Obama

Thank you Mr President. A tough battle we can win if #GunControl advocates all pitch in. huff.to/10zpMyc #StopTheInsanity

Via Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- In a bold and potentially historic attempt to stem the increase in mass gun violence, President Barack Obama unveiled on Wednesday the most sweeping effort at gun control policy reform in a generation.

"This is our first task as a society: keeping our children safe. This is how we will be judged," Obama said. “We can’t put this off any longer."

The proposal, which comes at the end of a month-long review process spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden, is broken down into four key subsections: law enforcement, the availability of dangerous firearms and ammunition, school safety and mental health.

In an effort to touch on all four of those elements, the president recommended requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales; reinstating the assault weapons ban; restoring a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines; eliminating armor-piercing bullets; providing mental health services in schools; allocating funds to hire more police officers; and instituting a federal gun trafficking statute, among other policies. The cost of the package, senior officials estimated, would be roughly $500 million, some of which could come from already budgeted funds.

Because these recommendations require congressional approval, the administration is supplementing its proposal with 23 executive actions that will be taken immediately. Those actions include requiring federal agencies to hand over relevant data for a background check system; providing law enforcement officials, first responders and school officials with better training for active shooting situations; directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence; and many more.

"I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality," said the president, speaking about his full set of recommendations. "If there's even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try."

The approach is so sweeping that what would have otherwise been a headline-grabbing announcement received second billing. The president on Wednesday will nominate Byron Todd Jones, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to take over the post permanently.

In total, the proposal goes beyond what most gun control advocates were hoping for at the start of Biden's review process, during which he held 22 different meetings with 229 different organizations and 31 elected officials.

"This is a monumental moment. It's a long time coming and we're thrilled the president's putting the full weight of his office behind this," said Josh Horowitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "We're ready to push this thing through." more

Via Huffington Post

nh

Steve Chapman - Chicago Tribune

Obama's home town paper sees the light.  Will Obama get the point?

Even if, and there is a good probability, he is reelected, his second term will be even more devisive and contain fewer successes for his policies or his party.  His is a failed Presidency and if he cares at all about his party or his country then he must not run again.

To me, a second term would mean four more years of no action on climate change.  It would mean increased drilling for oil rather than investing in the alternatives we know we need.  It would also mean a good chance of never having true single payor healh care in this country.

Please Mr. Obama, listen to those of us who care.

Why Obama should withdraw

When Ronald Reagan ran for re-election in 1984, his slogan was "Morning in America." For Barack Obama, it's more like midnight in a coal mine.

The sputtering economy is about to stall out, unemployment is high, his jobs program may not pass, foreclosures are rampant and the poor guy can't even sneak a cigarette.

His approval rating is at its lowest level ever. His party just lost two House elections — one in a district it had held for 88 consecutive years. He's staked his future on the jobs bill, which most Americans don't think would work.

The vultures are starting to circle. Former White House spokesman Bill Burton said that unless Obama can rally the Democratic base, which is disillusioned with him, "it's going to be impossible for the president to win." Democratic consultant James Carville had one word of advice for Obama: "Panic."

 

--snip--

In the event he wins, Obama could find himself with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress. Then he will long for the good old days of 2011. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner will bound out of bed each day eager to make his life miserable.

Besides avoiding this indignity, Obama might do his party a big favor. In hard times, voters have a powerful urge to punish incumbents. He could slake this thirst by stepping aside and taking the blame. Then someone less reviled could replace him at the top of the ticket.

The ideal candidate would be a figure of stature and ability who can't be blamed for the economy. That person should not be a member of Congress, since it has an even lower approval rating than the president's.

It would also help to be conspicuously associated with prosperity. Given Obama's reputation for being too quick to compromise, a reputation for toughness would be an asset.

As it happens, there is someone at hand who fits this description: Hillary Clinton. Her husband presided over a boom, she's been busy deposing dictators instead of destroying jobs, and she's never been accused of being a pushover.

Not only that, Clinton is a savvy political veteran who already knows how to run for president. Oh, and a new Bloomberg poll finds her to be merely "the most popular national political figure in America today."

If he runs for re-election, Obama may find that the only fate worse than losing is winning. But he might arrange things so it will be Clinton who has the unenviable job of reviving the economy, balancing the budget, getting out of Afghanistan and grappling with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Obama, meanwhile, will be on a Hawaiian beach, wrestling the cap off a Corona.

 

 

Steve Chapman - Chicago Tribune

 

I actually posted a coment on DailyKos just now.  The op was asking all these questions about maybe changing his registration to indi.  Seems tonights latest cave has the progressives on edge.

What I had to say.

I had my answer in June of 2008

Switched my registration to Independent,

Today I wish I didn't have to say it but to all those with closed ears... we told you Obama has no ideals. We told you Obama had no plans. We told you he has no spine. We told you he was a Republican in sheep's clothing. We told you that he had actually never done a damned thing other than make great speeches and get elected. And we told you often that he had never crossed the isle or knew how to truly work together.

This country needs a leader not a yes man.

I am registered Indi yet feel I am one of the true Democrats left. I will do every thing in my power to bring Democrats with balls(figurative) into power. The Democratic Ideal is right, its the Democrats who are wrong.

Tonight is just another example of what happens when a man with no guts defers to congress for all legislation having never wanting his name listed as the author for oh my, some voters may not like him.

Yes folks. You got what you paid for.
 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/31/1001387/-I-should-be-asleep,-bu...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/19/pharmacy-shooting-4-killed_n_88...

MEDFORD, N.Y. -- A gunman shot four people inside a pharmacy in a New York suburb Sunday morning, killing everyone inside the store in what police said looked like a robbery gone wrong.

The massacre happened at about 10:20 a.m. inside a family-owned pharmacy in a small cluster of medical offices in Medford, a middle-class hamlet on Long Island about 60 miles east of New York City.

Police rushed to the scene after getting a 911 call from someone in the pharmacy's parking lot. When they arrived, they found two employees and two customers dead, said Suffolk County Police Department's Chief of Detectives Dominick Varrone. No one inside the shop survived.

Suffolk County Police identified the dead employees as Raymond Ferguson, 45, of Centereach, and Jennifer Mejia, 17, of East Patchogue. Bryon Sheffield, 71, of Medford, and Jamie Taccetta, a 33-year-old woman from Farmingville, were identified as the two customers.

Rene Mejia, of Medford, said one of the victims was his daughter, Jennifer. He said she worked part-time at the pharmacy while attending Bellport High School, where she was finishing her senior year.

"I don't know what happened," he said. "She was supposed to graduate Thursday."

But hey.  What are a few more lives compared to the rights of Americans to carry loaded weapons into church or government buildings? 

Another timely toon from M.Wuerker at Politico

In February, our corporate media types took a cue from the White House and waxed poetic about Egypt’s latest revolution, its use of social media, and what they termed the “Arab Spring”. Unfortunately, there was and is a great deal more going on in Egypt than was originally reported.

Lara Logan’s assault should have been a clue, the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood slinked out of its rat hole to take an ever-increasing slice of the newly forming Egyptian government should have been another. But true to form, our media stuck to its guns and script and tried to ignore the implications of Egypt’s military honchos still remaining in power.

Weeks after a March 9 protest, Amnesty International reported that female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks. That report was originally denied by the military, but of course Amnesty International got it exactly right.

Fortunately, some members of our media have seen the error of their ways.

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese.  Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

        -- PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, 1977-- 

The wolf has been wearing sheep’s clothing; today he revealed himself as the predator he is.

There can longer be any doubt of President Barack Obama’s duplicity during the last presidential election cycle or his hostility toward Israel and the Jewish people. He delivered a speech today at the State Department that proved him to be an enemy of Israel and a co-conspirator with Hamas.

 Shortly after claiming the US commitment to Israel was “unshakable”, President Obama demonstrated a careless disregard for Israel’s security situation, although concerns for that security have always undergirded US policy. Obama voiced Palestinian demands that Israel return to pre-1967 borders. President Obama has basically kicked to the curb the policy upheld by every US President since Truman.

 FDR would be against Obama’s support of collective bargaining for government workers. 

The Progressives have had their way. As we watch the fall of Egypt and perhaps Jordan, many of us are having flashbacks to the toppling of Iran and Jimmy Carter's dhimmitude when dealing with all things marked Islamic Supremacy. It isn't a good memory, and it will be joined by others we are watching this week.

If the Middle East becomes lead by hardline Islamic Supremists tied to Iran, can an Islamic Caliphate be far behind? It's an Interesting question that should be on all our minds.

Remember his speech in Cairo? Turn on the tellie and see if you can catch some film on what is happening in Egypt today. Maybe we can all watch his "historic" Cairo speech together. Here it is for your viewing enjoyment, just in case you have forgotten the scope of his hubris:

 On second thought, scratch that; once was more than enough.

Let me preface this by telling folks something my real world friends understand.

I am weird.

I'm one of those who just naturally sees and understands both sides of issues. I can pretty well argue either side of an issue, what I can't do is argue or support an opinion which is illogical.  I can't help it and I can't turn it off.  It is really frustrating for me, my family and those I work with.

This affliction is not the same as a politician who has been trained to debate both sides and step into the role required by events of the day.  Unlike politicians, I do get emotionally involved with the side I support even though I fully comprehend the other side.  We all know the Clinton staffers who as professionals, moved on to Obama or the next campaign because that is what they do.  It's their job.

So.  I thought Ronald Reagan's policies were horrible and his administration the most regressive in our history until that point.  But I was in awe of his speaking, his manipulation of all of us.  He made great speeches.  I liked the guy because if you were a little bit human you had to like him.  Get it?  I am what he would call a lefty pinko, yet I can totally appreciate his skill and worse, I could easily argue his position.

President Obama's State of The Union was brilliant!

He played a one hour game with the GOP.  He gave the Republicans many choices but gave them no choice at all.  He was brilliant.  The way he played with Speaker Boehner.  It was masterful and if he really wanted he could have gotten Boehner to cry.  And we knew it.  We were listening to Obama and watching Boehner go between sleep and cheering,  We were watching the puppet master pull the strings just close enough and we were hoping for some tears.

Of course Obama used Tucson.  He had no choice either. 

He had to use this opportunity to make it so clear to the American people what the true distinction is between the parties.  Yeah, he may be full of it, but I'm not critiquing the truth here, I'm talking about his speech and his use of the position.  He has finally got it.  He finally understands that he can use that voice to lead. 

If Obama can lead this country away from the precipice of the right wing machine state, then I may have to support him in the effort.

Reliably unreliable sources tell us that following President Obama's inspiring speech last evening, the U.S. Congress is planning to overhaul the State of the Union rally.

Senator Mark Udall has proposed that the Democrats and Republicans sit together as one big happy family.  The The White House is considering the idea.  Read

I'm beginning to weep just thinking about it, but I better continue with this report.

Peeps are calling the latest round of Obama backtracking, "triangulation".  Giveth me a break. 

They are desperately trying to trap liberals and moderates together in a place neither wants to be.  They, Axelrod, Obama, Bill Clinton, only care about one thing.  Re-election in 2012.  None of them give a shit about the unemployment numbers except for how it affects Bambi's re-election.  Actually, I think Bill cares but he cares much more about being his party's old general.  He loves this elder statesman thing.  I forgive him.

Obama and Axelrove have absolutely zero convictions.  They do not believe in anything other than winning elections.  We already know that they will lie cheat and steal to win.  Now they bring in one whom people trust to build a Trap for liberals and moderates.  We're damned if we don't support him and damned if we do.  The obvious better choice is to support him because otherwise the liars on the other side win and we are truly fucked.

Sometimes you have to cut to the chase, and this is one of those times.

Just in case, some of you missed it:

A Thanksgiving Message to All 57 States by Sarah Palin on Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 5:46pm
 
My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…
 
 
 Of course, the paragraph above is based on a series of misstatements and verbal gaffes made by Barack Obama (I didn’t have enough time to do one for Joe Biden). YouTube links are provided just in case you doubt the accuracy of these all too human slips-of-the-tongue. If you can’t remember hearing about them, that’s because for the most part the media didn’t consider them newsworthy. I have no complaint about that. Everybody makes the occasional verbal gaffe – even news anchors.  
 
 
Obviously, I would have been even more impressed if the media showed some consistency on this issue. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn’t resist the temptation to turn a simple one word slip-of-the-tongue of mine into a major political headline. The one word slip occurred yesterday during one of my seven back-to-back interviews wherein I was privileged to speak to the American public about the important, world-changing issues before us.
 
 
If the media had bothered to actually listen to all of my remarks on Glenn Beck’s radio show, they would have noticed that I refer to South Korea as our ally throughout, that I corrected myself seconds after my slip-of-the-tongue, and that I made it abundantly clear that pressure should be put on China to restrict energy exports to the North Korean regime. The media could even have done due diligence and checked my previous statements on the subject, which have always been consistent, and in fact even ahead of the curve. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? (And for that matter, why not just make up stories out of thin air – like the totally false hard news story which has run for three days now reporting that I lobbied the producers of “Dancing with the Stars” to cast a former Senate candidate on their show. That lie is further clear proof that the media completely makes things up without doing even rudimentary fact-checking.)
 
 
“Hope springs eternal” as the poet says. Let’s hope that perhaps, just maybe, they might get it right next time. When we the people are effective in holding America’s free press accountable for responsible and truthful reporting, then we shall all have even more to be thankful for!
 
 Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
 - Sarah Palin 

"Would we be better off under a President Hillary Clinton?"

We knew it was bound to happen and today Dana Milbank has made the obvious comparisons.  When you read this opinion piece, be prepared to get very pissed.  Pissed at the 20/20 hindsight of so much of the 2008 primary campaign.  Why were so many of us able to see the obvious back then, yet supposedly smart journalists were totally blind?

As I sat in the East Room last week watching a forlorn President Obama account for his shellacking, I listened with concern as he described the presidency as a "growth process" and suggested that the midterm setback was somehow inevitable. "You know, this is something that I think every president needs to go through," he said.

 

It brought to mind Hillary Clinton's 3 a.m. phone-call ad from the 2008 campaign, and her withering criticism of Obama: "When there is a crisis . . . there's no time for speeches or on-the-job training." I wondered whether Democrats would be in the fix they're in if they had chosen a different standard-bearer.

<snip>

Clinton, for example, first called for a 90-day foreclosure moratorium in December 2007, as part of a package to fight the early stages of the mortgage crisis with a five-year freeze on subprime rates and $30 billion to avoid foreclosures. But an Obama campaign adviser dismissed Clinton's moratorium, saying it would "reward people for bad behavior."

 

Calls for a moratorium returned a few weeks ago with news of lenders' foreclosure abuses. Polls indicate public support for a moratorium, but Obama ruled it out. It's a safe bet Clinton would have done otherwise.

emphasis mine.  Read the whole piece here.

Since Hampy has felt the need to declare his allegiance to what he thinks is reality (see diary below); I thought I’d follow suit.  

I read actual history, so I am not brainwashed by Socialist or Communist-leaning Progressive propaganda. Despite the never-ending stream of crapolla that Hollywood and WA Progressives try to feed us through books and movies, I know Progressive heroes like Mao Tse-Tung in China and Lenin & the Bolshevik’s in Russia were murderers and crazed ideologues. 

Obama Claimed That Most Job Loss Came Before His Policies; Polifact Claims He’s Right

When President Obama appeared on The Daily Show Wednesday night, he made a claim that may have caused some viewers to take pause. “Most of the jobs that we lost were lost before the economic policies we put in place had any effect,” Obama told Jon Stewart.

But Polifact, the St. Petersburg Times’s Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking operation, has taken a closer look at the President’s statement—and found that it holds up.

Looking at BLS data on seasonally adjusted non-farm employment from December 2007, when the recession officially began, to January 2009, the month before the stimulus was enacted (a 25-month period), the jobs number declined by 4.4 million. So Obama’s first number was right, although he could have been clearer about the time frame.

ShareThis

I've been saving up some odds & ends to post so here they are. Please read the open letter from a Hillary Dem turned PUMA. It says what a lot of us are thinking these days. An Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh and His Listeners — With Notes on the Democrat Civil War Already In Progress « HillBuzz.org

The man who tops AskMen's list of the Top 49 Most Influential Men of 2010 is one of our youth's most trusted sources of information and a voice of both reason and hope in these economically and politically turbulent times. And no, he's not the president.

 

<snip>

 

"The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart nabbed the No. 1 position on AskMen's annual list of men of influence, while President Barack Obama dropped significantly in the ranks, coming in at No. 21, after landing the No. 3 spot in 2009, and the No. 1 position in 2008, right before he took office.

omg.yahoo.com/news/is-jon-stewart-more-influential-than-president-obama/49548

For the top 49

 That is official.  http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/20/news/economy/recession_over/index.htm

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Great Recession ended in June 2009, according to the body charged with dating when economic downturns begin and end. But the news comes amid rising fears of a double-dip recession.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, an independent group of economists, released a statement Monday saying economic data now clearly points to the economy turning higher last summer.

That makes the 18-month recession that started in December 2007 the longest and deepest downturn for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression.

And I agree with them.

Yes there are still millions unemployed and underemployed.  I believe that the current employment crisis is due more to a radical change in our economy than to the recession itself.  The long expected "Information Economy" has begun in earnest and the pain caused by the switch is what we are seeing.  Normally jobs lost in recession are recaptured a year and a quarter later.  This time, many of those jobs are gone forever.

This is not Bush's fault or Obama's fault.  This is bigger than either of them.

By Robert Kuttner over at Huffington Post

On Friday, the government moved to seize and temporarily shutter one of the truly heroic banking institutions of this dismal era for American finance -- ShoreBank of Chicago. More precisely, ShoreBank of Barack Obama's old neighborhood.

Over the years, since its founding in 1973, ShoreBank had enabled thousands of moderate income residents to become homeowners, and thousands of small businesses to get credit, without ever playing the subprime game or making a single predatory loan. It was a model bank that earned a modest profit by delivering on a social mission.

In the end, ShoreBank succumbed to the aftermath of a financial crisis made on Wall Street. Yet while the Treasury Department found hundreds of billions of dollars to rescue giant Wall Street institutions, it refused to come up with the $75 million for which ShoreBank qualified under the TARP program.

ShareThis

Yes sirree!  He must be getting into full campaign mode now.  Not that he ever stopped.

From Huffpo

NEW YORK — ABC's "The View" has welcomed many notable guests, but none more prominent than President Barack Obama, who is scheduled to visit for Thursday's edition.

In making the announcement on Monday, executive producers Barbara Walters and Bill Geddie said this marks the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited a daytime talk show.

They said the majority of the hour will be devoted to Obama's appearance, which will touch on topics including jobs, the economy, the Gulf oil spill and family life inside the White House. It is scheduled to tape on Wednesday.

"We are so pleased and honored," Walters said.

A pivotal spot in political history.

Don't we all feel dumb now?  Every talking head saying how every other talking head jumped the gun without doing the journalist's job of checking the facts.  The White House doing the worst in this mess by reacting to a clip on a blog post because it might have an effect on the evening Presidential ratings.

And not just talking heads.  Even this blog has a post showing the original short clip that Andrew Breitbart used to target the NAACP.  

This is the time for us all to have the conversation.  Not about race or immigration, rich or middle class, tax cuts or jobs programs, abortion or adoption.

No

This is the time for us to have a thoughtful conversation about how we as a nation wish to converse about our future as a nation.

Do we wish to continue the one minute news cycle that demands instantaneous responses thus feeding the one minute news cycle?  It has become a monster that feeds on itself.  It especially loves to feed on instant polls and un-verified writings by unknown self appointed journalists.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-16/obama-ban-on-a...

Women’s organizations are crying foul at an Obama administration ban on abortion coverage in a new insurance program.

from the Daily beast Dana Goldstein

As President Barack Obama heads off to vacation in Maine, yet another interest group is furious with his administration. Feminist organizations say Obama has stepped beyond the letter and spirit of the new health-care reform law by banning abortion coverage in a new insurance program for people with pre-existing conditions.

<snip>

I'm just a dumb guy but I'm taken with Sarah Palin's Mama Grizzlies effort to empower women. Something has gone horribly wrong with our government and something needs to be done about it. The leftists (progressives, communists, socialists, Marxists, statists, collectivists) should never have been allowed to take over the DNC and BHO should never have won the nomination. Had the DNC rules and bylaws not been changed in 2007, HIllary Clinton would have won the nomination. Without the corruption and voter intimidation in the caucuses, Obama would never have won. Had Hillary won the nomination, she would be president now and the country would probably be on the right track. Obama is president, we're on the wrong track, and we're screwed. Even though Hillary is a self-professed progressive, we'd be doing far better than we are now.