Fuck Obama

[lightningBugout]

Oh right, he's Darth Vader. Totally forgot.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

Yeah, the guy who just released his WH visitor records and a couple weeks back, told his evil federal minions to back off medical pot smokers. And then he goes and lifts the HIV ban.

Fucking bastard.

[Nordic]

Window dressing.

Check this out:

http://rebelreports.com/post/114340213/ ... n-pakistan

Obama wants to build an embassy in Pakistan JUST LIKE the one Bush made in Baghdad, you know, the one made with the slave labor, by a corrupt Kuwaiti political pal?

http://rebelreports.com/post/221011301/ ... ay-have-to

Meanwhile, the Oakland Bay bridge just broke.

[Percival]

Oh right, he's Darth Vader. Totally forgot.

Dude the medical marijuana thing was a good move even though I am against drug use and certainly lifting the HIV ban was great my brother is HIV positive I know the stigma first hand, but lets be real those are bread crumbs to keep the left looking one way while he continues the warmongering in the other.

IMO I would trade the HIV ban and medical pot for the fucking imperial warmongering and murder to stop but thats just me.

I want to like Obama he is a cool cat but he really has not impressed me much my MAIN ISSUE is NO MORE WAR, period I am admittedly a one issue guy:

NO
MORE
WAR.

When he stops the wars I will be happy. Until then...

FUCK OBAMA.

[Percival]

Window dressing.

Check this out:

http://rebelreports.com/post/114340213/ ... n-pakistan

Obama wants to build an embassy in Pakistan JUST LIKE the one Bush made in Baghdad, you know, the one made with the slave labor, by a corrupt Kuwaiti political pal?

http://rebelreports.com/post/221011301/ ... ay-have-to

Meanwhile, the Oakland Bay bridge just broke.

There you have it, fuck him.

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1103/p02s18-usju.html

At Supreme Court: Can prosecutors be sued for framing defendants?
Two African-American men wrongly imprisoned for 25 years filed a lawsuit against prosecutors for fabricating evidence against them. The Supreme Court hears the case Wednesday.

Washington - The US Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to consider an unusual question: Do Americans who have been framed by unscrupulous prosecutors for crimes they did not commit have a right to sue the prosecutors when the fraud is finally exposed?

According to the Obama administration, the answer is no.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan argues in a friend of the court brief that local, state, and federal prosecutors must enjoy absolute immunity from citizen lawsuits – even when they sent innocent men to prison for life by fabricating incriminating evidence and hiding exculpatory evidence.

Those are the allegations in a case from Iowa set for oral argument on Wednesday morning. According to legal briefs filed in the case, prosecutors in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, solicited false testimony implicating two innocent African-American teens in the murder of a recently retired police officer in 1977. At trial, the false testimony led to their convictions. They were sent to prison for life.

When the false testimony and other exculpatory evidence was discovered, the two innocent men, Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington, were released after 25 years in prison. They filed a lawsuit against the prosecutors.

The question before the high court is whether the prosecutors can be held accountable in a civil trial or instead are entitled to absolute immunity from such lawsuits.

"If the allegations here are true, [the Iowa officials] engaged in prosecutorial misconduct of an execrable sort, involving a complete breach of the public trust," Solicitor General Kagan writes in her brief to the court. "But absolute immunity reflects a policy judgment that such conduct is properly addressed not through civil liability, but through a host of other deterrents and punishments."

Absolute vs. qualified immunity

Lawyers for Mr. McGhee and Mr. Harrington argue in their briefs that police officers who fabricate evidence do not enjoy such absolute protection from a civil lawsuit. They say prosecutors who actively participate in the pre-trial investigation of a case must be held to the same standard as police officers, detectives, and agents, who can be sued if they violate clearly-established constitutional rights.

"When law enforcement officers fabricate evidence with an intent to use it to deprive innocent citizens of their liberty, they violate the Constitution," writes Paul Clement, a former US Solicitor General who is arguing the case for McGhee and Harrington.

"The framing of innocent African-American citizens for a crime they did not commit, lies at the core of what Congress sought to prevent in the Civil Rights statutes," Mr. Clement says in his brief.

Lawyers for the two prosecutors counter that there is no constitutional right "not to be framed."

The critical question is whether the trial is fair, they say. The constitutional infraction occurs not when the false statements are first obtained, but when they are introduced at trial. Since prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity from lawsuits related to the actions they take at trial, any false testimony cannot form the basis of a lawsuit against a prosecutor, they say.

Attorneys general from 27 states and the District of Columbia filed a friend of the court brief urging the high court to embrace this broader view of absolute prosecutor immunity.

However, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Cato Institute, and the American Civil Liberties Union argue for a lower level of immunity that offers prosecutors protection from lawsuits except when they have violated a clearly-established constitutional right.

Confidence in justice system

New Jersey-based group Black Cops Against Police Brutality also filed a friend of the court brief in the case.

"This case is not just about drawing a good lawyerly line between precedents," writes Chicago lawyer Mark Herrmann in a brief for the group. "The facts are that Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee are black and once were young, and that [the murder victim] was white and had been a police captain. Together, these facts made it easy for [the prosecutors] and their accomplices to frame Harrington and McGhee for murder."

Mr. Herrmann writes: "We can imagine few rulings of this Court that would send a more negative message about American criminal justice than to permit white prosecutors to frame African-American suspects for the murder of a white police officer, admit the outrage, and then walk away with impunity, after their victims have wrongfully suffered twenty-five years in prison."

The case is Pottawattamie County, Iowa, v. McGhee and Harrington.

[ninakat]

Kucinich's Brave Health Vote Vs. Obama's Failed Promise

by Lee Stranahan
Filmmaker, Writer, Photographer
Posted: November 8, 2009 04:23 AM

There were plenty of cowardly votes in the House last night but there was only one truly brave one. The unsung hero of the night was Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich. Despite enormous pressure to support H.R. 3962, Rep. Kucinich did the right thing and voted 'no'. Unlike the Blue Dog votes against the bill, he did it for all the right reasons.

In a principled and practical statement, Rep. Kucinich said what a growing number of progressives have realized as we've watched real health care reform be compromised again and again.

During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The "robust public option" which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

Personally, I supported President Obama in the primaries and the election but do not support him on this corporate giveaway built on broken campaign promises. I voted for the Barack Obama who opposed the individual mandate, who said the negotiations would be televised on C-SPAN and who campaigned against backroom deals with PhARMA.

Conservatives have expressed outrage for months about the way the health care bill was handled. Their anti-government anger is misplaced because the lets the insurances and drug companies who really helped drive this bill off the hook. But I understand their sense that this bill was passed despite the people.

Progressives should be every bit as upset that President Obama lied to us to get his historic health bill. The citizens of this country did not have a seat at the table. Proponents of the Single Payer didn't have a seat at the table. Under the guise of health care reform, we watched as the insurance industry got a bill passed that entrenches and enriches them.

Don't let anyone fool you that this bill is a good start. It's got a poison pill "Public Option" that is designed to fail. As the brilliant RJ Eskow wrote recently about the House bill's public option,

The plan will have low enrollment and little power to negotiate, causing the CBO to state as fact what I've long considered possible: That the public option could become a dumping ground where private plans jettison sicker people, while lacking the efficiencies of scale or negotiating power to get better rates or administer itself more economically.

As a result, says the CBO, a public plan's premiums might be higher than private insurance. While the CBO's word isn't gospel, it's entirely possible that they're underestimating the cost of any "public option" we're likely to see this year. The likeliest political outcome, once the House and Senate bills are combined, is a non-robust "public option" with a state-by-state opt out. The CBO didn't consider the opt-out when it came up with its shocking (to some) estimate.

Even if it passes in its weak form, this Public Option will be the target of the GOP for years and they won't rest until it is dead. As the Public Option kicks into gear, they will find stories of 'rationing' and denial of care they can highlight, true or not. They will use the higher costs as proof of the Public Option's folly. They will grind away at the Public Option relentlessly but they will leave the Individual Mandate alone. If anything, once the Mandate is in place, the Republicans will make sure the insurance industry is 'free to compete' and unrestricted.

The corporate interests that spend millions to influence the media and both political parties want you to ignore Congressman Kucinich. Too many Democrats unwittingly help them. Don't be a patsy.

People like Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader and Michael Moore have been made pariahs by establishment Democrats. They have all been marginalized and made fun of...but check their records. They have been considered 'fringe' because they are telling us the truth about corporate abuses of power long before most of the rest of us catch up to the reality of what's happened.

If enough of us stand with Dennis Kucinich, maybe we'll actually get real health care reform. If we don't, maybe we don't deserve that reform.

[Nordic]

I love it how the "fuck Obama" thread gets bumped to the top every week or so, when there's some new betrayal.

It's actually kind of funny, in a sad way.

[Sweejak]

According to CBO estimates, an individual earning $44,000 before taxes will have to pay $5,300 in annual premiums and an estimated $2,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, for a total of $7,300 a year—or about 17 percent of his or her pre-tax income.

A family earning $102,100 a year before taxes would pay $15,000 in premiums plus $5,300 out-of-pocket, or $20,300 total—20 percent of the family’s pre-tax income.

If individuals or families earn less than these amounts, they would be eligible for government subsidies, calculated on a sliding scale, paid directly to their insurer. While insurers will be barred from denying coverage or charging more for premiums for individuals with preexisting conditions, there are no restrictions on what insurers can charge overall. At the same time, the bill would cut $426 billion over a decade from federal health care programs, mainly Medicare.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov20 ... -n09.shtml

[Cosmic Cowbell]

According to CBO estimates, an individual earning $44,000 before taxes will have to pay $5,300 in annual premiums and an estimated $2,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, for a total of $7,300 a year—or about 17 percent of his or her pre-tax income.

A family earning $102,100 a year before taxes would pay $15,000 in premiums plus $5,300 out-of-pocket, or $20,300 total—20 percent of the family’s pre-tax income.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov20 ... -n09.shtml

Just to point out the obvious, comparing individuals to "families" here is comparing apples to oranges. Would that be a family of two? six? What kind of plans? PPO? HMO? Co-Op? Full Coverage?

No news here as this is about what an individual wage earner at 44K pays anyway, either out of pocket or through an employer benefit, depending on the coverage/plan.

[Sweejak]

Yeah there is news here:

...there are no restrictions on what insurers can charge overall. At the same time, the bill would cut $426 billion over a decade from federal health care programs, mainly Medicare.

... The CBO estimates that the House bill would still leave 18 million people uninsured by 2019, including about 6 million undocumented immigrants. The Senate Finance Committee’s version of legislation, which Obama has broadly endorsed, would leave about 25 million without insurance, according to the CBO.

[Sweejak]

Why Did Health Insurance Stocks Go Up After The President's Speech?

Investors may well have been reacting to the President's emphatic endorsement of mandates. He called failure to enroll in a health plan "irresponsible," and said for the first time publicly that "under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance." (This is a reversal from his position during the campaign; until now he has preferred to let Democrats in Congress carry water for him on this issue.)

Investors are likely to recognize that this mandate means that a surge in enrollment is coming for health insurers, followed by a flood of new revenue.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/ ... 83002.html

[John Schröder]

http://counterpunch.org/ridgeway11092009.html

Change You Can't Believe In

Health Care: Winning a Battle, Losing the War

By JAMES RIDGEWAY

On the House floor Saturday night, Nancy Pelosi managed to muster enough votes to pass a health reform bill, in what’s being widely celebrated as a great victory for the Democrats. (Pelosi herself has even compared it with the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 and the Medicare Act in 1965.) But while Republicans may have lost this battle, they continue to take their shots in what’s clearly a larger war. Lindsay Graham has already pronounced the bill “dead on arrival” in the Senate. And in the House, as the debate wore on, one after another, GOP members of Congress rose to denounce the Democratic health care plan as a socialistic plot that will lead to government-run medicine and bankrupt the country. While they were at it, many also took the opportunity to blame Democratic policymaking for the rising unemployment figures and the continuing recession.

It’s the height of gall, of course, for Republicans to lay any of our economic woes at the feet of the current administration. The frenzy of deregulation and speculation that have left a reported 10 percent of Americans without jobs (and in reality, closer to twice that figure) can be traced directly to conservative policies, which got a leg-up during the Clinton years and flourished under Bush. So why can’t the Democrats seem to fight back? In part, perhaps, because they aren’t willing to engage in the kind of all-out, brazen, incendiary lying that’s become commonplace within the GOP. But there are other reasons, as well.

I know the prevailing opinon among the mainstream punditocracy is that Obama is in trouble because he is trying to do too much, too fast. I think it’s the other way around. There’s no doubt that the president faces tough opposition, much of it fueled by the kind of ignorance and racism that nearly impossible to quell. But they still do, after all, control a majority, both in Congress and among the American public. What makes Democrats most vulnerable to conservative attacks is the fact that they have no compelling message of their own to offer—and nothing to match the soaring rhetoric of the Obama campaign. Instead, they tiptoe cautiously down the middle of the road, and wonder why no one feels terribly inspired to follow them.

Take their health care legislation. When Obama addressed the Democratic caucus on the Hill this morning, they reportedly responded with “scattered chants of ‘Fired up, ready to go.” But fired up is exactly what reform supporters are not. There’s nothing in the bill to inspire any fervor on the left that could rival the tea parties. In fact, Republicans are partly right when they say that it won’t do much of anything but run up the deficit. The reason for this is not, as they claim, because it’s a socialistic big-government plot to take over the private medical system; the reason is that it isn’t any of those things–not by a long shot. The Democratic legislation is a costly, futile mess precisely because it refuses to rein in the industries that have been ripping off the American public year after year.

Obama and the Democrats have no real vision for a transformed health care system, so they’ve gone for a slightly modified version of business as usual. They’ve cut backroom deals that win a few meager concessions toward the public good, while at the same time ensuring the profits of the insurance companies, Big Pharma, and other health care profiteers by maintaining their basic control of the health care system and rewarding them with bigger assured markets and more and more money. (To make matters worse, at the last minute they also cut a deal with anti-choice members of their own party that will further undermine women’s access what was, when I last checked, still a legal medical procedure.) In other words, they’re doing what Democrats have done since at least the Clinton years–acting like kinder, gentler Republicans, rather than like the defenders of the common people.

A whole lot of Americans don’t like the current health care system, and a whole lot more hate insurance companies. The Democrats might have been able to translate that into some sort of populist support for real change. Instead, they dithered and compromised, and failed to invoke any compelling ideology. Health care ought to have nothing to do with profits. It should be a basic human right in a civilized society. But that’s precisely the kind of statement the Democrats are unwilling to make—so they end up saying nothing at all.

Likewise, the Obama White House has yet to take any strong, principled action against the forces responsible for wrecking the economy. And how could it, since it is staffed by the old Clinton economic team that set the financial debacle in motion a decade ago? At the root of the economic mess was the decision to rip down Glass-Steagall, the law that separated Wall Street from commercial banking. One of the men at the center of that endeavor was Larry Summers. And having been a prime cause of the recession, where is Larry Summers today? Ensconsed in the White House, running the Obama economic program.

There was a time, shortly after Obama took office, when a rising populist rage at Wall Street greed might have been harnassed to fuel some genuinely meaningful regulatory action. Instead, with men like Summers and Tim Geithner at the helm, we’ve seen Wall Street recover while Main Street continues to suffer. We’ve seen a large portion of the stimulus funds chanelled through the private sector, where they’ve yet to trickle down to the people who need help most. Obama says his goal is for every American who wants a job to have one. So why not start creating government-funded jobs, as FDR did in the early years of the Depression? Why not launch federal projects to create a new green energy industry, instead of waiting for the energy monopolies to come up with a way of making a killing off it?

Obama was elected because people took him seriously when he said sought real change. So why won’t he take bold action on any of these fronts? Is it because if he did, the Republicans would abandon him and crush his dream of bipartisanship? Or because he doesn’t want the Democratic party to lose electoral ground among the so-called swing voters? Or because he’s afraid of being branded a crazy maniacal socialist? Oh, wait—all those things have happened already. So what does the president have to lose? If he’s going to be called a radical when he’s acting like a timid moderate, why not be a little more radical (or mildly progressive, even) in service of the public good? Then he might actually bring about some change we could believe in.

James Ridgeway can be reached at The Unsilent Generation.

[SanDiegoBuffGuy]

40,000 more troops in Afghanistan, just announced.

That says it all, doesn't it?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/ ... 2551.shtml

[Col. Quisp]

Will Pakistan be far behind?

I think the title of this thread should be changed to DOUBLE FUCK Obama.