Go read this story and share it with the world (thank you, Donna).
The only adult in the room
ALL HANDS ON DECK /// #OBAMA2012
Go read this story and share it with the world (thank you, Donna).
The only adult in the room 
Senator Feingold voted against it, huh? Senator Russell Feingold, the same Senator that voted to confirm Justices Alito and Roberts, when that “corporatist” President Obama voted against them? The same “progressive” senator that voted against financial reform, weakening it. The same guy they want to primary the president with.
To them, I give them Denzel Washington as Malcolm X.
What an amazing piece. It’s so utterly striking: all of the drama and sensationalism masquerading as Obama Cares (HCR) “reporting” almost led this author into a completely counterproductive act: canceling her new affordable coverage and replacing it with worse coverage. All because this toxic media environment paints Obama Cares as a corporate sell-out just waiting to betray us. Leads to the question: does sensationalism and hysteria ever work well for progress or protecting the best interests of average Americans? For me, the answer is *no* and this is one example of many.
What a humorous, down to earth, humble author (admitted her mistake without trying to deflect onto anything else) and what an excellent, excellent piece!
I didn’t know we can post video here! Morning GovChris! It really is ridiculous, isn’t it, that senatorial Dems are once again unable to stand as a unified bloc against GOP excess. That said, they can dismiss those few senators as outliers and still make the case that the GOP is holding numerous items, including START, hostage to their lust for taxcuts for the filthy rich.
Thanks for posting that, BWD. Just tweeted it myself:
BTW, please feel free to follow me on twitter. We need to stick together in our support for the President and fight the hate and misinformation out there.
I had e-mailed my penny pinching cousin a month ago and asked how the year-end changes will affect him and if he will be saving any money. He responded no, he already had all those benefits under his additional policy, which, he thinks he will now cancel. Does it sink in that NOT paying that extra premium will save money? Of course not.
Shocked the hell outta me too. I just put the link up, and it did that. I gonna have fun here.
Not only was the linked post a great lesson about the effects of the toxic blogosphere on otherwise reasonably minded individuals but it provided valuable information for a family member who resides in the same state as the author and is currently uninsured because of pre-existing conditions. thank you.
I say let all the tax cuts expire. Schedule one last vote for the <$250K on December 31st and make a big show about calling the Senate back in to vote to extend the tax cuts for 98% of the population and have the GOP block it.
I agree that in this kind of toxic atmosphere showing up in all kinds of places, we are beginning to be programmed to believe that everything that’s told to us is a lie. No matter if it looks ok at first, it’s bound not to be – at closer examination.
That’s really a hell of a way to live as a citizen.
That was a really good read. I will add my two cent later
Even if the Dems had stood as a unified block, they would have lost, because the Republicans stood as a unified block.
There is absolutely nothing anyone can do against 41 determined “no” votes under current Senate rules.
But the dems like russ give cover to rethugs by voting with them. So they’ll now claim “bipartisanship” in their voting.
Bamboozled indeed.
Just dropped my last evah diary at gos. Got it out of my system for good.
I can’t seem to get this post — the url shown won’t allow me to link.
Any suggestions?
Please?
Good morning Joan. You can copy the URL and paste it into your address bar; that’s what I had to do.
It’s designed to keep us in crisis mode and thus acting against our own best interests. Well said.
Thanks GN. I tried that, but I didn’t get it all. I’ll try again.
Does the above link work?
The haters still want him to be President. Even if he was some how elected, I wonder how long it would be before he lost the respect of the Obama is bad crowd.
GB, It worked! What a great graphic! And a great story.
Sorry! GN, slipped off the home keys.
This was an amazing letter—one of the huge reasons I continue to be an Obama supporter is the HCR bill. It isn’t perfect, but I remember how badly the Clinton bill crashed and burned.
My husband and I are in the there-but-for-the-grace-of-deity-go-I category. I have pretty good health insurance through my employer; otherwise, we’d both be totally uninsurable. Because of what Obama accomplished, I don’t have to worry (as I used to) how we would maintain coverage for ourselves and our daughter if I should be laid off.
Thanks, BWD, for reminding us of the good that’s been done. 🙂
Great comment. And aside from the historical revisionism prevalent in the new media, what major ground-shifting legislation started off perfect? Not SS; not Medicare, not Medicaid, not the GI bill. HCR is off to a fine start and is a humongous quantum leap in terms of creating the idea that health care is a right which should extend to everyone and should be decoupled from employment. For that to be labeled a sellout is indicative of the sensationalist culture in which we reside, designed to encourage us to undo reforms which in the long run are utterly in our best interests.
A million thanks to the WH for getting HCR done in such an enormously challenging context. Still can’t believe it. Thanks to POTUS, Reid, and the wonderful Speaker Pelosi.
Hai GN! 🙂
Just sent you a reply in the other “I’m grateful” thread.
On another note – I thought I was supposed to get an alert if BWD wrote another blog posting. I didn’t. Maybe I’m wrong.
Thank you BWD. 🙂 Forgot to say that.
Christin! This space is bringing out the best of the best. I hope that you and yours are enjoying a wonderful holiday.
thanks sweetie. I hope yours was wonderful too. I actually wrote that in the other post B had from before thanksgiving, but just wrote it today since I just saw your comment today. 🙂 I praised you for your will power to stay and fight the good fight.
good day AMK. If I was there, I’d rec it. 🙂
Just saw it (ya know I’m a little slow lmao). I actually cooked and miracle of miracles, I must say my Thanksgiving dinner was excellent. I brined a turkey breast (small dinner: 6 people) in a mixture of salt, sugar, and white wine. Seasoned it up and slow-roasted it. And made a mile-high apple pie. Your girl, she got skills 🙂 /basking in conceit
Now the community is complete: we’ve got Christin lol.
This is a good article. Two comments stand out for me. This first one is in response to a comment about how some “obamabots” are just waiting for their pet issue to have a glitch and then they quickly withdraw their support and declare President Obama a failure. The response is:
“I don’t feel sorry for your President, I feel sorry for everyone who has somehow forgotten the years from 2001 until 2008.
What I feel for your President is anger, dismay and disgust on his behalf.”
The second excellent comment is in response to how other countries handle the cost of healthcare, and also asking what actually is making costs rise so high here in the US:
“My hubby had prostate cancer close to 6 years ago; he was diagnosed, biopsied and operated on within a matter of weeks and after a two day stay in hospital, many followup visits and annual checkups for 5 years with his surgeon it hasn’t cost us one red cent …… and Canadians still manage to have better health care outcomes for less per capita cost than the US”.
Dayuum! I cooked too. Took me a week to plan, buy and make the attempt. I’m not the world’s greatest Chef by far. I have to stare at the recipe 394839843908493048038 times. Over and over and over. But it was a success or so they tells me. And keep in mind, suckers didn’t get turkey at my house. HA! So we had like 349384 dishes to makes up for that.
How you beeeee Gee? I gotta sign up over the WSY I think. I got me some free time since I banned DK. 🙂 I’m cracking up at the name GOV CHRIS in here. That’s my gov or something ?
I bet that your dinner was absolutely amazing! LOL, I don’t think that GovChris is paying any homage to your asshat governor. What a trainwreck he is! Costing NJ schoolkids $400M because he was too much of an ideologue to make concessions to the teachers’ union. Wow.
Hai Christin.
Good to se you. this is an experiment: I posted earlier and it’s not showing.
Actually, I this point GN? I’m liking my Governor more than a particular liberal teabagger, but we shall keep that name under wraps here.
And mind you, the intense dislike (not worth my hate) I have for my gov. knows noez bounds. The guy is a bafoon times ten. Thanks NJ. Thanks much. God this freaking country has jumped the dang shark.
Well, the whole country. Since I don’t a bunch of you guys to Debate with anymore, I was talking a friend of mine at work. Kisha and I had one main concern and almost one only. The stupid. It’s killing us. And scaring the dayum S outta us. Not on the right. We fully expect that. The supid in from the Indies and the Far Left. NOTE: Not Democrats or Liberals. Far Left. As in Far Crazy Ass Jane Hampsher Liberal Teabag DK the far left meets the far right kinda stupid.
You would have loved to have been there. We wound up talking for two hours and were joined by about 8 others.
talking live just makes it so much easier.
But, it does reiterate that the far left is small, tiny marginilized (spelling??) and they all live on one blog. SO, that made us al feel better. Kinda. Yeah. It did.
PAMELA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
{{{{{{{{{{Pamela!!}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
Pamela!!!!
Hai!!!!!!!!
Fauxgressives don’t realize that they are interesting to the media only because they unknowingly serve the prerogatives of the same people financing the tea parties. For me, it’s just like, let them be them and the rest of us can keep it moving and shine a spotlight on the hidden world of pro-progress spaces. I’m loving this effort at moving the insurgency elsewhere!
But Republicans bastard won’t allow any vote on NAYTHING before the tax issue is done. That means no vote on DADT, Dream Act, START. Are we ready to give up on all this just to get some sweet revenge against 2% of the country?
Personally, my answer is clear no. We should face the world as it is. That’s the idiocy of the professional left: Always prefer a glorious defeat!
My insurgency has been transferred to the real world to the the non haters on the left. 🙂 that is a fact. there’s this cartoon i keep seeing, some stick figure guy on the PC typing. his wife must want him to come to bed. he says I’m coming honey (or something. ) there’s someone on the internet who is wrong though.
I saw that the first time a little while ago when I was still arguing with some hash brown over at (insert it here) who was a hater from day one. I wanted to cry. that was me. going to bed at 4 in the a.m. and getting up at six in the a.m because i had to get into it with some liberalteabagger who voted for obsure far left candidate anyway for sure?? i horrified myself. it was my wake up call. 🙂
ACK. i need to get moving. Only two hours of daylight left and I have to pick up leaves with the SO. God SUmmer, come back hurry hurry hurry . More daylight please.
I would guess it would be about a week. No one will ever live up to their expectations because their expectations do not take into account the real world of political maneuvering in Washington. All policies must get the votes to pass. That means that the chances of any bill ever making any one person 100% happy is pretty much nil.
Once President Obama is out of office, just watch how soon he becomes an example to the next Democratic president on how to be effective for the very same people who are now calling him weak and dangerous. I think they truly believe that continual outrage and cries of betrayal somehow will force the government to do things their way. I’m not sure why they think that since their style of criticism has been shown over and over to actually have the opposite effect, but they do seem to really think it. Imagine having a boss who always told you how bad you were at your job, who pointed out your shortcomings over and over and never more than grudgingly acknowledged anything you did right. How hard would work for him/her? But if your boss went out of his/her way to tell you how much they appreciated what you do and how hard you work on a regular basis then one day asked you to try a new way of doing something that he/she thought might get even better results, how would you react? Which boss gets the best results? It’s such a simple concept but seems to be beyond the capability of some to comprehend. And they would behave the exact same way no matter who was President because they just don’t get it.
It’s so difficult to get the truth out about this president, it’s amazing. Today’s big newspapers, THE NY TIMES and the L.A. TIMES, had President Obama’s surprise visit to the troops in Afghanistan stuck in the back sections of both papers, with unbelievably biased photos. NY TIMES had a photo of the president lifting the tent to walk in to greet the crowd (only could see him and two other soldiers standing near the opening) and the LA TIMES photos showed him in a carefully cropped photo at the podium, so you couldn’t see ANY other soldiers. No view of the cheering troops reaching out for the CinC. At least HuffPo has one of the good photos on it’s FP. Damn. Thank God for this blog and Chipstick’s The Obama Diary!
Oh my, there are now “concern” trolls all over OFA blog. What is happening to the Democratic Party? Wow its amazing that it is hard for me to distinguish the left from the right. How is it that an individual like Russ Feingold that voted against the extension of the tax cuts for the middle class, and unemployment insurance, but voted to confirm Alito and Roberts could be one of the “liberal” darlings and suggested competitor to President Obama in 2012?
I am so frustrated right now. Why do the “Professional Left” use all of their capital dragging this President down instead of calling on Democratic and Republican senators alike to govern as they were elected to do?
Keith O and company will open their shows Monday by saying that Republicans blocked the tax cut extension without even mentioning Feingold’s, or Webb’s vote against it. How about a special comment about that Keith? Instead of spending time making Bristol Palin one of his worst people in the world, he could be focusing on more important things. He and Schultz, and company are working on ways as we speak to blame the President because obviously he controls the votes of all Democrats.
What is this? They call the President weak for compromising. Do they ever mention that DADT was a compromise by Bill Clinton?
Markos – former Republican
Cenk – Former Republican
Ed Shultz – Former Republican
Ariana Huffington – Former Republican
Andrew Sullivan – Former Republican
Jane Hamsher – PUMA
Quite the list of “progressive” voices.
THIS IS OBAMA’S CORPORATE ASS FAULT!!
((((SARCASM TURNED OFF)))
Listen, I am a left leaning independent and I have an independent neighbor and an non-affliated cousin who lives in Massachusetts who voted for SCOTT BROWN. (He regrets it)
The Main reason the dems lost a lot of seats was because of DYSFUNCTION within the ranks. This vote is a prime example as to what’s the problem with the democratic party and what this president has been facing since he got elected. President obama can’t even get a unified caucas to support whatever he wants. No matter what tax plan obama talks about he can’t get 100% cooperation from his own party. Right now you got some conservadems in the senate who supports the GOP tax plan of extending permanenently and others say 2 or 3 years. Also some in the house who are agreeing with the GOP plan which is extend for everybody and had 20 dems vote in lockstep with the GOP. WTF IS THAT? Then you have some dems saying we should extend up to a million, others 500,000. Then you have some who say don’t extend for anybody All these different messages coming out of one party. The GOP message=PERMANENT TAX CUT PERIOD! And they are unified. Watching as an non affiliate or Independent that shows Strength and not Weakness. The dems can’t even get one UNIFED message on Tax Cuts. It doesn’t matter what Obama agrees to he can’t get his whole caucas to back him. He could get on tv blast the dems till he is blue in the face, the GOP will still block these tax cuts. Sometimes you have to strike deals to get things done. If we don’t fix this tax code, all of our taxes will go up, Nothing else passes DADT, DREAM, START, Unemployment extenstions and a more conservative congress replaces the outgoing ones and then the draw up a permanent more conservative tax cuts that winds up on Obama’s desk in january and you think he will veto it?
Another reason yall lost a lot of indy’s is how you all treat president obama. I sometimes read the vile, viciousness over here and wonder if I have accidently wondered to the FREEP page or Redstate. It ridiculous.
Here is the bottom line…President Obama will not blamed if taxes go up in December. The GOP and the LEFT have to come to an agreement or everybody shit will go up. All president obama can do is sit back kick up his feet,get a bag of popcorn and watch this circus in the house cause this is just preview of coming attractions of what’s to come when the GOP take over. They now have the responsiblity of RUNNING THE COUNTRY cause everything starts in the house. Independents will be watching and they want pragmatic, common sense solutions to the problems we are facing not partisan fighting and backstabbing. We are sick and tired of that. If independents see that president obama is trying to work with the GOP and they seem to be not cooperating on ANYTHING they will be punished in 2012. Independents will decide elections.
Here is where we are right now=
If dems let taxes expire. We can play hardball but what will that accomplish? Everybody shit going up, a more conservative tax plan on obama desk in january when the GOP take over and nothing else getting done.
NO DADT REPEAL, NO DREAM ACT, NO UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS and NO START TREATY!
CUT A DAMN DEAL!
THis was posted on DAILYKOS Blog……
Hamsher is worse than a PUMA.
From a recent diary:
These are toxic people who mean no one any good. Right wing tactics of intimidation and thuggery.
The “left-baggers” are retaliating from the abuses of the previous administration. In addition, some in-artful comments, made by the current administration, penetrated their excessively thin skins, and their egos will not permit them to “let it go”.
What impresses me as most ironic, is they are equal opportunity abusers.
Out of respect for myself, I refuse to enable or be supportive of communities that cannot manage their emotional urges, fail to recognize the futility of absolutes, and choose to express themselves in disrespectful tone and rhetoric. Such a waste of both intellect, energy, and opportunity.
Where the “left-baggers” end and the “extreme right” begins is a line, that for me has become extremely blurred. Personally, I prefer not to be attached to any political label other than American. And I support our President.
Hi Christin. Nice to see you here.
No prob. I got that place out of my system. Fiiinally. 🙂
Hello Pam
Amen!!
If you’re going to stay and try to fight in that bowl, you guys need some kind of common stratergery. 🙂
I resent that. First, I’m not that wide.
Second, I’m not that stupid
Three, I’m not that assholish
Four, I’m not that stupid.
yeah i knowz gov.
you know i shared my donuts with you the other day.
don’t be mad.
okay. well.
actually you stoles them.
but whatevs.
What a great article. I’ve never had to worry about health insurance as I am covered by Tricar. But I have seen mothers have to decide what prescriptions they have to have for their kids when they can’t afford them all.
I’m sure we will hear over the next few days how “Obama caved on tax cuts” just like he failed on Health insuance reform. The question is – failed who?
Hello, BWD! I’m just going to stick this in here and hope that you see it eventually. I am motivated to send you a message in response to Glen Greenwald losing his mind (not the first Obama critic to do so) over you posting beautiful pictures of this president, his family, and his administration.
I am old enough to remember beautiful pictures of JFK and his family. They were appreciated by people on “our side” of the political aisle. I am continually surprised at how many of “my political allies” seem to be nauseated by the ones that you publish.
Anyway, Mr. Greenwald showed his pettiness, and drove more traffic to your site… not a bad result. 🙂 sagenotsweet (blindyone)
I agree with you. I can’t stay on Huffington Post for more than 5 minutes reading the comments, as the left and right are joined at the hip in criticizing President Obama. I think he’s doing the best he can in a very, very difficult situation.