BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 11:54 AM

Ahmadinejad calls for US leaders to be 'buried' AP

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's president Sunday called for U.S. leaders to be "buried" in response to what he says are American threats of military attack against Tehran's nuclear program.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is known for brash rhetoric in addressing the West, but in a speech Sunday he went a step further using a deeply offensive insult in response to U.S. statements that the military option against Iran is still on the table.

"May the undertaker bury you, your table and your body, which has soiled the world," he said using language in Iran reserved for hated enemies.

The crowd of military men and clerics in the town of Hashtgerd just west of the capital chuckled at the president's insult and applauded.

The speech was broadcast by both state television and the official English-language Press TV, but the latter glossed over the insult in the simultaneous translation.

Ahmadinejad's remarks come in sharp contrast to ones he made to Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel in August in which he offered the U.S. Iran's friendship.

In Sunday's speech, Ahmadinejad also questioned once more who was behind the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. and said they gave Washington a pretext for seeking to dominate the region and plunder its oil wealth.

During his speech in front of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he said a majority of people in the U.S. and around the world believe the American government staged the attacks, drawing a strong rebuke from President Barack Obama.

Ahmadinejad often resorts to provocative statements to lash out enemies. He has already compared the power of Iran's enemies to a "mosquito," saying Iran deals with the West over its nuclear activities from a position of power and he has likened the United States to a "farm animal trapped in a quagmire" in Afghanistan.

Iran also condemned the latest U.S. sanctions slapped on eight Iranian officials Wednesday, saying they show American interference in Tehran's domestic affairs.

Washington this week imposed travel and financial sanctions on the eight Iranians, accusing them of taking part in human rights abuses during the turmoil following Iran's June 2009 presidential election.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 08:16 PM

No doubt that Akma-dingaling is an asshole... So was Saddam... World is full of 'um... Not worth another war over it...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 04:24 PM

Panel: Gov't thwarted worst-case scenario on spill
         
Dina Cappiello, Associated Press Writer – Wed Oct 6, 11:48 am ET

WASHINGTON – The White House blocked efforts by federal scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could have been.

That finding comes from a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the worst offshore oil spill in history.

In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission reveals that in late April or early May the White House budget office denied a request from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to make public the worst-case discharge from the blown-out well.

BP estimated the worse scenario to be a leak of 2.5 million gallons per day. The government, meanwhile, was telling the public the well was releasing 210,000 gallons per day - a figure that later grew closer to BP's figure.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 04:26 PM

Spill Panel Faults Obama Response Effort .Article NewStock Quotes

By STEPHEN POWER And TENNILLE TRACY

.WASHINGTON—The Obama administration's response to the BP PLC oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was affected by "a sense of over optimism" about the disaster that "may have affected the scale and speed with which national resources were brought to bear," the staff of a special commission investigating the disaster found.

In four papers issued Wednesday by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, commission investigators fault the administration for making inaccurate public statements about a report on the fate of oil spilled by a BP well in the Gulf of Mexico.

The commission papers also are critical of the administration for initially underestimating how much petroleum was flowing into the Gulf. Together, the inaccurate statements created the impression the government "was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid" about the accident.

The papers fault the administration for taking "an overly casual approach" in calculating, during the spill's second week, that between 1,000 and 5,000 barrels of oil were flowing into the Gulf.

That estimate—which the government later revised to between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels a day—was based on a one-page document prepared by a government scientist within six days of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, according to one commission staff paper.

The scientist's estimate was based partly on an imprecise estimate of the speed with which the oil was leaking and didn't account for a leak from a kink in the riser above the rig's blowout preventer, according to the spill commission investigators.

"Despite the acknowledged inaccuracies of the [government] scientist's estimate and despite the existence of other and potentially better methodologies for visually assessing flow rate…5,000 bbls/day was to remain the government's official flow-rate estimate for a full month until May 27, 2010," the staff paper says.

The paper adds that it is "possible that inaccurate flow-rate figures may have hindered the subsea efforts to stop and to contain the flow of oil at the wellhead."

A White House spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The working paper is one of several released by the commission that examines various aspects of the federal response to the Gulf spill. Another paper released Wednesday suggests the administration was in some ways slow to respond to the accident and then misdirected resources when it realized the American public viewed its response as being inadequate.

While Coast Guard personnel told the commission in interviews that they had enough equipment by the end of May, the president announced around that same time that he would triple the federal manpower responding to the spill. The paper calls this "the arguable overreaction to the public perception of a slow response."

The tripling effort resulted in resources being thrown at the problem in an inefficient way.

For example, the commission paper says, the National Incident Command staffers thought they needed to buy every skimmer they could find, even though they were hearing that responders had enough skimmers.

The commission staff also takes the administration to task for having characterized a federal report on the fate of oil in the Gulf as having been subjected to "peer review" by independent scientists.

In fact, the commission staff paper says, it is unclear whether any independent scientists actually reviewed the paper prior to its release in August.

The paper said that about three-quarters of the oil spilled by the well had broken down or been cleaned up. Those estimates have been challenged as overly rosy by some independent scientists.

(WSJ)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 08:22 PM

Yeah, the Obama administration absolutely blew the oil spill response in terms of information... 20/20 hindsight they probably did what they could in terms of response but sho nuff got sucked in by BP's song 'n dance routine...

I'd like to think that they learned something from it...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 09:18 AM

....it is "possible that inaccurate flow-rate figures may have hindered the subsea efforts to stop and to contain the flow ...

"it is possible" ....... "might have" & etc.

Hardly a ringing condemnation. OK, they screwed up. HOWEVER nothing like the BuShite screwup with Katrina.

Lets keep things in perspective & not blow this report up all out of proportion.

As Bobert says, the "report" doesn't address the BP lies & disinformation campaign.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 09:24 AM

"Katrina." That was 5 years ago. Have you got anything up to date?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 12:25 PM

October 7, 2010
Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment at 10.1% in September

Underemployment, at 18.8%, is up from 18.6% at the end of August

by Dennis Jacobe, Chief Economist

PRINCETON, NJ -- Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, increased to 10.1% in September -- up sharply from 9.3% in August and 8.9% in July. Much of this increase came during the second half of the month -- the unemployment rate was 9.4% in mid-September -- and therefore is unlikely to be picked up in the government's unemployment report on Friday.

Certain groups continue to fare worse than the national average. For example, 15.8% of Americans aged 18 to 29 and 13.9% of those with no college education were unemployed in September.

The increase in the unemployment rate component of Gallup's underemployment measure is partially offset by fewer part-time workers, 8.7%, now wanting full-time work, down from 9.3% in August and 9.5% at the end of July.

As a result, underemployment shows a more modest increase to 18.8% in September from 18.6% in August, though it is up from 18.4% in July. Underemployment peaked at 20.4% in April and has yet to fall below 18.3% this year.

Friday's Unemployment Rate Report Likely to Understate

The government's final unemployment report before the midterm elections is based on job market conditions around mid-September. Gallup's modeling of the unemployment rate is consistent with Tuesday's ADP report of a decline of 39,000 private-sector jobs, and indicates that the government's national unemployment rate in September will be in the 9.6% to 9.8% range. This is based on Gallup's mid-September measurements and the continuing decline Gallup is seeing in the U.S. workforce during 2010.

However, Gallup's monitoring of job market conditions suggests that there was a sharp increase in the unemployment rate during the last couple of weeks of September. It could be that the anticipated slowdown of the overall economy has potential employers even more cautious about hiring. Some of the increase could also be seasonal or temporary.

Further, Gallup's underemployment measure suggests that the percentage of workers employed part time but looking for full-time work is declining as the unemployment rate increases. To some degree, this may reflect a reduced company demand for new part-time employees. For example, employers may be converting some existing part-time workers to full time when they are needed as replacements, but may not in turn be hiring replacement part-time workers. Another explanation may relate to the shrinkage of the workforce, as some employees who have taken part-time work in hopes of getting full-time jobs get discouraged and drop out of the workforce completely -- going back to school to enhance their education, for example, instead of doing part-time work. It is even possible that some workers may find unemployment insurance a better alternative than part-time work with little prospect of going full time.

Regardless, the sharp increase in the unemployment rate during late September does not bode well for the economy during the fourth quarter, or for holiday sales. In this regard, it is essential that the Federal Reserve and other policymakers not be misled by Friday's jobs numbers. The jobs picture could be deteriorating more rapidly than the government's job release suggests.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/143426/Gallup-Finds-Unemployment-September.aspx

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 01:03 PM

Food Stamp Recipients at Record 41.8 Million Americans in July, U.S. Says

By Alan Bjerga - Oct 5, 2010 4:46 PM ET

The number of Americans receiving food stamps rose to a record 41.8 million in July as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government said.

Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases jumped 18 percent from a year earlier and increased 1.4 percent from June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in a statement on its website. Participation has set records for 20 straight months.

Unemployment in September may have reached 9.7 percent, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts in advance of the release of last month's rate on Oct. 8. Unemployment was 9.6 percent in July, near levels last seen in 1983.

An average of 43.3 million people, more than an eighth of the population, will get food stamps each month in the year that began Oct. 1, according to White House estimates.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 01:31 PM

The number of Americans receiving food stamps rose to a record 41.8 million...

Yep, them BuShite/Reaganite chickens are surely coming home to roost.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 01:56 PM

So, Greg, YOU are saying that Obama has done nothing for this country AT ALL????

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 07:48 PM

Too bad that the union organizers, if these folks actually were union organizers, didn't stand up at all the town meet5ings... One outof the hundreds that were taken over by redneck assholes sho nuff didn't stem the tide of very bad behavior on yer buddy's parts, Sawz...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 10:49 PM

President Obama. His administration announced last year that it would set a higher bar when hiding details of controversial national security policies.


Government lawyers called the state-secrets argument a last resort to toss out the case, and it seems likely to revive a debate over the reach of a president's powers in the global war against al-Qaeda.

Civil liberties groups sued the U.S. government on behalf of Aulaqi's father, arguing that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command's placement of Aulaqi on a capture-or-kill list of suspected terrorists - outside a war zone and absent an imminent threat - amounted to an extrajudicial execution order against a U.S. citizen. They asked a U.S. district court in Washington to block the targeting.
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In response, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the groups are asking "a court to take the unprecedented step of intervening in an ongoing military action to direct the President how to manage that action - all on behalf of a leader of a foreign terrorist organization."

Miller added, "If al-Aulaqi wishes to access our legal system, he should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions."

In a statement, lawyers for Nasser al-Aulaqi condemned the government's request to dismiss the case without debating its merits, saying that judicial review of the pursuit of targets far from the battlefield of Afghanistan is vital.

"The idea that courts should have no role whatsoever in determining the criteria by which the executive branch can kill its own citizens is unacceptable in a democracy," the American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional Rights said.

"In matters of life and death, no executive should have a blank check," they said.

The government filed its brief to U.S. District Judge Robert Bates just after a midnight Friday deadline, blaming technical problems, and the late-night maneuvering underscored the political and diplomatic stakes for President Obama. His administration announced last year that it would set a higher bar when hiding details of controversial national security policies.

Justice Department officials said they invoked the controversial legal argument reluctantly, mindful that domestic and international critics attacked former president George W. Bush for waging the fight against terrorism with excessive secrecy and unchecked claims of executive power. A senior Justice official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration is engaging in "a much narrower use of state secrets" than did its predecessor, which cited the argument dozens of times - often, the official said, to "shut down inquiries into wrongdoing."

In its 60-page filing, the Justice Department cites state secrets as the last of four arguments, objecting first that Aulaqi's father lacks standing, that courts cannot lawfully bind future presidents' actions in as-yet undefined conflicts, and that in war the targeting of adversaries is inherently a "political question."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 04:47 PM

CNN Poll: Was Bush better president than Obama?
By:
CNN Political Unit


(CNN) - Americans are divided over whether President Barack Obama or his predecessor has performed better in the White House, according to a new national poll.

And a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday also indicates in the battle for Congress, Republicans hold large advantages over the Democrats among independents, men and blue-collar whites. The poll also indicates that Republicans are much more enthusiastic than Democrats to vote.

By 47 to 45 percent, Americans say Obama is a better president than George W. Bush. But that two point margin is down from a 23 point advantage one year ago.

"Democrats may want to think twice about bringing up former President George W. Bush's name while campaigning this year," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

"But that doesn't mean that Americans regret their decision to put Obama in the White House in 2008. By a 50 to 42 percent margin, the public says that Obama has done a better job than Sen. John McCain would have done if he had won. And by a 10-point margin, Americans also say that Joe Biden has done a better job than Sarah Palin would have done as vice president," adds Holland.

According to the poll, 45 percent of the public approves of the job Obama's doing as president, up three points from late last month, with 52 percent disapproving. Fifty-nine percent of independents disapprove of how the Obama's handling his duties, with 37 percent giving him a thumbs up.

In the fight for control of Congress, 52 percent of likely voters say they would vote for the generic Republican candidate in their district if the election were held today, with 45 percent saying they would back the Democrat. The Republican's seven point margin is down from a nine point advantage late last month.

According to the poll, independents say they would vote for the Republican candidate over the Democrat by a two to one margin.

"Blue-collar whites are also a particular problem for Democrats. Among white voters who describe their family as "white collar," the two parties are essentially tied. But more than seven out of ten whites who describe themselves as "blue collar" are planning to vote Republican in November," adds Holland.

The poll indicates that opinions on the economy may have a lot to do with that. Only 17 percent say the economy is starting to recover, and nearly four in ten say that the country is still in a downturn and conditions are getting worse.

The survey also suggests a strong gender gap.

"Democrats appear to be making steady gains among women and now get a majority of their vote, but the gender gap persists and more than six in ten men say they plan to vote Republican this year," says Holland.

According to the poll, another gap also exists: The enthusiasm gap. Most Republicans say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this year. But only a third of Democrats feel the same way.

"That's the principle reason why the "generic ballot" question is tied among all registered voters while the likely voter numbers show an advantage for the Republicans," adds Holland. "There are plenty of people who support the Democratic candidate, but many of them are probably not going to actually cast a ballot. In fact, if you look at "unlikely voters" - people who are registered to vote but unlikely to cast a ballot - the Democrats have a six-point edge on the generic ballot question."

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll was conducted October 5-7, with 1,008 adult Americans, including 938 registered voters and 504 likely voters, questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus percentage points, with a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for likely voters.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Oct 10 - 05:46 PM

A chart of who buys who, in Congress:

http://politics.usnews.com/congress/industries


Funny, but the Dems get most of the money. I guess THEY are the party of bought and sold.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 04:05 PM

"One out of the hundreds that were taken over by redneck assholes"

No doubt you have some data on this or is it your usual hate filled rhetoric that you can only support with personal attacks.

And again you are prone to use racial and ethnic slurs to try to prove something.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Bobert, on the road..
Date: 10 Oct 10 - 08:38 PM

Fuck off, you racist ass... Take the stuff I have written to a professor on racial studies and have them explain it to you... But you won't do that because you are a coward... Nuthin' more... Just a coward who thinks becasue you can type out a bunch of cowardly shit that that makes you a real man... You are nuthin' but a very ignorant coward... Period...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 01:03 AM

I think you are picking on redn**ks. Is that brave or what? You are trying to infer that the entire tea party is racist and part of the KKK. First you call them a bunch of white people and then you claim they hate Obama. Twice you say that. You don't realize how offensive that is.

Even Amos said it was wrong.

Seems like you posted it to stir up controversy. When you get the controversy you say people are after you.

Name a professor and I will ask him If I can contact him or her.

Dear sir / madam: Is it racist or bigoted to say in reference to the Tea Party "The rednecks are getting to be rather disgusting little hypocrits" And claim the Tea Party is a bunch of white people that hate Obama.

Now is this what you want me to do Bobert? I don't want you coming back at me all mad about what I did and claim I am bullying and stalking you.

If you don't like my wording of the question, tell me how it should be worded.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 08:26 AM

No, not the entire Tea Party is racist... You know, just like the lynchings in the South where white people came for entertainment some in the crowd. I'm sure were thinking it was wrong... Did they stand up and say so??? Well, we know the answer to that...

As for stirring up controversy??? While yer down at the university stop by and talk with a psych professor about "projection"... Seems when you get bored you just go back and find threads that have been dormant for months and use them as vehicles to bring up yet another round of "Let's attack Bobert"... I mean, ya' might want ask that pscyh professor about "obsessive compulsive disorders"...

BTW, if you don't like getting counter punched then don't go punchin' on me... Life can be very simple... No matter... I mean, you punch and at me and it's gonna come back... That's just the way things are in case you are having trouble figuring out the cause-'n-effect thing here...

No matter...

BTW, I can guarentee that I know more than I'd like about rednecks... I've spent the last 25 years of my life living with 'um...

BTW, Part 3... I ain't trying to stir jack... I'm just callin' balls-'n'strikes and the Tea Party is a redneck party... These folks didn't give a flying fuck about taxes, health care, deficits until a black man ----- HORRORS, right??? ----- was elected president...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 10:46 AM

"Consider, in particular, one fact that might surprise you: The total number of government workers in America has been falling, not rising, under Mr. Obama. A small increase in federal employment was swamped by sharp declines at the state and local level — most notably, by layoffs of schoolteachers. Total government payrolls have fallen by more than 350,000 since January 2009.

Now, direct employment isn't a perfect measure of the government's size, since the government also employs workers indirectly when it buys goods and services from the private sector. And government purchases of goods and services have gone up. But adjusted for inflation, they rose only 3 percent over the last two years — a pace slower than that of the previous two years, and slower than the economy's normal rate of growth.

So as I said, the big government expansion everyone talks about never happened. This fact, however, raises two questions. First, we know that Congress enacted a stimulus bill in early 2009; why didn't that translate into a big rise in government spending? Second, if the expansion never happened, why does everyone think it did?

Part of the answer to the first question is that the stimulus wasn't actually all that big compared with the size of the economy. Furthermore, it wasn't mainly focused on increasing government spending. Of the roughly $600 billion cost of the Recovery Act in 2009 and 2010, more than 40 percent came from tax cuts, while another large chunk consisted of aid to state and local governments. Only the remainder involved direct federal spending.

And federal aid to state and local governments wasn't enough to make up for plunging tax receipts in the face of the economic slump. So states and cities, which can't run large deficits, were forced into drastic spending cuts, more than offsetting the modest increase at the federal level.

The answer to the second question — why there's a widespread perception that government spending has surged, when it hasn't — is that there has been a disinformation campaign from the right, based on the usual combination of fact-free assertions and cooked numbers. And this campaign has been effective in part because the Obama administration hasn't offered an effective reply.

Actually, the administration has had a messaging problem on economic policy ever since its first months in office, when it went for a stimulus plan that many of us warned from the beginning was inadequate given the size of the economy's troubles. You can argue that Mr. Obama got all he could — that a larger plan wouldn't have made it through Congress (which is questionable), and that an inadequate stimulus was much better than none at all (which it was). But that's not an argument the administration ever made. Instead, it has insisted throughout that its original plan was just right, a position that has become increasingly awkward as the recovery stalls.

And a side consequence of this awkward positioning is that officials can't easily offer the obvious rebuttal to claims that big spending failed to fix the economy — namely, that thanks to the inadequate scale of the Recovery Act, big spending never happened in the first place.

But if they won't say it, I will: if job-creating government spending has failed to bring down unemployment in the Obama era, it's not because it doesn't work; it's because it wasn't tried."

(Krugman, NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 01:52 PM

Shutting Up Business
Democrats unleash the IRS and Justice on donors to their political opponents

If at first you don't succeed, get some friends in high places to shut your opponents up. That's the latest Washington power play, as Democrats and liberals attack the Chamber of Commerce and independent spending groups in an attempt to stop businesses from participating in politics.

Since the Supreme Court's January decision in Citizens United v. FEC, Democrats in Congress have been trying to pass legislation to repeal the First Amendment for business, though not for unions. Having failed on that score, they're now turning to legal and political threats. Funny how all of this outrage never surfaced when the likes of Peter Lewis of Progressive insurance and George Soros helped to make Democrats financially dominant in 2006 and 2008.

Chairman Max Baucus of the powerful Senate Finance Committee got the threats going last month when he asked Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman to investigate if certain tax exempt 501(c) groups had violated the law by engaging in too much political campaign activity. Lest there be any confusion about his targets, the Montana Democrat flagged articles focused on GOP-leaning groups, including Americans for Job Security and American Crossroads.

Mr. Baucus was seconded last week by the ostensibly nonpartisan campaign reform groups Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, which asked the IRS to investigate whether Crossroads is spending too much money on campaigns. Those two outfits swallowed their referee whistle in the last two campaign cycles, but they're all worked up now that Republicans might win more seats. Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) affiliate of American Crossroads supported by Karl Rove, is a target because it has spent millions already in this election cycle.

Last Tuesday, the liberal blog ThinkProgress, run by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had collected some $300,000 in annual dues from foreign companies. Since the money went into the Chamber's general fund, the allegation is that it could have been used to pay for political ads, which would violate a ban on foreign companies participating in American elections. The Chamber says it uses no foreign money for its political activities and goes to great lengths to raise separate funds for political purposes.

That didn't stop President Obama from raising the issue in a Maryland speech last week, saying that "groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections." Within hours of the ThinkProgress report, the bully boys at MoveOn.org asked the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation of the Chamber. In a letter to the Federal Election Commission, Minnesota Senator Al Franken expressed his profound concern that "foreign corporations are indirectly spending significant sums to influence American elections through third-party groups." From the man who stole his Senate election in a dubious recount, this is rich.

Even Mr. Franken admits in his letter that the Chamber's commingling of funds in its general accounts is not "per se illegal," but apparently he thinks it's fine to unleash federal investigators because the Chamber cash might contribute to the defeat of fellow Democrats.

The outrage over the Chamber is especially amusing considering the role of foreigners in U.S. labor unions. According to the Center for Competitive Politics, close to half of the unions that are members of the AFL-CIO are international. One man's corporate commingling is another's union dues.

Unions and liberal groups are hardly cash poor this year in any case. The Campaign Media Analysis Group looked at the combined spending of candidates, their parties and outside groups and found that Democrats outspent Republicans $47.3 million to $40.8 million in a recent 60-day period.

Democrats claim only to favor "disclosure" of donors, but their legal intimidation attempts are the best argument against disclosure. Liberals want the names of business donors made public so they can become targets of vilification with the goal of intimidating them into silence. A CEO or corporate board is likely to think twice about contributing to a campaign fund if the IRS or prosecutors might come calling. If Democrats can reduce business donations in the next three weeks, they can limit the number of GOP challengers with a chance to win and reduce Democratic Congressional losses.

The strategy got a test drive in Minnesota earlier this year after Target Corporation donated $100,000 cash and $50,000 of in-kind contributions to an independent group that ran ads supporting the primary candidacy of Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. MoveOn.org accused the company of being anti-gay, organized a petition, and crafted a TV ad urging shoppers to boycott Target stores. Target made no further donations, and other companies that once showed an interest have since declined to contribute.

***
Then there's the curious reference to the tax status of Koch Industries by White House chief economist Austan Goolsbee. In a late August conference call with reporters, Mr. Goolsbee cited the closely-held Koch as an example of "really giant firms" that pay no corporate income tax because they file under other tax rules. But how in the world would Mr. Goolsbee know Koch's tax status? Could his knowledge be related to the White House-liberal campaign against Koch for contributing to Americans for Prosperity, a group that is supporting free-market candidates for Congress this year?

In an August 9 speech, Mr. Obama personally trashed Americans for Prosperity, hinting that it was funded by "a big oil company." He had to mean Koch, which makes no secret of its support for Americans for Prosperity.

The White House didn't respond to queries about Mr. Goolsbee's remark for weeks until GOP Senators requested an investigation. The Treasury's inspector general for tax matters has since announced such a probe, and last week White House spokesman Robert Gibbs finally got around to explaining that Mr. Goolsbee's statement "was not in any way based on any review of tax filings" and that he won't use the example again.

We're glad to hear it, but pardon our skepticism given the ferocity of this White House-led campaign against businesses that donate to political campaigns. Faced with electoral repudiation as the public turns against their agenda, Democrats are unleashing government power to silence their political opponents. Instead of piling on, the press corps ought to blow the whistle on this attempt to stifle political speech. This is one more liberal abuse of power that voters should consider as they head to the polls.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703735804575536370151720874.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 03:21 PM

Remember THIS?

Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations
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By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

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Daily Tracking: Behind the Numbers
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McCain Forges Ahead in Final Week
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Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations
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Daily Tracking Poll
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Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.


(READ MORE: Murkowski embraces outsider status with write-in campaign)

In recent weeks, questionable contributions have created headaches for Obama's accounting team as it has tried to explain why campaign finance filings have included itemized donations from individuals using fake names, such as Es Esh or Doodad Pro. Those revelations prompted conservative bloggers to further test Obama's finance vetting by giving money using the kind of prepaid cards that can be bought at a drugstore and cannot be traced to a donor.

The problem with such cards, campaign finance lawyers said, is that they make it impossible to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who have exceeded the limits, government contractors or others who are barred from giving to a federal campaign are making contributions.

"They have opened the floodgates to all this money coming in," said Sean Cairncross, chief counsel to the Republican National Committee. "I think they've made the determination that whatever money they have to refund on the back end doesn't outweigh the benefit of taking all this money upfront."

The Obama campaign has shattered presidential fundraising records, in part by capitalizing on the ease of online giving. Of the $150 million the senator from Illinois raised in September, nearly $100 million came in over the Internet.

(READ MORE: Carl Paladino has no regrets on 'brainwashed' gay comments that sparked furor)

Lawyers for the Obama operation said yesterday that their "extensive back-end review" has carefully scrubbed contributions to prevent illegal money from entering the operation's war chest. "I'm pretty sure if I took my error rate and matched it against any other campaign or comparable nonprofit, you'd find we're doing very well," said Robert Bauer, a lawyer for the campaign. "I have not seen the McCain compliance staff ascending to heaven on a cloud."

The Obama team's disclosures came in response to questions from The Washington Post about the case of Mary T. Biskup, a retired insurance manager from Manchester, Mo., who turned up on Obama's FEC reports as having donated $174,800 to the campaign. Contributors are limited to giving $2,300 for the general election.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/28/AR2008102803413.html

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 04:15 PM

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER

State snatches baby when dad accused of being 'Oath Keeper'
'You could be on 'the list' and then child protective services might come'

Posted: October 08, 2010
11:35 pm Eastern


By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

A 16-hour-old newborn was snatched from her parents by authorities in Concord, N.H., after social services workers alleged the father is a member of Oath Keepers.

The organization collects affirmations from soldiers and peace officers that they would refuse orders that violate the U.S. Constitution, in light of what they perceive as the advance of socialism in the U.S.

The father, Johnathon Irish, told WND that the affidavit signed by Child Protective Service worker Dana Bicford seeking government custody of newborn Cheyenne said the agency "became aware and confirmed that Mr. Irish associated with a militia known as the 'Oath Keepers.'"

Irish, in an interview with WND, said officers and other social services workers ordered him to stand with his hands behind his back, frisked him and then took his daughter from him and his fiancé at Concord Hospital where the baby had been born.

Learn how to foil those who would damage the nation. Get "Taking America Back" now from the WND Superstore.

He told WND that other issues cited by authorities included an allegation of child abuse, which he assumed pertained to an incident weeks earlier in which one of his fiance's older sons allegedly was struck by a babysitter.

He said both he and his fiancé had been cleared by authorities in that investigation.

Kathleen Demaris, a spokeswoman for the state agency, refused to comment.

Stewart Rhodes, the founder of Oath Keepers, expressed alarm when contacted by WND, describing the agency as a "chilling monster" that could "come get kids."

On his website, he confirmed the affidavit, along with other allegations, cites Irish's interest in Oath Keepers as a reason to separate the newborn from her parents.

"Yes, there are other, very serious allegations. Out of respect for the privacy of the parents, we will not publish the affidavit. … But please do remember that allegations do not equal facts – they are merely allegations," he said.

"But an even more fundamental point is that regardless of the other allegations, it is utterly unconstitutional for government agencies to list Mr. Irish's association with Oath Keepers in an affidavit in support of a child abuse order to remove his daughter from his custody," Rhodes said.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=213149

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 11:09 PM

Bobert: These two statements of yours are contradictory:

"No, not the entire Tea Party is racist"
"These folks didn't give a flying fuck about taxes, health care, deficits until a black man"

In the second part "these folks" implies all of them and the repetition that they are white and Obama is black implies that they are all racist.

Then the statement "The rednecks are getting to be rather disgusting little hypocrits" is a bigoted attack on a certain class of people.

You clearly feel superior to them. You are disgusted by them and claim they are hypocrites.

Do I have to remind you that some of them voted for Obama? Some of them were hoping for a change and they did not like the change. It was not the change they were hoping for. But you want to use an unwarranted charge of racism to demonize them.

Shame Bobert, Shame.

And I noticed you have conveniently decided not to name a professor for me to ask.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 11 Oct 10 - 11:46 PM

"Consider, in particular, one fact that might surprise you: The total number of government workers in America has been falling"

When the Census Bureau hired, It was hooted that employment was going up.

Now those people are leaving and it is being hooted that government payrolls are shrinking.

"The number of unemployed persons, at 14.8 million, was essentially un-changed in September, and the unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent"

Add to that the thousands of people that gave up on getting a job plus the thousands of young people coming online that need a job and tell us the good news again.

1.4 million

Approximate total number of positions to conduct the 2010 Census.

Recruiting and Staffing

3.8 million

Approximate number of people that were recruited to fill positions for 2010 Census operations between 2009 and 2010.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 17 Oct 10 - 02:43 PM

Hey. Where did everybody go? Has Amos abandoned his post?

Here is a good video.

I would like to say that the disconnect mentioned in this video is about the Administration being disconnected from the American people's needs.

Not the American people being disconnected from the Administration's accomplishments.

A Modern U.S. President

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 08:48 AM

Right you are, Amos...

In spite of the big dough that Boss Hog is spending to try to drown out the truth about the Obama adminsitration as "big spending and big government" the truth is that the Obma has done something that Bush was never able to do in 8 years and that is ***cut the deficit*** in Obama's first actual budget!!!

Horrors!!!

Yes, I found it interesting the way the media twisted this fact this past week... Rather than give any credit to Obama for making a start in deficit reduction they pounded on the amount of the deficit... Hmmmmm??? The media just can't bring itself to frame anything that Obama does that s positive in a positive light...

Of course, the righties will now do the same thing with posting their bloggers twisted stats saying thr deficit went up but that is the narrow view of economics... They will dance around the facts that the ***anual*** deficit for 2010 is $1.3T as opposed to the $1.4 for 2009 which was Bush's last budget...

Does that mean that I approve of runnin' a $1.3T deficit??? No, it doesn't but, like they say, the longest journery begins with a single step and for all the crybaby Repubs who delight in screaming at the top of their lungs that Obama is another "tax and spend Democtrat" I'll go one record here of calling these folks out as hypocrits before thet evey drag that poor horse outta the barn for another lap...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 12:28 PM

Mr WGSR totin' Economics Perfessor:

2008 vs. 2009

The CBO reported in October 2009 reasons for the difference between the 2008 and 2009 deficits, which were approximately $460 billion and $1,410 billion, respectively. Key categories of changes included: tax receipt declines of $320 billion due to the effects of the recession and another $100 billion due to tax cuts in the stimulus bill (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or ARRA); $245 billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and other bailout efforts; $100 billion in additional spending for ARRA; and another $185 billion due to increases in primary budget categories such as Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, Social Security, and Defense - including the war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq. This was the highest budget deficit relative to GDP (9.9%) since 1945. The national debt increased by $1.9 trillion during FY2009, versus the $1.0 trillion increase during 2008.>/tt>

Hmmmmmmmmmm $1.9 trillion 2009 Obama, $ 1.0 trillion 2008 Bush.

Gee that's a hard one. I think I need to call Amos on this one.

Hey Amos, isn't the end results determined by the amount actually spent, regardless of what was budgeted?

Doesn't the bottom line get added to or subtracted from the deficit?

Remember the Clinton surpluses? Were they subtracted from the national Deficit? IE the national debt went down during the surplus years?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Oct 10 - 12:56 PM

You must have missed the front page article in in the papersw last week, Sawz... I read it in the Charlotte Observer... If you Google it up, rather than just go straight to yer mythology bloggers you can find it...

Oh yeah... Yer pudder is locked into mythology websites... Has "reality" blocker program...

But again, seein' as you calim to not understand economics... There are many ways of looking a national debt and deficits... The righties who hate Obama use the most complicated factoring in all the debt since the beginning of time, with debt servicing variables, pi and lots of snake oil...

What we are talking about here is an ***annual*** deficit formula which takes revenues and subtracts spending during a ***single*** fiscal year... That is as simple as it has to be... No smoke, no mirrors, no right winged accountants stayin' up all night twisting stuff... Just the basics...

And the basics are that, according to the Charlotte Obaserver ( a rather right winged paper) the ***annual*** budget deficit decreased by one tenth of a trillion dollars which amounts to $100B in Obama's 1st budget cycle...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Oct 10 - 03:54 PM

According to Bobert

The Congressional Budget Office = mythology bloggers.


Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert - PM
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 08:06 PM

Yer wrong again, Saws... But then again we'd hate to see you break yer perfect string of being wrong...

Just go to "http://www.cbo,gov/bedget/data/historical.pdf"... BTE, the "cbo" in that sire stands for Congressional Budget Office... Not some loonie rightwingnut site...

Seems like Bobert is having a but of difficulty determining left from right.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Oct 10 - 04:19 PM

Is this what you're hootin' about Bobert?

Government reports $1.3 trillion budget deficit
Charlotte Observer Oct. 15, 2010


WASHINGTON The Obama administration said Friday the federal deficit hit a near-record $1.3 trillion for the just-completed budget year.

That means the government had to borrow 37 cents out of every dollar it spent as tax revenues continued to lag while spending on food stamps and unemployment benefits went up as joblessness neared double-digit levels in a struggling economy.

While expected, the eye-popping deficit numbers provide Republican critics of President Barack Obama's fiscal stewardship with fresh ammunition less than three weeks ahead of the midterm congressional elections. The deficit was $122 billion less than last year, a modest improvement.

Voter anger over deficits and spending are a big problem for Democrats this election year. Republicans are slamming Democrats - who face big losses in November - for votes on Obama's $814 billion economic stimulus last year and on former President George W. Bush's $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.

Democrats say the recession would have been worse if the government hadn't stepped in with those programs to prop up the economy. They also note that most of the bailout, which began during the previous administration and was supported by many Republicans in Congress, has been repaid.

Outside of the bailout, the federal budget went up by 9 percent in the 2010 budget year to $3.5 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office reported last week. Food stamp payments rose 27 percent as record numbers of people took advantage of the programs, while unemployment benefits rose 34 percent as Congress extended benefits for the long-term jobless.

"The FY 2010 deficit remained elevated as a result of the severe economic recession, high unemployment, and the financial crisis inherited by the current administration," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and acting White House budget director Jeffrey Zients said in a statement announcing the results.

Rising deficits will present headaches for policymakers regardless of which party controls Congress after November.

The administration is projecting that the deficit for the 2011 budget year, which began on Oct. 1, will climb to $1.4 trillion. Over the next decade, it will total $8.47 trillion. Deficits of that size will constrain the administration's agenda over the next two years and will certainly be an issue in the 2012 presidential race.

"Since the Democrat majority has taken control of the nation's checkbook, deficits have risen to staggering levels and will average $1 trillion annually for the next decade under the president's policies," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. "These abrupt and shocking changes in our fiscal situation cannot be dismissed as 'inherited' problems when the tally of the majority's spending spree has climbed into the trillions."

Government revenues rose by $57.4 billion in 2010 compared to 2009, but more than two-thirds of that increase reflected higher payments from the Federal Reserve to the Treasury on all the investments the central bank has made to support the economy and the financial system during the recession.

Income tax revenue fell slightly as unemployment stays near 10 percent nationwide, though corporate tax receipts were up almost 40 percent as the economy slowly pulls out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Leading officials with the National Association for Business Economics forecast this week that the 2011 deficit will total $1.2 trillion, only slightly better than the administration's estimate. They cited excessive federal debt as their single greatest concern, even more so than high unemployment.

Obama's bipartisan deficit commission is supposed to report a deficit-cutting plan on Dec. 1, but panel members are unsure at best whether they'll be able to agree on anything approaching Obama's goal of cutting the deficit to about 3 percent of the size of gross domestic product (GDP).

The recommendations of the commission need the backing of 14 of its 18 members to trigger a congressional vote. Building that level of consensus will be difficult. Republicans are strongly opposed to a plan that includes tax increases to chip away at the deficit. Democrats are less inclined to move a package that relies solely on spending cuts.

Even if Congress doesn't vote on a deficit-cutting proposal, it faces the challenge of reaching a consensus on what to do with the Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire on Dec. 31.

The Republicans are fighting to renew all of the tax cuts. Obama and the Democrats want to extend the tax cuts for every family making less than $250,000, but let them expire for the wealthiest households.

The difference between the two parties amounts to $700 billion that would be added to projected deficits over the next decade if the tax cuts for the wealthy were extended along with the other tax cuts.

So far, the huge deficits have not been a threat to the country. That's because interest rates have been so low coming out of the recession and the United States has been seen as a safe haven for foreign investors willing to keep buying U.S. Treasury bonds.

But the situation could change once the economy gains more momentum, analysts warn.

"If we get to 2013 and policymakers don't look like they have a credible plan to deal with the deficit, then interest rates are likely to rise significantly and that will jeopardize the recovery we have under way at that time," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/15/1762973/government-to-report-on-1-trillion.html#ixzz12vqsv8ji

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Oct 10 - 04:30 PM

Yeah, that's the article, Sawz which shows that, inspite of the Republican slant to the news, that the annual budget deficit did fall by approximately $100B...

I mean, ya' got to start somewhere...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 22 Oct 10 - 09:47 PM

Lessee. The annual deficit increases from 1 trillion to 1.4 trillion when Obama comes into office. Then it goes up another 1.3 trillion this year. It is supposed to go up another 1.4 trilliuon in 2011.

And that is good news that the mean old Republicans don't want you to know about?

That is such good news. It just makes me want to break out in song.

It's good news week,
Someone's dropped a bomb somewhere,
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the sky,
It's good news week,
Someones found a way to give,
The rotting dead a will to live,
Go on and never die.

Have you heard the news?
What did it say?
Who's won that race?
What's the weather like today?

It's good news week,
Families shake the need for gold,
By stimulating birth control,
We're wanting less to eat.

It's good news week,
Doctors finding many ways,
Of wrapping brains in metal trays,
To keep us from the heat.

It's good news week,
Someone's dropped a bomb somewhere,
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the sky,
It's good news week,
Someones found a way to give,
The rotting dead a will to live,
Go on and never die.

Have you heard the news?
What did it say?
Who's won that race?
What's the weather like today?
(what's the weather like today?)

It's good news week,
Families shake the need for gold,
By stimulating birth control,
We're wanting less to eat.

It's good news week,
Doctors finding many ways,
Of wrapping brains in metal trays,
To keep us from the heat.

To keep us from the heat.

To keep us from the heat.


Thank Yew, Thank Yew Vurry Much

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 23 Oct 10 - 03:37 AM

Sawzaw, Bobert is not doing too well, today..He is still liking Pelosi, and Reid, and thinks they are great American patriots....no matter how crooked they are. If they're Democraps, he just looks the other way, and spouts the party line....as if Pelosi and Reid, even gave a rat's ass about this country!
Reid rammed through some pork, in a bill, that built a great bridge to one of his property developments in Nevada (at tax payer expense), and Pelosi's hubby processes and sells mortgaged homes, as I've posted months ago....any wonder why there were no controls, or oversight on that???

Well, at least Pelosi is having her HOUSE foreclosed on, by the American electorate!!!

Isn't she just a sweetheart??

Barney Frank is another crooked crackpot, as well...Hmmm....I wonder if Ol' Bobert is capable of connecting dots???

Here, Bobert, I'll help you.....These pieces of bovine excrement do not believe in the principles that they want YOU to absorb yourself with....those things are just a distraction for you, while they amass a fortune, ramming through bills that aren't worth their weight in chicken fertilizer, 'for' the American public!

But, alas and alack, they're Democraps. Watch them walk on water, on their way to 'work'!

I can't wait till they start handing down indictments!!..but they won't...they are 'fellow' politicians, and at best, they get a little slap on the wrists....by those who are running the same scam on us, under a different 'issue'..and 'remedy'!!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 24 Oct 10 - 01:01 AM

I am not going to take cheap shots at Bobert like he does to me.

I don't want him to think there is a bunch of people ganging up on him and use that as a "poor me" excuse to avoid having to up his "facts".

It's just his "facts" vs my facts.

I am just going to keep posting the facts I find and he can post his "facts" where they come from such as "The West Bank has the highest density of any place in the Middle East"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 24 Oct 10 - 01:15 AM

I would like to compliment Bobert on finding some data to support his statements about the Clinton Surplus. He evidently believes he is right but the data he found does not explain why the federal deficit grew every year of the Clinton presidency.

A increased Deficit >< A Surplus.


Clinton clearly did not achieve a surplus and he didn't leave President Bush with a surplus.

So why do they say he had a surplus?

As is usually the case in claims such as this, it has to do with Washington doublespeak and political smoke and mirrors.

Understanding what happened requires understanding two concepts of what makes up the national debt. The national debt is made up of public debt and intragovernmental holdings. The public debt is debt held by the public, normally including things such as treasury bills, savings bonds, and other instruments the public can purchase from the government. Intragovernmental holdings, on the other hand, is when the government borrows money from itself--mostly borrowing money from social security.

When it is claimed that Clinton paid down the national debt, that is patently false--as can be seen, the national debt went up every single year. What Clinton did do was pay down the public debt--notice that the claimed surplus is relatively close to the decrease in the public debt for those years. But he paid down the public debt by borrowing far more money in the form of intragovernmental holdings (mostly Social Security).

Update 3/31/2009: The following quote from an article at CBS confirms my explanation of the Myth of the Clinton Surplus, and the entire article essentially substantiates what I wrote.

"Over the past 25 years, the government has gotten used to the fact that Social Security is providing free money to make the rest of the deficit look smaller," said Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

every year the "official" claimed deficit is smaller than the amount by which the national debt went up. This is true under both Republican and Democrat presidents. Sometimes the differences between the two are smaller and sometimes they are larger, but the real deficit (calculated by the amount the national debt increased) is always larger than the deficit the government claimed.

Consider the following:

    * The sum of all Carter's claimed deficits was $252.709 billion but the national debt went up by $299.015 billion.
    * The sum of all Reagan's claimed deficits was $1.412228 trillion but the national debt went up by $1.859576 trillion.
    * The sum of Bush Sr.'s claimed deficits was $1.035646 trillion but the national debt went up by $1.554057 trillion.
    * The sum of Clinton's claimed deficits and surpluses actually resulted in a net surplus of $62.904 billion but the national debt went up by $1.395974 trillion--only 30% less than the increase during the Reagan administration.
    * The sum of George W. Bush's claimed deficits (through fiscal year 2008) was $2.131405 trillion but the national debt went up $4.217262 trillion
    * The sum of all the reported deficits of these five presidents is $4.769084 trillion but the national debt has gone up $9.325885 trillion!

Clinton and George W. Bush's figures warrant special attention.

To those who cling to the belief that Clinton had a surplus, please review the official surpluses for the Clinton years (FY1994-FY2001). The sum of the claimed surpluses in the last four years actually exceeds the sum of the claimed deficits in the first four years. The result is that if we believe the official CBO deficit/surplus reports, the overall balance of Clinton's presidency was a net surplus of $62.904 billion. Yet during Clinton's presidency the national debt actually increased by 1 trillion 395 billion 974 million dollars. Those that defend the validity of the government surplus/deficit figures need to explain how an alleged 8-year net surplus of $62.904 billion during the Clinton administration caused the government to increase its debt by $1.395974 trillion. If Clinton's administration took in $62.904 billion more than it spent (the definition of a surplus), then why did it have to borrow another $1.39574 trillion?

George W. Bush's presidency also highlights the same problem. If we add up the official deficits of Bush's seven fiscal years so far, the total is $2.131405 trillion. But detractors correctly point out that Bush has increased the national debt by $4.217262 trillion--almost twice the stated deficits.

It's Time To Stop Blindly Believing The Government

Clearly the U.S. Government is using a very "interesting" (to put it politely) form of accounting. But the huge deficits under President George W. Bush have amplified the disparity between the two numbers so extremely that it seems amazing that anyone still clings to the belief that the government's stated deficits and surpluses reflect reality. If Clinton supposedly had a net surplus of $62.904 billion, why did the government borrow $1.395 trillion during that time? If Bush's deficits have "only" been $2.13 trillion, why then has the government found it necessary to borrow $4.22 trillion?

In the face of such amazing discrepancies I find it incredible that people still cling to the CBO/government numbers. These people are basically saying, "I believe Clinton had a surplus because the government told me so and because I don't hear Bush disputing the Clinton surplus claims." Sure, but do you think Bush is eager to alert the nation to FY2008's $1 trillion deficit when he can use the CBO accounting approach and claim a $454 billion deficit? The government approach to accounting makes all politicians look less bad. Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama... these are politicians, folks. Politicians are not known for their truthfulness. So why are so many people so willing to blindly accept the numbers they give us?

I think it's time that We The People stop tolerating smoke and mirrors in Washington. If the national debt increases in a given year, that's a deficit. If the national debt decreases in a given year, that's a surplus. It's really pretty simple and the beauty is that any citizen can check to see how the government is doing every day by looking at the current national debt. The U.S. Treasury Department updates the number every day. To the penny. Don't trust politicians to tell you how fiscally irresponsible they have been with your money. Check the U.S. Treasury that tells you exactly what we owe. Politicians can say anything they want but, in the end, all that matters is our current debt. That's their real legacy and the only number that will make any difference years later.

With the U.S. Government authorizing a $700 billion blank-check bailout with no transparency and no oversight and President-Elect Obama telling us that "we shouldn't worry about the deficit next year or even the year after" , the truth is we better worry about it. They're spending our money faster than we can pay taxes and, apparently, We The People are the only oversight there is.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 10 - 10:24 PM

The criticisms of Mr. Obama from the left often ring true to me, but I also think we elide the political difficulties of getting better legislation past obstructionists in Congress. A Òpublic optionÓ would have improved the health care package in my judgment, but it might also have killed it.

The economic crisis has also distracted from authentic accomplishments. Presidents since Harry Truman have been pushing for health care reform, and it was Mr. Obama who finally achieved it. The economy seemed at risk of another Great Depression when he took office, and that was downgraded to a recession from which we have officially emerged Ñ even though the pain is still biting.

Mr. Obama has also helped engineer a successful auto bailout, a big push for clean energy, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to reduce sex discrimination, tighter tobacco regulations aimed at the 1,000 Americans under age 18 who become smokers each day, and tighter financial regulation including reform of credit card rules.

Above all, Mr. Obama has been stellar in one area crucial to our countryÕs future: education. Democrats historically have been AWOL on school reform because they are beholden to teacher unions, but Mr. Obama has reframed the debate and made it safe to talk about teaching standards and Òbad teachers.Ó Until Mr. Obama, Democrats barely acknowledged that it was possible for a teacher to be bad.

Mr. Obama used stimulus money to keep teachers from being laid off and to nudge states to reform education so as to benefit children for years to come. His ÒRace to the TopÓ focused states on education reform as never before.

He has also revamped and expanded student loans and bolstered support for community colleges, opening a new path to higher education for working-class Americans. Millions more Americans may end up in college.

Presidents in both parties have talked for years about the importance of education, but until now it has been lip service. Improving AmericaÕs inner-city schools will be a long slog, but Mr. Obama has done far more than any other president in this area Ñ arguably our single greatest national challenge. In my view, itÕs his greatest achievement, and it has been largely ignored.

So, sure, go ahead and hold Mr. ObamaÕs feet to the fire. He deserves to be held accountable. But letÕs not allow economic malaise to cloud our judgment and magnify AmericaÕs problems in ways that become self-fulfilling.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 31 Oct 10 - 11:20 PM

Public employee unions funnel public money to Dems
October 26, 2010
(AP)

Who is the largest single political contributor in the 2010 campaign cycle? It is AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union's president, Gerald McEntee, reports proudly that AFSCME will be contributing $87.5 million in this cycle, entirely or almost entirely to Democrats. "We're spending big," he told the Wall Street Journal. "And we're damn happy it's big."

The mainstream press hasn't shown much interest in reporting on unions' campaign spending, which amounted to some $400 million in the 2008 cycle. And it hasn't seen fit to run long investigative stories on why public employee unions -- the large majority of which work for state and local governments -- contribute so much more to campaigns for federal office.

Nor has it denounced the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision last January allowing unions to spend members' dues on politics without their permission and without disclosure.

AFSCME's No. 1 status is emblematic of a change in the union movement over the years. Before public employee unions won the right to represent employees in New York City in 1958 and federal employees in 1962, almost all union members worked in the private sector.

But unions today represent only 7 percent of private-sector workers. In 2009, for the first time in history, most union members were public employees.

This would not have gone down well with President Franklin Roosevelt. "The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," he said in the 1930s. A public employee strike, he said, "looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable."

It still is at the federal level, thanks to presidents of both parties and especially to Ronald Reagan's firing of the striking air traffic controllers in 1981. But successful strikes in many states and cities have given public employee unions huge clout and hugely generous salaries, benefits and pensions.

Even more important is the political reality that, as New York union leader Victor Gotbaum said in 1975, "We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss."

The anomalies don't end there. Public employees' union dues and contributions to union PACs come from directly from taxpayers. So if you live in a state or city with strong public employee unions, you are paying a tax that goes to elect Democratic candidates (plus, perhaps, a few malleable Republicans).

The problem is that, as Roosevelt understood, public employee unions' interests are directly the opposite of those of taxpayers. Public employee unions want government to be more expensive and government employees to be less accountable.

Yes, some union leaders like the late Albert Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers have been concerned about the quality of public services. But they have been the exception rather than the rule.

Public employee unions have collected big time from the Obama Democrats. The February 2009 stimulus package contained $160 billion in aid to state and local governments. This was intended to, and did, insulate public employee union members from the ravages of the recession that afflicted those unfortunate enough to make their livings in the private sector.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Public-employee-unions-funnel-public-money-to-Dems-1342297-105812358.html#

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 01:13 PM

Amos,

And where did you CUT AND PASTE that from?


I see no calls for YOU to post sources...


And I would say that Obama had successfully tranfered ownership of GM from the stockholders who had invested to the Unions and public. As one of those stockholders, issues stock in JUST to debts, while the unions were given stock in JUST the assets, I do not see that as a reason to think Obama did anything good. IF GM had gone bankrupt, the assets would have been sold and more effective companies, like Ford, would have expanded.

So Obama has just paid off his union supporters at the cost of hurting stockholders, such as insurance funds and retirement plans.

Thanks a lot!.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 02:29 PM

"Subject: BS: Earn my vote in 2010
From: InOBU - PM
Date: 31 Oct 10 - 06:58 PM

I cannot in good conscience vote. I will not vote Republican, and the Democratic party has taken the votes which elected Obama for granted. Illegal war committed by Democrats is as wrong as illegal war committed by Republicans. Prosecution of lawyers like Lynne Stewart is as wrong by Democrats as it is by Republicans. The murder of suspects in neutral nations is as wrong when done by Democrats as when it is done by Republicans. The continued detention of Leonard Pelitier is as wrong when committed by Democrats as when it is done by Republicans. The continuance of illegal prisons off shore is as wrong when committed by Democrats as when committed by Republicans. When Democrats terrorise the peace movement by use of FBI raid, When the patriot act stands supported by a Democratic Congress, Senate and Executive branch, it is time to walk away from the party. They need to do a whole lot of the promised change to win my vote back again. Lesser of two evils is not good enough to buy something as precious as an American's vote.
We are better than they are is no reason to vote in the face of inhumanity. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 02:52 PM

CNN Poll of Polls:

More Approve of Obama's Performance than Disapprove

To those who put a lot of weight on the opinion of the pundit class, this report from CNN may come as a surprise:

Forty-eight percent of Americans approve of how President Barack Obama is handling his job as president, while 45 percent disapprove of his job performance, according to a CNN Poll of Polls compiled and released on Friday. This Poll of Polls suggests that for the first time this election season, more Americans approve of how Obama is managing his duties in the White House.

This newest edition of the CNN Poll of Polls is an average of four national polls conducted from mid-to-late October: Gallup tracking (10/25-27), Newsweek (10/20-21), CBS/New York Times (10/22-26), and McClatchy-Marist (10/22-25). A new Bloomberg survey did not release a presidential approval rating. The Poll of Polls does not have a sampling error.

The presidential approval question asks respondents if they approve of how the president is handling his job. It is an indicator of Americans' opinion of Obama's job performance and reflects what voters may be considering as they make decisions on Election Day.

On October 21, when Obama's approval hit a low of 44.7 percent in its poll, Gallup noted that his approval numbers were still superior to both Clinton (41.4 percent) and Reagan (41.7 percent) in the 7th quarters of their first terms in office.

Source, AlterNet Headlines, citing CNN poll.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 07:27 PM

Writing in Slate, Curtis Sittenfeld says:


"...It's not that I can't understand voters' frustration with, for example, the fact that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp is still open. So Obama is an imperfect presidentÑwho wouldn't be? During the almost two years he's been in office, I (apparently alone among sentient voters) don't think he's made any major missteps: As far as I can tell, the economic stimulus package might not have been perfect, but it prevented something bad from being even worse. Health care reform will offer better coverageÑor coverage, periodÑto millions of Americans, including children and those with pre-existing conditions. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is providing billions of dollars to improve education and infrastructure. And, hell, I have no idea what Obama could have done differently with the oil spill, with the possible exception of not succumbing to political pressure and so-called optics by making Sasha go swimming with him off the coast of Florida.

So he hasn't yet gotten Congress to repeal "don't ask, don't tell"Ñat least he's explicitly assured us he wants to, and he recently indicated his view on gay marriage could "evolve." And, yes, it did give me pause in December 2009 when he announced that he was sending more troops to Afghanistan, but here's the thing: Although he was criticized for taking too long to decide on that plan, I was reassured by his aversion to acting hastily. In general, when I hear the criticisms of ObamaÑthat he's professorial or wonky or emotionally restrained, that he's willing to listen to various points of view, that he likes arugulaÑI often think, wait, those are supposed to be insults?

Barack Obama. Click image to expand.President Barack Obama But, my fellow Americans, how quickly we forget! After an excruciating eight years of Bush, the thrill still hasn't worn off for me of once again having an intellectually nimble president, not to mention one who doesn't pride himself on going with his gut when it comes to foreign policy. Whenever I watched Bush speak extemporaneously, I'd feel alternately embarrassed by and for him. I'd be tempted to cover my eyes, as if watching a clumsy figure skater botching double Lutz jumps. And whenever I interacted with someone from another country, I'd feel compelled to mention that I hadn't voted for Bush.

But when I see Obama on television, I'm unfailingly struck by his intelligence and charisma, by his easygoing humor, by the magnificence of his megawatt smile. He just makes me proud, and perhaps this is where I should admit that if there are two categories of Obama criticsÑconservatives who never liked the guy and have in some cases become unhinged since he was elected, and centrists or Democrats who voted for him but now feel let downÑI suspect that, in the visceral nature of my response to our president, I have more in common with the unhinged nut jobs. By this I mean that my Obama admiration is a kind of emotional inverse of the right-wing Obama antipathy: I can pretend it's all about policy, but in truth, it's much more personal. Where his detractors dislike him because of, say, that Muslim vibe he gives off, I like him for similarly nebulous, albeit slightly more factual reasons.

I like that he's married toÑand seemingly still quite taken withÑa strong, opinionated, gorgeous woman, and that he has two ridiculously cute daughters. I like his mind-bendingly multicultural extended family. I like that in a campaign interview in Glamour magazine, he could fluently and unabashedly talk about Pap smears. I thought that the beer summit of 2009 was delightful. I was even excited when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, not realizing until pundits explained otherwise that I was supposed to be aghast at its prematurity. And I wasn't a bit offended by Obama's alleged 2008 debate gaffeÑa line the otherwise irreproachable Frank Rich mentioned yet again in a column as recently as SeptemberÑin remarking to Hillary Clinton, "You're likable enough, Hillary." Oh, and did I mention that I actually voted for Hillary in Missouri's Democratic primary? I was one of those Democrats who thought it'd be nice to have an entrŽe of eight years of Hillary, with Obama as a vice-presidential side, followed by eight years of a more seasoned Obama as the main course. I was always an Obama admirer, but maybe the fact that I was initially rooting for Hillary has prevented me from feeling the disappointment in his presidency expressed by certain Obamamaniacs. So swoony and ardent was their Obama love during the campaign that it couldn't be sustained; my more measured affection, by contrast, has grown over time.

At this point, I love Obama so much that I recently thought if it were 1961, I'd probably display a bust of him in my living room. Then I realized I'm already displaying the 2010 equivalent: On my living room wall, I have a framed version of that famous November 2008 New Yorker cover of the O moon over the Lincoln Memorial. Meanwhile, on my desk, I keep a printed-out photo I first saw on the Huffington Post in May 2009, of Obama in the Oval Office, bending over so a little African-American boy could rub his head. The boy, it turns out, was the child of a White House staffer, and the reason Obama was bending was, according to the caption in the White House's Flickr account, "The youngster wanted to see if the President's haircut felt like his own."

I don't care if it's good PRÑthe picture still practically brings tears to my eyes. It reminds me of the sense of excitement and possibility I felt in November 2008, as if in electing Obama, we Americans were acting as our best, smartest, least racist selves, as if there really was change we could believe in. And, OK, so it's been a long two years since then, and for a lot of people it's been an undeniably hard two years. But I'm just not convinced that's Obama's fault.

I'm also not convinced, my own hyperbolic tendencies aside, that I'm really the last Obama devotee standing. When I ask around, I find that the people who are disappointed in Obama aren't as disappointed as the media would have us believe, and that many aren't disappointed at all. In fact, some acquaintances have told me that they, too, feel surprised by the assumption that the Obama backlash is universal. Sure, a lot of the people I know are like meÑWhole Foods shoppers, NPR listeners, Slate readers and writersÑbut I do live in a state where I'd be unable to avoid voters of varying political persuasions even if I wanted to.

During the years of George W. Bush's presidency, a popular magnet among my Democratic friends featured a serious photo of Bill Clinton, his hands clasped. "COME BACK BILL," the punctuation-free text read. "ALL IS FORGIVEN." My fear is that if Democrats continue to convince one another, and swing voters, of our president's failures and shortcomings, a similar Obama magnet might surge in popularity as soon as 2013Ñduring a Mitt Romney administration, or a Mike Huckabee administration, or, God forbid, a Sarah Palin administration.

But even if my worst political nightmare comes to pass, I know I will never buy that magnet. After all, I've never thought there's anything for which to forgive Obama...."

---

I find his view refreshing in the face of the constant stream of sour exhalations from the hungover punditocrats in various quarters.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 08:35 PM

Full article here.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 08:48 PM

"Barack Obama is fond of quoting these words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. : ÒThe arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.Ó

As America prepares to vote in TuesdayÕs election, it appears that the arc of the moral universe, at least as the president understands it, will flatten out. Mr. Obama and Democrats in Congress seem headed for a repudiation.

America has known such detours before. Eventually it moves again on the long arc toward justice. Those on the edges of the political spectrum may foam at the mouth, but in the middle often is found common sense, wisdom and compassion.
We must hope so.

All politics eventually comes down to allocating public resources and channeling collected money for the public good. But the last three decades have seen big chunks of the nationÕs wealth redistributed to the rich.

According to the noted radical David Stockman, who was President Ronald ReaganÕs budget adviser, the top 1 percent of American taxpayers Ñ those with adjusted annual gross incomes of $410,000 or more Ñ reaped two-thirds of all the economic gains between 2002 and 2006. Today, the top 1 percent earns 23 percent of all income.
Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats spent the last two years trying to even the scales a little bit. If polls are accurate, they are about to be punished for that.

The health care reform bill, for example, would be paid for in large part by raising payroll taxes on households making more than $250,000. Most of the benefits would go to households making less than four times the poverty level Ñ currently $88,200 for a family of four people.

Democrats passed a financial regulatory bill aimed at preventing a recurrence of the 2008 meltdown. It did not go far enough Ñ both parties remain far too deeply in thrall to Wall Street Ñ but it does contain valuable restraints and consumer-protection measures. Polls say the Democrats will be punished for that, too.

And they will be punished for the $819 billion stimulus bill that they passed in early 2009. Some of it, to be sure, was political pork. But about a third of the bill was tax cuts for individuals and small businesses, including $116 billion in income tax cuts for 95 percent of working families. Much of the rest of it shored up state and local governments reeling from the ever-increasing costs of health care.

Republican candidates avoided the details. They preferred to chant Òfailed stimulus bill,Ó because, while the bill may have saved or created 3 million jobs and forestalled a much deeper recession, unemployment rates remain doggedly high."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 11:20 PM

Amos:

I think if you stay up all night and post a bunch of positive stuff about Obama, you can turn this election around.

So brew up plenty of coffee and keep up the good work.

Remember "They just don't understand what I have done."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 11:25 PM

Chongo needs people who are willing to stay up all night and post positive stuff about him too. He needs many such people to get elected in 2012. Anyone willing to do it has been promised free bananas on July 4rth every year. Get busy!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 11:46 PM

Tell you what, Sawz: you do half of it--for every positive report on Obama you post I will match it with another. One, two, three...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 02 Nov 10 - 10:41 AM

Voting in Republican primaries and special elections showed what happens when moderate Americans stay home or react to the barrages of fear and intolerance. We end up with fringe candidates like Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and Sharron Angle in Nevada. Establishment candidates then spout the same disturbing ideas. (Witness Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader, trying to act like an outsider after 18 years in the Washington power elite.)

Democrats have been far too timid to argue the case, but they, and President Obama, have done many important things in the last two years.

Most important, the stimulus — which Republicans made sure was smaller than it should have been — saved the country from a deeper, more destructive recession. That is not a lot of comfort for the millions of unemployed Americans, but it would have been far worse if the Republicans had had their way. They have even opposed extending federal unemployment benefits.

American troops are coming home from Iraq. For the first time, troops in Afghanistan have the full backing of the White House and Pentagon. The United States is regaining the respect of allies around the world.

The Republicans have been rewriting history. They claim Mr. Obama's economic policies are a failure and hope Americans will forget that it was President George W. Bush who turned big budget surpluses into huge deficits and whose contempt for regulation ultimately brought us to the brink of financial collapse. The Republicans want to go back to more tax cuts for the rich and more free passes for Wall Street and big corporations.

Tea Party candidates are particularly worrisome. Some want to privatize Social Security. Others want to eliminate Medicare. Betting on the Republican establishment to temper these excesses is a bad bet.

Here are some things to bear in mind on Tuesday:

• Since Mr. Obama was elected, millions of poor children who did not have health insurance got it. A reform law was passed that already allows young people to be on their parents' plan until they are 26, bars insurers from dropping coverage after a beneficiary becomes sick, and removes lifetime caps on coverage. In 2014, many more benefits will kick in.

Republicans are determined to undo that progress. It would be a disaster. The law is the best chance in years to provide health insurance to the rapidly rising numbers of uninsured and to begin trying to slow cost growth in medical care and insurance.

• The country needs tax reform that is fair and doesn't get us even deeper in the red. Republicans are interested only in one thing: permanently extending tax cuts for the rich, adding $700 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years.

• The country needs jobs and to be globally competitive. Republicans are determined to block Mr. Obama's sensible proposals to create good jobs by rebuilding fraying infrastructure or creating new energy industries.

• The country needs sound regulation. If there is any doubt about that look at the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Or the bank bailout that — despite what the Republicans are saying — happened on Mr. Bush's watch. The Republicans want more heedless deregulation.

• With very few exceptions, Republican candidates are hostile to the administration's efforts to address climate change and reduce the nation's dependence on fossil fuels. There has already been talk on Capitol Hill of stripping the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Sawzaw
Date: 02 Nov 10 - 12:09 PM

Amos gathering his facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 02 Nov 10 - 02:54 PM

2500!