Barack Obama!

[Doris]

Doris, it's not people like yourself and the rest of the Obama fan club he needs to convince.

It's the Republicans. He can have people like you spreading the joyous message until you're blue in the face, but unless the Republicans agree to pass the legislation, it ain't going to happen.

And giving them the very valid ammunition of some of the Democratic appointees showing up as dishonest or at least dodgy isn't helping.

So true Julia

THIS was the content and point of that email.

Did you actually read it?
And my comments on his rallying the people to help him get their senator to think of their personal plights?

Below is part of the follow-up email that came today. If Obama can get people to understand what the package will do for them they can canvass their senator. The Republican ones - except the three who've voted for it already. 3/4 of Americans like Obama but only 1/2 believe his package. Possibly that half are just quoting the partisan Republicans??

Note: No-one is asked to contact their senator. But it is implied. Grass-roots in action.

Americans have organized Economic Recovery House Meetings in all 50 states -- including 382 in California, 255 in Florida, 115 in Ohio, 199 in New York, 105 in Washington, and 149 in Texas.

That's more than 3,587 meetings in 1,579 cities and 429 congressional districts.

This past weekend, meeting hosts and guests watched a video of Governor Tim Kaine answering your questions about the president's recovery plan. Then they shared their own stories about how the crisis has affected them.

The media is filled with numbers about the economic crisis. But the numbers do not tell the full story.

The story of this crisis is in homes across the country -- homes where a family member has lost a job, where parents are struggling to pay a mortgage, and where college tuition has slipped out of reach.

That's also where the story of our recovery begins -- in communities where repairing roads and bridges, manufacturing green technologies, and rehabilitating our schools and hospitals will directly impact the lives of ordinary people and their families.

President Obama's recovery plan will help struggling families right now by saving or creating up to 4 million jobs. But it will also help strengthen our economy for the future by investing in crucial infrastructure projects in health care, education, and energy.

Share your story about how this economic crisis is affecting you and your family and join your fellow Americans in supporting bold action to speed our recovery:

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

Today at the first of two Townhall Style meetings (back on the campaign trail as Reagan had to do) one woman asked how people can trust the Obama administration when they chose people who hadn't paid their taxes.

Obama said: If people who had made mistakes were never appointed... you'd never lose your job.

I have a great rapport with most students as I see the whole picture. If there are dark storm clouds, these need addressing but I focus on what they do well/right and promote their silver lining. Note those guys resigned. They were not forced out despite their credentials to do the job. They left to support the new bench mark.

I'm reading John Grisham's The Appeal and am horrified by the truth behind the subterfuge of vested interests controlling elections and thus supreme court judges. (I never knew the US elected these!)
Sure it's fiction, but like David E Kelly's Boston Legal, truth is stranger than fiction.

 

[sinner]

Bah Obama fail.

Guys, I urge you to actually click the link and read the article in full (there is a document image, 5 updates and a video which I have not included, all worth a read and watch).

Very disturbing.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/10/obama/index.html

The 180-degree reversal of Obama's State Secrets position

From the Obama/Biden campaign website, mybarackobama.com, here was what the Obama campaign was saying -- back then -- about the State Secrets privilege:

Apparently, the operative word in that highlighted paragraph -- unbeknownst to most people at the time -- was "the Bush administration," since the Obama administration is now doing exactly that which, during the campaign, it defined as "The Problem," the only difference being that it is now Obama, and not Bush, doing it. For journalists who haven't bothered to learn the first thing about this issue even as they hold themselves out as experts on it, and for Obama followers eager to find an excuse to justify what was done, a brief review of the State Secrets privilege controversy is in order.

Nobody -- not the ACLU or anyone else -- argues that the State Secrets privilege is inherently invalid. Nobody contests that there is such a thing as a legitimate state secret. Nobody believes that Obama should declassify every last secret and never classify anything else ever again. Nor does anyone even assert that this particular lawsuit clearly involves no specific documents or portions of documents that might be legitimately subject to the privilege. Those are all transparent, moronic strawmen advanced by people who have no idea what they're talking about.

What was abusive and dangerous about the Bush administration's version of the States Secret privilege -- just as the Obama/Biden campaign pointed out -- was that it was used not (as originally intended) to argue that specific pieces of evidence or documents were secret and therefore shouldn't be allowed in a court case, but instead, to compel dismissal of entire lawsuits in advance based on the claim that any judicial adjudication of even the most illegal secret government programs would harm national security. That is the theory that caused the bulk of the controversy when used by the Bush DOJ -- because it shields entire government programs from any judicial scrutiny -- and it is that exact version of the privilege that the Obama DOJ yesterday expressly advocated (and, by implication, sought to preserve for all Presidents, including Obama).

Go read any critic of Bush's use of the State Secrets privilege and those are the objections you will find (.pdf). Kevin Drum last night explained it quite clearly:

By itself, this [the quantitative increase in the post-9/11 use of the privilege] is bad enough. But it's not the worst part of the Bush administration's use of the privilege.

Before 2001, the state secrets privilege was mostly used to object to specific pieces of evidence being introduced in court, something that nearly everyone agrees is at least occasionally necessary. But the Bush administration changed all that. In their typical expansive way, they decided to apply the privilege not just to individual pieces of evidence, but to get entire cases thrown out of court. What's more, they did this not merely when a state secret was incidental to some unrelated complaint, but when the government itself was the target of the suit.

Now Barack Obama is president, and unfortunately he's decided to continue the Bush administration's expansive reading of the privilege.

To underscore just what a complete reversal the Obama DOJ's conduct is, consider what Seante Democrats were saying for the last several years. In early 2008, Sens. Kennedy and Leahy, along with Sen. Arlen Specter, sponsored the State Secrets Protection Act. It had numerous co-sponsors, including Joe Biden. In April, 2008, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill, with all Committee Democrats voting for it, along with Specter. The scheme of restrictions imposed on the privilege by that bill was the consensus view of the pre-2009 Democratic Party.

The primary purpose of that bill is to bar the precise use of the State Secrets privilege which the Obama DOJ yesterday defended: namely, as a tool to force courts to dismiss entire lawsuits from the start without any proceedings being held, rather than as a focused instrument for protecting specific pieces of classified information from disclosure.

That bill explicitly provides that "the state secrets privilege shall not constitute grounds for dismissal of a case or claim" (Sec. 4053(b)). Instead, the President could only "invoke the state secrets privilege as a ground for withholding information or evidence in discovery or for preventing the introduction of evidence at trial" (Sec. 4054(a)), and must submit each allegedly privileged piece of evidence to the court for the court to determine whether each item is legitimately subject to the privilege (Sec. 4054(d-e). Where the court rules that a specific piece of evidence is privileged, it must attempt to find an evidentiary substitute (e.g., a summary of the evidence, a partially redacted copy, compelled admissions by the Government of certain allegations), and then -- only after all the evidence is gathered in discovery -- can the court dismiss the lawsuit only if it finds, in essence, that the plaintiffs cannot prove their case without reliance on the specific privileged information (Sec. 4055).

That has been the argument of Democrats for quite some time -- as well as civil libertarians such as Russ Feingold and the ACLU, both of whom endorsed that bill: that what was abusive and dangerous about Bush's use of the State Secrets privilege was the preemptive, generalized use of this privilege to force dismissal of entire lawsuits in advance, even where the supposed secret to be concealed was the allegedly criminal activity itself. And that is exactly the usage that the Obama administration is now defending.

It doesn't take much time or energy to understand why that instrument is so pernicious. It enables a Government to break the law -- repeatedly and deliberately -- and then block courts from subjecting its behavior to any judicial accountability, and prevent the public from learning about the lawbreaking, by claiming that its conduct generally is too secret to allow any judicial review. Put another way, it places Presidents and their aides beyond and above the rule of law, since it empowers them to break the law and then prevent their victims -- or anyone else -- from holding them accountable in a court of law. As Russ Feingold put it:

When the executive branch invokes the state secrets privilege to shut down lawsuits, hides its programs behind secret OLC opinions, over-classifies information to avoid public disclosure, and interprets the Freedom of Information Act as an information withholding statute, it shuts down all of the means to detect and respond to its abuses of the rule of law – whether those abuses involve torture, domestic spying, or the firing of U.S. Attorneys for partisan gain.

In defending the Obama administration's position (without beginning to understand it), The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder revealingly wrote -- on behalf of civil libertarians who he fantasizes have anointed him their spokesman:

It wouldn't be wise for a new administration to come in, take over a case from a prosecutor, and completely change a legal strategy in mid-course without a more thorough review of the national security implications. And, of course, the invocation itself isn't necessarily an issue; civil libertarians and others who voted for Obama did so with the belief that his judgment and his attorney general would be better stewards of that privilege than President Bush and his attorney generals (and vice president.)

We don't actually have a system of government (or at least we're not supposed to) where we rely on the magnanimity and inherent Goodness of specific leaders to exercise secret powers wisely. That, by definition, is how grateful subjects of benevolent tyrants think ("this power was bad in Bush's hands because he's bad, but it's OK in Obama's hands because he is good and kind"). Countries that are nations of laws rather than of men don't rely on blind faith in the good character of leaders to prevent abuse. They rely on what we call "law" and "accountability" and "checks and balances" to provide those safeguards -- exactly the type that Democrats, when it came to the States Secret privilege, long insisted upon before January 20, 2009.

Democrats have large majorities in both houses of Congress; they ought to use it to legislatively bar the power that the Obama DOJ is now attempting to vest in the new President by enacting the legislation they spent all of last year insisting they favored. Now that the Obama DOJ is seeking to acquire that power for its new President, the need for that law is more acute than ever.

 

[doctorj]

Martin Wolf: Has Obama already failed?

Has Barack Obama’s presidency already failed? In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it.

 

[Doris]

Martin Wolf: Has Obama already failed?

This has been the third week of the new administration!

Obama said yesterday, 'Standing still is the surest way of falling behind.'

Last night at the Lincoln Tribute banquet in Springfield, he said:

...it is precisely when we are in the deepest valley, when the climb is steepest, that Americans re-learn how to take the mountaintop... by taking new trails.

No Republicans voted for the $787bn 1000+ page bill but three were expected to back it in the Senate.
It'll take years for this package to turn the economy around - are they hoping it will fail for a 2012 gain?
Do they think the economy is too far gone and this gives them an 'out' if it fails?

Democrats said the bill would save middle-class Americans from going under and millions from losing their houses.

A little-noticed amendment to the stimulus package is for top bankers working for financial groups that have received government aid. The new pay rules cap bankers’ bonuses to just a third of their total compensation and force them to take it in stock.

Supporters and opponents of the package alike predicted full passage of the package - a blend of tax cuts, aid to the least well-off, and investment in infrastructure, education and energy - by President Obama’s February 16 deadline.

I had to laugh at Letterman early this week when he said Clinton wouldn't have had this problem with the stimulus package. 'When he needed his package stimulated he just called an intern.'

 

[Doris]

What is Obama up to as he starts his fourth week as president?

Tomorrow:

1. Obama will sign the Stimulus Package bill in Denver Colorado.
Why there?
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is powered by over 400 rooftop solar panels.
This template says 'This is what this package is about'.
Every Republican in Congress except three GOP senators opposed this plan.
If the economy begins to rebound, even slightly, Democrats will get the credit.

2. Deadline for GM and Chrysler to show their plans for profitability, reporting to a new presidential task force.

Thursday:

Obama will be in Phoenix to announce a plan to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, by re-working their loans.
Why there?
- to touch base with the rest of the country at least once a week in hopes of staying in touch with ordinary Americans.
- choosing a state hit hard by foreclosures. In January, more than 4,500 homes in Arizona were repossessed.

He’d push for a new law allowing judges to re-write the mortgage terms for homeowners who land in bankruptcy court:

- banks would accept lower payments from homeowners in return for an equity stake once housing prices recover.
- He will pledge $50 billion to $100 billion to help to reduce mortgage costs and renegotiate home loans.

Without such a law, people are being forced into "foreclosure who potentially would be better off, and the bank would be better off, and the community would be better off if they're at least making some payments, but they're not able to make all the payments necessary”.

Interestingly, this was a sub-prime solution David E Kelly wrote in an episode of his Boston Legal last season!

 

[darnsmall]

So true Julia

THIS was the content and point of that email.

Did you actually read it?
And my comments on his rallying the people to help him get their senator to think of their personal plights?

Below is part of the follow-up email that came today. If Obama can get people to understand what the package will do for them they can canvass their senator. The Republican ones - except the three who've voted for it already. 3/4 of Americans like Obama but only 1/2 believe his package. Possibly that half are just quoting the partisan Republicans??

Note: No-one is asked to contact their senator. But it is implied. Grass-roots in action.



Today at the first of two Townhall Style meetings (back on the campaign trail as Reagan had to do) one woman asked how people can trust the Obama administration when they chose people who hadn't paid their taxes.

Obama said: If people who had made mistakes were never appointed... you'd never lose your job.

I have a great rapport with most students as I see the whole picture. If there are dark storm clouds, these need addressing but I focus on what they do well/right and promote their silver lining. Note those guys resigned. They were not forced out despite their credentials to do the job. They left to support the new bench mark.

I'm reading John Grisham's The Appeal and am horrified by the truth behind the subterfuge of vested interests controlling elections and thus supreme court judges. (I never knew the US elected these!)
Sure it's fiction, but like David E Kelly's Boston Legal, truth is stranger than fiction.

Denny Crane for President!

 

[classer]

What is Obama up to as he starts his fourth week as president?

Tomorrow:

1. Obama will sign the Stimulus Package bill in Denver Colorado.
Why there?
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is powered by over 400 rooftop solar panels.
This template says 'This is what this package is about'.

So let me get this straight. The Man is flying a Jumbo Jet three quarters of the way across the country to sign a piece of paper to prove how much he cares about the environment?

Yes "This is what the package is about"

 

[investorpaul]

So let me get this straight. The Man is flying a Jumbo Jet three quarters of the way across the country to sign a piece of paper to prove how much he cares about the environment?

Yes "This is what the package is about"

I thought he liked email (via his blackberry). Its cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

 

[Aussiejeff]

BO has trumpeted categorically at the signing of his US$1Trillion+ rescue package

"This is the beginning of the end."

Hmmm. I think I know what he wishfully meant. But if the package fails???

I rather hope his *ominous* choice of words (given the current dire state of the world economy) doesn't come back to haunt him... and the rest of us

[size=-2]PS: I get nervous when pollies make categorical promises...[/size]

 

[prawn_86]

I saw that quote too

Perhaps this is the beginning of the end for Western civilisation

Or the beginning of the end for the USD

Or the beginning of the end of all jobs

So many possibilities...

 

[Calliope]

BO has trumpeted categorically at the signing of his US$1Trillion+ rescue package

"This is the beginning of the end."

Unfortunately he got that right. So where do we go from here? Obama created so many expectations that any rational person knew he couldn't deliver. His silver tongue and magical rhetoric has now descended to boring monotonous braying repeating the same warnings of doom over and over.

Afghanistan is a good example. Everyone knew there is no solution there. Ruddlike, he is going to have a "comprehensive review". But prior to that review he has committed a further 17,000 troops without the faintest idea idea of what they will do when they get there, or whether they can do anything at all.

But it is on the home front where he is really floundering. The American economy is well and truly screwed. One of the best indicators is new housing starts. This has now dropped 80% from its highs in 2006. And the once great motor industry is rooted, just like the once great American steel industry.

He has been forced to do what Rudd is doing and try to prop up the economy by borrowing massive amounts of money, and stooping to the level of trying to retain his popularity by using that borrowed money to bribe the poor.

Where does it stop. Obama doesn't have the answers. But neither does anybody else. In Eastern Europe the fallout from the US disaster is catastrophic. Countries like Poland and former Russian satellites can no longer bail out there own banks, which means they are virtually in a state of sovereign bankruptcy. And as for Japan :shake:

Sorry to sound so pessimistic. Doris is in constant communication with Obama. Maybe he has told her of a magic pudding that will help us to "pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again". I hope she can share it with us. Over to you Doris. I could do wth some cheering up.

 

[MrBurns]

I'm in contact with someone in the US who would back what you say they're **** scared over there that he will really stuff it up, well......... in fact they''re sure of it.

Stimulus packages dont work and only squander money and get votes, tax cuts is whats needed but the likes of Rudd will always go with the popular alternative.
So what do you do ? move up the bush ? there isnt any

 

[Julia]

Sorry to sound so pessimistic. Doris is in constant communication with Obama. Maybe he has told her of a magic pudding that will help us to "pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again". I hope she can share it with us. Over to you Doris. I could do wth some cheering up.

So could I. Just so depressing to see so much hopeless mismanagement.
And if the Rudd Stimulus Mark II doesn't have any effect, well then, I guess we'll just borrow some more and move on to Mark III.

Stimulus packages dont work and only squander money and get votes, tax cuts is whats needed but the likes of Rudd will always go with the popular alternative.

Yep, and it's working with the majority of the population so he'll just go right on doing it.

 

[electronicmaster]

Stand buy everyone.




Anyone think this will stop what is happening with market issues?

I'm still long in Gold and Silver

I think good news also happened before the great depression too.

 

[Calliope]

Anyone think this will stop what is happening with market issues

I wasn't so much interested in what he said. It still trips glibly off his tongue in front of the right audience.

I was more interested in the crazy, almost hysterical reception from the audience. These rusted on, starstruck followers apparently still think he is the messiah. Are they truly representative of the American Mid West? If so, I am very frightened indeed.

Again, over to you Doris, as our resident expert on all things Obama. At a rough guess you have made around 750 posts extolling his virtues. Are you aware of any shortcomings?

 

[prawn_86]

Stimulus packages dont work and only squander money and get votes, tax cuts is whats needed but the likes of Rudd will always go with the popular alternative.

Actually WayneL, and some economists, (and also my useless opinion) think that tax raises are whats needed.

If the US is ever going to get out of debt they need to rise taxes not cut them Same as here in Aus really

 

[ZzzzDad]

Obama's new Attorney General has really got the country buzzing. He says Americans are too cowardly to talk about race. No one can quite figure that one out. But, if a white person ever tries to talk about race, they are shouted down and called racists, etc.

This is a the most incredibly incompetent, clueless Administration since Jimmy Carter. We are in for a rough 4 years. Those Republicans that stood up against the "stimulus" monstrosity will be swept into power in the 2010 midterm Congressional and Senate races. Just like in 1994. There is a groundswell starting here about all this governement spending and handouts. Did anyone check out the Rick Santelli of CNBC video today? Check it out.


http://hotair.com/archives/2009/02/...go-traders-dump-on-obamas-mortgage-plan-clip/

I'm sure many of you have already seen it, but some of you may not have. This is the buzz of America today - and I can tell you, 80% of Americans are in agreement with Santelli's tirade.

Obama's luster is really wearing off FAST. He is an absolute disaster.

 

[Bushman]

This is a the most incredibly incompetent, clueless Administration since Jimmy Carter.

Let me guess - your hero is Ronald Regan.

NFI.

 

[ZzzzDad]

Let me guess - your hero is Ronald Regan.

NFI.

As a matter of fact - YES!

Three greatest Presidents in American history

Washington
Lincoln
Reagan

I believe you are the one with NFI.

 

[Doris]

So where do we go from here? Obama created so many expectations that any rational person knew he couldn't deliver.

Afghanistan is a good example. Everyone knew there is no solution there. Ruddlike, he is going to have a "comprehensive review". But prior to that review he has committed a further 17,000 troops without the faintest idea idea of what they will do when they get there, or whether they can do anything at all.

How do you know these new troops, added to 36,000 there, don't know what to do when they get there?

Have a look at this 'picture story': http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2006/afghanistan_yuri/ Press ENTER.

US commanders (who actually run the war) in Afghanistan asked for more troops months ago.
They have less than half the officers they need to train the Afghan army!

8000 marines from NC in their spring...
4000 army from WA in their summer.
... and 5000 army 'enablers' to give logistics support.

Obama's review of strategy cannot be done until these troops are there as any more will have to come from Iraq!

They somehow have to slow the Taliban insurgence and stabilize the situation before the August elections!

Kyrgyzstan wasn't happy with their measly US$17 million/year rent from the US for the Manas airbase they've used since 2001, so sold out today - when their parliament voted to accept Russia's US$2 billion bribe of 'aid'.
The US now has six months to exit their last air base in Central Asia. Russia is cheering!

If it becomes 'too hard' do you give up? In this case do you succumb to blackmail?
Or work out a solution... they can rail supplies through other countries. (and save $17 million a year)

Gates decided over a week ago that Manas was important but not irreplaceable... 75% of troops and supplies to Afghanistan go via Pakistan. The Pakistani government is not really helping in Swat! Will they up their demand for aid from the US when they don't cooperate (in return for current aid) now? Will The Bear extend its power lust and have designs on Pakistan too and try to destroy The Eagle?

A rational person knows the solutions to US (world) problems will not happen overnight! Obama is rational.
Have patience, patient.