BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 May 10 - 12:59 PM

Everybody's political viewpoint seems to essentially revolve around defining who the "bad guys" are and who the "good guys" are....and how to go about defending oneself against "the bad guys", who are always "the other guys". ;-) It is considered quite justifiable to commit mass murder on "bad guys"...

It's a universal form of dementia, and it leads to war, war being an exercise in which you attempt to kill the other side's "good guys" because you think they are the "bad guys", which happens to be exactly what they think about you too.

Krauthammer is, I think, a lot deeper into that form of dementia than the average person, and that makes him quite noticeable.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 23 May 10 - 12:49 PM

I've been reading Charles Krauthammer's stuff for years and also seen him on TV and what is evodent is that he is a very paranoid person... He is also very arrogant... These are observations and not attacks... Charles has a very narrow view of the world and sees people as inherently evil, his own government (unless it is run by Republicans) as dangerous... Again, not attacks... Just observations...

I think if he were in charge he would do what alot of rather ignorant people think we (the US) should do and that nuke about half the earth... He would nuke Iran in a heartbeat... I mean, seriously nuke them... The fact that in doing so we would kill more people in a matter of 5 minutes than Hitler's boys did in 5 years does not enter into Charles's thinking...

Again, this is not meant as an attack... Just observations...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 May 10 - 12:08 PM

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- President Obama on Saturday offered a glimpse of a new national security doctrine that distances his administration from George W. Bush's policy of preemptive war, emphasizing global institutions and America's role in promoting democratic values.

In a commencement speech to the graduating class at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the president outlined his departure from what Bush had called a "distinctly American internationalism." Instead, Obama pledged to shape a new "international order" based on diplomacy and engagement.

Obama has spoken frequently about creating new alliances, and of attempts to repair the U.S. image abroad after nearly a decade in which Bush's approach was viewed with suspicion in many quarters.

Unlike Bush, who traveled to West Point in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to announce his American-centered approach to security, Obama on Saturday emphasized his belief in the power of those alliances.

"Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system. But America has not succeeded by stepping outside the currents of international cooperation," he said. "We have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice -- so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities, and face consequences when they don't."

In his speech -- the ninth wartime commencement in a row -- the commander in chief, who is leading two foreign wars, expressed his faith in cooperation to confront economic, military and environmental crises.

"The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times," he said in prepared remarks. "Countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; preventing conflict and healing its wounds."...

(Washington Post)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 10 - 11:47 PM

You don't get to rule my communications, BB. My anger at Bush was clearly delineated and appropriate to the circumstances. Bush was not trying very hard to improve conditions.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 21 May 10 - 11:06 PM

Fucking hypocrite.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 10 - 08:30 PM

Sorry, I should only question your comprehension...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 21 May 10 - 08:27 PM

Try reading the post, if you can read...

is not attacking the person? Fucking hypocrite.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 10 - 07:17 PM

Amos,

When you have apologized for sucking US into your anger at Bush, you may then request me to stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 10 - 07:07 PM

Stop trying to suck me in to your anger, Bruce. I am not going there.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 10 - 04:18 PM

Amos, Amos, Amos...


" "points" are indiscernible because he makes them with vapid vitriolic turns of phrase such that his actual fact-based point of view--if he even has one--is not readily discernible.

Seems to me he does not want to communicate what he actually sees, but his writhing hatred."




And you wanted US to think about what YOU have posted in those anti-Bush threrads? I fail to see any difference between what you complain about him doing, and what you did.

He DID make statements, albeit with commentary simialar to what YOU posted. Please address his points, and stop attacking him, or concede that you have no disagreement with them.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 10 - 04:15 PM

Again, you attack the person rather than the points presented. This indicates that you agree with those points, or at the least cannot find fault with them.


This is a blatant falsehood, sir, and you know better.

Krauthammer's "points" are indiscernible because he makes them with vapid vitriolic turns of phrase such that his actual fact-based point of view--if he even has one--is not readily discernible.

Seems to me he does not want to communicate what he actually sees, but his writhing hatred.

I am not going to camouflage this by trying to unbury any actual points in that sewer, thanks.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 10 - 03:24 PM

Mousecrook,

Again, you attack the person rather than the points presented. This indicates that you agree with those points, or at the least cannot find fault with them.



You obviously did not read beyond his name, or you would have seen the part I reprinted. Again, you show your bigotry.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 21 May 10 - 03:19 PM

Try reading the post, if you can read...

If I can't read how can I have read enough to know Krautheimer was up to his usual bullshit?

You really need a break, I think. You're getting stupid.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 10 - 03:18 PM

LH,

You are excused. Note I am NOT commenting ( either way) about your comments, save the one I quoted.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 10 - 03:04 PM

Excuse me, BB...I see that it was Amos of whom you were saying that he was attacking the person (meaning Krauthammer).

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 10 - 02:52 PM

The person??? I'm not attacking a person in my remarks, BB, I'm criticizing your nation's foreign policy, and the way your nation is run.

I fully understand your line of reasoning about the possible danger of Iran supplying nuclear weapons to terrorists, but I think it's a side-issue. It's analogous to Hitler complaining that the French Resistance are committing antisocial acts by blowing up trains, and that they might one day do it in Berlin! ;-) True, they are blowing up trains! But why? Well, because the Germans invaded and occupied France, that's why. You must expect violent resistance, BB, when you put in place imperial policies that dominate, terrorize, and oppress entire populations and rob people of their land and sovereignty. (I am referring to the robbery of land belonging to the Palestinians and other Muslim people in that region.)

What you don't seem to get, BB, is that the military forces of the USA, the UK, and Israel ARE terrorists in the view of all those they invade and dominate and occupy. The people you support are far bigger and more effective terrorists than the terrorists you are worried about.

This was also true of the Germans in WWII. They were terrorists...but they didn't see it that way at all. No one sees himself as a terrorist. The people they saw as terrorists were the French Resistance, the Polish resistance, the Greek Resistance, the Jews who rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Russian Partisans, Communists, basically anyone who resisted the dictates of the Reich.

And that's how you see it. America, the UK, and Israel are the people holding the whip in this scenario, BB. They are the people with military supremacy who are invading and occupying...and they are facing resistance to their imperial policies.

It is extremely disingenous to imagine that terrorism is occuring on only one side of these conflicts, that is, the Muslim side....

Terrorism IS the primary means employed by the political side you are backing. Since the USA and the UK and Israel are well-armed enough to do terror with their modern armies and modern weapons, that's how they do it. Just like all conquering empires. Terror is the order of the day if you are set upon imperial conquest. The so-called War Against Terror is a gigantic exercise in terrorism...against Muslim populations in the various targeted regions.

Iran is the nation under direct threat, and they know it. Therefore they want to protect themselves and deter an attack. Why would they NOT want to do that? They'd have to be downright stupid not to be looking for a way to effectively defend themselves, given the political climate in that region, and America's and Israel's general attitude towards them.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 10 - 02:43 PM

QAmos,

"but he is addicted to the sound of his own hate-filled rhetoric."


And YOU dare state this, after the anti-Bush threads?


SHAME.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 10 - 02:32 PM

Amos,

Again, you attack the person rather than the points presented. This indicates that you agree with those points, or at the least cannot find fault with them.


LH,

"The possession of a few nuclear weapons and a means to effectively launch them is the only possible way they could prevent America... "

I disagree with this statement: The danger is increased, because they are seen as a threat ( by giving that weapon to unstable terrorists who have already attacked the US) and thus need to be neutralized BEFORE the weapon can be used. Unfortunately, by not taking effective steps toward stopping Iran, Obama has created a situation which leads directly towards another World War, with nuclear weapons being used on both sides.

But it WILL reduce oil production ( and oil usage, and human population): So I guess he succeeds in reducing anthropologic CO2.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 10 - 02:18 PM

America's real enemy, Bearded Bruce, is its own grandiose imperial ambitions, its own corrupt government and financial systems, and its own dramatic social and moral decline...not the various smaller countries around the world that it invades, persecutes, and exploits.

If Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon, they have every reason for doing so. The possession of a few nuclear weapons and a means to effectively launch them is the only possible way they could prevent America from someday doing to them what it did very recently to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

America is the aggressor in this scenario, not Iran. Like the millions of ordinary Germans and Japanese who patriotically supported their countries' grandiose imperial efforts in the 40s, you just don't get it, because you can only see the situation in terms of your own national viewpoint...and you imagine that your nation is under threat. Your nation is the one doing the threatening and launching the invasions. Your nation. Not Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan.

You are not the injured party. They are. A few of your people die in the wars your government has planned and chosen. Tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of their people die, are maimed, lose their homes and loved ones, see their socieities demolished, and suffer foreign occupation. They are the victims of your government's imperial policies.

You're living under an Orwellian system, BB, like in 1984, and you're cheering for Big Brother, and you don't know it.

As for Obama, he's what all presidents are. He's a front man, mostly just a puppet on strings. He is not the Big Brother you're unwittingly cheering for, he is the face that Big Brother puts on your TV screen to occupy your attention, that's all, and he's just temporary. Big Brother is many people...many rich people at the top of the corporate and banking chain...and you don't get to vote them either in or out of office. They are in power for life. You get to vote for the ephemeral front men they market to you in your bogus elections, and it doesn't change much of anything, but it sure works great to keep you divided against each other and distracted, doesn't it?

If they can keep you all fighting with each other over partisan viewpoints, then they have you exactly where they want you: under control.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 10 - 02:11 PM

Charles Krauthammer, as usual, is being blinded by his own intransigent reactionary blind spots. He confuses negotiation with appeasement. As such he casts the whole picture in to a distorted color of hate, which is his own projection.

If he limited himself to facts and clearly stated opinions, hemight have something intelligent to offer, but he is addicted to the sound of his own hate-filled rhetoric.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 10 - 01:23 PM

mousethief ,

"If a bear shits in the woods, is it Obama's fault too?"



Try reading the post, if you can read...


"That picture -- a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam -- is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there's no cost in lining up with America's enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.

They've watched President Obama's humiliating attempts to appease Iran, as every rejected overture is met with abjectly renewed U.S. negotiating offers. American acquiescence reached such a point that the president was late, hesitant and flaccid in expressing even rhetorical support for democracy demonstrators who were being brutally suppressed and whose call for regime change offered the potential for the most significant U.S. strategic advance in the region in 30 years.

They've watched America acquiesce to Russia's re-exerting sway over Eastern Europe, over Ukraine (pressured by Russia last month into extending for 25 years its lease of the Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol) and over Georgia (Russia's de facto annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is no longer an issue under the Obama "reset" policy).

They've watched our appeasement of Syria, Iran's agent in the Arab Levant -- sending our ambassador back to Syria even as it tightens its grip on Lebanon, supplies Hezbollah with Scuds and intensifies its role as the pivot of the Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance. The price for this ostentatious flouting of the United States and its interests? Ever more eager U.S. "engagement."

They've observed the administration's gratuitous slap at Britain over the Falklands, its contemptuous treatment of Israel, its undercutting of the Czech Republic and Poland, and its indifference to Lebanon and Georgia. And in Latin America, they see not just U.S. passivity as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez organizes his anti-American "Bolivarian" coalition while deepening military and commercial ties with Iran and Russia. They saw active U.S. support in Honduras for a pro-Chávez would-be dictator seeking unconstitutional powers in defiance of the democratic institutions of that country.

This is not just an America in decline. This is an America in retreat -- accepting, ratifying and declaring its decline, and inviting rising powers to fill the vacuum. "


A specific listing of how the Obama administration has caused this. If you care to dispute the points, feel free- but your comment is not saying anything other than a comment on your bigotry.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 21 May 10 - 01:12 PM

If a bear shits in the woods, is it Obama's fault too?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 May 10 - 01:02 PM

The fruits of weakness

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 21, 2010

It is perfectly obvious that Iran's latest uranium maneuver, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, is a ruse. Iran retains more than enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. And it continues enriching at an accelerated pace and to a greater purity (20 percent). Which is why the French foreign ministry immediately declared that the trumpeted temporary shipping of some Iranian uranium to Turkey will do nothing to halt Iran's nuclear program.

It will, however, make meaningful sanctions more difficult. America's proposed Security Council resolution is already laughably weak -- no blacklisting of Iran's central bank, no sanctions against Iran's oil and gas industry, no nonconsensual inspections on the high seas. Yet Turkey and Brazil -- both current members of the Security Council -- are so opposed to sanctions that they will not even discuss the resolution. And China will now have a new excuse to weaken it further.

But the deeper meaning of the uranium-export stunt is the brazenness with which Brazil and Turkey gave cover to the mullahs' nuclear ambitions and deliberately undermined U.S. efforts to curb Iran's program.

The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world.

That picture -- a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam -- is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there's no cost in lining up with America's enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.

They've watched President Obama's humiliating attempts to appease Iran, as every rejected overture is met with abjectly renewed U.S. negotiating offers. American acquiescence reached such a point that the president was late, hesitant and flaccid in expressing even rhetorical support for democracy demonstrators who were being brutally suppressed and whose call for regime change offered the potential for the most significant U.S. strategic advance in the region in 30 years.

They've watched America acquiesce to Russia's re-exerting sway over Eastern Europe, over Ukraine (pressured by Russia last month into extending for 25 years its lease of the Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol) and over Georgia (Russia's de facto annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is no longer an issue under the Obama "reset" policy).

They've watched our appeasement of Syria, Iran's agent in the Arab Levant -- sending our ambassador back to Syria even as it tightens its grip on Lebanon, supplies Hezbollah with Scuds and intensifies its role as the pivot of the Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance. The price for this ostentatious flouting of the United States and its interests? Ever more eager U.S. "engagement."

They've observed the administration's gratuitous slap at Britain over the Falklands, its contemptuous treatment of Israel, its undercutting of the Czech Republic and Poland, and its indifference to Lebanon and Georgia. And in Latin America, they see not just U.S. passivity as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez organizes his anti-American "Bolivarian" coalition while deepening military and commercial ties with Iran and Russia. They saw active U.S. support in Honduras for a pro-Chávez would-be dictator seeking unconstitutional powers in defiance of the democratic institutions of that country.

This is not just an America in decline. This is an America in retreat -- accepting, ratifying and declaring its decline, and inviting rising powers to fill the vacuum.

Nor is this retreat by inadvertence. This is retreat by design and, indeed, on principle. It's the perfect fulfillment of Obama's adopted Third World narrative of American misdeeds, disrespect and domination from which he has come to redeem us and the world. Hence his foundational declaration at the U.N. General Assembly last September that "No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation" (guess who's been the dominant nation for the last two decades?) and his dismissal of any "world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another." (NATO? The West?)

Given Obama's policies and principles, Turkey and Brazil are acting rationally. Why not give cover to Ahmadinejad and his nuclear ambitions? As the United States retreats in the face of Iran, China, Russia and Venezuela, why not hedge your bets? There's nothing to fear from Obama, and everything to gain by ingratiating yourself with America's rising adversaries. After all, they actually believe in helping one's friends and punishing one's enemies.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 10 - 10:07 PM

It's entertainment, Amos. Entertainment. People have always been amused and intrigued by disreputable characters, and that is why we find so many of them in stories, comic strips, and dramas.

I find much enjoyment in encountering in fictional story form the kinds of things I have no desire to deal with in real 3-D life. Isn't that true of everyone? Why else would people enjoy watching horror films?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 19 May 10 - 08:30 PM

Maybe it's just me but I don't think Walt Whitman dolls will sell all that well...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 10 - 07:13 PM

Well, sir, I cannot dispute the profundity of your remarks, even though their texture is suspicious! :D But if, as you say, we are the sum of all Creation, then how do you account for hauling out such ne'er-do-well ragamuffin entities from the depths, if not to expiate your own most disreputable attributes?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 10 - 06:07 PM

Ah, but each one of us is the sum of all Creation, Amos, waiting to be drawn upon and used. Within us are multitudes. I think that Walt Whitman had something to say about that, didn't he? The thing that prevents most people from accessing so many of the infinite possibilities within them is their own belief that they are limited to a very narrow range of identity.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 10 - 02:46 PM

IF he had not a dimwitted dog mind within him, how would he know how to draw one?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 10 - 02:21 PM

They are archetypes, Amos, and I find archetypes interesting. Each one is the epitome of a certain type of character. This does not reflect on me particularly, it just shows my enjoyment of the many varieties of human behaviour and possibility that are out there.

Do you really think, for example, that the guy who does the "Garfield" comic strip resembles either the cat, Garfield or his hapless nerdy owner, Jon or the dimwitted dog, Ody? I doubt that he resembles any one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 10 - 02:05 PM

Well, I was trying to be discrete, while nudging you politely, LH into recognizing the sorry truth that all these lurid, bestial practices with which you endow your figments are only projections from your own Higher Self, with whom I think you should have a good heart-to-heart talk...



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 10 - 12:42 PM

LOL!

"No-one wants to discover their own creations engaging in lurid and bestial practices"

Are you quite sure about that, Amos? Remember...Shane engages in lurid and bestial practices.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 10 - 12:08 PM

THat's what Chongo would like you to think, LH. No-one wants to discover their own creations engaging in lurid and bestial practices, so he is trying to protect you. Just humor him.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 10 - 11:17 AM

I thought it was Minnie Mouse who was fucking Goofy?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 19 May 10 - 10:58 AM

Anatomically correct Goofy dolls? Can you get those at disneystore.com?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 19 May 10 - 10:47 AM

Chongo is ineligible, first because he is not a citizen; second, because he is a figment of a Canadian imagination; and third because he's fucking Goofy.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 19 May 10 - 10:30 AM

Which kind of dolls does Chongo prefer, then?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 19 May 10 - 08:26 AM

Well!!! That's purdy narrow minded of Chongz... I mean, I can understand Hillary dolls but Ms. Sarah dolls, too??? Ain't gonna get elected that way...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 10 - 01:09 AM

It might help at this point to consider possible alternatives to both the Democrats and the Republicans. Consider the American Primate Party. Chongo has been articulating his continually evolving platform for change in anticipation of the 2012 election:

He is running for president again in 2012, but his platform is a little hard to categorize as either Right, Left, or Center. For instance: he's very pro-gun, but he's very anti-war. He would lobby for increased gun ownership amongst the general public and promote opening more firing ranges in communities across the nation to train proper handling of firearms, but he would very rapidly pull the USA out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and he would shut down Guantanamo...no ifs, ands, or buts about that. He would give the place back to Cuba. He would also give the Panama Canal Zone back to Panama. And he would make sure that people can continue to smoke in American bars if they so desire. He would legalize home cultivation of marijuana for personal use only, but would not allow it to be sold commercially by anyone. He would raise the minimum wage significantly and institute universal health care as has been done long ago in Europe and Canada. He would resume much expanded space exploration and work to put a chimp (or a man) on Mars by 2016. He would put major funding into reforestation efforts in both the USA and abroad, and greatly curtail defence spending. ("We need more trees, not more missiles.") He would act to ban the sale of inflatable dolls of Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, because "It's disrespectful to women and just downright tacky." He would remove the import tax on bananas.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 18 May 10 - 07:31 PM

George W. Bush once commented that he'd rather be a dictator... He was trying to make a joke but, hey, I'm sure that he'd given the matter some consideration...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 May 10 - 06:49 PM

Top political strategist Woody Allen thinks Obama would get much more done as dictator; No, really

May 18, 2010 | 2:22 am



The notorious and formerly funny movie director Woody Allen is apparently frustrated with the cumbersome operations of American democracy too.

The one-time-father-now-husband-of-his-daughter tells the Spanish-language magazine La Vanguardia that the United States' Democratic Smoker-in-Chief could accomplish a whole lot more from his White House if he didn't have so many disorderly, annoying people objecting, distracting and criticizing him all the time.

Such social messiness has been known to occur in functioning democracies, even cinematic ones, although less often on celebrity-strewn movie sets under the direction of a dictatorial director.

"It would be good...if (Obama) could be dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly," Allen is quoted as saying.

Allen is also said to have said:

I am pleased with Obama. I think he is brilliant. The Republican Party should get out of his way and stop trying to hurt him.

With healthcare and the economy now fully fixed, no doubt one area in urgent need of sweeping Obama-style reforms would be targeting movie reviewers who write negatively about Hollywood. Or about its politician favorites.


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/05/woody-allen-obama.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 18 May 10 - 12:54 PM

This entire idea of stripping citizens of their citizenship is a slippery slope that could backfire on US... There are legal remedies that would better serve our nation as a nation of laws... The problem is that the right is trying to frame the issue around their mythology that we are less safe if we follow our laws??? The facts do not support those claims as both recent t5errorist suspects talked their heads off after being Marandized...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 May 10 - 11:31 AM

From Mother Jones magazine:

"...A bipartisan group from Congress sponsors legislation to strip Americans of their citizenship based on Terrorism accusations. Barack Obama claims the right to assassinate Americans far from any battlefield and with no due process of any kind. The Obama administration begins covertly abandoning long-standing Miranda protections for American suspects by vastly expanding what had long been a very narrow "public safety" exception, and now Eric Holder explicitly advocates legislation to codify that erosion. John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduce legislation to bar all Terrorism suspects, including Americans arrested on U.S. soil, from being tried in civilian courts.

....There is, of course, no moral difference between subjecting citizens and non-citizens to abusive or tyrannical treatment. But as a practical matter, the dangers intensify when the denial of rights is aimed at a government's own population. The ultimate check on any government is its own citizenry; vesting political leaders with oppressive domestic authority uniquely empowers them to avoid accountability and deter dissent.

Aside from war and occupation, governments have far more coercive power against their own citizens than they do against residents of other countries. There are natural limits to what the U.S. government can do, say, to Chinese or French nationals in their own countries. But within the United States itself, the only restrictions on state power are largely legal, and without those legal limitations the federal government has an almost unlimited ability to exercise its coercive authority over anyone it chooses to. This is why the distinction between citizens and non-citizens is so important.

I am, fundamentally, an admirer of Barack Obama. I like his temperament, I like his worldview, and I like his management style. As I've said before, he has a habit of disappointing me just a little bit on an almost routine basis, but most of the time that doesn't interfere with my basic admiration. The one exception has been his attitude toward civil liberties and terrorism. His early ban on torture was profoundly welcome, but aside from that he's mostly continued Bush-era policies with only minor changes and then added to them things that Bush and Cheney could only have dreamed of. In this one area, I feel betrayed.

For a couple of reasons it's funny that I feel this way. First, this is really nothing new. Democrats have been only marginally better than Republicans on these issues for years. The Clinton era was hardly a golden age of civil liberties, after all, and after 9/11 most of Bush's infingements on civil liberties were supported — sometimes publicly, sometimes merely implicitly — by plenty of Democrats. Obama was one of those Democrats while he was a senator, and he's still one of them now.

Second, unlike Glenn, I'm not a hardcore defender of civil liberties in every conceivable circumstance. Global terrorism really does blur the lines between traditional battlefields and domestic policing in ways that are tricky to resolve. Guantanamo and the broader issue of enemy combatants is, as I said several times while Bush was still in office, an excruciatingly difficult one. Even the operation of broad surveillance networks poses some genuinely complicated problems thanks to the technical architecture of modern communications systems.

But as difficult as a lot of these problems are generally, once the U.S. government starts targeting U.S. citizens without warrants or due process, we've crossed a bright line that's dangerously corrosive. That includes the warrantless wiretapping and non-appealable no-fly lists of the Bush administration, and it includes assassinating Americans and removing Miranda protections under the Obama administration. They're outrageous and dangerous transgressions no matter who's doing them, and Obama needs to take a long, deep breath and reconsider how he's handling these issues. In most things, Obama is famous for taking the long view and not letting day-to-day political considerations force his hand. He needs to start doing the same thing here."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 14 May 10 - 12:26 AM

John Holdren, Obama's Science Czar:

"Individual rights must be balanced against the power of the government to control human reproduction. Some people respected legislators, judges, and lawyers included have viewed the right to have children as a fundamental and inalienable right. Yet neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce. Nor does the UN Charter describe such a right, although a resolution of the United Nations affirms the "right responsibly to choose" the number and spacing of children (our emphasis). In the United States, individuals have a constitutional right to privacy and it has been held that the right to privacy includes the right to choose whether or not to have children, at least to the extent that a woman has a right to choose not to have children. But the right is not unlimited. Where the society has a "compelling, subordinating interest" in regulating population size, the right of the individual may be curtailed. If society's survival depended on having more children, women could he required to bear children, just as men can constitutionally be required to serve in the armed forces. Similarly, given a crisis caused by overpopulation, reasonably necessary laws to control excessive reproduction could be enacted.
    It is often argued that the right to have children is so personal that the government should not regulate it. In an ideal society, no doubt the state should leave family size and composition solely to the desires of the parents. In today's world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children? "

"If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization"

"The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 13 May 10 - 07:28 AM

The problem with the former austronauts being against Obama's plans is that another group came out the following day supporting the plan...

Seems that's the American way these days... Politics has become like a common light switch when real problems require a reostat...

I mean, there are so many issues that could be dealt with if folks would try to find some common ground... Seems that Obama keeps offering olive branches to the right and getting his hand bit off for the jestures... Time for the right to show a little grace here... But, no... They are intent on only one thing and that is reagining control and with it power so they can go back to the business of deregulation and therefore big checks from the crooks...

And, no, this isn't about who gave $$$ to Obama... It's about who doesn't give $$$ to the party out of power...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 13 May 10 - 12:41 AM

Reduce the deficit! Just as long as you don't cut spending on MY favourite projects!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 May 10 - 03:27 PM

Former astronauts unhappy with Obama space plan

May 12 02:50 PM US/Eastern
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) - Neil Armstrong and other former astronauts say President Barack Obama's vision of future human space travel will cost the United States its standing as the longtime leader.
Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, and Eugene Cernan, the last astronaut on the moon, are telling a Senate hearing Wednesday that Obama's decision to alter the Bush administration blueprint for returning to the moon will undermine NASA's manned space program.

Obama told NASA workers last month that he was committed to manned space exploration and foresaw astronauts orbiting Mars by the mid-2030s. But Cernan asserted that Obama was following a "pledge to mediocrity."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: mousethief
Date: 11 May 10 - 07:32 PM

Zzzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 11 May 10 - 12:54 AM

This guy is appointed to a commission on fiscal responsibility?

Andy Stern's debts - SEIU leader swims away while his organization sinks
   
Purple may be the official color of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), but Andy Stern is leaving the union deep in the red. Last week, he surprised the labor community by announcing his resignation as president of SEIU. Mr. Stern has claimed victories in helping pass health care legislation and getting President Obama elected, but his impact within his own organization shows gaping budget deficits and massive underfunding of pensions.

SEIU has seen its liabilities skyrocket during the past decade. The union's liabilities totaled $7,625,832 in 2000. By 2009, they had increased almost by a factor of 16, to $120,893,259. Meanwhile, SEIU's assets barely tripled, growing from $66,632,631 in 2000 to $187,664,763 in 2009. A significant portion of SEIU's current assets are from IOUs from hard-up locals.

SEIU is $85 million in debt, down from its 2008 high of $102 million, and has been forced to lay off employees. Mr. Stern has led protests against Bank of America, calling for the firing of Chief Executive Ken Lewis. Yet the union owes $80 million to Bank of America and $5 million to Amalgamated Bank, which is owned by the rival union Unite-Here.

SEIU's pensions are in even worse shape. Both of SEIU's two national pension plans, the SEIU National Industry Pension Fund and the Pension Plan for Employees of the SEIU, issued critical-status letters last year. The Pension Protection Act requires any pension fund that is funded below 65 percent of what it needs to pay its obligations to inform its beneficiaries of the deficit.

Many SEIU local pension plans are in as bad a shape as the national plans - if not worse. In 2007, well before the financial meltdown, the SEIU Local 32BJ Building Maintenance Contractors Association Pension Plan was funded at an anemic 41 percent, the SEIU 1199 Greater New York Pension Fund at 58 percent, the 32BJ District Building Operators Pension Trust Fund at 56 percent, and the Service Employees 32BJ North Pension Fund at 68 percent.

An underfunded pension plan does not have enough assets to meet its obligations to retirees in the future. Recovery is difficult if plans are significantly underfunded, as is the case with the SEIU plans. The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. (PBGC) insures only a portion of promised benefits to retirees in union multiemployer pension plans. If one of those plans goes bankrupt, the PBGC will guarantee only up to $12,870 in benefits.

Do not worry about Mr. Stern and other high-ranking SEIU officials, though. At age 59, he has 37 years of service in the SEIU and is entitled to a full pension and lifetime health benefits. Unlike SEIU's pension plans for rank-and-file members and union employees, SEIU's officer pension plan, the SEIU Affiliates Officers and Employees Pension Plan, was funded at 102 percent in 2007.

While SEIU's pension plans were failing and its liabilities growing, Mr. Stern seemed more concerned with electoral politics than with the internal workings of the union. Indeed, politics can account for much of SEIU's lavish spending in recent years. "We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama - $60.7 million to be exact - and we're proud of it," he boasted to the Las Vegas Sun last year. In all, under Mr. Stern, SEIU spent more than $85 million to elect President Obama and give Democrats control of Congress. What has been Mr. Stern's reward?

It is often said that in politics, personnel is policy. By that measure, SEIU carries considerable weight within the Obama administration. Patrick Gaspard, formerly the executive vice president of politics and legislation for the powerful Local 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, is now the political director at the White House.

Craig Becker, formerly SEIU's associate general counsel and adviser to the ACORN affiliate SEIU 800 in Chicago, is now on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mr. Obama made a recess appointment of Mr. Becker after he failed to be confirmed by the Senate. This was a significant win for organized labor. Mr. Becker has hinted at having the NLRB enact card check without a vote in Congress.

SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger sits on the Obama administration's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Mr. Stern himself was appointed by Mr. Obama to its deficit commission. (Mr. Stern has said he will stay in that post after he steps down from SEIU.)

Mr. Stern's abrupt resignation has led many to question his motives and ponder his next steps. Whatever the answer, one thing is certain: He leaves SEIU - especially its pension funds - swimming in red ink. Sadly, it will be the union's rank-and-file members who will be paying for Mr. Stern's profligacy well into the future.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 11 May 10 - 12:25 AM

Barack Obama September 16, 2008:
"This morning, instead of offering up concrete plans to solve these issues, Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book. You pass the buck to a commission to study the problem."

Obama passes the buck:

Feb. 18, 2010: A bipartisan commission on fiscal responsibility and reform came into being Thursday when U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order.

And appoints a lobbyist to the commission who's organization gathered $60 million for his election campaign:

Andy Stern has become an influential figure under the new administration after endorsing Obama in the Democratic primary, while the other main axis of Labor's political power, the AFL-CIO (whose political committee is led by AFSCME's Gerald McEntee) endorsed Clinton. SEIU went on to pour millions into Obama's campaign, and the AFL-CIO (now led by President Richard Trumka) went on to back Obama in the general election.

Oddly enough, SEIU actually lobbied against the creation of a bipartisan deficit commission when it was being considered in the Senate.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 10 May 10 - 11:40 PM

Obama's 'no tax hike' pledge on the line

My fellow members of the President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and I met for the first time on April 27. Like many Americans, I wonder if the commission is an attempt by the Obama administration to sweep the spending and debt crisis under the rug until after the November election or provide political cover for a massive tax increase, perhaps through a European-style value-added tax (VAT). Then again, it might represent a sincere effort and unique opportunity to save America from a fiscal crisis of historic proportions. Only time will tell.

However, I was encouraged to hear the president reiterate during our meeting with him that "everything" must be on the table. Let us hope that "everything" includes more than token spending reductions and reforms. If not, in order to solve the debt crisis, the president will likely be forced to again break his "no tax increase" pledge to families making less than $250,000 a year.

According to the Office of Management and Budget, federal revenues have averaged 18 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and federal spending has averaged 20 percent of GDP since World War II. Over the last few years as tax revenue has fallen, federal spending exploded to 24.7 percent of GDP in 2009 to create the largest debt and deficit since World War II. CBO data shows that the president's fiscal year 2011 budget will result in a debt of 90 percent of GDP at the end of the decade, more than double its historic norm of 43 percent. Greece could prove to be a preview of coming attractions to Main Street, USA.

Despite the president's claim to the contrary, the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently certified the president's new health care plan actually increases national health care costs, adding another unsustainable entitlement program to the existing "Big 3" unsustainable entitlement programs - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. These programs will help drive federal spending to approximately 40 percent of GDP over the course of the next generation, according to CBO's 2009 Long-Term Budget Outlook.

To tackle this crisis mainly or, in a worst-case scenario, solely on the tax side, would be a huge mistake, or simply impossible.

First, it is important to note that, unless Congress and the president intervene, under current law, taxes will increase, including taxes for families who earn under $250,000. The 2001 and 2003 tax relief is scheduled to expire at the end of this year. For many Americans, the dividend tax will increase 164 percent and the capital-gains tax will increase from 15 percent to 20 percent. The alternative minimum tax is due to hit millions. The death tax will revert from nothing to confiscatory levels, and at least 18 new taxes in the new health care law, including a new 3.8 percent investment tax, will soon follow.

What if Congress intervened and tried to limit tax increases to just those households earning $250,000 or more annually? A study by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center estimated that to reduce the deficit to 2 percent of GDP under the administration's baseline, in 2019 those households making over $250,000 would see the top two marginal tax rates rise to 85.7 percent and 90.9 percent.

The more likely scenario is that, according to the CBO, to finance current projected spending only on the tax side, assuming current policies continue, all taxpayers would be punished by requiring the 10 percent bracket to increase to 25 percent, the 25 percent bracket to jump to 63 percent, and the 35 percent rate to rise to 88 percent. The CBO noted "such tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity and would create serious problems with tax avoidance and tax evasion," which understates the point.

Former CBO Director Robert Reischauer testified before the commission that the fiscal crisis is so serious that, "raising taxes on the rich or corporations ... simply won't be enough." Another former CBO head, Rudolph Penner, told the commission that if we maintain current federal spending patterns and stabilize the debt at 60 percent of GDP, the U.S. total tax burden would be higher than today's Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development average by midcentury and that a few years after that we would be "the highest-taxed nation on Earth."

Without intervention from Congress and the president, taxes on all Americans, including families making less than $250,000, are due to increase. If the president is serious about fiscal responsibility, he needs to either roll up his sleeves on the spending side or be prepared to acknowledge that his "no tax increase" promise to those households making under $250,000 has already been broken.