Just a quick note to the tea party advocates and conservative doomsdayers who’ve been in the news lately.
You didn’t vote for President Obama in November because of his platform. Now you are even more upset that he is doing what he promised to do. While I don’t agree with you, I celebrate your right to peacefully protest.
Please, however, don’t suggest that the 70% of Americans who think the President IS doing a good job are being duped by the media, unaware of the risks of the current policies, or in some other way drinking the kool-aide of some Obama cult.
It may be difficult to understand, but a majority of Americans support the President because we LIKE the direction he is taking the country. Conservative Republicans lost their opportunity to govern because of their performance. They started two wars, failed in natural disaster response, were fiscally irresponsible, lied to us, and led the country to the brink of bankruptcy by trusting that markets could regulate themselves.
We are aware of the risks in the current policies, but we are willing to take those risks because we don’t see any better alternatives. People need jobs. The financial community, crippled by the mortgage meltdown, has to regain sufficient strength to resume lending to businesses who will provide those jobs. Until that happens, government is our only alternative to fund projects that will create jobs.
The conservative mantra that the markets should be allowed to sort this out is what created this crisis. So you shouldn’t be surprised that most people don’t trust that the free-market model will manage the recovery any better than it managed the collapse.
As far as whether President Obama has the intellectual capacity to lead, that’s simply silly or worse. You may not agree with his philosophy, but he clearly has the necessary energy, temperament, commitment, and talent to be a great president.
Hey Jeff,
I did get the whole tea party thing. I’m kinda certain most who went didn’t really get it either. As you know I am very “up” on taxes…most who went to the tea party don’t pay taxes and really probaly couldn’t articulate just how Obamas raising taxes are a bad thing or how it would effect them. But this isn’t much different from all those who marched in protest of the iraq war who could only say “Bush Lied,” they didn’t get it either. (I also noticed above you’re still stuck on the Bush lied thing…not true.)
So, Obama called the Chysler bond holders “speculators” and tried to intimidate them into giving up there lawful postion and then took them away unlawfully. Bond holders are legally intetiled to a posion ahead of most inventment. Obama wants to give the UNION 55%, of which the currently own NONE, of the company and the bond holders get 40 cents on the dollar. This is unlawful and will not hold up in court.
WE’re somehow still in Iraq and surging in Afganistan….I still see no protests in the streets and Nancy and Harry still haven’t fullfilled their promise to the Amaerican people when they were voted into majority of getting us out NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! Nacy has some problems.
Good luck on your new found struggle to find “Spritual wickedness in high places.” Sinced the dems are in power all the wickedness seems to be gone..
Keith,
Good to hear from you again.
I’ll try to run through this quickly.
For lies, how about “We don’t torture” for starters?
As far as the Chrysler bankruptcy, it is already being handled in the courts by a judge. Clearly out of the control of the executive and the legislative branches. That’s what bankruptcy is.
At this point, the judge determines how to fairly divide the assets of the company. Obama administration tried to broker a deal to keep Chrysler out of bankruptcy, but it fell through because some hedge funds overplayed their hand. They didn’t think that the administration would allow Chrysler to fail. They were wrong. Then they tried to block the sale of the company to Fiat, but when push came to shove most of them realized that they were better off taking a deal from the judge that turned out to be worse than the deal that they would have received from the Obama administration.
I’ve seen a couple of bankruptcies up close, and the lawyers are the only ones who make money. Everyone else takes a haircut. This one is no different.
I’m sure the democrats will figure out some ways to disappoint. They just haven’t been in power long enough.
As far as being stuck, I’m afraid my friend, you appear a little stuck on the majority leaders of the House and Senate. I’ve already provided you my view of why those who had been protesting the Iraq war are trusting that the current administration will keep their promises.
I don’t have any problems with conservatives taking to the streets to express their views either. My only issue has been, as you’ve suggested, that the Tea Partiers really don’t seem to have a good grasp of the tax system. What they really were protesting is a democrat in the White House and their frustration that they are in the minority.
Hey Jeff,
“We don’t torture for starters.”
How nice of you and the dems to determine the defintintion of torture.
So do not consider this torture…some also would consider this acceptable
when dealing with THREE guys…..Jeff we must be very, very careful as to what we retroactivily judge in the hour of a different time. Bush administration considered this necessary and legal, with presidential authority, for interogation in this very limited scope…(it was not standard pratice) if the obama administration does things in the light of a particular circumstance that the next administration/party has a different view with, i wouldn’t expect that administration to retroactivily say that it was unlawful…..the DEMS are declaring the waterboarding exception of these three guys as torture….legally it is not or at the very least it is agrueable.
Torture to me is cutting off heads, fingers, etc…….
Nothing the dems are doing about this is helping anything or anybody….maybe making us worse off by calling oursleves torturers…i don’t see the usefulness of this… Clinton lied under oath and the repubs under bush moved forward…they didn’t go back and go after him….
I am very much stuck Jeff, my good friend, on the leaders of the house and senate. CORRECT!!!!!!!!! They are a clear and present danger and this is TODAY……… They are frauds and weak leaders and your side would do much better to remove them. Nancy doesn’t know her head fromt he hole in the ground and harry is simply lost. They are still with us and need to be reminded they they PROMISED to get us out of Iraq NOW. (2 1/2 years ago) I am wondering why they are being given so much latitude by the anti-war groups they they shouldn’t demand their removal…. I hear you when it comes to Obama but not these two. THEY KNEW when they made that promise they couldn’t do this and used they to get there majoity…you must agree with that. Neither of them had the power to accomplish this ever….and they knew it but said it anyway……..i am replused by both of them…….and anyone who cares about politics in our country should too.
In the end Obama’s policies in Iraq will be no different then Bush’s….He’ll say till we win and then leave troops there forever (just like McCain said)
In fact if Iraq doesn’t settle down a little he may delay the withdrawl he already announced….
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30725189
He is reasonable………Running for office and BEING the President of the United States is two intirely different thing…..sounds good to bash the military and “torture or abuse” but when the PRESIDENT one needs to be very careful and responsible with our image and intergity. We are not perfect but to have our image conformed to the least common denominator is simply foolish and unwise. Those who wish and hope to point out what they think are things that make Bush look like an idiot are simply overboard and ignorent of the concequences of those actions. WE are still one country. WE need to close ranks on some issues. WE MUST defend our military and our standing in the world, not tear it down, right or wrong.
Jeff,
A long time ago i mentioned that the abortion issue was a fifty thing….you disagreed. well here’s a poll that supports my claim at the time that i had “always seen polls” that reflexed this split. here’s one from today.
Gallup released finding today that show a 51% stating they were por-life…..
this sheds light on Hillary’s long running commentary on “out of the main stream views” whenever discussing someone who stood for life. even though pro-life won this poll i don’t thinkl i would say that the pro-choose crowd in “out of the main stream.” as some 40% believe in choose…that would comprise a very wide stream regardless of how wide the other stream is……my biggest beef with dems is their ablity to cloud issues such as this one…..its always been a fifty fifty thing regradless of who’s on top. and that just this issue. I believe an OVERWHELING majory believe the act is wrong…where it gets closer is when they believe that what they think shouldnt be imposed on others…that their CHOICE is their choice and should be allowed…..
Keith,
There is no controversy internationally that waterboarding is torture. The United States tried and executed Japanese after WWII for waterboarding US POWs. The ONLY reason why we are having a discussion about the legality of waterboarding is because the White House Office of Legal Counsel wrote a memo in 2002 which redefined torture in a way that would allow waterboarding. We now know because of the FOIA requests, that the White House (Cheney) had already approved waterboarding by the CIA before any memos were written. The memo was a CYA move to legalize actions that had already been taken. An investigation begun during the Bush administration by the Office of Professional Responsibility in the Justice Department will shortly issue a report which will recommend sanctions and maybe even prosecution for the authors of those memos.
Here’s a wikipedia link if you want more details.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding
As far as Pelosi and Reed, they are elected representatives. The party can vote them out of their leadership positions, but only the voters in their states can remove them from office (unless they get impeached and your problems with them don’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense). I’m not thrilled with their leadership either and suspect that after the mid-term elections there will be some changes.
Here’s a link that shows the history of the gallup poll and the responses.
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/05/15/abortion-debate-gallup-says-more-americans-pro-life/
As you can see, it has never been an even split. The last time that it got even close was at the height of the Bush administration.
As far as whether an “overwhelming majority believe the act is wrong”, you have to choose. You can either believe the poll or not, but you can’t do both in the same post.
Gallup explains the change as a reaction to the Obama administrations support for abortion rights. 53% of the respondents in the poll still believe that abortion should be legal, but 51% now identify themselves as pro-life because they oppose at least some aspect of the current administrations policies.
I applaud Mr. Obama for having the courage to engage in this debate. How otherwise are we going to resolve this rift? As I’ve said before, I believe that it will be resolved, but not to the satisfaction of you or me. It will be resolved when there are fewer of our generation voting. Our kids will resolve it and neither of us will like the outcome.
Jeff,
It is not lost on me that you have made only two posts in the past two months. I’m finding humor in that, provided you are not ill or something “not good” is preventing you from posting. I mentioned this before but I’m wondering if all the “spritual wickedness in high places” vanished on 1-20-09……….and you simply have nothing to write about.
Hope all is well with you.
Much more to do with work and family than the change in administration. There is plenty to write about and I’ve got a bunch of post material stored up, just not much time to turn it into posts that interest me. I’m not the sort of writer who can crank out a few paragraphs which barely outline a position or thought. I’m just like my dogs. I’m not going to start unless I’m sure I’m going to have enough time give that bone a thorough chewing.