President Barack Obama - his performance thus far

[jiang bao]

Ever the youthful idealist. I suggested checking out the backgrounds of his 'Czars' and judging for yourself. If you don't find any radicals in that group, you either don't care, or feel more comfortable with your head in the sand and your ideals intact.

What, you mean people like Van Jones? So the guy once proclaimed he was a commie when he was younger and angry over things like the Rodney King beating. The guy did nothing illegal. All he did was protest, which was his right as an American. Since 1999 he’s been promoting capitalism and has been one of the most active proponents of environmentally friendly business.

Btw, I am not an idealist, far from it. I am liberal only so far as the environment and civil/social rights. For example, I am pro-choice (Note, not pro-abortion) because I don’t think the government should be banning something that should be a private choice. This is why on moral grounds I cannot stand the right wing. They want small government, yet they want government intervention in private matters like gay marriage and abortion, things that don’t affect them. They only don’t want government regulation in things that does affect society as a whole because they want to grab everything for themselves. To hell with the environment. To hell with the poor and weak.

[JamesG]

What, you mean people like Van Jones? So the guy once proclaimed he was a commie when he was younger and angry over things like the Rodney King beating. The guy did nothing illegal. All he did was protest, which was his right as an American. Since 1999 he’s been promoting capitalism and has been one of the most active proponents of environmentally friendly business.

Btw, I am not an idealist, far from it. I am liberal only so far as the environment and civil/social rights. For example, I am pro-choice (Note, not pro-abortion) because I don’t think the government should be banning something that should be a private choice. This is why on moral grounds I cannot stand the right wing. They want small government, yet they want government intervention in private matters like gay marriage and abortion, things that don’t affect them. They only don’t want government regulation in things that does affect society as a whole because they want to grab everything for themselves. To hell with the environment. To hell with the poor and weak.

No sense preaching to the converted with a closed mind, but know this...you can't trust either party.

[jiang bao]

Of course both party have an agenda (reelection being the most important of all), but being a politician is not easy, and the Democratic party is the lesser of two evils.

[JamesG]

Of course both party have an agenda (reelection being the most important of all), but being a politician is not easy, and the Democratic party is the lesser of two evils.

Being a politician is hard???? Many have never held down a real job in their whole life. What's so hard about voting for bills you haven't even read and that were mostly crafted by special interest groups? Politicians are either sheep who follow the flock, or are corrupt and don't care what's in a bill as long as their campaign contributors are happy. Getting re-elected is all that matters. Your faith in them is misguided. I won't
comment futher. It's a waste of time.

[levendis d'orange]

I'm continually amazed at the incredible blind luck that Canada has when legislations for universal healthcare and for the protection of the environment and drinking water just randomly fell out of the sky and then are jubilantly embraced by all Canadians as God's miracles.

America, on the other hand, are void of such miracles and have to spend incredible amount of time and resources to elect people who would actually work really hard to make such legislations into laws. If only Canada would annex us ............

[JamesG]

I'm continually amazed at the incredible blind luck that Canada has when legislations for universal healthcare and for the protection of the environment and drinking water just randomly fell out of the sky and then are jubilantly embraced by all Canadians as God's miracles.

America, on the other hand, are void of such miracles and have to spend incredible amount of time and resources to elect people who would actually work really hard to make such legislations into laws. If only Canada would annex us ............

Our system is failing even though health care is handled by the provinces with Federal assistance. That means two inefficient beaurocracies. More and more provinces are allowing the opening of private health care clinics outside of the system. Our left-wing New Democratic Party hates this, but has no real answer to the waiting list problem.
Our environmental record is not much better than the US's. If your hearing a different story stateside, it's BS.

[Trien Chieu]

I'm continually amazed at the incredible blind luck that Canada has when legislations for universal healthcare and for the protection of the environment and drinking water just randomly fell out of the sky and then are jubilantly embraced by all Canadians as God's miracles.

America, on the other hand, are void of such miracles and have to spend incredible amount of time and resources to elect people who would actually work really hard to make such legislations into laws. If only Canada would annex us ............

Our system is failing even though health care is handled by the provinces with Federal assistance. That means two inefficient beaurocracies. More and more provinces are allowing the opening of private health care clinics outside of the system. Our left-wing New Democratic Party hates this, but has no real answer to the waiting list problem.
Our environmental record is not much better than the US's. If your hearing a different story stateside, it's BS.

American people need to understand what they are getting in to. Public health care is not free! There is no free lunch. Their taxes will definitely higher if they adopt the public health care. It's not just the rich, but everyone. The quality of health care is also going down hill. Lot of wealthy Canadians go to the US for the surgery as they do not want to wait for months in Canada. Many of them die while waiting.

The environment in Canada is overall relatively better than the US but not because we have better record. The main reason that we are better is because we have much lower population (Approximately 34M or 11% of the US Population) with about the same land base. As per capita, we are not better if not worse.

[levendis d'orange]

You two seem very disenchanted with the democratic process and progressive social policies. Perhaps it's time to move to a more utopian land where a man is free to pursuit his interest without the constraint of pesky laws or high taxes or meddling politicians.

Someplace like Somalia, perhaps.

[levendis d'orange]

American people need to understand what they are getting in to. Public health care is not free! There is no free lunch. Their taxes will definitely higher if they adopt the public health care. It's not just the rich, but everyone. The quality of health care is also going down hill. Lot of wealthy Canadians go to the US for the surgery as they do not want to wait for months in Canada. Many of them die while waiting.

The US spent vastly more money on healthcare than any other industrialized countries in the world, and is lagging behind in quality of care in any measurable standards. That's stupid and wasteful, and switching over to a system similar to Canada would save money and improve quality of care.

The current problem for the Canadian healthcare system has nothing to do with quality but is rather due to demographic. As the Canadian population age and the senior cohort expand, it's consuming more and more resources because people are living much longer. Expect taxes to increase to support your parents and grandparents healthcare. However if you're hardcore like TrienChieu, you might not give a rat *** about those useless old people.

And while it is true that wealthy Canadians have came to the US seeking health services, a large and growing trend of even much larger number of Americans have went to countries like Mexico, Canada, and certain parts of Asia seeking medical services and products because it's cheaper and is just as good as those in America.

[JamesG]

You two seem very disenchanted with the democratic process and progressive social policies. Perhaps it's time to move to a more utopian land where a man is free to pursuit his interest without the constraint of pesky laws or high taxes or meddling politicians.

Someplace like Somalia, perhaps.

pesky laws [need those.......unfortunately they come with lawyers attached] or high taxes [needed to support politicians and government waste] or meddling politicians [self-serving leeches with no honor].
When I was just out of university I had great faith in government and politicians, but a few years in the real world ended that. The MSNBC world is not the real one. GE + MSNBC + Obama = incest.

[pandamao]

he's doing too much too quick.

sometimes i wish he can step away from certain things ... ie his involvement with the police officer arresting his friend. although pretty miniscule and already out of the picture, it's oftentimes little things like that which makes me wonder his intentions.

the man is cleaning up the mess well but he's not taking all the credit for sure.

man - i do miss bill clinton a lot though.

[levendis d'orange]

pesky laws [need those.......unfortunately they come with lawyers attached] or high taxes [needed to support politicians and government waste] or meddling politicians [self-serving leeches with no honor].
When I was just out of university I had great faith in government and politicians, but a few years in the real world ended that. The MSNBC world is not the real one. GE + MSNBC + Obama = incest.

We could trade personal anecdotes all day long without serving any purpose. For example, I could claim that a few years working for a big corporation have really opened my eyes about the capitalist system, or that growing up in a third-world country really make me appreciate the democratic process of America. The point is that personal anecdotes are quite useless as counterpoints against any argument, and that's why people rarely use them when facts are more sufficient to make your arguments stronger.

But you should really think hard about the possibility of moving to Somalia. There is no tax there, no government, and no pesky environmental laws or social welfare system or public healthcare. A man is free to do anything he want with his money, even including raising a small marine fleet for the purpose of salvaging unneeded merchandise and people from ships passing by the Somalian coast.

It's like a libertarian wetdream comes true.

[JamesG]

We could trade personal anecdotes all day long without serving any purpose. For example, I could claim that a few years working for a big corporation have really opened my eyes about the capitalist system, or that growing up in a third-world country really make me appreciate the democratic process of America. The point is that personal anecdotes are quite useless as counterpoints against any argument, and that's why people rarely use them when facts are more sufficient to make your arguments stronger.

But you should really think hard about the possibility of moving to Somalia. There is no tax there, no government, and no pesky environmental laws or social welfare system or public healthcare. A man is free to do anything he want with his money, even including raising a small marine fleet for the purpose of salvaging unneeded merchandise and people from ships passing by the Somalian coast.

It's like a libertarian wetdream comes true.

Google:
GE toxic waste
GE misleads shareholders
GE bailout
Obama appoints Emmelt
If these don't gag you, you're
hopeless.

[levendis d'orange]

Google:
GE toxic waste
GE misleads shareholders
GE bailout
Obama appoints Emmelt
If these don't gag you, you're
hopeless.

JamesG,

Just so you know, there is also no pesky and corrupted press in Somalia. Definitely no liberal reporters. It's sounding more and more attractive I bet.

As for Google, the annoying thing about it is that once you google "corporate bailouts", it give you a bunch of really inconvenient results that conservatives would rather forget because most happened before Obama took office. For example:

● Penn Central Railroad 1970 In May 1970, Penn Central Railroad, then on the verge of bankruptcy, appealed to the Federal Reserve for aid on the grounds that it provided crucial national defense transportation services. The Nixon administration and the Federal Reserve supported providing financial assistance to Penn Central, but Congress refused to adopt the measure. Penn Central declared bankruptcy on June 21, 1970, which freed the corporation from its commercial paper obligations. To counteract the devastating ripple effects to the money market, the Federal Reserve Board told commercial banks it would provide the reserves needed to allow them to meet the credit needs of their customers.
● Lockheed 1971 In August 1971, Congress passed the Emergency Loan Guarantee Act, which could provide funds to any major business enterprise in crisis. Lockheed was the first recipient. Its failure would have meant significant job loss in California, a loss to the GNP and an impact on national defense.
● Franklin National Bank 1974 In the first five months of 1974 the bank lost $63.6 million. The Federal Reserve stepped in with a loan of $1.75 billion.
● New York City 1975 During the 1970s, New York City became over-extended and entered a period of financial crisis. In 1975 President Ford signed the New York City Seasonal Financing Act, which released $2.3 billion in loans to the city.
● Chrysler 1980 In 1979 Chrysler suffered a loss of $1.1 billion. That year the corporation requested aid from the government. In 1980 the Chrysler Loan Guarantee Act was passed, which provided $1.5 billion in loans to rescue Chrysler from insolvency. In addition, the government's aid was to be matched by U.S. and foreign banks.
● Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company 1984 Then the nation's eighth largest bank, Continental Illinois had suffered significant losses after purchasing $1 billion in energy loans from the failed Penn Square Bank of Oklahoma. The FDIC and Federal Reserve devised a plan to rescue the bank that included replacing the bank's top executives.
● Savings & Loan 1989 After the widespread failure of savings and loan institutions, President George H. W. Bush signed and Congress enacted the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act in 1989.
● Airline Industry 2001 The terrorist attacks of September 11 crippled an already financially troubled industry. To bail out the airlines, President Bush signed into law the Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act, which compensated airlines for the mandatory grounding of aircraft after the attacks. The act released $5 billion in compensation and an additional $10 billion in loan guarantees or other federal credit instruments.
● Bear Stearns 2008 JP Morgan Chase and the federal government bailed out Bear Stearns when the financial giant neared collapse. JP Morgan purchased Bear Stearns for $236 million; the Federal Reserve provided a $30 billion credit line to ensure the sale could move forward.
● Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac 2008 On Sep. 7, 2008, Fannie and Freddie were essentially nationalized: placed under the conservatorship of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Under the terms of the rescue, the Treasury has invested billions to cover the companies' losses. Initially, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson put a ceiling of $100 billion for investments in each company. In February, Tim Geithner raised it to $200 billion. The money was authorized by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.
● American International Group (A.I.G.) 2008 On four separate occasions, the government has offered aid to AIG to keep it from collapsing, rising from an initial $85 billion credit line from the Federal Reserve to a combined $180 billion effort between the Treasury ($70 billion) and Fed ($110 billion). ($40 billion of the Treasury’s commitment is also included in the TARP total.)
● Auto Industry 2008 In late September 2008, Congress approved a more than $630 billion spending bill, which included a measure for $25 billion in loans to the auto industry. These low-interest loans are intended to aid the industry in its push to build more fuel-efficient, environmentally-friendly vehicles. The Detroit 3 -- General Motors, Ford and Chrysler -- will be the primary beneficiaries.
● Troubled Asset Relief Program 2008 In October 2008, Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, which authorized the Treasury Department to spend $700 billion to combat the financial crisis. Treasury has been doling out the money via an alphabet soup of different programs. Here’s our running tally of companies getting TARP funds.
● Citigroup 2008 Citigroup received a $25 billion investment through the TARP in October and another $20 billion in November. (That $45 billion is also included in the TARP total.) Additional aid has come in the form of government guarantees to limit losses from a $301 billion pool of toxic assets. In addition to the Treasury's $5 billion commitment, the FDIC has committed $10 billion and the Federal Reserve up to about $220 billion.
● Bank of America 2009 Bank of America has received $45 billion through the TARP, which includes $10 billion originally meant for Merrill Lynch. (That $45 billion is also included in the TARP total.) In addition, the government has made guarantees to limit losses from a $118 billion pool of troubled assets. In addition to the Treasury's $7.5 billion commitment, the FDIC has committed $2.5 billion and the Federal Reserve up to $87.2 billion.

http://www.propublica.org/special/government-bailouts

[JamesG]

[QUOTE=levendis d'orange;897427]JamesG,

Just so you know, there is also no pesky and corrupted press in Somalia. Definitely no liberal reporters. It's sounding more and more attractive I bet.

As for Google, the annoying thing about it is that once you google "corporate bailouts", it give you a bunch of really inconvenient results that conservatives would rather forget because most happened before Obama took office.[QUOTE]

Same old liberal 'smoke and mirrors' Don't look at what we did or are doing. Look at the 'bad old capitalists' and forget about our 'everyone deserves a house'......even if they can't afford it. Liberals+Fanny and Freddie+greedily stupid banks=recession Liberals seem incapable of blaming themselves for anything. Comes with the mindset I guess. Enjoy your liberal dream world.

[jiang bao]

lol Liberal smoke and mirrors. Sounding even worse than TC.

The point is that government bailouts have occurred many times in the past, and is not a liberal invention for the heck of it.

You likely have no understanding that had the Fed not intervened during the financial crisis, the US financial system probably would have collapsed. The amount of credit default swaps that would have become due had a few more major institutions fallen would have destroyed the economy. It's not a liberal or conservative issue anymore. It's about people's livelihoods.

[Trien Chieu]

The US spent vastly more money on healthcare than any other industrialized countries in the world, and is lagging behind in quality of care in any measurable standards. That's stupid and wasteful, and switching over to a system similar to Canada would save money and improve quality of care.

The current problem for the Canadian healthcare system has nothing to do with quality but is rather due to demographic. As the Canadian population age and the senior cohort expand, it's consuming more and more resources because people are living much longer. Expect taxes to increase to support your parents and grandparents healthcare. However if you're hardcore like TrienChieu, you might not give a rat *** about those useless old people.

And while it is true that wealthy Canadians have came to the US seeking health services, a large and growing trend of even much larger number of Americans have went to countries like Mexico, Canada, and certain parts of Asia seeking medical services and products because it's cheaper and is just as good as those in America.

The main reason that the health insurance in US is so high is because the liberal allows all the multi-million dollars lawsuit when thing go wrong. The judges often award insanely amount of money to the victims. Where is those money coming from? It comes from the average joe and jane who purchase health insurance. The conservative favors lower financial compensation to push down the insurance but the liberal wants to keep those multi-million dollars lawsuit option. I have nothing against the victims here as I believe they should be compensated when things go wrong, but not multi-million dollars. The only winners are lawyers, not the average joe or jane.

[levendis d'orange]

[QUOTE=JamesG;897448][QUOTE=levendis d'orange;897427]JamesG,

Just so you know, there is also no pesky and corrupted press in Somalia. Definitely no liberal reporters. It's sounding more and more attractive I bet.

As for Google, the annoying thing about it is that once you google "corporate bailouts", it give you a bunch of really inconvenient results that conservatives would rather forget because most happened before Obama took office.

Same old liberal 'smoke and mirrors' Don't look at what we did or are doing. Look at the 'bad old capitalists' and forget about our 'everyone deserves a house'......even if they can't afford it. Liberals+Fanny and Freddie+greedily stupid banks=recession Liberals seem incapable of blaming themselves for anything. Comes with the mindset I guess. Enjoy your liberal dream world.

It's kinda funny that JamesG would blame the housing bubble which took place during the last 5-6 years and then imploded in 2008 and rescued by Hank Paulson as a liberal idea. I have no idea why someone would repeat a claim that's so easily refuted by fact, but people are strange ............. conservative types even more so.

Which is also why I have no doubt JamesG would love Somalia, where people who can't afford houses will just have to live in huts, which should serve them right for being lazy no-good Somalians who can't even pick up a gun and go pirating.

[levendis d'orange]

The main reason that the health insurance in US is so high is because the liberal allows all the multi-million dollars lawsuit when thing go wrong. The judges often award insanely amount of money to the victims. Where is those money coming from? It comes from the average joe and jane who purchase health insurance. The conservative favors lower financial compensation to push down the insurance but the liberal wants to keep those multi-million dollars lawsuit option. I have nothing against the victims here as I believe they should be compensated when things go wrong, but not multi-million dollars. The only winners are lawyers, not the average joe or jane.

Tort reform that would severely limit victim compensation would at the most reduced about 2% of current healthcare expenditures.

Yes, that's right, only 2% ............. and that's the most generous estimate from most credible institutions that have look into the issue. But to go by TC's regurgitation of rightwing talking points, it would single-handedly defuse the rising cost of healthcare.

I'll bet 5 bucks that TC will be screaming about death-panels next after he read about the next talking points from Sarah Palin.

[JamesG]

lol Liberal smoke and mirrors. Sounding even worse than TC.

The point is that government bailouts have occurred many times in the past, and is not a liberal invention for the heck of it.

You likely have no understanding that had the Fed not intervened during the financial crisis, the US financial system probably would have collapsed. The amount of credit default swaps that would have become due had a few more major institutions fallen would have destroyed the economy. It's not a liberal or conservative issue anymore. It's about people's livelihoods.

You and 'lav' have a 'severe list to the left' and are in danger of capsizing and all we'll be able to see is your rear ends bobbing in the water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5qKYfqALE&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxMInSfanqg

I'll step aside and let TC have fun with you two, and even he will realize that debating with commited zealots is pointless.