His State of the Union speech, finally, forcefully challenged the GOP and reminded Americans that he inherited a country in shambles. Sure, the speech should have come in September, health care has been teetering since the summer, GOP lies had been left to fester unanswered since practically the beginning of the health-care debate.
Still, better late than never.
His bitch slapping the GOP and their talking points on their home court yesterday hopefully reminded them that he is the most powerful person on the planet. They are a whiny opposition. The former bullies (when they were in the majority) are now shrill and thin-skinned.
With his performance today the president seems to finally get that projecting strength reads as projecting leadership. He needs to keep it up. He needs to open up a rapid-response desk in the White House (some intern glued to FOX, aka GOP-TV 24/7) so that the moment one of them spouts, "government takeover of health care," or "death panel," somebody goes on air and with wit but force calls them liars and tells them to sit down and shut up.
He was AWOL most of the fall and started to lose control of his presidency. Let's hope he's learned his lesson and will come out of the Oval Office much more often, reminding working Americans that he's their full-time lobbyist. They are his special interest.
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Does this mean we can't criticize the President? He does seem arrogant to me. This is seperate from issues I may agree or disagree with. We elected him, but many swing voters believed him when he said he would hold unemplyment to 8%. Now he is coming across with a smug attitude like he knows...what? None of his predictions are working out and he is failing as a leader. Why didn't the congress stuff health reform through? They could have with a simple majority.
I am sure you and I both thought W was a terrible speaker, was that because he was white? NO It's because he's a terrible speaker! Clinton should have won and Obama as sec of State.
GPM bentpolitics.com
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You seem like a whining old dude (if that's your picture). Blah, blah, blah.....Clinton should have won.....yada, yada.... She didn't and if she couldn't win, then she wasn't qualified.
I find it amazing that you still carry the Democratic primaries' venom within you.
Calling someone (a black dude) "arrogant" is getting too personal (which shows you have some 'intrinsic' discomfort). I don't know what the 'intrinsic discomfort' is for you, but it's not about his politics nor his agendas. It's about something else....something subtle...something sensitive.
If you think he's failing with health care, that's legitimate and factual. However, "arrogance" is subjective (and I don't know to what extent your 'background' influenced you to make the assertion).
The "country in shambles" has gotten worse under Obama, unemployment (Obama -"will hold at 8%)" and is now over 10%, consolidation of power (less banks and bigger ones) automotive manufacturing control and soon even more , who knows worse or better, financial control.
Ok the banking system sucks... In favor of financial control? So was Bush until Barney Frank led us down the no regulation path!
I challenge you to search out video of Barney saying "I see no crisis" on YouTube talking about the housing crisis that DEMOCRATS got us into. Pushing for less regulation of banks and simultaneously pushing banks to lend to people who could not afford them!
GPM bentpolitics.com
Thanks Barney (Worst Senator in the nation)
obama will lose us the congress and then the white house.
he's done.
These are all code words for "uppity ---" because any time a minority person of color is educated and have no &egro dialect, that person does not know their place here in America.
Listen to the code words that go on durning MSNBC morning show with Joe Scarborough, and on FOX News and it's unbelieveable.
Also, why does Mike Barnicle from Morning Joe refers to President Obama, to President Obomber?? I've listened closely to the enunciation of the President's name when Mike Barnicle says it, and I'm not mistaken. Strange...
Code words to describe that the President is not one of us, is not a US citizen, a sympathizer towards people that seeks to do us harm, etc......
CODE WORDS WILL BE THE NAME OF THE GAME forward.
I am sure you and I both thought W was a terrible speaker, was that because he was white? NO It's because he's a terrible speaker! Clinton should have won and Obama as sec of State.
GPM bentpolitics.com
A win-win scenario is to lift restrictions on foreign physicians working in USA. They will fill the shortage of doctors - especially with the new healthcare system requiring all to have insurance. One physician employs four to five people - physician assistant / nurse practitioner, nurses, receptionists, transcribers, billing staff etc.
Imagine giving 100,000 visas to foreign physicians. That is half-a-million new jobs spread all across the country - big cities, small towns and rural regions. Additionally, there'll be 100,000 new home-owners needing cars, furniture, refrigerators, washing machines, computers, etc. What could be a better stimulus to our economy? This would not cost the tax-payer a dime.
The high-earners with their middle income employees will be tax-paying contributors to the Treasury. These jobs are permanent, cannot be exported and provides services which we need. Properly structured, these healthcare jobs can come into existence about six months after issuing green cards and foreign doctors arrive in the USA.
It'd be nice if these physicians are trained here. Yet a program started now will produce practicising doctors in 10 years. It will be of little help to those sick and / or those who need a job NOW. And guess what? A recent report shows new US doctors do not want to go into Family Practice, working too many hours in small towns or inner city.
" Politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck.
Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens.
This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out.
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.'"
G.Carlin
I'm of the opinion that loyalty is only commendable when it is loyalty to a just and true cause. How often has that "loyalty" been to shortsighted, wrongheaded ideaology? Too many, I think.
Meanwhile look at the Democrats who had been bailing on Obama these last few months, only to have suddenly popped up to crow at the Republicans because Obama had a 'good week'. If that's not venal behaviour, I don't know what is. Petulant, spineless gits who disappear into thin air at the first sign of trouble - yeah, those are the kinds of supporters any leader needs to fight entrenched interests - hah!
So did the Hitler youth. I'm not equating Republicans with Hitler youth - just nothing that it makes a big difference WHAT you are loyal to. I have much more respect for a group of people who think for themselves, even if it means they don't all walk in lock step.
Democrats, with few exceptions, acted like a cockroaches fleeing for the corners of the room at the first sign of Republican pushback. Like rats reverting to nature, they've spent more time biting and scratching at the person who could keep their agenda afloat.
Sniff at Republicans and call them 'backward' if you will, but these last months have shown Obama voters to be incapable of any such outdated attributes as loyalty, discipline and perseverance.
It's about action.
He is the leader of the armed forces. Junior members are OK with gays and lesbians in their midst, but the top brass is dominated by those who Bush promoted to enforce a Christian theocratic agenda on behalf of Evangelical voters. If President Obama doesn't stand up to them, those who are trained to follow orders, he isn't a leader.
He's been playing Lucy with the football with his base, and we know it. Promises deferred won't help him in November.
On the other hand he has moved a lot of money up to the top 1% through bailouts and looking the other way when Wall Street bonuses reached 1% of the GDP.
Now it appears he has decided to be complicit in torture. He has entered a conspiracy to cover up those responsible for torture, which everyone knows, perhaps even Mr. Holder, is a crime.
So now Obama can go down in history as a criminal President who protected high crimes and misdemeanors from the previous administration while allowing rampant fraud by bankers on Wall Street to unchallenged and unencumbered by even an accusation of illegality. Hear no evil, see no evil, close the Department of Justice.
What's the rapid response to:
* He voted for immunity for the telecoms that spied upon all of us for the Bush/Cheney Administration
What's the rapid response to:
* He gave de facto immunity to the top Republicans who approved of torture and participated in other war crimes.
What's the rapid response to:
* He participated in transferring hundreds of billions to the super-rich who helped create this economic crisis.
What's the rapid response to:
* He participated in making back-room deals with big Pharma
You don't have to convince just me.
You have to convince all those millions who voted for him and are smart enough to know that they don't want to be had again.
The economy, for example, is in the tank. Without governmental support, many of the billionaires would not be receiving their bonuses. Thanks to Obama's decision to help them with your money and your future money, instead of making an FDR decision to help the working class in a serious way, they got their bonuses.
And, since what gets rewarded gets repeated, they'll be back for more. This is only free money for them, not for you. Eventually, someone has to pay for it. Through increased taxes or through inflation. At some point, the bill will be placed at our doorsteps. While the billionaires are buying their islands in the Caribbean and their chalets in Switzerland, or buying their artworks and their mistresses and their drugs of choice, you and I and others will still be paying for their bonuses.
Maybe the Republicans will come up with worse candidates than McCain and Palin. If they are able to do so and people continue in their trap of voting for the lesser of two evils, then you are right that there will be millions of voters out there who will give Obama a second term.
Happy to be your first fan. Keep up the good work.
Yeah, I am smart enough to know not only the superficial appearance of Obama's decisions, but the rationale behind them. Also, smart enough to know a propagandist post like this one when I see it.
I believe his interests have always been there, but he has been stymied by the internal politics of Congress, a perhaps-faulty legislative strategy, and certainly an insufficient pr/marketing/optical game. But he showed signs this week he is acquiring more mastery of the whole process, which is encouraging. The next jujitsu move, as I said, needs to be against his own party... that would put him back in control of the debate.
legislation on: regulation of banks and finance; stimulus bills which reduce unemployment; pass the health bill.
basically, the GOP has to be written off. The GOP cannot cooperate.
There is no "death tax." It is an estate or inheritance tax.
There were no "death panels." There were OPTIONAL end-of-life counseling sessions.
Health care reform with a public option is NOT "a government takeover of our entire healthcare system." It is lowering costs and offering an alternative.
Obviously I could go on, but the point, as you say, is to stop the lies in their tracks. Immediately! Don't let something fester that is demonstrably false!!!
Obama had the opportunity to talk at length about jobs programs, and he blew it. He said nothing memorable there...except that he was going to Florida next day...to look at plans for a high-speed rail that they may build in a few years between Tampa and Orlando!
What he should have said was, 'I'm bringing the unemployment rate down to 6% by year-end. And here's how we're doing it: Bip, bip, bip, and if that doesn't work we go for Bap.' That at least would be something that sounded like a plan.