Sorry he didn't close diplomatic ties with Iraq, Dronester, but you need to get over that.
I suppose Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Finance Protection Bureau is just another part of his sneaky plan, right, guys? I mean, obviously the only way a progressive Presidency could ever be considered "successful" is if it took such a principled stand that it never succeeded in anything at all.
I can't wait until the first Kucinich Administration, where his first official act will be to commit suicide. That'll be just the sort of martyrdom flameout that you Firebaggers are so desperate for, right? And then when Republicans outlaw elections and plunge us into a thousand years of darkness, you'll march into the concentration camps heads held high, knowing that your guy stood so strongly for principle that he so highly and principled-ly refused to accomplish anything at all.
Re: continued from The Awesome Republican Primary Thread
You mean like stopping child torture? Is that what you mean by government helping people's lives?
Stopping the torture of children is just one of the ways that Obama has used the government to improve people's lives, yes. I'm specifically referring to ending the practice of torturing children with diseases by not paying for them to be treated.
And thus, this is one hill I would like Obama to die on.
Hrm, strange. If you were really opposed to child torture, wouldn't you want Obama to succeed in stopping it?
Well, one way to find out would be to ask the 1%. You know, since there's less of them and therefore it's easier to ask:
quote:No offense to Middle America, but if someone went to Columbia or Wharton, [even if] their company is a fumbling, mismanaged bank, why should they all of a sudden be paid the same as the guy down the block who delivers restaurant supplies for Sysco out of a huge, shiny truck?"
I’m not giving to charity this year! one hedge-fund analyst shouts into the phone, when I ask about Obama’s planned tax increases. When people ask me for money, I tell them, ‘If you want me to give you money, send a letter to my senator asking for my taxes to be lowered.’ I feel so much less generous right now. If I have to adopt twenty poor families, I want a thank-you note and an update on their lives. At least Sally Struthers gives you an update.
Their anger takes many forms: There is rage at Obama for pushing to raise taxes (The government wants me to be a slave! says one hedge-fund analyst); rage at the masses who don’t understand that Wall Street’s high salaries fund New York’s budget (We’re fucked, says a former Lehman equities analyst, referring to the city); rage at the people who don’t get that Wall Street enables much of the rest of the economy to function (JPMorgan and all these guys should go on strikesee what happens to the country without Wall Street, says another hedge-funder).
quote:Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history....The President continues to push for stimulus even though hundreds of billions of dollars in such funds seem to have done little. The unemployment rate when Obama took office in January 2009 was 7.7%; now it is 9.5%. Yet he wants to spend even more and is determined to foist the entire bill on Americans making $250,000 a year or more. The rich, Obama insists, aren't paying their "fair share." This by itself seems odd given that the top 1% of Americans pay 40% of all federal income taxes; the next 9% of income earners pay another 30%. So the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes; the bottom 40% pays close to nothing. This does indeed seem unfair--to the rich.
Theories abound to explain the President's goals and actions. Critics in the business community--including some Obama voters who now have buyer's remorse--tend to focus on two main themes. The first is that Obama is clueless about business. The second is that Obama is a socialist--not an out-and-out Marxist, but something of a European-style socialist, with a penchant for leveling and government redistribution.
It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying.
Phat, you well know that the "wealth" of the United States is in the natural resources within our borders and the creative potential of the people who here reside.
How does a fluctuation in the Yuan or the dollar rob us of either? When we make interest payments on Chinese-owned US debt, we're just sending them money, not resources or people. How is our wealth in any way "squandered"?
But as an outsider it also seems that the expectations he fostered during his election campaign were, with hindsight (and frankly even without hindsight for those with a less idealistic disposition), impossible to meet.
You know, I hear this a lot and I think you're allowing conservo-tard swipes about "President Messiah" to color your recollection.
Obama didn't run on a platform of idealism or grand promises. He ran on a platform of pragmatism. If you'll recall, his acceptance speech message was that we, not he were "the ones we've been waiting for." Since the get-go the Obama message has been overwhelmingly that we would all have to work together to effect change, that he wasn't a Magic Chocolate Jesus who would be able to do it for us. The iconic "Hope" image:
was not the creation of his campaign, but a completely unrelated image created by an artist. "Hope and change" is not a phrase that appears in any Obama campaign speech or Presidential address; that was a mocking parody created by Republicans.
Obama never promised anything but that our struggles were only beginning. But, predictably, liberals put a black president in the White House and figured we were done. Every one of us woke up in January 21st 2009 and said "ok, election's over, now we can stop worrying about politics", disassembled an enormous grassroots campaign organization, forgot the phone numbers and mailing addresses of our representatives and senators, forgot that it takes 60 votes to pass something in the Senate if any single Senator asks for a cloture vote, and then sat back and waited for our ponies to be delivered.
There seems to be no issue on which he will take an absolute stand.
Really? How about Lily Ledbetter?
And this seems to fly in the face of basic negotiating tactics. Recall that it's the goal - the win condition - for Republicans when they can prevent the President from taking any action whatsoever. A failed or vetoed bill is a Republican win. So when the President says "it's either my way or no way", he's basically giving Republicans a simple choice: hand the President a win that costs Republicans at the polls, or easily achieve everything they want. Wow, I wonder which one they would take?
It seems like he wanted to genuinely do something radical on US healthcare.
Really? When did it ever "seem" like he wanted to do something "radical" on US health care? Have you completely forgotten the Democratic primary debates?
You've allowed conservative complaints about "radical Socialism" and "social engineering" to color your recollection of a campaign that was, overwhelmingly, about pragmatic solutions to our problems. Obama never promised a radical reimagining of the American health care system, because he's always known that such a thing would be impossible.
I'm not trying to jump down your throat, and I realize that your perception of the Obama campaign was colored by whatever media filtered over to your side of the ocean. But the notion that the Obama presidency has been some kind of failed experiment in radicalism is just plain false. Obama started out a pragmatist, he campaigned as a pragmatist, he won the primary and general on a platform of pragmatic achievement, and his administration has been marked by one pragmatic success after another. You can't blame Obama for not being the President he never, ever promised to be.
Because the real value of the dollar will be forced to come out
The real value of the dollar is the value of all of the goods and services for sale in the United States (or anywhere else US dollars are taken as payment). Since we don't pay off US debt by sending China our goods and service providers, how does Chinese ownership of US debt "squander our wealth" or change the real value of the dollar?
I keep asking you questions about these financial issues and you keep betraying your complete ignorance with these handwaving deepities.
"Yes We Can" strikes me as exactly the sort of pragmatism and broad focus on movements that I was referring to, so I'm struggling to understand why you see this as evidence of Obama's messianic idealism.
You're giving examples of Obama saying "I can't do it alone" as evidence that he promised to do it all by himself. What gives?
But I would suggest you are giving them too much credit if you think that is the sole reason for people’s disillusionment.
I don't think that and I didn't say that they did.
There are a lot of people who do feel disappointed.
Yeah, Obama didn't give them a pony so they're feeling the crushing sting of disappointment in Chocolate Jesus. The question is whether that represents some sort of betrayal of Obama's campaign message, or whether that's a function of a large number of people who are deeply, deeply immature about governance. Barack Obama ran for President, not for Father Figure.
Re: continued from The Awesome Republican Primary Thread
Since america's "pullout" (we still employ ten's of thousands of US paid merceneries in Iraq, let alone the thousands of military consultants employed at the "embassy," (so much for "ending the Iraqi occupation" campaign promise))
I feel like we've been over this, but now that you've made the demand for the fourth time, can you explain why you believe that Obama should close the US Embassy in Iraq?
Re: continued from The Awesome Republican Primary Thread
Yeah america always sends prisoners to Egypt, Syria, Jordan or Israel when america wants the prisoner to be merely "renditioned".
You've provided no evidence that these are the renditions which Obama has continued.
I'm not understanding the purpose of these arguments, Dronester. Why is it so important for you to fabricate and misrepresent "evidence" that Obama is torturing children? Obviously a conservative would lie about the Obama record to get a low-information observer to vote for the Republican candidate.
But you know that, unlike Obama the Republican candidate really will torture children. Romney, as you'll recall, wants to "double Gitmo", whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean.
Re: Next campaign as pragmatic and non-idealistic as the last one?
What I naively thought was that Obama would be a politician who would shape the political agenda rather than be continually thwarted by it.
And he has been. From day one Obama's been driving the agenda. Lily Ledbetter. The stimulus. Health care reform. That was all on Obama's schedule. It's just that the one thing he can't do is unilaterally pass legislation without the support of 60 Senators in Congress. So, unsurprisingly, enacting Obama's domestic agenda means compromising with the varied and conflicting interests in the Senate.
Of all the criticisms, this one seems the most absurd. Absolutely Obama's been the one shaping the political agenda. How on Earth can you say he's not?
Honestly - Are you happy with the Guantanamo situation, the healthcare bill, the extension of the Bush tax cuts, the position of Iraq etc. etc. etc....?
Am I happy that Obama issued an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay? Absolutely I am. Am I happy with the Affordable Care Act? Thanks to that, millions now have health coverage who didn't, before; millions, like my sister, are no longer one "pre-existing condition" away from being locked out of treatment, forever. Insurance companies have a statutory requirement to spend 80% or more of their revenue on treatment. Am I happy with the extension of the Bush tax cuts? Absolutely I am, because that was part of a package deal that, for every dollar in tax cuts on the rich, got us three dollars in unemployment benefits and tax credits for college students and working people. Am I happy that we're pulling out of Iraq on a timetable that can't be used against the President, because it was Bush's plan all along? Absolutely - Iraq was a mess that Bush tried to pass off to the next guy, and Obama turned that shit around like judo.
What, exactly, am I supposed to be disappointed about? Republicans enjoy structural advantages in every turn - in the rules of the Senate, in media coverage, in the difference between the conservative agenda of inaction and the fact that the progressive agenda requires doing something. What am I supposed to find disappointing about a President who keeps outfoxing Republicans at every turn and keeps delivering the most progressive domestic policy of any Democratic president in my lifetime?
Even when he's losing, he's winning. You think the Republican primary and the rise of Romney is just a matter of chance? That Obama just lucked out?
The Republicans had great guys they could have run. Chris Christie. Bobby Jindal. Mitch Daniels. Women, too - Haley Barbour, even Sarah Palin, maybe - terrible president, but she has an enduring base of support (ugh) that might have made her a formidable general opponent.
And each time Republicans were nominating their New Jesus, they got up to fail. Bobby Jindal mocked "volcano monitoring" in a State of the Union response a week before a fucking volcano caused a billion dollars worth of disruption to the nation's air travel. Don't hear much about him, anymore. All the Republicans with any goddamn sense are staying home this year, and the only people in the primary are the suckers too desperate for their last shot at the office that they've got nothing to lose by getting the loser's stink all over their name (like Bob Dole.) Obama's gonna sail to re-election and the next job Romney's gonna have is hawking boner pills. All because Obama has the incredible sense to get out of the way when his opponents are determined to knock themselves out.
So, yeah, I absolutely don't understand the disappointment. Maybe I understand yours, that electing Obama didn't rehabilitate the entire nation of the United States of America, but we've always been huge fucking idiots and it's going to take more than one Chocolate Jesus to fix that. We're still the same dumbasses who elected Bush, Straggler, and maybe if you keep that in mind more often, you can avoid some disappointment.
Re: Next campaign as pragmatic and non-idealistic as the last one?
Is there any area where you think the Obama administration failed or even underachieved at all?
I wish they'd asked for a larger stimulus, but at the time I don't think anyone had a notion that Republicans would be the Party of No from Day One.
But underachieved? No. I don't think there's even a single example where the Obama Administration has made unforced errors. I think their actions are overwhelmingly both deliberate and deliberated, and represent the maximum achievement possible given the circumstances in Congress. If anything the Obama administration has been one of unexpected achievement - remember when everybody was certain that the Affordable Care Act was dead, after the election of Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy's seat? DOA, they called it.
Yet it passed. Obama turned it around in a week. Like I said, I just don't understand the disappointment, except to note that it's usually the case that the black guy has to work twice as hard to be considered half as good.
Do you actually even accept that there are feelings of disillusionment amongst many who supported Obama last time (both in the US and around the world) at all?
Sure. It's just that, like yours, the feelings are based on complete ignorance about our system of government, in particular an enormously inflated view of the President's power to enact domestic policy. It's disappointment in not getting a pony, in other words. A disappointment that stems from a faulty sense of entitlement.
Do you think the Obama presidency will go down in history as one of those that future Democrat presidents will aspire to emulate?
Yes, absolutely. Obama has already eclipsed Clinton as the most successful Democratic administration in my lifetime. Yours too.
Do you think Obama will get more, less or about the same number of votes in the next election as he got in the last one?
He'll get less, certainly, but that's the result of the economy being worse now than it was in 2008. But, that's due to the actions (or really, inaction) of the Federal Reserve Bank failing in its mandate to keep unemployment low. And the Federal Reserve Bank only notionally works for Obama (or for the government at all.)
"InfoWars" is a crank site, Dronster, I won't accept any citation from it.
quote:Alexander Emerick "Alex" Jones (born February 11, 1974) is an American talk radio host, actor and filmmaker. His syndicated news/talk show The Alex Jones Show, based in Austin, Texas, airs via the Genesis Communication Network over 60 AM, FM, and shortwave radio stations across the United States and on the Internet.[2] His websites include Infowars.com and PrisonPlanet.com.[3] Mainstream sources have described Jones as a conservative[4][5][6][7] and as a right-wing conspiracy theorist.[8][9][10][11] Jones sees himself as a libertarian, and rejects being described as a right-winger.[12] He has also called himself a paleoconservative.[13] In a promotional biography he is described as an "aggressive constitutionalist".[14][15] Alex Jones has been the center of many controversies. Jones has accused the US government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing[16] and September 11 attacks.[17]
Re: Next campaign as pragmatic and non-idealistic as the last one?
U sure about that it kind of looks like you are employing more people now days and not loosing jobs an indicator that the economy is improving.
It's started to improve, yes. Obviously there's kind of a time lag with these kinds of things. Maybe it'll have improved enough that voters take notice in November, I dunno. I hope so.
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