President Barack Obama - Term 1 and 2 Thread

[Rockindeano]

I think Geithner is a genius. Yeah, a snake, but this guy may be the one to pull us out of this fuckhole. I said all along regarding the Bush team, corruption is one thing, but corruption + Ineptitude is unacceptable.

Geithner may be corrupt and slimy, but he and the rest of the Obama team sure as hell aren't as dumb as the Bush team.

[hoagiepete]

I like how the Obama administration leaked -- just prior to April 15 -- that his administration would "show taxpayers more compassion". The story got play all over various news programs.

Today (May 7) we learn that his administration seeks to double the tax law enforcement budget for the IRS.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRel ... DP20090507

Yeah .... some compassion.

Good on him. Why should these zillionaires escape paying taxes? Fuck em. Go get their cheating asses and have them pay their share.

Damn it Deano! They will be going after a lot more people than just the zillionaires. The upper middle class is going to get bent over and plowed with no frickin lubrication. Just wait and see. I'm talking, dual income families...with decent jobs...or small family businesses...people raising kids, trying to put them through college, paying mortgages and trying contribute to society. Since most debates tend to argue the extremes...these are the folks that are often forgotten. The zillionaires can afford high priced tax accountants and attorneys...they'll be ok one way or the other.

I just glanced at the bottom line of our 1040 and I have a hard time thinking we're not paying our "fair share" and its going to increase.

It's coming!

[Rockindeano]

Pete-

Look, the last eight years with all it's bullshit empty headed tax cuts, have left this country in disrepair.

I am all for lower taxes, when necessary, but our country is falling apart. Taxes are there for a reason. Those roads, bridges, transit systems, hospitals, schools, fire and police, etc etc, are there because of taxes.

I believe in Obama to be fair about this. His proposed budget cuts today may be a sign of what he sees as cutting wasteful spending.

I am no Timothy Geithner, but to me, it seems we need a balance of equal spending and equal taxation. Enough taxes to keep the nation healthy and running. We are in such a shortfall in the US coffers, he is simply trying to adequately fund legit programs.

Now, what I have to say will shock all you Cons....

I work at Ralph's here in SoCal. Ralph's is a subsidury of Kroger, the nations largest grocery chain. Anyway, I am on the night crew, and work liquor(go figure), and also i have been chosen to be the night cashier. Oh man, this goads my ass...Here in california, welfare is handled by EBT. EBT is basically EBT stands for Electronic bank Transaction. The state saves paper and mail expenses by handing out ATM cards for welfare recipients. Anyway, I have stragglers coming in, homeless fuckers, buying stuff and whipping out the EBT card and sliding it through and getting anything they want(on the food side). There is also another side to it...The cash side. So a straggler homeless guy comes in, reeking of 15 days w/o showering, and buys all the good yummy food he can eat that night, and then switches over to the cash side and gets his 12 pack of beer and wine or hard stuff. That's Person A.

Person B makes my skin crawl. He comes in and gets about 250 dollars worth of food on his EBT card. But he doesn't get the Ralph's brand no...he gets the premium brand cheese, organic milk, the high end stuff..porterhouse steaks, shrimp, crab you name it. He loads of his shit and wheels it out to his...Acura or Mercedes. I finally said to him at the risk of losing my job..."how the Hell you receive public assistance driving luxury cars?" His response, "I pay my taxes, therefore I am entitled to it."

Then I tell my store director this and he tells me straight back, "I do it too. I just shop at Safeway or Albertson's." This coming from a guy making 100,000 bucks living in Malibu overlooking the Pacific.

Right now, California is not even questioning eligibility. You sign up for welfare(EBT), you get 450 for food and 400 cash per month, no questions asked.

Sickening.

[hoagiepete]

I agree with much of what you just said Deano. I just cringe when I get lumped in with the millionaires. I guess everything is relative though.

Raise my taxes and my ass is kicked. The descretionary income we have will be cut...and paid to the govt...and will not be going into the economy or to charity, etc. City (sales) tax is going up, the state taxes are soon to be, soon the feds. Scary.

I'm all for government providing infrastructure, defense, education, etc. We all need to ante up...no question. I just don't trust them to manage more of my money any better than they have been already.

I work very close to the state government here and have friends that work for the government. I've seen first hand there is a lot stuff going on that I would be fired for if I managed that way in my job.

Balance would be nice for a change that's for sure..no matter what side you are on. I am sick of the politics of it all. I hope you are right on Obama. We'll all see, but I hope you are right.

[separate_wayz]

I like how the Obama administration leaked -- just prior to April 15 -- that his administration would "show taxpayers more compassion". The story got play all over various news programs.

Today (May 7) we learn that his administration seeks to double the tax law enforcement budget for the IRS.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRel ... DP20090507

Yeah .... some compassion.

Good on him. Why should these zillionaires escape paying taxes? Fuck em. Go get their cheating asses and have them pay their share.

With the IRS, "zillionaire" = $40,000 / year. They'll be going after more than just the Warren Buffetts of the world, my friend. Obama's got his sights clearly on the middle class ....

The point of my post, anyway, was the duplicity of Obama's rhetoric. We've seen it again and again. Throw a sop to taxpayers .... wait three weeks .... then show your real colors. Totally full of shit, grossly so, even for a politician.

Maybe his next book should be The Audacity of Being Full of Shit.

[Eric]

This is true

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/69bc7894-3b34 ... ck_check=1

[G.I.Jim]

Looks like this presidency is over, and I guess we'll be calling Joe Biden president. This after President Obama admits to evidence of his sexuality! Even as a conservative...I NEVER saw this coming!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HrSN7176XI

[G.I.Jim]

Damn people...I didn't mean to "Rick-roll" the thread to death! Keep beating eachother up in here. I'll start...Obama is the best president we'll ever have in this country! Oh yeah...Congress deserves the biggest pay raise in U.S. history after the bang-up job they've done...the daily grindstone they have to deal with!

[Eric]

This makes me a little uneasy:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124215896684211987.html

[Eric]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22470.html

He wised up and done good here!

[Eric]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 14_pf.html

[Eric]

I think Geithner is a genius. Yeah, a snake, but this guy may be the one to pull us out of this fuckhole. I said all along regarding the Bush team, corruption is one thing, but corruption + Ineptitude is unacceptable.

Geithner may be corrupt and slimy, but he and the rest of the Obama team sure as hell aren't as dumb as the Bush team.

Hadn't Geithner been working with the Bush admin?

[Voyager]

Look at the smirk on this fucking loser:



I would love to see someone kick his cocky arrogant ass. If they had it on pay TV it would be a sellout.

[hoagiepete]

Question...an honest one...with no agenda. Just curious.

Has there ever been a new administration that has come out so early and blatantly bagging on the previous administration for what they did during their term?

I'm not asking for the standard reply...uh...no...because no one f'd up as much as the previous administration...BS. I really am curious.

I'm not debating whether it is warranted or not, just seems immature and a little low class to me. Seems like there should be some professional courtesy. I've taken over positions from folks that kind of screwed things up (putting it mildly) and the last thing I wanted to do was come out blaming them for all the crap they did. It wouldn't have felt right, even though it may have been true. I don't remember anyone else doing this...even Reagan after the "crisis" Carter put us in. They or others may have done it, I honestly don't remember.

That's why I ask the question.

[G.I.Jim]

Question...an honest one...with no agenda. Just curious.

Has there ever been a new administration that has come out so early and blatantly bagging on the previous administration for what they did during their term?

I'm not asking for the standard reply...uh...no...because no one f'd up as much as the previous administration...BS. I really am curious.

I'm not debating whether it is warranted or not, just seems immature and a little low class to me. Seems like there should be some professional courtesy. I've taken over positions from folks that kind of screwed things up (putting it mildly) and the last thing I wanted to do was come out blaming them for all the crap they did. It wouldn't have felt right, even though it may have been true. I don't remember anyone else doing this...even Reagan after the "crisis" Carter put us in. They or others may have done it, I honestly don't remember.

That's why I ask the question.

That's because you have morals. Blaming someone else for EVERYTHING is just plain passing the buck. It really is disgusting, and only makes him look very unsavy and unprofessional every time he does it. Dude... just quit your damn bitching and do your job!

[The_Noble_Cause]

Question...an honest one...with no agenda. Just curious.

Has there ever been a new administration that has come out so early and blatantly bagging on the previous administration for what they did during their term?

I'm not asking for the standard reply...uh...no...because no one f'd up as much as the previous administration...BS. I really am curious.

I'm not debating whether it is warranted or not, just seems immature and a little low class to me. Seems like there should be some professional courtesy. I've taken over positions from folks that kind of screwed things up (putting it mildly) and the last thing I wanted to do was come out blaming them for all the crap they did. It wouldn't have felt right, even though it may have been true. I don't remember anyone else doing this...even Reagan after the "crisis" Carter put us in. They or others may have done it, I honestly don't remember.

That's why I ask the question.

I fail to see what's "immature" and "low class" about holding people accountable for war crimes.
Especially in light of the information that torture was used to create a link between Saddam and Osama.
Given all the other info that's out there, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Cheney resorted to torture specifically because he knew it elicited bogus intel.
In the past, most other administrations have followed a "bygones-be-bygones" approach.
Look to the pardoning of Nixon, or Bush Sr. pardoning Iran-Contra thugs.
I'd argue that none of those decisions were good for the country.
In fact, it laid the precedent that you could fuck up royally and walk away scot-free - something Nixon holdovers like Cheney and Rumsfeld were counting on and still are.

[The_Noble_Cause]

That's because you have morals.

Absolving criminality is not moral, just the opposite.

Blaming someone else for EVERYTHING is just plain passing the buck.

You mean like Bush blaming the systemic "enhanced interrogation" policies on a "few bad apples"?
In other words, placing blame for his own polices on the very soldiers he sent to Iraq to fight and die?
You talk as if the presidency exists in a historical vacuum.
Obama has every right to point to the legacy of his predecessor as he goes about cleaning up the mistakes of the past eight years.

It really is disgusting, and only makes him look very unsavy and unprofessional every time he does it.

Nothing unprofessional about following the law to its natural end.
To his credit, Obama has acted like an adult and outlined his detainee policies and stood behind them, even while facing criticisms that they are unconstitutional.
Compare that to Bush, who flat-out denied his wiretap/torture polices even existed until his cover got blown.

[Eric]

That's because you have morals.

Absolving criminality is not moral, just the opposite.

Blaming someone else for EVERYTHING is just plain passing the buck.

You mean like Bush blaming the systemic "enhanced interrogation" policies on a "few bad apples"?
In other words, placing blame for his own polices on the very soldiers he sent to Iraq to fight and die?
You talk as if the presidency exists in a historical vacuum.
Obama has every right to point to the legacy of his predecessor as he goes about cleaning up the mistakes of the past eight years.

It really is disgusting, and only makes him look very unsavy and unprofessional every time he does it.

Nothing unprofessional about following the law to its natural end.
To his credit, Obama has acted like an adult and outlined his detainee policies and stood behind them, even while facing criticisms that they are unconstitutional.
Compare that to Bush, who flat-out denied his wiretap/torture polices even existed until his cover got blown.

President Barnum isn't cleaning up anything. He's making this worse, much worse.

[The_Noble_Cause]

President Barnum isn't cleaning up anything. He's making this worse, much worse.

By what metric?
If its a constitutional one, it's a little late in the game for you guys to start feigning outrage in that department.
Just the fact that issues like torture and detainee policy are a part of the national dialogue is already a step up.

[Eric]

This - right here - is the only reason any white male needed to not for vote for President Barnum:

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/a ... rcID=47838

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor

[The_Noble_Cause]

This - right here - is the only reason any white male needed to not for vote for President Barnum:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor

Given that she was talking specifically about landmark cases concerning gender and race (a fact you predictably leave out), she is right on the money.
Hypothetically, do you not think a black justice or a native american justice would have more enlightened views as it pertained to Plessy v. Ferguson or, say, The Marshall Trilogy?
Once again, you show your contempt for the IQ of this forum.

Leave it to MediaMatters to prove the full quote, and to debunk your right wing shit....

"In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see."

[Eric]

I call Bullshit on your soothing over a terrible choice. Nice try, but reverse discrimination is running rampant and this appointment will further help this.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html? ... e10199a085

[Eric]

Change you can believe in:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 09_pf.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthn ... roofs.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina ... money.html


WHAT A WASTE!

[RedWingFan]

I call Bullshit on your soothing over a terrible choice.

A terrible choice for regular Americans is one thing. Other's think the fact that an anti-Constitutionalist who sits on a court "where policy is made" is the highlight of their day, month and year.

[RedWingFan]

Good read!
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprel ... ore-132242

Where Are Liberals Hatched?by Burt Prelutsky

I used to be what I thought was a liberal. If, at the time, anyone had asked me to explain myself, I would have said that I opposed Jim Crow laws, that I believed workers were entitled to make a decent wage and work in a safe environment, and that American citizens shouldn’t be discriminated against because of their race, religion or national origin.

I quit being a liberal because I didn’t believe that members of particular minority groups deserved advantages denied to others; that illegal aliens weren’t entitled to anything but a swift kick to the backside; that being a devout Christian didn’t make you a bad person; and that capitalism was a system that worked, while socialism not only didn’t work, but, wherever it was tried, turned into a tyranny.



I honestly don’t know why there are so many liberals today and I certainly can’t imagine why they have such a lousy agenda. I have come up with a theory, however. Here in California, roughly 30 years ago, because of budget cuts, a great many people were released from insane asylums. They wound up living in the streets, which explains the large number of homeless people, even though Democrats would have you believe that those are normal people who simply lost their jobs along the way.

Even after the state became more solvent, it became almost impossible to get these poor souls back into institutions where they could be fed, clothed and given their meds, because the ACLU lawyers fought for their inalienable right to starve, freeze and use the sidewalks of your city as their combination bedroom, living room and bathroom.

Inevitably, they also got to vote. As a result, the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Antonio Villaraigosa, Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown, wound up winning all the major elections. I mean, the truth is, you’d have to be crazy to vote for those people.

I have to suspect that a similar scenario took place all over the country. How else to explain that two-thirds of Americans actually believe that Barack Obama’s policies will save our economy? I’m not even a Christian, but I find it bizarre that people who pooh-pooh the idea that Christ raised the dead or walked on water are totally convinced that a guy who’s tossing trillions of dollars into the air is a financial miracle worker. Talk about blind faith!

It makes me wonder if these same people, were they facing personal bankruptcy, would think that the answer to their own financial difficulties would be to give their wife an American Express card and drop her off at Tiffany’s.

If liberals aren’t simply insane, they surely must be hypocrites. Why else would they insist that spending eight years bashing President Bush and comparing him, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, to the Nazi High Command was patriotic, but merely questioning President Obama’s qualifications, judgment and policies, makes one a racist?

Also, how is it that when, between 2000 and 2006, when the GOP had control of the Oval Office, the House and the Senate, on those rare occasions they didn’t do the bidding of Ted Kennedy, John Murtha or Charles Schumer, they were condemned as divisive? However, when Obama and his left-wing cronies rushed through a trillion dollar stimulus package and a pork-filled budget over Republican objections, nobody in their crowd cried “Foul!” or insisted on reaching across the aisle for a group hug and a few choruses of “Kumbaya”?



Before anyone bothers sending an e-mail reminding me that three Republican senators voted with the Democrats on the stimulus bill, I haven’t forgotten. But, let’s face it — the two ladies from Maine are merely the east coast version of Boxer and Feinstein. As for Arlen Specter, I suspect that along the way, he’ll switch to the Extraterrestial Party if, as he inches closer to being a hundred years old, he decides that’s his best chance of winning an election.

I know that people such as Sen. Specter and Sen. Jeffords would have us believe that they switched parties because of their principles, but I would prefer it if they only said such silly things in the hope of making me laugh. That’s because I love to laugh, but I hate being taken for a fool. I mean, really, Jim Jeffords wakes up one day when he’s 67 years old and Specter opens his eyes at the age of 79 and suddenly decide that the GOP isn’t as conservative as they’d like, so the solution is to link left arms with the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank?

Something else that makes me wonder if, in a nicer, kinder world, liberals wouldn’t be housed in a warm place where they’d be kept safely away from sharp objects and voting booths, is their notion of what constitutes torture. In my world, cutting off Daniel Pearl’s head, throwing Anne Frank in an oven or having to listen to Chris Matthews, is torture. But by no means is it playing loud music, keeping people awake, making them share space with a caterpillar or even dousing them with water, in order to get them to cough up information that might prevent another 9/11 or keep American soldiers from being ambushed.

Only a liberal could confuse actual torture with college hazing. I suspect there are members of fraternities who could share more harrowing tales than the Islamics with their Korans, their three squares and their personal prayer mats at Gitmo.

Another difference that seems to escape liberals is that it’s torture when the only purpose is to cause pain, not when it’s done in order to pry important information from terrorists.

It’s bad enough that any number of self-righteous academics kept military recruiters off college campuses, pretending that their objection stemmed from the army’s don’t ask/don’t tell policy, and not simply because left-wingers hate anything and everything that smacks of patriotism.

In much the same way, those on the Left have led a crusade against the Boy Scouts of America because, so they say, they oppose the policy of not allowing gay men to be Scout leaders and take young boys into the woods on camping trips. Sensible people regard that as a sensible policy. It’s not to suggest that every gay man is a pedophile, but simply recognizing that most pedophiles are gay men. Just as every Muslim is not a terrorist, just about every terrorist these days is a Muslim. So, why should parents take any unnecessary chances with their most precious possessions just so no one’s feelings get hurt?



Liberals don’t really care about homosexuals, by the way, unless they themselves happen to be gay. The truth is liberals rarely serve in the military now that service is voluntary and they don’t usually let their kids join the Boy Scouts, not because they’re offended by the aforementioned policy, but because the group fosters faith-based and patriotic ideals.

If you want a perfect example of liberal hypocrisy, consider the recent beauty pageant when someone who calls himself, in homage to Paris Hilton, Perez Hilton (born Mario Lavenderia), who had no business even being on stage, got to ask Miss California, Carrie Prejean, how she felt about same-sex marriages. Her honest answer probably cost her the victory, while earning her the respect of most fair and decent Americans.

What I find so telling about the incident was that in California, the reason that the same-sex marriage measure was defeated on the November ballot was because 70% of blacks voted that way. But gay activists only demonstrated outside Catholic and Mormon churches and businesses. Furthermore, I guarantee that if Miss Prejean had been black, instead of a blue-eyed blonde, Mr. Hilton wouldn’t have dared open his ugly little yap.

It’s also worth noting that President Obama gave the exact same answer to the exact same question during the campaign, and yet the gays voted overwhelmingly for him. Which certainly suggests that, thanks to the insane asylums being relatively empty these days, honesty can cost you a tiara, but not the presidency.

[The_Noble_Cause]

I call Bullshit on your soothing over a terrible choice. Nice try, but reverse discrimination is running rampant and this appointment will further help this.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html? ... e10199a085

Don't know what "soothing over a terrible choice" means...bottom line is, u provided ONE single sentence from an entire speech without bothering to say what the speech was even about.
You are playing this forum for dumbasses.
The TNR article in no way changes that.

[The_Noble_Cause]

Good read!
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprel ... ore-132242

About as informative as an Anne Coulter article or reading a post by Treetop.. toal ad hominem sleaze.

"liberals rarely serve in the military"

"[liberals don't] let their kids join the Boy Scouts."

"left-wingers hate anything and everything that smacks of patriotism."

He also proceeds to describe waterboarding as "college hazing", despite the fact that the practice dates back to the Spanish Inquisition.
Pretty sick shit.
Must admit, watching the Republican Party writhe around in its death throes, is obscenely fascinating.
How much more will it degenerate before it burns out altogether?

[Lula]

i was a girl scout and am now considered a liberal. my dad, uncles, brother served in the military all dems. i am a patriot. i qualify as a daughter of the revolution, i believe in our founding fathers' vision, i am a liberal you can't paint with a braod brush, you can't generalize, we are not a cookie cutter society.

i like obama's choice for the supreme court. he is a very smart politician. fox news can tear her apart, but judge sotomayor seems to have a good record that does not lean one way or another. this will be fun, lol.

[brandonx76]

"left-wingers hate anything and everything that smacks of patriotism."[/b]

He also proceeds to describe waterboarding as "college hazing", despite the fact that the practice dates back to the Spanish Inquisition.
Pretty sick shit.

According to Jesse Ventura, who went through training which involved Water Boarding, it is torture. You can choke on your tongue...

If you haven't seen it, a great Jesse Ventura interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9yfMdNC6cQ

[The_Noble_Cause]

According to Jesse Ventura, who went through training which involved Water Boarding, it is torture. You can choke on your tongue...

If you haven't seen it, a great Jesse Ventura interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9yfMdNC6cQ

Memos show that we even had doctors on hand in case emergency tracheotomies needed to be performed.
Of course it's toture, but more than that, it's illegal.
Jesse is great.
Despite his radioactive 9-11 truther views, I would love to see him make a run on the libertarian ticket in the future.

In the interest of journalism (and publicity), several talking heads have had themselves recently waterboarding.
Christopher Hitchens, a writer from Playboy, and now Stern-wannabe Mancow.
No matter your ideology, this is interesting footage.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/feat ... ideo200808

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/2 ... 89280.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/2 ... 06906.html