WHERE’S MY FUCKING CHANGE??
Well, here’s a BIG surprise: the Democrats say they don’t have the votes to pass the Employee Free Choice Act:
he president’s party simply lacks the votes to break a GOP filibuster of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), the No. 1 priority of the labor movement that’s headed for its official introduction later this afternoon.
The Journal states that six senators who previously supported EFCA are now up in the air on the bill, although only four fence-sitters are named — the exact same four we reported yesterday, Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Mark Pryor (D-AR).
While I’m not sure who the other two are just yet, please note that three of the four listed here are democrats. Color me [not very] surprised. as Firedoglake notes, Blanche Lincoln might as well be wearing a blue smock and a “roll back prices” pin, because Wal-mart essentially owns her. Mary Landrieu? Big friend of our former pweznit, who happens to hate labor, about as much as Mary loved (and continues to love) his policies.
Mary Landrieu and her BFF
Mark Pryor? Joinign Evan Bayh’s Blue Dog caucus. Nuff Said.
So let’s review the past couple of months.
The single payer health care everyone’s been praying for? Too radical for now, says Obama:
During the meeting, Congressman Conyers, sponsor of the single payer bill in the House (HR 676), asked President Obama for an invite to the President’s Marchy 5 health care summit at the White House.
Conyers said he would bring along with him two doctors – Dr. Marcia Angell and Dr. Quentin Young – to represent the majority of physicians in the United States who favor single payer.
Obama would have none of it.
This week, by e-mail, Conyers heard back from the White House – no invite.
Why not?
Well, believe it or not, the Obama White House is under the thumb of the health insurance industry.
Obama has become the industry’s chief enforcer of its key demand: single payer health insurance is off the table.
Dude, where’s my change?
Or the promise to end the Bush-era abuse of state secrets? Well, maybe not so much now:
Despite President Obama’s vow to open government more than ever, the Justice Department is defending Bush administration decisions to keep secret many documents about domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens, and interrogation of suspected terrorists.
In half a dozen lawsuits, Justice lawyers have opposed formal motions or spurned out-of-court offers to delay court action until the new administration rewrites Freedom of Information Act guidelines and decides whether the new rules might allow the public to see more.
In only one case has the Justice Department agreed to suspend a freedom of information lawsuit until the disputed documents can be re-evaluated under the yet-to-be-written guidelines. That case involves negotiations on an anti-counterfeiting treaty, not the more controversial, secret anti-terrorism tactics that spawned the other lawsuits as well as Obama’s promises of greater openness.
“The signs in the last few days are not entirely encouraging,” said Jameel Jaffer, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed several lawsuits seeking the Bush administration’s legal rationales for warrantless domestic wiretapping and for its treatment of terrorism detainees.
The documents sought in these lawsuits “are in many cases the documents that the public most needs to see,” Jaffer said. “It makes no sense to say that these documents are somehow exempt from President Obama’s directives.”
Dude, where’s my change?
or the transparent opaque terms of the bailout? Do I even NEED to link to that?
WHERE’S MY FUCKING CHANGE? ALL I AM SEEING IS BUSINESS AS USUAL ON EVERY FRONT THAT MATTERS.
