Yep, Obama talking on his feet, sans teleprompter.
You know what? The Republicans are never, never, ever going to put themselves in this position again.
If only he could do as well as he talks.
[quote=“MikeN”]Yep, Obama talking on his feet, sans teleprompter.
You know what? The Republicans are never, never, ever going to put themselves in this position again.
If only he could do as well as he talks.[/quote]
LOL…say what?.. :roflmao:
Barry brings a teleprompter to a school room…he brings a teleprompter to talk with 20 people in a closed room.
The guy is hopeless.
I guess TC is one of those guys who would rather America loses as long as the Republicans win.
[quote=“BigJohn”]I guess TC is one of those guys who would rather America loses as long as the Republicans win.[/quote]Obviously written by someone with no recollection of the Carter years.
"“A recent independent watchdog group took a look and said this has been the most transparent government, the most transparent administration that we have seen in a very, very long time. Perhaps in the modern era.”
[color=#FF0000]Obama: This Is The Most Transparent Government In Modern Era[/color]…<- a clickable link to an Obama video.
Who ya gonna believe?
“Big John” opines:
“I guess TC is one of those guys who would rather America loses as long as the Republicans win.”
Bold move there…(better to be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt and all that)…LOL… :roflmao:
Sorry, I don’t get your meaning. Can you restate it?
“Big John” opines:
“I guess TC is one of those guys who would rather America loses as long as the Republicans win.”
Bold move there…(better to be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt and all that)…LOL… :roflmao:[/quote]
Ummm…that quote applies better to you actually, what with your “October Surprise” , “Liberalism is dead” threads, and your soulful ruminations on Rush Limbaugh. You are closer to being a raving gobshitte than I, my friend. But be not offended, for I say this in the spirit of Forumosan liberalism! 
A lot of people have been talking about this article.
America: A fearsome foursome
It is a pretty fair critique of how the president has failed to make the transition from campaigner to administrator. It’s only one year, so I hope he can get things fixed.
Here’s another link if the one above doesn’t work. businessspectator.com.au/bs. … nt&src=sph
I would not write off Obama yet.
First, a lot of heat for health care reform. Would we have preferred a president who pretended that this was not a problem? one who did not learn the lessons from Hillarycare 15 years previous? Perhaps, his only fault here is fighting the last war.
Second, the deficits were already large under Bush. If Obama can bring the deficit back down to 5% instead of 12% then I think that much of the fear and opposition will melt. Certainly, there will be very few Congresspeople who can make political hay out of fighting deficits when they were in office under the free spending Bush administration.
Third, jobs are going to be key. It is a very visible symbol of a nation’s strength to most people. Obama may have to switch from his (seeming) preference for government action and trust the private sector to do the work.
One year… lots of difficulties… let’s give this a bit more time… I trust that like all politicians, Obama will learn. He certainly has a very capable team. Let’s not underestimate the size and extent of these very serious crises. These problems would have remained had Bush stayed on as president or had McCain won…
I counsel patience and a renewed look at bringing the deficits down if possible.
Some things have worked. Why were they stopped? What was the reasoning behind their halt?
Who stands to gain from the halting?
[quote]‘Courting Disaster’ by Marc Thiessen: ‘Sheikh Osama warned you’
Today, if you asked an average person on the street what they know about the 2006 airlines plot, most would not be able to tell you much. If pressed, they might vaguely recall it has something to do with why they can no longer bring more than 3 ounces of liquid in their carry-on luggage. But few Americans are aware of the fact that al Qaeda had planned to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11 with an attack of similar scope and magnitude.
And still fewer realize that the terrorists’ true intentions in this plot were uncovered thanks to critical information obtained through the interrogation of the man who conceived it: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
This is only one of the many attacks stopped with the help of the CIA interrogation program established by the Bush Administration in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the arrest of an al Qaeda terrorist named Jose Padilla, who was sent to America on a mission to blow up high-rise apartment buildings in the United States.
Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of a cell of Southeast Asian terrorists which had been tasked by KSM to hijack a passenger jet and fly it into the Library Tower in Los Angeles.
Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, KSM’s right-hand-man in the 9/11 attacks, just as he was finalizing plans for a plot to hijack airplanes in Europe and fly them into Heathrow airport and buildings in downtown London.
Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the capture of Ammar al-Baluchi and Walid bin Attash, just as they were completing plans to replicate the destruction of our embassies in East Africa by blowing up the U.S. consulate and Western residences in Karachi, Pakistan.
Information from detainees in CIA custody led to the disruption of an al Qaeda plot to blow up the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, in an attack that could have rivaled the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut.
Information from detainees in CIA custody helped break up an al Qaeda cell that was developing anthrax for terrorist attacks inside the United States.
In addition to helping break up these specific terrorist cells and plots, CIA questioning provided our intelligence community with an unparalleled body of information about al Qaeda—giving U.S. officials a picture of the terrorist organization as seen from the inside, at a time when we knew almost nothing about the enemy who had attacked us on 9/11.
Until the program was temporarily suspended in 2006, intelligence officials say, well over half of the information our government had about al Qaeda—how it operates, how it moves money, how it communicates, how it recruits operatives, how it picks targets, how it plans and carries out attacks—came from the interrogation of terrorists in CIA custody.
Consider that for a moment: without this capability, more than half of what we knew about the enemy would have disappeared.
Former CIA Director George Tenet has declared: “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than what the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”
Former CIA Director Mike Hayden has said: “The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work.”
Former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has said: “[T]his is a very, very important capability to have. This has been one of the most valuable, if not the most valuable … human intelligence program with respect to al Qaeda. It has given us invaluable information that has saved American lives. So it is very, very important that we have this kind of capability.”
Former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has said: “We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened.”
Even Barack Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, has acknowledged: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.”
Leon Panetta, Obama’s CIA Director, has said: “Important information was gathered from these detainees. It provided information that was acted upon.”
And John Brennan, Obama’s Homeland Security Advisor, when asked in an interview if enhanced interrogation techniques were necessary to keep America safe, replied: “Would the U.S. be handicapped if the CIA was not, in fact, able to carry out these types of detention and debriefing activities? I would say yes.”
Indeed, the official assessment of our intelligence community is that, were it not for the CIA interrogation program, “al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland.”
And in his first forty-eight hours in office, President Barack Obama shut the program down.
[/quote]
And we have 3 more years of this.
Oh, major ditto. So glad I can watch my president speak without wincing and feeling embarrassed for him.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Barry…The guy is hopeless.[/quote]Barry is Obama? Hopeless?
[quote=“George W. Bush said, not”]“Do you have blacks, too?” --to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001
“This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating.” --as quoted by the New York Daily News, April 23, 2002
“Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.” --in parting words to world leaders at his final G-8 Summit, punching the air and grinning widely as those present looked on in shock, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008[/quote]
And so far people don’t seem to want to throw shoes at him.
[quote=“George W. Bush said, not”]“The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.” --Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2001
[color=red]…and after Pipelineistan was successfully accused, pronounced guilty without proof, aggressively invaded, devastated, overthrown and occupied…[/color]
“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.” --Washington, D.C., March 13, 2002
“You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” --in an interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006
“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office.” --Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008[/quote]
Maybe its like a rebound relationship… being so hurt having been violated by an undeserving, unappreciative, uncouth, oppressively ignorant and wildly dangerous buffoon, Obama has absolutely brought sweet fresh air to presidential podiums.
His continued military and torture protection policies miff me the most, but his term is only 25% done.
Oh and…[quote]TainanCowboy, may I ask…
Would you hope people agree with the krauthammer that Bush ‘should’ (and eventually ‘will’) be remembered as an American hero?
Do you agree with the krauthammer that America has a moral duty to torture?[/quote]
Looking back at 2009…we see some “results” of Barrys’ effort at reform.
(you didn’t really believe that lie…did you?)
[quote]Lobbying hit record $3.5 billion in 2009
WASHINGTON – What recession?
Health care and business interests led the way as clients spent a record $3.5 billion on lobbying last year, prompted by Obama administration drives to reshape federal policy for the medical, financial and energy industries.
Amid a stagnant national economy and the worst unemployment in nearly three decades, lobbying expenditures grew by 5 percent from the $3.3 billion spent in 2008, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The growth also came despite efforts by President Barack Obama to curb lobbyists’ influence.
The figures underline the vast and growing sums that industries, unions and ideological groups are spending to shape laws and regulations. Put another way, the $3.5 billion is about half what the government expects to spend this year on the entire federal court system.
Makers of pharmaceuticals and health products spent $267 million lobbying, the most ever recorded by a single industry in a year. Business associations spent the second highest total, $183 million.
Among individual groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was easily the biggest spender at $145 million. Exxon Mobil Corp. was a distant second at $27 million.
Highlighting how lobbying expenditures have grown in recent years, such spending totaled $1.4 billion in 1998, the first year for which the center has comparable figures.[/quote]
Combine this with the dramatic increase in Federal employment and layoffs in the private sector.
Hows that “hope&change” thang workin…?