Another "the emperor has no clothes on" thread. "Leaks are springing in the Obama/MSM dike" By Dan Thomasson of the Scripps Howard News Service. "The images of cheering throngs in Denver and in Grant Park seem to be fading rather quickly for President Obama as more and more Americans realize what they should have understood in the first place -- pledges sold in a campaign frequently have a very short shelf life." Sure, he'll show up tonight. And isn't it amazing that Zogby has his approval at just 50%.
This is an amazing article from Greenwald. And it's very appropriate now. Whenever Paul Krugman and Frank Rich agree, he's got to be doing something wrong. This Obama/Geithner economic plan as Stiglitz calls it is just awful. Obama/Geithner are robbing the American people to aid big banks who'll turn around and screw us on our credit card rates. How "perverse" as Stiglitz calls it. Stiglitz
Atrios says the banks now own the country. I wonder who's guiding Obama now?
How is it that the Fed can deny info to Congress and the president? Seems nobody knows where the money is going. A trillion here, a trillion there; how easy it was to replace the 'B' word with the 'T' word.
From Politico: "Obama himself plans to meet soon with liberal bloggers, according to an administration official." Shouldn't he READ some of them First so he'll know something about them.
sorry, petey- his approval ratings are still stratospheric. wish he'd take them for a test drive, though.
Posted by Turkana at March 24, 2009 03:40 PMTurkana;
I really do not see a "worship" like following of Obama by Democrats. We saw that of Bush last 8 years and the current Republican critics of Obama are still in that "trance". Nothing Obama does is correct according to these folks.
I am seeing lot of questining from Democrats in congress of Obama policies than I ever saw from Republicans about Bush policy. Remember the "Rubber Stamp" congress of 2000 thru 2006?
I think we are moving towards a democracy retoration in our country that was destroyed in last 8 years. Now only if Republicans understand that it is O.K. to admit if a Democratic president is doing the right thing. Any president, if he is doing right thing for the country, the party lable should not matter. Of course I do not think that I will live long enough to see that. Or shall we say as long as FOX network is there, no Democratic president will be shown as doing anything right.
Posted by suresh at March 24, 2009 03:40 PMsuresh,
spend some time at daily kos, and feel the cult...
Posted by Turkana at March 24, 2009 03:41 PM"The honeymoon is over, a national poll will signal today as President Obama’s job approval stumbles to about 50 percent over the lack of improvement with the crippled economy." Boston Herald
Sure "stratospheric", that will make Congress at 36% good.
Got an idea for our president tonight.. Stimulus idea: How about massive forgiveness of student loans? What a relief that would be on many Americans and their families.
Posted by peter at March 24, 2009 03:56 PMzogby, petey? keep trying.
Posted by Turkana at March 24, 2009 03:59 PMPeter;
I have a challenge for you. Can you name just one thing that you consider Obama has done is right? Or are you also brainwashed by FOX propaganda?
Posted by suresh at March 24, 2009 04:28 PMTurkana,
It's a little bit pitiful how abysmally bitter you seem.
"Cult at Kos?" How often do you go there? I see plenty of healthy dissent there.
Your bitterness is palpable; one would think that Bush won a 3rd term somehow.
Jesus - take a break and consider the alternatives. At the *very least*, compare some of the Obama administration's actions to what Bush *would* have done had he got the 3rd term that seems to be the nightmare you think you're living in.
Lose the bitterness, and bring something the table other than the interminable "Obama BAD! Here's how and why. Look who else agrees with me" posts.
Posted by Paul at March 24, 2009 04:29 PMpaul,
it's not bitterness. it's fear. should obama's probably fatally flawed economic program fail, the republicans will come back in a very big way. and then we may see the shock doctrine here, at home. for real. maybe for good.
Posted by Turkana at March 24, 2009 04:42 PM
Canned questions and prepared answers.
Americans are beginning to wake up to this fraud of a president.
Pathetic
Posted by redsneakers at March 24, 2009 05:13 PM
One thing that Obama has done right? That's easy.
He won the the election..thanks to ill informed and ignorant voters and a non-electable Republican candidate I realize that is easy to see now, but you did ask the question.
But I presume you already know that.
should obama's probably fatally flawed economic program fail...
What is fatally flawed about it? Maybe you you would care to discuss your concerns in detail in detail?
Posted by phidipides at March 24, 2009 05:24 PMAmericans are beginning to wake up to this fraud of a president.
No. Just republi-KKKons with no feerlus leedur. It's gotta be hard for you guys to be expected to think rather than just nod in unison like choreographed June Taylor dancers when The Mad King, idiot son of George the Lame and Bar the Lush, opened his idiot fucking douche-nozzle mouth.
Posted by phidipides at March 24, 2009 05:44 PMas if the stench of shit-fer-brains petey wasn't bad enough they're paying more shit brain cretins to spew propaganda..break out the bullshit repellent....
hey shitsnaker..He won the the election..thanks to ill informed and ignorant voters your description of chimp supporters?
Thanks for your proof of ignorance Ms XRay.
Kind of expected it though.
Such command of language.
What other talents do you have?
Posted by redsneakers at March 24, 2009 06:09 PM"...one would think that Bush won a 3rd term somehow." - Paul 04:29 PM
Consider:
"...Tim Geithner ... has persuaded President Obama to recycle ... the “cash for trash” plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by ... Henry Paulson.
This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair. ... It’s as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street. ..."
- Paul Krugman, Commentary, New York Times:
Or consider this:
"President Obama’s Iraq “withdrawal” plan will leave up to 50,000 troops*...which would remain for an indefinite period of time, will be in Iraq to “advise Iraqi troops and protect US interests.”
*Technically, they'd remain until Dec. 31, 2011, the date on which the Bush administration agreed to withdraw all troops under a pact with Iraq...which could depending on conditions in Iraq
That is Rumsfeld's plan...with an option to stay longer!
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/62930.html
Or consider this:
Obama says Social Security is in Crisis, needs "reform"
Or compare this:
Obama's silence on the U.S.-Israel slaughter of innocents trapped in the Gaza strip.
To
Bush's silence on the U.S.-Israel slaughter of innocents trapped in Lebanon.
Or consider this:
Nominating to Surgeon General CNN's "television doctor" Sanjay Gupta, a dedicated opponent of single-payer health insurance and a loyal servant of the pharmaceutical industry
Or consider this:
Continuing the Bush policy of providing federal grants to "faith-based" (religious) organizations and to back away from a campaign promise to condition assistance only if organinztations agree to not to discriminate in hiring.
Wake up folks, admitting you have been had is hard on the ego, but not nearly so bad as mindlessly supporting somebody until it is too late. Obama wants to be popular, make it clear that only way he'll get that popularity is if pursues progressive policies, not endless war, or trickle down, or for profit insurance driven healthcare, or tax cuts. The Reagan, Milton Friedman, Jarvis, Greenspan policies of tax cut and subsidizing the wealthy don't work, they were tried before and led to depression and world war. Fair progressive taxes being used to improve the future of this country, have worked and will work again, the examples of what policies work can be found in Asia, Europe, Canada and South Africa.
no talent necessary to smell brain dead criminal cult BS shitsnaker... it is impossible to ignore your brand of stupidity..chimp lovers are just plain fucking stupid...back in your hole...or mommies basement...
Posted by headxray at March 24, 2009 06:24 PMHey y'all,
Just dropped in here to say what Zach said, and I think that zyxw's point is well taken as well.
But just to add in my two bits, it seems to me (and I'm afraid Ezra's getting a bit into this as well), the arguments about motive, etc., seem to me to be besides the point.
When I moved back to NYC from France in August 2007, I knew I would be supporting Obama, and wound up working quite a bit as a volunteer on the campaign.
In grad school (Econ, I'm ABD), Krugman was my favorite economist, and I rediscovered what he'd been writing while I was in France via the NY Public Library.
There is no question that he knows what he is talking about when it comes to economics, he is an accomplished writer, and in a theoretical sense, he understands political economy and moral philosophy (see his book Conscience of a Liberal).
On the other hand, during the campaign he proved quite clearly that he knows not so much about the practical realities of politics, at least compared with the Obama campaign. This pattern seems to apply as well to the Obama administration (see stimulus package, now perhaps the bank bailout). While I agree that in an ideal world, we'd do the Swedish model (not the blond kind), but then again, in the ideal world, we'd already have universal health care, right?
So, to conclude, while I agree that the nationalization route is the cleanest way to go, it seems to me (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302830.html) that Geithner's plan, while certainly risky, may just be an intermediate step before we can really become Swedish.
Mr. Obama continues to play chess while others dither with checkers.
Posted by: Jim | March 24, 2009 9:26 PM
Posted by at March 24, 2009 06:31 PMOr consider this:
Obama's EPA Freezes Hundreds Of Mountaintop Mining Permits.
Or consider this:
Omama EPA proposed finding that greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health.
Or consider this:
President Obama appealed to Iran in a powerful, evocative, noble message.
Or consider this:
Obama Rally Reaches 22% in Recovery From Bear Market
Or consider this:
Any new U.S. approach to Afghanistan would require an exit strategy from the get-go.
Or consider this:
Passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Or consider this:
Obama's executive order removes funding restrictions for stem-cell research.
Or consider this:
Obama signs expansion of SCHIP.
Or consider this:
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
Wake up folks, admitting you have been had is hard on the ego...
Is at as difficult as recognizing the idiot staring back at you when you brush your teeth?
Posted by phidipides at March 24, 2009 06:48 PMGlenn Greenwald is a notorious comment thread sockpuppeteer. Don't believe me? Go google his name and that term together. On any major blog, he's usually about a fifth of all respondents to any analysis of his work.
Tonight's appearance on national TV was pretty good. He discarded the side prompters and went with the Oval Office prompter. He finally looked at the people and read from below the camera's eye. Sure, it looked a little awkward, but having him look at me surely made me happy. Having followup questions this time was refreshing and some of the press seemed to press their questions a little. Not commenting on content, he definitely improved over his first performance. But where was the Helen Thomas question? Ann Compton's question was very weak.
Another event he did well on was this mornings visit to a school and the Q and A with our space station astronauts. That was well done and a truly nice event.
Suresh, another thing on a positive note was his speech at Camp Lajune in NC. That was his announcement about our forces in Iraq. Great speech, spoke of our military accomplishing their goals there. Stated they would be coming home having honorably served their country. In other words...we won and now we can come home along the guidelines set up by the Bush admin's SOFA. Just about everything said that day there was good to great. Rahm Emmanuel ought to button his jacket and look the roll, his look was more like a Chicago union boss.
Here's a good question: All of Europe, which has nationalized health care already, is also experiencing the current economic crisis. Why does Obama believe that bringing national health care here will in any way save us a similar economic crisis in the future? He keeps repeating that only if we get health care costs under control will we have ‘real’ prosperity, but the countries that have already ‘tackled’ this problem in the past were not spared their own economic meltdowns.
Posted by peter at March 24, 2009 08:51 PMshit=fer=brains petey what passes for thinking in your brain is scary..scary anyone as dense as you can survive...
Posted by headxray at March 24, 2009 09:02 PMI don't know if Obama's whole economic plan is flawed; I suspect not. But the bank plan is flawed in the most terrible way; and such a plan is, on its face, a god awful thing. Because it's the Paulson plan with a thin veneer of lipstick. My conclusion is that Geithner is a water carrier for the banking and Wall Street opportunists. It's bad enough to have to swat at the usual trolls of the petie class, on this thread, guys who are forever softpeddling US militarism and feelgood corporatism, along with the mouthbreathers who carry that political luggage.
But this is not a test case for how much we love Obama, either. I'm surprised that some of our progessive colleagues here don't get that a $trillion or so shelled out to the banksters to cover the toxic waste created by gaming the market, can just stand by like spectators, while these banksters and the usual suspects are given carte blanche, to punch a hole as big as a barn door in the global financial system. And it's worse than intolerable to let the criminals parlay their $millions of credit default bets into $billions of undeserved boodle.
The unexamined life of a factotum like Geithner is simply a drag on the common good, and not in the interest of the country. Speaking for myself, I voted for Obama in the hopes that he had a capacity to think outside the box. I will be disappointed if our new president is willing to put up with this lingering and sick political culture, where no idea is considered serious or servicable, unless it was hatched in the brain of a lobbyist.
Posted by Copeland at March 24, 2009 09:22 PMshould obama's probably fatally flawed economic program fail...
What is fatally flawed about it? Maybe you you would care to discuss your concerns in detail in detail?
Posted by phidipides at March 24, 2009 05:24 PM
Forget it Phid....Krugman said that so, that's the fucking gospel....hey didnt B'O win the primaries?? Sorry Turk, but ad hominem remarks about Kos readers is just too shallow...you don't have to love BO, but it's not fear...it's bitterness.
Amazing how Turk's diatribe (archaically speaking) brings out the slug drivel of petey, tuby, redsneakers....et al.
Posted by Goyo at March 24, 2009 09:53 PMI know a lame critique when I read one; and the cry of bitterness is a lame one here. Stick to the facts. Stiglitz also says the bank plan is shit. The same with many serious economists. Mike Whitney, Michael Hudson. But I don't see serious economists pulling for the White House now, just a retread like Geithner. Where's the transparency in the process? The bank plan will make a god of debt and make the creditors whole. The bonuses that have distracted and enraged the country represent little more than chump change. The real screw job will be kept under tight wraps by corporate placeholder Geithner.
Posted by Copeland at March 24, 2009 10:05 PMWhy do so few people grasp the enormity of the problems inherited by this Administration?? Every tire was flat, all the windows broken .....a total wreck thanks to Shrubbie and the Gang!!
In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 million every hour. That's $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG's 2008 losses).
Posted by Goyo at March 24, 2009 10:29 PMWhat is fatally flawed about it? Maybe you you would care to discuss your concerns in detail in detail?
Posted by phidipides at March 24, 2009 05:24 PM
There continues to be a growing list of Presidents starting from Jimmy Carter through Barack Obama who are willing to let OPEC take the US hostage for oil.
The economy is improving, OPEC has cut supplies, and oil prices are on the rise while Obama talks about carbon offsets, wind farms and solar panels. You will be paying much higher energy prices very shortly.
Obama's stimulus plan of $8 to $13 a week in your pocket starting in April will be going to OPEC, thank you very much.
Posted by Kirk at March 24, 2009 11:02 PMWell, if the bankster massage plan becomes a reality and a trillion dollars of your progeny's cash disappears into a fire pit, the Honeymoon will definitely be over.
Posted by Copeland at March 24, 2009 11:09 PMOr consider this:
Obama Rally Reaches 22% in Recovery From Bear Market - phidipides
Jeff Sachs did:
Will Geithner and Summers Succeed in Raiding the FDIC and Fed?, by Jeffrey Sachs, Vox EU: Geithner and Summers have now announced their plan to raid the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Federal Reserve (Fed) to subsidize investors to buy toxic assets from the banks at inflated prices. If carried out, the result will be a massive transfer of wealth -- of perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars -- to bank shareholders from the taxpayers (who will absorb losses at the FDIC and Fed). Soaring bank share prices on the morning of the announcement, and in the week of leaks and hints that preceded it, are an indication of the mass bailout at work.
Posted by S Brennan at March 24, 2009 11:09 PMIt would be interesting who brought banking stocks while the stock price is low and are poised to have the benefit of our cash infusion. I wonder how many 'friends' and Congressman are investors? Robert Rubin does have President Obama's ear. Chris Dodd's wife was a director of AIG.
Posted by peter at March 25, 2009 04:05 AMOT
You know, reading some of the comments here are truly jaw dropping for me. There are people here who for eight years praised, supported, and excused George W. Bush for anything and everything, including driving this Country into a black hole. There were absolutely no voices of dissent among this group of posters. Now, because there is a Democrats in the WH, this same group of people are exploding with self-righteous outrage and concern.
I have only contempt for each and everyone one of you.
Posted by Judith at March 25, 2009 05:59 AMshorter Judith: the hypocrit trolls suck. I agree.
Posted by TIKI AL at March 25, 2009 07:41 AMHe discarded the side prompters and went with the Oval Office prompter...
It's great having a President who can read! You've got to admire that after Buschco and you fucktards.
...this same group of people are exploding with self-righteous outrage and concern.
They are the kind of people who read this about the 930 homeless school kids in Sioux Falls...
"Sometimes it's not just two families living in a trailer or an apartment or a house. It's three or four families, 20-some children living in an apartment. We had one situation where there were 31 children living in one residence, nonrelated children. Their families had no place to go...She has talked with families who have lived in three or four locations in one week: a shelter, a motel, a night at a friend's house, a night in a car."
...and think "They're not homeless. They got to stay in a house."
Posted by phidipides at March 25, 2009 09:00 AMOh good, another greatest-hits revival of the Obama-as-cult-leader meme. Hey, if the infallible Paul Krugman could write 13 months ago that "I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality," then why not keep flogging that?
Damn, not only am I going to keep refusing to remove my Obama bumper sticker, but I'm going to hang a flag of The One in front of my house as well. And I'm going to force my family to pray five times a day, kneeling in the direction of the White House.
Posted by joel dan walls at March 25, 2009 09:53 AMNot only is Obama a 11th dimension chess player, according to this he's also a Marlboro Man.
Another Anon Worshipper from Ezra's stable of suck-ups:
"I've been using a "sidling up to the herd" metaphor. That is, imagine you're a cattleman in 1880 and you know some of your herd of cattle have got rabies. So, you've got to figure out a way to test 'em and then kill the infected ones without stampeding the whole herd into the nearby town.
Basically, Obama is sidling up to the banks the way you'd sidle up to a herd of steer as you tested them and then quietly whacked 'em over the head as needs be. The goal is to prevent a stampede as much as it is to whack the rabid cows."
A studly Spock, are folks kneeling down before him to worship or to perform fellatio on him?
Well an Obama suck-up should do both
Posted by at March 25, 2009 10:49 AMNot only is Obama a 11th dimension chess player...
I bet you think you pass for a mainstream republi-KKKon...and I bet you are. So I'll make this as simple as My Pet Goat or the memes that gave you people a little wood (and I mean obscenely small wood). I know you need it simple, so let me get your attention first by yelling "War on Terra!!!" and "There's a Niggra in the White House!" There we go...you see, we're talking about a book here. I know you saw some at school and maybe even skimmed one at one time or another. Good for you! It shows.
The book is titled The Grand Chessboard by that Zbigniew Brzezinski guy.
I know you have no clue about this kinda stuff. That's why you were such a good little Buschco mushroom. In the dark and fed a stream of shit, helping you to grow into what you are today. Clueless and full of shit.
Posted by phidipides at March 25, 2009 12:29 PMTurkana, I live at Daily Kos, Obama gets ripped all the time by commenters. You just out and out lied. Obama isn't perfect, but compared to Bush he's awful damn good.
Posted by Joe at March 25, 2009 06:44 PM