@imstellar28, read past that sentence. I didn't use your favorite phrase "slippery slope", but I voiced concerns about the overreach in my second paragraph.

>> ^blankfist:
Or 6, Democrats should recognize the executive branch was never designed to be as powerful as it has become, reduce the executive branch's powers and once again give the majority of power back over to congress, stop signing statements, end the wars, revoke the Patriot Act completely without simply altering its text, cut military spending drastically, close (at least a majority of) military bases abroad, recognize income tax is a direct tax therefore unconstitutional and revoke the 16th Amendment, and recognize I'm an adult and no longer need a "nanny".
There. I'd vote for that one.


That's option one. You don't seem to understand that hiding behind Constitutional originalism doesn't fool most people. It's a roundabout way of saying that no matter how many people want progressive policy, it's all unconstitutional and people who try to enact it are in violation of the supreme law of the land.

In other words, roll over and die, because conservatives deserve permanent rule.

I think trying to pin expansion of executive power on Democrats is quite the overreach. I'd agree that they haven't done anything to reduce it, but that's a wholly different critique. I'd also agree that they should do about half of what you say (stop signing statements, end wars, revoke patriot act, cut military spending).

You do need a nanny pretty badly though.

I found it painfully lame. As usual, the conservative overreach ruins the potential lulz.

Pennypacker, Bush and Hitler were both fixtures of the far right, so although the comparison is unproductive and overreaching, it is at least born out of some basic logic. Bush did also rack up a respectable body count of innocent people, made major cutbacks on civil liberties, tortured people, and vilified his opposition as traitors to name a few things. If you want to make an overreaching comment about the current President, take a cue from our very own qm and blankfist, and go with either Stalin or Marx.

Pennypacker, Bush and Hitler were both fixtures of the far right, so although the comparison is unproductive and overreaching, it is at least born out of some basic logic. Bush did also rack up a respectable body count of innocent people, made major cutbacks on civil liberties, tortured people, and vilified his opposition as traitors to name a few things. If you want to make an overreaching comment about the current President, take a cue from our very own qm and blankfist, and go with either Stalin or Marx.

>> ^imstellar28:
Why do you think the government is the only solution, or even a viable one?

<snip>

There are political problems, and then there are cultural problems. Can you accept that? It seems as if you view all problems as political, with only governmental solutions.

Not true, I just see a wide spectrum of issues facing society, and don't see a particular reason to take government action off the table.

For example, with regard to gay rights, it's indisputably going to require passing laws that explicitly protect their right to get married and be protected from discrimination for them to truly come up to par with heterosexuals. Whether that's "less" government or "more" isn't really a question that matters to me in the slightest. Republicans say that's some sort of gross government overreach like desegregation was. You're inclined to say it's government butting out of people's business. I (and other progressives) would say it's government fulfilling its role in establishing and providing the defense of a human right that had not been available to homosexuals heretofore because of the adherence to the right of people to discriminate, based largely on the property rights you champion.

In the case of a boycott, do you really think I could get one where even a significant percentage of people to go homeless in order to support it? People can be terribly weak, and will go along to get along, and not make a fuss, especially if putting up a fight will pose a significant threat to their lifestyle. After all, you just get used to the camera after a while...

Why did we ever need a 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment? Why didn't the abolitionists just drive the slave owners of the south out of business, or buy up all the slaves?

It can be much easier to rally people to vote for an action they would find too risky to do themselves. I wish people were different, but they are not.

In the case of something like slavery or the environment, there just aren't enough resources amongst the people leading the cause to do something like buy up all the oil fields or all the slave hands in the fields. Sometimes the rights of the people outweigh the need to be subservient to an individual's right to property (my rephrasing of the Trekian "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few").

I also think your view boils down to "people only deserve the rights they can defend", which for most people isn't going to amount to much.

How can you not distinguish between your right to do as you please with your own body, or your own property - and the right of others to have their body, and their property respected by you?

I do distinguish between them, I think I just draw the borders differently from you. Most of the difference I have probably has a lot to do with the shell games corporations play with property so that they rob essentially all of their employees and customers blind, largely for the benefit of people who've really done nothing to create wealth, and along the way empower people who trample on all sorts of individual freedoms that we used to think were sacred.

I'm not big on absolutes in any case. All of our rights have limitations and exceptions. When it comes to conflicts between the various fundamental rights, I think property should be the least important, not the most.

I'm sure the South squealed like stuck pigs about how freeing their slaves would hurt business, and was some sort of terrible government theft. Ditto for desegregation.

Now they say public health care would be terrible for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Personally, I won't shed a tear about that if it means actually delivering health care to those who need it, no matter what their income level is.

>> ^chilaxe:
It's possible Olbermann is right, but if Democrats lose the White House in 2016, it will be because of this kind of thing over the next 8 years... going farther to the left than the voting public.
The last time our exuberance for policies that were to the left of the voting public cost us dearly was 2000. Without that episode of irrational exuberance (Nader), we wouldn't even have had Bush & torture these last 8 years


Enforcing the laws on torture isn't a leftist position, it's a human position.

It's not overreaching to charge criminals with crimes, even if they have a 24-hour propaganda outlet defending them.

As for leftist positions being unpopular, you need to look at more polling data. 8 years of broken government seems to have taught most Americans the value of having a working government, and are tilting lefter than I've ever seen it.

Now is the time to prove we can deliver, not to hang back and mimic the Republicans who just got routed.

I appreciate the Real News' attempts to retain a bipartisan, objective view by doing hard-hitting reporting on both Democrats and Republicans, and pointing out the shortcomings of both.

However, they always seem to have "experts" who vastly overreach in their conclusions. Yes, the Democratic party leadership made the Machiavellian decision to feign powerlessness to stop the war so they could use it again in 2008.

Yes, Rahm Emanuel cracked heads and kept the Democratic party in line with that strategy, even down at the electoral level.

However, there's no reason to assume that Rahm agreed with the Iraq war. Now that there's no strategic advantage in continuing it there's no reason to doubt that he will be cracking the heads of pro-war Democrats to get them to help stop it.

Further, there's no reason to assume that Obama picking Emanuel means that Obama is in favor of continuing the war -- it just means he wants a Machiavellian ball-breaker as his Chief of Staff.

As someone who's been reading/watching/listening to almost every piece of news about Obama for nearly two years, I gotta say this guy is talking out his ass when he moves from the facts into speculation. He just doesn't know what he's talking about.

As for holding Obama to his promises about restoring justice and the Constitution, he's absolutely right. I'm watching for his Treasury Secretary at the forefront right now, but I'm going to be watching who he picks for AG just as closely, once we start hearing noises about it.

Vagina monologue alert! Kidding. But seriously, I never said I was for vouchers, DFT. It seems you're repeatedly trying to put words in my mouth, or more accurately claim certain policies to be mine that I never laid claim to. Let's stick to what I say when grouping me with other political opinions, please.

Just like marriage, religion and other areas of free choice, I believe education to be something the federal government should not manage. Furthermore, they have no constitutional right to do so. I want every child to have a decent education, because it sounds good and right, and it makes me feel good to say and believe in that. It still doesn't make it right to extend the federal government in such a way to forcefully (and arguably unconstitutionally) take money from everyone to pay for a welfare program. To do so means the government is entitled to your money, therefore owns you.

Pardon my tangent: This sort of overreach is why presidents like JFK have been entitled to write Executive Orders extending their powers, especially in the name of doing good with it when the time comes. JFK wrote EOs giving him the right to seize communications in the media, electric power and fuel, transportation (seaports, highways, airports, airspace, etc); seize all health, education and welfare facilities; force registration of all men, women and child; seize all housing and finance authorities to establish "Relocation Designated Areas"; force abandonment of property and areas; and (the most egregious of all) seize any and all American people and divide up families in order to create work forces to be transferred to any place the gov. sees fit.

You can argue the president would never use this sort of power unless a national crisis necessitated it, but that's too much power for a ruling body to have, especially one that is supposed to be a limited branch. This is why I think it's important to ensure we don't allow our government to overstep their limited power, lest we suffer martial law (see Katrina) or worse a complete loss of Rights. Even if it makes you feel good, that doesn't mean it's right. I care about people individually, and I've given thousands for AIDS projects here in LA, but I do it because I choose to do it, and I wouldn't think it fair to force my neighbor to do it even if I think it's the right thing to do. [/vagina monologue]

Good stuff. I swear I've seen this one before elsewhere a while ago, though obviously not on TV.

Overreaches a bit -- he's had to eat crow on the violence, but it was increasing every month until November 2007, and he's still saying the surge hasn't brought about the political reconciliation it was supposed to, and therefore it didn't "work". Also, he often points out that the Anbar Awakening deserves a lot of credit for reducing the violence, as well as the deal cut with Al Sadr and, saddest of all, because most of the ethnic cleansing has been done.

The bit from 2003-2004 where he argues against timelines is golden, they should just focus on that one, because he's going to have a harder time walking that one back.

I'd love to see McCain try to beat up Obama for voting to fund the war. What, by chance, do you think McCain would have done if he'd voted against funding it? Applauded his moral stance for peace?

It's a good way to change the subject from whether or not staying or leaving is what people want to do, which McCain desperately needs to do, because there aren't too many people who want to stay.

"As far as you, this particular Colonel might have never worked with armor"

Actually he was an Armored Colonel. Since when do Chaplains, Lawyers or Doctors command assaulting regiments? You're really overreaching here.

"Maybe he was briefed that he would be looking at the UK counterpart to the Bradley"

Maybe, if so the people who briefed him were idiots. The Scorpion is a light tank and plays a completely different role. In any case I didn't know a single soldier in my time with the armored who couldn't identify 99% of the armored vehicles in service from front or side silhouettes or from a picture ESPECIALLY not ones so common as a Scorpion and a Bradley. The zipperheads drilled on that stuff all the time.

When I was in Basic Training we had a US Marine who'd served for 5 years in the US forces in my platoon. He was a dual Canadian/US citizen and after working with the Canadian forces on an exercise he saw the difference in calibre and enrolled in the Canadian forces. He said that Canadian basic training was tougher than anything he'd gone through as a marine.

EVERY enlisted member goes through that training.

Really if you've never worked extensively with other forces what position are you in to compare?

In front of CFB Shilo there is an M109 which was LOST by American forces on exercise. For those who don't know an M109 is mobile artillery, it looks like a tank only taller. After a US exercise on a Canadian base it's common to find teepees made of M16s that have been left behind. These are not things competent soldiers do.

Seeing this, and seeing the completely anemic response on the Sunday talk shows, I think in the end this will help Obama.

He's tuned this message up very well, very quickly. This is an area where he's consistently had trouble in the polls and primaries, and now he's got a damn good speech for it.

I think Clinton's already overreached on this one, trying to make herself out to be something she's obviously not, and it'll end up with her being the butt of jokes.

I doubt it'll move the needle in PA, but I bet this will pay dividends in Indiana.

President Bush is overreaching his powers... excessively...

1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.

3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.


Let’s start with number one. Bear in mind that the so-called Protect America Act that was stampeded through this great body in August provides no—zero—statutory protections for Americans traveling abroad from government wiretapping. None if you’re a businesswoman traveling on business overseas, none if you’re a father taking the kids to the Caribbean, none if you’re visiting uncles or aunts in Italy or Ireland, none even if you’re a soldier in the uniform of the United States posted overseas. The Bush Administration provided in that hastily-passed law no statutory restrictions on their ability to wiretap you at will, to tap your cell phone, your e-mail, whatever

i.e.

1. “I don’t have to follow my own rules, and I don’t have to tell you when I’m breaking them.”

2. “I get to determine what my own powers are.”

3. “The Department of Justice doesn’t tell me what the law is, I tell the Department of Justice what the law is.”