It’s going to be a long road to November 6, 2012
Speaking at a DNC fundraiser, President Obama had the following to say:
“Now, I know that, over the last couple of months, there have been Democrats who voiced concerns and nervousness about, well, in this kind of economy, isn’t this just — aren’t these just huge headwinds in terms of your reelection?,” Obama said.
“And I just have to remind people that — here’s one thing I know for certain,” he continued. “The odds of me being reelected are much higher than the odds of me being elected in the first place.”
Thirteen months to go, people.
Happy Friday!
[via Talking Points Memo]
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
arguingwithsignposts
Racist!
(I don’t agree with that, but just getting here first)
Cat Lady
The Only Grown Up Speaks. I can’t wait to vote for him again – not because I’m an Obot, which I am, but because I’m a Democrat.
eastriver
Late!
this was reported elsewhere, hours ago. (You do know the rest of us have the internets, right?)
Tomjones
PANIC! FIRE PEOPLE! INDICT PEOPLE! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAARARGH!
/Carville
burnspbesq
@arguingwithsignposts:
If the only thing in your toolkit is a hammer, then pretty soon everything in the world starts to look like a nail.
lacp
Very sensible observation by the President.
Comrade Dread
I don’t think I’d be that blasé about it in his shoes.
Given that he’ll have had four years to do something about the economy, voters could be persuaded to go for a change in management if things don’t get better.
So it really comes down to just how bad the economy is in 13 months and just how batshit crazy the GOP nominee (and how well or how badly he covers up his insanity), on whether or not he’ll have another term
Elie
He is absolutely right. I think that he will win and win in a landslide.
Did you guys hear Boehner’s “jobs” plan? Seriously? This is what they got? And is Perry, a man in chronic pain even BEFORE the campaign season really gets going, and who is a rehash of W but with even dumber political instincts, gonna be thought to be able to change anything for the better? Who got us in this mess and what are these folks proposing but sustaining the same wealth distribution that has us in the hole we are in.
Yeah, I know, there will be ten thousand folks who jump on this thread and they will first call ABL a racist, but then after that they will lay out why Obama’s reelection is hopeless — presumably agreeing with Republican policies I guess…
Elie
He is absolutely right. I think that he will win and win in a landslide.
Did you guys hear Boehner’s “jobs” plan? Seriously? This is what they got? And is Perry, a man in chronic pain even BEFORE the campaign season really gets going, and who is a rehash of W but with even dumber political instincts, gonna be thought to be able to change anything for the better? Who got us in this mess and what are these folks proposing but sustaining the same wealth distribution that has us in the hole we are in.
Yeah, I know, there will be ten thousand folks who jump on this thread and they will first call ABL a racist, but then after that they will lay out why Obama’s reelection is hopeless — presumably agreeing with Republican policies I guess…
Jewish Steel
eastriver. The internet’s steely eyed security guard.
No horsing around Hot Topic either, ABL.
sy
ohfergawdsakes
Rathskeller
yeah, he’s right. I think this run will be a variation on Truman running hard against a do-nothing congress. Hard to deny the facts of what they’ve done — except with the tea partiers who would never vote for him in any case.
arguingwithsignposts
@burnspbesq:
They don’t even have a hammer. They have a blow-up figure that looks like a hammer.
General Stuck
I’m not going to worry about politics this weekend. If at all possible.
eemom
what a sweet picture of my President.
Paul in KY
Glad to hear the President say that. Maybe he knows something we don’t. Actually, I’m sure he knows many, many things that we don’t.
I too am looking forward to voting for him.
AxelFoley
The President is correct.
Obama Akbar 2012, bitches!
ABL
@Jewish Steel: But mooooooomm!!!!!
Bruce S
Brilliant line from the Prez. I spent most of ’07 and into ’08 arguing with white AND black Democrats who believed he wasn’t electable,simply because he was black. I was dead certain he could get elected if he got the nomination, and I’m just as certain he’ll be re-elected.
Valenciennes
That is a money line.
ruemara
Well, I’ll do my bit to see him re-elected. Because despite what all my progressive media are telling me, I’m not convinced that letting Republicans run things will result in a chastened, enlightened, new progressive majority.
Zifnab
‘Eff it. I’m in Texas so my Presidential vote doesn’t matter. But if I can help swing a few local elections, I’m still on board.
FlipYrWhig
@Comrade Dread:
Uh, it’s not a serious assessment, it’s a laugh line. Also, Jim Gaffigan doesn’t _really_ want to get diarrhea when he eats Hot Pockets.
greenergood
I think the Prez is right, but I think it’s still gonna take a hell of a lot of GOTV to make sure. I’m not an Obot, but I sure as sharks don’t want a clown for a President, and now that Corporations are like people, but with more campaign $$$, there’s a lot of work to be done.
Chinn Romney
@Elie:
I don’t know about a landslide. He was a young,bright face, up against a very unstable crank. A crank who put a completely unqualified nut, his poor and ancient heart away from the oval office.
And yet it was still too close for comfort. I know the margin was larger than the norm of late, but still closer than it had any right to be. Whoever the Republicans put up can’t be any worse than McCain/Palin, and Obama has clearly lost some of his base.
That said, he should squeak it out. I look to our Governor. I might’ve bet a small amount of my hard earned money that Deval Patrick was a one-and-done. But he rallied nicely and won going away.
So, okay, perhaps it could be a comfortable victory here too. I think I covered both sides, I am Romney.
Gilles de Rais
Indisputably true. I suspect come 2012 we’re going to find that the actual numbers of firebaggers are very small in comparison to the amount of noise they make. Same with the Teabaggers as well. Problem is the MSM only listens and reports on those two perspectives, but in the end, I think it’s an easily surmountable problem.
Mino
@Zifnab: Me, too. But please FSM we get a Dem for governor.
And that is a great picture of the President.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tomjones:
Carville is a GOP agent. He’s married to one of Darth Cheney’s Sith apprentices.
He is garbage. Fuck him.
Samara Morgan
Obama 46 Perry 39 (rasmussen)
Elie
..And I suspect we don’t even know 1/3 of what is going on about the international economic mess that the Western economies are in… Geithner is over there now wheeling and dealing…
As bad as shit is here, things would be much much worse if Greece finishes sliding off of the cliff and takes Italy and Spain with it. That and the ongoing need the Europeans seem to be pushing to cut spending more and more… The world needs people to buy things from each other and you need money to do that.. money that needs to be funelled back to private citizens at least initially from the government. To do that, governments need to get the money from where it is — the wealthy! The Repubs want to cut programs that allow people to participate in the economy and save their rich friends from ANY contribution. I think that polls show that Americans get that generally but of course are still pissed that things are not better yet. I get that but the Bushies and their ilk (inc some Democats), fucked everything up pretty damned good and its just not an easy fix. Folks hate the Banksters, but where are the other horses we can switch to safely and not further impair the economies (not just ours)?
BTW, the Pres has been getting grief from the Repubs for supporting a solar power company that just folded. The story is not how much they were given in tax breaks and grants, but how the Chinese are undercutting the US solar power industry altogether — we were once top of the heap. The Chinese, get this — have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to get into and take over this market while the Americans bitch about keeping the rich richer and not spending a dime to support our key industries. Apparently many US solar power companies are in deep trouble but that whole story gets lost..
JGabriel
I suspect that’s true, but await the inevitable Nate Silver statistical analysis.
.
Elie
@Chinn Romney:
The financial debacle put Obama in office when folks saw with their own eyes that McCain and his running mates were clowns and could not be trusted to take the family car out of the garage. It really wasnt even as close as it looked but unfortunately, the orks were still powerful and prevalent underneath. Two and a half years of rat traps and poison haven’t worked to exterminate them and indeed it appears that some of our side are part of the infestation.
There is still too much grain feeding the rats and that unbalance is hard to remedy without starving all of us.
NR
@Gilles de Rais: Um….
But go on thinking that it’s only a small handful of “firebaggers” that have a problem with the president’s policies.
Elie
@NR:
He may be underwater with some, depending on the poll, but that just means that Perry and Mittens are under the crust of the earth. Its all relative… “I was unhappy about my house burning until my ass caught on fire”
geg6
@Gilles de Rais:
I tend to agree with your assessment.
I’ve been re-reading “Truman” by McCullough lately, just as inspiration. The situations, then and now, are not, politically speaking, dissimilar.
ETA: I’m not much of a fan girl type, but damn. That is an adorable pic of my president.
jl
@Elie:
Solyndra is the company:
http://news.yahoo.com/solyndra-bankruptcy-raises-questions-federal-loan-guarantees-152158039.html
WRT to Obama, I go through fugue states on the dude. Inspired, approving of someone willing to implement good policy, outraged and disgusted.
I will go out and work for a Dem turnout in the next election. I hope that will help keep the savages out (to call them barbarians is an insult to barbarians).
The Solyndra bankruptcy is an example of how the too clever by half, goody two shoes, free market CW friendly stimulus approach often taken by Obama has backfired. If the government had just bought the stuff itself, or paid someone to buy it, from the company, there would be no bankruptcy and no bogus scandal today.
One of the many times standard analysis for perfectly competitive markets goes awry, is wrt to foreign trade when other countries have the power and are willing to not play by competitive rules. Whether the US is better off playing the free trade competitive game when China clearly is not is arguable, to say the least. The CW is that it is just fine (to paraphrase Michael Boskin, doesn’t make any difference whether the US makes potato chips or planes). Others, like Joseph Stiglitz (who unlike 90 percent of other economists, has the guts to make meaningful predictions) says it does not makes sense to play competitive when others are not, and can explain why in plain English. Maybe that is why is a semi outcast in influential US policy and academic circles.
But surely, this problem needs to be taken into account when planning policies that depend on the existence of a domesttic firm that may fail in the ‘creative destruction’ of a competitive free trade country dealing with some one who follows different rules.
(I think James Hamilton made just this kind of mistake when he argued for changes in regulations to allow expansion of extraction industries in the US.)
I hope Obama is wising up to the very bad advice he is getting, and realizing that the situation and the mind set of the US elite is just too messed up and goofy to be reliable. (Edit: and therefore stops trying to always work within the current corrupt and failing system).
One would think that the episode where China eliminated the US Rare Earths mining industry, bought a couple of US mining and processing plants and literally moved the physical equipment to China to set up in order to get their’s expanded quick in a hurry should have been enough evidence, but I guess it wasn’t.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: What’s the proportion of people (or, more importantly, Democrats) frustrated with Obama for being too conservative compared to people / Democrats frustrated with Obama for being too liberal? I have to think that disapproval from “the left,” which is all we hear about in the blogosphere, is MUCH less of a problem than disapproval from the right.
Amir Khalid
In early 2008, I remember thinking about Hillary versus Obama. In terms of policy-agenda merits, there wasn’t a great difference between them. But Obama had a much better-run and more effective campaign organization that took him from rank outsider to level with Hillary, which implied that he was the better chief executive.
Also, he focused on building up his delegate count (and savvy enough to pay attention to the caucuses where he picked up a lot of delegates) whereas Hillary focused on showy victories in primaries; he had the better grasp of strategy.
On merit Hillary was still a far better candidate than any of the Republicans, but I wouldn’t have been as confident of her campaigning head-to-head against McCain. Obama was clearly the better Democratic candidate in 2008.
For 2012, it looks like the Republican party’s strategy is to obstruct Obama’s governance as much as possible; and then have its candidate, Romney or Perry, blame the consequences on Obama’s supposed ineffectiveness. That’s what he needs to counter, if he is to win re-election.
Tomjones
@Villago Delenda Est: I lol’d.
daveNYC
Damning with faint praise.
He’s got the incumbent advantage, but he’s going to be facing 9+% U3 (especially since the entire world is going all in on austerity) and all the new money being brought in by Citizen’s United.
He needs to get out there and push his job plan. That way it either passes and helps lower unemployment, or it gets shot down by the Republicans and he never lets them forget it.
jl
WRT to Obama going Truman, I would approve of that.
I know people (including Obot apologists) expressing concern about the PWBFOABM (pathetic white bigot fear of angry black man) factor.
I think that fear is overblown, especially now when Obama has established his cred as a moderate compromiser.
I think any white who would be susceptible to PWBFOABM is prejudiced enough, or stupid enough, to be a person who never would vote for Obama in the first place. And, as the O man says, he did indeed get elected in the first place.
Elie
@jl:
jl — thanks for the deeper info.
I agree with your assessment and hope that we begin to see the administration move away (in a second term) from some of the tired perspectives of the old free market thinkers. I think its a change that has to happen and could probably only happen with a Democrat in office. Given how badly our asses were on fire when he came in, I guess its not that much of a surprise that this sort of house cleaning was not prioritized.
I truly hope that the US can stay in the mix for these new green industries and thinks creatively about how to do that instead of following the path of least resistence on the old, extractive industries (mining coal, oil, etc). We gotta get out of those rackets.
MikeJ
Obama: I’m going to govern like an adult and focus on getting things done rather than trying to score political points every five minutes.
emoprogs two years later: Wah! He’s doing what he said he would!
jl
My main worry about the election is whether Obama is as good a politician as he and others think he is.
Sure, he won the first time. What I worry about is whether that was mainly due to the fortuitous timing of the financial panic. That focused the voters attention on serious issues, rather than whether Algore looks good in tan jackets. And it also revealed what a rancid bloviating ignorant and unstable empty suit McCain was.
To consistently win elections through good times and bad, with luck and against luck, a person has to be a political genius, like FDR or Reagan, or Willy Brown out here in CA. Those types are very rare, and it is not a slam to wonder whether Obama is in that league.
Elie
@jl:
I don’t disagree but its worth noting Raegan’s dirty tricks that could be considered treasonous — to set up separate negotiations with the Iranians holding the hostages to wait to after the election… the hostage crisis was the bloody bandage of Carter’s wound and clealy it was a borderline if not completely illegal and treasonous action to negotiate with a foreign power against a sitting president so that he could get elected.
Maybe he was less talented than a ruthless criminal. Like Nixon. Should that “count” in his talent assessment?
WeeBey
@Chinn Romney:
Whoever they put up WILL be worse than McCain. Their best hope right now is Romney, who McCain beat last time.
Against Perry, Obama romps.
jl
BTW, including Willy Brown in list of political geniuses is not PC balance.
Sure, he had a very safe district. But he won elections to retain leadership in the CA Assembly, when his party was in the minority. And did it at least twice I think.
It was, like 100 per cent Awesome for reals. Like an old movie serial, where everyone was like ‘Willy’s done for this time.’ Then just in time, he would produce several GOPpers Assemblypeople who he had persuaded to commit political suicide, and they did. And four years later they got a plumb job running an irrigation or mosquito abatement district out by Wasco, or something like that.
Dude, anyone on here want to be the next FDR, add the story of Willy Brown to you reading lists of how to books. Along with Jesse Unruh.
jl
@Elie: I meant political genius in terms of maintaining power. You make some good points about Reagan. I thought about Nixon, but he is clearly over some kind of bright red line you don’t want to cross, and Nixon kind of fails since when his racket blew up, his party’s influence took a big hit.
But, yeah, maybe Reagan is over the line too, in terms of methods. So, that leaves FDR and Willy Brown. Fine with me. I’ll go with those two.
catclub
@Comrade Dread: “I don’t think I’d be that blasé about it in his shoes.”
You are and always will be a multi-millionaire. You are and always will be comfortable and respected by vast numbers of people. The US has been amazingly good to you and your family. What’s not to be blase’ about?
Social outcast
I don’t care what left-wingers say about Obama now, on election day they will vote democratic. The risk of a Scott Walker style of government on a national scale is just too large. They’ll vote against a republican no matter how much they might be disappointed in Obama. Too much history of radical republican governors over the past couple of years.
So pissed off liberals aren’t going to be an issue. It’s the swing voters in swing states that will drive the race.
boss bitch
@jl:
I think the main reason Obama keeps winning or has gotten this far is that his opponents continue to underestimate him despite his past achievements. Just like you did in your comment. Stop brushing off his wins as luck or credit them to outside forces. Its his reaction to those situations that got him the presidency.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@arguingwithsignposts:
Specifically they had a blow-up fuckpumpkin, but traded it in for a blow-up fuckraft.
Elie
@jl:
Yeah… its always about that line. FDR was known to give out a lick or too as well. Every good politician has a hard fist inside that glove or they just can’t be successful. Its where the fist falls and other “lines”
Of course there is nothing completely new under the sun, but our politics and social structure are so different now.. the speed, not necessarily accuracy, of information and managing the 24 hour news cycle… not even if we give Reagan and Clinton the nod for political success, did either of them experience it at the level of the current scream machine. It literally burns the flesh of our politics, making it very difficult to organize beyond the most simple and primal fear and anger tactics… nuance is pretty diffult to project on the charred corpse of the body politic that our info technology has burned through. While I think that the information technology revolution has aided freedom related activities like say in the Arab Spring, it is not clear that the complexity of governance and leadership are that well served by it — at least not yet.
Dollared
@jl: @daveNYC: I have my doubts. He hasn’t delivered change that anyone can “feel,” U6 is 18%, several swing states will have drastic anti-voter laws, the media is even more f-in crazy, and the direct spend by the fascist right – both corporations and private billionaires, will be insane. Mindboggling.
Honestly, take those factors together I do not see a way to win in Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, or Ohio. Now subtract 10 electoral votes from the Pennsylvania Electoral college play, and put Michigan, Colorado and Wisconsin in the Will be Damn Hard column, and it doesn’t game out well. I would love to see reason to be optimistic, but….
jl
@boss bitch: I didn’t brush off Obama or his victory, unless refusing to credit him with being a historic political genius part way through a tough first term is ‘brushing off’.
Complacency breeds defeat. I do not want to see Obama defeated in the next election. And I hope his campaign is not run by complacent Obots, and I hope he is not complacent.
Some will consider that ‘brushing off’ Obama. In my opinion, people who think like that are losers. In politics being a loser is a very very very bad thing.
Linda Featheringill
Well, the Prez is certainly correct about the odds thing. In 2008, I did what I could but I certainly wouldn’t have bet the grocery money on his election. I never, ever thought it would happen during my lifetime.
I know that is a portion of the population that is angry and frustrated because a black man is president but there’s also a portion that is thrilled daily because this country, the godawful U S of fucking A, actually broke down and elected a black man to be president.
Yeah, I’m a member of the second group. And almost daily I’m either grateful or amazed that it happened at all.
Dollared
@Social outcast: How will they know or care? Who’s going to tell them about Scott Walker? Remember, Wisconsin is the fourth most educated state in the United States.
I wish Wisconsin could be some sort of turning point (or the horrible shit going down in Florida), but 90% of the swing voters have no idea how corrupt and mendacious the R’s are. No one can get them good information.
Elie
@Dollared:
Yeah, hard to see a win until you hear Perry slur his words while threatenning little old ladies that he is doing away with social security but can hit that little ol target over there with that gun he is carrying, right over her shoulder if she just stops moving around so much
And then there is Mittens with his dog tied to the roof of his car and his creepy personality that no one talks about directly but secretly know he is like fingernails on a blackboard. Oh, and that effing plan he had to recover jobs — toilet tissue.
Yeah… folks think they can fix things — for sure.
Dollared
@Elie: Yup, Republican craziness is our only hope. But George Bush was less qualifed and less physically attractive than Rick Perry. And the media will forgive him all his sins.
And omigod, the money will flow to Perry.
There is simply no reason to be confident.
Social outcast
@Dollared: Liberals who are pissed at Obama are politically aware enough to know the risks involved in a new republican presidency. Or at least that seems like a fair assumption to me.
mike in dc
I voted for Obama, hoping/expecting him to govern just a little to the left of Bill Clinton, policy-wise. In some ways that’s a close call whether he’s lived up to my expectations, but in terms of major accomplishments I’d say he’s mostly doing okay.
My other concern is that we have no follow-up act on the horizon(for 2016 and beyond) at the moment, and since Dean is no longer DNC chair, we may have taken our eyes off the ball in terms of long-term party building. I’d like to see a gradual leftward reversal of the Overton Window over the next 16-24 years.
gogol's wife
@Paul in KY:
Seconded.
jl
The problem is not the Liberals and Democratic activists who are non Obot. They know the stakes, and know that Obama is about as good as possible to expect right now (even if he is a political genius).
The problem is the standard issue Dem voters, and the declared ‘inedpendent’ (that is, mostly, the self indulgent, the self righteous and the lazy), and moderate GOP voters who are getting scared of their own base. Will they show up?
They do, I think Obama wins. They don’t, then OMG help us all.
rikryah
I’m voting for POTUS.
period.
Paul in KY
@gogol’s wife: Why thank you. Hope you & our other Juicers have a great weekend.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: Given that the disapproval is coming from liberal constituencies (voters under 30, people in the Northeast, etc.) it’s not likely that they’re upset with Obama because they think he’s too liberal.
However, what’s most likely is that most of these people don’t really care about whether Obama is liberal or conservative. Rather, they care about the fact that the economy is in the crapper and Obama hasn’t pursued policies adequate to fix it. They care about the fact that banksters have seen a lot more benefit from Obama’s policies than they have. They care about the fact that they’re looking at a shitty job market while corporate profits are through the roof and Obama doesn’t seem to think that’s a problem.
These people don’t want policy that’s “liberal” or “conservative,” they want policy that’s effective and will make their lives better. Obama has shown no inclination that he has any interest in pursuing that. And that’s why these voters are turning against him.
NR
@Social outcast: “The other guys are worse” isn’t exactly an inspiring rallying cry.
LTMidnight
No one should take anything for granted. Obama should campaign like he is the underdog, but at the same time tout the progress that has been made.
I hope he does raise a billion like people are saying he will. He’s going to need every last cent.
master c
Hey Zinfab, Im in Texas too, how about we play “Operation Chaos” ourselves this time? Im going to register as a Republican in the primary and vote for maybe Bachmann, or Hunstmen or whoever the biggest long shot is and fuck shit up for repubs Rush-style.
LTMidnight
@NR: You’re using the word “They” where you should be using “I”
boss bitch
@jl:
There you go underestimating him again. Anyone who has signed up with the Obama campaign (getting emails,etc.) knows that the WH is far from complacent. I could understand your doubts if this was his first presidential election. It isn’t. No reason whatsoever to think the Obama campaign is complacent. its ridiculous actually.
Social outcast
@NR: Maybe not, but fear can be a great motivator. The idea that you can suffer through a republican presidency without too much damage in the hope of getting a liberal democrat on the next go around is dead. Bush and Scott Walker and all the rest of the radical republicans have killed it.
FlipYrWhig
@NR:
Fine. But they’re not going to get that, because Republicans bottle it up and Democrats (ETA: conservative Democrats) snipe at it. So what they get will either be less-effective policy that doesn’t make their lives significantly better, or nothing. And that’s when the “firebagger” contingent starts complaining even louder about the terrible no-good very bad policy Obama keeps churning out.
Elie
@Dollared:
I think cofidence is justified and essential
Complacency – no. Confidence as the belief in ones self and one’s policy values and decisions. Must Have that.
agrippa
I think that the president is right.
It may be closer than before, especially if Romney gets nnominated.
The Congress – getting Democratic control of Congress is very important as well.
xian
our presidential bench includes Hillary Clinton and might grow to include an Elizabeth Warren or Cory Booker in the future b
Admiral_Komack
@Comrade Dread:
What is he supposed to say, “Oh, jeez, we’re fucked?”
Of course he should be confident.
I will vote for President Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential election because, as in 2008, he is the best person for the job of President.
agrippa
@NR:
I think that what you wrote is true and accurate.
Obama has not done enough to get the economy moving.
The problem is: no one in Washington has done enough – has ever done enough – in virtually any recession.
It comes down to what Obama thinks can be done, and what his economic advisors think can be done. Which is: not much of anything can be done. It is more along the lines of ‘maybe this will help’.
Whether that will hurt him, I do not know. Maybe the economy will start tofix itself.
FlipYrWhig
@agrippa:
No one is doing anything any differently in the rest of the developed world, either.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Dollared:
Speaking as somebody with knowledge of the local politcal scene, you’re blowing smoke if you are taking New Mexico off the board for Obama, seeing as how two of the three congressional districts went solidly Democratic in the 2010 election, against the national trend. Not saying it couldn’t be a swing state if we don’t as usual put in a lot of hard work to win it, but if you are chalking it up as an automatic win for the GOP, that shows you just don’t know much of anything about this particular state.
I can’t speak to those other states based on local know-how, somebody else will have to do that, but it does make me wonder how reliable your views are regarding those other states, if you can’t render an accurate assessment regarding the one I know the most about.
burnspbesq
@jl:
Not to get all nit-picky or anything, but it annoys me to no end that neither our media nor the Republicans seem to understand the difference between a loan and a guarantee. We don’t know how much (if anything) the government is going to have to pay, and we won’t know until the Bankruptcy Court finishes sorting it out.
Republicans lie. All the time. About everything.
burnspbesq
@mike in dc:
Sure we do. Her name is Kristen Gillibrand.
SiubhanDuinne
@eemom:
I love it too. In fact, I love it so much I printed it out and pasted it over my desk. Just the sweetest expression on his face.
And FVCK YEAH, my President!!
ETA: Also, too, what geg6 said @35
NR
@LTMidnight: No, “They” is correct here. The polling data speaks for itself.
NR
@FlipYrWhig:
They’re also not going to get it because Obama doesn’t propose it. Which is a huge part of the problem right there.
Nathanael
I don’t think it matters much whether Mr. Republican Lite is elected or whether Mr. Republican Fascist is elected. We seem to have a guarantee of a non-functional government either way. If anyone’s got any ideas what to do about the US Senate, let me know.
I’ll be seeing what I can do with the state government.
Nathanael
@FlipYrWhig: There’s a reason I no longer expect the survival of the current system of government in the US.
Some of the European countries may be able to change course more smoothly, because parliamentary systems allow for really fast party shifts and ousters of existing elites.
Or they may fail too.
In the US, I’m just trying to watch the unemployment, poverty, etc. rates in the 18-25 (a.k.a prime revolutionary age) bracket so I can have some sense of when it’s all going to go down. It seems demented that nobody in power is willing to actually take action to cut unemployment, which even Bismarck would have done promptly, but there we are.
Nathanael
@Social outcast: Actually, Scott Walker demonstrated that, at least in Wisconsin, *only* an actual Republican takeover will cause enough people to band together to fight Republican abuses…. so he’s ammunition for the “things have to get worse before they can get better” argument.
agrippa
@FlipYrWhig:
That is true.
I certainly hope that it works out.
marginalized for stating documented facts
@Nathanael:
Not quite.
The United States government remains fully functional and highly efficient when it comes to beating and brutalizing and humiliating and imprisoning and torturing and raping and mutilating and bombing and burning alive brown people.
How brown the people are, doesn’t seem to matter. If they’re light brown and live in the middle east, America efficiently murders brown people. According to the Lancet, America murdered well over 665,000 brown people in the process of the pointless unwinnable war of aggression America launched when it invaded Iraq.
On the other hand, the slow-motion holocaust of very dark brown people misnamed America’s War On Drugs, which now imprisons a higher percentage of American blacks than were imprisoned in gulags in Stalin’s Russia at the height of the purges in the 1950s, also brutalizes and murders and imprisons brown people very efficiently. One out of every 3 dark brown people in America under the age of 35 is currently either in prison or on parole — that’s startling efficiency.
America is extremely efficient at transferring wealth from the bottom 90% of the population to the top 10%.
America is incredibly efficient at torturing people. It’s now been systematized into an assembly-line process replete with sensory deprivation tanks, supervised by psychologists with advanced degrees.
America is extraordinarily efficient at crushing dissent. Just look at the pre-emptive arrests of non-violent protestors at the 2008 Minneapolis Republican convention for alleged “terrorism.” Or consider the treatment of Bradley Manning. Mussolini’s blackshirts could hardly have done a better job of rounding up dissenters and “hooligans” and “citizens in need of thought reform.”
America is exceptionally efficient at creating giant business monopolies and crushing individual entrepreneurs. Everywhere you look, America is ruled by interlocking oligarchic monopolies with vast economic powers granted by the state and savagely enforced by the federal government. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, now works for Disney enforcing copyright on Disney movies— that’s efficiency!
Moreover, Barack Obama isn’t Republican lite in any meaningful policy sense. True, Obama refuses to adhere (publicly) to the official Republican party line of global warming denial and evolution denial and advocacy of a theocratic dictatorship. But on all the policy issues of any substance, Obama has followed the Republican party line straight down the path, putting into place policy positions just as extreme as those advocated by Rick Perry.
For example: Barack Obama has enthusiastically embraced the assassination of American citizens without judicial oversight (and without even accusing them of having committed a crime, something even Rick Perry seems to have hesitated at). Barack Obama has advocated cutting medicaid and medicare in order to increase funding for America’s worthless incompetent military (something even Rick Perry has not yet advocated in public). Barack Obama has signed off on tax cuts for the rich while slashing social services for the poor (Rick Perry is on board with this one). Barack Obama has eagerly used the powers of the presidency to prosecute more whistleblowers who shone light on military contractor corruption and Pentagon malfeasance than all 4 previous presidents (Rick Perry has not yet had the courage to stand up and publicly propose to punish people for coming forward to report theft and accounting fraud and violation of the law by military contractors and the military itself). Barack Obama has eagerly embraced the War on Brown people, both in its domestic form as the so-called War On Drugs, and in its international form as the misnamed War On Terror.
Last but far from least, Barack Obama has ripped up the constitution and wiped his ass with it, leaving only a microscopic part of the Bill of Rights intact — the right to bear arms and the right to religious freedom and the right not to have soldiers quartered in your house. All the rest of the Bill of Rights, Barack Obama has pissed on and thrown away, from the first amendment (we no longer have a right to free speech, since if people speak freely, Obama will order them assassinated if he doesn’t like what they say) to the fourth amendment (we obviously no longer have a right to be secure in our persons or our houses from unreasonable searches — if you’ve ever been through an airport line, you know this) to the fifth amendment (if Obama thinks you might be an undesirable person, he’ll order you kidnapped or murdered without a trial and without even accusing you of a crime) to the sixth amendment (trial by jury is now a thing of the past, as the Gitmo kidnap victims undergoing kangaroo court military commission trials can attest) to the eighth amendment (Obama has continued the use of enhanced interrogation by means of the CIA’s Appendix M in its interrogation manual — in other words, torture, — at the second secret prison at Bagram airbase)…
You name it, Obama has eagerly embraced the Republican atrocity, from wars of aggression to torture to murder of innocent civilians to kidnapping U.S. citizens without accusing them of a trial to murdering U.S. citizens if he doesn’t like what they say.
Glenn Greenwald has a thorough round-up of Obama’s various crimes and his destruction of our constitutional rights and his abandonment of the rule of law. Obama himself seems like a reasonable person, except for his inexperience and gullibility and pathetic eagerness to believe any lies the national-security goons tell him. But it remains a fact that Barack Obama has embraced and extended the unconstitutional brutalities and criminal barbarities of the Bush administration to the point where the rule of law has now disappeared from America and we no longer have a functioning constitution or an actual republic of laws. Instead, we have a supreme leader with the power of a god-emperor, the power to order the murder of anyone who says something he doesn’t like, the power to torture people at will without even having to give a reason, the power to order the bombing and mass execution and drone-missile murders of any foreign population anywhere in the world at his slightest whim.
Obama has not taken advantage of these dictatorial powers to exert the genocidal mass atrocities of a Pol Pot or a Mussolini against his own people: but now that these dictatorial powers have been legitimized by Obama’s public use and acceptance of them, some future American president will eventually use these dictatorial powers to order mass murder and mass torture of the American people. That’s how it always works. This is Barack Obama’s true legacy, the most important mark he has made on history.
When a republic collapses and a democracy turns into a dictatorship, history shows us that we seldom get an immediate transition from an Augustus to a Caligula. Instead, we get a gradual descent into a tyranny in which the rule of law goes away bit by bit and violence by the state against the individual citizen becomes increasingly the norm, until in the end there is no rule of law — only the dictator’s personal whims. In the end, there is no justice, only violence by the state to crush dissent.