BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 06 May 09 - 10:09 AM

WHether we use Fair tax, Flat tax or Fat Cat Tax
There will always be a wealthy oligarchy that will fix the game



We may live to see the day when corporations seek a new refuge by establishing a holy church bank that is also tax free non profit cash havan. Correct me if I'm wrong but Islam promotes such "churchs" already.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 06 May 09 - 09:38 PM

"There will always be a wealthy oligarchy that will fix the game..."

                   There will always be a wealthy oligarchy that will try to fix the game, but we don't have to let them do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 07 May 09 - 10:18 AM

While a couple Enron Employees went to prison, now that the entire country has been Enronized which destroyed not only our economy but the world, I don't see a single person in jail for even one Enron type corporate crime.

While talking heads on FOX or CNBC fret about class warfare "against the rich" it seems to me that justice needs to get a grip and put some of these Enron trained swine in prison before a terribly harmed population engages in vigilantism.

Yes there are 10,000 criminals who could be held accountable but we haven't even indicted Mozilla.




I coin the term 'Enronization' because there are 10 principal criminal acts that Wall Street used by hiring actual ex Enron executives to teach others and put them in action.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 09 - 10:36 AM

Hedge Fund Leader Blasts Obama for "Bullying" and "Abuse of Power"

Posted May 06, 2009 07:38am EDT by Tech Ticker in Investing, Newsmakers, Recession, Banking

Cliff Asness, whose firm manages some $20 billion of assets, has written an open letter blasting President Obama for his attack on the hedge fund industry in the wake of the Chrysler bankruptcy.

As you'll recall, hedge funds, which hold approximately $1 billion in Chrysler bonds, refused the government's offer to take approximately thirty cents on the dollar. Obama accused hedge funds of holding out "for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout."

These comments have enraged many in the industry but few have spoken out publicly. Asness, whose firm doesn't hold Chrysler bonds, says the industry is genuinely afraid in the face of Obama's power. Stating that he himself is "fearful writing this," Asness still pulls no punches:

"Let's be clear, it is the job and obligation of all investment managers, including hedge fund managers, to get their clients the most return they can. They are allowed to be charitable with their own money, and many are spectacularly so, but if they give away their clients' money to share in the "sacrifice", they are stealing."
"The President screaming that the hedge funds are looking for an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout is the big lie writ large. Find me a hedge fund that has been bailed out. Find me a hedge fund, even a failed one, that has asked for one. In fact, it was only because hedge funds have not taken government funds that they could stand up to this bullying. The TARP recipients had no choice but to go along."

"The President's attempted diktat takes money from bondholders and gives it to a labor union that delivers money and votes for him. Why is he not calling on his party to "sacrifice" some campaign contributions, and votes, for the greater good? Shaking down lenders for the benefit of political donors is recycled corruption and abuse of power."
Henry discusses the controversy with hedge fund manager Jeff Matthews, of Ram Partners. (He's also author of the popular blog Jeff Matthews Is Not Making This Up.) Matthews says it's no surprise that Obama would favor unions over hedge funds and that there's no use in crying foul in the court of public opinion. But, says Matthews, expect the Administration's tactics to be challenged where they should be: the court of law.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 07 May 09 - 10:50 AM

It seems to me that a Hedge Fund is basically a criminal enterprize to begin with. We can't have dark figures manipulating market and capital behind the scenes with no oversight.

                      And I agree with Donuel. It's stupid for the American public to be watching a pointless debate between Fox News and MSNBC, while these crooks are sneaking around and stealing us blind.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: DougR
Date: 07 May 09 - 10:17 PM

Got to admit it, I was wrong. I thought surely by this time folks would have tired of the teleprompter master, but such is not the case. Polls show that Obama is still popular with the majority of the population. As to his policies, and proposed programs, well that's a different story. Anyway, I must admit, particularly to Ebbie, that my prediction made a few months ago was wrong.

I was wrong also in December, 1941.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 May 09 - 11:44 PM

Doug - You thought that the Japanese would not go to war over FDR's 1941 embargo on their overseas sources of oil and steel???

(Heh! I know that's probably not what you meant, but...well, I think that FDR would have been VERY surprised and quite frustrated if the Japanese had decided to just give up, cave in, pull their armies out of China, mothball their navy, abandon their overseas efforts at empire, and consent to being a has-been as a major power in the Pacific...)

They did nothing of the kind, of course. They reacted precisely as expected, and went to war. This is how you get the country into a war when neither Congress nor the general public really want one.

You then act morally outraged and disbelieving when the inevitable happens....very effective for mobilizing the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 08 May 09 - 07:38 AM

That's very insightful, Little Hawk. Can you recommend any literature written from that point of view.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 08 May 09 - 09:47 PM

Obama is doing a lot of things right. The idea that one shouldn't draw unemployment compensation while going to school always seemed like the stupidest thing in the world to me.
             A lot of us simply lied.
             I took 22 credit hours one term while drawing unemployment. If somebody would have called me up to work, I might have wound up in jail.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 May 09 - 12:42 AM

There have been a number of books suggesting that FDR was quite concerned about getting the US into WWII as soon as possible, Rig (and for quite cogent reasons, by the way...he was worried that the Germans might win in Europe). I can't think of the titles...I read most of them, oh, maybe fifteen or twenty years ago. Anyway, from his point of view it was imperative to get the USA in the war before a total German victory in Europe occurred, and the Germans were looking very strong in 1941.

He had a problem, though. Germamy had no reason and no motivation to declare war on the USA. Furthermore, the American public and Congress were not showing any enthusiasm for getting into a war in Europe, and the Germans were not offering any significant provocations, despite the fact that FDR was doing everything he could to help England in the Battle of the Atlantic, short of actually going to war. For example, the Americans unofficially contributed long range scout planes to help the British track the Bismark in the spring of '41. They did other things to help the British locate German U-boats at sea. And they supplied the British with a whole bunch of older American destroyers for convoy escort...free!

However, the Germans had utterly no good reason to get in a war with the USA, so they didn't....for the time being.

The only feasible way for FDR to get an isolationist public and Congress onside for a war was for someone to launch an outright and apparently unprovoked attack on the USA. (think 911...for instance)

And who would do that? Well, the Germans wouldn't...and there was no way to maneuver them into doing so. But the Japanese would...provided the USA cut off their overseas supplies of two vital commodities: oil and steel. Roosevelt effectively did that in early '41 with an embargo.

The Japanese had been tied down since the late 30's in a major war in China. They could not continue to prosecute that war without using up massive amouts of oil and (secondarily) steel. They had only enough oil in reserve to keep their navy and other services going for about 1 year...and no domestic sources of oil.

When FDR put the embargo in place, war with Japan became inevitable.

It's possible that FDR did not expect the Japanese to have the expertise to do such a long range attack as their raid on Pearl Harbour. He may have been expecting them to hit farther west only...in the Phillipines and Southeast Asia. Well, they hit there AND at Pearl Harbour, and proved to be much more capable than anyone in the American high command (except Claire Chennault) would have guessed. Chennault commanded the American Volunteer Group in China (the Flying Tigers) and he was well aware how good the Japanese air force was...but no one in the USA would listen to him! The Zero fighter was the best fighter in the Pacific (maybe in the world at that time) and Chennault knew it, but he was not believed back in the USA. The Japanese navy was also the best in the world in late '41 in a number of respects. Nobody in the USA believed that either.

Accordingly, they got caught with their pants badly down for about 6 months by the Japanese...until the battle at Midway where Japanese luck ran out with a vengeance!

FDR had good reason to want to go to war against Germany. His best way of doing so was to trigger the war with Japan, after which it wouldn't be too hard to enlarge an existing conflict...it never is. Hitler then made the incredibly stupid error of immediately declaring war on the USA after Pearl Harbour instead of just standing aside (which he could have) and letting the Japanese twist in the wind. They didn't help him against Russia, so why would he help them against the USA??? It boggles the mind!

Anyway, Roosevelt calculated cleverly, in my opinion, and he got his 2-front war when he wanted it...and won it handily, which was virtually inevitable given the combined GDP of the USA, Russia, and Great Britain.

I'm not judging him one way or another for doing it...I'm just saying: that's what he did. He deliberately pushed the Japanese into a corner so they would go to war against the USA.

He may have been quite shocked at how much damage the Japanese Navy (Naval Air Force) did at Pearl Harbour and elsewhere though. I expect he was. After all, the consensus stateside before Pearl Harbour seemed to be that the Japanese flew planes made out of rice paper that were extremely inferior copies of obsolete American planes. Nothing could have been farther from the truth...!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 May 09 - 09:17 AM

Thanks for the info, LH. It seems to me that a number of people are beginning to wonder what the world would be today if Hitler had won in Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 May 09 - 08:56 AM

Obama Agrees with Bush on Polar Bears

By Bryan Walsh Friday, May. 08, 2009Fish and Wildlife Service / AP
Polar bears have become the universal symbol of global warming, not so much because they're cute or cuddly (they're actually ferocious and not opposed to cannibalism), but because it is eminently clear that climate change is killing them. Polar bears depend on solid sea ice for survival; it's where they do their hunting. But when the ice begins to melt — as it has in recent years, thanks largely to warming — the bears can starve and die.

A 2007 study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that two-thirds of the polar bears on the planet could disappear by mid-century if Arctic ice keeps melting. So when the Bush Administration bowed to pressure from environmental groups last year and finally listed the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) — admitting that melting sea ice was the reason — it was considered a rare green coup. Since the ESA mandates the government protect endangered species from hazards, listing the polar bear as threatened by global warming would appear to require Washington to control carbon emissions. Some green groups even thought the ESA could be used to fight new coal plants and other big emitters of greenhouse gases, on the grounds that they would accelerate warming and harm the polar bear. (See Germany's latest polar bear celebrity.)

But there was a catch. While declaring the polar bear threatened by global warming, the Bush Interior Department added a rule that limited the use of the ESA to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, even though science says that global warming is directly hurting polar bears and man-made carbon emissions are the chief cause of global warming, Washington wouldn't be allowed to use the ESA to do anything about it.

President Barack Obama had promised to review those last-minute Bush Administration changes to the ESA. And green groups were hopeful that the new Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, would restore full protections for the polar bear. But they came away disappointed on May 8, when Salazar announced that he would keep the Bush rule in place, claiming that the ESA wasn't meant to be used to cap carbon emissions. "When the ESA was passed, it was not contemplated it would be a tool to address the issue of climate change," he said. "It seems to me that using the Endangered Species Act as a way to get to that global warming framework is not the right way to go." (See pictures of the effects of global warming.)

Though he coupled his announcement with a call for comprehensive climate legislation, Salazar essentially made the same argument that his predecessors had: that the ESA was meant to deal with local threats to species, not global ones. It would be impossible, for example, to directly link the increase in carbon emissions caused by a new coal plant to the polar bears' melting habitat. But environmental groups, several of which had fought in the courts for years to force the Bush Administration to list the polar bear, found Salazar's logic faulty. "From a scientific standpoint they're wrong," says John Kostyack, senior counsel at the National Wildlife Federation. "By doing this, the Obama Administration is missing a chance to tell the American people what global warming is doing their wildlife."

Environmental groups were already less than enthusiastic about Salazar heading the Interior Department. A Democratic senator from Colorado, Salazar was a rancher more attuned to the idea of using nature rather than protecting it, and he angered greens early by removing the Western gray wolf from the endangered species list. As the head of Interior, he'll be making decisions on whether to open up new land to oil and gas development, and the polar bear ruling has some environmentalists worried. "This does raise a red flag," says Noah Greenwald, program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which is fighting the polar bear ruling in court. "You worry this means he is not going to be a friend of the environment and the Endangered Species Act."

It's a little early to judge Salazar's tenure at the Interior Department, and the Secretary may have a point — the ESA wasn't designed to counter a threat as global as global warming. The best way to deal with carbon emissions is to pass national legislation that would create a cap-and-trade program, rather than trying to stretch the ESA to fit a purpose its drafters couldn't have foreseen. But the ongoing battle over the polar bear is a reminder that wildlife will be the first victims of global warming — and that saving them won't be easy.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 13 May 09 - 07:21 AM

PRUDEN: Even a messiah loses his training wheels
By Wesley Pruden (Contact) | Tuesday, May 12, 2009


Disconnecting the training wheels is a scary prospect for every apprentice biker, even with Daddy standing close by. We can sympathize with Barack Obama's fright as his moment approaches. It's not easy suddenly being on your own, paying the price of falling with your own skinned knees and bruised elbows.

Nevertheless, the dreadful moment approacheth. Anticipating D-Day, Peter Orszag, the president's budget director, said Monday that the scarier than expected economic news - the deficit out of control, tax receipts down and costs of bailouts and "stimulus" plans up - is all the fault of George W. Bush: "It's an economic crisis President Obama inherited."

But Mr. Obama has already been president for more than a hundred days, and passing the hundred-day mark, irrelevant milestone as it may be, was cited as dead-solid proof that the president is the messiah he told everyone he was. Reality, however, has begun to cast a shadow over the White House, still as faint as the bright golden haze on the meadow but visible enough. "Blaming George" still makes a tingle run up the legs of all the hymn-singing true believers, but outside the embrace of the cult, that tingle is beginning to sting instead. This is Mr. Obama's government now.

The White House on Monday said the new estimate of the budget deficit would nearly reach $2 trillion - that's trillion, with a "t" - and that's nearly 13 percent of the entire gross domestic product. Pretty gross any way you spin it, and the president's men (and women) are spinning it as best they can. Alas, the country's predicament, if not yet the president's, is probably worse than it looks.

The projected budget deficit is four times larger than the deficit record set last year. We can blame that one on George, but George, big spender that he was, turns out to have been a tightwad. Maybe this is the "change" Mr. Obama promised. Yes, he did.

The administration insisted Monday that by the end of this year the gross domestic product will be growing at a rate of 3.5 percent, which would be good news so good that it's likely to be too good to be true, and it's certainly more optimistic than any private economic forecast anyone has seen beyond the White House fence.

The White House flogged this news in a statement studded with more weasel words than usual: "Although the economic downturn so far in 2009 has been more severe than the administration expected when the forecast was finalized, if the financial system begins to function more normally, there is every reason to expect a somewhat stronger recovery, given the depth of the current recession." Translation: "Don't blame us, nothing is ever the fault of the messiah, maybe everything will get a little better if it actually does get better. We hope. But don't count on it."

What shines through the spinning, bright and bold, is that Mr. Obama no longer believes in the pie in the sky he promised. He has obviously learned a few things in his first hundred days. "Wow! So that's where babies come from." But he still can't give up his teleprompter, his training wheels and good ol' George. Good ol' George is the president's teddy bear. He can't go to sleep without Teddy. George is his imaginary person, too, on whom he can blame everything. He feels very close to imaginary George.

George the imaginary person threatens everything Mr. Obama has in store for us - higher taxes (whether disguised as "user fees" or "investments"), Al Gore's vast scheme to combat global warming whether the globe is warming or not, and a health-care plan guaranteed to eventually assure every American access to medical care equal to the quality health care now available in France, Canada, Britain and maybe even Lower Volta.

The good news, such as it is, is that the remaking of America in a way that a Chicago street "activist" of a generation ago hardly dared dream of may be of such potent poison that the body politic will reject it, as a healthy human body might reject a massive dose of arsenic (perhaps administered by someone in old lace). Several of the president's Democratic allies in Congress are already balking at his scheme to extract killer taxes, such as curbing deductions for mortgage interest, gifts to churches and charities, and state and local taxes.

Soaking the rich, so-called, is OK, but marinating the rich may not be helpful. More than skinned knees and bruised elbows are in prospect as Barack Obama finally discovers that ready or not, he's the president now.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 May 09 - 04:27 AM

Bruce, maybe he'll slap himself on the forehead, and gasp "Oh God, What have I been doing??"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 14 May 09 - 07:49 AM

Tincture of Lawlessness
Obama's Overreaching Economic Policies

By George F. Will
Thursday, May 14, 2009



Anyone, said T.S. Eliot, could carve a goose, were it not for the bones. And anyone could govern as boldly as his whims decreed, were it not for the skeletal structure that keeps civil society civil -- the rule of law. The Obama administration is bold. It also is careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness.

In February, California's Democratic-controlled Legislature, faced with a $42 billion budget deficit, trimmed $74 million (1.4 percent) from one of the state's fastest-growing programs, which provides care for low-income and incapacitated elderly people and which cost the state $5.42 billion last year. The Los Angeles Times reports that "loose oversight and bureaucratic inertia have allowed fraud to fester."

But the Service Employees International Union collects nearly $5 million a month from 223,000 caregivers who are members. And the Obama administration has told California that unless the $74 million in cuts are rescinded, it will deny the state $6.8 billion in stimulus money.

Such a federal ukase (the word derives from czarist Russia; how appropriate) to a state legislature is a sign of the administration's dependency agenda -- maximizing the number of people and institutions dependent on the federal government. For the first time, neither sales nor property nor income taxes are the largest source of money for state and local governments. The federal government is.

The SEIU says the cuts violate contracts negotiated with counties. California officials say the state required the contracts to contain clauses allowing pay to be reduced if state funding is.

Anyway, the Obama administration, judging by its cavalier disregard of contracts between Chrysler and some of the lenders it sought money from, thinks contracts are written on water. The administration proposes that Chrysler's secured creditors get 28 cents per dollar on the $7 billion owed to them but that the United Auto Workers union get 43 cents per dollar on its $11 billion in claims -- and 55 percent of the company. This, even though the secured creditors' contracts supposedly guaranteed them better standing than the union.

Among Chrysler's lenders, some servile banks that are now dependent on the administration for capital infusions tugged their forelocks and agreed. Some hedge funds among Chrysler's lenders that are not dependent were vilified by the president because they dared to resist his demand that they violate their fiduciary duties to their investors, who include individuals and institutional pension funds.

more

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 May 09 - 08:59 AM

So, Bush was right- again???



Obama to resurrect military tribunals for terror suspects

Story Highlights
Sources say Obama will revive Bush system that was suspended in January
System to include expanded due-process rights for the suspects, officials say
ACLU says the tribunal approach is still "fatally flawed"
updated 1 hour, 10 minutes ago

By Ed Henry
CNN Senior White House Correspondent
   
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama is planning on Friday to resume the Bush administration's controversial military tribunal system for some Guantanamo detainees -- which he suspended in his first week in office -- according to three administration officials.

Some of the high-profile terror suspects who are being charged in the tribunal process include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

The administration officials stressed that the updated system will include expanded due-process rights for the suspects, which administration officials note is consistent with what Obama pushed for as a senator in 2006 in order to improve upon the widely criticized approach created by the Bush administration.

The move could increase tensions with liberal groups, led by the ACLU, which are already furious about Obama's shift this week to block the release of photos showing prisoners allegedly being abused by U.S. personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, called the expected new approach on military tribunals "fatally flawed" despite the changes.

"The military commissions are built on unconstitutional premises and designed to ensure convictions, not provide fair trials," Romero said in a prepared statement released earlier this week after speculation about the restart of military tribunals surfaced. "Reducing some but not all of the flaws of the tribunals so that they are 'less offensive' is not acceptable; there is no such thing as 'due process light.' "

Two of the administration officials said the president will also leave open the option of starting civilian trials on U.S. soil for some of the detainees. But that, too, is a fiercely debated issue on Capitol Hill because of concerns by lawmakers in both parties about where the terror suspects will be kept during such trials.

Obama suspended the tribunals by signing an executive order on his third day in office, the same day he signed an order closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, and said his administration would conduct a 120-day review of the process. That review comes due next week.

"The message that we are sending around the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism," Obama said on January 22. "And we are going to do so vigilantly, we are going to do so effectively, and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals."

Eager to head off criticism from liberals, administration officials note that during the 2006 Senate debate over the Military Commissions Act, Obama called the Bush administration's approach "sloppy" and pushed for another version of the legislation with enhanced rights for detainees.

"Instead, we have rushed through a bill that stands a good chance of being challenged once again in the Supreme Court," Obama said on the Senate floor on September, 28, 2006. "This is not how a serious administration would approach the problem of terrorism."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 May 09 - 03:40 PM

President Obama Job Approval
Approve        60.8%
Disapprove        32.0%

Congressional Job Approval
Approve        31.8%
Disapprove        60.5%


Hmmm....

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 19 May 09 - 08:56 AM

Well, the more he acts like Bush, the higher his approval...


U.S. to Expand Immigration Checks to All Local Jails

Obama Administration's Enforcement Push Could Lead to Sharp Increase in Deportation Cases


By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Obama administration is expanding a program initiated by President George W. Bush aimed at checking the immigration status of virtually every person booked into local jails. In four years, the measure could result in a tenfold increase in illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes and identified for deportation, current and former U.S. officials said.

By matching inmates' fingerprints to federal immigration databases, authorities hope to pinpoint deportable illegal immigrants before they are released from custody. Inmates in federal and state prisons already are screened. But authorities generally lack the time and staff to do the same at local jails, which house up to twice as many illegal immigrants at any time and where inmates come and go more quickly.

The effort is likely to significantly reshape immigration enforcement, current and former executive branch officials said. It comes as the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress vow to crack down on illegal immigrants who commit crimes, rather than those who otherwise abide by the law.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has made it "very clear" that her top priority is deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, said David J. Venturella, program director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"We mean this, we're serious about it, and we believe we need to put in an all-out effort to get this done," said Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee for homeland security. He has led calls to remove illegal immigrants convicted of crimes after their sentences are served.

The program began as a pilot effort in October and operates in 48 counties across the country, including Fairfax County. This year, fingerprints from 1 million local jail bookings will be screened under the program. It also operates in Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Boston and Phoenix, according to ICE, and will expand to nearly all local jails by the end of 2012.

The effort differs from programs in several Northern Virginia counties where local law enforcement officers have been deputized to question suspects about whether they are in the country legally. In Montgomery County, police provide immigration authorities the names of those arrested on charges of violent crimes and handgun violations.

Under the new program, the immigration checks will be automatic: Fingerprints currently being run through the FBI's criminal history database also will be matched against immigration databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. The effort would not catch people who have never been fingerprinted by U.S. authorities.

Based on the pilot program, the agency estimates that if fingerprints from all 14 million bookings in local jails each year were screened, about 1.4 million "criminal aliens" would be found, Venturella said. That would be about 10 times the 117,000 criminal illegal immigrants ICE deported last year. There are more than 3,100 local jails nationwide, compared with about 1,200 federal and state prisons.

The program, known as Secure Communities, "presents an historic opportunity to transform immigration enforcement," said Julie Myers Wood, who launched it last year while head of ICE.

In his proposed 2010 budget, President Obama asked Congress last week for $200 million for the program, a 30 percent increase that puts it on track to receive $1.1 billion by 2013.

more

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 09 - 10:18 AM

Don't you think there is a large difference between deporting immigrants who are illegal AND committed crimes, versus obsessively trying to round up ALL illegal immigrants whether otherwise law-abiding or not? I think it is a world of difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 09 - 08:12 AM

Obama in Command
By David S. Broder
Thursday, May 21, 2009

No new president finds that every aspect of the job suits him at once; some duties are inevitably more comfortable than others. What we have witnessed in the past few weeks is Barack Obama trying on and fitting himself to the role of commander in chief.

The most controversial decisions of this period -- expanding the troop commitment and replacing the commander in Afghanistan, opposing the release of photos of abused detainees, keeping the system of military tribunals and delaying any change in the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays -- are of a pattern.

In every instance, Obama heeded the advice of his uniformed and civilian defense leaders and in each case but Afghanistan, he abandoned a position he had taken as the Democratic presidential candidate.

The predictable result has been the first sustained outcry from the left, angry denunciations from leaders of constituencies that had been early supporters. They feel betrayed as they watch him continuing, with minor modifications, the policies and practices of his Republican predecessor.

The political cost is not yet high, but those who remember Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter know that over time, it can be dangerous for a Democratic president to lose the support of the liberal activists.

Whatever the risks, Obama clearly has taken on the mind-set and priorities of a commander in chief -- and he is unlikely to revert back. When Newsweek's Jon Meacham asked him last week what was the hardest thing he'd had to do so far, Obama said: "Order 17,000 additional troops into Afghanistan. There is a sobriety that comes with a decision like that because you have to expect that some of those young men and women are going to be harmed in the theater of war."

Some adaptation is necessary for almost every president because few experiences can really prepare them for the challenges Obama described to Meacham. George W. Bush went through it after Sept. 11, 2001, subordinating his domestic agenda to focus on the terrorist threat -- and never changing.

But the step is harder for today's Democratic presidents than for their predecessors -- or their Republican contemporaries.

Ever since Vietnam, the prevailing ideology of grass-roots Democratic activists has been hostile to American military actions and skeptical of the military itself. Iowa, where the Democratic nomination process begins, is famously tilted toward a pacifist view of war. Throughout the primaries, the pressures push forward candidates who do not challenge that mind-set.

That was certainly the case last year, when Obama's best-credentialed challengers -- Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd -- all stumbled over their votes to authorize Bush's use of force in Iraq.

The second reason Democrats struggle more with becoming commander in chief is that they have more things than do Republicans that they want to accomplish here at home. Time and money are always in short supply. The bigger the domestic agenda, the more resistance to being "diverted" into military adventures. Obama, like all his Democratic predecessors, has set big goals. Afghanistan has to look like a distraction to him.

And a third reason is that today's Democrats really are isolated from the military. Harry Truman had been an artillery captain; John Kennedy and Carter, Navy officers. But Bill Clinton did everything possible to avoid the draft, and Obama, motivated as he was to public service, never gave a thought to volunteering for the military.

Nonetheless, circumstances made Obama commander in chief of a nation fighting two wars. Consciously or not, he prepared himself for the transition by his choice of associates. He picked a vice president, Joe Biden, who visited the battlefronts repeatedly as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; a secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who immersed herself in defense issues as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and a defense secretary, Bob Gates, who ran the wars for Bush. Then, most strikingly, as his national security adviser he chose not another of the academics who have customarily filled that role but a very tough retired Marine general, James L. Jones.

They are the ones whose advice and counsel Obama has heeded in recent weeks -- not the political aides who guided him through the campaign and into the White House.

Obama's liberal critics are right. He is a different man now. He has learned what it means to be commander in chief.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 09 - 08:14 AM

$4 Trillion in Exaggerated Savings
By Maya MacGuineas

On two separate issues -- health-care and the budget -- the president has promised savings of $2 trillion. A total of $4 trillion dollars -- now that's real money. Unfortunately, the claims are completely exaggerated.

First, take health care. Recently, a collection of industry groups came to Washington for a meeting and photo-op with the president. News headlines trumpeted their pledge to save $2 trillion over the next decade -- headlines that were not surprising given that President Obama said, "over the next 10 years -- from 2010 to 2019 -- they are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage point each year -- an amount that's equal to over $2 trillion. Two trillion dollars."

Turns out that's not what the groups said at all. In their letter to Obama, they promised to "do our part to achieve your Administration's goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points annual health-care spending growth rate -- saving $2 trillion or more." Of course, their part of that savings may be significantly less than the full $2 trillion. The groups offered no further specifics. And, anyway, there would be no way to enforce such a hazy commitment. The administration, I'm told, understood this, but the president and others apparently chose to convey a much more optimistic message.

And then there's the budget. Administration officials have argued that they recognize the importance of getting an unsustainable situation back to a manageable level once the economy has recovered. How do they propose doing this? They would cut $2 trillion out of the budget -- a promise that has become one of their favorite talking points.

But in budgeting, "savings" all depends on where you begin. In order to come up with $2 trillion savings, the Office of Management and Budget makes a lot of assumptions that don't reflect the real world or standard budget conventions.

They assume that all of President Bush's tax cuts -- slated to expire at the end of 2010 -- would continue indefinitely. They then factor in a repeal of the tax cuts going to families making over $250,000. And voila: $600 billion in savings. Except that extending a law only to repeal it doesn't really help the bottom line.

They also assume that the war in Iraq would continue at a greater intensity than the president supports (or even President Bush supported). And then they make a show of deflating the pumped up Iraq spending for a "savings" of more than $1 trillion.

Another $300 billion of OMB's "savings" comes from interest payments that are little more than accounting gimmicks.

The frustrating thing here is that I believe Obama is truly concerned about the country's fiscal situation. He has surrounded himself with brilliant economic thinkers who share his concerns about excessive deficit spending. And he takes every opportunity to remind us of the importance of balancing the books. Just last week, he pivoted from a question about increasing Social Security benefits to say:

But what is true about the budget -- is absolutely true -- is that we can cut programs, we can eliminate waste, we can eliminate abuse, we can eliminate earmarks; we could do all that stuff, and we're still going to have a major problem, because Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the national debt. And so I have said before and I will repeat again that my administration is going to seek to work with Congress to execute serious entitlement reform that preserves a safety net for our seniors, for people with disabilities, but also puts it on a firmer, stable footing so that people's retirements are going to be secure not just for this generation, but also for the next generation. And that's going to be hard work. It's going to require some tough choices, but I'm going to need support of the American people to get that done.

That response, emphasizing the need to cut entitlement spending instead of expanding it, is exactly the right point to make. (Though, at the same time, he's creating a huge new health-care entitlement.)

It's easy to understand the bind Obama is in. Being more direct about the policies required to fix the budget is politically perilous. But meaningful deficit reduction will involve real sacrifices -- of the sort you can't spring on the public all of a sudden. The president should be laying the foundation for what's to come.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 09 - 08:36 AM

Amos,

regarding your early comments about keeping an eye on Obama, I have to bring this to your attention: Had it been under Bush, I am sure you would have screamed for months...

Isn't it Holder who is pushing for Gitmo releases?





"Pay attention to Eric Holder's law firm and Gitmo detainees
By Michelle Malkin • January 23, 2009 02:41 PM A good friend writes:

[A]s nearly 100 of the remaining detainees are Yemenis, reflecting that country's refusal to assure security for repatriated Yemenis, note that AG nominee Eric Holder is a senior partner with Covington & Burling, a prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm, which represents 17 Yemenis currently held at Gitmo. From the C & B website:

The firm represents 17 Yemeni nationals and one Pakistani citizen held at Guantánamo Bay. The Supreme Court will soon review the D.C. Circuit's ruling that ordered the dismissal of a number of habeas petitions filed by Guantánamo detainees; some of our clients are petitioners in the Supreme Court case. We expect to play a substantial role in the briefing. We also plan to petition the Supreme Court to hear our Pakistani client's appeal from the D.C. Circuit's order dismissing his case. Further, we are pursuing relief in the D.C. Circuit under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 for all of our clients. On a separate front, we filed amicus briefs and coordinated the amicus effort in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in which the Supreme Court in the summer of 2006 invalidated President Bush's military commissions and in which we have obtained favorable rulings that our clients have rights under the Fifth Amendment and the Geneva Conventions.
Covington & Burling's Gitmo bar roster has included some of the most radical detainee advocates; see David Remes, who peeled down to his underwear at a press conference in Yemen to draw attention to his clients' plight and Marc Falkoff, who published a book of detainee poetry and who, in the book's intro, compared their heroic struggle to the Jews held in concentration camps and Japanese Americans held in internment camps during WWII. [One of Falkoff's "gentle, thoughtful" young poets--a Kuwaiti "cleared for release" and repatriated in 2005--blew himself up in a truck bomb in Mosul last March, killing 13 Iraqi army soldiers and wounding 42 others.]

The fact that Mr. Holder, while Deputy Attorney General, pushed for the release of 16 violent FALN terrorists against the advice of the FBI, the US Attorneys who prosecuted them and the NYPD officers who were maimed by them, suggests that he was perfectly willing to put politics before the national security interests of the country. He is not suited for the job of attorney general, which is central to the issues surrounding the disposition of war on terror detainees. "


Certainly no conflict of interest here, unlike when Cheney was from a company that had contracts FROM THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION. *** THAT *** was certainly a real conflict of interest.

NOT.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:22 AM

Thanks, Bruce. Assholery never dies, it just changes suits.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:35 AM

February: "U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has surely given Loudmouth Limbaugh a hot topic.

In a speech Holder gave for the African-American History Month program at the Justice Department, he called Americans "cowards" with respect to race relations.

"Though the nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," Holder said.

"Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we average Americans simply do not talk enough with each other about race."

Most black people likely agree with that statement, while a lot of white people likely disagree.

Holder called on us to "respect one another" and to use Black History Month to "learn more about each other."

Before people get hung up on "coward," think about the times you've been misunderstood when it comes to race issues. It is easier to avoid the topic altogether.

Holder isn't putting us down.

He's asking us to have courage. ..."

---

Gee, seems to me he's very different from Cheny, BB. Ya think?

Is it also true that he stopped working for Burlington when he became AG?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:01 PM

"President Obama's speech this morning was really two speeches. The first, which will no doubt garner most of the media's attention, was a prickly campaign-like argument with the prior administration about who is responsible for the mess the president now faces at Guantánamo Bay. It was a remarkably defensive presentation for a man who enjoys strong approval ratings, clear evidence that former Vice President Cheney's repeated challenges to his toughness and fortitude have gotten to the president.


The second speech, by contrast, was a forward-looking, courageous, and substantial accounting for how the new administration means to handle some of the toughest questions posed by American detention policy and his earlier decision to close Guantánamo Bay.

Most importantly, President Obama made clear and official for the first time — though news reports have indicated as much in the past — that he is contemplating a preventative detention statute. He rightly described how to handle "detainees at Guantánamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people" as "the toughest issue we will face." And he made clear that "If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight. And so going forward, my Administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime. . . ."

This is a statement of enormous importance, far greater importance than his decision last week to revive military commissions. While he left the details for a later date, the fact that an American president has publicly insisted both on the propriety of a preventative detention system and on the necessity of that system's being created by Congress and overseen by the courts represents a major breakthrough. " (Benjamin Wittes

Benjamin Wittes, a Senior Fellow and Research Director in Public Law at the Brookings Institution, is the author of "Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror." ) (NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 09 - 10:01 AM

Obama recently issued policy reversing Bush's appetite for Federal preemption over State laws. WaPo reports:

"The American Association for Justice, which represents trial lawyers, cheered Obama's move, saying his memo "makes clear that the rule of law will once again prevail over the rule of politics."

Kendall, of the Constitutional Accountability Center, said that Obama "clearly understands the important role that state and local governments play in our constitutional system and has displayed a very different vision of our Constitution than President Bush displayed in his eight years."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 09 - 10:11 AM

A Repblican and right-central columnist, David Brooks, remarks in the NYT:

" What Obama gets, and what President Bush never got, is that other people's opinions matter. Goldsmith puts it well: "The main difference between the Obama and Bush administrations concerns not the substance of terrorism policy, but rather its packaging. The Bush administration shot itself in the foot time and time again, to the detriment of the legitimacy and efficacy of its policies, by indifference to process and presentation. The Obama administration, by contrast, is intensely focused on these issues."

Obama has taken many of the same policies Bush ended up with, and he has made them credible to the country and the world. In his speech, Obama explained his decisions in a subtle and coherent way. He admitted that some problems are tough and allow no easy solution. He treated Americans as adults, and will have won their respect.

Do I wish he had been more gracious with and honest about the Bush administration officials whose policies he is benefiting from? Yes. But the bottom line is that Obama has taken a series of moderate and time-tested policy compromises. He has preserved and reformed them intelligently. He has fit them into a persuasive framework. By doing that, he has not made us less safe. He has made us more secure. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 May 09 - 10:19 AM

"...For seven years, President George W. Bush tried to frighten the American public — and successfully cowed Congress — with bullying and disinformation. On Thursday, President Obama told the truth. It was a moment of political courage that will make this country safer.

Mr. Obama was exactly right when he said Americans do not have to choose between security and their democratic values. By denying those values, the Bush team fed the furies of anti-Americanism, strengthened our enemies and made the nation more vulnerable.

Such clarity of thought is unlikely to end the partisan posturing. It certainly didn't quiet former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was fear-mongering in full force on Thursday. But we hope that lawmakers who voted this week against closing the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — starting with the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid — were listening closely. ...

...Mr. Obama vowed to deal with the rest of the prisoners under the law and the Constitution, but forthrightly admitted he wasn't sure how. There are proposals to create a new "preventive detention" regime that we are not convinced is needed.

As he moves forward, we hope Mr. Obama bears in mind a point he made on Thursday. The problem is not the crime of terrorism, which the judicial system can normally handle. It is the way Mr. Bush undermined that system — and this country's reputation and security — with his policies of arbitrary detention and abuse."

NYT, Ther Real Path to Security

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 May 09 - 10:27 PM

Amos - I would agree that Obama is doing any number of things much better that George W. Bush did them. However, what is he supposed to do with the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay?
             If somebody had take me there and locked me up for 8 or 9 years, and then suddenly decided to turn me loose, I'd spend the rest of my life trying to get even--believe it!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:06 AM

It's a tough question, Rig, no mistake.

Like trying to put scrambled eggs back in their shells.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:24 AM

Yeah, that's a good description!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 26 May 09 - 05:41 PM

May 21, 2009 19:18 | Updated May 21, 2009 19:19
Analysis: Obama: An innocent abroad
By JONATHAN SPYER

The London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi has published what it claims are key details of the new Middle East peace plan to be presented by President Obama in his speech in Cairo on June 4. Details of the plan made the front page of two leading Israeli newspapers.

If the revelations prove accurate, they reveal a US administration as yet unacquainted with several basic facts of life concerning politics and strategy in the Middle East.

There were those in Israel who suspected Obama of being a kind of wolf in sheep's clothing, preparing with a friendly smile to offer up Israel as a sacrifice to its regional enemies.

The picture emerging from the alleged details of his plan suggest a different, though not necessarily more comforting characterization: When it comes to the Middle East, Obama is an innocent abroad.

Observe: We are told that the new plan represents a revised version of the 2002 Arab peace plan and is to offer the following: a demilitarized Palestinian state approximating the armistice lines of June 5, 1967. Territorial exchanges may take place on the West Bank. This state will be established within four years of the commencement of negotiations.

On Palestinian refugees: The refugees and their descendants will be naturalized in their countries of current residence, or will have the right to move to the new Palestinian state. In parallel to the negotiations with the Palestinians, separate negotiating tracks with the Syrians and Lebanese will be established.

If the Obama plan does indeed include these elements, its failure is a certainty, because it has been formulated without reference to regional realities.

Currently, west of the Jordan River there are three political entities: Israel, the West Bank Palestinian Authority, and a Hamas-run, quasi-sovereign body in the Gaza Strip.
Entities 1 and 3 are in a state of war with each other.

Entity 2's existence is underwritten by entity 1, without which it would be devoured by entity 3.
The Obama plan, it would appear, simply fails to take into account the fact of Hamas-run Gaza's existence.

Yet the decision this week by West Bank PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to form a narrow government is testimony to the Hamas-led statelet's durability. There is no Palestinian force able, or other force willing, to destroy it. It has made clear that it does not intend to negotiate itself out of existence. For as long as it is there, armed by Iran and opposed to all moves toward reconciliation, all plans based on authoritative peace negotiations between Israel and the PA are divorced from reality.

The refugee question is to be addressed by naturalization or a "return" to the borders of the new Palestinian state. There is no significant Palestinian faction which will agree to this. The Islamist factions, obviously, will reject it out of hand.

It will also be opposed by Fatah. This movement is in any case in a state of disarray and disunity. But the trends at rank and file level in it are toward greater religiosity and greater radicalism. The issue of the "return," far more than the issue of the "Palestinian state," is the foundation stone of Palestinian nationalism as imagined by Fatah. There is no way that the movement could abandon it. If it did, it would be almost certain to cede the leadership of the Palestinian national movement.

Regarding the issue of the "naturalization" of refugees and their descendants, it is not quite clear how Lebanon and Syria, home to large Palestinian populations, are to be persuaded to grant full citizenship to their residents of Palestinian origin. Opposition to the tawteen (naturalization) of Palestinian residents is one of the very few issues on which all Lebanese political factions are united.

A government dominated by Hizbullah is likely to emerge following the Lebanese elections on June 7. Its default position will be support for the Iranian-led regional bloc, and opposition to all attempts at a negotiated peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Certainly, such a government will feel no inclination toward helping out the US administration by abandoning a key, consensual Lebanese political stance.

Syria will also not abandon a core pro-Palestinian position in order to accommodate Washington. As for the view of even Washington's allies among the Palestinians for this option - naturalization was overtly rejected by Mahmoud Abbas on a visit to Lebanon last year.

Above and beyond the details, the plan revealed in Al-Quds al-Arabi fails to acknowledge the salient fact of current Middle East strategy: namely, the division of the region into an Islamist "resistance" bloc led by Iran, and a loose coalition of all those states opposed to this bloc.

There is a conspiracy theory according to which Obama, with Machiavellian cunning, knows that his plan is unworkable, and intends to use its failure to cast blame and accusation on Israel. Who knows? Perhaps evidence will yet emerge in support for this thesis.

It seems more likely, however, that the president remains enthralled by the sunny illusions of the peace process of the 1990s, and is about to give them another run around the block. He has four years to follow the well-trodden path from innocence to experience. The problem is that further afield, there are other, more urgent clocks ticking.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 May 09 - 10:17 PM

"The problem is that further afield, there are other, more urgent clocks ticking."


                   Yes, there certainly are. I'd hate to see the president wast 10 minutes on Israel and the buffoons in the Middle East. We need to do something about healthcare, social security, the mortgage crisis, the auto industry, agriculture, green energy... The list is endless. Let Israel take care of its own problems; it's time for the US to stop wasting any more time and money on them.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 May 09 - 02:11 PM

Obama's Not-So-Open Government

Dan Froomkin
Posted at 1:51 PM ET, 05/28/2009


Obama's Not-So-Open Government

The Obama administration has taken three significant steps toward greater openness in government in the past week.

Last Thursday, the White House launched a major new initiative -- one that, appropriately enough, starts off with a request for public input -- to increase transparency, participation, and collaboration throughout the federal government. It also launched Data.gov, a new Web site intended to be a vast public repository of federal data, presented in a format that will allow it to be easily used by the public.

And just yesterday afternoon, President Obama sent a memo to agency heads, giving them 90 days to suggest ways to reduce over-classification of documents, ease declassification, and prohibit reclassification.

That's all well and good. But it's not remotely enough. And Obama's efforts thus far don't even come close to fulfilling the promises he made on his memorable second day in the White House, when he vowed that transparency would be a touchstone of his presidency.

"The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable," Obama said at the time. "And the way to make government accountable is make it transparent so that the American people can know exactly what decisions are being made, how they're being made, and whether their interests are being well served."

But when it comes to transparency, the White House should be leading by example. Or, more accurately, the White House does lead by example -- and the example it's setting is way short of what Obama led us to expect. With some notable exceptions, Obama's White House hasn't been dramatically more transparent than the notoriously secretive one before it.

There is still a tremendous predisposition against disclosure there. Internal records stay internal, while the distribution of key public documents is actually less reliable than it was in the Bush years -- especially on the White House Web site.

Administration officials routinely hold briefings where they demand anonymity for spin sessions that aren't remotely controversial or sensitive. (See, for instance, James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times and Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post writing about Tuesday's example.)

One of the most important litmus tests, in my mind, is the number of White House aides who are authorized to speak to reporters on the record. That currently amounts to only a handful of people, pretty much all of whom see their primary goal as sticking to talking points, spinning and delivering pithy sound bites. There should be dozens of people willing and able to actually explain to reporters what's going on inside the White House.

The White House Web site's much-vaunted blog is mostly window dressing, rather than window. (With some notable exceptions, including the participation of Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag and Jared Bernstein, the vice president's chief economic adviser, and the live streaming of a few select White House meetings.)

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs apparently considers his role as primarily defensive and treats questions like things that need to be fended off, rather than engaged. The result has been a race to the bottom in the briefing room, where substantive queries are often a waste of time, and Gibbs instead yuks it up with the (mostly) boys in the front row. (Politico's Patrick Gavin documents the press room hilarity, as reflected by the 600 instances of laughter reflected in the transcripts of Gibbs's briefings so far -- or more than 10 per day.)

As Rainey writes in his LA Times story: "It's nothing new for an incoming administration, particularly a popular one, to be aggressive about presenting information the way it wants. But the media has an obligation not to play along."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 May 09 - 10:59 PM

I wonder how constructive it is to quote pundit after pundit. Wouldn't it make more sense to just say what you think and be done with it?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 09 - 11:05 PM

Don't interrupt his dramatization, Rig--it might disturb his balance.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 May 09 - 02:19 PM

I am required, by TRADITION as established by Amos, to search out critical ( negative ) quotes from whatever partisan sources I can fincd and present them as if they represent an absolute truth.

I can't change what Amos has established as "Fair and reasonable"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 09 - 02:33 PM

You clearly don't like it when Amos does it, BB. Why imitate behaviour that you don't like in others?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 May 09 - 03:09 PM

WHen I hear as many people complaining about how Amos treated Bush as are bitching about the comments I post about Obam, I will no longer feel the need to show how bigoted it is, now will I?


Waiting on your comment to Amos about HIS selection of comments on the "Bush" thread...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 09 - 04:07 PM

My friend Amos is a mentally hyperactive Diddly-Boob who gets so caught up in his own intellectually fraught verbosity that he can truly be said to be in what amounts to a state of obsession from time to time.

Satisfied? ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 29 May 09 - 04:24 PM

But what do you REALLY think of him?


And another comment on the present administration...

( I have NEVER said that Obama was not a competent politician- just that I disagree with some ( IE, those in which he continues to act other than Bush did) of his policies and actions.) This is presented as proof of his effectiveness as a politician.





The Incredible Shrinking Clintons
By Dick Morris
Posted: 05/26/09 05:22 PM [ET]

Asked why he was naming some of his rivals to top administration jobs, President Lyndon B. Johnson said it best: "I'd rather have them inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in." President Obama seems to echo Johnson's management style in his handling of Bill and Hillary Clinton. By bringing them into his inner circle, he has marginalized them both and sharply reduced their freedom of action.

It may appear odd to describe a secretary of State as marginalized, but Obama has surrounded Hillary with his people and carved up her jurisdiction geographically. Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) is in charge of Arab-Israeli relations. Dennis Ross has Iran. Former U.N. Ambassador Dick Holbrooke has Pakistan and Afghanistan. And Hillary has to share her foreign policy role on the National Security Council (NSC) with Vice President Biden, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, CIA chief Leon Panetta, and NSC staffer Samantha Powers (who once called Hillary a "monster").

With peers who are competitors and subordinates who can deal directly with the president, Hillary is reduced to announcing foreign aid packages for Pakistan while Holbrooke does the heavy lifting.

Part of Hillary's problem is the institutional shrinking of the State Department. During the Bush years, while war raged, the Defense Department became more relevant to the conduct of foreign policy. And, under Obama, the financial crisis has propelled the Treasury into the forefront. State, with its emphasis on traditional diplomacy, has been forced to take a back seat. Even though Obama appointed Hillary, he clearly has not been willing to make her a co-president and confines her to the diminished role of her department.

For his part, Bill Clinton has been asked to be a special envoy to Haiti. Yes, Haiti. Obama's predecessor asked the former president to orchestrate the response to the Asian tsunami and then to Hurricane Katrina. Obama gives him Haiti.

Meanwhile, both Clintons are effectively muzzled and cannot criticize Obama even as he reverses President Clinton's free market proclivities and budget balancing discipline. Hillary, the supposed friend of Israel, must sit by quietly and watch Iran get the bomb while trying all the while to stop Israel from preventing it.

Bill can't even make money. Denied the ability to accept speeches from foreign governments or their organs and fenced out of continuing his profitable relationship with the Emir of Dubai, he and his wife must accept the loss of the $13 million they spent on her campaign and sit by passively, unable to earn the money to replace it.

Just as Lincoln buried his rivals Seward, Chase and Stanton in the Cabinet and then on the Supreme Court, and Wilson buried Bryan at the State Department, so Obama has hidden his predecessor and his rival in plain sight at the upper reaches of the government.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 29 May 09 - 04:30 PM

And on the economic front:



Bond Vigilantes Confront Obama as Housing Falters

By Liz Capo McCormick and Daniel Kruger

May 29 (Bloomberg) -- They're back.

For the first time since another Democrat occupied the White House, investors from Beijing to Zurich are challenging a president's attempts to revive the economy with record deficit spending. Fifteen years after forcing Bill Clinton to abandon his own stimulus plans, the so-called bond vigilantes are punishing Barack Obama for quadrupling the budget shortfall to $1.85 trillion. By driving up yields on U.S. debt, they are also threatening to derail Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's efforts to cut borrowing costs for businesses and consumers.

The 1.5-percentage-point rise in 10-year Treasury yields this year pushed interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages to above 5 percent for the first time since before Bernanke announced on March 18 that the central bank would start printing money to buy financial assets. Treasuries have lost 5.1 percent in their worst annual start since Merrill Lynch & Co. began its Treasury Master Index in 1977.

"The bond-market vigilantes are up in arms over the outlook for the federal deficit," said Edward Yardeni, who coined the term in 1984 to describe investors who protest monetary or fiscal policies they consider inflationary by selling bonds. He now heads Yardeni Research Inc. in Great Neck, New York. "Ten trillion dollars over the next 10 years is just an indication that Washington is really out of control and that there is no fiscal discipline whatsoever."

Investor Dread

What bond investors dread is accelerating inflation after the government and Fed agreed to lend, spend or commit $12.8 trillion to thaw frozen credit markets and snap the longest U.S. economic slump since the 1930s. The central bank also pledged to buy as much as $300 billion of Treasuries and $1.25 trillion of bonds backed by home loans.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 May 09 - 04:34 PM

So what is former Ariel Sharon advisor, Jonathan Spyer's, plan for the the Isreali/Paletinian issue??? It's one thing to roll out the sarcasim when you have a plan yerself but, if I have it correct, he would be happy to just let things go the way they have for the last 8 years...

What am I missing here???

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 09 - 04:40 PM

Oh, Bobert, pray do not trouble Bruce with liberal rationality. It does not arrive.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 29 May 09 - 05:17 PM

Sorry, Amos...

I just grow weary of bb's supposed sources who usually end up to be just right winged blowhards...

Okay, Spyer has some creditials but the piece that bb posted above is dripping with disdain for Obama...

I don't know if Spyer has noticed but his plan has clearly not worked so to portray Obama as some kind out-of-touch-iealist seems to be, at the very least, hypocritical...

And for the record, there was nothing at all wrong with Clinton trying to broker a peace... The Monika Lewinski thing??? Yeah...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 09 - 06:26 PM

In the case of Monica, he was trying to broker a piece...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 29 May 09 - 06:28 PM

Bobert, my friend ( hoping to hear you at the WFF tomorrow)

I just grow weary of Amos's supposed sources who usually end up to be just +++left+++ winged blowhards...

Okay, some of them have had some creditials but the vast majority of the anti-Bush pieces that Amos posted were dripping with disdain for Bush, conservatives, and anyone who did not agree with them.

SO I will await your complaints about other's choices before I take the ones you make about me to heart.


Capiche??

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 29 May 09 - 06:38 PM

Yeah... but the difference you have a hard time recognizing, Bruce, is that Bush earned his disdain in a thousand tiny fuckupds, illiteracy, spawning ruination and death, and other tricks of the half-minded. Obama, sop far, has striven to communicate and improve things.

So your parallel is badly fractured from its first premise.

Your comparing apples and horse-apples.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 09 - 06:42 PM

BB, do you know what the dictionary definition of the word "bigot" is? I looked it up just to be absolutely sure. It is:


bigot - a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

Origin:
1590–1600; MF (OF: derogatory name applied by the French to the Normans), perh. OE bî God by God



I find that hilarious, because by that definition almost everybody on this whole damned forum IS a bigot and is practicing bigotry...specially those who rave on all the livelong day about other people who have some different opinion being "bigots", despite apparently having no idea themselves what the world "bigot" actually means.

I mention this not to go after you particulary, BB...but just because I thought you'd find it interesting in itself. You might, like me, find it amusing. Truly, bigotry is an ever-present blight these days, specially in political discussions, because practically everyone I hear engaging in them, whether they are "liberal" or "conservative" is utterly intolerant of any differing belief, or opinion...and quite proud of it too! They relish their own intolerance and self-righteous fury. ;-D

Genuine fairness and objectivity are as rare today as they were in the Dark Ages.


****

But I like Obama. You know why? He's tolerant, and he listens fairly to those of differing beliefs and opinions. He actually listens! Astounding. The man is one in a million when it comes to politicians these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 29 May 09 - 09:29 PM

LH,

I allow others to have whatever opinions they want- but I object to being told what I must think by others. When somneone tells me that only they have the "TRUTH" I tend to think that they might have a limited view of reality.