ObamaYES!

[oladub]

Here is a link to the President’s State of the Union speech:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71920.html

The President’s speech was an interesting combination of Amerika über alles, as usually found in Republican speeches, intertwined with Tinkerbelle’s magic wand spewing bright sparks of new government spending programs. Disingenuous notes were rampant and expected. Crony capitalism was trending. Constitutional considerations weren’t. The blather was insufferable.

Still, there were some mentions and ideas I liked .

1. Bin Laden is dead. I think. Good.
2. Tweaking the tax code to bring back jobs is a step toward raising tariffs to accomplish the same goal.
3. Definitely stop our government from providing any help to moving jobs abroad. That’s a no brainer.
4. Making other countries play by the rules of trade.
5. Developing our natural gas fields.
6. Getting rid of regulations that thwart new business start-ups.
7. Restoring Clinton tax levels on the rich.
8. Bringing the troops home from Afghanistan that he put in there.
9. Helping vets adjust to civilian life.

[rb336]

intertwined with Tinkerbelle’s magic wand spewing bright sparks of new government spending programs. Disingenuous notes were rampant and expected. Crony capitalism was trending. Constitutional considerations weren’t.

examples of these, please.

[oladub]

examples of these, please.

They should be obvious and I don't want to write a book so I will limit myself to three items in each category.

Disingenuousness:
1a) Taking credit for getting the troops out of Iraq. In 2008, the Iraqi parliament had ordered us troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Obama kept them in until a month before the deadline after trying to keep them in longer through negotiations. 1b) Campaigning in 2008, Obama had promised to end the war immediately if he became president. He didn't and hundreds of young Americans died in Iraq in the interim.
2a) There was a lot of verbiage in his speech about bringing jobs back home. Going back to his 2008 campaign, he promised to address NAFTA. He didn't. Instead, he set up at least three new free trade agreements including one with S. Korea putting US auto workers, and other US union workers, in direct competition with Korean pay scales. Let's see how that works out. Probably like NAFTA. 2b) Need I mention Chinese job czar Immelt and GE Medical which transferred the headquarters of it's 155 year old X-ray division to China?
3a) All the talk about making rich people pay their share after Obama had extended Bush's tax cuts of the rich and 3b) acting like he was going to get tough with bankers after he voted for Bush's Wall Street bailout, transferred worthless assets from mega-banks to US taxpayers on Christmas Eve, 2009 and crammed his administration with Goldman Sachs personnel after GS donated almost $1M to his campaign.

"Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth":
1) The Crony capitalism arrangement between the federal government and GM and Chrysler. That was the second time the federal government has bailed out Chrysler. Leaner competitors were discouraged by federal deep pockets bailing out dinosaurs. If leaner suggests foreign, Chrysler is now Italian owned anyway. I had so wanted him to mention Solyndra.
2) A scheme to save mortgage holders $3,000 a year which is in large part another bankers' bailout. Banks will be charged with a fee but let me guess will the banks cut profits and executive bonuses or reduce savers interest to pay for this program?
3) More tax breaks for corporations. Republicans will probably offer bi-partisan support on that one.

Constitutional considerations:
1) Blatant disregard for 10th Amendment limitations [[ I know, I know, your DNC copy fo the Constitution edited out the 10th because there was no space to include it because 'the general welfare clause' and 'commerce clause' were in such big font) regarding the powers of the federal government. Many of the new federal government spending programs proposed could instead be carried out by states if they so chose to. There must have been ten new spending programs mentioned.
2) One of Obama's little dictator moments came last night was when he mentioned, "With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow." I think this is a reference to similar recent declaration and actions in which he uses executive orders to both legislate and spend money.
3) Bragging about taking out Khadafi, and bombing Libya by extension, without a Congressionally declared war, paying any attention to the war powers act, or otherwise consulting Congress. Did I mention having dictator moments?

__________________________________________________ __________

Gannon, Did you catch the mention of some sort of new cyber war fighting bill the President said he had passed on to Congress. What bill was he referring to? Right now there are SOPA/PIPA, ACTA, and 1981 floating around in various states. Was he referring to one of those bills or something else?

[Gannon]

Gannon, Did you catch the mention of some sort of new cyber war fighting bill the President said he had passed on to Congress. What bill was he referring to? Right now there are SOPA/PIPA, ACTA, and 1981 floating around in various states. Was he referring to one of those bills or something else?

I've heard ACTA is worse than SOPA/PIPA, but haven't studied it yet. I've heard of nothing else, but he seemed gung-ho on introducing new initiatives.

Thanks for your critique above, you gave me a ton of things to think about.


Cheers

[firstandten]

They should be obvious and I don't want to write a book so I will limit myself to three items in each category.

Disingenuousness:
1a) Taking credit for getting the troops out of Iraq. In 2008, the Iraqi parliament had ordered us troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Obama kept them in until a month before the deadline after trying to keep them in longer through negotiations. 1b) Campaigning in 2008, Obama had promised to end the war immediately if he became president. He didn't and hundreds of young Americans died in Iraq in the interim.

Oladub I will use just this one example because most of your post follows the same style

1. You have some truths
2. You leave out context
3. You have items that are either unverifiable or difficult to verify




Under an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in 2008, U.S. troops were due to end their mission in Iraq by the end of 2011. [[Truth)

According to people familiar with the negotiations -- which were conducted for the Obama administration by some of the same individuals who led the Bush-era process -- the main sticking points in recent months were over the precise number of troops that would stay behind, and whether the Iraqi government would agree to provide them with legal immunity.
Experts on the mission in Iraq say that despite the public protestations on all sides, both parties were eager to come to an agreement over a continuing troop presence: the Iraqis because they hoped for help in providing stability, and the Americans because they wanted a futher bulwark against encroachment by Iran.
[[lack of context)
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...des-from-iraq/


[[ The actual campaign promise)

[oladub]

firstandten,

What I wrote:
Obama kept [[US troops) in until a month before the deadline after trying to keep them in longer through negotiations.
What politifact wrote:
both parties [[Obama and the Iraqis) were eager to come to an agreement over a continuing troop presence.

Maybe you see a big difference between those two statements but they seem to be in agreement to me. To go around trying to collect votes for getting the troops out after Politifact agrees that he was trying to keep some over there is by definition disingenuous. Thank you for verifying my statement for me. And I have the "actual campaign promise" Obama made. It is only 15 seconds long. The way to measure the import of such lies is to count the number of body bags caused by the discrepancy between the promise and reality.

[firstandten]

firstandten,

What I wrote:
Obama kept [[US troops) in until a month before the deadline after trying to keep them in longer through negotiations.
What politifact wrote:
both parties [[Obama and the Iraqis) were eager to come to an agreement over a continuing troop presence.

Maybe you see a big difference between those two statements but they seem to be in agreement to me. To go around trying to collect votes for getting the troops out after Politifact agrees that he was trying to keep some over there is by definition disingenuous. Thank you for verifying my statement for me. And I have the "actual campaign promise" Obama made. It is only 15 seconds long. The way to measure the import of such lies is to count the number of body bags caused by the discrepancy between the promise and reality.

The point that I was trying to make with that was both parties Iraq and the US wanted to keep troops over for the reasons mentioned in the post.. You made this seems like this was a purely Obama production begging the Iraqis to let us keep troops over there. So yes, I do see a difference between the statements.

You once said Obama promise to end both wars if he were elected. He made no such promise.

However he did say he would end the Iraq war responsibly.


I listened to the video I did not hear the word immediately, I did hear he will get the troops out if they are not out by the time he is president. Once he was elected he laid out the timetable for getting the troops out.