As a practical matter, it is very difficult to mobilize public opinion on more than one topic at a time. Health care is taking all of our energy.

I do hope we can fight against the patriot act. I don’t have many great ideas on how to do so.

I was thinking of expressing outrage but I didn’t want to be called Anti-semetic.

As far as the TradMed’s CBS was concerned tonight, there was no room to be concerned about the “Patriot” Act because they were all ACORN ACORN ACORN EvilBlackPeople ACORN ACORN ACORN!!!! Lookit the BLACK WOMAN telling people to LIE to GET MONEY!!!! LOOKIt the NICE WHITE REPUBLICAN SENATOR from Nebraska taking those EvilBlackPeople to task!!!!

Ironically enough, this was right after they did a piece on the stinginess of banks with regard to lending. ACORN’s probably put more people in homes than any major bank has this year, yet because some right-wingers staged a video entrapment, they’re being kicked to the curb while the three-piece-suited criminals skate.

well… if we have to live with the Patriot Act, can’t they please at least use it to figure out what da wingnuts are up to before they blow something or somebody up?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: While President Obama may have world-class oratory skills, I can’t say that his political acumen nor management abilities are anywhere in the same class.

Free advice: Don’t pay much attention to what is said. Instead, pay attention to what is done!

What if we try to contact Russ Feingold about filibustering any extension of this awful bill?

What the bloody heck is in that security briefing that he receives every morning?

They don’t have a problem when he does something they approve of, like making sure that No Terrorist Goes Free. (Whether or not the person behind bars was ever a terrorist is, to them, completely irrelevant; I doubt that actual guilt or innocence even registers in their alleged brains.)

Why Obama can’t see the gulf between what he said while campaigning and what he’s actually doing is another question, and I can’t answer it.

The Patriot Act should be rebuked by a bigger margin than Joe Wilson’s vote.

Obama is putting the fear of god into the hearts and minds of the thugs, who know that they were blackmailed by Bush under the Patriot Act, and by projection fear more of the same. He wants it scuttled, but wants the thugs to do the dirty.

Spencer,
It would make it easier to understand your point, if to read it, one didn’t have to click on a link and go read a separate article. I am very interested in the topic, but your presentation is lacking…sorry to say.

i was afraid of this, actually. the idea, as expressed by a friend, was that whomever was elected would walk into an oval office with a folder on the desk in which would be “proof” that various stripes of Patriot Act activities had in some way averted catastrophe. the message would be: “don’t fuck with this system unless you want catastrophe on your watch.”

also: i am going to fold up that “three-fifths of every other president” line and put it in my pocket. just for a while. hope you don’t mind.

At the risk of inviting glass-half-full charges upon myself, the AP article says the PBO admin wants to keep 3 parts of the USA PATRIOT Act. Now, there are more than three things in there, so that’s an odd way of framing their position. Does it mean they’re happy to see the rest sunset?

I guess if there are five things in there and Obama wants to keep three, that would be about the right proportion.

It will not help to worry about things that we will get to later. We have enough to worry about today. How we handle what is front of us right now (the public option) is more than enough. It Is not that the other things don’t matter. What we are doing today will show if can be ignored when we get to tomorrow’s outrage.

We’ll have to call and email the members of the Progressive Caucus and tell them to stand firm against it–something they should realize on their own if they’re really Progressives. In fact, in theory all Democrats should vote against it, but Dear Leader wants it, and evidently their job is not to reason why, their job is to…buckle under.

As a mother of 3, I have had to learn how to multi-task on various fronts. Why is it that the progressives don’t have that ability? Well, I guess they do, they just don’t have a loud enough microphone or big enough podium. However, I do think there are a few good suggestions here. Contacting Feingold, and giving it to the Progressive Caucus for starters. What are our other platforms/assets that we can utilize simultaneously and loudly to call Obama OUT? I am SO TIRED of this man pretending to be on our side. The guy doesn’t want to have conflict, he’s TOO passive, so we get crap for legislation. Not to mention he sets TOO LOW of a grade for compromise. He ends up giving away the Farm AND the first born. I hate to say it but his speech given yesterday to the bankers was categorized as naive and his lack of political experience negotiating is really hurting the Democrats, the American Public and his own campaign.

Of course you can answer it. But you don’t want to. So you pretend that it’s some unfathomable mystery.

Obama is a liar. A snake oil salesman. He conned you, me, and every other progressive who voted for him.

The question now is: What are you going to do about it? Are you going to reward his stabbing you in the back by voting for him again in 2012? (Because God only knows what terrible things a Republican president might do!)

Or are you going to stop playing the battered wife and vote third party?

All I am trying to say is, for instance, his mortgage crisis legislation, he should of veto’d that piece of crap legislations, sent it back down to the house with specific instructions on what was needed for him to sign it. Then he probably needed to go down there himself and bend some arms back. Bush would’ve. Well, actually he had Delay for that.

Great post, Spencer.

Oh, you mean the Republican Party? Because they’re the ones financing the third parties.

The real cure is to take private money out of elections, so pols don’t need to sell their souls to win elections:

Leading from behind? Pretending to support something he abhors? Playing both sides against the middle?

So we should assume that Obama leads on the Public Option by failing to aggressively push for it while being against the Patriot Act with open support. For now, I think I’ll assume that he does what he means. If he really is so subtle that what he does is not what he wants to succeed at because he is trying to outflank the opposition via poison pills then I voted for the wrong guy.

I am telling you that both the Republicans and Democrats play the public against each other. They both make promises to the people when elected and then do as they damn well please when elected. Both parties are corrupt and seek to consolidate Their Power and that of the special interests.

I truly believe that both conservatives and liberals are being played by the Republican and Democratic parties. I may disagree with some of your philosophies but can sympathize with your frustration with the Democrats. I worked with the Fla. Legislature for 20 years, not in the legislature but for a commission that reported to the legislature, and my best advice to my friends was to go into a room with your back to the wall and back out of a room with your back to the wall. Your “friends” will stab you in the back if it is politically expedient for them to do so.

You complain about the Progressive Caucus and conservatives complain about RINOS – Republicans in Name Only. We both have a common enemy and it is Congress and a President from either party.

I hear conservatives talk the same way about a third party. Maybe we should all unite for one election cycle and throw all the Republians and Democrats out to send a message. Then during the next election cycle maybe the Democrats will act like Democrats and the Republicans will act like Republicans.

You probably believe that this is conservative propaganda but I have been dealing with politicians for such a long time and have not seen too many leaders like Obama. He is very willing to throw anyone in his party under the bus to get his way. He is not concerned with anything but what he wants.

While I don’t necessarily disagree, my guess about his motivations is a bit less optimistic. I think he says the words that best sell his position to the public and the corporate press. Openly saying that the financial institutions and the super-rich insiders are more important than the country as a whole does not sell well. Even Bush only referred to the wealthy as his base in a few private meetings. Unfortunately the majority of national politicians are bought and paid for many times over and that appears to include the current Administration. If he rebelled he would be shutdown the majority in Congress as well as the main stream press, much like Carter once his agenda started to take form.

As for how to stop any of this – nothing comes to mind outside of campaign contribution reform. Which of course is a classic chicken and egg problem.

Whatever the motivations, I doubt he is being naive. Just selling a bit of snake oil to the rubes. Successful three-card-monte appears to require a good patter.

As an independent I can assure you that the Republicans are scared to death about a third party. They remember Ross Perot and how he drew votes away from Bush. It appears that both parties are fractured right now and don’t know what to do.

Actually progressives complain about the DINOs: the DLC. The complain to the Progressive Caucus because they have a small chance of success.

FYI the ACORN people in California were White. The leadership is White. I know that this will sound racist but the workers for ACORN appear to be expendable to the White Power Structure that runs that organization.

I find the headline of this article very interesting since it would appear to be the same concerns that the conservatives have with government. They want all of your informtion, blood type, DNA, etc. But they never come clean on what purposes they absolutely need them for.

Yeah, sorry, the headline is a lyric from an Immortal Technique song.

What will it take for Republicans to get concerned? Would they stand up if we all had to all get national IDs to get treated in an ER?

People have not reacted with hysteria, which may be a healthy sign. People around here–Left and Right–are stunned by the lack of change since the election. It isn’t clear what we do about it. Our legislators seem immune to public opinion, as the healthcare debate shows only to clearly. If you can’t sway a Representative who is a year out from an election with 60-75% of public opinion, what can sway them?

I do know that the ultra-right crazies that I happen to know (more than a few, in fact) are with us 100% on the Patriot Act. In fact, a couple of guys I know saw its implications when moderately liberal Democrats that I know were talking about the overwhelming need to keep us all safe. ”We’re all going to be together in Gitmo,” was the general opinion.

On the other hand, I doubt that the bulk of even the ultra right take the birther nonsense seriously. Even the racism has limited appeal these days, at least out here. This stuff is just histrionics, acting. It is not even good-faith hysteria. The aim is to drown out real discussion–even on the Right–with babble and thus protect a profitable status quo. After all, gridlock, security hysteria, and nonsense has been good to the incumbents of both parties.

The ER would probably not raise concern–after all, they all have their concierge doctors on retainer. But I bet the Repugs would be mighty concerned if every bank transfer, check clearance, and credit card transaction was tracked by the NSA and passed directly to the IRS and the BATF for tracking, datamining, and cross-correlation.

In fact, the above could already be happening. Maybe that IRS suit demanding that UBS hand over names and account info for US tax evaders is just a smokescreen. Maybe the IRS have all the numbers and IDs already and just need a cover story to take into court. Maybe the BATF already has the serial numbers, names, and addresses for every gun sold and knows how much ammo each bought and whether or not he is a member of a terrorist front organization like the NRA or a group dedicated to the overthrow of the US governement (like the Sons of Confederate War Veterans).

We can at least start the rumors and see what they flush out, can’t we?

The Dems could have had a real fighter, but they preferred the accommodationist, Barack Obama over Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards