Obama weakness, dishonesty, failures and ineptitude buries Democrats.

Back in 2008 when Barrack Obama was elected along with a Democratic party sweep in the House and senate giving Obama and the Democrats the biggest congressional majority any president had in 60 years, one of the first things he said as the newly elected president who's party had just won a landslide victory over the opposition across the board was, " I want Republican ideas".

Which not only goes down in history as the single dumbest comment ever made by a newly elected president, it was a harbringer of things to come and should have revealed to any Democrat that it was going to be a bumpy ride because of  who and what he was: not a Republican, not a  Democratic president who favored Republican ideas, or even a Democrat who favored Democratic party ideas, but a truly empty politician with no real convictions or principles and no intention of fullfilling the promises and pledges he made (which was evident during the 2008 primaries). It all proved to be true.

Seemingly it never occurred to Obama in 2008 that if the country had wanted Republican ideas after 8 years of George W. Bush and a Republican congress and the catastrophes they caused, they wouldn't have elected him president and the Democrats to congress with the biggest majority of any party in 60 years, a majority Obama wasted his first two years. Now that seems like a long time ago.

Over the next 6 years, time and again Obama caved in to Republican opposition. Not that he gave them what they wanted. He just didn't give the country, the Democratic party or his Democratic supporters and the people who voted for him what they wanted and expected based on all the pledges and promises he made, every one of which he either reneged on or broke in one way or another.

And through it all, Democrats, hand picked sycophants in the Democratic party leadership and people who call themselves progressives at various Democratic and progressive groups around the country like MoveOn, Daily Kos, or PFAW, set new standards in lying to themselves about the Obama presidency.

For decades reality has proved that Democratic party ideas, initiatives, and policies have worked and benefited the country in major ways while Republican policies, when in a position to be implemented have been an unmitigated disaster for the country from Herbert Hoover to George W. Bush, and for the most part have never worked.

Yet , with the exception of the Clinton years,  Democrats do not seem to have a political strategist worth 2c who has been able to formulate a strategy, message or  design political campaigns that know how to use substance and facts against Republican policies to give people a good reason to vote for Democrats.

Instead they do utterly stupid things like trying to make the Koch Brothers the issue instead of giving people a substantive  reason to vote for them over Republicans. Though admittedly with Obama's failures and his capitulations which resulted in none of the Democratic agenda being implemented that would have been hard to do without repudiating Obama which was suggested here for months as a necessary truth and fact of life if Democrats didn't want to lose and lose big.

Nancy Pelosi, who along with Obama and Harry Reid were responsible in 2010 for the Democrats suffering the worst political defeat of any party in 80 years only two years into Obama's first term after gaining the biggest majority in 60 years because they went along with Obama's dropping of the public option and sell out of health care reform, this year urged congressional Democrats to run on Obamacare, chiding Democratic candidates that the first word in the Affordable Care Act was " affordable, affordable, affordable". Given that 98% of the 50 million uninsured in America are still uninsured because under Obamacare they still cant afford coverage offered by insurance companies who wrote the bill, Pelosi's Marie Antoinette act didn't go over very well with voters.

Given the disatrsous results of the 2014 elections for Democrats it would be worth remembering that, with the exception of Bill Clinton, Democrats are always running not to lose. But even in 2008 when any Democrat running for president would have beaten any Republican, even when Democrats couldn't lose they found a way.

In a year when Democrats couldn't lose the hierarchy of the Democratic party chose to rig their primary process and convention to assure Obama had the nomination with the help of some dishonest journalists instead of just letting the process play out honestly.  They did it perhaps because Democrats know they cant win any kind of national election without African American support. But by forcing the issue with  Obama, they found a way to lose in the long run and they have been paying the price ever since.

Democrats were crushed in the 2014 elections and it was a defeat largely of their own making. They stood idly by and let a weak, indecisive president with no real convictions and no commitment to the Democratic or liberal agenda sell out, capitulate and compromise every Democratic party ideal and belief,  a president who sold out healthcare reform for a watered down version written by the insurance companies and couldn't get a single piece of gun safety legislation passed in the aftermath of Sandyhook even though it was supported by 86% of the American people. In foreign policy, Isis and failures in the Middle East and being bullied by Putin and looking weak  over Ukraine and a red line over chemical weapons that disappeared when it was crossed, didn't help.

Obama caved in so many times on so many issues people working at the White House probably went to work wearing miner's helmets with little flashlights on top so they could wave and see each other amid the debris.

He fail miserably and inadequately in dealing with every unexpected issue or crisis that emerged either domestically or foreign. And congressional Democrats and Democratic political groups didn't have the backbone to stand up and say something. Or rebel. Instead they lied to themselves and in the aftermath of the election some still are.

What must be especially painful for Democrats is that with 68% of Americans saying the country is on the wrong track, it's not because Obama implemented Democratic policies, it's because he didn't. And it cost them the election.

The Democratic party needs an overhaul in leadership and it needs to start now.  The triumverate of Obama, Pelosi and Reid is what brought the Democrats down.

A close look at the election results make clear what happened. Independents didn't want to send a message to Democrats that they approved of Obama's presidency and voted Republican, and many Democrats didn't want to send a message that they approved of Obama's presidency and stayed home. And to underscore how much this election was a repudiation of Obama and not Democratic policies, five red states who elected Republican senators, voted to increase the minimum wage in their states and did it by landslide margins, in some cases by a margin of 40 points.  So it wasn't a rejection of policy. It was a rejection of a vacuum created by Obama and Democratic leadership where there was no policy. As Obama pointed out when he said publicly that he had no strategy on Isis. The result of his rejecting the advice for three years of his own Secretary of State and two Secretaries of Defense.

Democrats need new leadership starting now and they need to take that mantel away from Obama even with 2 years remaining in his term. If they don't 2016 could be a repeat of 2014. And 2010. Just as I  correctly predicted in  August of 2010 (to blow my own horn)  that if they let Obama drop the public option on healthcare they would get wiped out of congress in the November election. And as I predicted repeatedly this year warning that if Democrats didn't, not just distance themselves, but repudiate Obama's undermining of the Democratic agenda, admit  his mistakes and  his failures,  and stand up for Democratic policies instead of the stupid, inane strategy of trying to run against the Koch Brothers and their money, they would get wiped out again.

The Democrats have less than two years to clean house and get it in order.  And that means new leadership.  By somebody.  Which includes no more whiney dishonest fund raising emails by Democratic campaign committees, extolling the virtues of Obama and being so stupid as to think that is going to motivate a Democratic base that has seen Obama sell out their agenda.

Because now they have to deal with the reality that, when Obama was elected in 2008, and said " I want Republican ideas",  thanks to him and Democratic party leadership, they are going to get them , and be forced to deal with Republican ideas  for at least the next two years.

For Democratic candidates, it may be time for the sinking ship to desert the rat.

Since he was elected president, Barrack Obama has betrayed, reneged on, undermined, lied and sold out every Democratic party ideal, principle, promise and pledge he ever made and that Democratic voters expected to be fullfulled by him and wasn't.

The list is so long it's pointless to go into every one,and most of his failures were and still are the result of horrendous judgement and capitulations even when no capitulation was needed or neccessary, all the result of sheer political and policy cowardice. There is no other word to describe it. Nothing Obama has ever  done or not done has ever been the result of principle or conviction or a willingness to stand up to or for anything and fight for it.

But when it comes to Obamacare it is impossible to overstate how complete a disaster, betrayal, sell out,  abject failure and act of political and policy cowardice Obamacare actually is, a truly ineffective peice of "junk", as Howard Dean once called it  despite the latest cheesy and dishonest fund raising emails from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out in Barbara Streisand's name or Nancy Pelosi thanking heaven for Obamacare and trying to raise money based on supporting the last two years of the Obama presidency, a strategy so dumb its painful.

Dishonest Democratic party fund raising emails signed by Nancy Pelosi, Biden, Harry Reid and Obama himself(how dishonest? Some use my zip code and claim if they don't get x amount of contributions from my zip code by midnight they may as well throw in the towel)   literally beg and plead ( in many cases actually groveling) for contributions to get a Democratic majority for Obama for his last two years. What they hope everyone will forget, is that Obama had a Democratic majority in congress in the first two years of his presidency, the biggest congressional majority any president has had in 60 years and he wasted it with his unnecessary capitulations, none greater than Obamacare.

And since Obamacare is called his "signature legislative achievement", it's worth examing why the signature is a forgery.

First,  Obamacare is the most underhanded and egregious sellout of a government policy to a special interest group ( the health insurance lobby) in American history. It was a bait and switch  healthcare reform bill that would have made the sleaziest used car dealer in America cringe. Obamacare was  healthcare reform designed to benefit, not the people who needed healthcare but the insurance companies. It was a bill that Howard Dean, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, presidential candidate, governor and physician said was junk before the senate vote, and publicly said right before the Supreme Court decision that he hoped Obamacare was overturned. There is nothing in Obamacare that has any value that wouldn't have been automatic with the public option. But there is a lot of good the public option would have done which the Democrats had the votes to pass, that that went down the drain with Obamacare.

Here are the facts related to Obamacare: of the 50 million Americans who were uninsured before Obamacare, 48.5 million Americans are still uninsured because they can't afford even the cheapest plans offered by Obamacare which comes with high premiums $6,000 deductibles, 40% co-pays and often require those who did enroll in policies to travel over 100 miles to get to a provider that's in the networks of the cheapest plans.  If it sounds like healthcare reform designed by the insurance companies, its because it is (see the PBS  Frontline documentary on Obama's sell out of healthcare reform to the insurance lobby "Obama's Deal"). Of the 32 million young healthy uninsured that Obamacare needs to succeed, about 3% bought polices,with the rest saying no thanks.And when those who did buy see how little their policies will  cover, they may opt out too the second year.

This what the New York Times reported on Obamacare as recently as October 18 under the headline: "Unable to Meet the Deductible or the Doctor."

The article interviewed and outlined a number of people for whom Obamacare is a colassal failure and its safe to say their stories are true for most who decided to enroll which is why 97.8% of the uninsured in America after looking at what was being offered chose not to. 

Patricia Wanderlich needed brain scan monitoring, but the policy she bought under Obamacare, a bronze policy, the cheapest offered, came with a $6,000 deductible, meaning her medical expenses were not going to be fully covered until she spent $6,000 out of pocket. So she is skipping the brain scan. She cant afford it under the Affordable Care Act.

The deductibles on these plans run from $5-6,000 for individuals to $10,000 for families. And remember that under the wonders of the ACA, these are for plans on the lowest tier, healthcare reform that was supposed to insure those who previously couldn't afford insurance.

The Times article quoted Katherine Hempstead director of health insurance coverage research for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who said, " unfortunately the people who are attracted to the lower premiums ( in the cheaper plans) are the ones who are going to have the most trouble coming up with the cost sharing if they want to use their insurance".

Whats worse, the deductibles for those who have employer sponsored health plans, those who didn't need Obamacare are considerably lower than the lowest Obamacare deductibles. on average of $1,217 a year compared to an average of $5,081 for an individual on the cheapest Obamacare policy and $10,386 for a family. This is the healthcare reform that Nancy Pelosi, doing her best Marie Antoinette impersonation recently called "affordable, affordable, affordable".

The anecdotal stories are a nightmare. People with low end Obamacare policies who had to use an emergency room getting bills for $1,000 for the ER visit because their Obamacare insurance wouldn't cover it. Had they had no Obamacare  insurance they would've gotten the same emergency room care for nothing.

Another who bought a bronze plan under Obamacare said, "$6,000 for a deductible? Do they think I have that under my mattress? Im just going to do what I can to stay healthy". So not only did Obamacare fail to cover almost 98% of those who couldn't afford health insurance, it provided little or nothing of value to those who decided to buy. Which is why the vast majority of Americans didn't.  In other words to most people Obamacare is worthless, justifying Howard Dean's characterization of it to begin with as "junk".

One of the most egregious examples of why Obamacare is 95% of everything the insurance companies wanted and is doing very few people any good compared to what the public option would have accomplished,  is the case of Dr. Rebecca Love in Moab, Utah. She has a host of self described health problems and her Obamacare insurance came with a $6,000 deductible. But after spending more than $6300 in out of pocket medical expenses she learned none of it was applicable to her deductible because the doctors she was seeing was not in her bronze plan network. In order to see those doctors she would have had to drive more than 100 miles each way.

All of this is for one reason:  Obama didn't have the integrity, the backbone, the principles or conviction to stand up for what was right and what was promised by both he and the Democrats in the public option, which was also a vastly superior healthcare reform policy and a policy that the majority in congress wanted along with the majority of the American people.

Obama had the votes to pass it but instead did what he has done time and time again during his presidency -- reneged on promises, backed down, caved in and sold out in the face of even the slightest pressure, this time to the health insurance lobby who leaned on him to drop the public option because it was going to cost them money.

This lack of conviction or principle or a willingness to stand up for both has been the hallmark of the Obama presidency. And the betrayal of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in going along with Obama's sell out is what cost the Democrats their majority in the House and eroded their majority in the senate.

Whether its about his weak and anemic foreign policy that consistantly backfired, whether on Syria,  being mistrusted by both the Israelis and Palestinians because of his public reversals of policy and so had no influence with either, being intimidated by Putin in Ukraine resulting in the annexation of Crimea and a wider war in the east, his failure to live up to his own red line over the use of chemical weapons against civilians,being caught unawares and napping with Isis, along with his domestic failures on any kind of meaningful gun safety legislation, the disastrous  Unaffordable Care Act,  his failure to close Gitmo and his expansion of NSA spying on Americans to name a few, any  Democrat running anywhere will go a lot further by honestly repudiating Obama and his failures including Obamacare,  than embracing Obama's presidency or trying to defend what can't be defended.

Obama's failures and how most Democratic voters feel about it predictably escapes every Democratic strategist and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee itself which is still sending out fund raising emails to Democratic voters to raise more money by offering free "Proud Obama Voter" bumper stickers for a president with a 43% approval rating and 65% who say the country is going in the wrong direction. Democratic political strategists at their best.

As for party loyalty, Democrats need to keep in mind that when health insurance policies started being cancelled, and Republicans began attacking Democrats and Obama over the promise " if you like your insurance you can keep your insurance", Obama preferred to put Democrats backs to the wall and take the hit to his credibility and approval rating rather than tell the truth: that he never made that promise about Obamacare, but said it about the public option in response to Republican attacks that the public option was a government take over of health care. That Obama would throw congressional Democrats under the bus rather than tell the truth, which would have invited comparisons between Obamacare and the public option he didnt want made, or how and why Obamacare became a substitute for the public option is all Democrats need to know about loyalty.

Standing up against and running against Republican policies is one thing. Supporting a failed, duplictious, less than honest and weak Obama presidency is another. And with the election only a few weeks away and polls showing Democratic candidate leads shrinking in many close elections, the only question for Democrats now is, is it too late?

POST ELECTION ADDENDUM:

I told you so.

Obama's Isis coaliton on ground troops: You first, no you first, no you first.

In the fight against Isis, Obama has used all the diplomatic skill at his disposal which is to say virtually none,  and managed to put together a coalition of the willing to hold everyone else's coat.

As Isis closes in on Khobani threatening another massacre while also closing in on Baghdad Airport, the issue continues to be one of ground troops.

There is no one with any knowledge or military expertise who has not said that there is no defeating or destroying Isis without the implementation of ground troops. And the most logical source of ground troops to fight Isis is also the most illogical -- the Iraqi army.

A current map of Iraq showing the territory Isis has already taken says enough about the ability of the Iraqi army to take on Isis. And many blame the pull out of U.S. troops in 2011 as the primary reason contrary to Obama's assertion that he had no choice, that Malaki insisted on the removal of all U.S. troops. Everyone in a position to know from former Secretaries of Defense Gates and Panetta as well as members of congress have said Obama could have left a residual force if had the will. 

While the U.S. said they will now train the Iraqis, it will take 5-6 months to accomplish that and even then there is no guarantee it will be adequate. 

As for the coalition, the country best in a position to send ground troops to fight Isis at the moment is Turkey. Except Turkey has said they will not send ground troops into Iraq or Syria to fight Isis because no other NATO member has sent in ground troops.

Turkey has also made it a condition that the U.S.  must get involved militarily in Syria against Assad, something Obama had been advised to do 3 years ago by arming the moderate Syrian rebels and rejected. Turkey is also demanding the U.S. establish a no fly zone in Syria, effectively grounding Assad's ability to carry out air assaults, something that had also been recommended to Obama 3 years ago but that he rejected. As if that isn't bad enough, Turkey is now bombarding the Kurds, the only meaningful military resistance on the ground against Isis and doing it over Obama's pleas, over escalating long standing disputes between Turkey and the Kurds. 

So far no other NATO country has been willing to put in ground troops. And while a wave of former high ranking military commanders in the U.S. have gone public recently saying the U.S. has to put ground troops into the battle to destroy Isis, the most recent being former Maj. General and Commandant of the Marine Corps James Conway, Obama has said repeatedly he will not send ground troops to fight Isis, effectively putting himself in a box.

Without any U.S. leadership in dealing with Isis its unlikely any other country will be willing to take the lead and move first.

FBI and other intelligence assessments are that the current air strikes are having little effect on stopping the Isis advance. Nor will it.  It has damaged or destroyed some heavy weapons but has not prevented Isis from controlling 80% of Khobani and moving within 8 miles of Baghdad airport where there are some 200 U.S. troops.

The Pentagon has admitted that the air strikes have only destroyed some command and control and Isis training facilities . But the Isis fighters taking ground in Iraq and Syria  are no longer going through training, they are out there killing. So the air strikes are bombing empty training facilities and will do nothing to change anything on the ground.

So Isis continues to roll with the Kurds the only effective fighting force on the ground providing effective resistance but only in the territory they currently control.

Turkey has agreed to train 4000 Syrian rebels but that will take months. The Iraqi army is still for the most part inadequate. And no one involved in Obama's coalition of the willing to hold someone else's coat seems to be inclined to send in ground troops against Isis -- not Jordan, not the Saudis, not Turkey not France, the UK, Germany or Italy. Everyone is waiting for someone else to go first.

The decision to send in U.S. ground troops which is being advocated by military leaders as well as some members of congress while others oppose it, isn't a difficult decision based on one factor. Is Isis a real threat to the U.S. mainland or not? If not then the U.S. has no business sending in ground troops to defend a region that should be defending itself. If Isis is a real threat to the UK, France and other European countries and countries in the Middle East like the Saudis and Jordan, then they should bear the brunt of the fight with U.S. support.

But, if those inside the U.S. government in a position to know believe Isis is or will be a legitimate threat to the U.S. mainland if they are not destroyed as they have said,  if it is in our interests to stop Isis for our own good and not just humanitarian reasons or to protect other countries,  then we should never be put in a position of asking or counting on anyone else to do our fighting for us when no one can do it as effectively as our military.  Which makes Obama's declaration of never putting in U.S. ground troops as political, myopic, ineffective and ill advised as his original bad decisions and inaction in Syria that created the current situation in the first place.

Obama's insistence that there will be no U.S. troops on the ground regardless of circumstances is not just short sighted but seems to be related to a condition of acronymophobia -- a  fear of acronyms and what they stand for because the acronym for Boots On the Ground is BOG.

NOTE: In running a Google search on "Isis" and "Isis fighters" for an image to use with this post I came across images never shown by any mainstream news organization print or TV, and so probably never seen by most people,  that were so brutal,  so grotesque and so violent that if these images were widely seen and a real threat by Isis to the U.S. mainland was established it would likely change the minds of many who currently say they oppose the use of U.S. ground troops to destroy Isis.

The intelligence failure on Isis belonged to Obama.

Bush did it after 911. He did it again when no WMD was ever found in Iraq. And now, like Bush before him Obama has taken a leaf from the same playbook and tried to dodge responsibility for his failures and lousy judgement and poor decision making in dealing with Syria, Iraq and Isis  in a 60 Minutes interview.

In that interview he tried to blame his lack of preparedness, his lack of a plan for Syria, his surprise over the lack of fight by the Iraqi military and his inadequate policies that led to the threat that Isis  has become, on what Obama called "intelligence failures". 

It was the intelligence agencies, Obama claimed, who underestimated the strength of Isis and their growth and is the reason Obama was caught off guard and unprepared. And the reason his policies over the last three years failed and produced the threat today known as Isis.

It didnt take long after Obama's interview when an unusual thing happened -- the intelligence services hit back, something they almost never do, and provided reporters with information that contradicted everything Obama had tried to claim in his interview.

Then the usually docile lap-doggish news media did something Obama hadn't counted on either. They started showing archival video of both military and intelligence officials testifying publicly at congressional committee hearings over the last three years, warning of the threat of Isis, recommeding the arming of the moderate Syrian rebels and warning about the void in Iraq left by the total departure of U.S. troops.

Obama also had to contend with Hillary Clinton and then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta  pointing out, that they had both advised Obama  three years ago to arm the moderate Syrian rebels to help them fight against both Assad and against the growing threat of Al-Qaeda in Syria where they had gained a foothold and of which Isis was then a part. Obama refused. He even refused to back up his own threat against Assad of using a missile strike if Assad used chemical weapons,  instead deciding he should ask congress to vote on whether or not he should have permission to back up his word. 

It was also less than a year ago when the threat of Isis was again brought to Obama's attention that he referred to them as "the junior varsity",brushed them off as insignificant and did nothing. He blamed that on intelligence failures too.

 Obama was half right. It was an intelligence failure that enabled Isis to become the force that it is now.  But it was his intelligence failure , something we've seen time and time again, whether it was not living up to his Red Line on chemical weapons which also had the effect of  emboldening Putin in Ukraine or his weak response to Putin's Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea. Not to mention his caving in to the health insurance industry with healthcare reform and dropping the public option.

But , predictably, with Obama now facing stinging rebukes at every turn, including the latest from Panetta,  it didn't take long for Obama to  try and reverse himself and once again go into damage control as he has in the past.

Rather than blame the current situation on intelligence failures as he did originally, he has tried to claim that what he really meant was that the intelligence services didnt and couldn't predict the quick collapse of the Iraqi army and their inability to stand up to Isis.  He was wrong on both counts.

Leon Panetta has said very publicly and very recently that he told Obama in 2011 that he opposed pulling all the troops out of Iraq warning that it would create a vacuum that would leave Iraq vulnerable to exactly the kind of threat Isis poses now and with the political vacuum also caused by Maliki, Panetta pointed out that it was not surprising that Iraqi soldiers didn't know who or what they were fighting for elected to desert and go back to their families rather than take a bullet for a government it didn't respect. 

And the criticism has continued to get  worse for Obama. A spokesman for the Syrian Emergency Task Force in Washington D.C.  recently told CNN the same thing -- the void created by the total pull out of U.S. troops in 2011 when a residual force should have stayed ( despite Obama's claim that he had no choice ) is what allowed Isis to flourish and get the upper hand in Iraq. He echoed Panetta virtually word for word by  pointing out that had Obama adopted the same policy three years ago that he is adopting now,  the same policy that Clinton and Panetta and others had advocated, there wouldnt be an Isis today.

Despite his assertions to the contrary, in the last week Obama's public face has been hit with pies coming   from all directions, the most damaging from Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta, the two most important members of Obama's cabinet in his first term.  Panetta has also recently criticized Obama for his current decison to take U.S. ground troops off the table not only because it sounds more like a political decision than tactical and also tells the enemy what Obama will and will not do, but even more importantly, because air strikes will not be decisive as they are proving and only ground troops, most notably U.S. troops, are really capable of destroying Isis if they are the real threat to U.S.  national security others say they are.

But none of this has stopped Obama from continuing to make public pronouncements that  duck responsibility for his lack of preparedness in dealing with Isis and the collapse of the Iraqi military, even at times blaming media coverage while trying  to ignore the meringue all over his face. Which  doesn't bode well for doing what may be needed in the future to destroy Isis.  Any more, as Panetta pointed out,  than Obama's backing down over his Red Line on the use of chemical weapons or his  tepid sanctions against Russia were effective against Assad or stopping Putin. 

But instead of continuing to be in denial,  Obama could help begin to  restore his credibility if he at least took the first step. And asked for a towel.

ADDENDUM: Jimmy Carter has now joined the pie throwing and has publicly criticized Obama for waiting too long and ignoring for three years both the threat of Isis and advice from the top people in his cabinet and the military.  The Joint Chiefs also have admitted the air strikes will have no affect on the battlefield and are limited to targeting command and control and oil reserves which serves to finance Isis. They also said yesterday it will be at least 5-6 months before they are finished training the Iraqi military with no guarantee even then that they will be an effective fighting force,  and while the U.S. now has a brigade force on the ground in Iraq, some members of congress has said that the Joint Chiefs have privately told Obama they are going to need more U.S. ground troops in Iraq to do the job militarily if destroying Isis is really the goal.

ANOTHER VOICE AND ANOTHER PIE:

Retired former Commandant of the  Marine Corps. general James Conway has now joined the melee  and thrown his pie, saying that Obama's current strategy in Syria against Isis,
" doesnt have a snowballs' chance in hell" of succeeding. As for Iraq, he is a bit more optimitic but not much. He stated that with a new government in Iraq, with the U.S. training Iraqi forces,(which wont be ready to fight for 5 months), with the Kurds committed to fighting Isis on the ground, and U.S. air support, with all of that  "there is a  60% chance" of Obama's strategy in Iraq working. Which doesnt exactly inspire confidence if Isis is in fact a threat to U.S. national security and destroying Isis is the goal.

Are Democrats heading for an October Surprise on Obamacare?

The above graph shows the impact of Obamacare after its first year and how well it did in solving one of the two biggest problems that healthcare reform was supposed to accomplish -- getting coverage for 50 million uninsured Americans.

The dark bars show the percentage of uninsured Americans by region before Obamacare in 2013, and the

the light blue shows the effect of Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act on the percentage of uninsured Americans after it's first year. As anyone can see, the reduction of uninsured Americans represented by the blue bars as a result of the ACA is nothing short of pathetic,  virtually insignificant everywhere except the south, where the number of uninsured has, instead of going down, actually skyrocketed. This is what the Obama administration and many in the media and Obama sycophants at sites like Daily Kos have been trying to pass off as success.

While Obama has taken a lot of deserved criticism over the last year for his spectacular display of weakness in foreign policy especially in Syria with Assad and Putin and Ukraine, and practically had to be shamed into taking stronger  action against Isis after doing nothing for 3 years rejecting the advice of his smartest advisors, his  first, biggest, most significant and perhaps most lasting display of weakness came on healthcare reform when he caved in to the insurance lobby who opposed the public option and dropped it, and in a cynical bait and switch gave the country Obamacare instead, a law essentially written by and for the health insurance industry themselves which he hoped would get the Republicans off his back.   Even though he had the votes in congress to pass the public option which the majority of Americans and the congress had wanted.

In 2010, once Obama signaled he would capitulate to the health insurance lobby and drop the public option  with a replacement bill  written by the health insurance lobby (see the Frontline documentary "Obama's Deal"),  I wrote a peice in August of 2010 that predicted that if Pelosi and Reid didn't take health care reform away from Obama and pass the public option anyway so that Obama was in the position of either signing it or vetoing it (which he couldn't do politically),  Democrats would get wiped out of congress in the 2010 elections. They didnt, and that is exactly what happened. 

And now both politically and as policy,  the Obama administration and some Democrats are trying to put lipstick on a pig when it comes to Obamcare.

When the insurance exchanges closed in March, the Obama Administration announced, crowed really, that 8 million people had bought insurance through the exchanges. Democrats were being urged by both Nancy Pelosi and Obama to run on Obamacare in November and some on the left , like many of the Obama sycophants at so called "progressive" web sites like Daily Kos, were and still are, gloating that Republican attacks on Obamacare have failed and will even backfire because of Obamacare's "success".

But despite dishonest statistics put out by the Obama administration that the news media and Obama supporters swallow whole, Obamacare has failed miserably in what healthcare reform was supposed to accomplish as the graph above proves. 

Obamacare failed completely to fix the two major issues healthcare reform was intended to fix --  getting coverage for the 50 million Americans who have no health care coverage,(which drives up the cost of healthcare for everyone)  based on the idea that healthcare should be a right not a privilige, and bringing down the insane, out of control costs of healthcare for Americans who did have coverage.

A year after Obamacare's implementation, with what even the White House conceded were unattractive low end health care plans that had high premiums and skimpy coverage, the percentage of the 50 million  uninsured Americans who recieved coverage through Obamacare was, according to the Gallup Well Point Well Being Index, 2.2%. That is what Obama and Obamacare sycophants are trying to call success.

That is a decrease of only 1.2 million out of 50 million. And most of those were in the older and sicker category. The remaining 48.8 million uninsured Americans looked at what was being offered by Obamacare and turned away, preferring, if that's what it comes to, to pay the penalty.

Since it might be fair to assume that most of the 50 million uninsured are potential Democratic voters, the fact that Obamacare has  done nothing for them doesn't bode well for any Democrat trying to run on Obamacare's virtues in November and who tries to call it a success.

With low end so called bronze and silver healthcare plans carrying premiums ranging as high as $600 a month for a single person in New York City,  rural Georgia and other markets with little competition that come with $6,000 deductibles and 40% co-pays, the vast majority of the 32 million younger, healthier uninsured also said no thanks, they'll take their chances.  Only 2.8%  of those 32 million, or less than 900,000 according to the Gallup Well Being Index, purchased policies in Obamacare's first year. And according to experts, signing up those 32 million is neccessary to keep premiums from skyrocketing for everyone else under the Affordable Care Act.

As for the 8 million claimed by the Obama administration as proof of Obamacare's success, that also is bogus. Even taking that number on its face, Obamacare  would be a failure. But that 8 million figure is far from real. That number was based on total applications submitted for health insurance not actual enrollments.

According to the insurance companies, about 20% of those applicants failed to send in their first month's premium invalidating their applications which brings the actual number down from 8 million to 6.4 million. But  it was also discovered that about 5% (possibly more)  filed multiple applications because of web site glitches bringing the total number down another 400,000 to 6 million or less. But wait, as they say in the telebrand commercials, there's more. Many applying for health insurance falsified their  income on applications to get insurance subsidies they didn't qualify for and are being rejected. That number is still being tabulated by the IRS, matching income reported on the insurance applications with filed tax returns,  but  it will certainly bring down the number of actual people getting insurance through Obamacare even further, perhaps to a little over 5 million. Substantially below even the original 7 million target which was in itself a ridiculous and politically motivated low ball standard much less the 8 million claimed.

Sometime in October the health insurance companies will announce their premiums for 2015. Some have already started. They will, naturally,  vary from state to state. But Obamacare apologists are already trying to trumpet an 8%  increase in premiums expected in many markets as proof of Obamacare's success in terms of slowing the increases in healthcare premiums which flies in the face of one of healthcare reform's primary goals  --  to bring down the cost of healthcare, not label as success the insane costs of health care getting more insane but at a slower rate.

Higher premiums by insurance companies, or to keep premiums stable, reducing the quality of coverage by increasing co-pays and out of pockets,  could cause any Democrat trying to run on Obamacare a  major problem. Especially since there is also talk that some markets could see increases in healthcare premiums by as much as 17%. Or more. Everyone will know by the end of October.

Since all politics are local, in districts that see significant increases in health care premiums or costs, Democrats who have been blindly supporting Obamacare could be in big trouble if they continue to call it a success since by any measure, Obamacare has been an abject failure compared to what the public option would have produced. And higher premiums could produce an October Surprise for Democrats they are unprepared for.

Not too long ago, Nancy Pelosi stood at a podium and reminded Democrats running in November that the first word in the Affordable Care Act was "affordable".  "Affordable, affordable, affordable" Pelosi repeated from the podium like a kindergarten teacher trying to drum a vocabulary lesson into the heads of five year olds. And she exorted Democrats to go back to their constituents and run on the success of Obamacare.  Except for the 48.8 million who still have no healthcare coverage because they still can't afford it, Pelosi sounded a lot more like Marie Antoinette than FDR.

So unless Democrats  running in November are willing to publicly admit Obamacare's failures and shortcomings and repudiate it (while still pointing out that Republicans opposed any healthcare reform at all),   and publicly pledge to revive the public option to replace it, they and the Democratic party might find that they can't afford Nancy Pelosi's idea of affordable either. 

Forget Ray Rice. Anheuser-Busch wasn't "disappointed" when the NFL reinstated Dante Stallworth after he killed a man while driving drunk.

After the second Ray Rice video became public, there was a mad PR scramble by the NFL, the Ravens, the usual bandwagon jumping suspects in the news media who never stick their necks out for anything unless they feel its safe, and last but certainly not least, we had a word from the sponsors. Lots of sponsors. Lots of words. 

The most recent and the most publicized was from Anheuser-Busch, those wonderful folks who bring us beer commercials that look and sound like they were created by people who flunked intelligence tests, who, as a major sponsor of sports events, especially the NFL, reacted to both the Rice incident and the Adrian Peterson arrest by issuing a press release that included the sentence:

"We are not yet satisfied with the NFL's handling of behaviors that go so against our own company's culture and moral code".

The problem with their statement, and the real problem with how the NFL handles societal and criminal matters could be traced back to 2009 and the NFL's handling of Dante Stallworth and his suspension and relatively quick reinstatement after pleading guilty to killing someone while driving drunk. It was also  an incident, that for Anheuser-Busch given their reaction at the time compared to their reactions now, could lead to criticism that their "company's own culture and moral code" didn't include killing someone while driving drunk.

In 2009 Cleveland wide reciever Dante Stallworth killed a pedestrian 

while driving drunk in his Bentley in South Beach in Miami. It came after a night of drinking at the Fountainbleu Hotel and ended at 7:10 a.m. when, driving back to his hotel,  he ran down and killed 59 year old Mario Reyes , a crane operator who was crossing the street rushing to catch a bus to get to work. Stallworth's blood alcohol level at the time was 1.26. The legal limit in Florida was 0.08.

The first outrage, which had nothing to do with the NFL but might have influenced their reaction,  was the Miami prosecutor allowing Stallworth to plead guilty to manslaughter in a deal that saw  Stallworth receive a sentence of 30 days in jail. For killing someone. While driving drunk. Yes, 250 hours of community service too. But he killed someone. It was a working stiff, crossing the street, trying to catch a bus to get to his job to provide for his family when Stallworth, driving at 50 mph and over the speed limit, ran him down in his Bentley while stone drunk.  That was good for 30 days in jail.

After pleading guilty to manslaughter, the NFL issued a statement saying they would review the matter for possible disciplinary action. Possible. As in, you know, maybe killing someone rises to the level of an offense requiring NFL discipline and maybe it doesn't. It certainly didnt rise to the level of Anheuser-Busch putting out any statements about behaviors that go against their company's moral code.

In the end Goodell gave Stallworth a 6 month suspension and he was reinstated to the NFL in Feburary of 2010, 8 months after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

No outrage by the news media or at Anheuser-Busch or any other NFL sponsor over Stallworth's lenient treatment.  No expression of "disappointment" from Anheuser-Busch. Or anyone else. Except maybe the family of Mario Reyes.

 So don't be fooled. Everyone who is now coming out the woodwork against domestic violence, from the usual sheep in the news media to Radison Hotels, Anheuser Busch and even Obama who felt the need to once again insinuate himself into a situation where no one asked him and where he has no place,  arent coming out against domestic violence -- they are feeding off it.

They are feeding off it commercially or politically.Because it's all about  PR or an attempt to avoid bad PR. So no  one deserves a pat on the back. In fact a fair person might even say Ray Rice has shown more remorse and more honest contrition and a willingess to stand up and face the music and accept the punishment and public scorn for what he did than the NFL or any of its sponsors.

Domestic violence has been in the public consciousness for a long time. And while domestic violence, especially against women,  was swept under the rug for centuries its been out in the open as a societal and legal cancer for decades. More than 30 years ago there was even a TV movie made about the Rideout case, a landmark case on domestic violence which focused on whether a husband could be found guilty of raping his wife. A jury for the first time in history said yes.  There were many other cases related to domestic violence that had gotten wide spread media attention decades ago. Its not new. So when either the NFL or the Ravens or the news media or sponsors say they are reacting because they hadnt seen the second Ray Rice video, who are they kidding? What was in the second video they didn't already know? What havent they known for decades?

The first video showed Rice dragging his future wife out of an elevator as she was laying face down, out cold. Everyone knew how she got there. The second video was nothing new of any substance. What  was new was actually seeing Rice throw the jab in the elevator that knocked her out. What followed after the second video became public was a mad scramble to save face and a lot of Olympic bandwagon jumping, the result of a  See Dick Hit Jane mentality that created a PR nightmare for everyone concerned.

It wasn't that the second video made Rice look bad. The first video already did that.  What the second video did was make everybody else look bad. It made the two game suspension look bad. It made the "boys will be boys" attitude of both the NFL and its sponsors look bad. So now everyone is scrambling. And it comes off as Mickey Rooney saying, "hey kids lets be against domestic violence."

The real question is why did anyone expect anything different? Which leaves all the nonsense being written in editorials and empty headed agenda driven opinion pieces,missing the point by a mile.

Lets not get into a spitting match over which societal evil is worse, but for decades drunk driving has been treated as a minor offense when it is in fact domestic terrorism and should be treated as a felony even as a first offense. Every year more than 17,000 people are killed by drunk drivers.That's six 911 attacks every year. The number of people killed by drunk drivers every year is also 3 times the number of combat soldiers killed in the bloodiest year of the Viet Nam war. Every year. And in every case it was not the first time the driver had been arrested for driving drunk. Most had a multitude of prior drunk driving arrests. But never any jail time. Had they been sent to jail the first time, tens of thousands of people would be alive today who were killed by drunk drivers.

So if you can get reinstated  in the NFL after killing someone after  driving drunk, something that drew no outrage in 2010 by all those who are "outraged" now,  it shouldn't have come as a surprise that Rice was given a 2 game suspension for throwing a punch at his wife.

A few months ago Jim Irsay, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts was arrested, booked and pled guilty to DWI. His NFL punishment -- a six game suspension.  There were no protests from Anheuser-Busch about behaviors that go against their moral codes.  And no outrage in the news media. Or anyone else.

No one should be giving Goodell any pats on the back. But no one should have acted like this was some kind of new example of outrageously lenient treatment. Goodell said he got it wrong with the Rice suspension. Where Goodell and all the news media pontificators got it wrong was in 2009 with Dante Stallworth. And a few weeks ago with Jim Isray which also drew no outrage by the professionally outraged.  And they probably will keep ignoring it. At least until someone from the NFL kills someone again driving drunk. And there is video that shows it.

The 911 Memorials: absence of Bush, Rice or Cheney is as close to a confession as anyone will ever get.

As 911 Memorial services on the 13th anniversary of the attacks take place in New York City, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania,attended by first responders, families,  dignitaries and officials including previous New York city mayors and presidents Clinton and Obama along with current Secretary of  Defense Hagel,  conspicuous by their absence,not just on this day, but at any memorial event commemorating the September 11 attacks since leaving office, was the president and members of his administration under whose watch 911 happened.

George W. Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush Administration on whose watch the 911 attacks occurred did not attend any of the ceremonies, nor did they attend the dedication to the 911 Memorial and Museum this past March which included the two presidents who held office before and after the attacks. Nor have they attended any 911 memorials or ceremonies since leaving office. None.

If one thinks it unusual, that of all the people to be absent from any 911 Memorial or ceremonies of remembrance, that it would be George W. Bush, Rice, and Dick Cheney, it's not only not unusual, it's fitting. And is as much of an admission, a confession really,  by Bush, Rice and Cheney that were it not for their catastrophically bad judgement and gross negligence,as revealed in the hearings by the 911 Commission, there would have been no need for a 911 Memorial.Because there would have been no 911 attack.

The evidence presented at the 911 Commission hearings was overwhelming that  Bush, Rice and Cheney had more than enough intelligence which, had they acted would have prevented the 911 attacks. Though Bush tried to scapegoat and blame the intelligence community for the failures, the 911 Commission proved the only intelligence failures were at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Not the least of which was intelligence that not only told Bush and Rice that a "spectacular"(in the words of the CIA translation )  attack  by Al Qaeda against the U.S. was  imminent, but  a report that told Bush and Rice on August 6, 2001, that the method of the attack was going to involve the hijacking of U.S. airliners.( a copy of the brief can be found by Googling "August 6 2001 PDB").  And they did nothing.

When Rice was grilled in front of the 911 Commission by counsel Richard Ben Vineste and asked why, with the intelligence that Al-Qaeda was going to attack within the United States and after being told by CIA director George Tenant that CIA intercepts of Al Qaeda chatter indicated an attack was imminent, and that part of the attack involved hijackings that she and Bush did nothing, her stupefying answer was, " we had no idea they were going to use the planes as missiles". Presumably hostages would have been okay.

It is also important to remember that while the news media has given almost wall to wall coverage of the events in Ferguson and the domestic assault involving Ray Rice and his wife,  proof that the 911 attacks, one of the most life altering events in American history, could have been easily prevented was virtually ignored by the media out of sheer cowardice knowing that had they held Bush,Rice and Cheney  accountable Republicans would have attacked them as "the liberal media" being unpatriotic in a time of war. Democrats as well kept quiet afraid Republicans would accuse them of politicizing the attack (Benghazi anyone?).   Ironically one of the only media outlets not to ignore it was the conservative Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post.

Most news outlets  never held anyone accountable for the catastrophically bad judgement and gross negligence of Bush, Cheney and Condoleeza Rice, in their dismissal of terrorism as a threat from the very beginning  and simply ignoring any and all intelligence related to Al Qaeda prior to 911 based on their belief that the Clinton administration had exaggerated the threat when,  had they taken the intelligence seriously,  the  911 attacks would have been easily prevented. As well as everything that came after, from Iraq to Afghanistan. And Bush, Rice and Cheney know it.

Which is why the absence of Bush, Rice, Cheney or  anyone connected to the Bush administration at any 911 memorial today or any time, is as close to a real admission as anyone will ever get.