BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 04:20 PM

Sawz, do you truly think that the reclamation of our country will be/should be seamless, painless and offend no one? Damn. I do wish that you and those like you would stick out your necks just once and say what you think should be done.

Sadly, you would rather poke sticks.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 03:58 PM

Obama campaigned on ending pork.

He said he would got through the budget line by line" and eliminate pork.

This Bill has 9427 pork barrel items and he wants it passed using scare tactics and blame it on the Republicans who want to eliminate the pork.

Yes this is change we can believe in.

How long before the Awakening?

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ref
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 03:20 PM

You have to hold your nose and let stuff like this go to get bills through Congress. A little research will show you that the consistently worst offenders are Southern Republicans.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 03:12 PM

It paiins me, yes, pains me, to see Maureen's taent at roasting turned on Barack so soon.

But we all have a job to do.

A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 02:42 PM

Stage of Fools

By MAUREEN DOWD, Chile Rojo of the New York Times March 3, 2009

.....Before the Senate resoundingly defeated a McCain amendment on Tuesday that would have shorn 9,000 earmarks worth $7.7 billion from the $410 billion spending bill, the Arizona senator twittered lists of offensive bipartisan pork, including:

• $2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in New York.

• $1.7 million for a honey bee factory in Weslaco, Tex.

• $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa.

• $1 million for Mormon cricket control in Utah.

• $819,000 for catfish genetics research in Alabama.

• $650,000 for beaver management in North Carolina and Mississippi.

• $951,500 for Sustainable Las Vegas.

• $2 million "for the promotion of astronomy" in Hawaii

• $167,000 for the Autry National Center for the American West in Los Angeles.

• $238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii.

• $200,000 for a tattoo removal violence outreach program to help gang members or others shed visible signs of their past.

• $209,000 to improve blueberry production and efficiency in Georgia.

"When do we turn off the spigots?" Senator McCain said in his cri de coeur on the Senate floor. "Haven't we learned anything? Bills like this jeopardize our future."

In one of his disturbing spells of passivity, President Obama decided not to fight Congress and live up to his own no-earmark pledge from the campaign.

He's been lecturing us on the need to prune away frills while the economy fizzles. He was slated to make a speech on "wasteful spending" on Wednesday.

"You know, there are times where you can afford to redecorate your house and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding its foundation," he said recently about the "hard choices" we must make. Yet he did not ask Congress to sacrifice and make hard choices; he let it do a lot of frivolous redecorating in its budget.

He reckons he'll need Congress for more ambitious projects, like health care, and when he goes back to wheedle more bailout billions, given that A.I.G. and G.M. and our other corporate protectorates are burning through our money faster than we can print it and borrow it from the ever-more-alarmed Chinese.

Team Obama sounds hollow, chanting that "the status quo is not acceptable," even while conceding that the president is accepting the status quo by signing a budget festooned with pork.

Obama spinners insist it was "a leftover budget." But Iraq was leftover, too, and the president's trying to end that. This is the first pork-filled budget from a new president who promised to go through the budget "line by line" and cut pork.

On "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, dismissed the bill as "last year's business," because most of it was written last year.

But given how angry Americans are, watching their future go up in smoke, the bloated bill counts as this year's business.

It includes $38.4 million of earmarks sponsored or co-sponsored by President Obama's labor secretary, Hilda Solis; $109 million Hillary Clinton signed on to; and $31.2 million in earmarks sought by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood with colleagues.

(Even Barack Obama was listed as one of the co-sponsors of a $7.7 million pet project for Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational Institutions until he got his name taken off last week.)

And then there are the 16 earmarks worth $8.5 million that Emanuel put into the bill when he was a congressman, including money for streets in Chicago suburbs and a Chicago planetarium......

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:26 PM

The GOP's spokespersons are being exceedingly careful. I watched Gov. Pawlenty on the Rachel Maddow show and he tiptoed all around Limbaugh.

It is almost pitiful.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:10 PM

"According to the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, the percentage of Americans who view the Republican Party positively is at an all-time low. Meanwhile, President Obama's positive rating is at an all-time high, and the Democratic Party's positive rating is near its high.

Why? Because the Republicans have dissolved into a querulous lot of nags and naysayers without a voice, a direction or a clue, and we are not amused.

And who has surfaced as their saviors? Bobby Jindal, Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh — the axis of drivel.

Let's start with Jindal, who delivered his now-infamous, numbingly rote response to Obama's national address in a kindergarten cadence. He fumbled his facts and sealed his fate. He then scurried off to Disney World to lick his wounds in a place where they appreciate a character and a fairy tale. Goofy. ..."

(NYT)

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 11:27 AM

I understand there are people out there who are calling this "the Obama recession". lol

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:31 AM

"COnsidering how swamped our economy is, in the aftermath of the ferocious irresponsibility manifested during the Bush years, it seems to me counter-productive and unhelpful to sling such mindless noise about denigrating the guy who's trying as hard as possible to put things right, Sawz."

First of all what does Bush have to do with what Obama did during the disaster?

Did Bush leave instructions to crank up the heat to the level of a orchid hothouse and serve $100 per pound steak while lobbying for support for his "no earmarks pledge" Porkulus package while people in Kentucky and elsewhere were freezing to death and FEMA was nowhere to be found?

Heckuva job there Barry.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 04:35 PM

I'm not sure how to take the snippiness. I've read that report and others and any "snub" is a reach. Perhaps the tradition of holding a full press conference for a visiting leader was not upheld but Brown did have a lengthy meeting with the president.

As for not having a state dinner, the man didn't bring his wife, so far as I can gather, so it doesn't appear to me that this first visit was more than as stated: a discussion on how to counter the worldwide recession.

And returning a lent Churchill bust was somehow loaded with meaning? Had it been a gift returning it would have been different.

Reading these articles and the bloggers' comments makes me painfully aware that the Brits are as juvenile and immature as anyone.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 04:30 PM

What "snub" are you posting about, Bruce?

What IS all this arm-waving and frothing at the mouth?



A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 04:14 PM

Was 'Lady Macbeth' behind Barack Obama's snub of Gordon Brown?

Posted By: James Delingpole at Mar 5, 2009 at 12:58:55 [General]
Posted in: Society

On US radio's Garrison show today, I was asked for my reaction as a true born Englishman to President Obama's double insult - first the sending back of the Winston Churchill bust, then his snub to Gordon Brown. "Tough one. Really tough one," I said, torn - as most of surely are - between delight at seeing Brown roundly humiliated, and dismay at having the special relationship so peremptorily, cruelly and bafflingly ruptured.

Iain Martin is quite right here: no matter how utterly rubbish we have become as a nation in the Blair/Brown years, Britain's friendship is something Obama will come to regret having dispensed with so lightly. This was not the act of a global statesman, but of a hormonal teenager dismissing her bestest of best BFs for no other reason than that she felt like it and she can, so there.

What was the guy thinking? In researching my new book Welcome to Obamaland, I discovered that Obama's judgment is pretty dreadful - but this? My favourite theory so far - suggested by presenter Greg Garrison - was that it was a move calculated to please his Lady Macbeth. At the moment in Britain, we're still in the "Doesn't she look fabulous in a designer frock" stage of understanding of Michelle Obama. Gradually, though, we'll begin to realise that she is every bit the terrifying executive's wife that Hillary Clinton was. Or, shudder, Cherie Blair.

We may just LURVE Michelle's fashion sense. But Michelle doesn't reciprocate our affection, one bit. Her broad-brush view of history associates Brits with the wicked white global hegemony responsible for the slave trade. Never mind that a white, Tory Englishman - William Wilberforce - brought the slave trade to an end. Judging by her record, Michelle does not make room for such subtle nuance.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/james_delingpole/blog/2009/03/05/was_lady_macbeth_behind_barack_obamas_snub_of_gordon_brown

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 04:07 PM

WSJ:


Obama's Radicalism Is Killing the Dow

A financial crisis is the worst time to change the foundations of American capitalism.

By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN
It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.


Martin KozlowskiThe illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown.

Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629969453946717.html

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:45 AM

A "remedy" for the surplus he inherited? What an asinine comment. Surplus is not a malady requiring remedy unless you are cross-eyed. Furthermore it was exactly Bush's mismanaged tax policies and high-end coddling that started this house of cards going into thermal meltdown by taking the dampers off.

The arguments for health-care reform as necessary to the economic rehabilitation are not strained at all. Just look at the average costs of health care as a proportion of family income. How stupid can you get to not see the relationship?


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 11:31 AM

Washington Post:


George W. Obama?

By Jackson Diehl
Sunday, March 8, 2009; Page

Washington has spent the past couple of weeks debating whether Barack Obama's ambitious agenda and political strategy are more comparable to those of Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan. Oddly, hardly anyone is talking about the ways in which Obama is beginning to resemble the man who just vacated the White House.

Most Americans are eager to forget about George W. Bush. But just over seven years ago, Bush found himself in much the same position as the new president today -- leading the country through what was universally considered a national emergency. In the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, Bush's approval rating soared above 80 percent at home. London, Berlin and even Moscow rallied behind him. A front-page analysis in The Post in late November said that "President Bush [has] a dominance over American government . . . rivaling even Franklin D. Roosevelt's command."

Then, according to today's established wisdom, Bush squandered his chance to lead. Three cardinal errors are commonly cited: The president failed to ask a willing nation for sacrifice, instead inviting consumers to shop and heaping on more tax cuts. Rather than forge a bipartisan response to the crisis, he used it to ram through big, polarizing pieces of the Republican Party's ideological agenda -- from asserting presidential powers to breach treaties to eliminating protections for federal workers. Worst, he chose to launch a war of choice in Iraq, thereby shredding what remained of post-9/11 national unity and diverting attention and resources from the fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.


That brings us to the first weeks of the Obama administration, set against the background of a scary and steadily deepening global economic crisis. Last month, in his first address to Congress, Obama warned the country that fixing the huge problems in the financial markets and housing and auto industries would require a historic effort. "None of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy," he said. "But this is America. We don't do what's easy. We do what is necessary to move this country forward."

Minutes later, Obama spelled out what he proposes this to mean for 98 percent of Americans: "You will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime. In fact, the recovery plan provides a tax cut . . . and these checks are on the way."

So much for summoning the country to sacrifice. Obama has been no more willing to ask average Americans to pitch in, even once the recession is over, than Bush.

What about bipartisanship? Like Bush, Obama offered a few early gestures. And like Bush, he has been unapologetic about using emergency measures like the stimulus bill to press polarizing Democratic priorities, such as the expansion of Medicaid benefits to the unemployed and union-friendly contracting provisions.

The Bush administration pushed through the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 by suggesting that opponents didn't want to stop another al-Qaeda attack. In his first news conference, Obama suggested that congressional opponents of the stimulus package "believe that we should do nothing" about the economic emergency. Last week his political team launched a concerted and ugly campaign to portray Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party and "I want the president to fail" as its slogan. Republicans who have taken the crisis seriously, offered their own solutions and even supported the president on occasion -- Sen. John McCain comes to mind -- have been ignored.

So Obama hasn't strayed far from Karl Rove's playbook for routing the opposition. But surely, you say, he's planning nothing as divisive or as risky as the Iraq war? Well, that's where the health-care plan comes in: a $634 billion (to begin) "historic commitment," as Obama calls it, that (like the removal of Saddam Hussein) has lurked in the background of the national agenda for years. We know from the Clinton administration that any attempt to create a national health-care system will touch off an enormous domestic battle, inside and outside of Congress. If anything, Obama has raised the stakes by proposing no funding source other than higher taxes on wealthy Americans, allowing Republicans to raise the cries of "socialism" and "class warfare."

Just as Bush promoted tax cuts as a remedy for surplus and then later as essential in a time of deficits, so Obama has come up with strained arguments as to why health-care reform, which he supported before the economic collapse, turns out to be essential to recovery. Yet as he convened his "health care summit" at the White House on Thursday, the stock market was hitting another 12-year-low; General Motors was again teetering on the brink of insolvency and the country was still waiting to hear the details of the Treasury's proposal to bail out banks. George W. Bush might well be asking: Is the president taking his eye off the ball?

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 10:32 AM

There's a simple reason, Bruce. Obama is proceeding on a decent platform to improve civilization in a civilized way. Bush wouldn't know the difference. He was, at heart, a barbarian, no matter how cute he could get.


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 10:27 AM

Mommy Mommy! He started it he hit me first WAAAAAHHHHH

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 08:05 AM

Amos,

"it seems to me counter-productive and unhelpful to sling such mindless noise about denigrating the guy who's trying as hard as possible to put things right,"


As long as it is YOUR guy, that is. You are demonstrrating that YOU refuse to apply the same standards to Obama that YOU demanded of Bush.

Again.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 05:01 PM

Obama must have opened his mouth again, the Dow dropped almost 300 points.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 03:42 PM

COnsidering how swamped our economy is, in the aftermath of the ferocious irresponsibility manifested during the Bush years, it seems to me counter-productive and unhelpful to sling such mindless noise about denigrating the guy who's trying as hard as possible to put things right, Sawz.

A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 05 Mar 09 - 10:42 AM

Let Them Eat Wagyu

Everyone remembers the media's hysterics about the Bush Administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

As Kentuckians and others were freezing in the winter storm that blew in the from Midwest last week, the president was cuddled up at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. unconcerned. He watched the Super Bowl. He hosted a "stimulus party."

According to The Associated Press, "more than half a million homes and businesses, most of them in Kentucky, remained without electricity from the Ozarks through Appalachia. …. Finding fuel — heating oil along with gas for cars and generators — was another struggle."

"Thousands of people were staying in motels and shelters, asked to leave their homes by authorities who said emergency teams in some areas were too strapped to reach everyone in need of food, water and warmth. The outages disabled water systems, and authorities warned it could be days or weeks before power was restored in the most remote spots."

At least 55 died in Ohio, Texas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Missouri, Virginia and West Virginia.

The storm, Kentucky's governor said, caused "the biggest natural disaster that this state has ever experienced in modern history." The spokesman for the Shenandoah Valley Electric Cooperative's local crew, which went to help, put it this way: "This is the worst they've ever seen."

Where were the calls for Mr. Obama to intervene? Why didn't he alight in Air Force One for a visit?

So as frozen Kentuckians wondered where their next meal would come from, Obama cranked up the thermostat so high, The New York Times reported, "you could grow orchids in there," and chowed down on Wagyu steak that costs $100 a pound.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 03:52 PM

It's about to get nasty: time for Obama's movement to get moving
He has plans to stop the war, save the planet and redistribute wealth. If he's to overcome the lobbyists he'll need a new coalition
Gary Younge The Guardian, Monday 2 March 2009
         
Last week was a busy one for Barack Obama.

On Monday he held a bipartisan fiscal summit where he pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. On Tuesday he addressed both houses of Congress for the first time, promising the nation: "We will recover, we will rebuild." On Thursday he produced a budget that set out to redistribute wealth, heal the sick and save the planet. On Friday he stopped the war. On Saturday he threw down the gauntlet to special interests and lobbyists. And on the seventh day he rested.

In the course of a regular presidency, any one of these might be seen as a bold project. To tackle them all in one term seems ambitious to the point of foolhardiness. To announce them all in one week lies somewhere between the audacity of hope and the pugnacity of hubris. But then this is no regular presidency - a function not just of the man but the times. "You never let a serious crisis go to waste," his chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, told reporters after the election. And this crisis is serious. Comparisons with the 1930s are premature, but each release of data has the economy straining for historical commparison. February was the worst month on the stockmarket for 76 years, and saw the worst contraction of GDP since 1982, while California's unemployment is the highest since 1983. More often than not there is no comparison, because things have not been this bad since records began. Last week's flurry of activity marks an attempt to seize this moment, and in so doing reveals both the potential of the Obama administration at home and its limits abroad. Domestically he has committed himself to a paradigm-shifting budget that marks a decisive break with more than a generation of neoliberal policies. The notion that taxes can go up as well as down, that the government has the ability and duty to do good, and that tackling inequality has moral values challenge the core assumptions that have dominated political culture in London and Washington for almost three decades. It is an agenda that Labour had a mandate to deliver - and wasted. Abroad, his plans not so much break the mould as reset the one George Bush has damaged. His promise to bring all "combat troops" home from Iraq by August next year marks the end of a six year murderous folly that bitterly divided and alienated America. Those who point to the troop surge and recent elections in Iraq as evidence that the invasion was a success are trying to put lipstick on a pig that has been slaughtered, gutted and turned into chops. The war has killed more than 1 million Iraqis and caused 4 million to flee their homes - half displaced internally and half externally. It has strengthened Iran in the region and created a generation of Islamic fundamentalists worldwide. On every front, by its own tawdry standards, it has been an unmitigated disaster. Its failure is not just humiliating for America's neocons, militarists and Republicans but for the useful idiots who gave them cover, including the British government. There is barely a country in the world, including the US, that does not support its end. But welcome as it is, this step really marks a correction in American militaristic pretensions rather than an end to them. Bush certainly broadened and sharpened disdain for US foreign policy and mobilised huge numbers against it. But he did not invent American imperialism, he just revealed its limits. Those who claim he tarnished America's great reputation abroad were apparently unaware that in vast swaths of Central and South America, the Middle East (with the exception of Israel), the Arab world, and parts of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, it was already pretty grubby. Obama's decision to extend the Iraqi occupation until 2011 with up to 50,000 troops, escalate the war in Afghanistan, bomb Pakistan and continue imprisoning "enemy combatants" in Afghanistan without trial returns us to the kind of American foreign policy we were used to before 9/11. These are small mercies. But given the last eight years, they are also significant. Paradoxically, given the contentious manner in which it was prosecuted, the war's end attracted limited fanfare or ferocity. By the time it came to make the declaration, the American polity had long reconciled itself to defeat. Obama's budget is a different matter entirely. Its signature elements involve tax increases on families earning more than $250,000 (£175,000), the introduction of a universal healthcare system, an economy-wide carbon-trading system, and grants for low-income students. In short, it intends to address the growing inequalities in American society. It is already clear this will unleash a political battle that will test the strength and scope of the president's support. Lobbyists in the financial, health and oil industries, not to mention Republicans, have promised to do everything they can to neuter or nix the budget as it makes its way through Congress. If Obama really did create a movement during his campaign, as his supporters claim, then now would be the time for it to get moving. This battle started and will end in Washington. But it won't be won there. Having built an electoral coalition to win power, he now needs to cohere a political one to defend it. This will be tough. We saw how effective and vicious the lobby industry could be when Hillary Clinton tried to reform healthcare in the early 1990s. But there are two reasons to believe that this time might be different. First, conservatives are in ideological retreat and organisational disarray. The system they cherish - capitalism - is collapsing around their ears and taking their mantras with it. This was patently clear last week when Louisiana's governor, Bobby Jindal, delivered his ill-received response to Obama's congressional address. The problem wasn't just the delivery, but the goods. At a time when one in five home owners believes they are in negative equity, and fear of unemployment is rising in every region and class, people don't want to hear about the perils of big government and the joys of low taxes. Particularly from a party fresh from bloating the deficit. Second, the left is better organised than it has been since the 1960s. It has a popular president, controls both houses of Congress, has a grassroots presence and - thanks to eight years of Bush - fire in its belly. A group of leftwing bloggers, unions and other activists have just teamed up to form a leftwing pressure group within the Democratic party. The blogosphere has done for the left what talk radio did for the right in the 1990s - provided the base with a platform and organising potential to put pressure on its leadership. "The battle had been lost by the time the progressive community and its allies began rallying around the Clinton bill," Ralph Neas, the chief executive of the National Coalition on Health Care, told the New York Times. "Now, people are prepared." During his weekly address, Obama made it clear he knows what's at stake. The lobbyists and special interests "are gearing up for a fight as we speak", the president said. "My message to them is this: so am I." This week was busy - the weeks to come may also get nasty.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 11:09 AM

-- The Wall Street Journal -- Obama is "more popular than ever": "President Barack Obama enjoys widespread backing from a frightened American public for his ambitious, front-loaded agenda, a new poll indicates. He is more popular than ever, Americans are hopeful about his leadership, and opposition Republicans are getting drubbed in public opinion, the new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests. ... Overall, two-thirds of all Americans say they feel 'hopeful' about Mr. Obama's leadership and plans, compared with 28% who say they feel 'doubtful.'

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 12:30 AM

Completely absurd, all the denial...and the beat goes on......

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:44 AM

Staple everybody's mouth shut and watch the economy recover: that's what I always say!

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 09:56 AM

The market is dropping steadily and has been since September or thereabouts. So if you are looking for causative links, that's the latest point of inspection to take up. The antecedent causes (IMHO) would have to include the "noble highwayman" mentality of the Cheny administration.

It has nothign to do with what happens when Obama opens his mouth. More like when GM and AIG open theirs.


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 07:46 AM

I'll remember that!

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 07:37 PM

Don't give up- every once in awhile a glimmer shines through. :)

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 07:34 PM

Ebbie - I've been trying to get closer to the light for years; nothing seems to work:-)

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 07:13 PM

Rig, wouldn't you rather the market tumbles now while we are trying to regain our feet under the Democrats and Obama than tumble under Bushlite when the market/we discover down the road that we're digging ourselves in deeper? If McCain had got in, do you think we'd be closer to the light than we are now?

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 07:08 PM

Every time he opens his mouth, the stock market drops 200 points.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 03:37 PM

Well, madam, tomorrow I will be sober, but tomorrow you will still be wrong about Mr. Obama.


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 02:46 PM

HE completely sucks...as I told you before!

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 10:50 AM

Escalation in Afghanistan! Will this be Obama's Vietnam?

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 10:02 AM

Hey, Bruce! are you familiar with Tom Paxton's song about the New York Daily News ?

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 09:44 AM

Bruce:

Standards, yes; seeing them as the same person, never.


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 09:43 AM

As he stood before Congress on Tuesday night, the new president was armed with new job approval percentages in the 60s. After his speech, the numbers hit the stratosphere: CBS News found that support for his economic plans spiked from 63 percent to 80. Had more viewers hung on for the Republican response from Bobby Jindal, the unintentionally farcical governor of Louisiana, Obama might have aced a near-perfect score.

His address was riveting because it delivered on the vision he had promised a battered populace during the campaign: Government must step in boldly when free markets run amok and when national crises fester unaddressed for decades. For all the echoes of F.D.R.'s first fireside chat, he also evoked his own memorably adult speech on race. Once again he walked us through a lucid step-by-step mini-lecture on "how we arrived" at an impasse that's threatening America's ability to move forward.

Obama's race speech may have saved his campaign. His first Congressional address won't rescue the economy. But it brings him to a significant early crossroads in his presidency — one full of perils as well as great opportunities. To get the full political picture, look beyond Obama's popularity in last week's polls to the two groups of Americans whose approval numbers are in the toilet. There is good news for Obama in these findings, but there's also a stark indication of the unchecked populist rage that could still overrun his ambitious plans.

The first group in national disfavor is the G.O.P. In the latest New York Times/CBS News survey, 63 percent said that Congressional Republicans opposed the stimulus package mostly for political reasons; only 17 percent felt that the Republicans should stick with their own policies rather than cooperate with Obama and the Democrats. The second group of national villains is corporate recipients of taxpayer money: only 39 percent approve of a further bailout for banks, and only 22 percent want more money going to Detroit's Big Three.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 08:43 AM

Buildings sprang up as donations rained down on Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion
BY Benjamin Lesser and Greg B. Smith
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Updated Sunday, March 1st 2009, 1:35 PM


Watts/News

Bronx Boro President Adolfo Carrion on the roof of the Bronx Courthouse with the old and the new Yankee Stadium behind him.


JR/News
The man who is President Obama's newly minted urban czar pocketed thousands of dollars in campaign cash from city developers whose projects he approved or funded with taxpayers' money, a Daily News probe found.

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion often received contributions just before or after he sponsored money for projects or approved important zoning changes, records show.

Most donations were organized and well-timed.

In one case, a developer became a Carrion fund-raiser two months before the borough president signed off on his project, raising more than $6,000 in campaign cash.

In another, eight Boricua College officials came up with $8,000 on the same day for Carrion three weeks before the school filed plans to build a new tower. Carrion ultimately approved the project and sponsored millions in taxpayer funds for it.

Carrion resigned as borough president effective Sunday and begins his new job as director of the White House Office on Urban Policy Monday.

Saturday Carrion declined to answer written questions about his receipt of timely campaign contributions. Instead, he issued a terse statement:

"Thousands of people who share the Borough President's vision for building a stronger Bronx and a stronger city have contributed to Carrion NYC. Teachers, parents, police officers, firefighters, members of the business community and concerned citizens have all contributed to the borough president's efforts to strengthen the Bronx and stimulate the local economy and he is proud to have such wide-ranging support."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2009/02/28/2009-02-28_buildings_sprang_up_as_donations_rained_.html

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 08:33 AM

Amos,

so, in spite of your promise, you will not apply the same standards to Obama that you applired to Bush?


About what I expected.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 03:26 AM

You're up far too late Ebbs.....You're starting to hallucinate..:0)

and don't ask me to "elucidate"...its much too early in the morning.

Night Night....A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 03:12 AM

Ake, I appreciate the tenor of your post and you may well be right. I agree that this mess is the result of the cumulative snowballing effect of deep rooted corruption, corrosive greed and misguided methods.

I do *not* expect President Obama to fix things back to whatever we considered normal. To my mind, the best we can hope for is that we can make incremental steps to stabilize the chaotic tumbling we are currently experiencing.

If we can get to a point in the next couple of years where we can point to such gains, at that point I hope that we rethink and revise our whole attitude regarding our country, our culture, our place in the world and what we want out of it.

It is a different world and we can't go back, even if we wished it.

May I say that I am grateful beyond words that it is Obama who is the head of this effort and not McCain.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 03:02 AM

Ebbie The most important thing at the moment, is the "crisis of Capitalism", which has already affected taxpayers and will soon impact on the real economy....the very poor...public services etc.

In my view, neither the election of Mr Obama nor Mr Jesus H Christ could have stopped it happening..

The financial and social mess that most of the world will soon be immersed in, is not a crisis of the George Bush administration, but a crisis of the Capitalist system; and one which was forseen by perceptive people decades ago.

To imagine that this situation can be reversed and that we can return to the boom years, by way of Mr Obama, his rag tag backstabbing administration, or a wing and a prayer, is naivety in the extreme......even if it was desirable!!
To return to the Status quo which produced this mess, would in fact be an abject failure to grasp the chance to change society in a MEANINGFUL way..........Ake

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 08:36 PM

In any event, it looks like it's going to be troops in Iraq and wire tap as usual.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 08:35 PM

Bruce:

I am always happy to be discovered as the ultimate cause of things, but I think you need to take a little more responsibility, and recognize the bvery telling differences between Obama's present situation and the chronic cloud of misrepresentation that surrounded Bush. There is a world of difference between the situations, warranting a more attentive stance on your part. I decline to be blamed for your journalistic irresponsibility.





A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 07:24 PM

Apples and oranges, ake. Obama was not running. And no, I don't think we would be where we are today if Al Gore had won. Good grief.

Bush never felt a need for diplomacy and swaggered eagerly into a fight - make that two fights - without an exit strategy. Does that sentence describe either Gore or Kerry?

It's been said before but I'll repeat it here: The action taken against the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon that awful day was a crime that needed to be viewed as such. It was not instigated by a country.

With all the good will the world extended us subsequent to those events I don't doubt but that the world's nations would have joined us to find and root out and bring to justice the criminals of that day.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 07:01 PM

Had Mr Obama come to power four years ago, do you really think that the financial ruin that we now see before us would have been avoided?

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 06:52 PM

This is, I suppose, what the ousted-ideologues object to:

"What can the disavowed dauphin possibly be thinking as Professor Obama strides up to the blackboard to erase everything W. stood for, while giving us crisp lectures about how we must get more educated, more equitable, more realistic, more responsible and more reasonable?"

"...we must get more educated, more equitable, more realistic, more responsible and more reasonable?"

I can see why they are hurting so bad. To them it is a novel concept.

I do wish that one of them would check out the things we said after Bush came into office and the startlingly inept things we objected to for the next 8 years and contrast them to what they are promulgating now. Almost all that is visible now are lies, distortions, myths, rumors and lip-smacking gossip. Grow up, OK?

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 05:16 PM

"President Obama called his budget "a threat to the status quo," and trust me, the status quo noticed. Oil companies, big banks and insurance companies are already mobilizing to stop it.2

Unfortunately, most folks don't realize how far-reaching and progressive the plan is—that's where we all come in.

Here are 10 really incredible things about Obama's plan. Check them out and then send them on to your friends and family so that millions of people will have the information they need to fight to make this vision a reality.

10 things you should know about Obama's plan (but probably don't)

The plan:


§ Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.3

§ Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.4
 
§ Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.5
 
§ Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.6
 
§ Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.7
 
§ Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies. 8
 
§ Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.9


§ Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.10

§ Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.11
 
§ Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.12

This is the change we voted for. ..." (MoveOn)

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 02:28 PM

Hey, Bruce! When are you due to graduate from Junior High School? And are you going to have a 14th Birthday Party.

Jaysus, give the adolescent crap a rest, will ya?

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 01:37 PM

"As he stood before Congress on Tuesday night, the new president was armed with new job approval percentages in the 60s. After his speech, the numbers hit the stratosphere: CBS News found that support for his economic plans spiked from 63 percent to 80. Had more viewers hung on for the Republican response from Bobby Jindal, the unintentionally farcical governor of Louisiana, Obama might have aced a near-perfect score.

His address was riveting because it delivered on the vision he had promised a battered populace during the campaign: Government must step in boldly when free markets run amok and when national crises fester unaddressed for decades. For all the echoes of F.D.R.'s first fireside chat, he also evoked his own memorably adult speech on race. Once again he walked us through a lucid step-by-step mini-lecture on "how we arrived" at an impasse that's threatening America's ability to move forward."

(NYT)