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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sdgla who wrote (95924)	7/1/2011 11:45:06 PM
From: koan	Respond to of 149317

The fact you cannot see how dangerous the right wing is to our democracy takes precedent over anything else you say. The simple fact, is that the very rich and corporations are taking over this country. Now either you don't care, or you are unable to see it, but either way your politics are very dangerous to our democracy. Taxes on the rich are the lowest in at least 60 years and income inequality is the worst since 1928. Money equals power. The powerful corporations spend billions lobbying our congress and writing their tax cuts. The 400 richest families have more wealth than the bottom 150 million! Neo cons engineered that. Capiche?

To: Sdgla who wrote (95924)	7/2/2011 2:54:29 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

I don't know who the author of this is or what are the credentials of the publication. What is perplexing is that you are claiming this as fact when the writer says he voted for Obama. Anyone can claim that, is it not? So how can this be a fact. Further more, I presume that you will post from MSM publications only. I refuse to allow myself to be a slave of someone's else's thoughts. I reach my own decisions based on what I see and my ability to discern truth from falsehood. I can definitely say that "this country is better off today than it was when Bush was leaving office where the greatest terrorist this world has known still at large, the downward spiral of the nation's banking system and industries that this country has been known for such as auto and high tech on a ruinous path etc. Worst of all, when Bush was leaving office, the US was at the rock bottom of world opinion and subject to the scorn from nations reminiscent of Germany before the outbreak of WWII. So let's continue to talk some sense and facts on this thread and cease and desist from the use of terms like "you", "I" etc. since it borders on personal attacks. Thank you.

To: Sdgla who wrote (95924)	7/2/2011 4:07:03 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 149317

I was in Washington D.C. for a conference at the Marine Corps University in the fall of 2009 with a number of high-ranking military officers and policy experts from around the world. The sense of frustration with the lack of leadership from the White House was palpable in the room and the unanimous opinion was that the kind of public back-and-forth coming from the administration was unhelpful on ground in Afghanistan. This author, and apparently you, want to rely on the military who have made more mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan than Carter's has pills. Seriously? BTW the president is the Commander in Chief.....not any general. His word is the final say. That's how this republic rolls. The final outcome of Obama’s Hamlet-esque dithering on Afghanistan was a bloody disaster. Obama’s decision to “split the difference” by sending more troops to Afghanistan while declaring to both the Taliban and our “frenemies” in the region (Iran and Pakistan) that we were leaving in July 2011 was too cute by half. To make matters worse, Obama followed up with more public dithering on the withdrawal date, now apparently set for sometime in 2014. Obama's notice that we were leaving this summer was done with the intent of getting both the US military and Karzai to get their acts together real quick. Both parties have dilly dallied for far too long. How long have we been in Afghanistan? Ten long years! What do we have to show for all that loss of American lives and money? Very little. This author's siding with the military stinks. You citing his article as a reasonable voice is out of line.

To: Sdgla who wrote (95924)	7/2/2011 5:01:10 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 149317

It’s Reagan’s party no more It should cause no shortage of frustration for congressional Republicans that President Obama is in line with the Reagan legacy — and they’re actively rejecting it. Politico’s David Rogers had a fine piece of reporting touching on this point yesterday. With the nation at risk of default next month, the Republicans’ fierce anti-tax orthodoxy is running square into the Ghost of the Gipper — the GOP’s great modern, pre-tea party hero, Ronald Reagan. Indeed, a POLITICO review of Reagan’s own budget documents shows that the Republican president repeatedly signed deficit-reduction legislation in the 1980’s that melded annual tax increases with spending cuts just as President Barack Obama is now asking Congress to consider. Rogers’ analysis found that the tax increases Reagan agreed to, as part of negotiations with a Democratic Congress — increases that included raising the gasoline tax and payroll taxes — are actually bigger than anything the Obama White House is proposing now. (On taxes, this puts Reagan slightly to Obama’s left.) For that matter, it’s also worth noting that the conservative Republicans of the 1980s were absolutely certain that Reagan’s policy would destroy the economy, and as part of the right’s unyielding track record of failure, they were wrong. The larger point, though, is that when the 40th president sat down with lawmakers to work on debt reduction, he accepted as a given that the agreement would include a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. The debate would be over the ratio. Indeed, it’s one of the reasons Reagan ended up raising taxes in seven out of the eight years he was in office. (Remember, “no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people” as Reagan.) What’s more, Reagan’s views on the debt ceiling weren’t exactly vague. In a November 1983 letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tenn.), Reagan warned that without a higher debt ceiling, the country could be forced to default for the first time in its history. Reagan wrote: “The full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar.” This really shouldn’t matter. Republicans should simply realize that raising the debt ceiling is the sane thing to do and act accordingly. But given Republicans’ religious reverence for “Ronaldus Magnus,” it’s worth appreciating the extent to which today’s GOP is deliberately turning its back on the Reagan legacy. Mike Huckabee recently said, “Ronald Reagan would have a very difficult, if not impossible, time being nominated in this atmosphere of the Republican Party.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had a nearly identical take last year, arguing Reagan “would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today.” I agree, but what does that tell contemporary GOP officials? What should Republicans take away from the fact that, by 2011 standards, their party would dismiss their demigod as a tax-raising, amnesty-loving, pro-bailout, cut-and-run, big-government Democrat? Or more to the point, doesn’t it bother Republicans, just a little, that Barack Obama is more in line with the Reagan legacy than they are?