I support Obama and I would put forth the same and even greater criticism. The problem is that there is no better option, because anything the republicans could muster is far, far worse. My hope is that Obama gets a second term and then actually implements some better policies because he has nothing to loose politically from it.
A lot will depend on the congressional elections, obviously. The Republican policy of absolute gridlock with a Democratic sitting president won't end with this election.
I'm tired of lukewarm criticism of Obama. If anyone here is a diehard Obama supporter, can you help me to better understand some of the things I've seen him do that I don't like? Here's a quick list of some of the major criticisms I have:
Using drone strikes to kill American citizens without due process Continuing use of Gitmo for "enemy combatants" NDAA approval Extension of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act
These are the primary reasons I have trouble voting for him, I'd be curious to know what answers he could have for these things.
Here I can shoot with this one.
Using drones to kill Terrorists operating in foreign countries at Terrorist camps. You hit a guy with American citizenship while in technically a declared "war on Terror". There were American Citizens who served in the Nazi Army, we killed them just the same. Obviously I have a problem with holding American citizens without due process, but we shoot and kill citizens behaving poorly all the time :-p
Gitmo, While I think Obama could have tired harder, he pretty much had the public, Republicans AND democrats against him on the issue...
NDAA, Faced with veto proof majorities in both houses, you got a signing statement. What do you want? :-p We can't line item veto these things and it was attached to a bill that funded the military...
Extension of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act, I said this under Bush, once you pass this kind of stuff you will almost never get rid of it. If you've ever read the bill, most of the act is actually very useful and pretty much just dictates how the different agencies are forced to share information between each other. Other aspects of the act have been given more oversight. I'm not a fan of the dumb parts of the act, but most of it has been migated. I knew as soon as it was passed it would never be repealed because if a single terrorist attack occurred that could have been linked to any of those powers being taken away. That leaders head would be on a stick.
I like the guy who hosts NPR's On Point. He's willing to sometimes call people out on their bullshit. I think the airing of "both sides" is useful, as long as error is followed by fact. For example, people who generally believe the word of experts may also believe a false rumor somebody told them and they hadn't heard refuted. So it could function as a sort of ideological vaccination.
I feel similarly to Chaos about Obama. And I am willing to assume that there is a lot of foreign intelligence I know nothing about. Something that matters, though.. I *trust* Obama. Listening to recordings of him while he was a professor -- He seems like a compassionate and even-handed person with a capacity for critical thought.
As to Tagg, I won't be impressed until he punches the President, while giving birth (and keeping it), in a bear skin that he conned off a bear.
No he isn't but signing something just because your veto will be overridden anyway shows a lack of courage in my opinion. It's not like he was offering an olive branch to anyone sane.
The public is against closing Gitmo? I think this is up for debate.
The PATRIOT act can't be defended by saying that 20% or even 80% of it is "pretty useful". It directly contradicts the Bill of Rights. Discussion over.
I'm not even going to address your drone argument because I assume you're joking.
I don't trust Obama or any other member of this country's elite. The image you see has been prepared for you by committee.
1.Using drones to kill Terrorists operating in foreign countries at Terrorist camps. You hit a guy with American citizenship while in technically a declared "war on Terror". There were American Citizens who served in the Nazi Army, we killed them just the same. Obviously I have a problem with holding American citizens without due process, but we shoot and kill citizens behaving poorly all the time :-p
2.Gitmo, While I think Obama could have tired harder, he pretty much had the public, Republicans AND democrats against him on the issue...
3.NDAA, Faced with veto proof majorities in both houses, you got a signing statement. What do you want? :-p We can't line item veto these things and it was attached to a bill that funded the military...
4.Extension of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act, I said this under Bush, once you pass this kind of stuff you will almost never get rid of it. If you've ever read the bill, most of the act is actually very useful and pretty much just dictates how the different agencies are forced to share information between each other. Other aspects of the act have been given more oversight. I'm not a fan of the dumb parts of the act, but most of it has been migated. I knew as soon as it was passed it would never be repealed because if a single terrorist attack occurred that could have been linked to any of those powers being taken away. That leaders head would be on a stick.
I'll address in order.
1. Just because it happened before doesn't mean it's acceptable. From what I've read, we're executing American Citizens without allowing them due process. This is simply unacceptable. If the administration has good evidence that these people are terrorists, make the accusation in a formal court of law. Overriding it in the name of national security isn't something I'm going to trust, as the government has lost my trust with regard to how it handles the "war on terror". It lost that when it went after Iraq under that guise.
2. I'll concede this one. There's not much he could really do, I suppose, that he already hasn't tried. No one wanted the "Terrorists" in their jails.
3. He got into office on a platform of change, this would have been a great place for him to stick to that. Argue for splitting the bill out and stop playing games with riders, veto the parts that are more overreaching.
4. I have read through the act (most of it, it's massive) and honestly I'm not a fan of it overall in its current state. You're right, that it's going to be impossible to remove those things now that it's in, but I wanted him (and his administration) to make more noise. It feels like he went along without a fight.
I really do feel like he squandered the first few months when he had a Democratic majority in Congress. Then he went soft and flacid over the next few years trying to play nice with Republicans who never wanted to play nice.
EDIT: Note that many Republicans nowadays subscribe to Libertarianism or Ayn Rand worship. They live with a world view that is completely false, provably so (SOMALIA). Yet, as President he still tries to reach out to these people rather than steamrolling them.
In hindsight it's easy to blame him for squandering that time, but in reality he still seemed to actually be trying not to burn bridges with Republicans. We all know the folly of that now, but it's hard to fault him too heavily for it even though I want to.
In hindsight it's easy to blame him for squandering that time, but in reality he still seemed to actually be trying not to burn bridges with Republicans. We all know the folly of that now, but it's hard to fault him too heavily for it even though I want to.
Not hard for me to fault him for that. He should have stopped when Mitch McConnell went on record saying their priority was to make him a one-term president.
Well, the other problem with Obama is that really, he's a Centrist. His entire platform was disingenuous, and there are scores of Obama faithful who still will not admit this.
Obama is the choice to make in this election primarily because Romney is Satan.
Well, the other problem with Obama is that really, he's a Centrist. His entire platform was disingenuous, and there are scores of Obama faithful who still will not admit this.
Obama is the choice to make in this election primarily because Romney is Satan.
Here we are again, we arrive at the crux of the problem. We're faced with a boolean choice, when we do not live in a boolean universe. I have to vote for someone I know will actively try to ruin Jack's life by dismantling safety nets that he may have to rely on, or vote for someone who might assist in maintaining the status quo.
I hate first past the goalpost and our two party system. It's so incredibly dumb.
In hindsight it's easy to blame him for squandering that time, but in reality he still seemed to actually be trying not to burn bridges with Republicans. We all know the folly of that now, but it's hard to fault him too heavily for it even though I want to.
Not hard for me to fault him for that. He should have stopped when Mitch McConnell went on record saying their priority was to make him a one-term president.
Didn't that happen after Obama's infamous "I won" comment? A comment I always found weird because every elected official "won" their seat.
Well, the other problem with Obama is that really, he's a Centrist. His entire platform was disingenuous, and there are scores of Obama faithful who still will not admit this.
Obama is the choice to make in this election primarily because Romney is Satan.
I'm a Left leaning Centrist. So I've been kinda happy.
It's not going to change short of a collapse of the government. Way too many powerful and wealthy people have an interest in keeping it just like this, and they've been VERY successful over the past ten years in making it even MORE authoritarian and socially/economically lopsided.
Right now we're hanging on by the strength of really fancy bread and circuses with LEDs and high framerates and TBs of storage capacity. The internet is simultaneously a tool of revolution and a tool of mollification.
Not hard for me to fault him for that. He should have stopped when Mitch McConnell went on record saying their priority was to make him a one-term president.
Didn't that happen after Obama's infamous "I won" comment? A comment I always found weird because every elected official "won" their seat.
Possibly. Obama definitely painted a target on himself though, by winning on a platform of "change", which must have made a lot of entrenched congressmen nervous. Also by being black.
Well, the other problem with Obama is that really, he's a Centrist. His entire platform was disingenuous, and there are scores of Obama faithful who still will not admit this.
Obama is the choice to make in this election primarily because Romney is Satan.
I'm a Left leaning Centrist. So I've been kinda happy.
So Wall Street corruption hasn't upset you in the last 5 years? You're pretty much OK with that? The mortgage scandal? The bailout?
Well, the other problem with Obama is that really, he's a Centrist. His entire platform was disingenuous, and there are scores of Obama faithful who still will not admit this.
Obama is the choice to make in this election primarily because Romney is Satan.
I'm a Left leaning Centrist. So I've been kinda happy.
So Wall Street corruption hasn't upset you in the last 5 years? You're pretty much OK with that? The mortgage scandal? The bailout?
Most of that occurred under Bush... I'm actually for the Bail out's just throught they should have hammered the CEO's and Executives a bit more. Maybe thrown a few in Jail and such. They are slowly filing lawsuits against them.
Occurred under Bush and was unaddressed by Obama except for lip service. Congressional Dems did far more than he did (and were cock blocked).
The bailout should have gone to distressed homeowners to pay off the underwater mortgages. The banks get their money, the homeowners get their homes, the economy prospers again because consumers have money again, the banks take a well deserved financial hit on the interest. Instead, the banks got to double dip and the homeowners all got fucked, and don't give me any shit about HARP, which is as leaky a bandaid as you could hope for.
Occurred under Bush and was unaddressed by Obama except for lip service. Congressional Dems did far more than he did (and were cock blocked).
The bailout should have gone to distressed homeowners to pay off the underwater mortgages. The banks get their money, the homeowners get their homes, the economy prospers again because consumers have money again, the banks take a well deserved financial hit on the interest. Instead, the banks got to double dip and the homeowners all got fucked, and don't give me any shit about HARP, which is as leaky a bandaid as you could hope for.
This is an asinine solution. Can you imagine what would happen if every homeowner who was underwater on their home loan was given a free $100k to help pay it off? Can you imagine how every person living in an apartment would feel?
Or everyone who imagines that they are living within their means and those "underwater" people were just irresponsible?
It'd be Obamaphone x 100,000
It's almost as bad as trying to forgive all student loan debt. You'd create more problems than you'd solve.
The solution they went with was to hand a bunch of free money to corrupt bankers so that non-homeowners wouldn't get jealous and butthurt. Pardon me while I don't get out my party hat over that.
The solution they went with was to hand a bunch of free money to corrupt bankers so that non-homeowners wouldn't get jealous and butthurt. Pardon me while I don't get out my party hat over that.
I'm not asking you to get your party hat out over it, I'm trying to demonstrate that there may not have been a good solution to this problem. At all.
I'm a Left leaning Centrist. So I've been kinda happy.
Likewise. He hasn't been perfect, but he hasn't been all bad either.
The solution they went with was to hand a bunch of free money to corrupt bankers so that non-homeowners wouldn't get jealous and butthurt. Pardon me while I don't get out my party hat over that.
You know, there is such a thing as personal responsibility here too. While many of the people who provided the dubious mortgages probably should at the very least have been investigated for fraud, you also need to be smart enough to know how much of a house you can and can afford. When I hear stories about people buying houses costing far more than mine while making less than half of what I make via gimmicks like interest-only mortgages and other crap like that, I place the blame as much with them for being stupid enough to go with a gimmick mortgage as well as those people who took advantage of their stupidity by selling gimmick mortgages.
When I bought my house, I went in solely with the idea of getting your bog-standard 30-year fixed rate mortgage and I budgeted my house purchase thusly. Have I been a little underwater? Sure, but you know what, I could actually afford my payment and got a payment that, excepting relatively minor adjustments related to property tax/insurance escrow, would be identical over the entire time I plan to live in that house. So even if I was a little underwater short term, I knew I'd be able to ride things out long enough until I was back above water.
Oh and Steve, I was looking for the "I Won' statment which came to shut down McCain at point point in a discussion :-p
"Obama noted that such workers pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, property taxes and sales taxes. The issue was widely debated during the presidential campaign, when Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, challenged Obama’s tax plan as “welfare.”
With those two words — “I won” — the Democratic president let the Republicans know that debate has been put to rest Nov. 4 ."
Errr, Dodd-Frank did something (we can debate effectiveness), Consumer Protection Board was created.
Let's do it. How effective was Dodd-Frank? How effective is the CPB? Bring it. I would argue that they're platitudes attempting to make us feel a little less angry.
Dude, you have an excellent point. Really a good one, but don't forget that marketing is a very crafty industry, and the "American Dream" is pretty coercive. These companies were trying hard to make people believe that they could afford more house than they actually could, and were convincing people to trust them.
I don't think you can regulate personal responsibility, so the best you can do is try to keep the corporations from taking advantage of people's gullibility.
EDIT: This second cup of coffee might have been a bit much.
Oh, and FYI, Nishikawa v. Dulles ruled that fighting in a foreign armed service would result in forfeiture of your US citizenship. While I agree that we could argue as to whether fighting alongside the Taliban/Al Qaeda/etc. counts as fighting in a foreign armed service, but assuming it does, anyone who fights with them is no longer a US citizen and therefore killing them with a drone attack does not count as killing a US citizen with a drone.
Dude, you have an excellent point. Really a good one, but don't forget that marketing is a very crafty industry, and the "American Dream" is pretty coercive. These companies were trying hard to make people believe that they could afford more house than they actually could, and were convincing people to trust them.
I don't think you can regulate personal responsibility, so the best you can do is try to keep the corporations from taking advantage of people's gullibility.
Which is why I also stated that people marketing these gimmick mortgages should be investigated and probably prosecuted for fraud. It may also be a good idea to institute regulations banning some of these sorts of gimmick mortgages. Frankly, the only mortgage type I can think of that makes sense is the 30-year fixed type of mortgage, if only because you shouldn't be buying a house unless you're willing to make a relatively long-term commitment to living in that area. However, a 5-10 year ARM isn't too bad either as I've heard some people may want to purchase a home but, for whatever reason, plan to sell it in 5 to 10 years as it's just a "starter home" or whatever.
I thought TARP was going to be the government buying up mortgages. Get those mortgages off of the banks and hopefully break even or turn a profit in the long run. TARP ended up being something far different.
Comments
Using drones to kill Terrorists operating in foreign countries at Terrorist camps. You hit a guy with American citizenship while in technically a declared "war on Terror". There were American Citizens who served in the Nazi Army, we killed them just the same. Obviously I have a problem with holding American citizens without due process, but we shoot and kill citizens behaving poorly all the time :-p
Gitmo, While I think Obama could have tired harder, he pretty much had the public, Republicans AND democrats against him on the issue...
NDAA, Faced with veto proof majorities in both houses, you got a signing statement. What do you want? :-p We can't line item veto these things and it was attached to a bill that funded the military...
Extension of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act, I said this under Bush, once you pass this kind of stuff you will almost never get rid of it. If you've ever read the bill, most of the act is actually very useful and pretty much just dictates how the different agencies are forced to share information between each other. Other aspects of the act have been given more oversight. I'm not a fan of the dumb parts of the act, but most of it has been migated. I knew as soon as it was passed it would never be repealed because if a single terrorist attack occurred that could have been linked to any of those powers being taken away. That leaders head would be on a stick.
I feel similarly to Chaos about Obama. And I am willing to assume that there is a lot of foreign intelligence I know nothing about. Something that matters, though.. I *trust* Obama. Listening to recordings of him while he was a professor -- He seems like a compassionate and even-handed person with a capacity for critical thought.
As to Tagg, I won't be impressed until he punches the President, while giving birth (and keeping it), in a bear skin that he conned off a bear.
The public is against closing Gitmo? I think this is up for debate.
The PATRIOT act can't be defended by saying that 20% or even 80% of it is "pretty useful". It directly contradicts the Bill of Rights. Discussion over.
I'm not even going to address your drone argument because I assume you're joking.
I don't trust Obama or any other member of this country's elite. The image you see has been prepared for you by committee.
1. Just because it happened before doesn't mean it's acceptable. From what I've read, we're executing American Citizens without allowing them due process. This is simply unacceptable. If the administration has good evidence that these people are terrorists, make the accusation in a formal court of law. Overriding it in the name of national security isn't something I'm going to trust, as the government has lost my trust with regard to how it handles the "war on terror". It lost that when it went after Iraq under that guise.
2. I'll concede this one. There's not much he could really do, I suppose, that he already hasn't tried. No one wanted the "Terrorists" in their jails.
3. He got into office on a platform of change, this would have been a great place for him to stick to that. Argue for splitting the bill out and stop playing games with riders, veto the parts that are more overreaching.
4. I have read through the act (most of it, it's massive) and honestly I'm not a fan of it overall in its current state. You're right, that it's going to be impossible to remove those things now that it's in, but I wanted him (and his administration) to make more noise. It feels like he went along without a fight.
I really do feel like he squandered the first few months when he had a Democratic majority in Congress. Then he went soft and flacid over the next few years trying to play nice with Republicans who never wanted to play nice.
EDIT: Note that many Republicans nowadays subscribe to Libertarianism or Ayn Rand worship. They live with a world view that is completely false, provably so (SOMALIA). Yet, as President he still tries to reach out to these people rather than steamrolling them.
Obama is the choice to make in this election primarily because Romney is Satan.
I hate first past the goalpost and our two party system. It's so incredibly dumb.
Right now we're hanging on by the strength of really fancy bread and circuses with LEDs and high framerates and TBs of storage capacity. The internet is simultaneously a tool of revolution and a tool of mollification.
Ninja'd, was responding to ROE.
The bailout should have gone to distressed homeowners to pay off the underwater mortgages. The banks get their money, the homeowners get their homes, the economy prospers again because consumers have money again, the banks take a well deserved financial hit on the interest. Instead, the banks got to double dip and the homeowners all got fucked, and don't give me any shit about HARP, which is as leaky a bandaid as you could hope for.
Or everyone who imagines that they are living within their means and those "underwater" people were just irresponsible?
It'd be Obamaphone x 100,000
It's almost as bad as trying to forgive all student loan debt. You'd create more problems than you'd solve.
When I bought my house, I went in solely with the idea of getting your bog-standard 30-year fixed rate mortgage and I budgeted my house purchase thusly. Have I been a little underwater? Sure, but you know what, I could actually afford my payment and got a payment that, excepting relatively minor adjustments related to property tax/insurance escrow, would be identical over the entire time I plan to live in that house. So even if I was a little underwater short term, I knew I'd be able to ride things out long enough until I was back above water.
"Obama noted that such workers pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, property taxes and sales taxes. The issue was widely debated during the presidential campaign, when Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, challenged Obama’s tax plan as “welfare.”
With those two words — “I won” — the Democratic president let the Republicans know that debate has been put to rest Nov. 4 ."
https://www.google.com/search?q=Obama+"I+won"&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Funny part is they were arguing the whole 47% thing back then...
@Dragonmaster
Dude, you have an excellent point. Really a good one, but don't forget that marketing is a very crafty industry, and the "American Dream" is pretty coercive. These companies were trying hard to make people believe that they could afford more house than they actually could, and were convincing people to trust them.
I don't think you can regulate personal responsibility, so the best you can do is try to keep the corporations from taking advantage of people's gullibility.
EDIT: This second cup of coffee might have been a bit much.