that President Obama and the Democrats are going to get very little accomplished. The Republicans are going to block them every inch of the way until they get back into power. Then they will attempt to enact an agenda that will be harmful to many Americans. And the fear is that, in the spirit of compromise, the Democrats will go along with them.

in this case, they decided they WANT the sequester because (a) it sucks and (b) they figure obama and democrats will get the blame for it.

if and when it looks like THEY will get the blame for it, suddenly they'll be more than capable of compromise.

Per NPR, Boehner is already referring to it as the "Obama sequester" in speeches.

The president always gets as much air time as he wants, and he just has to run over the top of these nutjobs who get their talking points from fox and rush. He can't get rid of the bloodsuckers, but he CAN out shout them and get in the first and last word.

We have to endure them because our fellow americans keep voting them back in. Perhaps if the national party spent some time fielding great candidates in more local and regional races we could change things. But basically, if a race is deemed "uncompetitive', they don't even bother. And that cutoff is pretty quick. Ted Cruz comes to mind- no matter that he was a wackjob, as soon as he won the Texas repub primary for Senate the national Democratic party wrote that race off. Now we are stuck with him. Perhaps if he had been pushed during the general election he might have spouted off some unacceptable crap that would have sunk his chances. But we will never know now.

Down here in Savannah we have repub who wins 60:40 each time (Kingston). But he never has to sweat because he only faces poorly-financed, first time candidates who are totally ignored by the media.

I miss Dean's 50 state strategy.

Any questions?

It has nothing to do with compromise.

It has nothing to do with anything but an extreme hatred of Obama.

I expect nothing less from them.

It is our job to make sure this hits them in the next election.

it is ALL because Obama is black. (this makes them a real bunch of sicko's!!!!!)

They also don't give a damn about America. They want the presidency and will do anything they can to make Obama have little success...to hell if it hurts our economy or the people...they got theirs and that's enough.

They hardly even try to hide that fact now.

They know everything about everything and are loud and in your face every time you try to speak.

They have to be in every conversation and have the last word, not letting go of the story until it is believe in their way weather it is true or not.

When do they go away? - They Don't!

unless they are wealthy republican donors.

"Compromise means democrats moving to our positions."

Why?

Because their toxic philosophy is embedded into our culture.

Selfishness is a basic human "condition", and media's constant drumbeat has helped to immortalize the "conservative" approach to almost everything we see/hear/read.

The underpinning of all media is advertising, and advertising aims to be as vacuous as possible and to appeal to as many as possible so they can make money. Those facts ensure that what we see, hear and read (for the masses) will be as uncontroversial as possible.

This is why so many governmental leaders are so eager to kill "public broadcasting", and why so many "liberal" leaders are so wimpy when it comes to supporting public broadcasting. They fear the backlash and withholding of funding from corporate/business people who fear the type of programming that comes from public broadcasting.

Those of us of a "certain age" can still remember how robust programming used to be and how eager media once was, to take on the "giants" and to expose their misdeeds.

When your only goals are to make money and to hold onto it, the " public-good" (the commons) is of no interest to you, and whatever money must be spent to discredit the premise of such a thing, MUST be extensive and long-lasting.

Conservatives (republicans) have been masterful in their construction of such a climate over the last 40+ years. Liberalism like we saw from Johnson scared the beejeesus out of them. Had Viet Nam not derailed him, we might be in a totally different place by now. The conservatives spent a LOT of time and money setting up their think tank/media buy-outs during the late 60's while the rest of us were distracted. They only became more focused after Watergate, and amped up the vitriol.

They realized that they needed to work under the radar and set out to populate the lower echelons of elected office...creating a "farm team" (sleeper cells?) of eager young people who would be ready when they got their chance to get back into power.

When you have a steady stream of reporting only one side of any given issue, with NO push-back from an alternate view, it's easy to see how so many people became convinced that things must be as "they" say it is.

Recruiting Reagan was their crowning glory, because at the time he became president, young people were not coting all that much (our focus was distracted by our own lives at that time, and the main issues seemed "resolved", so the older generation of that era made him president. Behind him were the ones who had "graduated" into power (those 60's sleeper cells), and they were the ones who shaped what we are now living.

It's no surprise that the 80's ushered in the consumer era. It's also no surprise that the excesses of the 80's created the bubble economies of the 90's & '00s.

Had we stayed on a true course that Johnson laid out for us, who knows what our society would look like now.

...now the Republicans look like they might try to kick the country back into recession. Republicanism is disproven and shamed, yet it keeps trying to force its way into power. It resorts to outright lying in elections, and survives only because of payola from some of the worst of the wealthy and corporations.

Maybe the American people need to get another bloodletting from Dr. Republican though. Hope not. Maybe they need to faint and fall to the ground again from the weakness and loss caused by Dr. Republican before they realize he's just a nut.