You've heard of the gang that couldn't shoot straight? Barack Obama's the man who can't shoot straight. His first 20 months have zipped by with nothing to show for them. He's broken every promise he made. He's achieved not one major legislative accomplishment. It even took him three months to plug an oil leak.
That's the rap on President Obama, from commentators on both the right and the left. It's ubiquitous, it's loud, it's earnest – and it's dead wrong.
I say that not as an Obama apologist. Indeed, I've been as critical of Obama as many conservative commentators, although for different reasons. In my opinion, he's spent too much time sucking up to Republicans and too little time paying attention to his political base. He settled for too weak a bill on both health-care reform and Wall Street reform. He's dragged his heels on getting rid of "don't ask, don't tell." And he escalated the war in Afghanistan when he should have pulled the plug on it.
Still, when you examine the record, whether you agree with everything he's done or not, you must conclude that Obama inherited the worst problems and has already taken bolder actions than any president since FDR. The facts speak for themselves.
On the economy. With America on the brink of economic collapse, Obama's first act was to push through a $787 billion stimulus package – already credited with saving or creating more than 3 million new jobs, with almost $200 billion still unspent. Obama also propped up banks large and small with the second round of TARP money, of which $194 billion has been repaid, with interest. And he saved GM and Chrysler from bankruptcy with an $86 billion bailout, of which taxpayers are expected to recoup at least $74 billion, if not actually make money on the deal.
On jobs. With unemployment stuck at 9.5 percent, it's hard to celebrate job growth. Yet the fact remains: In January 2009, according to Department of Labor records, America lost 598,000 jobs. In January-June 2010, employers added 982,000 new jobs. Too many Americans are still out of work, but we've turned the corner from monthly job losses to monthly job gains.
On health care. Without a public-plan option, private insurance companies still rule the roost. But they must now operate within tough new guidelines. Thanks to federal subsidies, 32 million Americans who couldn't afford health insurance before can now do so. That means 95 percent of Americans are covered, which is the closest we've ever come to universal health care.
On Wall Street. Obama recently signed into law the toughest regulations on banks and financial institutions since the Great Depression. That bill also creates the first-ever consumer-protection agency for financial transactions.
Oh, and, along the way, Obama also dealt with an H1N1 epidemic, started bringing troops home from Iraq, expanded the war in Afghanistan, named two Supreme Court justices, took 13 foreign trips to 22 countries, met with 93 foreign leaders, signed a nuclear-arms treaty with Russia, hosted 47 nations in a nuclear-proliferation summit in Washington and marshaled federal forces to deal with the worst oil spill in history.
(Column continues below)
Yes, we could list the things Obama has not yet achieved: global-warming legislation, immigration reform, the Employee Free Choice Act. But even Obama's detractors should admit that what he has achieved so far adds up to no mean record of accomplishment, especially given the fact that he's forced to deal with one of the least effective collections of senators ever. Indeed, it's hard to tell which are worst: Senate Democrats, half of whom are afraid of their own shadow, or Senate Republicans, all of whom simply follow orders and automatically vote against anything Obama's for.
Yet there remains this huge disconnect between Obama's reputation and record, as reflected in the latest Washington Post–ABC poll – where 58 percent of Americans say they've lost faith in Obama. To me, that says more about us than it does about him. It says we are impatient, expecting miracles overnight. It says we are unrealistic, demanding a level of perfection no politician can deliver. And it says we are like spoiled children, not happy with just one piece of candy. We want the whole box. Now.
It also says that liberals like me, especially, should stop being so fickle and recognize how lucky we are. Remember George Bush and Dick Cheney?
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
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quote:Timothy F. Geithner has been misidentified as a former Wall Street insider from Goldman Sachs so many times since he became the Treasury secretary that he and his advisers had taken to joking about it. Then the joke backfired.
"A Lie can travel around the world while the Truth is still putting on its shoes." -- Mark Twain
It's really very weird and strange and dangerous that hurtful lies have become so common and pervasive, given that every major religion includes some dictum against using words to damage others.
In fact, you don't have to look very far to find detractors of Islam who twist the Qur'an's "exceptions" to lying. I like this story:
quote:Once a man came to Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) and said, "O Messenger of Allah, I have many bad habits. Which one of them should I give up first?" Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) said, "Give up telling lies first and always speak the truth." The man promised to do so and never again commit another transgression and went home.
At night the man was about to go out to steal. Before setting out, he thought for a moment about the advice of Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) and his promise. "If tomorrow Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) asks me where have I been, what shall I say? Shall I say that I went out stealing? No, I cannot say that. But nor can I lie. If I tell the truth, everyone will start hating me and call me a thief. I would be punished for stealing."
So the man decided not to steal that night, and gave up this bad habit of stealing.
Next day, he felt like drinking wine, when he was about to do so, he said to himself, "What shall I say to Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) if he asks me what did I do during the day? I cannot tell a lie, and if I speak the truth people will hate me, because a Muslim is not allowed to drink wine." And so he gave up the idea of drinking wine.
In this way, whenever the man thought of doing something bad, he remembered the advice of Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) to tell the truth at all times. One by one, he gave up all his bad habits and became a good Muslim and a very good person.
The Ten Commandments don't single out "lying," per se. The ninth commandment says not to "bear false witness against a neighbor."
As philosophies, Zen Buddhism addresses this as its fourth tenet, and the first of the Four Agreements is:
1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.
I think it's first because, as the example from Islam shows, by incorporating this one principle, you can free yourself to move on to perfecting and practicing your belief system.
We are in such a mess, I believe, because we have gotten away from this very basic ideal.
quote:Still, when you examine the record, whether you agree with everything he's done or not, you must conclude that Obama inherited the worst problems and has already taken bolder actions than any president since FDR.
(snort) That means so much more than many people realize.
posted
He certainly hasn't managed to "PR" the accomplishments very well.
But then that's the short-term power of so many lies: 1) taking on each and every one would leave no time to do anything productive 2) you run up against "Methinks he doth protest too much."
quote:Still, when you examine the record, whether you agree with everything he's done or not, you must conclude that Obama inherited the worst problems and has already taken bolder actions than any president since FDR.
(snort) That means so much more than many people realize.
funny how many people like to make him into soemthing he wasn't... the Reaganites are the ones who started this revionism in histroy... FDR was elected three times... it's hard to find amore popular man to his time than that...
the crash of 29 happened three years before FDR took office.. did you know that SF?
did you know that by the time he took office 140 billion dollars worth of bank deposits had already disppeared? yes they just disappeared... and there was only 91 billion in GDP in 1930... that's how bad the bank failures were.
i love how some peopl like to blame him for the lenght of the Great Depression. the Truth is that the damage was already done before he took office.
so snort all you want... Herbert Hoover preceded him and was in charge during the crash and th dissolution of th emajority of the welath from the great depression... he was an "efficiency expert" who beleived that government and the economy were riddled with inefficiency and waste, and could be improved by experts who could identify the problems and solve them.
Calvin coolidge was UP before him and he held the laissez faire economic ideals.. in other words? FDR took over a big mess....
Coolidge was preceded by Harding who is the one who set the stage for the Great Depression with his policies to help recover from the post WW1 recession...
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posted
when Glass Stegal was repealed (under Clinon)? people said we were too "sophisticated" to let another Depression happen, they siad it was time to allow deregualtion to make it's "magic' work....
that BS is alos what allowed Enron to pull it's "magic" on the market too... That's why i began studying the Depression and what led up to it... i did not think we were too sophisticated to repeat the past. I don't think people have changed much at all in fact.
What shocked me is not that we almost had another depression, just how fast it happened.
Galss stegal was repealed by The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act , also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. That's how fast we collpased after a law that had been passed to prevent future Depressions was repealed...
The law was written by lobbyists for the same people that made out like bandits in this recent collpase... In specific? Citgroup had bought Travellers Insurance in '98 and they were specifically in violation of the Galss stegal act when they did it... They had to have the new act to "legalise" their consolidaion deal...
Citigroup's bailout was the biggest on Wall Street, according to the Washington Post.
the fact that Gramm Leach & Bliley are or were all three prominent GOPs should not be ignored.
It should also be considerd that Phil Gramms wife. Wendy was the Chairperson of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission/ Her resume is quite impressive, and one just has tpo wonder how Gramm could have gotten it all so wrong. or did they?
Before joining the Mercatus Center, Gramm served as Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 1988-1993. She was Administrator for Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget from 1985-1988, the Executive Director of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, and Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Economics. Gramm was on the research staff of the Institute for Defense Analyses. She started her economics career at Texas A&M University, where she taught economics for over 8 years.
talk about an influential couple? run a search fro Wendy Gramm and Enron... LOL... it's a nightmare..
The act specifically exempted CDS's and other derivatives from any type of regulation whatsoever... it placed them completely outside of any regulatory agency.
all that bailout money that AIG needed? It was to pay for CDS's that they may have been able to buy without the repeal anyway, that's debatable, but it is clear that these guys wanted no regulatory oversight over the trading of them...
another thing that we discussed ad nauseum here even before the crash was the new accounting rules that required banks to state their assets based on a verifiable value or mark to market. Instead of just putting down whatever they wanted to on non- or low-liquid assets...
This new accounting rule forced banks to stop lying about thier assets
ulitmatley this article says that banks loaned people (like hadge fund mangers) money on assets that were wildly overvalued, and when they had to make "margin calls" due to the market receding? the assets vlaues decreased even futerther.
alot of the hedge funds were actaully tied right into the banks and this would not have been allowed under Glass-Stegal..
the shock to many of us was not that the system failed, but that it failed so fast...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
"Oh, and, along the way, Obama also dealt with an H1N1 epidemic, started bringing troops home from Iraq, expanded the war in Afghanistan"
_________________________________________________
Seems to me at this point he's just another politician.
Not sure i would want to take credit for the late withdrawal from Iraq and then shifting troops right back into harms way for the same thing, nothing but jerks.
Think his advisors finally realized that the mess was going to stay in Iraq one way or the other, the Iraquis will have to deal with it the way they have for many hundreds of years.
Only now, we have had our troop toll go up much more than it should have been.
I think the only reason they are finally pulling out of Iraq is that the news media was not giving the president any more grace period to keep the war under raps.
They have let the news unravel lately, so the boys in Wash are worried about the uncoming election.
Oh well let the ball roll, not that it matters.
The next will be just as bad, blaming it on the past while adding to it, for the next past.
Bottom line is that we are not the ones making the promises at election time or later, they are!
If they can't fulfill them there is always an excuse, or they just hope we forget what they said!
quote:funny how many people like to make him into soemthing he wasn't... the Reaganites are the ones who started this revionism in histroy... FDR was elected three times... it's hard to find amore popular man to his time than that...
the crash of 29 happened three years before FDR took office.. did you know that SF?
We actually studied the Great Depression at length, Glass. But thanks for the refresher.
The 'problem' with FDR's approach is best summed up in his own words:
The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
and
Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
11 out of 16 of his 'alphabet' laws were struck down by the Supreme Court. He went so far as to try and pack the Court to get around it through trying to get Congress to allow him to appoint a new Judge to the Court for ever Judge over the age of 70.
And, let us not forget our all time favorite Executive Orders...
6102-Confiscating all gold in the U.S.
and
9066-'Reloction' of Japanese-Americans
Oh, and just for giggles, when this 'popular' 3 term president was done, what amendment was passed?
That's right, the 22nd which limits the president to two terms, or a maximum of 10 years if he took office as a veep.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
nobody is perfect. like i said, he inherited a mess made by people promoting the same set of economic principles that got us in the mess we are in right now...
did he confiscate the gold or order people to sell it to the govt?
see? once again you have put a slight propagandic twist into the "lesson plan"....
after they "forcibly" bought all the gold? they raised the price which gave the govt some abiltiy to raise funds they desperately needed..
you do understand that they were trying to stop people from dying of starvation right? that's always hard for people to imagine until it happens...
in the end? how much gold was confiscated by force under this Executive order?
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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shhesh cash, the article proves Obama is not quite as precise as he should be:
But although federal money is being used for the project in question, there are no stimulus dollars involved, said Columbus Finance Director Paul Rakosky, a Democrat.
Rakosky said the project is not a police station but rather the renovation of an abandoned warehouse that the city purchased on the South Side in 2007 to house the city's police crime lab and property room.
Weithman's firm, Mull & Weithman Architects, is handling the $300,000 in design work for the crime lab as part of the project, and the $300,000 is coming from a congressional earmark, Rakosky said.
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posted
Republicans they are a walking laugh. Roosevelt must have done a lot of stuff right 3 terms and when he past away people wailed for days to working people he was worshiped and praised.
Could you think of it if Bush died if people would cry about it ,I doubt it.
The wealthy has to be regulated this is the secound time we have we have went this rout and the sharks almost destroyed everthing again.
-------------------- Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise. Posts: 3827 | From: beautiful California | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
too true ray, you'd think they'd learn. the odd thing is that FDR was born ultra-wealthy, not just well-off, but extremely rich.
he was Captialist. He was actually facing many real commies down, and did what he could witht hetools at hand to save Capitalims in the US. Many people were thinking that Communism would be better at the time.
It is since Reagans people began pushing Reaganomics that FDR came to be villified.
the things he got strcuk down by SCOTUS were based on the Feds V the Styates in terms of who has what power. for instance? FDR was paying farmers NOT to grow food because the y were not getting paid enough. This sounds odd, but when a farmer invests there money in crop produces it and then cannot recoup their investment? They lose the farm The bank isn't planting food on th efarm, and nobody wants to buy a farm from the bank if it isn't rpofitable. Suddnely nobody is farming. Roosevelt was trying to keep th price of food high enough for farmers to make living, so he paid them to porduce LESS, not nothing. The SCOTUS decided the Feds did not have th right o interfere with the States right to regulate their own commerce. Today? The interstate Commerce clause is interpreted differntly giving the Feds more power.
FDR saved Capitalism in the US.
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
here's a good example of who FDR was facing:
Huey Pierce Long, Jr. (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1935), nicknamed The Kingfish. He was a powerful, charismatic American politician in the 1920s and 1930s, who built a ruthless Democratic machine in Louisiana as governor (1928-32) and U.S. senator (1932-35). A Democrat, he was populist who fought the rich on behalf of the ordinary people, and promised "Every Man a King." He was preparing to run for president--either in 1940 when Franklin D. Roosevelt presumably would step down, or perhaps to challenge FDR's reelection in 1936 in alliance with radio priest Charles Coughlin. But Long was assassinated in 1935 by the son of a political enemy. Although often denounced as a "Fascist", Long shunned ideology of all sorts, and his dictatorship by patronage, far from being alien, was the apogee of what many American machine politicians have attempted. Pernicious and impracticable as was his Share-Our-Wealth plan, its objective of plenty for all, without "brain trust" or dogma, was as intrinsically American as was the title "Kingfish." Much of the large historical literature ponder, was he dictator, demagogue, messiah or populist--a friend of American values or an enemy?
His "Every Man a King" plan, proposed new wealth redistribution measures in the form of a net asset tax on corporations and individuals to curb the poverty and hopelessness endemic nationwide during the Great Depression. To stimulate the economy, Long advocated federal spending on public works, schools and colleges, and old age pensions. He was an ardent critic of the Federal Reserve System's policies. Charismatic and immensely popular for his programs and willingness to take forceful action, Long was accused by his opponents of dictatorial tendencies for his near-total control of the state government.
Not perfect is getting a 'B' in Chemistry..(Hated that class. )
Rounding up American citizens just because of their ethinicity is a little worse than 'not perfect'.
As for the Gold? If someone holds a gun to your head and demands you sell it to them at a price of their choosing, do you feel less violated for them having handed you a check afterwards?
The Constitution is meaningless if it only applies to 'good' times, Glass. If it means nothing during 'difficult' times then why do we have it at all?
quote:Originally posted by SeekingFreedom: ROFLMAO
You kill me, Glass.
quote:nobody is perfect.
Not perfect is getting a 'B' in Chemistry..(Hated that class. )
Rounding up American citizens just because of their ethinicity is a little worse than 'not perfect'.
As for the Gold? If someone holds a gun to your head and demands you sell it to them at a price of their choosing, do you feel less violated for them having handed you a check afterwards?
The Constitution is meaningless if it only applies to 'good' times, Glass. If it means nothing during 'difficult' times then why do we have it at all?
well, lessee, having spent the largest part of my pre-adult life studying Judo under an American of Japanese descent? I am not happy about the way Japanese Americans were treated in this country during the WW2. My instructor was prolly the most important person besides my parents in my development.
However, during the same period? African americans were also being treated as badly. They may not have been put in Concentratin camps, but they were being lynched with regularity and were still serving in segregated units. They were even being used as test subjects to study the long term effects of untreated syphillis on humans.
Has it ever occurred to you that the Japanese incarcerations were also protecting the Japanese from the same mentality that produced lynchings of African Americans on a regular basis? That's not an excuse, it's just the way it was.
as for the gold, you seem to be indicating that gold was taken at gunpoint. never happened. It was purchased at what was a fair price at the time. A price set by the govt and controlled by the govt, but still fair nonetheless... Constitution specifically says that
Amendment 5 - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings. Ratified 12/15/1791.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Furethermore? Constitutioanlly, The Govt is and was in charge of monetary supply and Gold was then the basis for money. It was until Nixon took US off the gold standard. so there was nothing UnConstitutional about it at all....
taking gold from people then is no differnt IMO than taking drugs and "ill-gotten gains" from drug dealers today. Neither are Constitutional in spirit, but the Constituion is as FDR said flexible and interpretable...... If it was as rigid as some want it to be? I could go down to the drug store right now and get a shot omorphine with cocaine chaser adn stop by the whorehouse for a quickie on the way home...
matter of fact? that sounds just like the pursuit of happiness...
it's easy for you to say that the Constitution is meaninglessif it only applies to good times, but i spent alot of time just listening to my grandfather tell me about his life. He liked to talk and i liked to listen to him. He shot people stealing his food. I'm pretty sure he ran booze. He never admitted to that, but he did admit to alot of things that only made sense if he did. I had enough respect not to ask if he didn't want to tell.
He died just a couple of years ago with alot of wood on his woodpile. But he never got over his fear of having the US go thru that again. He never really enjoyed his money. He didn't even seem to know how to enjoy it. He was a hoarder. And he didn't like FDR. he did not turn over his gold, and nobody was ever forced to.
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posted
one other thing SF. when the Japanese were put in the concentration camps? it was, oddly enough found to be Constitutional in 1944....
you might be interested in the wikilink. There was a very large amount of Anti-Asian sentiment on the west coast prior to the intermnert orers, most of it would be called unConstitutional today...
posted
Glass it looks like Beck is giving everyone history lessons today, you should tune in.
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To this day, some believe that the legality of the internment has been firmly established as exactly the type of scenario spelled out in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Among other things, the Alien Enemies Act (which was one of four laws included in the Alien and Sedition Acts) allowed for the United States government, during time of war, to apprehend and detain indefinitely foreign nationals, first-generation citizens, or any others deemed a threat by the government. As no expiration date was set, and the law has never been overruled, it was still in effect during World War II, and still is to this day. Therefore, some continue to claim that the civil rights violations were, in fact, not violations at all, having been deemed acceptable as a national security measure during time of war by Congress, signed into law by President John Adams, and upheld by the Supreme Court. However, the majority of the detainees were American-born, thus exempt under law from the Alien and Sedition Acts except if found to directly be a threat due to their actions or associations. This exemption was the basis for drafting Nisei to fight in Europe, as the Laws of Land Warfare prohibit signatory nations (including the United States) from compelling persons to act against their homelands or the allies of their homelands in time of war.
At least, it seems the Mormons in Utah called it what it was:
Topaz was originally known as the Central Utah Relocation Center, but this name was abandoned when administrators realized that the acronym was naturally pronounced “Curse.” The camp was then briefly named for the closest settlement, until nearby Mormon residents (with their own heritage of forced relocation) demanded that their town name not be associated with a “prison for the innocent.” The final name, Topaz, came from a mountain which overlooks the camp from 9 miles (14.5 km) away.
yep, but so was attacking US at Pearl. We were literally going to sit back and allow Germany and Japan to take as much as they wanted until then...
heck there were many US Business people that were doing business with the Nazi's. many many...
as to the racism? i have to say that i deeply respected my grandparents at almost every level. intellectually, their morals, their abiltiy to make moeny and htier ability to save money... they were very disciplined hard working people. BUT, when it came to issues of race? I had to keep my mouth shut and it wasn't easy. Don't forget that the Civil Rights Act wasn't passed until the 60's and it was not broadly popular... In fact it was very "progressive" -for you Beck fans out there....
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posted
Mormon residents (with their own heritage of forced relocation)
tell you something else SF, the Mormons were treated very badly. The First Ammendment should have provided them much more protection than it did....
i still think it's unConstitutional telling people they can only marry one person... the Bible specifically did not forbid it even if it not recommended as ideal....
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