What Rahm, Plouffe, and Messina did to the DNC chairman who had just given us big wins.
I'm seeing Rahm in the news a lot lately in not so favorable a light because of the inexcusable death of Laquan McDonald
He has always had an intolerant attitude toward the left in the party.
Jim Messina is a leader of Priorities USA, a super Pac.
David Plouffe is employed by Uber.
Back to the story of how Dean was treated as the new chairman was introduced.
It was January 2009. Howard Dean was in American Samoa fulfilling his promise as DNC to visit all states and territories.
Every Democrat should be alarmed at the way the new chairman, Tim Kaine, was announced at the DNC. It was done without the knowledge of the outgoing chairman, it was done apparently at the request of certain Obama advisors.
It had the effect of sending a message to the many supporters of Dean's campaign that he was not only not going to be rewarded for such a great 2008 win for the party....but he was not even to be around for the announcement as the party moved forward under Obama.
I have never forgotten this incident because it speaks to the careless treatment of those who do not please certain party leaders.
From Herding Donkeys, pp 205-207.
First I quote Berman on why this kind of treatment was so telling. In reality this paragraph follows the others I quote in the book.
Dean's snub didn't matter because of one man's bruised ego or thwarted ambitions. Rather, his shabby treatment would come to represent a broader abandonment of the party's grassroots base, especially as Obama packed his White House with well-worn veterans of previous administrations who embodied longevity over innovation and connections over change...
These are the guys who gave the orders. Did Obama know? He should have known.
On January 7, White House political director Patrick Gaspard, a former top labor organizer from New York, called DNC executive director Tom McMahon. Gaspard told McMahon that Obama planned to name Virginia governor Tim Kaine as his new DNC chair and wanted to make the announcement at the DNC the following day. Gaspard asked if Dean would be around. Dean's planning to be in American Samoa, the last U.S. territory he'd yet to visit as DNC chair, McMahon responded. (He'd logged 741,000 miles on the job.) Should he postpone his trip?
If he's already planning the trip, don't tell him to cancel, Gaspard replied. It would be better, in other words, if Dean wasn't there. Administration officials didn't want Obama to face any questions at the press conference about why Dean hadn't received a plum position in the White House. One snub led to another.
Gaspard, ironically, worked on Dean's campaign in 2004, but now served a higher office. "The decision was made by Rahm and Plouffe and (deputy chief of staff) Jim Messina", said the senior transition member. "I was specifically told by a senior administration official, 'It comes from those three guys. They specifically want to do this to Dean.'"
Even the new Camelot wasn't above a little revenge.
Karen Finney, Dean's communication director was in the back of the room. She was upset. Obama complimented Dean, and thanked him for working with Rahm. Finney wondered, according to Berman, why he could not have said that with Dean beside him.
= new reply since forum marked as read
You are welcome, WillyT. 
Plouffe and Messina were still in Junior High School, and Emmanuel was in his 20s.
Damn those entrenched establishment Democrats!!!
Ronald Pruneface called President Kennedy a SOCIALIST in 1961 for proposing universal health care.
Operation COFFEECUP - How Reagan Worked to Stop Universal Health Coverage in 1961
In December 1961, the AMA pulled out all the stops to prevent President John F. Kennedy from proposing universal health coverage. For their effort, they recruited a TV-personality.
Write those letters now. Call your friends, and tell them to write them. If you don't, this program I promise you will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country, until, one day . . . we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free.
Sounds familiar to Tea Party crapola of today. Ironic: Corporate McPravda avoids mentioning how one has-been B-movie actor took part in the organized opposition to Medicare in the early 1960s. Here's the story, thanks to Mr. Scott E. Starr:
The Campaign Against Medicare
Monday, March 22, 2010
By Scott E. Starr
EXCERPT...
In order to maintain the illusion of spontaneity, the AMA did not announce the existence of Operation Coffeecup or publicize the Reagan recording. The record was to be used, campaign organizers cautioned, only in the groups meeting under the controlled conditions of the informal coffees. Under no circumstances, recipients of the record were warned, were they to permit commercial broadcast of the recording.
Operation Coffeecup was kept deliberately low-key and internal to the AMA, its Woman’s Auxiliary, and the trusted friends and neighbors of the Auxiliary women. Reagan’s efforts against Medicare were revealed, however, in a scoop by Drew Pearson in his Washington Merry-Go-Round column of June 17th. Pearson titled his item on Reagan, “Star vs. JFK,” and he told his readers:
Ronald Reagan of Hollywood has pitted his mellifluous voice against President Kennedy in the battle for medical aid for the elderly. As a result it looks as if the old folks would lose out. He has caused such a deluge of mail to swamp Congress that Congressmen want to postpone action on the medical bill until 1962. What they don’t know, of course, is that Ron Reagan is behind the mail; also that the American Medical Association is paying for it.
Reagan is the handsome TV star for General Electric . . . Just how this background qualifies him as an expert on medical care for the elderly remains a mystery. Nevertheless, thanks to a deal with the AMA, and the acquiescence of General Electric, Ronald may be able to outinfluence the President of the United States with Congress.24
Reagan’s recorded remarks are quite extensive, and reveal a determined and in-depth attack on the principles of Medicare (and Social Security), going well beyond opposition to King-Anderson or any other particular piece of legislation.
My name is Ronald Reagan. I have been asked to talk on the several subjects that have to do with the problems of the day. . .
Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. . . .
But at the moment I'd like to talk about another way because this threat is with us and at the moment is more imminent. One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. . . . Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We have an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.25
And what was this frightful threat that Reagan perceived as “imminent”?
. . . Congressman Forand introduced the Forand Bill. This was the idea that all people of Social Security age should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance. Now, this would not only be our senior citizens, this would be the dependents and those who are disabled, this would be young people if they are dependents of someone eligible for Social Security. . . .
It should be obvious that Reagan’s description of the Forand bill is a description of any Medicare-type program, not just a specific piece of legislation.26 The idea that people of “Social Security age should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance,” just is the idea of Medicare.
CONTINUED...
http://geotheology.blogspot.com /
This is why we still bother to post on DU, headda_foil. The Truth matters if we want to build a better future for ALL.
Former U.S. Secret Service Agent Abraham BOLDEN was the first African American Secret Service agent to serve in the White House, personally appointed and literally hand-picked by President John F. Kennedy to the White House detail. Agent Abraham Bolden reported overt racism by his fellow agents and outright hostility toward the "n------loving president," quoting fellow Secret Service agents on the JFK detail.
In addition to enduring all manner of personal indignities, he was concerned at the lack of professionalism in those assigned to protect the president and reported his concerns. He was told, "OK. Thanks" by his superiors. When the problems weren't addressed, Bolden requested transfer back to the Secret Service office in Chicago.
Abraham Bolden speaks at JFK Lancer.
The story of a man who told the truth:
After 45 Years, a Civil Rights Hero Waits for Justice
Thom Hartmann
June 12, 2009 11:52 AM
A great miscarriage of justice has kept most Americas from learning about a Civil Rights pioneer who worked with President John F. Kennedy. But there is finally a way for citizens to not only right that wrong, but bring closure to the most tragic chapter of American presidential history.
After an outstanding career in law enforcement, Abraham Bolden was appointed by JFK to be the first African American presidential Secret Service agent, where he served with distinction. He was part of the Secret Service effort that prevented JFK's assassination in Chicago, three weeks before Dallas. But Bolden was framed by the Mafia and arrested on the very day he went to Washington to tell the Warren Commission staff about the Chicago attempt against JFK.
Bolden was sentenced to six years in prison, despite glaring problems with his prosecution. His arrest resulted from accusations by two criminals Bolden had sent to prison. In Bolden's first trial, an apparently biased judge told the jury that Bolden was guilty, even before they began their deliberations. Though granted a new trial because of that, the same problematic judge was assigned to oversee Bolden's second trial, which resulted in his conviction. Later, the main witness against Bolden admitted committing perjury against him. A key member of the prosecution even took the fifth when asked about the perjury. Yet Bolden's appeals were denied, and he had to serve hard time in prison, and today is considered a convicted felon.
After the release of four million pages of JFK assassination files in the 1990s, it became clear that Bolden -- and the official secrecy surrounding the Chicago attempt against JFK -- were due to National Security concerns about Cuba, that were unknown to Bolden, the press, Congress, and the public not just in 1963, but for the next four decades.
SNIP...
Abraham Bolden paid a heavy price for trying to tell the truth about events involving the man he was sworn to protect -- JFK -- that became mired in National Security concerns. Bolden still lives in Chicago, and has never given up trying to clear his name.
Will Abraham Bolden live to finally see the justice so long denied to him?
CONTINUED...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thom-hartmann/after-45-years-a-civil-ri_b_213834.html
After the assassination, he went to Washington on his own dime and reported what he saw to the Warren Commission. For his trouble -- and despite an exemplary record as a Brinks detective, Illinois State Trooper, and Secret Service agent -- Bolden was framed by the government using a paid informant's admitted perjury and spent a long time in prison. The government also drugged him and put him into psychiatric hospitals.His real crime was telling the truth.
Americans know the Truth: the country hasn't been the same since Nov. 22, 1963. President Kennedy kept the nation out of Vietnam and started toward the moon. Imagine what the New Frontier could have become for us today? Certainly would not be a time where "money trumps peace."
Peace, love and understanding. Funny. That's what the hippies, said, madfloridian.
there was no threat of retaliation on Joe Lieberman to persuade him to support single payer or the ACA. I wondered at that time why they let Lieberman fuck with the "affordable" healthcare push. 
...of corrupt political patronage offered to Governor Dean. 
"Administration officials didn't want Obama to face any questions at the press conference about why Dean hadn't received a plum position in the White House."
Followed up by the standard vomiting all over the Democratic party.
Don't you guys have anything better to do?
- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community
