Tag: obama

From this day forward, all of the cynics, all the naysayers, they’re going to have to confront the reality of what this reform is – and what it isn’t. They’ll have to finally acknowledge, this isn’t a government takeover of the health care system.

Barack Obama. I hope he’s right, but doubt he is. The Democrat is functionally incapable of this sort of messaging.

Hanford is Closed

ryking:

And now something adorable to take my mind off the fact that Barack Obama has just restarted America’s nuclear weapons development program.

What part of this is so hard for you to understand (emphasis added)?

the new strategy commits the United States to developing no new nuclear weapons, including the nuclear bunker-busters advocated by the Bush administration.

There will indeed be proposed budgetary increases in funding for basic high energy research via NSF and, yes, also through the various government labs tasked with development and upkeep of the nuclear arsenal, as well as through other funding mechanisms. All of this is aimed at understanding the ongoing implications of long-term storage of existing warheads (which were never designed with shelf-life in mind), and is a very different thing than “restarting” nuclear weapons development. That long-term storage part being the thing we’ve already done with weapons we already have. Bush policy was to simply replace all these weapons with something entirely new and/or also updating and using the existing physics packages of existing weapons to sidestep laws, treaties, and/or funding limitations that are and were preventing the development of new weapons.

Let’s review: Obama’s administration is, on the basis of this review, moving to radically and unilaterally (and finally) reduce the number of extant nuclear weapons the United States has in inventory, reduce or remove tactical weapons from Europe and other locales, and the Obama administration is, in fact, stopping new nuclear weapon design and development started under Bush. Other than those minor quibbles, though, you’re right on with your concerns.

Most of the credit [for the Health Summit discussions, such as they were] goes to President Obama. The man really knows how to lead a discussion. He stuck to specifics and tried to rein in people who were flying off into generalities. He picked out the core point in any comment. He tried to keep things going in a coherent direction.

David Brooks.
Remarkable that the teleprompter was both completely concealed and updated with detailed information in a screamingly fast, near real-time way. Must be an NSA project.

Fetch my blankey

Profiles in courage:

Richard (Dick) Shelby ®, Alabama, has really taken a stand of the highest moral order. He’s put a blanket hold on all 70 Obama appointees. Because they’re all Marxists, right? Uh, no. Because he wants some pork for his state:

  • A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: “Northrop/EADS(1)) team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals.” Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.
  • An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: “[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won’t build” the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based “at the Army’s Redstone Arsenal.”

Is there any greater clarion call for the reform of political appointment process than this horseshit? Do we really believe that all these appointees to the sub-panel of the temporary committee on occasional projects needs the full focus of Senatorial advice and consent? Can we not just send the ambassadors, the Secretaries, and a few other, top-rung key personal through this idiotic and completely politicized process and be done with it? The current state of affairs has more or less guaranteed the President can’t fire anyone, ever, unless he/she wants to face the prospect of that (presumably key) office then sitting empty for a few years. This is not what the framers had in mind.

In a world with a fully fecked Democrat, they’d be screaming about this any time a microphone was within sight. As it stands, there’s been not one peep. We had an attempted plane bombing with relevant folks sitting on the sideline, for Christ’s sake. It’s simple. People understand it. Scream, scream, scream. Plus, as a bonus, you get to hoist the GOP on its own “strict constructionist” petard. “We demand a return to Constitutional government!” And then you quote Article II, Section 2, Clause 2. What about this do these fools not understand?

(1)McCain note added for context:
Let’s leave aside for the purposes of this discussion that the country should really be hoisting McCain from the nearest yardarm for needlessly costing the taxpayer billions of additional dollars through his cynical and purely political stunt to blow up the original Northrop/EADS tanker deal in the first place.

Noises Off

Kevin Drum reacts to the 1.5-hour systematic refutation of GOP talking points by one Barack Obama today during the GOP caucus meeting (which you can see and read for yourself; Obama is particularly ferocious on healthcare and the preposterous rhetoric surrounding same. Also economic proposals. Worth your time.):

Right now Republicans have a built-in advantage when it comes to attack politics and they’d be fools to give it up. A format like this, which puts the president front and center, allows him to directly call out distortions and lies, and rewards conversation rather than machine-gun style talking points, is something Republicans should justifiably be very afraid of. Unless they’re suicidal — or somehow figure out a way to take better advantage of the format — they’ll never allow this to happen again. Without the noise machine, they’re lost.

I think this overlooks the fact that Obama can simply host the meeting anyway. TV cameras will be there. If the GOP refuses to show up, or won’t let him in the door, it makes for a powerful object lesson. Either they’re a) afraid to face him -or- b) have no valid response and know it. If they let him in but close it to cameras, that’s equally powerful in its own way. Any of these outcomes can then become the message for the next several days. You could even have count-up calendars: 64 days since the GOP last agreed to meet with the President. Will they turn up on Thursday? It’s the sort of simple, powerful concept that the American people will instantly and viscerally understand. And it will piss them off.

The Democrats need to focus all efforts at messaging. Most of the country is utterly unaware of just how pervasive GOP obstruction is, and will never find out on FOXnews. So you have to make it sufficiently unavoidable. Everyone must see it first hand, or hear about it at the water cooler, or see the particularly defenestrating YouTube clip, or what-have-you. Every day. Every week. Now until the mid-terms.

This is the unusual case where a Dowd column actually provides some valuable insight, albeit inadvertently. Her desire for a Daddy in the White House who will tell her scary bedtime stories and then reassure her that Daddy will keep her safe seems to be widely shared; the Republicans’ vaunted edge on “national security” is mostly about the “security” in the phrase “security blanket.”

Mark Kleiman

What has Obama ever done for us?

squashed:

  • Torture memos released
  • No more waterboarding
  • White house visitor logs released
  • Iraq withdrawal in progress
  • Mexico City policy reversed
  • Certain arguments against DOMA rejected
  • Money set aside for high-speed rail
  • Environmental Protection Agency enforcement is up
  • Restrictions on Legal Services Funds eased
  • Being HIV+ no longer disqualifies people for a green card
  • Net neutrality
  • EPA to regulate carbon
  • The HAMP program has helped a lot of people avoid foreclosure
  • Review of mandatory minimum sentencing
  • Credit card bill of rights created
  • SCHIP eligibility expanded
  • No permanent bases in Iraq
  • Cuba restrictions eased
  • Release of Presidential records expedited
  • National Park funding increased
  • Protections for gays and lesbians added to hate crimes law
  • AmeriCorps funding increased
  • EEOC funding restored to pre-Bush levels
  • Ledbetter Act
  • Unemployment insurance extended
  • Stem cell restrictions eased

Etc.