Thoughts & Commentary on the Obama Administration

**PanzerJaeger** · 02-05-2010, 04:45

Originally Posted by Lemur

That's a fair answer, PJ. Thanks for satisfying my prosimian curiosity. (And while I understand why you single out FDR and LBJ as baddies, you'd have to agree that no chief executive has ever done more to tear the United States apart than James Buchanan. I believe he sets the bar so low that no president past or future will ever get under it.)

Well, I believe the Governor of Texas threatened secession last year, and several other states have reasserted their rights under the 10th amendment, so you never know.

All kidding aside, I can agree that Obama has a long way to fall before he gets anywhere close to the bottom of the list.

**KukriKhan** · 02-05-2010, 14:45

Originally Posted by Lemur

Bit of a side note, but while thumbing through Wiki, I ran across this article about president rankings. I had no idea it was such a sport.

Yeah. Look at the sea of red in the mid-1800's, with Lincoln the only green island.

-edit-
aw, heck. I didn't address "Thoughts & Commentary on the Obama Administration". How about this:

A Tibet Freedom Movement activist makes a portrait of U.S. President Barack Obama with his blood in Shimla, India as he thanks him for agreeing to meet the Dalai Lama, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010. China on Wednesday again urged Obama not to hold a planned meeting with Dalai Lama, saying it would further hurt already strained bilateral relations. According to Chhime R. Chhoekyapa, the Dalai Lama's secretary, the Dalai Lama will be in Washington on Feb 17-18.

(my bolded underline).

from this story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020500566.html

Q: Should Obama meet with the Dali Lama?

A: Sure. Gonna meet with the pope, dinner-jacket, and (maybe) 김정일,... what harm can the Dali do? How many Divisions has he?

**PanzerJaeger** · 02-09-2010, 19:50

In a coming-full-circle moment, the current administration accuses its critics of helping the terrorists. Ironic.. hypocritical.. hilarious?

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan -- Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism -- responds to critics of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policies by saying "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda."

**Aemilius Paulus** · 02-09-2010, 20:08

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

In a coming-full-circle moment, the current administration accuses its critics of helping the terrorists. Ironic.. hypocritical.. hilarious?

Haha, even as a strong Obama backer and Dem I can see all three things you say it is...

Yeah, I think 'helping the terrorists' is the new 'He is a damn Red!' or 'he is a damn Fascist'... Unfortunately this is a tactic that does not work well on GOP whose credentials of being tough with 'terrorists' is not to be questioned.

**Strike For The South** · 02-09-2010, 20:42

Can someone explain to me how Obama is any different than Clinton or Bush?

The last 20 years we've had the same president, the only difference being one liked fat chicks, one liked Jesus, and one likes black people.

Can someone explain to me how;

Bush's medicare expansion is anydifferent than Obamas healthcare expansion?

Clinton's welfare reform is any different than Bush's compassionate consevativism?

How interveinig in the former Yougo, the ME, and ramping up troops in Afghan are any different?

We've been governed buy lame ducks since I've been born.

Since Obama has gotten into office he has been center left at best, while I don't agree with some of his ideas I believe he has a few good nuggets, however these want get any attention because he's a forigen born muslim communist who wants to eat beautifual blonde infants.

**Aemilius Paulus** · 02-09-2010, 23:20

Quite simple, SFTS. Or as Watson would say, 'elementary!' - NO, I loathe sherlock holmes, as did Conan Doyle, who hated him with all his heart and wrote about Holmes only because they paid him several pounds for every friggin' sentence of the detective story (true fact)

Anyhow, nice intro

, but Obama and Clinton both are pushing/pushed for a healthcare reform, but both bills got mired with the natural Republican opposition. Except that right now the Republicans are being pure pigs, while back in Clinton's time they were about average in their opposition - hey, Clinton passed NAFTA.

Bush did not do much for healthcare. He merely dumped more money on the seniors. Dumping money is easy. Actually fixing the workings of the sytem is a Herculean labour. The American model is setting new high for inefficiency and this must be addressed. Even without medical insurance, US could have decent healthcare if the service was cheaper. Cap the spending on terminally ill, stop the doctor-gets-paid-per-procedure, stop the drug-company-paying-the-doctor, tone down the malpractice lawsuits, take the British approach by approving drugs only after a stringent cost:benefit ratio, tax the wealthy a tad to subsidise certain forms of healthcare, do something about the great gov't Ponzi scheme, a.k.a Social Security. All these are solutions, with varying difficulty of implementation. All these are more than just simple throwing-money-at-the-problem-approach.

'Compassionate conservatism'? Haha, nice buzzword there, I have heard of it... How about 'Tax-and-spend libertarian'? Either makes about the same amount of sense. US conservatives generally favour the wealthy and the liberals favour the working-class. Deregulation and small government is naturally hostile to the poor. I'd like a conservative in the Backroom to try to argue against this.

Kosovo was Clinton's folly, yes, it is true. But that was still Cold War politics speaking there, before the current situation. Dems and the GOP intervened in other nations' affairs nearly equally. Russia had interests in the Yugo wars, and where there is Russia, there is sure to be US, whether US likes it or not. Ramping up troops in Afghanistan? You cannot leave once you come in. The point is to not stick your nose into horsedung in the first place. But Iraq would be a better example for this purpose.

Lame ducks? Blame the 'No' strategy of the Republicans today. Now, Clinton, Clinton does not have an excuse, and neither does Bush. Both faced about average opposition. But hey, chew on this: who was the fiscal conservative? The surplus Clinton or the OMFG-WTF-deficit, and recession President Bush? You decide...

**Crazed Rabbit** · 02-11-2010, 19:43

Originally Posted by Strike For The South

Bush's medicare expansion is anydifferent than Obamas healthcare expansion?

Both use lots of money, but I think Obama's would require more taxes in the end. It also effects many more people, usually in the way of limiting what options they have or freedom to choose the health insurance they desire.

And now; the Obama administration says federal agencies should be able to track anyone's cell phone, at any time, with no warrant.

Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department's request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans' privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

"This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century," says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. "If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment."

So much for Obama being good on civil liberties.

CR