Liberals: Obama Abandoned Us - Politico
Liberals: Obama abandoned usThe left revolts, saying Obama gave up too easily on spending bill.
By Edward-Isaac Dovere and Burgess Everett - Politico
12/11/14 6:09 PM EST
<snip>
The White House’s aggressive push to salvage a spending bill on Capitol Hill left liberal lawmakers feeling burned by President Barack Obama — and raised significant doubts about their desire to cooperate heading into next year’s Republican takeover of Congress.
Democrats will need every vote they can muster next year as the GOP plans to attack liberal priorities on health care, energy and financial regulation in 2015. But Thursday’s deadline drama offered no signal of party unity, only fresh reminders of the post-election divisions between a president who’s looking to govern during his last two years in office and a newly invigorated populist wing of the party, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The $1.1 trillion spending bill passed the House late Thursday, with 57 Democrats voting for the bill while 139 voted against it — with many liberals seething over a provision that rolled back a key financial regulation that is part of the Dodd-Frank law. “A vote for this bill is a vote for future taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street,” Warren said Thursday. “It is time for all of us to stand up and fight.”
Obama and Biden dialed for votes all day, and dispatched Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to meet with House Democrats, hoping to sooth Democrats’ concerns over policy riders that showed up in the trillion-dollar spending bill and were blasted by liberal stalwarts Warren and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
While the eleventh-hour intervention may have pushed the bill across the finish line, it also sparked a fresh round of finger-pointing among Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the White House. For the increasingly liberal factions of Democrats on Capitol Hill, the White House’s work was too little, too late. “I do not share the White House’s view,” said Rep. Steve Israel of New York, a member of Democratic leadership after meeting with McDonough.
Obama’s base said he tried to sell them out—and didn’t even wait to do it until Republicans officially expand their majority in the House and take over the Senate come January. And some on the left worried the wide range of policy riders in a spending bill were a worrisome sign as Republicans take over the Senate next year – and are already urging Obama to steel himself and ready his veto pen for what’s to come.
“We gave Democrats in the House multiple opportunities to negotiate the best deal they could get,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said late Thursday on MSNBC, explaining why the president and others were whipping votes. “The good news is they got a pretty good deal.”
Few liberals saw things his way...
<snip>
More: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/liberals-obama-abandoned-us-113516.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
... or Robert Gibbs. That was a clear slap in the face to the base of the Democratic Party, once again. I'd be interested in knowing where the good deal is. If anyone knows, please let me know. 
Top Stories:
Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
There are a few left, but I really don't see it in real numbers to make the kinds of changes that a majority of Americans want ... going by the polls and ballot initiatives (even in red areas) in the midterms.
Though I, personally, think it is a bad idea to chase poll numbers to make policy decisions, in many of these cases the polls and ballot initiatives are clearly the right thing to do ... for our collective safety, our collective welfare, the long term economy ("It's the economy, stupid"
and morally correct.
I think most liberals have always known this. Yes, we DO know it, however I've tried to be supportive and go along and tried not to be disruptive. Said I felt compromising was something we had to accept because we simply had no other alternative, what was on the other side was so much worse. I've had no illusions that Liberals are not in vogue in so many way, but felt my only option was to work for Democrats and try to have some "HOPE" that in time we might get some "CHANGE" however small. Can't say I was ever going to see my type of liberalism in my lifetime again, but DID think maybe new age Progressives would stand tall and fight.
I was so glad to see some Democrats standing up yesterday, but in the end certain Democrats simply ROLLED over AFTER OBAMA AND DIMON got to them!!
I'm full of adjectives that I could spout, but mostly I'm just DESPONDENT! I woke up this morning and my head still feels dizzy in some ways. Cobwebs upon cobwebs I'm finding hard to break through and running in circles. And the worst thing is some sort of FEAR that has me in a vice. On top of that, since I'm a Boomer I have grandkids who live close by and XMAS is upon me and we will have our usual dinner & celebration. Not that any of them are R's or overly religious but I'm in no mood for any type of celebration! But it's just selfish of me to ruin the pretty much FAUX Holiday for them. So now have to put on my fake face while my stomach churns and I want to crawl into a ball.
What will be will be, and right now I have no idea where to turn. At my age I have certain physical problems and am unable to get out and protest. I CAN post my grievances, make phone calls in protest but my heart just isn't in it right now.
There is ONE thing I WILL do today even though we don't have a bundle of money and it is that time of year and gifts are on the agenda. I'm going to donate to FREESPEECH.org. Can only give enough to send a bag of coal to Koch Brothers ($60.00) simply because it's doing SOMETHING!
So, maybe others here might consider doing the same, just to keep them on the air. They aren't getting the number of donations they need to meet their deadline so if anyone has a little to give them, maybe it will help keep them going.
I've NEVER made this type of request, but it's the best I can think of right now. So, got to FREESPEECH.org and check them out. Maybe I'm wrong about them too, OMG I can't imagine more depression, but I'm giving $60.00 today. They do have payment plans if you want to give more so this is where I'm at right now. So, from this "leftie: a few smilies that say very little about how I really feel!
Republicans compromise like the Koch who said "All I want is my fair share. And that is EVERYTHING."
Elizabeth Warren is in some ways just like Francis Perkins, and if you really think that she is trying to grandstand, I don't think so on any level.
This bill was and is the beginning of further oligarchy, she had the temerity to let the public know what was happening before the vote and not hearing about this after and I congratulate her.
Now, I can hold every elected democrat that upheld this greed and if by chance get rid of the them and the republicans in the next election, then my wishful thinking will be with the masses that are really tired of this crap.
And Warren, Sanders and some others have telling us what is wrong and how to fix this mess.
We need to hold these self righteous hypocrites accountable for there actions, they made a deal in a room (no debate, discussion on the floor of the house, no committee hearings) the same house to have someone insert language to screw people, pensions, and others nefarious riders in it, and then have 216 votes to pass, 57 democrats in that approval column, or it would not have passed.
This party, our party (Democrats) provided cover for a party of republicans that have been hell bent to do NOTHING and they have succeeded at and for that goal, they have done NOTHING for over 113 days while in session and have been on vacation 244 days.
Go to the Washington Post and type in 2015 Budget and see the votes and who voted for this thing.
AS a bleeding heart liberal, it might come as a shock to some, that just maybe its time we had our own government shutdown, this is not a popularity contest or a poll, but it is time,
that just maybe its time we took this country back for the people.
The right wing republicans and for that matter the republicans have failed, they are now subsidiaries to the Heritage Foundation, Koch Industries, and others, who see nothing but greed and a means to talk out of both sides of there mouth and a lot of people are tired of this and that means conservatives also.
For over 35 years we have lived with and forced to swallow trickle down economics by non other than some cowboy who thought that his homilies were true, well they weren't, never have been never will be.
And to end this rant its time to really take back this republic from greed.
Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman Eisenhower, Kennedy, Elizabeth Warren, Paul Wellstone, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown and some others had it right, they may not have been perfect but they knew that they had it right and its time we supported that fact, that's were we go from here.
His BFF~
" I am a new Democrat". For me, flags, bells, whistles, red lights. And the rest is history.
I couldn't agree more. Like millions of Americans I believed in the "Hope and Change" promised by President-elect Obama, and sadly, like millions of Americans I share their disappointment of seeing little of either Hope or Change and that disappointment came early in President elect administration when a response by Speaker of the House Senator Nancy Pelosi to a questions asked about the illegal treatment of prisoners in Iraq/Afghanistan (i.e., Abu Ghraib) "We're (meaning the Obama Administration) looking forward, not backwards." However as Saturn Smith of Orbital Matters wrote, January 16 2009 article "Eric Holder Please look back" "Until today I saw two options for the Obama administration on the issue of prosecution of the past administration for torturing suspects in U.S. custody. Option one: they continued with their "we're looking forward, not backward" line and worked swiftly to put into place safeguards to keep this from ever happening in this administration. Option two: they declared the actions of the past administration illegal. He continues.....
In Option One, here's what you could expect: the closure, in a short amount of time, of Guantánamo Bay, the literal and symbolic home of torture in the Bush administration; shuffling of staff in every significant department with potential oversight of interrogation techniques, including the appointments of stridently anti-torture candidates; broad, reassuring statements from our leaders that they would never condone, encourage, or excuse torture on their own watch. All of this is reassuring, and yes, happening right now. It seems like a step -- like many steps -- in the right direction, and it is likely that within a few months, we'll all be distracted by the glimmer and shine of a new president against the bleak balck-hole of the financial crisis, and will therefore forget that we ever had a nasty little torture habit. Here's the problem. If the Obama administration chooses to "look forward, not back" about torture, it is a de facto acceptance of torture as a tool available in interrogation. Even if Barack Obama never orders a single person to waterboard anyone, even if he spends every day retraining the military and intelligence communities about the intricacies of interrogation and international law, even if he establishes a new cabinet-level office -- the Secretary of We Do Not Torture -- to oversee our goodness now and forever, by only acting to prevent future acts, he is allowing the next president (Sarah? Jeb? You listening?) to reverse everything he does.....
....The second option is to open the door for prosecution. Option Two differs from Option One by only a very narrow thread: in option two, we can expect the same steps (GitMo closure, anti-torture appointments, strict adherence to the letter of the Geneva Conventions), but with one added detail: the administration, instead of saying "we won't do that because it's wrong," will say, "we won't do that because it is illegal."Stating aloud and officially that the specific abuses doled out in interrogations were illegal, instead of just wrong, makes clear that existing laws have been broken. Suddenly, the question changes from, "How do we make sure this never happens again?" to "How did this ever happen at all?" I said that I believed the Obama administration had two options until today, because today, at his confirmation hearing, Attorney General-designate Eric Holder said that water-boarding is both torture and illegal and not under the president's purview to order. Holder will soon be in charge of the Department of Justice, and if he's to be taken at his words -- that the DOJ must reestablish its independence, and act as a check upon presidential excess -- then he must push for investigation and prosecution of past crimes as a defense against any in the future.If water-boarding is illegal now, it was illegal last year. It was illegal ten years ago. And if it is illegal, it must be prosecuted.....The problem with looking only forward is that prevention isn't a cure." ( go to Saturn Smith Orbital Matters January 16 2009 "Eric Holder Please look back"
I, Tracy-Wagepeace believe the Obama Administration abdicated on their promise of "Hope and Change" by not giving the American people what they expect of criminals: Accountability. Accountability of those who unleashed Hell on Earth by their wanton disregard of the Geneva Convention. How does former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, who's belief expansive view of presidential power played an important role in developing a legal justification for the Bush administration's policy in the war on terrorism, arguing that prisoner of war status under the Geneva Conventions does not apply to "enemy combatants" captured during the war in Afghanistan and held at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp usurp the Protecting Powers written in the 1942 Geneva Convention?
The Geneva Conventions extensively defined the basic, wartime rights of prisoners (civil and military); it established protections for the wounded; violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, outrages upon dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment...." So by looking forward...not backwards" by not appointing a Special Prosecutor to either authenticate or discredit illegal actions of the CIA/Bush-Cheney Administration, makes of all complicit to and their "partners-in-crime.)