Politics Obama - Actually doing a good job?

Bodkin van Horn · Jun 23, 2013

A lot of rationalization going on in that article. Bush has been out of office for how many years?

The real story, which isn't actually all that surprising, is that Democrats tend to be fucking tools just Republicans.

redux · Jun 24, 2013

The real story is that Speaker Boehner has lost control of his Republican caucus and any chance of bi-partisan support on critical pending legislation for one reason and one reason only....the Tea Party.

He failed to get the Senate bi-partisan farm bill passed last week even with the drastic cuts in food stamps and overly generous subsidies to agri-business (not family farms) because the Tea Party types insisted on additional amendments that would adversely impact the poor even more.

And it is looking more and more like he wont be able to pass the bi-partisan immigration bill expected to come out of the Senate this week with as many as 70 votes. Once again, he is caught in the middle again between passing a bill that would have both Democrat and Republican support, but not a majority of Republicans and as a result, a revolt by the Tea Party types against the bill OR caving to the Tea Party types and letting the bill die and proposing a substitute that would only address border enforcement and ignore the issue of any pathway to citizenship for current undocumented workers and have no chance of passage.

All things considered, I would rather be bargaining from Obama's position than Boehner's with the Tea Party ready to stab him in the back if they dont get their way.

rogue49 · Jun 24, 2013

redux said: ↑

All things considered, I would rather be bargaining from Obama's position than Boehner's with the Tea Party ready to stab him in the back if they dont get their way.
Click to expand...

You know, it's a pretty sad day in DC where you say that a embarrassed and embattled President has more leverage
than a between a rock & a hard place Speaker of the House.

They've got to figure out how to get things moving again.

redux · Jul 1, 2013

rogue49 said: ↑

You know, it's a pretty sad day in DC where you say that a embarrassed and embattled President has more leverage
than a between a rock & a hard place Speaker of the House.

They've got to figure out how to get things moving again.
Click to expand...

In the case of immigration reform, Obama is doing the right thing by staying out of it and letting the Senate Democrats and handful of Republicans make the bill more attractive to wavering Republicans.

Even if it means nearly doubling the cost of the bill to get enough Republican votes (15+) by doubling the number of border patrol agents to 40,000 (21,000 in the original bill).

Do we really need one border agent for every 1,000 feet of US/Mexico border, along with triple the number of drones on the border? But that is the nature of compromise.

But still not enough for the Tea Party types.
--- merged: Jun 24, 2013 at 6:39 PM ---

Gang of eight member Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has previously spoken out against sending more agents to the border because of costs, said he thinks it is worth it to get Republicans on board.

"I don't know if it's totally well-spent," he told reporters. "I think that it's important that we do this to give people confidence that we have border security, so in that respect, I think it's well-spent."

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), another member of the gang of eight, told reporters the amendment could be considered "overkill," but that it would also make it harder for Republicans to continue to oppose the legislation based on security concerns.

"It becomes more and more difficult for Republican senators to argue that they're not getting enough force on the border," he said.

Immigration Reform Border Deal Reached
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A $22 billion original bill is now over $40 billion.

rogue49 · Jun 24, 2013

Now you know how the Roman Empire died...corruption and rot within.
Let's hope that our citizens get sick of the results from the Congress and vote in people who want to play...not players.

My fear is that Obama is getting himself in the same situation that Bush Sr. did...embattled so much, that they hide from the outside.
At least he's on his 2nd term...HWB didn't get his (and I liked him), no thanks to his own party.

Then again, this is just the 1st summer of the 2nd...so we've got a long way to go.
I wonder if anything can get done.

Frankly, if he's smart...he keeps executing on all the tracks that he can do without Congress' leeway or approval.
Because there is a group in there, that just wants to see things burn.

redux · Jun 25, 2013

Obama will roll out a climate change initiative tomorrow that will rely on executive orders rather than attempting to work with the do-nothing Congress.

On Tuesday, President Obama will use a speech at Georgetown University to announce new, sweeping executive orders addressing climate change that will be designed to appease critics who have attacked the President for talking the green talk and not walking the green walk. Obviously, the White House is also hoping tackling climate change will get them some decent press in the wake of that pesky surveillance scandal.

After signalling he was ready to act during a speech in Berlin last week, the White House released a video of the President teasing his plan to lay out new climate initiatives late Saturday. "This Tuesday, I'll lay out my vision for where I believe we need to go - a national plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare our country for the impacts of climate change and lead global efforts to fight it," he says. "There's no single step that can reverse the effects of climate change. But when it comes to the world we leave our children, we owe it to them to do what we can."

The President is expected to use his executive powers to adopt a wide array of climate change measures, but no one is 100% sure what those measures are just yet. Reuters reports the President will detail "a strategy to limit greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants" to cap U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. (Power plants account for more than 40 percent of domestic CO2 emissions.) The Washington Post reports the President will also announce new short-term goals...

What to Expect from the President's Big Climate Change Speech - Connor Simpson - The Atlantic Wire
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I dont expect much beyond the power plant emissions, but the backlash from the right will certainly create a storm worth watching.

redux · Jun 25, 2013

"Mama Grizzly" weights in on immigration bill:

Sarah Palin sure is having fun with her anti-immigration-reform crusade. Earlier this month, the politician-turned-pundit smacked Jeb Bush for ostensibly dissing the fertility of white women. Now, with the Senate poised to pass a hard-won compromise immigration bill, she has taken to Facebook to tee off on Sen. Marco Rubio and all the other elitist, amnesty-peddling “crony capitalists” plotting to screw over decent, hardworking Americans.

“Holes in the Border as Big as the Holes in Their Amnesty Bill” is the title of Palin’s long Sunday post, which radiates every bit of the self-righteous reverse snobbery and misleading hyperbole we have come to expect from politics’ folksiest demagogue.

“[T]his pandering, rewarding-the-rule-breakers, still-no-border-security, special-interests-ridden, 24-lb disaster of a bill is not supported by informed Americans,” Palin asserts of the Senate bill. Fear not! Mama Grizzly is here to enlighten the ignorant. She derides passages of the bill as “economic insanity” and warns of a coming deficit disaster driven by millions of amnesty-grabbing illegals gaining access to welfare benefits and other entitlements. Despite her fear and loathing of all things Washington, Palin goes so far as to cite the findings of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the legislation: “According to the CBO, the bill won’t stop illegal immigration, but it will drive down wages for average hardworking Americans. These would be the same blue-collar working class voters of every ethnicity who chose to sit home in 2012 instead of turning out to vote in the swing states we needed to carry in order to stop Barack Obama’s promised ‘fundamental transformation’ of America.”

Well, not exactly. Even setting aside Palin’s bizarre implication that Obama won reelection because an ethnic rainbow of pro-Romney working-class voters decided to sit this one out, the CBO’s scoring of S.744 was, in fact, largely positive. The agency forecasts that the bill would reduce average wages .1 percent in its first decade, but raise them .5 percent in its second. And even the initial dip, the agency stresses, does “not necessarily imply that current U.S. residents would be worse off, on average, under the legislation than they would be under current law.” Why? “As noted,” the CBO explains, “the additional people who would become residents under the legislation would earn lower wages, on average, than other residents, which would pull down the average wage and per capita GNP.” In other words, new immigrants would be the ones earning below the average wage. More broadly, and contradicting Palin’s prediction of economic apocalypse, the CBO estimates that the bill would both “boost economic output” and cut federal deficits by around $180 billion in the first decade and $700 billion in the next.

It’s hardly surprising to see Palin elbowing her way out front on this issue. Her forte has long been a kind of easy, content-free populism aimed squarely at the lizard brain of the GOP base. Whatever the Senate decides this week, Rubio et al. should anticipate more swipes from Palin—whose Facebook rallying cry urged concerned Americans to “Join the mama grizzlies who are rearing up tirelessly to swat away false claims that amnesty is a good thing”—at least up through next year’s midterm elections. “And 2014 is just around the corner,” she noted ominously in closing.

Palin Takes On ‘Amnesty Bill,’ Rallies Her Mama Grizzlies - The Daily Beast
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Only in the warped wingnut world of Mama Grizzly where facts dont matter does:

Doubling the number of border agents means "more holes in the border"

Reducing the debt by $180 billion with little impact on wages is "economic insanity"

Paying back taxes, learning English, moving to the back of the line and waiting up to 15-20 years for citizenship is "amnesty"

The war within the Republican Party is heating up and just begun!

Bodkin van Horn · Jun 25, 2013

I'm looking forward to Obama's climate change policies. If only because they're going to be 20 year old Republican ideas, he's going to get a ton of credit for them even though they won't really solve any of the actual problems and they will largely avoid disrupting the business of the large corporations that contributed to his campaigns (just predictin').

Baraka_Guru · Jun 25, 2013

Sarah Palin is awesome. That's some pretty sweet propaganda, though I'm sure it's mainly because she's so shucks-darn charming.

redux · Jul 2, 2013

Bodkin van Horn said: ↑

I'm looking forward to Obama's climate change policies. If only because they're going to be 20 year old Republican ideas, he's going to get a ton of credit for them even though they won't really solve any of the actual problems and they will largely avoid disrupting the business of the large corporations that contributed to his campaigns (just predictin').
Click to expand...

What 20 year old Republican ideas might they be? Lukewarm support by Reagan/GHW Bush for market based cap and trade not likely to be included in the proposal. Higher fuel efficiency standards that Obama has already raised for the first time in years, despite the opposition from Congressional Republicans?

Certainly not GW Bush attempt to gut the Clean Air Act greenhouse gas emission regulatory standards that was shot down by the US Supreme Court.

I agree the plan wont be much, but certainly more than any recent Republican proposal and anything that the Republican House would even consider today.
--- merged: Jun 25, 2013 at 11:17 AM ---

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

Sarah Palin is awesome. That's some pretty sweet propaganda, though I'm sure it's mainly because she's so shucks-darn charming.
Click to expand...

She's super!

Embodying truth ( ) , justice and the American way to stop those darn "elitist, amnesty-peddling crony capitalists plotting to screw over decent, hardworking Americans."

Baraka_Guru · Jun 25, 2013

redux said: ↑

What 20 year old Republican ideas might they be? Lukewarm support by Reagan/GHW Bush for market based cap and trade not likely to be included in the proposal. Higher fuel efficiency standards that Obama has already raised for the first time in years, despite the opposition from Congressional Republicans?

Certainly not GW Bush attempt to gut the Clean Air Act greenhouse gas emission regulatory standards that was shot down by the US Supreme Court.

I agree the plan wont be much, but certainly more than any recent Republican proposal and anything that the Republican House would even consider today.
Click to expand...

What? Meeting one of the world's most pressing intergenerational challenges with ineffectual half-measures?

That's better than muzzling scientists, pulling out of Kyoto, replacing Kyoto with a plan criticized by both Al Gore and David Suzuki, lax environmental regulations in Alberta's tar sands, and the continued environmental threats from the Keystone Pipeline.

Either way, North America has a terrible record. A combination of negligence, half-measures, and active stonewalling will only force us to reap what we sow.

Bodkin van Horn · Jun 25, 2013

Obama is as progressive as a 90's Republican.

Baraka_Guru · Jun 25, 2013

Bodkin van Horn said: ↑

Obama is as progressive as a 90's Republican.
Click to expand...

He's my favourite centrist. This is mainly because he maintains the status quo rather than do serious damage like his Republican predecessors. Yes, there are exceptions, but I'll take what I can get.

America's "real" progressives are entertainers.

And Bernie Sanders.

redux · Jun 25, 2013

Bodkin van Horn said: ↑

Obama is as progressive as a 90's Republican.
Click to expand...

Domestically, more like 70's Nixon/Ford Republicans and even bits of Reagan/GHW Bush 80's Republicans.

But 90's Newt Gingrich "Contract with America" leading to GW Bush Republicans - not so much.

Bodkin van Horn · Jun 25, 2013

Obviously, no one can come close to matching the splendor and spectacle of Newt Gingrich.

Plan9 · Jun 25, 2013

Bodkin van Horn said: ↑

Obviously, no one can come close to matching the splendor and spectacle of Newt Gingrich.
Click to expand...

I know, right? The man has gone his entire career sporting the fluffy haircut of the LIFE cereal kid, Mikey.

rogue49 · Jul 9, 2013

While it would be a nice idea to totally remove US troops from the area (with financial benefits too, no more war costs, no more bribes)
I don't know if it would be the best...and allow a whole series of unintended consequences.
Including the Taliban retaking the area and totally unstablizing it. (and Pakistan along with it...and their nukes)

What do you do when being forced to deal with a corrupt insane leadership?
Threaten to make them glass if anything happens???

No good answers here.
I wouldn't want to be in Obama's shoes...

U.S. Considers Faster Pullout in Afghanistan
By MARK MAZZETTI and MATTHEW ROSENBERG - July 8, 2013

WASHINGTON — Increasingly frustrated by his dealings with President Hamid Karzai, President Obama is giving serious consideration to speeding up the withdrawal of United States forces from Afghanistan and to a “zero option” that would leave no American troops there after next year, according to American and European officials.

Mr. Obama is committed to ending America’s military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and Obama administration officials have been negotiating with Afghan officials about leaving a small “residual force” behind. But his relationship with Mr. Karzai has been slowly unraveling, and reached a new low after an effort last month by the United States to begin peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar.

Mr. Karzai promptly repudiated the talks and ended negotiations with the United States over the long-term security deal that is needed to keep American forces in Afghanistan after 2014.

A videoconference between Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai designed to defuse the tensions ended badly, according to both American and Afghan officials with knowledge of it. Mr. Karzai, according to those sources, accused the United States of trying to negotiate a separate peace with both the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan, leaving Afghanistan’s fragile government exposed to its enemies.

Mr. Karzai had made similar accusations in the past. But those comments were delivered to Afghans — not to Mr. Obama, who responded by pointing out the American lives that have been lost propping up Mr. Karzai’s government, the officials said.

The option of leaving no troops in Afghanistan after 2014 was gaining momentum before the June 27 video conference, according to the officials. But since then, the idea of a complete military exit similar to the American military pullout from Iraq has gone from being considered the worst-case scenario — and a useful negotiating tool with Mr. Karzai — to an alternative under serious consideration in Washington and Kabul.

The officials cautioned that no decisions had been made on the pace of the pullout and exactly how many American troops to leave behind in Afghanistan. The goal remains negotiating a long-term security deal, they said, but the hardening of negotiating stances on both sides could result in a repeat of what happened in Iraq, where a deal failed to materialize despite widespread expectations that a compromise would be reached and American forces would remain.

“There’s always been a zero option, but it was not seen as the main option,” said a senior Western official in Kabul. “It is now becoming one of them, and if you listen to some people in Washington, it is maybe now being seen as a realistic path.”

The official, however, said he hoped some in the Karzai government were beginning to understand that the zero option was now a distinct possibility, and that “they’re learning now, not later, when it’s going to be too late.”

The Obama administration’s internal deliberations about the future of the Afghan war were described by officials in Washington and Kabul who hold a range of views on how quickly the United States should leave Afghanistan and how many troops it should leave behind. Spokesmen for the White House and Pentagon declined to comment.

Within the Obama administration, the way the United States extricates itself from Afghanistan has been a source of tension between civilian and military officials since Mr. Obama took office. American commanders in Afghanistan have generally pushed to keep as many American troops in the country as long as possible, creating friction with White House officials urging a speedier military withdrawal.

But with frustrations mounting over the glacial pace of initiating peace talks with the Taliban, and with American relations with the Karzai government continuing to deteriorate, it is unclear whether the Pentagon and American commanders in Afghanistan would vigorously resist if the White House pushed for a full-scale pullout months ahead of schedule.

As it stands, the number of American troops in Afghanistan — around 63,000 — is scheduled to go down to 34,000 by February 2014. The White House has said the vast majority of troops would be out of Afghanistan by the end of that year, although it now appears that the schedule could accelerate to bring the bulk of the troops — if not all of them — home by next summer, as the annual fighting season winds down.

Talks between the United States and Afghanistan over a long-term security deal have faltered in recent months over the Afghan government’s insistence that the United States guarantee Afghanistan’s security and, in essence, commit to declaring Pakistan the main obstacle in the fight against militancy in the region.

The guarantees sought by Afghanistan, if implemented, could possibly compel the United States to attack Taliban havens in Pakistan long after 2014, when the Obama administration has said it hoped to dial back the C.I.A.’s covert drone war there.

Mr. Karzai also wants the Obama administration to specify the number of troops it would leave in Afghanistan after 2014 and make a multiyear financial commitment to the Afghan Army and the police.

The White House announced last month that long-delayed talks with the Taliban would begin in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban opened what amounts to an embassy-in-exile, complete with their old flag and a plaque with their official name, “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”

But the highly choreographed announcement backfired, with Afghan officials saying the talks gave the insurgents undeserved legitimacy and accusing the Obama administration of negotiating behind Mr. Karzai’s back.

To the surprise of American officials, Mr. Karzai then abruptly ended the negotiations over a long-term security deal. He has said the negotiations would not resume until the Taliban met directly with representatives of the Afghan government, essentially linking the security negotiations to a faltering peace process and making the United States responsible for persuading the Taliban to talk to the Afghan government.

The Taliban have refused for years to meet directly with Afghan government negotiators, deriding Mr. Karzai and his ministers as American puppets.

There have been other points of contention as well. Meeting with foreign ambassadors recently, Mr. Karzai openly mused that the West was to blame for the rise of radical Islam. It was not a message that many of the envoys, whose countries have lost thousands of people in Afghanistan and spent billions of dollars fighting the Taliban, welcomed.

The troop decisions are also being made against a backdrop of growing political uncertainty in Afghanistan and rising concerns that the country’s presidential election could either be delayed for months or longer, or be so flawed that many Afghans would not accept its results.

Preparations for the election, scheduled for next April, are already falling behind. United Nations officials have begun to say the elections probably cannot be held until next summer, at the earliest. If the voting does not occur before Afghanistan’s mountain passes are closed by snow in late fall, it will be extremely difficult to hold a vote until 2015.

Of potentially bigger concern are the rumors that Mr. Karzai, in his second term and barred from serving a third, is trying to find a way to stay in power. Mr. Karzai has repeatedly insisted that he plans to step down next year.

The ripple effects of a complete American withdrawal would be significant. Western officials said the Germans and Italians — the two main European allies who have committed to staying on with substantial forces — would leave as well. Any smaller nations that envisioned keeping token forces would most likely have no way of doing so.

And Afghanistan would probably see far less than the roughly $8 billion in annual military and civilian aid it is expecting in the coming years — an amount that covers more than half the government’s annual spending.

Mark Mazzetti reported from Washington, and Matthew Rosenberg from Kabul, Afghanistan. Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.
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rogue49 · Jul 12, 2013

So Obama somehow survived the troika slam of Benghazi, IRS and NSA
Damn, he's slick.
That or he's damn lucky and/or patience and/or has completely inept opponents. (All the above??)

Why do I get the feeling I'm watching an episode of the Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote?

And the economy just keeps getting better, making the GOP bite its toe-nails.

Or is it Bugs Bunny vs. Elmer Fudd??

Good job yet???

U.S. Posts Widest Budget Surplus Since ’08 on Weaker Outlays
By Meera Louis - Jul 11, 2013

The U.S. government posted the widest monthly budget surplus in more than five years in June, as spending plunged 47 percent and a stronger economy lifted tax receipts, the Treasury Department said.

Receipts exceeded outlays by $116.5 billion last month, the biggest surplus since April 2008, compared with a $59.7 billion deficit in June 2012, the Treasury said today in Washington. The result exceeded the $115 billion median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 21 economists.

The Obama administration projects the federal budget deficit will shrink to $759 billion in the year ending Sept. 30, the smallest gap in five years as a stronger economy bolsters revenue. Increased tax collections and rising payments to the Treasury from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as housing improves are taking the pressure off of Congress and the White House to achieve an agreement on dealing with spending, deficits or automatic budget cuts.

“Tax receipts are continuing to improve” and that will “persist throughout the rest of the year because the economy is doing better,” said Thomas Simons, a government-debt economist in New York at Jefferies LLC, which predicted a $116 billion surplus for last month.

Today’s report showed revenue rose 10.2 percent in June to $286.6 billion from the same month a year earlier. Spending totaled $170.1 billion compared with $319.9 billion a year earlier, it showed.
Fiscal Year

For the first nine months of the 2013 financial year that began Oct. 1, the nation’s deficit narrowed to $509.8 billion compared with a $904.2 billion shortfall over the same period from a year before.

The U.S.’s AA+ credit-rating outlook was increased last month to stable from negative by Standard & Poor’s based on receding fiscal risks, less than two years after the company stripped the world’s largest economy of its top ranking.

American employers added 195,000 workers for a second month in June, according to a Labor Department report last week. The jobless rate, at 7.6 percent last month, was down from 8.2 percent a year earlier.

The Congressional Budget Office said July 9 that net corporate income taxes were higher by $29 billion, or 17 percent, “probably reflecting growth in taxable profits in both calendar years 2012 and 2013.”

The brighter outlook may help postpone a deadline this year for raising the government’s debt ceiling, and may ease demands from some lawmakers for tough budget cuts. While government spending cuts known as sequestration have helped narrow the deficit, it has also restrained growth.
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ASU2003 · Jul 12, 2013

Add to that the stock market is back up in record territory, 401(k)'s make sense again, and housing prices are healthy again without the flippers...but taxes went up 2%.

Charlatan · Jul 13, 2013

Taxes can afford to go up 2%... They should be higher given the spending the previous administration did.

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Politics Obama - Actually doing a good job?

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