Obama Gets Rolled Again - Or Does He?

The fiscal deal cliff details are emerging and once again, it looks like Obama has gotten "rolled" on almost everything.

First, Paul Krugman:

Anyone looking at these negotiations, especially given Obama’s previous behavior, can’t help but reach one main conclusion: whenever the president says that there’s an issue on which he absolutely, positively won’t give ground, you can count on him, you know, giving way — and soon, too. The idea that you should only make promises and threats you intend to make good on doesn’t seem to be one that this particular president can grasp.

And that means that Republicans will go right from this negotiation into the debt ceiling in the firm belief that Obama can be rolled.

At that point he can redeem himself by holding firm — but because the Republicans don’t think he will, they will play tough, almost surely forcing him to actually hit the ceiling with all the costs that entails. And look, if I were a Republican I would also be betting that he’ll cave.

So Obama has set himself and the nation up for a much uglier confrontation than we would have had if he had set a negotiating position and held to it.

And then Jon Walker at Firedoglake:

First, it signals to the GOP that Obama simple can’t draw lines in the sand. If Obama says he will not negotiate on something (say, the debt ceiling), any Republicans would be foolish to believe he won’t. Obama has never held firm before, and there is no reason to expect him to in the future.

Second, it again reinforced that the best negotiation tactic with Obama is for the Republicans to be purposely disingenuous. The GOP should pretend to be close to a deal so Obama publicly says what concessions he will make, only to have the GOP predictably blow up the deal. After that, the GOP can start negotiations again but use Obama’s concessions as the new goal posts.

After Obama again reinforced his image of weakness, I shudder to think how the next fight will go when Democrats inherently have significantly less leverage.

Even administration mouthpiece Ezra Klein realizes Obama got rolled:

When these negotiations began, the White House was unyielding on that point, with the president promising to veto anything that didn’t raise tax rates for income over $250,000. Asked by House Speaker John Boehner what he’d trade for $800 billion in revenue — about the cost of the high-income Bush tax cuts — Obama was firm. ”You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”

To make matters worse for Republicans, the Senate had already passed a bill letting those cuts expire back in July because Minority Leader Mitch McConnell figured it would be too politically damaging to block. If Mitt Romney had won the election, that bill would have died. But after Obama won on a platform that was barely about anything aside from letting those tax cuts expire, it seemed inevitable he’d get it done. It was his due.

To the GOP’s delight, that no longer seems to be the case. In the Obama-Boehner negotiations, the White House offered to raise the threshold from $250,000 to $400,000. McConnell, in his negotiations with Harry Reid and now Joe Biden, has been trying to raise that to $500,000. It’s clear to the Republicans that they will get past the fiscal cliff with a smaller tax increase than they thought. Perhaps much smaller. Huzzah!

That will set up a fight over the debt ceiling. The Republicans plan to say that now that they broke their pledge and voted for a tax increase, they’ll insist on a dollar of spending cuts for every dollar of debt-ceiling increase — the so-called “Boehner rule”. The White House plans to insist that it won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling at all.

Republicans I’ve spoken to laugh at this bluster. Obama is already negotiating over the debt ceiling, they point out. He began the fiscal cliff negotiations by saying he wanted a permanent solution to the debt ceiling. Then it was a two-year increase in the debt limit. Now he’s going to sign off on a mini-deal that doesn’t increase the debt ceiling at all. Does that really sound like someone who’s going to hold firm when faced with global economic chaos? The White House always talks tough at the beginning of negotiations and then always folds at the end. Republicans are confident that the debt ceiling will be no different.

All this raises the tantalizing prospect for Republicans that they could end these negotiations having given up less tax revenue than they ever thought possible — less tax revenue than Boehner offered Obama, even — but still getting their entitlement cuts. Oh, and because there was never a big deal, they won’t have to agree to much stimulus, either. All in all, a pretty big win, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the White House’s baffling inability to stick to a negotiating position.

I have to think that the administration didn't stick to a negotiating position because the man at the top, Mr. We Need To Re-Elect Him Or The World Will End, didn't want the administration to stick to a position.

He wanted to cave on the Bush tax cuts, the inheritance tax, the payroll tax cut, everything.

Obama caved on every contested issue because that's what he wanted to do.

Watch how Obama takes a position in education reform and sticks to it NO MATTER WHAT.

Doesn't matter what evidence comes in to show that Race to the Top is horrible policy, Common Core is common crap, test-based evaluations of teachers are harmful to students, and merit pay doesn't work.

Obama believes in these positions and he sticks to them no matter what.

Of course it helps that in the education reform fight, Obama plays the role of the tough negotiator - the Republican, if you will - while teachers and teachers unions and progressive educators play the part of Obama - the waffling "Oh, what do you want, we'll give it to you if you'll love us more!" role.

Perhaps if the teachers unions and teachers themselves treated Obama with the disdain that Republicans treat him, they might  get some concessions on his privatization agenda out of him.

Of course this won't work post-election, but it surely could have worked pre-election - especially when they were panicking after that first debate.

But instead the NEA endorsed him a year and a half out and well-respected progressive people claimed a Romney presidency was "unthinkable" and so we had to vote for Obama no matter how bad he is and the AFT joined the NEA and other unions in GOTV and other efforts to get their man re-elected.

And he rewarded all of this by selling middle and working class Americans down the river, by giving GOPer's almost everything they wanted in the fiscal cliff deal, and he inevitably will do the same when the debt ceiling fight starts in a few months - only that time, he will be selling us out on Social Security and Medicare too.

Either he is one bad poker player or these outcomes are the very ones he wants, only because he is nominally a "Democrat" he has to make believe like he wants something more progressive.

I know a lot of people think he's the former, that he really does have a progressive heart but he just can't stand up to Republicans.

I think it's the latter - he's a moderate Republican at heart and these are the outcomes he wants - lower taxes for rich people, Social Security and Medicare cuts for working people.

Either way, the outcomes are bad for the vast majority of Americans and they will get even worse when the debt ceiling fight starts.

Again I ask, where are all those progressives who claimed they wouldn't let the president sell out progressive principles during the second term?

Sure, they're complaining - but it ain't doing much good, is it?

POSTSCRIPT: A commenter at the Daily Kos puts all this in perspective:

Obama has been very clear in his support of neo-liberal Rubinite economics. He has completely ignored Krugman and Steiglitz. He has kept pretty much the same econ policies as Bill Clinton.

There is no evidence that Obama is a progressive on econ. None.

This whole fiscal cliff performance is theater to get us to accept policies that benefit billionaires and bring cuts to seniors, the middle class and the poor.

That's exactly right.

I think my anger tonight is less at Obama, who is after all acting the same way he has for the last four years, and more at all the progressives and liberals who got their shorts in an uproar over the 2012 election.

This was the guy we had to re-elect?

Hell, he's pushed through more neo-liberal policies than Bush ever dreamed of.

We got food stamp cuts, a health care "reform" law that forces people to buy private insurance, public school privatization programs masking as "reform," - and Social Security and Medicare cuts are coming next.

Just as it took Bill Clinton to end welfare as we know it, it took Barack Obama to sell out what little safety net remains for working and middle class Americans.

Oh, but you know what isn't going to be cut?

The defense budget.

The surveillance state budget.

The drone bomb budget.

Oh no -we just can't cut that stuff.

So shut up and eat your generic dog food from the 99 cents store with the 2009 expiration date, okay!

This is all for your own good.

Obama Administration Thinks Its Doing a Heckuva Job On Education Policy

That's the only takeaway I get from this Jon Stewart interview with Melody Barnes.

Barnes actually claimed that the Obama Race to the Top program is a change from the "cookie cutter" approach to education that No Child Left Behind took.

Stewart didn't agree:

Stewart asked Barnes, who is leaving her post as director of Obama’s Domestic Policy Council at the end of the year, what she was most proud of. She singled out the administration’s education policies, both K-12 and higher education, though Stewart steered the converation to the former.

When Barnes said that “we are turning schools around” and that the multi-billion-dollar Race to the Top competition is a paradigm shift away from the “cookie cutter approach” to education than the prescriptive No Child Left Behind, Stewart was clearly not buying it.

“The biggest complaint I hear from teachers, and by teachers I mean my mom... A) Why did you wear that shirt? and B) the teaching to the test. This idea that this Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, these benchmarks that have been given from Washington have caused schools to focus entirely on whatever benchmark or requirement they need to get funding, and it has removed from education the, I guess what you’d call it, the educating.”

How did Barnes respond?

With Orwellian jive:

“That’s what we’re trying to turn around. No Child Left Behind had that cookie cutter one-size-fits-all approach to education. And instead what we’ve done through Race to the Top, and most recently because Congress wouldn’t move on reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act and turning it around, we’ve used our flexibility in the executive branch to say, ‘You’ve got some relief if you are going to put in place some smart reforms from those mandates from No Child Left Behind so there’s more flexiblity, there’s more innovation, there’s more creativity so teachers can in fact teach.”

Oh, sure, there's flexibility to teach - so long as you add standardized tests to every subject in every grade and use the scores to evaluate teachers and schools, fire the "bad" teachers and close the "bad" schools.

But otherwise, the system is totally flexible and leaves lots of room for innovation.

Valerie Strauss notes Stewart could have lowered the hammer here on Barnes and called her on her lies, as he once did with Cramer from CNBC, but he chose to go easy on her:

“So your feedback... The feedback I’m getting is that Race to the Top has intensified the issue, not alleviated it, but I guess the people I talk to don’t work in the White House.”

It's a shame that Stewart let her off easy.

This was a great opportunity for somebody in the mainstream media, somebody who makes his living exposing political hypocrisy and chicanery, to show that he understands that the Obama administration's claim that Race to the Top and its other education policies are completely different from No Child Left Behind and are alleviating all the federal mandates is horseshit.

Maybe the next time Duncan goes on Stewart's show, Stewart can note how full of shit Duncan was with his pronouncement that 82% of the country's schools are failing and ask him how students, parents, and teachers can trust the administration's metrics on schools and teachers when they can't get the NCLB AYP numbers even close?

How Is The Mitch Daniels Education Policy Different Than The Barack Obama Education Policy?

In short, it isn't.

Progressives are all up in arms over the privatization plan Indiana governor Mitch Daniels signed into law this week.

Here is the program, via Blue Texan at Firedoglake:

The legislative reform package backed by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels opens the door to more charter schools; creates the most expansive private school voucher program in the country; and limits teachers’ collective bargaining to wages and wage-related benefits. Also, Daniels on Saturday signed legislation that overhauls teacher evaluations and links teacher pay to student performance.

The Barack Obama Race to the Top policy has also opened the door to more charter schools and helped link teacher evaluations and pay to test scores in many states (including my own - New York.)

In addition, by demonizing the public school system as a "drop-out factory" and public schools teachers as "failures," Obama and his Secretary of Education Privatization Arne Duncan have set in motion an environment where public schools that serve high needs students and communities are starved of needed funds and resources and eventually closed.

In some cases, those closed schools are replaced by for-profit charter schools. In some cases the cases the money that was going to the closed schools now goes to a voucher school program.

In either case, traditional public schools and teachers are demonized, marginalized, and eventually replaced by either non-unionized charters or voucher programs.

How is any of this stuff different than what Daniels is now doing in Indiana (or Christie in NJ? Or Scott in Florida? Or Snyder in Michigan?)

To be frank, the pro-privatization, pro-corporate education reform policies of Barack Obama are quite similar to the are the pro-privatization, pro-corporate education reform policies of Jeb Bush - which is why Obama was so comfortable sharing a stage to talk about education reform with Bush not all that long ago.

Union members in Florida were furious that Obama was so excited to share a stage and extol the pro-privatization, pro-corporate education reform policies of Jeb Bush - but why wouldn't Obama be comfortable doing this? While Obama's rhetoric toward unions and unionized teachers is nowhere near as incendiary as the Bush/Daniels/Scott/Christie/Snyder contingent, the policies have been ALMOST as damaging.

So if you're going to get upset about Daniels, Scott, Snyder, Christie, et al. when it comes to education policies, to be consistent, you have to be upset at Obama and Duncan too.

There is STILL too much water carrying in progressive circles for Obama on this.

Obama is a neo-liberal corporate education reformer out to destroy the public school system, bust the unions, turn teaching into an at-will job full of Teach For America missionaries on a three year hitch in the inner cities, and finish opening up the public education sector to the Wall Street and hedge fund crowd.

If his NCLB Jr. blueprint passes as currently constructed, that will happen.

If Obama gets his way, there will be federalized tests in every subject at every grade levels (which his cronies at the Gates Foundation, McGraw-Hill and Pearson Education will stand to make billions on), teachers will be evaluated using value-added methods on those scores, teachers will paid by "merit" (again, using only test scores), scores of schools will be closed and scores of teachers fired EVERY year, and the primary mode of operation in the public schools system will be FEAR and PROFIT.

Change we can all believe in?

Nope - just more corporatized, neo-liberal evil.

Whether it's Mitch Daniels or Barack Obama pursuing this course, the result is the same.

It would be nice if some water carrying progressives would drop the buckets and live in reality about this administration and its neo-liberal policies.

Ron Paul Vs. Barack Obama

Interesting article at Common Dreams about the "liberal" Barack Obama and the "wingnut" Ron Paul.

Which one holds the more progressive views?

Ron Paul is far from perfect, but I'll say this much for the Texas congressman: He has never authorized a drone strike in Pakistan. He has never authorized the killing of dozens of women and children in Yemen. He hasn't protected torturers from prosecution and he hasn't overseen the torturous treatment of a 23-year-old young man for the “crime” of revealing the government's criminal behavior.

Can the same be said for Barack Obama?

Yet, ask a good movement liberal or progressive about the two and you'll quickly be informed that yeah, Ron Paul's good on the war stuff -- yawn -- but otherwise he's a no-good right-wing reactionary of the worst order, a guy who'd kick your Aunt Beth off Medicare and force her to turn tricks for blood-pressure meds. By contrast, Obama, war crimes and all, provokes no such visceral distaste. He's more cosmopolitan, after all; less Texas-y. He's a Democrat. And gosh, even if he's made a few mistakes, he means well.

Sure he's a murderer, in other words, but at least he's not a Republican!

...

Let's just assume the worst about Paul: that he's a corporate libertarian in the Reason magazine/Cato Institute mold that would grant Big Business and the financial industry license to do whatever the hell it wants with little in the way of accountability (I call this scenario the “status quo”). Let's say he dines on Labradoodle puppies while using their blood to scribble notes in the margins of his dog-eared, gold-encrusted copy of Atlas Shrugged.

So. Fucking. What.

Barack Obama isn't exactly Eugene Debs, after all. Hell, he's not even Jimmy Carter. The facts are: he's pushed for the largest military budget in world history, given trillions of dollars to Wall Street in bailouts and near-zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve, protected oil companies like BP from legal liability for environmental damages they cause – from poisoning the Gulf to climate change – and mandated that all Americans purchase the U.S. health insurance industry's product. You might argue Paul's a corporatist, but there's no denying Obama's one.

And at least Paul would – and this is important, I think – stop killing poor foreigners with cluster bombs and Predator drones. Unlike the Nobel Peace Prize winner-in-chief, Paul would also bring the troops home from not just Afghanistan and Iraq, but Europe, Korea and Okinawa. There'd be no need for a School of the Americas because the U.S. wouldn't be busy training foreign military personnel the finer points of human rights abuses. Israel would have to carry out its war crimes on its own dime.

Even on on the most pressing domestic issues of the day, Paul strikes me as a hell of a lot more progressive than Obama. Look at the war on drugs: Obama has continued the same failed prohibitionist policies as his predecessors, maintaining a status quo that has placed 2.3 million – or one in 100 – Americans behind bars, the vast majority African-American and Hispanic. Paul, on the other hand, has called for ending the drug war and said he would pardon non-violent offenders, which would be the single greatest reform a president could make in the domestic sphere, equivalent in magnitude to ending Jim Crow.

Paul would also stop providing subsidies to corporate agriculture, nuclear energy and fossil fuels, while allowing class-action tort suits to proceed against oil and coal companies for the environmental damage they have wrought. Obama, by contrast, is providing billions to coal companies under the guise of “clean energy” – see his administration's policies on carbon capture and sequestration, the fossil fuel-equivalent of missile defense – and promising billions more so mega-energy corporations can get started on that “nuclear renaissance” we've all heard so much about. And if Paul really did succeed in cutting all those federal departments he talks about, there's nothing to prevent states and local governments -- and, I would hope, alternative social organizations not dependent on coercion -- from addressing issues such as health care and education. Decentralism isn't a bad thing.

All that aside, though, it seems to me that if you're going to style yourself a progressive, liberal humanitarian, your first priority really ought to be stopping your government from killing poor people. Second on that list? Stopping your government from putting hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens in cages for decades at a time over non-violent “crimes” committed by consenting adults. Seriously: what the fuck? Social Security's great and all I guess, but not exploding little children with cluster bombs – shouldn't that be at the top of the Liberal Agenda?

Over half of Americans' income taxes go to the military-industrial complex and the costs of arresting and locking up their fellow citizens. On both counts, Ron Paul's policy positions are far more progressive than those held – and indeed, implemented – by Barack Obama. And yet it's Paul who's the reactionary of the two?

The water carrying that liberals do for Barack Obama bothers me to no end - on the wars (now we're in three!), the bailouts, the Fed policy, HAMP, education, Gitmo, WikiLeaks, torture prosecutions of Bush officials and so many other counts, Barack Obama fucking sucks Dick Cheney's nitro pills.

Not saying you have to vote for Ron Paul or should even contemplate it if you're a liberal.

But you OUGHT to contemplate telling Barack Obama to go fuck himself.

Nader: Primary Obama

Not because he thinks anybody can knock off Obama in a primary, but just to remind Obama not to take liberals and progressives for granted:

Ralph Nader is convinced that Barack Obama will win reelection in 2012, but that won’t stop him from trying to organize a slate of Democrats in the coming months to challenge the president in party primaries next year.

Nader told POLITICO on Wednesday that he is working on bringing together about half a dozen presidential candidates who could “dramatically expand a robust discussion within the Democratic Party and among progressive voters across the country.” Each would focus on a specific issue where the far left says Obama hasn’t done enough, including the environment, labor and health care.

Nader, who has run for president five times as an independent or third party candidate — including his 2000 run on the Green ticket, which some Democrats say cost Al Gore the election — said that for next year, he believes an ideologically based, multi-candidate primary challenge would be the best way to pull Obama to the left ahead of the second term he believes Republicans will not be able to stop.

Obama is smug and abusive toward the base.

I think anything that makes him less smug and less abusive would be a good thing.

War Criminal Obama Insists Bradley Manning Is Guilty

President Accountability got his own accountability moment when progressive activists confronted him at a fundraiser in San Francisco yesterday over his administration's treatment of Bradley Manning.

Obama called Manning a criminal and said everything he's getting, he deserves.

Even though Manning has not been convicted of any crime.

Change we can believe in?

Uh, no.

Just more Bush/Cheney/Obama war crimes.

You know, when the Republicans finally impeach this son of a bitch (and make no mistake, they will try if they get more seats in the House), I for one hope he is thrown into his own Gitmo cell and treated just the way Bradley Manning, not convicted of any crime, has been treated.

Maybe if one of his kids ended up in a similar situation and got similar treatment, then Obama would understand.

Maybe.

But probably not.

War criminals tend to be light on the empathy gene.

Bad enough when Bush/Cheney did this shit - but they at least were OPEN about it.

Obama, in addition to engaging in torture, abuse and war crimes, is a hypocrite about it.

Obama Blows Up Head Start With Drone Missiles

Literally.

Well, at least he gets to feel good about his "manhood".

Just another sad example of the "Bigger Dick Foreign Policy" as described by George Carlin in action.



I would have thought that the "Bigger Dick Foreign Policy" would have gone out with Bush and Cheney.

But I was wrong.

So Many Budget Cuts, But Race to the Top Program Gets $700 Million In Funds

President Obama has his priorities - lower taxes on rich people, cut food stamps on hungry people, slash Medicare and Medicaid, work with Republicans to undermine Social Security and of course continue to bash teachers and privatize schools.

That's why he must be happy the House voted to maintain $700 million for his signature education privatization program, Race to the Top

Change we can believe in.

Change You Can Believe In

After Barack Obama and the Republicans get finished dismantling college aid, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and public education, you'll thank me for this link.

You'll need it.

Obama Cuts Programs For Poor And Middle Class - Medicare, Medicaid And Social Security Are Next

Of course he uses the Republican Congress as an excuse.

But let's be honest - this is who this guy IS.

Last year, he cut food stamps so that he wouldn't have to cut his Race to the Top public education privatization program.

He also raised taxes on individuals making less than $20,000 and families making less than $40,000 so that he could cut taxes on rich people.

I wonder if Oprah will ask about this stuff when she has the Obamas on in a couple of weeks?

Obama Sucks

Here is all the evidence you need.

As if after Race to the Top, HAMP, TALF or the Bernanke renomination, you needed any more evidence.

One Family Member Strikes, Whole Family Loses Gov't Support

Wow - this is really taking the war on unions nationwide:

All around the country, right-wing legislators are asking middle class Americans to pay for budget deficits caused mainly by a recession caused by Wall Street; they are attacking workers’ collective bargaining rights, which has provoked a huge Main Street Movement to fight back.

Now, a group of House Republicans is launching a new stealth attack against union workers. GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX) have introduced H.R. 1135, which states that it is designed to “provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs.”

Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer.

The bill also includes a provision that would exempt households from losing eligibility, “if the household was eligible immediately prior to such strike, however, such family unit shall not receive an increased allotment as the result of a decrease in the income of the striking member or members of the household.”

Yet removing entire families from eligibility while a single adult family member is striking would have a chilling effect on workers who are considering going on strike for better wages, benefits, or working conditions — something that is especially alarming in light of the fact that unions are one of the fundamental building blocks of the middle class that allow people to earn wages that keep them off food stamps.

Luckily President Obama (D- Corporate America) cut food stamps for many Americans so that he wouldn't have to cut money from his Race to the Top education privatization boondoggle, so not too many people will be affected by this anti-union provision.

Not too many except for the 42 million receiving food stamps.

I dunno who I find more venomous, the anti-union Republithugs in the House or President "Let's Cut Food Stamps" Obama.

Ah, screw it - a pox on ALL of them.

Obama's Cabinet: Obama Micromanages And Doesn't Take Input From Others

Not really a surprise, given the most awesomest president ever has all the answers in his own awesome brain:

The Washington Post says White House chief of staff Bill Daley is working "to repair badly frayed relations between the White House and the Cabinet."

Though we've never heard of the problem before, "both sides were deeply disgruntled. Agency heads privately complained that the White House was a 'fortress' that was unwilling to accept input and that micromanaged their departments. Senior administration advisers rolled their eyes in staff meetings at the mention of certain Cabinet members."

It's interesting that Obama's Cabinet feels that Obama micromanages their departments and doesn't want to accept any input from them.

That's how teachers all around the country feel about him as well regarding their schools and education policy.

Of course the one Cabinet official who Obama DOES listen to - the Secretary of Education Privatization Arne Duncan - is the one I wish he WOULDN'T listen to, since Duncan is a full-steam ahead corporate ed deform guy who never saw a public school he didn't want to turn into a charter school or a unionized teacher he didn't want to fire and replace with a TFA missionary.

Matt Damon: Get Educators, Not Business People, To Run Schools

Matt Damon expands upon the Obama criticism he offered the other night on CNN in this interview in The Independent:

Laying bare his disenchantment with the Obama administration, he doesn't hide how let down he feels. President Obama's record on the economy particularly rankles. "I think he's rolled over to Wall Street completely. The economy has huge problems. We still have all these banks that are too big to fail. They're bigger and making more money than ever. Unemployment at 10 per cent? It's terrible."

What has proved to be a challenging time in office for President Obama culminated in significant Democratic reversals to the Republicans at last November's mid-term elections. Many of his star backers have either kept quiet about politics or, as in the case of George Clooney, Damon's close friend and co-star in the Ocean's trilogy, remained steadfastly loyal. Not Damon. He is upset that Mr Obama, who promised to "spread the wealth around", has extended the Bush tax cuts and that the inequality gap has widened.

"They had a chance that they don't have any more to stand up for things," he says. "They've probably squandered that at this point. They'll probably just make whatever deals they can to try to get elected again."

Damon appears so disillusioned that, playing devil's advocate, I ask whether he is considering voting Republican. "Good God, no! I just got a 3 per cent tax cut. Do you think I'm going to start a small business with that money? You're out of your mind if you think so. I'm going to put it in the bank. So is every other guy that makes the kind of money I make. I don't think that's what's best for the country. I think a stronger middle class makes for a stronger country."

As well as the economy, Mr Obama's record on education repels him. "They have to get people who actually know about educating kids in positions of power. Now they're trying to get business people to come and manage schools like they're factories. It's not going to work."

Three points Damon hits that I want to echo - the country needs a strong middle class to be a strong nation. Right now, we have really, really rich people and everybody else.

Next, I agree that Obama stands for nothing and will do whatever is expedient to get re-elected. That was what the Bush tax cuts extension was all about.

Finally, closest to my heart is Damon's point about getting business people to manage schools not working. Of course that was NOT something that Obama ran on specifically back in 2008. Hey, I'm going to put a corporate whore in charge of the DOE who's going to promote privatization and union-busting policies that will have states firing teachers and closing schools all over the place.

But that's exactly what he has done.

It's good to see Damon repeating the criticism from last week this week again.

I bet the Obama people aren't so happy an actor/activist as prominent as Damon is off the reservation and HAMMERING Obama as a corporate sell-out who is damaging the economy and the school system with his policies.

Union Protests In Wisconsin Grow Larger

Union organizers, members and supporters seem to realize there can be no "collaboration" in Wisconsin - the corporate oligarchs are out for their destruction:

For four days, the protests against the Republican governor's proposal have grown and paralyzed parts of the state.

Many public schools were forced to close because so many teachers are taking part in the demonstrations.

The rebellious Wisconsin workers have been reinforced by union workers from other parts of the country, including New York.

They accuse Walker of using the state's fiscal troubles as an excuse to go after union workers. They say he is trying to balance the books on their backs while giving huge tax breaks to rich corporations.

And guess who is bankrolling the governor of Wisconsin:

The Wisconsin governor who sparked a massive uprising by going after public workers gobbled up big bucks from a Manhattan moneyman who got the Tea Party percolating.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker's campaign got a $43,000 campaign contribution last year from a political action committee controlled by brothers David and Charles Koch, several news outlets reported, citing Wisconsin campaign finance filings.

David Koch, who lives in New York City, supplanted Mayor Bloomberg at the city's richest man on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans.

The Koch brothers, whose oil and gas empire is based in Wichita, Kan., were unmasked in a New Yorker piece last year as Tea Party bankrollers. They deny being in the movement.

Revelations of the Koch Brothers' involvement in Walker's rise to power came as thousands of angry civil servants chanting "Kill the bill" invaded the Wisconsin state capitol to derail what they're calling a Republican-led drive to bust their unions.

At the same time, a furious Walker dispatched state troopers to round up the 14 Democratic state senators who fled from Madison a day earlier - denying the GOP majority a quorum need to vote on a bill that would end union workers' long-held collective bargaining rights.

"This is the ultimate showdown," said State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican.

Indeed it is.

Obama has showed half-hearted support for public employees but he's pretty much sat on his hands during this fight.

And why wouldn't he do just that?

He is in the middle of his own assault on federal workers and teachers all across this country.

Do NOT forget that while the Tea Party crazies and the Republican Party are promoting these virulent anti-union/anti-worker policies, corporate whore Democrats like Obama and Andrew Cuomo, themselves bankrolled by corporate interests and Wall Street (do NOT forget that Barack Obama's biggest 2008 campaign donor was Goldman Sachs) are engaged in their own assault on unions and public employees.

It may not be as virulent and destructive as the assaults launched by the Repubs.

But we MUST remember who has helped in this fight in Wisconsin and who hasn't.

And then we can reward the pols who have helped in this fight in 2012 and punish the ones who haven't.