What's going on in america?

Postby bookl0ver » Sat Mar 17, 2012 2:19 pm

What is happening in america? cos theres lots of posts about yanks (do not be offended it is a nickname) and their goverment on the jump in the fire. so what's going on?
DIRECTIONER FOR LIFE!
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Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:07 pm

Well, we have a president who is just this side of being a full blown Marxist, with spaghetti for a backbone, and unable to talk to elementary school students without a teleprompter. He is the poster child for cranial-rectal inversion, who has presided over a doubling of the cost of a gallon of gasoline in just over three years, and unemployment is a point and a half higher than it was when he took office. This turkey can't walk and chew gum at the same time, and hopefully, America will give him his walking papers on November 6th, and January 20, 2013 will mark the end of an error.

Drawscore

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby bookl0ver » Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:36 pm

ok then. right so i don't know what half of what you said was but is it the election for your new president. and whats a teleprompter?
DIRECTIONER FOR LIFE!
NIALL HORAN'S FUTURE WIFE

Also addicted to slash. ^,^

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:42 pm

A teleprompter is a screen from which a speaker reads. For TV news, they are generally mounted above the lenses of the in studio cameras, so the news anchor can deliver the news, while all the time maintaining eye contact with the camera, and thus, the audience. In Obama's case, they are set off to the sides, so he can look one way, then look the other, while delivering a speech.

I would dearly love to be the person operating the teleprompter. I'd change the script. Then, on second thought, Obama doesn't need me to make him look like an idiot. He does a fine job of that, all by himself.

Election day is November 6; Inauguration day is January 20.

Drawscore

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby Jack Roper » Sat Mar 17, 2012 6:24 pm

Drawscore, such ignorance.

Did you know that Ronald Reagan always used a teleprompter? And that Obama gives press conferences where he speaks eloquently without even a 3 x 5 card (like Reagan used to use)? He is a moderate liberal.

If he was a Marxist he would have nationalized all of the banks that screwed America in 2008. No backbone? How about risking his Presidency on killing Osama Bin Laden--something President Bush forgot about as "unimportant". And gas was, on average, $4.30 in July 2008, much higher than it is now. And unemployment went over 10% due to the severe recession, where we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. It is now at 8.3% and we have had 24 months of job creation in the private sector, no thanks to all of the roadblocks put up by his conservative opposition in the Congress (and the Supreme Court).

All in all Obama has been an exemplary President, one who clearly deserves re-election, especially when contrasted with his potential Republican rivals, all of whose economic plans are objectively going to add much more to the deficit than Obama's budget.

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:43 pm

Opinions are like armpits. Everybody has a couple, and they generally stink. Even mine.

And I notice, that while you made a couple of points, you did not deny that, under Obama. the price of a gallon of gas has doubled (which, in turn, has driven up the costs of other products and commodities); that he has an energy secretary that once said he'd like to see gasoline around $10 a gallon; that he has an attorney general that thinks if you show up to vote, you should be able to do so, without having to go through the inconvenience of proving US citizenship or presenting a photo ID, and, no doubt, Holder knew a hell of a lot more about "Operation Fast and Furious," which resulted in the death of a border patrol agent, then he ever admitted to congress.

Unemployment, which was just under 7% when Obama took office, is now around 8.5%.

This crap that "It's all Bush's fault" is old, and is wearing thin. Plus, people, even Democrats, just aren't buying it any more. Bush may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but Obama's been in the driver's seat for more than three years. It's about damn time he took some responsibility for what's happened on his watch, instead of blaming, or trying to blame it on Bush and/or the Republicans. He had a substantial majority in the House for his first two years, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate for a little better than a year. It was all Obama and the Democrats from his first full day in office, January 21, 2009. It was his policies, his people, and his party that got us where we are today.

Yeah, we should keep this turkey. He should get another term. A term of about 25 to life in Leavenworth for all the damage he and his merry band of socialists have done to this country.

Drawscore

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby Jack Roper » Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:05 pm

Recessions such as we had under Bush will drive prices way down, which is what happened in 2008-09. Look up the price of gas in 2008--it was $4.28 in July--when the Republicans began their mantra "drill baby drill." Presently, inflation is basically under control (except for gas, which is being driven by fear of a war in Iran, which the Republicans all seem to want). Obviously no matter what I say Drawscore despises Obama and nothing will ever penetrate. So why bother?

Below is from an article on the Price of Gas. Unfortunately, the graphs did not reprint.

zFact: Price of Gas = World Price of Oil + $1.00
It's that simple. The price of gas (in today's dollars) has been $1.00 more than the price of a gallon (not barrel) of oil for the last 25 years. There were some small temporary deviations, but nothing systematic. .... When you understand what this means, you will see through most of the nonsense you read in the papers.

Since the price of gas is determined by the [=world oil price], there is virtually nothing Newt Gingrich, Bachman or Palin can do about it. They are either stupid or lying. Take your pick. Politicians have been promising cheap gas forever.
The trouble is, free markets are not impressed by political rhetoric. The only way to lower the price of gas below the world price level is the way it's done in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Columbia—subsidize it. Since Big Oil can sell the gasoline or oil outside the US at the world price, it is not going to sell it too us cheaper. It's time we faced up to that.

This also means that blaming Wall-Street speculators is equally naive. Their is no way they can affect the world price of oil that much. Yes, they can drive up future prices, but bets on the future do not determine the price of gas. Look at the graph again. That is the spot price (not the future price) of oil, and that's what counts.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So What Drives Oil Prices?
The key is to realize that the oil market is a world market. This has some amazing consequences:
Drill baby drill and the Chinese will thank you (or maybe not, but they should).
Making ethanol replaces 30% less gasoline than environmentalists think.
Exxon loves OPEC more than you can imagine.
Form an OPIC with China to cut gas prices and you'll help the climate.
The explanations of these four mysteries is on the Oil Prices page.

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby Kyle » Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:30 pm

There are a few things that I think go into it:

-I'd imagine the US has the most members of any country on this site. It's an English-speaking site and there are only 2 countries in the world with larger populations than the US, and English is not the major language in either of them.

-A lot of people are fed up with the government right now. Nothing is getting any better and they just keep griping and bickering about crap and nothing seems to be getting accomplished.

-On the other hand, you do have people on the left and right who think their side is the side of good and the other side is the side of evil. Just look at this thread...

I must admit I did use a teleprompter in writing this post, and didn't lower gas prices at all.

And as a side note, calling someone a Yankee in these parts has been known to start fights.

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Sat Mar 17, 2012 11:49 pm

Jack Roper wrote:Recessions such as we had under Bush will drive prices way down, which is what happened in 2008-09. Look up the price of gas in 2008--it was $4.28 in July--when the Republicans began their mantra "drill baby drill." Presently, inflation is basically under control (except for gas, which is being driven by fear of a war in Iran, which the Republicans all seem to want). Obviously no matter what I say Drawscore despises Obama and nothing will ever penetrate. So why bother?

Hmmmm, we're in the throes of a lousy economy (recession) right now. So, by your own logic, gas should be way down. Yet it is approaching $4.00 a gallon.

Below is from an article on the Price of Gas. Unfortunately, the graphs did not reprint.

zFact: Price of Gas = World Price of Oil + $1.00
It's that simple. The price of gas (in today's dollars) has been $1.00 more than the price of a gallon (not barrel) of oil for the last 25 years. There were some small temporary deviations, but nothing systematic. .... When you understand what this means, you will see through most of the nonsense you read in the papers.

If you get all your information from sites on just one side of the political spectrum, you are not hearing the other side of the argument.

Since the price of gas is determined by the [=world oil price], there is virtually nothing Newt Gingrich, Bachman or Palin can do about it. They are either stupid or lying. Take your pick. Politicians have been promising cheap gas forever.
The trouble is, free markets are not impressed by political rhetoric. The only way to lower the price of gas below the world price level is the way it's done in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Columbia—subsidize it. Since Big Oil can sell the gasoline or oil outside the US at the world price, it is not going to sell it too us cheaper. It's time we faced up to that.

Actually, the oil companies are not selling the oil outside the US. They are selling the refined products like gas, diesel, etc. But the effect is the same. Americans are getting hosed.

This also means that blaming Wall-Street speculators is equally naive. Their is no way they can affect the world price of oil that much. Yes, they can drive up future prices, but bets on the future do not determine the price of gas. Look at the graph again. That is the spot price (not the future price) of oil, and that's what counts.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So What Drives Oil Prices?
The key is to realize that the oil market is a world market. This has some amazing consequences:
Drill baby drill and the Chinese will thank you (or maybe not, but they should).
Making ethanol replaces 30% less gasoline than environmentalists think.
Exxon loves OPEC more than you can imagine.
Form an OPIC with China to cut gas prices and you'll help the climate.
The explanations of these four mysteries is on the Oil Prices page.


And you are right. I do despise Obama. I think he is screwing the country, and it won't be getting any better until he is gone. In addition to points I have already made, which you have not refuted, I ask you to think back to about a year ago, when the Republicans in congress wanted a budget for a full year, while the Democrats wanted a "continuing resolution," which would fund the government for a few months, then start the process all over again.

Obama gets up there, and says that if the continuing resolution isn't passed, the elderly on Social Security might not get their checks; that the military might not get paid; and veterans on disability might not get their checks. A common scare tactic, and absolutely reprehensible. As the Commander in Chief, he should be leading by example, and telling the troops that he would be the first to take a pay cut. But Obama said not a single word about withholding his own pay, the pay of congress; of political appointees; and the pay of members of the Senior Executive Service (Civil Service pay grades GS-16, GS-17, and GS-18). No, it was "screw the soldiers and the old folks." And since I am a veteran, come from a military family, and have many retired military and disabled veteran friends, I took exception. Any military member or veteran who votes for this useless waste of flesh, is voting for someone who does not care about them, and would cut their throats if he thought it would help him get re-elected.

Drawscore
Last edited by drawscore on Sun Mar 18, 2012 8:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Sun Mar 18, 2012 12:15 am

Kyle wrote:There are a few things that I think go into it:

-I'd imagine the US has the most members of any country on this site. It's an English-speaking site and there are only 2 countries in the world with larger populations than the US, and English is not the major language in either of them.

-A lot of people are fed up with the government right now. Nothing is getting any better and they just keep griping and bickering about crap and nothing seems to be getting accomplished.

-On the other hand, you do have people on the left and right who think their side is the side of good and the other side is the side of evil. Just look at this thread...

I must admit I did use a teleprompter in writing this post, and didn't lower gas prices at all.

And as a side note, calling someone a Yankee in these parts has been known to start fights.



First, there are idiots and fringe kook lunatics all over the political spectrum. Neither the left, nor the right, has a monopoly on stupidity. There's plenty of it on each side.

A person's words often can tell a lot about that person. Just think, if Hitler's "Mein Kampf" had been widely read in Germany prior to 1932, old Adolf probably would never have been appointed Chancellor. And, if Obama's books had been read widely, there's a good chance that John McCain would be sitting in the White House right now.

But more importantly, what does a person do? Does he live by his own words, or does he say one thing, and do another?

I said I was a veteran. I did my three years, then moved on to other things. I served under a couple of 2nd lieutenants, and if they went out to get their morning paper, and got run over by a bus, it wouldn't have bothered me. They were shallow people, who thought they knew it all. But there was this other 2nd lieutenant, my detachment commander, who stood up for us; was protective of us; and was there when someone outside our chain of command tried to screw with us. I would have charged the gates of hell with a bucket of water for him. In a heartbeat.

In service, I had to respect the rank. The person who wore the rank had to earn my respect. Obama has failed miserably in earning my respect.

Drawscore

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby bookl0ver » Sun Mar 18, 2012 4:36 am

err boys i hate to interupt your political domestic here but let me guess at what your saying. drawscore doesn't like obama and is arguing against him jack roper does like him and is sticking up for him and kyle i dunno but sorry if calling you a yank offends you. but people say blonds are dumb and i'm blond so i take offence to that so it don't really stop it. ok now imma shut up and you lot can continue your discussion.
DIRECTIONER FOR LIFE!
NIALL HORAN'S FUTURE WIFE

Also addicted to slash. ^,^

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Sun Mar 18, 2012 8:32 am

bookl0ver wrote:err boys i hate to interupt your political domestic here but let me guess at what your saying. drawscore doesn't like obama and is arguing against him jack roper does like him and is sticking up for him and kyle i dunno but sorry if calling you a yank offends you. but people say blonds are dumb and i'm blond so i take offence to that so it don't really stop it. ok now imma shut up and you lot can continue your discussion.


If you have about two minutes and 17 seconds, and are a blonde who would like to be offended or insulted, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ol4oWChjzk

As for being called a "Yank," it doesn't bother me, but you go down to the deep south and call someone a "Yank" or a "Yankee," you're asking for trouble. Some of these folks still stand when they play "Dixie."

As for opinions, everyone is entitled to my opinion. :)

Drawscore

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby Kyle » Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:21 am

I was being a little sarcastic with the Yankee remark. I only said it because you said something about being offended in the first post. It is true you can start fights in the South if you start throwing that term around though. Even if they don't necessarily support the Confederacy anymore, people here still haven't forgotten the War of Northern Aggression Civil War.

Politics in the US is an extremely divisive topic these days. It's always like that, even in the best of times, but when things are going wrong it gets much worse. Most people don't think the US is heading in the right direction, or if we are, we're not going there very fast. So people bicker and fight about it more.

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby Chris12 » Sun Mar 18, 2012 10:30 am

Well, we have a president who is just this side of being a full blown Marxist


Honestly why are people online insisting Obama is a communist/Marxist.

For one as far as spreading ''socialism'' goes Obama is a puppy compared to the European countries (who all have waaaay better living standers as a result of that ''socialism'')

Secondly Marxism (although i could be wrong on this) would only work good in a left wing party. Obama is a democrat which are considered left wing in Americ and nowhere else! Every other country would consider Obama and the Democrats on the far right(and Republicans as so right wing that its downright creepy).

Yeah i get it that some Americans don't like the new healthcare and the social stuff but that doesn't make Obama a Marxist.

On a side note i agree with this topic. Why all the stuff about American politics, other countries have interesting stuff going on too!

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby Jack Roper » Sun Mar 18, 2012 2:49 pm

Here is one of the best recent articles on why Obama should be re-elected. Note: it is loaded with facts to buttress any opinions.


Andrew Sullivan: How Obama's Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics
Jan 16, 2012 12:00 AM EST



The right calls him a socialist, the left says he sucks up to Wall Street, and independents think he's a wimp. Andrew Sullivan on how the president may just end up outsmarting them all.

You hear it everywhere. Democrats are disappointed in the president. Independents have soured even more. Republicans have worked themselves up into an apocalyptic fervor. And, yes, this is not exactly unusual.

A president in the last year of his first term will always get attacked mercilessly by his partisan opponents, and also, often, by the feistier members of his base. And when unemployment is at remarkably high levels, and with the national debt setting records, the criticism will—and should be—even fiercer. But this time, with this president, something different has happened. It’s not that I don’t understand the critiques of Barack Obama from the enraged right and the demoralized left. It’s that I don’t even recognize their description of Obama’s first term in any way. The attacks from both the right and the left on the man and his policies aren’t out of bounds. They’re simply—empirically—wrong.


A caveat: I write this as an unabashed supporter of Obama from early 2007 on. I did so not as a liberal, but as a conservative-minded independent appalled by the Bush administration’s record of war, debt, spending, and torture. I did not expect, or want, a messiah. I have one already, thank you very much. And there have been many times when I have disagreed with decisions Obama has made—to drop the Bowles-Simpson debt commission, to ignore the war crimes of the recent past, and to launch a war in Libya without Congress’s sanction, to cite three. But given the enormity of what he inherited, and given what he explicitly promised, it remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb. Their short-term outbursts have missed Obama’s long game—and why his reelection remains, in my view, as essential for this country’s future as his original election in 2008.

The right’s core case is that Obama has governed as a radical leftist attempting a “fundamental transformation” of the American way of life. Mitt Romney accuses the president of making the recession worse, of wanting to turn America into a European welfare state, of not believing in opportunity or free enterprise, of having no understanding of the real economy, and of apologizing for America and appeasing our enemies. According to Romney, Obama is a mortal threat to “the soul” of America and an empty suit who couldn’t run a business, let alone a country.

Leave aside the internal incoherence—how could such an incompetent be a threat to anyone? None of this is even faintly connected to reality—and the record proves it. On the economy, the facts are these. When Obama took office, the United States was losing around 750,000 jobs a month. The last quarter of 2008 saw an annualized drop in growth approaching 9 percent. This was the most serious downturn since the 1930s, there was a real chance of a systemic collapse of the entire global financial system, and unemployment and debt—lagging indicators—were about to soar even further. No fair person can blame Obama for the wreckage of the next 12 months, as the financial crisis cut a swath through employment. Economies take time to shift course.


But Obama did several things at once: he continued the bank bailout begun by George W. Bush, he initiated a bailout of the auto industry, and he worked to pass a huge stimulus package of $787 billion.


All these decisions deserve scrutiny. And in retrospect, they were far more successful than anyone has yet fully given Obama the credit for. The job collapse bottomed out at the beginning of 2010, as the stimulus took effect. Since then, the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs. That’s not enough, but it’s far better than what Romney would have you believe, and more than the net jobs created under the entire Bush administration. In 2011 alone, 1.9 million private-sector jobs were created, while a net 280,000 government jobs were lost. Overall government employment has declined 2.6 percent over the past 3 years. (That compares with a drop of 2.2 percent during the early years of the Reagan administration.) To listen to current Republican rhetoric about Obama’s big-government socialist ways, you would imagine that the reverse was true. It isn’t.

The right claims the stimulus failed because it didn’t bring unemployment down to 8 percent in its first year, as predicted by Obama’s transition economic team. Instead, it peaked at 10.2 percent. But the 8 percent prediction was made before Obama took office and was wrong solely because it relied on statistics that guessed the economy was only shrinking by around 4 percent, not 9. Remove that statistical miscalculation (made by government and private-sector economists alike) and the stimulus did exactly what it was supposed to do. It put a bottom under the free fall. It is not an exaggeration to say it prevented a spiral downward that could have led to the Second Great Depression.


You’d think, listening to the Republican debates, that Obama has raised taxes. Again, this is not true. Not only did he agree not to sunset the Bush tax cuts for his entire first term, he has aggressively lowered taxes on most Americans. A third of the stimulus was tax cuts, affecting 95 percent of taxpayers; he has cut the payroll tax, and recently had to fight to keep it cut against Republican opposition. His spending record is also far better than his predecessor’s. Under Bush, new policies on taxes and spending cost the taxpayer a total of $5.07 trillion. Under Obama’s budgets both past and projected, he will have added $1.4 trillion in two terms. Under Bush and the GOP, nondefense discretionary spending grew by twice as much as under Obama. Again: imagine Bush had been a Democrat and Obama a Republican. You could easily make the case that Obama has been far more fiscally conservative than his predecessor—except, of course, that Obama has had to govern under the worst recession since the 1930s, and Bush, after the 2001 downturn, governed in a period of moderate growth. It takes work to increase the debt in times of growth, as Bush did. It takes much more work to constrain the debt in the deep recession Bush bequeathed Obama.

The great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit, not increase it dramatically, as Bush’s unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug benefit did. It is based on the individual mandate, an idea pioneered by the archconservative Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich, and, of course, Mitt Romney, in the past. It does not have a public option; it gives a huge new client base to the drug and insurance companies; its health-insurance exchanges were also pioneered by the right. It’s to the right of the Clintons’ monstrosity in 1993, and remarkably similar to Nixon’s 1974 proposal. Its passage did not preempt recovery efforts; it followed them. It needs improvement in many ways, but the administration is open to further reform and has agreed to allow states to experiment in different ways to achieve the same result. It is not, as Romney insists, a one-model, top-down prescription. Like Obama’s Race to the Top education initiative, it sets standards, grants incentives, and then allows individual states to experiment. Embedded in it are also a slew of cost-reduction pilot schemes to slow health-care spending. Yes, it crosses the Rubicon of universal access to private health care. But since federal law mandates that hospitals accept all emergency-room cases requiring treatment anyway, we already obey that socialist principle—but in the most inefficient way possible. Making 44 million current free-riders pay into the system is not fiscally reckless; it is fiscally prudent. It is, dare I say it, conservative.


On foreign policy, the right-wing critiques have been the most unhinged. Romney accuses the president of apologizing for America, and others all but accuse him of treason and appeasement. Instead, Obama reversed Bush’s policy of ignoring Osama bin Laden, immediately setting a course that eventually led to his capture and death. And when the moment for decision came, the president overruled both his secretary of state and vice president in ordering the riskiest—but most ambitious—plan on the table. He even personally ordered the extra helicopters that saved the mission. It was a triumph, not only in killing America’s primary global enemy, but in getting a massive trove of intelligence to undermine al Qaeda even further. If George Bush had taken out bin Laden, wiped out al Qaeda’s leadership, and gathered a treasure trove of real intelligence by a daring raid, he’d be on Mount Rushmore by now. But where Bush talked tough and acted counterproductively, Obama has simply, quietly, relentlessly decimated our real enemies, while winning the broader propaganda war. Since he took office, al Qaeda’s popularity in the Muslim world has plummeted.


Obama’s foreign policy, like Dwight Eisenhower’s or George H.W. Bush’s, eschews short-term political hits for long-term strategic advantage. It is forged by someone interested in advancing American interests—not asserting an ideology and enforcing it regardless of the consequences by force of arms. By hanging back a little, by “leading from behind” in Libya and elsewhere, Obama has made other countries actively seek America’s help and reappreciate our role. As an antidote to the bad feelings of the Iraq War, it has worked close to perfectly.


But the right isn’t alone in getting Obama wrong. While the left is less unhinged in its critique, it is just as likely to miss the screen for the pixels. From the start, liberals projected onto Obama absurd notions of what a president can actually do in a polarized country, where anything requires 60 Senate votes even to stand a chance of making it into law. They have described him as a hapless tool of Wall Street, a continuation of Bush in civil liberties, a cloistered elitist unable to grasp the populist moment that is his historic opportunity. They rail against his attempts to reach a Grand Bargain on entitlement reform. They decry his too-small stimulus, his too-weak financial reform, and his too-cautious approach to gay civil rights. They despair that he reacts to rabid Republican assaults with lofty appeals to unity and compromise.


They miss, it seems to me, two vital things. The first is the simple scale of what has been accomplished on issues liberals say they care about. A depression was averted. The bail-out of the auto industry was—amazingly—successful. Even the bank bailouts have been repaid to a great extent by a recovering banking sector. The Iraq War—the issue that made Obama the nominee—has been ended on time and, vitally, with no troops left behind. Defense is being cut steadily, even as Obama has moved his own party away from a Pelosi-style reflexive defense of all federal entitlements. Under Obama, support for marriage equality and marijuana legalization has crested to record levels. Under Obama, a crucial state, New York, made marriage equality for gays an irreversible fact of American life. Gays now openly serve in the military, and the Defense of Marriage Act is dying in the courts, undefended by the Obama Justice Department. Vast government money has been poured into noncarbon energy investments, via the stimulus. Fuel-emission standards have been drastically increased. Torture was ended. Two moderately liberal women replaced men on the Supreme Court. Oh, yes, and the liberal holy grail that eluded Johnson and Carter and Clinton, nearly universal health care, has been set into law. Politifact recently noted that of 508 specific promises, a third had been fulfilled and only two have not had some action taken on them. To have done all this while simultaneously battling an economic hurricane makes Obama about as honest a follow-through artist as anyone can expect from a politician.


What liberals have never understood about Obama is that he practices a show-don’t-tell, long-game form of domestic politics. What matters to him is what he can get done, not what he can immediately take credit for. And so I railed against him for the better part of two years for dragging his feet on gay issues. But what he was doing was getting his Republican defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to move before he did. The man who made the case for repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was, in the end, Adm. Mike Mullen. This took time—as did his painstaking change in the rule barring HIV-positive immigrants and tourists—but the slow and deliberate and unprovocative manner in which it was accomplished made the changes more durable. Not for the first time, I realized that to understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does.


Or take the issue of the banks. Liberals have derided him as a captive of Wall Street, of being railroaded by Larry Summers and Tim Geithner into a too-passive response to the recklessness of the major U.S. banks. But it’s worth recalling that at the start of 2009, any responsible president’s priority would have been stabilization of the financial system, not the exacting of revenge. Obama was not elected, despite liberal fantasies, to be a left-wing crusader. He was elected as a pragmatic, unifying reformist who would be more responsible than Bush.


And what have we seen? A recurring pattern. To use the terms Obama first employed in his inaugural address: the president begins by extending a hand to his opponents; when they respond by raising a fist, he demonstrates that they are the source of the problem; then, finally, he moves to his preferred position of moderate liberalism and fights for it without being effectively tarred as an ideologue or a divider. This kind of strategy takes time. And it means there are long stretches when Obama seems incapable of defending himself, or willing to let others to define him, or simply weak. I remember those stretches during the campaign against Hillary Clinton. I also remember whose strategy won out in the end.


This is where the left is truly deluded. By misunderstanding Obama’s strategy and temperament and persistence, by grandstanding on one issue after another, by projecting unrealistic fantasies onto a candidate who never pledged a liberal revolution, they have failed to notice that from the very beginning, Obama was playing a long game. He did this with his own party over health-care reform. He has done it with the Republicans over the debt. He has done it with the Israeli government over stopping the settlements on the West Bank—and with the Iranian regime, by not playing into their hands during the Green Revolution, even as they gunned innocents down in the streets. Nothing in his first term—including the complicated multiyear rollout of universal health care—can be understood if you do not realize that Obama was always planning for eight years, not four. And if he is reelected, he will have won a battle more important than 2008: for it will be a mandate for an eight-year shift away from the excesses of inequality, overreach abroad, and reckless deficit spending of the last three decades. It will recapitalize him to entrench what he has done already and make it irreversible.


Yes, Obama has waged a war based on a reading of executive power that many civil libertarians, including myself, oppose. And he has signed into law the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial (even as he pledged never to invoke this tyrannical power himself). But he has done the most important thing of all: excising the cancer of torture from military detention and military justice. If he is not reelected, that cancer may well return. Indeed, many on the right appear eager for it to return.


Sure, Obama cannot regain the extraordinary promise of 2008. We’ve already elected the nation’s first black president and replaced a tongue-tied dauphin with a man of peerless eloquence. And he has certainly failed to end Washington’s brutal ideological polarization, as he pledged to do. But most Americans in polls rightly see him as less culpable for this impasse than the GOP. Obama has steadfastly refrained from waging the culture war, while the right has accused him of a “war against religion.” He has offered to cut entitlements (and has already cut Medicare), while the Republicans have refused to raise a single dollar of net revenue from anyone. Even the most austerity-driven government in Europe, the British Tories, are to the left of that. And it is this Republican intransigence—from the 2009 declaration by Rush Limbaugh that he wants Obama “to fail” to the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s admission that his primary objective is denying Obama a second term—that has been truly responsible for the deadlock. And the only way out of that deadlock is an electoral rout of the GOP, since the language of victory and defeat seems to be the only thing it understands.


If I sound biased, that’s because I am. Biased toward the actual record, not the spin; biased toward a president who has conducted himself with grace and calm under incredible pressure, who has had to manage crises not seen since the Second World War and the Depression, and who as yet has not had a single significant scandal to his name. “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” George Orwell once wrote. What I see in front of my nose is a president whose character, record, and promise remain as grotesquely underappreciated now as they were absurdly hyped in 2008. And I feel confident that sooner rather than later, the American people will come to see his first term from the same calm, sane perspective. And decide to finish what they started.

Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic, weekly columnist for the Sunday Times of London, brought his hugely popular blog, The Dish, to the Daily Beast in 2011. He's the author of several books, including "Virtually Normal," "Love Undetectable," and "The Conservative Soul."

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby the other one » Sun Mar 18, 2012 2:50 pm

Why should Obama be a comunist? He is a fascist. He is the one who made America to a police state. He signed the act that everyone who is supposed to be a terrorist, gets imprisoned without any judgment. He is the one who disempowered the constitution behind the curtains.

USA has many candidates for the election, but only one who might change everything. Ans this ist RON PAUL
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”


Bertrand Russell

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby bookl0ver » Sun Mar 18, 2012 2:53 pm

woah starting this topic was such a bad idea. on the upside it has convinced me to never go and live in the USA if this is the way the goverment makes people every couple of years
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Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:03 pm

Chris12 wrote:
Well, we have a president who is just this side of being a full blown Marxist


Honestly why are people online insisting Obama is a communist/Marxist.

For one as far as spreading ''socialism'' goes Obama is a puppy compared to the European countries (who all have waaaay better living standers as a result of that ''socialism'')

Secondly Marxism (although i could be wrong on this) would only work good in a left wing party. Obama is a democrat which are considered left wing in Americ and nowhere else! Every other country would consider Obama and the Democrats on the far right(and Republicans as so right wing that its downright creepy).

Yeah i get it that some Americans don't like the new healthcare and the social stuff but that doesn't make Obama a Marxist.

On a side note i agree with this topic. Why all the stuff about American politics, other countries have interesting stuff going on too!



Well, one reason, is that he subscribes to Marxist/Communist philosophy, as in "From each, according to his ability, to each, according to his needs." Another, is that he has surrounded himself with people like Van Jones, who is an avowed communist, and, I believe, Valerie Jarrett, who said that one of her favorite political philosophers was China's Chairman Mao.

You could be wrong? No, you ARE wrong. Communism fell apart in the old Soviet Union and the eastern European Soviet satellite states. While it may not come right out and say it, communism/socialism/Marxism is, boiled down to its simplest terms, "More power to the government; screw the people." Look at Cuba, and look at what Chavez is doing in Venezuela - seizing private property and industry in the name of the government, without compensating the owners. To put it in terms that are easy for everyone understand, communism is like the government coming to you, and saying "Your land and your house now belongs to the government, but you can stay in it if you pay the government $500 a month."

Conservatives believe in more personal freedom, and less governmental interference in their lives and businesses. If that's "weird" or "creepy," to you, then you need to get a new dictionary.

Drawscore

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby Chris12 » Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:20 pm

You could be wrong? No, you ARE wrong. Communism fell apart in the old Soviet Union and the eastern European Soviet satellite states. While it may not come right out and say it, communism/socialism/Marxism is, boiled down to its simplest terms, "More power to the government; screw the people." Look at Cuba, and look at what Chavez is doing in Venezuela - seizing private property and industry in the name of the government, without compensating the owners. To put it in terms that are easy for everyone understand, communism is like the government coming to you, and saying "Your land and your house now belongs to the government, but you can stay in it if you pay the government $500 a month."


I know that. i can't remember defending Communism in my post. The ''could be wrong part'' was about Marxism not working in a right wing regime not about how good it was. I won't bother saying things about communism or Marxism since the former is filled with bad examples and i don't know all that much about the later but Socialism isn't all that bad.

The examples you listed are the extremes, many northen/western European countries (Norway, Denmark, Netherlands etc) are leaning toward socialism and like i said the living conditions there are better then in the US.

Conservatives believe in more personal freedom, and less governmental interference in their lives and businesses. If that's "weird" or "creepy," to you, then you need to get a new dictionary.


Just stating the general view about where i'm from. Around here Democrats would be considered far right and Republicans would be viewed with suspicion

Why should Obama be a comunist? He is a fascist. He is the one who made America to a police state. He signed the act that everyone who is supposed to be a terrorist, gets imprisoned without any judgment. He is the one who disempowered the constitution behind the curtains.


Yeah....such a thing isn't exclusive to facism, don't get me wrong i'm totally against it but it doesn't make Obama a facist.

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:32 pm

I'm not going to bother with everything Jack Roper said, but I will note that he claimed to back up his post with "facts," but failed to present one citation.

>>>A caveat: I write this as an unabashed supporter of Obama from early 2007 on. I did so not as a liberal, but as a conservative-minded independent appalled by the Bush administration’s record of war, debt, spending, and torture.<<<

Well, I'm not thrilled about the wars, either, and torture is a matter of opinion, but as for debt and spending, Obama had accumulated more debt than all of his predecessors combined, all the way back to Washington, and we owe a shitload to China. Can't blame that on Bush.

>>>The right’s core case is that Obama has governed as a radical leftist attempting a “fundamental transformation” of the American way of life<<<

You have to look at who mentored Obama as a young man; the political leanings and affiliations of those with whom he associates, and those that surround him. He sat in Jeremiah "God damn America" Wright's church for 20 years, and didn't know? It takes quite a stretch to believe that. (Google "Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama")

>>>The great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit, not increase it dramatically<<<

Then why is it, that the latest figures out, claim that the cost of Obamacare will cost twice the original projections? (Google "Obamacare costs")

Drawscore

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:38 pm

>>>Yeah....such a thing isn't exclusive to facism, don't get me wrong i'm totally against it but it doesn't make Obama a facist.<<<

No, but it does make him a turkey, and unfit for re-election.

Hey, I got a great idea. Let's toss Obama out on his ass, and make me king. I'm just grumpy and grouchy enough to piss off everybody. :-)

Drawscore

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby bookl0ver » Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:47 pm

ok. so this is teaching me more than i've ever been taught about american politics
DIRECTIONER FOR LIFE!
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Also addicted to slash. ^,^

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Mon Mar 19, 2012 12:42 am

American politics is a blood sport, and is not for the faint of heart. If you're going to swim with the sharks, you better have a big set of teeth, or carry a dozen or so bang sticks.

I was asked if I wanted to run for congress, but I declined. I don't like the people I'd have to associate with if I got elected.

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Re: What's going on in america?

Postby Chase Ricks » Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:19 am

http://mittromneycentral.com/2012/03/18/gingrich-drops-shirtless-mitt-santorum-complains-msm-hates-mitt-illinois-louisiana-applebees-ceo-touts-gmrs-many-strengths-video/

Okay I just saw this forum and had to put in my own two cents. I am linking to here a very nice article I have just finished reading about why Rick Santorum does not stand a chance right now against Barack Obama should he win the Republican nomination for the 2012 election to be the next President of the United States of America.

There is a videoclip too on the link at the end but I was unable to copy and paste it here. Please read the linked article and comment what you think here as a reply post to my comments here. Thank you very much.
From whence I came and whence I went heaven said I was too evil and sent me to hell. Demons and devils succeeded in breaking my soul.

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Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:36 am

Again, consider the source. Is this put out by a neutral party, Republican or Democrat party operatives, or by one of the "super PACs" aligned with with one of the other Republican candidates, or with Barack Obama? Is there an agenda, overt or covert? Remember, when you watch or listen to political ads, you have to be wearing your "bullshit filter." Regardless of who puts them out.

In this case, the ad is put out by the Romney campaign, or a PAC aligned with it. And, the truth be told, I would vote for Romney over Obama. But then, I'd vote for any one of the Three Stooges over Obama, too.

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Re: What's going on in america?

Postby bookl0ver » Wed Mar 21, 2012 1:19 pm

so is obama good or bad? and what the hell are republicans and all that?
DIRECTIONER FOR LIFE!
NIALL HORAN'S FUTURE WIFE

Also addicted to slash. ^,^

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby the other one » Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:10 pm

bookl0ver wrote:so is obama good or bad? and what the hell are republicans and all that?


Obama is bad

republicans und democrats are two opposit parties. But if you look closer, then you' ll see almost no difference.

Ron Paul 2012 The one man who gives at least a bit of hope for the USA.
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”


Bertrand Russell

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby TUfriend » Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:27 pm

the other one wrote:
bookl0ver wrote:so is obama good or bad? and what the hell are republicans and all that?


Obama is bad

republicans und democrats are two opposit parties. But if you look closer, then you' ll see almost no difference.

Ron Paul 2012 The one man who gives at least a bit of hope for the USA.


I beg to differ, I like Obama. Sure he hasn't fixed the country, but you find someone who could in 4 years. I think progress is exponential and if he is reflected will do more than a new president would in 4 years.
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Re: What's going on in america?

Postby Jack Roper » Wed Mar 21, 2012 6:23 pm

Look who is likely to be President Obama's opponent: Mr. Etch-A-Sketch. This from CNN TV today:


Top Romney Adviser Says Romney Can Change His Positions After The Primaries: ‘It’s Almost Like An Etch A Sketch’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Mar 21, 2012 at 9:25 am


Mitt Romney can’t be held accountable for his extreme right-wing views, at least according to his campaign’s senior adviser, who said the candidate should be given a “reset button” on any positions he’s taken during the primary campaign if he wins the nominations and faces off against President Obama in the fall.

Appearing on CNN this morning, Romney Communications Director Eric Fehrnstrom was asked if he’s concerned that Romney may alienate general election voters with some of the hard-right positions he’s taken during the primary to appeal to conservatives. Fehrnstrom brushed this concern off:


HOST: Is there a concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?

FEHRNSTROM: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.

Polls show Romney has lost support among independent voters as the primary campaign has forced him further to the right.

It’s unclear if Fehrnstrom expects people to just forget some of the fairly radical stances Romney has taken on everything from immigration, to contraception, to climate change, or if he expects the candidate to change his positions on those issues in the coming months — something Romney is certainly known for doing. As Fox commentator Brit Hume said of Romney last year, “You are only allowed a certain number of flips before people doubt your character.”

Re: What's going on in america?

Postby drawscore » Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:13 pm

Consider the source. NBC and MSNBC are Obama's biggest cheerleaders, followed closely by CNN.

Drawscore