planet is this nightmare ticket increasingly likely? If Clinton follows Schoen's advice and goes completely negative on Obama, when Obama wins the nomination do you think he's going to turn to Hillary as his pick for VP? Why would he do that? There are reasons he's running against her. Those aren't going away, and they make an Obama-Clinton ticket a pipedream of people who like to play political calculus without reference to the substance of the candidates' positions. Schoen's, and Clinton's, reprehensible political tactics are more of the same old crap from the same old Washington crapmongers, er, consultants.

Notice that Schoen gives nary a nod to the fact that HRC's winning the nomination fair and square at this point is a virtual impossibility. If he were to acknowledge that fact, then what would be the rationale for her continuing on the path of destruction he recommends? She may improve her numbers at the margins by going negative, but there is just no way that the tactics he recommends are going to give her the landslide victories she needs to snatch victory from Obama.”