While Sarah Palin may be a retard* and the teabaggers a collection of howling morans created by Fox News, the charming, articulate Obama is nevertheless a corporate pawn doing the bidding of his masters. He's at best a liberal capitalist, but he's not on our side.
*Bill Maher on Sarah Palin's impromptu teleprompter: "Sarah Palin writing 'tax cuts' on her hand is like Wiley Coyote writing 'Roadrunner' on his paw."
"*Bill Maher on Sarah Palin's impromptu teleprompter: "Sarah Palin writing 'tax cuts' on her hand is like Wiley Coyote writing 'Roadrunner' on his paw."
Thanks aQ, needed that. (But would dearly love to see a "GOP in year 2" starting somewhere. Of course Obama is nowhere near babblers' ideal. Gaia knows, I'm only playing the role of relativist here. But does anyone here think the Great American Unread Taxpayer, Market Player, Soothsayer would have elected him if he were entirely without those redeeming virtues? C'mon, folks here wanted a socialist elected. And ice cream sundaes in hell.
Y'know, George, I think that if you look at what is going on in the GOP more carefully, beneath the sound-bites about cartoon characters like Sarah, you'll see that there's much worse on the horizon, and Obama is responsible for some of it.
The GOP candidates to worry about in the future, I'm guessing, are Petraeus and McChrystal. The Disney show isn't the problem; it's a diversion.
Believe me I feel the fear, skdadl. I'm only seeking desperately for ANY sign of hopeful, positive political change south of the 49th. Like maybe Arnie will have seen the tax light? :)
By the way, just heard on CBC Radio this a.m. an advertising flashback to the advertising campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower, 195l? 52? He says in response to a question ...like.."is America ready to defend itself>? And his very FIRM reply was simply "No we are not."
And we all recall his famously quoted concern, eight years later for the growith of the "military industrial complex." Now there's a changeup. And it sure as shucks would not be forthcoming from the motley Republican crew today. They are a completely destructive force. (Roadrunner on the paw of Wiley Coyote....jeez, just in time).
Our destitute working class is beginning to grasp that Barack Obama and other elected officials in Washington, who speak in a cloying feel-your-pain language, are liars. They are not attempting to prevent wages from sinking, unemployment from mounting, foreclosures from ripping apart communities, banks from looting the U.S. Treasury or jobs from being exported. The gap between our stark reality and the happy illusions peddled by smarmy television news personalities and fatuous academic and financial experts, as well as oily bureaucrats and politicians, is becoming too wide to ignore.
While Sarah Palin may be a retard* and the teabaggers a collection of howling morans created by Fox News, the charming, articulate Obama is nevertheless a corporate pawn doing the bidding of his masters. He's at best a liberal capitalist, but he's not on our side.
Please have some respect for people who are not the same as you. Just because my son is intellectually challenged doesn't mean he is anything like Palin and your using his level of ability as an insult is so very tiresome. Your language is no more acceptable than using the "n" word for Obamba.
My use of the "r" word was topical; it isn't as if I've ever used it in any other context.
The GOP candidates to worry about in the future, I'm guessing, are Petraeus and McChrystal. ...
really, there is zero evidence of that;
the last serious military figure in presidential politics was Colin Powell, in the mid-1990s, and as soon as his non-security domestic positions started being known he was finished among grass-roots Republicans,
despite being routinely ranked as among the 2-3 "most admired" Americans (along w. Oprah);
in fact, a good case could be made that a well-run 1996 campaign for Powell could have edged Clinton, but Powell would have had to spend a lot of effort -- A LOT -- dodging fire from the right
and the guys above are absolutely unknown to the attention-deficit masses and they show no aptitude for public relations outside Congressional committee rooms, so they are non-starters
My use of the "r" word was topical; it isn't as if I've ever used it in any other context.
I am so glad you can insult my son and others when you consider it "topical." So I will say that I am only being "topical" when I note that only assholes with no grasp of the harm their language causes to others use this kind of oppressive language. The context is a nasty vicious woman who lies from greedy motives is like my son and other intellectually challenged individuals. Nice context.
One question; Do you think it would be topical to use the "b" word to describe her? Sure seems to be just as "topical."
Yeah al-Q, don't do that. You know better.
My name is Andrea Fay Friedman. I was born with Down syndrome. I played the role of Ellen on the "Extra Large Medium" episode of Family Guy that was broadcast on Valentine's day. Although they gave me red hair on the show, I am really a blonde. I also wore a red wig for my role in " Smudge" but I was a blonde in "Life Goes On". I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line "I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska" was very funny. I think the word is "sarcasm".
In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes
I agree: pass the bill!
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/the_democratic_plan_finish_thi.html
The election of Scott Brown threw the politics of the issue back into chaos, and unlike in past instances, left the process uncertain as well. But Democrats have spent the past few weeks rebuilding the process, and today was the first step: The press will now spend a few days covering the plan itself, rather than just the politics of the issue. Then comes Thursday's summit, and if all goes well there, Harry Reid says that the Senate will use the reconciliation process to make a few tweaks and changes and, alongside the House, finish this bill.
That, of course, is the real plan: finish the bill. The Democrats have been roundly criticized for mishandling the politics of health-care reform, and those criticisms have often been justified. But there's a larger truth, too: The only way to win this issue is to pass the bill.
Occasionally something good happens at the White House.
Of course, this amounts to being able to destroy the world only ten times, rather than twenty, but it's progress.
No it is not progress because they are now going to bunker busting technologies and like uranium tipped ammo they will feel no restraints on using them and releasing radiation into the atmosphere unlike the big bombs that even the American military was only crass enough to use twice for maximum terrorist effect.
just to get your logic straight:
having nuclear weapons is very bad, using them is terrible, but getting rid of them or greatly reducing the arsenal, is also bad or at least an illusion leading to other terrible things
doesn't leave us too many options, eh?
When the US stops developing weapons of mass destruction I will praise them, in the meantime I don't buy propaganda items by the Emperor that are designed to obfuscate the real weapons race going on.
so, no point in reducing the large arsenals of nuclear weapons?
OK, glad we straightened that out ...
No point in listening to propaganda designed to get you looking in the wrong direction while the Empire develops even nastier weapons. I worry about the arsenals they are now building for actual use not the old ones that were built as a deterrent and were never intended to be used. Getting rid of something you don't intend to use in any circumstances is not progress it is disingenuous militarism.
No it is not progress because they are now going to bunker busting technologies
Read the article. The nuclear bunker buster program is canceled.
Great I hope that is actually the case. Not like when the democrats closed the School of the Americas by renaming it.
yes, vote - vote! - on the thing now :
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/health/policy/04health.html?hp
Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of 60 votes," Mr. Obama said. "And now it deserves the same kind of up or down vote that was cast on welfare reform, that was cast on the Children's Health Insurance Program, that was used for Cobra health coverage for the unemployed and, by the way, for both Bush tax cuts - all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority."
Republicans were furious.
Cafeful Dave, we mustn't be too positive regarding the pres. It would mean the end to thousands of postings finding him the chief architect of workers' hardship south of the 49th, while the GOP Godly get a free ride. Who could we turn to for political "analysis" down there. Sven? (But by golly it will be great to see the vote results broken down by party and person).
A dozen Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives opposed to abortion say they are willing to bring down President Barack Obama's proposed health-care bill unless tighter language barring funding of the procedure is added.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/03/04/us-health-reform-abortion.html#ixzz0hETwYAc8
one more time:
enough talk, ram it through:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/09/ram_it_through_mr_p...
Let's see. Joe Biden, VP extrodinaire, about to try again to bring the two parties together for negotiations, gets slapped in the chops by Netanyahu's release of news about a new settlement to be built in Jerusalem, and one searches desperately for that news hereabouts.
Perhaps I've missed it in another thread? Dave?
Barack Obama took the Republican slogan "drill, baby, drill" as his own today, opening up over 500,000 square miles of US coastal waters to oil and gas exploitation for the first time in over 20 years.
The move, a reversal of Obama's early campaign promise to retain a ban on offshore exploration, appeared aimed at winning support from Republicans in Congress for new laws to tackle global warming. Sarah Palin's "Drill, baby, drill" slogan was a prominent battle cry in the 2008 elections.
How long will it be until we read about Obama's moose hunting trip?
Barack Obama reverses campaign promise and approves offshore drilling
"Jonas Brothers are here, they're out there somewhere,” President Obama quipped as he looked out at the packed room. Then he furrowed his brow, pretending to send a stern message to the pop band. “Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but boys, don't get any ideas. Two words for you: predator drones. You’ll never see it coming."
For people in Pakistan, where most of the drones are being used, the joke lost something in translation. According to Pakistani journalist Khawar Rizvi, few Pakistanis have ever heard of the Jonas Brothers or understood the reference to the President’s daughters. “But one thing we do know: There’s nothing funny about predator drones,” said Rizvi. “They’ve killed hundreds of civilians and caused so much suffering in Pakistan. And that’s no laughing matter.”
And no matter how he tries to placate Republican "opinion", that opinion has been taken over by bloodthirsty wingnuts and out and out racists. The poor silly bastard keeps trying though, eh? But in the face of near-universal ignorance and bigotry in the land of the free, this African American careerist has some wide rivers to cross. He should probably have left the mess to his betters, huh!
If Barack Obama isn't the epitome of this mentality, then Elena Kagan surely is. Nobody can figure out what she stands for, because she has been so careful never to stand for anything. Obama's really the same, although as a former candidate for the US Senate and the presidency, he's been obliged to make a few more vague noises about political positions than Kagan has or will in her confirmation process. In both cases, though, you can look long and hard - and ultimately in vain - for much of anything that resembles a political conviction. In the end, though, what both of these folks are really about is right there in front of you. They're about themselves. They are bloodless careerists.
They are also supposedly the left in America, and that's the disastrous part. You see nothing whatsoever of this kind of (non-)politics on the right.
Republicans may have shot themselves in both feet as a result.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday delivered a victory to U.S. President Barack Obama and gay rights groups by approving a proposal to repeal the law that allows gays to serve in the military only if they don't disclose their sexual orientation.
The 234-194 vote to overturn the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy reflected a view among many in Congress that America is ready for a military in which gays and straights can stand side by side in the trenches.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/05/27/gays-military-american.html#ixzz0pETJqTbs
Also when you can't afford a third war.
Paul Krugman on May 23 in NYTimes: The normal tendency of corporate money is "to flow to the party in power. Corporate America, hawever, really, truly hates the current administration. Wall Street, for example, is in 'a state of bitter, seething, hysterical fury' toward the president, writes John Heilemann of New York magazine. What's going on?"
For one thing, the taxing of people who run the corporations. "The Obama administration plans to raise tax rates on upper brackets back to Clinton-era levels. Furthermore, health reform will in part be paid for with surtaxes on high-income individuals." And there's to be some regulatory tightening up. "Yet corporate interests are balking at even modest changes from the permissiveness of the Bush era."
"So what President Obama and his party now face isn't just, or even mainly, an opposition grounded in right-wing populism. For grass-roots anger is being channeled and exploited by corporate interests, which will be the big winners if the G.O.P. does well in November."
Karl Rove is behind the populist ploy to fund the "real Americans" Republican candidates. "Last week Rand Paul, the Tea Party darling who is now the Republican nominee for senator from Kentucky, declared that the president's criticism of BP over the disastrous oil spill in the gulf is 'un-American,' that 'sometimes accidents happen'."
Krugman says Obama is now in the position of Franklin Roosevelt as he described it in a 1936 speech, "struggling with 'the old enemies of peace- business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering'.
"And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Roosevelt turned corporate opposition into a badge of honor. 'I welcome their hatred,' he declared. It's time for President Obama to find his inner F.D.R. and do the same," says Krugman.
Although one could say that Roosevelt was waving the populist wand back then. Now it's Rove pulling the populist strings. And Obama isn't white. And the south went Republican since FDR. And....
If corporate America hates Obama, then it must be a loving-hate relationship, given the amount of dough the Obama campaign received from corporations.
From what I understand, Dixie went Republican following Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" of pandering to southern white racism. Until then, the South was considered a Democrat stronghold.
Johnson's Civil Rights did it to the Dems in Dixie. Nixon made the shift profitable (industry began the move south).
And Obama did receive lots from the corportations in his campaign. And probably lots still do (Krugman gives the shifting proportion, since then), but that was before the G.O.P. began turning the screws, eh? ANd he can't, like Rand Paul, declare himself all-American and say that oil spill accidents happen...
Or is all that somehow unimportant in the babble rating game?
If corporate America hates Obama, then it must be a loving-hate relationship, given the amount of dough the Obama campaign received from corporations.
They're only getting most of what they want instead of all of it, and that makes them mad.
quote: "They're only getting most of what they want instead of all of it, and that makes them mad."
"They" (the bosses) hate paying more taxes on their highly inflated (in the past couple of decades they have been paid a hundred times more than the shop floor) earnings. Fancy that.
a good assessment of the changing GOP that Obama faces:
http://www.slate.com/id/2255433/
... since the second Bush left the White House, something different appears to be happening in Republicanland: a shift away from Southern-style conservatism to more of a Western variety. You see this in the figures who have dominated the GOP since Barack Obama's election 19 months ago: Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Rand Paul. You see it in the right's overarching theme: opposition to any expanded role for government, whether in promoting economic recovery, extending health care coverage, or regulating financial markets. You see it most strongly in the Tea Party movement that in recent months has captured the party's imagination and driven its agenda.
Barack Obama would never pick a guy like Ken Salazar for the crucial environmental position of Secretary of the Interior. Of course Bush would, though. Salazar has been deeply tied to mining and ranching industries his entire career - just the kind of corporate hack Cheney would insist on for the position. In fact, Salazar was even a big supporter of his predecessor, the corrupt industry shill, Gale Norton. After all the work environmentalists put into getting Obama elected, there's no way he'd choose someone like Salazar for this position, a guy so lame that mining association lobbyists welcomed the appointment when Bush made it. What does that tell you? Of course, Salazar has turned out - just as you'd expect - to be the "Heckuva Job, Kenny" of the oil spill. This will never happen once Obama gets in and puts a real environmentalist atop the Interior Department.
Barack Obama would never pick a guy like Ken Salazar for the crucial environmental position of Secretary of the Interior. Of course Bush would, though. Salazar has been deeply tied to mining and ranching industries his entire career - just the kind of corporate hack Cheney would insist on for the position. In fact, Salazar was even a big supporter of his predecessor, the corrupt industry shill, Gale Norton. After all the work environmentalists put into getting Obama elected, there's no way he'd choose someone like Salazar for this position, a guy so lame that mining association lobbyists welcomed the appointment when Bush made it. What does that tell you? Of course, Salazar has turned out - just as you'd expect - to be the "Heckuva Job, Kenny" of the oil spill. This will never happen once Obama gets in and puts a real environmentalist atop the Interior Department.
Maybe Rand Paul will not now be able to accuse the pres. of being "un-American" for criticizing BP. And maybe Obama now understands the DEPTH of corruption laid down in Bush's 8 years. And maybe all of America now knows that oil industry claims of infallability were just as dependable as the formulas used by the world's leading economists.
And despite all of the insightful observations made hereabouts from rear-view mirror watching, I've yet to see evidence of any predictions about oil or economy predating either catastrophe. I will eat these words - on toast from hell - if I can be corrected.
I don't know what you mean by "rear-view mirror watching." Most of us on babble who are critical of Obama now were suspicious of Obama since before he was elected.
I haven't been dissapointed with any of his decisions since taking office, as they've been everything I imagined they would be during his campaign, and so much more.
That country actually has one-party rule made to appear as a two party system for cosmetic purposes. It's the same here in Bananada.
And all predicted that deep-water drilling in the Gulf - as a result of Obama's decisions - would come to this. Based on "suspicion."
Ot that his GOP opponents would descent to this level of insanity. Ot that innate racism in the U.S. would take his white support down to this (38%. They know a bad thing - for them - when they see it).
Sure. But keep pasting those prescient punditries.
And, Fidel, I agree with you on the bigger picture - there's little difference between those parties, as any student of U.S. political history knows - it's just the bizarre comparisons of Bush and Obama by the Johnny one-notes that demand a response. But thanks for your attempt to inject objectivity into the prattle of the "progressives."
Obama Under Fire
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/05/obama-backing-deal-lift-globa...
"The Obama administration is leading an effort within the International Whaling Commission to lift a 21 year international ban on commercial whaling for Japan, Norway and Iceland, the remaining three countries in the 88 member commission that still hunt whales.."
Obama just can't help himself. He sees whaling as another opportunty to behave like a conservative so off he goes.
Now here's something I hadn't thought of as to why Obama might not want to appear too pushy even if it seems like that's what's demanded.
This oil spill has destroyed his presidency. Latest gallup tracking poll has it him at 44-48% net disapproval!! No way in hell does he get re-elected. I just hope that the GOP doesn't nominate a nutcase like Sarah Palin because the presidency is theirs in 2012. Stick a fork in him. He's done.
I'm actually impressed with how he's handled the oil spill. He's yet to deliver a bill to congress absolving BP of all responsibility, he is exceeding expectations.
BP: Is Team Obama Pushing for a Full Externalities Precedent?
