Fuck Obama

[Nordic]

The admittedly brilliant marketing of obama as a brand was one of the biggest con jobs in history. If you are still attached to the brand rather than the reality there is no hope for you and I have no patience for you especially f you're posting your delusions here I

[82_28]

The admittedly brilliant marketing of obama as a brand was one of the biggest con jobs in history. If you are still attached to the brand rather than the reality there is no hope for you and I have no patience for you especially f you're posting your delusions here I

And Friday September 24th 2010 was the day good Nordic passed away of a heart attack while posting to the world famous "Fuck Obama" thread. . .

[justdrew]

justdrew, Obama is a conservative. Why do you think so many progressives are eating crow now?

There already is zero hope of political solutions in this country.

"Politicians will only and can only do what the electorate demands of them."

I give up.

Oh wait, I already gave up. Can't do it twice.

yeah I know you're probably right, but I can't be 100% sure of it, so it seems like there's still a chance, however slim, and not dependent on obama, and therefor I'm not ready to give up yet.

[Gouda]

We weren't "serious in the first place"? Fuck you. Seriously. See? No apathy there.

Obama: Democratic voter apathy 'inexcusable'

By BEN FELLER, AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller, Ap White House Correspondent – Tue Sep 28, 7:02 am ET

WASHINGTON – Admonishing his own party, President Barack Obama says it would be "inexcusable" and "irresponsible" for unenthusiastic Democratic voters to sit out the midterm elections, warning that the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years.

"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and "if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place."

The midterm elections are in five weeks and polling shows that Republicans, out of power at the White House and on Capitol Hill, have a much more excited base of supporters than Democrats. Obama, campaigning this week in four states, is in a sprint to restore the voter passion that helped him win office.

Yet in his attempt to light a fire under supporters, Obama comes across as fired up himself about how many backers fail to acknowledge the progress he sees. He said the glass-half-empty view among many progressive voters can be a debilitating force that distracts them from the real worry: Republicans.

The GOP is poised to win seats in the House, if not control of the chamber, and gain ground in the Senate, too.

"It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election," Obama said.

The president has been telling Democrats to "wake up" and recognize that he and the Democratic-run Congress have delivered on promises, from a new health care law to tougher rules for Wall Street to more aid for college students. Obama wants disenchanted supporters to see that Republican wins in November would undermine the ability of Democrats to get the unfinished business done, from climate change legislation to allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

What emerges in the magazine story is a stern, lecturing tone from Obama.

It comes mainly at the end of the interview. Obama had wrapped the lengthy Q-and-A session, according to the magazine, but then returned unprompted to make one more impassioned point and unleash on the enthusiasm gap. He portrayed a clear choice between an administration that despite some warts has helped advance its agenda, and a Republican Party that would offer disastrous policies for the economy and civil liberties.

"The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible," he said in the interview. He said Democrats should be thinking about what's at stake this election "if they want to move forward over the next two years or six years or 10 years."

The Rolling Stone interview was conducted Sept. 17. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the story, titled "Obama Fights Back."

Obama expresses plenty of disappointment over how Republicans made a tactical decision from the start to oppose him, but also offers some "grudging admiration" for its political effectiveness in keeping the GOP united. He said the resulting slog between Republicans and himself — legislative delays and political fighting reminiscent of the Washington he ran against — has worsened public skepticism of government and eroded the feeling of hope that surrounded his election.

The president said he keeps a checklist of his campaign promises and that he has met, by his account, about 70 percent of them.

As for the rest: "Well, that's what the next two years is for, or maybe the next six."

Obama would need to win re-election in 2012 for that latter timeframe to occur.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_interview

[Cosmic Cowbell]

More...

Obama's Rolling Stone Interview: President Calls Out 'Irresponsible' Apathetic Dem Voters

Despite what his progressive detractors in his own party might say, President Obama believes that he's accomplished 70 percent of his campaign promises in the first two years of his presidency. Expect the rest to get done in the next two years, or perhaps the next six, he told Rolling Stone in a recent interview from the Oval Office.

In a lengthy sit down, the President discussed a wide range of topics, ranging from GOP obstruction and the Tea Party's opposition to his administration, to his accomplishments so far and his optimism that his agenda will only move forward in the upcoming years.

For his critics within the Democratic Party, Obama laid out to Rolling Stone's Jann S. Wenner his own interpretation of his current legislative victories:

I keep in my pocket a checklist of the promises I made during the campaign, and here I am, halfway through my first term, and we've probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we said we were going to do -- and by the way, I've got two years left to finish the rest of the list, at minimum. So I think that it is very important for Democrats to take pride in what we've accomplished.

In one of many seemingly frustrated mentions of progressives being discontented by the direction and supposedly minimal gains of his presidency, Obama laid out a situation in which he was forced to compromise for the reality of less lofty but perhaps more achievable goals:

I could have had a knock-down, drag-out fight on the public option that might have energized you and The Huffington Post, and we would not have health care legislation now. I could have taken certain positions on aspects of the financial regulatory bill, where we got 90 percent of what we set out to get, and I could have held out for that last 10 percent, and we wouldn't have a bill. You've got to make a set of decisions in terms of "What are we trying to do here? Are we trying to just keep everybody ginned up for the next election, or at some point do you try to win elections because you're actually trying to govern?" I made a decision early on in my presidency that if I had an opportunity to do things that would make a difference for years to come, I'm going to go ahead and take it.

But Obama admitted that the larger opposition to his administration was coming not from the left, but from Republican legislators who he said were trying to block even his most minor moves:

Everything just seems to drag on -- even what should be routine activities, like appointments, aren't happening," Obama said. "So it created an atmosphere in which a public that is already very skeptical of government, but was maybe feeling hopeful right after my election, felt deflated and sort of felt, "We're just seeing more of the same."

As for the Tea Party movement, Obama identified it as a genuine mix of concerned, conservative Americans, but also as a grouping that possessed some less alluring individuals or sects:

And then there are probably some aspects of the Tea Party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the president. So I think it's hard to characterize the Tea Party as a whole, and I think it's still defining itself.

About the perceived vehicle for much of the opposition to Obama's administration, Fox News, the President may have fanned the flames of enmity between the White House and the media giant when he called it "destructive" to the country:

[Laughs] Look, as president, I swore to uphold the Constitution, and part of that Constitution is a free press. We've got a tradition in this country of a press that oftentimes is opinionated. The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition -- it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It's a point of view that I disagree with. It's a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world. But as an economic enterprise, it's been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it's that Fox is very successful.

Anti-war advocates are not likely to be encouraged by his description of his plans going forward in Afghanistan, in which he again appeared to leave the door open for military engagement beyond the initial drawdown date that is planned for July of next year:

Starting July of 2011, we will begin a transition process, and if the strategy we're engaged in isn't working, we're going to keep on re-examining it until we make sure that we've got a strategy that does work.

As for the upcoming midterm elections, Obama told Rolling Stone that there was no excuse for Democrats to stay home from the polls in November:

The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible.

The AP flags this quote from the piece:

"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and "if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/2 ... 41607.html

[Simulist]

WASHINGTON – Admonishing his own party, President Barack Obama says it would be "inexcusable" and "irresponsible" for unenthusiastic Democratic voters to sit out the midterm elections, warning that the consequences could be a squandered agenda for years.

As purported "public servants," President Obama and his Democratic Party are both as "irresponsible" and as "inexcusable" as the Bush Administration whose agenda they enabled then and continue to enable and cover-up for now.

The only voters who should be "admonished" are the ones who not only still imagine that this evil two-party charade is real and "in the public interest," but who also try to evangelize that absurd message.

[Bruce Dazzling]

Obama hires Blackwater, again
State Dept. becomes the latest Obama agency to hire the notorious firm, this time for part of $10 billion contract
By Justin Elliott
Friday, Oct 1, 2010 11:53 ET

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_ ... ater_again

Spencer Ackerman at Wired reports:

Never mind the dead civilians. Forget about the stolen guns. Get over the murder arrests, the fraud allegations, and the accusations of guards pumping themselves up with steroids and cocaine. Through a “joint venture,” the notorious private security firm Blackwater has won a piece of a five-year State Department contract worth up to $10 billion, Danger Room has learned.

The company won the contract under one of its many alternate names, "International Development Solutions." The contract is to protect embassies around the world.

It's worth repeating that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her presidential campaign, promised to ban Blackwater from Iraq, going so far as to say:

For five years their behavior and lack of supervision and accountability have often eroded our credibility, endangered U.S. and Iraqi lives and undermined our mission.

Obama never made a similar promise.

This new State contract is hardly the first time Blackwater will be working for the Obama Administration. According to various reports, the company has been awarded an $100 million contract for the CIA in Afghanistan, another State contract to protect consulates in Afghanistan, and a Defense Department contract to do training and even "drug interdiction" work in Afghanistan.

So in case it wasn't already obvious, it's now safe to say Blackwater has been embraced by both Democrats and Republicans and will play a major role in U.S. foreign policy for years to come.

[Simulist]

The Real Democratic Whiners

by David Sirota

The way Democratic leaders tell it, their party's current "enthusiasm gap" comes from rank-and-file voters who are irrational and pessimistic complainers.

"Democrats, just congenitally, tend to (see) the glass as half empty," President Barack Obama said last month during a $30,000-a-plate fundraiser at the Connecticut home of a donor named (no joke) Rich Richman. Days later, Vice President Joe Biden told a separate audience of donors that voters need "to stop whining." Apparently, the two believe that a mix of Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake" motto and Phil Gramm's "nation of whiners" mantra will excite the Democratic base.

Who knows? Maybe it'll work. But probably not. The sight of Washington politicians attending fat-cat fundraisers while berating a recession-hammered nation is not exactly inspiring. It's more like a recipe for electoral backlash.

That said, this campaign season is defined neither by unreasonable petulance, as the White House asserts, nor by justifiable rage against the plutocratic machine. Instead, the moment is all about the more muted despondence expressed by that recent CNBC town hall speaker – the one who told the president that voters are "exhausted" and "deeply disappointed" in his administration.

The desperation is understandable. The Iraq war continues, and the Afghanistan war is intensifying. The Wall Street "reform" bill has been exposed as a sham, with the Associated Press reporting that banks are already planning to exploit the new rules for even more profits. Meanwhile, Obama aides admit that the new health care legislation coddles the industries it purports to regulate.

"During the campaign we fought against insurance companies," White House adviser David Axelrod said about the Obama-crafted bill. "(But) after the deals with insurance companies, the deals with Pharma – all these people are supposedly our friends."

As Axelrod's comment implies, this is not "real change" or "yes we can" – it's the demoralizing status quo of "no we won't." And few disappointments better underscore that reality than the recent non-debate over the Bush tax cuts.

Since those tax reductions were enacted, Democrats have – rightly – criticized them as ineffective economic policy that unduly expands the national debt. The data support the allegations: The Bush tax-cut years were "one of the weakest eight-year spans for the U.S. economy in decades," according to The Washington Post, and the tax cuts are the single largest factor in the deficit, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Americans understand these facts, as evidenced by polls showing majority support for eliminating the specific tax cuts that benefit the wealthy. In fact, when considering both public opinion and Democrats' previous criticism of Bush's tax policy, it's clear that opposition to the Bush tax cuts was a primary reason voters elected Democrats in the first place.

And yet, this week, the White House and Democratic congressional leaders announced they are postponing any legislation that might permanently modify the Bush tax cuts.

That's right, we're not talking about Democrats deliberately letting all the cuts expire – Democratic lawmakers say they will extend the cuts for the middle class. The issue is whether they will simultaneously deliver on promises to terminate the tax cuts that apply to income above $200,000. On that pledge, the party is now blocking a vote.

No doubt, Democratic politicians would have us believe that Republican obstructionism makes a vote pointless and that those saying otherwise are back to "glass half empty" whining. This, of course, has been the same excuse on nearly every issue.

But who are the self-defeating whiners here – politicians who don't even attempt to fulfill their own promises, or voters who expect those politicians to at least make a minimal effort? The honest answer to that question shows who is really responsible for the enthusiasm gap.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/01-3

[freemason9]

obama wants me to pass along a message, it's "fuck you too"

it isn't easy to act democratically in a fascist state

[Simulist]

obama wants me to pass along a message, it's "fuck you too"

How clever of him.

And yet Obama has been saying, "Fuck you" to the American people right along: every time he perpetuates a Bush Administration policy and covers up for its crimes — which of course is at least every single day.

In fact Obama was saying "Fuck you" to us, before many of us ever even thought about saying it back to him.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

Sirota could have simply written "I know you are, but what am I" but then he probably couldn't have collected a paycheck.

Two points...

First, there is truth in the push back by the administration and they really didn't have much choice politically but to go on the offensive. Biden's a tool that can't help but verbally sucker punch himself every chance he gets, and so the use of the term "whiner", if an accurate quote, is simply Biden being who he is and that's unfortunate. And there is truth in the many criticism's of the administrations rate and quality of progress. Some of that is due to Emmanuel's pragmatic, get SOMETHING done at any cost political style. Some early on was a true (although misguided and naive) attempt at bipartisanship. I suspect that Emmanuel's departure is not simply due to his own ambition but rather a matter of Axelrod saying "him or me". What, if anything, does this imply for the direction the administration may take after election day? Which leads to two...

Sirota, I feel, willfully misrepresents what the current state of the tax cuts debate/vote is in Congress. Democrats simply (and wisely) postponed -NOT BLOCKED- the debate and moved vote until after the Election, when a:) A lame duck democratically controlled congress can let expire the cuts for the wealthy while retaining cuts for the middle class or B:) Democrats retain control of congress and let expire the cuts for the wealthy while retaining cuts for the middle class. Either way, it's gonna happen. Were it to happen beforehand, the political currency it would give to both Republicans and our current third party choice would far outweigh the value to Democrats on the stump. And currency both real and political is something neither Republicans nor Tea Baggers are in short supply of when it comes to their base. Why feed that?

It's unfortunate that Sirota fails to understand "politics" and the way of the thing, or maybe he does but finds it doesn't pay as well as playing to the passions of the far left and the politically ignorant, as noble as they are. This is what the administration is talking about IMO. As for going on the offensive, I think Obama's just getting started. He doesn't strike me as the "whiny" type. Sirota on the other hand... .

What most fail to understand is that this was all decided months ago and what happens from this point forward is all in the name of strategy wrt 2012.

"All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved."~ Sun Tzu

[Simulist]

So this is a grand strategy to "win" in 2012... But if Obama continue to perpetuate the Bush/Cheney tradition of shredding the Bill of Rights as one of his tactics in order to "win," then what have we won?

[freemason9]

Sirota could have simply written "I know you are, but what am I" but then he probably couldn't have collected a paycheck.

Two points...

First, there is truth in the push back by the administration and they really didn't have much choice politically but to go on the offensive. Biden's a tool that can't help but verbally sucker punch himself every chance he gets, and so the use of the term "whiner", if an accurate quote, is simply Biden being who he is and that's unfortunate. And there is truth in the many criticism's of the administrations rate and quality of progress. Some of that is due to Emmanuel's pragmatic, get SOMETHING done at any cost political style. Some early on was a true (although misguided and naive) attempt at bipartisanship. I suspect that Emmanuel's departure is not simply due to his own ambition but rather a matter of Axelrod saying "him or me". What, if anything, does this imply for the direction the administration may take after election day? Which leads to two...

Sirota, I feel, willfully misrepresents what the current state of the tax cuts debate/vote is in Congress. Democrats simply (and wisely) postponed -NOT BLOCKED- the debate and moved vote until after the Election, when a:) A lame duck democratically controlled congress can let expire the cuts for the wealthy while retaining cuts for the middle class or B:) Democrats retain control of congress and let expire the cuts for the wealthy while retaining cuts for the middle class. Either way, it's gonna happen. Were it to happen beforehand, the political currency it would give to both Republicans and our current third party choice would far outweigh the value to Democrats on the stump. And currency both real and political is something neither Republicans nor Tea Baggers are in short supply of when it comes to their base. Why feed that?

It's unfortunate that Sirota fails to understand "politics" and the way of the thing, or maybe he does but finds it doesn't pay as well as playing to the passions of the far left and the politically ignorant, as noble as they are. This is what the administration is talking about IMO. As for going on the offensive, I think Obama's just getting started. He doesn't strike me as the "whiny" type. Sirota on the other hand... .

What most fail to understand is that this was all decided months ago and what happens from this point forward is all in the name of strategy wrt 2012.

"All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved."~ Sun Tzu

whoa, careful there, you're making complete sense. prepare for a hideous backlash.

[Nordic]

So this is a grand strategy to "win" in 2012... But if Obama continue to perpetuate the Bush/Cheney tradition of shredding the Bill of Rights as one of his tactics in order to "win," then what have we won?

Stating the obvious to most of us here, but with 2 exceptions that I can think of ....

It's the "our fascists are better than your fascists" argument.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

So this is a grand strategy to "win" in 2012... But if Obama continue to perpetuate the Bush/Cheney tradition of shredding the Bill of Rights as one of his tactics in order to "win," then what have we won?

I agree that this is a major issue. That said, you have to be in the game in order to use the "we" in the question you pose. Simply being the angry parent yelling at your kid from the sideline doesn't qualify. Bottom line, if the other team wins this time around, you'll never find out what you might have won. You'll certainly find yourself a loser, even though you were never in the game.

It's the "our fascists are better than your fascists" argument.

I suppose I could rightfully assume that you are calling me a fascist. I suppose I could also take offense. If I did, this would imply I somehow respected your contributions here.



No worries bro. Carry on.