Obama

LOL! I wondered how you were going to try to turn this around. All that time to think of the spin, though, and that's the best you could do? Disappointing. Hey, wasn't there some controversy about Lieberman back in 2009? Something about how after his return to the Senate as an independent (having been kicked out in his own primary) he endorsed McCain instead of Obama? And how everybody wanted to strip him of his committee chairs and seniority since, if he was going to act like a Republican, who the hell needed him? But then somebody stood up and said, "look, we need Lieberman, eve if it doesn't seem like it right now" and made sure Lieberman suffered no reprisals for his actions?Who was that, again? Oh, right - Obama. I'm not saying the kid can see the future, but you have to admit he's ten steps ahead of you or I. Hell, even I thought the compromise on Lieberman was a "cave too far" but I was dead wrong and so are you - Lieberman was genuinely the hero of this 11th-hour DADT reform, but the only reason Lieberman was in a position to play the hero was because of Obama. Case closed. Frequently good leadership is simply a matter of putting the right people in place to do the right things. Oh, right. The most effective progressive presidency since FDR, and it's all the result of luck. Good luck with that one, bub.

Well, yeah. You know, I saw that you had replied last night and rather than read it, I said to myself "eesh, better save that till tomorrow - Rrhain's so good at this, I'll be tossing and turning all night if I read his reply." And then this morning I actually read your post and it's this. Imagine my disappointment. You act like all Lieberman did here was get a road or a state park named after somebody.Rrhain, he ended decades of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the armed services, many of whom had been wounded in service to their country. That's quite the mitzvah. Does it "make up" for anything? I have no idea. But I do know that Lieberman being in a position to do so was directly and solely the result of Obama's foresightedness in preserving Lieberman's connections and seniority in the Democratic coalition, at a time when all the rest of us were calling for his head.I don't know if DADT repeal is enough to save Lieberman from the Flames of Liberal Perdition. But I do know that if you're arrived at the point where the assignment of committee chairs are now a matter of inviolable progressive principle, you're truly at the point where futile last stands on principle are more important than actually governing. You know, like how the conservatives are. Because it's objectively true. You can act like the death of public option health care was the death of All American Liberalism, Rrhain, but it's not true. The ACA allows millions to have insurance who would not otherwise have it. DADT is dead, and need I remind you that it was repealed with precisely the exact strategy you claimed was a non-starter? Now you're predicting the demise of Social Security as a result of the employment benefits extension deal, and I have news for you - your track record as a swami isn't very good. Funny, I feel like I've addressed this, to no substantive reply. To recap: if it's such a giveaway, why did insurance companies spend millions to block its passage? How is it a "giveaway" when the millions of new customers are precisely the customers insurance companies didn't want to insure - those who are going to immediately make expensive medical claims well in excess of the revenue from their premiums? How is it a "giveaway" when it carves the heart out of the profit mechanism of the medical insurance industry - rescission and adverse selection?

And before that three weeks he'd been a relentless opponent. His stance on offshore drilling was becoming a stick with which to beat Democrats. Oddly enough Barack Obama is not the President of Israel.

When a majority of Americans support torture, you get torture, regardless of how liberal your president is.The Federal government is fundamentally structured to privilege conservative outcomes, such as torture of children.

Links - it clicks them.

But Obama has not stopped the policy of bribing Israel. Israel continues to receive billions in government aid from the US.It's merely the case that Israel has discontinued their policy of being committed to certain actions in exchange for bribes. Barack Obama isn't the President of Israel; he can't control their actions. Better drones than actual US servicepeople put at risk. There's no realistic possibility in the United States of drone attacks coming to an end, due to how the federal government is structured to privilege military hegemony.

I'm not using it as a justification. I'm explaining how the structure of our government constrains outcomes. One of those outcomes is the expansion of military hegemony and violations of human rights, regardless of the President's ideology, especially when those outcomes are favored by a majority of Americans.There's simply no provision in the Constitution for the President to pass legislation because he really, really wants to. The President is not given the power to do so under our form of government. He's an executive, not a God-King. I'm sorry Big Black Daddy can't give you everything you want for Christmas, but you need to grow up and realize that the obstacle to further progressive achievement isn't Obama's laziness - he's done more for progressives than any other living politician, in fact - it's significant structural obstacles to precisely the kind of results you'd like to see.

Yes, there's a link in the post. Please click and read it. I did, when I wrote the post. The evidence is available at the link.

Congress has the power of the purse under our system of government, not the President. There's no Constitutional power for the President to enact a budget simply because he really, really wants to; also, with no line-item veto he can only approve or veto entire budgets.The Constitution is available online, Dronester. I think you might find it edifying to actually have read it. Then you would stop ascribing to Big Black Daddy the actions and decisions of other individuals. The buck, in fact, does not stop with the president under our system of government.

Thanks to the fundamental structure of our government - yes, it was. As much as the government is structurally biased against progressive outcomes, it's even more biased against progressive outcomes if progressives are in the minority. Well, again - your disagreement with Obama is not that he isn't "liberal", it's that he refuses to die on the hill for liberal principles. You'd rather the president made futile last stands on inflexible principles rather than compromise, bargain, and actually achieve something. And now you've just admitted it. (Oh, I supposed you'll probably claim that you never actually said that, either.)

"Many" is a funny way to say "two", and you seem to have forgotten that Obama is withdrawing troops from Iraq. You don't understand how unmanned drones - piloted remotely from the ground - are less risky than piloted, conventional airplanes?You're coming unglued at the seams, it looks like.

Um, what? Um, what? Neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton are the president of Israel.

Torture by the US military and intelligence services, that's correct.Obama's action in this regard has been to reinstate the Army Field Manual guidelines to interrogations of terrorists by the US military and intelligence services, which prohibit torture. He has complete control over the US military, and some degree of control over US intelligence agencies, which is why those organizations are no longer allowed to torture detainees.

Right, which is why I said:

quote:

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There's no realistic possibility in the United States of drone attacks coming to an end, due to how the federal government is structured to privilege military hegemony.

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I realize that my statements to you are little more than speedbumps on your way through a series of increasingly incomprehensible rants, but you should really be reading them regardless. You'd sure look at lot less stupid.

Is there supposed to be some response to my argument in this?