Tag: Barack Obama (page 3)

Crossposted from Antemedius

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In 2010, American voters foolishly aided and abetted the Republicans by giving them control of Congress.

We now enter a very dangerous period in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.

If Obama is not re-elected, and people don't work towards returning workable majorities in the House and the Senate to the Democrats, then the country only continues its decline, and all will be lost.

It may be the end of a two century great social experiment unequaled in human history.

The New York Times reports President Obama will continue to push a path to the center for his re-election campaign.

When was he anything but centrist? Who but conservative Republicans trying to disparage him ever cast him as a liberal? Apparently, some Democrats are now becoming uneasy with Obama's centrism and compromising ways:

The question of where Mr. Obama’s bottom line is on Democratic priorities will be that much more urgent to his party as House Republicans, energized by their success in resetting the terms of the debate in Washington, press an aggressive conservative agenda in the coming months that includes deeper spending cuts and a fundamental reshaping of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Obama does not seem concerned: [More...]

The Obama 2012 campaign began today with the release of this video he sent out to supporters. The message: It's up to us.

One guy in the video says: "I don't agree with Obama on everything, but I respect him and I trust him."

My view: Go Obama. I'm not taking any chances that our Supreme Court justices, our Attorney General and our top prosecutors will be chosen by a Republican. And if Republicans continue to gain seats in Congress, we need a Democrat in the White House even more. He needs an early start to claim his ground. I'm just glad there are no primaries for the Dems this time to make us take our eye off the prize. And he's right: It's up to us.

President Barack Obama is addressing the nation in Tucson at the memorial service for the victims of the Arizona shootings. You can watch live here.

Among his comments:

"Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath," Obama said at a memorial service for the victims.

"The truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind," he said.

"We cannot use this time to turn on each other." [More...]

It now appears that in all likelihood republicans will win a congressional majority this coming Tuesday. Nate Silver's projections of Friday October 29...

...found Republicans gaining an average of 53 seats, which would bring them to 232 total. Democrats are given a 16 percent chance of holding the House, down slightly from 17 percent on Wednesday.

Increasingly, there seems to be something of a consensus among various forecasting methods around a projected Republican figure somewhere in the 50-60 seat range.

Several of the expert forecasters that FiveThirtyEight's model uses, like the Cook Political Report, the Rothenberg Political Report, and Larry Sabato, have stated that they expect the Republicans' overall total to fall roughly in this range. A straw poll of political insiders for Hotline on Call found an average expectation of a 50-seat gain. And some political science models have been forecasting gains somewhere in this range for some time.

The forecast also seems consistent with the average of generic ballot polling. Our model projects that Republicans will win the average Congressional district by between 3 and 4 points.

The modeling also suggests that there is a 90% chance that after Tuesday Democrats will control at least 50 seats in the Senate, but that there is a 0% chance that Democrats will control at least 60 seats.

It's not looking good by any stretch of the imagination.

The biggest mistake many make when trying to sell the Democrats is to call the prospects stupid, and tell them buying the product is the only way they can stop being stupid, apparently thinking the prospects will immediately reach for their wallets and say "where do I sign"?

Of course, that result only happens in salespeople's dreams - and is the reason 90 percent of people who go into sales never make any money at the job.

There is also a (real life) tried and true technique in sales and marketing that the democrats could try: the top sales producers in any industry constantly critique themselves and ask themselves "If I'm not getting the results I want to get, what am I doing to get the results I am getting?"

Instead of asking themselves what they are doing to produce the results they are getting (dropping support) - and they are producing those results whether they want to or not - Democrats and their supporters are taking the easy route of blaming the voters (their prospects) and treating the voters as if they are stupid.

On one side we have two brilliant strategists and great team leaders, and on the other side there's a telegenic spokes-model and a semi-senile dinosaur.

And unfortunately for all of us, the great leaders are competing for bragging rights about a kids' game, while the bozos are fumbling and bumbling and humbugging our world into oblivion.

The Lakers draft Kobe Bryant. McCain drafts Sarah Palin. Obama drafts Larry Summers.

Harharharhar!!!

McCain and Obama are idiots!

And since it's pointless to ask how we could convert American politics into something more like the NBA, with brilliant leaders instead of clowns in charge, because we all know that isn't going to happen...

We might as well ask how to convert the NBA into something more like American politics, and that would be simpler than you might imagine, because...

All we have to do is make sucking up to the fans the only qualification for coaching, with the proviso that none of the candidates has any kind of record as a coach, or even as a player.

"You/We are the ones we/you were waiting for!"

"I love your values!"

And if you subtracted sucking up to the fans from McCain and Obama, both those clowns would disappear, like smoke blown away from a mirror.

 

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich filed a motion (available here) to have a subpoena issued to President Obama to testify at his upcoming trial. The issue: The vacant Illinois Senate seat. From the motion:

President Barack Obama has direct knowledge of the Senate seat allegation. President Obama’s testimony is relevant to three fundamental issues of that allegation. First, President Obama contradicts the testimony of an important government witness. Second, President Obama’s testimony is relevant to the necessary element of intent of the defendant. Third, President Obama is the only one who can say if emissaries were sent on his behalf, who those emissaries were, and what, if anything, those emissaries were instructed to do on his behalf. All of these issues are relevant and necessary for the defense of Rod Blagojevich.

[More...]

From the Guardian...

The American-born son of former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor has been ordered to pay more than £14m in compensation to five people tortured during the West African country's civil war.

A judge in the US made the order a year after the same Miami court sentenced Charles McArthur Emmanuel Taylor, known as Chuckie, to 97 years in prison for his role in one of Africa's bloodiest chapters; he was the first person to be convicted by a federal court of committing offences outside the US.

The 32-year-old led the notorious Anti-Terrorist Unit, a band of pro-government paramilitaries nicknamed the Demon Forces who carried out murder and torture during his father's presidency from 1997 to 2003.

Witnesses at his criminal trial in 2008 spoke of hearing him laugh as prisoners were abused and how the Anti-Terrorist Unit "did things like beating people to death, burying them alive, rape - the most horrible kind of war crimes".

A spokesman for United States immigration and customs enforcement said that it was a "clear message the US would not be a safe haven for human rights violators."

The US isn't a safe haven for war-criminals?

B*llsh*t!

Remember these fine words from Barack Obama?

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.

And Eric Holder...

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.

The torture memos from Bybee and Yoo cover everybody else, and Bybee and Yoo aren't guilty either! It was just a "bad judgement!"

Abracadabra!

Everybody walks! Nobody goes to jail!

So forget about the "clear message the US would not be a safe haven for human rights violators."

The real message for the torturers of tomorrow is...

Get some wh*re of lawyer (like John Yoo) in your local DOJ to opine that whatever you do is legal, and then you can chop up your victims with no more fear of prosecution than if you were chopping onions.

I just received the transcript from NBC's Meet the Press today. Here's Valerie Jarrett on Scott Brown's Senate victory:

I think the question to be asked, and what we learned from the Massachusetts victory, is that people are sick and tired of Washington not delivering for them.

And so, the question is really will the Republican Party become-- be willing to come and work with us? A silver lining is Senator Brown said yes, he's looking forward to coming to Washington and working with the Democrats. And we're hoping that that provides new leadership within the party.

On yesterday's Osama bin Laden tape: [More...]

Matt Taibbi's new article in Rolling Stone castigating Obama for his choice of economic advisors and handling of the economy is creating a big buzz. Here's Digby and Kevin Drum. Taibbi ends his extremely long article with:

What's most troubling is that we don't know if Obama has changed, or if the influence of Wall Street is simply a fundamental and ineradicable element of our electoral system. What we do know is that Barack Obama pulled a bait-and-switch on us. If it were any other politician, we wouldn't be surprised. Maybe it's our fault, for thinking he was different.

I don't see why anyone is surprised that Obama is a moderate -- or not progressive on many issues the left cares about most. [More...]

From the Guardian...

Tension between gangs of teenagers in Chicago's schools that last year saw the killing of a record 42 young people has reached a peak in the city following the beating to death of a 16-year-old that was captured on camera.

Derrion Albert is seen being struck on the head by a boy in a purple shirt who hits him from behind with a long wooden board, thought to be a part of a railway sleeper. Albert falls to the ground, then stands up and is immediately punched in the face by another boy. He slumps to the ground a second time and stays down for more than a minute. Then he struggles onto his feet for a third time, at which point a separate boy strikes him again over the head with a wooden board before a fourth boy stomps on top of his head.

That time he stays down for good.