BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 06:53 PM

WASHINGTON Ñ President Barack Obama plans to donate the $1.4 million from his Nobel Peace Prize to helping students, veterans' families and survivors of Haiti's earthquake, among others, drawing attention to organizations he said "do extraordinary work."
Obama is giving a total of $750,000 to six groups that help kids go to college. Fisher's House, which provides housing for families with loved ones at Veterans Administration hospitals, will receive $250,000, the White House said Thursday. And the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, for which two former presidents are raising money to rebuild earthquake-ravaged Haiti, will receive $200,000.
"These organizations do extraordinary work in the United States and abroad helping students, veterans and countless others in need," Obama said in a statement. "I'm proud to support their work."
Obama was chosen for the Nobel award more for his aspirations and approach than his accomplishments thus far. The Nobel committee honored him for changing the tenor of international politics and for pursuing goals Obama says will require worldwide effort, such as nuclear disarmament and reversing global warming.
Obama himself was surprised by the award, and aides said at the time he would donate the cash prize to charity.
The Fisher's House donation would help pay for three new homes at Bethesda Naval Hospital and Dover Air Force Base, where the bodies of Americans killed overseas are flown.
"It's work that needs to be done for these men and women who have served this nation so gallantly," Fisher's House Foundation Chairman and CEO Kenneth Fisher said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's a privilege to serve these men and women and these families because they give so much to this nation."
The funds for Haiti would go to the rebuilding effort led by former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. A Jan. 12 earthquake wrecked Haiti and killed an estimated 200,000 people, and the U.S. is playing an active role in rebuilding the country.
In addition, Obama plans to give $125,000 apiece to groups that help students go to college: College Summit, a national nonprofit that works with elementary and middle school students to boost college enrollment rates; the Posse Foundation, which gives full college scholarships to public school students who might be overlooked by traditional scholarship programs; United Negro College Fund; the Hispanic Scholarship Fund; the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation; and the American Indian College Fund.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 10 - 10:45 AM

"...The fact is, Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer. Every time he tries to articulate a grand philosophy — from his book "The Audacity of Hope" to his joint-session health care speech last September — he always describes a moderately activist government restrained by a sense of trade-offs. He always uses the same on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure. Government should address problems without interfering with the dynamism of the market.

He has tried to find this balance in a town without an organized center — in a town in which liberals chair the main committees and small-government conservatives lead the opposition. He has tried to do it in a context maximally inhospitable to his aims.

But he has done it with tremendous tenacity. Readers of this column know that I've been critical on health care and other matters. Obama is four clicks to my left on most issues. He is inadequate on the greatest moral challenge of our day: the $9.7 trillion in new debt being created this decade. He has misread the country, imagining a hunger for federal activism that doesn't exist. But he is still the most realistic and reasonable major player in Washington.

Liberals are wrong to call him weak and indecisive. He's just not always pursuing their aims. Conservatives are wrong to call him a big-government liberal. That's just not a fair reading of his agenda.

Take health care. He has pushed a program that expands coverage, creates exchanges and moderately tinkers with the status quo — too moderately to restrain costs. To call this an orthodox liberal plan is an absurdity. It more closely resembles the center-left deals cut by Tom Daschle and Bob Dole, or Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney. Obama has pushed this program with a tenacity unmatched in modern political history; with more tenacity than Bill Clinton pushed his health care plan or George W. Bush pushed Social Security reform.

Take education. Obama has taken on a Democratic constituency, the teachers' unions, with a courage not seen since George W. Bush took on the anti-immigration forces in his own party. In a remarkable speech on March 1, he went straight at the guardians of the status quo by calling for the removal of failing teachers in failing schools. Obama has been the most determined education reformer in the modern presidency.

Take foreign policy. To the consternation of many on the left, Obama has continued about 80 percent of the policies of the second Bush term. Obama conducted a long review of the Afghan policy and was genuinely moved by the evidence. He has emerged as a liberal hawk, pursuing victory in Iraq and adopting an Afghan surge that has already utterly transformed the momentum in that war. The Taliban is now in retreat and its leaders are being assassinated or captured at a steady rate.

Take finance. Obama and Tim Geithner are vilified on the left as craven to Wall Street and on the right as clueless bureaucrats who know nothing about how markets function. But they have tried with halting success to find a center-left set of restraints to provide some stability to market operations.

In a sensible country, people would see Obama as a president trying to define a modern brand of moderate progressivism. In a sensible country, Obama would be able to clearly define this project without fear of offending the people he needs to get legislation passed. But we don't live in that country. We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office. ..."

NYT Columnist David Brooks

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 10 - 10:56 AM

"Which brings me to the third myth: that health reform is fiscally irresponsible. How can people say this given Congressional Budget Office predictions — which, as I've already argued, are probably too pessimistic — that reform would actually reduce the deficit? Critics argue that we should ignore what's actually in the legislation; when cost control actually starts to bite on Medicare, they insist, Congress will back down.

But this isn't an argument against Obamacare, it's a declaration that we can't control Medicare costs no matter what. And it also flies in the face of history: contrary to legend, past efforts to limit Medicare spending have in fact "stuck," rather than being withdrawn in the face of political pressure.

So what's the reality of the proposed reform? Compared with the Platonic ideal of reform, Obamacare comes up short. If the votes were there, I would much prefer to see Medicare for all.

For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn't transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we've done before.

This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. "

Paul Krugman

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Mar 10 - 06:11 AM

Not to fear, ya'll... Health care is rounding Turn 4 and headin' for the home stretch and then...

...things are going to get real interesting for the Democrats because with that behind them they are going to be feeling purdy good about themselves--- ya know like feeling good when ya' stop beatin' yer head against the wall---and I see the Dems puttin' the Repubs in a few "trick boxes" fir all the help that the Repubs have been to health care reform...

Not too sure how it will play but I'm sure after that collective sigh of relief the Dems will take a couple days off and then figure out a few ways to inflict payback...

Again, can't offer an specifics... Just a hunch...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 08:56 PM

"Investigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions Ñ involving banks, land deals, loan payments, casinos and even plastic surgery Ñ made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion program.

Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or of having stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the federal investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees and expensive jewelry, or to pay off enormous casino debts.

Some suspects also tried to conceal foreign bank accounts in Ghana, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain, the investigators said, while in other cases, cash was simply found stacked in home safes.

There have already been dozens of indictments and convictions for corruption since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But the new cases seem to confirm what investigators have long speculated: that the chaos, weak oversight and wide use of cash payments in the reconstruction program in Iraq allowed many more Americans who took bribes or stole money to get off scot-free.

ÒIÕve had a continuing sense that there is ongoing fraud that we have not been able to nail down,Ó said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who leads the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent oversight agency. ÒThis spate of new cases is evidence that that sense was reasonably well placed.Ó

The cases were uncovered during the first phase of a new, systematic inquiry into financial activities, which investigators said began in earnest last summer. A related investigation of rebuilding funds for Afghanistan began in February.

Mr. BowenÕs office agreed to answer general questions on the new inquiry but declined to divulge the names of the suspects, who include private contractors, military officers and civilian officials.

Developed in the Treasury Department, the financial monitoring effort goes by the generic name of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or Fincen, which continually generates data on suspicious financial transactions in support of more than 275 federal and state law enforcement agencies, according to a December report by the Government Accountability Office.

Stephen Hudak, a spokesman at the Treasury Department for Fincen, said it generated 15 million to 16 million reports a year on suspicious financial activity or major currency transactions, including cash deposits of more than $10,000. He said that transactions in banks, check-cashing outlets, wire services, casinos, stockbrokersÕ offices and insurance companies were covered...."NYT

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 10 - 09:02 PM

Sorry, that was the wrong thread for that post. Should have been "Bush Years in Retrospect...".

Those boys did one hell of a job, eh, Brownie?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 16 Mar 10 - 11:32 PM

While campaigning for the democratic presidential bid, Mr. Obama has promised to put more information online. His plan includes posting more government data, posting bills for public comment and holding online hearings and meetings.
  He co-sponsored the recent FOIA amendment and was endorsed by one of the law's authors long-time open-government advocate Sen. Patrick Leahy.

An Obama secret: They're rejecting more Freedom of Information requests than those secretive Bush folks
March 16, 2010 LA Times

Here's a not-so-tiny tidbit of data that's getting lost in the White House-driven public frenzy over healthcare legislation this week:

The White House Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his presidential predecessor George W. Bush as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did.

Transparency and openness were deemed so important to the new president that on his first full day in office last year he dispatched a memo to all federal agencies saying:

    Transparency and openness were so important to the new president that on his first full day in office last year, he dispatched a much-publicized memo throughout the federal government saying:

    All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA. That was the same day he issued an executive order promising to shut the Guantanamo Bay detention facility by the end of calendar 2009, which hasn't happened yet either.

One of the exemptions allowed to deny Freedom of Information requests has been used by the Obama administration 70,779 times in its first year, while the same exemption was used 47,395 times in Bush's final budget year.

An Associated Press examination of 17 major agencies' handling of FOIA requests found denials 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2008 fiscal year under Bush. As the thorough Ed Morrissey points out over here, during a time of war and terrorist threats, any government can justify not releasing some sensitive information. And true, Obama's always been a legislator, not an executive.

But why despite advance warnings about the realities of governing make such a big campaign deal over a previous administration's secrecy (not to mention Guantanamo) when you're going to end up being even more secretive? And invite inevitable charges of hypocrisy and even more empty campaign promises?

Today to mark annual Sunshine Week, designed to promote openness in government, Obama applauded himself by issuing a statement: As Sunshine Week begins, I want to applaud everyone who has worked to increase transparency in government and recommit my administration to be the most open and transparent ever, an effort that will strengthen our democracy and ensure the public's trust in their government.

However, a new study out Monday by George Washington University's National Security Archive finds less than one-third of the 90 federal agencies who process such FOIA requests have made significant changes in their procedures since Obama's 2009 memo.

So, today in response, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel did what federal government chiefs of staff do: He sent out yet another memo. Since the agencies ignored the memo from the real president of the United States, they'll probably all snap to when the Obama staffer's note arrives, don't you think?.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 09:05 AM

That's purdy funny, Sawz...

I read that crap three days into Obama's administartion on another web site which does make one think, "Hmmmmmmmm, there are some folks who plainly don't like Obama"... So I confronted that individual then about how after three days the right wing could come up with that much crap after only three days and never got an answer...

Me thinks that this "Obama is the most secretive administartion" stuff started even before he was president????

But, ya'll just blog yer little right winged hearts out 'cause other than entertaining yourselves and each other this one jsut ain't gotta lot of stickin' power to it... Ya' see, if Bush hadn't lied out his butt to get US into a very immoral and wrong-headed war then maybe??? It all about timing, Sawz... Me thinks ya'll be better servfed tryin' somthin' else...

Now ol' Bobert goingh back to vacationin' here ion New Awww'leens...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 11:37 AM

Sawz:

What instruments, aside from the buffoon, do you play?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 11:54 AM

Amos,

Your attacks and insult on the PERSON that disagrees with you only demonstrates the weakness or lack of supporting evidence that you have for your own point of view.


I had thought better of you- but not for some time now.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 12:01 PM

Well, I have tried, Bruce, but there are limits. Actually though I was genuinely curious about Sawz' musical predilections if any. The buffoon part slipped in from another thread, sorry.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 12:23 PM

Amos,

I know that there are limits- and recently you have been going beyond them. Please endeavor to keep to the topic- feel free to criticise the facts presented, and express your own opinions- But PLEASE refrain from insulting others because they do not agree with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 12:27 PM

Amos,

(more)

After all, you are NOT from Chicago, where personnel attacks and underhanded actions seem to be the normal method of discussion.

You have demonstrated thet YOU do not believe in the type of discussion and political interaction the Obama has stated ( many times) that he desires. Just because HE does not demonstrate what he states is proper does not give you a pass on this.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 12:38 PM

You miss my point as usual, Bruce. I don't mind if someone disagrees with me, but I do object when they do so on the grounds of histrionic half-baked or downright neurotic views of reality based on false, distorted, uninspected or downright fraudulent data. One of the common ways to distort data is to take something that is relatively unimportant in the stream of things and blow it up as though it were terribly important. This is motivated by some sort of hungry a priori need for a casus belli, not by an actual effort to identify situations.

The promulgation of fraudulent data is a specialty of certain loudmouthed fearmongers like Coulter, Reilly, Beck and their ilk. For reasons I do not quite understand this dedication to motivating others through fear seems to crop up on the right side of the political spectrum much more frequently than it does on the left. Maybe liberals are just less interested in lives of hatred and fear. Whatever the reasons, the ill-founded logic of such assertions annoys me, as you know, far more than anyone disagreeeing with me personally. You always ignore that aspect, although we have discussed it before.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 01:01 PM

Amos,

"but I do object when they do so on the grounds of histrionic half-baked or downright neurotic views of reality based on false, distorted, uninspected or downright fraudulent data."

Then attack the data, NOT the person.



Do as Obama SAYS, not what he DOES.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 01:05 PM

Am I the only one who notices the droll inconsistency of your advice to address the data, not the person, uttered in the same breath as an inaccurate personal attack? I dunno, maybe it's a blind spot or something.

IN other news, a NYTimes blogger opines:

"This final hour of the health care battle looks promising for Barack Obama -- political analysts say he is winning back the base, and even the skeptical Paul Krugman is "impressed."

But this conventional wisdom is wrong. Obama never actually "lost" his core supporters in the first place. He does have a problem with the base. But it is about energy, not loyalty.

The current danger for the White House is not losing its coalition, which has shown it can stomach a lot, but rather mistaking its allegiance for enthusiasm.

According to a metric just introduced by Gallup last week, only 27 percent of Democrats are "enthusiastic" about voting in the midterms. Republicans are far more pumped: Forty-three percent say they are eager to turn out.

Put aside all the coverage of Obama's political woes. The fact is that this president is unusually popular within his party and strongly backed by self-identified liberals and the cohorts who propelled him to victory in 2008.

About 82 percent of Democrats currently approve of Obama's job performance. By historical standards, that's gangbusters. At this point in a first term, no Democratic president has held such high standing within his party since Lyndon B. Johnson. (LBJ clocked in just 3 percentage points higher.)

By ideology, Obama still does very well on the left: Seventy-nine percent of liberals approve of his job performance. And that number jumps to 89 percent among liberal Democrats. By contrast, moderates are at 58 percent, while conservatives hover at a sour 26 percent.

Meanwhile, the young, educated and multiracial coalition that Obama built is still in his corner.

About 61 percent of voters younger than 30 currently approve of Obama, while every other age bracket stands below 50 percent. That is a departure from the past two administrations, in which the approval gap by age ran only 3 to 6 percentage points. And a whopping 91 percent of black Americans approve of Obama's job performance.

A White House official told me these numbers show that while the base is "frustrated," given the current political process, Obama's supporters still think he is on the "right track."

"The core of the president's support, young people and African-Americans in particular, are still seeking change in Washington," the official said, but they "understand that changing that system is not going to happen overnight.""

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 01:12 PM

Amos,

To state that someone espouses verbally some form of behaviour, and then in his own actions and speeches does not abide by the action he requests others to do is not a personnel attack. OR were YOU just attacking me, with your observation, rather than the validity of what I said????

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 01:14 PM

"uttered in the same breath as an inaccurate personal attack? "

Care to give some example of the supposed "inaccuracy"? I am basing my comment on the documented speeches of Obama: What are you using to deny it?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 01:15 PM

"I dunno, maybe it's a blind spot or something."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 03:23 PM

Obama has a reputation more than any President in recent memory of looking at the data. Compared to the know-nothing President W, he's a data nut!! Come off it.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 03:29 PM

"a reputation "


But not backed up by his actions.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 03:40 PM

He's a very bright man. His actions, however, are up to whoever his controllers are, and I don't know who they are. Nor do most people know who they are. You're not supposed to know about that. ;-) (here's a tip: they're basically exactly the same people who controlled Bush and all the other presidents for the last few decades, and you can thank them for the wars, various acts of terrorism, numerous financial crises, your shrinking dollar, etc., and there's not a damn thing you can do about it either)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 04:24 PM

TARP, not stimulus, stabilized the economy

To mark the first anniversary of the stimulus program, President Barack Obama and his supporters went on the offensive. They told us that 2 million jobs have been created or saved. They also told us this program avoided another Depression.

But they didn't tell us the cost of this program has increased by $75 billion to $862 billion, according to the latest estimate of the Congressional Budget Office.

The number of federal and state employees has definitely increased. The jobs of numerous teachers, police officers and firefighters have been saved. But the funding for these saved jobs ends this year. Who will fund these jobs when this happens?

How many jobs were actually created or saved in the private sector?

I do not think anyone can give an accurate answer to this question. But we the people think we know. Only 6 percent think the stimulus program created any jobs, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll released Feb. 11.

Economists agree the Troubled Asset Relief Program was responsible for avoiding the collapse of our economy, not the stimulus program. TARP was responsible for bailing out General Motors, Chrysler and the financial institutions.

Now the president wants to use the money that was paid back as a general "slush fund". Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., added an amendment to the TARP bill to prevent this. His amendment requires that any money paid back go the Treasury to reduce debt.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 04:39 PM

Jaysus, you guys--LH with his conspiracy theories and Bruce's jaded generalized anti-social cynicism are enough to put me off any discussion of the Administration for good.

From what I have seen, BB his reputation was founded on the same very actions--unwillingness to jump into ill-founded bravado and histrionic heroism. In fact he's copped a lot of heat because he insists on gathering data longer than thew righties (who are not prone to thoughtful management techniques) can stand.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 04:56 PM

Coming from the colige edjucaited, professor of crapology, the man that thinks Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth and Obama bought his own "beater" airplane, Bobert has less credibility than a used camel salesman in Tehran.

I presented the numbers from a left leaning newspaper.

You can mumble about right wing blogs all you want if it helps you to ignore the facts.

March 17th, 2010
Obama Goes Upside Down in Gallup Tracking

A rather dramatic swing in the Gallup Daily Tracking poll has put President Obama's job rating upside down for the first time, with more Americans now disapproving of job he's doing than approving. According to today's numbers, which represent a rolling average of surveys taken over the past three days, 47% say they disapprove of Obama while 46% approve. That's a net five-point change from yesterday's reading of 48% approve and 44% disapprove, which is a pretty substantial move for a tracking poll. It means the President probably suffered a combination of a good day of polling dropping off the back end of the rolling average while adding a bad day of polling to the front end.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 07:30 PM

Conspiracy??? What conspiracy? I'm not talking about any conspiracy, I'm talking about how the system just naturally works, that's all. The richest people at the top of the power chain work in such a way as most directly benefits them, that works its way down through all the levels of government, it gets enshrined in law and legislation and executive decisions, and the results are predictable.

It's been that way in the past too in many other great powers and empires. It isn't just a recent American phenomenon.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 07:54 PM

"I've always found that courage comes from remembering that we fight
for something and someone beyond ourselves. It comes from our faith.
And it comes from our commitment to those we love."
Ñ PRESIDENT OBAMA Ñ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Mar 10 - 08:12 PM

Yup.

As Ronnie Hawkins always used to sing: "Who do ya LOVE????"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Mar 10 - 01:57 PM

Now, why is this bad when Republicans do it, and good when Democrats do it?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Mar 10 - 02:19 PM

For the same reason that it's "bad" in hockey or football when the visiting team does it, but it's "good" when the home team does it. ;-)

Until the audience realizes that the game is rigged, and that both teams work for the same corporate management, the old partisan silliness and blind prejudice and hatred will just go on, and on, and on, and on....which is exactly the way head office wants it. Without you partisan dummies constantly attacking each other, you might decide to attack the corporate bosses instead, and that would bring the system down.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Mar 10 - 03:55 PM

Because the Republicans lied about doing it, perhaps? Oh, and possibly because a lot of their talking points were major departures from the truth? That might have something to do with it. Doesn't take a lot to notice those differences, I guess.





A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Mar 10 - 05:10 PM

And the Democrats lying about doing it, perhaps? Oh, and possibly a lot of Democratic talking points are major departures from the truth?

Amos, you keep telling me that I should just accept anything Obama says as true, even when he says something different the next time.


It seems to me that Obama is doing a fair job as president- after all, just from the number of Bush policies he has continued, about half of what Obama does I approve of ( having approved when Bush did it, unlike fickle Amos). Almost as good a job as Bush did, in fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Mar 10 - 05:41 PM

Come on, guys! (rolling my eyes) They both lie every time their lips move, fer Chrissake.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Mar 10 - 08:09 PM

Funny thing, BB...you approve of Obama for the very same reasons I am so disappointed in him! ;-)

He's like a mug of George Bush Lite Beer.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Mar 10 - 08:23 PM

My opinion, for what it is worth, as that you are both viewing him through fixed ideas, and not seeing what is actually there. Now, I admit that after a certain number of years of W, I may havebeen guilty of some fixed ideas myself. Bruce never admits it, but I did post some positive comments about W when he did something I thought was decent. But it happened so rarely it shrank out of view compared to the outrageous mistreatment of the office which surfaced over and over again. I do not see Obama abusing his office in the same way that W notoriously did.

His (W) malfeasance went way beyond the normal political maneuvers associated with trying to get things done.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,I'll try again...
Date: 18 Mar 10 - 09:08 PM

This computer is possessed... Hit the long skinny spacer thing twice and it makes it like "submit" but...

...first of all, seein' as I've had 600 miles of interstate driving today I ain't in mood for all the crap I've just read...

Number 1: Yo, Sawz... I got some bad news fir ya', son... The news departments in just about every newspaper and TV station in the country have experience drastic cuts which means that alot of shit that is being put out by rightie bloggers is making it into the medai as, ahhhhhh, fact??? It ain't... It's 10% fact and 90% homemade bullshit... This is where "critical thinking" skills come into play... If somethin' don't sound right it generally ain't right...

Which brings me to "Sawz facts"... You claim that only about half a million kids go to bed hungry when there are between 40 and 50 million people living in poverty???????

Man, that is some serious mis-thinking on yer part...

So I bring that up to you and you go off on yer little Obama's airplane trip??? Like what is that all about... We're talkin' "critical thinking" here about some serious shit... Not Obama's airplane...

But, no you don't wnat to talk nuthin' serious... You just want to attack me overstupid stuff that really has no bearing on the umber of kids that go hungry....

So I challenges you to provide a budget for a family of 4 living at the poverty level as a first step toward your 3 credits in "Critical Thinking 101" but you ignore that because you'd rather btalk about Obama's friggin' airplane???

Like what is that about, Sawz???

Well, you don't have to anaswer that because we know the answer to that... You really don't give a flyin' crap about kids that are hungry... You just wnat to post rightie-blog shit that because we don't have real newspeopoe out there doing real news things ya'll can get away with... Well, you ain't gettin' away with it from me, son, 'cause I'm on to the entire deal...

So now it's back to the rightie-blog mythology that Obama is the most secretive president ever going back to Ceasar (lol)... The righties sent that ballon up 3 days into the Obama administration and it wouldn't fly when they reminded that Obama had only been in office for 3 friggin' days so ya'll rightie bloggers (of which you are one) decided to just put that mythology off fir a while and try it again later????

What, do ya'll think the rest of us are friggin' morons, or what???

Quite the opposite, son... We see what ya'll are doing... Yeah, we know that ya'll hate Obama... We know that mythology is yer tool to display this hatred... Ain't nuthin' new here...

So, in the words of Paul Seibel, "No, this ain't been nice but we got something said..."

I know... Who is Paul Seibel??? Oh yeah... Ask a musican... There are plenty of them here... Not you, of course... Right??? Hey, this is a musican's website... At least bb is a geetar buyer and seller... BTW, what instrument is it again that you play...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 Mar 10 - 09:23 PM

Amos,

Notice any simularity to what you have posted? I guess we should start another thread demanding this, now...

From this Times.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Bobert on the road...
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 07:05 PM

Hey, given the fact that "reconciliation", a process that requires that a decrease in the federal deficit be achieved from the process, was used by Bush for tax cuts which *increased* the federal deficit me thinks that given the fact that both houses have passed very similar health care reform bills that you can take the "Slaughter Rule", put it in the toidy and pull that little chrome handle down...

I mean, let's get real here!!!

I understand that the Repubs don't want the Dems to achieve *anything*... That has been their strategy which really has nothing to do with any particular legislation but everything to do with pure politics but...

...hey, tough beans!!! If the Dems get this thru then they will get to live with it... If it turns out to be good then they will benefit and if it doesn't then they won't... That's the way things are...

I do find it very interesting that there are stories about Clinton's attempt to get health care reform passed and a memo ( I think from the Newt-ster himself) that stated that if the Dems got it thru that it would hurt the Republican Party for years to come??? I donno about their strategy other than they are completely wedded to it now...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 08:01 PM

Bruce:

Well, no. Bush actually assaulted the pillars of our constitutional republic; Obama is not actually doing so but is being framed by rightsiders. For example they are all up in arms about the procedure Obama is considering, while they had no such objections when Bush and Co used it for far less positive purposes. Mr Kuhner likes to use hot button words which are simply untrue, such as "unprecedented" "assaulting" and so on. It's a bunch of stink and fury designed to raise heat and cast no light.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 08:26 PM

That's true, Amos, but I honestly do think that it is wrong to legally force people to purchase private health insurance. I think it is utterly wrong to do that. I go further than that, I think it is evil to do that.

I don't ascribe that evil directly to Mr Obama himself, however, I ascribe it to the health insurance industry which has bribed and blackmailed his party into putting forth a health care bill that is tailored for one real purpose: to further enrich the private health insurance industry.

And the Republicans? Oh, they'd have done even worse things, in all probability if they were in power. You are ruled over by theives, traitors, and scoundrels. Your Mr Obama may be a good man, I don't know, but if he is, he is a good man in the grip of thieves, traitors, and scoundrels.

You are exchanging one form of disgracefully bad national health care scheme for another, that's all.

Have you seen "Capitalism - A Love Story" yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 09:06 PM

L:

SON, it's an easy answer to say there is no difference. It sounds very knowledgeable and all, but it is just lazy talk.    What we will have done when the health reform bill passes tomorrow is taken ONE step toward a more workable and compassionate union. Not yet a perfect union but in spite of all efforts against it, a small amount more perfect. No it doesn'
t amke all the difference, but it sure as hell makes some significant difference. You can jump to lazy conclusions all you want but the real hard work of political change (a job, by the way for which I surmise you are unsuited) comes from making hard-won small steps like this one. Followed by another. If Obama keeps on doing so in spite of all the muckraking and hateful vilification based on mythological horsepucky, why, he'll be earning his keep and then some.

Assume, just for discussion, this turns out to be the case.

Your own approach, in parallel and in contrast, will have left you doing pretty much what you are doing now, knowing best about the whole thing and accomplishing more of the same sameness. A change of nil. But you will still have the satisfaction of having great certainty that nothing has happened. And how terrible bad it is. I wish you the joy of it, if any can be found.


A

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Mar 10 - 09:16 PM

Amos, please don't lose sight of the fact that I do want Mr Obama's bill to pass, okay? ;-) I agree that any small step forward is better than no step forward.

I am simply drawing attention to the perfidy of the powerful private industry which has unduly influenced the process much for the worse.

The joy I have is that I do live in a country where we have an affordable, government-run, single payer national health plan, and it costs me less than a thousand a year. If I had been living in the USA when my father got liver disease, I and my parents would have been bankrupted by the treatment he got. We'd have lost our savings, our house, everything.

Living in Canada, we simply lost my father (whose eventual death was inevitable).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 01:19 AM

Well, living in a good society is a great joy, no question.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 06:24 AM

Well, LH... Think about it this way... The government is ultimately responsible for either allowing people to die or pickin' up the tab to keep them alive so me thinks that if folks don't like it then they should be able to opt out of health care entirely... That may sound cruel but if you have no way to get folks who are young and healthy payin' into the pool then all yer gonna end up with is the high risk people... So I think that, yeah, if you want health care then, like auto insurance, yer gonna have to step to the plate and participate...

If you don't want it and agree to *never* use it regardless of the situation then, fine, opt out and just take yer chances...

But that is an argument that we never could have had because it would sound heartless and inhumane...

Meanwhile, today could be the day where the House reaffirms its earlier vote... What a bunch of baloney... Shouldn't have to come down to a million parlimentary loopholes...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 11:40 AM

In an interesting subplot the nuns of the Catholic universe are taking an end run around their bishops and the Pope and supporting Obama's health care initiative. Maureen Dowd, a good Irish girl, tells the story with humor.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 11:53 AM

An interesting analysis of the largely Republican-inspired malfeasance behind the LEhamnn Brothers collapse and related items by Frank Rich.

Financial reform is going to be a major second front in this long battle against malfeasance and institutionalized gouging and inequity. Prediction: the Republicans will stir up their flying monkeys to throw turds and scream about socialism when Obama's administration makes serious efforts to establish a viable, rational rules set limiting the right of high-power financial executives to fuck the country for profit.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 12:29 PM

No doubt, Amos, no doubt.

Guest - Yes, I see your point. However, I don't think it's the same as auto insurance in that respect. Your bad driving presents a direct threat to the lives and property of other people...that's why auto insurance is compulsory. Your bad health does not present a direct threat to the lives and property of other people.

I've never heard of a Canadian citizen who wanted to opt of of health insurance coverage, because it is a civil right here which is given to everyone...in the same fashion that having a police force, a fire department, and other vital services like that is given to everyone.

Would you like it if the police were privately employed by a bunch of corporations and would only come to your assistance in an emergency if you had already purchased an expensive yearly protection policy from them??? No, you wouldn't like that one bit, and you'd be right not to like it, because it would be tyrrany. It would be like having the Mafia running the police force.

A police force is supported through taxes and is there to help everyone, without prejudice, any time help is required. They don't make you pay them first...everyone has already shared the cost through their taxes.

That is what we have in Canada for health care, and that is what most other developed countries have. Health care isn't an optional luxury, it's an absolute requirement for everyone in a society, and it should be prepaid for EVERYONE by taxes.

If you do that, each individual person can afford the overall cost of health care, because only a few people are in need of it at any one time....same as only a few people need the police or the fire department at any one time.

Health care, like police and fire departments, should be a civil RIGHT that is provided to the entire society in a totally equal manner through taxation. That's the only sane way to do it. Period.

And getting back to auto insurance...I do, in fact, think that auto insurance should be handled that way too. It isn't, but I believe it should be. If it was, I suspect it would be a lot less expensive.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 07:08 PM

It's the best we could get under the circumstances, LH... Ya' see, our government is badly broken and if this thing goes thru it will be an amazing achievement and the first major legislation passed in almost 4 decades...

So lighten up on US, por favor...

Plus, yeah... No one is going to opy out... That was crazy tghinkin' on my part but it does kinda go toward all these Tea Baggers who hate the governement until they ***need*** the government... Then they can't get enough government...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 08:16 PM

I realize your circumstances, Bobert, and I would describe them as "desperate". I sure hope it passes...and if it does, I hope it leads to further steps in that same direction until you have a new Bill of Rights which includes free and available health care for all.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 Mar 10 - 09:51 PM

1800