Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

How to lose the battle and the war

Commentary By Ron Beasley



There is one lesson Obama should have learned from the Bush Administration and the Rebublicans - don't piss off the base!  Well if Politico piece is accurate that's what Obama is about to do.



Under fire, President Obama shifts strategy

Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO.

Obama is considering detailing his health-care demands in a major speech as soon as next week, when Congress returns from the August recess. And although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself, the officials said.

�We�re entering a new season,� senior adviser David Axelrod said in a telephone interview. �It�s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done. We�re confident that we can do that. But obviously it is a different phase. We�re going to approach it in a different way. The president is going to be very active.� 

I personally will not vote for any Democrat who votes for a health care reform bill that does not include at a minimum a strong public option.  If they are going to govern like Republicans why bother.  I still think we would be better off with no plan than a bad plan.  The current health care system is only going to get worse.

Now it remains to be seen if Obama is playing chess or checkers.  This may all be a feint on Obama's part, I guess we will see in the weeks ahead. 



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